Don't Talk to Strangers
Kampfbereit
You're in Equestria. Let that sink in for a second. Equestria. LAND OF PONIES. You take a look around; the sun is just nearing the horizon, it'll be dark soon. Or maybe not soon, you don't know. The time cycle could be completely different here, but you've got your fingers crossed for it being the same as back home. Taking in the surroundings, it's a fairly generic cartoony kind of landscape, with rolling hills, a treeline, and a small village lit up far in the distance. Ponyville. You know it must be, nothing else could be true. You start off towards it of course, the only logical action at the time.
Ponies. My god. Your going to get to meet the mane six, and all the other awesome ponies of Ponyville. The suspense is driving you near insane, but your restricted by how fast your legs can propel you there. The thoughts are unstoppable as they freight train your mind, all the things you'll get to ask and see, and just the amazing fun times with ponies. Comprehension is far beyond you right now. You can't help but notice the ever approaching darkness, even though you don't question it. You'd think that being in this cartoon world of ponies would have the effect of feeling as far from fear as possible, and it does, but being that your getting closer to the treeline on the way to the town, which you can only assume is the Everfree forest, this level of light is bringing on a less then comforting feeling. Taking a glance upward, you look at all the clumps of white dotting the sky surprisingly near the ground. Of course the clouds don't move here by themselves, the Pegasi do and you know that, but it's still cool.
Your almost at the town now, and you steal another glance at the clouds. The sun is cresting the horizon now, and in the illumination you spot a vibrant color that doesn’t belong. Maybe not back home, but it doesn't take you long to realize what it means here. You run towards the cloud in excitement, mistakenly with your eyes glued to the colorfulness adorning the cloud; and your foot catches on something solid bringing your face to meet the ground. Your hands took most of the punishment, and the ground is fairly rid of sharp rocks, thank god for the pristine world of ponies right?
Making your way back up you immediately return your gaze to the cloud almost directly above, but the color is gone. Did she roll over? Or leave? That's kinda hard to imagine in the few short seconds you were down, not to mention a pretty heavy coincidence. No, it must have just been a different cloud. You look around, head still in an inclined position. Did you pass it? Couldn't have. You quickly turn around to check anyway and just about fall over in surprise.
"What are you? And what are you doing here?" The rainbow Pegasus was mere inches from your face, you don't know how you didn't notice her practically breathing down your neck.
"Oh... My god. It's you. It's really you!" You struggle for words. Is this really happening? Your talking to one of the mane six right now. No let me rephrase that, your talking to a PONY right now.
"Quit the nonsense and just tell me who and what you are." She doesn't look that happy to see you, you should probably stop your internal squee'ing and explain what's going on.
"Sorry, excuse me. I'm a human from earth. You can call me-"
"Enough. What are you doing here?" Geez, you know its Rainbow Dash of all ponies, so you can't expect her to be polite, but still. Best answer her questions though, its getting dark and you'd like to meet the rest of them and explain the situation and maybe get a place to stay.
"I assure you I come in peace, I just need a place to stay and a chance to talk to you and your friends."
"I'm sure that was your exact intention."
Hm. She doesn't believe you. Can't really be surprised, being that most of the foreign species in the series are viewed negatively. Still, you figured this would be a little easier.
"Honestly, I was just heading into town here, and I saw you up on a cloud and-"
"Your not going into town tonight." Her expression was neutral, hard to read. It creeped you out a bit.
"What do you mean? Why not?" This is weird.
"Before you can come to the town you need to come to the forest and prove something to me." Your brain is working serious overtime here. What could you possibly have to prove at the forest? You thought they didn't like the forest.
"Why would we need to go to the forest?" Her expression is still unreadable, but you can only conclude she's being cautious with you. It makes sense and fits with her personality, you just wish you didn't have to go through it. It would have probably been much easier if you met one of the other ponies first.
"It doesn't matter. If your as honest and trustworthy as you claim to be, then you would follow me without question to prove your innocence. Which, if your right, shouldn't prove difficult."
"Umm, okay? Lead the way." You can't help but think it an odd hoop to jump through for trust, but hey, what else are you going to do? You would probably eat hay if she told you that was the only way to be friends with ponies. On the way you try to strike up a normal conversation, but she dismisses them with one word answers or just ignores you altogether. Typical Rainbow Dash attitude, you like her of course but its getting annoying. You just can't wait until this is over and your living it up with ponies.
You reach the edge of the forest, and she continues to walk in without looking back, but you hesitate.
"Uh, is it necessary to go in there?" She hasn't stopped walking, so you resume your pace, with a quick step to get closer. It's getting really dark now and this place is kinda scary.
"We're not going in far. Why, are you afraid?" You look around at the spooky trees and vines hanging around.
"To be completely honest, a little yea. This place is eerie."
"You should be." You stop, frozen in place. Needles prick you all over. It's not just what she said. It's that the voice seemed to come from all around you. You slowly turn back to your front just enough to see she's not there anymore. You can feel the sweat build up on your palms and feet which makes the cold air far more noticeable. You try and force a laugh before you break down and freak out.
"Rainbow? Please come back out. If you were proving that I could get scared you REALLY proved it. Seriously, can we leave now?" You stop your pleading and listen. Not a sound. Not even crickets or anything. Just a soft breeze blowing through the branches. Okay this is not cool. Your actually freaked the hell out.
"If you don't come out I'm just going to head back okay?" Still more silence. Okay you need to get out of this forest before your sanity melts down. You turn back to head the opposite way on the trail but realize your not on a trail. She was leading you straight in the bush. A twig snapping makes you whip back around. Your suddenly very aware of your own heavy breathing.
"Okay, you got me. I know your just messing with me." Still more silence, you wait and listen again. Something knocks you down from behind, and in the fall something touches your feet. You instinctively try to flail them and come to a horrible realization. They're stuck together. Your in panic mode now; this can't be happening. You swing around best you can to see your legs are bound tightly with a thick vine. Okay this is getting out of hand. You rip and pull at the vine but its bound so tight your having trouble removing it. And then your hit. Side of the head, your too dazed to even tell which side it came from, but your limp and can barely see. You still have some form of consciousness and can feel your body being moved and manipulated. Your propped up against something rough in a sitting position, legs still together straight out in front of you. You try to comprehend all this, even in your dizzy state, but it makes no sense. Why? Why is this happening? Your in Equestria, bad things don't happen here. And even more so.... why Rainbow Dash? Why did she lead you into this trap? She may not be the kindest pony of them all, but even this seems weird for her to do. But what has she done so far really. Maybe your just over reacting. Yes that must be it. She must have figured you were some sort of monster not from here and took you out here to save the town. Wait. That means she's going to leave you out here. You suddenly sense the urgency in regaining control of the situation and try to muster your voice.
"Come.... Come back... Please.... Don't leave me here..."
"Are you sure?" Comes a whisper, so quiet you can only tell its real by the warm breath on your ear.
"Yes please.... I'm sure! Please just don't leave me out here by myself.... I'll comply with anything...- AHHH!” You scream as your met with agonizing pain in your leg, jolting your eyes open. She's stomped on you leg, just below your kneecap and is now standing on it with all her weight smirking at you.
“Funny what we say when we feel our life is in danger, don't you think?” You don't even bother trying to respond, your full attention on removing the hoof from your leg or atleast stopping it's painful motion; she's rocking back and forth on it, moving her balance ever so slightly making it far more painful. Following instinct you latch onto her leg with a death grip and pull up, but in your awkward sitting position combined with her entire body weight you have no leverage to do anything here but continue hearing what you can only imagine is the sound of cracking bones.
“What's wrong? You seemed so eager to talk earlier. Now stop that.” She uses her other hoof to jab you in the face, making your head smack on whatever hard thing your leaning against. You take the physical hint and remove your hands from her leg, one coming to rub your sore and slightly bleeding nose.
“W-why... why are you doing this to me!” you plead to her, still hoping your leg might get some relief; but all you get is a snort and a more sinister smile.
“Why did you follow the stranger into the dark forest? Were you expecting candy?” her free hoof takes another leisurely swing at your jaw but this time with your hands free you manage to absorb most of the blow. She glares at the arm in question before facing you again, the smile gone.
“Give me another reason to remove that thing and I will.”
“Look I'm sorry, but I trusted you! I don't understand why your doing this!”
“The place where you come from – you would have done the same?”
“What? Well.. not exactly but -”
“Then why here? You aren't from here. You don't know me. You assumed it would be safe as it should. Even if where you come from it wouldn't.” You stare at her blankly, your pain momentarily forgotten. What the hell is she talking about?
“I don't follow...”
“You humans can't fly, do magic, your weak, your supposed to be smart but I'm not seeing that trait either.” You hadn't realized she had stopped her rocking until she resumed now, sending new waves of pain up your leg. You choke on your own breath as you struggle to keep your hands gripping your leg and not hers.
“Aggggh! Why! WHHY! Stop!” you can't hold it anymore and scream from the intense pain. She glares at you, unimpressed by the screaming but you continue to wail in pain anyway.
“Your mouth goes the same as your arms. Now shut up before I knock your teeth out.” You try to bite your tongue and stop, but all you accomplish is muffling the sound. You can't stop the groaning as you squeeze your leg in pain. Another hoof comes for your face, and your arm does it's best to bat it out of the way on reflex.You hardly have time to realize your mistake as the pegasus chomps down hard on your forearm. You scream uncontrollably as you attempt to free your arm from her jaws, but you only make it worse. With no reasoning left, you attempt to bash your arm out with your free hand but she releases in time to dodge your clumsy attack; and in doing so stepped off your leg. With nothing left to do, you simply try to crawl away in your damaged state, but don't get far before you can't take the pain and stop. Why hasn't she done anything yet? Now you see her, stalking circles around you in the shadows like a predator.
“I'm not finished.”
“What..What more could you want from me... I don't understand...”
“Your still breathing.” She snarled, still slowly pacing around you.
“Please... I-I just want to know why... why... Grant me that...” Your too tired and sore to hold your head up anymore and rest it on the ground, only following her position by sound. You can hear her stop somewhere in front and you muster the strength to raise your head once again. She's standing there in front of you, wings unfolded but with that same unreadable expression from before.
“If you were to tell me everything abut yourself, everything you've ever done, everything humans have ever done and still do – how far do you think you'd have to go before you no longer have to ask that question?”
“.........but were not all bad, I swear.” You rest your head on the ground again, succumbing to the pain.
“I see. You've never contributed to anything in your life. Your a good guy?” You can hear her approach as she speaks, voice and hoofsteps translating the same position.
“I... Well... Yes... But -” Something cold and hard press down hard on your neck, restricting your air and blood flow. Speech turned into nothing but a gargle, you use what energy you have left to try and maneuver this restriction off you to no avail. It's clear now. Rainbow has had enough and is killing you.
Your struggle turns into small spasms as the dark night turns even darker and you slowly start to fade out, growing limp and losing the last fight left in your body.
Light seeps into your eyelids and you open them gingerly. The first thing you notice is you're not in the Everfree forest anymore, atleast you don't think. Your vision is filled with white, which worries you, but a small turn of the head reveals you to not be where you fear, nope your in your room. An enormous breath of relief surges through your body as your mind has it's own sigh of relief. All just a dream, although a hellish real one at that. Even your neck is sore.
You sit up slowly and look out the window, and rub the sore area of your neck; but something looks odd about your arm so you bring it closer for inspection. To your horror there is dried blood and a u-shaped mark embroidering your forearm. You quickly lift the covers to assess your leg, and can't believe what your seeing. Red and purple marks engulf your entire knee area, along with more dried blood. This can't be happening. It didn't happen. It couldn't have really happened. You carefully slide over the side of the bed onto your good leg and hobble to the bathroom.
The mirror tells an even more terrifying story as you see even more dried blood under your nose, and the fateful purple bruise that marks your neck. You can't even begin to think about this madness, and slowly collapse backwards onto the ground, putting your forehead in your palms. None of it's real. Even if it was your safe now, just don't think about it. Get cleaned up, make up a good 'I slipped' story and this will all go away... eventually. NEVER watch or think about My Little Pony again. You force your hands and head to part, but you can't stop looking at your leg. You never got to see the damage while it was happening so you could only go by the pain. You shudder and climb back to your feet, using the counter as support. Slowly making your way back to your bed, you notice an odd looking paper on your night table. It's that weird thicker kind of paper, with an old feel to it. Kind of faded too. You sit down and try to read the poorly scrawled note written on it.
I have a bet going that it's atleast a month before you can sleep again. If I lose we can have some more fun together.