> Omnivorous > by HoneyGlen > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1: He did it. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I puffed like a steam engine, the cold night air making my exhaled breath visible. My untied shoes slapped the street as I ran. Slap, slap, slap. I tripped a couple of times before I came to rest by a tree. Leaning against it, I panted heavily. I had been running for a good fifteen minutes before the cramps had come. My entire body ached, being out of shape for a while now; I had a thin frame and my mild asthma added to my pain and exhaustion. I sat down on the ground, making a crunching sound as I did, thanks to the dry, dead leaves scattered everywhere by the wind. After I had been sitting for a while, I surveyed my surroundings for the first time. I sat about ten feet from the road at the very edge of a forest. The forest itself was silent and dark, the leafy canopy blocking out the moonlight; it was still the beginning of fall, so most of the leaves on the trees had yet to detach. Strangely, no nocturnal animals could be heard scampering about. There was only silence. My hair stood on end and my body tensed. Both cold and afraid, I stood back up, and was about to return to the road, when I saw it. A silhouette in the moonlight, standing only thirty feet away on the other side of the road. I jumped back behind the tree, silently cursing myself for resting too long. But that didn't matter anymore. He was here, and I needed to run away as fast as I could before He got me. I slowly peeked out from my hiding spot like a child playing hide-and-seek. If I was, then it would be one twisted game because the dark figure was now fifteen feet away. He had closed half of the distance between us in less than five seconds, and He was still coming. I turned around and ran into the forest. The darkness enveloped me and I was blind. In my panic, I couldn't hear or speak, and my body was numb. I could hardly feel the scratches I received from the bushes I leaped over and the tree branches I unsuccessfully tried to dodge. I ran for a long time, not caring where I was going, instead focusing on the distance between us- the farther away, the better. I leaped over a fallen tree, scraping my knees against its bark before stumbling onto the ground on the other side. My left shoe got caught on a branch of the dead tree, and I cried out in agony as my leg was twisted in the other direction. I heard a loud snap, and pain shot up my leg: it was broken. Barely managing to stop a scream from escaping my mouth, I stayed sprawled out on the ground, tears rolling down the sides of my face. As the worst of the pain subsided, I slowly removed my shoe from the branch, and- while moaning- I used the dead tree trunk to stand myself up. After my gasping from the pain stopped, I heard it. A faint crunching of the leaves. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Panicking, I started to limp as quickly as I could, which wasn't very fast. The crunching of the leaves became louder. Crunch, crunch, crunch. My breath quickened, and I tried to go faster. My bad leg's foot hit a rock, and I started to fall. I reached out in the darkness, and managed to grab hold of a nearby tree. Clinging to it, I lifted myself back up. I silently rejoiced, until I realized something. The crunching had stopped. I slowly turned around. Moonlight shone through a small flaw in the canopy, illuminating His snarling face. Two hands wrapped around my throat, and started to squeeze… > Chapter 2: A Nightmare, or a Dream Come True? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is the meaning of life? Scientists have pondered this age old question since… a really long time ago. Is it freedom? Love? Or maybe money? We have never known- until today. Join Doctor Hedge as he tells you of an exciting tale about his brother's ambidextrous rattlesnake that slipped on a blueberry last Tuesday. Gah! This. Is. So. BORING! My mind was slowly decaying from the sheer blandness of the empty abyss I was trapped in. After the first several… hours of screaming, I went through several stages of shock, panic, anger, and depression. Now I was in the worst stage of all- calmness. With nothing to do, I was now suffering from extreme boredom- hence the random nonsensical thoughts. If this is Heaven, your sucking big time. If this is Hell… your doing a wonderful job, have a stick of gum and some lint. Whoops, that's right- I left them in the jeans pocket on my body. If I could just quickly… No I'm not going to take my body back! Art thou accusing me of trickery?! -Dramatic gasp- Thou ART! Thou have accused me of trickery! Prepare to die! … Hahaha! Thou shalt accuse no more, foul beast! Huzzah! Now to… to… oh pooh. Hmm, maybe, just maybe, there's is a way out of this limbo. But how? I'm pretty sure I can't move. Souls don't move, or do they? I can't feel anything, not even gravity. And I can't see anything I could possibly move to- it's pitch black. Smell, hearing, tasting, all no. So my five senses aren't working. Well what about my sixth sense? … What is the sixth sense? All I know from the movies is that it let's you sense ghosts. That might help me if I knew how to use it. Well, how did I use the other five? Sniff, open my eyes, lick, make contact with something, and… turn on the radio? Dunno for that hearing one. Maybe the sixth sense can't be used physically, but mentally. That shouldn't be a big problem, considering the fact that I don't have my body and there's nothing here to distract me. Ok, now what do I do? Repeat "I want to see something" over and over again? It's worth a try. Ok, here it goes. I want to see something, I want to see something, I want to see something, I want to see something, I want to see something, I want to see something, I- hey, I see something! A little to the right of me was a small speck of light. I couldn't see any more specks, and I didn't know how I was seeing it without eyes, but that one speck of light filled my soul up with a renewed strength. And then, as if I was moving, the speck centered in my field of vision, and it was getting closer with each second I spent waiting for it. That little speck was now a wall of light that consumed my vision, but it never hurt. This is pretty awesome. And… I feel warm. I feel warm! I feel- and I can smell grass! Grass! And I can feel it! Oh, how it feels so good! I can here voices too. They sound a bit funny, but they're voices. HEY! CAN YOU HERE ME?! HELLO? The voices got louder, but I still couldn't make them out. I kept calling, but it was in vain. Darn it, they can't here me, whoever they are. But the grass still feels good. So, so good. I could roll in this stuff all day after that twilight zone. Hey! The light's fading! My panic was thankfully short lived, because I soon found that it wasn't the complete darkness again, it was that type that you see when your eyes are closed. My eyes were closed. I opened my eyes, and beheld two huge pink ones. Of course, I screamed, and screaming caused the owner of the two eyes to back up, which let me see them. … Berry Punch? … I screamed again but was cut short by her hoof in my mouth. "Be quiet! You're going to wake all of Canterlot up!" She whispered scoldingly. My mind didn't seem to be comprehending much at the moment though. Actually, it probably combusted, and this is all just a freaky hallucination. I was never murdered, I'm in bed sleeping peacefully. It's a dream. It's just a really, really, vivid dream. Those words made sense to my mind, but they rang false in my heart. That was Berry Punch. A background pony from My Little Pony; Friendship Is Magic. "Listen, I'm sorry for startling you. I don't mean any harm, okay? Do you promise not to scream if I take my hoof out of your mouth?" I instinctively nodded my head, and she removed her hoof. After helping me up, she held out her hoof. "Hi, my name's Berry Punch." My staring must have unnerved her a bit because her smile began to grow fake. I mentally shook myself out of my daze and shook her hoof. "It's nice to meet you Berry Punch. My name's Diana Carnation."