Saved by the Spell
“See you guys on Monday!”, I said to the cashiers as I left my store. I made a hasty exit to avoid any managers who might be on the prowl, looking for some unsuspecting associate to keep from leaving the big box of pain. As I approached the doors to freedom a familiar voice echoed from behind me.
“Hey you!”, this stopped me in my tracks. I slowly turned around to see my assistant manager Greg smiling at me.
“Oh, hey Greg. You kind of surprised me there, what's up?”, I said with a bit of hesitation. “This is it, he's going to ask me.”, I thought.
“Just wanted to catch you-”
“Here it comes.”
“before you get out of here-”
“Got to come up with some excuse.”
“To say, have nice weekend.”, he said extending his hand inviting a handshake. Without missing a beat I quickly shook his hand, did an about face and took off for my car. The fact that he didn't ask me to stay late or show up at six in the morning tomorrow threw me off, and I should have taken this as a bad omen.
Lighting a cigarette as I walked to my car presented yet another time to test my luck, to see if my old beater of a car would get me home or if some parking lot mechanic shenanigans were in order. As I slid my key into the ignition I gave the steering wheel a hug for good measure.
“Come on baby don't fail me now. I have the weekend off and you starting would just make my day.” I said, pleading with my car in a conversation that was unsurprisingly one sided time and time again. After uttering those words of encouragement I held my breath and turned the key, “YES! My creation, it lives!”, I shouted as my car roared to life. That statement never fails to get strange looks from people passing by, especially when a twenty-five year old, two hundred-thirty pound, red headed man with a beard like a biker is yelling it. As I climbed into the car my cell phone's message tone started to chime and I immediately thought it was a request to come in tomorrow.
“Forget it, I'll check it on my way home. Let's just get the heck away from this place.” I said as I threw the shifter in reverse and burned rubber out of the lot.
With an unusually good day at work behind me I took off down the road and back home where my games and TV were waiting, as well as a change of clothes for the date I had set up with a girl from electronics. All was right with the world, well right up to the moment I took my eyes off the road and got to know the rear end of and eighteen wheel tractor trailer. I clenched my teeth, shut my eyes tight, slammed on the brakes and braced for the inevitable, and most likely, fatal impact. My life flashed before my eyes and I wished I had a bowl of popcorn to go with it.
“This is it, I'm going to die and there's nothing I can do about it.”, I thought to myself, "No chance to say 'good bye world' no way to warn my past self, nothing.”
As I slowly, and quite reluctantly opened my eyes, I expected to see my car's steering wheel in my chest and my head through the windshield, but I was way off. Everything had been frozen in place like someone hit the pause button on some action movie. My driver's side door had been thrown open from the accident, shaking like crazy I slowly climbed out of my car and took a step back to observe what appeared to be divine intervention. I could see the looks of pure terror on the faces of the other drivers still sitting in their cars, but as I walked right up to one SUV there was no reaction from the driver or any of his passengers. The front of my car was stopped mid-impact, just the first few inches of the hood and fenders had started to crumple against the back of the big-rig truck I had hit moments before.
But the weirdest part was my body; it was still in the car. All buckled in and still in the preemptive bracing position I took. I wasn't a man of faith but you can imagine that a moment like that could turn damn near anyone into a believer, and then the paranoia set in. My mind skipped the whole notion that this was me being saved to live another day and jumped right to the possibility that this was to be my own personal hell for all of eternity, to watch myself die in this crash over and over again just because I wanted to change a song on my stereo. I stood there and waited for the tape to rewind and replay this moment, just to confirm what I truly hoped was only some demented thought my brain had cooked up. It seemed like I was waiting for hours but nothing happened, no evil cackle from a demon to tell me that my soul was now his or some glow to give me a second chance at life from the good side of the supernatural spectrum, so I took matters into my own hands.
“Well, since the world just tossed all laws of physics out the window, and as far as I can tell this is real, then I'm not leaving myself in that car.” I said as I approached the scene of the accident that still had yet to happen.
As I went to pull myself out of the car I ran into a small problem, I couldn't grab my own body. My hands passed right through my body's arms, legs, you name it. Upon closer inspection I saw that my hands and the rest of me was slightly transparent. Now no amount of training, scientific knowledge or faith in any religion could have prepared me for the next curve ball that this day was about to throw at me. As I continued to fail at getting my body out of the car, and away from the frozen accident scene, I heard a ripping sound; almost as if someone was tearing open boxes to be thrown in a dumpster. I paid no attention to it as I had heard a similar sound hundreds of times before in my day to day life but then something in my head clicked, nothing else was moving.
“Wait, if I'm not making that sound”, I said slowly turning around, afraid at what I might see, “then what the hel-”, I was staring at what could only be described as a rip in the very fabric of reality, a possible portal through time or worse a black hole to nothingness. But before I even had the chance to contemplate what this was or why it had appeared it began to pull me into it, I thought my life was over. “No! I don't want to die! Help me! Some one in the name of God help me!”, I shouted as I was sucked toward the hole.
As I got closer to the vortex I looked back and to my amazement my body was being pulled out of the car and was hurdling towards the vortex as well. As I entered this space and time portal I began to feel like I was being stretched, like waking up first thing in the morning, it was almost relaxing except for the terror of possibly dying. That was my last conscious moment in this world before blacking out.
After some time I finally came to and found myself lying on an ice cold table with an obnoxiously bright spotlight pointed directly at my face. I slowly raised my head and cautiously looked around the room making notes of everything that was there trying to think of where I could possibly be. I spotted a small tray to my left containing what looked like medical examination tools; tongue depressors, stethoscopes, a blood pressure measuring machine even that little ear checker with a light on it, I tried to sit up to see more but I was halted.
Craning my neck I saw the army of restraints that were impeding me; two large leather straps held my chest and knees to the table while thick metal bands secured my hands and feet. I continued to look around the room hoping to find some clues as to where in the world I could possibly be and then something else dawned on me, I was damn near naked. The only thing I had covering any part of me was an old towel that went across my hips and wrapped around me.
"Oh god." I thought. I started to sweat and shake as the slightly twisted part of my mind conjured up horrible possibilities of what was in store for me. I began to panic at this moment as the thought of being experimented on while conscious scared the living daylights out of me. I began to struggle against the straps hoping to escape and find my way to safety and my home, but the myriad of fasteners held strong making it quite clear that I wasn't going anywhere.
I tried to call out for help hoping for someone to free me, but all I could manage were some partially muted moans and grunts. What troubled me most about this wasn't the fact that I couldn't form coherent words, but that I couldn't feel my tongue touching the inside of my mouth. I began to growl and snarl out of frustration and fear that it might have been removed while I was unconscious. After a few moments of this I became convinced that whoever had brought me to this place already had their fun and just left me to rot, until I heard a chair move and a voice in the darkness.
“Well it sounds like our patient has finally come around.” A man's voice said, sounding relieved. “Looks like I can finally get back to checking it out for the Princess.”
“Oh that's convenient doc”, replied another man in a rather unconvinced tone, “and just as I had backed you into a corner and was about to take your Queen. If you're going to lose to me at least admit it instead of coming up with excuses.”
“And if you're going to play me in chess Shining Armor remember that a grand master never makes excuses for fear that he might lose the game, because against a novice like you that isn't even a possibility.” The first voice replied quite confidently. “So I'm going to put this game on hold and finish the health examination, and when I'm done I'll return to put you in your place on the chess board.”
Now armed with that piece of information I started to calm down, knowing that you're not going to be cut open while still alive is always good. I heard a clopping sound and saw a figure move past the end of the table and nothing I knew or imagined could have prepared me for the face to face encounter I was about to have as a horse slowly stepped into the light and began to look me over.
This wasn't just any horse either, it was a unicorn straight out of some little girl's dream. It had a light blue coat, a yellow mane and these big green eyes. The face wasn't as long as a normal horse's, but the big thing that made me realize I wasn't in Kansas anymore is what came out of it's mouth when it opened, no not a neigh or a whinny but words. Actual English words, not something that sounded like English or was some variant but full, coherent and rather clearly spoken English.
“Now how is our little Human doing today? Hmm, is he a good boy?” he said in that pet talk you use on your dog or cat. “Let's take a look at those ears and your big eyes.” He said calmly as the ear checker was levitated over me. My head suddenly turned to the left, not voluntarily or from him pushing it that way but by some invisible force. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't move my head back to look at him, and when he was done with my right ear my head whipped to the right and he began checking the other ear. “Splendid,” he said in a satisfied tone, “now that wasn't so bad was it?” Talking to me like I was a little kid really getting on my nerves, I tried to convey my displeasure with him through words but still nothing but more muted grunts, so in lieu of words I simply snarled at him. “Say Shining Armor, come on over and take a look. I bet you've never seen a human this close without it posing a threat to you.”
“I don't know,” he said hesitantly, “are you sure it's safe?”
“Of course it's safe.” The doctor replied in a miffed tone, “This table is specifically rated to contain a human, now stop worrying, get over here and educate yourself.”
“You calling me stupid doc? Because we've always got an extra cell with your name on it.” He replied sounding a little annoyed at the thought of someone insulting his intelligence.
“Not at all, but if you were listening then you would have noticed that this human has been making vocal noises,” he gave me this perplexed look, “which is rather unusual for this species. I want to find out why it isn't clicking like others that I've examined in the past. I thought it would be interesting to probe around in his mouth and find out the reason for this. Thought you might be curious too.” The other voice simply chuckled.
“No thanks doc, I've got patrols to organize. You can have fun with the beast,” he spat back, “and his vocal noises.” He said in a snide tone as a door opened. “I've got two very capable guards outside to take him to the animal review board when you're finished.” The door then slammed shut, I shot a dirty look in the general direction of the sound.
“Oh don't worry about him big guy, he had a bad experience wrangling one of you in Fillydelphia. Now let's see why you aren't making the usual homosapien noises.” He said as my mouth involuntarily open and he took a long look inside. “Oh my word!”, he exclaimed, “This is a once in a lifetime find. I simply must jot this down.” He began to think out loud, or at least I hoped he was, as he walked away from the table, I strained to see where he had gone.
I saw him approach a bench as a quill levitated to an ink well where it was dipped several times and apparently began to write as he spoke. “The subject has fully functioning vocal chords, but the lack of the tell tale human clicking sounds are due to a stunted tongue. It's a one in ten-thousand birth defect and no human has ever been found at this age alive who had it.” He finished as my mouth was released from the lock. This was a little unsettling but was also somewhat of a relief as I had been quite worried about the lack of feeling in my tongue.
The horse returned to the table with a small syringe that was about half full some green concoction and was slowly moving towards me. I began to struggle again out of fear that this was poison, that this discovery he had made was grounds for euthanasia.
“It's okay big guy, I'm not going to hurt you,” he said trying to calm me down, “I'm just going to knock you out for a little while. Now this will only take a second.” He assured me as he stuck the needle in my arm and the plunger pushed the liquid into my veins. Within seconds I started to feel tired and was unable to move my hands and feet. My neck lost all function and my head fell back and hit the table with a thud, I was out just seconds after that.
I woke up to the sound of a door closing behind me and my whole body swaying slightly left to right, there was a lot of strain on my arms and legs as well. As I opened my eyes all I saw at first was the ceiling and the underbelly of a horse. I tried to move but whatever the doctor shot me up with still had me quite groggy and my strength hadn't returned yet. I began hoping that I was hallucinating and that I was actually on a gurney in some hospital, that the whole previous sequence of events had been a dream and I had woken up and was back in my hometown. As the grogginess began to fade I became more aware of my surroundings and began listening for my name, wishing that someone, anyone was trying to check if I was coherent, but all of my hopes were dashed as I tuned into the conversation that was going on.
“Geez this thing is heavy. How did we get this crappy assignment?” One younger voice said sounding quite aggravated.
“Will you quit whining? You're never going to get any respect if you don't take the bad duties with the good.” The other noticeably more mature voice replied, “You need to understand that being a Royal Guard isn't all flash and glamor. You signed up for whatever duties that our Captain or her Royal Highness request of us. Some aren't all that wonderful, but in time you'll realize that every task is just as important as the last.”
I began to feel some of my strength returning and was eager to see what exactly was happening. As I looked around I found that my hands and feet were chained together and I was suspended on a long wooden pole. Each end of the pole was attached to one side of armor plating that was being worn by two horses. We were traveling down a rather ornately decorated hall, the curtains had golden trim and there were gems in the various stone and silver statues that lined it.
I wasn't sure where I was going but I wasn't going quietly and I made sure these two knew it. I tried talking again but it was no use, I still sounded like an animal and I still wasn't strong enough to thrash around to attempt any kind of feasible escape. So I chose to audibly complain, hoping to elicit some kind of response and possibly figure out where the heck I was headed off to.
“Well, it sounds like our hairy cargo is starting to wake up.” The more mature guard said, feigning excitement, “Better pick up the pace whiny. You don't want it to be at full strength while you're carrying it.”
“We're almost there anyway. Any idea what this Human is being inspected for?”
“Not really sure, a zoo perhaps?”
“But then why would we have it checked out here? Why not just send it to the zoo officials and let their experts handle it?”
“Look, let's just get this thing to the review board and get back to our posts. If we were meant to know more then we would've been told more.” The older guard said, he sounded a little agitated at all of the questions.
“But all I want to know is-” the younger voice was abruptly cut off.
“And if I hear one more question about the task at hand, then I'll delay your upcoming promotion exam for two months. Is that clear?” A rather awkward silence filled the air before the younger guard finally responded.
“Yes sir.” He said in a defeated tone.
I heard the sound of a door being unlocked and as I looked past the guard in front of me we entered a dimly lit room. As they marched me in I started squinting, trying to get an idea of what this place was and why I was hearing moving chairs and hushed voices. My eyes began to adjust to the low lighting and I could make out two more figures walking toward me and the guards, who still held the pole with me suspended off the ground.
The figures that were fast approaching were two more horses decked out with helmets and armor as well, but what got me were the chains they were carrying in their mouths. The pole I was on was slowly tilted up so that was sliding down feet first onto a concrete slab. Looking down as I descended I could see metal rings embedded in the concrete, one on either side. My feet hit the floor but my equilibrium was still out to lunch from the shot.
“Whoa there!” one of the guards exclaimed, “Would somepony help me hold this thing up while we secure it?” Before I knew it I was being propped up by my back and chest by these wardens and chains were locked around my body. A metal collar was snapped on my neck, my hands were bound together and a long chain that connected them to shackles on my ankles. My head was pulled forward slightly and I heard two more loud metallic snaps as the grogginess finally dissipated completely, I was locked down to the slab and almost totally immobile. I glanced down at my new restraints and realized that I wasn't going anywhere.
“Animal locked down sir!”
“Good job stallions, let's open the curtains and shed some light on this beast.” I heard hoof beats moving away from me in all directions, then the sound of curtains being drawn as the room lit up. The light was intense for the first few seconds, like opening a window shade after a long nights sleep, I winced but quickly adjusted to the change in lighting.
“Now that IS an impressive specimen,” I heard a voice exclaim, “her Royal Highness has really out done herself this time.” Other voices soon chimed in with their opinions of me.
“Indeed, this is quite a unique creature. Do you think Luna will be happy?”
“Happy? I think she'll be at a loss for words. She's been so obsessed with rare animals lately that this one might just have her crying with joy.”
I looked around the room and saw that I being stared at by yet more horses. Some were pegasi, some were unicorns and others just looked like your standard four legged equines, but all of them had a clipboard and were taking notes. I glanced to my left and right taking in more of the sights and sounds in the room when I saw what appeared to be a tattoo of a spear and shield on one of the hindquarters of a guard to my left. I first thought that this was unique to that particular horse but as I scanned the room I quickly realized that every last one of these horses had some kind of picture on their backside. Everything from feathered quills to mathematical equations were in the mix, some seemed to be consistent with that particular horse like the guard with a sword, but others didn't seem to have any correlation to the horse bearing it. As the horses continued to observe me and scribble down notes the hushed tone was suddenly broken as a door opened to my right and every horse in the room jumped and bowed deeply.
“G-greetings Your Majesty. Have you come to see the fruits of your experimental teleportation spell?” one guard asked nervously.
“Just out of curiosity.” A female voice said in a rather carefree tone. “I wasn't really aiming the spell because it took too much energy to do that and cast it, so I'm not really sure what I hit.”
“Well based on what is chained up, I'd say your shot landed somewhere in the Dust to the east.” I slowly turned my head towards the conversation and got a good look at who I assumed was the head honcho that everyone was bowing to. The horse I saw was at least one foot taller than the guards, was pure white and had a sun making on it's hindquarters.
“Is that a human?” It said looking at me, totally perplexed.
From the voice this was definitely a female horse. She had a mane unlike anything I'd ever seen, it looked like some multi-hued gas cloud had attached itself to her head and her tail was the exact same. As she approached it became quite apparent to me that she was something special and not to be trifled with. She spread her wings, showing off what had to be a ten or twelve-foot wingspan easy, and her horn began to faintly glow. Before I knew it my mouth was wide open and she was inspecting it going as far as to close one eye and getting almost point blank to my top row of teeth.
“Is everything all right your Highness?”
“Everything is just fine Lieutenant. I just assumed that this animal would have sharper teeth than that. This is a human, correct?”
“That is correct your Highness, it is in fact a human or as the doctor calls it a homo sapien.” He replied as the this princess continued to walk around, looking over every last inch of me. “The world wildlife records show that the only place the creatures live outside of captivity is in the eastern region of The Dust. This one,” the sound of papers being shuffled interrupted his briefing to their leader, “is a male, approximately twenty-five years of age and he's in pretty good health according to the preliminary examination.” I looked at the guard to my right somewhat puzzled. I smoked for seven years and had a horrible diet for five of those years, why they thought I was in good health was way beyond me.
“He seems to be reacting to what you are saying about him Lieutenant.” My head quickly turned to the large white horse on my left as she responded.
“Well just like most animals they are drawn to most any sound they hear. I doubt that looking to whomever is speaking is hardly worth taking note of.” My head turned back to look at the guard as a collective gasp filled the room. His face fell as he realized what he had just said. “B-but that doesn't mean that-” the princess raised her leg and pointed her hoof in his direction, closing her eyes and turning her head.
“That is all Lieutenant, this human will do nicely. I'm sure Luna will more than happy with him. Take him down to the holding cell until the party tomorrow.”
“Yes your Highness.” The guards replied in a hurried tone as they pushed me to the ground and prepared to carry me out of the room. I looked over and saw the Lieutenant walking away with his head hung low.
“Oh, and Lieutenant Iron hooves,” the princess called out and the stallion stopped dead in his tracks, “when dealing with an exotic creature like this one, remember that everything is worth taking note of.” He turned and bowed deeply.
“Yes Your Highness.”
The guards had flipped me over and were chaining my hands and feet around the pole to carry me away. I was getting quite sick of this and began to snarl and growl at them trying to persuade them to let me go, but it was the princess that took notice instead.
“Did he just growl?” she said sounding quite excited over my incredibly simplistic noises. “These animals are supposed to be mute, how in Equestria did he just do that?” Her horn began to glow again and several pieces of paper floated over to her. After a few moments she got her answer and let the whole room know it. “His vocal chords actually work?! This is amazing! Luna will be elated when she finds this out. Make sure you take good care of him until tomorrow.” The guards had finished attaching me to the pole and were on their out.
“Yes your Highness!” The guards bellowed as they trotted me out of the room.
I tried to break free as they moved me down another hall but the restraints held firm and the discomfort to my wrists and ankles were enough to get me to stop. We reached the end of the long and well lit hall and headed down four huge flights of stairs. As I went down the lighting changed significantly, from sunlight to torchlight, and there were no longer elegant statues with jewels or giant tapestries on the walls but dark, wet, musty smelling cobblestone.
As we reached the bottom of the stairs the guards turned left and the narrow hall opened up to a slightly larger chamber that could only be described as a small dungeon, complete with old rusty shackles hanging on the left wall and more torches for lighting. To my relief there were no old skeletons to go along with them, but there was a cage on the far wall that I assumed was for me.
“Heads up, We've got a wild animal incoming. Open that cage for us will you, I want to make this quick.” The front guard said sounding rather relieved to finally get rid of me.
The cage itself didn't match the room at all. While the rest of the room looked hundreds of years old the metal cage looked like it was fresh out of the fabricators shop, the torchlight gleamed off the bars and when the front door of it opened there was no sound accompanying it. The bars had to be at least two inches thick and made of wrought iron, this was clearly custom made to be escape proof.
As the guards carrying me approached my new cell they turned around, put me on the floor and tipped me feet first onto the straw that filled the cage floor removing the pole as I descended. Once I was standing upright in the cage they used the pole to push me further in and promptly slammed the door behind me, ensuring I wasn't making a break for it.
“Animal secured! All clear!?” One guard bellowed, the other guards followed suit.
“All clear!”
“All clear on the stairs!”
“Back hall clear sir!” The last guard yelled. From the looks of all the security I assumed that I was to be kept secret from whoever this Luna was.
“All right stallions let's make sure this thing has food and water for the night, somepony needs to alert the night watch to the shift changes at midnight and dawn. I don't want any complaints or you're buying the next round at the pub tomorrow night.” The other guards chuckled as they saluted.
Moments later a bowl of food was slipped in between the bars and a giant water bottle was hung on the cage to my left. And with that out of the way all of the guards went on their merry way, except for two who stood watch over me. I decided to eat and go to sleep hoping that everything would be clearer in the morning, that I would be able to talk coherently again and maybe get some answers.
The food in the bowl looked like dog chow, but I wasn't about to complain nor could I complain. The fact that I felt like I hadn't eaten in two days also pushed off my usual picky eating habits as I shoveled in hand fulls of what was essentially a bowl of meat flavored cereal, minus the milk of course. After the meal I immediately felt drowsy and couldn't keep my balance.
“Well looks like the tranquilizer finally kicked in. That should keep it quiet for the night.” one guard said happily. I grabbed the bars of the cage trying to slowly lay down to avoid falling face first onto the floor and waking up with a major headache. I lowered myself down to the hay and was out the moment I hit the ground.
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i'll fave this for now
....uh, thanks! didn't think i would get any activity on this for a couple of weeks!
Interesting premise and a good start. I will enjoy seeing this play out.
3135856 just got really excited after reading that comment! I'll try not to disappoint you
This looks pretty interesting...Although, I think I've seen another version of this concept around here at least once? Anyone correct me if I'm wrong?
3154071 that would be kind of interesting, hope mine isn't an accidental clone! just out of curiosity how would I find a story like that? I kinda want to read it just cause I like the concept and would love to see another view on it!
moar sir please
looks promising
This reminds me of Planet of the Apes.
I've had an idea in my head like this in my head for a while now...I guess you beat me to it! Fair play
Oh and when I was reading the first bit when our human was in his world I couldn't get a song out of my head. It's about a guy's last day of life being the best he ever lived.
It's called:
The Day I Died by Just Jack
Fits the first bit perfectly cos it isn't really sad or anything, it's actually quite upbeat!
3176387 just listened to it....that was awesome!!
3156027 thanks! it's a favorite movie of mine and was sort of the inspiration for this fic
I'm so excited to see people actually interested in a story i'm writing!
This is the motivation I've been looking for. I'm working on the second part as we speak, and I hope to have it up in a few weeks......though that may be longer depending on my mood and if I get hit with more writer's block.
Why'd he never try to speak?
3272841 He does but because of his stunted tongue it just sounds like garble and grunts, I did explain that!
3294411 You did? Does he try writing? Will he ever talk? Does he kill Shining Armor? Will there be human magic?(maybe telepathy)
3297358 you'll find out as more of it is published, so please be patient like everyone else
3297415 I don't like being patient things always happens so slowly...and in the right order.
3297489 sorry....Discord refused to help write my story so it will be typed in an orderly fashion
3297539 Grrr. DISCORD!!
This story reminds me very much of Your Human and You, except the main character seems like less of a shit head.
3341593 Haha! truth is I'm kind of posting chapters as I type them, I might take a long break from posting to flesh out and write 4 or 5 more parts and post them every couple of weeks.
3348829
OK?
This chapter, I like it. Still want another one.
The long wait for new chapters is driving me crazy!!
3649181 sorry just started part two cuz my pc is dead, typing it on the site right now via my Wii U. I'm a bit of a perfection freak when typing my story so it may be a while before part 2 is complete to my satisfaction
kibble doesn't actually taste anything like meat. it's creepy...
Welp, time to have nightmares....