//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Unfortunate New Beginnings // Story: A Kinder World // by PandoraFox //------------------------------// As I faded into consciousness, the first thing I noticed was the quiet symphony of nature at night. The soft rustling of a breeze through the leaves of trees, bugs chirping at an uneven tempo, and the distant sound of an owl hooting away. The second thing I noticed was the ability to feel again. The ability to feel sore, more specifically. There was still some residual pain from my journey here, in a place I could only assume was my soul itself. “Ugh, I feel like I got hit by a bus. Better than not feeling anything, I suppose…” As painful as it felt, it was a great relief to be away from the feeling of pure detachment brought on by the void I was just in. I slowly opened my eyes (finally!) to reveal a forest surrounding me and the night sky above me. I was lying on my side in a small clearing speckled with wildflowers and grasses. I could feel a cool night breeze against my skin, but something about the way it flowed across me was odd. I was too sore and tired to properly address it, so I shrugged it off for now. Slowly and painfully rolling to my back, I looked up at the sky. My eyes widened at the view before me.  It was beautiful. The night sky above me was the most gorgeous one I’d ever seen. It was speckled with vivid stars, interspersed with ethereal nebulas of dark blues and purples. The centerpiece was the full moon itself, which sat in the dead center of the sky, bathing the ground below in a soft, cool light. “Wow, I must be in an area of incredibly low light pollution to be able to see the sky this well— or, right, a different universe.” I had no right to assume that the fundamental laws of the universe worked the same way here as they did back home.  I carefully scanned the sky, looking for any recognizable constellations that I could recall off the top of my head, and came up empty. Either they were all obscured by the trees, or I really was in a different universe. “What, am I questioning the voice now? I really have no reason to doubt that it was telling the truth. It promised some amount of familiarity though, so that’s a comforting thought at least.”  And familiarity I found. The forest that surrounded me reminded me strongly of the forests I left behind. Large spruces and firs speckled with moss dominated the landscape, leaving the forest floor nearly devoid of moonlight. Various bushes and ferns occasionally took up room on the forest floor, adding a bit of variation to the otherwise mostly uniform forest. The scene around me helped to calm me down, and I enjoyed the peaceful solitude for a moment. The soreness mostly receded, I made an attempt to sit up, and only partially succeeded. My body didn’t quite respond properly, and my back didn’t seem to want to bend in the way I was used to. My following attempt to stand utterly failed, and I flopped forward and landed on my face, eliciting a muffled “ow” from my mouth, half buried in dirt. Mostly awake now from the unpleasant and puzzling experience I just had, I sat back up again and shook my head, getting off as much dirt as I could. “Ugh,” I thought, “the whole ‘being tossed into a new reality’ thing really did a number on me, huh?” I reached up my hand to rub my now injured nose and—  “ACK—” I felt like I just punched myself in the face. “Ugh, what…” Pulling my hand back to inspect it, I was hit with a sudden and overwhelming sense of confusion and disorientation. Instead of seeing my hand as I was used to, I instead saw a… is that a hoof?? Inspecting the rest of my arm only further confounded me, as it was now covered in a thick layer of orangey-tan fur. Scanning my eyes over the rest of my body, I saw more of the same fluffy texture, with each of my limbs ending in a similarly colored hoof. I went cross eyed for a moment, noticing a muzzle protruding slightly into the edges of my vision, obscuring more than my nose usually did. Looking behind me, I saw a light blue tail with a single green stripe running through it attached to my lower spine, swishing in agitation. “What… the fuck? The voice didn’t say anything about being stuck in a new body…” Although after thinking about it, it made sense. It did say that my connection to my normal body was severed when I fell through that god forsaken hole in reality, so I suppose the only logical thing for it to do was to construct a new body for me to live in. Not that that made being stuck in this unfamiliar body any less overwhelmingly confusing. This… is a new body, right? I sincerely hope I did not just possess someone.  Shaking that concern out of my head, I brought my thoughts back to my appearance. “This is so weirddd…” I thought, twisting my arms around and staring at them. They seemed to be about as mobile as they used to be, although they felt significantly shorter, and the joints were in slightly different places. My legs however seemed completely different, with a dramatic bend at what looked like a knee. I adjusted my sitting position, and found it much more comfortable to sit like how a dog would, as strange and disorienting as that felt. The sheer brightness of the colors on my body was equally disorienting. I could feel myself getting overwhelmed with anxiety and took a moment to calm myself. A few breathing exercises helped me to relax a little bit, but I still felt a creeping discomfort. The lack of familiarity I felt compared to my normal body was really starting to get to me. I felt dehumanized and humiliated. I’m just glad there wasn’t anybody around to see me freaking out like this…  A particularly strong breeze blew over my body, rustling the fur that covered it. I shivered, finally realizing what that sensation I felt earlier was. The fur coat I now had did a relatively good job of keeping out the cold, but I still felt quite naked without any clothing. I grew self conscious, and felt my cheeks flush a bit at the thought.  It felt surreal, knowing that of all the universes I could’ve been plopped in, I ended up in a surprisingly familiar one, trapped in the body of some kind of animal. Although after thinking about it, considering all of the horrific realities I could’ve ended up in, I felt like I’d won the lottery in comparison. “Am I a horse or something? Or at least a small one? A… really small one…” All at once, I was suddenly aware of how short I really was. Looking up, the trees around me seemed way larger than I was used to seeing, the grass below me, although not particularly long, reached nearly to the top of my seated legs, and most of the foliage in the forest was somehow taller than me. “Well, either the species of horse that I am is really small, or this world is really large. I’m not a super huge fan of either option…” This… is not great. There could be any number of dangerous predatory species living in these woods, who’s to say they’d be in any way similar to any species on Earth? I could just get attacked by a horror beyond my comprehension and be dead before I had the chance to get out of this forest. I could die in any number of unknown ways and not even have a moment to blink before I did— “Ugh, stop. I’m just making myself all anxious again…” I took a moment to quiet my now quickly beating heart by taking a few deep breaths. “Focus. I’m not gonna benefit from imagining all the ways I could die that are out of my control. Assuming that whatever I am is the dominant species on this planet, I should probably be fine. Although, I have a hard time believing that a species of small, soft looking horses could be a dominant species.” Hmm, small horses. There’s a name for that, right? Ponies? …Ponies.  “And thus, the protagonist finds himself lost in an unfamiliar world in the body of a pony! Will he make it out alive?! Find out next time!!” Chuckling softly at my own antics, I noticed something I hadn’t thought about yet. “Testing testing, one two three,” I said aloud. “La la la la laaaaa—“ I stopped. There was something about my voice that sounded both distinctly feminine and uncomfortably childish. I hadn’t thought to consider what age and gender I’d appear as. I guess I assumed I’d look the same way as I did when I left, but every discovery left me doubting ever more than anything about my body was familiar. I guess I really am just— “Now hold on now. I can’t assume that gender and age works the same way around here. Different universe and all? C’mon, no jumping to conclusions. I’ll find some other people— ponies?— to talk to, and I can work out where I’m at in that regard from there, alright?” Still, I was curious. I looked down and took a glance between my legs.  … Huh.  Immediately banishing that thought from my head before I even had the chance to think it, I steeled myself and thought over what I needed to do. “Alright, assuming this world has other creatures like me, my main goal should be to find civilization. Or I guess more pressingly, food and water. I’m gonna die out here if I don’t manage to find anyone in time, so basic necessities should be first.” I took a moment to attempt to remember the basics of wilderness survival. “Ok, my first priority should be… finding a clean source of water, and then… foraging?” I really wish I had kept my wilderness survival knowledge up to date. Besides the basics of Don’t Die™, there wasn’t much to my current understanding of what to do when you’re lost in the woods. I’m sure there was some Cub Scout badge for it, but I quit too soon for that experience to be worth much. Considering how much time I spent in the forests back home, I was playing with fire for a while. My overreliance on GPS might actually be the death of me here. Oh. I just realized something. “There’s no way to know whether or not I'm still able to eat meat, so hunting is out of the question. Too risky.” Plus, my lack of fingers or supplies of any sort would’ve made going through all the steps to catch and cook a meal nearly impossible. I looked down at where my hands once were. Would I even be able to build a fire? It might make a useful signal, but without any tools, my only shot at creating one would be through friction. I was never any good at that even as a human; as a pony it would be impossible.  “Alright, I guess I should focus on looking for… anything, really. Food, water, or other people. Anything that’ll increase my chances of living.” With a plan in place, I decided to take another shot at standing. “Well, if I’m this horse… pony… thing, I’m probably quadrupedal, right?” I flopped down on my stomach, then moved all four limbs under my body and pushed up. I was still a bit sore, but my attempt was a success, and I lifted myself up on four hooves, albeit with a bit of shakiness.  The feeling of standing like this was weird. It almost felt like standing on my toes, but with one big digit on the end of each limb instead of multiple. My legs seemed to be the perfect length for standing like this, and not uncomfortable like the bear crawls I had to do in P.E. back in high school. Taking my eyes off of my legs (I guess I have four legs now?), I noticed that my neck was way more flexible than I was used to, and I was easily able to face forward without discomfort. All of this combined left me with some strong mental whiplash, but also a bit of pride in my ability to figure this out so quickly. Now… uh… walking.  Cautiously, I lifted a foreleg and took a step forward. “Ok, uhh… wait, how do horses do it again? Front left, back right, front right, back left, front right, back right— wait!” I stumbled and fell on my side, the grass below me pricking at my skin. At first I felt angry, but I forced myself to stand back up again. “Come on! If I can’t walk, I won’t be able to do anything around here! Ugh…” I felt a sort of creeping sadness that threatened to overwhelm my thoughts. “God, this really is my life now, huh? Ejected from reality, turned into a horse. In a completely different universe with no way back. Everything in my life, gone. Fuck…” I felt my eyes becoming watery, threatening to spill tears. This was strange for me, considering I hadn’t managed to cry at all at any point within the last few years of my life, even as much as I wanted to at times. “Well, this certainly adds to the ‘am a child’ theory.” I shook my head. “No! Stop! Think happy thoughts! Ummm…” … “Yeah, I’ve got nothing.” The dam holding back my emotions finally failed as tears began to roll down my cheeks and splatter on the grass below. I collapsed to my stomach and held my head in my arms— my forelegs— and softly cried.  The reality of my situation hit me all at once. The sheer level of displacement I had experienced was beyond the scale of anyone I had ever known. Forced from my home, my planet, my entire universe, yet somehow still alive and conscious to tell the tale. How? Why? I had no answers.  I wanted to stay curled in a ball forever, and I did for a while, long enough for the moon to progress through the sky a visible amount, before I eventually untucked my head from my— arms and took a deep breath. I had found within myself the motivation to give walking another shot.  I stood back up and, very carefully, followed the same walking pattern I attempted before. Each step was sluggish and calculated, but I was slowly but surely picking up the pace. I found a sort of rhythm in it, and started whistling a tune to the imaginary beat. “Oh! Whistling still works with pony lips. So not everything is entirely different, then.” My progress and discovery brightened my mood considerably, and I was almost smiling as I walked laps around the clearing, each one a little faster than the last. After a few dozen laps, I had already reached a solid walking pace, if a little wobbly at times. I kept pushing myself to get faster, and my walk turned into a jog (or whatever the equivalent is in horse terms). I adapted the rhythm I set before to accommodate the faster pace. “This is kinda fun!” My streak of good luck came to a sudden halt when I tripped over something, leaving me airborne for a few moments, before I once again came slamming down on the ground, face first, sliding a few feet in the dirt. After spitting out more dirt than was probably healthy, I gently placed my head back on the ground and groaned. “God, I hope this doesn’t become a running theme…”