Chasing Shadows

Chapters

The Change
First Introductions
Stargazing

The Change

Trees whipped past me as I sped down the empty highway. I gripped the steering wheel as the rumble of my Jeep’s engine moved me faster and faster. The moon had long since set and the sky just above the tree line was gaining an orange tint. I had been driving for hours and frankly, I just wanted to get back home. School was finished, I didn’t have to deal with any more terrible professors, and grad school was still far away. I could finally relax.

The rhythmic tones from my phone broke me out of my musings. Oh God, not again, I thought as I rolled my eyes. A quick look confirmed that my mom was calling. Again. What an early bird.

I lifted my foot off the gas pedal, letting the wind slow my car down to a reasonable speed. Grabbing my phone, I swiped the touchscreen with my thumb and brought it to my ear.

“Hello? Mom?” I asked, trying to sound as bored as possible.

“Sam?” I heard her voice come through, the same annoyed tone as always. “Why aren’t you back yet? It’s been five hours.”

“Got stuck in traffic. I’m still a couple hours out,” I droned. She always did this, never even giving me a chance before nagging my ears off about every little thing.

“Well, get home by sunrise. You’re late and everybody misses you,” she sniped, hanging up.

“Well, goodbye then,” I sneered at my phone, which had reverted to the navigation app I was using to get home. I checked the dashboard time, 6:13 was illuminated in blocky green letters. I'm not sure what she expected, but sunrise was definitely not possible

Wisps of fog started to roll in over the road, and thankfully I had my lights on already. Before long, I couldn’t see the ground at all. I would have stopped but I knew that there weren’t any curves in the road for a long time. Flashes of light streaked over the trees, constantly appearing and disappearing. Strange, I didn’t know that you could see a meteor shower this early, I thought as I briefly took my eyes off the road to watch.

Then, I felt something, kind of like when lightning strikes nearby. Like a shockwave but not a shockwave. It felt powerful. My body felt numb and it felt like I couldn't breathe. The corners of my vision started to blank out and go white…

What is being human when you get down to it. Is it the body we inhabit when we go to school, to work? Our genetic code? Is it the interactions we have between each other in our tender moments? Or is being human merely a mindset; that which we think we are when we are alone.

The whiteness started to fade and sound rushed back into being. Sunlight attacked my eyes, my pupils dilated painfully as I closed them. Like a miner returning from the deep, I shielded my eyes with my arm as a blurry world came back into focus.

Strangely enough, the first thing I noticed was that my legs no longer reached the pedals and I could barely even see over the dashboard. The second was that my arms were no longer “arms”. They were instead tubular limbs covered striped black and white fur. I could also see a striped muzzle poking out from my face capped with a little black nose. Outside, green cornfields that were just starting to brown stretched for miles in either direction split by the highway, a tall red barn stood alone about a mile into the fields.

I felt my Jeep start to shake and swerve over the road, knocking me out of my initial shock. I stuck my arm-legs into the steering wheel holes and held it steady until I coasted to a stop. I guess stop isn’t the best term. The car continued to idle and inch forward. I couldn’t deal with a moving car right now. I tried to shove it into park but the gear shifter wouldn’t budge and I couldn’t press the button in far enough without fingers. These… limbs did not have the same dexterity, not even close.

I switched attention to my keys which were now dangling from the ignition. I tried to turn the keys by using both my limbs but I didn’t have the leverage, my seatbelt had locked in position and was restricting me from moving forward enough. I pressed the tips of my limb into the seat belt button and felt it click. It whipped out of its release over my head and back into the car. With that done with, I was able to get back to work on turning off my car. I was still idly moving forward and with my inattention had driven into the gravel on the side, crunching all the way. By using one leg to pull and the other to push, I leveraged the keys and turned the car off. Although the engine wasn’t on anymore, the gravel shoulder was still slanted and I rolled into the stalks of corn where it finally rested.

A steady ding sounded every two seconds or so because the keys were still inside. The constant ping was digging into my head, giving me a taste of the future migraine that might come. While I did want to remove the keys, I didn’t trust my new arm things. And so, I swallowed my pride, leaned my head forward and took the keys into my mouth. The cold metal tasted coppery as I bit down. With a yank, the car keys were out and the threat of a migraine was gone. I spit the keys onto the floor, it was useless to keep them now.

I sighed in relief and rested my head against the back of my seat in silence. Now, with Problem A finished, I moved to Problem B: Why is it daytime and what am I?

I looked at my new limbs as I bent them in as many ways as possible. They were definitely able to bend in more ways than a normal arm. The restrictions of my now baggy t-shirt kept me from exploring further but I would have to deal with that later. The ends of my limbs were hard, black, and had a sort of distinct sheen to them. I brought them closer to my face and turned them around towards me. They looked like horse hooves from what I could tell. That couldn’t be right though, because not only was I smaller than a horse, I had zebra stripes. I looked down at my legs, which were zebra striped just like my arm-legs and were barely poking out of my shorts. They also ended in hooves and looked like they had the same bone structure of a dog or any other kind of four-legged animal. I chose to separate them into forelegs and hindlegs from now on for simplicity’s sake.

There was also some black hair poking out from my shorts. Just from a glance, it looked a bit like a tail, and after I yanked on it, (by pressing my new “hoof” into it and moving my butt) it was definitely a tail. Some closer inspection on my lower body confirmed that I was still a guy. Thank God that was still a constant, if it wasn’t I might have gone insane.

Outside my window was an ocean of cornfields on both sides, the highway separating the two sides like Moses parting the Red Sea. The Sun beat down on it all from the highest point in the sky. I knew that before I changed it was only around 6:15, and it is really hard to lose hours with no recollection of what happened. I hadn’t taken any drugs, I wasn’t black-out drunk, none of it made sense.

I needed to get out of the car. I hooked a hoof behind the door handle and pulled while I pushed on the door with my other foreleg. The door popped open and a rush of heat and humidity hit me like a wall. The air smelled like old manure and stagnant water. I scooted to the edge of my seat so I was dangling over the ground. While the usually high distance from the ground to my car seat was something I did everyday, it looked so much farther now. I steeled my nerves and pushed off onto the graveley shoulder. I fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, the gravel crunching as I landed. Tiny rocks dug through my clothes and into my elbows and belly. While I pushed myself up, I noticed that I could feel most of the rocks on my hooves, though they did feel fairly numb. I would’ve never figured that there would still be nerve endings in them. On one hand, horseshoes sounded like a good idea; on the other, driving nails into all of my feet was not on my agenda.

I turned to my car and measured myself. On all fours, I was only a little bit taller than the headlights. That meant my height had been halved. I sighed, one more thing to chalk up on the cons list.

I saw the broken remnants of a liquor bottle a few feet further up the road. I thanked chance, because falling on that would have been awful. I realized that standing on all fours felt natural, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I walked forwards on shaky limbs and from an outside perspective, I must have looked like a newborn deer who just took its first step. It didn't help that my T-shirt bunched up around my forelegs. With every movement, I had to remind myself which leg to use. Front left, back right, front right, back left, so on and so forth. Or as that one Santa Claus holiday special reminded me, Put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking out that door! Soon enough, with that song playing on loop in my head, walking was starting to feel more natural and I was moving like a professional.

I needed to see myself in a mirror. I walked back to my car and kicked myself up onto my hind legs. On them, I was able to tell that I could reach just over the window. I balanced for a bit then fell forward onto the door, closing it. I cursed silently at myself for that blunder and shuffled sideways to the side mirror. Using one hoof, I moved it around until I could see myself, but a stranger looked back.

Three things came to my attention: One, I had huge seafoam green eyes, like half of my face could be considered eyes. Two, I had a black capped muzzle (which I could already see but it was still shocking to confirm) that was filled with flat grinding teeth. Three, I had animal ears, the pointed ones like a horse’s that were constantly flicking around at all the cricket and bird sounds around me. What was disturbing was that I didn’t notice them moving. It was a totally involuntary action. After that sunk in, I noticed my black and white hair, which stuck up in a short, rough mohawk. I angled my neck and saw the mohawk run all the way to my shoulders, or whatever the zebra analog was.

Now it was just ridiculous. Or the ridiculousness of the situation was finally sinking in. I was some dwarf zebra, who had changed from a person not twenty minutes ago. All in all, it was the craziest thing I had ever seen or heard of and my uncle was a conspiracy nut. Lizard men ain’t got nothin’ on me.

I needed help and I wasn’t going to get any standing around. I walked to the front of the Jeep and tried to pull myself up onto the hood. Unfortunately, hooves can’t find purchase well on a smooth flat surface. So I hopped onto the, thankfully, large bumper and kicked myself forward, which sent me face first into the bug splattered windshield. I shuddered as I wiped bug guts out of my face and hair. Thanks to the rails on the roof I was able to pull myself up, allowing me to see over the stalks of corn for miles. It seemed like I could see farther and with more clarity than when I was human. At least there was something good about being whatever I was. I couldn’t see a farm house anywhere, and the highway was also devoid of human presence. I cleared my throat, making myself as sure as possible that I wouldn’t hurt myself.

“HELLO? IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?” I screamed as loud as I could. My throat felt hoarse as the only sounds that returned were cricket chirps and bird songs. I waited a few minutes longer before starting up again.

“I NEED HELP!”

“HELLO? ANYONE?”

“IS ANYONE THERE?”

Between each call I waited a few minutes to recover, I wouldn’t be able to keep it up much longer. In the distance, I saw a dark speck shoot out of the cornfields and right into the sky. Against the blue sky and sparse clouds, I could only tell that dark, it had wings, and it was bigger than a bird. It steadily grew larger and larger until I realized that it was headed straight at me very very fast.

A spark of fear caught in my heart. What if it was dangerous? I couldn’t defend myself like I was now, I could hardly perform simple tasks like climbing.

I could see the vague outline of it at this point. It was a dark gray all around and smallish wings that didn’t look right. At the speed it was going, it was starting to look menacing. I took a step back, then another, and another trying to create more distance between me and it until I reached the end of the roof. It was almost on top me when I closed my eyes and took one last step onto nothing. My other hind leg followed, along with the rest of my body as I tumbled off my car. Before the back of my head connected with the pavement, I saw a grey limb reach out for me.

Jess looked down at the zebra on the ground with a mix of guilt and shame. She didn’t mean to scare him off his car and knock him out. In hindsight, she should have said something but she didn’t want to get bugs in her mouth while she was flying. She jumped off the guy’s car and at the last second flapped her bat wings giving her enough lift to touch down softly. She put the backpack full of corn gently onto the ground then walked over and put her much larger, fuzzier ears on his chest. The steady Ba-bump of his heart signified that he was still alive and well, if not worse for the wear. She stepped back and took in his form.

The black t-shirt he wore looked like it hadn’t undergone any body adjustments, same with his shorts. He had some muscle built up, a good amount too, which was good. He wasn’t big, but he was lean. Tall too, if the length of his legs were anything to go by. The black and white stripes that covered his body swirled and flowed together hypnotically. She could only imagine what having a whole herd of them would look like.

Jess opened his eyelids and watched as his pupil dilated too slowly for being exposed to the harsh sunlight. It didn’t seem like he was going to get up anytime soon, so seeing her chance, Jess decided it was scavenging time. She opened the driver’s side door and climbed inside. There were some plain blue flip-flops and a keychain with the car keys lying in the footwell, but those were useless now. The dashboard clock said 6:40, but Jess knew better, the watch she had in her pants pocket read one o’clock. In the cupholder was an Iphone. She pressed the home button but the screen didn’t light up. Odd, she thought as she dismissed the useless device and went back to scouring the Jeep. In various nooks and crannies, Jess found three bottles of water of varying amounts of water, six packets of sunflower seeds, a half eaten hamburger (Yuck!), and a large wool blanket. She bundled up all of her loot in the blanket and dragged it outside using her mouth.

The guy was still passed out. Shame. Jess dropped her new loot bag next to her backpack, grabbed an ear of corn, and leaned against a back wheel as she started munching on her treat. It was strange, and lucky, that he showed up here, of all places. Jess knew that for miles around there was no life other than wildlife. It just happened that she was collecting some corn for a treat back home and heard some calls for help. It was really lucky that she had super sensitive ears that could hear him, because no one else would have. Jess smiled through a mouthful of corn at the fact that her body was perfect for this situation.

While she always felt that everybody else back home avoided her because she didn’t look the same, but there was always a reason for everything. Jess believed the reason she was turned into a bat-pony was to find new people. Jess threw away the finished corn cob and started working on getting the corn bits out from between her teeth and fangs. When she looked down she saw that there was corn juice all over her modified running shorts.

“Aw hell,” she swore, as she grabbed the corner of the wool blanket and started rubbing it dry. Jess stopped mid scrub and looked at the blanket, then at the zebra. She felt heat rush into her cheeks as she realized her mistake. He might have been knocked out but the blanket was still his property. Eating corn didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore, so Jess decided to spend her time waiting watching him.

When my senses finally flooded back into existence, the only sense I could recognize was pain. I didn’t know why the back of my head hurt or why whenever I tried to crack my eyes open it felt like someone was stabbing my retinas. I groaned, which was the only way to convey my discomfort. I heard a gasp and some shuffling somewhere near me. I couldn’t pinpoint it through the pain so I decided to disregard it. I brought my forelegs to my head for two reasons. One, to cradle my aching skull, two, to defend my eyes from the light.

“Hey, hey. Easy there big guy,” said a feminine voice coming from right next to me. It was followed by motherly clucking and something fuzzy, but also hard, lightly grabbing my legs and bringing them to my sides. As soothing as the voice was, it was too loud to help the pain in my head and I let out another groan.

“Be careful,” she said, more quiet than before. “You fell down and hit your head pretty hard. You’ve been out for about thirty minutes. My name’s Jess, I heard your calls for help.”

Everything from before I woke up came to the forefront of my mind all at once. Being transformed, learning how to walk, the thing flying at me, falling off my car.

“Something was flying at me, I thought it was going to kill me,” I managed to croak out.

I heard an awkward little laugh. “Yeah, sorry. That was me, I thought you were in trouble.”

“What?” Nothing made sense anymore. This Jess person was the flying beast?

I cracked open an eye and worked through the pain of sunlight and saw the blurry outline of a dark gray thing that looked a lot like myself, but with some key differences. The general face area was a lot slimmer, more feminine. The ears were a lot larger and hairier, kind of like a wildcat or a bat. The eyes were golden pools with a blurry vertical dark line in the middle. Lastly, there were pointy bits of white sticking out from under its lips. I used a leg to scrub my eyes of any blurriness and looked again. It was exactly what it looked like: Big fuzzy ears, golden slit-pupiled eyes, and vampire fangs.

I felt my own pupils dilate and my heartbeat quicken. The vampire thing rolled her eyes and scoffed.

“Not you too,” she said. A lot louder this time, which made me cover my ears in recoil. “Every time someone sees me this happens. They either run away, or are too scared to move. It’s not like I bite!” She finished with baring her fangs, which didn’t inspire much confidence in me.

“I don’t know what you are, lady-” I tried to say before receiving the most scathing glare ever.

“Jess. My name is Jess,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Right, uh, Jess. Well, I don’t know what you are or what I am so forgive me for being a bit afraid,” I said. My voice cracked through the whole thing, I must have looked like an idiot.

Her gaze softened and she turned away. I thought that she looked a little embarrassed, but that could have been my imagination. Jess looked back at me and gave probably the roughest, most blunt explanation in history.

“Almost everybody on the planet is gone, everyone who is left is changed into what we are. We get some drifters that pass through and from what they say, we’re all ponies now. Except for you.” Jess looked me up and down. “It looks like you’re a zebra.”

The expression on my face was between dumbstruck and slackjawed. I responded the only way I could.

“What?”

Jess rolled her eyes. “We’re all that’s-” she began.

I vigorously waved my legs for her to stop. “No, I get what you told me but seven billion people don’t just disappear overnight.”

“Well, it did happen. It’s been about four months since too. Boy, that was a weird-”

“Four months!” I interrupted. I could tell that I was starting to get on her nerves, but at this point I didn’t care. “How could I have been gone for that long when I was driving my car as a human last night.”

“Listen, man, I don’t know. There were some ponies just there right after and some show up later like you. If I knew why I would tell you.” She was annoyed, that was made clear as she crossed her forelegs at me and her eyes got hard and steely.

A realization hit just as I was about to speak back, one that I should have had much earlier. My family, they were probably gone or changed just like me. What if they all came back at different times and had to survive alone.

“Oh God, my family…” I moaned, as I collapsed into a ball. I don’t know when I started crying, but I did. Every so often I took a deep breath but I wasn’t focusing on breathing. Why would something like this happen? What could be cruel enough to break up families and loved ones. Jess was quiet for a long time. I imagine she was just standing there unsure on how to comfort a grown man… Zebra.

“Hey, it’s okay big guy. I bet your family is safe. They probably haven’t even come back yet. All I know is that you’re here now. We have someplace that’s safe not far from here that you can use to look for your family if you want.”

Jess nudged me onto my feet… hooves? I don’t know, but I got up and let her lead me over to my Jeep. There were was a backpack and a bindle made from the blanket I kept in my backseat. I’d have to ask her about that later. There were too many emotions bubbling inside me, so many that I felt sick. I pushed it all down. I packed all those bad emotions into tiny boxes and filed them away for later. Too much was going on right now to deal with silly thoughts and feelings. Sometimes you’ve just got to compartmentalize the crazy and continue as if nothing happened.

I leaned against the bumper, the black paint already hot in the warm sun. I think I wanted to take Jess up on her offer, at least for a little bit. Maybe learn what’s going on and what I am before I start on a cross country road trip. Jess sat down next to me silently, waiting for me to make the first move.

I tilted my head to look at her again, this time with clearer eyes. Her coat was a bluish gray and her indigo mane was done up in a ponytail. Her huge golden eyes had a slit pupil dividing the iris, a lot like a cats. Her body was smaller and slimmer than mine with a kind of sleekness that indicated she stayed pretty active. She wore spandex looking athletic shorts with her tail sticking out the back and a black Under Armour workout shirt that looked like it had been hemmed to fit her. She had larger ears than mine, fuzzier too, and black leathery bat wings poked out from holes in her shirt and adorned her sides. I cocked an eyebrow at that. I knew she looked like a vampire but bat wings?

“So what’s up with the teeth and wings, Jess?” I asked, as I pointed at the same spots on my own body.

“I don’t know, I just kind of woke up this way,” she shrugged. “We haven’t met anyone else like me yet. The drifters call me a bat-pony, which I think is fitting.”

“Huh,” I was quiet for a minute before speaking again. “Do all ponies have wings?”

“What? No. Some of us don’t have anything on them or have a horn sticking out of their forehead. The ones that don’t have anything are really good at growing plants and are really strong while the ones with horns do magic,” said Jess with such certainty I almost didn’t doubt it. Almost.

“Magic? Are you serious?” I scoffed.

She turned her whole body towards me and looked me dead in the eyes.

“As serious as death. They can levitate stuff with their horns. Magic.” With finality, Jess tapped me on the nose and returned to leaning against the Jeep. I would have to see this “magic” for myself I guess.

“So what do you think I can do?” I asked as I traced the black stripes on my arms.

“Who knows. I guess you’ll have to tell me when you figure that out,” she smirked.

“So how did you learn how to fly?” I asked.

“I don’t know, mostly practice. I failed a lot trying to figure it out. I was being chased by wild dogs a month ago when I first took off. I thought I was going to die and I knew the only way I was going to get away was by flying. So I started flapping and flapping thinking ‘What good are wings if you can’t fly’, then something ignited inside me and instinct took over. Next thing I knew, I was soaring over those stupid dogs,” Jess started smiling as she stared off into space. I could only guess that first time flying was amazing.

“Where are we by the way?” I asked. I had forgotten that I was suddenly in a cornfield, everything had just happened way too fast to keep up.

“You don’t know?” Jess stared at me with a quizzical look on her face.

“No. One minute I was driving down a highway in Ohio, next minute I’m driving through a cornfield.”

“Huh,” Jess shrugged. “Well, we’re out in Amish country not too far from Philadelphia. You say you were in Ohio?”

“I’m in Pennsylvania? How does that even happen?”

“No idea. Nothing about this apocalypse is natural.”

I nodded in agreement. As strange as this conversation was, it was nice to have a frank discussion. Right now, I couldn’t sweat the crazy stuff, I just needed the information. I let silence fall and closed my eyes to just feel the sun on my new body. Jess shifted next to me.

“You still haven’t told me your name, you know,” she said, sounding annoyed again but the half smile on her face said otherwise.

My eyes shot open. “Oh! Whoops. My name’s Sam,” I said as I stuck my foreleg out on instinct to shake. Surprisingly, Jess took it in stride and pressed her hoof to mine and shook it up and down.

“Nice to meet you, Sam,” Jess smiled, the annoyance evaporating.

“Sooo,” Jess said, dragging out the vowel. “If you’re up to it we can head back home?”

“Philadelphia, right?” I asked, she nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

First Introductions

Jess and I rose together. She went and collected her backpack and my blanket. Her process for putting on the backpack was strange. First, she tipped it on its side, exposing the arm strap. Then, she bit down on the top handle and pulled it up to rest on her shoulder blades. Finally, Jess put her opposite leg through the open strap. It was a semi lengthy process that I’m sure was made easier through practice. The lumpy backpack looked comically large on her and sagged from the weight of the corn.

She turned her head around almost all the way at me. It was extremely weird to see a neck bend like that. I know that I had seen my dogs do something similar and other animals were also probably able to as well, but the fact that it was someone I was talking to a minute ago felt very surreal. In fact, the whole last forty minutes felt surreal.

“You gonna grab your bundle?” Jess asked.

I looked at the blanket, then back at her. “How?”

That was what really confused her. “Y’know, you just… um. Huh.” Jess put a hoof to her chin.

“You just- Y’know,” she insisted, gesticulating wildly as if that would actually make me understand her gibberish.

“I don’t know. I’ve only been a zebra for like, forty minutes, Jess. I only barely understand how to walk, let alone walk and carry something,” I scoffed. Jess scrunched her face into a pout and huffed.

“You’re a jerk, you know that right?” Jess muttered.

I had to laugh, she was like the little sister I never had. “I have heard it a few times, but I don’t believe it,” I chuckled. Although the sarcasm was pretty clear in my voice, Jess went into a deeper pout. She was starting to get a little mad, that I could tell. The fur on her ears were standing on end and her tail was looking bristly. In a way, Jess was kind of like a cat, that was a pony, that had bat wings and fangs.

In an attempt to defuse the situation before I lost my guide to civilization, I started to undo the knot on my blanket. It wasn’t very hard, the knot was loose and fell apart almost as soon as I prodded it with a hoof. Inside were some bottles of water that I sporadically drank from through my road trip, and some bags of sunflower seeds. I rubbed my chin, very reminiscent from before I was a zebra.

I held a hoof out to my food. “How do I grab stuff?”

Jess’ fur flattened and her eyes perked back up. Either it was way easier for me to read pony emotions or Jess didn’t bother trying to hide hers.

“It’s kind of a combination between using your hooves and your mouth,” Jess explained, It seemed that with a starting point she had a much easier time telling me what to do.

I shook my head. “Nnnnnope, no way. I did it once and it was pretty gross.”

“Fine. Find some other way to carry all your crap,” she smirked.

I stuck my tongue out at her and sat down next to my pile. I dragged the seeds over and shoved them into my pockets. It was time consuming, but worth it if I didn’t have to conform to Jess’ standards. I loaded a water bottle too, the fullest one, while Jess grabbed the other two in her mouth, to my disgust, and put them in her pack. Her range of motion still was a little off putting. On one hand, I recognized her as a person, on the other, her mannerisms were slightly animal like. I wondered what I seemed like to her, if my mannerisms were weird or something.

Jess harrumphed at my ingenuity and flipped her hair out of her eyes. “Come on, Sam. We’re wasting daylight here,” she said, very impatiently.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I velcroed my pockets shut and picked myself up. “Let’s get moving then.”

Five minutes into walking I had needed to flip my shorts around. My tail had been desperate to be free and was making the already uncomfortable shorts unbearable. I called for a break, told Jess no peeking, and dashed into the privacy of the corn. After way too much struggling in the dirt, I wiggled out of my shorts and torn boxers. I’m not sure when they ripped but were too tight and constricting. I threw them into the corn and felt sweet, sweet relief as my tail came free and the fresh air caressed the previously un-caressable. I breathed a sigh of relief

Then, I moved onto my next herculean task: unbuttoning my shorts and pulling down the fly for my tail. I was able to undo the button by pressing a hoof into the fabric using the other to push the button through. The zipper was the real hard part. At first, I tried just kicking it with the corner of my hoof, but it kept getting stuck. I tried a couple different maneuvers with my hooves, but all of them ended the same, in failure.

“Damn it all,” I sighed as I glared at the zipper, my new mortal enemy. I suddenly regretted making fun of Jess earlier. I swallowed my pride, placed my hooves on the edges of the shorts, bent my head down, and took the zipper tab into my mouth. Like my car keys, the metallic taste filled my mouth along with bits of mud. I ripped the zipper down as far as I could and spat all the grit that was in my mouth onto a nearby stalk. I shuddered, knowing that I had swallowed some. After re-buttoning the top, I commenced the wriggling. Interestingly enough, it was easier getting the shorts back on and sticking my tail though the zipper hole. I could chalk this up as being the only time it’s good to have your fly down in public. I was covered in mud and who knows what else, but at least I was comfortable.

While I was putting my shorts back on, I noticed that I had some strange markings on both of my… haunches? I think that’s what they’re called, but they definitely didn’t look like normal zebra patterns. It was a circle twice as large as my hoof and inside of it was a bunch of rotated concentric ellipses. The pattern reminded me of one of those dreamcatchers my mom insisted I put over my bed when I was little. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. I didn’t know how to feel about it and I wasn’t sure if I should ask Jess about it. In the end, I decided to keep it to myself, it probably didn’t mean anything anyways. It was one thing after another with this body.

When I emerged from the cornstalks I could see that Jess had dropped her backpack and was having a lot of trouble holding in a laugh. Her face was scrunched up and she was sputtering just trying to contain it. Any emotion that would have been on my face melted away leaving only a deadpan stare. I cocked an eyebrow. “Did you peek?”

That really set her off. Jess’ eyes bugged out of her head as she tried to contain the massive guffaw that wanted to be set free. I waited patiently until she calmed down enough to speak, although my patience was accompanied by a very disinterested, but still disapproving, glare.

Jess took some deep breaths before looking me in the eyes. “I did not peek,” she said. To her credit, she kept a, mostly, straight face and if she hadn’t almost popped from not laughing, I might have believed her. Good to know that she might’ve been pretty good liar if she ever tried.

“Sure you didn’t,” I deadpanned as I turned to leave in the way we were headed. “I’m going now.”

I didn’t look back as she called after me. Maybe ignoring her will teach her some manners. On second thought probably not, but it never hurt to try. However, Jess caught up to me pretty quick and started babbling apologies that I didn’t care to listen to. The old silent treatment usually worked on my brothers, being the oldest and the most looked up to had its perks.

We walked for hours through countless abandoned towns before we even saw the skyscrapers of Philadelphia peek over the treetops. The lack of people was eerie and the general silence gave me chills up and down my spine. Jess didn’t walk all the time though, sometimes she hovered over me, other times she sped ahead until she was out of sight and didn’t return for about ten minutes.

I stayed quiet mostly, and just tried to absorb everything she had told me back at my Jeep. Jess tried to make small talk and I obliged reluctantly. I could never keep up the silent treatment for long. We talked about our families but she did most of the talking. I learned that Jess had four other sisters and she was the youngest of them. She was going to a Philadelphia community college to study elementary education. She liked to run and was on the track team in high school. Apparently, Jess won third in the thousand meter dash in Maine where she grew up which was pretty impressive.

In return, I didn’t share much. I told her about my brothers and my mom, that I had just graduated from Duke with a Bachelors in Mathematics. That was pretty much all I let go and didn’t speak much after that. I don’t think Jess got the message that I didn’t want to talk because she just. kept. talking. I don’t remember when, but I started to just tune her out, nodding affirmatives when she addressed me.

I tried to think about what it would take to disappear eight billion people and what kind of God would not only do that but change the miniscule remnants into an entirely different species. But I couldn’t wrap my head around it, not without hours of time and a couple blackboards. Instead, the ache in my legs and back kept distracting me from thinking about other important things. Things like finding my family, or how this whole new body thing works, I don’t know.

The sun had just started to dip below the horizon when I finally saw the green Philadelphia city limits sign. The city was mostly visible at this point. I could see the Delaware River in the distance slicing through the landscape as well as the Schuylkill, as Jess informed me, meandering under multiple bridges. Earlier, I had asked Jess why she and her friends settled in the city. She replied with, “Because if you wake up and everyone is gone, you’re going to want to go to the big cities to see if anyone is left.” Which made sense in a very simple way. If I had appeared instead around Detroit or New York, I would have tried to explore around to find other people er, ponies.

As we crossed a bridge into the city, it became more and more apparent that people were living here. Shattered windows into businesses, stripped down cars, spray painted arrows pointing deeper in. I heard dogs barking in the distance, some growling too.

Jess nudged my shoulder. “We should probably pick up the pace. Most of the feral dogs left but this pack doesn’t seem to want to leave.”

I nodded and started moving as fast as I could without falling all over myself. My overly baggy clothes didn’t help. The bottom of my shirt liked to bunch up around my armpits and drag along the ground, catching on random debris, while my shorts chafed my legs after hours of walking and my tail hairs got caught in the zipper. Thankfully, my hooves didn’t really hurt all that much, even though I could still feel the ground underneath me. Must be this ‘magic’ Jess keeps talking about. Probably not, but I can’t dismiss it without seeing it with my own eyes.

The arrows turned into painted signs that took us down multiple side streets until we finally arrived at, what looked like, a large homeless shelter. Above the door someone had painted ‘YOU HAVE ARRIVED’ in big red paint.

I cocked my head. “Why a homeless shelter?”

“He speaks!” she giggled. “Well why not, there are plenty of beds, built in kitchen, bathroom support. There’s not a lot of privacy but it’s worked so far.”

“There’s like twelve people right?” I asked, a little hesitant to go inside. Jess had told me how some of them treated her differently. I guess people will always judge you by how you look, even when you’re not people anymore.

Jess patted me on my back. “Thirteen with you.”

“Yeah…” I trailed off. I was never very good at meeting big groups. Individuals, yes, sometimes. But groups? That many eyes gave me the heebie jeebies.

Jess lightly hip checked me, sending me to the ground in a tangle of my own legs. I heard her snicker and I grumbled as I picked myself up. But as much as I grumbled and groaned, Jess did make me forget my apprehension, if only for the moment.

She led me into the building. In front of the door was a mat that said ‘Welcome’ in great flowing letters. It was something you could pick up from Home Depot but something about it felt much more warm and inviting than being a simple doormat.

The inside was much more what I would expect from a shelter. Cheap linoleum floors, exposed piping, large industrial lights. There were touches that indicated someone was trying to make it seem like a home though. Expensive looking wood tables, easy chairs, and some newer pictures that were too far away to make out the ponies in them. What was immediately visible was a common room, double doors with a sign next to it that said ‘Cafeteria’, and in front were stairs that I could only guess led to the sleeping area.

Jess sucked in a deep breath. “Hey! I found a new one!” Her voice echoed throughout the house.

Two silent moments passed by before I heard the sound of hooves in varying forms of motion seemingly from all around. Some sounded like running, others leisurely walking. Oh God, here it comes, I thought, cold dread rising in me.

A young looking pony girl bounded down the stairs with much greater skill than I would ever have and stopped a few feet in front of me at the bottom of the stairs. Her mouth was in the shape of an ‘O’ as she took in my appearance. I also took in hers. Unlike Jess, the girl had a whitish pinkish body and rose colored hair with blue eyes. Her hair was cut short into a pixie cut that was pretty popular when everyone was still human. She had a pair of feathery wings on her side the same color as her body. Soon after, an adult man pony er, stallion, came down the stairs beside her. He was a normal pony with an earthy brown coat and curly black hair. His eyes seemed a lot older than he looked. He looked at me in indifference.

Two ponies walked through the doors that led to the cafeteria and came to a stop in the common area. One was a guy, the other a girl, both adults, both had spiraling horns on their heads. The stallion was a powder blue with darker blue hair, while the woman was a light purple with an off-white mane. If I had to guess, eggshell white. All four of them were wearing clothing to an extent. The girl, some small pink sweatpants, the brown stallion a large white shirt and some brown fabric crudely sewn together into pants. The blue stallion was wearing a button up striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up and basketball shorts, and finally the woman was wearing a large armless sweatshirt that covered almost all of her body except the lower part of her back legs. All the clothes seemed modified in some way or another.

“Is this everyone that’s here?” Jess asked, a little confused at the lack of ponies present.

The blue stallion spoke up. “They’re still out doing their jobs, Jess. Why aren’t you?” He sounded too accusatory for my tastes.

“I did my job, Brian,” Jess spat. Jess pulled the backpack of corn off and tossed it over to him.

“Well, it’s good to know you aren’t entirely useless. I’m going to get started on dinner, show the new guy where to sleep,” Brian said as his horn lit up in a white glow. The glow spread to the backpack and as he turned to leave the room, the pack lifted off the ground and followed behind him.

I felt my heart rate shoot up. Was that the magic Jess was speaking about? I turned to ask her about it but then I noticed something off about her. Jess’ lips were tight and her throat was working up and down. I could tell that she was about to cry, I had at a minimum five minutes. The woman stepped forward with a sigh.

“Don’t worry about Brian, he’s just being a pill. I’m Bridgette, the brown guy over there is Abraham, and that little cutie is Emily. We can introduce you to the rest of the group when they come back, but for now go settle in where you want to sleep,” Bridgette said. She seemed nice, very motherly, but looks can be deceiving.

“It’s nice to meet you all, I’m Sam,” I said quickly. I received a nod from Abraham, Emily, however, was still slackjawed. “Jess? why don’t you show me where I can sleep,” I asked, getting a very lackluster nod in return.

Abraham pulled Emily out of the way as I led Jess up the stairs. The bedrooms were really just a couple large rooms with some mattresses on the floor separated by hospital curtains. As soon as we were out of earshot I pulled Jess towards me. I tried to look her in the eye but she avoided my gaze by looking at her hooves.

“Jess? Jess, listen to me. Are you okay?” I kept angling my neck to try and meet her eye to eye.

“Don’t worry about me,” she shook me off of her and stared dead at me. “I’m fine. You should really worry about yourself, Sam.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Brian’s a racist prick, he’s going to go after you too,” she said with a fire in her eyes.

“Don’t worry about me, I can handle a bigot, Jess. The question is can you?” I wasn’t going to be the outlet for her anger, not right now.

“I-I-I,” as she stuttered all her anger faded and her ears folded flat against her skull, “Yes? I don’t know…” I saw some tears start to form in the corners of her eyes.

I figured that the middle of the hall wasn’t the best place for what was about to happen so I herded Jess into an empty room. Just as I crossed the threshold I noticed that her name was penned in sharpie on the wall. A brief scan of the other rooms had names up and down the walls. Why was her name alone on the wall?

Inside the room, there was only one lived in bed and eight other empty mattresses. Jess collapsed on, what I could only assume was, her bed and curled up into a ball. She shuddered periodically and something melted inside me. I sat down next to her like I would have if I was human, it felt awkward but it was possible.

I laid my foreleg on her back and rubbed small circles into it. I’m not even sure why I was doing this. I barely even knew Jess, definitely not enough to be a shoulder to cry on. Any port in the storm I guess. Brian kept coming up in my thoughts. Whatever problem he had with Jess needed to be solved fast. I couldn’t even imagine having to deal with his attitude every day for however long the whole group was together. Jess took some deep breaths and collected herself. Her slitted eyes were red and puffy.

“I miss my family,” she sniffled, wiping away tears. I felt an unfamiliar tightness grip my own throat.

“Yeah. Me too.”

Stargazing

Neither of us said anything in the silence of the bedroom. Jess and I sat there on her mattress for a lot longer than I expected. Jess was still sniffling lightly and at some point she had rested her head on my shoulders. I didn’t mind; I was thinking about a lot of different things. My life so far, where my life was headed. The sound of someone talking to me broke me out of my musings.

“What?” I asked.

“I said thanks, Sam. It really means a lot,” Jess said in a soft voice. She sounded very vulnerable. I chewed on the inside of my cheek. I hadn’t been talked to like that in years.

“Yeah, uh, no problem.”

“How’d you know that this was my room anyways?” Jess asked, her voice thick from crying.

I looked around at the spartan room. “I didn’t. It just seemed the least likely for people to see us in.” Jess nodded in understanding.

“Why are you alone in here, Jess?” It seemed like knowing this was important to understanding Brian.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Sam,” she said, instantly feeling very distant from me. Crap, I hit a nerve.

The gentle tapping of hooves on the stairs saved me from a potentially awkward situation. Emily peeked her head in and her blue eyes lit up in a fiendish way that I knew would only cause me trouble in the future.

“Hey, lovebirds. Dinner’s ready,” she sang. Jess clipped my chin as she went from my shoulder to sitting ramrod straight. I massaged my stinging jaw and cocked an eyebrow at Jess before turning back to Emily.

“Thanks, we’ll be down in a minute,” I said. Emily hummed and left us alone again. I didn’t have an appetite, but I knew that I should eat, for survival’s sake.

I fell down on my side and rolled onto my hooves. I was definitely starting to get better with my new body. With a jerk of my head towards the door, Jess did the same and we walked together to the cafeteria. I held the door open as Jess stopped right before me and took a deep breath.

As I waited, I regarded the cafeteria as being very empty for its size. It had lower ceilings than usual and many long benched tables. Most of them went unused, seeing as how there were only four other ponies taking seats. One was new, however, and was getting food dished out onto an old, battered tray. He was a guy, with black hair and a darker blue body, and with no visible additions like horns or wings. A pair of grease-stained overalls hung loosely on his body, making him appear much fatter than he was.

Jess walked past me and I followed behind her to the food. Bridgette was standing behind the counter with a massive pot beside her, a ladle gripped in the same rosy red aura as her spiraled horn. I gawked at her. How can something like that even exist? I suppose being changed into a different animal shouldn’t happen either but still. How much more crazy has Earth become in the last few months?

“Hey there Sam, Jess. Can I get you some dinner?” she asked amicably, a wide smile on her face, which turned into a laugh upon sight of my stunned expression.

Jess spoke first. “What’s on the menu tonight, Bridge?”

“Steamed corn and peas, some mashed potatoes, and sunflowers,” she listed off.

That stopped me. “You mean sunflower seeds or something, right?” I led on.

“Not just the seeds, the actual flower too.” Bridgette beamed. I think she was took some perverse pleasure in watching my gears turn. In reality though, it was probably so normal to her at this point that it wouldn’t register how weird it was for me.

Without asking me if I even wanted flowers with my food, Bridgette heaped corn, peas, and potatoes all topped with a big ol’ sunflower. The tray glowed in her aura and floated over to me. I watched as she did the same to Jess, who gripped the tray in her mouth and walked over to the table the others were sitting at. Hesitantly, I followed her lead. I didn’t want to seem like too much of an outsider. The plastic tray tasted like dish soap as I tried to balance the food that was very close to falling and splattering all over the ground.

At the table, Jess was sitting next to Abraham and Emily while the new blue guy sat across from the three of them with his back to me. Brian was nowhere to be found, however, and for some reason that worried me. I gingerly set my tray down next to Blue and clambered over the bench seat, awkwardly sitting human-style like everyone else. Blue seemed startled by my sudden appearance from behind him before giving me a once over.

“Wassup?” he said, after digging back into his food.

“Just got here. My name’s Sam.” I followed his lead in using short sentences. He seemed like the kind of guy who only wanted the facts.

“Andre.” His tone was decidedly disinterested so I switched attention to the others across from me. A tray of food set itself down beside me and Bridgette’s glow disappeared as she sat down, sandwiching me between her and Andre.

My curiosity was killing me. “So Bridgette. What’s up with the glowy horn?”

“Hmm? Oh! If me or the other unicorns focus just right we can move stuff. Someone decided to call it magic and it stuck,” she said. “Focusing just right” didn’t satisfy my curiosity, so rather than prying further, I gave a neutral grunt. I had a million other questions but Bridgette didn’t seem like the person, or I guess, pony to ask. I got some strange looks from the ponies around the table, except for Andre and Abraham. It’s not my fault her answer didn’t satisfy me!

“Where did Brian go?” I asked in an attempt to shift attention away from me. I saw Jess tense up noticeably.

“He’s out searching for the other six of our group,” Abraham spoke up. I was surprised, he and Andre seemed like men of very few words. Abraham had a deep voice that was very fatherly, like a priest. I could imagine him intoning a sermon, singing the trancelike chants priests often sung.

“So is he, like, the leader or something?” I asked. Mostly because he seemed like too big of a jerk for everyone to follow him.

“Yes?” Bridgette replied uncertainly. “Our leader when we were first starting out was named Jay, but he disappeared around a month and a half ago. Ever since then, Brian kind of took over.”

“Hmm.” It shed a lot of light on the minds of the group that they let it happen so easily.

I started eating my food, not because I had any appetite, but because I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. Small talk was not something I was particularly good at. Asking about the weather can only get you so far.

Turns out, that without utensils, eating with just your mouth is a little more difficult than I expected. Having a muzzle and a longer tongue did make eating the mashed potatoes easier but the vegetables just got pushed around. I ate around the sunflower. As much as I liked the seeds, eating the flower itself was too bizarre even at this point. Sometimes you just have to draw a line in the sand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a whitish hoof creeping across the table towards my sunflower. I glanced up at Emily, who locked her eyes with me as she slowly pulled my tray back towards her. The whole table was silent during the event as everyone, even Andre, watched in curiosity. Emily crunched as delicately as possible into the sunflower, much like a kid eating potato chips in the back of the class. After she finished chewing and swallowed, Emily beamed at us all with black, green, and yellow speckled teeth.

Jess started laughing first. It started out as a low chuckle and quickly grew into a full body laugh that made her clutch at her sides. It was infectious. Soon Bridgette and Abraham were joining in, although Abraham’s laugh seemed more polite. I snuck a peek at Andre, who was shaking his bobbing head. I joined in as well, because over the last day, finding something innocent to laugh at was rare. The normality of it all had finally gotten to me, I think. Children could always make me laugh and Emily was so much like my littlest brother it was painful.

It took a minute for everyone to calm down, but when we did no one said anything, like laughter was the only thing that could fill the void. Everyone else finished their dinner quickly and drifted away to other parts of the shelter. Jess went off to do her own thing too, leaving me alone for the first time all day with my thoughts.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my newfound time, so I decided to do what I usually did when I had a couple hours to kill and headed up to the roof. As I passed the common area, I saw Abraham and Emily reading a book. It looked like one of those young adult novels, like by Judy Blume or something. Andre was asleep in his room, and on his doorway were four other names besides his. I briefly read the names in my head: James, Cathy, Fudail, and Ayah. It was starting to get hard to remember all these new people, maybe it would be easier to remember once I got a face to the name.

I found the fire exit that led to an outside stairwell that went up to the roof. I clanged up the rusty metal stairs until I reached the flat gravel-topped roof. I had been on enough roofs to lose my irrational fear of falling through them at this point though. Being in a smaller, lighter body probably helped too on some subconscious level. On the opposite side of the roof was a fairly expansive garden full of flowers, vegetables and herbs. I saw the headless stalks of multiple sunflowers towering over the garden. There was a small sheet-metal shed nearby. Spots of rust speckled the siding and roof. I could only figure it was there to house gardening equipment.

The shed seemed like a suitable spot, so I went over and leaned against it. I could see dark skyscrapers rise over the squat buildings in front of me as the purple sky and orange light of the almost set sun reflected off their windows. Night would fall shortly, which was my favorite time of day. Soon, the stars would start blinking back into existence and the crescent moon would shine brightly as the centerpiece. It occurred to me that without any lights, the Milky Way would be visible here in the city. I used to have a telescope when I was younger and I would take my brothers out to the country to stargaze. I would show them the planets and sometimes we would watch meteor showers.

A breeze rolled over the rooftops. It had the chill of the beginning of fall but thankfully all this new fur I had kept me insulated even through my thin t-shirt. I guess I could chalk that up on the pro board. As the last of the golden sunlight disappeared, leaving the sky varying shades of blue, I felt my body command me to sleep. It felt like there was a weight on my eyelids and my limbs were full of lead. I had felt like this many times during many study sessions; I knew how to beat sleep. Knowing no one was here to watch me, I performed my anti-sleep rituals composed of various stretches. I didn’t quite know how to stretch this body, but enough experimenting came close enough and I felt the cold spike of clarity and awakeness return to me. I wanted to stargaze, and I’d be damned if I let biological processes get in the way of it.

Distantly, I felt my ears perk up and turn to the sound of hushed giggling. My head followed my ears and I saw a certain batpony’s fuzzy ears peeking over the lip of an adjacent building. I let out a long, drawn out sigh and noticed my ears flick with my annoyance. Can’t I be alone for thirty minutes to think? Also, these ears are weird. I don’t know whether to put them in the pros or cons columns. If Jess wanted, she could come closer but I wasn’t going to initiate anything. If she liked spying, that was fine with me. I wasn’t doing anything interesting anyways.

I started humming “Fly Me to the Moon” as I traced the craters on the moon with my eyes in a half hearted attempt to fill the silence. As my song faded, I sat in silence until it was dark enough to see stars. I saw plenty of constellations due to the lack of light: Cassiopeia and Andromeda, Hercules and Draco, the Big and Little Dipper. I used to know the stories behind most of them, but now I could only recall snippets.

All the stress I didn’t know I had built up became apparent in my shoulders. I rolled my back out and let it all drain from me. I could only imagine how much crazier things could get. This world wasn’t me, I’m a simple guy with simple wants and needs. Being changed switched everything on its head. Nothing made sense anymore, reality seemed more a guideline than concrete now. It’s like the entire world got thrown into a fantasy novel that there was no escape from. Well, there probably was an escape but not one I wanted to use.

I heard the flaps of leathery wings from Jess’ direction but ignored it and continued to trace lines between stars. Sometimes, when I still lived at home, my brothers and I would make our own constellations and legends behind them. I tried to remember the patterns but I couldn’t find the right stars.

A metallic thump echoed from right above me. I tilted my head up at the roof of the shed I was leaning against. What looked back were two golden, glowing eyes which were very reminiscent of the stray cat I tried to take care of when I was very young. Only the top half of Jess’ head was over the edge of the shed’s roof, leaving her muzzle hidden. I could only imagine the mischievous smirk behind that metal. Her pony-tail hung down, nearly tickling my nose as I looked up. She popped her head all the way out.

“Hey! What’cha doin’?” she asked, breaking the silence I was basking in. She seemed much more chipper than she had been in the last couple hours.

“Just stargazing,” I replied as I returned to looking at the heavens. The Milky Way was starting to become more defined across the sky, but right now it was only the brighter stars cutting a swath through the darkness. It kind of looked like the dirt stache my brother tried to grow out, except instead of sparse, thin, black hairs, it was incredibly far away balls of fire.

“Huh,” Jess said as she rolled over to watch the sky. “This is boring,” she whined. The tone she took grated against my ears.

I sighed. “It’s not meant to be non-stop action packed. For me, it’s soothing.”

Jess stayed quiet for a time before gasping and pounding her hoof on the metal roof. “I saw a shooting star!” she squealed.

“Make your wish,” I chuckled.

Jess went stock still. Only being able to see the back of her head, I guessed she must have closed her eyes and started focusing really hard. She stayed like that for long enough that I was starting to worry. As I was just about to say something, her body relaxed and she rolled back over. She shot me inquisitive eyes that roamed all over my body.

I shot her a half smile and patted the ground next to me. One moment, she was on the shed’s roof, the next she was hovering, the last she had plopped down next to me. It was so smooth, my brain had to process it in chunks. I stared dumbly at her until my thoughts caught up to reality. Thankfully, Jess didn’t notice my idiotic look and started intensely scanning the sky for more meteors.

Nothing else happened through the night. Jess saw three other shooting stars over the time we watched and each time her reaction was the same as the first, extreme excitement. I tried to tell her about the constellations and the planets but she just waved me off and continued searching. What’s the point of stargazing if you don’t actually care about the stars?

After a few hours, I decided to let my body do what it wanted and sleep. I told Jess I was turning in for the night, but she waved me off again. I walked back down the fire stairs to the bedroom floor and entered Jess’ room. There were now two beds made instead of just Jess’. I thought it was presumptuous, but appreciated the gesture and climbed under the covers. Thankfully, sleep came swiftly after undoubtedly the craziest day of my entire life.