//------------------------------//
// Chapter 0 - Sudden Arrival 
// Story: Going Home 
// by abandoned14 
//------------------------------//

Nicholas races in through the glass doors and down the hall before him. His shoes squeak annoyingly with every step, as the rain water upon them smears against the hard tiling of the pale floor. He doesn’t notice it through the music playing out of his earbuds. He removes the earbuds to put them away in his pocket as he turns down the next corridor. The song “Babs Seed” from My Little Pony is heard from his phone, as he forgot to mute the volume before unplugging the earbuds. Others in the hallway stare, their gazes irritated by the sudden interruption of music and shoe-squeaking.

“Gah! Sorry,” yelps Nicholas, as he hurriedly tries to find the volume buttons on his phone. In the panic he slips and quickly smacks down onto the floor. His jacket’s hood opens and covers his head, but he pushes it back into place on his neck. The weight of his backpack and all of it’s textbooks hold him down as he checks his phone screen for cracks. As he gets up, he checks to make sure he didn’t drop anything else such as his wallet. He begins to notice a slight ringing in his ears for a second and a light headache begins in his skull. Ouch...

“Are you okay, man?” A stranger asks, lowering his phone and turning towards him.

“Uh, yeah. Thank you.” Nicholas checks his wrist watch as he sets back on his course down the next hallway. 11:58 am. He has less than two minutes to make it to class. He normally wouldn’t be worried, except that today he was about to take the Chemistry II Third Exam and needed all the time he could get beforehand. Nicholas isn’t too worried about his grade in this class since he has the highest grade, but about his overall GPA this semester. If he underperforms in school, he is likely to lose his scholarship and be forced to drop out of college half way through. Until he works a labor job to earn the money to come back, that is. Needless to say, his family back home would not let him forget that for the rest of his life. Though neither would he.

Nicholas is a dedicated student. His goal is not just to get an A. He finds it personally unacceptable to let someone get a higher grade than him. He refuses to become a side-character and is ready to earn his place above his competition, where he belongs. Nicholas wants to live up to the expectations placed on him by his family. To stand out from his classmates. To stand out from his siblings. To stand out in general. Nicholas deserves respect and he will fight for it. As he thinks over this in his head, his heart begins racing as he feels energy pumping through him. Haha, I need to calm down. It’s just an exam.

Nicholas slows himself as he approaches one of the lecture hall doors. Alright. He takes a breath to slow his heart rate then opens the door. He first checks if the professor has handed out any exams yet. She has not. He now checks if his favorite seat is taken. It is. This is likely due to the assigned spread-out seating during exams. He takes a seat that has an empty space on either side to extend the checkered pattern of students across the room. He rests his jacket on the seat’s back and turns off his phone. As he reaches for his Chem II notebook, he hears his professor speak up in her aged, crisp voice.

“Alright folks, we have an exam to get through today so put away your papers, turn off your devices, and don’t forget to write your number at the top of your exam when it's passed to you. You will have 75 minutes to complete the 15 questions. Um, there’s a free seat back there, Miss. You are all required to-” Nicholas tuned the rest out to close his eyes and concentrate on rehearsing the information he would probably be asked to recite. He plans to write it all down on the front page immediately to make sure he doesn’t forget it after a few problems.

Calm down. It’s fine. Take a breath. He arches his back out and reaches forward in a long stretch. It pops. As he closes his eyes, he leans back and lets the sound of the professor slowly walking closer, row by row, and the soft wiping of papers across the tables wash over him and become the only thing he senses. He matches his breathing to her slow footsteps across the room. The harmonic rhythm syncing together seems to put him in some sort of relaxed trance. He often finds light meditation such as this helpful before an exam.

After a few seconds he notices something off. The pattern of sounds he had been vibing to had changed. They became more spirratic, yet also different in general. The room had also grown warmer in this brief pass of time. The sound of his professor’s footsteps had ceased to approach him, though he still hears the rhythmic patter of a soft clapping sound. He tilts his head toward the noise and opens his eyes to see a bright azure sky bordered with treetops above him. He locates the sound as a bird pecking from one of the tree branches. Oh, okay. He closes his eyes again before snapping out of his trance. Confusion and fear pulse through him. What? He slowly begins feeling grass against his back. After a moment, he builds up the courage to open his eyes again. He is no longer in the lecture hall.

He peeks around for any danger before moving but finds nothing other than bushes and trees. He’s laying in a thin clearing in a forest. The trees loom up high above him, with foliage and various plant life surrounding the clearing. The warm sun presses against his face.

He rolls on his side to place down an arm for leverage, but notices a furry yellow sleeve covering it. What am I wearing? He leans and goes to place his other arm down to lift up, but halts when he realizes something off with his limbs. Are my elbows… backwards? He tries to shoot up onto his legs, but loses his balance and falls back onto his side.

What’s happening? I don’t understand. He manages to get up on all fours before realizing that his legs are about the same length as his arms. Umm. He turns his head to gaze at his body and notices a shiny white tail. His feet meet in a more cylindrical shape than usual. He looks around at his surroundings, listening to the soft melody of the morning birds and the woodpecker from earlier as they fail to calm him.

Am I a horse? Nicholas tries to turn around to look at himself, but continuously falls. This is so… odd. After a moment, he manages to adapt to his legs enough to successfully spin. He is definitely a horse. He sits down and looks up at the sky. After a moment of pondering his situation, something hits him.

“My exam!” He shouts, hopping up and looking around quickly as some birds fly away from him, startled. I really need to wake up, I can’t sleep through this. I can’t sleep through this. He closes his eyes to listen to the woodland sounds once again. Water. He stumbles his way towards the sound of flowing water to come across a shallow creek flowing before him.

Before diving his head in, he stares into his reflection with wide eyes. He is a yellow stallion with a clean white mane to match his tail. His eyes are blue and oddly cartoonish. He notices a stumpy little horn. Not only am I a horse… I’m a My Little Pony… His head flicks up as he blankly looks ahead, lost in thought. His gaze swiftly translates to his flank. No cutie mark? He looks back at his reflection and dips his head in the water. Okay, this is great, but now is not the time. Wake up! Wake up! His snout is wrapped in coldness and he feels part of his mane tug downstream with the flow of the water.

He holds his head under until he’s forced out for air, panting. I’m still here. He takes deep breaths to refill his lungs. This is an odd dream. Is it lucid? Can I control it? Nicholas tries to make various objects appear and disappear to no avail. Can I fly? He winds up a run, but lands roughly and trips over. I don’t know how to use these legs properly. I’ve gotta be able to control something. He stares at a stick on the bank, jutting out of the dirt between some daisies. Come here. A soft purple aura engulfs it as it slowly begins to levitate. Whoa! He tries to slide it closer, but ends up throwing it at himself. He ducks as it zooms overhead, splashing in the stream behind him.

He leans in to watch ripples crawl away from it across the water, but winds up getting caught in his reflection again. Yellow pelt, white mane, purple magic. Not the best color combination, but I’ve seen far worse. He looks back at his bare flanks. I don’t look too young yet I don’t have a cutie mark. Am I just not creative enough to think of one?

Nicholas’ mind wanders back to his exam. If I don’t wake up soon there is no way I’ll keep the highest grade in Chem. He remains in awe at this dream. He’s never had one like this. He’s also never fallen asleep in class before. Did I just stay up too late?

He thinks back to the lecture hall. Surely someone will wake me up? I hope I’m not snoring. Is this a dream? If it is, any other time would have been fantastic. Right now is one of the worst times. I need to get back. He continues reciting the information he wants to jot down on the first page of the exam as he begins awkwardly trotting downstream. If I’m gonna be here for a while, I may as well practice for the exam.