"Hey, you!"
I spun around in shock and saw an orange unicorn with a brown mane staring at my face.
"I was trying to get your attention from the other side of the highway but I couldn't get a response, wouldn't be the first time though, no one seems to be responding to anything anymore..."
Still in my state of shock I was staring at this pony with a wide eyed and confused look on my face; not saying anything.
"Hello, earth to stranger, anyone there?" He said as he waved a hoof rapidly back and forth in front of my face. I need to work up the strength to say something.
"Oh, err, hello there" I mumble, taking my eyes off him and looking back to where the Bank of America building once stood.
"Finally, a response! I was afraid you would turn out like these other zombies walking around randomly."
"Well a lot has happened over the past several minutes."
"Yes, but still, now is the time to group together and figure out what happened and why, now mope around like it's the end of the world!"
"You could technically consider this the end of the world you know."
"Nope, if it was the end of the world we'd all be dead, and last I checked you and I and all these other ponies you see aren't dead."
I don't respond and just look off towards the burning Charlotte skyline again.
"So stranger, what's your name? I'm Tom McCourt, accountant from Boston." He holds out a hoof like a person expecting a handshake would hold up their hand. I outstretch one of my hooves and touch it to his, commencing a slight shaking motion. There appears to be a slight grip.
"I'm Clayton Riddle, everyday Joe from about fifteen miles up the road."
"Well damn, I finally got someone to tell me their name!" Tom exclaims, getting a slight smile on his face. "So how'd you get roped up in all this pony business? I was just walking down a street in uptown when suddenly I blacked out and hit the concrete, woke up like this."
I hesitate to respond, still a little shy towards this talkative unicorn. "Eh, just driving down the street when whatever the hell turned us into ponies struck and the next thing you know I'm sitting upside down in my car."
"That should probably be a pretty important thing for us to get to the bottom of, figuring out why we all turned into these things."
"Us?" Did this unicorn tend to stick to me after only knowing me for five minutes?
"Well sure, those of us that are acting with some level of sanity should stick together." I pondered this for a moment; I had never really had any people to talk to other than my neighbor and a few people at work that I didn't even like that much. Hell, the last time I talked to my parents was when I made a trip out to their house in Oregon for Christmas.
"You know what Tom, that's not a bad idea, and I think I know where to start too, a neighbor of mine knows quite a bit about the odd and unusual, maybe we can track her down."
"Sounds great, lead the way onward." Tom points his hoof back towards the direction I had come from, I turn around and begin walking towards home with him following behind. As the Charlotte skyline disappears behind us another large explosion rings out.
After passing several exit ramps on the interstate we noticed more and more ponies walking in the same direction as us, with ponies walking in the other direction on the opposite side. Travel was tough though, all lanes of the interstate were pretty much a never ending pile up of smashed cars, trucks, and buses. At one point Tom and I had seen a school bus on its side, the back door and roof hatches hung wide open. I tried not to think about the situations the kids on that bus could be in right now. My new acquaintance and I mostly walked in silence, and while there were dozens of ponies on the interstate with us, no one ever spoke a word.
"Pretty creepy, eh?" Tom whispers to not break the silence around us too much.
"Yea, but as we get further northwards the traffic will hopefully thin out." And I was right, too. Once we had gotten another few miles up the interstate there were hardly any other ponies around us. Tom finally speaks up again
"Man, that was a max exodus from Charlotte back there; I don't blame anyone for not wanting to be waiting ten miles of uptown though."
"Yea, it's provably worse of a hell hole now than it was when we left it, and defiantly worse of a hell hole than it was before all this went down." We both chuckle slightly at my remark.
A little further up the road I spot something off to the side, I would normally disregard this as another car fragment but this was different. I go over to it and simply look down at it stupidly.
"Err, what the hell are you doing?" Tom asks, confused by my action.
"It's a phone, a Samsung Galaxy S III to be exact."
"And why are you staring at it with that stupid look on your face?"
"I want to try and pick it up." I had no idea why, but a part of me wanted to pick up the phone and see if it was still working.
"And how exactly to you intend on doing that?"
"Hear me out; remember when we first shook hooves? Didn't you feel a grip there at all?"
"Well yea I guess, now that you mention it though it is pretty odd."
"So if the same physics apply I should be able to reach out my hoof and grab that phone." Tom looks at me like I've finally lost it.
"That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard."
"I bet the fact that the entire human race turned into multi colored ponies is pretty ridiculous too." He doesn't respond as I stretch my hoof out slowly towards the phone. As soon as it makes contact I act as though I would be gripping something in a normal human hand, and sure enough when I lift my hoof back up the phone rises with it.
"Well I'll be damned." Tom says with a look of stupor on his face.
"Pretty impressive huh?" I boast back with a smile, the first time I had smiled since this morning. Tom's look changes from a stupor to a grin as he realizes something.
"Yea, pretty great. Now what are you going to do with it, call for help?" My smile changes to a look of disappointment as I realize my own stupidity.
"Alright, alright, let’s just keep going north, we're almost there." I mumble in annoyance as we continue walking towards our destination.