//------------------------------// // Chapter One: For Crying Out Loud... // Story: The Dividing Line // by Divide //------------------------------// The Dividing Line Chapter One: For Crying Out Loud... All of this happened, more or less. I was not having a good day. First off, the weather outside was absolutely dreadful. No matter how much I wished for it to change, Canadian weather seemingly consisted of nothing but rain, wind, and more rain. Today had been no different, with the exception that it was raining buckets rather than simply drizzling like it had been before. The windshield wipers of my old Mercedes were swishing back and forth at full capacity, and yet I could still barely see. Secondly, I had several reports due that were paramount to my career's continued advancement. I glanced over at my full-to-bursting suitcase. I wouldn't be able to drink a single drop of alcohol during the weekend if I was going to get the reports completed on time. Having a solid amount of Irish genes made that a much bigger deal than one would think. Last but not least, I was also behind in writing my somewhat-popular fanfiction series centered around the children's television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I wasn't quite sure how or why I started watching the show, but I found myself hooked by the believable characters and over-the-top antics nonetheless. In fact, I found the fan-made stories about My Little Pony to be even better than the cartoon itself, which got me into writing in the first place. I knew that I shouldn't worry about something as trivial and non-important as writing about multi-hued cartoons, but I found himself devoting more and more attention to my stories. No matter what I did or how much I wrote in an evening, there was always more to do. Always more. Peering through my windshield, I finally spotted my house—a fairly small, two-story abode that was built sometime in the sixties, if the creaky floors, leaky roof, and copy-pasted design were anything to go by. It wasn't a mansion, but it was my home, and I liked living there: it was out of the way, and the rent was cheap. Having a roommate that split the bills made the deal even sweeter. Letting out a relieved sigh, I pulled into my driveway, tires crunching on the gravel and crushing the dandelion that attempted to grow where it shouldn't have. I turned off the engine, grabbed my stuff, and made a mad dash for the overhang, intent on escaping the heavy downpour. After unlocking the heavy wooden aperture, stepping inside, and flicking the light switch on, I shrugged out of my coat and shoes, then tossed my suitcase on the couch. I'd deal with that after grabbing something to eat. Moving like a ghost over the floor, not eliciting a single creak from the hardwood, I opened up the eggshell-coloured fridge. To my immediate dismay, I realized there was nothing that would be even vaguely considered food inside the metal container. A Tupperware container filled with some sort of ghastly fluid covered by cellophane, a head of cabbage that was supporting an entire ecosystem, and a container of light-bleached baking soda that expired twenty years ago were all that remained within the refrigerator. I sighed and closed the refrigerator door a tad harder than I should have. My roommate was almost certainly on the way; hopefully he picked up something for dinner. I would've loved to be able to make a phone call and know for certain, but with the new laws instituted by the government, it was illegal to use a cell phone while driving. I thought that anyone who couldn't multitask well enough to drive and talk at the same time shouldn't be driving at all, but that was out of my power to change. Rubbing a hand over the stubble on my chin, I decided that I'd try and work on one of my many stories while I waited. It was a darn shame that the universe had other plans. A flash of blinding, purple light that would put a pyrotechnics display to shame erupted into existence directly in front of me. I winced and averted my eyes, nearly tripping in the process. I staggered back in a paltry attempt to get away from the searing, blinding light, but to no avail: it followed me with a disturbing, single-minded sentience, and despite covering my eyes with an arm, it wormed through the tiny interwoven threads of my dress shirt and pierced my vision regardless. The light drove a sharp spike of pain into me, yet before I could do so much as grunt, the world exploded into vibrant magentas, lavenders, and indigoes in what could only be described as a cacophony of colour. The world was colour; colour was the world. I saw the threads of my very plane of existence; ley lines that criss-crossed and intertwined my world with others. If the universe was a spider's web, and planet Earth a single strand, then I was but a fly caught in the intricacies, helpless to do anything but stare into the vastness. I felt an aloof numbness begin spreading throughout my body, starting at my head and working its way down. With the lack of feeling came a lack of caring. Even though what I was witnessing was possibly the most incredible and life-changing event of my entire life, I couldn't care less. There other worlds out there, in the vast unknown, many of which were connected to mine, but so what? I couldn't feel anything anymore, but so what? The world was turning white, blue, orange, yellow, pink, and a familiar shade of purple, but so what? It also seemed to be moving, but so what? Wait... When did the world start moving? I thought for a moment. I realized that I did, in fact, care that my world was spinning. Never one to think of myself as the type who was prone to vertigo, I tried to remember why I cared that the world was turning brown, with little black cracks. And what was that? A sense of being... watched? Those noises in the background were growing louder; a high-pitched sound, followed by a thump, and then... Silence. As the placid laconism filled my ears, the world became more than simply brown, with little black cracks. Colours and textures swirled to life, coalescing into bookshelves, furniture, and my own outstretched arm. I tried to make a fist, but my hand only twitched in response. I blinked and realized that the brown was coming from the wooden floorboards beneath me; the tiny grains swirled and ran along the piece of wood vertically, as if trying to outrace each other. I tried to move, but to my dismay, I found that my muscles were locked and tense in what should have been pain. Strangely, I felt no discomfort from it, even though I knew that my muscles should be burning from the strain of being taught for... however long I'd been laying there. Where was I, anyway? I wasn't in my house anymore; that was certain. I felt that I should know where I was, as it was vaguely familiar yet completely alien at the same time. "What... what is it?" The simple question spoken aloud shattered the silence like a sledgehammer taken to a pane of glass. I knew that I should know the voice, but once again, I couldn't put it to a face or name. Everything felt strangely distant and remote, even excluding the fact that I didn't know where I was, how I managed to get to wherever I was, nor why I was even there. I was certain that I hadn't taken any inebriating substances recently. In fact, I was positive that I hadn't, as I still had those reports to finish. What the heck happened, then? Was I hallucinating? As if to answer my latter question, something drove itself into my ribs, driving what little air was remaining in my lungs. I sputtered and coughed in response. Well, that possibility was thrown out of the proverbial window. I waited for the shock of pain to hit me like a freight train, but it didn't come. I was grateful for the numbness. Sure, it limited my motor control, but I'd much rather not feel whatever pain my body was surely coping with. As my breathing became steady once more, I began hearing voices again. Many of them, speaking in turn. For the most part. The strangest aspect about the voices—by far— was that each sounded the same. Similar, at any rate, just like people's voices when they were sped up. "Why'd you kick it?!" "What was I supposed to do? Check its pulse? That thing probably doesn't even have a heartbeat..." "But what if it's—" "Shh!" The voices stopped abruptly. The only thing I could hear was my own, shallow breathing. I thought I heard a cricket chirping softly in the background, but that was probably just in my head. A few quick, heavy clonks that sounded like wood on wood thundered in my frazzled eardrums. I felt more so than saw something standing above me. I didn't know what it was, what it wanted, or if I was going to live to see it. I could feel its penetrating stare, though it didn't seem overly aggressive. In fact, it seemed to observe me with detachment. I didn't move. I barely breathed, and blinked only when it was absolutely necessary that I do so. I remained this way for a seemingly infinite stretch of time: each segment felt drastically longer than it should've. I took no chances, and gave no reason for whatever... things were nearby to otherwise harm me. Silence and patience were my only weapons now. After an eternity and a half, the thing standing above me spoke, as if to itself. "What are you?" My ears were still ringing, but the voices began to change. A different voice, one that drawled, asked a question of its own. "Ah reckon that a better question to ask would be, 'Why is it here?'" I was curious about that, too. On second thought, a question that I'd much rather have answered would be how they were speaking my language. The thing standing above me moved a few steps away and said, "I don't know why this... thing is here. Starswirl's spell wasn't a summoning—I'd know if it was." "Maybe the spell backfired?" "Maybe." The pause that followed felt like the silence of a court when the judge's decision was made. "What are we going to do with it? Can we send it back to where it came from?" Not meaning to interrupt their conversation, but unable to stifle it, I coughed, and summarily felt many pairs of eyes on me following my outburst. I gulped, licked my lips, and made a decision. I sat up. Head swimming and throbbing, I looked around by only moving my eyes. There were four-legged things around him, but beyond that I couldn't see. Everything seemed to be covered in a thick layer of fog. "Where am I?" I managed to croak. The things gasped and stepped back. One of them fell over. "It can talk!" A small part of me almost replied with 'No crap,' but it was hushed before it could potentially get me killed. I swallowed again. "Where am I?" My voice was rougher than sandpaper. None of the things answered me. They were still there, I knew: I could hear their breathing. Perhaps they were as shocked that I could talk as I was of them. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, squeezing them shut to hopefully get them working properly again. When I re-opened them, the light made me wince, but I could see clearly. I was in a small, circular room that seemed to be made almost exclusively out of wood. Bookshelves lined the walls, but whatever the books inside held was a mystery, as the spines were inlaid with cryptic symbols. I was sitting on a darkened patch of the hardwood floor, and to my back was what felt like a round coffee table. I blinked, not believing what else I saw. Standing in front of me—not five feet away—were six extremely familiar ponies, all of which wearing their respective ornamental amulets, and in one case, tiara, that represented their trait of friendship. "You're in—" began the purple pony before I interrupted her. "Equestria. God dammit, I'm in Equestria!"