I must be dreaming, or in a coma. Because there's no such thing as talking horses. Right?
Richard Chen was just your average closet brony. You know, the kind that likes MLP, but knows that the only way talking horses could exist would be for them to be in an alternate universe. And since it's impossible to travel between universes, he's not afraid of a pony invasion or anything.
Well, he was right about one thing. Just not the other.
Teen for swears. And maybe some mild gore, but nothing too serious.
A figure wet from the rain scurried down the street, clutching what appeared to be something of great importance under his blue raincoat. He muttered to himself as he disregarded everyone else on street, which naturally turned several heads. Not that he cared.
“Come on Richard, the studio’s just a couple of yards away, don’t mess up now!”
As he approached the big, glowing, familiar words that proudly stated, “Nui Studios”, he visibly became less stressed. The figure burst into the building announcing, “I remembered this time!”
A person with short, red hair and brown eyes in a green sweater and jeans strode up to the man in the blue raincoat and said, “Good job. Now have some hot chocolate, we don’t need you catching a cold, now do we?” while handing him a paper cup filled with sweet, hot goodness.
“Thanks, Neil. You’re a good friend.” The man took a sip, and felt his eyes tearing up. He began coughing and sucked in some nice, cool air to cool his tongue and throat. “Well, you were right about it being hot chocolate, at least.”
Neil laughed, then turned around and announced, “Everyone! We have the designs, so get to work! We need these turned into models pronto! This game won’t develop itself!” He faced the person again and said, “Go home and get some rest. You’re the only guy here that can draw something halfway decent, so we’ve had to push you pretty hard. So shoo! Leave! Sleep!”
“Only if you promise nothing will happen to my babies while I’m gone. If anyone lays a finger on one of my drawings with the intent of damaging it, I’ll burn this place down with you guys inside of it,” the man threatened before turning around and leaving the studio waving cheerily. He then began heading back home, thinking about how lucky he was for a young Nui Studios to run into a couple of his drawings that he put up on deviantART. Since they didn’t really have anyone with good design ideas, and nobody that could draw very well, they asked him if he wanted to join their studio. Being a gamer, he naturally agreed. He looked up, noticing that it was still raining (he tended to zone out sometimes, either recalling memories or creating fantasies), and started running in an attempt to get home before he turned into a popsicle from the cold. Naturally, something went wrong.
In the form of a hobo.
That he ran into.
Who was now on the ground howling in pain.
“Sir! Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you! Do you need any help? I’ll-“
While the man was profusely apologizing, the hobo got up and slapped the back of the man’s head. “’S alright, boy! See? Yer overreacting.” Then, as the hobo saw the man about to leave, he said, “That don’t mean you’re off the hook, boy! The least you could do ’s offer to escort me back to meh alleyway or somefink! Youth these days! Now follow me, ’s this way!”
The odd, old hobo took off, with the man right on his tail. They weaved their way around the city, shoving through masses of people along the way, finally stopping at an alley that looked no different than the other couple dozen they saw. The hobo turned to face the man, and said, “Welcurm to meh humbl’ dwellin’. Make yerself at home.” The man looked around, finally spotting what appeared to be the cleanest, least full, least vandalized dumpster and sat on it. “Now then, since tha’s all settled, what yer want to do, Richard?” He heard the man gasp. “Now, if yer really a brony, look me in the eyes an’ tell meh who I is.”
The man’s eyes were wide open, and his mouth was hanging open. Only two thoughts were running through his mind: How does he know my name, and how does he know I’m a brony? The only people who knew the man was a brony were Neil and a couple of other close friends. He was, after all, a closet brony. As his mind finished rebooting, he looked into the hobo's eyes, and realized that they were…red and yellow. He looked down a bit and saw that the hobo also had a snaggletooth. The man also noticed that the hobo’s coat looked like it had been sewn from a body and two different arms, and that his jeans were equally as mismatched. He hurriedly searched through what little knowledge he had on MLP: FIM (he wasn’t that serious of a brony-he didn’t watch about half the episodes, and knew little to nothing about fanon characters). Only one being seemed to fit the description. “You’re…Discord!”
The hobo laughed. “I guess that means I won’t need to talk in that way anymore. Well then, my friend, do you want to go on an adventure?” Discord saw the man trying to sneak away, and grabbed him by the feet. “I won’t take no for an answer! I do enjoy some good chaos.” He took ahold of the man’s hair with his other hand, and ignoring his protests and pleas, stretched him like a rubber band. “Now, for extra chaos, you won’t remember a thing about Equestria when you get there.” The man’s eyes widened as he started to scream “NO” as loudly and as quickly as possible, while a dreamy look overtook Discord’s face. “Ah yes, amnesia. It’s just like that cherry on top of a scoop of ice cream.” And with that, he let go and shot the man far into the distance. Discord tracked his progress (and his “NONONONONONONONONONO”s) up until the man hit a pink cloud. With a loud pop, both the cloud and the man disappeared.
Discord smiled. Humans were the best thing to hit existence ever since he learned that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were immortal, which meant that he could annoy them for all eternity. They were so vulnerable, so easily fooled, and oh-so wonderfully chaotic. He snapped his fingers, conjuring up a couch, a HDTV, and some popcorn. “Ohhohohoho, this is going to be gooood.”
I woke up to a soreness in all my muscles, as if I had just gotten stretched on the rack. What could I have possibly done last night? It’s not like I drink alcohol or anything. I lay there for a moment, feeling the softness of my bed envelop me.
Wait…when was my bed made of grass and dirt?
I lazily waved my arm around, not bothering to open my eyes. I was on grass alright, but it felt strangely…smooth and uniform. I slowly cracked my eyelids open a fraction, hissing in pain as I quickly shut them again. Why does the sun always have to hurt your eyes when you get up? I tried blinking very quickly, trying to accustom my eyes to the sun with as little pain as possible.
Success! Now I was actually capable of viewing my surroundings! I sat up and looked around me. And of course, the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “Oi! What jus’ happened?” Really? The first thing I say when waking up in god-knows-where is a TF2 quote? I really am hopeless.
Looking around, I assumed I was in what appeared to be the edge of some forest, seeing as the afternoon sun was actually able to reach me, and because the area I was in didn’t have as many trees as the rest of the forest I could see ahead of me. I turned around and saw an endless plain, just grass as far as the eye could see. I faced the forest once again and slowly ventured deeper into it. As I walked, I realized I was still in my blue raincoat. I took it off and tied it around my waist. Now that my brain was working again, I noticed that everything seemed…off. Even though it was dark in the forest, everything seemed rather brightly colored, with mostly everything one solid color. The shading wasn’t very lifelike at all, with only one color of darkness. Everything seemed less detailed, and it almost looked as if everything had an outline of a different shade of its color. I hoped that I wasn’t affected by whatever weirdness was going on. If I was, then something must have gone wrong with my eyes. I mean, my glasses are still on, oddly enough…
Stumbling around, I happened upon a cave. I peeked inside, hoping to find an abandoned campsite, or anything that pointed towards civilization. Also, having some extra resources when stuck in the wilderness is never a bad thing. Alas, the cave was empty, although I saw what appeared to be some horse tracks on the dirt. Maybe someone had been here! I tried my best to silently creep inside, determined to fully explore the cave. Or, at least as much as I could. I sneaked along the left wall until I walked into a huge, open part of the cave. I saw a lake with a surface so smooth it almost seemed like a mirror, and ran down an incline towards it, hoping to see my reflection and drink some water. I examined myself in the pool. I saw flat, black hair, brown eyes, glasses, a blue shirt with a white undershirt underneath, the raincoat I tied around my waist earlier, jeans, and white shoes. I still looked human, Chinese, skinny, weak, and pathetic. I was also still detailed. Yep, I’m still me.
I cupped some water in my hands, and after sniffing it I took a sip. It tasted exactly like fresh bottled water. I greedily drank a couple more handfuls before noticing a faint reflection of a pink blob. I looked behind me, but all I could see was rock and some glowing mushrooms. I decided it was nothing and left the cave.
Back outside, I looked around for any supple branches I could try to snap off and use as a bow, or any straight, sturdy sticks I could use as a walking stick/staff. I wandered about for a good half hour or so until I found a stick that was straight enough and thick enough. Considering I tended to work slowly, I thought that it would probably be a good idea to start making a shelter early. I looked around for another thirty minutes or so, finding a flat stone, a relatively flexible stick, a straight stick, a chunk of wood that looked like it came from a wagon or something, a couple of good-sized sticks, and some dry leaves, twigs, and dry bark for tinder. Curse this forest for not having anything to build a comfortable bed with!
I retraced my steps back to the cave. I went into the cavern inside (I didn’t want any predators hunting me down) and I arranged the sticks together into a tepee-like structure. I then bundled all of my tinder together, undid my right shoelace, tied the ends to either end of the flexible stick, twirled the straight stick into the shoelace so that it was secured, set it on the chunk of wood, put the stone on top with one hand and held the “bow” with the other, and began sawing. I saw this once on Man vs. Wild, and prayed that Bear Grylls was right about this. After a while, I saw smoke starting to form, and sawed harder. My arms felt like they were about to give out-why didn’t I try in P.E. when I was in school? Right when I was ready to give up and stop trying, I saw an ember in the chunk of wood. I stopped sawing, then gently transferred the ember to the tinder. I blew gently on it until flames started leaping out of it, the transferred the tinder to the pile of sticks. When the fire consumed the pile, I threw in a couple more sticks then went outside to go get enough to last the night.
By the time I got back, it was getting dark, and I could hear wolves howling in the distance. I shivered-I had definitely made the right call. I fed the fire a bit, then put my raincoat, as it was getting chilly and I didn’t want pebbles and dirt in my hair. I swept a portion of the ground next to the fire as clean as I possibly could, then lay down and tried to go to sleep. After a couple of minutes, my body finally acknowledged how much energy I had used today, and I drifted off to sleep.
I woke up with a start. I just had a terrible nightmare of some old hobo throwing me into the sky. I then landed in a forest, and after exploring it for a while got chased by a bunch of wolves. Or were the wolves? They looked more like running trees.
I shook my head in an attempt to clear my head. Crazy nightmares. Why would I let myself get mugged by a hobo? I chuckled, then stopped as soon as I realized where I was. I groaned as I reminded myself that THAT WASN’T A NIGHTMARE THIS IS REAL LIFE YOU FRAKKING IDIOT. If I was going to survive out here, I had to keep my head clear of little delusions like that. After all, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Trust me, that sounded funnier in my head.
I stumbled over to the glowing embers of last night’s fire and threw some wood on it. I waited until they caught fire, then I took off my raincoat and tied it back on my waist. I sat down near the fire and began thinking up an agenda for the day. It went something like this:
1. Don’t die.
2. Find some flint or something and try to make a basic knife.
3. Use said knife to make bow.
4. Use said bow to go hunt some food.
My stomach growled as this thought, seeing as I hadn’t had anything to eat for a day. My mouth also felt rather dry, so I went and drank some more water from the lake. That lake was a fine, life-saving, wonderful lake. Feeling refreshed, I went back to my agenda.
5. EAT MEAT
6. SAVOR MEAT
7. CREATE SHRINE TO MEAT GOD
8. Find civilization.
9. Don’t die.
10. DON’T DIE
I do love it when everything flows together.
My knees creaked as I slowly got back up. I threw a couple more sticks onto the fire, then grabbed my trusty staff (that wasn’t very trusty at this point in time. I mean, it’s just some random stick I found) and slipped the stone I used last night into my pocket. I had a feeling it would come in handy later on. I strode outside…
…only to realize that the only body of water I’ve seen so far was the lake. Defeated, I trudged back to that lake. That wonderful, wonderful, slightly obsessive lake.
Did I just turn the lake into an internet meme? Am I going insane? Hopefully not.
I went back inside and leaned my staff against a wall before walking over to the lake. I looked around for any rock that looked smooth and kind of shiny. After skipping some of the failures I found on the surface of the lake (my record was five skips, in case you were wondering. Wait, you? Yep. Talking to an imaginary audience, dictating my life. Definitely going men-taaal!), I found a palm-sized piece of what I hoped was flint that already had a large chunk taken out of it. I ran my index finger along the edge of the rock. It was pretty sharp, but not enough. At least I found what I was looking for.
I found a nice flat rock I could work on and sat myself down. I pulled out the rock from my pocket and gave it a few experimental taps against the rock. It sounded solid enough, so I shrugged and rolled with it. I undid my raincoat and put it on backwards, keeping my hands in the sleeves. I took the flint and cupped in my left hand so that it was facing away from me with the chipped side down, but tilted slightly towards me. I held my trusty rock in my right hand. I raised it above my head, turned away while closing my eyes, and swung down with all my might, trying to make sure that I was hitting the flint with a glancing blow and that I was hitting it with the part of the rock near the heel of my hand. Slowly opening my left eye, I saw that I had miraculously managed to make the flint fracture correctly, creating a pretty damn sharp edge. I repeated the process on the other side of the flint so I would have somewhere to produce sparks.
I smiled. Time to make a bow.
Leaving my rock on my work surface, I took my knife and ventured out. Along the way, I glanced at my staff and noticed that it looked waaay too smooth. I picked it up, but when I did it went back to its old knobbly, rough self. A fleeting thought in my brain told me that something was going on, but I pushed it aside and attributed it to me going crazy. When I was outside, I started looking around for a thick but flexible piece of wood that was a couple of feet long. After an hour of hitting my head on branches, throwing some sticks around, and snapping what I thought was the perfect branch, I found something that could become a bow with enough shaving, smoothing, and work.
I went back home and found a dying fire. I threw a branch or two on it, and took a stick with me to test out my new knife. When I went to go pick up my rock, it happened again. My rock was smooth and rounded, but still had small pits all over its surface. What I saw was a gray blob. When I picked it up, it reverted back to what it originally was. Was I truly going insane, or was it something to do with me? Did I get superpowers or something while I was unconscious?
I shrugged it off and went back to the test at hand. I tried whittling away at the stick with my knife. It managed to shave off pieces of the stick, but required more effort than a conventional metal knife. Eh. Good enough, I guess. I rotated my knife to the smaller, more jagged edge. I held it over the stick, and scraped my rock against the edge quickly. Sparks flew out, and after a bit of practice I managed to light the stick on fire. I quickly stamped it out, then went back to the lake to drink some more water. I was tiring more easily because of my hunger, and so had to rest for a while in the cave. After splashing some water on my face, I turned my attention back to what would be my bow.
I took the branch and pushed on the edges. It bent in a near perfect curve, with the most curved part near the middle. I stopped, and started shaving away some bark and wood at that point. I also started cutting away at any protrusions and rough spots on the bow. I then began trying to taper the ends, shaving more and more off until they were about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, with the middle being about an inch and a half wide. I cut two notches into the “front” of the bow, about an inch way from either end. I held the bow in my hand, trying to get a feel for it. I cut a notch into the middle from the right side, with my favored handhold below it, to help me aim with my arrows. Just two things were missing now: arrows, which I could make, and rope. The chunk of wood I had used earlier to help me start my first fire looked like it came from a wagon or caravan, so I decided to head back to that general area to look for any rope or useful things.
By the time I got there, it was late in the afternoon, and I didn’t want to risk getting torn apart from the wolves I heard last night. I had slashed some trees on the way, so I knew how to get back home. I hurriedly rooted around, but all I could find was some wood and a torn piece of paper with a faded blue blob and some characters that looked a little bit like the letters “TR”, “X”, and “E”. I grabbed some of the wood and quickly looked around one more time. I looked in some bushes and saw a length of rope. Perfect! I grabbed it, and noticed what looked a bit like a dirt road. I burst through the bush and excitedly followed it.
Along the way I found a patch of vibrant blue flowers. I grabbed a few, thinking that I could make a dye out of them. I wandered along the road for a couple of minutes before finding what looked like a brightly lit house in a small clearing. Between the horse tracks, paper, what seemed like a language, and the house, I was confident that there was civilization nearby. I could hear humming and saw a shape in the window. As I got closer, though, I noticed that the house was a hut, and it looked...almost tribal. As soon as the thought entered my mind, the humming stopped and I could see the shape moving. I quickly ran back, following the trail I left behind. I prayed that whoever lived there would pass me off as an animal or something and not come out and follow my trail. I didn't want to get involved in a tribal war or something.
It was night by the time I got back. I fed the fire a bit and attempted to string my bow. While tying a knot I learned a while back, I decided that the best course of action would be to stalk the inhabitant of the hut and try to determine more about its lifestyle, language, hostility, technology, etc. I mean, I don’t like stalking much, but that and eavesdropping were skills that were pretty much ingrained into me since I was a kid, so it was hard to suppress the urge. I slipped the loop of the noose I made into one notch, and began repeating the knot on the other end of the rope. However, it was a pretty long rope, thin but strong. I cut off the extra and stored it in one of my raincoat’s pockets, then began tying the knot again. I finished it, then just managed to fit it over the end of the bow and into the other notch. I began pulling back on the string. It took all my strength, but I managed to pull it back to my chin. I allowed the string to return to its original position, taking care not to let go and fire the bow with no arrow.
I knew that this was going to be a good bow. I thanked myself for my “survival phase”. However, I was going to have to start working out if I wanted to use that bow well. But after I got something to eat.
Meat…
Meat…
Meeeaaaat…
Snap out of it! Stay focused! I shook my head. I obviously had to go to bed, or else, I don’t know what was going to happen to my mental state. I drank as much water as I could, took a piss outside, then came back in and fell asleep.
Not before putting some wood on the fire though. I'm not that out of it yet.
I woke up to the sound of birds happily chirping away. I grunted. I was most definitely not as happy as they were. After all, I was starving and lost in some weird remote forest, with seemingly no way back to “true” civilization. Yeah, I’m a terrible person that way. WATCHA GONNA DO?!?!?!
Sorry about that, didn’t mean to go all…ehem, “gangsta” on you. But, you know. No food tends to do that to you. I got off of my raincoat (which will now be called the “jacket”) and tied it around my waist. I drank enough water to make my stomach slightly less grumpy, and stumbled outside to see how early it was. The sun was low on the horizon. I grinned the smile of a wolf about to kill a deer. I would have time to make arrows and use them in hunting. I went back into the cave, grabbed my knife and staff, then walked back out and into the forest. I wandered around, looking for any straight, long sticks, long enough so I could draw back the bow and still have the arrow fit in the aiming notch. I would do this as a kid and pretend they were swords, so I managed to find about thirty or so within an hour. By then, I had already tied my staff to my back with my jacket and had stored my knife in one of its pockets so I could carry all the sticks in my hands.
I walked back to my cave and started up the fire again. I took out all the lumpy sticks and started whittling away at any knots or protrusions. Once all the sticks were relatively smooth, I took out the curved ones and held them one by one over the roaring fire. Once they basked in the heat long enough, I started to shape them in order to make them straighter and stronger. As those sticks began to cool, I started grinding the other sticks against the rough floor to shape their ends into point-like shapes. I took out my knife and cut the ends to the point that they would cause quite a bit of pain when pressed against my finger, then grinded the points again to make them smoother while taking care not to dull the point. I then held them over the fire again to let them fire-harden, then set them aside to cool. I sighed, then began repeating the process with the rest of the sticks, now cooled. I hate manual labor.
By the time I was done with everything, it looked to be about 2 PM. I took another long drink of water, then stuffed as many arrows as I could into my jacket’s pockets and tied it around my waist. Luckily, they were the big, rectangular kind with the flaps that you could button shut, so all I had to do was button up said flap in order to secure the arrows. If I have more time, I’d like to make stone or flint arrows, or maybe a blunt axe/mace. Oh well, food is my first priority. I don’t know what plants are edible here, so I’d rather not risk that. I groaned, stood up, stretched my muscles for a bit, then picked up my bow. I threw a log onto the fire and ventured back into the forest.
I found a stream about half a mile away with loads of fish in it. Sustainable food resource, yay! I had to practice a few times, but I finally figured out how to use a bow, lead moving targets, and make up for water refraction. I lost maybe five arrows in the tall grass near the stream, but got all the others back. Eh. Five arrows isn’t that big of a loss. I turned my attention back to the stream, and after a few tries, I speared a small red fish. I killed three more fish after that, but lost two more arrows in the process. Damn. It was getting harder and harder to see the fish, so I looked up at the sky to see why. Turns out I was there for the better part of five hours, and it was getting dark.
I trudged back home and put all my belongings back in their proper places. I drank some water from the lake, soothing my dry throat. I really need to fashion a canteen or something, but out of what? I’ll need my jacket to hold my arrows. I shook my head, sighed again, then stabbed the four fish onto some arrows and stuck them in the ground next to the fire, angled so the arrows wouldn’t burn but the fish would cook. I sat back and watched the flames dance and cast flickering shadows everywhere. Maybe if I managed to catch a rabbit or something I could try and shatter some of its bones to make sharper, more durable arrowheads. Heh. Arrowhead. Like water back at home, where I didn’t have to drink out of a potentially contaminated lake, but from a bottle instead. You know, Arrowhead never really did taste that good. Back at home, I drank…
Home. That one word hit me in face like someone asked me, “Hey, do want to get run over by a train?” and shoved me in front of one without waiting for a response. Dick. All this time, this all seemed like one of the daydreams I constantly have, or like some weird fucked-up camping trip where I was left with no food, no water, no supplies, and no partner. But this is real. I could die out here. And home is probably really far away, as little sense as that makes. What am I going to do? Just live out here like some beast-man until I die of the common cold or something?
Ugh, snap out of it. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. When did you become such a sentimental old fool, Richard? My eyes unglazed as my mind returned to the land of the living. Hmm. The fish are still cooking, so I haven’t been out of it for that long. Good. They look almost done, maybe fifteen more minutes will do the trick. Might as well come up with an escape plan in case someone with a pointy stick shows up. Let’s see. I’ll group the bow and staff together near the fire, and maybe I’ll add a torch later on. If I am, then I’ll just shift my jacket to the left and stick the staff through the knot so it looks like a sword in its sheath, and I’ll still have access to my arrows on my right. I’ll run with my bow in my left hand or slung across my back, and I’ll hold the torch with my right. I’ll keep my rock and knife in both my pockets from now on, in case I need them. Yeah, that’ll work.
A faint burning smell hit my nostrils. Smells like the fish are done. I yanked the arrows out and stuck them somewhere else to cool. Thankfully, they were already fire-hardened, so they didn’t bend or anything. After waiting a while for the fish to cool, I ravenously devoured all four of them in quick succession. Okay, in my defense, they were small, I’ve been starving for two days, and have you looked at me? Even though I eat three hearty meals a day, I still look thin as a rail. I am not a pig. You’re a pig. Piiig…ooookay, lapse in moral thought for a second there. I went from insulting some imaginary jerk, to thinking about bacon, to thinking about bacon jerky, to thinking about imaginary bacon jerk-y. Yeah, I’m going to just lie down, stop thinking about this, and pretend it never happened.
A smile. Warmth. Hugging? What's going on? If only I could open my eyes...the light's there, if I could just...
I wake up gasping for air. The sun's up outside, and its gentle rays caress the overgrown grass. Just another weird-ass dream, huh? Been getting a couple of those lately. Not insane my ass.
Bored, I get up and stretch, listening to my joints pop and crack. I go through my normal morning routine of bathing, dressing, then eating some breakfast. Been doing the same thing for what feels like half a year now; I can call it a morning routine if I damn well please, Andrew. It's not fucking gay. And you shut up, Jennifer. What's your morning routine, soak your face in my brain juices for half an hour while Andrew screams at you to hurry up? Oh, I'm doing it again, aren't I? Well, enough of that. It's time to go outside and check up on the traps.
All I find is a squirrel. This one's particularly fat compared to the other game I catch. I've started moving most of my traps here, seeing as it's the only place where I ever manage to catch anything worth cooking. I smash its head against the Bloodstone Altar, just to make sure it's dead. "Oh, wise and powerful Meat Gods," I drone, "here is my offering of the day. Please accept this small woodland creature's soul and deliver mine unto salvation." Finished with my mock prayer, I prepare to return home when suddenly a beam of light radiates from what looked like the Mirror Lake. But the thing's in a bloody cave...like, with a roof cave. "By the Nine," I mutter, amazed. I feel the earth below me trembling, I hear a humming, and my hair starts to poof up like it's charged with static electricity. Suddenly, everything stops, and a shockwave rips through the forest, slamming me into the ground. All of this is pointing towards a Resonance Cascade-esque event, but for some reason the light beckons me, and I find myself dropping the squirrel and jogging back home.
Heh. Home. What a funny word. Me, finding a dark, mildewy cave homey. I giggle a bit.
Bursting into my cave (heh, mine. Guess it is my home now), I stood awestruck as a giant pulsating portal floated above the Mirror Lake. Of course, it had to be in the middle of it, mocking my inability to swim. Well you know what, fuck you, universe. I can see home, and I will fucking go home-
Huh. Wierd. Is this place home, or is it my apartment? I mean, the apartment was never mine to begin with, but neither was this cave. Do I stay or do I go? Do I stay or do I-
My indecisiveness is interrupted by a small herd of those colorful ponies I saw rooting around my cave a few months back. Oh god, is the tribe onto me? Did I desecrate some ancient burial ground? What do I do, what do I--Okay, that one's floating something. Alien horses. These people have fucking magic alien horses. And if any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and these are just their steeds...oh fuck. So aliens have been living among us all this time. The conspiracy theorists were right all along. So does that mean I just barged in on an invasion attempt?
I think I know where I'm going. I can die like a bitch, or I can try and warn others before dying like a bitch. I wonder which one I'll pick. I scoop up a rock from the ground, throw it at the lead pony, and dive into the pool. I sputter and try to splash my way to the portal, half-drowning in the process. But I can't give up. Not now. The closer I get, the lighter I feel, until I'm floating in the air. As I feel the portal beginning to suck me in, I look back and flip off the alien army. Faggots. Not the gay kind or the stick kind, the faggoty kind.
The moment I'm in the portal I feel myself rushing away at what feels like the speed of light. I whooped and took in all the nothingness of whatever space I was in. A dull throbbing grows at the base of my skull, but I ignore it. Home is right there. I can see it. I scream and will myself forward. I'm almost-
"April Fool's! Oh, they fall for that every time, but it never gets old. Hope you aren't too mad at me, old chum; I was just having a spot of fun, surely you understand? Besides, even though you're not in your nice, warm, safe home filled with food and people, you get to be on an adventure, with all the perils and hardships that accompany it! You know what they say; it's not the destination that matters, it's the journey." I hear a insane cackle. "Oh, who are we kidding. Anyways, toodles till next time!" A smile, crooked and spawning evil laughter. Warmth, so much that I can feel my flesh searing. A hug from Death as I slip into her embrace...
[/hr] I woke up gasping for air. The sun was up outside, and its gentle rays caressed the overgrown grass. Just another weird-ass dream, huh? Been getting a couple of those lately. Not insane my ass. Well, looks like I'm still here. Home. Hah. Home, my ass.
I woke up with a start. I checked left, then right, then left again. Collapsing onto my back again, I began trying to recall whatever nightmare I had that got me so riled up. All I could remember were trees with…faces? And flying shapes…and a weird gay hippie rainbow blasting a black dude into oblivion…and there were these weird spiky vines everywhere.
I closed my eyes and concentrated harder. I had been getting nightmares recently, ever since my seventh night here. Yeah, it’s been that long. Think it’s actually been three weeks or so now. Huh. Anyways, nightmare. The vines were…trying to lash out at me, and there was this weird laugh in the background. I tripped, but before I could experience the marvelous taste of dream-dirt, I woke up.
Lately, I’ve been getting this weird feeling of this dark, powerful, corrupting presence.
…
…
HAH! Yeah, right. Nah, it’s probably my over-(re)active imagination trying to put me into a fantasy world where I can be the hero and whatnot again.
I shrugged off the rest of my foreboding and went through my morning routine. Take off my jacket, wrap it around my waist, get some water from the lake using this neat half of a wooden bucket I found, wash myself off, try to clean my teeth, drink some water, and heat up some leftover meat from last night over the fire. Oh, yeah, the bucket half was a pretty big find. I should probably explain that. Oh, and I’ve come to terms with my insanity. I should explain that first. I’m perfectly fine with talking to myself/you guys/my other self because I used to do that as a kid.
It’s totally not a sign of insanity.
You know, I just realized that I’m using past tense. And I seem to remember dialogue perfectly. And everything has been just a little bit too lucky. Huh, this is playing out like some weird fanfic or something.
Right, so the bucket. Well, one day when I was hunting, I just randomly found a shattered half of a bucket. What, were you expecting something more dramatic?
I tore into the meat, finishing off what was left of the ferret-thing. I turned to look at the shrine I made to the meat god Bacon, and jokingly asked, “Hey, you want the last bit of this meat? Well too bad, I’m eating it.”
Just then, a gust of wind rushed in through the cave entrance and nearly blew out my fire. Heh. That was tooootally a coincidence. Right?
…
I threw the meat into the fire just to be safe. Never thought I’d see the day an atheist would pray to a god. And now I’ve pretty much started my own religion. Fabulous.
The shrine started off as a joke. It was just three sticks stuck in the wall, which looked like stone but was really just compacted dirt. Then I balanced a stick and a stone on the top stick to make it look like a human. I made it to celebrate the first time I actually managed to eat real meat, not fish.
I had laid out a few snares and whatnot on…what was it, my fourth day here? Sometime like that. I’ll check my calendar later. After a few days of eating fish, I was starting to get worried about my overfishing the river. There were still plenty of fish, but not as many as before. Finally, my patience paid off when I found some wild rabbit or something. Its head was WAAAY too big. It was, like, half its body! I don’t even know how it moved around! So normally, I was afraid of radiation hazards causing mutations, but fuck it, I needed some meat. So I walked over, and kinda sorta just grabbed its head and…twisted. So yeah, it died, and I felt kinda sick and kinda like a badass at the same time for a while.
I cut off its head, because I DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT RABBIT BRAINS TASTE LIKE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! So naturally, there was practically no meat left, and I had to go fish for a bit. But hey, it was meat, and it tasted good! So I built the shrine in mock gratitude, and it actually looked pretty cool, so I kept it. And you never know, if those weird tribe dudes find me, I can always claim to be a messenger of Bacon and have them bow to the shrine and whatever before establishing a (hopefully) fake religion with me at its head.
One day, when I was coming back from checking my traps, I heard some voices near my…home, let’s say, but they were gibberish. There was also a lot of braying and whinnying going on, and some clopping noises reminiscent of a horse walking around. I hid behind a tree, and waited until the voices were out of range. When I checked to see if the intruders were gone, all I found were hoof marks and a few blue feathers. I guess these people are smart enough to have tamed horses. Great. I meant that both sarcastically and genuinely. One the one hand, these guys have at least some form of civilization, but on the other, HOW THE HELL DO I OUTRUN A HORSE?
After a bit of trekking, making sure to steer clear of the hut I found, I arrived at that creepy place. It’s this ominous place with tree that look like they have faces carved into them. Oddly enough, they seem to resemble the ones in my dream. I guess I probably just remembered them from my last trip here. So I just held my breath, hummed the Skyrim theme, and tried to breeze through as quickly as I could.
I emerged from the forest in front of the bridge that led to the castle, and crossed it, hoping that I didn’t fall to my death. I have a fear of heights. So severe, in fact, that I can’t stand being more than a yard off the ground.
Now that I think about it, I’m scared of pretty much everything.
I managed to cross it without it failing, thankfully. I checked to make sure nothing was stalking me. Oh, I’ve seen wolves, a mega-giant-ultra-chicken-bat thingy, some weird hybrid bat-lion thingy, and what looked to be a hydra. A lot of bats. I’d say it’s not radiation anymore. That’s why I made my Stub in the first place. I didn’t like the sound of the wolves at night, so I took my knife and a rock, and split my staff/walking stick on the top. I then wedged in a large, heavy rock I found and tried to secure it the best I could with the rope I had left.
While we’re on the subject of my last visit here, and still in a nostalgic place, let’s talk about what happened. Long story short, I explored for a bit, found the castle, figured out that there was surely a war going on between two empires (like the Europeans “discovering” the Americas and slaughtering all the not-so-advanced Native Americans with their Middle Ages weapons and diseases, if you catch my drift), went in, found a hall with a sick fascination with horse legs, found some horse armor (by the looks of it, really puny horses), smashed a suit of armor on reflex, felt crushed with guilt for destroying a priceless historical artifact, scavenged a helmet because it was the only thing that fit and was more honorable than letting it get restored or something terrible like that, heard an organ play, got creeped out, activated a trap, got out, found a library (where all the books were written in, you guessed it, gibberish!), felt a dark presence, and GTFOed.
How’s that for a run-on sentence?
So now I’m back, and I’m ready for more. I rushed in, found my way to the hallway with a bunch of armor in it, and started trying to pound them into shape with my club to try and make them fit me. Of course, the armor was tiny, so bleh. Still more honorable than being restored.
Now that I had a rudimentary set of armor, a ranged weapon, a melee weapon, and a way to test for traps, I felt much more confident in making sure that everyone here was dead. I looked around the castle, making sure I wasn’t missing anything. I eventually stumbled across a dusty old guard barrack. Perfect.
I didn’t want to be slowed down, so I just took some basics: a spear, a sword, a dagger, and OH MY DEAR GOD A CROSSBOW YES! But upon closer inspection, the spear was bent, the sword was rusty, and the crossbow had no handle, no trigger, and no ammo. Why? Why would you make a crossbow with NO HANDLE OR TRIGGER? Only the dagger was anywhere near usable: it was good old iron, but somehow not rusted. Actually, it looked nearly new. Odd. It was simple, but still razor sharp. That cut piece of paper over there that I just murdered can testify to that fact. The handle had some teeth marks on it for whatever odd reason, but I was fine with that. I mean, now I have FUCKING METAL! YES!
All the armor was either rusty or dented. Oh well, no loss there. Interestingly enough, the weapons I found were all covered with rust or bent. Only the dagger was in pristine condition. Also, they all seemed a bit small, and many had teeth marks. Other than that, there were only some glass bottles scattered around.
So all the weapons were for midgets who liked sharp stuff near their mouths, and there were no human armor. Guess horses are the most important part of an army here. More important than midgets, anyways. I strapped on the dagger and tried to make my way back to the library.
After searching for a while, I found a room hidden away. Curious, I went in, and found a book with two horse heads on the cover.
I do hope these people had platonic relationships with their horses.
After flipping through about half of it, I found a very helpful map of the castle. I took the book for obvious reasons. Hey, nobody has to know it was here.
Upon closer inspection, the room seemed clean and recently used. There were even non-rotten carrot stumps lying about. Well, there’s proof that there’s someone here, and he/she/it is probably playing the organ.
I slowly made my way through the ruins, eventually making my way to a massive room with a huge church organ just sitting smack-dab in the middle. Sure enough, there was a hooded figure sitting on the bench, and creepy music started playing. And I don’t mean that cheesy movie organ song, I mean an epic movement that gave me music chills (which apparently only some people have. Go figure.), but also caused some deep irrational paranoia. I tried my best to sneak up on he/she/it, whom I named Hesheit. Did I use whom correctly? I hope so.
I pulled out my dagger, and tried to do a lunging stab, but the blade just went straight through Hesheit’s cloak, and it fluttered to the ground lifeless.
After having a mild identity crisis, I walked back out of the castle to check up on my traps. All of them were empty except for one, which had caught a small, orange, four-legged flightless chicken sort of thing. I wasn’t really sure what it was, but the closest word I had for it would be a pegasus—but with all the fantastical creatures I had seen over the past god-knows-how-long, I just shrugged and accepted it for the meat it was. It was a good size as well, about one and a half feet tall and about two feet long: certainly large enough to make up for my other traps being empty. It was on the ground unconscious, presumably from the five head-sized rocks that dropped on it as it set off the tripwire. Well, trip-grass-rope; you gotta make do around these here parts. I took advantage of the situation and bashed its head a few times with the business end of my Stub. It gave out a few loud cries at the first few hits, but they were quickly silenced when I panicked, fumbled with my newfound dagger for a bit, and tried to slit its throat so it wouldn’t attract any of those timberwolves prowling on the lookout for leftovers. Naturally, I missed and blood began splurting everywhere, so I did the smart thing and panicked harder, stabbing the knife deep into its neck over and over until it was a bloody mess.
Shit.
If the sound of the chicken-horse wasn’t enough to attract the wolves, then the scent of fresh blood splattered all over the trees certainly would. I’d been hunting there long enough for them to recognize it as a place to score freebies as long as they did it before the monkey with the wind-pain and hurty-tree showed up.
A wise man once said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” One less so once said, "Ask not what we have to fear, but carry a big stick of...eh...charity for all," but that’s a different story altogether.
I took a few gulps of the blood that was still dribbling out—waste not, want not—slung the carcass over my shoulder, and ran as quickly as I could back to the cave. It was getting dark and I could already hear the ghastly creaking of timberwolf howls, so I didn’t bother trying to hide my presence. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if they did follow me; I’d been meaning to test my new fire wall, and I had an itch to practice my Gandalf impersonation. (Un)luckily, I managed to get to the safety of my humble abode without any bloodthirsty monsters on my ass. After tossing a few logs on the embers of my fire, I set about testing the sharpness of my new toy. A few quick flicks of the wrist and orange hair was flying right off like a dandelion in a tornado. Actually, looking at it more, I noticed for the first time that it was a chicken horse with orange fur and a purple mane. If I didn’t want to die from cancer, I was going to have to get out of here pronto.
I quickly skinned it the best I could and cleaned out the viscera with a record amount of gagging. I turned around to toss a couple more logs on the fire to create a bonfire, then set about flaying as much flesh as I could off the bones. There wasn’t much there, which was disappointing, but I managed to scrape together enough edible meat and entrails for tonight’s meal and some extra to smoke. I skewered the meat onto my spit roast/smoking rack combo (which I’m totally going to sell on an infomercial if I ever get back home), kicked back, and thought about what to do with what was left. The bigger bones of the creature would certainly be helpful in making larger tools, maybe a club and a spear tip on my Stub. The skull should be able to function as a cup? I frowned. Cleaning out the brain sounded like a pain, but if it came down to it I would have to do it. Putting the idea on the backburner, I moved onto what to do with the skin. It would obviously be used as leather; how, I didn’t know, since I was lacking any sort of tanning chemicals or whatever magical mumbo-jumbo they used to make good leather. I would make it into an article of clothing, but I was dressed for winter weather already, and to be honest the piece of skin I had was pretty small and ugly. It could be used as reinforcement for a rudimentary shield, but the problem with that was I didn’t have a death wish. After giving it some more thought, I settled on scraping the skin clean and leaving it out to dry for a while, in the meanwhile boiling the fat to kill any pathogens in it; then I would soak the skin in it, wiping off the excess and sewing it into a water pouch. That’s how that works, right? Unless Hollywood lied to me, but why would they…
Oh right.
Shit.
I shrugged and decided to give it a go anyways. I got out the flint knife I was using before and began scraping away at the residue on the inside of the to-be leather, careful not to damage it. After sticking it all into the ball of fat I rolled earlier, I checked up on how my dinner was doing. The outside had burned to a crisp, but when I sliced off a piece the inside was well-cooked and leaking juices. I took the kabob off the roast, brushed off the charcoal-black shell, and almost began shoving it down my throat before my eyes glanced past my shrine to the meat gods. Not making that mistake again.
After finishing my meal, I gave a contented sigh before peeling off my clothing and jumping into the lake. After swimming around for a while and washing off all the red stains on me, I began the long task of trying to wash the dried blood from my clothes. An hour later, my clothes looked better than before—if your idea of better was bright pink instead of dark crimson. I might as well just stain them with blood at my next kill again and pretend they were always red. I threw myself onto my makeshift bed of leaves and woven grass sheets; before long my eyes began fluttering shut, and I let sleep overtake me.
[/hr]
My eyes flew open as I heard a monstrous roar and thundering footsteps outside my cave. My hands immediately flew to the Stub at my side, and I rolled up into a standing position and rushed outside to see what was going on. A rabid grizzly bear was stampeding its way through the forest. Glad as I was to see some normal animals, my mind still ran through the standard procedure of determining whether it was a threat or not, where it came from, where it was going, and what it was doing. With a start, I realized that it was heading straight for the cottage I found while scouting a few days ago. The gears in my brain whirred loudly as they quickly manufactured a plan: follow the bear, kill the bear, save the cottage person, gain credit, be accepted into civilization. EZPZ lemon squeezy. I grabbed my shaved (and no longer orange) water pouch, shoved a few extra bone arrows and javelins into my quiver to be safe, and slung my bow over my shoulder before running after the bear.
Turns out fish bones make great needles, and sinew great thread. Bone splinters were a great substitute for flint, good enough that I hollowed out half a femur and hammered it onto the walking end of my Stub to make a makeshift spear. The leather turned out to not be too great with water, so last week I ended up salvaging the bladder and stomach (ewgrossandweirdgrossandweird) and used those instead. That freed up the leather to be stitched into a small holder for my arrows and javelins that doubled as a pouch for other small bits of food and tools, as well as various straps for the many things I had made over the past…month? Fuck, it’s been a while…
Anyways, it turns out that there’s a reason they tell you not try and outrun a bear. Even though I was pumping my legs as hard as they would go, the bear was still growing more and more distant. Just as I was about to lose sight of it, we burst into a clearing, and I saw the quaint medieval town stretched out in front of me. I had lost track of how far we were running; but if there was ever a time to play the hero, it would be now. Putting on a burst of speed, I dropped down to the ground, sliding on my knees, and unslung the bow on my back. I quickly nocked and arrow and let it fly; I thought I had aimed too high in my haste, but forgot to account for the bear running away, so it miraculously managed to bury itself into the side of the bear’s neck. It let loose a roar and whipped around to face me, eyes a rabid yellow and teeth foaming with rage. I gave a quick glance around for any people watching, but the streets were deserted and all the windows in the houses were closed shut. Maybe there was a war going on and all the able men were away, leaving behind only the women and children to cower in fear?
A searing pain in my side interrupted my thoughts. While I was kneeling there like an idiot, the bear had charged me and swung its paw at me. My trusty Stub had thankfully been in the way and absorbed most of the damaged, but the claws had still managed to gouge three deep wounds through my jacket and into my flesh. My chest cavity was still unbreached, but only just; I was pretty sure it may have chipped one of my ribs, though. I convulsed on the ground in pain like I just had a Mega Tree seed dissolve in my ass, before the adrenaline kicked in and I shot to my feet, just in time to dodge another angry swipe from the beast. I grabbed my Stub and swung it as hard as I could at the bear while I sidestepped its charge, the stone head connecting with its skull with a loud crack; using the momentum from the swing, I shifted my grip to the other end of the Stub and speared the bear in the throat while it stumbled around, stunned. It let loose a wet gurgle and snapped at my arm, sinking its teeth into my forearm. I screamed with pain and let go of my weapon, but my arm was still trapped; panicking, I fumbled for my knife and started stabbing at any part I could reach, which only made the bear shake its head and tear at my muscles even more. Close to blacking out from the pain, I made one last desperate swing and managed to bury it hilt-deep into the bear’s eye. It reared back with a cry of pain, knocking me to the ground, and I took advantage of the opportunity to sink the blade into its jugular and slit its throat. It wobbled on its hind legs for a few seconds, looking oddly drained and scrawnier than before, then toppled to the ground in slow motion with a tremendous rumble.
Panting, with pain slowly returning to my consciousness in throbbing waves, I glanced at the dagger that saved my life and noticed that it was as clean as the day I found it. I had noticed that when I first started using it to clean, but I just assumed it was made out of Orgreenic or something; but this was on a live target, and there was no blood, no vitreous, nothing. I sheathed it and crawled over to my Stub, leaning on it as support to slowly get up and hobble over to the nearest hut. I collapsed against the wall and weakly pounded on it. “Please, help me,” I croaked, forgetting that the people here didn’t know English. Damn it, why did I think I could take on a bear? Why did I ever think this was a good idea? To be honest, it was a miracle that I even managed to get away alive, let alone kill it.
The door flew open with a sudden bang and a group of...neon-dyed ponies started stampeding out? Every other door in the village followed suite, and a horde of techno-colored miniature horses blew past me. I mean, jesus, I’ve heard all the jokes about the Scottish and New Zealanders, but was everyone here a literal horse-fucker? No bucket needed, just the right height? Je-sus fucking Christ. I could just imagine some fat, sweaty neckbeards just fapping to some Friendshi—My Little P—ML—FI—cartoon ponies.
A splitting migraine began pounding at my skull, drowning out the pain in my chest and arm. The rumbling from that fucking pony stampede wasn’t helping, either. I cracked open an eye to glare at them, but there was nothing there. I then realized that there was a certain cadence to the pounding in my head: almost like footsteps. I shifted my gaze over and saw a giant, translucent, starry Care Bear rushing towards the town.