My head hurt.
I winced, my eyes still closed. Sometime earlier, I had fallen unconscious while walking along the street. I’m not sure why, or how, either. It had just… happened. One moment I was awake, then the next I wasn’t.
Sorry, got a bit redundant there. Regardless, I was relieved. I wasn’t on the same hard pavement I was on before; instead, I was on a soft bed, under warm covers. Someone had obviously seen me, and called a hospital; it was nice to see that people still gave others a hand like someone had obviously done for me.
I opened my eyes, and almost immediately shut them again. The light that came from above was blinding; it was like I had left my eyes shut for a while. Which, honestly? I suppose that I had.
I heard muffled speaking from nearby, probably behind a window like in those TV shows. It wasn’t loud enough that I could make out the words, but I knew that if they spoke any louder I probably would. Finding the resolve to open my eyes again, this time I tried opening them slowly, so that I wouldn’t be blinded by the light.
Slowly, as my eyes opened, I noticed that the roof was a white roof, tiles covering it. Yep, looks like I’m in a hospital, I summarised. The muffled sound grew louder, although this time I could only make out a single word. “…awake!”
I heard a door slam open, and a group of people yell “Twilight!” My eyes widened. Had someone left on a TV on some random channel or something? Because otherwise what I had heard was, well… a bit hard to swallow. I tried to move my head towards the door, but before I could, a giant, smiling, and most importantly, pink face appeared in front of my face. It looked like a vague cross between a human’s face and a horse’s face
“Twilight! You’re awake! Now I get to throw a superiffically fun ‘You’re better’ party!” the pink creature babbled. “Oh, and you know what the super duper completely secret thing is?” She looked around, then leaned into me and whispered into my ear “I’m not telling you because it’s a super duper completely secret thing!” in a hiss.
At that point, I did what anyone else who had woken up and found an oddly coloured equine creature appearing on top of them and calling them by a different name would do.
I screamed, then fainted.
I wasn’t sure how long I had b een out for, but when I woke up again, my eyes opening, I thought back to what had happened before. That was a weird dream… I honestly can’t believe something like that would happen.
Of course, at this point, I had no idea just what was in store for me. I heard a deep breath, and then, an explosion. It was more an explosion in the sense that I heard such an amount of sound that it was overwhelming. There were 5, maybe 6 people speaking at once.
However, with a growing dread, after a few seconds of trying not to listen, I caught the word ‘Twilight’ more than once. I moved my head to look towards where I heard the voices coming from, on the left side of my bed.
I felt a sinking feeling in my gut when I again saw the pink creature, along with 4 more of the same creatures, each colours of the rainbow (one of them literally, in fact, the colours of the rainbow). There was also a lizard, or at least something that looked like a lizard, standing on its hind legs. The main thing that I noticed, however, was that they were each talking just about as loud as each other.
“-Awfully sorry, Twilight-”
“-I’m not sure why I did that, but-”
“-And what’s the deal with oatmeal anyway-”
“-It’s all goin’ well down at Sweet Apple Acres-”
“-My animal friends were all asking if you were okay-”
“-Everyone’s worried; I’ve been getting letters all the time over the last week-”
That was it. I was at my breaking point. “Could everyone please be quiet?!” I shouted. Immediately, they quieted down. I sighed in relief, then took a calming breath and released it. “Okay, could one of you… what’s wrong with my voice?” I blinked. My voice sounded different. Very different.
The white one with the horn and purple hair – holy shit, I didn’t even notice she had a horn – stepped forward. “Whatever do you mean, Twilight?” she asked, in a british accent that sounded somewhat posh, but not very snobby. “Your voice is perfectly normal!”
“By the way, why are you all calling me Twilight?” I fired back. “My name’s not Twilight; it’s something else.”
Suddenly, the pupils of all the creatures standing next to me were reduced to pinpricks. They just stood there for a few seconds, their eyes darting between each other.
Eventually, the yellow one with pink hair spoke. “Oh… oh dear…” She said it at a volume that I could barely hear, but I recognized the words she’d spoken.
Instantly after that, the blue one was all up in my face, glaring at me. “Are you a spy, then?” she (or he; I wasn’t sure) hissed. I reared back, about to deny the accusation of espionage, before someone saved me from the fate of having to do that.
“No, Rainbow Dash; she isn’t a spy,” the white unicorn said haughtily, stepping to face the newly named Rainbow Dash. “In fact, I’m appalled that you’d even think that! Besides, the hospital is outfitted with a changeling detector, so if she were a spy, we could tell.” She slumped her head. “It just seems she has a particularly bad case of amnesia. I don’t know why she would say that her name was something else, however.” Turning around, she flicked her tail, and the blue one spread a pair of wings, each of the feathers as solid as those on a bird’s wings. “Sometimes, things simply cannot be explained.”
Rainbow Dash snorted. “Yeah, well, if she’s as unexplainable as Pinkie Pie, then explain this!” She turned towards me, and asked “If your name’s not Twilight, then what is it?”
“My name’s…” The words died off on the tip of my tongue. I knew my name was somewhere; I just couldn’t find it. After a few more seconds of self-searching, however, I still couldn’t find anything. “…I-I don’t know,” I finished lamely.
A huge smirk spread across Rainbow Dash’s face. “I told you! I told you she was a spy! Only spies don’t tell others their names!” She was about to pounce when an orange leg, an odd shining segmet at the end of it. This leg belonged to the creature wearing the hat.
“Rainbow, I don’t think she was lyin’ to y’all.” I twitched slightly at the use of ‘y’all’ to refer to a singular individual, but let it slide when the orange creature’s serious face was met with a confused one from Rainbow Dash.
“Huh? Whaddaya mean, Applejack?” she asked, and I filed away Orange Horse as Applejack mentally. Applejack, meanwhile, snorted.
“What I mean is, she’s confused an’ doesn’t know what’s goin’ on; can’t you see that, RRainbow?
“Mm… Nope.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. Applejack groaned, then turned to me.
“Listen, sugarcube; we need you to remember what you’re really like,” she said, speaking up. “I’ve heard that sometimes, ponies can have amnesia forever, but that don’t mean that you have to stop bein’ friends with us. Even if your amnesia is forever…”
Meanwhile, I was silent. What was this? Why were these… ‘ponies’, I guess, treating me like a friend with amnesia? There was something wrong with my voice here, too; it was a lot higher than before. Thank goodness that I had noticed that, though. I was starting to get a bit sweaty, so I brought a hand up to wipe my forehead.
At least, what I thought would be a hand.
Instead, I saw a purple limb, with something that looked like a huge fingernail tube on the end of it, coming up from my side in front of me.
I blinked.
Yes, the purple limb was still there.
“…aaaAAAAAAAAAAH!” I screamed, trying to keep the thing away from me, flailing my arm back and forth. The purple limb swung alongside it, in the exact pattern that I was swinging my arm.
I kept doing that for a few seconds, hearing laughter from two of the ponies nearby, before I stopped flailing my arm, and when the purple limb stopped flailing too and hung there, I was on the verge of realising something.
My brain tried to process it for a few seconds, before it came to a conclusion: this limb had replaced my arm. From that conclusion, I realised more.
Firstly, I was purple. Purple was not a natural colour for living beings – except for, apparently, talking ponies, as these people who are apparently my friends are.
Secondly, I had a fingernail tube on the end of my arm. Equines also had something like that in hooves, although they were less like this one, and more roughly shaped.
Thirdly, I had a higher voice. Voices don’t just change overnight; they took a while to train, and even if they did change, it wouldn’t be in such a short time.
Last, but not least, was the fact that these ponies were calling me by the name Twilight. My name was not Twilight. But I couldn’t remember my name either.
I combined these observations together to come to a startling – and really damn ridiculous, pardon my
French – conclusion: I had been transported into a magical pony’s body and taken over her, with my memories slightly modified.
And if I had been transported into a magical pony’s body, then what about my family? What would happen to them?
What would happen to my body?
A lone tear welled up in my tear duct, before streaking down my face, towards my chin. The laughing had stopped a while ago, and I felt another tear coming on. Then another, and another.
Soon enough, I was sobbing softly, my head on my side. What was I supposed to do? I had ruined a pony’s life, took over her body, I didn’t know where her mind was, and I didn’t even have anything to say about it. I needed to tell her friends, but at the same time… I couldn’t. Telling ponies who were like that around their friend – willing to do anything, from the look that Applejack had on her face when she told me we could ‘still’ be friends – would be like kicking a puppy in the gut.
Suddenly, I felt a warm feeling surround me, squeezing me. I nearly froze up. Tears still in my eyes, I looked up at who was hugging me.
It was the same pink pony as earlier. The same one who had surprised me, and freaked me out, when I had woken up. She smiled widely. “Don’t worry, Twilight! It’s all going to be okay!” she encouraged.
From behind her, I saw another pony, the yellow one, trotting up towards me. She had a nervous smile, and unfolding her wings that she apparently had too, she flapped them a couple of times and flew over me, hugging me. “Um… it’ll be okay,” she tried, sounding unsure, but I sniffed. My sobbing began to die down.
The lizard began to walk towards me now, and spoke. “Twilight, I know you don’t remember me… But I’ll always remember how you were,” he said, smiling before going towards me, and hugging me.
Next, the white unicorn – since that’s what I’m guessing she is – stepped forward, and walked towards me. She hugged me, and I grew a very slight smile as she said “It doesn’t matter what happened to you, Twilight; we’ll try to fix it.”
“Twilight,” began Applejack, now, walking to me, “I know it don’t look good… but I still care about you as a friend. It doesn’t matter whether or not you remember.” She too, put her forelegs around me – since I guess that was what they were, after all.
Rainbow Dash, though, stayed back, hovering mid-air with her front legs crossed. “Nope, I’m not gonna do that mushy stuff,” she muttered to herself, “I’m far too awesome to do that, I…” She sighed, and slumped. “Fine.” Hovering over towards me, I saw her gain a small smile too, and join everyone else in the group hug.
I now had a hesitant smile on my face. It was surprising, seeing people who loved their friend so much… Sadly, I was going to have to tell them.
As soon as the group hug was finished, the others went back, standing in slightly different places than before. I gulped, preparing for what I was about to say, unsure how to wipe tears out of my coat. “All of you…. Thank you, I guess. But I have something to tell you.
“You know how I said I wasn’t Twilight Sparkle? Well, that’s because I’m not. I’m just a person – a human person – who was transported into this body after something odd happened back home.
“I have a family – a brother, a mother, a father, and a little dog – and I really want to get back to there.
“It’s just… I’m sorry, but.. I need to get back there. I think your friend may also be there.
”Just please… listen to me,” I finished. That was a lot shorter than I expected. For a few seconds, they remained silent, just looking between each other.
Rainbow Dash was the first to speak. “Hey, do you think maybe somepony did something to Twilight’s brain?” she asked. “You know, replaced her memories with this human’s or somethin’?”
There was a gasp from one of the ponies; the white unicorn, that is. “Rainbow Dash, how awful!” the unicorn admonished. “I am absolutely certain that sometimes you’re this insensitive on purpose! Besides, weirder things have happened, have they not?”
Rainbow Dash was silent, her face morphing into one of confusion. “I… guess?” she asked.
I gave a small smile at that. The white pony believed me, at least… I’m thankful for that.
“But… I think I must agree with you, Rainbow Dash. It’s quite unlikely that Twilight’s mind was replaced by a human’s.”
Suddenly, my smile turned upside-down into a frown. Great, so she didn’t believe me.
Meanwhile, the other 4 ponies were talking with each other interchangeably, debating whether or not I was Twilight with an implanted memory. The only one who seemed to believe me was the pink one. I sighed. Probably not the greatest sign when the only one who believes you is the one who, from first impressions, seems crazy. Then, an idea popped up in my head.
“Excuse me, but could I just point something out?” I asked, interrupting the various conversations. All the ponies in the room turned to look at me. “I still don’t know any of your names. Really. It’s... going to be difficult to do this without knowing each other by our names, at least. So, could we introduce each other first?” I grew a hopeful smile.
The rest of the ponies turned to look at me. Then, they looked between each other, and had different reactions. After a few seconds, though, the pink one grew a wide smile. “That sounds like the perfectest most funnerific idea of all time!” she said, her happiness infectious enough that I grew a smile myself, although not before wincing from just how awful the grammar of that sentence was.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad… Well, that is, if I could get them to believe me.
Author's Note
I decided to update the chapter a little.
