Waking Up

Chapter 6: Regrets

By: Calamity Jay

"The past is the past, only thing you focus on now is the future. Focus on what lies ahead, not on what's behind you..."

For some reason, you wake up... And see that you are in your old room. In your old house...

You are able to recognize it easily, due to the fact that you see some very familiar posters of games you played back on Earth. Wait, was everything you experienced a dream? Was the hospital you recovered in all a hallucination? What about Twilight and her friends? The Princesses! Was Equestria real? Was... Applejack real? Was what you felt with her real? Your fears are confirmed when you see your old television set sitting on the entertainment center, complete with a familiar black rectangular shaped object sitting next to it. Your old Xbox, but what is it doing here? When you moved out, you took it with you! You rise up from the bed and find you are fully clothed, a pair of jeans, shoes, and a t-shirt.

'The hell is going on here? Why am I in my parent's house?' you wonder. You look about the room and immediately feel a sense of nostalgia and also... sadness? You walk up to your Xbox and place a hand on it, immediately you are reminded of all the fun times you had with friends, screwing around online playing games. A smile curls on your lips as you remember all the laughs and cries you had. Your television was a 32 inch, just the right size.

You turn and look at the random posters all across your wall, ranging from the occasional pin up girl, to posters of your favorite games. To your left is your old bookshelf, it mostly held DVDs and some books lined the bottom shelves. On top you see a few trophies you earned.

'A Honor Roll'

'Best Leading Male Actor, Theatre Arts'

'1st Place, Little League Baseball'

And a few other Perfect Attendance and academic awards.

And there lay a picture of your baseball team, you remember a few of their names and faces. Some of them you had played with for years, grew up to be close friends. But after high school, you just grew apart. A tragedy really... You feel tears beginning to brim as you look at the picture. You look down at the picture, you see yourself standing with your old teammates, celebrating winning the city championship, all of you holding the trophy together. All of you look so overjoyed, your coach looking extremely proud of his team. You smile, remembering that day. Before the waterworks flow, you put back the picture.

Walking to the other side of your room, there are some drawers standing there, with a mirror standing on it. It was exactly how you remembered it... a mess. A few coins here and there, a hair brush, various sticks of deodorant, colognes and hair gels, a sock or two, and a picture? You go over to the picture and pick it up. It was you and... your parents... happy...

You stare at the picture and you see your father sitting on a haystack, your mother standing to his left, her arm around his neck. And there you were, standing behind them with a big smile on your face. This picture was taken Christmas Day your sophomore year in high school. It was at your grandfather's ranch, you remember having dinner in the barn and taking that picture. This was before your relationship with them had collapsed and you had estranged them. Now you look at this picture and wonder what could've been.

'We look so happy here. We'd just had dinner, we opened gifts, rode one of the horses, and sat down in the barn for hot chocolate. What a night,' you smile as you remember the festivities that had taken place that day. It was possibly the greatest Christmas you had ever celebrated... where did things go wrong? You and your family were so happy, then all of a sudden, you just grew apart... tragic is it not?

You look around at your room, it was always so messy. Your mother always telling you to clean up all the clothes and junk on the floor. You look back at the picture again, but this time, something is off about it. All of you are still in the same position, but with serious expressions, not the jubilant ones you had worn. You blink and rub your eyes, thinking it was your imagination, but then the picture changes again. This time you are not there any more, only your mother and father, wearing faces of sorrow and regret.

A gasp escapes from your mouth as you look at the picture and you feel a great pain within your chest. You knew what this meant... whether this was real or not, you knew what this was telling you. Tears begin to flow down your cheeks and you press a hand to your mouth to keep in the sobs. You hunch over from the strain, putting your hand on the dresser, tears flowing down your cheeks like a river of sadness and pain. You let the picture fall to the floor and through the blurriness of tears, seeing the morose expressions on your parent's face's. Its painful to say the least, knowing that your own parents had disowned you. Simply because you had a disagreement and looking back on it maybe you could've done something more rational. Maybe you should've  just reasoned with them instead.

Something completely unexpected happens next...

Out of nowhere the picture of you and your parents catches flames. A scream escapes from your mouth as the entire picture is engulfed by fire. You can only look on, stunned by what had just happened. Soon the whole picture is burning, your parents faces being the only thing visible. The last thing you could see before the picture turned to ash, was the faces of your parents... with expression of extreme sadness.

You put out the last of the flame with your foot and kneel to look at the burnt remains. There was nothing left that was recognizable, only ashes. Sitting back on your rear and taking in the unexplainable event that just took place, the dam finally breaks. You curl up in the fetal position and begin to sob like a boy who's lost his parents in a grocery store. Ironic, because you feel exactly like that.

Time seems to slow down and you have no idea how long you are laying there. Your face covered in tears and your throat is straining from your sobs.

"Leroy..."

The voice you hear is extremely familiar. Could it be?

"Leroy... Fear not... This is only a dream..."

"What? Luna? Where are you? W-what's going on?" you ask.

"Calm thyself, You have nothing to fear. Allow me to reveal myself"

Suddenly, you see a familiar midnight blue alicorn appear out of thin air. Luna, the Princess of the Night.

"Luna," you say relieved," I uh, did you just see everything that happened just now?"

"Yes I did Leroy," she says with a solemn expression, " I am sorry that you feel such pain inside you. I cannot begin to imagine how you must feel,"

"Well, I'm just glad that this isn't real," you go over to sit on your bed.

"Leroy," Luna walks over and climbs up to sit next to you. " Do you miss your parents?"

"Well before I saw this, I never realized how much I missed them,"

"I see. So it took you seeing a picture of you and your parents being set on fire to realize that? I expect better of you Leroy,"

"I guess I was just still being bitter about how much I hated what they thought about my future goals and stuff. They wanted me to be a doctor and I wanted to pursue an acting career. Then we had a big argument one night and that was the last straw. I remember him saying that he wanted to disown me, that I wasn't apart of the family anymore," you feel the tears well up again.

"I'm surprised it took that much time for you to realize that. Have you not ever thought about writing to them and saying how much you love them?" huh never thought about that did you?

"I just never got around to it. I was just too busy with work and getting drunk at the local bar. Life's good ain't it?"

"Hmm, quite. But you must do better Leroy, tell your parents you love them. Ask them for forgiveness and I am sure they will accept you into their hearts"

"How do you know they will? They'll probably just gloat and say how they were right all along," you lean on your elbow on your knee and rest your chin on your palm.

"Let me tell you something," you turn around and look into her light blue eyes. " When I was released from Nightmare Moon's influence, I was afraid my sister would not take me back. That I would forever be shunned and left alone. However that was not the case, my sister had taken me back with open hooves. In fact when Nightmare Moon was vanquished, it was almost as if I had never left. Tia told me that everyday she felt the pain of having to banish me to the moon and all she wanted was her sister back. She was overjoyed to see that I was broken free and finally pure once again. If my sister could forgive me for threatening to take over all of Equestria, then I am certain your parents will forgive you Leroy," she places a hoof on your shoulder.

"But, I don't know how. What do I even say? I never knew much about the whole apologizing thing,"

"Leroy, stay in Equestria for a few weeks. Learn from us about friendship and love. Then, when you are ready, I will bring you back here so you can finally apologize to your mother and father,"

"Will I get to stay here? I mean it is pretty nice here. And what if things don't go as planned?"

"However things turn out, whether or not you wish to stay in Equestria will be of your own accord. We will not force you to stay here, after all you do still have a family. No matter how you see it,"

"Hmph, well I guess I have a lot of learning to do, thank you Luna," then without thinking, you lean over and kiss her on the cheek, pulling in for a hug. You feel her tense up a bit when you do so, but then she eases up and hugs you back by wrapping her forelegs around you.

"I never did to thank you for taking me to Equestria, Luna. So thank you, you made a big change in my life and I will never forget this. If there is ever anything you need, anything at all, you just let me know okay?"

"Y-yes of course Leroy, I will let you know," you pull away from the hug and see she has a mad blush on her muzzle. You can't help but develop a blush of your own.

"Right well, am I going back anytime soon now?" you ask rubbing the back of your neck.

"Ah yes that, its almost morning in fact so you should be waking up soon. I should be going," she hops off the bed and walks towards the door of your room. "Oh and Leroy, this room is quite a mess, perhaps you should clean it when you go back?"

"Uh yeah maybe I should," you chuckle.

"Yes, well I will be going now. I'll be seeing you Leroy,"

"Yeah, see ya," you wave as she opens the door. A bright light fills the room and blinds you. Then all of a sudden, everything goes black, and you go unconscious.

The next thing you realize is that you are awake, still lying in your hospital bed. Sunlight seeps in through the blinds and you groggily sit up. Rubbing your eyes of sleep, you rise up and stumble your way to the bathroom to take care of morning business.  You grip the doorknob and pull. Walking into the small bathroom, you turn on the light and look at yourself in the mirror. You notice something strange about yourself.

For some weird reason, your eyes are a different color. The last time you remember they were a dark brown color. Now for some reason they were a series of blues and greens.

"What in the world," you say, focusing in on your eyes. In doing so, a light blue aura overtakes the mirror and when you step back it shatters. You stand back astonished at what happened, also trying to avoid stepping on glass. Things are getting weirder by the second. You have no idea how you did that and Twilight is most likely going to want to hear about this.

"Oh dear," is all you can mutter, being at a loss for words.

Well, seems like you might have some explaining to do.