Late one Saturday night, Alex, a trucker, was driving on I-40 westbound. Exhaustion clouded his vision and made it difficult for him to follow a train of thought. His dispatch gave him this load out of the blue and completely disregarded his sleep schedule. This wasn't uncommon though it was very unappreciated.
Alex did what he could to stay awake, using all of the usual tricks. Stretching, drinking something cold, smoking a cigarette. He couldn't understand why he felt so sleepy. Sure he had slept the night before and stayed awake most of the day, save for a short nap, before leaving to pick up the load.
As he drove, he finally realized he have to stop and take a nap. He had passed the point of being unsafe and had become an accident waiting to happen. A quite deadly accident. He tapped on his GPS searching for a rest area or truck stop near by but to no avail. The next place to stop was another 120 miles away.
As he resigned himself to sleeping on an off-ramp he spotted a billboard advertising "Lunestia Truck Stop! Exit 250!" along with all of the usual markers for truck parking, showers, and free Wi-Fi, apparently. Alex felt a small rush at the prospect of getting to sleep and powered through the last 5 miles until he came upon the exit.
The blue information signs preceding the exit didn't have any emblems for a truck stop but in his haze, Alex didn't notice and took the exit without a second thought.
Immediately upon coming to the top of the ramp, Alex knew he was in trouble. There was no road, only a narrow dirt path and it seemed that turning left would send him crashing down onto the interstate below. There was no bridge.
Alex sat at the top of the ramp contemplating his options. On one hand, he could back down the ramp and continue on down the interstate. On the other, he could take this road and see if his GPS could get him out of this mess. Fearing the massive fine of being caught backing on a ramp, he opted for the latter option and swung his rig into a wide right turn.
He watched his right mirror as the trailer's tandem axels left pavement and nearly caught the red stop sign. As his rig came back in line and headed down the narrow dirt path, Alex tapped around on his GPS, zooming in as far is it could to see what road he was on. Seeing nothing but black indicating his GPS didn't have this road on it's maps he gave up, sighing loudly. This was going to be a long night. At least he wasn't tired anymore. Problems always help him wake up.
Two hours later Alex found himself with: A truck, a narrow path, and no GPS. Even his truck's satellite based computer and satellite radio couldn't get signal. It was strange because Alex had been in the middle of the Mohave desert and gotten perfect signal on all three. That was their whole purpose.
Alex looked out into the darkness stretching ahead of him. Even with all of the various lights on the truck and trailer, he felt a little scared of the dark. Even the darkness inside of the cab felt like it was pressing in on him. He didn't usually feel this way because of all of the different gauges and switches giving off light. The trees above blocked out all of the moon light and his headlights didn't seem to reach as far as they did a few minutes ago.
The darkness continued to grow until he couldn't see the trailer lights at all and his headlights looked more like a flash light. He could feel his stomach turn and heartbeat grow faster when he noticed the gauges were hardly visible. Finally, panicking, slammed on the brake pedal and a shiver ran up his spine.
The truck screeched loudly as the brakes did their best to stop the 80,000lb rig. Alex felt the tires begin to lose traction and the trailer threaten to jack-knife but he couldn't move. His foot was stuck on the pedal and the steering wheel jerked his arms as the rig struggled to stop and remain on the narrow path.
With a loud burst of air, Alex's foot finally came off of the brake pedal. He hadn't even realized he was struggling to move his leg so hard. Alex laid his head on the steering wheel eyes closed, breathing hard, and thanking the powers that be for not letting him run off the road.
After a few minutes of trying to calm his nerves and bring himself to face the darkness that waited behind his eye lids, he peeked an eye open to find all of the light had returned. He could see the trailer lights and the gauges glowed as bright as ever. As he lifted his gaze to the path before him, his blood ran cold.
At the edge of the light, he could see something moving. His stomach did another turn as the shapes began moving into the light. As the creatures stepped fully into the light, Alex began to question whether or not this was a dream. He didn't think there was anyway a small purple pony with a horn and wings could be standing in front of his truck.
He froze as the pony began to approach his door. Before he could free himself from his frozen state the pony had already walked to his door. Just as he reached for the door lock the door swung wide open.
"Ahh!" Alex yelled, trying to unbuckle his seat belt and get away from the creature. It wore a large grin, highlighted in evil detail by the orange marker lights.
"Hello Alex! My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I'm here to welcome you to Equestria!" The pony said.
Alex froze upon hearing the creature's voice. It didn't sound evil or like it was trying to hurt him. How did it know his name? A few tense seconds of Alex staring at Twilight and Twilight staring back, Alex finally found his voice.
"Um hello?" He said. This had to be a dream.
"I understand you have a delivery for Princess Celestia?"
"What? No it's for..." Alex said as he reached for the deliver receipt. "It's for... how is this possible? I know for a fact this load was headed for a Walmart distribution center in Arkansas."
"Nope, we've been expecting you. You're even earlier than I predicted."
"Um... alright? I'm just going to operate under the assumption that this is a dream." Alex said rubbing his head. "Do you have a dock or something to unload this stuff?" Alex looked around. He seemed to be on a small path in a clearing. A ring of trees ran around him in a 100 foot radius. "I don't think you want this stuff sitting in the woods."
"No of course not. Just a little further up the road and you'll arrive at Canterlot. Everything we order will be unloaded into the Royal Vault." Twilight said point further down the path.
"Uh alright then. Why would you unload 40,000lbs of chocolate into a Royal Vault?" Alex asked, utterly confused.
Twilight turned back around to face Alex and put her front hooves up on the first step. "Princess Celestia loves her chocolate, that's why."
"Oh alright then," Alex said, peering into the distance trying to pick out anything in the darkness.
"Mind if I come aboard? It's cold out here and I don't relish a walk back to Canterlot."
"Yeah sure why not? Talking purple ponies riding in my..." Alex began to say as a bright flash of light and a loud "Pop" nearly made him fall out of the truck.
As his vision cleared, Alex saw the pony was gone. Sighing heavily as he sat back down in the seat, he started reaching for the door.
"Well let's go then!" Came Twilight's voice from the passenger seat.
"Holy...!" Alex said nearly falling out again. He slammed the door closed and whipped his head over to see Twilight sitting on the other seat. "How did you..."
"I teleported. Those steps looked like they'd be difficult for me to climb so I took the easy route. Is that a problem?"
"Teleported huh? Alright well whatever, lets get this load delivered." Alex pushed the clutch to the floor and waited for the transmission to stop spinning before he put the truck back into gear and started down the road.