//------------------------------// // Awake // Story: A Colt's Tale // by my_little_medic //------------------------------// My hair slowly danced back and forth from the cool morning wind coming from my window. I realized that I had gone to bed naked, for the cold bite of the morning air caused me to shiver. Reaching behind my head I felt for the blanket so as to limit my exposure, but it was nowhere to be found. "Damnit... Must've fallen off of the bed." I groaned. The morning sunlight began peering through my window, attempting to raise me from my sleep by shining directly into my eyes. I groaned as a headache began to make itself known. My whole body felt nauseated as it began to reconnect itself with my half asleep brain. 'What a night...' I thought to myself. 'I don't remember drinking enough to make myself sick. Wait a minute...! This can't be my bedroom... My bedroom doesn't have a window.' Ignoring the protest that my tired and very hung-over brain was staging, I raised my head off of the ground and forced my eyes open. Instantly my headache was doubled by the sunlight as the world slowly came into focus. 'What the hell...!' I thought, blinking away the morning film on my eyes as I took in my surroundings. As I looked around, I confirmed that I was not on the ground of my room, or in any room to speak of. I wasn't even indoors for that matter. I was laying smack dab in the middle of a lush and very vibrant grass field. The long shards of grass were swaying back and forth in the chilly breeze, reflecting the sunlight off of the morning dew, giving the appearance of being encrusted with millions of tiny diamonds. The wind blew across my body once more, and I suddenly remembered that I was lying outside completely naked. Trying to make rational sense of my predicament, the only explanation that I could come up with was that I passed out last night and my so called "friends" thought it would be a funny prank to dump me naked in the country. 'Bastards!' I thought, frowning. A fly had started buzzing around my ear and the sound was enough to remind me of my alcohol fueled headache, as well as annoy me as it buzzed back an forth. Feeling it land on the side of my head, I swatted at it with my hand. 'CRACK!' Instanteous, the pain threw me for one heck of a loop. It was as if my head was the baseball and whatever hit me was the bat. I set my head down on the ground, dizzy from what had just happened. "Ugh....!" I blurted out. "What in the world was that?!" The headache and the nausea from my hangover decided to take this time to remind me of their presence. I brought my arms up over my head as I continued to lay with my eyes closed and head on the ground. Slowly I opened my eyes again. The world around me was distorted, and I felt like I had just gotten off of an amusement park ride. Hues of red and yellow surrounded me as I looked around. Shaking my head a bit, I raised it off of the ground once more. The red and yellow tint was still present and as I squinted I realized that I was seeing my hair. I let an agitated sigh escape my lips as I thought to myself. 'So it wasn't enough to dump me naked in the woods. They felt the need to dye my hair weird colors as well... I guess I obviously won't be drinking with that group anymore.' I blinked as the dizziness began to subside from my clobbering to the head. I reached up to rub the area on my head before once again. 'Crack!' The pain from being smacked in the same spot made me wince. The initial trauma this time seemed less intense. 'Maybe due to the fact I wasn't trying to swat a bug away.' I wondered as I shut my eyes in pain again. 'What the hell is going on?!' I wondered in frustration. I opened my eyes and brought my hand up to my face. A feeling of pure panic overcame me and I froze in place. All I could do was stare at the stump on the end of my arm. There were no fingers to speak of, just a hard grey stump protruding out of my white arm. Slowly I lifted up my other arm to my sight, only to find the exact same thing. After a few moments of catatonia, I shifted my vision from stump to stump. A realization came over me as I began to move the stumps around to get a complete look at them. I squinted and took the two stumps, while facing each other, and clapped them together slowly. 'Clop!' The hollow sound resonated throughout my head. I did it again. 'Clop!' 'Hooves.... I have hooves instead of hands!' I thought as my feeling of panic intensified. I looked down my arms from where my hands should have been. My arms were covered in a soft, short white fur that trailed back to my body. But the other thing I noticed is how short my arms were. It appeared that they were barely over a foot long at best. Quickly I turned my head to the rest of me with the panic stricken realization continuing from there. My body appeared to have shrunk as well and was covered in the same short white fuzz as my arms. My legs looked the same as my arms with both feet missing. Having been replaced by another set of the same little grey hooves. My breathing had quickened and my brain was a horrible shipwreck of information as everything came crashing in. 'This wasn't possible! How could it be?!' My rational thought process screamed. 'A dream maybe?! How do you explain the pain in your head from where you face-hoofed yourself then?!' I closed my eyes as tight as I could and shook my head violently. When I reopened them, nothing had changed other than the dizzy feeling I now had. I looked over myself, my senses all reporting back the same findings as before. 'I'm a horse... I'm a freaking horse!!!' I screamed in my head. I looked down at my butt and saw a bright red fluffy tail with yellow streaks laid out behind me. I crossed my eyes as I noticed a bright white fuzzy muzzle that stretched out in front of my face. Carefully I brought a hoof up to my nose and touched it. "NO WAY THIS IS REAL!!!" I yelled out. My voice startled me. It was definitely mine but so much higher pitched. It sounded as if I had gone up about two octaves since the last time I heard myself speak. 'I sound like a...' The realization suddenly struck me like a freight train. I quickly looked over myself again. Noting how short my limbs were, how small my body was and how short my wings were. I stopped right there, my train of thought derailing, exploding, burning and killing all of the passengers on board. 'WINGS?! I HAVE WINGS!' I looked at the appendages with wide eyes. They were a pair of bright white feathered wings that sprouted up and out of my back just behind my shoulders. The long feathers that stuck out towards the sky looked to be very sturdy. While the little ones that looked to be just growing in were soft and fuzzy. For just a moment a tiny smile came over my face but quickly faded. 'People don't just all of a sudden wake up transformed into a damned horse! A 'kid' horse at that... not to mention one with wings! This is just a... a very vivid dream... a dream that was triggered from a night of very heavy drinking.' I closed my eyes tight again and curled up into a little ball on the ground. "You're name is Jerry Mintle! You're a fully grown man of twenty six years! You were having a party last night with your friends at the bar to celebrate the end of a rough week. You have sandy blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin." I said aloud in my childish voice. After a few minutes I opened my eyes and slowly raised my head up to see the same grassy field. I looked myself over noticing that I was still the same little white horse with wings. I could feel the heat began to bubble up from my eyelids and soon the tears followed as they began to run down the fur on my face. "How... How is this possible...?" I asked myself in a very shaky voice. I laid there with my head down and let the tears flow freely for what seemed like hours. I finally brought one of my new forelegs up to my face and wiped the remaining tears from my eyes. I lifted my head and took another good look at my surroundings. Off in the distance a short ways, I could see a forest that lined the edge of the grassy field I was lying in. I followed the forest edge with my eyes and discovered that it completely surrounded the grass field. From forest edge to forest edge, the field could only have been about a half mile in diameter. I didn't see any power lines in the area, no planes or jet streams in the sky, no signs of human civilization whatsoever. I took one last look at the ground before thinking to myself. 'Better get up and try to figure this out. As unbelievable as this seems... There's got to be some kind of explanation as to what's happened to me.' I let out a sigh as I began to manipulate my new limbs. First I put my front hooves flat against the ground and shakily raised myself up into a push up. Next, I brought my back hooves underneath me until they made contact with the ground. I slowly raised my body the rest of the way off of the ground until I was shakily standing on all four legs. I stood there for several minutes as I learned where my new balance was and allowed my muscles to come back to life after I had lied there for so long. 'Okay, so one leg at a time.' I thought as I slowly lifted my left front leg from the ground and allowed the others to take over my weight. I moved my leg forward and set it back down, transferring my weight evenly once again. Next I lifted my right rear leg up, brought it forward and set it back down. I did this several times while alternating limbs, only managing to lose my balance once or twice. I began to count out an almost musical rhythm as my hooves touched the ground. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Finally after about fifteen minutes of practice I had the walking part down pat. A quick growl of my stomach and a sudden feeling of nausea reminded me of the hangover I was still battling. Another wave of nausea came rearing in and this time I retched. The disgusting taste of old rotten alcohol and stomach juices filled my mouth as I tried as hard as I could to spit it all out. The smell was awful as well. I needed water badly. My headache had come back with a vengeance after my stomach had expelled all of its contents through the wrong end. I walked through the field and up to the forest edge. I peered through the thick trees into the forest. It was dark, the trees had grown so thick and so close together that they effectively blocked any direct sunlight from reaching the forest floor. There was a sinking feeling snaking its way into my head as I took my first step through the trees and into the dark forest.