7 Human in Ponyland

by shiftylookingcow

Chapter 1: The two 'Where's and one 'When'

August 15th Saturday

I woke up from the floor, stretching. I don't know or remember why or when I found a floor more comforting than a nice soft bed. I looked all around the living room. My bro and the other guys were still asleep. I then noticed that it was unusually warm in the house. Usually it's cold enough to cause goosebumps. Instead, it felt like a sunny day in Spring time. It was then I decided to go to the kitchen to find out what the problem was. The clock on the stove and microwave were off. The power was out, and so was the A/C.

I went upstairs to check on the kids. I saw the boys hugging each other in their sleep in bro's room. I would've taken a picture had I not peeked into Bri's room first. Instead of waking her up to show her the two brothers hugging, I found out that she was gone. Missing.

"Bri?"

No answer.

"Brianna!"

"Wha.. What's going on?"

I turned to see Jonathan waking up, rubbing his eyes awake.

"Do you know where Brianna went?"

"No, why?"

Damnit damnit damnit! That was all that was going through my mind when I rushed downstairs. I tapped on Jack's and Bro's cheek to wake them up.

"Bro. We have a serious problem. Bri's gone missing, she's nowhere in the house."

"Did you check the garage or the back yard?"

"..."

I rushed into the garage. She wasn't there. I went out to the back yard and noticed that the back yard was missing a fense, but instead was replaced with a view of plains with a perfect view of a mountain.

Is that a castle on the side of a mountain?

I rushed back into the house. This was not good.

"She's not in the garage or out there either!" I hissed, trying not to wake up Jeff.

One thing you should know, Jeff usually gets up early. If he's still asleep by the time you wake up, don't you dare wake him up close. The last time that happened, his father almost became his second mother.

"This is bad. And what's worse is that we aren't in our neighborhood anymore! This entire house is not where it's supposed to be!"

This caused my brother to raise an eyebrow. Jack was looking out the window.

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Todo."

The worrying was put on pause for a moment as bro and I stared at Jack with this overused phrase. I was resisting slapping the back of his head when Jonathan came downstairs.

"I thought we were in Roanoke Virginia."

Jack looked at his youngest sibling and told him that he was too young to get the reference. This was when Trae spoke up.

"Jokes aside, we should focus on getting the power running. We have a solar-powered generator in the attic somewhere. I'll take care of it. Jack, you wake up Jeff and tell him what's going on."

"I'll head out and look for sis."

Everyone turned their attention to me. They looked at me as if I have gone mad. Hey, my little sister is missing, we're not in West Virginia, and I could swear that I saw a castle on a mountain.

"By yourself?" Jack asked. "What are you, nuts?! Take Mr. Clifton here with you if you plan on going out there."

The person in question had just woken up as Jack continued.

"Who knows who could be lurking around here. Looters? Tigers? Any other predators?"

"Take me with him to go where?"

We decided to fill Jeff in on the situation. Being the rambunctious person he is with shocking news, oddly, he took this pretty well and had decided to join up with me on our search for Brianna. He motioned me to go to the garage with him, so I did. I followed him to the back of his pickup truck. He opened the back and took off a tarp that was covering his tons of guns. Is this dude planning on starting a war?

"I was gonna take you and Jack out shooting to get to know you guys better, but it doesn't look like that's gonna happen. Ever used one o these before?"

"The only guns I've used shot either lasers, water, nerf darts, or beads."

With that said, he took the AK-47 while he gave me a Smith and Wesson handgun. I sure hope I wasn't going to have to use it. While I had good aim in laser tag, I wasn't a fan of being in life-threatening situations to the point where I needed to use it. I put that thought aside. The most important thing I needed to focus on was finding my lost sister. I checked the ammo.

Thinking back on it, Jack was right. We had no idea where we were, or what or who could be lurking out there in a world where castles could stay on the side of mountains without collapsing. Hiroto's going to have a field day when he finds the engineers who built it. But it's a castle. No one builds castles anymore, meaning the engineers are probably long dead. Maybe they have a book on whoever built it?

I'm getting off track. I need to focus. I followed behind Jeff. Our first place to look was the area nearby the planes. It was an open area. I looked out from in front of the house. There were woods in the distance. We walked towards the woods. Right on the outskirts, there were three pathways. The good news, we found shoe prints. Bad news, they were in the woods. I cocked my S&W and rushed in. Who knows how long she's been missing. Jeff followed behind me.

What was I thinking walking into a dark forest like this?! There could be bears, wolves, or worse, snakes! I can't remember how long I was out here but now I want to do one thing and one thing only. I want to go home! I'm scared, I'm lost, I'm hungry! This is nothing like girl scouts camping!

I just kept walking. I don't know where I'm going. I swore I passed a tree three times already, and it was really dark in here. Maybe if I keep walking, I'll find my way out. The woods can't go on forever, right? So I stopped thinking about it and kept walking forward. I kept walking, and walking until my feet got tired. I've never walked so much in my life. I've never been so scared in my life. What if I die here? My thoughts are interrupted by a growling, and it didn't come from me. The first thing I did was hide in a nearby bush. When I saw the yellow-green glowing eyes, I almost screamed, but I covered my mouth before i made any noise. Tears streamed down my face. It looked terrifying. A wolf made completely out of wood. It looked around for a while before moving on. I stayed there. I was not leaving that bush. I was going to die here. I was afraid. I tried to think of a way out of this. Maybe if I go to sleep, if something finds me, I won't feel anything when it eats me. With that said, I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep, eventually succeeding.

Today ain't over yet. Ah still had apples ta buck, n' apples to sell. Ah was on mah way to the barn when ah noticed somethin' a bit off in the distance.

"What in tarnation..."

Was that there buildin' always there? Ah may have ta check it out later after ah'm done with all mah work. Ah went on and headed back to mah barn.

I was behind my cottage taking care of my animal friends. I was just finished feeding my chicken Elizabeak when Chippers, my chipmonk friend, crawled up to me. It seemed urgent.

"What's that? An animal is injured in the forest?'

Chippers nodded his head in response.

"Oh dear! We have to help the poor thing. Please show me where it is."

With that, we were off. It didn't take long before we approached a small opening. Chippers then pointed to a bush.

"Is it in the bush?"

Chippers nodded again. So I reached in and felt something. Something breathing. I pulled it out and found out it was a clothed monkey. This was somepony's pet! What pony could be so cruel to cut its tail off and shave off most of its fur and just leave it here in the Everfree? I am going to find this pony and give him a piece of my mind, but first I need to take it back to the cottage. I then put the monkey on my back. It was heavier than the average monkey, but I managed to bring it back to my cottage without too much trouble.

Jeff and I have been searching for 3 hours. I looked at my watch and it showed 5:47pm. We found more prints, but they were hard to discover among all of these fallen leaves. We finally got to our destination, and by destination, we mean where the prints stopped. It stopped at a bush.

"Bri, are you in there?"

No answer. I moved the twigs out of the way until I had realized she wasn't here.

"Goddamnit!!!"

"We should head back." Jeff suggested. "It's starting to get dark. If these are like the woods at home, we don't want to be here. We have no flashlight."

That's when I thought of an idea. I pulled out my phone and used the light to light the way. Thank you, Cry of Fear. With this, I found more prints. One looked like that of a predator. Maybe she.... No! I shook that thought from my head. If that was the case, there'd be blood on the ground. I also saw more prints. They looked like circles. Great! Another lead!

"If you want to go back, go on ahead. I'm not going back without my sister."

"Alright. Just call me or Jack if you need anything, brother."

With that, we split up. He went in the direction in which we came, and I went a little further. That's when I saw the circular prints heading in one direction on a clearer path. Or was it going the other way. I didn't know, so I decided to depend on luck and 'Inni Minny Miney Mo' it, and it told me to head right. I followed the prints until I came across what seemed to be the forest entry. I looked at my watch. It was night. I looked in the distance and saw a small town. The roof looked like it was made out of hay or thatch or something. I didn't know what to think at fist, but I decided to check it out. I needed answers, and I needed it soon.

As I entered the town, I noticed it was almost barren. It was getting a bit cool. I'm glad I was wearing a hoodie. Something else I noticed about this atmosphere, though. It seemed to be better breathable. Almost as if John Egbert finally decided to swoop down from LoWAS and blow away the polluted air. No greenhouse gas build up, cooler weather. I liked the cold.

I put my hood up as I walked past the buildings. These were pretty shorter-than-usual buildings. This place looked like it was inhabited by the lollipop guild. Especially this one building that looked edible. I didn't lick the building at all to find out that it wasn't made out of candy and graham crackers. That was when I heard a whimper coming from behind me. I turned my head and I saw a small yellow horse with a red and pink-highlighted mane and tail looking at me with large eyes, her pupils the size of pinpricks, staring at me with a face that read 'pure horror'. I turned completely towards it before it gave a yelp and galloped away. Was that a flower on her rear?

I decided to ignore it. That was probably someone else's horse. The owner probably forgot to lock his/her door. Actually, it was too small to be called a horse. That was a pony. Not my problem. I continued to walk around the area more before he started to get tired. I walked out of the town on a path. I then realized that this was the same path I first found Brianna's footprints. At least I can follow this path back home.

When Xavier left the town, he didn't notice the yellow pony that had spotted him watching him leave her town along with 2 other ponies. "See? That hungry monster is trying to look for ponies to eat!"

"You're lucky it didn't catch you, Roseluck."

"Yeah. Right. I'm never ever ever walking out alone at night ever again."