The messed up life of Oak Wood

by abnormalfreak

Chapter 1: Amnesia and Hooves

Author's Note:

I actually finished this a day after the Prologue, but I got nervous because of that saying: "If you finish something fast, you did something wrong" (Ha Ha, I get it. Stop being pervs.) I let my friend bubble butt see it first, and after he pointed some stuff out, I did some quick revisions. Then I double checked it. I hope that you like it. Thanks to Bubble Butt and to my friends George and Kevin for the inspiration.

P.S: By the time you read this, I probably finished Ch.2, since I'm that much of a eager writer. No promises.

I have no idea where I am. I have been awake for what seemed like hours. Ok, that’s a lie. I’m semi-conscious. This has got to be the third or fourth time I woke up semi-conscious. I never bothered opening my eyes since the light was too harsh. I heard voices. I’m assuming they were the hospital staff. They kept saying stuff like “extreme fatigue” and “lot’s of rest”, so I think I’ll be alright. Weird though, I dreamed about talking horses. Man, this sucks more than the time I… I…

I can’t remember anything.

This is bad.

How can I not remember anything? Think… wait, what’s my name? I racked my mind to think of anything that might be useful. Nothing. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I’m from. I don’t even remember what I ate last night.

Now I’m scared.

I open my eyes to the harsh light. I squinted a bit so I could adjust. I took a couple of seconds, but I could finally see where I am.

It looks like a hospital, with curtains around what I assume to be other patients. I looked to the side to see a heart monitor. It’s beeping steadily. I guess that’s good. I traced the wire to my… OH MY GOODNESS!

I looked in shock at my hoof. Wait, why am I surprised? It’s just my hoof. I looked at it some more, but something was nagging at the back of my head that’s telling me that I shouldn’t have them. But then… what should I have? I tried once more to remember my past. Nothing. All I remember was a purple pony that talks. Wait. I took a good look at myself. I’m a horse. And I’m pretty sure I could talk. To confirm, I said hello in the empty room. Okay, so talking horses aren’t weird, but why did I think they were? Something strange was definitely going on, but for now I guess I have to wing it.

I did not realize how funny that statement was until the nurse came in.

“Excuse me,” the nurse said as she walked into the hospital room. “I have a visitor for… um… unknown pegasus #1.” She looked at me and said, “that must be you, dear. Come on in Twilight!”

Wait, pegasus?

I may have lost my memories, but I knew what a pegasus was. I looked at my back. Sure enough, I had wings. They were emerald green like the rest of my body. I wiggled them a bit to make sure they’re real. Cool.

“Um, what are you looking at?” the purple horse known as Twilight asked as she walked in and took a seat.

“Uh, just checking if I had wings,” I said nonchalantly.

“Why are you checking? Shouldn’t you already know?”

I stopped looking at my wings and focused on Twilight. The first thing I noticed was that she had both wings and a horn. I don’t know why it struck me as odd, it just did. She had a light purple coat and a dark blueish mane, highlighted with different shades of purple and pink.

That’s a lot of purple.

“Well,” I said, “I don’t exactly know a lot of things. You see, um, I can’t seem to remember anything from my past. The only thing I remember is a purple pony…” a sudden realization hit me. “Did you bring me here?” I asked.

“Yes, well no,” Twilight said. “I got my friend Rainbow Dash to help me. I’m not exactly used to…” she spread out her wings. “... these yet. I just got them.”

“Wait, you just got them? How does that work?”

“Um, it’s a long story…” she stopped herself and looked like she just remembered something. “Wait, you can’t remember anything?”

“Nope. Nothing. Not even my name.”

Twilight leaned forward in her chair and studied me. Then she got up from her chair and paced around the room, me following her with my eyes. “Hmmm. Sounds like textbook amnesia to me.” She turned towards me.

“Do you remember where you are from?”

“Nope.”

“Who you are?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“How about what you ate last night?”

This is getting ridiculous. “Look, let’s just assume for the moment that I cannot remember anything before the moment you found me, alright?”

She looked apologetic. “Sorry. It’s just that I never met a pony who had amnesia before.” Then her face lit up and she gasped. “I have to take you home and study you! This will be a great opportunity for me!”

I leaned back into my bed. My gut was telling me that the hospital was the safest place for me. “Uh, that’s fine. I don’t mind staying here. Anyway, I gotta make sure I get a full recovery.”

At that moment, the nurse walked in. “Excuse me, Unknown Pegasus #1? You’re free to go now. I just need you to fill out the paperwork.” She walked over to my bed and plopped a clipboard filled with papers and gave me a pen.

I looked at her funny and said, “Excuse me. I can’t hold the pen.” Then I showed her my hooves. She returned a smile and said playfully, “Ha, ha. Very funny.” She looked at Twilight and said, “He’s such a kidder.” Then the nurse walked to the door. “Oh,” she stopped at the door. ”call me when you’re done, dear.” Then she walked out.

I looked at the monstrous stack before me. Then at the pen. Both very problematic. I read the first page. It discussed form of payment. Payment? Great, lets see what I owe. I looked at the area that was highlighted and nearly had a heart attack. 3,000 bits! They’re trying to put me back in the hospital! I looked at Twilight for help. “Listen, Ms. Sparkle. I don’t have this kind of cash!” The clipboard was surrounded by a magneta aura and flew to Twilight. I noticed that her horn was glowing the same color. “Hey, how did you do that?” I asked.

“What, use magic? It’s easy. Any unicorn, or in my case alicorn, can use magic to lift objects.” Then she dug through the paperwork. “Well, this is simple. We can explain your situation to the hospital staff. I’m sure they understand and won’t make you fill out your contact info since, well, you don’t know it. As for the money, I’ll cover the costs.”

“Ms. Sparkle, I can’t let you do that. It’s a lot of cash and-”

“It’s fine. I have more than enough to cover the costs.”

“Really?”

“Yes. All I ask of you is to come home with me so I can run some tests, maybe even find a way to get your memory back.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like I have a choice.”

“Great! I’ll just explain the situation to the nurse, pay the fee, and we’ll get going.”

---

After Twilight paid the fee and got me out of there, I got a chance to get a good look around me. It looks like I’m in some kind of town. There are shops and houses and restaurants and a bunch of other buildings. What intrigued me more was that the whole town was filled with multi-colored ponies. I have no idea why that struck me as weird, since I’m a emerald green horse myself, but I guess that wherever I came from wasn’t infested with ponies.

Twilight walked me through the town (which I later found out was called Ponyville. Weird name.) and talked about how I was gonna like it here and how she was once new here as well. She kept talking about princesses, and friendship, and something about the elements of harmony. I stopped listening. I was more concerned about how natural it feels to walk on four legs. Back at the hospital, I tried getting out of my bed on two legs, but quickly fell over. After that, I just stopped trying and walked on four. It’s less painful that way.

I was gonna ask how long it would take to get to her house when something caught my eye. I looked to my side to see a peach-colored pony with curled pink and blue streaked hair. She had a picture of three pieces of candy on both her flanks. She was outside a shop called “Sugar Cube Corner”. What caught my attention about her was that she was holding a cupcake. With her hoof.

She was holding a cupcake. With her friggin hoof.

My mind just blew up.

How is that possible? I looked at Twilight. She was still talking nonsense, something about changelings and her sister-in-law. Whatever it is, she was distracted. I walked toward the direction of the bakery and went up to the pony. Without even thinking, I asked her, ”Excuse me,” She acknowledged me, “but how are you holding that cupcake?”

She gave me a weird look and said, “I just hold it.”

“Yeah, but how ?

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there is nothing for you to latch on to that cupcake. So, by the laws of physics and gravity, there should be no possible way you could hold anything, let alone a cupcake.”

“Uh…”

I was gonna ask her more stuff but Twilight got between the both of us. “There you are! I lost track of you back there.” She turned back to the physics-defying pony and said to her, “Sorry Bon-Bon. He’s new around here. He just lost his memory and he needs to adjust.”

“Riiiiight,” Bon-Bon said suspiciously.

Twilight turned back to me and pushed me away from Bon-Bon. “Come on, er, guy.”

“But I want to ask her-”

“I will answer all of your questions when we get to my house.”

“But, cupcake! Physics!”

“Let’s go!” With a forceful shove, I got the idea that I was scaring the poor pony.

---

A couple of minutes after the “Bon-Bon” incident, Twilight stopped and said to me, “Here we are!” I looked around, but all I could see was a giant tree. No way that’s her house. But surprising enough, she walked to a door I did not see earlier, and opened it with her magic. She waited by the door. “Aren’t you coming in?” she asked.

I assumed the question was rhetorical, so I walked into the tree. So, she lives in a tree. How weird. I back tracked to this morning. Well, so many things have been weird that I guess it’s normal. I looked around as Twilight shut the door.

It looked more like a library than a house, the walls had book shelves etched in them, each bookshelf packed to the brim with books. To the left of me, there was a staircase that must lead to the bedrooms.To the right, a staircase that lead down to the basement. It had this earthy/musty/home-ish kind of smell, so I felt at ease.

I couldn’t enjoy the atmosphere for long, because Twilight shouted, “Come with me!” and dragged me to the basement stairs. As I walked down, I noted the big machines and wires and other lab equipment. Twilight pointed at a chair with leather restraints on the foreleg rests. “Take a seat over there,” she said casually, as if she does this every day. I quickly became weary of the chair. “Um, I’m fine.” I turned to head back upstairs, but I was soon lifted into the air, enveloped in magenta aura. I flailed in the air, but to no avail. I flew to the death chair, sat down, and was restrained. I struggled at the bounds, but no use. “ Hey, what’s the big idea?” I asked.

“I just need to make sure you don’t break anything while I’m running the tests,” she explained, apathy in her voice. She walked over to me and placed a metal helmet of some kind, with cables and wires of all sorts of colors connected to it. I traced the cables to a machine. “I’m gonna try to find out why you lost your memory, and how I can get it back,” She said as she secured the straps.

“Isn’t there a better way to do it than tying me down in a creepy basement?” I asked hysterically.

“Calm down. I’m not gonna try to hurt you. That helmet is just to measure your brain activity.”

“Then what’s with the straps?”

“Just in case.”

“Just in case for what?”

Twilight thought about it. “I dunno. Just in case. You can never be too careful.”

The machine connected to the helmet started humming and paper started spewing out. Twilight grabbed the paper with her magic and studied it. It was a long minute until she put the paper on her desk, took off my helmet, and removed the restraints. “Well, good news is that the cause of your Amnesia was not due to any physical blow to your skull,” she said with a cheerful smile. “The bad news is that I still don’t know the actual cause of your amnesia is. I’m gonna have to hit the books for this one.” She walked up the stairs, and I followed suit. We got back to the non-creepy-very-nice living room and Twilight started to look around her bookcases. As she was looking around, I heard the front door open and close, so I turned around.

I almost wet myself.

Standing at the door, scales and all, was a dragon. It was a small dragon, but a dragon no less. It walked through the door, saw me, and stood still. I think it’s studying me. I stood still as well, almost rigid, just to make sure that I won’t make sudden movement that might provoke it to attack me. Wait. I looked for Twilight. She was still looking through books and humming. Humming. She’s gonna get us both eaten.

She must not have heard the door. I slowly inched toward Twilight, the dragon still eyeing me, and whispered to her, “Twilight.”

She turned around to look at me, but I quickly said, “Don’t… move… “

She stood rigid as well. “Why not?” she whispered nervously.

“Don’t panic, but there is a small dragon in your house.”

She visibly relaxed and said to me, “That’s just Spike.” She turned around and faced the dragon. “Hey Spike. How’s was Rarity’s?”

“She was fine,” Spike said with a dreamy smile. They both looked at me.

I stood there with my jaw dropped. “Ugh. You know what?” I said, “I’m not even surprised anymore.” I looked at the roof and screamed at the top of my lungs, “IS THAT ALL YOU GOT!”

Spike gave me a weird look and and turned to Twilight. “Who’s the stallion with the red mane?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “I fill you in later. Actually, I’m glad you got here. Can you help me find a book about Amnesia?”

“Sure Twilight,” he said. He walked to the ladder by the bookcases, took a good look at me, then rolled the ladder to another bookshelf. He climbed the ladder, took out a book, then climbed down. He walked to Twilight, and gave her the book. He took another good look at me, and said, “Why don’t you have a cutie mark?”

“I’m sorry… a what?” I asked with confusion.

“A cutie mark.” When he saw my confused look, he explained, “You know, A picture that shows your special talent on your flank? You get it when you discover your special talent.”

“Wait, is that why every pony I see has a picture on their flanks? I just thought the whole town was going through some sort of tattoo fad.”

“A what fad?”

“Uh, never mind.” I lifted up my wings and looked at my rear. Sure enough, no picture on my flank. “Hey, uh, Spike? Am I supposed to have one?”

“Well yeah.”

“Actually,” Twilight said as she looked through the book, “There has been some rare cases where full-grown stallions and mares still don’t have cutie marks. Usually it’s due to the fact that they haven’t found their special talent yet.” She looked up from her book and at me. “Don’t worry. Everyone always find their purpose in life, so don’t push too hard to find yours.”

She went back to reading. After a while she exclaimed, “Aha! Found it!” She read out loud, “ ‘Most recorded cases of Amnesia in Equestria are often caused by a physical blow to the skull, usually causing damage to the brain and inducing temporary memory loss. It can also be caused by magic, usually a spell gone wrong or an intentional memory loss spell. There are two forms of memory spells: Temporary and Permanent. The duration of a temporary memory loss spell depends on the unicorn’s magic skill level. Only a high magic level Unicorn, or a Alicorn, can perform a Permanent memory loss spell. Both forms can be reversed by a Unicorn or Alicorn who has a higher magic level than the Unicorn or Alicorn who performed it. To see the counterspell, turn to page 46.’ This is great! We can get your memory back and get you home!”

Twilight flipped to page 46 and read the counterspell. “Looks simple enough.” She closed the book and turned to me. “All right. I gonna need you to sit still.”

“Wait,” I objected, “you’re gonna try it on me? Shouldn’t you practice first?”

“ I don’t have anyone to practice on. You’re the only stallion I know of who has Amnesia.”

“Uhhhh.”

“Don’t you want your memories back?”

That really got me thinking. Do I want my memories back? Well, I hate being confused all the time. I want to know more than anything where I’m from. Who I am.

What I had for dinner last night.

I put on a brave face and said to Twilight, “Do it.”

Her horn glowed Magenta and I closed my eyes and braced myself. I felt a ticklish sensation, like little feathers on my body, and started to giggle. Then the ticklish sensation turned into poking. Then to jabbing. Then into painful stabbing. Soon, I was screaming in pain from the sensation of 1000 knives digging into my body at every angle. I want it to stop. I can’t take the pain. I heard Spike yell out, “Twilight, you’re hurting him!” Then, before I blacked out, I remembered something. A name.

Oak Wood.

---

Jeez, this must be the 5th or 6th time I woke up from being unconscious.

I woke up in a bed, but not in a hospital bed. I know I’m still in the tree. I can see the wood from where I’m laying. Wait, wood. Wood. Oak. Wood.

Oak Wood.

I remember. Before I blacked out, that name popped in my head. Oak Wood. I can’t help but think of me when I say the name. Oak Wood. I think that’s my name.

I try to remember more, but still nothing. Just Oak Wood. It’s small, but it’s a start.

I took a good look around me. I think I’m in the second floor of the tree house. (Get it? It’s a house in a tree? Oh forget it.) I see the stairs that lead me to the main second floor, and the stairs that leads to the first floor. There are also bookshelves here, full of books, and to the right of my bed, a window. I looked out the window. It was a nice view. I could see the whole town from here, shrouded in darkness that is the night, houses with their lights on that make them look like stars… Wait, night?

NIGHT?!?! HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN OUT?!?!

I jumped out of bed and took the stairs down. I got to the living room to see Twilight reading a book by candlelight. “Ah,” she said as she put the book down, “you’re awake. You alright?”

“My name is Oak Wood,” I said without hesitation.

Twilight got up quickly from her chair and walk over to me. “You remember your name?”

“Yeah. My name is Oak Wood!” I said enthusiastically.

“Do you remember anything else?” Twilight asked urgently.

“Uh, no. But I remember my name. That’s good enough, right?”

Twilight looked depressed. “Yeah, that’s good enough.”

Twilight went back to her chair in a dismal manner and sat down. She took a low-spirited sigh and opened her book to where she left off.

“What’s wrong, Ms. Sparkle?”

“Please, call me Twilight.” She rubbed a hoof over her face and sighed. “I’m happy that you can recall your name, but the fact that you can’t remember anything else tells me that I didn’t do the spell right. I let you down.” She closed her book, obviously not in the mood to read, and looked down.

She’s really depressed. I walked over to her and sat down on the ground next to her. “Look, Ms. Spar… Twilight,” I said sincerely, “It’s not your fault. Didn’t that book say that you needed to be more powerful than the person who did it, or something like that?” I got in front of her. She looked up so we can make eye contact. “I know you tried your best, but you shouldn’t beat yourself up if you’re best isn’t enough. Anyway, you helped me remember my name, so it wasn’t a complete loss, right?”

“Yes, I guess you’re right.”

“See?” I got up and headed to the stairs leading to the second floor. “Come on. I think we both need some well deserved sleep.”

Twilight smiled and said, “What are you talking about? You’ve been unconscious for half the day!” We both walked up the stairs to the second floor. When we got there, I asked, “Hey, what happened to that dragon?”

“Oh, Spike’s in front of the bed,” Then she pointed to where Spike is. Sure enough, he’s sound asleep in a basket, covered in a blanket.

“Oh.” I made my way to the bed I found myself in earlier. “What are you doing?” Twilight asked with accusation in her voice.

“I’m gonna go to bed. Why?”

“That’s my bed. You are sleeping on the floor.”

“How am I gonna do that?”

Twilight used her magic to pull out a sleeping bag from under the bed. She rolled it out and put it on the ground next to Spike’s bed. “There, problem solved.” She got to her bed and covered herself with her blanket. I looked at the sleeping bag, got in it, and closed my eyes.

“Oh, Oak?” Twilight said in the darkness.

“Yeah?” I called back in the darkness without opening my eyes.

“Tomorrow, I’m gonna show you around the town with some of my good friends, so get lot’s of rest.”

“All right. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” Then I heard an abrupt snoring sound coming from Twilight’s bed.

Ugh, I thought as I cover my ears, this is going to be a long night. A what now?

It's a shade of purple.

This was up there before, but... Twilight gave him her whole life story? Just curious.

Yes. She is very informative.

Wow, Twilight letting an unknown stallion sleep in her room? I would have given him the couch lol

I would too, but its equestria. You know, no things to worry about like rape or robbery.