The Embers of Humanity

by StarChaser01

Chapter 1: A Whole New World!

‘I really should have expected it to look like this,’ Ember thought as shi fell through a white void ‘Though I’m not sure how a void could be white considering that a void is, by definition, empty.’

After falling for what felt like hours, though it was probably closer to minutes, the unrelenting white started resolving into shapes. ‘Oh cool!’ Ember thought, ‘Let’s see here, that one looks like a squiggle, that looks like a tail, there’s a needle, that looks like a tree, and there’s a horse… thing…’

Suddenly a hole in the void appeared directly beneath Ember and before shi could react, shi fell through it and landed on something that was certainly not tiled floor.

Groaning, shi pushed hirself up as shi opened hir eyes before stopping. ‘Is that… grass? Am I… free?’

Standing up, shi looked around to see that shi was in the middle of a clearing located in a dense forest. Even though shi didn’t have any visible ears, shi could clearly hear the sound of birds chirping along with the sounds of small animals moving through the brush some distance away.

‘Considering that these horns on my head almost cover up where my “ears” are, I’m surprised that I can hear better than… before.’ Shaking hir head to clear the dark thoughts that started to creep in; another thought came back to hir. ‘I really am free…’

And with that, shi knelt down and cried out of joy.

---

Princess Twilight Sparkle was, as had become the norm lately, practically buried in books as she tried to find at least one precedent for recent events.

“You would think that in an area like the Everfree magical anomalies like this would be more common!” She cried for the 17th time that day to no one in particular.

“Even a semi-recognizable wild spell, though rare, should have happened at least ONCE in recorded history! BUT NO! IT HASN’T!”

Just then a scroll appeared in mid-air in front of the stressed princess.

Quickly snatching it in her aura she unrolled it, glad for some kind of distraction.

“Dear Twilight,

I apologize for not responding to your letter as soon as I should have, your letter arrived at a rather unfortunate time; I hope you haven’t gone into a studying frenzy as a result again. We should talk more often, but you know how schedules go.

Your request for a squad of guards to assist in the investigation of the recent thaumical anomalies in the Everfree Forest has been approved and will be arriving in approximately 24 hours.

May the sun light your path,

Celestia”

Twilight set down the letter with a sigh of relief. The anomalies were too deep in the Everfree for her to safely investigate on her own, even though she was an Alicorn, and Spike, though he had grown a bit, was still too small to be of any help if any of the local wildlife decided to make them a meal.

With a squad of trained guards along with her magical prowess, she was confident that there would be very little danger in investigating so far into the Everfree.

“Well, first things first, making a list! Then worry about the fact that I’m thinking out loud again…”

---

After crying for an indefinite amount of time, Ember found that shi had no more tears at the moment.

‘Darn it! It felt good to cry after so long…’

Deciding that it wouldn’t be the best idea to lament about hir lack of tears, shi turned hir thoughts to survival.

‘Freedom doesn’t mean much if I starve out here in God knows where! Although it sounds like there are plenty of local wildlife I could probably eat, I’m not sure how my stomach would react to actual meat after eating preservatives with a side of food for three years.’

After much debate, shi decided that finding a water source would be a higher priority, after all, shi had enough fat stored up to survive for a few days without food before feeling the effects of a lack of food.

‘I never thought I’d say this, but thank you genetic engineering! Wait… can I even talk? I haven’t tried since my vocal cords gave out from screaming when they were still pumping me full of mutagen…’

Deciding that it would be best if shi stopped rambling in hir head, shi focused on hir sense of sound. Although it didn’t look like it, shi could hear extremely well, especially so when considering that shi didn’t have any hunks of cartilage directing sound.

Tuning out everything else, Ember focused hir hearing to levels that could only be matched by a few specific animals. Hir mind built a map of all the sounds around hir, from the smallest mouse in the grass, to a bird flying high overhead. Focusing for the sound of running water, shi eventually heard the faint sound of a creek ahead and to hir left.

Opening hir eyes, shi continued focusing on the sound of running water and headed straight towards it. If shi had been paying attention to other sounds, shi would have heard a sound similar to twigs snapping which followed some distance behind hir as shi walked towards the creek.

---

After about a half-an-hour of walking, Ember came to the creek.

‘Well,’ shi thought as shi looked down at the small creek ‘I don’t know what I expected, I mean, it’s a creek in the middle of a giant fucking forest! Oh well, it looks clean, and it’ll probably be better than that crap I was drinking before I got out… That shit probably had more preservatives in it than the food! AND IT WAS WATER!’

Looking around, Ember once again had to force hir thought on survival.

‘Okay, I’ve got water, I don’t need food for a few days, only thing I need now is shelter.’

Almost on cue, hir eyes fell upon a tree with a few low branches that shi estimated that shi could climb.

‘How convenient… Not that I’m complaining…’ shi thought as shi jumped up and grabbed the lowest branch.

Pulling hirself up, shi climbed up until shi reached a strange branch formation that ended up in multiple branches all but fusing together into one wide branch that shi could easily sit on with hir back to the trunk of the tree.

‘It may not be soft, but it’ll do, but how did this form? I don’t know much about trees, but I’m fairly certain that trees don’t usually grow like this without some sort of external interference…’ Ember thought as shi checked shelter off of hir list of essentials.

Noticing that it was getting dark, shi decided that it would be a good time to call it a day and enjoy hir first night free of the hell hole that shi had just escaped from.

‘Rest now, finding out where the hell I am later…’ shi thought as the comforting embrace of sleep consumed hir.

Author's Note:

You know? I just realized while re-formatting this chapter that the italics are going to be a real pain as they don't transfer over from MC Word...