The fire speaks to me

I knew that I was waking up because of the immense pain throughout my body and the bright light that was shining on my face. After a few moments of letting the pain fade, I decided to see what craptastic hospital I was probably sent to.

"Ugh... Where am I?" I called out before breaking into a few raspy coughs, "Whatever you guys are giving me sure as hell ain't working."

I finally opened my eyes and got into a sitting position. My eyes adjusted to the light before I realized that the thing I was laying on was defiantly not a hospital bed... And I was in a forest.

"W-What... the... hell?" I mumbled while taking in the scenery, "Why am I in a forest..."

I looked around a bit more as my brain started processing that something didn't feel right.

"There was no way that all of that shit was some dream... That was a pain that you can't just dream up..." I told myself.

I stood up and quickly realized that I still had my costume on. The weird thing was that I didn't feel like I was wearing anything. So, I undid my coat, but when I fully took it off I saw that the zipper for my black suit was completely gone. I started feeling around on my body to try and find the zipper, but no matter where I looked, it wasn't there.

"Holy hell... What the fuck?!" I Yelled while my heart beat faster every second, "What the hell did that guy do to me?!"

I then realized that my suit felt like skin... I was so scared that I could barely make coherent thoughts anymore. I grabbed my coat and put it back on before searching through every pocket on it with only one thought in my head, "I need help!". After searching for a moment, I found the fake gun that I had with me, but I didn't care about it at the moment, so I threw it to the side. I kept searching in my pockets until I found the only other thing there: the zippo lighter that I bought from the merchant.

Pulling it out of my pocket, I stared at the accursed object in my hand. My heart beat slowed down a bit, but my mind kept racing. All I could think about was when the merchant tossed it at me. The way the fire spread across my body. All of the pain I felt from the burning while his demented laugh bounced around in my head...

"Wait... does that mean I'm dead?" I questioned while coming out of my stupor, "If I'm dead, then what the hell happened to my body?!"

I remembered that I also had my skull mask on, but just like my suit, when I tried to take it off I could feel that it was now a part of my body. The worst thing was that with my skull head I was able to stick my hand through my eye sockets and feel the inside of my head. The feeling definitely freaked me out more than I needed at the moment.

"What the hell happened to me?! Where the hell are my friends?! AND WHY THE HELL AM I IN THIS FUCKING FOREST?!" I screamed to the sky at the top of my lungs.

I decided to try and calm down so I could think about all of this. I lied down on the grass and started breathing slowing and deeply. After a few moments of forcing myself to stay completely still and to just breath, I was finally calm enough to think rationally about everything...

"The best I can think of is aliens..." I mumbled to myself as I realized how stupid I was, "I really should have taken science class more serious. If I did then I would probably know what's happening..."

I sat there trying to think of what type of fungus or disease this could possibly be, but by the time that I figured it must be something else, the sun had started setting.

"Crap! I can't sleep in the woods," I said to myself while getting up, "I may be some abomination now, but I'd still like to sleep without getting mauled to death."

I started getting up and remembered the lighter still in my hand and the fake gun I tossed to the ground earlier. After putting the lighter back in my pocket, I grabbed the gun from the ground. Something felt off about It though... It felt heavier than before and it had a more polished surface. I inspected it for a moment longer before accidentally popping out the chamber

"No freaking way... This is a real gun!" I exclaimed, "There is something terribly wrong about this, but now I have some form of protection."

I started off into the forest before it got any darker with my gun in my hands and my body tensed. I traveled for a while and could hear distant sounds from farther in the forest. Finally though, I found a way out of that dam spooky place. I made it to the clearing and took a few steps out, but before I could even realize that the sun was almost completely down, I saw a town ahead. I concealed my gun and rushed toward the town as the sun finally lowered under the mountains in the distance... is that a castle?

"How is that thing being held up there?" I thought out loud while still running, "I can figure it out later, right now I need to focus on getting help."

I continued heading towards the town as everything got darker with the nights approach. I could see a few distant things moving around.

"Those must be people! I need to hurry!" I said out loud.

I doubled my efforts to get to the town and soon I was close... close enough to see that the things from earlier were horses.

After taking a moment to slow down I said to myself, "What the hell? Why is that one purple? And that one over there has a pink mane! What type of planet am I on?!"

It was then that one of them looked in my direction with a shocked expression before somehow yelling, "Monster! Monster! Everypony run!"

All of them then glanced at me before fleeing. Some of them ran into houses and some of them just didn't stop running, but either way, they wanted no part of me.

I decided that I just needed to stop questioning things, like how colorful horses could yell, and to just roll along with it. So, I just kept walking. After a few minutes of strolling through the now dead silent town, I came across a large castle thing. With no other way to go, I walked up to the door and knocked...