BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEE-
You hit snooze. Again. It’s the third time this morning... Or so you thought, as it is actually the afternoon. How often did you slam your hand on the snooze button without noticing? Bluh, this time you stay awake though. You slowly make your way out of bed. Waking up late again won’t hurt too much, you don’t really have anything urgent to do anyway. Actually, you haven’t had anything urgent for the last few weeks. You head to your bathroom and take a shower to wake you up. The water is lukewarm at best, and grows colder with every minute. As you dry yourself, your ears are hit by the irritating buzzing of your alarm.
‘Nice job genius, next time try to remember to turn off the alarm instead of just hitting snooze.’
You ignore the sarcastic inner dialog and start to rush towards the noisy clock. You take a single step before slipping, your feet are propelled skyward and your back hits the hard floor.
“Great... gonna be one of THOSE mornings...”
You stand back up and rub the small of your back while faltering back to your bedroom and you turn off the alarm. Finally. Sweet, sweet silence. After a few minutes of fumbling around, you find a set of clean clothes to put on and head for the kitchen.
‘How the FUCK did you manage to burn your toast?’
‘It's a TOASTER. NOT A GOD DAMN SPACE SHUTTLE.’
You shake off the rude part of your brain yelling at yourself as you realise that those toasts you just charred? Yeah, they were the last slices of bread in the entire apartment.
‘Good job, Fucko.’
Whatever, you’ll just have to put more PB on them, that’s all. No peanut butter left. Jumping through your window sounds like a great plan right now. You decide to do something reasonable instead and throw away the coal-like substance that used to be bread.
Cereal? Check.
Milk? Check.
Clean bowl and spoon? Check.
‘Good, let’s hope you don’t burn them too.’
Thankfully, you manage to eat your cereal without any incident. Maybe you’re done with the streak of bad luck of the morning.
THUD.
‘Looks like it isn’t.’
Toe, meet table. Your face is warped with pain and you start blaring swearing echoes through the neighborhood. You jump around on one foot, clutching your toe and continuously cursing this world for giving table legs unusually sharp corners. After calming down, you drop your dishes in the sink. A quick look at your stubbed toe confirms you that it’s not broken, still hurts like a bitch though. You glance at your watch, and see that it’s 1:34 PM, time to leave. You make sure you took everything before going out; wallet, phone, keys, headphones and violin case.
Yep, you’re good.
You get out and lock your door. Nimbly avoiding walking in a pile of dog waste, you manage to get your ass on the bench next to the bus stop. With your luck, there's probably not going to have any seats left and you'll be forced to stand next to some fat sweating guy. Or maybe you’ll get mugged on your way to your jam session. Better yet, you’re going to get run over by a truck while crossing the street.
After a few minutes of thinking about more jolly scenarios, your bus pulls over. You see a few unoccupied seats in the back and make your way to one of them. Having about 30 minutes of travel until you reach destination, you put on your headphones and look through your music collection before settling for the violin cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine that you love so much. Your eyelids become heavy as the bus resumes its course and sleep quickly overcomes your body.
Something is tickling your hand, feels like grass. You open your eyes and you see that... Well... It is grass.
"What the fuck!?"
You spring to your feet and immediately start thinking about an explanation. Did the bus crash sending you out a window and in the grass? No... There's nothing in sight that looks like a car crash. Or civilisation. Are you dead? Maybe the bus -did- crash and you're now in purgatory? No, no... That's silly. You must be dreaming. Yeah, that's probably it. A dream. It feels so real though. Your senses aren’t numbed down like when you usually dream. The air is fresh, the ambient sounds are clear and the grass feels like, well, grass. Everything is so... colorful. And two dimensional. Wait... Two dimensional? Does that mean that you look... oh fuck. You run to a nearby puddle of water and look at your reflection. And holy shit do you look strange as hell. Your skin is now one solid color and a slightly darker line draws the outline of your body. You look like a cartoon character.
'You look like a freak.'
You give yourself a couple of good slaps in the face, chasing away the inner monologue.
Awake? No.
Red hand-shaped marks on your face? Yes.
'Looks like you're not dreaming, jerkface.'
Dreaming or not, standing alone in the wilderness won’t do you any good. Looking around, you see that your violin case is lying on the ground a few feet away from where you woke up. You open it and let out a sigh of relief when you see that your violin is still there with your bow and rosin cake. While looking through the pockets on your case to find out that everything you kept in them has vanished. Well, not everything. You found the solar powered charger for your phone.
So, unless mistaken, you only have your clothes. Your violin in its case, along with your bow and a rosin cake. Your phone and headphones, which are still over your ears. A solar powered charger for your phone.
'Oh yeah, all this technology will help your dumb ass to survive in the wild.'
'Totally.'
You shake your head and tell yourself it's not the time for inner sarcasm. Good thing you had breakfast before you left though, at least you can go on for a while without starving to death. You better start looking for a road or something. Grabbing your stuff, you start to walk up a nearby hill, maybe the high ground will help you to find a road or a trail, maybe you’ll see a river or even a…
...
A... Small... town?
Well, that was easy. You begin to make your way towards civilization.
As you get closer to the town you notice something strange. Everything looks like it was made for hobbits. You also can’t see any human being in here... Only small pastel-colored horses. Yeah, you must be dreaming. You don't know where your subconscious took the idea for all this shit, but kudos to it. It really outdone itself.
"What the hell is going on?" You mutter to yourself as you carefully reach the edge of the small village.
A light brown horse suddenly notices you. Its eyes grow wide and it yells something you can’t understand. Wait... Yell? That sounded like he was saying something in a different language. Every equine in town turns towards you in an instant.
"Uh... hello?" You say, confused as all hell.
There is a short silence, followed by utter chaos as every creature seems to run into houses and close the doors shut behind them. Confusion overwhelms you as you just stand still, watching the town flee in terror from you.
"..."
"What?"
'Don't ask me. I'm just as lost as you are.'
Nothing makes sense anymore. Why is this town filled with ponies? Why do they live in houses? Were some of them flying? Why were they fleeing from you? ...You know what? Fuck logic. Why don’t you just go ask them? You walk towards the closest home you see and knock at the door.
"Excuse me, could you help me?"
"..."
"..."
"Hello?"
You try out another door, same result.
"I guess there’s no point in trying other doors." You say under your breath.
You go sit on a nearby bench and wait a couple of minutes, hoping that one of the resident would come out eventually. ...Yep, any minute now. You'll soon see one of those equines come out of those little thatched-roofed house walk down this little road and come talk to little ol' you.
...God, this dream sucks. You should be with your friend right now, practicing your violin while he plays the piano. You should be jamming and not stuck in a stupid pastel dream.
...What if it wasn’t a dream? What if that bus got all Magic School Bus on your ass and transported you to a wacky dimension? You knew you should have stayed home today. Well... In the eventuality that all of this is real, and judging by the warm welcome you just had; humans are either inexistent here or they are bloodthirsty monsters. Great.
Since the population is dead set on staying hidden, you decide to leave the town for a little bit. Let them calm down and maybe try a different approach next time. You walk back to the top of the hill, and after climbing up a small boulder, you sit down and try to make yourself comfortable. The landscape around you is breathtaking. Green hills adorns the countryside with delicate curves, clouds are scattered in the sky as far as the eye can see, a light breeze. You put your headphones on and lay down on your back as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the gorgeous landscape slowly lulls you to sleep.
Waking up, you notice the air is lacking the subtle aroma of sweat and piss. This means that you are not back in your bus and still stuck in the other world. You reluctantly open your eyes to confirm your suspicion and-
"Wow..."
The already beautiful scenery is now basking in the light of the setting sun while the hills are now casting their vast shadows over the countryside and the clouds are tinted with the warm colors of the sunset. Feeling a inspired by the scene, and not really seeing anything else to do, you open your violin case.
"Time to get some fresh air, buddy."
Your partner doesn't answer, being more of the silent type and only speaking when he needs to. But when you work together, you two make a great duet. Standing on your rock, you feel insignificant compared to the majesty the sunset.You rosin up your bow, tighten its hairs and lift your instrument to your shoulder. After a deep breath, you draw your bow on the strings.
You bow down to an imaginary crowd, who you swear you can almost hear, and sigh, not too sure of what to do now. But, since you feel slightly reinvigorated by your performance, you decide that you could try and approach the strange town again. You turn around and-
"Oh god what fuck?!"
Turns out, you weren’t imagining the crowd after all. A dozen or so pastel ponies are slamming their hooves on the ground around you. You freeze for a few seconds before taking a second timid bow, this time, facing your spectators. The equine Skittles commercial gets closer as you sit down on your rock. Two of them start talking to you. Well, you think they’re talking; it sounds nothing like any language you’ve ever heard. You try to motion them that you can’t understand what the hell they’re saying, without any result. Maybe saying something will shut them up.
"Do I look like I can speak horse?"
Yeah, that worked. Now they’re looking at each other in confusion and muttering lowly. This... didn't help you all that much, all things considered. One of them eventually step forward and asks something. In horse language, of course. You sigh heavily and answer.
"I. Can’t. Understand. You."
You make exaggerated gestures while speaking; tapping your chest, shaking your head in the negative, pointing to your ears, pointing to them. Finally, you think they get it. Now you’re just staring at the ponies in an awkward silence, and vice-versa.
'Yeah, much better Dingus.'
The sky is slowly darkening as the sun sets and the moon rises. Even though you just spent the afternoon sleeping on a rock in the middle of nowhere, you're not sure you want to stay alone in the wilderness for a full night. You point to yourself, make your middle finger and index 'walk' on your hand, motion to the town and... huh... How the hell are you supposed to pantomime a question mark?
No matter, the group of equine is already arguing. Actually, only two of them are. The rest of them are just looking back and forth between the two disputing ponies. On one side, you have a cream-colored pony with a purple and pink mane whose emotions fluctuate between annoyed, worried and slightly angry. On the other, you have a mint green unicorn (the fact that unicorns exist in this world barely surprise you, since you stopped trying to find logic here) with a blueish-grey and white mane that looks completely thrilled. And then there's you, and you don't know what the fuck is going on.
Eventually, the non-vocal group takes a few steps back and one of them say something. A handful of them wave at you before they all start walking back towards the town, leaving you alone with two previously arguing horses. You wave back awkwardly, simply accepting the fact that you just played a violin sonata for a bunch of dream rainbow ponies. After a few more minutes of arguing, the off-white pony lets out an exasperated sigh and the mint flavored unicorn stands on her hind legs and fist pumps a couple of time while cheering.
"...Where the hell did I end up?"
'Hell sounds about right.'
Oh shut up, you.