Long Road Home

by BlackSkulls

Chapter 01

The world warped around her as she left the safety of her bedroom and was sucked into a tunnel that burst with every color of the rainbow. Clara screamed for her mother to save her from the seemingly endless void that only her and her stuffed bear occupied. She felt like she had been floating for hours, her screams changed to sobs she clutched her teddy bear to her chest. Just when she thought she would be in the tunnel forever--it ended.

A bright light blinded her. Next thing Clara knew, she was laying on a wooden floor in pain. She lifted her head to look at her new surroundings. While she was no longer in the rainbow tunnel, she was in a room. A small room, with a desk to her right, a pile of books in front of her, and a chest tucked in the corner.

"Where...?"

Clara shakily got on her feet, and she noticed that the ceiling was just tall enough that she could brush it with her fingertips. She surveyed the room once again, and pondered how she even arrived in such a place. That's when she saw it: the mirror, nearly identical to the one that was displayed in her own bedroom down to the last detail. Soft footsteps as she walked over to the mirror and hesitantly pressed her hand against the surface. She expected her fingers to once again sink inside. She expected to be taken back home if she went back through.

She did not expect her palm to lay flat on the surface like a normal mirror.

Green eyes stared intently at their reflection as she frantically padded the mirror, hoping for a sweet spot where she could return home. In her search, she glanced behind her reflection to see the leg of her beloved toy sticking out behind a small stack of books. Clara, ashamed that she forgot her friend for even a moment, ran across the small space to the bear. In her haste, however, her foot caught the cover of a book and she fell on the floor with a thud.

A soft whine escaping her lips, she grabbed her stuffed friend with one hand and the book she tripped over with the other. It was relatively large, a thick brown tome with a title she couldn't understand. The letters were foreign to her, looking more like alien language than the English she knew. Setting the teddy bear on her lap, she silently thumbed through the book in hopes of figuring out where she was, with only the light of the moon through a window to see by. However, she only found more of the strange language, charts she could not comprehend, and pictures that she couldn't understand what they were. More and more she flipped through the pages as confusion and fear gripped at her. Clara was so engrossed in the tome, she did not hear stirring and quiet groans emanating from behind her.

Trixie's slumber had been disturbed by a magical presence that had appeared and disappeared within a matter of seconds. Low sounds of steps on wood, a tap of something tapping against glass, and then a thud had fully roused the sleeping unicorn. Annoyed by her sleep being interrupted, she laid on her futon hoping to quickly return to her dreams. But when her ear twitched with the sound of shuffling papers, she knew something was wrong. Slowly and silently Trixie sat up on the futon and rubbed one eye with her hoof.

What is disturbing Trixie's sleep so much? She thought as she rolled off the mattress and onto her hooves. The moment she lifted her head, she was met with the back of a strange figure with long fur originating from what she could only assume was its head. She could only see its vague shape and colors--brown, yellow, and white--and nothing more. Trixie, confused as to what this strange creature was, screamed.

"What are you doing in Trixie's caravan, creature?!" She stomped her hoof and lowered her head, preparing her horn in case the stranger decided to go on the offense.

Clara, startled by the scream, turned her head to look behind her. Her eyes widened when she was met face to face with who it was that spoke: A blue pony. Not just any pony, a unicorn, something that only existed in her fairy tales. She returned with a scream of her own as she scrambled to her feet with her bear in hand as she once again ran to the mirror, slamming her palms against the surface of the mirror more frantically than before. When that endeavor failed, she turned so she was completely facing Trixie, her green eyes wide with fear.

Trixie watched as the strange creature furiously hit her mirror as it screamed. While wary of what this creature was, since she deemed it was more scared of her, she slowly walked towards it and her mirror, her violet eyes never once glancing away. Now that Trixie had a better look, she saw it was something completely hairless, saving for the fur sprouting from its head.

No, not fur, a mane. In braids...

She saw the creature was small, roughly around her height, and covered in some sort of cloth around her body. Once there was but a couple of feet between the two of them, they did nothing but stare silently at each other. Trixie, in cautious curiosity and Clara, in fear. Her knees shook as she wondered what the unicorn would do to her. Was it mad at her for touching her books? Thinking this to be the most logical reason, Clara mumbled out an apology.

"I-I-I'm sorry, M-m-miss unicorn..." She squeaked, flinching when Trixie's head suddenly shot up.

"You speak?" She asked, slowly. Clara nodded once. "Then you must tell me how you got into my caravan! The window and doors are locked!" Trixie straightened herself fully, now completely sure that herself and Clara were around the same height.

"T-The...mirror..." Clara mumbled as she glanced over her shoulder to the mirror.

At this, Trixie's ears folded back and she rose a brow at her. "That mirror is just a mirror. Something for Trixie to practice illusion magic on herself and to groom Trixie's perfect mane. Now tell the truth!"

Clara squeaked again, her quaking knees making her collapse to the floor when she could no longer support her weight. "It's true! I...I came through the mirror. Please, Miss Unicorn, it's true! I promise!" Her shoulders shook as tears ran down her face. She wondered how she ended up in this situation. She wanted to go home and curl up in bed with her mom. At the thought of her mother, her eyes widened and more tears fell from her eyes.

Trixie did nothing but stare at the creature as it sobbed to itself. Once she grew uncomfortable with hearing the cries, she quietly walked over to Clara and nuzzled the young girl's head. "There, don't cry. I believe you. Shh."

The two stayed like that for a moment, until Clara had tired herself from everything that had happened. Taking a step back, Trixie stared down at her for a moment before speaking.

"What are you? And do you have a name?"

Clara rubbed her eyes and nodded. "Clara. My name is Clara...And...I'm a human."

Trixie's head cocked to the side. Human? While she would have liked to ponder the thought further, her need for sleep caught up with her. For a moment she wondered what to do with the 'human' Clara. A quick glance out of her window told her that the sun would not be rising for at least another five hours. As much that she didn't want to keep a strange creature with her, Clara's size and obvious fear would've made her a fine midnight snack for any predators. With a reluctant sigh, she crawled back to her futon. A pink glow surrounding her hat, she balled up and stuffed several of her showmare caps inside it until it was a suitable pillow. She laid the full hat and another cape down on the floor next to her.

"Come on then...Clara. I suppose you can stay here for the night. When the sun rises I will figure out what to do with you."

Clara, glancing up at the unicorn, nodded and grabbed her bear, and crawled across the floor to the makeshift bed. Her head rested against Trixie's head, and she pulled the cape over her like a blanket. Clutching the bear close to her, she drifted off to sleep.

Trixie, watching to make sure the human was fully in slumber, sighed. When she was sure the girl was asleep, she curled up on the futon and let the sleep take over.

---

A woman walked towards the room at the top of a set of stairs. She had sent her daughter to bed several minutes earlier, and had gone to check up on her. She shook her head as she noticed the bedroom light had still been on. She gently knocked on the cracked door and she slowly opened it, as to not wake her possibly sleeping child.

"Clara...Clara...?"

The door opened fully to reveal the completely empty room. The woman searched the room, to find the bed had been lain in, and the brush in front of the mirror. Her heart pounded with panic at the thought of her missing daughter.

"Clara? Clara!"

She ran throughout the house, checking every room and every place her daughter could have been hiding. To no avail, she once again went back to the young girl's bedroom. Her window was locked, and there wasn't a logical way anyone could have gone through the home with the grown woman just a few rooms from the door downstairs. Clara had simply...vanished.

In a panicked state, the woman ran to the nearest phone and made a frightening phone call.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Is English not your first language? Because the grammar you use is really weird. Despite that, there's enough here that's good to compel me to keep reading.