//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Never Meant To Be // by Unknown //------------------------------// Never Meant To Be By Unknown Chapter 1 The speakers sitting next to the computer screen hummed ever so quietly. The sounds of laughter and music coming from the video on his computer quietly bounced around the room, slightly slipping underneath the door and out into the hallway. Across the room, a window was open, letting in the sounds of the crickets and frogs playing down in the river close to his dorm. His eyes had glazed over as he sat back in his chair, watching the vibrant colors bounce and skip across his screen. When the credits finally rolled on this particular video, he pressed stop before his computer auto-played the next video in the queue. He sat up, realizing that his back was on fire. He looked at the clock at the bottom of the display. No wonder his back hurt; he had been sitting in that exact same spot for nearly five hours. ‘Time sure does fly’ he thought to himself ‘when watching colorful ponies hop across the screen.’ He minimized out of the video player, revealing the desktop of his computer. The entire canvas was littered in all sorts of playful looking ponies, ranging, in color, from bright pink to dark velvet. He clicked on the icon indicating an internet browser, and quickly browsed through his bookmarks to see if any life changing event had happened while he vegetated on reruns of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Nothing. Of course. Opening his video player back up, he contemplated watching just one more episode. That’s what he always told himself: just one more. But that was always a lie. The episode would end, and another would start without so much as an internal protest. It wasn’t like it was a serious problem; his roommate was asleep, and classes didn’t start until the mid afternoon. What else was he going to do with his time? Refresh Equestria Daily over and over again until finally drifting off into his dreams, still sitting in his chair? No, not only did watching My Little Pony pass the time quite well, it was an amazing escape from his real life. Though, granted, completing a couple of the essays he had due would probably be considered a slightly better use of his time. Throughout the weeks, his life was boring, uneventful, some would even say sad or desperate. Day after day, his mundane life kept on throwing him farther and farther into the pit of depression. It wasn’t until discovering My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that he had finally found a meaning in his life again. There was just something so happy, so exciting about the show! He didn’t know what is was, whether it was something in his brain or heart, but when he watched this magical show, everything seemed better. His incredibly overdue papers and complete disregard for any sort of human contact completely floated away when he was cast into the magical land of Equestria. He loved it. He loved it so much. But tonight, he was tired. It was time to shut the computer down and go to bed. He closed out of the video player, and proceeded to turn off both the computer and the desk light that had been softly glowing throughout the room. Trying to be somewhat quiet so as to not awake his room mate, he took off his jeans and, lifting up his blankets, crawled into bed. ‘Oh my God, this bed is so soft’ was the first thing to come to his mind. The soft blankets seemed to wrap around him as he snuggled up close to his pillow. He thought it every single night, and tonight was no exception: ‘this is the most comfortable bed in the world.’ His eyes happily closed from being abused for so long, and he assumed that falling asleep tonight wouldn’t be any sort of a fight between his physical need to sleep and the thoughts that wanted to keep him from a small coma. But his mind continued whirling like a top, not wanting to shut down. His eyes continuing to stay shut, he recalled the most recent episode that he had watched of My Little Pony. It was such a fun episode; just recalling the plot made him smile. Pinkie Pie had spent the better part of an entire day trying to convince someone to become her friend. Something deep down touched him as he watched that particular episode. Not having many friends, the episode assured him that everything in his life would all be alright. It was one of his favorite episodes, and thinking about it made his mind ease up slightly. He slowly drifted into a thoughtful sleep. ‘If only I could sing like that’ his brain tried to get as many thoughts processed as fast as it could as he got closer and closer to the much needed slumber. ‘If only I could be as happy as Pinkie Pie. If only I could have such wonderful friends as she does. If only there my life was as exciting or as adventure-filled as the six wonderful ponies in the show...’ He twisted over and looked out the window, through the darkened tree branches and up towards the nearly full moon. It reminded him of how fascinating Luna’s moon looked from the show. He appreciated the darkness much more so than the light; he found the night to be the perfect time to focus on things that needed his attention. There was no-one around, or rather, no-one awake to interrupt anything that he happened to be doing. He loved it. This particular night, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and he could see the moon like it was directly in front of him. ‘If only Equestria was real’ … ‘What?!’ His own thought caught him off guard, and he quickly brushed the sand man’s gift out of his eyes. ‘If only Equestria was real?’ he pondered internally ‘I must be more tired that I had thought. Of course it’s not real’ The logic didn’t subside his brain, however. He continued to image a world, his world, turning into a place as magical as Equestria. It was amazing, to say the least. Leaving the nightmare of his life behind to live among such happy, loving ponies? He knew it wasn’t real, but it was oddly comforting to imagine. His brain, once again, started to shut down as he continued to think about how much more exciting his life would be to be able to go to Equestria. As the last cell in his mind powered down, the last thought he remembered was: ‘My life would be so much better in Equestria’