//------------------------------// // Stolen Soul // Story: Forever Changed // by ShadowedKnight68 //------------------------------// On a late night in December a man at the age of twenty eight drove down a dark road, his name was James Harkin, at the moment he was traveling to his girlfriends house, Christmas was in four days and for the holidays he was planning to spend those four very speacial days with her. But she had moved away a few months back, that meant they couldn't see each other often, it was hard but they fought through it and kept their relationship strong, now he was gonna surprise her by driving all the way to where she lived, that was only one of the surprises he had in store for her, the second was a ring. They had been dating for over a year now, James thought he was ready to ask her to marry her. While he thought about it he was starting to tingle with excitment. As he was driving, something strange started happening, he started hearing a high pitched ringing in his ears, while something in his chest was being pulled on hard, it was very uncomfortable and starting to get stronger. "Ngh...what the hell?..." He said confused, the pulling dtill getting stronger ever second. Then there was a hard pull, his vision went black as he passed out. ~~~~~~~~~~<>~~~~~~~~~~ It was cold, that was the first thing he noticed when he woke up, the second was that he was laying on the ground, he must have crashed and got thrown out of the car, he groaned and forced his eyes open, an action that should have been easier then it was. He was in a forest, so he thought that he must of hit a tree and was thrown into the forest in the crash, judging from the pain in his leg and arm and the throbbing in the middle of his forehead he probably didn't have a pretty landing. Images of him rag dolling through the window and hitting the ground played in his mind, most people would have cringed at the sight, he chuckled at how he imagined it, it looked funny actually much like a game, but his chuckling stopped when he heard it. His chuckling sounded feminine, first time he's heard of a person getting a female chuckle after a car crash, he then noticed the dark purple colored strands of hair fall into his eyes 'That's definitely not normal' he thought. He then saw an odd shiny black shape in his vision where his nose should be, he lifted his hand to touch it but a black stump with holes in it came into view, he jumped away from it, he couldn't see it anywhere now, nothing looked like what he saw a few minutes ago, but soon a fearful thought entered his mind, he slowly lifted his hand up again, the stump returned but this time it was shaking with fear. James' heart was beating faster, he slowly looked down at his body, his pupils shrunk to pinpricks. His entire body was black and shiny, it looked like a bugs exoskeleton, but for a four legged animal. At that moment he then realized it wasn't a stump he saw for his hands, it was a hoof, though a hoof that looked like it had been shot several times. He was some bug horse? One with holes in its hooves and purple hair and tail, even the hair had holes in it, he rubbed her head with his new hoof and bumped it against something hard on his head, he winced at the feeling, whatever that was it was really sensitive at the moment while being sore at the same time. He reached up with both hooves and carefully and lightly felt it, it bent in a bunch of directions and went pretty far up from his head, it ended with a sharp point at the top. He thought for a minute on what it could possibly be, it was connected to his head so it wasn't just sitting there, it then hit him it was a horn. So wait he was a bug unicorn? 'What the hell`s going on here?' He thought as looked around nervously. He thought about it for a moment, odd black bug horse with holes in its hooves and purple web like hair, his eyes widened with realization. "I'm a changeling" his hooves shot up to his mouth quickly hearing a woman's voice with a weird reverberating sound to it, but the action of quickly throwing his hooves to his mouth ended up being a double punch to his face "gah fuck!" He yelled falling on his back, he rubbed his now sore muzzle. 'Ok note to self don't do that again..' He sat back up and felt an odd twitching on his back, as this happened he felt weird muscles move and a weird flapping sound. James looked behind and looked at his back. He saw large purple colored wings, so that explains the muscles moving and the flapping sounds, now back to his other more important mystery He cleared his throat "testing" once again the woman's voice spoke out "crap..." He looked down between his legs and noticed a very important part that identified his correct gender was missing. It was disturbing to find out that he was now a woman but like a grown man he held it together. In reality he screamed his lungs out and fainted. ~~~~~~~~~~<>~~~~~~~~~~ "Ngh...wha?" He woke up and rubbed his head 'man what a crazy dream, I thought I was a girl changeling hehe, woo I probably shouldn't watch mlp so much before going to sleep anymore' he opened his eyes, he was still in the forest "oh crap" he whimpered. His breathing escalated while his eyes darted all around "o-ok calm down calm down...how can I calm down in this situation?!" He screamed freaking out "Ima chick bug horse in the forest!" He yelled to no one while flailing his arms around in the air. He took a couple of deep breaths and calmed down slightly "Okay..okay, I need to stay calm, I can't freak out I need a clear mind to figure this out" he decided to distract himself by thinking about something else "Man if Elizabeth were here she'd be laughing...Elizabeth!" He yelled with realization "Oh my god! What am I going to tell her?!" His mind raced with hundreds of thoughts about Elizabeth and his situation. He stopped on one thing, the ring, where was the ring? He looked around for it hoping it didn't get thrown to far in the crash, but luckily he spotted the box by a tree. It was a couple feet away, he put his hooves under him and pushed up making him stand. James wasn't expecting to go so high up, his legs were way longer than expected, he was not used to standing on all fours so he wobbled and struggled to stay standing, he eventually spreaded his legs further apart to keep himself standing. He doubted he could even walk with these but he needed that ring. He walked towards it with determination in his eyes. He ended up stumbling way to far right, then way too far left. He then stumbled and fell right in front of the box, he reached his hooves out and pulled the box closer and struggled to open it, James had to be sure the ring was still in it, he eventually opened it finding the ring inside undamaged "Whew...thank god..." he sighed, a wave of relief washing over him.. He closed the box and held it close to his chest "Okay, I don't care if I look like this I'm gonna get to Elizabeth and I'm gonna propose to her" he said to himself "Maybe she'll like it? She does really like the show..." He had to admit, he wasn't to confident in this idea at all. But he needed to get out of this forest and find help or shelter, it was getting colder and colder out. He knew one important thing about bugs, they did not do well against the cold. A problem popped into his mind, how would he find a safe place if he can't even walk right and also hold a box? He didn't have hands or pockets, he could maybe set it on his back? But it would probably fall off, he only had one other option really, he grabbed it with his mouth and stood up. It wasn't very pleasant tasting but he tried not to think about it, he started to try and walk. It was hard to not get his legs tangled together when walking , they were so long, he was not used to walking on all fours at all, they'd send him crashing Into the ground a lot during his walk, that resulted in him hitting his muzzle in the dirt. Yeah having your face extend outward also was new, and painful when he faceplanted, this happened a lot while walking. ~~~~~~~~~~<>~~~~~~~~~~ James had been walking for what he assumed were hours now, he got this information from the sun now setting and the moon beginning to rise, he still hasn't found a good place to stay in this cold weather. His knees were pretty scuffed up, and his nose was bleeding from hitting it when falling. As he walked he suddenly spotted a cabin a couple meters away. Joy filled him while he went to run to it, he forgot that he's actually never tried running with these legs before. This resulted in him tripping, falling, and rolling the rest of the way to the cabin, he slammed against the door and fell backwards hitting the ground with a thud, he groaned and puked the ring box back up that he had accidentally swallowed in the rolling. "...this...sucks...so much..." He groaned and sat up, he grabbed the box again and went to open the door, he discovered that the door was locked "You can't be serious" he growled having enough of this day, his speech was muffled from the box "fine you don't wanna open the normal way, then I'll just bust you down" he backed up and ran at the door making sure not to trip this time. He then slammed against the door and was sent flying backwards into the trees. He dangled from branches his eyes rolling in his head "Okay...that's a strong door..." He moaned and heard a cracking sound "crap" the branches broke and he fell to the ground. He huffed and walked towards the door "So...sick...of this...crappy day..." He groaned and stood up, he glanced over to the right of the door and saw keys hanging on a hook, he looked up at the sky "I'm not sure what gods are out there but you really, really suck and I hate you" he set the box on the ground and grabbed the keys with his mouth, they tasted like rusty metal, he shivered at the taste, he then turned the key in the lock and it unlocked. He chuckled victoriously and pushed the box in the house and walked in, he kicked the door closed behind him and spit the keys out. The first thing he saw was a fireplace and firewood "Haha yes now the gods now of my hate for them so they give me good fortune haha" he laughed and walked to the fire "Alright...how do I light this thing?". He sat there for a while thinking about it and decided to clack two rocks together until they made a spark, this took a long time with little success. He grumbled as he clacked the rocks together harder, he felt a tingling sensation in his head but ignored it as he focused on trying to make a fire, there was then a green spark and a fire started in the fireplace "Haha once more I am granted victory thank you kind gods" he chuckled and laid down on the rug on the floor by the fire, he pulled the box close to him and watched the flames. Already he felt warmer. "Alright after this I'm gonna find a way out of this forest and get to Elizabeth, then try and explain that I'm me. Then I propose to her, then we try and fix me, yeah this should go good...hopefully" James laid his head down and sighed as he closed his eyes trying to get some rest for the night. He had a long journey ahead of him.