I’ll never forget the day that my whole world fell apart.
I could hear my mother crying from the top of the stairs; my sanctuary where I resided during the fond years of my childhood. My room was nothing special, just a small white room with four walls, a gray carpet, and a window with a panoramic view of downtown Syracuse in the distance.
Although the room was nothing special, over the years I had gathered many personal effects that truly made the space into something that was unique to my personality. I was only fourteen years old at the time, but it was clear from my surroundings that I had already chosen a path for my future. The room was only a 10 x 10, but I had made it my personal mission over the previous few years to decorate the room with everything that defined who I was.
Along the wall adjacent to the window, I had a table covered with various computers and imbedded systems that I had gathered over the years from my father who worked IT for the local university. I prided myself on rebuilding systems that the university had deemed ‘unusable’. As a result of the constant repairs I was always performing on the fickle and often ancient machines, I always had a veritable mountain of components strewn across the opposite end of the long table. It probably looked messy and unusable to others; but because of how often I used the space, I always had an inherent knowledge of where everything was. For me “A place for everything, and everything in its place” meant exactly where my mind had decided it was best to be put.
The rest of the room was pretty standard. Like most kids my age I had a small twin bed, a computer desk where I spent a lot of my time playing video games, and a closet that stored all of my clothes; most of which I never wore. On the wall next to my door I had installed a small shelf that held all of the tools that I used for my experiments and repairs. Most of the basic tools I had acquired as gifts from my parents who were very supportive of my inventive tendencies. Lastly, the walls were decorated with posters of my favorite games and musical groups that I had come to appreciate over the last few years. Back then I was a very big fan of Floyd and Queen, mostly because my father and I would always listen to them when we were working on a project together.
July 17, 2014; a day that surely will be burned into the back of my mind for the rest of my life.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting in my room working on an old UNIX server that my dad had just brought home the previous day because the school had updated to a newer model. It was a bit frustrating as I was still new to the intricacies of ‘NIX’ systems and had yet to do much experimentation.
I heard my mother’s scream pierce through the music that I was playing to accompany the work that I was doing. It was the type of bloodcurdling scream that instantly made my blood run cold. My mother has always been a very strong independent woman, and I knew that anything that could elicit such a response from her must be horrifying.
After recovering from my initial shock, I immediately bounded down the stairs to mollify whatever it was that caused my mother such distress. Upon reaching the front of the house, what I saw made me pause in utter confusion.
I could see my mother and father standing in the doorway. My dad was holding onto my mother as she was absolutely sobbing into his chest; I could clearly see there were tears in his eyes as well. Behind them I could see that there was a man in uniform standing in the doorway. I could see the flashing lights reflecting off the glass doorway.
At this point I feared the worst; and it turns out my fears were entirely justified.
“What’s wrong mom?” I asked, my voice trembling.
She couldn’t even look at me. All she did was sob more heavily into the tight embrace of my father.
My father turned to me and looked straight at me as if his eyes were tearing into my soul. I could see the tears welling up in his eyes.
“She’s gone Arty…”
“She’s gone.”
“Well that’s certainly an impressive imagination you have there,” Helping Hooves responded as he smirked at the horrified looking nurse standing next to him.
“Yes sir, I’m sorry if I freaked out Ms. Redheart,” I apologized profusely, after clearly having traumatized his co-worker.
After my slip-up, the doctor had come in looking for an explanation. Luckily, I was given enough time in the interim to come up with a good story. I explained to him that my ‘friends’ and I would often play a game where we would pretend to be ‘carnivorous creatures from another dimension’, and blamed my recovering memory for the unintended phrase. Even if the story was ridiculous, he bought it because to believe the alternative would probably have been truly horrifying. After this mistake I was beginning to believe that my credibility was wearing thin.
“I’m sure you’ll have your chance to apologize to her when she comes back tomorrow. She’s usually not one to hold a grudge; especially against somepony so young and impressionable,” he said with certainty.
“It’s good to see that some of your memory is coming back.” He looked at me hopefully. “Is there anything else that you remember?”
I paused for a moment in contemplation. “I’m afraid not sir.” I replied; feigning sadness as to not arouse suspicion. Hopefully soon I will have more than five seconds to come up with a real plan.
“Worry not boy. That subconscious slip-up is a good sign that things should be returning to normal soon.” He quickly wrote something down on his clipboard before addressing me again. “Why don’t we get you washed up. You must feel pretty gross after lying in bed for three days.”
His comment caused me to reflect on my current state of affairs. As much as I didn’t want to, after a moment of thought, I found myself in agreement with the Doctor. Well he was right about one thing; I sure could use a good shower. “That sounds good to me.” I replied honestly.
“Nurse Clearview, why don’t you go help him up. He must be a little sore from being stationary for so long.” He nodded to the red coated nurse with the dirty blonde mane standing next to him. She had a tattoo of a pair of glasses on her flank which jumped out as a little strange to me.
Come to think of it, all three of the ponies I had met so far had similar tattoo’s; Nurse Redheart with an image of a red cross and Doctor Helping Hooves with a detailed depiction of a stethoscope on his flank. I really hoped that this trend was not something they would expect me to participate in; I had never been a fan of tattoos. I didn’t have a problem with the concept, it’s just that I had never felt like there was an image out there that really encapsulated everything that I tried to represent. Maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself here. Heck, for all I knew I might already have one of those flank tattoos. I hadn’t really had the time yet to look over my new body and all of its features.
“Fine,” she said simply. I could tell from her expression that she was probably still not very happy with me.
Hoping to be at least a little self-sufficient, I removed myself from the covers and began moving towards the edge of the hospital bed. As I reached the end of the bed and started to lower myself down, I began to realize that I had made another huge mistake.
“Holy hay!” the Nurse exclaimed. “It’s like you’ve never walked before!”
She doesn’t know how right she is.
After my graceful fall from the edge of the bed, I lay splayed out on the cold hospital tile, trying in vain to regain my breath. The light tinge of a headache that I had when I awoke returned to me in full force.
I’m such a moron sometimes. I thought to myself in hindsight. I should have known that trying to walk quadrupedally would have been more of a challenge. I thought maybe my new body would instinctually know what it should be doing, but as was the theme lately, I guess I was completely wrong.
“Well don’t just stand there!” exclaimed the doctor. “He is clearly experiencing some acute muscle atrophy from the incident.”
I thought to myself that there is no way that my muscles would degrade to such an extent after only being out for a few days; but I allowed him to make my excuses for me. The less I had to spin this story the easier it would be to not get caught. I still didn’t know if these ponies were crazy. Hell, I might be the crazy one here.
I heared the nurse’s hooves clop over to my side as she reached down and started to help me back onto my hooves.
“I’m really sorry about that,” she said sincerely as she pulled me back up to a more stable position. “I thought you were just messing with us and making up stories. I got a little more upset than I should have about what happened with Redheart. I know you didn’t mean to scare her.”
My chest stung a little from the impact but otherwise I thought that I would be fine; it might leave a nasty bruise but not much more than that. I felt even worse being forced to accept Clearview’s apology when I knew that I was the one at fault for what happened earlier.
“Don’t worry about it.” I threw a smile her way while leaning against her side. “I should have known what I was saying. It’s my fault for what happened.”
“There’s no point in lamenting the past,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s get you down the hall so we can get you washed up.”
I nodded back to her as she began to lead me towards the door at the other end of the sterile hospital room. Walking was not an easy task with two new legs to worry about, but it certainly wasn’t impossible while having someone to lean against.
As we made our way to the door, I took note of some of the tech that was spread generously throughout the room. There honestly wasn’t too much to write home about; most of the instruments were mechanical and I didn’t see any computers in sight. Even the cardiograph looked to be more basic than what I would have expected. Either this hospital was severely underfunded, or the technology here was a little behind what I was used to. Hopefully it wouldn’t matter too much; I didn’t plan on staying here for too long anyways.
As we made our way down the hallway, my legs began to fall into a cadence that makes walking much easier. Don’t get me wrong, I was still very clumsy, but I was sure that with a little practice I could be walking normally in no time. Based on the hallways surrounding me I could tell that this hospital must not have been very large. Based on my estimates, there couldn’t have been more than twenty rooms maximum in the whole building.
We stopped walking suddenly as we reached the end of the hallway, and I tripped over myself a little as I attempted to regain my balance.
“Well this is the little colts room here,” Clearview said as she pointed up at the door which had a glyph of a pony on it. I assumed that it must represent a male pony, but I wasn’t really sure how to tell the difference solely based on the silhouette.
“Are you going to need my help getting in there or can you handle it yourself?” she asked me; clearly hoping for me to choose the latter.
“I think I’ll be okay by myself,” I replied; not sure if was actually true, but willing to take my chances anyways.
As I clumsily pushed my way into the room I took a second to analyze my surroundings. The restroom looked a lot like a single occupancy bathroom that you would find in most houses back home. In the center of the room was a large porcelain bathtub clearly made to fit creatures much bigger than I.
Before I stepped into the tub to take the bath that I most certainly required, I noticed a large standing mirror on the other side of the room and took a hesitant step towards the imposing pane of glass.
“Here goes nothing…” I muttered to myself as I approached the view of the mirror.
What I saw didn’t shock me as much as I thought it would; apparently all of my adrenaline was used up in the episode from earlier. That isn’t to say that I was too happy with the figure I saw staring back at me.
A miniature pony with an ashen coat and short royal purple mane stared back at me in contemptment. It is clear from the nature of his countenance that he was just as unhappy with the current situation as I was. As I tilted my head to the side to get a closer look at the horn perched atop my head I noticed a single turquoise strip that ran along my short mane. Also short in stature, my horn was only a few inches long and spiraled into a relatively sharp point at the tip of the conic.
I rotated my frail body in an attempt to check if I had one of those flank tattoos that all of these ponies seem to have for one reason or another. Much to my relief, my flank was completely bare of any markings.
“No ass tattoos for me today.” I smirked in an attempt to find any humor in my current situation; however, my smile quickly faded as reality set in once again.
Well, enough of that. I told myself as I turned towards the tub and climbed up the small set of steps that they had placed leading up to the basin; clearly a design meant for children to get in without assistance.
“What has my life come to…” I muttered to myself as I turned the dials seated next to the faucet.
As the water filled up to a reasonable height I allowed myself to relax the tension that had built up over the last few hours of poor decisions. It felt good to let go for a moment and to allow the warm water to envelope my worries; but I knew that I couldn’t relax for long. I had some important decisions that I need to give serious consideration.
Telling them the truth, at least for now was completely out of the question. I knew that they believe in something they call magic in this world, but that doesn’t mean they were going to believe my crazy story. I needed to figure out what happened to me, and what caused me to be transported here. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t really remember much about what happened immediately before the incident.
The company I worked for goes by the name of United Defense Services; a military contractor that specialized in building radar and long range missile defense systems for the US Government. We usually didn’t get to know too much about the projects we were working on due to their classification, but I distinctly remembered my team making a major breakthrough in the system that we were developing at the time I was transported here.
It was aggravating, but for the life of me I could not remember what we were experimenting on the day that I was mistakenly transported here. I racked my brain looking for an answer, but every time I thought I was getting close, the information just escaped my grasp.
A quick knock at the door interrupted my concentration as I heard a voice from the other end of the door.
“Are you okay in there Arty? We don’t want you getting hurt in there,” said a small voice from the other end of the door. The voice sounds a lot to me like Nurse Redheart, but I assumed my mind was playing tricks on me because the doctor had said that she had gone home earlier.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I replied indignantly. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
I knew that I couldn’t be too mad; they were only doing their jobs in looking out for me. I would have done the same in their position; especially if I thought I was working with a child that had just been in an accident.
After quickly scrubbing myself down with the various soaps and shampoos that they left along the side of the basin, I drained the tub and carefully stepped back down to the floor. I’d never dealt with being covered head to foot in fur before; I wasn’t into that sort of thing. Sadly, it was much more difficult to dry myself off with a towel that I had originally anticipated. After many trials, much to my own dismay, I ended up opting for the ‘wet dog approach’ to getting myself dry. It was quite effective is removing the water from my body, but it also did a pretty good job of painting the room with water.
After doing the best I could to sap the walls and floor of water as to not piss off the hospital staff, which must already hate me, I clumsily brushed my mane before stepping out of the bathroom to look for Nurse Redheart.
I didn’t have to look very far as she was standing in the reception area that was directly adjacent to the bathroom I was just in. Despite our earlier interaction she appeared to be quite happy right now and wore a bright smile on her face as she turned to look my way.
“I’m sorry Arty. I shouldn’t have left yesterday,” she said to me with a downcast look.
“You shouldn’t be the one apologizing Ms. Redheart, I was the one who messed up.” I told her as a took a few steps towards the lobby.
“Nonsense! Don’t worry about it, the doctor and Nurse Clearview told me all about what happened,” she said with a nod. “And I’m glad to see you’re feeling good enough to be walking around.”
“Thanks,” I replied “I’m certainly feeling much better than I did this morning.”
“That’s not the only good news Arty!” she said with a knowing smile.
“Oh?” I responded quizzically.
“We found your parents Arty! Isn’t that great!” she exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm.
I was absolutely stunned with this sudden development.
“My what??”