As I ran my stomach lurched, cramping up and hindering my movement, but only a little. The though crossed my mind that I might not even be headed in the right direction, but at this point I could only hope I was going the right way. Coming to a new part of the forest I looked around. The trees were a lot more spread out now. Despite being more spread out they still dominated the skies, making up for numbers by being absolutely enormous. A few breaks in the canopy did show up, however, letting in a few rays of sunlight. Just enough light to see the yellow mare cowering against the trunk of one of the massive trees, her coat stained crimson. Her eyes locked onto me, they were silently pleading for help.
Trying to look as nonthreatening as possible I made my way over to her. Whatever attacked her seemed to be gone by now. Crouching down next to her I tried to comfort her, “Everything’s going to be okay, I’m going to help you.” As I talked I reached out to feel her fur, trying to find out how wounded she was. She didn’t say anything, but recoiled at my touch. I felt bad for her, she must be terrified. I came across some nasty looking claw marks running across her right side. It looked pretty serious and was still bleeding. With nothing to bandage it with I tore off strips of my shirt. It would have to do as a makeshift bandage.
As I tore off more of my shirt to finish bandaging her wounds, I wondered why I was doing this. It didn’t really matter anyways, just helping someone who needed help I guess. As I finished the last of the bandage the mares eyes widened and she broke her silence. “B-behind you,” She whimpered in terror, so scared that she was shaking. I whipped around my own eyes widening as well. The shadows massed together before me, forming into a shapeless monster before my very eyes. Before I could even react it seemed to ball up before it launching itself at me.
I managed to turn away before it hit me and it latched onto my back. Despite being made out of shadows it was quite solid, and very heavy. I could feel unseen claws dig into my back, raking down as it hung onto me. Screaming out in pain and rage I stumbled backwards as I tried to throw it off before slamming my back into a tree, that thing between me and the rough bark. It only dug its claws deeper. I already felt weak and my vision swam before me. I didn’t even notice the second shadow creature forming, and by the time I did it was already latched onto my face, adding to my quickly growling list of injuries.
I fell to the ground, unable to handle the weight of both the creatures combined, but as I fell I landed in a patch of light from a break in the canopy above. Both the creatures let out an audible hiss and backed up, disappearing from my sight. I wasted no time. Quickly as I could I hobbled over to the yellow mare. She was curled up in a ball whimpering and shivering. I don’t even know how I found the strength to pick her up, but I did. And I ran, if you could even call the pitiful attempt to escape running. It didn’t do any good though, before I even managed to travel a few yards the shadows were upon me once more. My vision flickered and the ground rushed up to meet me. I tried to protect the yellow mare with my body, but even I knew that it was useless. My vision began to fade, and the last thing I saw was the purple mare from the night before galloping up, horn bursting with light, before the bliss of unconsciousness took me.
I cracked open my eyes a bit and groaned as light flooded in, pulling the covers over my head in an attempt to block it out. It took a moment to remember what had happened to me, who knows how long ago, but I shot up as soon as I remembered, wincing as the new scabs on my back cracked from the movement. Looking around with a bewildered look on my face I could tell that I was in a cottage of some sort, but what surprised me the most was the five mares in the room with me. They all noticed I was up. I should have been used to this by now, but I was still as surprised as I was during my first encounter with the purple equine.
I said not a word, and they returned the favor giving me nothing but astonished stares. I guess they had never seen a human before. The purple mare was the first to speak, “What are you?” It was a simple question, and it got a simple answer, “I’m a human.” My own voice sounded thin and raspy. I felt tired and didn’t feel like talking at all, but I forced myself to all the same. And besides, it was my turn to ask a question anyways. “Where am I,” I asked quietly as I lay back down, my eyes looking over each of the mares before me. They all must be just as confused as I am.
“This here is Fluttershy’s Cottage.” A different voice responded with an obvious country accent. I looked around for the speaker and I looked over the orange mare guessing it was her before closing my eyes and groaning, beginning to run my fingers through my hair before finding that a bandage had been wrapped around the top of my head. That didn’t really answer my question, but I let it go. And once again awkward silence filled the room. This was so weird.
I opened my eyes again and looked at the multicolored ponies before me. I noticed the purple one had the book I had stolen earlier; I must have dropped it when I was tending to the yellow mare’s wounds. Speaking of the yellow mare she spoke up in barely a whisper. “Maybe we should let him get some rest.” She paused for a second before adding “I mean if that’s okay with you.” I responded with a grunt, and reluctantly the other ponies left the room. Closing my eyes I went back to sleep, trying not to think too much about any of this, least I go insane.