//------------------------------//
// Prelude: A ride in the dark 
// Story: The Equestria Diaries 
// by Istaran 
//------------------------------//

The rain pattered off of my jacket lightly as I idly played on my smart phone, waiting for my bus to arrive. Another day of work concluded, it was time to return home and enjoy a bit of rest and relaxation. There was nothing unusual about today, aside from perhaps being even less unusual than usual. Nothing dramatic had happened. I hadn't learned anything, interesting or otherwise. No deadlines were looming nor recently passed. The day was freakishly normal.

I got onto the bus along with a few other strangers, people I had ignored day after day. And aside from the driver idly observing the beep of my bus pass, they completely ignored me as well, and for the most part each other. They were all just as eager to get home to the people they actually did care about.
Miles rolled by. The bus stopped and started, letting people on and off. We were starting to get close to my stop, so I put the phone away and looked out at the passing scenery. It was all so normal. Right up until the point where it wasn't. The first sign of anything being less than normal was the shadows under a bridge. The underpass looked dark as night, despite well lit carpet of dreary grey daytime above. Perhaps this should have alarmed me more than it did, though I doubt I could have done anything about it. Perhaps it should have alarmed the driver, but if it did he did nothing to show it. As we drove into the darkness, it quickly got deeper, darker. We should have been out the other side in seconds, but instead the darkness just kept going. The ride became impossibly smooth, and I looked over to where the driver should have been, only to find the seat empty. 

I looked around the bus quickly, counting the passengers as I took in their reaction. Twelve, including myself but not the mysteriously disappeared driver. The number made me feel uneasy, though I couldn't place why at the time. Everyone looked like they were slowly working their way into a panic in their seats. And then it all disappeared.

The interior lights of the bus had been lighting the scene up until now, but that light was suddenly gone. The seat underneath me was gone as well, and so was gravity, apparently. I was just floating in a pure black void. The murmur of the other passengers was gone as well, meeting me with only silence.

"<Where would you like to go? Anyplace, real or imagined.>" The words appeared in the void before me, in a red flowing script of light. I stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded. It reminded me of some random fanfics I head read, so my first thought was "<Anywhere but Equestria.. that's been done to death.>" After a bit more thought I answered "<The Starship Enterprise.>" As I started to add "<D>" for clarification, the script rewrote itself.

"<Destination confirmed: Equestria>"

While I took a moment to process this, the text continued. "<You may bring any one item in addition to your what is currently on your person. Chose well.>"

It didn't take me long to answer: I was careful not to even think anything other than the one thing I wanted. A fictional invention of a fictional character of mine, a virtual Deus ex machina if ever there was one. If the text could apparently read my mind and send me to fictional places, surely it could grant this wish. "<A fractal spider>" I said. 

The text faded away and there was a pause, as if considering. "<No. Pick something else.>" the text finally replied. 

I thought for a moment before going with my fallback answer. "<A fully functioning genie's lamp. With the traditional compliment of three wishes.>" One to wish for the fractal spider. Perhaps a second to wish myself out of Equestria and into someplace more appealling. Like Risa. And I would still have a third wish.
"<Item confirmed: one fractal spider. Your starting location has been adjusted to balance the item you have chosen. The survival game begins now.>"

And with that, gravity suddenly reasserted itself, dim light flooded into my eyes, and the sounds of restless nature assaulted my ears.

Wait, what? Survival game? That was why the number 12 had made me nervous.