Prologue: Whatever Remains (Rewrite)

View Online

James Conner was sleeping on the floor of a cell. His left arm was bandaged up and his hands wrapped in cuffs. What didn't help was that he was covered in dry blood, soaked in it.The pony guards that were at his cell couldn't help but look at him in disgust.

"What do you think the captains gonna do to him?"

"I don't know… We never caught one of them before, the Princess might make a guest appearance."

"Ah, don't bring you hopes up, I doubt Shining Armor's gonna let this thing live, especially with what it did to his sister.

"True… maybe we should put in the letter that he died already?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

The two stallions started to let out belly laughs as they laughed at their own joke. They chose a horrible time to break their guard as a very prominent captain walked in.

As the two guard ponies continued to laugh, Shining Armor stood behind them, not saying a word and letting them dig their own grave.

Slowly, the guard ponies stopped laughing as they felt eyes bore into the back of their heads. The duo slowly turned toward the captain and didn't say a word as he walked past them.

"I'll discipline you later…" Shining Armor said as he magicked the cell door open and walked right in.

He couldn't help but look down at the human with resentment and hate, memories of Twilight on the hospital plaguing his mind as his magic built up. In a sudden burst of magic, eater spewed out of his horn and onto James.

James sputtered awake, the cold icy water shocking him to awareness as he tried desperately to see what had happened.

"Wake up," Shining said as James tried to get orientation of himself. Eventually, the human gathered what had happened and looked at Shiningn with a small form of resentment.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I am the captain of the guard and you have a lot of explaining to do."

"... Yeah I guess that's true. What do you wanna know?"

"Everything… start from.the beginning."

"How far back we talking here?"

"Everything that lead to you ending up in Equestria to you being in this cell."

"That's a long story."

"I have time to kill.

"Yeah I figured."

"So start," James let out a sigh and started to go far back into the depths of his mind. All the way back to what started this chain of events.

I remember that it was my day off; I was wearing my pajamas, and reading a book. The Giver, I must say, it is a very intriguing story, I never thought a utopian society, one so perfect and and calming, could do such terrible, awful things. My eyes would glance from left to right reading the text that was printed on paper, and enjoying the strong sense of trepidation the book gave me.

I was sitting inside my study, just simply reading away at the book as I relaxed. I had spent many nights in that room either working on murder cases or just looking outside the small window upon the never sleeping city. Sometimes I would just stare at the pictures on the wall and just remember the memories that my family and I made. Upon the many photos that was hanged on the walls, laid the family photo that we took. My wife kept fussing over about how bad I looked, and kept trying to fix what wasn’t broken.

Our son, Timothy on the other hand, was bored out of his mind. He was only two years old at the time and kept looking around for something to do, never staring at the camera long enough to get a good photo taken. On the photo that was taken, my short, black hair was slicked back by an overpriced gel, making me look even more ridiculous than I already was. My eyes constantly moving from the camera to my wife as she tried to make me look perfect. The photo was a complete disaster, but we hardly had enough money at the time to take another. So we just kept it, a small souvenir of our misadventures. Our family may not have been perfect, but it was something that we all held strong. My son knew that well, that’s why he smiled all the time when he was younger.

But that was enough reminiscing.

While I was calmly, almost serenely, reading my book, I heard the phone ring. I was a bit annoyed at the interruption as I was incredibly immersed at the time, and I didn't want to even think about picking it up. Although, seeing as it was the only landline phone in the house, it was bound to stir up some emotions from the other occupants. And I was right as I heard the ever lovely voice of my wife.

“Pick up the damn phone!” The muffled voice encouraged me to ignore my annoyed state and listen to my primal instincts of not pissing off my wife. Her name was Kathleen Klein, Kathleen Conner now. We met in our freshmen year of high school, and we hated each other.

We wouldn't get in fights or anything like that. No, no, we just outright hated each other, tried to tell the other one off so we could be in peace. And it's obvious how things turned out between the two of us.

I picked the phone up as fast as I could, and waited for whoever was calling to start talking.

“James, are you there?” I heard the voice of my boss say. I let out a small groan and placed my hand on the bridge of my nose to try and calm myself.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I said, trying to keep out the irritation in my voice.

“Oh, okay, good. Listen, I need you back at the station, I have a case that suites your department,” He said his small stale tone. I let out a small groan as I listened, trying not to show my frustration.

“I know it’s you day off, and I’m sorry for calling you, but the other detectives are too busy with their own cases to take up this one. Can you to at least take a look at it? I'll even pay you over time,”

“Sir, I mainly handle murderer cases, this is a bit out of my jurisdiction.”

“Well, thankfully this one is in your jurisdiction. Got a murder for you, and while I would get another homicide detective, we are currently piled up to our necks in thefts, we don’t have enough detectives. I’m just asking you to look at the damn things and help.”

“... You owe me.”

I hanged up the phone without another word and got up from my chair. When I opened the door, I saw a very angry looking Kathleen on the other side. Her white skin, and brown hair only punctuated the anger that radiated in her eyes.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She said in a scolding tone.

“Work.”

“We agreed you needed time off.”

“You said I needed time off, I didn’t agree.”

“You said you’d take a day off,” She said, purposefully moving in front of my path as I tried to walk past her.

“Kathleen, honey, please move.”

“The doctors said you’re overworking and that you need to rest. Your body is under enough stress as it is, stop putting it under more.”

“With all due respect, they can kiss my ass.”

“Then do it for me! You are under way too much stress, you are tired, exhausted and could get yourself killed. At this rate, you’ll die of a heart attack when you're forty!”

“Kathleen,” I said steadily.

“James.”

“We need the money. Timmy’s books are getting more expensive, we still need to pay off your student loans, and we have bills due in a couple weeks. I can’t let this go to waste.”

“I know we need this James, but… please take it easy,” She said as we walked to the front door of the house. We passed by some decorations that littered the walls of our home. We passed pictures of ourselves, ornaments, even an old hunting rifle hanging on the wall.

I had that gun ever since I was eleven, it was a gift from my grandpa. Unlike me, he was a big game hunter. He’d hunt deer, buck, and even bears sometimes. I was never into the sport as much as him, but he was insistent that I learn how to shoot the gun. It was a Winchester Pre-64 model 70, had a scope, held three bullets, it even had a strap to carry over my shoulder.

Sometimes he’d take me out hunting with him, and would teach me how to catch buck. I never really wanted to shoot a gun before, but apparently he paid over a thousand bucks for it and ‘wasn’t gonna take my whining’.

I guess the reason he bought so much ammo for the rifle was because he thought I’d be a hunter like him. It’s a shame we never really spent much time together. He died at the old age of sixty had something to do with his cholesterol or something, I was too young to understand.

In his Will I was to be given his thick green hunting jacket, the gun he bought for me, and all of the ammo he bought for the gun when I was of legal age. His money would be divided for his grandchildren, which meant a big wallop of cash in my bank account since I only had two cousins. Of course, that went down the drain when… everything happened. I was, of course, a little angry that he wanted me to have his jacket, of all things, but I was too happy with the money to really care at the time.

The gun, on the other hand, I never threw away. Mostly because it reminded me of my grandfather, and to ward off any intruders that just so happened to enter my house. New York isn’t exactly the easiest city to live in, but the experience is indescribable. And even though my grandpa was a very strict man, and would scold me if I did something wrong, he always made it seem like I was important to him somehow. Strict yet kind at the same time, a little bit of tough love if you will.

When Kathleen and I finally reached the door, she gave me a quick kiss on the check and again told me to be careful. I was in the driveway of our house, and walked to our blue car.

Once I was in one of the two cars on the driveway, I casually drove to work.

The traffic in New York was terrible as it usually was, and it took me about thirty minutes to actually see the station. Honestly, faster than it usually was. After waiting for about ten or so minutes, I finally pulled into the station and headed inside.

Walking through the halls of the old building, I was met with lazy glances and short stares; although, they didn’t distract me as I was more focused on a different matter. I walked all the way across the long halls and past many desks to my boss’s office, opened the door, and saw him looking down at a file. He looked up a little surprised before he motioned me towards him.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” I nodded my head in response, and sat down on the seat opposite of him.

“I see you didn't bring that revolver this time.”

“I’m here to solve cases, not make them,” I said back.

“Boy, ain’t that the truth. Months of searching and even had our forensic boys look at it just to hit a dead end. Still wonder why they chose you...”

“Not stupid enough to get black market shit.”

“Right…”

“Is there something else, chief?”

“...I’m not sure what to think of this case, it just baffles me,” He said while giving me the file he had in his hands. I looked over it and was a confused myself.

“Sixteen year old girl was found dead inside of her parents’ house. There were no forced signs of entry, no fingerprints, hell there wasn't that much property damage. But it was clear there was a struggle.”

“Anything before that?”

“We tried to ask neighbors if they heard anything, they all said that she was as quiet as a mouse.”

“How’d she die?”

“Morgue’s telling us, she was strangled...:”

“Anything else?”

“We did manage to get security cam footage. After combing through it, showed that a guy walked in with her but didn’t walk out,” John told.

“Anyone she knew?”

“What? The boy, yeah, we asked her parents and they said she’s been seeing someone after school, Mitch Pattrick. But he was with his friends, he has an alibi.”

“So, who’d she let in?

“Don’t know, that’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“...Could you see his face in the security cams?” I asked.

“Well if we could see his face, I wouldn’t be asking for you to look into this, would’ve had the bastard in jail by now,” He said with a bit of irritation in his tone.

“Is there a backyard?” I replied.

“Yea there is, but there are no security cameras there, we would-”

“How close is the nearest street to her backyard?” I said cutting him off as I was too impatient to hear him ramble on about how he would do something.

“Umm… about three blocks away,” He said in a curious tone.

“Check those security tapes. If he ran on foot, we’ll be able to tell where he went. If he had a car there we’ll have some sort of lead,” I said while putting the file back down.

“I’ll get those tapes and review them, it shouldn’t take that-” Before he could finish his sentence, he and I heard my phone vibrate in my pants. Pulling out my phone, I saw that it was Kathleen calling me; obviously, I answered it.

“James, can you pick up Timmy on your way back?” She asked me in a pleading tone.

“I really don’t feel like going through the traffic today, James. And besides, you’re closer,” I always picked up Timmy when I had the chance. But usually Kathleen would take her car and pick up Timmy herself. I didn’t envy her, having to go through school traffic is hellish enough, but add New York’s bustling populous than you have a recipe for disaster.

“Okay, I’ll pick him up,” I said while I slightly groaned. I didn’t want to go through that traffic, but I do owe Kathleen for getting her pregnant. Then again, that was always her excuse to make me do everything.

“Thanks,” She said before hanging up. I did the same, hanging up the phone as well.

“Looks like I’m leaving early John, I have to pick up Timmy,” I said while getting up and putting the phone back inside my pocket.

“It’s alright James, it would've taken hours to go through all the footage anyways,” He said as he was dialing numbers on his office phone, more than likely calling the tech department to help him get the footage. As I was about to leave, I heard him talk to me one last time.

“You know, you should hit the gym more often, I’m quite certain your wife would like it if you had more muscle,” He said in a playful tone, his fat giggling as he laughed. I simply ignored him and walked to the parking lot.

When I got outside, I got into my car and went back into the hades like traffic of New York. It was boring.

Through tired determination, and many angry honks of my horn, I managed to get to Timmy's school without screaming. As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw that Timmy was sitting alone under a yellowing tree as he always did during autumn. I didn’t need to pick him up every day to know that he sat alone.

I pulled up near him, honked my horn, and surprised him a little. He looked up, and started to walk towards my car. He got in, threw his backpack in the back, and sat down on the passenger seat of my car. I didn’t really mind that he sat in the front with me, but I made sure he put on his seatbelt before we drove off.

Driving to the school was harder than trying to drive back to the house. There was a shortcut that pretty much drove all the way home. I’m certain Kathleen would’ve used it every day to pick up Timmy, and drive back home; unfortunately, it was a one-way street.

After getting out of the unbearable traffic, I had simply taken the empty road and cruised home. I didn’t have much to do but look at the empty road, so I started a conversation with Timmy.

“How’re your grades?” A bit cliché, yes, but I couldn’t come up with anything to make a true conversation.

“They’re fine, dad,” He said in his small yet innocent voice. He was never as expressive as the other kids were, hell he was more punctual than kids his age.

“Are you sure? Because the last time I checked, you had a D in social studies,” I said while giving him a side glance.

“I have an A in math.”

“I know Timmy, I know, and I know you’re really trying hard to improve, but I don’t want you to grow up like I did.”

“But dad, why do I have to read those books?”

“Because these types of things will help you get a better future.”

“But I want to do math, why do I have to know about Lewis and Clark going to California?”

“Timmy, I know where you’re coming from, I do, but these types of subjects will determine what type of opportunities you’ll get in the future. I don’t want-”

“Me to be like you, but do I really need to know this?”

“... From somebody who managed to screw up their own education, I’d say so. Trust me Timmy, you’re young. You have so many more opportunities than I do right now. You are a smart, capable, kid. You might only be in fifth grade right now, but the older you get, the more you’ll understand.”

“I hate school.”

“Timmy, you’re growing up in a better environment than I could ever hope to be in when I was your age-” I looked him straight in the eyes, and told him why I wanted him to be better. “-I wasn’t as privileged as you are right now, I didn’t have as many advantages as you have, I want you to be something more than I’ll ever be. It’s why I always push you to go farther, why I always keep telling you to do better. I want you to-” I was cut off mid-sentence.

I should’ve been watching the road instead of giving a speech. A car on my left hit me head on. The sudden hit caused my head to recoil and hit the side glass window. Oh but it wasn’t even over yet. Because the car was hit on its side, it was forced off the road, and had crashed head on into a tree.

But I didn’t even feel the impact, I passed out before we hit the tree.

A couple of hours later, I was awakened by two paramedics. They were flashing their lights at my eyes, checking my head, and rapidly asking me questions. I tried my best to ignore them, and focus on anything else that didn’t make my head pulsate with pain.

Eventually, after answering their stupid questions, and yelling at them to leave me alone, they eventually left me on the sidewalk. They told me I was lucky my skull didn’t split open, and that I had a mild concussion that should pass tomorrow. Before they could walk away however, I asked them ‘What happened to the kid with me’.

What they said stopped my heart. He was sent to the nearest hospital for intensive care. I couldn’t register it immediately. My mind was blank, unresponsive, like it was just waiting for them to say it was a joke. But when my brain finally came back to the land of the living, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Moving as quickly, and as painlessly, as I could, I pulled out my phone and called Kathleen.

I told her that I got in a crash, and told her where I was. It only took thirty minutes for her to get to me. Without trying to irritate my brain any more than I did, I slowly got in the car and told her where Timmy was. I didn’t even need to look at her face to know that she was panicking. And not even a second later, she stomped onto the gas and proceeded to drive past everything.

It was tortuous to me. Every time she made a turn, I felt like my head was going to splatter against the car's window. I heard her yelling at me; question me, asking me ‘Why weren’t you paying attention to the road’. I didn’t bother to answer her, my head was flushed in pain and it hurt too much to even talk, and her sharp turns were not helping.

We got there, eventually. Kathleen parked haphazardly and ran into the hospital, not even stopping to make sure I was okay while I got out as painless as I could. When I got to the main doors of the hospital, I saw Kathleen at the receptionist’s desk, demanding to see her son.

The receptionist got out of his seat and called a doctor that had looked at him. A few agonizing minutes of pure silence, and pure pain on my end, the doctor soon was with us before she told us to sit and allow her to explain what happened. I listened as much as I could, listening to her moan on and on about what they tried to do and what they couldn’t do. Eventually, after painfully listen to her irritating voice, she outright told us what happened.

“We tried to stop the bleeding as much as we could, but the internal damage is just too much for a kid his age… We tried everything, but there was nothing we could do,” Everything else just sort of blurred together after that, she rambled on and on about technical things and stuff that I didn’t care about.

He was announced dead at 5:37 PM. I didn’t know what to say. I just stared blankly at the doctor. After what she told me, I simply ceased to function.

Soon, weeks passed, my hair grew into a wild mess, I didn’t talk for months, Kathleen wouldn’t even look at me, I stopped going to work, and to top it all off I was sued by the other driver. None of it mattered to me, everything just went to hell. All of our money was drained from our bank accounts to repairing the car, and to the lawsuit that was put against me, which I ultimately lost.

But even though we hardly had any money, Kathleen still planned a funeral. The funeral was held a month after the lawsuit was settled. Kids from his class showed up, parents, teachers, even some of my co-workers. Kathleen cried her eyes out, but I just stared. I couldn’t even utter a word as I looked at my dead son lying in a coffin in front of me.

After the funeral, everything truly went to shit. I was fired because I stopped coming to work, I was sent death threats by some parent groups, and I was to be evicted from my home. Because I was fired, the police came and took my revolver as it was still in their custody, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even try to fight them, I just let them do whatever they wanted to.

I knew that whatever there’d been between Kathleen and I was gone. She didn’t say a word to me, no emotion, nothing, just packed her stuff and drove away.

The only turning point I had was when my car showed up in my driveway. Repaired and payed off, but I wasn’t happy. It only served a small drop of light in an ocean of black. When I was finally kicked out of my house, I had taken whatever I could and just threw it in my car. Cans of food, bottles of water, the boxes of ammo, my hunting rifle, and one photo of Timmy and Kathleen.

I drove out of New York, and just went anywhere. I spent many days on the road, simply reflecting on everything that had lead me up to that moment. I would sleep in the car as the harsh winter winds would penetrate through the air, but I didn’t care. To me, I deserved it all. But on one of many many days of driving, I happened to appear on a near empty road, the black tar invisible as the snow seemed to cover it entirely. I should’ve gotten snow tires.

I stared absently into the blizzard, just hoping that I would find a pit stop or resting area at some point and just wait it out. I was careful, I was so careful, and yet I managed to swerve off the road. Eventually, the car decided that it didn’t like the ground anymore, and rolled on its side.

I don’t know what happened after that, I lost consciousness soon after.

Chapter 1: Everlasting Winter (Rewrite)

View Online

I’m not sure what woke me up first, the pain in my arm, the headache in my head, or the cold air that brushed my face. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter at that moment, for I soon realized that I was hanging upside-down on the inside of my car, my seat belt keeping me afloat from the roof. My groggy eyes stayed opened as I looked around my turned around world, my head spinning from all the blood that had flowed into it. My arm felt like it was about to detach from my shoulder blade from how long it had more than likely been holding me up.

I tried to shake off my confusion, and refocus my eyes, but only caused my head to run a mile a second. I groaned in even more pain as I hung from that ceiling. I calmly looked up at the seat belt buckle that was holding me like a leech sucking my blood, and reluctantly forced my uninjured arm to the buckle of the seat, and pressed the button. I landed on my sore arm, yelping out of pain as I did. I laid motionless on the roof of my car, trying to ignore the pain that flooded my body. I looked around even more, noticing the torn up boxes and smashed food cans and water bottles that stained my roof.

I moaned a silent complaint at the mess, thinking how much of a chore it was going to be when I call somebody to help.

After a moment of stillness, I finally had enough strength to push myself off the ground and pull out my phone. It was cracked in many places, but it was still functionable. I dialed nine-one-one and waited for the emergency respondent to pick up the other end. What I heard made my heart skip a beat.

“We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is not available, or is no longer in service at this time. Please, check the number, or try your call again later.” Fear crawled up my spine as I heard those words. I clutched my hand against my phone and tried to calm myself down as best as I could.

I kept cursing at myself over and over again, trying to think of what to do next while trying to slow down my rapid heart rate. No matter what I did, I simply couldn’t get over what was happening. I was miles away from any sort of civilization and I was in the middle of what news reporters called the worst blizzard in years. I couldn't have been any more furious. In a fit of rage and anger, I grabbed my phone and chucked it as hard as I could, not caring what happened to it. I heard it smash against the metal door of my car and flop down against the broken glass. I looked up at the spot that I had thrown it at and stared.

Maybe it was the fear, or the urgency of the situation, but I slowly got on my hands and knees and crawled to the passenger door. I tried to open the door with what little strength that I had at that moment and felt it give with resistance. I gave another moan and realized that I must’ve been knocked out longer than I'd anticipated for the snow to pile up against the door.

I sat down and starting kicking the door, just hoping that it would provide enough space for me to get through. Eventually after minutes of kicking, and getting a sore leg in the process, I finally managed to get the door to crack open.

I squeezed through the crack in the door and looked at my surroundings. Everything was as I expected: cold, dark, and ultimately snowing, but the one thing the confused me the most was that there were no tracks anywhere. One would expect that after getting into a car crash like I did, that you’d leave some sort of trail to your car, especially in the snow, but I didn’t see anything. It was as if the ground wasn’t touched in forever.

With the little options that I had, I went back inside my car and just sat there. I didn’t know what to do. What could I have done? I had two options at that point, and both would either see me dead or on the brink of death. I could either stay in my car and wait for someone to find me, or I could take my chances, gather as much food and water as I could, and walk through the treacherous weather. Either one could end up with me dead. I took a gamble and decided that I would be walking through the cold depths of hell. I was constantly thinking of all the what ifs and might be’s, but ultimately it was my only shot at finding solitude. Nobody knew who I was, nobody cared about me, and I doubt anybody would’ve sent a search party to find me. So I had only one real option.

I got away from the door and began crawling around the roof of my car. I started rummaging around through the muck and garbage for anything useful and anything that could help me get past that winter hellhole. I managed to find my grandpa's thick winter jacket being crushed under some ripped open cardboard boxes. It was a little torn here and there, but it was in fine condition for the most part.

I wrapped myself in the jacket, trying my best to warm up and protect myself from the harsh cold air that perpetrated my car. No matter how many years I’ve had it, or how many washes Kathleen put it through, it smelled just like my grandpa. Old. In a sense, it gave me a small bit of comfort in that cold, small interior. I slowly put my arms through the holes and wore it properly before I began looking through the wreck again.

I pushed back torn pieces of boxes and mushed food as I looked for anything that was salvageable, and found a rather familiar backpack hidden in the far back of my car. I had found Timothy’s backpack. I had completely forgotten that it was in the car. Unlike other elementary kids, his backpack was big, bigger than his body, if I remember correctly. I tenderly picked up the large backpack and held it in my hands as memories of Timmy struggling with the bag flooded my mind. He'd kept complaining about how heavy it was, or how stupid it was for him to be carrying it. It brought a bittersweet smile on my face.

Kathleen and I had to get him the overwhelming backpack because of how many textbooks he had to carry. A child his age shouldn’t have been carrying textbooks in the first place, but it wasn’t my place to decide. The teachers held the belief that his textbooks would get destroyed by the other kids if he kept them in class, and I sorta had to agree with them. The neighborhood we enrolled him in wasn’t exactly the safest place, and I doubt the kids there would be any better. Whenever I went into Timmy’s classroom for a parent-teacher conference, I would notice that many of the desks were carved in, that all of the textbooks were torn in many places, and that there was a fair amount of trash hidden in corner of the room. That was his AP class. I don’t even want to imagine the monstrosity of the regular classes, but I’m getting sidetracked here. Let’s move onto the rest of the story.

I soon planted the backpack down on the ground and opened it up. I saw many textbooks, binders, and pieces of papers in an unorganized mess. I sighed and began to take out the many pieces of papers and notebooks that were above into the small compartment. While I was ripping out textbooks and missing assignments, I felt something sharp poke my finger. I pulled my hand back and hissed in pain as I saw a small trickle of blood flow down my finger and drip onto the roof. I looked back into the backpack and saw an unsheathed knife sticking up from one of the binders. With much more care this time, I put my hand back in the backpack and pulled out the rather sharp blade.

Why did my son have a knife? Well, like I said before, the neighborhood his school was in was not the safest place he could be. So, practically on the first day of school, I had bought a knife and had given it to him. I told him never to use it unless he had to. I knew it would’ve gotten my son in trouble, and I more than likely would've gotten fired from my job if they found it, but I valued the life of my son more than what any job could give me.

The knife in question was about three inches long, had an orange handle, and was quite easy to conceal. He could’ve easily hidden it in his pocket, I still don’t know why he carried it in his backpack. Maybe it was uncomfortable for him, or maybe he just forgot about it. Either way, I quickly pocketed the blade and placed the then empty backpack on the passenger side door before I continued searching through the wreckage.

As I searched through the salvage, I managed to find some water bottles that weren’t cracked or broken. Three bottles of water might not have been enough for me to get to society, but it should’ve lasted me a bit in the cold. I laid whatever was usable near the backpack and before I continued my search through the muck.

This time, however, I had found a couple of cans of food scattered across the ground. They were still intact and, just like before, there was hardly anything left. I only managed to collect four cans of peaches, but that was all I could find that wasn’t either smashed or open. I set them aside with the backpack and continued to search for whatever I could take with me

A few minutes later, scrounging through more garbage, I swept off some cold food that was on top of a box and was absolutely shocked by what I saw. Sitting there, undamaged, was a large, metal evidence box with its lock broken. I tenderly grabbed the small slide of the box and pulled it off to see my revolver lying inside of its holster on top of what must’ve been a hundred or so bullets. I didn’t count them. I gasped and backpedaled away from my gun, out of complete shock at what I was seeing. I’d handed my gun and badge over to the P.D when I was fired, knowing that they’d probably put it in lockup for some other rookie to use. Yet, there it was, in my car, untouched by the damage that had happened.

I slowly crawled back to the gun in question and stared at it, not completely certain what to do in that situation. I tentatively grasped the gun in my hand and held it. The grip of the gun still felt so familiar, even after I left it months ago.

I looked back at the passenger side door and a terrible thought struck me. Out there, in the harsh cold, was bound to be some wild animal looking for food, and I doubt that it would have any qualms trying to eat me. I looked back down at the revolver and let out a exasperated sigh, watching my breath turn into a white fog. I took the gun’s holster and wrapped it around my belt line, pulling on the straps to make sure it wouldn't fall off. I grabbed the box of ammo with a careful grip and ebbed my way to the door before I shoved the light box into the backpack. I struggled a little bit to get the odd shape in there, but I managed to get it in.

As soon as I was happy with my work, I turned back around and began looking through my car again; always keeping one hand on my revolver in case I may have to use it for some reason. But as I got deeper and deeper into my car, I kept finding more and more sniper rifle bullets. None being too far from one another. As soon as I got to the back of my car, and pushed aside the junk that had covered the back, I found my rifle. It was still in pretty good condition considering how many boxes were on top of it, and on the plus side, its ammo was no more than a few inches away from it, although it had spilled all over. I grabbed the weapon, made sure it was empty, and tossed it near the backpack.

I grabbed the box of ammo, its torn holes spilling out a few more rounds as I moved it. As soon as I was close enough to the backpack, I grabbed the box and tried to lay it inside the backpack. Instead, it tore in half and spilled everywhere inside the bag. I cursed under my breath and tossed the box aside. I turned around and collected any loose ammo that I could get my hands on and dropped them in the backpack with their brothers. I spent a few minutes on this task before I stopped, happy with how many rounds that I had collected. I grabbed my rifle soon after and began to load it. When I was finally done loading the gun, I looked down at it with a pensive gaze.

I hadn't fired a gun ever since Timothy died, even months before that, and I had more than likely gotten pretty rusty. I put the rifle down and looked down at what I had collected. The supplies should've been enough to find something out there, in that cold landscape. I grabbed the cans of food and the bottles of water and tossed them inside of the backpack with carelessness. I soon zipped up the backpack and put the straps around my arms, making sure they wouldn’t fall off while walking. I grabbed my rifle and slinked it over my shoulder before I shimmed my way to the passenger side door. After a few minutes of squeezing through the small hole, I finally managed to get outside of my ruined car.

Once I was outside, I felt the iciness of the wind smack my face and felt the coldness of the snow numb my feet. I was half tempted to go back inside my car and wait, but if I did, the cold would likely kill me before anybody could find me. Without much choice, I began my trudge through the snow, into the everlasting vastness of the cold desert

I was in that Alaskan plain for three days. I hadn't found a living soul out there. The only company I had was the blistering wind and the icy ground. You know how hard it is to sleep in a blizzard that never ends? I hadn't slept in those three days, the howls of the winds kept me up, and coldness of the snow froze my skin.

I started seeing things after two days without sleep. I saw people out there, I thought I saw cities, I even managed to see figments of Kathleen and Timothy out there. I knew they weren’t real, but that didn't stop my emotions from breaking loose. However, those were the least of my concerns; I was more concerned about my physical state.

I was thankful that there wasn't any hostile wildlife out there, but that didn't make my situation any better. Most of my water had turned into ice and all of my food had been frozen solid; they were useless. I survived out in that wasteland by forcing everything down my throat. I knew I could survive three weeks without food, but my water situation wasn't exactly helping.

I was so thirsty when I was walking out there, that I ate the snow. I would pick up a small patch of snow and put it in my mouth, but it didn't exactly end well for my mouth. When I bit into the cold treat, I felt my tongue burst into flames and my mouth cry in agony. The bitter coldness of the ice had nearly frostbitten my tongue and left my mouth to burn.

It didn't look good for me, yet somehow through the coldness of winter,I managed to find train tracks. While it may not have been a safe haven, the tracks paved the road to one. I had followed those tracks as best as I could in the snow, and eventually, after three days of restlessness, coldness and starvation. I had finally found a sliver of hope.

Chapter 2: Is this the real life? (Rewrite)

View Online

After three whole days of walking through that damn cold dessert, I managed to find a small sliver of hope. Or what I thought of as hope. As I followed the train tracks to god-knows-where, I saw a rather sudden change in weather. The side that I was on was nothing but an empty vast cold environment, but on the other side, a mere footstep away from me, stood a vast scorching desert. It was as if a wall had built itself between those two terrains. This 'wall’ had no in-between the two polar opposite lands, as if something magical had happened, stood side by side. As soon as I had stepped onto to the other side, I felt the intense heat of the sun burden itself down unto me. I had nearly passed out from the sudden shift but was thankfully still standing.

At the feeling of what I had just experienced, I could do nothing but gasp in shock of what I was feeling. I immediately thrown off my jacket as fast as I could and was swiping away the sweat that was beginning to build up on my brow.

I picked up my jacket and kept walking. But as I walked, I kept thinking about what I had seen back at that 'wall’. That sudden shift in weather should have been impossible. It defied every single law of nature, and made a naturalist look like a fucking joke. But there it was, standing as defiantly as I was. Maybe it was my psyche giving up on me, or maybe it was the fact that I was simply hallucinating. No matter how much I tried to think of a logical solution to what I saw, I always kept coming back to the same answer; hallucinations. I soon gave up on trying to solve what I had seen and went back to focusing on walking

And walked I did. I had probably walked for hours, ignoring the pain in my feet as I kept pushing forward through the dried desert. At that point, I had lost all sense of time entirely. As far as I knew, I had walked a few hours but it could’ve been days for all I cared. It still didn’t stop me from gasping for air as the sun tried burdened my skin. I kept walking across the vast, empty, desert, always remaining on the train tracks as I kept moving forward. Sometimes, I would find myself laying on the sand with my eyes closed and my body blistering before I would get up and start walking again.

Every few minutes I would take out a water bottle from my backpack and drink from it to try and cool myself down. But, after maybe an hour, I had drank every last drop of water that I had. I groaned in annoyance and continued to walk through the harsh land as I moved forward.

Eventually, after walking for god knows how long, I managed to find another sort of 'wall’. This wall was separating, what seemed to be, a calm, green forest from the intense heat of the desert. In the state that I was in, I just no longer cared for what I was looking at. I stopped questioning reality a long time about and I walked head on into that forest. The dense foliage covered most of the tracks and made me nearly blind in the small room that it gave me. But with the sun blotted out from my sight, I felt relief from the intense heat and welcomed the coolness that the forest had given me. But with the benefits of being away from the intense heat, came the serious consequences. Somewhere along that dark, inky path, I had lost the track of the tracks and had ended up wandering the blackness of the forest.

It was quite threatening to be in that forest with such thick foliage that even the sun couldn't shine through. I was scared for the longest time. I had no idea where I was anymore and for all I knew I was going to die. I tried to walk again only for my legs to give resistance to my actions. I tried forcing them to move from their stiffness, but began to realize what was happening. Even with the adrenaline pumping through my veins, and the wind of the forest blasting my face, I was exhausted. I hadn't slept in three days and my body thought it'd be a great time for a nap. There was no warning, no signal, nothing; I just passed out where I stood.

The one thing that woke me up hours after I fell into that blissful sleep was the feeling of a claw pawing at my back. I immediately, almost out of instinct, reached for my gun. But as soon as I made any sort of motion, I felt the pressure on my back increase and immediately ceased my movements. I have no idea what that thing is now. But back then, I assumed it was a bear, or some other predatorial animal that had found a hefty meal.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I was scared out of my mind. If I did something, I would be clawed to death. If I did nothing, I would be eaten alive. Either option would have ended up with me dead, a rather unsavory thought. I felt its large paws continue to claw at my back as it put more pressure on me, almost till the point where it got unbearable. But just as I was about to scream, I heard 'something' else.

I had been in the police department for over seven years of my life and I knew the sound of a dog's bark or yelp. But that thing was so different- so foreign to me. After hearing it yelp, I felt the weight on my back immediately disappear, then heard the mysterious animal run back through the forests thicket.

I laid there and waited, counting the long seconds as I laid still. Time seemed to have slowed down for those ten minutes of my life because I felt every single second pass over as if it were an hour. During my still state, I heard the many sounds and noises in the forest that I had not noticed before in my tired state. The empty howl’s of wolves as they looked up into the sky, the creaking branches of the trees as the winds passed through them, and even the sounds of snapping twigs as I laid in that spot. They all echoed around and through my body as I laid on that patch of dirt. After counting the endless seconds and listening to the long reverberating sounds, I pushed myself back onto my feet and ran for my life. It's hard to say how far and how long I had ran in that pitch black forest, but to say that I cared would be lying. I didn't care where I was going or how far I went, I wanted to be as far away from that animal as I possibly could be.

I managed to push myself between the thick stumps of those trees and swatted past the long sticks that stuck out from the small bushes. I ran for what seemed like a lifetime before I fumbled through a small clearing and slumped onto my knees to catch my breath.

I had no idea if that beast had followed me or not, but it gave me a small sense of security to be away from it for a while. I waited a few minutes, breathing in haggard breaths as I sat there. While I sat there, I listened to the forest again. I flinched every time a heard a noise behind me and stiffened when I heard the howling of a wolf. I slowly pulled out my revolver and held it close to my chest. Maybe it was paranoia from what had happened earlier, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

As soon as I had catches my breath and calmed down my racing heart, I looked around the small area that I was in. The only notable thing around me was the small, flowing river that glistened in front of me. The moon's glow bouncing off of its smooth surface. I ever slowly got back on my feet and carefully walked towards the body of water. When I was no less than a foot away from it, I dropped down onto my knees again and dunked my head underneath bits surface. I began to guzzle down the cold, luxurious water that cooled my burning head. I chugged and chugged down mouthful after mouthful of water. I had never been so thirsty in my life. Soon though, I pulled my head up out of the river, gasping for air as I shaked my head to get the water off of it. After that, I began to lay my body down against the cold dirt as the night air blew across my body. But as I rested against the ground, wiping away the splint strands of hair that clung to my face, I looked up to the sky.

I nearly reeled back in shock. The night sky itself looked like something out of folktale. I could just tell by looking at its purple hue, its magnificent collection of stars, and the size and brightness of the moon that it was a cosmic impossibility. My mouth went agape ask stared up into the sky. The moon was too big. There are too many stars. What I was staring at was impossible. And the floated there as if it were meant to wander the sky. That's when I began to recall events. My car had leaving tracks in the snow, my revolver shouldn't have been with me at all, the sudden change in temperature, and now the moon in the sky.

‘Maybe I am crazy’ I thought to myself. My brain pulsated with curiosity, a longing to know what I was looking at. But even then, I thought I was imagining things-hallucinating- even after I had slept. I was so content to ignore the signs and pin them on some sort of other reason. I no later rested my head back down onto the ground and let the cooling feel of the winds soothe me into the blissfulness of sleep.

I felt the rays of the sun poke at my skin shyly waking me up from my gentle sleep. My eyes slowly cracked open to the warm feeling that washed over me. As I got up off the ground, stretching and yawning as the bones in my body cracked back into place, I let the cool morning breeze bathe me in its lasing glow. My body was in pure bliss, my mind was clear, and I felt like I could die happy on that spot. I haven't slept that well in months, and everything just felt so peaceful and serene in that moment of nothingness.

And, like everything else in my life, it was taken away from me in an instant. I heard the sound of someone’s voice and the sound of clopping hooves against the dirt. My mind stiffened as I listened to that immaculate sound, my heart racing as I continued to listen to that voice. I didn’t bother to wait for it to disappear or make itself visible, I ran towards the sound of it. In my mind of panic and hope, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was just grateful at meeting someone else in this damnable world.

I had ran towards its sound, even with the blisters that were forming on my feet. I didn't stop even when the sticks from the bushes whipped my face. The only thing that had stopped my careless run was a loose branch that had stuck up from the ground. I lost my balance and came tumbling through the small thicket of the forest. As soon as I heard a yelp and the galloping of hooves, I knew that I had scared whoever was there along with their horse. I begrudgingly pushed myself off the ground, brushing off the dirt that clung to my shirt, and looked around for any sign of horses or the people who were there.

The only thing that I could find from the scene were deep horse shoe marks that peppered the ground around me. The marks themselves were rather deep and were very noticeable, but I had no clue where they went. I got down on one knee and looked down at the ground, scrutinizing the details as I tried to figure out where they had went. I looked at their hoofprints, the way they moved around one another, the way they curved and aligned themselves. Years of hunting experience taught from my grandpa started to pop its way back into my mind, and I soon found out where the horses had went to. But, while I searched through the scene, I did notice that there weren’t any human footprints, but thought nothing of it at the time since the horses prints probably covered them.

But as I looked in the direction they went, I felt… I don’t know. I felt like something dangerous was going to happen if I went there, as if my life would depend on it. It’s what stopped me from following them immediately. I stood at that lining for a good ten minutes as my mind battled with itself. If I went with them, I could finally find a safe haven and seek medical attention. But what if they found an animal out there? I would just be walking into a feast where I would be the next course of food. As my mind battled with itself, it was clear which side was winning. I was just so desperate for human contact that I didn’t care about what might have happened to them or the terrible feeling that settled in my stomach.

So, I began to follow their tracks, going into the black forest once again. But as I continued to walk through the darkened forest, keeping my eyes heavily on the horse's tracks, I realized that I had forgotten my grandpa’s jacket. I stopped in my tracks and looked back the way I came. I thought about going back there and getting it, but I would have lost myself in the thickness of the forest if I went back and would never get another chance to meet other people again. I hesitantly took my gaze back and continued following the tracks to where that horse were going. But I had no idea what I was getting into.

Eventually, after following their tracks, I saw the trees canopy split open again and I felt the sun's gaze shine down upon my dirt ridden body. I took myself away from the sun’s bright rays, and looked around the open field that I had walked into. The fields green, tamed grass blowed with the cool wind. And the light green leaves from the trees calmed me from my trepidation. About a mile or two away from me, I could see a bustling village with enough horses and buildings to be considered civilization.

To me it was the most beautiful thing that I had seen in months; I was so delighted to see it. But I couldn't even take a step towards it before I heard a sudden yell.

"There it is!" Its voice was childlike and was so high pitched that I swear my eardrums almost bursted.

I swiveled around and caught a glimpse of a small pink colored horse with a tiara on its head printed on its hindquarters. Next to her I could see another small horse, about her size, colored in silver, wearing glasses, and had a silver spoon printed on its flank. But as baffled as I was by their existence, what happened next truly made me want to rethink my life.

"Wait up girls! We shouldn't be this close to the Everfree, who knows-" A horse, taller than the other two, had come up behind them. Her purple fur, dark blue hair, the mark of a star on her flank, and the horn on her head had left me speechless. It was like my mind was in a trance, unable to escape the prison that was built around it. But as I stared at her, my mouth getting more agaped, she slowly put herself in front of the other two and took up a protective stance. And even though it tried not to show it, I could see the utter fear in her eyes. It turned its head around to the other two and told them “Go. Run. Get help!”

My brain lurched; unable to accept what it just saw. A small little horse had just spoken English as if it was its first language. I could hear it speak English all day long, and I would never be able to accept the fact that it just spoke. But as soon as its horn started to glow a purple hue, I snapped out of whatever spell my mind had put on itself and, out of fear, ran back into the forest. As I did, I heard it yell at me, telling me to stop running and that it wouldn’t hurt me. I didn’t believe it, and kept running further and further into the forest.

As soon as I was certain that I had lost her, I feel onto my knees and started to hyperventilate. My mind kept telling me what I saw was impossible, but my eyes told me a different story. I wasn't sure what to think. I started to think that I truly had lost my sanity.

Chapter 3: Closing Hour (Rewrite)

View Online

My body was shaking, shivering in utter fear at hearing an animal speak. It truly made me begin to question everything I had seen. I didn’t know what was real or not anymore. I wanted to wake up, wake up from this cruel dream my mind had conjured up. I looked down at my hand and began to smack myself. I kept telling myself to wake up with every smack that I gave myself. When I didn’t ‘wake up’ I started smacking myself harder and harder as I began to scream out the words. Soon though, I stopped smacking myself and started to shove my head into the ground, still screaming at myself to wake up. I started slamming my clenched fists into the ground, trying to use anything to wake up. I pulled myself off of the dirt ground and started to gasp for air again. All I had managed to do in that small window of time was cause my face to glow red in pain and cover itself in dirt.

As I was about to sit and wallow in self pity, I heard the shuffling of branches behind me. I paused and looked at its direction. I didn’t care what it was, I didn’t care anymore. My body was slouched over the ground and refused to give any charge to the coming threat. It was like I had given up and was just about ready to accept my fate. Hell, I did give up. Whatever world I was in, was the one that I wanted to live in. But something inside of me -something instinctual- bubbled up from my depths and made me run again. I don’t know if it was that horse that spoke to me, a random animal, or another predator, but I just ran. I wanted to get away from whatever insane world that I was in.

I kept running through the dense trees and kept fumbling on some loose dirt, but I kept running; the only thing that stopped me was when I bursted out into a small clearing. What I saw was… interesting, to say the least. I saw fields upon fields with rows upon rows of apple trees all lined up together in even more rows. I wouldn’t think twice about it if it wasn’t for the fact they defied the laws of physics.

Their trunks were too small to be carrying as many apples as they were. The trees should’ve been bending over by the weight alone. And yet, it was standing mighty and tall.But as the mental state I was in at the time, I didn’t care anymore. If a horse could speak, a tree like that can stand. So, with that mindset, I slowly walked up to one of the many trees that surrounded me, almost afraid that it would fall on me. I looked upon one of the many glistening apples that the tree held on its many branches. And, while I wanted to admire their look and their glowing attitude, my stomach had other ideas. It was the first piece of real food that I’ve seen in three days, and while I may have pissed off whoever owned them, I couldn’t care less. I was starving.

I picked off one of the apples from their home and gorged myself with it. As soon as I was done with the fruit, I tossed away the core and began to eat another one. I bit into one after the other, trying to fill my empty stomach as I ate. I didn’t bother to truly taste the nectar that the fruit held; I was too damn hungry to care about the taste.

After eating god-knows how many apples, I slumped down against one of the apple trees with a big mighty smile plastered on my face. I had never been so happy to be overstuffed with food. I just wanted to lay done there contently and enjoy the feeling of a full stomach. That was until I saw one of those ponies on the hill. I don’t know if it saw me first or if I saw it first. All that had happened between us was a long, fearful stare. Both of us having no idea what to do in that moment of silence as we looked at one another.

I couldn’t see much of it from how far we were from each other, but I did notice that its mane was a very bright shade of red. I heard a high pitched-childlike-scream before I saw it run back the way it came. I didn’t want know what type of reinforcements that it would bring back with it. So, I very wobbly got off the ground and started to walk deeper into the field of apples.

After walking through the clear roads between the Apple trees and brushing the dirt off of my filthy shirt, I came to a stop and looked around me. I was certain I had put more than enough distance between me and the pony, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I had no idea where I was. Every single tree looked the damn same, and it felt no better than being in the forest. So, like I was in the forest, I took a direction and walked. I walked through the fields of apples, occasionally looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being followed. And while I may have been angry at feeling lost in the apple orchard, I felt at peace. The suns shine hit the apples at the most perfect angle and the soft sheen from the trees surface made it feel as if I was in a fairytale. It made me forget everything. Forget all of my problems, all of my hardships.

And while I admired the almost cartoonish looking trees, I walked. I would walk until I saw the occasional little critter that would scutter off the second it saw me. I admired it, I loved the way they hid from me. It was the only sense of normalcy in this world. I would walk until my feet started to pulsate. The pain surging through my body as I tried to message them. I walked until I saw a big gray barn. I thought nothing of it at the time, but as I got closer and closer to it, I remembered where I was. I walked back a fair distance from where I was, and pulled out my rifle. I wasn’t going to shoot them, but I sure as hell didn’t want to get jumped again. I looked around the rather large barn, trying to figure out if there was anyone there. I noticed the few hay bales that dotted the area, the small chicken coop that stood nearby, even the fence that held pigs. After I determined that no one was there, I pulled back my rifle and started to walk closer to the barn.

As I got closer to the establishment, I began to notice the bit of rust building up on the metal, the tiny pieces of wood sticking out of it, even the creaking of the barn as a wind came blowing over it. It was as if it was about to fall over at any minute. As I began to get closer and closer to the doors of the barn, the pigs in the pen began to panic at my presence. They started squealing and thrashing about as I got closer and closer to that door. But even as they began to squeal louder and louder the closer I got I simply ignored them, their screams of anguish falling on deaf ears. Cautiously, I opened the doors and peered inside of the large room. Thankfully, no one was in there, my only company being the pigs that were still squealing. Inside of the large room, I saw piles of hay on the floor, and tools on the walls.

I left the door wide open as I walked in, not bearing in mind if someone would come in. I looked around the room some more and noticed the rustic, dried off paint on the walls as time had had worn it out. And as I looked around the nearly dead building, I walked up to the mutilated tools that were on the back wall. Their overused, near broken exterior was something I noticed immediately. The only tool that wasn’t dented or broken in some strange way was a hatchet that hung with its brothers. It looked like it was hardly used, the metal on wasn’t even chipped. It even had an absurdly large amount of dust on it. I reached my hand up towards the hatchet and picked it up. I turned it this way and that as I looked at it; making most of the dusts on it fall off. It had a straight, thick wooden handle that was covered in black rubber, and a nice thickly sharp piece of metal on its end. I’ll be honest, it felt good.

I was about to give it a test run on one of those apple trees out there, but then I heard two southern voices coming my way. I immediately put the axe back the way I found it, and looked for someplace to hide. I started to panic as I discovered that there wasn’t even a corner small enough for me. That was before I looked down at the ground again and remembered how many piles of hay were there. I couldn’t hide in the hay since it was so small, but if I put them together, I’d have a shot. I started to move, faster than I knew I could, as I began to construct a large pile of hay for me to hid in. I picked up clumps and lumps of hay and started to throw them together in a small ditch effort to have a hiding spot. As I put on chunk after chunk of hay onto the large pile, the voices got closer to the barn, only encouraging me to go faster. Exhausted and out of breath, I managed to make a large enough pile for me to hid in. And I did just that. I began to dig my way underneath the hay’s scratchy surface and tried my best to hide all of myself as I burrowed deep into the hays itchy surface. As soon as my entire body was hidden underneath the hay, I began to listen to the conversation through the walls.

“Ah'm tellin ya the truth, I saw a thang out there! It was eating all of our apples!” I heard the cry of a little southern girl say.

“Well then, Applebloom, what was it?” Said another girl in an annoyed, sarcastic southern tone.

“It was uh… ah don’ know what it was.”

“Consarnit. Applebloom, either help me move these apples, or go home. Ah ain’t got no time for folktales.”

“But ah ain’t lying!”

“Then what was it?”

“Ah don’t know!” I heard the huff of, what I assume is, the older of the two as they continued to walk on.

“But, what if it comes back, who knows what it’ll do!” Said the young voice.

“Look, ya probably scared the varmint off, whatever it was. There’s no need to worry Applebloom- did you leave the barn door open?”

“No.”

“Probably Big Mac, he always forgets to close it.”

“But Applejack, what if-”

“No more ‘buts’! Now can ya stop yer blabbering and help me move the apple bushels inta the barn,” Though my sight was blinded, I was able to hear them enter the barn and plant something solid on the ground.

“Applebloom, ah ain’t got time for make believe or ‘monster huntin’ or whatever yer doing. Ah can’t stop bucking trees during applebuck season and ya know this. Do ya understand?”

“Ah... ah understand.”

“Good, now help me get the rest of ‘em in ‘ere-”

“Applejack!” I heard the already open barn door slam into its side and heard a familiar voice accompany it. I should know since it was the one that belonged to a certain purple horse.

“Twilight, ah swear, if yer here to help again, I told ya, ah-”

“Applejack, I need your help to gather the girls, I saw a hu-... I saw a… monster outside of Ponyville,” As I was rationalizing what they were saying, I heard two sets of hooves gallop outside of the barn and into the distance.

“Now ah have ta put the apples in the barn myself. This is gonna take forever!” I heard the little clip-clop of her hooves trudge against the ground, and eventually out of my range of hearing.

When I was certain that I was alone, I more or less threw off any hay that was on me. I released the breath that I was holding and began to think about what the two ponies had talked about. A ‘monster’ had just been outside of their hometown and might have been coming their way. I needn’t guess who that ‘monster’ was. I got off of my ass, grabbed the axe, and began to walk through the open barn door, towards whatever fate had in store for me. Oh, but I had no idea how cruel of a mistress it was.

Chapter 4: Endure (Rewrite)

View Online

I walked maybe for a good ten minutes around the farm, more or less trying to find my way out of whatever hole I dug myself into while enjoying the serene sounds of the leaves bending to the winds voice. Maybe it was the stress of the situation, maybe it was way I walked through the trees, but no matter what I did, I always felt like someone or something was watching me. Studying me. I thought it was paranoia at the time, hell it probably was, but I was never comfortable on that farm. I’d turn around every few minutes to see if I could find anyone following me, but I’d always be greeted with a bare road. My mind was so concentrated on finding out where I was being watched that I was caught off guard when I heard a pair of arguing voices. I looked around me for a hiding spot, a place of solace, but I couldn’t find one shred of solitude.

And as I was about to run, I felt my feet get stuck to the ground. Like they were refusing to do what I said. I tried to budge my legs from where they were, pulling on them and throwing all of my weight to one side, but it was no use. They wouldn’t even move an inch. No sooner than when I started, I saw the heads of those ponies peek over the hill. I saw the color of that pony’s dark blue mane and the cowboy hat on the one that accompanied her.

“Please Applejack, we need to hurry!”

“Twilight, if what yer saying is true, then I doubt it’d come back to Ponyville an’-!”

“Applejack, we don’t have time to argue! It could be wandering around in Ponyville as we speak! Come on, I’m sure if we hurry-” The two of them stopped dead in their tracks when they saw me. A look of aww, wonder, and fear taking hold of their large, strange faces. This ‘Twilight’, perhaps the most expressive of the two, looked up in utter surprise as I stood before her. Her friend ‘Applejack’ on the other hand looked like she was about to kill me. And before I knew it, the horse pony had pulled a lasso from out of nowhere and flung it at me. And, almost like my legs decided to finally listen, we began to run for the umptenth time that day. I ran perpendicular to the rope and went further into the apple trees.

I had a momentary head start, but I knew they were going to easily catch up with me since they were horses. I ran as fast as I possibly could and yet I still heard their galloping hooves as they tried to catch me. I heard one of them cuss and swear as I just managed to be out of their reach. But soon though, I felt a piece of rope circle itself around my neck before I felt a strong pull. Dust kicked up off the ground as I landed on my back and was dragged as I tried to get air into my lungs. I pulled on the rope as much as I could, trying to get enough room for air to come into my lungs. But, no matter how hard I tried, it just seemed like I couldn’t get enough room for my windpipe.

So, in an act of desperation and hope, I pulled the axe out of its homemade holster and began swinging violently at the direction I was being pulled at. I was hopeful, I was desperate, I was scared. I don’t what might’ve happened if I stayed that way, and I won’t ever know. Who knows, maybe they would’ve hogtied me and kept me prisoner. Maybe they would have lynched me. Maybe they would’ve kept me as a friend. But that isn’t what happened. What happened was that I managed to cut the rope in one of my many swings. While I could breath again, it didn’t stop the feeling of utter terror that played in my stomach.

Without even stopping to take in air, I had rushed myself back onto my feet and started running again, with a small piece of rope dangling around my neck. Yet again, I heard the sounds of hooves galloping in my direction. But during my run, I saw a rather familiar dark forest far ahead of us. In an ironic way, the dark, gloomy forest filled me with hope. It was almost poetic in a sense. But as I felt like I was about to be released from my torment, I heard the sounds of electricity sparking.

I thought I had a pretty good lead, that I would be able to make it into the forest without any more harm coming to me. But I was proven wrong when I felt the rope contract around my neck. I was so confused in that moment of fear. I knew I cut off that rope, I sliced it in half, and yet I still felt it tighten, and enclose around my neck. I tried to grab for the rope but I felt the emptiness of air greet my hands instead. I turned this way and that, trying to find out what was holding that rope against me. I looked towards the trees to see if it got caught, I looked towards the ground to see if it snagged on a stick. But it wasn’t until looked behind me that I saw the cause to my problems. I saw a strange, radiating purple aura enveloping the small piece of the rope that still hung around my neck. I tried to find out what had been keeping me in place and what was stopping me from rushing back into the forest. That was until I saw ‘Twilight’ with the same purple, radiating aura around her horn, an apologetic look on her face. It hit me like a brick wall. She had the exact same aura around her horn when she tried to chase me in the forest. And like a moth to a flame, I connected the two. In a hurried, panicked manner, I ripped out my revolver, cocked back the trigger, and shot her.

Almost immediately, I felt the pleasurable release on my throat and pulled off the rest of the rope before looking behind me. Behind me, I saw the small purple unicorn on the ground, crying, holding her left foreleg, as she silently mouthed something. Blood oozed out of her small, frail body, staining her crisp purple fur as she lay still on the ground. Her hat wearing friend was lying on the ground with her eyes shut tight and her hooves holding her ears down tightly. Taking the advantage I had, I put my revolver back into its holster and started to run again.

And ran I did. I ran past the many acres of apple trees even when my legs began to feel sore. I ran past the bushels of apples that lay scattered across the fields. And I ran through the thick border of the forest. Soon, I stopped running, and took a much needed breather. Thinking that I was safe in the dark forests presence, I took out my gun, pulled out the bullet I had recently fired, and tossed it onto the ground before I lugged the backpack over and pulled out its same ammo type. I put the non-fired bullet into the empty slot before closing the cylinder, giving it a slight spin before putting it back in its holster.

But as soon as I put the gun back, and put the backpack over my back again, I heard a set of galloping hooves again, accompanied with a very angry voice.

“YA FILTHY VARMINT!”

As soon as I heard even the faintest whisper of words, I started to run again. I pushed past the thick trunks of trees and threw leave, and rocks, and any sort of debris I could find behind me. But no matter how long I’d used that tactic, no matter how erratically I turned, I always heard those hooves galloping behind me. As we passed streams and slopes, as we stomped on rocks and grass, I would always heard the sickening noise of those hooves slamming on the ground as they tried so desperately to get me. Eventually, I found a very small clearing of the forest in the distance, I thought I was home free.

But I was wrong. Instead of finding sanctuary, a small place to hide, anything, I found a cliff. A sharp, narrow cliff that lead unto a perilous pit. I skidded to a halt, and looked down the abyss. Below the steep cliff was a raging river with enough jagged rocks to spike my. Past the cliff there was another ledge that was a couple feet away, twenty feet below its brother. I thought that was the end of the line, that I would be dragged back towards that farm or that I would’ve been beaten to death by that angry mare, it should’ve been the end of me. Maybe things would have turned out different, possibly for the better. But instead, I shuffled back a couple of feet and ran as fast as my tired legs would let me before I jumped off the cliff as hard as I could.

My chest slammed into the cold, rocky earth as my hands clawed at the hardened ground for anything to keep myself from falling. But try as I might, I couldn’t find anything, not even a grain of dirt. Instead, I began to slip further into the canyon. In a desperate, last ditch effort, I forced my hands onto the razor-edge cliff.

I tried to pull myself up but the backpack felt too heavy, and so I started to use my legs. But they too were giving out on me for all the abuse I had put them through. My hands were blistering with the rocks that had pierced them, and I was moaning out in pain as my vice grip seemed to have grown only stronger. I tried pulling myself up with nothing but brute force, but I guess the ledge couldn’t hold my weight. I felt my only support start to crack above me, and in my desperate situation I tried to grab for something else-anything else-but everything around me was nothing but slanted rock. I began panicking again, I was letting out inhuman noises as I began to pat the cliffs walls for anything. But right then and there, the cliff had enough and broke away from its mantle in the ground, and allowed my body to fall into the bottomless ravine

I thought that I was going to die there, that my body would crushed by the broken rock. That my head would be splattered across the gorging spikes that dotted the river. That I would drown in a vain attempt to stay afloat. But you wouldn't be reading this if I did die that day. I fell in head first through the icy waters, a cool feeling of the water washed over me, chilling me to the bone. My eyes shot open as I realized that I was still alive. My body morphed into the upright position and I began to hurriedly swim my way back up to the surface. Though I was frozen and my body felt sore, my head had burst open from the rivers age. I took in a deep gasping breath of air as I surfaced, thankful that I had not died yet. It didn’t last though. For in mere seconds I was pushed back down underneath the graves icy waters.

Again, in a fit of desperation, I forced my body to the top again. Even faster this time, I felt the river tug me back down into its depths. The river kept pushing me back and forth under the water. My ragged breath and exhausted legs only making my struggle to stay afloat more unbearable. And through my struggle against the watery death pit, God must’ve heard my prayer as a long heavy log had floated near me. I dug my hands into the wooden surface, and lurched my tired body over the well worn log. In my moment of sheer exhaustion, I looked back up at the rocky cliff I just jumped off of and saw a pair of the most angriest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve had people stare menacingly at me before, tell me death threats even attempted to kill me. I know the face of true anger, but I have never seen that much hate and malice in one's eyes before.

We just stared at each other, waiting for the other to break eye contact, to show which one is more dominant. But it didn’t happen. Instead the log carried me away from her long, narrowed stare and floated me down the then calmed river. Along my travels with the log, I saw many animals ranging from deers to rabbits to beavers. And even though I posed no threat to them on that small little log, they ran at the sight of me. Not out of instinct or some primal urge but out of fear. The look of utter terror that had stricken their almost cartoonish appearance was more than confusing. It got my mind rolling again. Did animals think like those ponies? Are they as smart? Maybe it was the pure exhaustion, but I didn’t even want to think about another species presenting intelligence. The log sloched and swirled through the then calm river as it carried me near a peaceful bank of sand. When we got close enough, I let go of the small wooden raft, and dragged myself up to the beach.

Once I was far enough away from the watery death trap, I slumped down on the ground and began to breath in and out the freshness of the summer air. In that moment peace away from those accursed ponies and their confusing world, I could only feel dread crawl up my spine. I was in the middle of a forest, surrounded by predators, chased by the locals, and was now, in that moment, about to faint. But through sheer will, or a drive to survive, I pushed myself off of the shore and started to walk through the greenery again. My hair clung to my face, my clothes stuck to my body, and my legs were exhausted. But I pushed on. I kept walking, and walking, and walking.

But as I walked forward through the thick vegetation of the forest, I found a bullet casings on the ground. A small bit away from the casings I could see the stain of blood that was splattered across the trees. Looking around a little bit more I noticed the many footprints that was peppered around the area. Human footprints. I felt an enlightenment build up deep inside of me, the prospect of seeing other humans filled me with joy and relief. But as I looked around more and more, that joy turned into anguish. All I could find around the small area was footprints, blood, and bullets.There was nothing other than those three. There were no animal markings in the area, only human footprints. It wasn’t an animal attack, it was an ambush. There were only bullet casings on one side and there was only blood on the other. Whatever happened, people had died that day, their bodies either buried by the killers or eaten by the wildlife.

I guess it was the detective in me that was curious, for soon I was on my knees examining the bullets. From what I could gather, some of them were .45 ACP rounds while the others were shotgun shells. Specifically, 16 gauge shotgun shells. Whoever was shot at didn’t stand a chance. If they took out the pistol shooter, the shotgunner would’ve torn them in half. While holding a shotgun shell in my hand, I stood back and looked around me a little bit more.The scene was cold, there was no body to look at, no witnesses to talk to, no cameras to strip through, and I doubt I’d be able to find out who did it without getting killed myself. I let out a depressed sigh and dropped the shell back onto the ground before I began to walk forward again.

And after walking for an ten minutes or so, I found a small rudimentary cave on the side of a small mountain. Being the only piece of shelter around me, I walked up to the base of the steep hill and began to climb up its hardened surface. It was a difficult struggle for me to get up the slanted piece of rock, especially since I was exhausted from my day of exertion. I’d tighten my grip around anything that was grabbable and I’d practically drag myself up the rock. But once I finally managed to scrap on up to the small gaping hole, and pulled myself through the entrance of the cave, I could do nothing but lay down against its cool walls and think of my day. And the more I looked back on it, the more and more I felt disturbed. I was forced from a world of filled with people, my people, to suddenly be dropped into a world with talking horses. I was confused, I was scared, I felt so alone. But with the events of the day coming to an end, I could do nothing more but rest my eyes and hope that’d I would escape from this terrible realm. Of course, that would never happen.

I never felt more alone in my life.

Chapter 5: Coming to Terms (Rewrite)

View Online

I watched planes land and fly off into the distance. Heard the sounds of thousands of footsteps walking past me. The sound of a small baby boy crying in my arms as I tried to calm him down as best as I could. My arms no longer were thick, as I remembered them to be, but were instead thin, almost skeleton like. The baby boy that cried in my arms had skin as dark as mine, and eyes as bright as the sun. That little bundle of joy and anguish held so much potential in him. I could only stare at him as he continued to cry in my arms. The only thing that pulled me out of my stupor was the feeling of a smooth, calm hand that had pressed into on my back. Instinctually, I turned around and gave my small little boy to the person.

The person that had put their hand on my back was now trying her best to calm down the baby. Her brown hair and entrancing brown eyes held my attention as I stared at her. She looked so perfect to me. To me, she had no flaws, no gleams, no false impressions. She was beautiful to me in every single way humanly possible.

“You really should have payed attention in Ms. Whitaker's class,” The girl said as I continued to stare at her euphorically, and did nothing but look at her until I heard another voice.

“Mr. Conner.”

When I looked back forward I saw a real estate agent talking to me.

The girl on my left was listening attentively at the words of the agent. I tried to listen in, but all I could here were silent muffles coming out of her mouth. The agent then led us to a house that we had been standing outside of, and allowed us to go in first. Once we were inside, I saw our furniture all planted around the humble abode. The couches were already laid out and were already worn out from age and use. The pictures on the wall hung with the dust that carefully stuck to their surface.

“THE POLICE!?!” I heard a loud shout say. I turned and saw the girl standing there with a small baby in her arms. I looked down at myself to see that I was wearing a dark red shirt with a logo that I couldn’t make out. “James,” I heard the sweet little voice say in front of me. But as I looked back up, I saw that the girl was no longer holding a little boy anymore.

“Stay safe out there, I don’t want you getting hurt,” The pretty little girl said. Her face had changed. It wasn’t small and cute anymore, It was now long and elegant. I looked down at myself again to see that I was wearing a police uniform with all the gadgets and such that would be strapped onto it. My arms at that time were much thicker than ever now, almost gigantic compared to before.

“Daddy!” I heard the pitter patter of a rapid set of feet behind me before they suddenly stopped as I felt something clung to my leg. I looked down and saw that the thing that was holding onto me was a small boy. I was about to pick the boy up, but the girl did that for me instead. The kid couldn’t have been older than four at the time, but I didn’t focus on him. For in that moment, I was being dragged to the door by an unknown force, and was looking at the two being slowly pulled away from me. And before I knew it, I was outside and headed to a blue car parked on my driveway.

Once I was inside of the blue contraption, I started the engine and was about to back out when I heard another voice again.

“Me to be like you, but do I really need to know this?,” said a boy on my right.

I was about to respond to him, but I looked down at myself to see that I was wearing a long blue sleeved shirt and dark blue jeans. I then slowly looked to my left just in time for a car to hit me head on.

My eyes slowly opened to the sound of dripping water. I immediately looked around me in a vain attempt to see if I had waken up in a bed, or in my car, somewhere far away from this accursed world. But I recognized the glistened walls of the cave as I looked around, the rocky feeling beneath me as I rested, the small stalagmites that began to form around the walls. The dead cave was still barren with life, not including its one resident. No wild life, not predator nor prey, had come into this lonely cave to greet me or sleep with me. I let my head flop back down on the ground in a disappointed manner and just stared at a small puddle a couple of feet to my left. I could see the small puddle brewing with dirt and sand as small droplets of water had creeped through a crack from the ceiling above. I laid solemnly in place as I looked at the puddle watching each and every drop slowly drip down onto its surface as it reverberated with the droplets. I could’ve stared at it for hours and not get bored, I didn’t care. I was still in a world that shouldn’t be possible, that shouldn’t exist. And yet, here I was staring at a puddle growing ever larger. I tore my gaze away from the expanding pond and looked outside the small gaping hole that I was sleeping near.

Outside, I could see the sun slowly rising over the horizon, pecking the trees with kisses of light as it continued to rise high into the sky. I looked at the bright orb in the sky as I just continued to stare at its yellow surface. I only stared at the sun so stupidly because I was surprised that I woke up at the near crack of dawn. I usually woke up before the sky would even light up. A habit I developed after a year on the P.D. Trying to beat the traffic in a city that never sleeps is hard as hell. But in that moment of nothingness, in that moment of despair and want, I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me if I woke up before the sun rose or before it was setting. I’d still be in the same world, running away from the same ponies, and still living in the same forest. I couldn’t care anymore, not in that moment. I soon took my eyes off of the burning gaze of the sun and looked down upon the brightening landscape.
And as I looked down amongst the many trees that were scattered about, I started to think of how I got into this mess and allowed my mind conjure up impossible theories. Teleportation was high on the list, but what are the chances that I was teleported into a snowy area? Next one on the list was wormholes but I think I would’ve woken up if a wormhole somehow-magically-managed to spring up out of nowhere. The world ending it made no sense as to how that could happen and how it would bring me somewhere completely different. Time travel made no sense. How would I be able to travel through time to where I am now. A hole in the ground, resurrection, a bright light, a black hole, a different dimension, a world far away from Earth, the list goes on. But none of it made any sense. Honestly, teleportation? It’s inconceivable.

But as I was questioning as to how I was brought into this domain, how my mind had somehow managed to stay intact through my venture, my digestive system began to stir and rumble. My mouth began salivating any my throat was expanding. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten so many apples. I leaned onto my side, gasping for air as I felt bile start to come up my throat. Not even a second later, I began vomiting out liquefied garbage all over the rocky floor and into the shallow pond. I felt the bitter taste of vomit brush up against my tongue as my stomach churned and squeezed together. Between every vile barf, I would gasp for air just before another disgusting watery liquid would throw itself up my throat.

Around a minute had passed until my stomach stopped pumping out all the apples I ate, my body shaking from how much it had just pushed out of me. I wiped my mouth clean of any of any vomit that clung to it and I then, ever so slowly, got onto my slightly wobbling feet. But as my body felt rejuvenated and felt ten times better than before, my feet felt like I was walking on broken glass.

I feel back onto the cold ground and let out an unmanly scream. My feet felt like they were being torn apart from every single angle possible. I looked down at the shoe that hid the painful bastard away from my sight. I slowly grasped my hand around the shoe, feeling the agonizing pain pulsate as I touched it. I almost didn’t want to see what happened to my foot. To be honest, I was scared that I somehow managed to break it, maybe it was bleeding heavily, I don’t know what it was. So, almost out trepidation and fear, I began to take off my shoe. I groaned, moaned, and grunted in pain as I continued to slowly slide off the shield. Thankfully, it wasn’t as painful as I reveal a disgusting dark colored sock that had isolated my foot from the world.

I grabbed the tip of the sock and-like a bandaid-I pulled it off in one swift motion. I saw red blistering blisters that had enveloped the underside of my foot. I don’t know how I didn’t feel it sooner, but it seemed that my brain finally registered the bloody things that was festering on my foot. I no sooner pulled off the shoe and sock on my other foot. Though much less painful, it was in no better condition. The foot itself was dripping with pus. I sat there for a while, basking in the unholy pain that plagued my feet. Every single time I moved the toes on my left foot, it felt like my feet was being sawed off. And every time I tried to move my right, it felt like a hammer was smashing my foot in. It was excruciatingly painful and there wasn’t a thing that I could do about it.

I ever so carefully put my shoes and socks back on, and started to crawl out of the cave. My feet were obviously in no condition to be used and I couldn’t sit back there and do nothing. It wasn’t for nothing however, I thought that the river that I had swam out of was the best place for me to treat my injuries. It wasn’t the perfect plan, but I doubt I could’ve done anything else. My hands clung to the ground and my arms pulled me with fervor as my useless legs were dragged behind me. I pulled myself through muck and dirt through grime and stain. I felt the mud on the ground stick to my shirt and the feeling of dirt staining my legs. And as I pushed forward, past the many trees that guarded my path, I felt like someone was watching me again. It was the same feeling I felt out on that apple farm.

I felt unnerved and creeped as I tried to find the thing that wasn’t there. I looked up and down the trees, through the bushes, and in the grass. But no matter where I looked, or how hard I stared, I could not find a single form of life stalking me. And suddenly, like the flip of a switch, it was gone. The cold feeling was gone, but I felt even more unnerved by it. I looked back around me confused and bewildered by what had transpired, but eventually started to crawl back towards the river again. And I finally managed to get back to the bank of that river with extremely sore arms.

I felt a sweet, warm relief envelope me as I saw that freezing, cold body of water. And as I got close enough to feel the cusp of the river touch my chin, I heard a deep, vicious growling in the distance. I grabbed my revolver and looked around me to see if I was in imminent danger, but I was met with nothing but the leaves blowing with the winds. And when I put my revolver down and looked back forward, I saw a massive creature past the running currents of the water.

In the distance, imposing of power and cold command, stood an intimidating, and impossible looking animal. Its head was that of a lions, its body more dragon than cat, and its scorpion tail making it even more threatening than it was. He looked at me as predator would its prey and began growling again. Yapping its jaw as me as I saw its saliva drop down onto the forest’s ground. It paced back and forth on the other side of the river it stood upon, looking at me with a hungry gaze as I stared at it. I knew I was safe from it; the water would have sunk it under if it attempted to cross, but that wouldn’t stop it from trying to get me. A hungry animal will do anything for food. And, much like that horse from the other day, our gaze never broke from one another. The other not willing to break our sight from one another in an attempt to show which is more dominant.

But as it stared me down and as I met its scrutinized glare, there was another sound further in the distance. It sounded young and similar to the thing that was looking at me, yet it was higher pitched. As soon as the creature heard that noise, it took its eyes off me and ran in the direction of the call, completely forgetting that I existed. I let go of a breath that I was holding and steadied my heart. Seeing an animal as threatening and malicious as whatever that was frightening. I may have been safe on the other side of the river, but I might as well have been sitting right next to that monster. I looked back at my feet and dragged my legs in front of me.

I slowly pulled my shoes off of my throbbing feet and tugged my socks off of them as they scrapped my blisters. After recoiling from the feeling of fire burning my feet, I slowly went back to the task of getting my feet in the water, looking behind me every now and then to make certain that beast hadn’t found a way around. I put my footwear on the side before I slowly grabbed my legs and even more slowly set my feet into the brisk waters. It stung like hell when I first put them in and I had to stop myself from screaming as I felt my feet cry out in pain. But after ignoring the immaculate amount of pain for a minute or so, it was hardly noticeable. So there I sat, waiting for my feet to ‘heal’ while I kept looking around.

I took the backpack off and looked inside to see if I could do anything to pass the time. But the only things that I found were the water bottles and the many bullets that I dumped into it. With nothing else to do, I laid the backpack behind me and used it as a pillow as I looked up into the sky. I saw the leaves of trees dance in the winds, and counted the many clouds that passed above me, seeing them take shapes of animals that my mind could conjure. I let questions run through my head as Iaid on the ground allowing the sun to tan my skin.

For example, ‘how would I live out here?’ A question that needs answering, how would I live out here? In a matter of a day I managed to injure my feet to the point where I can’t walk on them and managed to jump down a cavern and narrowly drown. My life inside of the forest might not be for me. How long would I last out there? There were so many killer animals there and it would only be a matter of time before I was underneath their claws. I don’t know how long I stayed there out on that river bank or how long I may have began thinking, but I do know that by the time I decided to take my feet out and bring my mind back to the real world, the sun had reached its peak in the sky.

I daintily pulled my feet out of the water feeling the wind cool my feet even further as it brushed up against the damp surface. I put both of my feet back back into their blankets of comfort before I shoved them back into their homes. Putting my shoes and socks back on was much more easier and much less painful than before, but the real challenge was to stand up. I carefully put my hands on the ground and pushed myself up as I tried to get back up on my feet. As I stood on both legs, I felt my feet sting as I tried to keep myself standing. So, as a sort of test I started to limp back to the cave, keeping my hands in front of me incase my feet decide to give up. The pain itself was much more bearable, but it still hurt to walk.

But as I was slowly scaling up the inclined slope, I couldn’t help but notice how I reacted to that animal. I should’ve been panicking at seeing such a foreign creature looking at me like food. I’m not certain if my mind had come to accept that I was in a different reality, or if my reasoning had just given up on me.

It disturbed me, frightened me even. But as I sat on the cold ground of that barren cave, I began to think of all the choices I’ve made thus far. Maybe shooting that pony wasn’t the smartest idea in the world, but what other choice did I have? She was strangling me with that rope, and I didn’t have any choice. Those ponies probably thought I was dangerous, nothing more than a vicious animal who just attacked on of their residents. Thinking back to earlier, I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t live out there in the forest with other animals would more than likely end up killing me, I needed to make amends with the ponies if I wanted any chance of living in this world. I didn't know what would happen or how they would happen if I saw them. They’d probably hate me and more than likely lynch me for hurting one of their own.

I saw two options stem from where I was, I could either stay in this forest and more than likely end up being killed and eaten, or I go to that insane world and live out the rest of my life with those ponies. I didn’t really have any other choice. With that in mind I stood back up and began to limp through the slums of the woods.

Chapter 6: No Need To Hide When There's Monsters Outside (Rewrite)

View Online

I walked through the vast forest, my aching feet pestering me about its pain as I continued to push them forward. I walked through the crowded trees and the muddy grounds, my clothes building up grime and crud as I walked past them. Though my journey through the thick waving trees went unperilous, my mind was still sporadic of all the many things that could have happened to me out there. From a simple trip to an animal attack my mind was never at rest. My body may have been calm but my mind was fearful of everything that stood out.

Now that I knew what type of things lived within that forest, I couldn’t help but get worried. The thick leaves that blocked out the sun did nothing more but cement the foreboding feeling that cradled itself in my chest.

The darkness constantly blinded my vision and caused me to fall too many times to count. So, if a beast were to attack me, I doubt I'd stand even a minut chance in the dark. But even though my vision was impaired and my path was obscured, I knew where to go. The question was 'How do I get there?’. The last time I was near a pony was when I was jumping off of a cliff, and I barely made it out of that. But I knew that my only chance at survival was to go back to that village. And so I kept walking. I walked up grassy hills and shimmed down rocky slopes, but I still didn’t feel any closer to that town.

As far as I knew, I could’ve been walking in circles for those few hours and I wouldn’t know the difference. But all of it, paid off in the end when I limpingly strode out of the thick outline of the forest and stepped onto a clear rocky land. The sun had set far into the horizon, but that was the least of my concerns.

I looked around and I could see a giant gap within the earth. The cliff that I was closest to was uneven and jagged while the cliff that was the farthest from me was pointed and narrow. The gap that split the crust of the earth had a raging river riding through it. I looked down into the great abyss, surprise happy and anger running through my mind. I was surprised that I managed to get back to the one spot that had closed me down that river. I was happy because that meant I wasn’t far away from that town, that I was closer to my salvation. I was angry because I knew that, no matter what I do, I’d never make that damn jump. I looked further down the river to see how far I had to go, but all I could see was a great winding path of the massive waters.

I then dropped down onto my knees and began to cuss out anyone and everything that had gotten me here. In that moment of nothing but pure anger, I wanted to find whoever dammed me on this fucking world and end their sorrowful life. But as I was swearing to the hands of fate, and cursed the gods above, I began to notice the sun eerily dripping beneath the horizon. Realization struck me when it became apparent that I was nowhere near any sort of shelter. It was in that moment that all of my anger and frustration and rage had turned into fear. Fear of not knowing who or what would be out at dark. I had spent one night out in the forest and was nearly eaten in my sleep. And with what I experienced with that lion thing just a few hours ago, I did NOT want be out in the middle of the night.

I no sooner got back onto my feet and began to pathetically run back into the wooden troughs of the forest. Not even ten seconds later, I tripped on some ridiculous object that wrapped itself around my foot. I tried kicking it off with my feet but it wouldn’t move. I looked down at my trapped leg and saw a green lantern holding me down to the ground. Its texture and shape screamed modern, but the rust and grime that was on it yelled age.

I pulled my foot out of its confined trap, and took the lantern in my hands. I turned it this way and that to make sure that it was in good enough condition before I turned the small nozzle that was attached to its side. The thing lit a small flame inside of its glass prison, allowing me to see through the darkness that was dusk. And like the lantern in front of me, a spark of hope had came from inside of me. I knew I couldn’t get back to that cave in time]l; it would be too dangerous to go at night and too exhausting to go back. I got up again and headed back to the empty cliff that I had plummeted from yesterday. I set the lantern on the ground before quickly going back into the forest.

By that point the sun had enveloped a dark purple hue, and was quickly turning into a forbidden black. I got back down onto my knees and began picking up prickling branches and thorn like sticks, cutting my hands slightly as I hurriedly grabbed wooden appendages. And after I had gathered as many sticks and branches as I could carry, I waddled back into the clearing and dropped them all on the floor. I grabbed a few straight branches and some dry sticks and set them in a teepee shape. I then grabbed the lamp and looked at its exterior for a way to get the oil out.

By that moment in time, the moon was slowly peaking over the horizon, ready to take its sister's place in the sky. The forest had darkened itself to a drastic degree, and was getting darker by the second. As I felt the seconds tick by slowly going away one by one, I couldn’t help but panic even further. So, in an act of desperation, I reached into my pocket and pulled out an orange handled pocket knife, and proceeded to pick at any hole that it could fit in.

I prodded and scratched at the bottom of the lantern, hoping I would find some small hole that I could rip open for oil. But as I was scratching the surface of the lantern, I heard the sounds of howling in the distance. I panicked even further and was about to slam it against the ground in a fit of frustration. But with a twist of my wrist the bottom of the lantern opened to reveal a small pool of oil within its metal confinements. I was lucky that I didn’t get any on me.

I was glad for a couple seconds but I was quickly knocked out of my stupor by the sounds of bushes rustling behind me. I pulled out my revolver and took aim behind me, waiting to blow off the head of anyone who’d dare come here. A few seconds later, a small bunny had popped its head through the bushes and ran away as it saw me. I ignored the small animal and decided to go back to working on my plan. I grabbed the bottom of the lantern that was filled with oil with care and elegancy before I dumped some of its contents onto the teepee of sticks that I had made.

I then grabbed a couple rocks and started to bang them against each other. They clashed and clattered, but no matter how many times I tried getting a spark, I would be met with either sore fingers or small pebbles. The sky had almost completely blackened as the only source of light left was diminishing further beneath the crest of the earth.

I had nearly given up when I decided to grab my hatchet and hit it against the now broken rock. The next thing I knew, a large fire had enveloped the entirety of my vision. I jumped back from the scalding flames, and watched them dance in front of me. I jumped into the sky with joy only to fall on my back as my feet collapsed onto the ground. And even though my back was aching with pain, I could do nothing but smile at the flames that had given light in my dark situation.

There I sat on the cliff huddling against the now low flames as I tried to stay warm. I would slowly breathe in and out, watching as the fog from my breath would slowly dissipate in the air. My body shaking and shivering as it tried to form heat. Snot running down my nose as my body trembled.

I wasn’t able to sleep; every time I tried I would involuntarily shake as the cold air would brush my skin. I knew that the forest would be colder than that cave was, but I did not expect it to be as cold as it was. It reminded me of those days that I spent walking in that cold dessert. The only difference is that I didn’t question my sanity back then. I have no idea why it was so cold right then and there. Maybe it was because of the river, or maybe it was because that forest was just so damn strange. Hell, this whole world was strange. From the trees to the dirt, everything felt so damn strange. Maybe even the weather could flip on a dime.

I wasn’t huddling over a fire with my feet pulsating in pain. I wasn’t confusing reality with imagination. I wasn’t questioning if I should make amends with ponies. The last time I felt normal was when I was about to catch hypothermia or get frostbite. Now look at me, I’m inside of a cave right now hiding away from-... No, we’ll get to that later.

My mind was brought out of its mental conflict by a heavy growl coming behind the flames I took refuge behind. My cold, shaking right hand reached for my revolver as I scanned the lining around me. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary but the growling, the bushes remained the same as the trees still stood, but as I raised my gun, I could only hear more growls and the sounds of thudding paws getting closer to me.

I grabbed a couple of sticks and put them in the fire to help me see, but instead I got another reaction out of it. I heard a much more vicious snarl follow by some pathetic whimpers, their growling and the viciousness of their yaps stopped instantly. That’s what got me curious, what made me want to know what they were doing. I grabbed a rather large, thick branch that hasn’t been lit yet and put the tip of it in the small fire.

As soon as the tip of it was alight with fire, I pushed myself off the cold ground and proceeded to walk closer to the sound I heard the growling coming from. I heard more terrible whimpers as I got closer to them, their coos and cries only growing louder and louder as I got closer. I held my revolver at a raised position, and kept the torch down on my side as I was slowly edging closer to the outlining of the pitch black forest. As soon as I was close enough to the small lining of the trees, as soon as I was close enough to feel their fear crawl on my skin, I pulled the small ball of fire up and stared in awe.

I saw pure yellow pupil-less eyes peering at me with hate and intent. With what little I could see, I saw that its body was covered in bulks of wood, from its teeth to its tail. The small bit of green that aligned itself around the creature. I could hardly see it with the small bit of light that I had, but there it was, standing defensively and ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

As I continued to stare at the wooden abomination in front of me, more small, pupil-less eyes began popping out of the darkness, one after another all with the same sickening yellow color. I drew the torch closer to myself and slowly walked backwards towards my camp, never turning my back on them. Once I was back at my ‘safe haven’, I dropped the torch on the burning pile of wood, and proceeded to sit back down on the ground with a slack jaw.

I had just seen an animal, as far as I know, made entirely of wood. How? I still ask myself to this day. Nature is a mysterious thing. Able to evolve apes into humans, and able to make a fish breath underwater. But never in my life would I think nature would transform wood into an agent of chaos.

My mind rambled to itself over and over again, trying to figure out how such wooden things are able to exist, but it was for not. A sudden scream of terror and help rang from behind me and had pulled me from my wavering mind, and I could do nothing but stare into the distance of where it came from. It was on the other side of the cliff too distorted and low to identify it as anything. So I simply looked on in its direction, and waited for the sound to die out.

As soon as it did end, I huddled back closer to my fire and hoped that I would make it till morning.

Chapter 7: Around Corners (Rewrite)

View Online

There I sat in caution and worry as I watched the lining of the dark forest for anything that moved out of place. There I sat in wonder and mystery as the world around me ticked away the minutes. There I sat with my eyes heavy and stature falling as I waited for dawn to strike the horizon. My mind had not gotten rest and my body not a single wink of sleep. I was hazy that first morning, not really paying any attention to my surrounds as I looked forward. That large pack of wooden wolves had long since abandoned me and were of to find another poor soul to torture. Though, that still didn’t ease my tension, I still felt like something was out there waiting for me and watching my every move.

And even as the sun slowly rose over the summit of the earth, all I could do was stare emptily into it. I felt its cold rays of light bend over and around my body, as if I didn’t exist. The calming sight sent shivers down my spin as I looked at them, I felt a crippling chill run across my body, further unsettling me. I, in my weakened state and mind, started to push myself off of the cold rock and stood up. Only for my left leg to buckle underneath itself as I screamed in pain. I looked down my leg to see what was causing me so much pain, but it looked completely fine.

I thought for one second what was wrong before I remembered the condition of my feet, and with panic beginning to take over my mind again, I started to take off my shoe. And low and behold, my foot was covered in bloodied blisters. I put my footwear back on and felt my foot give out a cry of agony. It was painful, more painful than before, but I had to tough through it. I took off my shoe and sock on my right foot but it looked like it was it was completely fine, as if nothing had happened. I put my shoe and sock back on and tried desperately to ignore the pain on my left After my little incident with my feet, I pushed myself back up and tried so desperately to walk forward only to fall back down on my side.

I kept pushing myself back up for the hope that I would be able to walk through the foliage of the forest, but I kept falling right back on my face with every attempt. And after attempt after attempt of trying to stand and walk forward, I soon stopped trying to and began to look around me to see how I could get off the edge. But I was soon distracted with the sound of sticks and brush breaking. I heard the colossal steps of crunching wood slowly making its way towards me.

I looked up at the forest that was in front of me, and stared in horror as I saw the wooden anomalies from last night marching their way out of their green fortress. I saw three of them take heap outside of the green stronghold, and looked at them as they slowly pulled themselves to me. I weighed my options here.

Option one: Accept it. I had a good run, maybe I should just accept that I wouldn’t be able to make it out here. That I’m going to die at that moment and let them tear me into tiny pieces. I would never make it out of this forest and my body would be forgotten as the sands of time would wilt my bones as my carcass sat here.

Option two: Jump into the river. I could jump back into the river below, like I did the other day and narrowly avoid death. But I barely made it down the river without splitting my head open, who knows if I could’ve done it again. And even then, I got lucky the first time with that log, I doubt another piece would save me this time. I’d more than likely drown if I attempted to go back into the waters again.

Option three: Fight back. Pull out your guns and make the shots count. If I could manage to kill one of them, I could manage a fighting chance. Even then, at least I’d kill one of them, that’s one less wolf for some other poor soul to deal with.

And seeing as I’m writing this, it’s obvious I picked the third option.

As the cretans slowly stalked their way towards me, their massive wooden claws chipping the rock beneath them, I saw their maws of raw wood start to salivate at the sight of me, spewing a putrid looking green liquid. I slowly pulled out my revolver as slowly and with as much care as I possibly could and took aim at the one in the middle.

The one I had took aim at, the leader I assume, stopped and looked at me for a second, a look of curiosity and wanting sparking up from its face, before it continued lurking towards me. My hands were still shaking as I aimed at them never stopping as I tried my best to stand still, either from exhaustion or adrenaline I do not know. I took a heavy breath to try and calm down my shaking body. After a few more deep calming breaths, my arms stopped shaking so much and my hands stopped wobbling. So, with my body calmed and my life in the balance I could only take one immediate action. I steadied my aim to the best of my ability, pulled back the hammer, and held my breath as I shot the middle one in the head. The reaction was near instantaneous. Its body fell onto the floor and scattered into a million wooden pieces as its allies whimpered. Splinters from the point of impact shooting everywhere as the bullet had pushed itself deep into the wolf's head.

I then re-aimed my gun to the next closest predator and tried to kill it the same way. Tried being the word. The bullet had narrowly missed it by a mere few inches and flew off into the forest. The wolf in that moment realized what was happening and knocked itself out of its daze before it began to run at me with full force. So, in a blind attempt, I shot at it again and managed to scrape a piece of its leg. Its leg bent in a heinous way as it tried to stop itself from moving forward. But in its attempts at stopping, it managed to fall right past me and into the abyss of the canyon. I need not guess what happened to it as I heard the sickening sound of wood cracking beneath me. The third one had gotten too close for comfort and was almost in biting distance. I aimed my revolver in its general direction and shot at it twice in hopes that I would kill it. I was wrong.

While I did manage to scrape a bit of its shoulder, all it seemed to do was piss it off even more. I dropped the then empty revolver and more or less swung my rifle around me and took aim at the wolf. At that point it couldn’t have been a few feet away. I’m lucky I survived. I aimed at its gaping maw that was ready to rip my neck out, and pulled the trigger. Its body scattered into a thousand wooden pieces as I covered my head from any collateral damage. After waiting for the wooden rain to stop pouring down on me, I put my head back up and stared at the forest again. I pulled back the bolt of the sniper rifle, ejecting the empty round as a new one took its place, and aimed it back at the forest. I’m not sure if there were more of those wolves or not, but I did not want to take any chances. But as the minutes ticked by and as the rustling of leaves had soon stopped rustling, I brought my rifle back down to me and took one final look around me.

As soon as I was done scouting out the forest, I no sooner looked down at the ground and picked my revolver. I pulled my backpack off and began to pull out the amount of ammo I need, keeping a vigilant eye on the forest for anything suspicious. Slowly, I pulled out the cylinder, pressed the ejector, and watched all the empty rounds fall out of the revolver. I slowly began to reload the revolver, putting in one bullet at a time, while I still watched the forest for anything. I soon snapped the cylinder back into its rightful place and put it into my holster as I continued to simply stare at the forest. I soon zipped up the backpack, lugged it back over my shoulders, and began looking for anyway to drag myself away from the cliff.

I tried to grab the long vines that hung above my head, I tried to crawl forward and away from the edge, I even grabbed onto the small miniscule bit of dirt that was stuck to the ground. But alas, I was stranded on the small island I had. That was before I realized that I had thousands of wooden branches around me. I grabbed the biggest, bulkiest branch that was closest to me and pushed myself up, used it as a cane of sorts. I had nearly fallen back down onto the ground from the pain that struck me, but I managed to stay standing. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, the prickles of the wood burying themselves deep into my palm, but with my options limited as they were, it was the only choice I had.

So, with little left to do, I started to take head into the forest, with my revolver out for extra protection. Maybe I should have stayed on that rock. I would have starved to death, or maybe a wild animal would eat me, but I would have taken it over the events that would transpire long after.

After an hour or two of ‘walking’, sweat was pouring down my face. My shirt had since turned from grimy beige to a drenched black. My head was spinning, and my body was limping as I continued to walk further into the graveyard. The weather had done a complete one-eighty from last night. It was near freezing cold, and now it was exhaustingly hot. I could hardly stand the sheer heat that blasted my body and would almost pass out from it.

My sore hand was covered in splinters from the walking stick, my shoulder had begun aching with pain as I walked forward, my arm remained stiff and tensed as it pointed my revolver ahead of me, and my feet were faltering as I continued to walk forward. The sweat of my brow kept dripping into my eyes, causing my vision to blur and turn hazy. My body was exhausted from a night of restlessness and I was shaking from pure, unadulterated, fear as I continued to walk further into the forest.

Maybe it was my mind growing tiresome, or maybe I'm just an idiot, but as I walked forward I couldn’t help but hear feet pitter and patter against the ground as I continued to walk forward. I simply ignored it and continued walking even as I continued hearing it follow me. And not five minutes later, after walking tirelessly through the green hellhole, I felt a sharp prick pierce my back. I soon stopped in my tracks entirely and dropped my revolver on the ground. I let my then free hand begin to scour my back. Soon, after finding a small abnormality, I pulled out whatever had stuck to me and brought it up to me. In my hand, between my fingers, lay a small dart that had an even smaller bit of blood on its tip. As soon as I saw the blood, I began to panic and worry as to what I had been drugged with. Almost in that instant, I began to calm down immensely.

I felt the sweet caress of the winds wrap itself around my body, almost in a protective manner. I felt my mind become hazy and mellow as my eyelids began to close on their own. I looked upon the brown bark of the trees and watched the thick base of the tree bend and swerve with the blowing winds. The feeling, however,... the feeling is indescribable. It felt like my body was melting and was floating in the air. I guess that’s why I ‘passed out’ the second right afterwards. I’m not certain if passed out is the right term for it, but it’s the only word I could come up with since if felt as though I was about to fall asleep.

“Remin’ me not ta piss ya off,” I heard a man with a southern drawl say as I heard footsteps get closer to me. I then heard a hum of acknowledgement as I felt something roughly grab my cloths and lift me onto something. I couldn't tell what grabbed me, my body was numbing from the foreign entity that was inside of it. And I couldn’t see what was grabbing me for my sight had turned too distorted to recognize anything. “Gah, ‘ow long ya been sweatin’?” I heard the southerner say.

“Ya know wha this reminds me of? Reminds me of this time where my buddy and me went out huntin’. And let me tell ya’ it mussa been a hundred outside ‘cause after a minute of walking through mud ‘n shit, we’s was sweatin’ up buckets of sweat before we finally found this big ol’ proud buck munching on grass. And as we’s was about to-”

“Can this wait?” I heard a woman say in an irritated voice.

“Alright, no need ta get all huffy ‘n puffy about it,” the southern man replied before I felt them lift me up with whatever they were carrying me. And while all of this was happening, I could only listen to my environment as my body refused to function properly. Not another word was exchanged between them as they carried me for miles on end.

But the rocking of the hammock and the gentleness of the wind had soon lulled me to sleep, like baby in a crib.

I looked over the small hills in the ground at my house. I was outside with a small short plastic shovel in my small short arms. I couldn’t have been no more than five digging up dirt and mixing it with water that was inside of my blue, plastic bucket. I planted the bucket down on the soft, warm, summer grass and pulled it up.

After lifting the small bucket with a great amount of effort, I saw a giant castle of mud emerge from inside. Not a small sand castle that would be about the same size of the bucket, but a full on castle. Bigger than that Disney castle and far more extravagant than it could ever hope to become. Being the age that I was, I was absolutely giddy at my accomplishment. That was until I felt the ground underneath me shake.

The earth seemed to shake more and more as I looked around confused and scared. I felt the vibrations of rocks being smashed into the ground, and heard the sounds of the earth cracking under pressure. It wasn’t until I looked up to see a thousand foot man looming over me with an annoyed gazed.

Merly moments after staring at each other, I felt him breath in a massive amount of air into his gigantic body. I felt the air around me being drained into his mouth as I looked up in fear.

But after a minute of his massive jaw taking in the air around me, I saw his body rippling with the amount of oxygen in him. He suddenly snapped his eyes at me and proceeded to scream out every single atom of air at me.

I felt my body being forced onto the ground and felt the castle that I proudly built being destroyed around me. I tried to stand up, but every time I did, I felt his alcoholic breath shove me back down onto the ground.

All I could do was endure the tournament as the thousand foot man continued to howl his angers of virtue unto me.

But even though I was pushed and punished, I managed to peek my eyes open and saw the strangest of sight in the sky. Up through the brightened sky I could see the stars in the form of a horse's head.

Its giant head moved this way and that in a curious state as it observed the scene before it. But just as it was about to descend upon me, I was blown away into the black matter of my mind. It wasn’t until my eyes started burning that I finally woke up from that nightmare.

It was a simple pain of light shining in my eyes that woke me up. It shined this way and that, turning off and on, the way a doctor would look over their patient.

“Seems alright so far,” I heard a man of intellect say as my eye was blinded.

“No trauma, bones are in place, we’ll have to take care of that foot though. Some bruising around the upper torso, but that’ll heal on its own. However, from a physical standpoint, everything else is completely fine. We’ll have to wait and see if he’s sick with anything and hope he can recover,” He said as I felt my eyelid clamp shut. I heard him move around my body, and felt my arm expertly being grabbed and pulled towards him. A moment later I felt my arm being swabbed with some sort of wet cloth as he continued to talk to himself.

“I’m not certain if the foot is salvageable. If it is however, he’ll have to remain confined to a bed for a least a week or so, depending on how fast it heals,” After another bout of talking, I felt a cold piece of metal split my skin apart.

“We’ll have to make sure that it is dry and warm, and wet it on occasion. And if the foot isn’t savable, we’ll have to amputate it to prevent it from rotting and giving the patient necrosis-”

“Ya’ done talkin’ ta yerself?” I heard the same man with the same southern drawl from before say as I heard a door close behind him. Except something was different. This time instead of sounding happy, like he was when I was drugged, he sounded distasteful and spiteful of talking to the man that was tending to me.

“I’ve told you many times before that it helps me focusing, not because I’m ‘loosin’ mah mind’,” The man replied mocking the southerners voice with the same amount of bitterness and coldness as he removed the needle from my arm.

“Fine, but ya still ‘ave ta look at Grunk, he ain’t lookin’ too good.”

“Of course,” He said in a degenerated tone as I heard him walk out of the room. As soon as I heard the doctor close the door behind them, I tried to move my arms but it felt like I was trying to move a mountain. I tried to open my eyes to see what was wrong, but they were sealed shut and refused to open. Then I heard the door open and ceased all my attempts at motion and listened in as much as I could.

“Almost forgot,” I heard the same man of intellectual understanding say before I felt him plant another needle into my vein. And after a few seconds of waiting to see what would happen, I felt my body relax to a staggering degree and felt my subconscious take reign over me.

I walked past the lonesome gray lockers that lined the white walls as I pulled a heavy backpack behind me. I wondered the great halls as I continued to walk past crowds of other kids my age. I no sooner found myself at an imperious door made of solid wood and pushed it open to see that a teacher was sitting at his desk looking over papers. His classroom consisted of large black tables with strong steel legs, a poster of the periodic table, and quotes from well-known scientists on the wall.

I slowly walked in and let the door slam behind me as I walked up towards the man behind the desk. He looked up from his work and looked me in the eyes as I got closer to him, a small bit of surprise popping up in his eyes.

“James?” He said in a disconcerted tone with a gruffness in his voice that did nothing more but signify his age.

“Never expected to see you come in after school. What do you need?” He said. I pulled my backpack off of me and pulled out a binder that I assigned for this class. And after scouring through many papers that I had tossed inside of it, I pulled out a test paper that I had gotten that day prior and gave it to him.

“I was wondering… if I could retake the test,” I said in a quiet tone as my eyes wandered to the ground. I felt his gaze meet my head and heard him speak to me again.

“James, I don’t do retakes,” I looked up from ground and stared into his strict blue eyes.

“... Is there... anything else... that I can do?”

“James, all I can tell you to do is study, do your homework, and take notes. Other than that, there’s not much you can do,” I felt degraded, but I knew he was going to say something along those lines.

“Can I come in some days and get help?” I said with the same quiet tone that I had used before.

“Yes, you can come in after school, but I’m gone at four,” He said as a small smile curled its way onto his face. “But you’ll have to work hard to bring your grade up; a ‘D’ may be passing by school standards but not by mine. Now, sit down, feel free to ask me a couple of questions,” He said as he handed me back my paper. I sat down soon after and was about to ask him a question about the test, but soon felt like something was staring at me.

“How… interesting,” I heard the tone of a cold and demanding voice say behind me. I turned around immediately and saw a horse with dark blue fur and a flowing aquamarine mane. It wore shoes made of silver, and a necklace and Tiara made from some black material. Upon its back I could see a long, elegant set of wings, the same color as her fur, and a horn atop of its head standing strong and imposing But even though I knew what it was, I could only stare in utter disbelief at what stood before me.

“Very interesting...”

My eyes suddenly snapped open and my heart was thumping in my chest. In my scared state and static mind, I looked this way and that to see where I was and was surprised to see that I was in a half built wooden shack. The walls were made from simple logs, only thing holding them together was string that weaved around each and every log and the ground of dirt that it used as support. The wooden logs were old and its bark was starting to peel off, giving it that rustic look to the whole shack overall.

Soon, after observing the small, old wooden fort, I looked down at myself to see if I had been seriously injured or not. The only notable thing was that I was wearing a red shirt instead of my beige and that a blanket was covering everything from my chest down, concealing anything that was below it.

I tried to move my arms to see what had happened to the rest of my body, but I felt something keep my arms in place. I looked at my hands to see that I had been handcuffed to the ‘bed’ that I laid on. The bed was really just a large piece a cloth that had been tightly knitted into the wooden bars that formed a frame for a mattress. It was uncomfortable, sweaty, and reeked with the smell of sweat. I took one last look at the handcuffs and I knew that no matter how much I struggled, or how much I tried, I would never be able to break free from my metal bonds so easily.

So after a few minutes of doing absolutely nothing, I heard the ‘door’ creak open and looked up to see who my captor was. But instead of being angry and spiteful, I was in complete shock at the being who entered my small prison.

There standing on two legs was a man who wore a dirty white lab coat that clashed with his dark skin, and a pair of bulky dark rimmed glasses. He was looking down at a notebook that was in his hands and mumbled to himself. All I could do was stare at his brown eyes and bald head. At seeing the first human in a week, I could do nothing more than just stare at him. Watch him move as I felt the loneliness and despair leave my system. The feeling of hope filling me up as I looked at him. A small shiver of shock tingling its way up my spine. I can’t describe how much relief and shock came to me in that second of awe.

About a minute later, he finally looked up from his notebook and looked at me with surprise on his face.

“Huh, didn’t expect to see you awake,” He said with intellectual interest.

Chapter 8: Some Things Were Meant To Be Forgotten (Rewrite)

View Online

“In fact, how are you up right now?” The man said as he took a step closer to me.

“I gave you restoril, it should have kept you under for a day,” he said as he began to take out his small flashlight. And even though my eyes were flooded with light, and I could not see his dark face, all I could do was stare blankly at the man before me. What could I say? I was too shocked at seeing another human in this world for words to form.

“Who-?” I said before I was cut off.

“So, I am going to assume you know the locals. Just looking at the burn around your neck is a pretty good indication that it didn’t go well,” He said after taking the light away from my eye and mumbling into his hands. His eyes didn’t leave me, his mouth never wavered, his voice held. And I couldn’t stop staring at him for those few seconds. But after he was done talking to himself, he looked at me expectantly, waiting for an answer to his earlier question. I couldn’t answer him. No matter how much I wanted to break free from my stupor and scream in joy, I simply couldn’t. After everything that I’ve been through those last few days, I thought I was the last human alive.

And yet there stood a man in front of me looking at me confusingly as I had done nothing but stare at him for an entire minute.

“Uh, s-sir?” He said with a slight stutter as he began to look a little uneasy.

“Who are you?” I finally managed to whisper out of my mouth, still holding the same amount of surprise that I had before.

“Uhm… I’m Derham, I’ve been taking care of you recently,” Even though he answered my question, I just found myself wondering more. But even though I was thoroughly surprised at his mere existence, and my mind brewing with millions of questions,it only made sense to ask the most basic questions first.

“Where are we?” I asked him suddenly.

“Well, sir, we are at the safest place we can possibly be out in this forest, especially with those unsavory animals out there,” He said with a slight shudder as if he had experience with them. But as I was about to ask more questions, he seemed to have a few for me.

“Now, sir, if you would be kind enough to tell me your name,” He said as he pulled out a piece of charcoal from his pocket and pressed it against a page in his notebook, waiting for my response. But as I was about to answer his arbitrary question, I remembered that I had been shackled to the bed, and that didn’t exactly sit well with me.

“As soon as you tell me why I’m in cuffs,” I said with a slight bitterness in my voice. I didn’t care if he was mending to my wounds or for how long he was taking care of me, I didn’t want to be stuck in one spot and become some sort of guinea pig for him to experiment on.

But just as he was about to open his mouth and answer me, the ‘door’ swung open and a white man with a black Texan hat, dirty brown vest with a blue dress shirt, and dark blue pants strode his way into the room. His graying dirty blonde hair was short, unkempt and extremely curled, strands and pieces of it were wrapped around each other. His face was wrinkled and was mostly covered by a small beard he had, and his eyes were the bluest pair of eyes that I had ever seen.

But even though I was somewhat surprised at seeing another human, I was more surprised that he seemed to notice me instantly.

“Huh, look who’s up an’ about,” His southern accent making itself apparent as he spoke to me. But he soon turned his attention to the other man in the room and waved him over. Durham looked hesitant at first but slowly walked his skinny legs over to the southern man.

They didn’t utter a single other word until they were outside of the room and out of my range of hearing. And while they talked outside, I could do nothing more than observe my surroundings more thoroughly. I could tell it was day at that moment because of the small rays of light that skewered through the walls, and that they had a small supply of candles since I saw a small bit of dried up wax on a ‘table’ at my right. The table was just another log, like the rest of this shack.

But other than that, there really wasn’t much else to talk about. The room was completely barren of anything other than that table and the bed I rested on. But after a minute of sitting and letting my mind wander, the door sprung open with Durham coming in and the southerner walking in behind him. And after they surrounded me on both sides of the bed, there were a couple seconds of tense silence before I opened my mouth.

“Why am I-?”

“Yer in cuffs right now ‘cause we can’t trust ya,” The southern man said with a face of indifference.

“You can’t trust me?”

“Son, we jus’ found ya not a day ago. We don’ even know if yer dangerous or not. And out in dis ‘er forest, is better safe than sorry,” He said as he face slowly morphed into that of a stern gaze as he continued to talk to me.

“Now, son, ya min’ tellin’ us who ya are?” I’m not sure if it was just a gut feeling or me being paranoid, but I felt like I couldn’t trust him. He looked like the type of guy that would take advantage of you when he got the chance. But I was surrounded and cuffed to a bed so I really didn’t have any other choice in the matter.

“... James… my name is James,” I said softly as the southerner stared me down.

“That wasn’ hard now was it, James?” He said, rolling my name in his tongue as he looked at me. His tone was spiteful, and his face held a sneer smile. And even though I wanted to punch him in that moment, I simply stared at him. If only I knew then what would have happened months afterwards.

“Howard, I think we should move on,” Durham said on the sidelines as ‘Howard’ kept staring at me with his blue eyes.

“Right, now I'mma ask ya a couple questions, James, so try ta be truthful-”

“Where are we?” I said as I interrupted him. He looked a little peeved at being cut off, but answered my question anyway. Durham looked at me a little bit confused and proceeded to tell me where we were, again.

“James, I already told you, we’re in the forest.”

“I know, but I mean… where are we,” I exclaimed with my bound hands. Howard looked at me funny, but Durham was pretty quick to the draw.

“... Now that’s a little tougher to explain,” Durham said as he folded his arms. He looked down at the ground and didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. And then, suddenly, he looked up and told me everything that he possibly could.

“You see, James, we don’t exactly know where we are. We know that we’re not on Earth, and that we aren’t exactly in the most stable of environments, but we don’t know what this planet is called or even what this country is called, if it is a country. As far as we know, this place is only populated by ponies. We don’t even know if there are any other species of talking animals,” I had to sit on that for a while. We’re not on Earth anymore. I knew we had to be somewhere foreign, But on a different planet? I thought about it before, but I still found it unbelievable.

“How? How are we on a different planet? How does that make any sense?” I said as I looked at Durham with pleading eyes. And so he opened his mouth and told me the truth.

“It’s the only thing that comes close to making sense.”

“That’s not tha point! Tha point is, is that we ‘ave another one ‘ere, an’ that he ‘asn’t answered mah questions,” Howard said, disrupting our conversation and directing my attention towards him.

“Now, James, ya min’ tellin’ us where’d ya get that lantern?”

“What?” I was more confused really. Out of all the things he could have asked me, he asks me about a simple lantern that I had brought along with me.

“Answer me, boy,” The pure anger in his voice was beginning to show in his face and the fear in his eyes couldn’t have been more prudent. He didn’t really seem to care for my confusion in the slightest, and I felt like he was about to rip my head off if I didn’t answer him, so I told him the honest truth.

“I found it last night. I was running and the handle caught my leg. I thought it was in good condition so I took it with me,” He didn’t seem happy in the slightest with the answer; in fact, he seemed to get even more angry. He turned away from me for a couple of seconds, but quickly turned back around to asking me questions

“Why’d ya ‘ave so many bullets in dat bag of yers?” He said with a suspicious tone, and a scolding look.

“I have so many because I-… I was moving before I came to this world,” It was a half-truth; I was moving when I was thrown into this world.

“Ya jus’ ‘ave so many bullets on han’?”

“It was grandpa's, he gave me the guns and the bullets when he died,” It took a little bit longer to make that impromptu lie and he noticed as he eyed me suspiciously. But he let it go and asked me another question.

“What’d ya do 'fore comin’ 'ere?”

“He means your job,” Durham whispered to me.

“I was an NYPD detective, part of the homicide division, and was second best of my class in the academy,” I said with a small bit of pride swelling in my chest at stating the fact. Howard made a side glance at Durham before looking back down at me and asking me another question.

“Did ya eva’ kill?” He looked at me with the same stern look that he had plastered on his face throughout the interrogation. I looked at Howard's eyes for a little bit and was about to respond when I realized what he asked me. But instead of being offended or surprised I didn’t say anything. I looked away from Howard and stared into the brown walls of the hut. Howard waited for about a minute before he realized that I wasn’t going to tell him anything.

“Ah’ll take that as a yes,” Afterwards, we didn’t say anything for a while. I don’t know if he wanted me to say something, or if he was thinking about more questions. But after listening to the nothing, he asked me another question.

“What happen’ to yer wife, chil’?” He said as I felt him flick something onto me. I slowly looked down to see the photo of Kathleen and Timmy, both smiling as I was taking a picture of them. It was photo that I had put in my wallet as some sort of reminder of my duty to my family. I’m surprised I forgot about it, maybe I just wanted to forget them altogether. But even though the photo was taunting me of a happier time, a simpler time, I simply ignored it and continued to stare at the wall in front of me.

“...Ah think we’re done ‘ere,” Howard said as I felt him slap the wallet down on the bed, and heard him shuffle his way towards the door. But not before Durham gave him his two cents.

“Can we at least take the cuffs off? I don’t think he’s that dangerous-”

“Ah’ll take ‘em off when ah think he’s not a danger,” Howard said in a more spiteful tone as he walked out of the room giving me one final glance. A few moments after the unpleasant experience, I felt Durham glance down at me with his pastel brown eyes.

“Don’t mind him, James, he’s not always like this. He’ll warm up to you eventually, you’ll see,” I didn’t respond to him, I didn’t really want to talk to anyone at that moment.

“So, James, if you don't mind me asking, how does your foot feel?”

“...Fine,” I could hardly hear myself in the small voice that had slithered out of my mouth.

“Alright, I’ll come back here in a couple of minutes and rinse it. Shout if you need anything,” He walked towards the door, opened it, and promptly closed it behind him. As I layed in bed, I thought back on the things that I did and all the things that could have been. From the time I started walking to where I am now. From all the wrongs to all the rights. All the things I should have done and all the things I shouldn’t have even thought of doing. I couldn’t help but think of how my life could have led me to where I was.

From that pothead of a friend I had, to the times where I held a baby in my arms. I couldn’t help but think of how all my decisions in life lead up to that moment where I was handcuffed to a bed in a world dominated by ponies.

And through my wonderings, the photo of my wife and child fell into my left hand. I broke my stare from the wall and looked down at the photo. I stared and stared at it just hoping that I was going to wake up next to my beautiful wife and my child. That this was all just some terrible dream and that I would find them waiting for me on the other side. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. That it would never happen.

And so, I slowly crumpled the photo in my hand.

Chapter 9: Gun To The Head (Rewrite)

View Online

I dropped the photo on the ground and was immobile for a while, simply thinking and staring ahead of me as I tried to piece everything together. But Durham came in a couple minutes later, picked up the photo and the wallet that was on me and placed them on table with wax. But I didn’t care, I just wanted to be left alone. And alone I was. I would try passing the time by constantly falling back asleep since I was bored out of my mind. Thankfully, I didn’t have any dreams for the next couple of days, I didn’t want to dream about some other stupid thing in my mind.

The times where I got hungry or thirsty, Durham would come in with either a bowl of berries or a canister of water. He would feed me like I was a toddler since I was still restrained to the bed, it’s a shame that the berries either tasted like shit or tasted rotten. I’m not sure what it was, but the aftertaste it left in my mouth made me want to puke every time I bit into one of them. I asked Durham why they tasted so terrible and he told me that they were picked right out of the forest’s bushes. He said he couldn’t exactly find anything else to eat since they were very slim on supplies, so I just manned up and ate them.

Durham would come in every ten minutes or so to wash my foot and try to start some small talk. It was mostly a one sided conversation for I wouldn’t say much in response. Although that didn’t seem to stop him from talking to me. In one of the many ‘conversations’ we had, he told me he was studying medicine in Oxford, and that he was interning at a hospital when he came here. I asked him if he saw anything or anyone near him, but he said he dozed off while he was in drug storage.

When he woke up, he was in a dessert with a number of vials and syringes scattered around him, walked aimlessly until he found Howard and his group . I thought it was pretty weird that he didn’t wake up when he was being taken here, but I was in a weirder position when I came here so I can’t say much.

However, sometimes when he was in the room with me, I would notice that his breathing was ragged and that he was sweating profusely. I didn’t think it was that weird at first, it was pretty hot out in the forest. But the thing that got me suspicious about Durham, was how he would sometimes just leave in the middle of a conversation. And then he would come back three or four minutes later either being completely calm or overly happy.

It only happened a few times, but it happened. At first, I thought he had to check up on ‘Grunk’, or that he simply forgot something important and was relieved that he remembered. God, I was ignorant back then. During times like that, I would ask him what he was doing but he would turn it around, ask me how many people I’ve arrested or how many times I got in a shootout, something that I did with my job. But I kept my mouth shut when he asked those types of questions. Which in turn left my brain wondering even more what he was hiding.

But at least he would talk to me. Howard, on the other hand, wouldn’t give me the time of day. He’d give me a slight glance here and there, but other than that we really didn’t have any other social interactions with one another. This type of social behavior between me and him would go on for many days.

And after a few days passed, my hands were beginning to feel numb, and I couldn’t do anything about it except sit there and wait for Howard to come in and unlock the cuffs. You know I’m not certain if it’s true or not, but I think Howard was suspicious of me. I could be wrong, but the way he always looked at me didn’t help. It’s probably one of the reasons why he kept me in cuffs for so long in the first place.

But eventually after sitting in the same spot and counting the lines on the wall for the hundredth time, Howard came in and looked me over. He didn’t say anything for a minute or so, and I didn’t say anything back, we just kept staring at each other. And suddenly he pulled out a key from his back pocket and dangled them over my head.

“Ah know ya wan’ outta ‘dem cuffs. An’ ah know yer hatin’ mah guts righ’ ‘bout now, almos’ as much as ah hate yers,” He said, his face twitching as he looked at me. “But Durham trusts ya.”

After muttering that last sentence, he unlocked the cuffs on my hands and legs, taking them off and putting them in his pockets. But before I could thank him for his ‘king, generous’ action, I felt him push me into the bed with the force of a gorilla, and hold a knife to my neck. It wasn’t any regular knife either, it was military grade, from what I can tell. It’s handle was painted to look like desert camo, and the blade was sharper than a razor as it was pressed up against the hairs on my neck.

“Yer lucky Durham convince’ me tah unhook ya, but if’n ya try anythang or hurt anybody ‘ere, I will put you down mah self, ya understan’?” I slowly nodded my head, my eyes being fixated on the knife that was about to slit my throat. He slowly got off of me and walked out of the room, dragging his feet behind him. When he left, my hand slowly went to my chest in an attempt to calm down my increased heart rate. Once I was calmed down enough, I started twisting my body this way and that in order to undo knots that had built up while I was stuck to one spot.

But as I was moving my body around, I couldn’t help but think why Howard unhooked me. He didn’t listen to Durham before, so I didn’t understand why he would do it then. I thought he might have grown a heart, or maybe he felt sorry for me somehow, but it never really added up. But hell, I didn’t care; I could finally move more than a few inches.

After a minute of enjoying my freedom, I began to get off of the bed that I was trapped on for days on end. My feet met the cold dirty ground and relished in the feeling of anything that wasn’t cloth. And I ever so gently pushed myself from the bed and tried my best to keep myself steady. Now that I think about it, I wasn't in the best physical state, and probably shouldn’t have been walking to begin with, but being locked to a bed for a couple of days made me restless.
Being on my feet again felt good, but I could still feel my foot in pain. It wasn’t anything excruciating, thankfully. Hardly noticeable in fact; it was like a small bruise you didn’t notice until you hit by accident.

So with my new found freedom, I slowly made my way towards the door. I reached for the handle out of muscle memory only to remember that there was no handle. So I simply pushed the door open. Outside, I could see an open field with a bit of dead grass peppered throughout its landscape. In the middle of the small confined area, I could see the ashes of a once lit fire surrounded by a few big rocks. Near me, and lining the outer rim of the forest, I saw a few trunks of trees still in the ground, molested by green mold and decay. The forest sat behind it, foreboding and freighting as it always has been.

I looked deep into its green mass thinking and pondering to myself. To be honest, I thought about running back out into the wild, just making a run for it and hope for the best, but doing something like that would be suicide. I barely survived my encounter with those wolves and I would more than likely become sick with something else. And if I was unlucky, I would more than likely suffer an extremely painful death alone and afraid. But now isn’t the time to speculate the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘could’ves’, now is the time to tell a tale.

I looked away from the green menace and looked back to the small encampment that I was trapped in. A far bit away from the small fire place, were some small huts that were constructed around it.

They weren’t as big as the prison cell I was in, but it was enough for one or two people. At most, those ‘houses’ looked like a hovel. So with a small bit of care, I walked towards the small huts. Limping on my sore foot as I continued to make my way towards the ‘houses’. But once I was halfway there, I could hear voices penetrating the 'walls’. It was extremely muffled and I couldn't make out what they were saying, but it sounded like they were having an argument.

But as I got closer and closer to the disturbance, I was able to distinguish who was arguing. It sounded like Durham and Howard were having a pissing fit and a woman's voice was trying to stop a fight from occurring.

Being the ever curious man that I was, I walked closer to the small voices and listened in on the conversation.

“-For the last time, Howard, he’s in no state to do anything! He needs at least a week before he-”

“If he can walk, he can leave. We ‘ardly 'ave enough food for ourselves. Wha’ makes ya think that we can support 'em?”

“He has a point, Durham. We have a couple of weeks before fall comes and we hardly have enough supplies for our lonesome,” I didn’t recognize this voice. It was of the female persuasion, but as luck would have it, it was not the same voice that had helped Howard kidnap me. This voice had a bit of a British side to it and seemed to be more upper class. But other than that, there really wasn’t much else to tell about it.

“Then he’ll help! He did have a rifle with him, maybe he could hunt-”

“With 'ow many shoots ah heard, ah doubt he can hunt as good as Sarah can.”

“You know, as well as I do, that Sarah is more than likely dead.”

“Ya don’t know that.”

“Yes, and she just leaves her lantern in the forest for someone to stumble upon,” You remember that lantern I found out in the forest? Well, I was just ‘lucky’ enough to find it out there. It served its purpose when I needed it, but now I think it was getting me trouble.

“She could still be alive,” Howard said with a noticeable hint of anger slipping into his voice.

“It’s been a week, Howard, if she’s still alive, then she is going to die soon.”

“Well, we ain't gonna know until she comes back, now will we? An’ if she don’t, then ah 'ave a couple more questions fer our friend,” There was a small bit of silence after that. I don’t know if they were glaring at each other or just didn’t know what to say next. But soon after, Durham made another suggestion for my workload.

“... He can collect resources.”

“Grunk collects resources.”

“‘Grunk is a stupid Neanderthal who only understands one word. James is someone who can talk to us, and he has the strength to do what Grunk does.”

“Grantherin’ is Grunk’s-”

“Grunk is out of commission. He’s sick right now because he ate a poisonous, pretty butterfly. And we need someone to gather wood for us while you hunt for food. So unless you want to grab that axe and start chopping down trees, I would suggest we have our friend here help,” There was sickening silence in air. It was as if Howard was deciding in that moment whether or not he wanted my help. Not a single word was uttered in their silence not until the British girl spoke up.

“He is right about that. We've nearly run out of wood and we’re going to need some in the next couple of days,” Came the voice from the sophisticated lady.

“... Fine. But if'n he tries anythang, ah warned ya,” I heard him begin to walk my way and was beginning to book it as fast as I could. But I was saved by the almighty hand of a curious young adult.

“And why do you think he’ll hurt us?” And there that voice was. That was the voice of the one who helped Howard. It sounded like a typical American accent, but it sounded young and inexperienced. But it stopped Howard in his tracks. Howard's steps stopped instantly and I heard his response in a low and cold tone.

“Tha’ look ‘e has in his eyes, Nicole. I don' like it...” That was as much as I heard from them, I was practically half way back to the cell that I had escaped from, thankful that the small limp I had didn’t hinder me that much. But not a moment later, I heard an intense growling and barking mixed with the sounds of paws pounding against the ground.

I didn’t get the chance to turn around. Instead, I felt something bite the lower part of my pants, which in turn caused me to fall flat on my face. Turning as fast as I could while on the ground, I saw a German Shepard tugging and ripping my pants as it struggled to keep me down. I looked at the old dog in a small bit of disbelief, but before I could register what was truly happening, I felt it jump on my chest and start trying to bite me.

I immediately put one of my hands on its throat and the other on its nape in an attempt to save myself from its vicious bite. I used all of the strength I had in order to keep the dog from ripping my head in two, but that damnable dog was persistent. I felt it try to rip itself out of my grip to try and bite my face off, but I kept it in place as best as I could. I was bit thankful that Howard had come out at the right moment.

“Goddammit!” Howard practically yelled as I felt him lift the dog off of me and saw him throw it a fair distance away from me. “Get, ya stupid mutt!” Howard then turned his attention to me and gave me the angriest look that could rival Kathleen’s. Behind Howard, I could see Durham in his white lab coat and two other ladies hidden behind him, watching the scene unfold before them.

“Tha hell do ya think yer doin’?!” He said in such a loud voice that it was on the verge of screaming. His hand reaching behind him as he yelled at me.

“I was jus-” Not even a second passed before I saw him pull out a pistol from his side and aim it at my head. It was a Colt.45 m1911 being pointed directly at me. I froze. I thought he was going to blow my brains out and that would be the end of my journey. That I had suffered all the pain and torment for nothing. But Durham came to my rescue.

“Hey, hey, hey! What do you think you’re doing?! You can’t just kill him!” Durham came running up on his side and started pleading with him. But even though he was saving me, I didn’t dare break eye contact with the gun in fear that he Howard would think that I was going to make a run for it.

“Why tha hell not? Dis ‘ere fucker jus’ tried leavin’! Probably off ta the rest of ‘is group to rob us while we’s sleepin’!” Howard said as he was itching to pull the trigger. I could barely see it out of the corner of my eye, but I saw Durham’s face turn into a glare as he stared at Howard and saw his arms fold in an angry manner.

“Then fine, pull the trigger and see how long we can survive the onslaught of wolves, lions, and whatever else this damn forest has,” Howard stopped looking at me and slowly let his gaze turn to Durham, his gun still pointed at my head. Seeing as he got Howard’s attention, Durham continued to rant at him about the implications he was about to take.

“They will come down on us and it won’t matter how many bullets we have, or how fast we run, we will die if you even dare fire that gun. So go ahead, pull the trigger-kill us all while you’re at it,” Howard looked at Durham for a couple of more seconds before looking back down at me and I could feel his anger and hatred leak out of him. We stared at each other for another minute or so, a man about to murder me in cold blood while I lay on the ground waiting for him to pull the trigger. He then slowly lowered the gun and started to walk away from me. He then stopped in his tracks and turned to Durham.

“Get ‘em tha hell outta ‘ere,” I slowly let out a breath that I had been holding in and Durham came around to pick me up. I was no sooner was off of the ground, thanks to Durham, and was being led back to the small prison I had lived in for a few days. But my mind was bubbling with a question to ask Durham. I was confused and curious as to his actions, but I knew it wasn’t the time nor the place to ask him. So I kept my mouth shut until we were truly alone.

When Durham finally got me back to my cell and helped me back onto the bed, I looked him in the eye and asked him the question that had been bothering my mind when he picked me up.

“Why?” Durham looked at me, confused by my question.

“... Why what?” He said in response.

“Why’d you stop him? He could’ve shot me and you would’ve been completely fine. So why’d you stop him?” I said, remembering from the other day how I shot three wolves and that nothing else attacked me. He looked at me for a couple of more seconds before he looked down at the ground, his glasses nearly slipping off. I saw a stray tear fall down from his eyes and hit the dirty ground before he looked up at me with tear filled eyes on the verge of pouring down his face. His mouth slowly opened with his lips trembling to get the answer out.

“... I don’t want to see anyone else die,” His voice stammering as he told me.

Durham didn’t say anything after that and soon left. We didn’t exactly have much to talk about afterwards so he just left me alone with my thoughts. I began to think about who this ‘Grunk’ was and who ‘Sarah’ was. I knew that this ‘Sarah’ was more than likely dead. A human can only survive for so long out there without sustaining some kind of injury, I was a great example of that. And Durham said that she’s been out there for a week, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they found her body being chewed on by some wild animals.

But when they mentioned that lantern, I think my heart stopped. That lantern that I had found out there was more than likely hers, and Howard was more than likely thinking that I had done something to her. That was probably why Howard treated me like he did.

But Grunk though, I had no idea who Grunk was. By the way Durham and Howard described him, it sounded like a cliched jock, a lot of muscle but very little brain. But he sounded like an important individual to their group, collecting resources would make you extremely important in the eyes of people who depended on you. What I was confused by was how Durham described Grunk. ‘A stupid Neanderthal’ a bit harsh when I heard those words.

And that damn dog. It knew what it was doing, it was trained. Regular dogs don’t do those types of things without having someone train them, and I was more than certain with how it grabbed me, that its trainer was a professional.

I sat on my thoughts for a while, not noticing the time pass me by as I let my mind wonder. I was, however, disrupted from my small world that I was in by the sound of a door slamming against the wall. My eyes snapped to the sound and I saw Howard menacingly standing in the doorway looking at me with suspicion and hate. Without saying a word, he walked over to me, his footsteps echoing in the small enclosement that we were in. It wasn’t until he was towering over me that he finally said something.

“Tha hell were ya doin’ out der?” His voice was calmer in comparison to how he was before but it still held the same amount of suspicion and anger.

“I needed to stretch my legs a little, they felt a little-”

“Why’d ya leave dis room?” He said in a rude manner as he interrupted me.

“... I wanted to know where I was,” With the answer I gave him, he just sort of stared at me. No real anger or hate in his eyes after a while. But after staring into his blank stare for a couple of minutes, he started to speak to me again.

“Yer gonna work tomorrow, ya hear? Ya ain’t gonna be in dis bed like a useless shitter,” And with that he started to walk back out the door, but not before I opened my mouth.

“And what exactly am I going to be doing?” I knew what it was, but I had to make it think like I didn’t hear him when he was talking to Durham and the others. He turned around and said in five simple words to me what he had planned.

“What eva’ we tell ya,” Howard said before walking back out the door and closing it behind him. And with the event of the day coming to a close, I shut my eyes and fell into the land of nod.

Chapter 10: A Shift in Perspective (Rewrite)

View Online

Applejack had galloped after the human for a good mile or two, in an attempt to show him how much she appreciated the new scar her friend would have. She had ran and ran and ran, her hooves pounding and tearing at the ground as she pursued the man who has caused her friend so much grief. She had been running so fast that she hadn’t even realized that her hat had flown clean off and that he her tails bow was ripped off by a branch thrown at her by the human. Her determination being ever so present with the rage that had built up in her.

But every time she thought she was going to catch up with her enemy, he would make some sort of twist or turn which would cause her to slow down and stumble as she tried to keep up with his ever shifting movements. But after trying and trying to catch him for what seemed like an hour, she saw him jump through the tree line. Realizing that she might have lost him, she put more energy into her hooves as she tried to keep up with him. But as she forced her way through the brush and the tall grass of the forest, she saw the human steadily step his way back before running at full speed and jump out of her vision

And the second that Applejack had coerced through the forest’s outline, she could see the small cliff that she had almost galloped off of. But as she looked down at the cavern that she had nearly fallen in, she saw the human on the other side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. She immediately got back on her hooves and took a few steps back, about to jump to the other side of the cliff and follow the human. But as she was about to jump to the other side of the cliff, she saw the rock that had been supporting the human cracked under the human’s weight.

And before she realized it, the stone slab had been released from the ground that had been holding it for over a millennium, bringing the human down into the depths of the waters below. She watched him fall all the way down into the hole in the ground, her eyes never leaving his panicked face. And she watched his body splash into the icy waters. She waited to see if his head would poke out, and after a few seconds of dead silence, his arms came flailing out of his watery grave in an attempt to keep himself afloat.

Her eyes widened slightly at seeing his body shot out of the water, somehow alive. She thought his head or body would have hit the rocks below, but it seemed that luck was on his side that day. She looked this way and that for a path down the river, but her efforts were futile for the cliffs themselves were too deep to safely get down. So seeing the man who had maimed her friend slowly drift away from her, she could do nothing more than simply glare at him, only able to watch as a bystander.

He had soon grabbed onto a log that had floated down the river and was using it as a raft of sorts. And as he floated further and further away from her, he looked right up at her. She looked right back at him with rage and hate featured on her face. They held the stare of hate and fear for as long as they could before he was drifted too far away for her to see him anymore.

She sat there in a slight disbelief at what she saw, the events of what had transpired finally making itself prevalent in her brain. The last human to ever been seen in recorded history was over three years ago. And she just chased it into the Everfree forest. But as she was thinking about the events of what had transpired, she suddenly remembered that a friend of hers was on the ground bleeding profusely out of her shoulder. So with the thought of losing her friend, she shot back up onto her hooves and galloped back to her farm as fast as her legs could.

Twilight Sparkle laid on the ground, holding her shoulder in a fruitless attempt to stop the blood that was staining her purple fur and pooling around her. Her breathing had become ragged and anytime that she tried to move her hoof, she would feel irrevocable burning pain course through her body. She tried to use a teleportation spell to get to the Ponyville hospital, but the pain kept making her lose her focus. It’s amazing that she didn’t go into shock. So without any options, she had no choice but to stay on the ground, still as a corpse.

But as she laid on the ground, still as a rock, her thoughts have wandered on the human that had attacked her and caused her such monumental pain. She couldn’t help but think of the events that had up to her bleeding on the ground. She had exploring Ponyville in an attempt to get understand the community that she had been apart of for a couple of months. But as she trotted from place to place, admiring the architecture and saying the occasional ‘Hello!’ to ponies that passed her, she heard the shrill shrieks of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon drawing ever closer to her.

Being the ever good pony that she was, she turned around and asked the duo what was wrong. When they told her that something had attacked them in the Everfree, Twilight gave them an apathetic glance. She had heard many lies come out of Diamond Tiaras mouth, but as she kept hearing the begging and pleading voice for her to come with them, she finally gave in and followed the two foals to the Everfree.

And as they got closer and closer to the eluded forest, she had kept warning them to stay in her sight, that they were getting to close to the forest, and that they should go back to Ponyville where it is safer. But as she kept warning them and warning them, she saw a human standing there. She hadn’t read much upon the study of humans, but every book that she had read told the same story. They are dangerous.

The last human in recorded history was over three years ago and was thought that its race had went extinct. But yet, there was one standing in front of her with its bright amber eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. Its clothes were dirty and covered in grime, its overgrown hair was unkempt and filthy while its face was covered by a stubbly beard.

Out of parental instinct, she put the fillies behind her and told them to ‘Go! Run! Get help!’. After saying the last syllable of that sentence, she started to pour magic into her horn and was about to cast a telekinesis spell. But instead the human out of unnatural speed dashed back into the forest. She almost followed it out of curiosity, but then realized that it was running back into the forest. So she yelled at it, told it to ‘Stop running!’ and ‘I won’t hurt you!’, but her yells were meet with faint ears. So seeing as to the danger that Ponyville was more than likely in, she galloped all the way to her library and called out for Spike.

But after remembering that he was out with Rarity collecting gems again, she immediately levitated a quill and a piece of parchment and began writing as fast as she possibly could.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I don’t know if you will believe me or not, but found a human near Ponyvillle! A couple of fillies, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, said that it attacked them. This is the first time in three years that a human has been spotted and I don’t know what to do, please tell me what to do! Should I study it!? Capture it!? Please respond fast!

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle.

With that, she rolled up the parchment, wrapped it in a ribbon and placed it on the main rooms table for Spike to give to Celestia when he came back. With that done, she was back out the door of the library and began to focus her mind on Sweet Apple Acres. Why didn’t she go to her other friends? Well, Fluttershy was on the other side of town and would more than likely coware at seeing a human instead of helping, Rainbow Dash was more than likely on a clouse asleep, and Pinkie Pie was Pinkie Pie.

Leaving only Applejack to help her. And so she cleared her thoughts, closed her eyes, and focused her mind on the location that she wanted to teleport to. And with a flick of magic, she was at Sweet Apple Acres. She knew that she would need help from all of her friends in order to deal with this possible new threat, but one step at a time.

But through the small mental pain that she had endured, she made it to apple farm and started to look for her friend within the immaculate amount of apple trees. Barely, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Applejack trotting into the farm with her little sister, carrying bushels of apples upon their back. She galloped her way towards the two apple sisters.

Storming into the barn, she screamed for Applejack.

“Applejack!” Snapping their head, Applejack and her little sister looked at Twilight with a little bit of surprise before Applejack realized who was at the door. A small frown plastered itself on her mouth and a scornful gaze appeared on her eyes

“Twilight, ah swear, if yer here to help again, I told ya, ah-”

“Applejack, I need your help to gather the girls, I saw a hu-...” Applejack look of sternness and annoyance turned into surprise as she saw the actions being taken by Twilight. Applejack knows Twilight well enough to know that she would have a good reason as to why she slammed the barn door open. But as Twilight was about to tell her about her recent discovery, she noticed Applebloom looking at her confusingly. A foal, not even twelve, was about to be exposed to the horrific knowledge of humans. Knowledge that a mind so young should not ever hope to experience. So she chose her next few words carefully.

“... I saw a… monster outside of Ponyville,” Sort of carefully. But with the words that had spilled out of her mouth, Applejack's face of surprise turned into one of steel determination, and the two friends were soon galloping out of the farm, leaving the filly by herself.

“So, wha is this thang?” Applejack said when they were far away enough from the barn. Twilight’s galloping slowly turned into a stop as she looked down at the ground, asking herself if she should tell Applejack about the human. One part of her said that ‘You should, she’s your friend!’ while the other side said ‘You shouldn’t, she won’t understand!’. But during her thoughts, Applejack had noticed the lack of a friend by her side and turned back around to see Twilight standing still. With curiosity sparking her mind, Applejack questioned what Twilight was doing.

“Wha’ ya doing, Twilight? Ah thought we had a monster to take care of,” Applejack said, causing Twilight's head to slowly look up to her farming friend. But with as much of steady breath as she could muster, Twilight told Applejack the challenge that they would face.

“... It’s a human,” Twilight said, with a trembling voice and wavering lip. Applejack’s face could not have been more horrified.

“Hu-hu-human? Twilight, the las’ time a human was seen was ‘bout three years ago. Are ya sure?” Applejack asked for a small bit of confirmation, hoping that her friend was joking or was simply imagining.

“... Yes,”

Applejack lost her sight on Twilight and her vision trailed on to the ground, where her thoughts were running a million miles. Soon, her face contorted itself into a small bit of rage as she looked back up at Twilight.

“Liar,” And without even saying another word, Applejack was soon galloping off to her house towards her granny, Twilight taking off after her. Applejack would turn her head back every so often to see her rather flabbergasted looking friend.

“Applejack, I’m not lying!”

“Yer lyin’!” Applejack yelled at Twilight, continuing to run towards her house to take care of more chores, where she didn’t have to hear any more lies. Soon getting there, Applejack trotted up the stairs and into the lovely abode she called ‘home’. Twilight waited outside, half tempted to barge inside of the home and drag Applejack out. But as she waited outside of the rather large building, she couldn’t help but question why Applejack would call her a liar. Could it be that she had a bad experience with humans? Could it be that she doesn’t want to believe her? But as questions upon questions filled Twilight’s open mind, her train of thought was brought to a halt by a pair of arguing voices.

It was a mere muttering at first but then it turned into full blown screaming. She was about to poke her head in and see why the family was arguing so much when the screen door suddenly swung open, almost knocking Twilight off her hooves. Snapping herself out of her daze, she looked down the apple farm path and saw Applejack stomping her hooves down it in a childish manner. Twilight, being the ever curious pony that she was, galloped to the side of Applejack and began to ask her questions.

“What happened?” Twilight asked in a wanting voice, following the cowpony.

“Nothin’,” Applejack replied in a voice that made Twilight flinch, but she prevailed.

“Are you sure?That didn’t exactly sound like ‘nothin’.”

“Ah said it was nothing’.”

“Applejack, I’m your friend, you can trust me with-”

“I don’ wanna talk ‘bout it,” Applejack said, interrupting Twilight’s thought. And so Twilight brought her thoughts to back to the major problem at hoof.

“Well, can you at least tell me why you called me a liar?” A few seconds after Twilight finished her sentence, Applejack stopped in her tracks and stared at Twilight with a disbelieving gaze.

“‘Cause humans ain’t nothin’ but thievin’ scumbags that been stealin’ from mah family fer generations. Applebuck season is happenin’ right now, and I can’t afford to lose even one single apple because some stupid humans thinkin’ it’s alright ta steal what ain’t theirs. An’ with ya tellin’ me that humans are prowlin’ aroun’ again ain’t doin’ nothin’ but upsettin’ me. The only reason why I’m headin’ ta Ponyville right now is ‘cause granny is too stubborn to see yer lyin’. An’ besides, ya probably scared it off,” Applejack said, before she continued to trot towards Ponyville again. Twilight on the other hand was trying to comprehend all the information she was given. That the Apple family had been the victims of crimes without even seeing it, and that they were about to become even more of a victim soon. So, with newfound determination, she began to increase her tempo.

“Please Applejack, we need to hurry,” Twilight said, skipping in front of her friend in an attempt to increase her pace

“Twilight, if what yer saying is true, then I doubt it’d come back to Ponyville an’-!”

“Applejack, we don’t have time to argue! It could be wandering around in Ponyville as we speak! Come on, I’m sure if we hurry-” Twilight was soon cut off as she saw the beast in front of her, standing as threateningly and as menacingly as it had been before. Its eyes were as wide as saucers and its body, much like theirs, was frozen on the spot. Twilight stood there, unable to move from the position that she was in, completely and utterly stoic as she saw the creature in front of her. That was, until Applejack pulled out a lasso and threw it at the human, busting the human out of its gaze and causing it to run away from them.

“Ah, horsefeathers,” Applejack said in a small voice. She rolled up her rope and was off chasing the human that she had missed.

“C’mon, Twilight!” Applejack shouted behind her, her face completely filled with determination as she dove into the farms trees in an attempt to track the human. Twilight stood there still as a rock, wondering to herself if she should follow Applejack and towards wherever the human was going. The blood in her hooves had moved elsewhere and her forelegs refused to move. It was out of complete and utter fear of the human being that she couldn’t move. But after realizing that her friend was in potential danger, the blood returned to her hooves tenfold and she began to gallop towards Applejack as fast as her hooves could carry her.

But as she got closer and closer to her friend, she heard the sounds of a struggle, hoping that it wasn’t Applejack on the ground. But as she pushed past the last of the apple trees, she saw Applejack holding the human on the ground with a rope around its neck as it attempted to free itself. Twilight was absolutely horrified to see the monstrosity of such a show unfold in front of her, and was about to scold Applejack for being so violent and vicious. Until she saw the human cut a large piece of the rope with a hatchet. Twilight saw this small bit of intelligence unfold itself in front of her, she made a mental note on it and continued to look at the human as it continued to run forward. But as Twilight had continued to watch it run forward, she remembered why she and Applejack had been chasing it, and she began to immediately use magic.

She had tried to grab any part of its body so that it wouldn’t be able to move, anything that wouldn’t hurt it too much, but it was a useless effort. Whenever she tried to grab its clothes with her magic, her magic dissipated into nothingness. Whenever she tried to grab its limbs with her magic, her magic dissipated into nothingness. Whenever she tried to grab its saddlebag with her magic, her magic dissipated into nothingness.

But when she grabbed the rope with her magic, her magic held strong. And so she grabbed the rope and tried to keep him in one place as he twisted and turned, grabbing the rope in an attempt to be freed. But as it threw itself this way and that, it managed to turn around and looked at Twilight’s horn, a small apologetic look implanting itself on Twilight’s face. It had thrashed a little bit further and had pulled out something metal that was aimed right at her. And before Twilight could react, she heard a deafening sound of an explosion go off in front of her and felt something enter her foreleg.

Twilight’s concentration of magic had cancelled itself and allowed the human freedom again. Her head slowly looked down to her foreleg, and in seeing a gaping hole in her leg slowly letting blood pour out of her body, she did nothing but stare at it, her mind unable to process what she was seeing. Her own blood slinking out of her body and staining her purple fur. The pain then hit her like a brick wall. All the pain in the world had shot through her, and she fell on the ground cradling her foreleg in a vain attempt to rid the pain that plagued her body.

She was ignorant of the world around her as her body convulsed and shivered from what it felt. She watched the human get back up and start running through the fields of apples again, she watched on as she was unable to move. Suddenly, she heard Applejack gallop her way and, in an almost terrifying fashion, she saw Applejack’s mouth move up and down but was unable to hear her. All she was able to hear was the ringing sound that made her world around her feel inadequate.

But as sudden as Applejack came to her, she was suddenly stomping against the ground in an attempt to catch up with the human. Leaving Twilight with a feeling of abandonment.

Which brings you up to where she is now.

There she was, still on the ground, tears silently crawling off of her face as the pain was still prevalent in her body. Her consciousness wondering what would happen to her family. She would never say goodbye to her mother or father. She would never get to see her brother get married to a pony. She would never see a stallion she would want to spend the rest of her life with. She would never have foals to annoy her and love her at the same time. And she would never grow old and die surrounded by her loved ones.

No.

Instead, she would be on the ground, alone and afraid, bleeding to death. Or so she thought. Applejack had come back, almost ten minutes later, with her hat ruffled and torn as she looked over Twilight’s bloody body. Twilight looked up at Applejack with a lack-luster look as she tried to say something. Applejack, noticing this, sat silent, waiting for her friend to tell her what she wanted.

“Hos-... Hospital,” And with one simple word, Applejack picked up Twilight and placed her on her back before she started to gallop to the hospital as fast as her farm legs would allow her. And galloped she did. She galloped and galloped, never stopping for a break or a breath, for she knew her friend’s life could be taken at a moment's glance.

Arriving at Ponyville, she galloped past the many ponies that had a looked at her in confusion as they caught sight of the pony that Applejack had upon her back. Only for that look to turn into one of horror as they see their local librarian’s blood gushing out of her body.

But Applejack ignored the looks that were given to her, as she was far more concerned for her friend. But upon turning a corner, she saw ‘Ponyville General’, the local hospital for any Ponyvilleians. And once she saw her target, she locked her eyes on it and ran even faster.

And once she had all but slammed the doors open, she called out for help.

“Help! Somepony, help!” She said as her lungs were pumping oxygen in and out of her body. A nurse with slightly pink fur, white fur, and a red cross for a cutie mark stared at the two for a moment before suddenly yelling out for a gurdy and for someone to prep ER. And an entire team had popped out of one of the many doors, wheeling a cart behind them as unicorns lifted Twilight off of Applejacks back and placed her nearly lifeless body onto a gurney.

Applejack was tempted to follow them, but her hooves told her that she had been running enough. And so she sat down on the ground with the few nurses that have surrounded her, her lungs heaving and hooves aching.

“What happened?” Asked one of the nurses as it stared at the door that Twilight was taken through.

“Human,” Applejack said simply as she continued to stare at the door, hoping that her friend would live. The nurse's head snapped towards the orange pony covered by her friends blood and stared at her with her mouth agape.

Spike walked back to Ponyville, dragging a wagon full of jewels behind him as Rarity continued to talk his ear off. But it didn’t matter to the little drake that Rarity continued to talk about the latest fashion model, or even about the latest seasonal fashion line, he would listen to anything she had to say to just be around her. Anything for her. And so he walked in silence responding to some questions while sneaking a gem or two into his mouth when Rarity wasn’t looking.

They had been done with today's activities of collecting gems and were on their way home to Ponyville. Spike still listening to Rarity ever so lovely voice as they got closer and closer to town. But when they did get close, they noticed that some of the ponies looked mortified while others were giving them sorrowful looks. Rarity didn’t really notice because she had been more focused on the conversation she was having with Spike, but that didn’t stop the little drake from feeling the uncomfortable stares plant themselves on his back. When they occasionally passed a couple of ponies, Spike would hear they mutter ‘sorry’. It was almost nonexistent, but it was still there, edging him on as he continued his walk with Rarity.

But after going through his bitter experience, he finally arrived at Rarity’s boutique. Rarity then thanked Spike for helping her collect by giving him a kiss on the cheek and a handful of gems. Spike had a dreamy look plastered on his face, forgetting the faces some of the ponies gave them, and almost falling into a dreamlike state. And he was suddenly brought out of his daydreaming when he heard Rarity slam the door in front of him.

Letting out a dejected sigh, Spike started walking back to the library, dragging his feet behind him in a begrudging manner. And as he pushed the door open to his home, he noticed an entire number of ponies all looking at him again. But he ignored the looks that he was being given, opened the door, and proceeded to go inside the wooden abode before calling out for Twilight.

“Twilight, I’m back!” He said with his small immature voice. But as he started walking further into the tree, he noticed there was a lack of a certain purple pony yelling back at him.

“Twilight?!” He yelled out again, looking around the library for her as he felt an unnerving feeling crawl up his back. And as he looked up and down and around the entirety of the small library, he noticed a rather small scroll laid flat on the main table. Scuttering his feet towards the table, he noticed that it was sealed with the traditional seal that symbolised its inevitable meeting with Princess Celestia.

And so, he picked up the scroll and breathed his green, burning breath unto it. And after dealing with the small task, and calling for Twilight a couple more times, he walked over to one of the couches, jumped on it, and let out a long yawn before falling asleep for the night. Peacefully unaware of how injured his pony sister was.

Princess Celestia was currently in the throne room, looking over two ponies that were arguing before her. She sat idly by looking over a paper or two while straightening the pillow she sat upon. The ponies before her were arguing about a simple manner, but one that piqued her interest more than most of the rabble that came through her courtroom.

One of the ponies was saying that a runned down part of canterlot was to be torn down and a school was to be built there, for the betterment of the future generation. While the other pony was urging that, in doing so, there would be more homeless ponies on the street and less housing for those in the future.

For the first time in a long time, she was a bit torn between the two. In one hoof, the future generation would have a better education and more than likely end up homeless. But there was more than enough land to expand the houses. In the other hoof, everything would remain the same and the world would continue the way it has been for over a millennium. But as she was about to interrupt their ‘marvelous’ conversation, a rather recognizable parchment had apparated in front of her.

And a small smile had curved on her face. Knowing her student, Twilight more than likely discovered another friendship problem and solved it instantly. A rather commending trait that can be found within her young student. But remembering that she was in the middle of court, she gestured the two squabbling ponies out of the throne room and told them that ‘This conversation will be continued soon’. And as soon as she saw them turn their tail and leave the confines of the grandeur room, she ripped the ribbon off and began to ponder what friendship lesson her student has discovered this time.

Could it have been about sharing? Telling your friend a secret? About standing up to your friends when they’re doing something wrong? The thought and imaginings of Princess Celestia’s mind never seemed to stop pouring out as she thought of the next accomplishment that her student has mastered. And with an everlasting thought, she unfurled the letter and began to read.

And the smile on her face turned into one of horror. She kept redding the letter over and over again, thinking that she was simply imagining the words on the paper. But as she kept reading it again and again, she began to realize that what she was reading was truth. And her face of horror soon turned into one of sheer will. She promptly stood up from her throne and began to trot her way towards the door, levitating the scroll behind her. In doing so, she told the guard to ‘send four squads of guardsmen to Ponyville’ and that ‘day-court was over’ before she began to march her way over to princess Luna’s room, where the master of dreams was currently resting.

Celestia could have used a simple teleportation spell and appear in Luna’s room, but she needed time to think about the events that were sure to come. And walking around the many halls that castle had would allow her mind to wander. How would she deal with the humans this time? She wanted no bloodshed to occur like last time, but she couldn’t let these humans attack her little ponies.

But as she managed to make her way up the castles many steps and past the many stationed guards, thinking about how to deal with the human threat, she finally made it to her sisters room. Where she promptly knocked and stood silently before her sister’s chambers. She heard a small grunt and before she knew it, she saw ‘elegant beauty’ that was Princess Luna. The princess was standing in front of her with a slightly disheveled mane, no regalia on, and slightly angry looking face. Princess Luna looked at Celestia for a couple of seconds, not really caring for what reason she was woken up for.

“What doth thou want?” Princess Luna said, showing just how irritated she was at the current situation. This, however, did not affect Celestia as she responded within a second of the question.

“Luna, we need to converse about a matter, it is of grave importance,” Not even waiting for a response, Celestia trotted into the room and looked out over the balcony that was stationed in her sister’s room. There she looked over her kingdom and admired it for its worth. And even though she knew her kingdom was not perfect, she knew that her subjects were more than quaint to deal with them.

But as her mind wandered and wandered more about her subjects, she heard the disgruntled voice of her loving sister.

“If ‘tis is about the Yak meeting, I told thee that they already accepted our apology.”

“It’s not about the Yak’s,” Celestia said solemnly as she continued to admire her sun striking the landscape

“Then what is so important that you had to wake thee from mine sleep?!

Princess Celestia remained silent for a small time, letting the awkward feel of the air wash over the two of them. But even though Princess Luna wanted to do nothing more than yell at her sister for not saying anything, she heard a small bit of despair pour out of her sister's mouth.

“My most prized pupil has sent me a letter entailing that a human was sighted near Ponyville,” Celestia hadn’t said another word. The entire room was silent, nothing but the small bit of wind making noise at it hit against the glass doors of the balcony. But through the silence, Princess Luna’s mind was asking itself one simple question.

“And, pray tell, what it this 'human’?”

“I see somepony hasn’t caught up on their studies-” Princess Celestia said, giving her sister a quick glare before looking back through the balconies window ”- but now is not the time to scold you. Now is the time for caution.” Princess Celestia said before turning around and looking at Princess Luna’s eyes. Princess Celestia floated over the scroll that her student had sent her into Luna’s vision for her to read.

And as Princess Luna read it, she couldn’t help but be confused. She had no idea what a human was and why it would cause such a smart and calm pony like Twilight Sparkle to panic. And while the mere thought of this ‘thing’ harming one of her subjects makes her blood boil, she can not understand how one being would cause her own sister to be scared.

“Celestia, what is a human?” Princess Luna said after some time. Princess Celestia floated the scroll over on a nightstand before thinking of a simple way to explain what a human is.

“A human is an intelligent, cunning, and dangerous creature. We don’t know when they first started to appear, but the first official documented sighting was one hundred and twelve years ago,” She stopped talking for a short time and looked at her sister with such loss and doubt plastered on her face before she continued to talk.

“The pony who documented her said that she came out of the Everfree, with cuts and bruises. So, he thought about helping it, but when he was seen, she ran back into the forest,” Princess Celestia stopped for a moment after hearing her sister chuckle slightly behind her.

“Tia, this sound’s like a foal’s tale, thou aren't trying to pulleth mine hoof?” Princess Luna said, slightly smiling at her sister.

“No, Luna, this isn’t a joke,” Princess Celestia said, giving her sister a quick glare before continuing on with her story.

“So, being the worried pony that he was, he went to the nearest royal guard for help. But they laughed in his face, said that ‘he was drinking too many pints’. But one guard listened and decided to investigate the area it was last seen. But when the guard didn’t report to his commander, they sent a platoon into the forest to find him. And when they did eventually find him after two days of exploring, the only thing they could make out was his foreleg,” Princess Celestia looked back at Princess Luna with a blank expression adorned onto her face. Princess Luna, however, looked a little concerned for the matter.

“Thee aren’t suggesting that this ‘human’ did this, art thee?”

“The battalion of guardsponies found hoofprints leading away from the murder scene. And they followed them…” Princess Celestia remained silent for a small time, simply looking back through the small glass door that separated her from her sister’s balcony, a melancholy look implanting itself on her face. She let out not a whisper nor a sound, instead, letting the silence of the air take a voice instead.

But eventually, Princess Celestia’s face turned back into one of calmness and broke her gaze from the glass door, and turned her body fully to her sister, looking her in the eye with meaning and sorrow.

“They were slaughtered, the few bodies we did find were unrecognizable. But during the fight, one of the guardsponies managed to find his way out and galloped back to command. In his report, he said that they were surrounded by twenty of them, and that he managed to grab onto some of their belongings while he tried to escape. One of these items was a book written in their strange foreign language. It was then that I was made aware of the recent events that had transpired. I was more than a little angry that I wasn’t told sooner of the lives that had been lost, and-”

“Tia, get to the point,” Princess Luna said, losing her speech pattern as she continued to listen to Celestia..

“... We sent the book to an expert team of decipherers. It took them a couple of weeks to decode their language, but when they did, they discovered things beyond imagination. They were a thriving community, they were intelligent, and that they came from a different world entirely,”

“How?” Princess Luna said, cutting off her sister.

“We don’t know yet. It might be some portal we’re not aware of yet, or maybe some other outside power.

“That’s impossible. Any spell or charm would have killed them before they even got the chance to get here.”

“I have a team of wizards investigating the matter, but regardless, after we discovered they were sentient, I tried to send diplomats with gifts to show them that we mean them no harm.”

“No harm?! Those bastards murdered your guardsponies, and you wanted to show them mercy?!”

“I sent an entire platoon of guardponies with them just in case things didn't turn out as planned. They searched for weeks on end, but couldn’t find them. They tried following tracks but they usually ended up at a dead end. That was until they returned with only five ponies. They said that they found others bloodied and mutilated. The only reason they were still alive was because they decided to separate to cover more ground. It was then that I realized the types of monsters they are.“

“Do you remember that one pony who documented the first human? Well, he had it printed on newspapers, told everypony about it, not a single being in Equestria didn’t know about the humans. So I told the world what had happened and what I tried to do. They were angry for some time, and turned that anger to the humans. Some of my ponies went into the forest in order to avenge their fellow ponies, but hardly any ever came back. Some of ponies that did come back went on to write books on humans, thinking that they knew everything about them without knowing the whole truth.”

“I deployed the guard to surround the forest to make sure that no humans get out and no ponies go in. And after reports of humans stopped three years ago, I pulled them back thinking that the human threat had subsided, moved on, maybe went extinct. But it seems that I was wrong.” Said Princess Celestia as she started to trot towards the door before stopping half way towards it and looking back at her sister.

“I already sent a squadron of guards to ponyville in order to asses the situation. We do NOT want to cause a panic Luna. If what Twilight said is true, then we must keep it a secret. Even though it pains me to not help her, we can NOT let the public know about this human's existence,” Princess Celestia said while opening the door to the hall. Only to be stopped when she heard Luna speak her next sentence.

“And if this Human were to harm your student what would you do?” Luna said, looking at Celestia with an observant eye to see what type of tale she would tell. Celestia, on the other hoof, was stoic for a moment, her face emotionless as she thought of what she would do if Twilight was harmed. Thinking about how many terribly awful things that she would do to the human if it even dared lay a hoof on her precious student. Celestia took a deep, calming breath to shut down those raw emotions and looked back at her sister

“If Twilight was harmed, so be it. She was not my first student, nor will she be the last. Many of my students that I have taken under my wing, and showed them the beauty of Equestria, have long since passed, both old and young. If she were to die, I would mourn for her death, and I would cry for weeks, but the cycle would continue.” Celestia said as she looked down at Luna, not daring to show even a hint of emotion. Luna looked at her sister with the same face of emotions. Though Celestia did not answer Luna’s question directly, Luna was more than pleased with what she heard. Celestia then opened the door all the way saying on the way out-

“Luna, do not go into their dreams, who knows what sort of nightmares they hold in their mind,” Princess Celestia said before she closed the door to leave Princess Luna with her thoughts.

Princess Luna looked back at the spot her sister was at before looking at the ground, simply thinking about the new information that she had been given. During her thinking process, she looked through her balconies windows and looked at the landscape before her. Maybe if she hadn’t betrayed her sister so many years ago, she would have been able to stop this thing before it began to manifest itself.

She then tore her vision away from the see through door and returned to her bed, where she let her mind fall into the realm of dreams, where she commanded the world.

Princess Luna looked over, and under, and around, and forward, but no matter how hard she looked and how hard she tried, she could not manage to find a doorway into this humans dream. She had looked for a door that stood out against the usual happy, light, colored doors that lined the long, vast world in order to find that one door.

She must have passed hundreds of thousands of doors and spent countless hours looking for the right one to open. But after looking from up and down, and door to door, she managed to find one simple wooden door. It wasn’t glowing, it wasn’t shining, it wasn’t even flowing with nightmares. It was just a simple dark wooden door. And this is what caught her attention the most.

Her curiosity must have gotten the best of her because not a second later, she opened the door and floated into the dark atmosphere of the solemn room. Or at least she tried. She was thrown back out of the door, almost as if it was resisting her, and she stared at it perplexed as to what could have caused such a force to push her out of the dream. She got back onto her hooves again and stepped forward into the dark room again, using her magic to aid her. This time, she wasn’t thrown out unceremoniously like last time

No instead, she found herself riding the back of some strange enormous metal contraption. Its interior was crowded and felt like she was trapped inside of its confines while the glass next to her only taunted her with freedom. But even though the situation she was in confused her, she remained calm through it all. After all, she had seen a great many of things withinside the dreamscapes of ponies.

She was, however, brought out of her confusion when she heard something being slammed against the confusing machinery. And as she looked in its direction, she saw right in front of her the most peculiar creature she has ever seen in her immortal life. Sitting in front of her was a tall, tanned skinned, black haired being who was too busy adjusting his seat to notice her. She thought that this 'thing’ was ultimately the human that her sister talked to her about.

But before she could further observe the human sitting in front of her, she heard the sound of a small child talking.

“Me to be like you, I know, but I really don’t want to study these things,” Princess Luna snapped her head to her right and saw a smaller version of the human in front of her. Noticing its black hair and the color of its skin to the human that sat in front of her. Immediately, she connected the dots, and thought that this youngster in front of her was the human's child. But that’s not what drew her attention the most. What drew her attention was the fact that it spoke Equestrian.

Her sister had not mentioned that these 'ravenous’ creatures were able to speak Equestria’s language. It frightened her slightly, confused her to no end. But just as she was about to announce herself she felt a sudden shift in the metal device she was in before she felt herself being thrown out of the humans dream.

She landed hastily on the ground of the dream realm. She looked back up and stared at the door that she was in before she watched it turn to dust.

And after all she had seen within that confusing world of a dream, she had only one small thing to say.

“What happened to you?”

Chapter 11: The Norm

View Online

I was laying as softly as I could on the ‘bed’, barely moving as my body was far too tired to even flinch a muscle. I tried to sleep after Howard had left me alone, but for the life of me, I just couldn’t seem to keep my eyes closed. Maybe it was paranoia, or maybe adrenaline was still running through me-I don’t know. But when I eventually did fall asleep, I think I only got about an hour or two of shuteye before I felt someone prodding at my back. The uncomfortable feeling of this foreign object unfortunately woke me up from my deep slumber and I was forced to open up my heavily bagged eyes to see that an old woman, probably mid fifties, looking down at me with an emotionless look.

We kept eye contact for a short while, me rubbing my heavy eyes and her standing there as still as a statue, before she spoke up with an elegant accent.

“Mister Conner’s, I do believe that you are past due for chopping. If you’d kindly follow me, I will lead you to the tree that you shall cut down today,” She then turned around and was about to close the door behind her before turning around and tossing me my son's pocket knife. “And be a dear and cut that hair of yours. Might get in the way of chopping,” she then promptly left.

I stared dumbfoundedly at the door for a few seconds before I laid my head back down on the pillow to fall back asleep. But as I was about to fall back under the realm of sleep, I heard the door open again and I heard the lady speak to me again.

“That means now, Mister Conner’s,” She said, this time standing at the door and simply staring at me. I didn’t want to bother moving my body, but I knew that Howard wouldn’t be happy if I layed down all day. So, very slowly, I pushed the sheets off of me, grabbed the knife, and stood up from the flat surface of my bed. Mary then seemed to grab for something around her as I got up, her face as still as a rock as she watched my movements. I took a clump of my hair in my hand, too tired to care if I was cutting it properly. The lady must’ve figured that out because before I was allowed to start cutting, I felt one of her wrinkled hands stop the blade.

“Let me trim that for you,” Her voice became slightly uneasy as she took the blade from my hands. She soon gestured for me to sit down and began to cut my long hair. She was rather rough, but I couldn’t blame her that much. Now, if I were to be honest, I thought she was going to slit my throat. With how Howard was, I wouldn’t doubt if she began to sputter on about near insane ideas. But as she was cutting my hair, throwing off clump after clump
as I waited, I decided to start up a conversation.

“So, what happened to Howard?” I was happy he didn’t appear, but I was slightly confused that Howard decided not to show up.

“Howard realized that our food supply was running low, so he took Miss Bagger with him to find something to eat. He’s been out all day,” She said, not even skipping a beat.

“Uhm, well, what happened to Durham?” The literal second I said Durham I felt her stop cutting and heard her let out a small sigh.

“Mister Brick is currently… settling a personal issue,” She said, her voice slightly straining itself to keep out the hidden emotions. I was quiet soon after she said that. We didn’t really have much else to talk about so I just listened to her cut my hair.

Soon, I felt the blade stop cutting away at my hair and felt her take her hands off of my head.

“I would cut that stubble you have, but I fear I would accidentally cut you,” She said as she quickly pocketed my blade before swiftly walking towards the door. “Now be a dear and follow me,” Without waiting any longer, I followed her out the door and shadowed her footsteps. While walking, I looked around for Durham, through the rich, green ground and the tall willowing trees, but I couldn’t find him for the life of me.

That was until I saw him walking with a shovel. I was about to say ‘hi’ to him, but the look on his face made it quite clear that he didn’t want to converse with anyone. So, I kept my mouth shut and just merely watched him as he began to walk a little ways away from where we were towards three blobs that I couldn’t make out from how far we were. Soon though, when Durham got there, he began to dig. I merely watched him as he tossed shovel after shovel of dirt behind him, not really caring where it went, as he continued to pull up dirt from the ground. I continued to watch him until I no longer could, until he became nothing more than a speck in the landscape. And so, I turned my attention back to the stoic woman that was walking me towards a tree.

And after a while of following the fairly quiet woman, I saw a rather thick. The size of immaculate tree sending shivers up my spin as I tried to imagine cutting it. With the axe already lying against its brown skin, and moss already growing all over its trunk, the lady then proceeded to face me with a rather familiar revolver in her hands.

“I would suggest that you begin immediately,” She said with a rather deadpanned tone.

As I hit the tree with yet another swing from the axe, I felt my muscles tense up upon impact. I felt the soreness of my arms crying out for me to stop, but I continued on. I pulled the axe out of the tree and used it as a crutch as I wiped the sweat from my brow and tried to catch my breath.

And as I looked back, I saw the woman standing there with the same unemotional look still plastered on her face as I was heaving in air. I saw her hiding my gun underneath her hands, almost as if she was trying to forget that she was holding me at gunpoint. And being the idiot that I was back then, I couldn’t help but tell her how to hold it correctly.

“Keep your hands off the cylinder,” I said, startling her as it was the first time I said anything during my activity. She stared at me questioningly as her hands slightly fidgeted with my gun.

“If you fire that thing like that, you’re going to lose your fingers, at the least break them,” She then slowly removed her hands from the cylinder and rested them on the butt of the gun. Her index finger resting inside the trigger guard. I rolled my eyes out of instinct as I felt like I was with a rookie again.

“Keep your finger off the trigger. The first thing you’re going to shoot is going to be your foot with the way you’re holding it. Only put it on the trigger when you see your target, and only if you’re going to fire” I said as she gave me a bit of a skeptical look. She did do as I said however and pulled her finger out of the guard. After that, we sort of just stared at each other for a small time, not saying anything. I then shook my head, lifted the axe again, and prepared to strike it against the tree.

But before I was able to swing it, I heard the lady speak to me for the first time since I started.

“Why are you telling me this?” She said as I slowly put down the axe and turned around to face her.

“Well, I seen enough bloodied fingers and terrible accidents happen before and after I joined the force. I really don’t want to see another bloody finger because someone was too lazy to move their hand,” I said, remembering how a rather stupid coworker from before tried to clean the meat cutter without putting gloves on.

But as I was remembering the bloody mess that happened that day, I couldn’t help but notice that the woman had a rather distinctive scar on her left cheek.

“Where'd you get that?” I asked, trying to change the topic.

“Get what?”

“The scar on your face,” The old hag realized what I was talking about and seemed to stumble over her words.

“I-I- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You kidding me? It’s still red, so it can’t be more than a month old, pretty sure you’d remember that. I know those… things out there couldn’t have done it, their claws would’ve caused it to curve slightly and you would've had more than one scar. There’s only one scar and it’s straight, so it’s likely a knife was used. I think-”

“I think you should get back to work,” She said, interrupting my train of thought as she looked at me with an unamused look.

I looked at her again, watching her face contort slightly as she tried to hide her anger, but I turned back around, picked the axe back up, and swung it against the tree again.

I swung the axe against the tree for what felt like the thousandth time that day. My body had never felt so sore in my life, my arms felt like they were about to fall off, and my back felt like it was about to break. But through it all, I heard the winding and creaking sound of the tree as it began to fall down. Thankfully it fell down opposite of me, I didn’t feel like moving at all.

I was heaving in air as I feel onto the ground, resting as much as I could. I almost feel asleep, but was taken out of my bedlam as I felt something frantically sniffing my head. I immediately lunged off the ground and turned around to see that same German shepherd looking at me hungrily. I backpedaled from the dog, ignoring the stiffness in my muscles as I tried to get as far away from it as possible. With the experience we had last time, I doubt it would be any friendlier to me.

It only proved me right as it growled viciously at me and was about to pounce, but was stopped when a certain lady got in the way.

“Get out you petulant dog,” She said with a commanding voice that I felt like I was being talked down, too. The dog let out a slight whimper before it began running off somewhere else. After her small bravado, the lady turned around and offered her hand to me.

I slowly grabbed her hand with some suspicion as I still didn’t trust her. She then proceeded to pull me up from the ground, grunting as she tried to pick me up. And as I stood as straight as I could, the lady started to walk off to another direction.

And as she walked away from me, she quickly turned her head and motioned for me to follow. And as the tired man that I was, I sluggishly dragged my feet across the ground as I followed the lady to wherever we were going.

But as we walked in silence, I looked around to try and pass the time. But I couldn't keep myself distracted. I had a burning question to ask, but I couldn’t form the right words. I’m not sure if it was from. Nervousness, or from the fact that I was tried. But during my little brainstorming, the lady suddenly stopped causing me to stumble a little bit.

In front of us was a very familiar raging river. I looked left to right to see if we were close to that cliff, but was disappointed to see a lack of one in any direction.

But as I was sulking in self pity, I felt something being put into my hands. Looking down I saw a rather clean metal bucket in my arms. And as I was about to ask what I was doing, the lady quickly gestured toward the river.

I got the jist of it.

Slowly, making sure I didn’t fall in, I shoveled some water into the bucket before standing back up and using whatever muscles I had left to help. The lady then quickly turned around, again, and started to walk back to our little village. I followed shortly.

As we walked there, I felt the stiffness in my arms again as I tried to carry the bucket full of water back with us. I constantly switched from one hand to another as I felt them cramp up underneath the weight. And when we did finally get there, the lady told me to put it down and rest for a minute.

As I rested, I looked up at the lady who was still looking as stoic as she usually does. And as I was looking at her, I couldn’t help but as her my burning question.

“Was that your dog?” I asked.

“No,” She said without even turning to me.

“Who’s is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know who’s dog it is?” I asked utterly confused as she simply kept looking forward.

“I don’t know because no one else does. It is a sheep that has strayed from its flock.”

“... It’s a stray then.”

“In layman’s terms, yes.”

Afterwards, we sat in silence for a minute or two before she told me to get up. I did as I was told and followed her more. And as we neared the camp, I saw Durham sitting silently near the charred ground that was the campfire. Thankfully we were heading to the same area-I could ask him why he looked so sad.

When we got there, she told me to put down the bucket and told me to rest again. And so I began to rest again. And seeing that I couldn’t do anything else for the small time I had, I sat down next to Durham. Trying to ignore the pain in my back as I felt it surge up my spin.

He shifted slightly at my sudden movement, but relaxed as he realized that it was me. He didn’t say anything, and instead looked deeper into the charred ground.

“What happened?” I asked suddenly. He looked up from the ground and looked at me with his brown eyes. He opened his mouth slightly, his trembling lips being extremely apparent. He looked like he was about to say something, but closed his mouth and went back to looking at the ground.

I was a little confused by his behavior, but I didn’t want to pry. So we just sat there, both of us respecting each other's personal business. But after a minute or two of just sitting there, I began to remember the first couple of days I was brought here. How Durham treated my wounds, how Howard was an ass, how he took my wallet. A wallet that had my drivers license. So it only sparked a question in my mind. Why did they have to ask for my name if they had my drivers license? And so, I turned to Durham.

“Durham,” I said, he only turned his head ever so slightly. “I just remembered that you guys took my wallet from me while I was sleeping. I remember how Howard taunted me with my family's photo and how he spoke down to me. What I want to understand from that day is why didn’t you look in my wallet for my I.D? Why did you have to ask for my name if you had my drivers license?”

“Howard wouldn’t let us touch it,” Durham said, his voice only audible to my ear.

“Then how did Howard not know?” Durham didn’t say a single thing after that. Whether he was wondering himself or if he didn’t want to tell me, I don’t know.

It was then that the lady called my name for me to follow her. And so I got back upon my feet and began to walk in her direction, looking back at Durham as he continued to stare ahead of himself. I knew this conversation was far from over, but he didn’t really seem to care.

After following the lady again, we were soon back to the tree that I had cut down over an hour ago. I stared at her for a couple of seconds before I saw her point to the axe that I had dropped earlier. I looked at the axe and then back to her with an eyebrow raised.

“We need wood, mister James. It won’t simply fall of the tree,” She said. I stared at her for a few more seconds before letting out a huff of air. I picked up the axe again and began to chop at the tree again.

While it was much easier to cut the tree while it was on its stomach, my arms were still sore as hell. I could barely move them without feeling some sort of resistance. Thankfully, the lady told me that I wouldn’t need to cut down another tree for a month or so. The tree that I did cut down, however, was now nothing more than a large pile of broken down wood.

I carried every single piece to the charred out area where Durham was still sitting at. He didn’t say a word, not even a peep. Every time I walked away I heard him shuffling around, but when I turned around, I saw that he was holding his hands together in an iron grip, almost like he was trying to keep something away from himself. I thought he was cold or something, but this was before I knew what he was trying to do.

The lady, on the other hand, was simply watching me from a distance, her gaze had never been averted from me, her eyes not daring to move away from me. Not even once. Every time I looked at her, I always saw her eyes looking directly at me. I was a little creeped out a little, but got over it.

The one other thing I was always looking out for was that damn dog. I don’t know if you’ve ever been nearly chewed on, but trust me, it’s a frightening experience. I’ve gotten bitten by dogs before, some even from the k-9 unit, but I did not want to be on the receiving end of that dog’s teeth.

But after finally putting down all the logs, I sat down next to Durham and finally rested. The lady came walking up behind us, wiping away at the dirt on her dress, and stood there. We all just sat around and did nothing. We didn’t say a word to each other until I realized something.

“You know-” I said turning around to the lady, “- I never got your name,” She turned to me and looked deep into my eyes. She didn’t talk for about a minute, probably asking herself if I was worthy of knowing. But soon, the doubt in her eyes dissipated and she opened her mouth and told me.

“Mary Hitchcock,” She said briefly. Not really bothering to say anything else and turned back around to look at the horizon. After that, I didn’t say anything and there wasn't any talking for the rest of the evening.

A few hours later as we sait down in silence, I was on the verge of passing out and the sun was beginning to set. The bad part about is that I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and I could barely shut my eyes without having my stomach complain about not being feed. I was about to ask for some food or why we were all just sitting out here doing nothing, but then suddenly, through the thick trees, I saw two people lugging a rather large animal behind them. One of them was wearing a black cowboy hat.

“HOOOWWWWEEEEE, WE GOT OURSELVES A BIG ONE!” Said a rather familiar texan voice. Soon Durham got up and started to walk towards them with Mary following shortly after. I, on the other hand, didn’t bother moving. Instead, I decided to watch them from afar and observe their actions.

Durham was checking Howard for injuries, constantly being told to stop and help them move the thing. Mary was on the other being though, brushing off any dirt or grime that appeared on it. I couldn’t exactly tell who she was cleaning off and when they finally hauled the thing all the way over here, I got up off my ass and saw that the animal that they were carrying was one of those lion things. Its face had a massive gaping hole in it and blood that covered most of its body did not exactly look inviting. But as I looked back up, I could see a small girl being cleaned off by Mary. The girl was, Hispanic, short, early twenties, and was carrying a bow with a handful of arrows on her. Looking down at her, I noticed that she looked rather disgusted at the thought of carrying this lion. Her black hair was tied up into a bun and her small arms looked like they were struggling to keep the lion from slipping out of her hands. I assumed that this was 'Nicole’ that Howard spoke to the other day.

A moment later, they dropped the thing on the ground. Howard took in a huge gulp of air and panted a little bit before looking around, a smile curving on his face as he felt happy about his accomplishment. Soon, however, his eyes found their way to me and the smile on his face turned into a sneer. But he no later took his eyes off of me and he started to walk somewhere else. I eyed him a little bit longer but decided to let it go and turn back to the others. Durham had sat back down and Mary had continued standing back in her spot with 'Nicole’ joining her.

I sat back down on the ground with Durham and just waited. Occasionally I would glance at Nicole and see her staring at me but we had no other interactions. Nothing was said between the two of us. Not while we waited, not while we sat around the charred ground, not when Howard came back ten minutes later. Howard came back carrying three large, long branches, each thick enough to spike someone's head on.

He stuck two of the rather large branches into the ground and brought the third one to the lion. He then skewered the thing and tried to lift it. He failed and gestured for help. Again, I didn’t get up to help. Instead, the rest of the group came in to help lift the thing up from the ground and rest it on the two branches that was protruding from the soil.

After that, Howard grabbed a couple of logs that I chopped up and threw them underneath the now hanging lion before he got on his knees. He grabbed a bunch of dried leaves on the ground and a couple of loose sticks. He threw all but one stick onto the logs and began to rub on top of the leaves in a very fast motion with the one stick he kept.

About a minute later, a small little flame had spawned on top of the small pile of leaves and Howard threw them into the bonfire. Howard blew into it, added some more dry leaves, and did just about anything that could help the fire to spread. About a minute after that, and the fire had began to consume the logs and was rapidly spreading. And no sooner did we have a roaring fire caressing the fur of the animal above it and burning its skin with the smoldering caress.

I was holding a piece of black, burnt meat in my hands. It was so dark that I couldn’t tell if it was black meat or white. But either way, the others were enjoying the meal that they were given. They were practically howling it down. Everyone except Mary, who was delicately nibbling it, and Howard, who was too busy giving me the stink eye to truly enjoy the meal.

I ignored him though and just stared at the lion that was burnt to a crisp. Occasionally, I would see a drop of blood drip down off of its fur and land on the fire, giving the flames a sweat sizzling sound before it evaporated into thin air.

If you couldn't tell, I wasn’t exactly hungry. Not because my stomach was full, or because I was being stared at by Howard, but because the meat tasted like shit. The burnt crisp aftertaste didn't help elevate that doubt. I was a bit of an idiot back then for not realizing how little meat we would get.

“You should eat, James,” I was brought out of my thoughts at the sound of Durham’s voice. I looked up to him to see that he was staring at me sincerely and with a calm look on his face.

“This is probably going to be the last real meal we have for a while,” Durham's said, shortly biting straight into his meal. I looked back down at the piece of burnt meat in my hands and slowly inched it closer to my mouth. As soon as it touched my tongue, I felt like to vomiting. But I pushed it aside and took a mighty chomp of the flesh, chewing through the black rocks as I tried to swallow it It was terrible

I forced it down my throat, not even bothering to make sure it was fully chewed. Kathleen's cooking was better than that crap and her food was like trying to eat charcoal. But at least it had some spices. This thing though... I could hardly swallow it.

After my little encounter with swallowing the burnt piece of rubber, I put down the meat. I didn’t eat for the rest of the night. I couldn’t do anything so I just sat down quietly and waited for everyone to finish their meals.

Hardly even seconds later, there was a tremendous howl that reverberated through the forest. We all looked around us to find out where that howl came from, but we couldn’t see anything with how dark it was.

“Was that the dog?” I said, turning my head to Durham as his face began to turn into panic.

“No, that wasn’t the dog,” His said as his voice held nothing but fear in it.

Everything had crawled to spine twisting silence. Everyone looked around, but Howard on the other hand had kicked the lion off of its perch, almost making it land on me. I jumped to my feet and was about to yell at Howard until I saw him dragging the thing away from us I just stared at him for a second, wondering what the hell he was doing. But I was suddenly startled when I felt a hand land on my shoulder.

I turned and saw that Durham was looking at me with a terrified expression.

“James we got to go!” He said, turning around quickly before he began to run towards Mary and Nicole who were already halfway towards a rustic looking shack. I slowly turned my back to wherever Howard went to, and simply watched them, unsure of what the right choice is. But when I heard that deafening howl echo around me, I was more than enticed to run after Durham. During my run, I heard the eerie howl again getting even closer to the borrow, further implanting the fear I felt in my chest. And after a short while of running, I had caught up to Durham and began to run at his pace.

Durham’s frantic pants of transit panic was the only source of emotion that could be read on his apparent face. I, on the other hand, knew not of what to expect. I knew not if those howls were from those wooden wolves, those lion heads, or some other freak of nature. All I knew was that all of us were running towards what we hopped would keep us alive. In front of us, a small bit away, I saw Mary and Nicole swing the door to the shack open before they strode in. No sooner did me and Durham barge in interrupting the conversation that Marry and Nicole were having, Durham gasping for air as he rested against the wall.

I myself, looked to the other two that occupied the room with us. Mary, for the first time that day, finally showed some sort of emotion on her wrinkled face. But like the rest of her group, it only showed fear and despair at the situation we were in. Nicoles face perfectly mirrored Mary’s as she too only showed how much she was terrified. The only source of light being a small candle in the corner made it only harder to try and read her face.

But I couldn’t study their faces any longer because it wasn't soon after that Howard came through the door and slammed it behind him as he himself was resting his lungs. Howards hands were slathered in blood and his face had a grim look on it, as if he knew what was soon to happen. He soon pulled up to Mary and began to converse as secretly as he could. I would tell you what they said but I couldn’t hear them over the sudden sound of the dirt being ripped out of the ground. All of our heads turned to the direction of its sound, not even daring to make a noise out of fear of being heard.

Howard turned his head towards me for a few seconds, his eyes judging me as he looked me up and down. But when even more sounds of dirt and grass being ripped out from its home came closer to our sanctuary, he got down onto his feet and began to brush away some of the cluttered leaves that laid on the ground before he pulled out a familiar looking sniper rifle, a small piece of fabric covering the barrel.

Howard dared not look at me, but instead pulled out his pistol and handed it to Nicole, the sounds of the ripping ground still perpetuating throughout the wooden shack.

“Nicole, fire dat only if’n we miss,” Howard said, his voice barely above a whisper as he muttered to her. He soon took aim at the wooden door, adjusting his shoulder slightly as he tried to figure out how to hold the gun. Marry soon joining him on the ground and took aim at the door with my revolver. Not another word was said that day, not another emotion was shown, everyone as quiet as a mouse. The only sounds accompanying us were the sounds of the ground being torn apart as more dirt was ripped to shreds.

I myself tried to stay awake, to find out what it is that they feared so much at night, but my body was tired and demanded that I find rest. I began to sit down on the ground, telling my body that the sleep that it oh so desired was to come soon. After finding a relaxing spot on the ground and soft bark to rest my back on, I began to slip away from the world around me, allowing my mind to ever so slowly rest into sleep.

Chapter 12: Not Getting Along

View Online

I remember the cool soft dirt brushing up against my skin as I lay upon its surface. I remember the singing chirps of birds passing overhead as I slept peacefully under the wooden roof. I quickly felt a kick in my gut. I felt the air literally get pushed out of me as I began to grip my stomach, quickly gasping in air.

“Git up, got sum werk ta do,” I quickly heard the southern accent say. I opened my eyes and looked up to see Howard looking down at me with blank eyes and black bags under his eyes. I shortly started to push myself up there after, my arms shaking under my weight. I felt the tight grip around my shoulders kneed into my shoulders before I felt them forcefully lifting me up from the ground before I felt them shove me towards the door.

While being forcefully shoved towards the open door, I lost my footing and proceeded to fall face first into the dirt ground. Pulling my head up from the ground, I looked around to see the wreckage that was spread around me. Claw marks lined the ground everywhere, deep and long, far and few inbetween. Branches stuck up from the ground and pointed to the high sky above. I looked back down at the dirt beneath me to see that a large claw mark engulf my vision.

But before I could look at it any further, I felt the same gripping hands grasp my shoulders and forcefully pull me up. They shoved me again, and almost caused me to fall face first into the dirt again. Almost.

“Get movin’, don’ ‘ave all day,” I looked behind me to see his sneering face. I was about to talk back, but the quick glance down at his hand stopped me from even opening my mouth. His gun at the ready and his finger firmly on the trigger, I quickly looked back ahead of me and began to walk forward, listening to Howard as he guided me to wherever he was taking me.

While on my walk, I couldn’t help but notice a rather large patch of dirt. This patch of dirt, out of all the others, was more… ‘organized’. It was dug up in a rectangle like way and was padded in a comfortable style. Above that was a stick that had been broken in two and laid limply above the fresh patch of dirt. I wasn’t allowed to look at the site much longer before I felt a hand shove me forward again.

I dared not to look back at that spot in fear that Howard was push me again. So I kept walking forward, barring my feet onto the ground as I walked on the unsteady dirt. A million things were going through my head at that moment. I knew not what Howard was doing nor where he was bringing me. It was only when we neared a couple of bushes was I told to stop.

I turned around almost immediately and before I could even utter a word he threw a rather familiar backpack into my arms. I looked down at the empty bag with nothing more than confusion. But that soon turned into realization as I figured out that the bag in my hand was my son’s backpack. I looked back up at Howard curiously, not sure why he’d give me it.

“Pick as many berries as ya can an’ put ‘em in that thang,” He said, before swiftly walking off to another tree and resting against it, still giving me the stink eye. Without many other options, I turned around towards the bushes behind me and began to pick the berries next to me. I picked and pulled and prodded berries from the many bushes that were around me. The simple repetitive nature of pulling those black berries off from their small twigs was so boring. I kept picking and pulling berry after berry, not really noticing that the sky sun above me was passing by.

It was only after picking berries from the third bush did something change. While walking to the fourth bush, I noticed a rather sharp wooden spike sticking out of the ground. I thought nothing of it at the time, but came to realize that it could be used as a weapon. So, I walked up next to it and pretended to drop some berries on the ground. I knelt over and reached for the claw, wrapping my hands around its curved form and pulled it out of the ground like a glove. I quickly put the claw under my shirt and picked up any berries on the ground and put them back in the backpack.

I swiftly went back to picking berries from the bushes as fast as I could so that Howard wouldn’t get suspicious. Let me tell you, having that claw dig into my stomach every time I moved my arms was not a pleasant experience. Thankfully, I was told to stop by a rather tired sounding man. I turned around from where I was standing and looked at Howard as he casually stood a few feet away from me.

“Toss me tha bag,” He said, motioning me towards him. But as soon as I took one step forward, I heard the cocking of a gun and saw Howard with his hand on his gun.

“Ah said, toss me tha bag,” I dared not take another step forward and instead did what he said. He picked up the bag, taking a quick look inside before he lugged it over his shoulder. “Follow me,” Howard said not even waiting for James to respond before he started walking off somewhere else.

During our walk, I noticed a rather pungent odor wafting in the air. I tried to ignore the rotten smell as it invaded my nostrils and burned my eyes with its intensive stench. The further we walked, the worse the aroma became. It had gotten to the point where I could feel the stink crawl up my skin as I tried to ignore its dreadfulness.

But even then, the more I tried to ignore it, the worse it had become. It was only when Howard stopped, did I finally realize where the godawful smell was coming from. In front of us, lay a corpse with its meat stripped from its white shattered bones. And even though the grisly sight before me shook me to my core, it was not the thing I was focused on. A few feet away from the decrepit, decaying carcass was a pile of fly ridden meat. The dark, rotten, disgusting smell of it was strong enough for me to lose my footing. I felt the slight burning of bile crawling up my throat but kept it down through sheer will.

I wasn’t allowed to look on and wonder though.

“Hurry up!” I heard Howard say. I quickly turned around from the crime scene and made my way towards Howard. Once I caught up, Howard began walking again, as though he didn’t just walk past a red mess of meat. I however, with sheer curiosity, had to know why that thing was there.

“What did that?” I asked Howard, causing him to stop in his tracks. He looked back at me a little ways away and only said one word.

“Wolves,” He continued to walk. And even though that only raised questions in my mind, I knew better than to press the issue any further. So, I kept my mouth shut and followed Howard to wherever he was taking me. As we walked, I began to recognize the area he was taking me to. It was, in fact, the same place Mary had taken me to the other day to bring water. Though, this time, I didn’t have a bucket with me. It only made me question why he was taking me out there.

When we finally managed to get to the river I asked him another question.

“What are we doing here?” I said, looking around to make sure it was only us there. But when I looked back at Howard, I only saw the cold black barrel at the end of a gun.

“Ya know, Ah really should kill ya with what ya done to mah group,” He said, as hate and absolute anger began to show in his eyes. The tension in the air was thick, as I looked down the gun. My heart rate increasing with the passing seconds as I felt tremors of fear crawl up my spine. I then asked, out of terror and to extend my life a little longer-

“What- What’d I do?”- not even bothering to hide the panic in my voice.

“Ya really don’ know? EVEN NOW?!” He said, as I saw his finger beginning to squeeze the trigger, just about ready to put a bullet in my skull. “Ya show up ‘ere bringin’ mah girls lamp, sayin’ ya didn’ kill ‘er! Ya think ah’m that stupid?!” He voice was on the verge of screaming as I saw angry tears start to well up at the base of his eyes. “What did ya do ta ‘er!”

“Howard, listen to me, if you shoot that gun, you’re going to get yourself and everyone else here kill-”

“Fuck’s sake, Durham was lyin’ ta save yer dumbass… I was jus’ too angry to think,” He said, as I noticed his demeanor start to calm down a bit before he raised the gun back up at me with the same ferocity. “But ‘ere’s a truth, if ah kill ya’, ya won’ be causin’ me an’ mah group anymore trouble,” It was at that moment that I felt like I should have acted. I felt my body start to pump adrenaline through it, my muscles starting to contract and relax as my body was getting ready to pounce on Howard and fight for my life. The sweat on my brow becoming even more prominent as I felt stress start to course through my veins. But just like that, it stopped.

Howard has dropped his arm and was looking at me with hateful eyes full of resentment. I could feel the rage curdling inside of him, and I was scared. “You an’ ah ain’t gonna get along,” he said pushing past me and walking back to the camp. I on the other hand stood there completely dumbfounded and confused. My mind full of static of the situation as I felt my body start to completely relax from the confrontation. And even though I felt relief that I still kept my life, I couldn’t help but question why he didn’t just shoot me. He had the chance to and could’ve made some bullshit lie to cover his ass. But there was only one person that could answer that question and he was walking back to camp. So, without further hesitation, I followed his footsteps.

After a rather awkward walk back to the camp, Howard sat down against a tree and proceeded to stare forward. Not even noticing me behind him as he ignored my being. Still, didn’t change the fact that I had questions that needed answering.

“Why didn’t you-”

“I didn’ kill ya ‘cause we still need ya. Ain’t nobody else ‘ere got tha strength ta cut down a tree, an’ Ah’m too fuckin’ old,” He said without even bothering to look back at me.

“Uh, well… Thanks... I guess,” I said turning back around to go back to one of the wooden cabins and go back to the sleep that was robbed from me. But before I could even take five steps away from Howard, I heard him speak up one last time.

“Ah wouldn’ thank me yet. As soon as we fin’ someone else ta take yer job, yer as good as dead,” He said, with a malevolent tone hidden underneath his southern drawl. That one sentence stopped me dead in my tracks. I don’t know what it was, fear, anger, or shock, but I couldn’t help but feel so terrified at what he said.

I began to think about how I was going to deal with the situation. What I could do to convince Howard that I’m too valuable to kill that I’m too important to the group to be killed. But with all the things that I thought up of, I felt a dark idea crawl to the front of my mind. Wouldn’t it be easier if I just killed Howard?

After all, he seemed like the dangerous type, always off the hook, always the one to make irrational decisions at erratic times. If I killed him, the group would be much more organized and more than likely much calmer. And , if the one sided conversation Howard had with me was of any indicator, there are more humans out here. We could make some more connections with them start making alliances and groups, grow stronger together than if we were apart. But Howard, if my first experience with him was any indicator, doesn’t trust anyone so easily.

Killing him would make things so much easier.

I remember trying to rationalize with myself. That I was a cop, I’m supposed to protect innocents, not kill them. But the more I thought about it, the more it just made sense. I started to slowly creep my way back towards him, quieting my footsteps as I got closer to him. I reached around myself and steadily brought out the small ‘dagger’ I had. And when I was finally close enough to Howard, I brought the claw high above myself, making sure not to even make the faintest of noises.

I looked down at Howard and stared at his brown, dirt-ridden hat. Feeling some sort of hatred start to build up in me, I started to feel my hand shake and shiver as I felt nervousness start to fill my core. I held my hand like that for maybe a minute or two, letting anxiety start to crawl inside of me as I hesitated on what I had to do.

Feeling pressure upon me as I felt my grip tighten around the claw as my heart started to pound in my chest. The inkling feeling of guilt and fear tingling up my spin. And just like that, I slowly brought the claw back down, doing my best to try and hold my breath down longer.

I couldn’t do it. Some part of me, maybe the cop side couldn’t let me kill him in cold blood. Maybe it was the bit of good in me that was still there. I honestly don’t know. Either way, I put the claw back between my belt line and sat down against a tree, far away from Howard, and just waited.

Hours later, when the night sky was starting to peek over the horizon, was when the rest of the group came by. In all that time, I just sat there wondering what was wrong with myself, how could I possibly consider murdering someone like that. I didn’t really bother to acknowledge Durham, only willing to look at him when he was in front of me with the backpack full of berries that I had collected earlier that day.

“Take some, you must be starving,” Durham said. I looked down into the backpack and noticed that there was hardly even a handful left inside. But I didn’t object to Durham, I was hungry. I put my hand in and grabbed whatever berries I could before I started to chowdown on the less than appetizing meal. The berries were much better than that burnt lion the other day, but I doubt they would’ve held me over for the rest of the day. Still, I was grateful for the food. As I looked up from my blue smattered hand, I noticed that everyone else, Howard included, was eating their own handful of berries.

Marry, Nicole, and Durham were talking about this and that while Howard was still lying against the tree eating his own handful of berries. It was at this moment that I felt serene. That everything felt normal for the first time since I came to this land. Friends were talking to one another, eating food with each other, and passing it around like decent human beings. I felt normal for that small moment of tranquility.

…

After everyone had eaten their berries, the sun was soon moving past the horizon as the moon began to take its place. Everyone, went back to their cabins to sleep out the night and look forward to another day in the forest. Well, most of them. As I returned to my cabin, I couldn’t help but feel my stomach groan for more food. I only got a handful of berries and that wasn’t even close enough to sate me. So I simply waited for everyone else to fall asleep. Didn’t want to bump into Howard and have a repeat of last time. So I patiently waited until I was sure that everyone was asleep.

Hearing the crickets chirp and the muffled waving of the branched was my only company. The wooden roof above me creaking as the wind pierced the cracks in the wall. After waiting for an hour or so, I slowly exited my cabin, trying my best to make sure that the door didn’t make any noise that would wake anyone.

Soon I was quietly making my way across the fields towards the berry bushes where I had collected berries that day prior. Making sure my steps were calm and steady, that I avoided any sticks that lied on the ground. But while I kept my vision down, I heard strange noises starting to crop out of the forest. Like sweet whispers crawling up my spine. The small cracks of twigs creeping into my bones. The chilling hum of the careless leaves as they move in the wind. The soft crying of a man that withered into my ears. Swiftly I turned around and saw Durham sitting down in front of a wooden cross.

Three wooden crosses.

I slowly approached him from behind and just watched him, unsure of what I should do. The sounds of his crying still permeated through the forest, his sobbing littering the ground with his tears, while he remained unaware of my presence. I slowly raised my hand and rested it on his shoulder. He jumped a little at first but relaxed when he saw my face.

“Ja- James I didn’t see you…” He said as he tried desperately to cover his sobbing voice.

“...What’re you doing out here, Durham?”

“I was… remembering.”

“...I don’t think you could’ve done anything else.”

“He put his life in my hands… they all did.”

“We’re in the middle of a forest with hardly any medical supplies. I don’t think there’s much else you could’ve done.”

“I know I couldn't save them… But they were good people… Officer Patrick saved my life more times than I can count.”

“He sounds like a good person.”

“The best guy I’ve ever known. Always found a way to make us laugh, even when we were starving.”

“Sounds like I someone I knew.”

“Then there’s Mister Hitchcock. He was always having arguments with Howard, but he always put the group before himself.”

“Mister Hitchcock? Isn’t that Mary’s last name?”

“...”

“I see.”

“And then there’s Grunk… Dumb sack of shit.”

“How’d you know that butterfly was poisonous?”

“How did you-”

“I listened in the day that damn dog attacked.”

“It was in Nicole’s book, had poison skulls around the thing.”

“Poison skulls?”

“I don’t understand a word in that book, but it’s got some pretty good pictures.”

“...Alright.”

“James, can you please just leave me alone right now?”

“I would do that if we weren’t the only people out here.”

“What are you doing out here anyways?”

“... I heard crying coming from outside, came out and saw you.”

“Oh.”

“Durham, you don’t need to tear yourself apart over this. You said so yourself, you did everything you could even when you knew they were going to die. You can remember them all you want, but you can’t just let this eat you up for the rest of your life. I’m pretty sure Patrick would tell you to get up and stop whining.”

“Heh… you’re right about that.”

“Come on, let’s go to sleep before Howard catches us out here,” I said as I offered my hand. He graciously took it and got onto his feet. We both went our separate ways and I went back towards my little hut.

I wasn’t hungry anymore.

Chapter 13: Kidnapping

View Online

“Mister Connor, are you awake yet?” Mary said.

“He’s always sleepin’ in..” Howard said.

“He’s still getting used to being here,” Durham said.

“Don’ ‘scuse ‘em from gettin’ up on time. Now GET UP!”

My eyes shot open from Howards screaming. No later was the door opened with footsteps accompanying it.

“‘Bout time ya got up, suns high.”

“I hardly slept, Howard,” I replied.

“Jus’ get tha fuck up,” Howard said turning and walking back out of the room, his jacket lagging behind him.

“Christ, he must really like brown, when did he get that jacket?”

“I gave it to him this morning, I do manage the clothes after all. it is getting colder Mister Conner, I would suggest you do the same,” Mary said as she laid down a green colored jacket on my ‘bed’. I grabbed it quickly and put it on all the same.

“You look horrible in green,” Durham said.

“And you look like a discount Mr. Rogers with that sweater, now why did Howard want me up?”

“He wants you to check the traps with him, see if we’ve got food to eat,” The second he stopped talking was when I started contemplating. He wanted me to check the traps. Why didn’t he take Nicole this time? It didn’t make any sense, but I played along with it.

“Whatever you say Durham.”

“I would suggest you be quick, he hates it when your tardy,” Mary butt in.

“Yeah, I’ll hurry up… why are you still wearing that dress?”

“... It comforts me,” She said before quickly leaving the room with only Durham and me.

“You know her husband bought that for her.”

“... Really? Looks like it was made in the 1600’s.”
“1800’s and apparently he spent a lot of money getting her that dress.”

“A dress like that probably goes for 60 bucks at best… oh.”

“... Yeah, the day I see her take off that dress and bonnet is the day I die.”

“...”

“Well, I’ll uh… I’ll see you later,” Durham said as he walked out the door, leaving me alone in the room. I didn’t waste any time. When I was certain that he was far away enough, I reached around my belt line and pulled out the claw. Gripping it tightly as my adrenaline started to kick in. My hands shaking at the thoughts of what Howard could do.

I heard a small creak coming from behind me and snapped my neck backwards to see nothing. I quickly shoved the claw back into my beltline and got up, ignoring my rapid heart. Once outside, I saw the amber leaves waving on their branches as a one after another would slowly start to fall off the tree. Every time I took a step I would hear the familiar crinkling sound accompany me.

Durham was talking to Mary discussing who knows what. Nicole was sitting against one of the few trees that remained on our little camp reading her book. While Howard stood tall and imposing away from the rest of the group. I picked up my pace and met him at the edge of camp where the forest seemed to get darker the further it went in.

“Took yer time,” He said in an impatient voice.

“Sorry, I was tying my shoes.”

“Whateva. We got ‘bout ten traps ta check. After that, we’ll cook whateva wasn’ eaten. Might not git much from this. Animals’ll are startin’ ta sleep.”

“Shouldn’t I have a gun?”

“You don’ git one yet.”

“If we find some grizzly bear out there, I doubt I’ll be able to defend myself.”

“The fuck’s a grizzly bear?”

“You don’t know what a-”

“Ah don’ care. You’ll git a gun when ah say ya do,” Howard quickly said as he hastily made his way into the forest. I followed suit shortly after.

The cracking leafs echoed around as they reverbed off the trees. Howard and I walked from trap to trap collecting what we could. Some traps were untouched while most were bloodied. Howard would reset whatever traps were set off before he continued on to the next one. There were only three animals we managed to scrounge up. And even though we got something, two rabbits and a squirrel is hardly enough to feed five people.

And even though we continued to check every trap, I couldn’t help but notice the sun getting eerily closer to the horizon.

“Uhh, Howard, it’s getting pretty late. I think we should start heading back,” I said.

“Pfft, wolves’ll hunt in packs. We’ll hear ‘em before they see us,” He said as he continued to walk further into the forest. I stopped in my tracks and just stared at him. The way he acted all the time made me wonder how his group was still alive. His lack of care for others made me question his leadership. But I knew my place. I couldn’t bring it up now, I didn’t want to stay in that forest any longer than necessary, so I shut my mouth and kept following him.

And we kept walking, the sun getting lower in the sky with each and every step. Soon enough, I heard Howard swear in a whisper. I stepped up to him to ask what was wrong. But found the answer in front of me.

The dog was tearing a rabbit into pieces. Bits of blood spattered here and there as it dug into its meal. It must’ve heard us at some point, ‘cause it looked dead into our eyes with such anger as blood dripped from its maw. Howard, with his gun raised, put his hand on my chest and started to push me back.

“Back away slowly,” he said with his voice low. I didn’t need him to repeat it to me. I calmly backpedaled away from the dog, never taking my eyes off it. Howard shadowed my footsteps as his gun stayed in the dogs general direction.

As soon as we were far away enough, Howard took his hand off my chest and let out a shaky breath. I felt the small bit of adrenaline start to leave my system as my legs started to shake. But I had one question on my mind.

“Why don’t you kill it?”

“Wha?”

“Why don-”

“Ah heard ya… Tha damn thang saved-... it ain’t yer concern,” Howard said before standing up straight and looking around.

“We’re going back to camp, just… catch yer…. hell’s tha’ sound?” He said. It was faint, and barley audible, but it sounded like children of all things. Shouting at each other. Howard pulled out his gun again and started to walk towards the sounds, I followed suit.

When we got there, Howard quickly ducked behind a couple of bushes, waving at me to get closer. I did as was told and crouched behind the bushes too before looking forward. In front of us stood two ponies. Their backs were turned to us as they were looking up at the trees. I subsequently looked up as well and saw another pony hanging from its hind legs.

“That ain’t one av our traps,” Howard said under his breath.

“Get me down!” She kept shouting, as she repeatedly buzzed its orange wings.

“How? Yer so high up!” Said another pony. Its pink bow bouncing on her head.

“Yeah, we can’t reach you!” another said as her multi-colored hair bounced around.

“Ugghh, I knew it was a bad idea to go ‘cutie mark crusaders human hunting.”

“What?” I said suddenly. Howard clamped his hands over my mouth and tried to keep me silent. It didn’t seem to matter though, as the ponies didn’t hear me.

“Yer tha one that suggested it!”

“I thought you guys would chicken out!”

“You’re one to talk.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Soon the trio started to argue with one another about who’s fault it was, but I was too busy ripping Howard’s hands off my mouth to really care. It was only after leveraging his hand off my mouth did he finally say anything to me.

“They’re too close to camp…” Howard said under his breath.

“What’re we gonna do?” I whispered back.

“... Help me capture ‘em.”

“What?”

“Ya heard me.” He said slowly starting to stand up.

“They’re just kids!” I said, grabbing his arm and forcing him back down.

“If’n they find our camp, they’re gonna tell everyone ‘n their mother where we are. We ain’t takin’ that risk. Now help me,” He looked directly in my eyes as he said it. I don’t want to admit it, but he was right. We couldn’t take that risk because they were children. They’d more than likely find us.

“...Fine,” I said before slowly standing up and sneaking up behind the ponies.

“Why do we go into the Everfree anyway?!” Asked the pristine coated filly.

“‘Cause how else’re we gonna know if we’re ‘human hunters’?” Replied the southern filly.

“Can you two please stop arguing and get me down!?” Asked the upside pegasus. The other two however seemed to ignore her pleas for aid.

“Everytime we go out here, we get lost, injured or worst!”

“Well, ah’m sorry if miss fancy pants doesn’t wanna get her hooves too dirty”

“Can you guys get me down at least?”

“I didn’t come out to the Everfree forest so I can start rolling around in the mud!”

“Applejack told me that tha animals of the Everfree can smell yer scent, so she told me to put mud on ta block their smell. It ain’t so different when you go to Rarity fer a spa bath!”

“Oh for the love of- WATCH OUT!”

Suddenly, I saw three pairs of eyes staring directly at me, each with their own set of emotions fixated on me. Almost immediately, I saw the pink bowed filly turn tail and try to run away from me as fast as possible. She might’ve succeeded too if Howard wasn’t there. Instead of running off into the distance to be eaten by one of the many predators that lurked in the jungle, she instead ran head first into Howard, nearly tackling him to the ground. Howard grabbed hold of her forelegs and tried to keep her as still as possible.

My attention then returned to the other two that have still yet to move. The one that so precariously was hanging above us was gnawing at the roped that bounded her legs, trying desperately to use whatever method to get out of her binds.

The white colored pony though didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t dare breath as it looked at me. I slowly approached her as she game me a wide eyed expression full with fear and horror. The only thing that even made her seem alive was the fact that she keep on constantly sputtering out the same syllable.

“Hu-hu-hu-hu-hu-hu…” She didn’t even flinch as I grabbed around her waist and hosted her over my shoulder, still spewing out the same two letters.

Howard, while the filly was still fighting with him, didn’t seem to be having much trouble with the pony. He slowly stood up, trying his best to balance himself as well as the child flailing in his arms.

“C’mon, we ain’t far from camp,” He said, not even waiting for me to respond as he started to walk away from the area. And just as I was about to walk with Howard I heard the disgruntled voice of a very angry child.

“Let them go, you jackasses!” She said, screaming at the top of her lungs at us.

“What about her?” I asked.

“Leave ‘em, we can come back fer her later,” He shouted over his shoulder.

I looked over at Howard and saw his form slowly start to disappear as he walked past more trees and bushes. I looked back up at the filly who was glaring at me with so much anger and hate in her eyes. I knew she hated me with a passion, I just ambushed her friends and was about to leave her hanging. I felt like I had to say something to her, to calm her down.

“Don’t worry, we’re not gonna hurt them. Just stay there, we’ll be right back,” I said swiftly before turning back around and running after Howard.

“LET THEM GO!” She said one last time, followed by a string of insults and curse words, her voice became less and less audible as I made my were further into the forest, trying to catch up with Howard.

As we made our way back to camp, Howard was still dealing with a thrashing child who refused to stay still. But she was saying some of the most damndest things I’ve ever heard come out of a child’s mouth. And Howard was not happy to be dealing with it.

I on the other hand had little more to do than carry a mortified filly who had refused to even so much as blink as I walked back to camp. Durham must’ve seen what we were doing for he was right in front of me the second I turned my head back to Howard.

“What happened?!” He said, practically shouting at me.

“We found a bunch of kids too close to camp, Howard decided that we should get them before they saw us.”

“Bu-but… why would you-”

“Shud up an’ open tha door!” Howard said, screaming out his frustrations towards us at the rather resilient filly that was now trying to bite at his hands. Durham looked apprehensive, but one look from Howard was all it took. He didn’t take one second further as he rushed past us and opened the door to the nearest shack… my shack.

Howard started to tow his way over there, getting more and more angry and violent with the child in his arms than he should be. As soon as he was close enough to the door, he grabbed her by her tail and threw her in, not even bothering to look at her afterwards. As soon as I was close enough to the door, I put the child down on the ground slowly, trying to make sure she didn’t hit her head too hard.

The pink bowed one looked like she was seeing stars in her eyes as she was shaking her head back and forth in a rapid and clear movement. But just as I was about to walk out of the room and close it behind me, I heard her voice say something that stopped me in my head.

“I know ya!” She said. I didn’t dare turn my head towards her as I started to ponder on what she could have possibly been talking about.

“I doubt that,” I said before walking outside of the doors frame and unto the sweet outdoors.

“Yeah, you were tha varment that were eating all of our apples on tha farm. Tha day Twilight-” She cut her sentence short after she realized what she said. I slowly turned around to face her, a look of horror started to crawl up on her face as she realized who she was in the presence of.

“Ye-yer tha one tha-” She didn’t get to finish her sentence as I heard a rather loud battlecry coming from behind me. Turning around on my ankles I noticed a rather face orange blur heading straight towards me. As soon as it was close enough, it jumped up to my chest and tackled me to the ground. I didn’t get a chance to react as I felt her start to slam her hooves down on my chest, letting out a scream as she continued her barrage on my torso.

However, our sweet reunion was cut short, by the fact that Howard lifted her up and threw her inside with the rest of her friends. Shortly after, he slammed the door shut and looked down at me.

“Ya need ta learn how ta listen, boy,” He said, his eyes full of disapproval.

“I doubt I could’ve reacted in time.”

“Oh, so ya didn’ hear her gallopin’.”

“Guys, not now,” Durham said, cutting into the inevitable argument. Howard looked away and started to calm himself down as to not do something he might regret. Durham then turned his attention to me.

“Why are they here?”

“I just followed Howard, feel free to ask him,” I replied back.

“James, they know where we are, we can’t just let them go!”

“I’m not sure what else-”

“We’re goin’ back out!” Howard shouted over the two of us.

“Why, I thought we checked all the traps,” I rebutted.

“We’re checkin’ ‘nother one, now le’s go,” He didn’t wait for me to say anything.

“Why the hell do I even try with him?” I asked myself.

“I doubt you have much of a choice,” Durham said. I scoffed under my breath and then proceeded to follow Howard back into the throws of the forest.

“What are we doing here? I thought we checked all the traps,” I said, the disdain in my voice clearly showing as I was put back into this damnable forest. I’m not exactly the biggest fan of the ‘Everfree’. Hell, I hate everything that resides there. The many countless nights I spent awake because of a random howl, the swear the went down my forehead from the rustling of leaves. If I was given a do-over, I’d do everything in my power to say sorry to the ponies.

“Where’d we find ‘em at?”

“You mean the kids? I don’t exactly remember...“ I took a quick look around the area “... I think we’re-”

“Found it,” I followed Howard’s voice and found a dangling rope cut in the middle.

“So, why’d we come all the way out here?”

“‘Cause this ain’t our trap.”

“Are you implying that some people may be close?”

“A lil’ too close.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Meaning, they might be thinkin’ ‘bout robbing us.”

“What do you…” It slowly started to click together. The rope wasn’t thick enough to hold up any large animals like the lions or wolves, the rope would have easily snapped if a lion had managed to set it off. The height it kept over the ground was enough, just enough, for the tips of my fingers to touch the ground. The trap wasn’t meant for animals, it was for us.

“Oh shit,” I muttered under my breath.

“Someone’s mighta been watchin’ us, an’ settin’ traps,” Howard said, as his eyes started to scan the horizon for anything out of the ordinary.

“Maybe we should get back, I don’t think it’s smart to stay out here,” I whispered to him, also monitoring the landscape for anything that might be stalking us.

“Yeah…”

Looking over our shoulder every few minutes, I swear I could see something out of the corner of my eye. But that could’ve been the paranoia kicking in. But alas, we finally made it back to camp, with everyone sitting around a pile of logs that laid on the same spot that the other piles have before it.

I took a seat as Howard grabbed a couple of sticks, and started to think of what I was looking at back there. A trap that was too close to our camp. A trap that was specifically designed for humans. A trap made for us to get caught in.

‘Why?’ Was the only question that resided in my mind. Why would someone make a trap like that? Unless it wasn’t a someone but somepony. Maybe they had found us already, and were waiting to pick us off one by one. Maybe they were already closing in. Maybe I was starting to get more than a little neurotic from my imagination.

Howard lit the fire, and soon enough blazes had started to devour the wood around it, making a nice fire for all of us to enjoy. At least for the moment.

“We found something in the forest today,” I started.

“What would that be?” Asked Mary.

“We found another trap, but it wasn’t one of ours.”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Durham said.

“It’s not exactly meant to capture animals.”

“I’m pretty sure most traps are meant to capture animals.”

“This one was designed for humans.”

“And, how would you know that?”

“I… I don’t. I just have a feeling.”

“I think you’ve been letting your mind wander too much,” Nicole said out of nowhere. One of the few times she’s ever spoken to me.

“When I came here, I thought I was the last of my kind, but then I found out that you guys exist. Is it really hard to believe that there are more?”

“James, there are more humans out there, but they’re not exactly as… friendly as us,” Durham said, as he butt his way back into our conversation.

“Then what if they found us? Maybe they know where we are right now!”

“James, I need you to calm down right now, what you’re saying is absurd. They’re not exactly nice people, but I don’t think they’d go out of their way to do something like that.”

“Tha’s where yer wrong,” Howard finally said.

“You want to say something?” Asked Durham. Howard just looked at Durham, eyes voided of emotion and his body as still as a branch.

“Ah just know,” Howard said, looking back down at the fire as he started to skin the rabbit. Everyone was quiet after that, but I began to think about it.

Howard was usually one to keep secrets from people, and he was getting rather defensive about being asked such a question. I didn’t press further on the issue, but if I were to guess, I’d assume that he’d been part of another group whose morales were questionable. Never truly knew what he meant, but I feel like he’s done problematic things in the past. Which made me question one thing…

“What do you plan on doing with the girls?”

“Girls?”

“Ya know, the ponies that we just kidnapped because you felt like it,” I said, a bit of anger coming through my voice, the weeks of frustration from having to deal with Howards crap. Howard only gave me a cold stare before looking back down at the ground.

“Way ah see it, we ain’ got much choice in tha matter, might jus’ hafta kill ‘em.”

“What?”

"Somethin' go wrong in yer head? Said we killin' em."

"... No we're not…" I said, taking an aggressive step towards Howard.

"Who died an' made you leader, boy…" Howard said as he took a step towards me.

"I'm not killing kids."

"So close yer eyes."

"You're not touching them."

"...Ya really don' wan’ this fight."

"Guys…" Durham cut in. "... Let's not resort to infighting."

"We ain't jus' lettin' em go. They know where we live, they can drop a whole-"

"You brought them here dipshit! They only know we live here because your dumbass decided to kidnap a bunch of kids. Do you know what's gonna happen? People are gonna start looking for them. What? Do you think ponies just grow off trees? Their families and friends are going to be worried sick and start looking for them. Hell, their military might too since I stirred the fucking hornets nest. Do you really think that nobody gonna notice a bunch of kids just up and missing? God, it's no wonder you guys are shot at. This dumbfuck as your leader?! I'm more surprised if we make it past winter-"

Before I could finish my sentence, I could feel myself getting tackled to the ground. The air was knocked out of my lungs as I felt the cold dirt hit my back. On top of me was Howard, his angry eyes piercing into mine. Before I could react I felt a right hook meet my jaw, blood from my busted lip starting to spill into my mouth.

Without hesitation, I brought my own fist back and slammed it into Howard. He must not have suspected it, he fell over immediately while clutching the side of his face. I got off my back and jumped on him. My fists starting their own barrage on the man as I kept throwing fist after fist at him.

I was only able to get a couple punches in before I felt Durham and Mary pull me off him.

"James, stop!" Durham shouted as I kept trying to pull myself out of his grip.

"We musnt fight with one another!" Mary said as well.

Eventually, after my nerves calmed down and my vision became less red, I finally relaxed my muscles. Howard though… he wasn't down for the count. After getting up from the ground, and stumbling around for a bit, he started walking right up to me.

"Howard… let's not get over our heads. Let's just-"

Before Durham could finish his sentence, Howard pulled his gun out and aimed it straight at my face. I felt the instinct to move out of the way, but did my best to ignore it. He looked angry enough with the black eye I gave him.

"You ever… do anythang… like that again… I will kill you…" Howard said as spite laced his voice. He looked at me for a couple more seconds before dropping his gun and walking off to another part of the camp.

"You really shouldn't have done that…" Durham said.

"He's gonna be pissed for a while," Nicole said, finally joining the conversation.

"I don't care," I responded.

"I'd sleep with one eye open tonight. You don't know what might happen." Nicole said.

"I will."

"But… what about the kids?" Durham said. Unsure.

"... I'll handle it…"

Chapter 14: Planning

View Online

I was looking at the little shack the three fillies were huddled up in. I could hear their small whimpers and cries, must’ve been scared as all hell. I walked up to the door, moved the little door stopper we used to keep it shut. I swung the door open and saw the three little girls holding onto each other. They were looking at me, all in horror and shock, too scared to move or even whisper. I could feel the tension in the air get heavier with every passing second.

I got onto one knee and looked them straight in the eye.

“Do you know how to get back home,” none of them responded, they still looked at me as though I were a monster.

“Girls, I don’t have time for this, do you know how to get back home?” I asked, putting more emphasis on my voice. They still looked like scared kids, but one of them answered.

“Ah… ah do…” Said one of them, her southern accent giving her away.

“Okay, I have an idea, but you’re going to have to trust me.”

“Trust you?! You kidnapped-”

“Shut up!” I say in a loud whisper. I turned around to make sure no one would check up on them.

“What’s your name, shortstop.”

“Scootaloo…” She said, a bit of anger appearing on her face.

“Name’s James, what about your friends?”

“Ah’m Applebloom,” the southern pony said, still not moving her spot.

“S-S-Swee-Sweetiebelle…” Said the pure white pony.

“Pleasure to meet you all, I’m not going to hurt you,” I say as calmly as possible.

“Yeah, sure you’re not,” replied Scootaloo.

“I”m trying to help you,” I said, a bit of anger bubbling to the surface.

“Yeah, a lot of help you’re doing, shoving us all into this place.”

“You don’t understand, everyone else is-”

“YOU KIDNAP-” At this point, I grabbed Scootaloo by her mouth and clammed it shut. The rest of her friends let out their own shrieks but I put a finger over my mouth to tell them to shut up. Who knew that was still a universal language.

“I need you all to listen-” I say as I finally let go of Scootaloo.”- there’s a man outside of this shack who is not very nice and he is planning to kill you all,” Their faces stop and look at me with even more horror.

“I’m trying to stop him, but I don’t know if he’ll listen to me. He probably won’t. And despite what you might think of me, I don’t want the thought of dead kids on my conscious… I have enough of that.”

“So why are ya tellin’ us?” Asked Applebloom.

“Because, if you know how to get back to your place, I can offer you help to get there.”

“Why help us?” Asked Scootaloo.

“Again… I can’t stand the thought of getting kids killed.”

“But… you hurt Twilight…” Said Applebloom.

“I was defending myself.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Pipped up Sweetiebelle.

“Well that’s a lie.”

“I don’t believe you…” Said Scootaloo.

“Then don’t, I’m not trying to prove anything, I’m trying to save your lives,” They all went quiet after that.

“What do we do then?” Asked Sweetiebelle.

“Everyone’s still awake right now, I’m coming here to tell you that in a couple hours, I’ll get you up and we’ll start heading back through the forest.

“Bu’ i’s dangerous a night.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“Oh, Rarity is gonna kill me…” Said Sweetiebelle.

“I think we’re all gonna be getting yelled at when we come back,” Scootaloo said.

“It’s going to be scary, I get that, but right now you guys shouldn’t try to get out. If Howard sees you he won’t hesitate. You need to stay here and wait, just be quiet and pretend to be asleep.”

“But what if he comes in here and then-” Sweetie belle said.

“Trust me, he won’t.”

“How do you know,” asked Scootaloo.

“Well, after our little spat, I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to try and pull this shi-”

I stopped mid sentence as I heard the sound of rustling footsteps from outside, I waited for the sound to go away and sat still as the girls were listening with high intent as well. When the noise finally went away, I looked back at them.

“I don’t have much time, just stay put and I promise everything’ll be alright,” Without another word I got up and went outside, closing the door behind me and putting the wedge back in place. I thought I was about to make it back to my own shack scot free, but the second I looked around I could see Nicole looking at me.

She didn’t move, didn’t scream, didn’t even flinch. She stared me dead in the eyes as I walked out of the shed.

“What were you doing?” She asked. I didn’t give a response. Instead, I looked back at the shed and back at her, contemplating what to say to get her to not tell anyone about this little meeting I had with the other side of this door. I walked towards her, making sure my steps didn’t seem menacing, and said.

“I was just making sure they weren’t causing trouble, that’s all,” I said, hoping to god she would believe the lie. She stared me up and down, her eyes judging my every move. Before suddenly, she walked away towards her own shack. I watched as she left. She didn’t dare change course, but she looked tired as all hell. Without much else to do, I started walking back to my own cabin, ready to be done with today and get ready to sneak out at night.

That was before I saw Durham.

Durham was sitting outside of his cabin, passed out on the dirt, letting out a chuckle or two. I was tempted to just leave him there but thought better of it and decided to go check out what was going on. As soon as I was close enough, he sprung up from the ground like a bat out of hell and greeted me.

“James! James! Pleasure to meet you! I am SO SO happy! To have you here!” He said rather excitedly. I just stood there as he continued to shake my hand over and over and over again.

“You too Durham… You okay?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

“Okay? How could I not be okay?! I feel as though I could fight off a million of those damn lion things!” He said, as he finally stopped shacking my hand and started throwing punches into the air.

“... Sure you could.”

“Why? Do I look sick? I don’t feel sick… NO I know what it is!” He said excitedly.

“... Yeah?” I asked hesitantly.

“I think it’s obvious that I am just feeling the high of life!” Durham said as he sat back down onto the ground.

“I’m sure you’re feeling real good about it. Listen man, it’s getting late and you should really get to bed. Come on-” I placed my hand on the door, but the second I did, Durham sprung up from the ground again and pushed me away front the door, a lot harder than a man of his build could conceivably do.

“DON’T GO IN THERE!” He screamed out.

“What are you doing?” I asked

“I… I… I don’t know…” He said, calming down from his random bout of rage.

“... Durham, you need to go inside, it’s not good to sleep out here.”

“Y-... You’re right… Sorry.”

“It’s alright, just don’t do it again.”

“R-Right… I promise,” Durham said, before turning around. I knew what he was doing, it’s a real shame, but I couldn’t really do anything, not when I needed to get a couple kids out. So, before he went through the door, I called out to him for something to give us a little bit of edge.

“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know where my guns are, would ya?” I was hoping in his state, he’d let something slip. Thankfully I was right.

“Oh! Howard has them! Keeps them with him when he goes to sleep… Doesn’t trust… anyone…” With that, Durham went into his little hut and shut the door behind him. I stood outside his door, not bothering to move as I started to think about what caused his little spout. But I already knew the answer. I just didn’t wanna say it.

Twilight Sparkle sits in her hospital room. Her foreleg numb to the pain and her vision slightly hazy. It was late in the night, she knew that much, but she was unaware of how long she’s been out for. She could smell the bleached floors and feel the bandages that wrap around her leg. She was in a hospital. She took in a shaky breath bun then started to cough. Her throat was dry.

Before she could do much, she was soon being crushed by a giant, white stallion.

“Twily!” The voice of her brother was one no one could mistake.

“Sh...Shining?” Twilight asked confused. Shining got off of her to reveal that her mother and father were there as well.

“Oh thank goodness you’re alright! When I heard the news I thought… I...” Said Twilight Velvet, tears brimming on the edges of her eyes.

“Sweetie, it doesn’t matter now, she’s safe,” Night Light said, hugging her wife.

“Wha… What happened?” Twilight said.

“You don’t know? You were attacked by a human!” Shining said, his anger starting to bubble up to the surface.

“Yes dear, you were very lucky to make it out alive… From what the doctors said, the thing they found almost hit an artery,” Velvet said.

“Oh… right…” Twilight said, suppressing her own shock at almost dying, her brain not being able to process what she went through.

“Those bastards…” Shining said in a whisper, his angry demeanor starting to come out more and more as the conversation went.

“If you don’t mind us asking honey, what exactly happened?” Night Light asked.

“I uh… I was chasing after him… He… He was running away from Applejack and me… I thought… I thought… I thought he was gonna get away, so I used my magic on him… But it didn’t work… So I grabbed the rope around his neck and… I didn’t realize I was choking him… I was… strangling him…” Twilight stopped her train of thought as she realized what she had done to the man. His look of fear, the way he so desperately tried to run away and the panic he had as he was being choked.

“Twily?” Shining asked, unsure of what to do.

“I… I’m sorry… I just-”

“Sweetie, it’s alright, you don’t have to say anything,” Night Light said, coming over to put a hoof on her shoulder.

“... I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We’re just happy that you’re alive, thank Faust.”

“We’re gonna find them… No matter how long it takes, we’re going to find them and bring them to justice,” Shining interjected.

“But honey… Your wedding,” Velvet said.

“What?!” Twilight said, almost getting out of bed, but Night Light pushed her back down.

“It’s not for another couple months, we’ll find and kill them long before I have to get married,” Shining said, determination on his face as a stern look adorns his features.

“You’re getting married?!” Twilight said, ignoring the pain.

“I… Did I not send you a letter?” Shining said.

“Shining Armor, I thought you sent one,” Velvet said, now with her own stern glare.

“I thought I did! I… Must’ve forgotten…” Shining said, an embarrassed blush poking through his cheeks. “Regardless, I can still handle this human threat before the wedding.”

“Who are you marrying?” Twilight asked, still unsure.

“... Well, I think you know her very well. After all, she babysat you all the time,” Shining said, a smile on his face.

“Princess Cadance?!” Twilight said, screaming it out.

“I mean… yeah?” Shining said, unsure of how Twilight would respond.

“I… I… I guess you’re good for each other,” Twilight said, finally relaxing again.

“Well, regardless of my soon to be wife, we still have to deal with the humans. Twily, I know you’re not in any condition to move or… even read… wow really sucks to be you, but when you get the chance, I’m going to ask that you study as much as you can on humans, alright?” Shining asked, thinking he knows full well about Twilights answer.

Twilight just sat there, not really saying much if anything at all. She was too busy trying to process everything. From her almost killing somepony to almost being killed herself, and to top it all off her brother’s getting married to her foalsitter. She has a lot to think about and catch up on.

“Twily?” Shining said, managing to gain her attention.

“Wha? Oh… yeah… I promise I will,” twilight said, not really paying attention to what her brother said. Night Light and Velvet both looked at each other and nodded.

“Hey son, we should give her some space, for rest and all. Come on, tell me about your master plan for the humans,” Night Light said, wrapping an arm around Shining and slowly dragging him out of the room.

“Uh… sure?” Shining said, as the two unicorns exited the room. Velvet watched as they left and soon walked up to Twilight and kissed her forehead.

“We love you sweetie,” Velvet said, soon walking out of the room and joining the rest of her family. Now leaving Twilight to think about what happened…

And the more she thought, the more she started to think about what she could’ve done better. The more she realized how she could have done things in a much more diplomatic way. She looked up at the ceiling and started to drift off back to sleep. Those thoughts were for another day.

Chapter 15: Escape

View Online

I remember what it was like waiting. It was intolerable, I would lay there and count the nicks in the wood again and again the crickets chirped and the grasshoppers hopped. It was infuriating to wait as long as I was, but I had to make sure everyone was asleep. Every now and then I’d look outside to see if anyone was still around. I’d catch the occasional glance of Howard, but he was never near the girls’ shack. Eventually though, after hours of waiting, I finally decided to get out.

I checked my belt and, sure enough, I still had the small claw with me. Wasn’t exactly a knife, but it would do in case we ever got in danger. I opened the door and closed it slowly behind me. If it wasn’t for the crickets, the place would be dead silent. I kept moving forward, making sure I didn’t step on a stray leaf or a random stick. My steps needed to be precise. Eventually, though, after slowly shuffling my way over the girls’ place, I made it to the door.

I lay my head against the door and listened. I could hear their light snores and small yawns from the otherside. Without much hesitation, I picked up the wedge and opened the door, making sure, again, to not make any noise. The three of them were huddled up together, wrapped around each other's arms and hugging each other to sleep. I could see that the white one had damp fur near its eyes.

I slowly approached their sleeping trio and thought about how I was going to wake them up. I saw that the orange one was not fully wrapped around and decided to ask her. Without much thought, I grabbed her side and shook her a little, felt like I was holding a cat.

She let out a couple grumbles and proceed to go back to sleep. I let out a disgruntled sigh and did it again, with more force this time. She grumbled yet again and finally spoke.

“Hmmmm, five more minutes…” She said again, in a comical way.

“We don’t have five minutes,” I said, she immediately shot herself awake and kicked my chest. I could feel one of my ribs about to give out as it bended to the sheer force of this kid. I had to ignore the pain though. As she was about to scream out her lungs, I gripped her mouth shut and held it tight.

“Shut the fuck up!” I said, gritting my teeth as I tried to stop myself from screaming while I massaged my newly acquired bruise. The filly eventually stopped thrashing around and looked at me in shock and then sorrow and then anger. She pulled herself away from my grip and landed back on her hooves.

“What is your problem?” She said, in a hushed whisper, her voice as well trying to not make too much noise.

“You kicked me in the chest.”

“You snuck up on me!”

“You kicked me in the chest!”

“Hey! Not my fault that-” We eventually stopped our bickering when we heard the tell tale signs of a waking up kid. Next to Scootaloo, I could see Sweetiebelle starting to raise her head and look around the place.

“Scootaloo… It’s too early for this…” She said, a large yawn soon following. Her yawn didn’t last very long as she soon saw me. I could see her lips quiver into what would soon become a scream. Before she could even get a peep out, I rushed over and slammed my hands over her mouth.

“Be quiet!” I said in a hushed whisper. “If anyone hears a scream, you guys are dead,” I said, slowly pulling my hands away from the tiny little pony. Her face still filled with fear, and tears welling in her eyes, but she didn’t say a word.

“You don’t have to be mean about it…” Scootaloo said.

“Yeah, well it’s true. Do me a favor and wake up your other friend,” Scootaloo stared at me for a few seconds before stopping and making their way to Applebloom.

“Are you going to kill us?” I snapped my head to Sweetie Belle and saw the genuine fear in her eyes. The anger that plastered my face slowly faded away and I let out a small breath of air.

“No, I’m not going to kill you, we talked about this already.”

“Ju-Just making sure.”

“Great, now get up. Everyone’s asleep and we should be fine to travel.”

“But… Tha Everfree’s dangerous at night!” Applebloom said.

“Yeah, I know how dangerous it is… I just need to get something. Follow me,” I opened the door and walked through it, the pitter patter of hooves behind me telling me that the three children were following close behind. I moved as stealthily and slowly as I could, trying my best to not make too much sound as I walked closer and closer to Howard’s cabin. Once we were close enough, I stopped and turned towards the girls.

“Listen, if things don’t go as planned in there, I want you to run back to your place, okay?” I said, my voice barley a whisper.

“But what about you?” Scootaloo asked, her voice also a small whisper.

“Don’t worry about that, I hope I’m quick, but just get ready to run, got it?”

“Okay,” All of them said in unison.

I turned towards the cabin and slowly creaked the door open, making sure my claw dagger thing was still on me. It might have been dark as all hell, but I could make out that Howard was passed out on a mattress. A genuine mattress. It looked old, banged up and about ready to fall apart, but I bet it was a lot more comfortable than what I had. I couldn’t help but get a little angry. Ignoring that though, Howard was passed out, his snores being evident of that. I slowly inched my way into his room and looked around, spotting my son’s backpack, but none of my guns were visible. I cursed at myself. Fucking Durham. I remember thinking that maybe he had lied about where they were, or maybe he was too high to think clearly.

I stopped in my mental tracks at seeing Howard rustle in his sleep, it seems like he was a hard sleeper. He turned and twisted and flopped all over his bed, but eventually he stopped moving. The funny thing about his flopping around, I could hear some clicking of guns underneath him, like he was laying on it.

“Fuck me,” I whispered at myself.

I moved towards the mattress as slowly as I could, not daring to make a peep as Howard slept. When I was close enough, I swear I could feel him breathing, each exhale of air crawling up my arms. I moved my hands underneath the mattress, hoping that he wouldn’t wake up from some small movements as I ran my fingers over everything that I could feel.

Eventually, I felt something grip my hands, without a moment of hesitation, I grabbed it and slowly pulled it out, Howard still snoring away all the meanwhile. Once I had pulled my hands out, I realized rather quickly that I was holding a gun bag. It was laid out flat, not even revealing much of a bulge. I looked back up at Howard, making sure he was still asleep, and he didn’t show a sign of waking up.

Without much waiting, I zipped open the bag and gawked at what I saw. Along with my own guns, there was the hatchet, an assault rifle and a 16 Gauge Shotgun. What are the chances that I’d find a shotgun that could fire the same shells I found out in the woods weeks ago? Whatever these guys had gone through, I knew nothing about and I doubt they’d tell me either. I looked for the pistol for those ACP rounds I found as well, but it wasn’t there. Either they didn’t have it, it was someone else’s pistol or...

I looked back up and I saw Howard aiming a Colt.45 right at my skull. I should have figured that out quicker.

“Whatcha think yer doing there, son?” Howard said, his voice full of malice. He slowly sat up with his pistol still aimed at me.

“... I’m leaving.”

“Yer leaving? After everythang we done fer ya? Yer just gonna up an’ leave?” I didn’t bother giving him a response. He got up onto his feet and walked right up to me. “You don’ git to jus’ fuck on outta ‘ere when ya feel like it,” Thank god it was dark and Howard couldn’t see me pulling out my makeshift claw dagger.

“I’m going to leave.”

“Bullshit you are. Ah’m gonna blow yer damn brains out and leave yer body out for them lions to fight over,” Howard cocked the gun back and aimed the pistol down onto my skull, pressing the barrel right against it.

“Howard, this ends one of two ways. You let me go and you don’t die… Or I shove that gun down your throat and pull the trigger until it clicks,” Howard let out a chuckle at hearing me say that.

“How ya figure that?”

“Well, for one-” Then I striked. In one swift movement, I pushed the gun out of my face and heard the gunshot fire past my eyes. I tackled Howard to the ground and shoved my claw deep into his stomach, twisting it hard enough to hear his guts squeal. Howard screamed in agony, trying his best to shoot me, I didn’t bother to listen. I pulled the claw out and I stabbed him again and again and again, feeling his own blood splatter onto my body as it pooled underneath us.

I could hear his ribs crack from every stab wound, his own guts starting to pop out from how many new holes he had. Eventually, he stopped moving, stopped firing his gun and laid there, dead. But I knew I fucked up. I soon heard shouts from outside.

I quickly grabbed his pistol and ripped it out of his hands, unloading the magazine to see I had a couple bullets left and sliding it back into the gun. I picked up my son's backpack before wrapping my arms around the straps and grabbed the bag full of weapons before running outside.

The girls had long since ran, as I told them to, but they weren’t whole I was concerned about. Ten feet away from me was Durham, Mary and Nicole, they looked scared, but they weren’t armed. They didn’t even have a bat or anything with them. Once they saw me, carrying everything they had, they looked horrified. I guess being covered in blood wasn’t exactly what they expected to see. We stared down each other, no one willing to say anything as my grip on the pistol did not budge even a little. After a moment of silence, Durham walked up slowly.

“James… what did you do?” He asked, his eyes looking me up and down.

“Durham… You’re a smart man… What do you think.”

“Why?”

“I’m leaving Durham, I can’t stay here anymore.”

“Y-Y-Yes you can! We can still be together! It’s safer together! It’s-”

“Don’t bullshit me. You’re all scared of me now and I’ve been wanting to leave for the longest time… This only sped it up.”

“So what you’re just going to go back out there? You’ll be killed with all the wildlife here! You know that!”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“James, please just-” He was cut off when I cocked the gun. He stared down at my hand in fear as though he knew what’s about to happen.

“Durham… There’s no point… I’m going to go to the ponies and I’ll see what I can do.”

“... You… You can’t just… leave us with no guns… we’ll die out here…” At that, I paused. He was right, they would have died out there. Even the simplest of firearms would have improved their chances. Maybe it was out of cowardice, or maybe I was bitter, but I didn’t care. Durham has been good to me and it made it all the more harder to look him in the eye.

“... Yeah… You’re right, but that’s not my concern anymore.”

“James, please,” I raised my gun right up to him, my police training taking over.

“Get back!” Durham, being shocked at what I was doing, did so.

“Please! We can’t defend ourselves!”

“I’m not going to shoot you.”

“What do we do?!”

“Find another group,” At this, Mary started talking.

“They’ll kill us!”

“Why?”

“We… We know almost every group of people in this forest! None of them would accept us!”

“That why you guys shot first?”

“What?”

“Before I found you, I saw this place that had blood and bullet casings everywhere. The shells I found were 16 Gauge and I happened to find a shotgun of that same caliber here. So tell me, is it because you shoot first?” They didn’t seem to know what I was talking about, they just stared at me confused.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Then I’m guessing it was Howard, huh? Him and his other friend, huh?”

“Please! Just-”

“Enough! I’m not having this argument! Get on the ground! Now!” I scrambled out at them. Slowly, each and every one of them got on the ground, and put there hands over their heads. I walked right up to Durham, making sure my pistol was squarely aimed at them. “Here’s what happens next, you’re going to count to a hundred and yell it out. If you stop, I’m going to come back here and kill every single one of you… Got it?” Durham nodded at that and proceeded to start counting, making sure he screamed loud enough.

As he did that, I ran. I ran far away from the group, deeper into the forest, and away from the only place I called home for a while. Down past the foliage and back into the embrace of the trees that once held me, all the while Durham still screamed out those numbers.

The only thing that stopped me from continuing to run was when I tripped over a couple of brightly colored ponies. After smashing my face into the dirt, I turned around to see the girls were there, dazed at being trampled. I quickly got back on my feet and got their attention.

“What the fuck are you guys still doing here?!” I asked, All of them got to their senses and looked at me in horror, but it looked as though Scootaloo was the only one who could speak.

“Du-Dude are you okay?”

“It’s not my blood, don’t worry about it, but why are you still here?!”

“We-we-We didn’t want to leave you and-”

“Fuck, screw it let’s just go!” I said, getting onto my feet and continuing to run deeper and deeper into the forest, the girls taking a bit to follow me. But we ran. I only wished I noticed a certain dog stalking us.

It must have been ten minutes worth of running. Every now and then I’d look over my shoulder and see the girls were still keeping up with me, thankfully they were able to keep up. We kept this up until I couldn't hear Durham’s counting anymore. At that point, I stopped running and fell back onto a tree, catching my breath. Been a while since I ran that long. The girls too fell down and started to breathe rapidly, I doubt they were ever forced to run like that before.

While we were catching our breath, I swung the gun bag over and opened it up, taking out my sniper rifle and revolver out. Thank god they weren’t in any bad condition, looked like they were untouched for the most part. I then slung my son's backpack over and opened it up. As I suspected, it looked like they were using the backpack to hold the ammo. I went to work reloading the weapons, making sure they were filled with ammo and I was more than ready for a fight.

The girls were intrigued by what I was doing, I guess with how fast my hands were moving they couldn’t help but watch with intrigue.

“What’re those for?” Applebloom asked me as I continued to reload the nearly empty shotgun.

“Self defense. When I was out here I got attacked by a bunch of wooden wolves.”

“Timber wolves?”

“Is that what they’re called?”

“Uh, yeah, everypony knows that.”

“Do I look like a pony to you?”

“... Uhhhhhh-”

“That was rhetorical.”

“Oh… okay,” Finally I was done reloading the guns. I shoved the shotgun and the assault rifle back in the bag, slung the sniper rifle around my arm, and kept the pistol’s in pockets, making sure their safeties were on.

“You guys know where to go from here?”

“Uhh… Sorta? It’s more like a general direction,” Sweetie Belle said, as she scratched the back of her head.

“Good enough… Screw it, you lead the way,” I said, getting up from the ground.

“Hold on! Why do you care?” Scootaloo said, butting in front of Sweetie Belle.

“I told you why, I don’t want to see kids get-”

“I know that! But we can make it back to Ponyville just fine! Why are you following us! Huh! Gonna destroy the town, aren’t ya?!”

“Now that ah think about it, ain’t you the one that were at the farm! The one that… hurt...”

“That was him!” Sweetie Belle asked, her facing going pale as she realized who she was with.

“There’s no way we’re letting this monster follow us! He’s probably planning to kill all of Ponyville or-

“Because I have nowhere to go. I’m going to go and… talk, okay?”

“Talk, ya put a hole in Twilight!” Applebloom said, coming out of her stupor.

“I know! But I think I’ll be doing a hell of a lot better in there than I would out here! Okay?! When we get there, I’m surrendering and they can do whatever the hell they want, but until then, walk!”

“Or what?! You’re going to kill us?!” I stopped myself from cussing her out, my fatherly temperament coming in handy, and talked in a calm manner.

“... I am begging from the bottom of my heart… Please… Just lead me there.”

“Promise us!” Scootaloo said.

“... I promise on my son’s soul I will just surrender,” They were taken aback by that, surprised at the words I said. They looked at each other quickly before looking right back at me.

“You have a son?” Sweetie Belle said, I didn't know how to feel at that sentiment. I just felt... Moving on.

“I’d rather not get into it, please. Just move on, okay?” There was a pause in the air, none of them spoke a word. But eventually our little entourage set forth, slowly walking through the forest at a brisk pace. It was a quiet night, the air was just at the right temperature to make some travel, and the chirps of the cricket were all that was needed on that silent venture. Nobody said anything, it was quiet. Occasionally we’d stop to rest, but other than that it was just a normal night.

That was until we saw something.

The girls stopped in their tracks, not daring to move another inch forward. I slowly made my way up, trying to see what was wrong but then I saw it. There was a light moving towards us. I quickly pushed the girls behind a tree and waited, holding my breathe in as I listened into the conversation.

“Fucking hell man, I’m telling you none of them traps went off.”

“I heard gun shots, whole lot of ‘em coming somewhere from over here. If that don’t sound like supper, I don’t know what is.”

“You sure it’s safe to do this shit at this time? We’re gonna get attacked by one of them manticores.”

“And lose the fresh meat we’ll get? I’m starving, and I ain’t gonna wait. Sides, we ain’t seen those fucker’s in weeks, they probably realize they can’t fuck around our territory or we’ll blast them to dust.”

“Guess you’re right about that.”

“Now shut your bitching and look for whoever shot,” The two continued walking to wherever they were going. After a few seconds of waiting, their footsteps weren’t audible anymore and we got out of our little hiding spot. It dawned on my mind what they said.

‘Food? How long have people been here to resort to cannibalism?’ I thought to myself. I still feel disgust even thinking about it.

“Are they friends of yours?” Scootaloo asked.

“No, I don’t know them.”

“What do we do?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Keep moving, watch where you step.” The girls took heed of my words and continued walking forward, making sure to watch out for any sort of trap. If I’m being honest, that little encounter would explain why we haven’t seen many other animals out here. Perhaps they realized it wasn’t their territory? Or maybe there’s just a scent in the air. I don’t know. Regardless, we kept moving forward.

Further into the depths.

A Life I Lived

by Zyks

Prologue: Whatever Remains (Rewrite)

Chapter 1: Everlasting Winter (Rewrite)

Chapter 2: Is this the real life? (Rewrite)

Chapter 3: Closing Hour (Rewrite)

Chapter 4: Endure (Rewrite)

Chapter 5: Coming to Terms (Rewrite)

Chapter 6: No Need To Hide When There's Monsters Outside (Rewrite)

Chapter 7: Around Corners (Rewrite)

Chapter 8: Some Things Were Meant To Be Forgotten (Rewrite)

Chapter 9: Gun To The Head (Rewrite)

Chapter 10: A Shift in Perspective (Rewrite)

Chapter 11: The Norm

Chapter 12: Not Getting Along

Chapter 13: Kidnapping

Chapter 14: Planning

Chapter 15: Escape