Preview 2 of "My Own Reality" · 4:23am Jun 12th, 2018
I've since added quite a bit more to the first chapter, exploring additional aspects of the story's world that previously was assumed via Pony-Me's connection to the MLP universe. For example, the friendship between Twilight and Pinkie is instead transposed into Rebecca and Julie, with the latter still somewhat holding onto Pinkie's personality, but becoming largely a much more original character in and of herself, with additional traits contradicting Pinkie's to likely be revealed in later chapters. Enjoy the rough draft! 
My Own Reality
Everything seemed so real. The people, the places, the experiences, all nothing more than a simulation. With the abrupt severing of a single connection, it all comes crumbling down. Now, it's up to Lisa Garnet to find her way back, and along the way remember who she is... and who she was.
1 – Wake up.
Bright rays of sunlight flooded through the window as a cheerful voice pierced through Rebecca Waterman’s shell of blankets.
“C’mon, sis!” Caleb yelled as he pounced on his older sister, “Wake up! Mom left your breakfast on the table like, an hour ago!”
Rebecca groaned, waving a groggy hand in the air. “Go away, Caleb.” She turned in her bed, drawing the blankets even closer. “Just lemme sleep a bit longer, will you?”
A faint buzz rattled on the girl’s desk. Propping herself up by an arm, Rebecca reached for her phone, yawning all the while.
“Seriously?” Caleb exclaimed as he grabbed his sister’s hand, “I tell you to wake up and you just tell me to go, but when your phone gets your attention, you just go full-throttle!” He folded his arms, making a face. “Stupid girls and their girly friends…” Caleb murmured, leaning against the cluttered desk.
Rebecca idly tapped on her phone, squinting in the reflected sunlight beaming from the glossy screen. “Hm?” She paused for a moment before tapping the screen again, turning onto her back. “Oh,” She sat upright in her bed, now fully awake. “Looks like Julie wants to go to the movies again after she’s done babysitting for the neighbors.” The girl glanced toward her younger brother. “Hey,” She continued, “Would you mind if you watched the house while I’m gone? Mom and Dad probably won’t be home until after your bedtime.”
“All by myself?” The boy complained, tugging at the blanket burrito around his sister. “But what about you?”
Rebecca grinned. “You know how hyper Julie can get if you give her too much sugar. I’m betting that it’s gonna be a while before I come back when we’re done with the movie.”
Caleb nodded, a chill running down his spine as he remembered his room being ransacked by Julie the last time she’d come over. “So…” He began, an enthusiastic smile forming across his face, “I get the whole house to myself today?”
“Yup.” The girl confirmed. She ruffled her brother’s hair, forcing a surprised yelp from him. “Free reign for the whole day. Just try not to empty out the fridge while I’m gone, alright?”
“Yay!” Caleb cheered as he rushed for the door. “I can eat all the chocolate I waaaa-“
Abruptly, Rebecca threw off her blankets, glaring at her little brother in the doorway. Strangely, Caleb appeared to almost be… frozen in place, his voice still trailing on, unable to finish his sentence. “Caleb?” The girl frowned, reaching a hand towards her sibling. “Are… are you okay?”
“…aaaaaaaaa…n…n.nn…” The boy continued, his face stuck in a continual blur of motion.
“Caleb.” Rebecca repeated, “This isn’t funny. Stop it.”
An ear-piercing screech tore through the room, the girl cringing as she clenched her hands over her ears. Just as suddenly as it began, the noise halted, replaced instead by strange, floating text that seemed to follow Rebecca’s vision.
“Connection lost. Please try again later.”
The girl furrowed her brows, waving aimlessly at the words with a scowl. All at once, she felt herself lock up, frozen in place like her brother. Her eyes sat locked in a gaze towards Caleb.
What… Rebecca thought, her mind racing at the impossibility of the predicament, What’s going on?!
Bit by bit, the world around her vanished into bits of blurred texture. Pieces of furniture flashed in and out of existence, wavering on the line between physical and illusion. The blinding morning sunlight flickered rapidly, before abruptly dying out.
One final flash of light illuminated Rebecca’s final glance at her room, and just like that, the world went dark.
Lisa Garnet jerked awake with a heavy gasp, her vision obscured by an unwieldy object strapped to her face. Frantically swatting at it, the girl yelled one word over and over.
“Help!”
She blindly clawed at the object again, her fingers catching onto a strap of some sort. With a resounding grunt of pain, Lisa tore the object from her face. Now, she sat silent on a cot, cradling the strange device that had formerly been strapped around her face.
“Hello?” The girl murmured, her gaze flitting about the barren room. “Is anybody there?”
Lisa turned her focus back to the device- a headset of some sort. She blinked, realizing the existence of an irritating low hum that echoed all throughout the room. Turning around on the medical cot, her eyes were met with an unsettlingly large machine, its loose wires feeding into the headset. The girl narrowed her eyes, turning the headset slowly in her lap before noticing the heavily worn, but still-readable text imprinted along one side.
Reality2TM virtual reality device. Pat. Pending. Manufactured 12/10. Prototype model 9M-24. Property of TechSIG.
With a frown, Lisa placed the headset back over her face. Immediately, she was plunged back into the darkness, her limbs instantly going numb. Taking the device off again, the girl’s vision was flooded with the vision of the room once more. On again. Darkness. Off, light. On, dark. Off, on, black, white. She turned to face the machine yet again, the headset still cradled in her hands as she slowly rose to closer inspect the monolithic contraption. A painful yank pulled at her side as she did so, prompting a yelp from the girl as she collapsed back onto the cot. Gazing down with a worried frown, she soon saw the mess of tubes and cables running from her side, over the cot, and back into the machine beside the cot. She let out a weak grunt as she crawled over the side of the cot, inching closer to the machine as she clutched the tubes and wiring emerging from her torso.
Up close, the machine appeared downright alien compared to anything she’d seen before. In place of where she’d expect to see a dashboard of dials, buttons, and meters reminiscent of old sci-fi movies she’d seen with machines similar to this, she instead found the contraption to have only a single panel, dimly lit as lines of text scrolled at a near-unreadable pace. Though she was unable to catch most of the text, the header that appeared to repeat every so often caught her eyes.
User_Name: “Rebecca Waterman”
User_ID: “0”
Simulation_ID: “Reality2_Release_build4”
Fatal error: No network connection.
Lisa Garnet- Rebecca Waterman took a shaky step back, her eyes quivering as she made sense of the text.
“W…w-what?” The girl stammered, glancing down at her hands, “It was all… what… but it-“ She finally caught sight of the faded wristband clinging to her. “…Lisa Garnet?” Lisa whispered to herself, flitting across the words imprinted on the plastic tag.
She turned to the heavy door opposite to the cot, then to the dusty window beside the machine, the only two recognizable features of the room.
“Caleb?” Lisa stuttered, slowly lowering herself back onto the cot as her nervous gaze focused back onto the headset. “Julie? …Anybody?”
