Isaac's Storm

by EquusStorm

1. Curiosity Killed the Colt

Isaac let out a long, frustrated sigh. The news was not good. According to the message from the PC manufacturer, his beloved laptop's hard drive was completely dead. And he had not backed up his pony folder on the external drive in several months. "There goes four months of saved pony images, macros, fanfics, and music." He mumbled to himself for a few minutes before dragging himself into his bedroom. The 21-year old navigated through piles and stacks of merchandise, indicative of his obsession to the show. "Guess I'll fire up ole Rusty and get started." He plopped down in a cyan-coloured computer chair and looked over his compuer desk for the cable to his external drive. "Where did I leave that thing..." he growled, under his teeth.

Suddenly, he heard a loud knocking on his door. "Coming!" he groaned, once again forging his way through mountains of pony-related goodies. He opened the door to reveal his mother, hands full of neatly folded clothes, smiling at him sympathetically.

"Did you get the message from the computer people? They said that your-"

"Yes, mom, I am aware." He cut her off and sighed once more. "Now I'm just trying to get the desktop started so I can start getting back what I lost."

His mother shook her head. "Isaac, don't you think you need to take a break from all this? You're stressing yourself out over this whole thing. Step away from your computer for a bit and go out for some fresh air. It'll do you good."

Isaac frowned and crossed his arms, replying "Mom, I'm not stressed out. Just frustrated is all. I have to go in and start over again because I didn't back up everything like I should have."

With a chuckle, Isaac's mother handed over the clothes she was carrying and said, "You look pretty stressed out to me. Just take my advice, okay? You might even be able to find a job. Think about it - more money to buy pony stuff!"

Isaac rolled his eyes and groaned. "Mom, I don't really want a job right now, okay? I mean, money's nice but..." His voice trailing off, he looked around his horribly cluttered room before looking back at her.

"Now I have to run some errands and go shopping in a bit," she said, "so why don't you clean up this room of yours and get your clothes put away. Then I want you to spend some time outside, all right?"

"Yeah, okay mom. I will. Have a nice day in town. Love ya."

Beginning to walk down the hallway towards the kitchen, she giggled and replied, "Bye dear! Loves!" As she disappeared from view, Isaac closed his door, threw the clothes on a desk, and returned to his chair.

"Yep. Sure, I'll do that mum. Now for an evening of nothing but ponies."

A few hours passed. After finding the cable, he began to browse pony-related sites on his desktop computer. A bit slow, but functional. He scanned through Equestria Daily and Derpibooru before settling in to a long Ponychan browsing session. Now to /pic/, he thought. But another thought was also struggling to rise to the surface, from deep within. A thought he had tried to dilute somewhat. It reminded him that, deep down, he knew that his mother was right. He was 21, unemployed, and still living at his mom's house. No ambition, no career plans, nothing. Aside from an interest in history and meteorology, his entire spoiled life revolved around ponies. Since Season One aired, he had cut off nearly all contact with the outside world and let his social ties wither away. And occasionally, his mind would drift away from ponies long enough to ponder these things. But he would always return to pony. Not much else really mattered. He was obsessed to an unhealthy level.

Did this bother Isaac? He would love to have brushed it off as little consequence, justifying his obsession somehow, but it did affect him subconsciously, at least rather subtly. He knew he needed fresh air and friends. But the allure of MLP:FiM had distracted him for the better part of a year. It's just a phase, I'll lose some of the obsession and be back to just a normal brony before too long, he told himself. But really, if it wasn't ponies, it was something else. Simply put, he was a spoiled young man. Despite never really knowing his father, his mother and his extended family always made sure he had everything he wanted. He never had to work for anything. In fact, he had never worked at all. Perhaps he was just a spoiled fellow, but at 21 he ought to have at least some idea of what he wanted for his own future. Never mind that, he told himself. There would be time later, but he had to replenish his pony folder.

Just down the street from Isaac's home, the local utility crew was doing routine maintenance on lines. All seemed to be going fairly well for most of the endeavour, as the crew worked well into the early afternoon. Isaac's mother had waved at the supervisor on her way to town. But an inexperienced member of the team was becoming exhausted by the task at hand. And when exhaustion begins to take over, things start to go wrong. A slight mishap caused him to lose his grip on a piece of equipment, which fell into a transformer. Immediately, the entire crew was greeted by a gigantic shower of sparks, and a noise not unlike that of a small explosion. The crewmember fell off the pole and onto the grass below, stunned. Simultaneously, the entire neighborhood lost electricity, including Isaac's home, where the brony had been watching a fan video.

"Dammit!" he shouted, as the screen suddenly turned black. Now what was he to do? Spinning his chair to face the east wall, he stared at a pile of recent online pony purchases and decided that it was not worth the effort to dig through the mess to find something to do. "Guess I'll go find something to eat..." he dryly droned, and shuffled his way to the kitchen. Guided by the natural light streaming in from the windows, he scoured the cabinets for any hint of food. Pickings were sparse on shopping day.

Eventually settling for a small bowl of stale cereal, he sat at the ornate table in the center of the kitchen and shook his head. "This is just not my week for electronics." He slowly emptied the bowl, lost in thought. But as he got up to put the bowl in the sink, he looked out the window and noticed that the sky was a beautiful blue, with a gentle breeze. "Maybe I should listen to mom and take a little walk. That'll help pass the time, and I could get some fresh air." Isaac donned a pair of tennis shoes, a light coat, and his cell phone, then headed out the door.

Isaac's cold indifference about the week's events gradually turned into a smile as he admired the colours on the maples and oaks lining the street. Upstate New York was beautiful in September, with perfect temperatures and bright sunshine. The breeze lifted leaves off the ground and sent them gracefully somersaulting through the air before landing again. The piles of fallen leaves reminded him of diving into similar piles in his own yard when he was quite young. The nostalgia drew his attention away from ponies for a few moments. Well, almost. "I wonder when the Running of the Leaves will take place this year?" He chuckled to himself, noting that he could find pony references in almost anything. After walking down the street for 20 minutes, he realised that time -and daylight - had slowly started to slip away. "I'd better head back for the house soon."

However, the sight of a densely forested cove just ahead reminded him of another memory - exploring the old- growth tract at the end of the street. "Oh man, I almost forgot about the forest! I wonder how much it's changed in the last 10 years!" With an excited grin, he jogged over to the edge of the woodland. Ahead, a gentle slope led into a fairly deep valley, and beyond that lay another rise, which leveled out before dropping again into a small valley, flanked by short rocky bluffs. The entire area was covered with large trees of myriad species. "It's just like I remembered!" he whispered to himself, and stepped a few paces in. Isaac took in the scenery, looking at the tall woody columns rising above an understory largely devoid of shrubs and vines. In the summer, the cove took on a cathedral-like feel, with scattered beams of light penetrating into the dark shadows below the canopy. It was a wondrous place.

The young man snapped out of his nostalgic trance when he noticed a gigantic grey stump several paces further down into the cove. He had never seen a stump so large! He ran over to it to inspect it, but quickly realised that the stump was indeed a rock outcropping, eroded away into a stump-like shape. Chuckling at his mistake, he looked the rock over. Something quite odd caught his eye. On the other side, facing away from the road, there was a crude figure etched into the rock. Squinting, he could make out the shape of an animal. Perhaps a horse? But the proportions were off... it was if the horse had a small torso and an extremely large head. Similar, in fact, to a familiar creature. Isaac's mind quickly jumped back to MLP:FiM. The figure looked uncannily similar to the style portrayed in the show! A chill ran down his spine, but he quickly calmed himself and said aloud, "Okay. Whoa. It looks similar, but that's just my mind playing tricks on me. Nothing more." He chuckled a bit again. "I dub thee... Pony Rock!" He turned to leave, but something caught his eye near the top of the ridge. "Is that a game trail and a campsite in a clearing? Never seen that before."

Suffice to say, Isaac was not one for keeping his attention focused, and he decided to detour through the valley to the clearing, all the while following the well-trodden game trail. Upon reaching the barren spot, he quickly assessed that the campsite had not been used in quite a while, as no ashes remained in the fire pit. Three logs, serving as makeshift benches, had largely rotted away. But the most curious thing was the five small, polished, and nearly round stones surrounding the fire pit. They lay in a star-shaped pattern, in what seemed like hand-dug depressions in the soil. "Hehe, the Elements of Harmony. This is interesting indeed." Isaac knew the things he had noticed since entering the woods probably meant absolutely nothing, and his desire to associate them with ponies was a product of his overactive imagination. A pony-controlled imagination.

Noting that he probably had roughly two hours before the sun would begin to set for the day - and probably the same amount of time before his mother returned - he decided to stay in the clearing for a bit and set his imagination loose. "When the five are gathered, a spark will cause the sixth to appear!" Gleefully acting out some of his favourite scenes without fear of anyone watching his antics, he spent a great deal of time role-playing at the campsite. So much time, in fact, that he completely forgot the time until he looked up and noticed the vivid orange of sunset. "Well damn, I spent longer here than I thought." However, what he had failed to notice was the stone that had inexplicably appeared in the center of the five rocks - amidst the fire pit. And the rocks had begun to glow very faintly.

Isaac turned back towards the game trail to leave and came to another realisation - the trail was no longer there. In fact, the forest in that direction had changed significantly. That can't be right, he thought to himself. Becoming slightly concerned, and more than a bit confused, he quickly looked around to see if he could find the trail, but it was no use - the trail was not there, and the trees had taken on a slightly different shape - the forest towards the valley now contained different sizes, forms, and species of trees than he had recalled before. Isaac was starting to sweat, rather concerned, and tried to call for help, only to realise that he suddenly had no cell coverage - almost as if there was an interference. So he started to run, the last option he figured he had. But he got only a few hundred yards before yet another frightening discovery stopped him in his tracks - the valley was no longer there. In its place, was a seemingly bottomless pit!

Isaac was scared. What the hell is going on, what the HELL is going on. Isaac's pace was frantic, and his heartbeat elevated. Was there any sort of logical explanation as to why there was now a bottomless chasm where the valley once was? Though only about ten feet across, it extended laterally as far as the eye could see in both directions. The forest behind him, further into the woods, led only to rocky bluffs. He had no idea how he was going to get out of the forest, and time was rapidly running out. "Mom is going to absolutely go ballistic when she gets home and notices I forgot to lock the front door..." He sat down and ran through every possible idea for crossing the fissure. Then, the answer dawned on him: He would find a suitably long log, and somehow use it to bridge the gap. Brilliantly simple and obvious, why didn't I think about that in the first place. But there was a major flaw in this plan - how could he carry a log large enough to fit over the pit, and place the other end on the other side? Frustration set in, and he slouched over and placed his face in his hand. He was no McGyver - it wouldn't work.

He peered over the edge of the pit and looked it over in what little sunlight was left. A cool breeze drifted down the length of the gorge, much cooler than the surrounding air. And it felt... strange. Somehow. With far more questions than answers, Isaac began to get up and head back to the campsite to search for any sort of clue or alternate route. However, as he stood, he heard the sound of dirt tumbling, and felt the sickening sensation of the ground beginning to slip. Before he could react, he - and the chasm edge he was standing on - had begun to fall into the pit. He was unable to reach for any kind of root or rock face to save himself, and realised that he was at the mercy of gravity, and the chasm that had now claimed him. Soon, Isaac had reached terminal velocity in the pitch black of the pit. What was no longer than a minute felt like hours as he watched the sunset sky above rapidly disappear from view. Exhausted from screaming, numbed by his high rate of speed, and more terrified than words can express, he began to lose consciousness. And in his altered state of awareness, he felt a sudden shift from complete darkness to blinding light, while still falling rapidly. Was this the end? The light at the end of the tunnel?

Author's Note:

EDIT: Worked a bit on paragraph formatting. Should be easier to read now.

NOTE: The formatting is dreadful, and the quotations are hard to follow. My strengths lie in grammar and poetry writing, not story editing... but I'm going to work on that. Bear with me and try to overlook the appearance of the story for now and just focus on the content.

This is the original first chapter of the story. Well, the actual first chapter was lost in a hard drive crash (inspiring the intro) but this is a faithful re-write of that. The pacing is a bit off and the story is very generic, which is one of the many reasons I am planning on sprucing it up in the near future. More extensive notes will be added in the update.

In the re-write, I'm going to make the following changes, at the very least:
1. More back-story on Isaac. I'm aware that this part is too short.
2. Tree trimmers, not sleepy line workers, will cause the outage.
3. The mysterious stuff in the woods will be better explained, and organised.

Comments

[King_Krysalis]

I'm late but.

FIRST