It was a day like any other day. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to school, learn stuff, come home, maybe be with friends, eat dinner, sleep. It was repetitive, but is was life. Fast Forward sighed as the school bell rung, noting the end of school.
Cherilee, the new teacher, smiled. "All right class! It's time to go home!" Various cheers and groans came from the class. "Remember, summer break is only one week away!" Everypony cheered for that. The fillies and foals all got out of their seats and began to head home. Fast Forward got out of his chair and followed the head.
"Forward!"
He turned to his teacher. "Yes, Miss Cherilee?"
She gave him a small smile. "May I speak to you for a minute?"
He nodded and sat on the chair. "Forward, I noticed your grades have dropped a tad bit recently. I something going on?"
He shrugged. "Few problems at home."
She nodded. "Alright. Even if it is my first year as a teacher, you can ask me for help. I will help you." He nodded in response and head outside.
Family problems. Wow, he thought to himself, what a lie. Partially anyway. If he had any family. He ground his teeth and continued on. His grade drops were just because his summer-time sadness was coming again. He HATED the summer. He was lonely, bored, and could barley get by. He was alone, anyway. Had he said that already?
He wandered the town aimlessly, deciding to avoid community service for today. He just didn't...feel it. But he knew he had to go home eventually, which he did. He stared at the front door before opening it. His empty, dark house greeted him. Through routine, he went into the kitchen and opened the pantry, reveling only ramen and cheap bread. That's all he could afford anyway. He had little money left from what his family had, so he often worked part-time jobs to get by.
He learned early to get by, by himself. He had to.
After munching on the stale bread, he headed to his room. A ancient bed that creaked with every move, his chair and his desk greeted him. He closed his eyes, sadness rushing over him. His room always made him feel like this.
It was the only place he remember his family, when he had any. He sat on his bed, holding his special blanket in his hooves. He used to call it his 'baby blanket', but he still had it. So he renamed it. Even though his mother's smell faded from it years ago, he still held onto it. It was part of him. He looked over at his desk, blank paper and dull pencils littering it. He lied down on his bed.
But he got back up and went to his table.
He began to draw.
He drew many things.
He drew the town, he drew the school, he drew his classmates, he drew the night sky. He drew until his pencil graphite broke, then sharpened it. This was all he could express himself with.
He always ended with a drawing of his mother. The only pony that ever cared for him. It got less and less detailed every time. He could remember her less and less.
At least he could remember her smile.
Her beautiful smile.
He saw the paper have a drop of water on it. Then another, then another. He felt his eyes become wet, before he pulled away from the drawing and sobbed. He was alone. He always would. He crawled to his bed and fell asleep, the pillow soaking wet when he woke up.
Sleep.
He woke to the sun shining through the window, a large crack visible in the middle. He rubbed his eyes, and sat up. Another day. He got up and picked up his pack before heading to his desk. His minimal descriptive picture of his mother still sat there. It still had a few wet drops. He stared at it before storing it in his pack. He was keeping this one.
He had a breakfast of cold ramen before heading to school. He arrived quickly, to be the first one to arrive. He shivered in the cold before quickly heading inside, to meet Cherilee sitting at her desk, grading papers. She looked up at him and smiled. "Good morning, Forward. Nice to see you up early."
He nodded and sat down at his desk, pulling out his incomplete and missing homework, to complete them.
The day went on, and as usual, absolutely nothing unusual happened, besides a upcoming rainstorm, for a watering before the summer.
The day ended, and he headed out. He wandered the town, not really minding anything until he bumped into somepony he didn't want to meet.
"Hey, look at the little shit we have here."
Rock Strong smirked at Forward, with his buddies standing behind him. Forward stood up. "Why don't you pick on somepony your own size?" Forward was a bit stronger than the normal colt, and Strong was a bit smaller, so there was a pretty big difference between them.
Strong frowned. "It's you that came to me."
Forward shrugged. "I have nothing to say to you." He turned and began to head off.
Immediately, his minions buddies went around and blocked Forward from continuing. "You ain't walkin' away from me! I have something to say to ya, and-" He felt it before he saw it, and flew back into some trash cans, causing the trash in them to fall onto him.
Even though it wasn't his cutie mark, his name was Fast Forward, so expect him to be fast.
His buddies snickered, but stopped when given a death stare by Strong.
Fast Forward was already gone.
-
Even though he was a pegasus, a large, powerful and fast one at that, he could barley fly. He didn't mind though. He rarely flied, as if at all. He could reach anywhere he needed to by walking.
But sometimes, he liked to fly to relax, and get annoyances off his mind. The rain was lightly falling now and he found himself a cloud to sit on. He sat on it and folded up his wings, sighing. Those bullies annoyed him frequently, in and out of school, and he didn't know why.
He though about school. School was okay. He was able to learn things to help him get by in life. That's all he could do at the moment.
Cherilee. He didn't know why he though of her, but he did. She was kind, compassionate, and she helped him. He sighed. He guessed she was one of the kind teachers. One of the few. For some reason, he didn't feel empty when he though of her.
"There he is!"
Forward turned to see Strong's buddies heading toward him. Since Strong was an earth pony, he couldn't do anything, but his buddies were pegasi, so they could reach him.
"Shove 'im off!"
He realized a second too late of what he said.
The next, he felt a force on his chest.
Then he was falling.
The storm was raging at that point, and it was pouring.
Forward tried to open his wings, but the rainwater was weighing them down. He tried with all his strength to move his wings, even just a bit, to break his fall.
To no avail.
He felt a splitting pain in his head, his hooves and his side, and a loud resounding crack. His vision became blurry, and he couldn't tell where he was.
He blinked, and he saw his picture a small distance away. That's right, he packed it in his bag. He crawled slowly to it, every movement making the world going more darker. He reached it, and grabbed it. He screamed as his hoof felt like it was filled with shattered glass. He blinked and saw blood on the picture.
He tried to wipe the blood off, his hoof hurting with every movement. No matter how much he tried, there was always more blood.
Why can't I get the blood off? I try. I try so hard.
He hated to see the blood staining her smile.
But he couldn't be sure whether he cared any more.
I'm sorry.
RESET
It hurt.
It hurt so bad.
He open his eyes, seeing whiteness.
The white was beautiful. He looked around. That's all it was. No pain. Just this.
He could remember her eyes.
RESET
The two words echoed in his head. He gasped as he sat up in his bed. His bed? He looked down at his bed. This wasn't his bed. This wasn't his room. The bed was too soft, the walls were too bright he couldn't see his table.
There was no table.
He heard a light beeping sound, consistent and continuous. He looked to his left to see one of those machines you saw attached to patients in the hospitals.
He concluded he was in a hospital.
He looked at his orange hooves, and notice they were fine. He looked at them questioningly. He swear he broke them. Actually, he was pretty such he broke about half the bones in his body. Was it magic? But he would've felt some of the aftereffects...
He saw one of those doctors walk in. He sat down on one of the chairs by the bed. "Fast Forward, I am Doctor Aspirin. I want to talk to you about your recent accident."
Fast Forward look at the brown unicorn. "Yeah? What do you want to know?"
"Well, just procedure, what you can remember, what happened and your general heath."
"Well..." Forward looked down at his hooves, "How am I not injured? I know I broke something."
"Excuse me? You didn't sustain any injuries in the fall."
Forward looked at the doctor, confused.
"I do not know how you had a fall from that high up, about forty hooves up, but at least you're ok."
"...That's not possible."
Aspirin gave Forward a confused look. "Well, your wings are a bit weak, so-"
"NO!" Forward gave the doctor an angry glance. "When I landed, I felt myself BREAK!" He held his head. "It felt like glass, and..."
RESET.
The doctor looked back up. "Excuse me?"
"I heard...RESET."
"You heard what?"
"I heard the word RESET. What does it..." He closed his eyes and thought.
"What word?"
Forward looked annoyingly at the doctor. "RESET."
The doctor waited.
"RESET!"
"I'm waiting."
Forward ground his teeth. The doctor couldn't hear him say that word, was his conclusion.
He sighed. "Never mind."
The doctor nodded. "Alright. I checked your records, and it noted you don't have a legal guardian."
"So?"
"I'll have to send you to the orphanage."
Forward cringed at that place. He'd been there, and he hated it. It was loud. It was rowdy. It was a mess. it had others. He preferred being alone. He was more mature than them any way.
"No."
"Unless you are able to get a legal guardian within 24 hours past leave of this hospital, you will go to the orphanage. I am sorry." The doctor got up. "You treatment is done, so you should be released soon." He turned and left.
Forward sighed, and realized it could've been his imagination. He looked around and saw his bag at the right side of his bed. He reached down and picked it up. He smiled, knowing his picture would be safe, and he could see his mother's smile. He opened the bag and pulled out the picture.
It was covered in blood.
-
He sat alone in his new room. He said goodbye to his home, and left to this living hell. He couldn't believe he was in a place like this. He was glad he could get some silence in this room, but he knew he wouldn't have it for long. it was only open to newcomers, and he didn't want to go to one of the normal rooms. He never wanted to come here. "Fast Forward!" One of the adults called his name, and he decided to go to the adult. He stepped to the stallion. He looked up from his papers, and saw the colt. "Ah, you have somepony wanting to see you."
Forward entered the room in front of him, and saw who he didn't expect to see.
Cherilee.
He felt words die in his throat, he expected something entirely different. But here she was. After a few seconds, he was able to speak. "M-miss Cherilee? What are you doing here?"
She smiled. "To see you." She got up and stood beside him. "I heard what happened."
He nodded, not moving, besides sitting down on the chair behind him.
"I want to help you."
He turned away. "How can you do that?"
"Well...uh...I want to become your legal guardian, so keep it in short."
This surprised him. "Why...why would you do that?"
"Well, I've noticed that you've been in a slump, and you've been more and more out of it. I," she frowned, "I hate to admit it, but I followed you home one time." She looked at him. "How can you live like that?"
He shrugged. "That's how I've always been."
She held his hoof. "It doesn't need to be like that. You've been my favorite student, and you are a helpful pony. You've helped around town, and you helped with the Winter-Wrap Up, I saw that. You care, and I appreciate that."
He stayed silent for a time. She stayed silent too. it was silent, nothing was spoken.
-
So much had changed this last month.
He had a new home.
He had a warm bed.
He had somepony who cared.
He held onto his special blanket. He still had the few valuables that he took from his old home. He took his art, his drawing, and his old banged up guitar.
He said goodbye to his old bed.
He said good bye to the old floors.
He said goodbye to the ramen and stale bread.
He said goodbye to sadness.
"Forward, dinner!"
He got out of his bed, for once happy about dinner. Something different.
He sat down at the table, Cherilee, his adoptive mother, setting food on the table. "It's nice to see you like this, Forward."
He nodded. He enjoyed feeling happy. He'd gotten to know Cherilee well, and vice versa. He was happy for once.
Dinner passed, and he headed back to his room, sitting down at the table. He had sharp pencils, clean, proper paper.
So he drew.
He drew his new home, his new bed, the night sky, as it was different. And Cherilee. His mother.
He felt a tingling on his flank, and looked down, to see his new cutie mark. He smiled, but it quickly turned to a frown as he saw what it was.
A black button that read RESET.
He showed it to his mother.
She was extremely joyful.
Which made him happy too. And he realized:
His life had been reset.
And he was happy.
He could remember her face.