Chapter 4: Falling
Falling.
I was falling.
I looked about me to see an endless white void. The only thing that told me I was falling was the immense force I could feel from the air resistance working against me. I felt nothing but a continuous wind buffeting against my entirety. As I fell I made an attempt to open my wings, but I as far as I could tell there was no movement. No matter how much energy I poured into the fibers of my muscles, the appendages would just not comply. I then tried to contort my neck about in order to see if I could grab my wings using my snout and pull them open. Only once I had made the effort to turn my head past my shoulder did I realize that my wings were no longer in place. In fact, I no longer had my light blue fur, nor was I even equine.
I was human again.
I flexed my fingers on my left hand then my right. Yes, I was human. I brought my hands to my face, once more feeling the familiar features of humanity. In awe I looked down at my body to find that I was wearing the same jeans and t-shirt that I had been wearing the night of the incident with the dark cloud in the alleyway--everything down to my socks and contact lenses were present.
This must be a dream.
Suddenly, the expanse began to darken around me, fading from a pristine white to a deep blue tone. Slowly I found that the wind resistance was lessening and eventually stopped entirely. The void seemed to close in upon me and I began to notice millions of small pinpricks of light penetrating the dark abyss and inn only a few seconds the lights grew to the intensity of stars on a clear summer night.
By now I could easily mark my descent by the stars around me and just as easily tell which stars were closest by the rate at which I passed them. At this point I began to realize the true beauty of what surrounded me and I marveled at what wonders I had once taken for granted--there truly was nothing like it.
Just as soon as I began to appreciate the beauty of what I now beheld did I start to hear a faint pinging noise. It seemed to be coming from all around me, and I could see the stars begin to move past me a little faster. I decided to try and orient myself in the direction I appeared to be traveling just so I could get a better sense of direction, even if it didn't matter. I started to rotate one of my my arms outward to get a higher moment of inertia, then proceeded to swing it above my head. This produced a rotation letting my head and feet effectively pivot around my abdominal cavity, thus making me feel as if I were looking 'down'. Once I had reached the intended point I brought my arm back out to my side and slowly lowered it down to clasp with my other behind my back. I was now facing the direction the stars seemed to be coming from.
With my new orientation I noticed that the pinging had risen in volume and had ceased to sound from behind me. The origin of the sound seemed to be moving to a point in front of me and the further it moved toward the front the louder it became. Slowly the time between the pings began to lessen, and the pinging became a sort of sound like that of a violin. I could hear it moving back and forth between different frequencies, all approaching a higher pitch; it was now as if the higher the pitch got the faster I would move. The sound seemed to be much getting higher now, steeply ascending to a crescendo.
When the ominous sound reached its fever pitch I began to feel something within me. It was as if my entire body just relaxed at once then tensed just as suddenly. I could feel my skin begin to loosen up somehow, it was a truly indescribable sensation. Then slowly I began to see my own hair falling from my arms, floating off into the abyss. In only a minute it seemed as if half of the hair on my arms had fallen off, and I soon began to feel my fingernails changing. While hurtling through this abyss, fever pitch music in my ear, I began to feel the nails on my right hand with the opposing hand, to find that the nails were softening quite rapidly.
Now I was truly concerned. What's happening to me? As my nails continued to soften I could feel the hair on top of my head begin to fall out in the same fashion as the hair on my arms. I could now see that only a very miniscule amount of my arm-hair was still in place, and I noticed that the hair on my legs and other places had begun to dwindle as well.
It was a very odd feeling, having my hair just fall out. It almost tickled, but at the same time I felt as if there was a great sickness coming over me. While I contemplated this I could see the fibers of my shirt and jeans unraveling, as if the material was just coming apart on its own. My body hair was almost completely gone by this point, and I could feel that the hair on my head had gone from a once glorious thickness down to the sparsity of grass in a savanna. As time ticked by I could feel my hair growing thinner and thinner, until I was certain that someone viewing me from the top could easily see themselves reflected on my scalp.
By the time all of the hair on my body and head were gone I was able to feel the last of my clothes unraveling and falling into the abyss. The only hair left on me was my eyebrows, which too had begun to disappear. As I looked at my nails again I could see that they were detaching themselves from the ends of my fingers, which was surprisingly painless.
As if in response to the painlessness of my nails, my eyes started to burn like the ninth level of hell.
Damn contacts!
My contact lenses were beginning to dissolve in my eyes, causing a massive well of tears to fill them. The pain was unbearable, and I began to cry, not out of defeat, but out of irritation, as anyone who wears contacts could guess. The burning sensation seemed to subside a bit and there was a break in my tears just so I could see the last of my nails flying off into the void. I began to rub my eyes in an attempt to remove any particles that were still present, and just as the pain appeared to be leaving I felt a new pain that was beyond unimaginable.
All at once it was as if the bones in my feet began to move together, as did those in my hands. I could feel the curvature of my spine changing and my joints were beginning to turn in place. My skull began to grow and distend, my eye sockets widening immensely. As these skeletal changes were starting I could feel a great force pushing from under my skin. An ice blue fur began to emerge from my body, and I felt an even more rapid growth from my rear and on top of my head. The pain continued as my arms began to lengthen and my joints popped in to new positions. The bones in my feet were beginning to round and I could feel with great displeasure the skin pulling back from the bottom of what I recognized to be becoming a hoof.
I'm becoming a pony.
What had once been a harmonic bliss was now to me, a chaotic symphony of terror. The pitch of the once beautiful noise was now the essence of pain, the tempo now the destruction of my sanity. My feet and hands had by now become hooves, and I could tell (with great anguish) that I was sprouting a tail.
My eye sockets were now the size of baseballs, my eyes growing to accompany them. The hair continued to grow all over my body, sending waves of fire throughout me. I could feel my vertebrae multiplying, and lengthening, to a point at which my neck was at a terrible angle. Then at once I felt my main joints connecting my arms and legs to my body begin to shift. They were moving up and down the vertebrae as if they were tracks, and I felt a massive wave of pain wash over me as they seemed to claw their way along.
By now I seemed to have the general shape of a pony, with my once bipedal frame now being quadrupedal, and the fur on my body was nearing its end in growth. The pain was ebbing at least.
Wrong.
I began to feel yet another sting in my eyes as some unknown change was wrought upon them. Then there was a massive *crack* as my skull slipped down upon my neck. A new wave of pain poured from my groin area as that too began to change. Still feeling a pushing on my head and rear, I could only assume my mane and tail were still growing at an alarming rate. I tried to scream, but no noise would come forth.
Why can't I black out?
Normally this level of pain would cause anyone or anypony for that matter to black out and likely go in to shock, but I couldn't for some vile reason. I could do nothing but allow it to go on, accompanied by the shrill sound of the void.
Wait, what about the wings I had before?
As if on cue, there was a massive ache from behind my shoulders as I felt a new growth appear on my body. Bones were arising from my vertebrae and muscle seemed to migrate from my back into the new appendages. I felt the joints in my new wings begin to split, making room for more bone, and muscle growth. The muscle fibers and bones seemed to settle down in place, the wings began to flap a bit on their own as if to say 'You're about done.'
But I knew that it was a lie. I braced myself for what could only be described as razors pushing through the skin on my wings as the new feathers began to sprout. By this time the pain in my eyes had ceased and my mane and tail had stopped growing. I began to feel my teeth moving around in my jaw, some disappearing, others coming in to take their place. I felt my nose changing as well, and it was painless. Thankfully.
The only pain now was from the feathers pushing through the skin on my wings, and the final rearrangement and lengthening of my groin region.
This isn't even right.
Finally the pain was ending, the feathers done growing, and the last remnants of ache fading from my nether regions.
Is it over?
I felt nothing else happening to my body, and was thankful that my anguish was at an end. Another change occurred, this time it was welcome. The relentless noise from the abyss began to wind down and subside. There seemed to finally be a little peace in the void.
Haha, nope.
At once I began to hear a terrible tearing sound as I beheld a massive rent in the once beautiful void beginning to form. It was like the sound of a bed-sheet tearing, and it was loud enough to break my eardrums had it been possible in this realm. As I flew on toward the tear I could see that through it there was a blue sky and a lush forest. The tearing sound ceased and I could feel myself rocketing toward the great rent, feeling a mixture of wonder and fear. I took another look at my surroundings, hoping that I would never forget the beauty of it, and hoping I could forget what happened inside it.
As I grew nearer and nearer to the massive hole in space I could begin to see something of a reflection of myself in the opening. I soon found out what that reflection was as I passed through the rent, all traces of the harmonic noises vanishing, and a final sense of weight returning. I collided with what seemed to be a copy of myself, but I soon realized was my counterpart Zephyria. We soon became a tangle of hooves and appendages as we both emerged from separate voids that seemed to be facing each other, yet somehow emerging in the same direction.
We fell and fell from a large height down toward what could only be the Everfree Forest. At the same time we both seemed to realize that we could once again scream, thus we did. It was a pleasure to my ears just to hear my own voice again, even though we were plummeting to our doom, I being unable to fly due to my wings being tangled with Zephyria's legs. We fell, and fell, and fell, until we were no more than fifty feet from the forest floor. We seemed to slow immensely at this point, but still kept a considerable velocity.
As we struck the floor I felt an immense cushioning force under us, as if we were being protected by something, but the force didn't have enough effect to keep us from sustaining minor injuries. Feeling my head hit the ground I could finally feel the pleasure of slumber washing over me.
Just before I slipped from conciousness, I saw a pool of water a few feet from where Zephyria and I lay.