A Pokémon Problem
(0) - Prologue
Woken from a violent and particularly unpleasant dream, I forced open an eye, causing me to wince and adjust to the brightness levels. As I waited for the brightness to turn down, I realized that my vivid dream was already fading from memory.
When the light finally died down, I was presented with trees. Trees and fallen leaves, yellow and orange and red amongst the occasional stain of brown from the earth. Strangely, I appeared to be located in a somewhat elevated position, as everything seemed awfully far away.
Where in the hell was I? Last I checked, I didn't live anywhere near a forest.
I tried to sit up, but my muscles didn't seem to be responding correctly at all. My entire body felt... not quite numb, but similar: I couldn't tell where anything was located.
I felt heavy. Heavy and sore. The splitting headache that coursed through my head did nothing to help me get a proper grasp of what kind of situation I was in, either.
I closed my eye, allowing the darkness to envelop me once more. I tried to think of why I was lying outside, dead to the world.
No ideas came. Only fleeting images, most of them strangely reminiscent from my dreams.
Mentally exhausted, I opened my eye again and took in a more detailed observation of my surroundings.
I was most definitely located above a forest: a deciduous one, to be exact, full of trees of all shapes, sizes, and colours. I tried to use an arm to feel around, but I felt only the phantom sensation of where my arm should be. Still under the effects of whatever it was that gave me a splitting headache, I suppose.
Wait a second...
Memory loss, lack of feeling, pounding headache...
Am I hung-over?
It certainly made a lot of sense. I must've been at a party or something, got wasted, and then someone pulled a trick on me, dumping me near a forest. But who was I drinking with?
I sighed. Or at least, I tried to. I couldn't feel my chest or my mouth. I had a momentary panic attack when I couldn't tell if I was breathing or not, but that quickly faded away when I realized that I was obviously still breathing, considering I was alive and conscious.
No matter how long or hard I concentrated, I couldn't remember anything that had transpired. Everything seemed to be covered in a thick layer of static: the most I could pull were abstract feelings and sensations.
I kept trying to move, and kept failing miserably at accomplishing even that. Only my eye seemed to work. I didn't even know which eye it was; whichever one was facing up, I supposed.
If I was even facing up. Directions are hard to tell when you can't feel your body.
I'm not sure how long I laid there, doing nothing but mulling over why I was in this situation. Eventually, the telltale pitter-patter of rain started falling from the sky. That meant my ears were still working.
Great, I realized not long after. Now I have to worry about hypothermia.
That thought set me off on a different line of thinking. What if I was paralyzed?
If I could feel my back, I'm sure I would've felt chills go down my spine.
Thankfully, my panic turned to relief when I heard the clip-clop of a horse nearby. A horse in a forest meant it was domestic, a domestic horse meant it had a rider, and a rider was a person! They could help me!
I wanted to do something, anything to signal that I was alive and in need of assistance, but all I could do was scan my eye across the expanse of the forest. It was the closest thing I could manage that was close to pacing back and forth, which is what I always did when I was nervous.
I waited. And waited. And waited.
The clip-clop sound gradually increased, and I mean gradually increased. An hourglass would've emptied itself in the time it took for the clopping to become just a single decibel louder.
What the hell? Did my ears suddenly get better?
It didn't make any sense, but that was the only explanation I could think of. Either that, or my perception of time had changed dramatically.
When the sound of hooves became a crashing thunder in my head, amplifying my headache to almost unbearable levels of pain, I felt myself grow unspeakably, unreasonably angry.
Angry at not being able to move. Annoyance at the horse and rider for taking too damn long. Rage at the world in general.
My limited perception view of the world became tinged with red.
I let out my unbridled wrath in a soundless scream.
And then I felt myself move.
Not very much, mind you: just enough to fall off the edge of whatever it was I happened to be balanced on.
My anger turned to stunned surprise when I felt the air around me start to move, then my surprise turned to fear as I realized that I was falling, hard and fast.
I caught one glimpse of the cold, hard ground before impact, then everything went black.
Strangely, I could hear that rhythmic cantering inside my skull change in pace. I cautiously and carefully opened the one eye I had control over once more.
I was on the forest floor, in a crater of displaced leaves and dirt.
How did I survive that? I should been broken and crippled by that fall, if I wasn't already. Was it only because of my assumed paralysis that I didn't feel anything? Were shards of bone punching through my body right this instant, and I just couldn't feel them?
I felt like vomiting, but I couldn't. I just laid there.
Laid there and waited.
The pounding off hooves inside my mental walls started to lessen. They gradually decreased until they stopped entirely.
"What the hay are you?"
The voice --a female voice-- sounded both surprised and curious. Wait, what did she mean, 'What am I'? Was I so horribly disfigured that I was now unrecognizable as a human being?!
"I've never seen something like you before," the voice continued, increasing slightly in volume as the horse adjusted its legs, probably to let the rider off. I frantically scanned the entire breadth of my vision, hoping for a glimpse, one glimpse of whoever was talking to me. I needed to let her know that I was alive, breathing, living--
Wait...
"Oh my," the voice said breathlessly, shocked at something. "You're still moving around after taking a nasty fall like that? We've got to get you checked out..."
Moving?
It took me a second to realize that she probably saw my eye fluttering back and forth. Oh, thank whatever deity decided to lend a hand!
"It's okay, little guy. I've got you," the voice said in a soothing tone. Despite myself, I felt myself relax a little bit from her words.
It was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.
I barely noticed as I was picked up by something. What I did notice, however, was a lime green haze coating my vision. I blinked, but it didn't seem to do anything. Confused, I tested the limits of my vision again and saw...
I blinked and looked again, squinting through the film to double check that I hadn't gone insane.
Nope. Still there.
I could only watch from my hovering position in mid-air as the pony that was trotting along and whistling a merry tune smiled at me, noticing that I had seen her.
The pony smiled.
The pony.
What the f--?
"It's okay, little guy," she said affectionately. "You're coming home with me. I'll get you all checked out, and then you can go back to wherever it is you belong."
I frantically tried to speak and squirm. I managed to move something, but I wasn't sure what: my perspective had changed slightly, as I was looking at a different angle. I must've moved my neck or something.
I felt my mind start to go over all sorts of fantastic and improbable situations as to WHY I was in Equestria.
Lucid dream? Possible.
Hallucination? Definitely probable.
Dead?
...
The thought froze me. Was I dead? It seemed a little cliché, but I suppose there could be worse things than dying and getting sent to the loveable world of My Little Pony. I mean, there has to be some reason why the majority of pony fanfictions start off with the main character dying and mysteriously teleporting here, right?
...Right?
All the while I was having my internal monologue, the pony continued at a leisurely pace, not quite walking, not quite running: a trot. I took a few seconds to observe my rescuer.
The unicorn's coat was a soft, forest green, causing her to blend in with about a third of the fallen leaves quite well, while her mane was an almost translucent silver, flowing freely almost down to her forelegs. She had a kind face, the kind you expected to see on nurses and waitresses, but were left more often than not disappointed.
When I started looking around again, trying to get a feel for my surroundings and seeing how far we've traveled, my position shifts again.
This time, though, I figured out how to replicate the effect.
It was like rediscovering an old pair of pants that seemed to fit just right, except it was a part of my body that I had to relearn how to use. Honestly, it didn't feel like I was moving my neck: it felt like I was trying to wiggle my ears or something equally difficult.
With my newfound ability to move my neck once more, I was able to obtain a much greater degree of vision. I could see beneath me, around me, above me, everywhere!
The moment when something of yours is taken away is the moment you want it most, or so the saying goes.
I was so entranced with rediscovering the ability to see that I almost completely ignored the pony when she said, "Here we are!"
I blinked and realized that we were in some sort of log cabin. There was a wood stove in the corner, a couple of strange looking chairs, a table, and a bed. That was the extent of the furniture within the tiny dwelling.
I heard a gentle cooing sound as I felt myself being levitated further away from the pony that I now felt desperately close to, being the only other living soul that I had seen so far. I started to flail my head around, trying in vain to see where she was placing me.
It was only after I felt myself sink into a substance did I realize that the pony placed me in a bed. Her bed, as there were no others.
"There-there, little one," she whispered gently as she slowly walked forward, her hooves clonking on the hardwood floor. "You just need to rest for now. Morning Dew will take care of everything. Just rest..."
I tried desperately to stay conscious. I really did, but either I was terribly exhausted from all the recent happenings, or she put some sort of spell on me to ease me into the void.
"Shhhhh."