The River Back

Consciousness

He awoke on his side, staring at the white, pebble-ridden ground, soaking wet and covered in bruises. His lungs forced water mixed with blood out of him, giving him the ability to breath once more. Trying to lift himself from the rocky substance he lay on only resulted in bursting out a sharp yelp before crashing back onto the ground, giving him more bruises on one side. He cleared his throat as best he could and let out a plea for help.

No answer. Even the birds in the trees ignored his cry. Only the icy trickle of running water at the colt's hind legs gave any noise to comfort him. With what remaining strength he could muster, he pushed on the ground with his forehooves, circling around until his mouth was in the edge of the crystal-blue stream, and with his slender tongue he tried to scoop what water he could into his mouth, discarding care for any mud that clung to his palette in the process.

After what he thought was enough time to get back enough scraggle of strength, he lifted himself up, trembling on all fours. He began to take his first step, like what most of his kind would do after they were born, but just like them, he staggered forward and clumsily tumbled onto a nearby tree, grasping at it with his limbs to keep his footing, or 'hoofing' in his case, before slumping down onto the ground with his back against it's trunk.

There the pony sat, occasionally moving to make himself comfortable by scraping twigs and stones away from underneath him. What felt like an hour had passed when he heard a "CRACK" sound, not the noise of a fallen stick or that of a rock being thrown onto another, but something different that made his blurry eyes spring to life and scour the landscape instinctively for danger. But all he saw was the thick flora of trees, devoured in a white blanket of snow, as if it were in a constant state of winter.

He slowly and carefully rose to his hooves, buckling under his own weight and slamming into the tree one final time, ignoring the splinters and scrapes from the tree bark, he pushed himself off and limped towards the river, realising his front-left leg had a bruise running up it from hoof to torso, but the pain was so immeasurable it was like the bone had been broken in ten different places. He stood by the stream, looked down and up from where it was flowing from, wishing that the "crack" noise was made by another creature, hopefully like him, and that he wasn't alone or surrounded by enemies.

One hoof after the other, he slowly made his way up stream from where he figured his unconscious body travelled in the flow of the waterway, wanting to find out where he was and how he ended up at the edge of a river in the middle of seemingly nowhere.