Flames of Blue

“Giggity.”

Fuck. Yes. There’s light filtering through the hole. I’m on Equis. Yes. This is a good thing. Or is it.

‘I should probably stop hyperventilating.’

I give one last, large push, and a large chunk of the roof crumbles, falling on me. I cough from the dust, but not surprisingly, a huge amount of sunlight is now making its way into my former prison. Blinking, I begin mentally preparing myself.

‘Nothing big, I’m just most likely in a cartoon world in a different body and am not restrained by anything in my past… oh.’

Oh shit, my uncle. My uncle… my uncle needs me. Two years ago, I promised my financially struggling parents that I would take care of my mother’s brother, who has a cancerous lung…

No… No. This isn’t good. I need to get money. I need money for his treatment, for the chemotherapy… How the fuck am I supposed to take care of him if I’m in a… an alternate dimension?

‘Okay, no. Deep breaths. You’re not abandoning him. Apollo must’ve taken care of it, if he’s so high and mighty. There’s no way he would just up and forget that I have a life on earth if he sent me to Equis or Equestria.’

I pressed on, scratching and kicking at the hole with my talons. And yes, talons. I’m not sure about the rest of my body, because I’m half blinded by dust, and I haven’t raised my head, but yes, I have talons. This, so far, has confirmed my theory that what Apollo said is true, and that I have in fact, been sent to Equis as a phoenix. I start stretching, getting ready for what I was going to do next. As far as I could tell, the hole was plenty wide enough for me. I was going to pull myself up and out using my feet and talons, and dang do I hope they are strong enough. The last thing I need is to pull myself halfway up, just to run out of strength and get myself a concussion on the way down.

I let out a satisfied grunt as my back popped in several places, having been lying down for a good hour or so on a hard stone surface. My talon tipped feet reached up, grasping the edge of the hole firmly. I started to bend my knees (backwards, because bird anatomy ftw), and suddenly found that it wouldn’t be a problem at all to get out. I weighed practically nothing, or my legs were extremely strong. Or both. I swung myself up, out of the hole, ducking as to not hit my head on the edge. I did so with too much enthusiasm, though, and flung myself face-first onto the roof of the stone box. And yes, I was right about it being a box. As I opened my eyes, I saw that I had been encased in a large box made of a concrete-like material.

“That explains why it was so easy to scratch myself out… the box was made of mortar.” I said, crawling my way to the edge of the box. By now I had seen that my arms had turned to wings, and that they had a strange color about the feathers. They were blue, not navy blue, but not exactly sky blue either, with an indigo outline. The outline proved further that I was in a cartoon world full of ponies, as did the wings. The color of the feathers is strange, though. I thought I was going to be red and orange, as normal phoenixes are colored, so I might not even be one. Whatever, that has to wait. For now I have to get on the ground, re-learn how to walk, and hopefully Apollo would be around.

I reached the edge of the box, and I simply flipped myself off. I landed on my back, but I wasn’t winded. Apparently my feathers have cushioning powers, or it might have to do with the fact that I landed in grass that reached up to just under the box’s edge. I grabbed a handful (talonful?) of grass, dirt, and roots with my new feet, and pulled myself up. I was unsteady, but I could stand up easily enough. The real trouble was going to be walking. When I stood up, I was a couple feet higher than the box. That should mean that I’m a good four and a half feet tall or so.

‘Whatever, let’s get walking.’

I took my first, unsteady step onto the dirt in front of me, toward the box. It wasn’t so bad, so I took another, then another, and another, till I was at the base of the box. I was going to try jumping, but suddenly I heard a rumbling sound. I looked around, looked down, and finally looked up…

Just to see that there was a fiery fucking missile headed for my face.

‘Shit, run. Runrunrunrunrun.’

Unsteadily, I started off at a faster pace away from the box, toward the only tree I could see. Maybe it would provide some cover. After about two seconds, I was under the tree, and I could see the miniature missile headed straight to where I was standing a couple seconds ago. I crouched, bracing for impact, as the thing got closer and closer, and it finally hit, shaking the ground.

‘That wasn’t so bad. Just a small shockwave and fireball.’

I half jogged back over to the crushed remains of the box, trying to find the source of the explosion.

“Gotcha.” I had circled around to the back of the rubble, and found a crater a meter behind it. Smack-dab in the middle was a still glowing arrow, and it had a metal box behind it, attached by a chain. I ran over to the crater, hopping down over the side.

“Dang it.” I had lost my balance, and just as I hit the ground, my feet slipped out from under me, sending my head into the crater wall.

‘ouch.’

Getting back up, I walked over to the box. The lid was closed and held that way with a small clasp. Reaching out with my wings, I flipped open the clasp, and kicked over the box, letting the contents fall onto the ground. There was a piece of paper, a… ring? And there was a compass, it seems. I flipped over the piece of paper, and began reading it.

‘Hey Tom, Apollo here.

Just saw you get out of that old casket and thought I would send you a status report. I’ll go ahead and break the news to you; your friends and family don’t remember you. At all. I erased their memories of you and replaced them of that with another person. Your uncle is healed completely, because I’m Apollo and I can do that. You’re free, Okay? Don’t worry about anything from your life back on earth. I’m sure you’ll have mixed feelings for a while, but for now, this is your reality. Your form has been optimized for you by me, and you should be flying by the end of tomorrow. Remember, things won’t be so easy going after this. I’ve already said this, but I’m giving you a head start. You started in on the chess game late, or I did, so I’m giving you a little push. From here, you should be fine, and I’ll have no further contact with you. Good luck, and have fun in the chess game.

--Apollo

P.S.- Almost forgot. When you’re good at flying, you won’t need that ring. All it does is transfer you knowledge of other birds of prey, so you’ll learn to fly faster.

P.S.S.- When you’re used to flying, use the compass to go north-northwest. After you start for that heading, things won’t be so easy.’

‘Okay then, that was… informative… fuck. I seriously can’t go back now, can I?’ I shook my head slightly, and wiped my wing across my face.

‘Might as well try on the ring.” I sighed, as I slipped my talon into the ring. It was a perfect fit, and I immediately felt a change. When I thought of flying, I had at least a hundred thousand different, vivid, crystal clear memories of taking off, aerial maneuvers, and landing.

‘Whoa. This is gonna be useful.’

I spread my wings, and flapped them experimentally. ‘My’ memories corrected me whenever I made a mistake, and soon I was able to make myself hover for a few minutes at a time. I look around, not being able to see much beyond the grass. Looking up, though, it seems like it’s already turning dark.

I landed, and went on to cut some of the taller grass stems around me using my talons, and arrange them into a sort of pad on the ground. Sighing, I flop down onto it, falling asleep eventually.