Random Order

What am I seeing? Is it the past? The future? A hallucination?

Am I dead? Asleep? In a coma? A trance?

These scenes in my eyes…are they reality, or a figment of my imagination?

There’s a flash of blue, and white, and a sense of virtigo, as if I’m free-falling through the air, my wings unresponsive….

Wait, wings? Am I an angel, cast down from Heaven?

Who am I? What am I?

What happened to me?

I hit the ground, the breath knocked out of my lungs….

The scene shifts. I’m in a classroom, sitting at my desk. A teacher writes on the blackboard. I’m taking notes, when suddenly, I black out….

Another scene cuts in. I’m walking along the hallway, until my knees buckle, and then I’m on the floor, my body twitching uncontrollably….

I’m on a gurney, rolling along a sterile white hallway. I can hear voices all around me, but I can’t make out any words. My face is covered in blood, my body numb and unresponsive….

How much is real? What should I believe?

Why can’t I remember? Is there anything to remember?

A foul stench fills my nostrils, causing me to gag. I feel something wet slide across my face, and I raise an arm to push it away.

Almost immediately, I get the feeling that something’s off, but I ignore it until I make contact with a soft, fuzzy object, which I assume belongs to a dog.

My eyes flutter open. Yup, definitely still alive. And judging from the pounding in my head, I was almost certainly unconscious.

It takes me a moment to realise that what I just pushed away is definitely not a dog.

"Ahh! Get away from me!" I shout at the bear in front of me, scrambling away on my back. "I’m not food!"

The bear seems to look at me with a puzzled expression, but I figure I’m just imagining things – at least until I realise I'm now a pale grayish-blue horse.

"What the – ?" I find myself whispering.

Keeping my eyes on the bear, I roll myself onto my stomach, and push myself up onto my legs. I shake the dirt out of my mane, then examine my body for injuries.

What I find instead is a pair of wings attached to my back.

"Okay, what and where the hell am I?" I look around, taking notice of my surroundings for the first time.

Trees that way. Trees over there. Trees to my right, trees to my left. Oh, look, more trees behind me.

Great. I’m in the middle of a freaking forest.

I turn my attention back towards the bear, who seems to be looking at me expectantly.

"Alright, what’s up with this? You are a bear, for crying out loud! Where I’m from, you’d be ripping my flesh off right now. Why are you just sitting there?"

It snorts, then plops onto the ground, as if offering me a ride.

"Um, thanks, I guess?" I mutter, climbing onto its back – though I have no idea why.

It stands back up on all four paws, then it carries me off in what can only be described as a jog.

I drift in and out of sleep as we travel, until we at long last leave the forest behind us.

We continue onward as the sun sinks below the horizon. Several minutes pass before we reach our apparent destination: a cottage that resembles a short, wide oak tree. A stream runs out in front of it, with a small bridge arching over it. The lights are on in a couple of the windows, and from the looks of it, there are a lot of animals inside, enough that I find myself wondering how they all fit.

My ursine companion kneels down, my signal to dismount; then it nudges me towards the door with its nose. Feeling somewhat apprehensive, I walk slowly up to the door, and knock once, quietly enough that even I barely hear it.

Much to my astonishment, the door opens slightly anyway, and a soft, feminine voice whispers to me.

"Um, h – hello?"

Something deep in the recesses of my mind stirs at the sound of her voice.

A memory, perhaps? "Uh, hey. Do you know where I am?"

"Oh, my goodness! Are you lost?"

She opens the door all the way, and I finally get my first real glimpse of her. She’s a canary-yellow equine with silky pink hair and blue-green eyes.

Why does she seem so familiar?

I scratch my head. "Well, I just came out of a forest, with some help from a bear, so… yeah?" I say awkwardly.

She gasps. "You mean the Everfree Forest‽"

Why does that name sound so familiar?

"Um, sorry, what was that?" The mare tilts her head at me.

Whoops. Must’ve accidently said that aloud.

"Nothing. What did you say this place was?"

"Well, actually, I didn’t say… but you’re in Ponyville."

Suddenly, it clicks.

I’m in Equestria.

Now the question is: what happened to me?