“They say all you need to fulfill your impossible fantasies is your imagination and a good book, when all you really need are ponies and friendship.”
-(My own quote)
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I was at a loss of words right there, finally seeing a friend whom I thought was dead for the past three months, who all of his friends and family thought he was dead for the past three months, when the police and search parties found nothing, I found what they didn’t, and I’m relieved to finally know that he hasn’t been dead, he’s just been held captive all this time.
I’m just really lucky I guess.
“It has been three long grueling months... since I’ve seen ANYBODY, well... another human being like myself, how the hell did you get here? They caught you in the Everfree didn’t they?”
I kinda just stared at him, still in shock that was alive and that he was here the whole time.
“What? It’s not like you haven’t seen me before, what’d you think I was? Dead?” He asked in a quizzical tone, one from curiosity of why I’m acting like I’m looking at something ever so foreign to me.
All I gave was a slow nod, I watched as his face turned from a look of mere suspicion to a smug grin.
“Oh cmon, you don’t mean to tell me that you thought I was dead for however long I’ve been gone, you can’t be serious.” He tried to argue, but my facial expression said it all.
“First of all, you’ve been gone for over three months, second, yes I thought you were dead, so did you’re family and everybody you knew, and third, yes I am serious, we all really thought you were dead for the longest time.” I stated bluntly, I couldn’t get over how smooth he was going all over this.
I watched yet again as his facial expression changed, now from the smug grin he had to complete disbelief in what I was saying.
“My god... You’re really serious aren’t you?... Shit... They all thought I was dead?...You too?...” His response’s tone had degraded massively, with him now talking in an almost monotone voice.
I could only respond with a silent nod, I wouldn’t know what it was like to have been gone for over three months only to find that your friends and family have thought you were dead the whole time.
“What happened?”
“Well it had all started a few months back when my family and I went on that camping trip right? Well...”
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Change perspective: Travis
Time: over three months ago.
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It was in the late fall, my family and I had planned to go out for a week or so out to a camping spot my dad had personally picked out over looking on the Internet. I for one didn’t give much of a damn, I was planning on draining the reserve car battery to charge my Ipod and listen to music the whole time, I myself was a fan of Mic the Microphone.
But my mom wouldn’t have it, she was so generic on how we were supposed to ‘admire’ and ‘appreciate’ nature, but I for one let nature do its thing, while I stayed within the safety of the house.
Mom and Dad had everything set up, the car was jam packed with every single camping utensil you could find, it seemed almost cheesy on how much they brought from multiple bottles of bug spray to a self inflatable life raft. C’mon its the late FALL, if there’s any precipitation its gonna be snow, and I think all the bugs died off when fall began. It’s supposed to be like eighteen degrees for the high, But dad always says, ‘You can never be too sure.’ I begin to doubt his thought process, when he thinks its gonna downpour and possibly flood in the late fall.
“Well we’re all packed and ready to go!” Dad said in an upbeat tune, almost sure that this was going to be the best camping experience ever.
“Whatever you say dad...” I was honestly not looking forward to this trip, I was just gonna have to suffer through it, with Ipod in hand.
“Oh c’mon Travis, it’s not gonna be that bad.” Mom was always optimistic towards these sort of things.
We ended up piling into the car and my dad backed out of the driveway before our long and grueling drive of over two and a half hours, I for one was just fine bobbing my head to the beat of The Living Tombstone.
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- About three hours after -
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Well here we are... Three hours into our camping trip, my dad managed to set up the tent and such, it says on the tag that there’s room for at least five to six people... BULLSHIT, even if we took our own separate corners, there isn’t enough room for (add cocky remark here later...).
Anyways, we were all situated, my mom was getting dinner ready while dad was getting a fire started in the fire pit, I for one, found a nice place to sit down under a nearly leafless tree and listen to some of my music, however, the long car ride had taken a toll on the battery, and not soon after I had to go let it charge for an hour or two in the car.
“Hey mom!” I called out to my mother, whom was cutting vegetables and scraping them into boiling pot, for what i thought was going to be some sort of soup.
“Yes Travis? What do you need?” My mom looked up from the cutting board to show she was listening.
“I don’t think there really is anything to do right now... So I’m gonna go and check out the woods, is that alright by you?” I was honestly bored out of my mind, that seemed like the next best thing here.
“I don’t see why not, just be careful and try not to get hurt...” My mother had began, but I was already walking off into the vast amount of trees and leaves, leaving my mother’s words behind.
“Oh and don’t forget! there’s supposed to be a possible blizzard here! be back before dark!” mom had warned me before I was out of hearing distance.
All I gave was a raise of my right arm so signify I heard her before venturing off into the almost silent woods.
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“This is boring as hell.” I silently thought to myself as I hit the trunks of trees with a stick I had picked up along my exploration.
There was honestly nothing but silent and almost lifeless looking trees, along with the sound of leaves crunching under my feet, and the sound of the stick striking each tree trunk as I went along.
I stopped for a moment, taking in the landscape around me, getting the serene feeling of pure and utter tranquility, it felt... unsettling, to say the least, being all alone where nobody knew where you were... where nobody could could contact you...
Complete isolation
I quit looking around when a small blur of white flew across my face, I turned to find it, but to no avail. I turned my head skywards to find that the first few flakes of the blizzard were coming down onto the dry, leaf covered Earth...
Wait...
First few flakes of the blizzard...
Blizzard...
Shit...
I began looking around for any such way back, but there was no trail I had left upon coming here, I ended up turning directly around, and ran in that direction, just hoping I would be able to find my way back, blindly unaware of the events that lay ahead of me
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I ran, ever so blindly in the direction I came, hoping to get back somehow before the storm really picked up, but the light flurry had now progressed in a moderate sheet of flakes coming down upon me, I had made no progress of locating the campsite, and I was now frantically searching the woods, upon which I was lost.
I hate to say this, but this, by far was pretty much the worst possible thing that could happen; ‘me getting lost and freezing to death in a snowstorm’ was what the future had in mind for me, but I wasn't gonna give up without trying.
The wind was beginning to pick up now, and the sheet of snow had turned into a frozen downpour, all I could do right now was slowly trudge through the knee-deep snow while holding my shoulders to try and retain some body heat so I would have more time to venture out.
Eventually, my legs gave out, I collapsed to the ground, my legs now had no feeling at all, and I could feel my blood vessels in my forearms and lower legs as I laid there in the snow.
“This is it...” I silently thought to myself, as I shook ever so violently from my overall body temperature.
I slowly felt the darkness fade in as my vision began to blur, and my movement was almost disabled by the sheer cold.
Just then, out of complete dumb luck, I heard voices, this was my one chance to help myself stay alive.
I mustered up all that I had right then and there, all energy reserves I had that were keeping me alive, I even drew in a dramatically large breath for emphasis.
“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!!!!!!!”
I quietly waited among the low sound of the wind blowing for any form of a response from the people.
“What was that?” Said a lower sounding voice that didn’t sound like dad at all...
“I don’t know, it came from this direction, lets go check it out.” I heard another say.
“Shit...” These were people I had no idea who they were, from what I heard, they were both masculine sounding, but neither of them sounded like my dad, I could only wait and hope that they would help me... and not anything else.
I silently waited, as the footsteps got closer, my vision had degraded to small splotches of colors of the landscape as the figures barely came into focus, I couldn’t make out their shape though, just the colors.
“What In all of Equestria is this?” the darker gray figure said as he prodded my numb body.
“I’ve got no idea Iron, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to find something like this, we did go off the map, and we’re looking for something like this too.” the other figure said, which was a darker violet color... or at least that's what I saw.
“Well if this is what we want we gotta get it out of here, It’s freezing, and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna live much longer if we don’t get it out of here.”
With that the violet figure proceeded in lifting my body onto the back of the dark gray one, they then hurriedly jogged through the snow, my body bouncing along the whole way.
Now too weak to speak at all, I found myself consumed by darkness not too soon after.
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-Back to the present-
Perspective: Taylor
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“By the time I woke up, I was here, living in this cell, they took care of me, got me back to a better condition, and kept me here for the past three months. Since you came along, I’m happy and then again I’m not.” He had a hint of loneliness in his voice, probably from the fact that he has been isolated in the cell for ever so long with nobody to speak his tragic story to.
I listened to his entire story, how all parts of it began to make sense with what I knew about his disappearance, and all events that played out afterwards.
“After they got me back to my normal body temperature and treated all of the frostbite, they...”
Travis was cut short as voices could be heard form down the hallway.
“Oh, it’s time already?” He said as though he knew what was happening.
“What time is it Travis?” I asked quizzically.
He simply looked out from the cell, and looked back to me, “Do you know where we are?” He asked.
“No, why would you think I knew?” I responded bluntly.
“I would think you would have deduced it by now.” He stated almost matter-of-factly.
I heard the doors screech as they flew open down the hall, the loud voices of stallions filled the hall as they ranted, stirring up all of the beasts that lay within their cages as they angrily responded to the commotion.
“This place... is an animal fighting arena...” The three stallions whom had captured me earlier were now fumbling with the lock on the door, until it made a metallic clang as it fell to the floor.
“And we’re the animals.”
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