Synch

by sunnypack

3 - Coming to Conclusions: Baby Steps (rev2)

I looked around me, noticing there were more ponies in throne room whilst I had been recounting the events.

I rolled my eyes, beckoning them to come forward. It wouldn't hurt to have more peopl- ponies learn the truth. They came in as a small jumble. Hesitant, but intrigued.

Celestia, whose name was found out from a helpful pony in the crowd, cleared her throat. She was probably either amused or annoyed that I had kind of ordered her subjects around.

"I would actually like to hear more about your stay here", she said, waving her hoof in a dismissive gesture.

Her sister, as I had found out, glared at Celestia and addressed me while still looking at Celestia.

"I would like to hear about its world! We could find out something critical about- " she glanced at the ponies within the courtroom " -about what we discussed."

Celestia looked like she was having an internal debate and I coughed to get their attention.

"Perhaps I can break up the story into more manageable pieces", I proposed, looking at both of them in turn. "I could talk about my world and at the same time we can talk of my experiences in yours."

I lifted an eyebrow.

"I don't think it will affect the narrative too much if I switch perspectives every now and then", I commented wryly.

Celestia nodded in approval, Luna followed suit.

I took a deep breath and recollected my first memories of arriving in this mysterious land.

-----

It’s not everyday that a guy (that would be me) wakes up in the middle of a deadly forest surrounded by wolves. Okay, later I would have known them as Timberwolves, but my point still stands.

A logical mind would immediately analyse this situation coming to the right conclusions.

1. Assess the environment. Are there any immediate dangers?

Danger, what danger? Ha ha.

Okay, moving on.

I was in a forest, it was green, there were more leaves and greenery than I was usually comfortable with and there was wildlife that was definitely not comfortable with me. They would probably feel more comfortable eating me. So unless I was in their stomach, or whatever it was they digested with, they would probably try and rip me apart until I had become one with them. I used a few precious seconds shuddering over that. Okay. Fear over.

I made a quick assessment of the situation.

Danger level: Oh my God please no.

Which was roughly equivalent to what I felt during every final exam during high school. Excepting mortal danger present, of course.

2. Eliminate these dangers, or make them irrelevant.

I tried. Really. But freaking out got in the way of calm reasoning, so I froze like an idiot trying to see if it would help. Of course that only gave time for the wolves to close in. I started hyperventilating, letting my 'flight' instinct drive me.

Then I was running.

Sweet glorious running.

Away.

From them.

Yup.

3. Assess other survival needs. Prioritise and address them.
Now that I thought about it, I was pretty hungry. The last thing I had eaten were dumplings, you know cause it’s a pretty staple diet for a teenage Asian kid. Jokes. I mean about the staple diet thing, I actually did have dumplings. Not something I eat everyday.

Where was I?

Oh yeah! Running for my life.

I would describe the experience (of running for my life I mean) as very fragmented. I remember going through a heap of branches and leaping over rocks but at the same time I remember getting unreasonably scared because in the few minutes I was running the sunlight was starting to fade and I knew from general principles that wolves could see pretty well in the dark and tasty humans didn’t.

So I kept running and my brain babbled about a few random tangents that had nothing to do with the situation.

Firstly, where the heck was I?

Secondly, how am I going to submit my report on spectroscopy?

Thirdly, how did my ancestors deal with wolves?

I had no immediate answers for the first two questions so I just chucked them out of my head. The last question did stick to my mind because it happened to be the more reasonable one of them all. I was conscious enough of the growls and barks to note that they were getting closer. In fact, it was amazing I made it so far without them catching up to me. My breathing was laboured, I would be able to keep this up much longer. I needed a plan and something workable relatively fast.

Trees.

I’m a monkey. Ape. Descendent. Nice one brain.

Laughing maniacally, which came out as more of a wheezing laughing fit, and with the biggest leap of my life, I swung myself at the nearest thickish tree branch I could see. I saw a wolf snarl and lunge at my foot as I tried to bring it up with the rest of my body to the safety of the elevated tree branch. It snagged my shoelace and almost pulled me down with it until I realised what it was doing and shook my own shoe off. Scrambling with the desperation of a teenage boy in mortal danger (which is about 7/10 on the desperato scale) I climbed further up the tree and dimly registered I was pretty high up off the ground, perhaps about five metres. This may not sound like much but it was a major achievement for me.

The other wolves by that time caught up to the lead wolf that was chasing me down and the lead wolf just flung my sneaker somewhere in the bushes.

Rude.

I wasn’t in the confrontational mood so I just sat there and took it using age-old Confucian patience drilled into me by my parents and squatted on the branch keeping vigilance on the wood-golem-things. Oh that felt good, heart slowing, less of a heart attack staccato and more of a slightly enthusiastic drummer.

After about two minutes I got cramps and eased myself into a sitting position from my previously held squat.

The wolves with timber creaking and growls of annoyance, paced around my tree for a little while before the leader, which I’m guessing is an Alpha or something, shook its head in what looked like disgust and padded off.

What? Yellow human not good enough for you?

Racist wolf.

I was still relieved. My pounding heart and death grip on the trunk and branches relaxed slightly.

Why, oh why was this happening to me?

I ended my ramblings there.

I had to think of survival first.

I thought I probably should wait in this tree until all the wolves were gone.

Heck, daylight would be much nicer and friendlier. Safer.

So I waited, staying wide awake and listening for the strange sounds of the night.

-----

The situation had pretty much devolved into a relaxed storytelling sessions. I think I caught one of the ponies eating popcorn. Wah?

Celestia eyed me quizzically.

"Your narrative has changed", she pointed out, with a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Oh yes, I decided to spruce things up a bit with in-narrative commentary."

Luna cocked her head at that.

"You could use a little practice", she commented wryly.

"Oh just go along with it, princess", I shot back casually.

-----

I don’t know about you but for anyone trying to sleep in a tree, don’t do it.

I was exhausted and out of options so the tree was a good choice but my rear end didn’t agree with me.

I had kept vigilance through the course of the night but my weary body was unused to such heart-pounding exercise that it was telling me I needed to sleep, desperately. I told myself that if I went down I'd probably die from a fall or the wolves would get me, so I tried to settle into the trunk of the tree and sleep.

Unfortunately or fortunately, I had snapped out of a light doze multiple times because I was leaning too far forward or back and my self-preservation and quick blasts of adrenaline had woken me up and saved me from almost certain death about twenty or so times that night.

I was grateful but at the same time I got no sleep. You win some and lose some, I guess.

By the time daybreak shone through the gentle folds of the tree I was in, I was thoroughly in the ‘stoner’ stage of my sleep cycle. I mean my body had built a circadian cycle/rhythm that allowed me to function with six hours of solid sleep so the multiple interruptions made me a zombie. The closest feeling I had to this was when I pulled all nighters in order to finish some majorly important assignments. Yeah I wasn’t the most organised but I did pretty well on average so shut up. Cramming always worked for me.

My stomach was growling death threats at me and this time I took it seriously because there was a lack of actual modern available food in my information-age smart-fridge which didn't exist here on account of I didn't know where the heck I was.

The last part was thought to myself rather stressfully; because when I get stressed I tended to internal monologue. Sometimes I would dialogue with myself but I would cut that stuff out when I realised that would probably be the first signs of some sort of debilitating mental disorder.

You mean right now?

“Shut up, me”, I shot back, irritated.

I climbed down the tree in an awkward stomach turning series of branch-to-branch drops. At some points I paused when I realised it was a pretty far stretch and I was moderately impressed what my adrenaline-fueled self could accomplish in a terror-induced state. As I dropped to the ground with a thump and looked around, the first thing I noticed was the rapidly dampening sock I was wearing on my left foot which had left me with an overall impression of having no frigging shoe.

Those wolves.

Man if I ever… nope I’d run. Still… If I ever meet you and I’m at a superior advantage in terms of firepower and physical strength I’d totally… Maybe, I thought to myself in a stew of unpleasant feelings.

I’m going to do so many things to that wolf that would make a gangster blush.

I was thinking these thoughts while rummaging around for my shoe in the bushes. Eventually, I found the shoe and put it back on. I wasn't pleased with the faint tearing on the sides and the squelchy wetness of my sock in the shoe, it was definitely more comfortable than limping around almost barefoot in an unknown forest.

I paused, my memories flashing back to the wood wolves.

What the heck were they?

Where the heck was I?

The inner scientist in me was kind of excited. I mean they were a new species right? I could name them after me!

My engineering side kicked in with find some shelter and build something because that’s what you were taught to do.

My emotional side was throwing a hissy fit. So I decided to ignore it and shut it down.

My rational part of my brain was reeling with implications. It tried to piece together a sequence of event that lead here but suddenly swamped with information which was not at all helpful, it decided to dump that stuff into backlog and deal with it later. It decided it agreed with the engineering side.

Do something useful.

So I did. I gathered some loose sticks into a pile in the middle of the clearing and decided that later I would try to make fire… sometime later though, they looked damp and I didn't really have anything that could be used to start a fire. So with nothing else to do I dragged my feet to do some exploring, maybe I could find a lighter here? Nah, that would be too convenient.

I didn't want to really think about the wood-golem-wolves, even though it would be an exciting discovery. Turns out when something tries to kill you, you quickly want to forget it and move on. Learn from it and be wary of it, but move on. I think I skipped a lot of steps of the grieving process (for my comfortable former life) in favour of survival. That was definitely was detrimental to my psychology. Could be worse. Post-traumatic amnesia? I'll take it.

The lay of the forest was strange and intimidating. There was a sort of track made by either animals or humans, I don't think it was humans because the height was a little short and I had to bend a bit to prevent branches and leaves from driving themselves up my nose and face. I decided to follow the track, keeping a wary eye and ear out for any out of place noise.

After some trekking some distance from my ‘hiding tree’ back some way, I came across a rickety bridge.

Now normally I would be very hesitant to cross a bridge like this. I’d probably outright refuse to unless it had been checked by the appropriate authorities and vetted by my trustworthy civil engineering buddies. As it was I was just glad that the bridge meant civilisation would be nearby so I happily crossed it (very cautiously though) and was glad nothing bad actually happened. Really. Nothing.

I don't care if you don't believe me, nothing happened.

Okay... well... a breeze may have blown the bridge while yours truly was crossing and might’ve given me a fright that might've made me let loose an unmanly shriek but nobody will know of this! Nobody! NOBODY.

Across the bridge I was happy to find a path that was about two people wide. As I walked along it I thought for once to actually look ahead.

I gasped.

I had found civilisation!

Or… what was left of it.

Oddly disturbed, I gazed at the ruins, trying (and failing) to hold back a sense of trepidation. I mean sure the ruins looked mysterious and in a way aged, proud and majestic but it still gave me the creeps.

Was it a hologram?

I tapped one of the stones. Yes still solid. Not less creepy.

I’m a rational person and considered myself a man of science but there were certain superstitious inducing events that would trigger my fanciful-creative persona to unleash a torrent of misgivings, hesitation and other delightful human responses to… haunted things. I'm not scared! I'm just cautious. Yeah... cautious.

The ruins were clearly once part of a great ancient castle, with two towers sticking proudly out of the dilapidated structure. As far as I could tell there was no ceiling left and the blocks showed twisting vines with mould and lichen reclaiming the castle to nature. Stray leaves strewn about the front paved entrance, danced about as idle winds blew them and I cast a critical eye about the structure. Above the slightly gothic-in-style archway were two four-faceted amethysts, which were frankly blinding in the right orientation to the sun. I glared at the crystals but got a retina searing for my troubles. Grumbling, I trudged past the amethysts.

-----

Luna whispered something to Celestia who nodded in affirmation.

I paused, looked at them and shrugged, continuing with my recount.

-----

The abandoned castle still kind of gave me the creeps but I persevered and continued on pushing past the rough and ancient wooden doorway that lead into the castle. The doorway was stiff and creaky and did nothing to alleviate the sense of rising foreboding that was welling up from my stomach and lodging itself in my throat.

At this point I considered at least I should take a look around before forming an opinion on the creepy abandoned castle in the middle-of-freaking-nowhere. Whatever I find would have to be amazing and comfortable to sleep in if I’m going to overturn the forbidden ruins feeling though.

I sighed braced myself and stepped through the opening.

Author's Note:

Hmm, I'm sorry if my paragraphing and grammar is a little off putting. I'm reading up on grammar guides and trying to improve. At least consistency will be constant and I'll correct every and any spelling mistake I see or if you point them out. As for publishing so many words in a day I actually started writing this a little while back I want to give work that was a bit more polished than just throwing the idea out and correcting and modifying constantly as I go, hence chapters will probably be released in bursts rather than chapter by chapter. CORRECTION: More like chapter by chapter if you've been following along *wink*.

EDITED.

Comments

[Cavalorn]

You've made me read past chapter 1, congratulations to you. Lets see where it goes, seems interestig.

[anon5412]

h

[blank check]

This went from Earth, after a mysterious applet appeared on everyone's Synch, to Equestria, where the protagonist is referencing an encounter with timberwolves that didn't happen. Are your chapters out of order?

Looking at the next chapter, the answer is yes.

[Allstar13521]

4946739 Did you actually read the start of the chapter? It's not even all that hard to follow.

[the7Saviors]

I normally like to read story as it's happening not as it happened but since it reads like it's happening for the most part (I have to admit the interruptions are a bit grating) I can deal with it.