Pain... pain hurts a lot... Yes, it sounds redundant, I know, but sometimes you can’t think very eloquently when you first wake up. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a horrible leg cramp? That sudden jolt as you wake up, your leg in excruciating pain as you try not to scream and wake up your family, massaging your leg frantically to reduce the pain... That’s what I felt when I woke up that morning, the day when everything started...
Sorry, I should probably explain a few things first. My name is Glenn Winters. I’m about six foot, four inches, and weigh two-hundred and thirty-five pounds on a good day. Needless to say, I’m pretty overweight, but my height and broad shoulders help hide it. Add in sandy blonde hair, and yellow computer glasses, and that’s me: the average nerd geek.
Now, I don’t know what made me special... Or perhaps it was what didn’t make me normal that dragged me into all of this, but-
Sorry, I tend to go off on tangents a bit. It had been a normal day, or at least, as normal as ‘normal’ can be, I suppose. Woke up, went to college, daydreamed through my classes, trying to figure out what the heck I should major in, drove home, did my homework, and then browsed DeviantART, wondering when the few Spyro fanfics I watched would update.
All in all, life was pretty boring. There weren’t any good shows on T.V. that I was interested in watching, and aside from my one best friend, Wave (1) Phillips, I didn’t really have any friends to speak of. Even then, Wave became my best friend only because all of my friends left for better colleges on scholarships. Me? To say I don’t know what I’m best at would be putting it delicately. I’ve been one of the jacks of all trades, master of none kind of guys, no matter how hard I tried otherwise.
But enough of my ‘old’ life. If you felt drowsy, or fell asleep during that, then you’ve got an inkling of how boring my life was. Pain isn’t boring, however, which brings us nicely, or for me, not, to the present.
Now, you remember that whole leg cramp in the middle of the night? I woke up, not due to a simple leg cramp, but cramps all over my body. Now, I might have been a little delusional, due to the lancing pain all over my body, but I would have sworn that even my tongue had managed to cramp. Have you ever tried to massage your tongue? I have! It was easily the strangest thing I can say I had ever done up to that point.
It took me several minutes to get past the pain to notice one small detail... “Huh. My fingernails sure have gotten long... I could have sworn I trimmed them, like, two days ago...”
Once my body was done with cramp’s sharp, stabbing variety of pain, it decided to evolve into a dull, throbbing pain instead, relishing in its ability to make me feel the pain in my head with every heartbeat.
Once the pain faded enough for me to think, I remembered how my dad had always told me that muscle cramps usually happened from being dehydrated. Now, I didn’t know if that was true or not, but it made sense, right? So naturally, I rolled over and reached out blindly for the water bottle I always keep on my nightstand. Of course, it’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it? I thought to myself, groaning again.
I felt around for it, but I couldn’t seem to find it. Actually, I couldn’t find my nightstand at all, which was odd. No alarm clock, no glasses, no phone charging... “Crap, did I fall asleep on the couch or something?”
I froze when I heard birds chirping. There shouldn’t be birds chirping, it’s the middle of February! Of course, it didn’t occur to me that I never heard birds chirping outside of my window anyway, since I lived on the second floor.
I snapped my eyes open, ignoring the fact that I wasn’t wearing my glasses. “Then again, I guess I slept with them on,” I muttered to myself, looking around. I seemed to be on the edge of a forest or orchard of some kind. I blinked a few times, trying to figure out where I was, and reached up absently to push my glasses back into position. I paused when I saw an orange paw in front of my face, covered in fur.
I stared at it blankly for a moment, before pawing for my glasses, only to find that they were gone. I frowned for a moment, my tail twitching a little. “Wait a sec... A tail?”
I held the paw to my face, looking at the black pad closely, before poking at it with my other paw. I giggled a little at the strange sensation, and I realized that there was only one explanation for this. “I must be dreaming... Or I’ve gone crazy... Or I’ve died, and I’m in... wherever the hell this is...”
Okay, so that was three things. Give me a break, alright? I was still aching all over from the cramps, and I had just woken up without a chance to drink any tea or some soda for the caffeine, so my brain wasn’t exactly running at full capacity, you know?
As I considered my options, I took some time to look over my body. The first thing I looked at, naturally, was my tail. My nice, large, warm, fluffy, creame-colored tail. I must have stared at it for a very long time, because I was fascinated with my tail. I mean, when you’ve never had one, it’s only natural that you’d want to, you know, observe it and stuff. And maybe stroke it a little... And hug it to yourself for awhile... And-
Hey, don’t judge me! Have you ever woken up with a nice, large, fluffy tail with soft, silky fur? I don’t think so! Don’t look at me as if I’ve got some strange tail fetish, because I don’t! I think... Okay, maybe I do. I don’t know! I mean, I owned a cat for the first sixteen years of my life, so maybe I like brushing fur a lot, okay? It’s soothing! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
Once I had calmed myself down enough from stroking my tail, Dang, I need to get a brush for that... I looked at the rest of my ‘new’ body. I had a bright orange coat of fur, and if I twisted my head enough, I could see that I had a creame-colored mane around my neck.
Now, you go ahead and laugh, but I had no idea what I was yet. I mean, sorry, but I’m not a big fan of canines... I mean, with no mirror or pond nearby, it wasn’t like I could look at myself entirely and realize that I was a Flareon, now could I?
Anyway, so I’m sitting there, trying to figure out if I should freak out about not having clothes or not. I mean, we’re ingrained from birth that being naked is bad, right? Well, I’m naked now, but doesn’t the fur cover... *Ahem* you know, right? Or a sheath or whatever. Hell if I know what dogs have!
Anyway, I considered my options. If I had gone crazy, then did it really matter what I did? If I was dead... what, like I was going to die a second time? Then, the last option, I was dreaming... Wait, or I could really still be awake, and had somehow changed forms, and-
Yeah, I was already rolling on the floor laughing my butt off at that idea. I mean, come on, I might be a dreamer, but even I’ve realized by now that something like that is never going to happen to me, you know? So that left this being a dream. Well, if it was a dream, may as well have some fun with it, right? I’m lucky if I have a dream once a month, and to have a lucid dream? This was like a dream come true! (2)
Well, the first order of business was to learn how to move around, right? I wasn’t sure if the tail was going to throw me off or not, but walking didn’t seem too hard. Had to take it slow at first, of course, but who hasn’t practiced crawling on your hands and knees? Same concept, right? Front left leg, right hind leg, front right leg, left hind leg, rinse and repeat, right?
I don’t even know anymore, honestly. At this point, it’s so natural I can’t really tell anymore, and any time I stop to think about it, I end up tripping over myself. Anyway, took me awhile to figure out how to do anything more than walk, but I got it eventually. Now, anyone who tells you that it’s ‘instinct’ or some BS like that... laugh at them. And then deck them in the face for lying to you. ‘Instinct’ is something like migration. It doesn’t help with walking, flying, or anything like that. There’s a difference between instinct and autonomous action. Once you do something enough, you just do it without thinking about it. Like riding a bike. Once you learn how to ride a bike, you don’t really forget, do you? That doesn’t mean that it’s ‘instinct’ when you ride a bike for the first time in ten years, does it?
Long story short (3), it was around that time that I realized something rather crucial. “Man, aside from having a tail and stuff, this has to be, beyond a doubt, the lamest dream I’ve ever had. Where is everyone?”
I looked around, expecting someone to come out because of that, but no one came. “Huh... That normally works in dreams... Guess I’ll have to find them myself.”
And so I set out, walking down what seemed to be a path in the underbrush, making my way out of the trees. Not even a minute later found me on top of a hill, where I could see a small village in the distance. “Okay... Medieval setting? Shouldn’t be surprised, but if I see a dragon, I’m getting the frell out of here,” I promised myself, taking a deep breath before heading down the path once more.
If I had known then what I know now about what lay before me, I might have done something different. I might have been able to... Well, you know what they say about hindsight. Truth is, I’ll never know what might have happened, but that will never stop me from wondering...
Still, even with the highs and lows, it remains my story... And if I don’t tell it, then no one will ever know the truth. No one will ever know... No one will ever know what happened to me, to us, and this strange land that I later learned was called... Equestria.
1.) I always called her Wave because her name meant White Wave, and it was more fun to say than her real name.
2.) No, I didn’t realize it was a pun until awhile later, and when I did, I groaned too.
3.) Too late