I squeezed my eyes shut, fear threatening to overcome me. “Oh, please, Lord, please…” I whispered as I lay on the ground, “please don’t let this be real.”
I quickly opened them again to see that nothing had changed since I had them open a few seconds ago. There were still a pair of hooves attached to silver-coated legs in front of me, their view obscured just a little by the Christmas-gold hair I now wore. I watched the foreign limbs start to shake as tears started to well up in my eyes. I desperately didn’t want to be where I was.
“Please, God, don’t let me be here!” I asked again, louder this time. “Please don’t let this be happening to me!”
I was lying on my back, staring up at the moon. It was a clear night outside, calm and bright, and I could sense it was nearing twilight as I heard birds chirping around me. It was quiet where I lay, with dark houses in front of me, signifying that whatever creatures were in there were still sleeping. Creatures like me I assumed, the thought of which made the tears that were forming threaten to spill out.
“Calm down,” I whispered to myself, hating the voice that came out. I absolutely hated it, and felt a few tear droplets work their way out. “Calm down!” I demanded myself, still whispering, trying to take deep breaths. “You’re going to be fine! You just have to calm down. You’ll be okay.”
I was lying to myself. I wasn’t going to be fine. I didn’t know what just happened to me, and didn’t know why it happened either, but I knew four things about my current situation that would make sure I wasn’t going to be fine. The first thing was that I wasn’t at home, or anywhere near it. I didn’t know exactly where I was, but I did know I wasn’t on Earth, what with the strange looking buildings that had overly bright, unrealistic colors, as well as the unicorn shaped face made from the dark spots of the moon. Besides, I knew that no one from Earth looked like how I looked.
My current form was the second thing. I wasn’t a human being. I was a… I didn’t know. I assumed I was something a lot like a horse, but not entirely the same. I didn’t look entirely like one, nor did I feel like one, not that I knew what being a horse felt like. I did know that horses had eyes on the sides of their faces and long muzzles, neither of which was the case for me. The face on this body was rounded, with its eyes in front. As well, the coat I wore felt more like fur than it did hair, and I felt much smaller than an actual horse. The word pony came to mind when I thought about my new appearance.
Because of how small the body I inhabited felt, another word came to mind: child. It was the third thing that was upsetting me. I felt like I was in a child’s body, or, in this case, a child pony’s body. I didn’t want to be a child. I didn’t want to be subject to the whims of others. I knew that whoever saw me- whether human, horse-like thing, or anything else otherwise- would be concerned about me and want an explanation. For some reason, I really didn’t want to deal with that. I did not want to relive childhood, especially not as a horse in a world I didn't.
The final thing I was upset with was my voice. It was squeaky and high pitched like a child’s. More than that, it sounded like a girl’s, with a body to match it. It took only a few seconds of me being here to figure out I was no longer in a male’s body, and I didn’t like it. On its own, it would trouble me, but combined with everything else that was happening at the exact same time, the thought of being a girl now was so uncomfortable that I had to choke back my tears. I had a sudden, extreme urge to break down right then and there.
“Don’t break down,” I thought to myself, closing my eyes. “Don’t break down. There’s no reason to break down. Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
It was a phrase I liked, my confirmation verse in fact, and I found myself saying it often, mostly whenever I was getting frustrated or feeling troubled. To me, it said, "God is always with you and he'll never leave. It's not worth getting angry or upset over little things because He's always with you, and you should never be afraid because He has a plan for your life." However, as I said it, it didn't give me the comfort it usually did. I was still very afraid of my current situation, and felt the very tiniest sliver of doubt in the words I thought.
“Stop that,” I whispered to myself harshly, clenching my jaw. “There's no reason to doubt or be afraid. Figure out what’s going on and where you’re at, and go from there.”
I lifted my head and looked around again for a few seconds, as though I'd suddenly recognize where I was, before giving up. I knew it was a waste of time. Laying there looking around wasn't going to tell me where I was. I needed to get up and get to… somewhere. I didn’t know where, or what to do when I got there, but doing something was better than nothing.
I turned over to my stomach and carefully stood up, my new legs shaking. It wasn’t just the newfound anxiety and panic I had though. The sensation of standing felt awkward, like I was standing on my tippy toes, except with just one toe that was completely flat. It felt like my feet were positioned where my ankles should have been, and I nearly fell over just standing.
“Carefully,” I told myself as I took a shaky step forward. “Go slow.” I felt clumsy as I started forward, moving as slowly as possible to make up for any lack of coordination I now had. My joints didn’t move how I expected, and I had no idea what the correct technique was. Not that it mattered though. I had no idea where I was stumbling off to or where anyone who could help me would be, if there was someone who could do something.
I suddenly felt another wave of panic and terror at that thought, the idea that I would stay here forever, and fell back down to the ground. I was very afraid, but I forced myself to take another breath and push the fear back down. “Surely always,” I whispered again, this time with a little more conviction.
I watched both the sun rise and the moon fall as I stayed laying on the ground. I noticed that they were moving much faster than they would in the real world, and let that observation give me a little hope. It was a bit unnerving to watch, but I took it as a sign that I might have been dreaming. It didn’t feel like one, but it was a convenient and reasonable explanation. The idea that I was somehow lucid dreaming made more sense than the idea of me actually being wherever I was as whatever I was. Not that it wasn’t impossible for me to truly be here, but I was more comfortable with the idea that this was a dream. The idea that I was really here had more uncomfortable implications attached to it than just what was stated before, and I decided that I would just go with the idea that I was dreaming for the time being, despite not completely believing it.
I took a second to try and remember what happened immediately leading up to my appearance, but came up empty. The previous day was blank in my mind, as were the several days before them. It was concerning, but I tried to convince myself that, since this was a dream, I’d have trouble remembering things that happened in the real world. I didn’t know how true that actually was, but I liked the explanation.
I watched as the sun reached the midway point in the sky just a few minutes later before it finally stopped moving, and noticed other creatures, ponies like me, make their way out of their houses. They were a multitude of colors, from dark red to bright blue to brilliant yellow and everything else in between, all a weird cartoonish sort of color that colored everything around me. They had smallish mouths near the bottom of their faces, along with impossibly large eyes that took up about two-thirds of their headspace. It was a bit creepy of a sight to see, and creepier to know that I probably looked very similar to them.
I let the sight of them feed into my explanation that this was just a dream, that this wasn’t real. Nothing this… bizarre looking could possibly exist in real life. The thought calmed me down as I continued to look at them as they did… whatever it was they typically did. Mostly just hurrying off to different places, smiling at and greeting each other as they passed by. As they left what looked to be their homes, I began to see that there were a few distinct differences that separated them into smaller groups of creatures than just horse-ponies. They were simple enough, unicorns with horns, pegasi with wings, and regular ponies with neither. Quickly looking myself over, I saw that I was a regular… pony. Or, as regular a pony I could be, given what I was seeing in front of me.
I took a quick breath and closed my eyes again as I continued to lay on the ground. “Calm down,” I quietly told myself. “This is a dream. This isn’t real. You’re going to be fine because this isn’t real.”
“What are you doing?” someone, somepony, a girl, suddenly asked me, a curious tone in her voice.
My eyes once again shot open as I looked to see a small pegasus who was no bigger than me. She had an orange coat that contrasted well against her purple hair, mane, with matching purple eyes to go along with it. Her wings were small, smaller than I expected, and I got a sort of ‘tomboy’ vibe from her appearance despite just meeting her.
“Why are you laying on the ground?”
“I… I don’t know,” I answered, taking a breath to keep myself calm as I found myself hating the girlish, childish voice that came out, believing a little more that this was a dream. “I’ve no idea what I’m doing.”
She stared at me silently with a questioning look on her face for a few seconds before speaking again. “Are you okay? Cause, no offense, you look like you’re about to cry.”
I closed my eyes for a second and sighed. “Yes, I’m fine,” I lied as I picked myself back up from off the ground.
She watched skeptically as I slowly did so, my legs shaking under me once again. As I concentrated on not falling over, the pegasus asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“This is a dream. It’s not real,” I thought, before answering, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure, but I don’t really know.”
“Okay… if you say so,” she told me doubtfully. “Who are you anyway? I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“This isn’t real,” I told myself again, more forcefully this time. “This. Isn’t. Real. You’re going to be fine.”
"No, I'm not from around here," I answered simply, staring at my legs, my hooves, as I once again started to take very small, shaky steps forward. I wanted to make my way to somewhere else, even if I didn't know where somewhere else was. I didn't know why, but the idea of going somewhere else made me more hopeful that none of this actually happened to me. It made me more hopeful that this was all a dream.
“Are you absolutely sure you’re okay?” the pegasus asked me as she watched me slowly and awkwardly move forward. I nodded my head, but she pressed further, unconvinced. “You don’t look okay. Are you sick?”
“No, I’m fine,” I said, half to her and half to myself. “I’m just… I don’t know. I just wasn't expecting to be here. I’m probably fine though.”
“What were you doing laying in the middle of the road anyway? Trying to get a cutie mark in getting trampled on?”
I stopped my attempt at walking and debated for a moment whether I should ask the obvious question or to just answer with “no”. A few seconds later, I decided that my question's implication, if it had one, didn’t matter since this was a dream. “What’s a cutie mark?” I asked the orange pegasus.
Her eyes went wide in shock at that, as though I asked what year it was. “You don’t know what a cutie mark is?” she asked back, completely flabbergasted.
“No…” I trailed off. “Not really”
She continued to stare at me with eyes that clearly didn’t believe what her ears heard. “Uh, I think we should find a grown-up. You’re definitely not okay.”