EIN KLEINER SCHRITT FÜR DEN MENSCHEN
In a cold and dark night that has fallen fast upon the land, the evening colour has faded leaving only a purple sky with shining stars to be looked upon, the torches being carried by the guards inside the castle are the current only source of light in the place as they also make a presence in Canterlot.
The moonlight enters through the windows of the room, where the human is lying on his back.
He begins to move, slowly opening his eyes. The cold breeze from the coast blows and almost momentarily freezes Peter, waking him up immediately.
He tries to get out of bed, but is taken by surprise by seeing the place where he currently is, I mean, that is the bed for a king, how did he arrive here?
"What the fuck is this place," Peter says softly, with a trace of fear in his voice, not remembering anything that happened before.
A clock makes a ticking sound as Peter analyzes his surroundings. The cold breeze crawls on his skin. He tries to warm himself with one of the bedsheets, noticing at the same time that he is half-nude, all clothes gone except for his underwear.
Glancing at each corner of the place, it seems that his current location is some king of stylish German room that could be in a medieval castle, it has a sense of royalty in it.
He tries to get up but is halts himself at the feeling of something sticking and hurting in his left arm, that being a needle connected to a bag of water. Somewhat of what would you see in a hospital room.
This place couldn't be a clinic, it looks more like a room designed to receive the Kaiser, it's decorations and the soft bed makes him sleepy again...........
He slaps himself off the trance, deciding to concentrate on his current dilemma.
"This is .... a kind of clinic inside the Neuschwanstein Castle?" Peter speaks to himself again, pulling the needle out of his vein very carefully, trying to not screw himself up.
He notices another thing all thanks to the help of the moonlight, something that is unnatural on Earth, by the way. It lets him see that someone has sewed his skin, with a long scar representing a cut.
Peter begins to analyze the scar, leading to not only one, but several scars through the zone of his rib. He puts a hand on one of them and makes pressure on the area, immediately feeling pain while he wheezes.
That was a really bad idea, but he discovers that something or someone made this injury to him, as that pointy feeling in his rib is a sign that it was injured, and it's just starting to heal.
His happiness immediately rises when he sees his suit all cleaned and organized on a classy. He quickly jumps off the bed and walks barefoot on the cold marble floor.
Getting close to it, he sees that under them, there are also his causal clothes, the ones used under the spacesuit.
Wasting no time, he puts his grey pants, his blue stockings, and a white t-shirt with an iron cross located on the left side of his chest. When he is about to begin to put his spacesuit on, he analyzes with suspicion the scratches on it, like if something would have......
"Fuck...." a faint memory comes back to his mind, the trip of Freiheit 8 and his arrival in Naples, which leaves him more confused, maybe those events were only a dizzy dream, ”I am supposed to be on the CSM right now....”
His fear begins to boil out of his mind, his breathing becomes heavier, almost at the point of hyperventilating, the sinking feeling that you are alone.... but is he alone?
Peter thought, ”it is impossible, it was simply just a dream. ” He begins to smile half-heartedly, trying to find an excuse for his unexpected appearance in a castle.
”What the...” Peter mumbles, feeling something picking on his pant, he slowly puts his hand in his right pocket, revealing something that didn't give him peace, but more insecurity of the place where he currently is, the Iron Cross award.
It shines gloomily thanks to the moonlight, the silver and the black obsidian brighten upon the night.
Peter stares at it solemnly, his heavy breathing appears again, and hyperventilation is threatening to happen for the sake of his feelings. Peter closes his eyes, and clenches his fist with the Iron Cross inside of it, trying to meditate, calming himself down.
After all, astronauts are trained to pass through highly stressing situations without losing their mind, but that doesn’t mean that magical teleportation you could say, doesn’t give fear to anyone, first, he is stranded on a planet, and then he is magically teleported to a medieval castle.... maybe he is right, everything was just a dream.... right?
He puts on the spacesuit, part by part leaving only the helmet, taking it with his left hand, he then decides to go to one of the tables in the room, as this one called his attention because it is where the pistol, the iPod, and the headphones are located.
One of the things Peter notices is that the safety of the weapon is deactivated, a red led light appearing on it.
He quickly pulls the small lever, activating a green light.
The highly technological advanced pistol has the name of the Sturmwaffe M-9, specially designed for an emergency case in outer space.
Peter is freezing even with his suit on. He walks towards the source of this cold winds, that being the open window, that it is an exit towards a small balcony.
Overlooking out the city and the Equestrian plains down below, Peter stares out the beauty of Equestria, seeing a small city just….. an almost floating city on the mountain, being supported by only two columns upon a tall rocky mountain.
The city is quite a sight, even from that long-distance, you can see a classic style, with a similar aspect to Paris and in some areas to the imperial capital, Berlin.
Beautiful houses and large palaces can be seen below of the castle, neoclassical styles, something too old for the current time. This immediately alarms Peter even more, to begin with, he is in a place that challenges the laws of physics and gravity, and this can be recognized as a compliment coming directly from an aerospace engineer like him, and also, he is in a mysterious medieval castle, Bavarian if I could add, that releases both a calm and creepy sense at the same time.
The city has an apparent trace of not being in modern times, even the most desolated and old cities in Europe have modern architecture these times.
He then looks down, supporting himself on the metallic fence all around the balcony, in which he sees an abyss, hearing the turbulent sounds of the water hitting the rocks in what he believes is the moat of the castle, giving him a sinking feeling.
Peter gulps in fear, "who designed this..."
He suddenly leaves the balcony with fear at the chatting sound coming from inside. Closing the glass doors, he steels himself for anything that could be around the place at that moment.
”Someone…” no one responds, ”who is in there! answer me," Peter exclaims. He firstly doesn't hear anything, only the one of the ventilation and the other of the wind from outside, when suddenly, the chatting voices are heard again, but not from this room, but from outside of it, more specifically, coming from behind of the wooden doors.
"I'm fucking dead, or I'm just dreaming," he says, approaching the two doors, slowly opening them with the handle, sweating a little bit for the strange feeling, magical you could say.
He mentalizes himself only on positive things, breathing one more time, he opens them fiercely, immediately looking side to side in the front. His confusion is diverted when a metallic sound is heard from below, making Peter look down, and…. what he sees are two very short equines, looking at him with eyes that could say fear and at the same time courage, dressed in a Roman-style armour, with sharp iron spears, and a rigid body position.
"Two ponies ....." Peter says out loud, leaving a resounding silence, suddenly, he begins to laugh at the thought that occurred to him, "maybe I'm in the circus of hell or something like that, hmph, but if I always pray to God"
Peter looks at the ponies with seriousness at this point, slowly moving forward to the end of the hall, which makes the two ponies point their spears at him, and at that reaction, Peter immediately shows a frown on his face, as he puts his hand on the pistol that is located on his waist, "I don't want problems .... emm ponies, so chu chu, go eat emmm leaves or whatever the circus ponies do."
One of the things that largely confuses Peter is the fact that these ponies have the force to charge some spears, as well as they can bend their limbs to move them with swiftness.
These ponies aren't anything like the ones on Earth, they are small, maybe the height of a golden retriever dog, their eyes are large, and they don’t have a normal body shape, well, normal body shape to a normal horse or pony.
The two ponies look at each other, changing their eyes again to the human when one of them decides to finally speak, "MEV 'EJ YIJAH WITI'NISMO' PA '!!!!!"
Peter stands still, he is beginning to think that all of this is just an illusion, maybe the drugs that he took for the mission are affecting him right now, because those sound that the ponies just made, they weren’t even close to the sounds of a normal animal, those sounds seemed like words, the pronunciation unites, makes phrases, making Peter raise an eyebrow after the other pony also says something, "ROQ, JE JATLH DUJA'BA'PU '!!!"
"If you are trying to communicate to me, I'll say it, what a fucking horrible job you are currently doing," Peter exclaims out loudly, already being more agitated by the expressions of these ....things, since he is not sure that they are, ponies or something else, a hallucination of the drugs or a dream, just the scary thing of believing and to be aware of something that feels real, but that it can’t possibly be something of the reality, I mean, these things can't possibly be talking, it must be an illusion in his mind obviously.
It can not be true, everything looks very fictitious, something that in a way terrifies him internally. The ponies become mysteriously still and quiet for some few seconds before they suddenly started to walk towards him trying to get him to enter the room again, the two with visible frowns on their faces.
Peter begins to back down, as he holds tightly the pistol handle, waiting for any class of attack coming from these dream creatures, even though, he isn’t planning to make harm them. He stops and gets into a better position to start running.
"I think that I have to GO!!!!" Peter's force is used to kick one of the ponies, causing the other pony to throw his spear towards him, which he quickly dodges and ends up against the wall. Peter looks with his eyes wide open at how the spear nailed that wall, before running off with great speed towards the long corridor, various paintings of ponies are also hanged all around it, which makes Peter’s curiosity and fear rise.
"GHUHMOH WAB!" one of the ponies shouts. A nuclear-like siren begins to sound throughout the castle.
Peter's heart is palpitating with ferocity, hearing the hoofsteps all around the castle, even if he can't see them.
Upon leaving the hall, he discovers that it might have been better to try to escape through the window of the room where he previously was, somehow ... because right now Peter knows that he is lost, the windows are the only source of light by the moon, even though, he begins to become lost in the castle through its giant halls and corridors, he does not even know where he came from, and where if he is going to die, but what Peter wants to really do is leaving this strange dream that he thinks he is having at the same moment, cause' at this point, Peter doesn't know if he went to space.
"What the fuck, am I in a circus of ponies that are trained to make nonsense inside a castle?" Peter says between his breaths as he runs through the halls, his eyes looking where he should go, when suddenly, several ponies appeared in front of him, which made Peter take a hard turn to his right.
"RoQ mev!!!" one of the ponies in the battalion shouts, supposedly that is their commander, as the castle is in maximum alert for the fleeing creature.
Hall by hall, Peter runs, confused and terrified by the meaningless military screams and orders coming from the ponies.
He arrives at a large hall, the windows have the forms and images of ponies, all in a cathedratic way.
His running stops as he sees a whole battalion of ponies running ahead of him. Seeing this, he begins to back down, in which he also has to stop at the sight of another battalion that is chasing him from behind.
Peter begins to hyperventilate again, his eyes ticking through the place looking for an exit, in what he sees, a window right next to him, at his reach....... he just needs to run, and wait for the death to not follow him from behind.
He begins to prepare the grappling hook that is attached to the suit. Before Peter could do anything, a white pony suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of him, which left him stunned and a little bit dizzy for the sudden appearance.
The pony is taller than any of the other ponies, and Peter surely recognized that this is also a pony and not a horse by the form of its body in general. It is not taller than him since it reaches his foreleg more or less, its fur is white, almost as pure as a canvas before painting, its eyes are pink, they do not radiate fear, but peace and security, its composture is strong, also, this pony, in particular, left Peter even more engaged and inquisitive than the others, since it has a horn, just like the unicorns in the Greek mythology, and not only has that, but also wings, white wings with feathers well lying, and a beautiful hair that completely captivates the human, aa gentle wind moves each fibre in it, a rainbow colour almost static and beautiful at the same time.
A crown made of gold with several gems that Peter could deduce to be emeralds and rubies, and her chest is covered by a golden chest plate with a purple gem on the centre of it, but it's hard to tell. By the appearance, Peter concludes that it has to be feminine, by the soft traces on her face, which is weird, and animal isn't supposed to look like that. She approaches the human, walking with a type of shoes for her hooves, made of macerated gold with an inscription on each one of them. The white pony looks at the alien for a moment, the two are staring at each other, the human with fear, and the pony with a look of compassion.
"Qo' vIp, " the white pony suddenly says to the human, in a compressive and soft voice, almost as if it is some beautiful musical notes talking in her voice. Peter blinks several times at the soft tone, but something that puzzles him is.... what is she, a unicorn, or a pegasus, there are no other species of this animal in the Greek mythology.
"Ha', tu'lu' pagh nIS Haj, " the white pony talks once again, in her calm and pacific voice, walking towards the human, which only caused him to back down. From the corner of his eye he is ready to jump, he ain't not going to let a literal thing.... to get close to him, closing his eyes for a second, and breathing, getting ready to jump from the window.
"nuqneH... loS, " the pony talks again, this time her voice more worried than calmed, as she begins to realize what is the human planning to do.
He looks with a frown at the white pony, quickly setting the case down, and taking the leap of faith, which made everyone in the room shout in a way that you could recognize in their language as STOP!!
Peter falls through the abyss with speed, pressing a button on the screen of his arm, making that the grappling hook on the suit to be activated, suddenly anchoring to one of the stones that were very close to the turbulent river below.
Peter feels the force of the sudden arrest, pulling his arm, and feeling and even hearing how a tendon and a bone breaks, obviously a sign of an injury.
Holding the intention of screaming out of pain, he closes his eyes and pressed the same button on the screen again, which causes the cable to be deactivated, pulling him down to the bank of this river, leaving him on the other side of the mountain where this castle is located.
He starts to run, the sand is grey, and that could be noticed even in the middle of the night os for the brightness of the celestial body. Peter runs and runs, trying not to look back, avoiding the thoughts that he was just literally in a castle dominated mainly by ponies.
Looking ahead, something stops him immediately, the land where he currently concludes in a waterfall that is floating…. as well as the whole land where he is. His death is signed between two things, going back to the castle or entering the city where surely one of those things or another weird creature is going to take him and kill him, or throwing himself and being lucky to survive.
He decides to choose the latter for obvious reasons, another leap of faith for him, which causes him to enter the turbulent waters, dragging him at once without any warning of any kind.
Moving in the water, he tries to keep his sight while swimming with the current of the water. He sees the edge, the waters move faster, and in a few seconds, the water throws him at once falling directly into another abyss even higher than the last one falling through the waterfall.
The helmet begins to fog up with the drops of water, because of the speed that he is falling the first thought of death comes directly into his mind but it is not so apparent, because for his bad luck if that is what we can call it, manages to stabilize and fall with a perfect technique in a very deep pond, in which after some brief minutes thanks to gravity, he begins to swim up, feeling how the water is entering through his suitmaking him realize that it must be damaged or broken.
He manages to get out of the pod into the shore, taking off the helmet immediately when he touches land, looking up, watching how the moonlight perfectly goes through the crystalline waterfalls.
"I'm scared..." Peter simply says. Many people might consider those words the ones of a coward, but he is telling the truth, fear is that force that you do drives us to do things we never thought we are going to do just to try to save our lives, In the case of Peter throwing himself from very high places twice plus being trapped in a dreamland.
“Damn it….” Peter speaks, beginning to breathe heavily, the feeling of fear is changed to something else, to the one of rage, hate, something that burns in his chest.
“DAMN IT, FUCKING WAKE UP NOW!!!!” Peter shouts, throwing a small rock into the pond, which bounces on it. Peter is wet, drops of water still fall from his hair, and his eyes have a reddish colour.
Suddenly, a sound behind him alerts all of his senses, coming from a forest that is similar to those found on earth, with differences such as the trees and leaf colours. Hearing the sound again, Peter becomes in total alert, taking out his weapon with his right hand and then cleaning the visor of his helmet a little bit to defog it, he proceeds to put on his helmet again, immediately afterwards running towards the forest, but not to the direction from where the sound came, but to another one, after all, if he stayed there those dream creatures will surely kick his ass in any way of saying it.
Peter has a better view of the place, the moonlight enters the forest through the leaves on the top of these trees, the place feels gothic, abandoned, and in a way makes a feeling of dread to rise in the astronaut's body. Peter manages to reach what is an open field, almost a plain surrounded by other trees. A small ravine crosses the middle of this plain, Peter calms down a bit, breathing calmly, but still alert for any threat he may face.
Peter deactivates the lock on the pistol since he couldn't do it while trying to get away from the previous sound. Walking around the place already with relative peace, the pain in his arm worsened, since now he also feels frozen, as if his veins had exploded internally and then froze upon the cold of this lands, besides still being wet with the water.
Suddenly, several screams begin to be heard coming from the trees, Peter's calmness goes out when he sees torches again and the undisputed sound of swords and armour, the metallic and medieval sound give Peter chills in his back, making him run straight forward, jumping over the creek, he manages to enter the other side of the forest again, to be surprised by another army running ahead of him... it's as if someone is watching him from the sky. The panic increases in him, which makes him take off his helmet and sends a punch directly to his face, trying to wake up from this supposed fantasy he thinks he is having.
Seeing how the blood of his nose was becoming impregnated in the glove of the suit also how the two armies are already fully visible and ready to do something against him, Peter stops hitting himself, putting on his helmet again, opting by the other measure, using the weapon.
"ONE MORE STEP AND I BLOW UP YOU FACES!!!" Peter shouts, trying to threaten these ponies with his gun. The soldiers look at each other confused, in what is followed by approaching him even more slowly.
One of the ponies in armour advances even more than the rest of the formation, using a different armour than the rest, more elegant, with a different touch, perhaps like that of a commander or a general. Another thing that is very noticeable in this pony is its horn, and in exchange for the animal that I found back in that castle, it has no wings. Meaning that it must be a normal unicorn, something that is IMPOSSIBLE in every sense of the word, EVERYTHING in this place is impossible.
"Chay'pen SoH Ha 'jISaHchugh!!!" the pony exclaims, trying to get a firm voice, and even gets Peter to flinch a little bit, but, the German astronaut responds by pointing his gun at him, which makes the soldiers more alert, approaching Peter faster.
"I don't want to hurt anyone!!!" Peter tries to rationalize with the creatures, "BACK THE FUCK OFF!!" he exclaims once again as the pony gets close to him very slowly, like if it is trying to gain terrain.
The pony shows Peter a frown, breathing for a few moments, before speaking in a firm voice, "wa '!"
"The fuck ..."
"cha '!" the pony interrupts him once again, you know, Peter is beginning to think that he is counting ...
"WEJ !!!" the pony in the shining armour exclaims, its horn begins to lit up, something that startled Peter immensely, which makes him to immediately pull the trigger of the pistol and.....
BOOM!!!!!
The sound causes all of the guards to cover their ears momentarily, but their focus is changed to see how their commander screams in pain, falling on the floor, blood all over his leg after the sound, the guards look at their origin, the weapon...
"GHAH JONLU'CHUGH!!!" one of the soldiers with a female voice, shouts from behind, which makes the guards to suddenly run aggressively towards him, Peter looks to his sides, realizing that he is practically trapped, which makes him raise his pistol and shoot the sky, which causes the ponies to be stunned for a few moments for the loud sound it left, giving Peter the time to leave his position by kicking these creatures as if they are soccer balls. Peter manages to get back into the forest, looking back, he can hear the cries of anger from the ponies, which makes him run faster, the area is dark, his position more and more confused, Peter's eyes try to see clearly by using the rays of the moonlight, until…
From the sky, something comes in....entering the forest, Peter sees a pony ... flying, wings, and dark blue fur, a connection with the eyes of this creature, a deep and beautiful teal colour that leaves him looking at this pony for a few moments .... but for his bad luck, the pony opted to use a kamikaze measure, falling directly towards him, raising one of the creature's limbs ..... and CRASH !!!!!
The pony destroys the hull glass, crashing directly into Peter's face, sending him directly into the dream world.....and his body into one of the trees.