Chapter 2
SURPRISE
“Where the hell has all the snow gone?” This was true, only a few days ago had it snowed, quite heavily in fact, and was showing no signs of going away any time soon. It was only showing signs of getting colder anyway, so it couldn’t have just gotten extremely hot over night, he would’ve noticed. Besides, even if it did melt, the ground would be wet from the water after the snow melted. But the ground was quite dry, very earthy, perfect really. In fact, the entirety of the view looked perfect, at least in his eyes.
The way the trees had grown here, including the colour of the leaves. The fact that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which now that he thought about it was kind of odd. There was a huge blanket of the stuff yesterday, so where had it all gone? It didn’t look like there had been a cloud in the sky for a while, as if someone tucked them all away carefully. Actually, that was what the Pegasus ponies did in My Little Pony, but that was just a show. Then again, it did look like that’s what did actually happen, as strange as that sounded. The weather forecast the other day only showed it to be getting worse, so how could it have all gotten better? Then again, you can’t trust the weather forecast these days.
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It must’ve been a good 20 minutes before Dan realised he was daydreaming, but who could blame him, the view did look nice. It was certainly a change from boring old houses and his mess of a garden. But like all good things, it had to come to an end and he had to get ready for school, as much as he hated the thought.
After he got his school uniform and bag on (I’ll spare you the details, consider yourself lucky), he went downstairs for breakfast. Normally he would wake his parents up first and brush his teeth, but they both worked early shifts on Thursdays, so Dan was on his own. That and he was running late due to the transfixed stare he just had. Besides, he didn’t want to go in the bathroom any time soon, as much as he needed the toilet. Just in case that felling of being watched happened again. Dan was very paranoid when it came to his privacy. He was brave yes, especially when it came to protecting his friends, (which resulted in two fights on separate occasions, both of which he lost, horribly I might add), but not in terms of his privacy.
After heading downstairs and into the kitchen, (which also had holes and cracks in the wall, even more than the bathroom actually), he started to make his breakfast, butter on toast. Dan loved butter on toast, in fact it was his favourite meal as weird as that might sound. If he had his way, he would eat it 6 times a day, 9 days a week. But apparently, that isn’t a ‘healthy diet’ according to his parents, who insisted on him having one. In his opinion, it was at least healthier than what they ate; in fact he knew it was. Every time he was given something ‘healthy’ for his dinner, he found it hard not to upchuck it all back onto his plate. So how that was healthy, he didn’t know, but at least it made his parents happy when he ate it and didn’t puke carrots and cabbage all over the table.
Unfortunately for Dan, the toaster wasn’t working; in fact it was rather cold. It wasn’t because it was broken, it just wouldn’t turn on. In fact, neither did anything; the lights (not that he needed them, he could see perfectly fine in the daylight), the TV, nothing. “Fuse must be broken or something, heck, I’d get more use out of this toaster if it was made of wood”. Just another job for his Dad to do.
His farther did everything really, from work around the house to family matters; he would always be the one to fix it. The only thing he didn’t do was fix the holes and cracks in the wall, but Dan didn’t blame him. He was getting old now, and deserved a rest, even if it was a huge problem.
Dan would just have to deal with cereal, one of the only things he could make, that and toast, a drink and a mess. Luckily for him, he actually liked museli, although that was probably the only healthy meal he liked, that and fruit salad. Dan did like fruits; hell the only reason why he wasn’t fat was because of them. Only problem was his parents only made him dinner, as he got lunch at school with school dinners he made his own breakfast (which was always butter on toast if you couldn’t guess). Since a lot of the food they made didn’t include fruit in favour of vegetables, which he often hated, the only way he ever got fruit was by just eating it separately.
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While Dan ate his breakfast, he couldn’t help but think of what happened in his dream. His day seemed normal enough; all that had changed was the freaky weather and the outside looked different. Actually, that was a big deal. Where had all the houses gone, they couldn’t have just vanished completely, that was impossible. Perhaps that’s what the voice had meant by an ‘alternate reality’… the scenery would be changing. But that was just crazy, why change that when you could change something else instead, something a lot more fun. That’s when it occurred to him.
“Maybe it’s not my scenery that’s changed, but whoever’s I’m at now”. Well, that would be much more fun, wait, why did he care about it being fun, this was serious. He was all alone in his house in a totally different place, maybe his parents couldn’t get back to him, maybe the house was missing over there and they didn’t have anywhere to live? All those thoughts were put to one side however, as something happened that he didn’t expect, something that made him lose his train of thought, he nearly pissed himself from the shock too, he hadn’t gone to the toilet after all.
Someone was knocking at the door. Who the hell could be knocking at the door at this time of day? Well, except maybe the postman. Whoever it was, they were doing a lot of it, as if they were really impatient, either that or it was an emergency. Whoever this was, if this was an emergency, it must’ve been important if they were knocking this early. With some reluctance, (remember when I said he was brave… yeah…) Dan carefully put his bowl of museli down and slowly walked towards the door. Apparently, the one knocking heard him thanks to the creaky floorboards, and burst open the door before he got a chance to open it.
“SURPRISE!!!… who are you?” It said giggling. “You look funny”.
Dan dusted himself off, for this was the last thing he expected. Pinkie Pie, the pink Earth pony from my little pony: friendship is magic, covered in balloons and streamers, laughing at him on the floor.
“What… the fuck”, his jaw dropping to the floor for the second time that day.