Over the Rainbow-(or rather through the rainbow...)
Alex had been laying down, waiting for Nurse Sarai to come in and check on him like she always did around three, when he began to feel a tugging sensation all over. The tugging feeling quickly turned into harsh pulling, and then it felt like he was being violently yanked in several different directions. Alex tried to reach over and hit the call button, but found that his hand was shaking way too much to reach it. He'd just opened his mouth to call for help when his words twisted into a sharp pained cry. Swirling rainbow light appeared directly above him, and two of the nurses as well as a doctor appeared just in time to see him get pulled up into it, the force of his abrupt upward movement tearing out his IVs. None of them reached Alex in time to grab hold of him, and watched helplessly as he and the light disappeared with a pop.
The only signs that Alex Johnson had ever occupied the bed he'd just vanished from was the indent his head had made on the pillow, the rumpled sheets, and his treatment chart at the foot of his bed. That, and security camera feed that would serve only to utterly baffle the local authorities for years, even when two similar occurances would happen not two months later, though in two different areas of St. Louis.
☁⭐☁
When Alex woke up, he noticed that he most certainly was not in his stiff hospital bed with its scratchy sheets and itchy blanket. The other things he noticed were the distinct lack of whirring hospital machines, humming fans, rustling sheets and the snoring that constantly emanated from room 122A. Perhaps the most important things he noticed was that there was no bee-beep coming from his heart monitor and no pain in his head. So, Alex might of been kidnapped. Or, he was dead. Considering the fact that he definitely wasn't in his hospital room and he was instead in a very fancy palatial bedroom, fit with marble walls, dark blue hangings, a high vaulted ceiling-with a skylight at the top-and bronze accents, all of which appeared rich, ethereal, and practically heavenly, added to the fact that he wasn't in excruciating pain for the first time in a year and a half, he placed his bet on being dead. After all, who would want to kidnap a terminally ill orphan and bring him to a palace?
So, Alex figured this must be heaven. He tried to sit up, thinking he should explore heaven, if that was indeed where he'd ended up,and promptly rolled off of the very soft bed he was laying on. Tangled up in silky sheets and poofy blankets, Alex yelped several expletives as he attempted to free himself from fluffy captivity.
" Sir, are you alright? Do you need help?," a masculine, somewhat posh voice called.
Alex wasn't listening, however. In his struggle to get free of the bedclothes he noticed something...strange. Unnatural. Otherworldly. Equestrian, really. That is, Alex had hooves now. Hooves he most certainly did not have before waking up in this place. Blue hooves, in fact. And, as he reached up to touch his face,( with the surprisingly prehensile hooves), he realized he had a muzzle too. And...a horn, which was kinda sharp. Ok, so maybe he started hyperventilating. Just a bit.
" Sir? What seems to be the problem?," the voice asked again. He looked up. Yup, the voice came from a horse too, a dusky charcoal colored one with a light grey mane and amber eyes with cat like pupils. The horse was wearing dark purple and black armor and had...dragon wings? Ok, a pegasus. Because a winged talking horse was so much more believable than a regular talking horse.
" Oh, no, nothing, really, Mr..?"
" Golden Nimbus. I am your personal guard."
" Ok, Mr. Nimbus, where am I?"
" You are in Canterlot. Now, if you would excuse me, I must notify your parents and your aunt that you are awake."
Before Alex could say anything else, Golden Nimbus had left the room, heading through the two tall oaken doors behind him. Alex sighed. All Golden Nimbus's answer did was cause more questions, like 'What the heck is Canterlot?,' and, oh, I don't know, the more pressing question of, 'WHAT DID HE MEAN PARENTS AND AUNT!?!?'. However, until Golden Nimbus returned, Alex wasn't going to have these questions answered. Speaking of Golden Nimbus the talking horse, Alex also still needed to find out why he was a horse.
After a couple of minutes, Alex had managed to extricate himself from the sheets and blanket, and Golden Nimbus still hadn't returned. So, he decided to go explore, and hopefully find someone who could explain why he was a horse...unicorn...blue thingy with wings,( that he couldn't figure out how to un extend).
Thump!
" ...ow.."
Ok, so after he figured out how to walk on four legs. This is gonna be fun. I guess it can't be any worse than when Benisha and Braylon taught me to rollerblade.., he thought. Well, hopefully it couldn't be any worse. After all, Alex had broken his ankle and fell into Creve Couer Lake the first time he had tried rollerblading. His two friends had to fish him out with a long stick. Never the less, four hooves felt a lot more steady than walking around with two wobbly skates on his feet, so Alex was willing to give it a go. As it turned out, walking on four legs wasn't that difficult, when his wings weren't extended. In fact, he seemed to be working off of muscle memory, which was nice, though that raised yet another question of how in the heck that was possible. The only remaining problem was how to get the door open, because he did not want to open it with his mouth. That would be very ew.
Thankfully, Alex didn't have to use his mouth to open the door, just his fore hooves. Quickly, he poked his head out of the tall wooden doors and looked around. There didn't really appear to be many people-er, talking horses(?) in the hallway, though the ones that were there all looked similar to Golden Nimbus, in coloring, appendages, and attire. Hopefully they didn't mind him walking around.