Author's Note
This should be the final rewrite. I've planned out a few chapters ahead and I was originally planning for this chapter to be much longer. I stopped it here because it seemed like a really good place to stop. ~~I'll upload the next one when I finish it, which I suspect will be in a week or so.~~
This chapter has a very different tone than the old version used to be, which I hope you don't mind. I'm really trying to focus on the story in this one, so the humor will probably come in later chapters.
I hope you enjoy!
[5/18/2016]
Fixed the color descriptions of the main characters coat and made it a bit more obvious which form they are in.
[5/19/2016]
Added spaces between paragraphs.
[7/18/2016] Fixed a few grammatical errors.
[8/25/2017] Marked story as cancelled. I also fixed a handful of tenses and grammar.
Alicorn
Sirens wailed in the distance, followed by what sounded like gunshots. A dreary afternoon sky greeted me as I step out of the grey office building I worked at. It was a simple job, just working long shifts at the front desk. My days pretty much consisted of greeting someone, listening to them complain about one thing or another, and then sending them on their way to their next victim. Alas, the simplicity often lead to a dullness that persists throughout the day, only broken up by twenty minute lunch breaks and the occasional “eccentric” customer.
But of course, this also meant that I knew the exact number of mice that scurry through this area — seven everyday at precisely 5:37 PM — and I’d thought up over 200 ways to beat up someone if they come in with a gun or a knife. Not too unlikely given the area, but I’d been lucky thus far.
Back to the present, I strolled down a cracked sidewalk as heavily clad citizens walked past. Winter was creeping into the city, the first frost already hitting hard. I passed by some of the nicer stores, a bank, a grocery store… I didn’t have the money to frequent them often, unfortunately. It took a few minutes to get to my block, one of the better areas of this neighborhood. Around the block from my residence was a small crowd of people. Probably another street performer.
Around here, it's not easy for those guys to make money, given that people around here don’t want to give out that money without getting something in return. And it’s not that they’re greedy or anything, just smart with their money. It just doesn’t pay to be generous in this town. Given all this, it was mildly surprising that a performer could draw such a gathering in the first place.
Moving closer, I could make out their voice. Some typical stage magician stuff it seemed, figures. But, being a sucker for magic shows, as I was; I got within view and watched as he performed his magic. By the time he began packing up his equipment, most of the crowd had already left and the sky had darkened considerably. With a nostalgic smile, I walked forward and dropped a few coins in his upturned hat. A gracious nod was sent my way as I moved away.
I unlocked the door and pushed it forwards, the hinges groaning loudly as I did so. Hitting a switch, the house was basked in the warm yellow glow of artificial lighting. After taking my pills and all the other things I do at night, I plopped right into bed.
“Thank you, based mattress,” I mumbled into the bed sheets. I turned on my side and reached over to close my curtains when I first got a look at the evening sky. Little puffs of cloud littered the dark blue expanse, static in their movement. But what caught my eye, was the crimson red moon floating in the middle of the sky. Red-tinted beams of light fell across my floor, basking my room in a soft light. It was pretty picturesque, all things considered, but I was too tired to care how cool it would look hanging on my wall.
With a sigh, I tugged the curtains closed and rested my head on the pillow. “I wish I could escape,” I whispered as the tiring day softly carried me to sleep.
—
A shadowy figure stood before me. It wasn’t human, that was for sure. Four legs splayed onto the transparent floor, quivering slightly in the staccato air.
Quadruped, I quickly realized. The jerky movements of its mouth seemed to indicate it was saying something. It was difficult to follow, the mouth seemingly flickering in and out of existence and random intervals. And even though I was in plain view of the creature, it appeared to be glaring at a spot beyond me. At what, I had no clue.
So, with great curiosity and confusion plaguing my thoughts, I turned around as to hopefully perceive what, or whom, was the subject of the being’s ire. Yet, what I saw did not yield any greater understanding to my situation. For adversary to the mysterious shadow, were hundreds of creatures of similar stature with only the smallest perceivable differences.
Blink. With only a blink of my eyes, the scene was completely different. Where once stood a crowd of figures was a dense forest. A thin wisp of smoke darted across the terrain as six figures wandered into the canopy.
Blink. Once again, I found myself in an unfamiliar location. Castle walls greeted me from side to side and frayed tapestries filled the sparsely decorated room with fading colors. The initial figure was back, now much more formed and seemingly frozen with shock. From what details I could ascertain, the shadow possessed a long, dangerously sharp horn jutting from its forehead and what could only be a pair of wings attached to its side. But what struck me most of all were its eyes. They were catlike, slits for pupils and emitting a piercing gaze. I could see so much in them, so many emotions and complex feelings that you wouldn’t expect from such a commanding figure. Following its eyes, led me to six frazzled quadrupeds. Without warning, their bodies lifted into the air, leaving me speechless as the room was bathed in blinding white light.
—
With nary a warning, I felt myself hit with what felt like a million bricks. Within moments, I was fully awake as I was hurled across a painfully bright room. Air rushed past me for what felt like minutes, but couldn’t have been more than a second.
With a sickening crunch, my back slammed into an unforgiving wall, knocking a few pieces loose with it. What breath was left in my lungs was forcefully expelled as I coughed up a warm thick liquid. My head pounded with a piercing headache and my bones felt as if they were crushed into powder, yet I couldn’t scream. With a pained breath, I forced my eyes to open.
I was laying on a grey tiled floor, coldness seeping into my limbs. Dark red blood was spattered across the ground. I couldn’t move my legs— I couldn’t even feel them! A sticky red liquid pooled under my body, matting my fur.
Before long, a soft rustling echoed throughout the chamber, alerting me to the presence of others. I drew my head upwards, exacerbating my migraine, to see doubles of my surroundings. Darkness crept into the corners of my vision as I fought to stay awake. Ambient noise seemed to fade into the background as I began to feel very weak. Perhaps I was hallucinating, but the last thing I saw before collapsing into unconsciousness was a lavender coated unicorn.
—
Despite what many may perceive as the truth, fainting is not very similar to taking a sudden nap. When you wake up from sleeping, you usually feel relaxed, maybe a little groggy, and perfectly aware of your situation. But waking up from passing out is different, as I can certainly attest. Rather than a gradual return to consciousness, my eyes snapped open instantly. A slight headache, no where near as bad as before, greeted me in the waking world. It only felt like mere moments since I fainted, yet my painfully stiff body told me otherwise. I felt weak and couldn’t remember a thing that had happened. It was all really blurry. With a strong feeling of disorientation, I could only listlessly take in my surroundings.
I was situated in a small, dimly lit room with nothing but a soft looking mattress on a bed frame, something that looked like a sink, and a slightly elevated hole in the ground to fill the empty space. Reality quickly came crashing down upon me, as I saw the fourth wall across from my body. It was covered in dark grey bars, reaching vertically from the ceiling to the cold stone floor, only interrupted by a single metal door, keeping me trapped within. I was in prison, a jail cell, a— I saw the torches adorning the back wall —dungeon.
As I sat there, ruminating on my situation, I could feel memories slowly flowing back into my brain. But one memory in particular stood out.
“Unicorn,” I whispered, shocked. Could I have been imagining it? Surely not, I knew what I saw, right? Maybe it was the loss of blood making me see things, mirages. But it just felt too real. I weakly looked downwards at my body and stumbled backwards in shock. My body was different, drastically so, in ways I could never have imagined. I was a quadrupedal creature, bearing a strong resemblance to horses from my clustered memories. What used to be my arms, now bore flat stumps, hooves if I remember correctly. Looking back at my feet, or what used to be feet, was another pair of pitch black hooves.
What was I? I wondered. I drunkenly stumbled to the only mirror in this bare room and stared at my unmistakably alien form. While my initial impression of my new body was that of a horse, I could now see the innumerable differences that could not be overlooked. A long spiraled horn shot out from my head before tapering into a sharp point, the same color as the pure black expanse of my matted coat. And laying across my sides was a pair of large folded wings, that I could never imagine supporting me in flight. With a pause, I opened my mouth to find razor sharp fangs lining my gums.
I was no longer a human, and yet I was no creature from Earth. I didn’t know what I was now. I was some sort of equine, that was for sure. A single word materialized in my thoughts, repeated over and over, like an incessant whispering. It was nothing like I had ever heard before, but it somehow fit. Alicorn.
