Just Me

1: Storming

I stared at the closed front door from where I stood in the entryway of my home. My heart was performing a strange combination of a twist, jump, the tango and the salsa. Tears sat the corners of my eyes, and I had to bite my bottom lip in order to keep myself from bursting into tears. I couldn’t believe what had just happened.

Mom had been in such a hurry because she had to take my brother to a doctor in Edmonton, Alberta. I had just wanted to say goodbye, and to tell her that I would be safe at home, when she had yelled at me to shut up. I knew she had been more on edge lately, but I couldn’t believe she had just shoved me to the side like that. I was so shocked that I didn’t even have the heart to say “I love you” or “goodbye”. My heart had latched onto my vocal-cords and not allowed a single sound to escape.

I slowly turned and walked into the kitchen, seeking comfort food to try to quell my sorrow. I sought comfort in food; I was just that kind of person.

In the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of chocolate milk. I sat the glass off to the side and took out a loaf of bread and selected two slices and put them on a plate. Then I took out slices of roast beef lunch meat, a jar of mayo, and a brick of marble cheese. Once those were also sitting on the counter, I made my sandwich and put them back. I then took my early lunch into the living room where I sat down on the couch and turned on the TV.

I had to forget about what had just happened, or it would cause me to feel depressed for the entire time Mom and my brother would be gone, which was two days. Maybe Mom was just angry at me for asking if I could stay home. Or maybe my brother had just been too annoying that morning? I would never know until I could talk to my mother again. I just wished that Dad was home from work to mentally support her. Mom often got really depressed and angsty when Dad wasn’t around.

Flipping through the channels, I realized there really wasn’t much on. So I stopped on Teletoon, and started to watch an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic since there was nothing else I was interested in on. No Avengers or Transformers. And as I watched the neon-coloured ponies on the screen go about trying to figure out what the latest problem was, I found myself smiling. It was soothing my nerves, strangely enough, because this show usually was not able to do that. The show was usually so quiet that I’d end up thinking about other things while keeping half a mind on the show.

I finished my sandwich and drained my glass of chocolate milk by the time King Sombra appeared “in person” in the episode The Crystal Empire—Part 2. I watched the intenseness of the rest of the episode before I turned my attention to the large picture window that looked out onto the farm. On the horizon, I could see dark and ominous clouds, signalling that a storm was on its way. I scrunched up my nose and my heart fluttered anxiously as I changed the channel to the Weather Network.

Apart of a slight fear of being alone (it’s coined as ‘Monophobia’), thunderstorms or bad storms in general (other than rainstorms) unnerved me. I liked the sound of thunder, but seeing the lightning and then hearing the clap of thunder caused me to jump in surprise every time. And I know it’s kind of sarcastic that I have Monophobia and chose to stay home alone, but I was trying to work on not being afraid of being by myself.

The Weather Network showed one of those red emergency bulletins, warning of a severe thunderstorm approaching the area I lived in. It listed off all the possible disasters that could come from this ‘super cell’ as they called it. My heart seemed to stop pumping when I read the very first disaster listed. “Tornado warning”. That meant that someone had probably already seen a tornado touch down. I looked outside at the farm again, and bit my lip when I saw that the horses were still in the barn from last night. During my sorrow, I had totally forgotten to bring them out and feed them. If a tornado truly touched down, they would be trapped inside.

I threw the TV clicker onto the couch beside me and quickly got to my feet. I left the TV on, not caring to turn it off. From experience, I knew that storms could come swiftly, so I was out the door, leaving my jacket hanging on its hook. I charged across the yard and over to the barn. Throwing open the doors, I entered.

First, I had to get my horse Star out of the barn, so that she could get a head-start. She was an old bay mare with a star on her forehead, at least 22 years old, and had a bad knee. It had been bothering her a lot lately because of the humidity. I slipped into her stall and slipped her purple halter on. I took a hold of the lead rope and lead her out of the barn and into the pasture next to it. Once inside, I took her halter off and gave her a hug, not knowing if I’d ever see her again. “Be a good girl and come back to me,” I told her soothingly before heading back to the barn. Star was my buddy.

I went and got my other horse, Kelso, leading him out by his shiny turquoise halter and lead rope. He was a bay as well, and was 12 years old. He had no markings; and he was one of the last things I had from my Nana. I inherited him from her.

I got my father’s horse, Sam, from the barn, and then my brother’s pony Dan, and then my brother’s miniature pony, Stormy. Once they were all out there, they stuck together like the protective heard they were. I felt calmer about their safety, now. And now I just had to ensure the safety of the farm dogs. Dad had looked for a long time in order to find the right dogs, and here in Alberta, they were hard to find since so many people were so dishonest. So I took the dog whistle I carried around and blew on it, calling for the dogs.

“Buddy! Oz! Papi! C’mere, boys!” I yelled as a soft breeze began to blow. I glanced over at the clouds again and couldn’t help but release a small whimper as I saw the rate at which the clouds were approaching.

The three dogs came bounding up to me, so I quickly lead them over to the outside access of the cellar under the house. Once I got the door open, I pushed the dogs down into the depths of the darkness before closing and locking the door again.

I gazed up at the house, and sighed. Mom and Dad had worked so hard to save up for that house, and the windows had cost a lot of money, money which was quickly disappearing because of my brother’s medical bills. A lot of money was sucked away because of his heart murmur, and my parents’ attempts to calm his raging ADHD. So I rushed and drew the metal shutter down over the picture window—the most expensive window. Then I rushed around shuttering the other windows on the first floor.

By the time I was done, the clouds were nearly upon the house. I could hear the horses stomping and nickering nervously in the pasture. The dogs were howling down in the cellar. The air seemed to tense and everything went silent. “Uh oh…” I said quietly into the silent air. “Not good.”

Whirling around, I ran for the house, just as a howling filled the air. The terrifying sound sounded like a mix of what a freight train sounded like, the growling of an erupting volcano, and the whine of a very large hairdryer. It turned my blood to ice, and adrenaline kicked in. My brain screamed tornado! tornado! and I knew I had to get to the cellar as fast as I could.

I left the door unlocked after I closed it, and grabbed my cat on the way down to the cellar. But before I could reach the door leading down to my safe haven, the world seemed to explode.

Shards of glass whizzed by my face, missing it by mere inches as I was thrown off of my feet. I screamed in terror. My cat, Pebbles, left my arms right before I crashed to the ground. She came to me and pressed herself into my left side. I shielded her with my left arm, and struggled to get to my feet. But then something crashed into the back of my head, knocking me into the darkness known as unconsciousness.

Reality slowly returned to me. Slowly, my eyes slid open, and though my sight was blurry at first, it soon cleared and I was able to see what was in front of my nose. All I could see was the wood floor of my home. For a few moments, I thought it was normal, until I remembered what had happened before I had been knocked unconscious.

There should be glass in front of my face. And there should be pain wracking my body.

I was confused, but not scared. This was my home. I was safe.

But was the storm over? I listened carefully, closing my eyes in order to focus more on my sense of sound.

The storm was over. I couldn’t hear a sound. There was no roaring, no screeching, no explosive concussion of the wind. But if the storm was over, where were the damages? There was no glass on the floor, and there was no trace of what could have knocked me out.

I felt a small body press deeper into my side. Pebbles. She had stayed with me through the entire storm. “Thank…thank you…Pebbles…” I said hoarsely, my voice fighting me. The storm must have taken a lot out of me.

Pebbles got up and moved up in front of my face. For a minute, all I could see was her black and brown tortoiseshell-ness before her green gaze met mine and she licked my nose in comfort. I giggled weakly and allowed a small smile. “I…I love you too…girl…”

Slowly I gathered strength and got ready to get to my feet. Once I managed to get into the upright position, I realized there was something wrong when my center of balance was…not center. It was more forward and left me standing with my torso leaning forward. Also, I couldn’t move my fingers. And when I shifted my feet, there was a couple of clop, clop sound effects.

I looked down and squealed. Not in happiness, but in terror.

I definantly wasn’t human anymore. Light blue fur covered my body, and my body looked like it was designed to stand like a quadruped. Long brown hair hung into my eyes, which seemed a lot bigger than they used to be, and allowing me to see more than when I was, well, a human. My head seemed bigger, and a little disproportionate to my new body. I held up my hands in front of my face, and found that my hands were not hands, but hooves, and when I clicked them together, they also made a clop sound.

My stomach twisted in anxiety, alerting to me that they was not a dream. I had been turned into a pony, a pony from MLP:FiM. This was not good.

Lowering myself onto my front hooves, I thought about what was happening. I was in a bind. I wasn’t a huge fan of the show, I didn’t obsess over it like I obsessed over things like The Avengers or Transformers, so I didn’t know, really, what a MLP pony ate, what they could eat, what they couldn’t eat, etc. But I knew some of their terms. ‘Everypony’ meant everybody, ‘anypony’ meant anybody, ‘flank’ meant rear, and all that. But that didn’t mean I was going to run into any other ponies.

Slowly, I started to teach myself how to walk. It was rough at first, but once I remembered how my horses walked and such, my gait soon became smoother and a tiny grin appeared on my face. I walked myself to my bedroom, where I knew there was a mirror, going as quickly as I dared. Once there, I was afraid to look at my reflection as I approached my floor-to-ceiling mirror. But once I gathered up enough nerve, I simply stared at my reflection.

From this angle, my fur looked more like a turquoise-y blue.  My brown hair, which was actually my mane, was long and thick, and was done into two loose ponytails that hung around my neck nicely. It reminded me of the hairstyle I had been wearing right before the tornado hit. A horn stuck out of my forelock, meaning I was a unicorn. I had a tail, and it was just as thick as my mane, probably thicker, and it was long enough to almost touch the ground. And on my flank, there was a cutie mark. It was comprised of an open book with a calligraphy pen writing in it. It seemed to fit my “talent”, which was writing. I wasn’t the best of writers, but I loved to write and I did a pretty good job.

I sighed and walked over to my bed, which sat under my window. I climbed up onto it and looked out the window and out into the world outside. My heart shuttered. “So this is why I’m starting to feel like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz,” I remarked sadly.

My house was now sitting just outside of a town. One that looked nothing like my hometown, and was populated with brightly coloured ponies.