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// (2) The Middle 
// Story: Coming Out Of My Cage 
// by Boopy Doopy 
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The first thing Mark experienced was, strangely enough, the feeling of peace, of being at ease with his life. No, not even that. It was more happiness, almost euphoria. The feeling of weight being lifted off his shoulders. It was a feeling that caught him completely off guard, one that automatically made his mouth turn up in a smile. He had trouble imagining how stepping through a door could produce such a feeling, but it was one he immediately recognized as something he was waiting a lifetime to feel, so he decided he would take it. 
The next thing he experienced was the act of falling forward onto his hands… not hands? He was looking right at them, and could clearly feel them on the what was wooden floor below, but what he felt and what he saw were two different things. In place of his hands he saw stumps, purple things covered in what felt like hair. The word hooves came to mind, but that didn’t make much sense. He wasn’t a horse, that he knew.
Or maybe he didn’t know, because turning around, he saw more bright purple hooves that moved at his command, attached to an equine body that he could clearly tell was now his own. It came complete with a bright yellow tail that he had a little trouble in making move and equally yellow hair that fell on his forehead just above his eyes and down his neck and back. Last but not least, he had a stamp on his flank, a picture of a flag with colors that made him blush at their meaning, if he even could in his current form.
“What in-” he started before quickly stopping and shutting his mouth, his eyes going wide at the voice he heard. It wasn’t a bad voice. In fact, he thought it sounded quite nice. But it wasn’t his voice, at least, not fully. He recognized it immediately as his inner monologue, the voice he heard when he read things or talked to himself. It was quite a lovely voice, and many times he wished it was what his voice sounded like in the real world, but never in his life did he imagine it would.
The urge to glance down under him to see what was between his legs was strong, but he avoided it, just in case what he saw would lead to disappointment. Not that he really needed to. He could already tell without looking that he was a female now, a thought that made his heart flutter again. Not that it meant anything. Even if he was… a certain way, being a female now didn’t change anything. It wasn’t like any of this was real anyway. People didn’t just get randomly turned into horses. A tiny bit annoying, even given how at peace he felt now that the weight he carried before was gone, but not something that would make him or break him. He still would rather have been a human though.
“I’m surprisingly calm about all this,” he said aloud, testing his new voice out as he stood looking out at the empty room in front of him, doing his very best to keep from smiling happily at how feminine he sounded. “Where in the world am I?” he asked himself.
For now, that was an easy answer. He was in what looked like an empty closet or storage room, one holding… he didn’t know what. A large assortment of things from the looks of it. Books and papers and feather pens and candles and chalk and whatever else there was that he couldn’t name. Shelves of stuff lined all the walls around him, the exception being the wall that the door was along behind him and the one in front of him, containing the road to somewhere else. It reminded him of a teacher’s closet or the backroom of an office supplies store, and if he were anywhere else, he would’ve thought it was such.
He carefully put one purple hoof in front of the other, testing out his limbs as he moved to take a look at what kinds of books this place contained. He read titles that ranged from Arcane Magic and the Properties Thereof to A Guide to Friendship in Equestria to Proper Runic Spellcasting and Magical Symbols to even 1001 Tips on Having the Best Slumber Party Ever. It was quite the assortment of books, and it only served to make him more confused.
“What in the world is going on?” Mark asked himself as he looked the room over. There had to be something in the air, he decided. It would explain his sudden euphoria and why he was hallucinating his house shaking and a secret door under a trapdoor that appeared in his closet. Not to mention, being a purple horse, and a…
“There’s no reason to be so happy about this,” he told himself, finally unable to keep the smile off his face. “There’s probably a gas leak in your house that’s making you hallucinate, and you’re standing here giddy about being a purple horse girl. You could be getting brain damage right now. You’re probably in danger or dying or something.”
He turned his head and looked back at the door he came through, deciding not to think about how awkwardly his now equine body moved as he considered heading back out into the safety of his home. He should probably be getting on the phone with the police or poison control or something instead of standing in someplace he didn’t know. If he was hallucinating, which he thought was a strong possibility, it would be best if he did so in his living room, rather than down here. 
“Then again, is there really any harm in going further?” he asked himself as he turned back to the door ahead of him. If he was already hallucinating, there wouldn’t be any way he’d be able to get back up the ladder that took him down here. Besides, it wasn’t like he had to work right then or anything important to do. There was no reason he couldn’t explore whatever was down here.
“Not to mention, my body and voice…” he said aloud, looking around once again to see if anyone was around him, blushing as he said it. Even as unbelievably nice as it was that his outer and inner voices matched, how he looked and sounded right now, those things didn’t mean anything. Well… of course it meant something. He knew exactly what it meant and why he was so happy about it. But he wasn’t continuing on because of what it meant. It was just a side benefit of this hallucination. Not that he could walk up the ladder as a horse regardless. 
With that firmly in mind, he casually went up to the next door in front of him… and stopped when he saw the knob, frowning to himself. How he was supposed to turn it, he didn’t know. Lifting a hand—hoof—up to try to turn it only made him lose his balance and fall on his stomach. A few more attempts at doing such provided largely the same result.
After a few minutes of falling and bruising himself, he eventually gave in and used his mouth to open it and push his way in. The door opened much more quickly than he expected, and he fell down again, grumbling to himself as he did. His frustration didn’t last long though as he took in the scene in front of him. 
What he saw was a pristine, crystal coated library, one that was filled with thousands upon thousands of books, so many that it put the closet he was in before to shame. The walls were purple, a more muted, darker purple than his coat was, and the crystal wasn’t assembled in any particular pattern, which he thought made it look more natural. There were windows near the ceiling letting sunlight through, which made the place more well illuminated than he would’ve expected. There were a few tables with books on them as well and ladders along the shelves to reach higher up. They didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling though, one that was impossibly high, extending higher up into the air than he had climbed down to reach here.
“This all exists under my house?” Mark asked himself, feeling less and less like he was hallucinating as he stood back up on all fours. While it didn’t make sense for him to be a horse and he did still have that sense of well being about himself, especially when he heard himself speak, he didn’t feel like he was hallucinating. His mental state still felt clear, at least as far as he could tell. Not to mention, at least one of those things could be attributed to something other than a gas leak or him hitting his head.
He took in his surroundings for a few more minutes, noticing the same gold plating on the other side of the door he came through and the same little note attached to the bottom, explaining that he (or she, as the note specified) was the only one allowed to use it. Other than that, despite how impressive the room he was in was, there wasn’t much more to see, other than more books and crystals. He figured he should continue on to see what else there was.
He took the obvious exit out of the large room, entering a long hallway, one that stretched quite a distance left to right. It was lined with dozens of doors on either side, and each hallway ended in a set of stairs leading higher up and lower down. It was a bit daunting to see, and rather than moving forward and getting lost, he decided to stand in the doorway of what he now knew was the library and check to see if someone was around.
“Hello?” he called, pushing down the joy he felt at how nice his voice sounded now. “Is anyone there?” he asked. “I don’t know what’s going on here, and um…”
“I’ll be right there!” someone called faintly from far away, Mark unable to tell which direction it came from at first. “Just… just give me a minute!” the voice said, clearly a young male’s. 
He felt his ears turn in the direction the sound came from now, and headed towards it instinctively. He went to the left and down the stairs, holding back curses as he nearly tripped due to lack of coordination. As well, he mentally kept a log of where he was in his head. As he went, he heard more, the sound of grunting and metal banging against other metal making itself known. As well, he smelled things like chocolate and vanilla and something savory, and assumed he was heading upon a kitchen.
“I’m almost to you,” he called as he rounded the corner into the room, which he figured out was indeed a kitchen, making sure that whoever was nearby knew he was here and didn’t get surprised by him. “I’m gonna come in, okay? But um, I don’t really look like a person? So… don’t get freaked out if you see me.”
“Wait, don’t come in, Starlight!” the person in the kitchen said as he entered. “This is a surprise for- oh. You’re not Starlight.”
Mark stopped in his tracks as walked in to see a tiny purple dinosaur, or maybe a dragon, standing on a stool stirring a pot of something that smelled good. Wearing a chef’s hat nonetheless as he stared right at him. He noticed the green scales and eyes it possessed along with the practically bored looking expression it wore as it continued to stir what it was cooking while it stared at him.
“You sound a lot like Starlight though… or maybe a cross between her and Lyra Heartstrings? But you don’t look like anypony I’ve ever seen. Who are you?”
“Um, I’m Katrina- I mean Mark!” he quickly corrected. “Mark Wiley! And, um, did you just say I’m a pony?”
Obviously he was a pony. It actually made sense now why his PM specifically talked about visiting someone ‘in pony’. Not to mention the fact that he was purple. He didn’t think many actual horses came in that color. Although it only confused him more as to what was going on and reasserted in his mind that he might be hallucinating. 
He was a purple female pony talking to a dragon in a chef's hat cooking a meal. How he was so unconcerned about all of this clearly meant he wasn’t mentally sound right then, even if he was extremely happy about certain changes.
“Uh, yeah?” the purple dragon answered, hopping down from the stool he stood on to make his way up to him. “I’m Spike the Dragon, assistant to Princess Twilight Sparkle! And welcome to her castle! Ah, what are you here for again?”
“I don’t really know… um, I got a PM about eminent domain? And then my house started shaking, and I guess I’m here now? I’m just kind of… I have no idea what I’m doing here, but…” He shrugged his shoulders as best he could for being a pony and gave a small smile, deciding not to question things too much and just go with it.
“Em-something-domain?” he asked. “Twilight told me somepony would be here today asking about that, and she wanted me to give you a letter about it. She also said that if she wasn’t here when you got here to offer you something to read in the library about Equestrian history. But, between you and me, most of her books are kind of boring. I can give you some Power Ponies comics to read if you wanna.”
“Um, that’s fine,” Mark replied, slightly confused and not really knowing where this was going. “Ah, you said there was a letter for me?”
“Yup!” Spike responded, quickly running over to get it off the counter. “Addressed to… wait, you said your name was Mark?” he asked, withholding it from him.
“Well, um…” Mark blushed, looking away. “It’s complicated,” he explained. “I mean, my name is Mark, but… I also… go by Katrina sometimes…” By the time Mark finished, his face practically blood red, finishing his explanation in a whisper as he looked at his feet, or rather, his hooves, absolutely embarrassed.
“Oh, well, I know lots of ponies like that,” Spike said, not really picking up on why he would be embarrassed. “I remember Twilight telling me your name was Katrina, though, but I can call you Mark if you want me to.”
“Um, either is fine,” he answered quickly, his heart fluttering for the third time that day, this time at the thought of being called Katrina in real life. “Whatever you want is okay with me,” he said as he suppressed the urge to smile, still looking at his hooves.
“Whatever you say, Katrina,” Spike responded before extending the paper over to him. “Anyway, here’s your letter.”