The Many Lives of Mortimer Matthews

Mortimer opened his eyes, and saw through the tree-tops that the sky had turned from blueish-black to the pleasant orange of dawn. Feeling thirsty again, he decided to walk back to the clearing.

There being no Ent-wolf-things around, he drank his fill before tilting his head back to gaze at the sky. Soon the sun would come up, and then-

"Holy toast!"

Apparently, the sun did exactly the same thing that it did in the evening in the morning. Only in reverse. That is to say, it sprang up from beneath the horizon like a simile standing by an analogy. Look, I'm having an off day, okay? Feeling thoroughly confused by this whole business, Mortimer decided to leave the forest. Maybe there was someone who lived nearby that he could talk to. Plus, of course, leaving the forest would have the added bonus of not getting ripped to shreds at night. Picking another random direction (and this time not one that led to Ent-wolf-things), he set out.

Now as he strolled through the forest, last night's events (and the painful and positively humiliating demise that followed), Mortimer wondered whether he had been dreaming of the Ent-wolf-things. Unlike most of his dreams, which faded all too quickly from memory, it seemed both incredibly realistic and filled with a frightening quantity of hurt. You weren't supposed to feel the ouchies in dreams, were you? Casting canine encounters to the side for the moment, however, Mortimer muttered to himself as he meandered.

"I should probably try to find my way out of this forest. Should be a motorway, or some village in the sticks. Finding out where I am would be nice." Walking and cogitating out loud at the same time, a thought struck him.

"I've got it!" Mortimer eureka'd. "What if I ended up in this forest when the ambulance taking me to the hospital after those cars ran me over went over a bump in the road or something and the back doors flew open and my stretcher slid out and landed in the forest?" Mortimer paused for breath. "Yeah!" Then he frowned. "No, that's not right. I saw a definite lack of stretcher back there. And besides, my limbs should be a lot more painful. No, wait! What if I'm actually in a hospital, and I'm a coma? What if I died and went to heaven?" A thought struck him. "What if I died and went to hell? Or even what if this place is part of a magical land full of talking unicorns and pastel colours which will nevertheless take a somewhat dark tone when they viciously rip my arms off?" Mortimer chuckled to himself softly. What a ridiculous idea.

"What a ridiculous idea."

After a few minutes walking (which Mortimer took to mean that he hadn't ended up very deep into the forest at all), he pushed his way through a shrub to find a nicely trodden dirt path. Looking up and down it, he noticed that while one direction led to a dark and gloomy  and altogether bosky piece of woodland, the other was much lighter and cheery. If such a quality could be said to apply to a dirt path. And then he heard a woman's voice.

"Elizabeak? Elizabeak, are you there?"

Well, thought Mortimer, now I can ask where I am. Unfortunately he couldn't see who was coming up the path, as it curved most annoyingly around a bend.

Suddenly the shrub at his feet rustled in a threatening manner. Fearing that the shrub was undergoing the final stages of its life cycle that heralded its metamorphosis into a specimen of the dread bramble patch, Mortimer jumped backwards in fright. And out of the shrub schlepped a chicken

To Mortimer's credit, it was quite a scary chicken. And also to his credit he didn't scream too loud. If anything, it was more of a muted squeak. The chicken looked up as it heard the squeak, staring straight at Mortimer with its beady little chicken eyes as if to say "I SEES YOU!" And then it squawked away down the path in terror. He decided to follow it, not so much for the sake of the chicken as for the sake of finding whoever was seeking out this mysterious 'Elizabeak'.

"Elizabeak! Oh, I was so worried!" The voice got louder as Mortimer rounded the corner. "Now please don't run away again. I get so worried, you kn- "

WUMP.

Much to his astonishment, Mortimer walked straight into a rather small yellow four-legged creature of proportions and hue unlike that found in nature but quite a lot like that found in small childrens' cartoons.

"Um," said Mortimer as he stepped backwards. "I have herded your chicken, madam."

"Aaaaaaah!" The scream startled Mortimer with its speed and human-like tone. So he responded in kind.

"Aaaaaaah!"

"AAAAAAH!"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

"AAAAAAAAHWHAT ARE YOU?"

"I DON'T KNOW! I FOUND YOUR CHICKEN!"

"ARE YOU A MONSTER?"

"NO! ARE YOU A CHICKEN-REARING OUT-OF-PROPORTION STRANGELY COLOURED PONY WITH WINGS?"

"WHAT?"

"WHAT?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" they yelled in unison. Pausing for breath, their screaming ceased as the chicken ran off unnoticed.

"Did... " gasped Mortimer, "did you just talk?"

"Did you just talk?" replied the yellow thing.

"Yes. Yes, I did."

"Are you going to eat me?"

"What? No. Are you going to eat me?"

"What? No!"

"Good. Glad to have sorted that out." Mortimer knelt down and extended a hand. "My name's Mortimer. What's yours?" Seeming a little unnerved by Mortimer's appearance, the winged pony-like thing extended not a hand, but a hoof-esque appendage.

"I'm... I'm Fluttershy. It's... it's a pleasure to meet you." Mortimer gripped the appendage, shaking it as one would another hand. The yellow thing moved to return the gesture.

"Likewise, Fluttershy, it is a pleasure to meet yAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

Mortimer screamed again. This time, however, it wasn't because he was startled. It was because the yellow pony-thing had ripped his arm clean out of its socket. As he writhed on the floor, his screams mingling with that of his assailant, a fresh wave of unbearable pain washed over him.

"AAAAAH! AAAAAH! AAAAAH!"

"Merciful Celestia, what have I done?"

"AAAAAH! AAAAAH! AAAAAH!" As the yellow thing backed away with a look of horror on its oddly-proportioned face, Mortimer felt his eyes slide shut.

Elsewhere, Mortimer woke up.

Subject: Mortimer Matthews

Cause(s) of death:

-Crushed by car

-Bitten by botanical beasts

-Participating in pleasantries with a pony