I sat at my computer, looking at my newly finished design for my brand new My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Original Character. She was my most perfect design yet. She had silvery grey fur that would catch the light just so, reflecting the light in areas. Her brown hair had copper tone strands. She had two robotic legs which looked largely natural, but lines like you might see on a circuit board were slightly shinier than the rest of her body. Her horn was everso slightly longer than an average unicorn's. She had a suit of lightweight bronze armor covering most of her torso, giving way to her cutie mark displaying a gear with two wrenches crossing in front, set up like a skull and crossbones if the skull was behind the bones. She had a scarf which peeked up from her armor, hiding the pendant of a necklace which held immense magical power when used in tandum with six similar amulets the character's friends in the stories of internet roleplays. She wore a pair of golden boots on her front hooves, but nothing on the back ones. Her green metal and jade chakram was tucked away in her armor, barely peeking out from one of the plates. All of the details were overshadowed by her truly enchanting eyes. They were a green somewhere in between emerald and lime. They seemed to catch the light perfectly, making them draw large ammounts of attention, but still keeping reactions positive.
I sighed, looking at the beautiful design, wishing I could somehow escape the dark, depressing horror that was the life I lived every day. I slowly ascended from my chair, turning and walking out of my room and gently closed the door. I got my keys and headed out the front door. I needed to buy groceries that day, we were all out. I unlocked the door of my car, swung it open, and sat down in the driver's seat, pulling the door closed. I thrusted the key into its proper hole, twisting it to my car immediately starting. I then drove out of my neighborhood to grocery store.
My surroundings all seemed unremarkable. There was an elderly woman crossing the street at an intersection carrying with her a brown paper bag. An apple fell out of the top and rolled partly across the street. I watched as she sighed and started to make her way to it. A motorcycle sled past, squishing the apple under its front tire. I flashed a sympathetic look at the woman, who finished crossing the street and started toward the neighborhood. I had met the woman in passing. She lived in a house a few doors from my own. She was a generally upbeat person, but she was easily saddened.
I continued on to the grocery store when the light switched from red to green. The parking lot was underpopulated. It was a usual occurrence for locations such as this to be nearly empty. There were so few people living here anymore that the government didn't bother repairing public buildings or roads. Everything was so decrepit. I walked into the grocery store and got the usual. I was on my way with my grocery basket to one lf the checkout lines when I stopped and glanced at the produce section. I sighed and walked my way there. There were very few apples left, but one looked perfect. It was large and didn't have any bruises on it, unlike most of the others. I picked it up. The sticker read "pink lady" in bold letters. I cringed at how expensive it would be. I didn't make a lot of money, so it would be a definite expense for me.
Without another thought, I put the apple in the basket and walked quickly to an open checkout line. I purchased my groceries and left, driving en route toward my neighborhood. I stopped next to the woman who had been walking previously, rolling down my passenger side window. I welcomed her in, letting her open the door and roll up the window.
I reached into the back seat and dug around in one of the bags until my hand grasped something round. My rummaging stopped when I pulled it out. I placed the delicious looking apple into the woman's grocery bag, replacing the other which had fallen to an unfortunate fate. The lady looked at me and asked what she could do to repay me. I simply kept driving. I couldn't suggest any sort of payment. If she came to me and offered something, I definitely wouldn't turn it down, but I couldn't bring myself to ask her for something in return, she was sweet and enjoyable to be around.
We got to her house before I replied, "What you can do in return is keep being the nicest person I've met in this town." I smiled at her as she got out of the car, thanking me and walked toward her house.
I waited and watched for her to safely walk into her home and shut the door behind her before I drove back to my house. My parents hadn't arrived yet when I got home. I loaded the groceries I had purchased into the refrigerator and attached the receipt to the door with a magnet. I got a marker from one of the cabinets, writing "don't worry about it" on the waxy piece of paper. We had worked out a payback system for when I bought the groceries, but sometimes I felt generous.
I opened the door to the hum of my laptop, still powered on. Something was different. The project was blank. My artwork of my OC I had been working on for three weeks wasn't on screen like I had left it. I panicked, closing my vector editor and looking for my file. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found the .svg and .png files completely identical to the way they were when I turned my back previously.
When I shut my laptop down, I heard a loud thump coming from my closet. I jumped when it happened. Trembling, I turned around toward the miniature room. I looked to my left and picked up a wooden baseball bat from when my parents and I went to a game when I was but a small child. I remembered learning I hate the sport that day, but the party we had while there was fun. I gripped the handle and continued putting one foot in front of the other toward my closet door.
When I was close enough, I put my hand around the knob, turning it quickly and opening it. There was nothing bu my usual line of jackets arranged on the rack and stack of graphic novels and manga, sitting precariously as I had placed them. One had fallen. It was the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comics, volume one. I chuckled a bit at the coincidence and closed the door, returning the baseball bat to its original position.
I didn't bother stripping down to go to bed. I just lay down, and slept. My dream was bright. I couldn't pick out anything visually aside from a white light and a blurry yellow figure. I heard a high pitched soft voice pleading.
"Hello, miss? A-are you... are you okay?" The pleading voice seemed to ask over and over again, echoing in my mind.
Soon, everything faded to black. I neither saw nor heard anything. I was just floating in an infinite void of emptiness. I felt a tingling sensation all over me, like brushes were gently stroking me all over. A sound started fading in, it was wind. A natural force blowing across a healthy field. My vision started to brighten and clear until I woke up surrounded by grass waving around me. There was a pony above me. She was a pegasus with greenish blue eyes, yellow fur, pink hair, and a mark on her flank of three pink butterflies.
"Umm... excuse me, miss... are you... a-are you... okay?" The pony pleaded in the same voice as in my dream.
My eyes fluttered the rest of the way open. I groaned a bit, thinking I must be having a vivid dream. I always had stuff from my room visible in my vivid dreams. Though my pony figurines were never enlarged and speaking to me. I turned my head to my right, not seeing my alarm clock. My eyes widened as to my surprise, it wasn't there. I got up and looked down at myself. I saw silvery grey fur covering two pony legs, a bronze set of light armor, golden boots, and I felt a scarf around my neck.
The voice chimed in, "Thank Celestia you're okay! I found you laying in this field and thought you might be hurt, or worse... Can you talk? Or... even hear me?"
I looked at Fluttershy, seeing her concerned expression, "I've... I've never had a lucid dream this colorful... they're only ever dull and uninteresting..."
"Lucid dream? Oh, poor thing... You're just so disoriented, aren't you?" She looked at me sympathetically.
I began to feel dizzy. This couldn't have been real, could it? I was just having an extremely visually complex dream. I would wake up to my dull, depressing room any minute and these visuals and senses would be immediately gone.
I walked toward the cliff face the field was on, "It's all just a dream. If I fell off this cliff, I'd wake up in my old cheap house to my boring parents and my everyday average job. I'd come home so I can post my OC redesign on the internet and have my only bit of stress relief I ever get, and my parents won't worry about their son disappearing from his room!"
Fluttershy gasped as I jumped off. I looked up at her grasping toward me. I soon felt how real the wind was and examined my impending death in the form of the ground below me. My eyes widened as I screamed for help. Not a moment too soon, a cyan pegasus with rainbow hair and rose colored eyes swooped in to snatch me out of the air and set me back up on the field.
I looked at the two, "I-I-I don't have a Rainbow Dash figurine yet..." I trembled as I nervously forced out the words.
The two pegasi looked at me, confused as I caught my breath and looked around at the Technicolor landscape. It was identical to the cartoon environment of my favorite show, only it had more detail, and I could touch it. I could feel the reality of everything here.
I calmed down, "It's all real..."
"Umm, are you okay?" Rainbow Dash asked, obviously weirded out.
I nodded, "Yeah, just a... just a bad dream. And I guess I mistook it for reality..."
Fluttershy walked up and hugged me sympathetically, assuring me that it happens sometimes. I was slightly startled by the random gesture of kindness, but returned the embrace nonetheless.
Rainbow asked me, "So what's your name? You obviously... somehow know mine..."
What was my name? I struggled to think of my name, as I knew it was one I didn't remember ever verbally going by. I thought about my OC design and the name came back to me as if I had always used it.
"I'm Sprocket. It's nice to meet you. And of course, I know both of your names! You helped save Equestria on more than one occasion!" I said.
Rainbow struck a pose, "Yeah we did! You're that tinkerer downtown, aren't you? Didn't you make Tank's little helicopter thing?"
"If I made a flying device for your tortoise, he'd be flying around on a set of steampunk looking dragonfly wings, not a propeller." I remarked.
She giggled as she bid farewell and flew off. Fluttershy followed her bunny Angel away. I was left alone in the serene setting of the field. I thought about what happened. I didn't know whether whatever I woke up from was real or not anymore, but frankly, I didn't care. I got my wish and I was living in the world Sprocket was in. No, not only that, I WAS Sprocket. My dream came true. I overlooked the breathtaking view in front of me and thought of the adventures I might have.