//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Of Magical Mushrooms, Blue Boxes, and Charished Childhoods 
// by MrWhatnow 
//------------------------------//

	Laying down in a bed with my eyes closed, if feels firm, and odd like, like, I'm having trouble placing it, and then a smell hits me, it's a clean but chemical smell, the kind you get at hospitals...HOSPITALS! I open my eyes and notice the white curtain around where I'm laying down, I'm in a hospital, I start to remember the last few hours and things start to fall into place, Mike has a car, shrooms, Mike gave me shrooms and we tripped out and I either hallucinated or dreamed that about a talking bright-blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane and somehow I turned into a horse myself, that was fucking weird. I wonder how it went for Mike, Mike, I don't remember seeing hm with the horse and, oh shit, if I'm in the hospital, where's Mike and what the fuck happened?
I quickly sat up in the bed and felt incredibly dizzy from the sudden movement of blood (or whatever the hell it is that makes you feel weird when you lay down to long and then suddenly sit up), I recovered from that pretty quickly but then felt an even stranger feeling. It was almost like numbness but not quite as, well, numb, it was as though my entire body had been rearranged, and although everything felt there, none of it felt exactly, in place, it made my head hurt so I brought up a hand to rub it. And that's when I noticed that there I didn't have hands, and then I looked down at my body...
"HOLY SHIT!" I screamed. "WHY THE HELL AM I STILL A GOD DAMNED HORSE?!" I pushed myself out of the hospital bed and crawled under the curtain, then to the window, it was late in the morning. There was no way I was still under the effects of the shrooms after almost a full day. No, this was real, I was really a gray miniature horse in a crazy cartoon world, does that mean that the other one, "Rainbow Dash" was real as well? I mean, I was a horse, but I was charcoal gray with a white mane and tail, I'm pretty sure those are natural colors for horses. Real horses don't have rainbow-colored manes and bright blue fur, and Pegasi are imaginary, I mean, humans exist, but that doesn't mean someone couldn't hallucinate a neon-haired blue-skinned angel. My mind continued to wander and I became so lost in thought that I didn't notice that someone was coming towards the room until the door opened and a white mare with a pink mane and tail with a first aid symbol on her rump.
"What are you doing on the floor? Get back into bed before you hurt yourself",  She said as she rushed over and started to help me up.
"Ugh, my head hurts", I complained. 3 times I failed to keep my balance while attempting to stand. On the fourth try, I managed to get it right, but I was still rather wobbly as I awkwardly made my way to the bed. Part of me kept wanting to stand like a human, and I was grateful enough for this mare's help, and spent so much mental effort on just my balance, that I tried not to think about my situation and mental health, however, that subsided when I got to the bed and laid down. "Thank you, um, this may sound odd but, who are you, where are we, and how did I get here?"
She smiled kindly and then responded, "I'm nurse Redheart, and you're in Ponyville General Hospital. A pegasus-pony named Rainbow Dash brought you here after you passed out in the ever-free forest, she said you were acting strange, so we decided to give you your own room. You seem to have taken a blow to the head, and she said you couldn't even remember your name. And then you started staring at your hooves and screaming, we did an examination and they seem to be fine, in fact", she somehow picked up a clipboard with her hoof, then read it "You appear to be completely fine, aside from your apparent case of amnesia and slight dizziness"
I looked at her, I didn't have amnesia, but then again I didn't really feel like telling her about where I'm from so I decided to play along, at least until I knew more, "Um, yeah, I can't seem to remember anything and, wait, did you say pegasus? you know pegasi aren't real, right?"
She seemed taken aback, "That's an odd thing to say, coming from a pegasus like yourself..."
"Wait, what? Lady I may be a talking horse-"
"Pony"
"What?"
"You're a pony, just like me, except for your wings, which make you a pegasus."
"Ok, whatever, talking pony, but I'm sure as shit no pegasus"
The swear didn't seem to bother her specifically, she only seemed to be confused (maybe ponies don't curse, or maybe she wasn't expecting it), but she did seem to be slightly annoyed, "For Luna's sake, look at yourself if you don't believe me." I listened to her and slowly turned around, not wanting to re-experience the shock that caused my "hands-to-hooves" outburst.
"Oh my god, I've got wings" I turned and looked at her, "Wings, I, have, wings"
She no longer seemed annoyed with me, she actually looked rather concerned, "Oh dear, I've heard of bad cases of amnesia before but never somepony actually forgetting what they were, ca-can you move your wings?"
"I'll try." I said. I tried to feel them, it was odd at first, there didn't seem to be much blood-flow in them, like they were asleep, and the feeling afterwards was even stranger, as though you had an extra arm or leg or something and just found out, but not, they were, my wings, so much a part of me that trying to imagine not having them, even after just getting them, was like trying to imagine losing my legs. I stretched them out and gave one powerful flap that sent me into the air, then glided over to the door and landed. "Ok, those work", I said, not even trying to hide my grin, this was freakin' awesome, and on top of flying, I noted as I maneuvered them around, they seemed to be almost a dexterous as my hands were, hmm, if this was the price of being able to fly, yeah, I could deal with that.
"Oh, well I see you're not having to much trouble with flight there. As I was saying, you seem to be perfectly healthy, aside from your amnesia and you don't seem like a danger to yourself or others, so it's time for you to check out."
"What, just like that? This town is completely foreign to me, where should I stay? What about money?"
"Well, I hear a yellow pegasus-pony named Flutter Shy is renting out an extra room in her cottage, it may be on the edge of town but it should do until you can get a house of your own, as for work..." she looked like she was checking out my ass (or I suppose I would call it a flank, as I was a pony now) and I was slightly worried she might suggest I do her for cash or something, not that she was entirely unattractive, but the idea just seemed really weird, as I had just become a pony yesterday (last night?) and the thought still felt a bit like bestiality.
"HEY! What are you doing?"
"Relax, I'm just looking at your cutie mark, do you remember what a cutie mark is?"
"No."
"It's a design on your flank (wow, totally called it) that signifies what your special talent is, but I'm not entirely sure what flames are supposed to mean"
Hmm, I thought, flames, well I've always been pretty good with pyrotechnics, but I'm also a decent survivalist, so it could represent camp-fires. "I'm not sure either", I responded, "Are there any jobs that don't require some predestined specialization?"
"Well the town's weather team might be hiring and since you already know Rainbow Dash you may be a likely candidate, and the apple family may be needing some extra farm-hooves for the harvest, so I would suggest starting in one of those places, you got all that?"
"Yeah, I think so, well I guess I'll be going now, bye."
"Exit is just down the stairs to your left, bye now."
I thought to myself as I left, Well that was pretty informative, what was that she said about a weather team? Could it have to do with meteorology? Why would something like that not require any special training? Eh, guess I should check it out, who knows? Maybe it'll be cool, it certainly sounded more interesting than working on a farm. And with that, I stepped outside, ready to make a new life for myself (at least temporarily) in this new world.