//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Appleplexy 
// Story: Horse Apples 
// by Cheesetheory 
//------------------------------//

	The day started like any other.

I woke up to the irritating buzz of my alarm clock, punched it with the fury of a thousand angry midgets with the intention of sending it flying, remembered that I screwed it in place months ago after the last time that happened, and begrudgingly got up.

As I trudged downstairs I tended to my now aching hand, which had become calloused from the frequent abuse. It had become my daily routine, wake up, punch alarm clock, massage hand, make breakfast, get dressed and head out the door, arriving to work at six O clock. This routine was interrupted when I got to the kitchen, where I was greeted by the most horrific sight any mortal man could imagine, an empty fridge. I blanched upon realising the implications.

I turned to face the Freezer.

"Hello, old foe."

I walked over and braced myself for what I was about to do, I knew full well how strong my opponent was and was not going to underestimate him, not again. Placing my fingers under the lid and summoning all of my power, I called upon the herculean strength of my hunter/gatherer forefathers. I groaned as the freezer resisted my efforts, my infrequent visits to the gym doing little to help. after about 10 seconds of pain and anguish I finally managed to pry it open, I had bested my enemy, for today.

I reached in and grabbed a loaf of bread jutting out of the ice, having pulled it out and closed the freezer I was about to extract the slices when I heard a thump from behind me. I spun around to face the potential threat, finding only an apple on the ground underneath the fruit bowl... I face palmed when I realised my previous escapade was entirely pointless. 

putting the bread on top of the freezer, I opted for an apple, but upon reaching to grab it I noticed the surface was unusually shiny, almost glowing.

"Weird, but it's too early to contemplate the shininess of fruit"

I took a bite of the apple, or tried to.

"What the?"

My mouth slid on the apple's skin as if it were polished steel, in fact, that's exactly what it felt like. Just as any normal person in my situation would do, I retrieved my sharpest knife from it's special sheath and tried to cut it. It was a MAC MTH-80 with a high carbon 8 inch blade, my pride and joy, if anything could cut this demonic fruit, it had to be this knife. I placed the apple on the cutting board, the shiny black graveyard where many of the apple's brethren had fallen, and began to cut, To no avail.

"... No, this isn't possible. Nope. Not happening."

That knife hadn't ever failed, Not once had I ever seen it slow down when cutting something, seeing it stop altogether? Unthinkable. After a few moments I slowly put the knife down and cupped my face in my hands. To think, a professional chef, with a job at a fancy restaurant with a barely pronounceable name had been defeated, by an apple. It was at this point when I began to entertain the thought of someone sneaking into my house and placing a titanium apple in my fruit bowl as some kind of sick prank. My musings were cut short when the apple began to glow, the glow seemed to be coming from both the outside and the inside, as if the entire apple was giving off light.

I honestly would have been more surprised at this development, had I not already seen it perform the impossible with my own eyes, this only strengthened the idea that this was either a dream or some kind of practical joke. However I didn't get to finish the thought as I was assaulted with a flurry of light that shone with all the colours of... apples? Reds, greens and yellows danced through my vision, and all the while my brain was sliding farther and farther back into the realm of disbelief. 

The apple themed drug trip ended as quickly as it began, and I was treated to absolute darkness, the ground and my jaw would have been ecstatic to meet each other again if either was still there, but it seemed like I was floating, and I couldn't feel anything. I tried moving my tongue along my teeth, and was met with the glorious sensation of nothing at all, attempting to speak yielded no results, leaving me with just my thoughts to entertain myself.

It was at this point that my mind finally sobered up and took stock of the situation.

'Where am I? Am I unconscious? No, I wouldn't be thinking like that if I was unconscious. So, what happened? Maybe I'm just dreaming, in which case I should only be here for as long as I'm asleep, I should wait for something to happen.'

...

'This is boring, on the bright side, I seem to be taking this pretty well. Ha! and Audrey says I have no patience'

...

'Okay, now I'm scared, what if I never come out of this? Wherever I am. What if I'm in a coma, and my parents are sitting by the hospital bed talking to the doctor, discussing whether they should pull the plug or not? How long have I been out? Days? Weeks? Months? Have the past few months just been a dream? That would make sense, my promotion to Sous Chef had been rather sudden, but I can remember all the hard work I went through to get there. Surely that wasn't just a dream.'

Luckily I didn't have to think about it any longer as my surroundings started to brighten up and my sight returned, however all I got was green. As I focused more I noticed the green had patterns on it, when my vision had fully cleared I was finally able to make out leaves centimetres in front of my face.

"Wait, what?"

Furthermore, I couldn't see my nose or make out any other features in my surroundings, just leaves. However, I did notice that there was light coming from behind me, as the area just in front of me was quite dark, indicating a shadow. I tried to turn my head and was met with a strange pulling sensation on what felt like my hair, only it felt more rigid than hair should be, and I didn't remember my hair being that long. It wasn't necessarily painful, but it felt like my hair was extraordinarily long and was attached to the roof of... Wherever I am.

While I was contemplating my hair length I failed to noticed that I was in fact moving, like my face was moving to a different part of my body. I immediately became aware of this action when I was met with the pleasant feeling of the sun's rays burning my retina.

"Sweet Cheesus Chrust! it burns!"

I attempted to move my head downwards and was met with the odd feeling of my facial structure changing, after a couple of seconds I found myself looking strait down at a dirt path.

"Well, I have no idea what happened to my neck but apparently I don't need it anymore, great. Now if I could only figure out what's happened here."

'Come on think, what details can I glean from my surroundings? Well I seem to have lost all my limbs, including my neck, yet I can still move my head, or face, or whatever that thing I did before was. Maybe I can use that to look around and gain an idea of where I am'

As I looked around for more clues I noticed I was surrounded by apple trees, and on closer inspection it looked like I was sitting in one myself.

'Huh, how did I get up here I wonder? Come to think of it, why am I up here? I don't remember climbing a random apple tree and taking a nap.'

I then remembered how I ended up here in the first place. Waking up, defeating the freezer, trying to cut an invincible apple and spending a short eternity in a black abyss after an apple themed psychedelic journey.

"The apple, this is all the apple's fault. Look at me, blaming my problems on a piece of fruit, lovely"

I was once again reminded of my hair seemingly being pulled by some unknown force, and hazarded a look upwards. What I saw would haunt me for the rest of my life. On top of my head was a single brown stem, an apple stalk, attached to a tree branch.