It took a few seconds for my brain to process what the voice had said, and after it managed to catch up I groaned. Nothing in the history of time calls itself 'friend' and then in the same breath tells you that you're dead. Unless they're a liar on both accounts.
I turned to face the source expecting to see something, like another pony or even a human, hardly knowing what to expect. What I saw instead could only be described a blank spot in my vision, something that I could only see because of its complete visual absence. I could only stare for a moment before being forced to turn my eyes away due to a building headache.
Laughter rang out after I turned away. "Ah, sorry friend. I will say that was my mistake."
I rolled my eyes and tried to glance at it again. What I found was a human dressed in a suit vest looking a little too smooth or sharp for his own good. Though to be fair, he could have been the most casual, harmless person ever and it would have scored him no points after that introduction.
"Alright, so I can see you now. Mind telling me who you are?" I asked, slightly annoyed. I didn't know who or what that person was, but I found everything about him suspect.
"I am simply a traveler and observer, with no names yet to provide but offering services of observation and identification to the poor, lost people around me." His voice expressed chapters more than he was willing to tell. I didn't know what he wanted.
“You offer services of observation in a void of light and what I assume is dust? Wow, you have chosen the worst job," I mimicked his obviously overly polite tone.
He gave me an unamused look as I smirked at him. I waited for a moment to see if he had a response, but I received none. I turned away from him at that point and started my hunt once again for an exit.
"Hoping to find something? It's an expanse of corridors in a near-featureless plane leading to places of nonsense," I think he was trying to say there was nothing nearby, and for that he was not totally wrong. Though I was not going to let him know that I was completely lost.
“Nonsense is still better than the nothing I’ve seen up until this point," was the best deflective answer I had. What I really needed to do was get the topic off me, and for that I had an idea. "Hey, you know, the moon really doesn’t like you. That might sound crazy, but it’s not... apparently. So, unless you have something useful like a map... can you just go? Because it basically yelling for me to run away and it's getting really annoying,” I told him. The moon itself hadn't stopped its full blown panic attack. I was able to tune it out, but that guy was grating on me considerably as well.
“You’re going to form your opinions off of the advice of inanimate objects? Of course you are. It can’t talk. It can’t argue. Greater odds of getting the truth from it, right? But that’s instinct. It cannot analyze a situation. And that’s simply assuming it’s not another construct of this place. Perhaps everything is just a projection of you and your feelings.”
I don't know if he meant to insult me or not. One second he was saying that it’s a featureless plane of nonsense, then he goes and says it's a projection of me. It was clear to me then that he was playing some sort of game.
"Nah, I just don't trust people I don't know calling me ‘friend’. As for this place being a projection of my feelings? Not seeing it. As you said it's featureless. I think I have more personality than that," I shoot him a cocksure grin. "I think you're just trying to mess with me, and it's not really working. So in that vein, I think it's time for you to leave."
“Eternity is a long time to be alone. Besides… where would you like me to go?” it stated, gesturing to the void around it. “There’s nothing.”
"Why would I care? Pick a direction and start walking. Maybe you can improve your sales pitch while you're doing that. You currently suck at whatever it is that you're trying to do." I said back to him while I continued my own walk.
I walked for a little bit only to hear footsteps behind me. I was about to tell him to stop following me, but something in my brain clicked. I did tell him to pick a direction. So he clearly chose the direction I was walking in.
“I’m not selling a thing. Not yet. I’m simply peddling in realities. But here, how about this: Tell me what you think of this place, what you see.”
I slammed my hoof into the ground and turned to him. "You cheeky motherfucker. Look, I get it, you're a clever, smooth, dream something or another, but really you are only managing to piss me off. This day has not been a good one and you are only trying to make it worse."
The creaking that came from under me was the clear indicator of a huge mistake.
“Question: How well do those wings work?” He asked in a tone that made it damn apparent that he knew the answer.
The floor gave way to the familiar feeling of falling into a void, and it was truly was déjà vu when I saw the white floor once again rushing up to say hello.
I didn't have time to react. I slammed into the white floor and felt it shatter it around me. After that, all I saw was darkness. I flailed around... and fell right out of my bed and onto the hard floor.
With some “ugh”s and “ow”s, I quickly tried to stand up after a brief stay on the ground only to find myself wrapped up in my own blankets like some type of bat pony burrito.
At first I calmly tried to remove myself from the blankets. When that failed, I frantically struggled against them in a building panic. I always hate when I'm not able to move my limbs. It's like all logic and reason go on vacation, but my blind panic eventually caused me to roll out of the blanket, and I was freed.
I was shaking from the whole 'trapped' feeling for a while. After a few deep breaths I was thankful that no one had been around to see that little episode.
I kicked the junk on my floor out of the way and made my way to the bathtub, and then offered a silent thank-you to whatever god felt like listening for the water still working. I briefly thought about my dream while I stared at the tiled bathroom wall, but then wrote most of it off as a sort of nightmare that got way too weird and out of hand. After a good soak I was back at my computer.
It was 4 pm when I started to look over my backups. I had a lot of useful stuff, but it was nothing that hundreds--or at least what I hoped was hundreds--of people wouldn't think to grab as well. Expect maybe the vet stuff. Most people likely thought to go get human Medical info and supplies.
It was then when a new idea hit me. Veterinary supplies. I made a quick prayer to the giant flying spaghetti monster that holds dominion over the internet and checked to see if I could get online. Thankfully the internet was still active and so I navigated over to Google Maps.
It turns out if you ask for 'veterinary supplies' you get a countless amount of hits in your area on google maps. I tried to add ‘equine’ or ‘horse’ to the search only for it to show me one place that was deep within LA. I backed up and tried 'equine veterinary', which gave much better results all around. While nothing, oddly, was showing up in my town, there were a few places en route to Las Vegas that I could visit. I took quick screen captures and printed out the maps of the areas leading to them, along with some basic 'from the highway' directions.
After that map was all printed out and stowed away I began to milk Google Maps for all it was worth. Routes to Las Vegas and Colorado Springs. Places in Colorado Springs. Supply stores, shopping centers, veterinary and normal hospitals. Anything that we could use once we got there. I saved it and printed it.
I was still printing maps when I noticed that my next search never came onscreen. At first I was hoping that it was my internet connection being unstable... but I heard the distinctive click that my router liked to make when it disconnected.
It was likely gone. Just like that, no fanfare, outcry, or rioting. Just 'click' and the internet was gone. The thing that had been the cornerstone of my life and career was gone. There may have been some places still connected, but I would never find them before the same fate befell them. After a small moment of silence to give honor to the greatest invention of mankind, I lamely got out of my chair. I couldn't really do anything else on my computer now that it was cut off from the world.
I gave my whole body a good stretch, feeling it pop and crack in places that I never felt before, primarily my wings. I shivered at the sensation of it all. Becoming ‘something else' was such an overwhelming thing to think about. I had been putting off any introspection about it in depth because I had things I could do to keep my mind off it.
That had changed. I was awake, the internet was dead, and it was still too bright out to go out and get more work done. The only thing I had to do was face the music--or mirror, in this case.
No matter how much walking around or other activities you do in a new body, it's not going to lessen the unease you feel when you see 'something else’ in a mirror, to see a small pony thing raise its hoof and press it to the mirror's glass when you should see a hand.
“You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?” I managed to hold a straight face for four whole seconds before bursting out in uncontrollable laughter. It was funny! Most people would be REALLY upset at becoming a pony-alien-thing, and yet the thing I was most upset about was that I didn't think to say that quote to my friends.
I gave my new body a once-over and confirmed some things I already knew before sitting in front of the mirror again. This is the part where, if it was a movie, the poor transformed human would break down and start crying, maybe start banging on the mirror for good measure, but I didn't have it in me. I sat there with a huge smile on my face. It was something new. A whole new body. New experiences, new appendages, new things to learn and master. I could wag my tail--I HAD a tail--I could spread my wings--I HAD wings! I could deal with this... no, better. I could thrive with this.
I stood up and gave myself a confident grin. The world had been turned upside down. This was a chance to rewrite everything, even ourselves if we wanted. I was going to make the most of it.
With new energy and determination I turned my attention away from the mirror. I needed to start getting ready for when I could get out of the house. Getting out of town was something I had to do as soon as possible. Without people, this place was basically a waterless desert. With super common fires and the fact this is a valley, you get what I like to call the flaming cauldron of death. I refused to be here longer than I needed.
I already had food figured out, and the store had tons of bottled water that I could take with me. The only thing I didn't have figured out at the time was transportation for getting around and out of the valley. There was no way I could walk out: the mountains and the heat prevented that course of action.
I got geared up and called Cotton to my side. I felt kinda bad for leaving her behind that last time. No one was home, and a lone pony traveling an empty city with their dog sounded cooler than being entirely on my own. Cotton and I headed down to the mall first, since it was close by and I knew they had golf carts. To be honest I had no idea how I was going to drive the golf cart once I got to it, but I knew I didn't want to walk around the valley.
The walk to the mall was creepy. Traffic was always a bit of an issue in my town, but there was not a single car on the road and only a few scattered around the parking lots. Thankfully I didn't need to deal with the uncanniness of it for long. The mall was barely a 10-minute walk without the need to stop at crosswalks.
I arrived at the totally empty parking structure only to be massively annoyed. The spot that normally held the golf carts was vacant.
"Nothing can ever go smoothly, can it?” Cotton didn't let my bad mood stay as she came up brushed her head under mine. I let out a sigh and used one of my wings to pet down her back.
Golf carts were still the plan and I hoped that they were somewhere in the mall area. But where had they gone? The first place to check was the Sears on the other side of the parking structure. Unfortunately, I found the place locked from every angle I could try to get at it. Even the loading bays were all closed up. It was like the building was trying to cosplay as Fort Knox.
As a person who liked to go where they were not supposed to,I knew my way around the inner parts of the mall, which included the maintenance corridors. All I needed was a way into the inner part of the mall, but no doors were left unlocked or opened.
But then I noticed an oddly parked truck. The truck itself was parked on one of the streets that encircled the mall itself. It had been left plainly in violation of a red zone, but that wasn’t what grabbed my attention. Instead, I gazed at the door it was parked next to.
The door was hanging open. It was a bit bent and didn't even look like it would be able to close correctly anymore. Although I was confused at how it had happened, I had found my way in.