Chapter One:
Small Horse Syndrome
(or ‘The Protagonist Falls Over Constantly’)

I woke to a pounding headache. For a few minutes I sort of laid there, eyes shut, fighting the nausea which threatened to upchuck my stomach contents. It must have been one hell of a party last night, pity I didn’t seem to remember much of it. I tried to collect my fragmented thoughts together, but right now my memory was indecipherable. Mostly it was blurred colours and shapes. Wow, I did not feel good.

It was currently the mid-year holidays for my university friends so I had been living it up as much as possible with them. We'd been partying it up at least once a week, and while I usually had more than my fair share of alcohol it never ended up with this much of a headache. I took a few deep breaths and ever so slowly the urge to throw up lessened. Good, progress! I opened my eyes a crack and winced as I was was forced to close them again. Even the smallest amount of the morning's rays made my head spin. Yeesh, I should cut back on the partying, I thought. My body seemed to be rebelling against my high intake of booze.

As the minutes went by I was able to gradually open my eyes without my brain becoming a mental hurricane. Yawning, I sat up and discerned that I was, surprisingly, not in my bed, nor was I even inside.

“Huh. That's weird.” I spoke aloud.

Looking around, I found that I was still in my mate Ricky's small apartment backyard. This had been the location for the party-train last night and it seems that they left me unconscious outside on my own. Well, me and two garbage bins worth of trash littered about the place. Speaking of, this was going to be a pain to clean so I was definitely planning an escape before Ricky woke up and asked me to help. Spying the exit I prepared myself for the difficult task ahead; getting to my feet while dealing with a major hangover.

However, as I tried to stand my body just wouldn’t respond as it should, so I fell flat on my face. This caused the headache to suddenly return and I groaned in irritation. I must’ve been drinking a lot more than normal if I couldn’t even stand up. Or my friends had taped my legs together after I lost consciousness. Yeah that was it. They were probably watching from inside just waiting for me to wake and attempt to stand up. I glared into the apartment window, but paused as I didn't see any of my friends reaping the hilarity-fruits from their stupid prank.

Slowly twisting my body around I looked at my legs, or, where my legs were supposed to be.

“What?!”

Instead were a pair of pants, that were way too large for me, engulfing my whole lower body. I couldn't even see my feet! No wonder I had tripped. They must have swapped my pants for size extra extra large or something. Bastards! I bet they were filming me from the bushes, ready to put my freak out on Youtube. Well, I wasn't going to give them one.

“Oh no!” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “My pants are way too big! I wonder who did that?”

With a sigh I reached down to pull them off, but noticed that my shirt was also oversized. This was getting ridiculous! I tried to roll my sleeves down, but my fingers were too numb to work. Becoming increasingly frustrated I gave up on my shirt then looked toward the window and grimaced. The only option left was to shuffle out of my way out of my pants. So with some effort, I squirmed and pushed until my legs were finally out of those gargantuan trousers. Well, what I thought were my legs. Only in their stead was the lower half of a pale-yellow furred animal, complete with hooves and a tail.

No. This couldn't be possible. I felt my eye twitch at the sight.

“Ahehe this is...just a joke right?” I said frantically. “Oh I'm going to get those guys when I find them!”

I slipped out of my shirt to discover that my upper body was also that of a furred animal. I put my head in my hands, only for me to realise I had no hands. That was the final straw. I got to my hooves and stumbled over to the apartment's back door, and began to pound on it with my new appendages.

“OK GUYS JOKE'S OVER, OPEN UP!” I squealed. “PLEASE! GUYS, please...”

There was no reply.

I slid down the door and collapsed into a crumpled heap. I made myself as small as I could and whimpered until I lost consciousness once again.

The sound of nearby tweeting brought me back into the waking world. Looking around I saw a flock of little birds picking at the litter covering the backyard. God, I hate those little birds, there was always so many of them around.

I noticed the sun had risen high into the sky, meaning I had been asleep for at least a few hours. It was then that I suddenly remembered my previous predicament, could it have all just been a dream? I looked down. Nope, I still had horse feet. Looking myself over showed a little horse body to match. I had a fairly odd coloured body too, but it seemed ridiculous to be surprised by my pigment when I had completely changed species.

I attempted to stand, but this whole four legged stance was alien to me (AS IT SHOULD BE), so I fell over a few times. After six or seven attempts I was able to balance myself well enough to stay upright. Cautiously turning my new body around I had a look at my reflection in the kitchen window and almost fell over again. My heart raced as I peered at my unfamiliar form. I was flabbergasted, for I looked nothing like anything I'd ever seen before, barring maybe something from a cartoon show. I was, indeed, a small horse, but my new face wasn't that of an unintelligent animal. I had massive turquoise eyes that covered the majority of my face. My enormous eyes had widened in surprise and my jaw hung open in an unmistakable look of surprise.

Closing my mouth I rotated my head to the side and looked at the snout jutting out of my face. My ears, now tall and pointed, stuck out of the top of my head. Even stranger was the horn sticking out of my forehead. Was I not a small horse, but a small unicorn? Why, of all things, was I turned into some mythical creature? Could I do magic? With this sudden, and seemingly impossible, change of body I could really believe anything right now. I had to sit down, this was all so surreal. I shook my head to clear my mind.

“So, You’re a small horse with a horn, and that’s okay. As long as I find someone else and get help it will all be fine!”

Yeah, right. Who would know how to turn someone from a horse to a human anyhow? And how did I become a small horse in the first place? Human-to-horse magic alcohol? I snorted at that one.

Putting a contemplative hoof to my chin, “I could be having some weird hallucination?”

Well, whatever was happening, my first course of action should be to find my friends and get their help. If they weren't in the apartment they must be out and about. Carefully standing on all hooves I stumbled over to the tall gate that lead from the side of the apartment to the street. On my way I passed at least a dozen small birds, who were still enjoying the trash.

“Could you please shove off?” I yelled as I waved a hoof, which spooked them into the air. I had about five seconds of smug satisfaction at my superiority when something wet landed on my head. Looking up I saw that the tiny little birds of hell had done a turn around and were swooping low releasing bird...juices over me. I scrambled to edge of the building gaining protection from the white rain from the gutters above.

“Since when did birds fight back?!” I yelped.

Thankfully it didn't take long for the little demon birds to get bored and find someone else to bother. I walked around the stains on the ground to a nearby tap. Putting a hoof on the valve I tried to rotate it but I didn't have enough control to push it in right direction. I lifted both my hooves and attempted to turn on the tap but my lack of experience meant I quickly lost balance. Spitting out some grass I scowled at my new enemy.

I eventually managed to open the tap with my surprisingly strong teeth and let the cold water wash over my new fur. When I was clean enough I closed the tap and stood there sopping wet. I shook my whole body, throwing water droplets everywhere. Even though I had no clothes on I was surprisingly warm. Although I guessed it shouldn't have come as a shock; animals had fur for this reason. Normally I wouldn't be so comfortable not wearing clothes outside, but I just couldn't bring myself to care. This wasn't really my body, this wasn't what I looked like usually. I'll be back to my old self in no time, I just had to work on using this one for the time being.

Sitting down I looked at my hooves. I would need to get used to using them if I wanted to survive. Walking was coming along somewhat, but I felt as if unlatching the gate to get out of here would prove to be a difficult task. I raised a hoof and placed it over an empty beer can on the ground. I tried to scoop it up with my new appendage, but it felt like picking things up using a fist. As with the tap, I gave up using one hoof and switched to two. Even then I couldn’t hold the can up for longer than a few seconds.

Groaning in annoyance I stood back on all fours. What was the point on making me a fictional being if I couldn't even pick something up? Was some ancient being toying with me for their own amusement? It sure felt like it. I tried taking a few steps towards the other side of the backyard but tripped myself up. Case in point.

Instead of leaving right away I spent some time practicing the four-legged walking technique as a way to decrease my shameful fall count. After about twenty minutes had gone by I felt as if I had taken our ability to walk for granted. I'd been stumbling about and had only just started to get the hang of it. It was seriously unlikely I'd be able to go fast but I was fairly confident I wouldn't be tripping up and falling into oncoming traffic.

At that thought my head snapped up. Traffic. I'd been so worried about my new appearance that I had forgotten that Ricky's apartment was right next to a major road. Yet, it was the middle of the day and I couldn't hear any cars at all.

Author's Note

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! It starts off a bit slow I know, but don't worry it'll get better soon.

If you see any mistakes or something you feel needs to be addressed don't hesitate to comment, but do keep in mind this is my first ever fic, so try not to be too harsh.