Falling Into the Unknown

Yet again, I found myself floating through a misty voice. Again.

“Is this going to become a regular thing for me?” I grumbled, “Getting knocked out just so people can interrogate me? This is getting un-fuckin-believable.”

“Well, well,” I heard a voice chuckle to my right. I looked over and, unsurprisingly, Celestia and Luna were standing there. “Now it is time that We get the answers that We need.”

I grimaced. Apparently, they were going to look through my memories. I did have a secret weapon, though. Whenever they looked through something I didn’t want them to see, I could simply remember any of a hundred things I had seen on the internet, things they would defiantly want to un-see afterwards.

I saw both of them make their horns glow, and saw images called up in my mind as they went through my memories. I saw them dig through my childhood, going through memories at a rapid pace. Luna saw many of the technological advancements that we had, and tried to go searching in my mind for information about them. I drew the line there.

I suddenly called up an image that would better be left unnamed. I felt Luna’s emotions as she saw it, and saw her figure in dreamscape gasp, and then turn a bright red. I felt that now was the time to speak up.

“If any of you two go near memories I don’t want you to, you get to see something like that again.” I threatened. Celestia looked over at her sister, an obvious question forming on her lips.

“What did you see, Luna?” She asked, concern on her voice.

Luna slowly shook her head. “We… Don’t want to talk about it, Tia. Let us continue, it cannot be worse than that.”

I grinned, and then shook my head. They had no idea. This time, Luna steered well clear of those memories, and joined Celestia in overlooking my time in collage. Satisfied that I was, at the least, normal, I clearly felt them moving to see how I knew who they were.

I decided to draw another mental line here. Summoning up another, even worse image, this time I showed it to both Luna and Celestia. I practically jumped with joy as I saw their expressions in the dreamscape, showing a combination of embarrassment and disgust at what I had showed them.

Celestia glared at me, her eyes like twin supernovas.

“WHY! Why are you resisting us, and with that… That… FILTHY image?” She yelled at me, apparently forgetting that I was the one here who was trapped, and that I had obviously told her that she wouldn’t like what she found. I had just failed to mention what would happen if she ‘found’ it by ‘accident’.

I fell on the imaginary ground, laughing like crazy. Suddenly, I felt a presence invade my mind, this time by force. I saw Luna in the dreamscape, horn glowing, obviously fed up with my resistance. I couldn’t do anything to stop her as she entered my mind, forcefully grabbing the memories and sharing them with her sister. Suddenly, their eyes opened wide as they were assaulted by images of the show, and at the truth: That, to us, they were just fiction.

I saw the look of pure horror on their faces, and decided that now was the time to end the dream before anything else happened. I woke up on the floor of the throne room, in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. I looked over at the throne dais, and saw Luna and Celestia, shaking slightly as they recovered from what had been revealed.

Looking through the stained-glass windows, I judged that about two hours had passed in real-time, even though it was around ten minutes in the dream. How time flies when you are discovering secrets. Celestia bit her lip, and then looked at me, keeping me in her gaze.

“What we saw… Is this true?” She demanded in a soft tone, still in shock from what she had seen.

“Yea, it’s all true.” I said, and then added, “That’s what happens when you ignore my blocks on my memories.”

Luna glared at me again, and turned to her sister. The two seemed to have a silent discussion before turning to me.

“We have decided on thy punishment.” Luna proclaimed, “Thou will stay here, locked up, until we release thee. We have spoken.” She declared with finality, as if it was the only option in the world. It would certainly delay an escape, but I knew I would find a way. “Come, Tia, we need to plan Our niece’s wedding.”

“Guard!” Celestia shouted. “Take the… Human back to his cell.”

A white pegasus in golden armor came in and motioned to the door. I followed him, content to bide my time. The guard turned back at me to scowl a couple of times, obviously angry at having to escort me through the halls.

We reached the cell, and he turned around and spoke as a grey unicorn standing guard outside of it unlocked the door.

“If I had my way,” He said, “You wouldn’t even get the comfort of a cell, beast.”

“Yea, yea.” I said dismissively. “Tell it to the judge. I don’t care.”

I walked inside, and the door slammed behind me, quickly locking. With nothing else to do, I decided to take a nap. It seemed to be on its way to becoming my primary activity here, other than being tossed around by ponies. God knows I enjoyed the latter much less than the former.

I set down my backpack, along with my gear, crawling into my sleeping bag. Closing my eyes, I found myself in that state between sleep and awareness. I found myself focusing on my time here. At this point, there was definitely no chance that this was all in my head. I had experienced too much up to this point to be asleep.

Drifting off, I fell into a deep and wonderful sleep.

I awoke the next day with a growling stomach and a dry throat. Apparently, Humans still need food. I dug around in my backpack, bringing out three apples and a half-full water bottle. I ate two of the apples, still marveling that they were delicious several days after picking them, and still showed no signs of bruising or decay, even after all they had been put through in my backpack. I guess that’s the advantage of a world with magic.

After chugging down the rest of the water bottle and replacing it inside of my backpack, I laid down on my sleeping bag, just sitting there. I realized I would have plenty of time to waste, so I grabbed my laptop. I turned it on, checking the battery, currently at 54 hours remaining. I turned the volume on because, A, I wanted the guards outside the door to wonder what I was doing, and B, just because I could, and it would annoy the guards.

I started up Battlefield 3, and in a moment of idiotic thought tried to connect to the online. Chuckling at my attempt, I started up the singleplayer. Fifteen minutes later, I was moving through the second mission.

A sound announced the door unlocking, followed by a white pegasus poking his head in, probably seeing what I was doing. What he would have seen is a strange creature sitting on a large bag, his back to a wall, staring at a flat surface giving light, and brightening his features.

“What in Celestia’s name are you doing?” The guard asked of me.

“Meh,” I answered, deciding to play this off calmly, “Playing a Video Game. You wouldn’t know, you haven’t even discovered electricity.”

“Of course we have!” The guard yelled, drawing several snickers from behind the door, which I assumed were the other guards. “But what does electricity have to do with a game?”

I looked up at him, pausing the game. “It’s a simulation of warfare where I come from.” I stated, “You likely wouldn’t understand half of the stuff happening on the screen.”

The guard huffed, and closed the door, locking it amid loud laughter from what I assumed, again, were other guards watching the scene play out.

I looked down at the screen and closed it, lying down on the sleeping bag again. I didn’t know how long I was going to be here, so I might as well enjoy my time sleeping. A loud unlocking round rang again. I groaned, raising myself into a seated position as the door opened. Another grey unicorn in armor came in, and stopped at the entrance to the door.

“Come.” He said simply, and waited slightly behind the door for me. I rose to my feet, gathering my backpack (leaving the sleeping bag), slinging my Sa-58 on my back, and putting my G-17C inside of my holster. The guard raised an eyebrow at what I was bringing, but he didn’t know what half of it was anyway, so screw his opinion.

I rose to my feet after donning my equipment, and he turned away, leaving me to follow him. I looked behind me and noticed two pegasus guards following at a discrete distance. Apparently, I was popular already, and I had only been in this world for a week. The unicorn in front of me turned a corner, and I followed, leading us into another hallway.

He stopped halfway down the hallway, turning towards a door with the number 26 on it. He opened it, and motioned for me to step inside. I did, and found a small stone room with two cushions about ten feet apart. I sat down on one, assuming that was what they were for.

About twenty seconds later, the door opened again, and a dark blue pegasus came into the room. I recognized it immediately as the one that I had captured for two days in the forest. I tensed up, wondering why it – a she, I reminded myself again – would be here.

She sat down on the other cushion and stared at me. We looked at one another for around ten seconds before she spoke up.

“All right, since you decided to tie me up and all that, Shining wanted to see if I could ask you some questions. Is that all right with you?”

I nodded my consent. Along with the fact that she was asking nicely, and NOT a princess about to threaten to toss me into the sun, she was also the one that I had practically kidnapped and hid in the forest for two days. Although it was clear that there was no way she had forgiven me for that, I still felt I owed at least this to her.

“First off,” She said, starting it nicely enough, “Why do you carry around your saddlebags all the time?”

“First off, it’s a backpack, not a saddlebag.” I responded, “And second, it’s so you can’t mess with any of my stuff.”

“Second, what is that long club-like thing you carry around, along with the small L-shaped one?” She asked.

“It’s a gun. More on that later.”

We got involved in a short Q and A session. Although I didn’t feel as though any of the questions invaded my privacy, I was still concerned about the gun thing. When I finally tell them it’s a weapon, they will try to take it away, and I will probably be forced to ‘demonstrate’ it on a few of the people who will try and take it. No matter, though. I would cross that bridge when I needed to.

After around fifteen minutes, she notified me she was done, and handed me over to the guards. Although my mind felt picked clean, and I knew it would all go straight to the princesses anyway, I felt confident in being out of the room when she told them I was an Omnivore. Although I would probably pay to see that, I would prefer to be alive, and so I happily entered my cell. Lying down on my bed, I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the next day.