{*First-Person, Main Character*}
"Grrraa!"
I hit the shield one last time with all the strength in my arm I could muster. My knuckles hit the forcefields and the room reverberated with a low hum. There were blue tinted spots on the shield where I punched it repeatedly. It was a nice contrast to all the pink around me and you could see it even if you weren't putting any weight on the barrier. If you backed up for a moment, all you would see is a spray of aqua floating in mid air on an invisible surface. I liked to think of it as a good sign that I was actually making progress on the damn thing and that I was not slowly but steadily breaking every bone in my hand.
My breath was ragged and a bit laboured. That's what happens when you punch something for three minutes straight. I'm no god-damn boxer, I don't have unlimited stamina! I could feel my body hear radiate off the top of my head and the centre of my chest. Sweat was building on the top of my brow and my tongue went back to behind unbearably dry. Jesus fucking christ, why do I have to get so hot and sweaty when I do anything above leisure level? It's like I'm a god-damn obese factory worker or something. Which I'm not. I'm a relatively healthy 15-year-old thank you very much.
With my back hunched, I leaned forward and took a few deep breaths. my knuckles were still against the shield and the candle and window in my vision in front of me were shaded with a light magenta colour, like I was seeing through some weird-ass glasses or something. I swallowed. Good, Griffin, good. So far in the past five minutes you've managed to wake up in an entirely different room other than your own, learn that the physics of light are all screwed up, that you've possibly been drugged hard and freak out like the little bitch you are. Good. That's good. Ten out of ten, right there. There is no way that I could have reacted to this any worse.
There was a sudden squeak to my left. I tilted my head to see the door at the far end of the room slowly open up, the light on the other side escaping into my selected chambers. There was a wide but short mass pushing the entrance from the opposite end. I stared with wide eyes and watched as both hope and fright leaped into my panicked mind. I puckered my lips in, getting them wet in anticipation to actually speak to someone. With some luck, I'll be able to find out where I am and how I got here, and why everything around me looked like it took a nuclear bomb of paints to the face.
Then, something creeped around the corner of the door.
No, seriously, that's the only way I can describe it.
There was a bit of pink that made its way from the other room, followed by a lot of yellow. Huge aquamarine eyes peered into my prison, examining its surroundings all around until its gaze dropped right onto me, who, by the way, still hunched over with my fist onto the shield. There was a large, furry ear that stuck out of its head and around the centre of its face was a tiny, tiny muzzle. An arm with a lump at the end of it wrapped itself around the door corner and was placed on the wood that made most of the door. Its eyes widened, and its petite mouth made an 'o' shape.
"Umm… May I come in?" it said completely in understandable, sensible English.
Now, I'm not sure about you, but it's not everyday I see a strange colourful creature that does not hail from earth speak an actual human language. So, like every sane and sensible young man, I reacted accurately to reflect the situation.
"HOLY SHIT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK!"
I immediately got off of the shield and stood up in a crunched position so that my head wouldn't hit the ceiling. I backed up to the head end of the bed and firmly planted my butt against the wall, my arms up in front of my face while flinching towards the thing staring at me. The mattress all but collapsed under my weight and sudden movement and I could feel my balance waver as the squishy material under my feet folded to the command of gravity. It felt really, really weird to stand on a bed with shoes on, three-year-old shoes none the less.
The yellow thing squeaked (what?), jumped in surprise and backed up faster than I reacted to it. It closed the door behind it, but not completely. It's arm was still around the corner of the door, holding on to it somehow even though it didn't have any hands. I could hear voices in the other room. There were two of them, and they sounded female, but frankly at this point I have to consider they possibility that they were not female. Yes, now that I've landed in unknown territory on a different planted filled with aliens I've never seen the likes of before, There are many, many new angles that I have to think about and plan around.
But serious. What the fuck did I just see.
Was that a fucking miniature horse? 'Cause it looked like a fucking miniature horse. The tiny muzzle, the wide ear on the top of its head and the lump at the end of its leg: It all made sense. Of course, no horse could curve its foreleg around a door like that and there is no way in hell that an equine creature would have eyes the size of dinner plates like that, but the closest thing I could relate the alien to is tiny, really colourful donkey. Yes, a donkey. That is what I shall call it from now on. A donkey. An alien that looks like a donkey.
WHAT THE FUCK.
Now, I like to consider myself as sane as any other teenaged boy, but god damn, there's something really fucking wrong with me. I'm seeing all these colours that should not be possible in real like, exact details in the scenery are all gone and that fucking donkey. Ooh, that fucking donkey. What the fuck. What the actual fuck. What was it doing here? Am I under its capture? Was it here to execute me? Was it here to lead me to an execution? What? Who? Why? Where am I? What is life? Is this death? I don't understand!
And then, the door opened again. This time the yellow donkey decided to actually enter the room fully and had shut the door behind it. It shuffled towards the front of the bed while trying to hide its eyes behind its hair. Why was it doing that? Why was it avoiding eye contact? Is that a species thing? Is it hiding its deadly gaze until it can get close enough to finish me off? Is it holding something back? What is it doing? Oh lordy, so many question and counting.
Finally it sat down on the floor, its haunches against the wood and its forelegs between its backlogs. It kept hiding beneath its mane, but tried to inch up its head little by little to peak at me. When it did and saw that I was looking at it, it made a little "Meep!" and went back to ducking down. My butt was so hard against the wall it was actually splitting a little. My stomach churned and it did not feel pleasant. A little bit of sweat dripped down my cheek and when I wiped my forehead with the sleeve of me sweater it returned soaked. I was really in for it now.
Then, it paused. There was a silence in the air except for the rain slamming into the window outside. Thunder crackled in the distance. At least this planet has a few familiar things going for it. The books, the bed, the candle, the windows and the rain almost made it seem like I was on Earth. Almost. It took a deep breath in through its nostrils and out through its mouth. Then again. And again. Suddenly I felt very relaxed and chill compared to moments before. Then I realized that I had actually been mirroring her actions subconsciously. What the crap? What caused me to do that?
I heard it mutter something under its breath. Then it tilted its head up and flung its hair out of the way of its face so I could see the grin upon its muzzle.
"Hello." it spoke.
"Uhhh…" I answered intelligently. I could not believe it spoke English. "Hhhi."
"My name is Fluttershy," it began, pointing towards itself, which I do admit is a very 'human' gesture. I wonder if body language translates itself to all four corners of the universe. "My friend found you crash landed into a field a few hours ago. We took you here so that you could rest and get comfortable with yourself once you woke up. What’s your name?"
Fluttershy? What kind of a name is that?
“My name? I asked, scratching the back of my head while trying to reel in my brain after it decided to jump off the deep end. “I’m, uh, I’m Griffin. Griffin Pearsons.”
“Griffin?” she said incredulously, her eyebrows raised. Her ears peeled back for a split second and her pupils shrunk a bit. It was very dramatic and expressive to the point that I could practically read her emotions as if her face were an open book. There was a little hitch in her breath and could feel the panic and stress radiating off of her. “Your name is Griffin?”
“Yes. Yes it is.” I replied without a beat.
She briefly looked to her left, biting her lip and bringing her left hoof to chin-height. A tiny squeak came from her again, which made the guy in me retch and detest while squealing in delight. It really couldn’t decide on one or the other.
“Uh,” I enunciate. “Are you ok?”
Her eyes went back to me in almost an instant. She seemed to realize how she was acting and caught herself from acting anymore stranger, putting her hoof down while swishing her tail back to the other side. “O-oh, um, yes. Yes, I’m fine. It was just, uh, a little bit of bad memories coming back to me.”
I almost felt insulted. She was mad at my name for no reason! Then I realized that it would be wrong to feel insulted. What is wrong with me? “Was there another Griffin in your world that ticked you off or something?”
“Yes, well, no, um,” she tittered, not deciding on which answer to take. “It’s not your name. Well, it is, but it isn’t at the same time. Oh, how can I explain this?”
I realized that I might have been stepping out of my boundaries here. “Wait wait wait, hold on. You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t feel comfortable with it. I mean, I’m fine, just sitting here and talking to you. You don’t have to say a thing.”
“Oh no no no no! It’s not like that at all! I’d be happy to tell you about, uh, your name, but I don’t know how to explain it…”
She somehow scrunched up her face and rubbed the bottom of her muzzle with her hoof. Her eyes traced down for a few seconds before landing back on top of mine.
“Are you, um, are you from here?” she asked me.
“What?”
“Are you, um…” She was having trouble with her words.
“Are you from this land, I-I mean. This kingdom?”
“Kingdom? What do you mean? I’m not from any kind of kingdom, I’m from–” I began, remembering exactly where I was at that moment. I could feel the warmth draining out of my cheeks as reality distanced itself from me. My gaze dropped to the sheets below me. “No. I’m… I’m not from here at all.”
She perked up at my words, but then frowned, her eyes widening in realization. “Oh. Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, I didn’t think about your predicament at all. I’m so, so sorry.”
“That’s alright,” I reassure her, which it wasn’t. My stomach decided it was a good time to practice for the circus again and started doing triple backflips off of the rim of my ribcage. “You couldn’t have known. It’s not your fault.” My attention went back to her. “But what made you guess?”
She bit the inside of her cheek, not knowing what to do. Her hoof grazed the wooden floor as she started tracing a circle with the toe of her limb. “You, um, don’t look like any creature we’ve ever seen before. I’ve seen many kinds of animals before, but you don’t look like any of them. My friend Twilight said that you flew and crashed into my other friend’s farm on a blue comet.
“She did?” I exclaimed, leaning forward. I was assuming her friend was female, if these donkeys are associated with gender at all. Then again, “Fluttershy” seemed to be pretty feminine to me.
She nodded. “Do… Do you remember how you got here?”
I looked down at my white Nike shoes and stared fiddling with the frayed, old laces. “No. I don’t remember at all. I think I was in a classroom at my school in the morning, and it was the very beginning of class, but everything after that is a blank.”
“Oh, um, which school did you go to?”
I raised my eyebrow. I wasn’t from here. Why would it matter to her? “River Bell High.”
She tilted her head to the right. “From which kingdom?”
Here we go with the kingdoms again. “I told you, I’m not from here. I’m from out of this world, from a different planet, maybe an entirely different dimension.”
Her eyes widened and made their best dinner plate impression. “A different planet?”
I nodded, rubbing my arms while a chill ran down my spine. “Yeah, a different planet. I’ve definitely never seen anything like you before. And everything around me looks really, really weird. It’s like light has a mind on its own and the colour spectrum has eaten five tons of Fun Dip.” I craned my head up to the ceiling. “Nothing looks the same. That’s why I also think I might be in a different dimension. Light should be constant throughout the universe, no matter how far you go, right? So if the light here is so different from what I’m used to, well, that means that the physics of light has completely changed, which shouldn’t be possible.”
We said nothing for a few seconds. She had nothing to say to me, and was digesting the information. Silence reigned throughout the room except for the ambiance of rainwater tapping against the windowpane in the right side of the room. Lightning struck in the distance and illuminated the room for a split second. Fluttershy squeaked and shivered a little when the rolling thunder came a moment after. The lightning must be really close. How far did the storm cover? I looked over to where the source of sound arrived from. The rainwater looked so fake and cartoonish from where I sat, and the reflections off of the glass that made the window were incorrect and did not look right at all. I could feel my ears flex slightly while the tips of my fingers went numb.
“I guess I really don’t belong here. I’m out of place. I probably stick out like a sore thumb.” I say nonchalantly while I continue staring at the outdoors.
“That’s not true,” Fluttershy mentioned in the background. “You don’t look out of place at all, and if the other ponies found you and actually met you, I think that they could accept you for who you are.”
A spark ignited in my mind and my head raced back to meet hers. “Ponies? You call yourselves ‘Ponies’?”
Her eyes were bashful under the veil of her head of pink hair. She wasn’t like that before. She seemed to have lost some of her courage sometime during the conversation. I could hear her mutter a tiny “Yes.” under her breath.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. It started out as a small giggle, but evolved into something much, much bigger. A rumbling laugh came from the center of my chest and rang through the rest of the room, reflecting off of the spines of books that surrounding us. I laughed and laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop. Tears were trickling out of the sides of my eyes and I was clutching my stomach with one hand while the other was slapping the edge of the bed. My butt slid down off of the pillow and I curled my legs, cackling uncontrollably. It was too funny. Too funny. I could only imagine the look on Fluttershy’s face as she backed away from me slowly and approached the door. Just when I thought I would stop, I would take another breath and continue. Ponies! They called themselves ponies! Now that I think about it, they kind of look like very, very tiny horses, but ponies, not horses? Somebody call up a toy company, because I think we have a winner here! Miniature horses, colourful and female, all in a tiny splendid and oversaturated cartoon environment! It’s just too rich!
They wouldn’t believe me. Teleported to a world with talking ponies in it? They would call me crazy. It was too hilarious of a concept to take seriously. Comedy gold, right there.
The laughing. I couldn’t stop. My mind wouldn’t let me.
It hurt like hell. All over the place.
I felt like I was going insane. I am insane! Am I insane? Everything around me was just a scrambled mess of mysteries and non-answers. The colours were too bright and made my head hurt just looking at them. I couldn’t see the world around me from what I remember of Earth, but instead had to subject my conscious to the saturation dump that was this page-filled room. My short-term memories were getting replaced with this cartoonish riff-raff, and I briefly wondered if all the images of my past memories would get replaced too. Would I forget myself after time? Would I fail to find myself? Am I sleeping? I must be sleeping. I simply cannot accept the fact that this is real life. This is what I’m experiencing. This has to be fantasy, it just has too! It cannot be any more real than this pink forcefield surrounding me.
I don’t know how much time had passed, but I ended up crying softly to myself with my head under the bed’s pillow. I held the soft material in place with my hands and tried to muffle out the sounds of my sobbing through the feathers. I couldn’t take it anymore. The sensations were just too terrible to take. I’m not sure if I want to live anymore. I might be in a dream, I might be unconscious, I might be tripping the fuck out, but whatever it is, I want out! I want out of this stupid place! It hurt too much to exist! I wasn’t at my home planet anymore. I wasn’t anywhere near my home planet anymore. I wouldn’t be able to see my friends, or my family anytime soon. Do they know I’m gone? How long have I been gone for? If I traveled across the universe, how long did that take me? If I got back to Earth, what year would it be? What If I traveled across dimensions? How would time would from there? How the hell did I even get here?
Would I ever be able to get back?
I wanted to go home already.
I heard a soft bell ring in front of me. I lifted the pillow off my head just enough to see what was going on. Fluttershy tried to approach the bed that I was on, but that stupid fucking forcefield was in her way. I assumed she already left the room after I started laughing my head off. Anyone sane would have left already. She clearly didn’t get the memo, as she was pushing her front hooves on it like she wanted to get in. The shield wasn’t giving one inch, glowing a translucent pink that hardened the harder she pushed. Her frown grew and for the first time in our conversation I could see a tiny spark of annoyance and frustration in her eyes.
“I’m going to go get Twilight. She’s just in the room outside. She’ll be able to help you out. We can talk to her and she’ll be able to find a way to get you back to your home planet. We’ll figure something out. Would you like that?”
I said nothing.
“Griffin?”
That was my name. That was me. I peeked up from above my soft sleep-shield. I hoped that my eyes weren’t too red. She looked at me with such a calm and collective stature that a little bit of wonder trickled into my being. Her smile was soft and warm, like a mother comforting children that weren’t even her own. That was when I realized that Fluttershy was someone special. She was a caring individual that was soft with her words but extremely brave. She could look past her shyness and speak to another with a level of kindness that only the best of us could be able to show.
“Everything’s going to be alright. I’m going to help you get home. We’re both in this together. You won’t ever need to be alone, or feel alone. On this planet, on this world, I will be with you. If you need to talk to somepony, I…I will be there for you. First, we need to get you out of the barrier, but after we can talk all you want. That’s all we need to do. Ok?”
Silence. The rain seemed to be so far away, and as far as I could tell it actually lightened up a bit.
“…Ok.”
She closed her eyes and gave me the most sincere, calming smile I’ve seen in a long time. The way her eyes curved upward into semi-circles both soothed me and creeped me out at the same time. This would be so much easier to handle if I was looking at this through a TV screen. Then, without another word she quietly but gracefully approached the door of the room, opened it and let it shut behind her, the hinges on the old entrance creaking as the slab of wood swung to and fro. From there, it was just me, the storm and the candlelight dancing on the backdrop of books at the opposite side of the room. The wind howled in tandem with my high-pitched wheeze as I tried to get the last out of my sorrow out of my body.
Crying in front of a pony, god. What is wrong with you Griffin? Have you no integrity, no sense of self-image? So much for first impressions! You’ve just met with an alien species and one of the first things you did was sob up a sorry storm right in front of them! You’re acting like a complete baby here! Get it together man!
Or, at least, that’s what my subconscious was saying. I just wanted to crawl up in a corner and die right there and then. I peered to my right and the bed squeaked underneath my movement.
The candle was at its legs. The wick was at the bottom of the candle and most of the wax had melted, formed a pool and dripped down to the base of the aged bronze. The room was already dimming by the second. I took a few breaths to try and stop all the hiccupping I was doing. In, out. In, out. With every intake, the flame seemed to grow smaller and smaller. Soon enough most of the light in the room came from outside, and even that wasn’t much.
Then, the ember burned out, leaving a tiny trail of haze in its wake. Thunder rippled in the distance and I was left alone in the dark.
I didn’t want to be left alone.
Suddenly, the candle was lit again, but there was no one there to light it. I sat up in the bed, wiping the stray tears off of my cheeks and sat up to a sitting position. How did it light up again? What happened? Was there some kind of mechanism that the candle’s attached to that re-lit the candle? It didn’t look like it, as the drawers that the candle was on did not appear to be attached to the wall. Everything in here looked too old to have that kind of technology implemented in its furniture.
The oddest part about it? The flame was blue.