Just me and the deer

Chapters

The Meat Ban
Entry 2: Let the Good Times Roll
Entry 3: I Hate Deer

The Meat Ban

Let me start out by stating the obvious.

If you are reading this, then:

A. You either have internet or B. You swiped my Ipad. ~~(I'm not going to believe you are a time traveler, that makes zero sense. Or considering the situation maybe it does???)~~

Either way you have my journal, and I guess that means you too are wondering what has happened to Earth, our world, or used to be...

Let me back up.

Today is July 27th, 2015.

Yesterday was May 23rd, 2015.

According to my memory it was. My tablet disagrees.

Yes, I have somehow traveled through time.

No I don't want to BS this, but seriously I have traveled to the future. Somehow. And let me tell you it's not unicorns and rainbows. ~~Or maybe it is and I was off shot into a doomed universe???~~

Everyone's gone. Though not you it seems. Since you somehow found this there may be some hope.

Allow me to paint you a mental picture.

I'm standing at Sonic's right now looking out on the 441 that runs right next to the place, and no one else is here.

No cars, no traffic, strangely no electricity, and no life. It's bizarre. Usually at this time of day (It's 1:27pm EST) the streets are jam packed with cars that get stalled at the red light sometimes up to three miles away.

It's overcast right now, but I can still feel the asphalt giving off searing heat from underneath my hooves.

Hooves.

You heard right.

I have somehow become a miniature blue horse with wings, or Pegasus if you want to be picky about it.

If this was some sort of joke, I'm not laughing.

God, where is everyone??

I guess you can figure out the rest. Time Traveled from my house to here for some reason, figured out how to at least waddle around on these hooves to get to the inside of Sonic, found someone's Ipad in the back and cracked the lock (psh it was easy, I mean who the heck thought their pass code should be 1234?), deleted all the erm-... Less desirable apps on the thing. Found the document app and began writing this journal of sorts.

So now I'm here munching on a bag of potato chips, (Can ~~horses~~ ponies eat these?), and discovering the internet suck straws and won't pull up anything. No my one true love~!

Ah, hehe...

So, anyways when I busted the glass of the door with my hind hooves (Heck yea! Go pony muscles!), I had enough time to really ponder what was going on.

"Did I miss the rapture?" Was my first thought.

Hey, you grow up in a religious family and see what you think! But then I was like, "Nah... Why would I be a pony then?" So that theory was thrown out.

The second idea was I was in some sort of bizarre coma dream, or I had gotten sick and this was all an illusion, but smashing the door made an ear grinding noise once it did crack, which caused my ears to flip down and I grimaced in pain. Nope, too real for that!

So I just settled on the idea that something else had happened and I would just wait and see. I mean, I can't be alone right? You found my journal...

...

I don't know what else to put here. I'm mostly writing this so I can keep track of the things I have done in case it comes in handy, (or would it be hoof now?), later.

Like I said, Philosophy was not my major.

Though I am somewhat good in biology. (At least the knowledge part, not the hands on kind!)

Oh silly me! I forgot introductions!

My name is Holly, and I used to be human.

I found a mirror when I was searching for this tablet. Oddly this one wasn't located in the bathroom stalls, but inside the manager's desk. (Vain much??)

Picking it up with hooves was a pain, but when I sorta squished it in between both of them I was able to angle it to see my face and the back half of me.

That's when I saw the wings.

Now I'm not dumb. I knew there was something back there, but survival kinda came first so I didn't bother to really check until then. They were blue too.

In fact my whole body was a pastel indigo, while my (Hair/Mane?) was a bright cyan with one gold streak running through it. It clashed horribly.

I also had on both my flanks a picture of a sunflower and a paintbrush. Odd combination but hey I'm not complaining. Could've been a picture of a meme or something ugly...

My face wasn't much better. My head was huge compared to my body (How is that even possible? Shouldn't it have snapped something? *shudder*), and my eyes were huge with golden irises. I moved my face around a bit just to make sure it was mine, which yes it was.

Oddly enough I was okay. Like, I sorta wanted to panic (and with good reason) but what use would it be when there was no one to help pull you back together?

So I did the logical thing...

I hobbled outside on my legs and screamed bloody hell, scaring off all the local wildlife within a 10 mile radius. (Yes I really did. The birds nearby pooped on everything thanks to that. Yuck!).

Once I got that out of my system I was better.

Now I'm just sorta rounding up the chips and other non-perishable items around here and then I'm gonna head back towards home. (It's like twenty miles and there's still plenty of sun. So I should be back before it get's dark.)

Hmm... I wonder if I can figure out how to hot wire a car or something like they do in movies. Never tried it before, but it can't be that hard right?

Anyways, one important note to you the reader...

If you are ~~stuck like this~~ a pony too, do not eat meat!

I know, I know that's common sense! But I didn't know that at the time when I tried some out of the freezer!

~~(~~Why??? ~~Why did I think that it was okay to cook and eat?!)~~

Yes, I cooked it on one of the gas powered grills. It wasn't hard even with hooves for hands. I just snagged a bag of processed meat, tore it open using my strong pony jaw, and then put the thing on the grill using a stool from the bathroom to compensate for my reduced height and a mouth. (Hey I was going to eat it anyways!) Then I just turned the nob slightly and waited till I thought it was done cooking.

...

I took one bite. ONE.

The result was awful. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say I spent three whole hours hovering over the handicap toilet.

So whatever you do, do not eat the meat! Our metabolic system can't handle it!

Anyways, I'm going to leave Sonic now so I'll be putting away this thing at the time until I get back home.

I hope everyone's ok...

Author's Note

Note: This will not have consistent updates.

Entry 2: Let the Good Times Roll

Found my dog.

By some miracle he managed to get into the house and find the dog food.

It was littered all over the floor, along with other bags of food I know I didn't buy. My best bet was that he went over to the neighbor's place and found their 'hidden' stash. Not really hidden, just hard to get to. But hey, I'm not going to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

I still don't know how he figured out how to get into here. It's been two months. Two. Looking at the doorknob I found no signs of forced entry. Guess I'll never really know.

Oh yea, did I forget to mention he wasn't the only one in my house? Yep, I found all the neighborhood dogs.

They were all just lounging around.

The place was a total mess. Dried peanut butter on the tile, stuffing from decimated plushies, sheets strewn about. Yep, it was a dog's world.

(*Update* Found where the dogs got in. One of the Bradford Pear Trees had toppled over on the office room and broke a window. It seems like the dogs have been using this as a prime passage to and fro.)

Anyways when I walked into this mess they bristled at me.

Now I know dogs, and I know you don't mess with them if they feel threatened. However, before I could start backing up my dog (Bluey, he's a Spaniel/mutt) came up and just stared at me like for a full five minutes. Clearly he was in charge for some odd reason.

I called out to him and he recognized me by my voice, suddenly turning from on guard to happy as he wagged his tail and started licking and whimpering.

Since then the other dogs have warmed up to me even to the point it's kinda strange.

Now I get dogs are intelligent. They can understand verbal commands and motions from the body, but this... This was something else. It was like they could read my mind.

When I felt bad they would snuggle up next to me, and when I was needing some space they gave it.

One of the smaller dogs, Peanut an annoying dachshund, had rummaged through my backpack I'd brought and pulled out a bag of chips before placing them in front of me.

I looked at them sorta confused before he wagged his tail and nuzzled them forwards. 'Eat. You need the energy. He seemed to be saying as he just kept looking at me and then back to the chips before I opened them and began to eat. Then he just went over and started playing with the remains of a dog toy.

Now, this whole dog thing I can live with. I've never had any problems with dogs, but my concern is that I'm not going to be able to feed them all forever.

I... I think they understood too.

Because not long after they walked through the broken window and haven't returned.

It was sad to see them go, but Bluey was still with me. And he is currently curled up by my barrel.

I'm glad he's still around. Though I'm going to have to give him a good bath and trim his fur. If I wasn't sweaty already from my journey today I would be cringing at the smell of the place.

I'll probably have to find somewhere else to hang. This place is too damaged to fix with hooves at least. Shame.

Okay, here's what I did today.

I didn't head home right away.

I decided to do some shopping. And by that I meant looting places.

Now by no means would I ever steal anything if this wasn't the case. People were gone. I wasn't going to let good stuff go to waste. If I didn't take it no one else was.

I didn't go overboard, but I didn't pack light either.

Walked across the road and down the hill from Sonics with a child backpack on my shoulders. (I guess a kid must've dropped it when everyone disappeared). Then I went down the hill from there and into Lowes to nab some supplies from the garden center and vice versa. Then I was tired, so I walked on down to the local theater, ate somewhat stale, but still good popcorn, (will not regret it, nope!) and figured out how to slot the movies into the film projectors with my hooves so I could what all the new releases.

One problem. No electricity. Darn it!

And I had been so close to seeing the new avengers movie~!

Turns out Sonic was the only place that had a back up generator that still worked, so I walked back up the hill and nabbed the thing before heading back. (Found a trolley back at Lowes that I was using to carry my stuff in. It held the generator too.)

You'd be surprised what my little town has! Thanks to the mountains distancing us from local cities and things, we're usually prepared for anything in case we can't leave. This was good for me, since now I had a generator I could use. (Though tugging it with my mouth made my jaw hurt. I managed to wrap a dog cable on the handle so I could pull the trolley, but it still hurt. :P)

After that I kinda had a little fun...

Well okay, I raided Gamestop and took all their rpg video games, and I may or may not have took the elusive 6th edition Fluffy Space Princess comic from the 1980's that I'd had my eyes on for three years.

Needless to say, I needed some variety in my life if the internet was going to be down forever.

Oh yea, then I went into Wal-mart and got the non-perishable food items, took most of the good work clothes (that would flex enough to fit me or be able to adjust later on) for later use, and then ransacked the game isle, music isle, toy isle, and swiped the iTunes gift cards. It was either go big or go home in my case. I wanted to starve off boredom. Food and shelter was managed even if I was a pony, I would still figure out how to manage just fine, it was my sanity I was more concerned with. (You know, without others and all..)

Didn't bother checking out. No one was here and without electricity none of the alarms worked.

(I also kinda wasted a roll of TP on Wal-mart. It was so worth it to see the place get tp'd.)

By then my payload was bulging at the seams over the trolley. I remedied that by putting most of everything into shopping carts and then attaching them with the dog cables. (Simple enough!)

I didn't even feel the weight as I tugged. But then again ponies are built for this stuff by nature...

My wings itched like heck though. Every time a stray breeze caught them they would ruffle and send strange sensations down my spine. I wasn't born a bird or Pegasus, so I have no idea what the feeling could possibly mean, but it felt ticklish after the wind stooped. If I had nails I would've scratched my feathers, but I had to settle for hooves rubbing them instead.

It might've been a pain dragging everything back home, but down my street I saw an old tractor that belonged to my ex-uncle and figured out how to turn it on and hooked up the carts to it.

I've drove tractors before. Maybe not a lot, but enough to know how they work. Hooves would not stop me!

I was able to somewhat drive the thing enough to get it up to my home.

It wasn't easy. Luckily this tractor had a throttle instead of a gas pedal to control the speed, and for the steering I wrapped my forelegs around the wheel and turned with my whole body.

It was a long forty five minutes up my hill, but I made it!

Now I am headed to sleep on the couch here. Tomorrow I'm going to pack everything up at my place and look for a new establishment to live in.

Entry 3: I Hate Deer

You know what stinks about living next door to the forest?

Deer.

The little strawberries, wait that didn't come out right. I'm using the voice recorder on my personal Ipad to document this. Hang on, I'm tweaking it...

Ok, testing, testing. Yup! Sounds good! Ok! Back to the beginning here.

The deer.

These little muffins-, ok what the hayfries is going on here? Argh! Doodles! What the breeze is wrong with my words?!

....

Woops, blew the little machine's mind here. It doesn't like rapid speaking.

Anyways, I just found out I can literally not cuss anymore on this machine. (For some reason... Not without manually typing it in anyways, which takes too long to just hold this pen in my mouth). I am not happy.

Ahhh.... I think I'm just going to skip over and assume you know I'm talking about the wildlife so I can move on.

I woke up this morning to a whole herd of deer outside munching on the overgrowth.

Some of the dogs were chasing them, barking and yipping as they went, but get this! The deer kinda formed this weird circle and made these rather loud deer squawking, which spooked the dogs.

It made Bluey bark too, but I had a hold of his collar in my teeth so he couldn't chase them.

I'm just going to say that for the record, I haybale-, erm very much dislike deer.

Let me tell you why.

Every year there are tourists that come up from the Appalachian hiking trails into our little town.

Every year the Floridians decide to spend summer up here at the same time.

When these two kinds of people mix and exchange stories, it's usually either about Florida or what's in the woods.

Ninety percent of the time it's about the woods.

Now, when the hikers talk about their runs ins with bears or seeing a dear or whatever, everyone simultaneously lets out the worst girlish d'aww in the universe.

Omg! You just met a bear on the trail?! That's super neat! I want to go see one up close like that! or, Aww those deer are just so adorable! I want to keep one as a pet!

EVERY. SINGLE. SUMMER.

You think deer are cute?

Ha!

Not when they're eating your shrubs or running past the road only to hit your car.

They are pests. And I despise their smug attitudes.

So yea, I very much dislike deer.

Well, here they were this morning out in the field being annoying by just existing, and ruining the property, so I decided it was high time to take my lifelong revenge.

I grabbed a shovel from the back in my teeth and hit them hard.

Jk. I got my flank kicked.

Call me insane or whatever, but I for once just wanted to go out and torment the deer! My Mother had never let me, and frankly the obsession had died down over the years, but this time.. I just couldn't resist the urge with no one around to stop me. Bluey was all for it too as he wagged his tail.

I had went outside and got a shovel from the back storage unit, but it wasn't much help when all I could do was hold it in my mouth. Up until now, I hadn't really considered how tough my pony teeth were. (Not to mention the flexibility of my neck.) With a little practice I might be able to wield a weapon again. Heh.

Anyways, I didn't have a strategy when I came up to the deer. I just sorta charged down the field with my shovel and bellowed at them. My wings flared up too, rising high like I was some kind of peacock, as I galloped.

Of course the deer weren't going to have any of this. I swear one of them looked like they were rolling their eyes at me! (Smug little-!)

So anyways, I ran at them and swung with my shovel, but really it was all just blind swings. With my weapon in my mouth my eyes could only follow whatever was in front of them. So mostly I just hit air.

But for some reason I managed to hit something that pushed back with tremendous force; and casting a glance to the side, I saw the buck of the herd had caught my shovel in his antlers and was pushing back.

I froze. Deer were not supposed to fight back. They were supposed to run.

The buck snorted at me as he tilted his head up and jerked the shovel from my grip, sending it flying. It dropped a few yards away, but frankly I was too terrified to act. He locked eyes with me and stared for what seemed like eternity; his gaze boring into mine and mine flicking back and forth anxiously.

He finally let out a noise like a sigh as he shook his head and then walked off. The other deer looked up and began to follow him as I just stared shocked at what had happened. Bluey came down to check on me soon after, as I just remained frozen for a good twenty minutes.

First people vanishing, now sapient deer?!?

My mind was blown. I laughed fearfully as I just shakily picked up my shovel and walked back to the house.

I couldn't take it. I needed some down time.

I spent the next two hours playing non-internet video games on my iPad. (Seeing as this is the only thing I can accurately use with a stylus in my mouth).

As you can see I've finally calmed down enough to write this.

There weren't anymore deer out today. I spent the rest of the time packing up my stuff into a few empty shopping carts I had strung along the full ones, and then snacked on some canned pumpkin.

Did I forget to mention pumpkin is my favorite fruit?

Yeah, I've loved it ever since I was young, but this pony body only makes me crave it more.

Can't complain though. If I can't have meat anymore, this is the next best thing. (Side note: when I find a suitable and stable place to live, I think I shall be working on different ways to prepare pumpkin than just straight out a can using a can opener and teeth.)

Oh and for the record, pony mouths are really flexible! I managed to get the can opener out from the drawer and use it with my teeth and a hoof to steady it. Who'd a thunk it?

It's a little harder to do it that way, but if it means I have more access to food then I don't particularly care.

Also, I went through my closet today and found one of my camping backpacks to put clothing and toiletry in. Back when I was human, the straps of backpacks used to chaff my shoulder blades real bad. I learned earlier on that they made padded straps ,so I replaced all my older packs with these.

Man I'm glad I did this. It felt like a soft cloud on me after I looped it through my forelegs. Making sure I found one that didn't squish my wings was tough, but I found one that was skinny and big enough to pack lots of things in.

It also had various holder straps for camping things; so I took my commemorative 1800's sword and stuck it in one of them. It hung awkwardly, but hey a sword's a sword.

...

What? A woman's not allowed to have weapons?

I'd like too see what you would do if a bear came charging at you and you had nothing to help!

Yeah, so maybe I'm being a dramatic but I'd always been the type to have some form of protection. Even when I was at college... Hehe...

Okay, moving on!

So I packed some 'tools', grabbed whatever clothing I thought I'd need (did I forget to mention I was wearing clothes? Yeah... It's not the best but it's better than being naked), and grabbed Blueys things before I hopped back on the tractor and started it up.

I was going to have Bluey ride with me, sine he doesn't like open ended seating, but to my surprise he got in one of the empty carts I had and wagged his tail! This dog's never done that!

Puzzlement aside, I started back down the hill to where I knew a neighbor of mine had stashed a ton of canned food.

I feel kinda silly really. They'd been so prepared for emergencies like this.

I'd always been the one to laugh and poke fun at them, but here I was headed to their house for more canned food!

I hoped that with whatever had caused humanity to vanish my neighbors wouldn't mind that I ate their food. I was desperate, and they'd probably have done the same thing. (If you guys are the ones reading this, I'm sorry. I did what I had to do. Just let me know and I'll pay it back I swear!)

I'm camping out inside their luxurious, ha not really it's just big, home for the night before I head out again.

I need to get to Atlanta. That's my long term goal.

It is not only the center for the CDC of America, but it's also the biggest city this side of the south. On the road it's a two hour drive from here. (I won't be going 65 down the road though). Tomorrow i'll probably pack up everything I can here and head back down to Lowes where the giant trucks are at. See if I can figure out how to drive one of them with hooves. If I can get that on the road I'll at least have food on wheels.

I can't be the only person out there. This event, whatever caused me to be a Pegasus, had to have left others behind.

Atlanta's my best shot at finding others like me, or just normal people!

I figured it'd probably take me a week to get down there if I take it slow. No need to rush. Lots of sights to see and places to check out for survivors.

I go down to Georgia about once every month. I know the layout rather well.

~~I just hope I'm not the only one left...~~

Also side note: Deer are not to be messed with. If you happen to see one leave it alone! ~~(Who knows if they might be trying to take over the Earth...)~~