Survival against all odds

by thesupernile

Chapter 1

Hiking through the wilderness was Isabel's dream. Every feeling, from the rustle of the leaves to the gentle breeze against her skin felt so real. So perfect. Endless trees went on forever, pointed like the mountains that broke them and divided them. Silvery snow dribbled down their surface in an inexorable tide. Far below, a lake shimmered with the light of a thousand diamonds. It was amazing despite the stygian grey clouds gathering, each one prophesying violent tempests.

Fortunately, it was only a day hike. They’d be long gone before the storms could strike them. Halfway up the mountain then back. As such their packs contained only a few energy snacks and bottles of water. Isabel carried her knife, but that was essential for any wilderness expedition. Plodding happily down the slope, she kept her eyes on the horizon, where the summer sun threatened to set. But she had a few more hours left. Walking in the dark wasn't as fun as hiking in the day.

Five of her friends were with her. Henry led the pack, with herself close behind. Aiden, Emma and Oscar followed in their own close group, while Phoebe trailed behind.

Holding the map between them, Emma and Aiden squinted at their compass.

“It says we need to head that way,” Aiden pointed down the slope, “Warnings of a steep drop to the right. We need to be careful.”

“No, we're all the way over here. The steep drop was a mile back,” Emma argued, taking the map closer to herself.

“Hey, what's the problem?” Henry grabbed their map and squinted at it, “looks like we're here.” He pointed to a third location, “With those trees over there and that rocky patch to our immediate left.”

None of them had taken this route before and they were coming down differently to how they went up. Isabel looked to her surroundings for clues, but they had just dropped beneath the treeline and could only see a handful of feet in any direction.

“Maybe we should head back?” Phoebe suggested, “to somewhere we knew for certain where we were.”

She was promptly ignored by the three bickering navigators. They never listened to Phoebe.

“Look, it's definitely this way,” Aiden began down a narrow path, barely visible. Despite avid complaints, they followed him downwards. At least it was vaguely correct, even if they ended up in the middle of a bear’s den.

Despite the certainty, two hours later they were still hopelessly lost. Phoebe advocated turning back whilst the others called for pressing onwards. Isabel kept herself neutral. She didn't like it when her friends took sides. They’d tear each other apart before they’d give in.

“Henry,” Phoebe tried, “I really think we should turn back now.”

“We’re basically home,” Aiden countered, “we just need to go that way.”

“Last time you said that we got even more lost,” Emma complained.

“Stop blaming each other!” Isabel yelled over them. Silence came for the first time that afternoon; everyone was fixed upon Isabel. “If we keep arguing nothing is going to get done. Can someone pass me the map?”

Reluctantly, Emma gave it to her. Gratefully taking it, Isabel set it down on the pine needle infested ground. “No one can agree on where we are. Can anyone agree on where we’ve been?”

There was silence, broken by a crash of thunder. Time was running out. They needed to get back before it started raining.

Before she could continue, Isabel felt the first drops of water upon her hair. “Alright, let’s stay calm and we’ll get through this. Together.”

For a moment, it looked like everyone might finally agree. Just as the storm was setting in, they might have their first chance at making it home. It was all in vain. Moments later, rain lashed down the sky and crushed them beneath its monstrous despair.

Everyone blamed each other again. Arguing threatened to turn to fighting amidst that horrid downpour. Lightning flashed across the sky, briefly turning a patch of night sky to day.

All it took was a flash. Brilliant light blinded everyone and a terrible sound ripped through their ears mercilessly.

Then everything was silent and everything was black.

---

Isabel shifted uncomfortably. She'd barely awoken and already she wanted respite. Everything hurt. Running unrestricted up and down her nerves, pain begged her to close her eyes again. To sleep.

She almost did.

Something nudged her. It was cold and leathery, like an animal’s nose. That didn't make sense. She didn't sleep with animals. Maybe she should open her eyes? Unbelievable pain compelled her to give up. To sleep.

Once again, she almost did.

Another gentle nudge. Groggily, she groaned in pain. Why did her body hurt so much? And why was the ground so rough? She felt she was laying on sandpaper. Did it have something to do with that flash? Firing through her nerves again, the pain begged her to stop waking. To sleep.

But she'd had enough of it.

Her eyes shot open and laying in front of her was a kind of horse. Could she even call it that? Smaller than a horse for certain, if the land around her was any indication. Bright green in colour as well, with a pale blue mane juxtaposing it. Whatever it was didn't seem too keen on sticking around. It was quick to step over her and move away. Undoubtedly it had saved her life. Without that nudge she’d have gone back to sleep. Who knew if she would have ever woken up.

Something twitched. Part of her for sure, but exactly what part she couldn't determine. It shouldn't have been there, yet that feeling had to come from somewhere. Now she felt it, it wouldn't ever go away. Strange and uncomfortable, the new part of her was scraping across that rough surface she was on. Sand, without the paper, she could now tell. She should probably get up. Then she could figure out why she was laying on jagged sand and not her bed.

But she’d never gone to bed had she. Light was the last thing she remembered. Were her friends alright? She’d have to get up to check.

Pushing up off the ground with her hands, she found herself crouched on the floor. This felt better, more natural, than before. But it wasn't natural, she had to get up properly. She pushed up with her hands and attempted to balance on two legs. It should have been easy.

It wasn't.

For some reason, the balance was completely off. Almost as quickly as she'd tried, she'd fallen onto the floor with a soft thud. At least sand didn't hurt much. She'd probably just been groggy, she'd be able to stand next time. Another thud told her she was wrong. “Okay,” she told herself, “don't panic. You got this!” Forcing herself up with everything she had, she managed to hold her balance for a few seconds, something behind her desperately flapping, before she fell back to the floor.

That wasn't working. No point in trying any more. Distant sands stretched across her vision, dividing the blue sea from the green tree. Water lapped up against it, sloshing serenely. Beside her, scattered remains were marooned like ancient driftwood. Most of it looked like broken wood, but amongst it was their undamaged hiking equipment. From the edge of the water, it was scattered like an island chain all the way to her hoof. Her hoof? That didn't make sense. She was a human. Humans didn't have hooves.

Since she was on the beach, she rushed over to the silvery blue sea to glimpse her reflection. Somehow, she knew how to walk in this form. It was a kind of instinct, something she had to have known. The thing that stared back at her wasn't herself. Her face looked like some kind of horse. Deep royal blue fur covered her completely. Purple hair created what looked like a mane. This wasn't her. Why did she look like this?

Glancing gently over the golden sand, she saw five other horse-like creatures. Judging by the scale, they were more like ponies. Like a rainbow, each had vibrant and bold colours like her own. Not all of them were the same. Three looked normal enough, but the rest had horns or wings. Was this some kind of dream?

It couldn't have been. That pain from earlier proved that much; it was gone now. Perhaps she had imagined it. Sounds filled the air and smells littered the beach more than in any dream she knew. Salt assaulted her tongue, brought in by the waves that still lapped across the sands. Rocks jutted out on one side sheltering the bay from the violent waves of the distant ocean. Being on the coast was good as long as they weren't on an island. Wind struck bitterly against her coat, reminding her of the frigid cold that engulfed them.

She shouldn't even have a coat. Or those things she could feel on her back. They must be wings, like those other ponies, making her a winged horse. A pegasus, she decided. One of the ponies was awake and hard at work waking the others. She recognised him from earlier, the one who'd woke her up. Taking action was the best thing, she decided; it would keep her mind off the strangenesses of everything.

Walking over to the pile of rubble that obscured their belongings, she dragged a bag out. It took a surprisingly large amount of effort; dragging with her teeth had to be strange despite what her instinct implied. It was kinda painful too, if you were holding enough weight. Only after she had let go did she notice the awful nothing taste of a bag strap, like stingy sour mixed with crunchy dirt. Though it tainted her tongue, she kept moving the bags.

Whatever they had packed wouldn't last them long. It was supposed to be a day hike. Who knew how long it'd be now. One of their phones was settled on the sand. Poking it with a nose wasn’t enough to get it to turn on. Using her hoof didn’t help either. But nothing was going to get that phone to work. As she picked it up, she noticed the phone was missing its back.

Something had exploded. Unfortunately, it looked totally unsalvageable. Taking out her own phone from her bag, she realised it too had suffered the same fate. Soon she was staring at a pile of exploded phones. Useless metal now.

A few of the other ponies had wandered towards her, wondering what she was doing. Jumping atop the bags, she demanded, “Who are you?” There was a mumbling of disoriented voices. Looking at each of them, surprising familiarity shone from each of them. They were her friends. Those she had gone on the hike with. Staring back at her in fear.

“Isabel?” the pony that had shaken her awake took a few steps forwards, “Can you recognise us? Do you remember us?”

“Henry,” Isabel stated without hesitation, “this doesn't make sense. We aren't supposed to be horses.” Their voices sounded the same, which meant these horses had human vocal chords. Or something capable of mimicking those sounds.

“More like ponies,” Oscar commented. Of course he wouldn't let that slide; the biologist in him probably felt insulted by her miscategorisation, “the body structure is different. Lighter frame and higher…”

Isabel ignored the remainder of his rant about equine biology. Perhaps under normal circumstances she would've humoured him. But she was all out of humour for now. Despite the original despair, comfort now filled her. She was with her friends and, being with her friends, she could achieve anything.

“Do any of you have any idea what happened?” Isabel wondered, “Or how to get back home?”

Silent, harsh, relentless silence. No one had any idea what was happening.

“Maybe it’s a hallucination?” one of them suggested, “it would have to be some powerful psychogenic effect but it’s possible.”

“Maybe we’re dead?”

“Is this some kind of trial?”

“What if we’ve been abducted by aliens?”

Isabel couldn’t take it. Everyone refusing to admit any semblance of truth. She yelled out, “Or maybe we’re actually like this!” Attention was firmly on her. WIthout realising, she had flared out her new wings above her. “Maybe we’re actually hor-ponies and we aren’t going back. I shouldn’t have asked. It doesn’t matter how we got here. We need to be safe before we can start asking that sort of question.”

Though she was no social expert, the general anger from her friends cut her. “I’m sorry,” Isabel backed down, “I’m too stressed about this whole thing aren’t I? We’ll be back home before nightfall.”

“That’s the spirit!” Henry happily remarked, “Come on guys! Let’s make the most of this adventure.” Just like Henry to make everything a game. Survival won’t be easy.

“We need to get going,” Isabel decided, “ditch everything we don’t need and start hiking up the coast. More likely we’ll find a town or something.”

“We're better off staying here,” Aiden, one of the group's earth ponies, suggested, “then we'll be more visible. If someone's looking for us we're more likely to be found.”

“If we keep moving we'll get back to civilization quicker. We can leave marks to tell them where we went,” Isabel argued, “who's to say anyone's even looking for us?”

“Someone will be looking!” Aiden snapped back, “and they'll see us if we stay here. If we keep moving we risk everything.”

Isabel's wings were fully extended and both ponies had their hooves dug deep into the sand. Neither of them were going to budge. Glaring knives at one another, each of them looked ready for another standoff.

Finally, Henry intervened. “What if we left a message? Something visible from the air. Then we could keep moving, mark out our path and be safe in the knowledge that someone could trace our path.”

This seemed to be enough compromise for the two of them, who untensed themselves and nodded. “Okay,” Aiden commanded, “let's get this wood arranged as a message. I think “Help” will work the best? Or should we go with SOS?”

“SOS will give us much larger letters,” Phoebe suggested, “we could write some instructions in the sand in case someone lands.”

“I like that idea,” Henry voiced his support and the group followed. Something about his confidence made Isabel believe him. Strength and power flowed out of his voice like the waves on the ocean shore beside them.

Moving a hundred planks of wood into the letter S was unexpectedly difficult but the morale of the team made progress inexorable. They would be rescued soon. Someone was bound to see the message and catch up.

“Isabel,” Phoebe gave her a nervous glance, “I’m scared. I know I shouldn't be but I-”

“It's ok Phoebe,” Isabel gave her a gentle nudge, “we're all scared. We just need to keep doing little things and we'll get home just fine.”

Phoebe nodded. Although she was the smallest member of the group, she certainly wasn't helpless and she dragged her fair share of planks to complete their sign. It had scarcely been finished before Isabel begged them to continue moving.

“Alright,” she declared, “sign's up. We can start moving now right?”

“Yes,” Henry agreed, “you have your knife right?”

Isabel nodded, “I'll cut an arrow every two hundred metres or so. We're not going to leave the coast so our track shouldn't be hard to follow.”

Oscar had finished mouth drawing his message and now joined the rest of them in haphazardly fastening lightened backpacks onto their backs. It took two of them to put on a backpack by balancing it just right, they could fasten it while the other stopped it falling over.

They’d probably been unconscious through the night as the sun was still high above them in the sky. That meant there would be plenty of hours left for the group before they needed to make camp.

Once they were packed, it was time to get moving. Isabel hoped they'd find something soon. For all of their sakes.