This fucking sucks.
That was the powerful thought that percolated throughout your mind as you felt your shoes filled with caliginous water. You lift your foot out of the murky shallows; a heavy sigh escapes your lips. Well this is just terrible. This is, was, the only good pair of shoes you had. A pair that you don't think was salvageable. That sucked hard, knowing that you have to toss them aside to dry your feet to prevent any kind of foot fungus or gangrene. Most, if not all of your clothes, have been ripped to an unsalvageable condition. You take a seat on a nearby rock to view your surroundings.
Shit.
This place is getting dark and getting more frightening. Your skin starts to prickle; it's getting colder as the minutes go by as well. It is as if this place has a supernatural level of chill in the air. This will not fare well for yourself if you don't have a place to hunker down until morning.
Your arm gets heavy and you realize that you have been holding an object for at least a couple hours now. You looked down to see It was a long black case that had a handle with your white knuckled fingers are holding on to so desperately. Near the handle are two metal latches that can be undone quite easily if desired to open this mysterious black case. Finally it sported four little feet to stabilized itself when place on the ground. You scrunched up your face.
I don't remember this, what is this? Why am I carrying it?
You think this, which in turn starts to mole over even more thoughts more alarming than the last.
I think I know what this is. But it came from…somewhere….yes it came from….I don't remember. Why don't I remember? I don't know how you got here, hell I don't remember my goddamn name!
You furrow your eyebrows. You should know who you are, but you don't and that is the most alarming. Your eyes gaze around this supernatural forest. This place.
This fucking place.
The creepy forest must of done something to you. Something to your mind. Maybe, it is supernatural.
Maybe, it wiped your memory and caused to wonder around for hours.
You look at the nearby trees.
These trees, they are not normal, none of this is normal! You bitterly thought.
The frustration broils within you. So much so that it started to get the better your judgement. With a wrathful yell you grabbed the nearest rock and hurled it into the darkened foliage. You winced twice, one from tweaking your shoulder. The other was from the rock tumble and made an echo of breaking branches, making birds scattering away from the projectile.
Your heart skips a beat as it was way louder than you thought it would be. Loud enough to carry out for quite some length into the darkened forest.
That is when you heard it. Crunching branches and heavy foot falls approaching you.
oh shit…oh shit shit SHIT!
You go into a panic and drop the case you were holding; you ducking into a nook of up uprooted tree nearby. You hold your breath and peek your head. Your body freezes as you see something straight out of your nightmares.
Up ahead to see a lion on the prowl. Sniffing the ground and keeping a watchful eye. However just this forest, this lion is not normal. You see that this lion is massive, easily towering over you. It carries mane that is blood red, rows and rows of teeth fit for an apex predator of these lands.
You see it thrashed an auburn scorpion tail knocking out the way loose debris from the forest floor. Faintly you spotted dripping of venom from its tail. More importantly, it was the growls of this beast is getting louder and getting closer to your hiding spot.
Closer and closer to your demise.
Fuck fuck fuck! I'm dead. I'm so fucking dead!
You fight with every bit of will power you have to not just bolt from your hiding spot. The towering lion is coming up on you sniffing the ground.
Go away please go away.
It walks four paces towards your impromptu hiding spot.
Fuck you and fuck off!!
It raises its head to flaring its nostrils, taking in a deep whiff of the night air.
Fuck...it I hope this works.
"Rrrrrraaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhh!!!!"
You unleash the loudest, most gut wrenching bellow of a scream. Bursting out of your spot, you raising your arms as wide as you can making yourself bigger than what you actually were.
Silence.
You stand your ground heaving at your performance of a life time. The creature however was not impressed nor amused by your antics. In fact, you could swear it raised a befuddled eyebrow at you.
"Ahhh….hehehe…." You chuckle nervously. What was once a great plan, now was a terrible plan.
The beast lowers its head while keeping its eyes on you. A villainous grin stretched slowly stretched across its rows of sharp predatory teeth.
"N-nice kitty?" You quiver under your breath.
The creature takes a step forward lowering itself to the ground.
"Nice kitty…" you take two steps back.
Two steps forward, followed by sprinting!
"FUUUUUU-AAARRRHHHHHH!!"
You roll out of the pounce narrowly missing the breast jaws. You hear it finds its mark on the tree behind you. An opportunity strikes now as you use this to your advantage get the hell away from this thing!
Behind your back you heard the splintering tree under the breast jaws. If it can break that thick tree trunk, surely it can break you far more easily.
Death has a funny way of giving people motivation, and this is just extra motivation.
You hoped that the direction you chose was the path of salvation from this cursed forest. Away from that terrible creature. Away from this forest. Just away from all of this nightmare. It had to be this way...
Right?
Just when you think you got away, the beast has found its extricated prey!
You turned, eyes widened at the beast is now on you. It raises its front paw and strikes down upon your smaller form. Your instincts kicked in as you narrowly dodge out of the way of its clawed strike. Another opportunity arose as you used your momentum to change your fleeting path.
But the beast was not going to let you get away this time. Somehow it knew you were going to go that way and prepared accordingly; with the other paw it swiped upward catching you right at the bottom of her sternum.
You gasp; the claws made contact with your tender flesh, ripping up what remained of your tattered shirt. At first you don't feel the pain, but you also didn't feel your feet leave the ground. After a moment of weightlessness you came back down onto the earth.
CRACK!
You land on your back; flashes of white hot pain rocked across your entire body. An audible shriek escaped your lips. This was very very bad. But you don’t care. No. You can take this. You have to take this. You have to escape. You are not going to die here in this strange land. This forest, this damn forest, will not be the last of you.
Survive.
Just survive.
Getting to your feet, you quickly chose another direction to go. There is a new smell that entered your nose. Iron With the corner of your vision you see hot life liquid seeping out of your body at an alarm rate. The time limit was set, your body was the hourglass, your seeping blood the sand counting the seconds before your expiration date.
But you push forward. Keep going. Just keep going, that's all you can do now.
Tha-thud. Tha-thud tha-thud.
You turn your head to hear the beast chasing you down. The look of frustration was apparent on its face. In a quick motion the creature lowered its upper body down and kicked its back legs to aim its nasty barbed stinger at its fleeing prey
A lightning fast stinger lurched forward with deadly precision. The barb sank into your calf. A howl of pain escaped your throat as the venom seeps deep into your muscles.
You keep your pace for just a moment before gravity decided it was your enemy. Your legs muscles falter; causing your face to become welcomed by the cold hard dirt.
Darkness. Painful, numbing darkness.
The beast uses its paw to flip on your back. Your vision swirling with magnificent color. Hot breath welcomes your face as you see the hungry lion close in it's meal.
“Shaaat fuaaahhkiin…” you try to say but your mouth is dry, numb. You try to cover your face but none of your muscles are responding to you commands. Your ears distorted the sound around you. This is it.
Times up.
This is how you are going to die tonight.
With nothing much you can do you submit to the finality of your situation. You prayed that the beast just kills you quickly.
Suddenly, a voice from the distance.
“Over here, I heard it over here!” A feminine voice cries out, followed by the sounds of horses galloping. Cries and whinnies filled the air with urgency. What was odd is that you can tell it was different horses with different pitches, different accents and different tones. Was this your imagination? Or was it the beast's poison in your body messing with your fleeting consciousness?
You don't know.
What you do know is the beast stopped in its tracks. It's eyes looked up with wide eyed terror. Terror that makes you wonder, if you were afraid if this beast, and this beast is terrified of what ever its looking at now, than...
What is more terrifying than this beast?
A glittering bolt of lavender light strikes the chest of the creature from beyond your sight. It screamed in painful agony; you can smell scorched fur from that bullet wound? The force of this blast pushed the beast off of you. The beast disappears from sight as it whimpers like a dog.
You roll onto your side as best you can to see where that beam of light came from. You can't quite make out the shapes. But they are indeed Shapes. Shapes with intense pastel colors. One color that strikes out the most is a yellow cream color that is making its way towards you faster than the other colors.
Wait…is that…no horses are not…yellow, and they don't fly…
You hear more horse cries and calls before that same voice from before enters your mind.
“He's been stung! Applejack please H-help me he's heavy!” said the frantic voice.
The sound of grunts, expatriated breaths, nickers, and squeals that seemed to have a certain cadences to them, you where heaved off the ground. Your stomach disagreeing with this action decided expel all of your contents out onto the forest floor. Catching a little bit on the fur of what you think is a horse. A horse that is short, a horse that is orange and has a very clear branding of three apples in a triangle pattern on its flank?
You feel your head being lifted up to see a closed up face. A yellow face, round, short equine muzzle, with massive aqua colored eyes come into your view. Those eyes, eyes of…what is that...worry? Fear? Some kind of strong emotion you recognize within that yellow face and eyes.
Words start to form in your mouth wanting to thank your saviors of whoever they are, but your consciousness faded from you. All the light and color start to shrink into blankness.
Then nothing. Pure nothing.
Only the feeling of weightlessness and feeling at peace while in this lucid realm of void.
Time seemed irrelevant. Within this void you feel strange feelings. Painful numbing cold. Then a warm sensation wrapping around your whole being. Followed by another cold sensation. Well no, not cold…this felt more damp? A pleasant damp rather than the damp in the forest. You minds starts to wonder.
Where is here exactly?
You try to look around but there is nothing. Is this it? You must be dead. But if you're dead, how can you be here thinking now? Your thoughts wondered if this is hell of some kind. But it can't be hell that you have heard of, right?
A voice coming from nowhere but everywhere at once. A gentle caring voice. Just little quips here and there is all you heard
"He's pretty bad…"
….
"No…"
….
"Yes I know he looks dangerous…"
….
"He was hungry and I-I would have talked him down but he…he's something different. I have never heard such a cry before."
….
I n-never seen one of them before…
…
No, he doesn't look like he's from round the Everfree, or-or anywhere I have seen or heard before.
...
Pinkie don't touch him!"
Pinkie? That sounds like a dog's name.
Then silence. Absolute silence for some time again. You focus on trying to listen again if you can hear that sweet calming voice again.
Nothing.
Wait…not nothing; you hear something.
Some kind of crunching of veggies? Then faint bird chips and song bird calls. Followed by more munching. Huh. There is a pattern to the noises, what this means you have no idea but it is consistence. Some kind of way to keep track of time while you are here.
Another consistent feature of this place is a warmth washes over you once more followed by that damp feeling again. That has been consistent as well. You haven't the faintest clue where this feeling are coming from but it felt…well good. Pleasant actually. Maybe death isn't so bad after all! If only you can see just a little bit rather than being here, wherever here is.
The idea that you are dead was quickly abolished as you felt weight and aching bones again. Then…there is light at the end of the tunnel. Without asking any questions you beeline for the tunnel.
Darkness greets your eyes, but a faint amber glow accompanies this darkness. The sound of a fire crackling nearby and the heat was a welcoming feeling compared the nothingness you felt before.
You lazily open your eyes blinking them to regain focus.
Your eyes pick up some strange oddities.
First of it was night time with a full moon luminated the room from a nearby window. Next you where in a house of some kind, well more of a cottage or a cabin than a house. You were on the floor of this cottage with your back being supported by many different small mattresses clump together side be side. They were adored with many different quilts and blankets that covered your body, adding more comfortable warmth to your body.
You see a pattern in some of these quilts, more horses. But they have wings, some of them have...what is that horns on them? And there is only but a couple that have both wings and horns. You find that rather strange. Stranger is that you knew what they were you just couldn't put your finger on it.
Who ever made these really like horses and have made some creative liberties in the designs.
You can feel the springs press against your back from the mattress you lay upon now. It was soft, but frim enough to support you weight.
Where am I...I'm I....dead?
You try to move but your body protests in terrible agony. You groan and lay back down only getting up by maybe an inch. Your eyes look down to see your chest had been has been bandaged up quite well. You grin, no you are not dead, the opposite of dead.
You were very much alive.
Hurting profusely alive. Which sucks very much right now.
Then you realized something even more odd. A pair of yellow legs straddling your shoulders in your peripheral vision. Coated leg that ends in equine hooves.
You blink at the appendages.
Your eyes got curious and begin to trace the two appendages to see who or what they belong to.
You see it now with your own two eye, that your head seemed to be resting on the belly of this equine creature making a perfect and comfortable headrest for you. Its breathed gently. A peaceful creature slumbering away in your presence. But even stranger is you see a pair of same yellow crème tinted wings that are sprawled out covering you up even more than the quilts.
Finally you notice the head of this creature. You gathered it to be a horse, but that's not right, horses are way bigger than this. This is more of a pony than a horse. A little pony now if you say so yourself.
It looks just enough to be human…noid? But just different enough to fit right snug in the uncanny valley. It doesn't help that it's closed eyelids had eye lashes that lean towards a human femininity.
Its mane is also striking as well. It's pink and long. And instead of just spreading out evenly across its form it has a natural wavy bend to it. You can tell that it has been kept that way on purpose. It looked like someone styled it that way, or maybe it was natural?
You are in utter shock to see this creature here resting its head nonchalantly on you. What do you do? Who's house is this? Maybe the owner is asleep somewhere? Why did they save you from that beast in that god forsaken woods? And what on earth is this small horse with wings?
You tried to get up once more and again your body screamed for you to rest. You sharply inhale loudly as you fall against yourself.
Then you hear it; a small coo of some kind? You look back at your pony pillow and you see it stir a bit in it's sleep
"Rest…"
It murmurs.
You freeze.
Im-impossible…. I just saw it…it's…jaw…moved….and it…it spoke words actual words that I understand!
You felt your emotion take the best of you as you where about to shriek in terror, but instead you felt a tsunami of lethargy hit your very being and drift back to a deep sleep once more.