• Published 1st Jun 2020
  • 1,731 Views, 44 Comments

Choice - AnOrdinaryWriter



A choose your own adventure starring you as you wake up during a bright summer morning, ready to see what kind of adventures the day ahead takes you on!

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You head toward the door, analyzing it for a moment. The door is made out of very old, rotting wood, and the hinges are completely rusted. All that considered you calculate that a simple buck might get the door open.

Facing away from the door, you rear up on your forelegs and buck outward. Once your hind legs collide with the door, it flies off the hinges, landing on the floor of the hallway ahead. You hope that no one heard that and step out of the room. That’s the first part of the escape done. Now you just have to navigate your way out without being seen.

You start down the hallway. Like the entrance hall, parts of the wall and ceiling are crumbling and leaving rock fragments on the ground. As you walk, you look out for anypony that may be on watch to make sure you don’t get caught escaping.

Reaching a set of stairs, you descend to the floor below and look around, finding yourself in a large hallway identical to the entrance hall. Determining that the exit must be nearby, you stare down the left and right hallways. Left is a dead end, so you gallop in the opposite direction, darting to the end where the hallway turns. You round the corner and continue running.

At the end of the hall, you see the giant entrance doors that the old stallion led you through, wide open and inviting, and from what you can see, they’re unguarded. Perfect.

You make a beeline toward the giant doors, escape mere seconds away.

Guards suddenly flood through the entrance, spotting you and holding up the bows in their hooves.

“Stop right there!” one of them yells. You dig your hooves into the ground and skid to a stop. Spinning in the opposite direction, you’re about to run back, but that plan is quickly foiled once another squad of guards block the end of the hallway, mimicking the guards across from them and aiming their weapons at you.

Your head turns in every direction, looking for a way to escape. The guards close in on you, bows trained on you the whole time. Then, you spot a way out of the hall.

“On your haunches, hooves behind your—hey!” you dive behind one of the piles of rubble as a row of arrows soar above your head. You then get up and start running toward the hallway in front of you. A few arrows hit the wall behind you, narrowly missing you as you enter the hallway and put all your energy into creating distance between you and the guards.

Heavy hoofsteps and angry shouts echo through the narrow hallway as you gallop down the stairs ahead of you. When you reach the bottom, you look back and see that the guards are gaining on you. Focusing your attention back to what’s in front of you, you suddenly slow down before coming to a halt.

You’re back in the cave with the orb. A dead end.

Your eyes shoot to the hallway where the guards have finally reached the bottom of the stairs, and you back up toward the pedestal carrying the artifact in a pathetic attempt to get away.

As soon as you do, the guards file in, all aiming their bows at you in unison. Through the crowd of armed ponies, the old stallion pushes through, staring at you with a deep frown of fury.

“Resilient, you are,” he says, voice booming through the cave. “Give it a break. You’re not going to win. There’s nowhere for you to run and I got dozens o’ guards here with their bows pointed straight at you.”

He’s right. You’re trapped. There’s no way out of this.

The low buzz of energy behind you catches your attention, and you turn around, seeing that the blue orb has begun to rattle again, glowing with a powerful brilliance. Then, without thought, your hoof reaches out to grab it.

“Do not touch that thing!” the stallion barks, but it’s too late as you take hold of the artifact and pick it up off the pedestal.

Having taken the stallion’s panicked shout as an incentive, the guards release the strings of their bows, causing a wave of arrows to fly in your direction.

Before the arrows can hit you, they all simultaneously burst into dust, as though simply evaporating in mid air, before fading out of existence.

“W-what…” the old stallion stutters. “How’s that possible?!”

You look down at the orb in your hoof. As you hold it, images pass through your mind like a slideshow. You see Pinkie Pie standing in front of you offering you a cupcake. Then, you see Octavia and Vinyl Scratch fighting inside their home. Then, you see Twilight Sparkle leading you toward a large machine in her laboratory comprised of computers and a large table with wires connected to it. Then, you see the old stallion inquiring your unexpected arrival at the town with a suspicious glare.

You look back up at the stallion and the group of guards eyeing you with stunned looks, unable to believe what they’d just witnessed.

“I ain’t got a clue what you’re able to do with that there artifact, but I suggest you put it down now,” the stallion orders, his demeanor of authority replaced by apprehension and unease.

You look back down at the orb again. You feel its pulses of energy through your entire body as more images stream through your mind like premonitions. No, not premonitions. More like… memories, most of which have never happened and yet you somehow remember witnessing.

And then you know what you need to do.

“Put that thing down, now!” the stallion says, but you don’t listen. You raise the orb in the air slowly. “What are you doing?” You take a deep breath through your muzzle, and then swing the orb toward the ground. “STOP! NO!!” You release the orb. It falls for less than a moment, and then it shatteeerrrrreettahs ti neht dna ,tnemom a naht ssel rof F̶̯͛O̷̤̓Ĺ̶̻L̴̻̎Ô̶̯W̵̗͘ sllaf tI%#!*%.enot dega ,ylevarg a htiw skaeps eh “,ereh dnuora morf t’nia uoY”^!#$%llih peets dna gnol a nwod nellaf tsuj dah uoy taht ees uoy ,kcab daeh ruoy gninruT^#(&@&tunococ Ĥ̴̥Ì̶̗M̷͗͜ evol uoy hcum woh wonk I ecnis dna ,epicer tunococ a tuo gniyrt emit tsrif ym s’tI”{$#!@*.enam ruoy fo trap tnorf eht gnihcnerd dna worb ruoy gnirevoc taews dloc a ,deb ruoy ni pu toohs uoY&%@

You stand before your front door.

It stands there, waiting for you to open it and step out into the gorgeous outdoors. Your hoof is on the knob, about to twist it and get rid of the barrier between you and the outside world.

But your hoof just rests there.

None of this is right. You had just come out of your room, excited about the huge day ahead of you, eaten a small breakfast and walked up to the door about to leave, and for some reason, you stopped. For whatever reason, it feels as though everything before walking up to your front door was a dream and you had just woken up, standing here about to leave your home.

Weird flashes of past memories swim through your mind, though most of them are foggy and blurred. You only remember the bits and pieces, such as images of a desert, a town, and some sort of bright blue light. With the limited images in your memory, you’re unable to connect them into any sort of inkling of how you got them or where from.

But you push that all aside. They don’t matter right now. Today is going to be a great day.

You turn the knob and step outside, feeling the warm breeze and summer heat waves against your skin. However, for some reason the sensation of heat brings back the memories, particularly of the desert. You try to shake them out of your head, but they’re stuck in your thought process as though by glue.

Following that is a strong sense of déjà-vu. As you look around, you see ponies marching about joyfully as they perform their daily routine, some waving at you, prompting you to wave back not voluntarily but more as though you’re being forced to do so.

You’ve experienced this all before. You know it. You’ve done this walk already. All of this—waking up, eating breakfast, walking through town, this weather, the ponies outside, its all happened before.

Then, in front of you far down the road, you see a pony walking in a straight line like you. The pony captures your interest, and you speed up, attempting to catch up with whoever they are.

As the pony’s details become clearer you start to notice some perplexing details. For instance, the color of their fur bears a striking similarity to yours, as does their mane color and tail. You know of situations where two ponies look much alike, however no matter how similar they can be to each other, it is impossible for two ponies to look the same. So, the fact that the pony looks like your clone instantly piques your curiosity.

Attempting to catch up with the pony, you finally close much of the distance between the two of you as he stops dead center in the road. However, a very familiar picture causes you to stop as well.

The pony is standing in front of your two friends, Pinkie Pie and Vinyl Scratch.

“Heya!” Pinkie’s says to the pony, followed by Vinyl saying “He-hey, what’s up, dude!” You remember this conversation. Vinyl proceeds to invite you to Octavia’s rehearsal and Pinkie Pie invites you to taste test at Sugarcube Corner.

You know what happens next. A choice between your two friends. But why should there have to be a choice, you ask yourself. You feel like a guinea pig, suck in an endless cycle where your only free will is the limitation of two choices that lead you down an already written future.

Suddenly you remember one of the many paths in this cycle. A path that may be able to release you from this loop of choices. You must reach it.

“Oh, I mean, you don’t gotta come with me. If you wanna go with Pinkie, I’m all good with that,” Vinyl says, before silence fills the air, and the pony in front of you stands in place, preparing to make one of many decisions that would decide their fate.

Go with Vinyl Scratch___________________________________________________________________________Go with Pinkie Pie