Home is Where I want it to Be.
You wake up on your back, staring straight into the heavens, like you’ve done so many times before. But this time, something feels different. You can't put your finger on it though. Now that you think about it, you can't feel your fingers, or any of your body. The warmth is gone now, replaced with a chilling nothingness. But soon your feelings return and you manage to stand up. This new place feels so strange, as if nothing is real. At first, you think it is heaven, you've died and your scams haven't forced you to burn in hell, but that dream is quickly shattered when you look down and see those rags you’ve worn of the past week. Surely you would have gotten new clothes to wear if this was heaven. But you have more important matters to deal with, like the obvious “Where am I?” Looking around only yields the time of day, which is little past noon, and the fact that you seem to be lost in an apple orchard. How you got in an apple orchard is anyone’s guess. Well, if nothing better, walk in a straight line until you find a road or something useful. What can go wrong?
After about 15 minutes of walking, you hear the voices of a few children. Yelling out might not be the best to do, since you still don’t really know where you are. So walking and listening is your best choice. Eventually you find a small treehouse, painted orange-ish pink with off red doors. The voices seem to be coming from there, so you approach carefully. A ramp is leading up to the door, with a turn halfway up. The ramp looks similar to the ramps you see at dog shows, with bumps every foot or so for a foothold. The lack of handrails seems weird, but you make it up without a problem. The wood door is shut, so you give it a gentle but firm knock. Nothing in the world could prepare you for what you saw. A girl with a southern drawl answered your knock with a simple “Comin’” but a small pony with yellow fur, a red mane, gold eyes, and an oversized ruby red bow in her hair opened the door. You screamed. It screamed. The other two ponies screamed. You fell off the walkway onto your head, into unconsciousness.
You woke again, but this time in a locked in a small broom closet. Naturally, you begin to madly bash on the door calling for help. That is met with the door flinging open and you falling flat on your face. That familiar southern drawl laughs but this time it sounds older, and a chuckle from a male voice accompanies it. As you pick yourself up, you realize that there are no humans in this room, save for you, but two more of those talking horses. The red one with a short orange mane is as tall as your shoulders, and the orange one with an oversized cowboy hat only reaches up too your lower ribcage. Now that orange horse starts to talk and you ball up your fists ready for a fight, but don’t get in an aggressive stance, hoping to avoid a physical confrontation with a horse. Surprisingly, the tone is set rather light. It says, “Howdy, my name’s Applejack and this is my brother, Big Macintosh. Now what in tarnation are you?” Relaxing your hands, you reply with a simple “Human.”
Silence.
“A what now?” Applejack asks.
“Human. What are you?”
You can tell that this was a question she never was asked before, but she still replies calmly. “I'm an Earth Pony, along with everypony else here.”
You nod, even though most of that went over your head. Nothing is really making sense right now.
“Well I told you my name, so what’s yours?”
You introduce yourself and ask what you found off in the apple forest. Just then one of those three ponies from before, who only reaches up to your waist, walks in. As soon as it sees you it jumps behind the larger horse, and yells, “Is it gonna kill me?”
“I'll try my best not to.” as wave your hands out in front of you.
That was only met with a cold stare form Applejack.
You crouch down and say “I definitely won't hurt you. I couldn't even dream of it.”
She looks up at Applejack and they seem to have some kind of telepathic horse conversation, and the room becomes a good deal less tense. The smaller one walks out and introduces herself.
“I’m Apple Bloom, what’s your name?”
Again you give your first and last name, and ask what you walked in on. Just that fast, Apple Bloom was gone. “I need to go get the others!”
“Does that happen often?”
“E’eyup” replies Big Mac.
Applejack chimes in with, “Listen, I know when somepony is lying. I'm not too good at asking questions to find those lies, though. How about you stay here for now and I take you over to Twilight’s when it’s dark. Don't do anything dumb while the sun sets.”
“Why do we need to wait?” you ask.
“We don't want you to scare anypony.”
“Understood.”
“I'll go tell Twilight she needs to stay in Ponyville tonight. Get to know Big Mac.” And with that she heads out the door.
After a few moment of silence, Big Mac trots out of the room. You take a moment to absorb everything that just happened and look around. There are a lot of pictures of other horses, but only a few of the three that you saw in this home. Just as you finish that thought, Big Mac comes back in with a plate of apple pie. He sets it down on the table next to you, and grabs another plate for himself. Together, man and technicolor horse sit in silence eating the best apple pie you've ever had.
Home is Where I want it to Be.
“I've been here for three hours pal, haven't been sober for five. My tab is probably $1,000 now. Do you think you could spare some cash?”
“Who the hell are you?” replies the man in the stool next to you, so hammered that he falls off of said stool as soon as he turns back to the bar.
You stumble out of the bar, past the guard, without a word. Once outside, you stand up and think off how bad your scam is going. That was the fifth person you tried, and only a measly $3.50 and a handful of peanut shells to show for it. The second man you tried was still pretty sober, so he caught on quick, and that’s how you got the peanut shells. Don’t really know why you didn't just throw them away. Probably a momento or something.
Off to you go, on a bike so old grandmas called you “old-school”, to a small shack you built out of scrap lumber you bought for pennies on the dollar. Ever since your wife left, you’ve had nowhere to live. Some friends housed you a while, but eventually they too left. You had nothing, you were nothing, and you won't ever be anything. And that was your last thought of the night, because sleep was hunting you, and you've been shot.
You wake with a jolt, as a thunderstorm has broken out. The skies are gray, and the rain is pouring down so hard that you can barely see. With a crash, a pickup truck smashes into the street lamp that your shack is by. The power cables snap, shooting sparks everywhere as the poll falls onto your only home, destroying it. You run over to your now rubble home and collapse. Lightning strikes nearby, but you don’t care, because there's nothing for it to hit. Lightning bolts strike all around you, and then a bolt hits you. Everything is white, then, you feel nothing but a pleasant warmth roll over you. You were no longer on Earth.