Chapter One - In the Middle of a Goddamn Desert
The Day Before Alan Arrives in Equestria
I was living a pretty good life, my parents trusted me, my family had no issues and I was very content living where we were. However, as a sixteen year old you can imagine that sometimes I just want to do nothing, to not interact with anyone and left to my own devices. That weekend was supposed to be perfect, no parents, no siblings, and no responsibilities. Fate has a funny way of working.
I kept a schedule of what I wanted to “accomplish” on this fine day of Saturday, it was fairly loose and would allow me to have a basic plan of the day. I was to do what I want until twelve o’ clock, eat, go back doing what I wanted until I decided to eat dinner, then sleep. It was ten o’ clock in the morning and I took a look outside. The sky was as clear as crystal and the colors of the world were as vibrant as ever! This of course meant for me to go into my dark study and use the computer.
I decided that that morning was dedicated to reading the various fics I could find until fellow Bronies posted the Season Five beginning online. I don’t know what pulled me towards the show, I first watched it to see what all the fuss about ponies was about and to partially makes fun of it as I watched, needless to say I ended up liking it.
I was just a watcher at first, didn't really get into the community until recently when I found the various fan fiction sites. I particularly enjoyed the Humans in Equestria genre. I’m not sure why that one in particular interested me, perhaps it was because it was something that I would like happening to me or maybe it was because I enjoy the reaction of culture shock that occurs in those fiction. I don't know.
Although I like the concept of HiE stories, I've always had a problem with many of the HiE fictions however, they’re all so formulaic. Human is transported into the Everfree, finds one of the Mane Six, fight a manticore or other established creature, starts to live in Ponyville, people are scared of the human until he saves the day, and then he(its almost always a he) pursues a relationship with a pony(usually Rainbow Dash)… for some reason. Not to mention the fact that most of the protagonists died to get in Equestria. The most retarded is when the human somehow knows that he in Equestria just because. It gets even worse when the protagonist is particularly violent and does something that causes him to be thrown into a jail cell and the Princess’ make an exception for him for no good reason. Shouldn’t the Princesses be impartial? Why would they make excep- now I’m getting off track… I need to recollect the other events of that day, maybe there is a clue somewhere later in the day.
Lunch was uneventful; I just drove down to one of my preferred restaurants and came home afterwards. The exciting thing was that by the time I came home and plopped myself on the computer, the episode was posted on YouTube! I watched and... damn that was actually sort of dark.
The rest of the day wasn't anything special, I was on the computer and the sun started to set, I drove out for dinner and came back, played a few games and finally decided to go to sleep at midnight. I lay in my bed waiting for sleep to overtake me; it didn’t take too long from what I believe but I can’t particularly tell. I had my perfect do-nothing day and was believed tomorrow to be one as well. Oh how wrong I turned out to be. My last few seconds of consciousness on this planet faded as I drifted off into sleep.
I awoke to an unpleasant sensation. A ghastly sound howled a abhorrent tune. I could just barely make out the sounds of my house creaking and shuddering as the earth around me shook. That sound became louder. My own thoughts silenced by the all consuming noise. saw parts of my house phase out of existence before quickly popping back in. As the unearthly screeching reached it climax, I saw parts of my house phase out of existence before I suddenly felt something. It was like I was being ripped out of the air. I felt like I was pulled in an impossible direction, not up or down or left or right or front or back. Just elsewhere. Silence filled the room again and I opened my eyes. I’m rather certain this event is the thing that transported me, but it doesn't tell me much.
I was still in my room, still in my bed. I figured I woke from a weird nightmare at the time. I examined my room carefully; nothing was particularly out of place, but then again my room was messy to begin with. What started to get me worried though was that my digital clock was off and my fan wasn't working.
I asked myself ‘Have we lost power?’ My blinds were closed but I could see that the sun was shining bright today, brighter than normal. So I opened the blinds of my windows and froze.
Out of my window I saw a seemingly endless expanse of desert. My heart started to race, this wasn't suburbs I lived in. Was that what that commotion was about last night? Me being transported into the middle of a goddamn desert? This doesn't make any sense! I started to panic, I quickly opened the blinds of my other windows, all of them showed the same horrifying desert stretching as far as the eye can see.
Generally this is the part in a HiE where the protagonist somehow deduces that he is in Equestria, but I’m not a blithering idiot and didn't jump to this conclusion.
I was stunned, ‘How is this even possible?’ I thought. ‘This must be a dream!’ I concluded, ‘I must be lucid now!’ At this sudden realization I did what I usually do in my dreams, I opened up the window of my second story room and jumped out to fly away. As you likely could guess I hit the sandy dirt, hard. Ow… ok instead of jumping to a conclusion I jumped out of a window... maybe I am an idiot. In hindsight I'm extraordinarily lucky that I got out of that situation with little to no injuries, one of my new life's few graces I suppose.
“Jesus Christ!” I heard a voice shout fairly close to me. “Now what on Earth did you do that for? I mean I know we must be in some sort of strange situation, but nothing to kill yourself over!”
I groaned in pain. My meeting with the ground hurt. I opened my eyes to see a pair of boots. “This definitely isn’t a dream….” I mumbled under my breath.
“You thought this was a dream? Well this may be old news but none of us are dreaming over here.”
‘Well, he has good hearing.’ I thought.
I got to my feet, my body stinging all over. “D-Do you know what’s going on here?” I asked, panic was fairly evident in my voice.
“I’m afraid I don’t. We’re about as in the dark as you are.”
“W-We?”
“Yeah there are two other not counting us of course. Your house just came in a couple of minutes ago.” He said. I got a good look at him now; he was a black teenager with a close-shaved head. He was wearing a bright red shirt and jeans. In other words he looked completely normal. His mundane appearance was a small comfort.
“Came in?” I asked with a slightly more confidence.
“Rather strange, all of us remember this god-awful noise and the earth shaking under us, but the houses just sort of appear. One second there isn’t anything and the next second there’s a house.” He explained. “Oh, I just realized I never told you my name. Name’s Jack, Jack Carpenter.”
“Alan Hassett” I said flatly. I tried to calm myself down. I just jumped off a building and didn't want to do anything else stupid. I didn't know who he is, and I wasn't ready to trust him just yet….
Jack introduced me to the rest of the group who were congregated at the “center” of three other transplanted houses. they were behind my house where I couldn't see them. My house still had a backyard, part of the property was missing but most of it, including the garage and driveway, was there. I saw the two girls. One was a shy looking girl who was sitting in the shade of a house, carefully watching us from a distance. She was a brunette with a skinny frame, I didn't get a good look at this point but it was evident enough that she doesn't eat too much. The other was sitting under a tree in another house’s half of a backyard; she seemed pretty out of it as well. She had a well-toned body, probably from being some sort of athlete.
“I was the first to appear here, I freaked pretty hard. When Susan over there,” he said pointing over at the balled up girl. “Had her house show up twenty minutes later, I decided to search it to see if I could find anything to help me and ended up finding her. She’s still pretty out of it right now; all she said was her first name even after the four hours we've been here.”
‘Whoa,’ I thought, ‘He’s been here for four hours? ‘
“That girl over there,” he said gesturing to the other girl, “is Chelsea Sharpe, she came in about an hour after Susan and has been a bit of a help planning out what we should do from here, though she is a bit fazed at what happened. You came about three hours after Chelsea. We’ve been here a while but none of us has really discussed what we should do from here, you should join in.” He finished his introductions and called both of them to discuss a new plan of action.
We stood in the center, none of us looked like they were in a good condition. Jack started the planning.
“Okay, we are out in the middle of the desert with no idea where we are-“ I interrupted Jack.
“Probably Southwestern United States or Northern Mexico.” I stated.
“How the Hell do you figure that?” he questioned.
“Take a look around, cacti and tumbleweed and other flora all native to Southwest United states and Mexico.” I said flatly, gesturing to the various plants around our area.
“Tha-That makes sense, b-but w-why do you sound so calm, we’re lost!” Chelsea screamed, tears were streaming down her face.
‘Oh wow she’s not in good shape.’ I observed in my head.
“I had my panic attack and I jumped out a building because of it, I decided to stop panicking after my meeting with the ground.” I said dryly. I immediately regretted using this tone, she was scared and me being so cold with her probably wasn't helping much. Now that I know Chelsea I feel especially bad, she usually wears this happy mask on; she just couldn't keep such a facade in this situation.
“We should get back to planning.” Jack said, trying to keep us on track. “OK we are probably in the Southwestern United States with no idea how we got here, more people may be coming so we should probably try waiting a couple of days for more people or we get noticed by a town or something.”
“W-What should we do if no one finds us?” Asked Chelsea.
“Head out using one of our cars with as much supplies as we can carry.” Replied Jack. “We’ll need gas, and probably carry spare gasoline cans, but how are we going to get the gas out of the other cars?”
“We could s-siphon them from the other cars….” came a very quiet voice. It was Susan.
‘What?’ I thought, ‘She knows how to siphon gas?’
“How do you- you know what? Never mind, that’s good. We’ll be able to siphon enough gas to fill one of the cars and then some.” Said Jack.
“We should probably eat anything that may be in our refrigerators, you know, so it doesn't spoil…” Chelsea suggested, gaining a bit of composure.
“That’s a pretty good idea.” Said Jack. “Can you cook?”
“Yeah, we p-probably have a lot of ingredients in all our fridges to make a few things. I’ll need help.” Chelsea replied, she had stopped crying, but her eyes were still red and puffy.
“Susan, can you help Chelsea with some cooking?” Jack asked.
“Okay.” Susan said quietly. I thought it was interesting that Jack had taken a leadership role there. I didn't mind, it’s not really my sort of position and he seems to really want to help us. He’s probably much better qualified than me anyways.
The rest of the meeting was about us deciding to use my pickup because it had good miles per gallon as well as the room to carry our needed supplies. We then split up into the salvage crew (Jack and me) and the cooking crew. We gathered the imperishable foods in all our houses and started sticking it in the truck as well as bottles of water. Luckily, my parents bought four cases of water bottles, don't ask me why, just before they left me at home for the weekend and collectively we had about twelve large crates of water bottles and four gallon jars of water. Our imperishable could probably keep the four of us for about a week if we spread our resources thinly. This was rather convenient now that I think about it, but I may be finding something where nothing is there.
At the end of our salvage mission I remembered something in my house that could be useful. I told Jack that I was going to get something in my house and he followed me in. I started to search through my dad closet and found what I was looking for, his M1911 and his .22 rifle. “Do you really think we’ll need it?” Jack asked.
I don’t know if I regret bringing these… I may be able to use is as a bargaining chip if the princess decides to hold an audience with us again, to tell them of the technology behind it. We also would have died of starvation if we didn't but still….
“We might, the .22 has small enough ammo to carry a lot of, we can hunt small game with it if we really need to. The .45 can pack a punch in case we need to defend ourselves from coyotes or whatever might be in this desert.” I explained, showing him which was which.
I was only slightly talking out of my ass here, I honestly didn't really know if we needed it, the reasons I gave were just what I figured would be good justifications for bringing them.
“Sounds good to me, maybe the girls have some guns to we can use as well.” I know now that they didn’t but at the time I thought it may be useful.
We walked to the center. It had taken more time than I realized and the sun started to set. The girls had taken some wood out Susan and my garages to make a good sized fire and had a pot boiling something good. Next to it was a gas powered grill with the smell of various grilled meats filling the air.
“What did you guys manage to find?” asked Chelsea. “You guys were gone a while.”
“We got food and water that could probably last us a while out here, no other houses have appeared, I think Alan here is the last one.”
“You know, we never really introduced ourselves.” Chelsea noticed, “I think we should all sit around and get to know the people we probably going to be stuck with for the next two weeks or so.”
“We can do that during dinner,” suggested Jack.
“Exactly what I was thinking!” Chelsea exclaimed, “I haven’t been my usual self lately because of our situation but I really love to meet new people!”
We sat down at a plastic table that was already set up and started to eat. “I’ll start!” Chelsea said with glee. I noticed the sun was setting; soon all we would be illuminated by was firelight.
“My name’s Chelsea Sharpe, I’m seventeen and was sent here from Sa-“She went on and on about how she loved her school and her friends, I was paying more attention to my food. Her food was delicious! This entire trip could have been worth just eating her food, granted that we didn’t die. I picked up what she was talking about. “I looove dogs, they are soooooo cute, my parents took my dog, the cutest Corgi ever, to the vet this one time…” I didn’t think that stereotypes like this could be real, although thinking back as it now she might try hiding her feelings under this appearance but I really don't know. Her personality now was a stark contrast from what she was like when I first saw her. She apparently is a serious athlete as school, joining Tennis and Track teams. “I’m really good at Tennis! I nearly won a state competition, but I swear the other girl cheated by….” It explained her toned body I guess….
Her personality was rather bubbly, and man could she talk, she spent a good thirty minutes on herself before finally saying, “How ‘bout you Jack?”
‘Oh Thank God.’ I thought.
“I’m from Maryland, really close to D.C.” Said Jack, “My family used to be rather poor, so my father says, but my grandfather started a business and we made good money off it. Now we live in the suburbs living a pretty good life….” I rather like Jack; he had this charismatic charm to him. He wasn’t annoying to listen to nor did he indulge in his ego. “…and they said I wasn’t acting black enough! Can you believe that?” He was getting rather comfortable with the situation we were in now, or at least as comfortable one can get in our situation. More importantly he became more comfortable with us. “I’ve been wanting to follow in my father and grandfather’s footsteps and take up the family business for a while now, so they taught me how to handle finances and even how to make the wooden cuckoo clocks we sell…” I thought it was rather funny hearing how his family got rich creating German style cuckoo clocks. He just doesn’t look the type. He didn’t talk nearly as long as Chelsea and passed it to me.
“I’m Alan Hassett, from Texas. I have 2 sisters and never really had many issues in my life. “ I said. They all paused waiting for more. At that point I really didn't want to think about my life, I knew I would start to tear up if I pursued thoughts. Knowing that I may never go home again makes me miss it all the more. I don't need to breakdown again.
“That’s it?” Chelsea said, annoyed.
“I’m sorry about not being open with you, but I’m not ready to talk about my life.” I explained. I just felt like it wasn't necessary for me to speak any further.
“ Weren't you the one who told me to not panic because it caused you trouble.” Chelsea asked.
“I’m not panicking, I’m being introverted.” I said, smiling faintly.
Apparently she noticed, “Oh look Mr. Serious is smiling!” Exclaimed Chelsea, everyone cracked a much needed laugh.
‘Had I really passed myself off as a serious type?’ I questioned to myself. 'Maybe I should open up a little bit, I’m going to have to depend on them for a while…' In hindsight, I really do suppose I was being needlessly closed. What exactly did I expect them to do? I felt like everything could have been easier, and probably better, if I just opened up. The worst part is, I really didn't have a good reason for being this closed.
“So how ‘bout you Susan.” Jack inquired.
“Sorry… I’d rather not talk about it either…” As she said this she grimaced. The way she reacted told me she would probably tear up if she started to talk as well. Although later I figured out it was for an entirely different reason than me.
Apparently Chelsea also picked this up as well and said, “Don’t worry about it sweetie, you can tell us whenever you’re up to it.”
I looked up at the stars and saw the great starry sky, completely free of the pollution of light that you get from cities. I saw the sky in its full glory and laid my eyes on the half moon. There was something different about, but at the time didn’t realize. Perhaps this should have been my first clue that I was in Equestria, I should of known something was up, but I ignored it dismissing it as my imagination. I probably should have known that the image in the moon was part of the image that made up The Mare in the Moon.
-_-_-_-_-
Canterlot Castle
Day of Alan’s transportation.
There was only two weeks until the Summer Sun Celebration… and two weeks until one thousand years will have passed since her sister’s banishment. Celestia had meticulously planned everything, from the interest of her protégée, Twilight Sparkle, in The Mare in the Moon to finding out the most likely to represent The Elements of Harmony along with Twilight’s meeting with them under the guise of preparation for the Summer Sun Celebration. It pained Celestia to hide this from her student, but the coming trials must be performed by The Elements on their own or the trip to the castle in the Everfree would be meaningless. This is why she had no time for these distractions.
The distraction in question was a series of magical signals taking place all around Equestria and her neighboring kingdoms. Celestia was sensing most of the powerful signatures outside Equestria but a rather large one had cropped up in Equestria’s Mild West. It was far away from the nearest settlement, Appleloosa, but she needed to make sure her little ponies are safe. Normally something like this would demand immediate attention, but with only two weeks before the encounter with Nightmare Moon, Celestia needed to make sure everything falls into place.
She'd contact the Zebris Kingdom to schedule an emergency meeting with the major powers after the celebration.She then decided to send her captain, Shining Armor, to secure the town of Appleloosa until after the conflict. It would take a couple of days for him and his men to prepare and reach Appleloosa but her guard can holdoff whatever the magic may be until after she gets her sister back, right?
-_-_-_-_-
One day after Alan’s transportation.
Sleep was tough, the lack of air conditioning made the house stuffy for a good part of the night. Opening the windows helped some, but it still took awhile before I could get to bed. My mind just wouldn't go to sleep easily. When I woke up the next morning I groaned. I was still in the middle of some New Mexican desert or something. I looked out my bedroom window and was surprised to see another house in the dry expanse.
‘I guess I’m not the last house,’ I concluded.
‘Thank you Captain Obvious,’ said my brain.
‘No problem Lieutenant Sarcasm,' I retorted.
This one wasn't just a house either, it also had more land than usual transplanted. I couldn't believe my eyes but there were horses in a large partially fenced area. I quickly threw on some clothes and ran outside to get Jack. I knocked on Jack’s door. It took five minutes for him to get to the door and alerted him of the new displaced land.
“Why did you need me?” Jack asked.
“ You've been leading us ever since we got here, so I decided that I should report this to you.” I replied.
“O-Ok.” Maybe it was a bad thing for him to realize he has the responsibility here, his face certainly made it seem so. Fortunately he took up his role quite nicely later on.
“Let’s go.” He said regaining a bit of composure. We head out to the new house and he knocked on the door. Every house so far had a person, but I hoped no one would be inside, but hopes don’t always match up to reality so I got a face full of shotgun.
I froze and paled, with one word repeating itself in my mind, "Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!"
“Who. Are. You.” A distinctly feminine and southern voice said slowly over the double barrels.
“W-We mean n-no harm, just p-put down the gun.” Jack said, shaken.
“Ah’ll put this here gun down when you tell me what the hell is goin’ on.” The mystery girl said slowly.
“W-We are as lost as you are, we’re making a plan to get out of here.” Jack explained gaining a bit more confidence. “We are going to leave and you’re welcome to help and join us on our journey. We’ve found out that somehow we have all ended up in the deserts of either Mexico or Southwestern United States like Texas or Arizona.”
The girl put her gun down allowing me to see that she was a blond girl in a white tank top with a blue-plaid button-down over it. Her double-barrel shotgun now resting next to her jeans. “So y’all have no idea how ah got here? “ Jack nodded. Her expression was grimm. “…Do ya think we can get mah horses out of here as well?”
“Do you have like a horse trailer or something?” Jack asked a little more calmly now that there wasn’t a godamn shotgun pointing in our direction.
“Yes ah do… How did y’all plan to leave anyway?” She inquired.
“We were going to drive Alan’s,” he pointed in my direction, “pickup out of here. We are going to use gas from all our cars to fuel it. Luckily another one of us had lots of containers” He was referring to Susan, she had tons of containers that could hold fuel. That combined with her knowledge of fuel siphoning made me suspicious but it really didn’t matter, there was no real reason to not work together. “I think we should head over to Susan so she can start her siphoning” He said to me, I nodded. He turned to her and said, “Do you want to join us…” he trailed on because we realized none of us had introduced ourselves.
“Jocelyn.” She completed, “guess ah’m stuck with y’all fer a while. What’s yer names?” By God that accent was thick. I mean I have a slight one because I live in Texas but nothing like this.
As I saw how old she seemed I was and still am bothered by the fact that all of us were teenagers, no adults were in any of our houses. Did all of their parents leave as well? None of them seemed upset about their parents suddenly disappearing in their homes so I guess not. Why would anyone send a bunch of teenagers out into the middle of an Equestrian desert? Why am I here? This can’t be chance, the teleportation were too selective, there were no random patches of land or half houses. What’s goi- there I go off track again, there will be time to ponder this later. I must go through my entire time here and maybe I might be able to answer these questions. Where was I? Oh yes Jocelyn asked us our names....
“I’m Jack Carpenter, this is Alan Hasset. We are going to Susan… you know she never did tell us her last name and we have one other named Chelsea Sharpe.”
“So there are more than just you two?” She asked Jack.
“Yeah now come on, we need to get some fuel.” We arrived at Susan’s house, knocked, and she answered.
She looked at Jocelyn and asked, “W-who is she?”
“Ah’m Jocelyn, pleased tah meet ya?” She said with a surprising amount of openness. People adapt quickly, something that amazes me even now. I still wasn’t talking much, just sort of there to help, not to socialize.
“Susan we’re here to start filling up gas containers.” Jack said.
“Do we really need all of us to do this?” I asked not really wanting to spend time with what I assume was quite a tedious task.
“No I suppose we don’t, why don’t you and Jocelyn take what you can from her house.” Jack suggested.
“That sounds fine.” I said in return.
“What are we lookin’ for?” Jocelyn asked me as we walked out of Susan’s house.
“Food, water, anything we may need on our trip outwards.” I answered concisely.
“What do we have?”
“Jack and I calculated we probably had enough for a week and a half for four people, but you not only want to bring yourself, you want to bring your horses as well. So we’ll need to find food for them too.”
“My horses!” She exclaimed with a look of realization, “I didn’t think of it before but my horses could have escaped!” as she said this she ran off. I sighed and ran off after her.
As I reached her land I saw her running over to one of her horses. As I approach her she starts to hug it. “Sooooo, how many horses do we need to bring?” I asked.
“Five,” She answered, “Thank God none tried to run… they must be so scared.” She continued, stroking the horses head.
“Five? That’s awfully convenient.” I said, rather surprised. “There are only five of us, and to top that off we are all teenagers, every one of us. Our being here is seemingly less and less an act of random chance.”
“What could anyone possibly get from sendin’ us to the middle of the desert?”
“I don’t know, but we need to be careful.”
“I think yer right. Should I bring my guns?”
“What do you have?”
“That double barrel, sorry ‘bout earlier by the way.”
“It’s fine.”
“I got a nice rifle and two revolvers. Do any of y’all have any guns?”
“I got an M1911 and a .22 rifle”
“We’re plannin’ on leavin’ tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, at if no one else arrives here.”
“Y’uh think there might be others?”
“There could be more, we all arrived at different times.” As I said this she looked over to her horses. “We should probably try roundin’ all these guys up huh?” I agreed and she attempted to teach me how to lead the horses. I had ridden horses before, so I knew a bit about them but I still failed rather spectacularly.
“Why in God’s name did ya think that would work?” She asked incredulously. I couldn’t believe I thought it would work either. The action I performed there was one of the stupidest things I had ever done in my life and doesn’t merit any further thought.
“I honestly don’t know.” I admitted. “By the way how do you plan on feeding the horses?”
“The grass around here looks edible and if all else fails ah’ll bring a large bag of feed fer ‘em.”
“And drink?” I inquired.
“No idea, hopefully we’ll find water but we may have to bring lots of water. Ah have some cases of bottled water if we are needin’ to take it.”
'She thinks we’re going to find water in this desert? Ok…. I don't like the odds for those horses on an extended trip.' I thought.
“We should bring as much as we can, let’s search your house for what we need.” We were done at around mid-day judging by the sun. We loaded up the supplies and head over to our normal congregation spot. My pickup was looking rather full and I was afraid that we might not be able to easily take extra gas canisters but maybe we can store stuff in her horse trailer. I was wondering how all the weight would affect mileage, the trailer could end up to be rather detrimental if we run out of fuel.
Chelsea cooked again, we introduced the gang to Jocelyn. Everything seemed to be fine but as soon as Chelsea opened her mouth I could saw Jocelyn's face twitch ever so slightly. Oh boy. This was the first hint that those two wouldn't get along. I'm guessing Jocelyn isn't much of a fan of the whole valley girl thing.
Chelsea talked more about her life, I guess this is just her way of coping, replaying her good experiences, opposite of what I’m doing but everyone is different. I analyzed the situation we were in. I began thinking about the sum of our experiences. It stewed in my head for a good part of our little meal.
“Isn’t this whole situation odd?” They gave me blank stares and I realized, ‘No duh!’ I corrected myself by saying, “I mean beside the whole teleportation thing. All of us are American teenagers and I found out today that Jocelyn has five horses, the exact amount of people that are here.”
“Jossie has horsies!?” Chelsea exclaimed, excited by her new knowledge.
Jocelyn gave me a death glare and said to Chelsea, “Yeah, ah do.” Glad to see I contributed some unneeded tension.
“I. Love. Horses.”
'Oh God, what have I done.' I groaned in my head. A quick glance at Jocelyn showed me that she was staring right at me, right eye twitching. In my own defense, she was going to find out sooner or later.
“I once went to this ranch-“ You know after a day of listening to her, I got sick of her rambling. I mean I understand that she is just being friendly but I distinctly remember thinking, 'Oh my God, does this girl ever shut u-'
“Chelsea, we should probably listen to where Alan is going.” Jack interrupted.
'Thank you Jack.' I thought, 'Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.'
“There are too many things happening for this to be mere coincidence, and I don’t like it one bit. We should be careful, if they were able to transplant not only our houses but a lot of land as in Jocelyn’s case, who knows what else they are capable of” I explained. “This is why I think the sooner we leave the better.”
What I didn't say was the possibility of more people arriving. I’m hoping there isn't anyone else left, but I’m still not sure. I mean Jocelyn arrived sometime last night. I could have left people over there with only the supply they have in their houses. I also knew that the horses thing could be a complete coincidence, the connection between five horses and five people was tenuous at best. I was potentially risking people’s lives just so that we could escape, but I simply didn't want to stay here any longer. I was willing to use whatever I could, no matter how inconclusive, to get away from here. The sooner we get to civilization, the better.
“Ok, do you think we should leave tonight then, and where should we plan on going?”
“Tonight or this evening, I’ll take a nap for the rest of the day while you guys get everything ready so that I can drive for the night. My plan is to head towards the mountains out in the distance, hopefully we find some sign of civilization but even if we don’t we could find a river to follow for a while. Quick question for Jocelyn. Do you think your horses will be spooked by the rough terrain while they are in the trailer?"
“My horses have slept through a Texas hurricane. Ah think they can take a li'l bumpy driving.”
“Ok, good. Now I assume that some of you can drive right?”
“Yup.” Said Joceyln.
“So can I.” Jack said.
”I can too…” Susan said.
“Am I the only one who can’t drive? Awwwwww.” Chelsea said.
“Yeah ya are.” Jocelyn answered triumphantly.
“Ooooookay, so we’ll switch out each other whenever we can or something?” Jack asked, trying to defuse a fight before it happened.
“Yes, we’ll also try to stop to eat in places suitable for the horses if Jocelyn here helps us do so. The trip shouldn't take too long to get out of the desert maybe three days tops in the car, but I don’t know it could be longer.” I said. I didn't truly know how long it would take, but the more confidence the others have, the sooner we could leave.
“Sounds good, we’ll hitch up the trailer and load up anything we may have left. Go rest up for tonight, we’ll wake you up when tonight when we are ready.” Jack told me. I got to my room and decided to pack a few things in my backpack for the trip. I decided to bring my laptop so that when we reached a town I could use it to contact people and to charge my phone. I packed an extra change of clothes for later along with a notebook and a few pencils. The rest of the space I stuffed some ammo for the rifle and pistol from my dad’s closet. I packed my hand cranked lantern and a lighter for fires. I checked my phone, no signal, said it was around eight, I turned it off to conserve battery. After I was satisfied with what I had I jumped into bed and dozed off until night fell.
When the sun disappeared over the horizon they got me up and we double checked our supplies. We figured that with the added supplies from Jocelyn’s house we could keep us and the horses alive for four days. None of us thought it would take that long with a car. We decided that Jack should be in the passenger seat and the girls would be in the back. They all had also packed various bags full of items that they wished to have immediately upon reaching civilization. We also had items on us, nearly every one of us brought a knife, Jocelyn had a bowie knife, Jack had a Leatherman, I had a wooden Swiss army knife, Susan brought a switchblade (where on Earth…?), and Chelsea didn't have one (because stereotypes exist for a reason I guess).
We set off, the dirt was initially very bumpy but it was bearable, well for me it was, the first twenty minutes were rather silent, then:
“Ugh, this is horrible.” Jack groaned. He wasn't taking this dirt very well.
“Is it going to be like this the entire way?” Susan asked softly. “I want to sleep… but this is too bumpy.”
“I don’t know.” I replied. “How’s the rest of y’all holding out?”
“Y’all? I thought only Jossie says that! I’m fine thanks for asking! The road's bumpy but I can take it.” Chelsea said.
“I’m from Texas too, I have a slight accent.” I explained. “How about you Jocelyn?”
“She’s asleep on the window.” Susan said. “She fell asleep ten minutes ago.”
“Figures….” I said under my breath. “Well I don’t see anything signaling it will let up any time soon. Just try to lay down on a window and close your eyes, it’s helped me before.”
“I’m in the middle… where can I lie down?” Susan asked.
“Just set your head on my lap, I really don’t mind.” Replied Chelsea.
Soon I heard snoring in the back, I did a quick check and saw that not only did Susan fall asleep Chelsea did as well.
‘Well glad they can sleep easily now.’ I thought.
“You know, I’ve been looking at the moon for the last five minutes and I could swear it looks different than before.” Observed Jack.
“You noticed it too huh, I thought it was only me. I looked up yesterday and saw the unusual shapes, have any idea as to why that it?”
“No idea, but it definitely is different. I mean look at the shape of those dark splotches, it’s almost a perfect line going straight and getting thinner. It’s like a thin spike. I can only see half of the moon but I would bet my mother that if we could see the whole thing it would be different.” He said, the more he spoke the more somber his voice became.
“What do you think this means?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know….”
“I have an idea of what it might mean….”
“I know where you’re going with this and stop. I don’t want to even think of that possibility.” Jack said. Silence filled the car for the rest of my shift.
The ground was starting to get less bumpy than before, it still wasn't flat but it became bearable enough for Jack to sleep. I continued to drive forward; occasionally I would check the radio to see if it could pick up any stations. No luck. The sun started to rise, thankfully it was somewhere behind me so it wasn't blinding me. I was fairly tired at this point and asked Joceyln to take over. I climbed into the back seat and dosed off.
The next day and a half was rather dull. Since we were in a car all we could really do was talk and sit. Occasionally we would find a good place to stop and the horses would eat the feed Jocelyn had brought and eat the grasses they wanted. Luckily this desert seems to have a few springs around, the one we found didn’t hold too much water but it was enough for us to refill a bit and for the horses to drink. We found them because foliage also grew thicker around them. Without these the horse might of dehydrated or we would have run out of water much faster.
This travel time was making me wary. Even if we were averaging 40 mph, I felt like 2 days of straight driving would have led us to something, some sign of civilization.
One morning after while I was asleep, I awoke to a, “Goddammit!” spoken in a familiar southern accent.
“…What’s going on?” I asked drowsily.
“Open yer eyes and take a look.” I slowly opened my eyes and examined our surroundings. To the left of my car was a large cliff face that rose at the least forty feet. “Ah’ve been driving along here fer two hours and all ah’ve seen is this small opening here!”
She was gesturing to a small opening along the cliff face. It was big enough for us to hike through it, but too small for our car.
“Is this the only way you've seen through this?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, we could try looking fer another way, we got plenty o’ gas” Jocelyn replied.
“No, we don’t want to waste any more time.” Jack said, “Alan is right, something is off about where we are, the sooner out of here the better.”
'What?' I kind of wanted to see if there was a better way for the truck. My plan is backfiring slightly, making them worry too much perhaps? I didn't speak up though. I still don’t know why I didn't, probably wouldn't be in this mess if I could of convinced him not to do this.
“What do ya suppose we…do….” Jocelyn paused for a second and slowly asked the following question, “Y’all familiar with Horseback ridin’?”
We woke everyone else up and explained that we needed to ditch the car to start riding on the horses. None of us were too thrilled about this, except Joceyln and Chelsea of course. I’m not even going to go into Chelsea’s talk about her love of horses. I swear she has a hyperactivity that rivals Pinkie Pie. In response to her question, most of us had never ridden a horse. I say most because I mentioned to Jocelyn that I rode horses before, though not for very long.
“At least you have more experience than these city-slickers right?”
I didn't correct on the fact that I technically lived in a city. We start to load the horses with as much as we thought they could carry with us on them. Much of our supplies were left behind, I began questioning whether or not this was a good idea. I still wasn't going to say anything, I had confidence we must reaching somewhere soon. Jocelyn had left saddles in the trailer so we put them on. Jocelyn asked for everyone to carry a gun for themselves. Jocelyn kept her own rifle of course. She gave her shotgun to me. Susan asked for the M1911. I gave Chelsea the .22 rifle and Jack got the .500 revolver.
Once we were satisfied that we had all the supplies we could carry we head out with the horses into the tiny opening in the cliff. It wasn't really a cave because it was open all the way to the top but it still could give a man big feeling of claustrophobia. We were walking for a minute before we reached the other side. We emerged into an opening similar to this one, with a lone mountain towering the landscape. I looked around to see that we emerged from the other side of another cliff-face.
“I could almost swear that’s not natural.” I said gesturing to the large rock wall that stretched behind us. “But it all one piece,”
“This place is getting weirder and weirder.” Jack whispered to me.
“We’re heading to those mountains, right?” Asked Susan as she pointed.
“That’s the plan," He said before taking a glance back at the narrow crevice in the rock, "We better set off. We have to keep moving.”
We mounted our horses and set off into towards the mountain. It was ok for the first day, the heat was discomforting but none of us were used to riding horses for so long. After three days of riding, our supplies were running low and we were all sore for sitting in those saddles all day. All of us were tired and hungry. It was in this part of the journey that I learned something about myself.
I have zero real self-control and can be a burden to those I am around. I saw this because I snuck extra food when no one was looking. I gave myself justifications like most who do this sort of things do, 'They won't miss this one bar,' or 'we're probably really close to civilization anyway,' dominated my thoughts. The real truth is that I took advantage of those who placed some trust in me. Maybe this could have been avoided if I just had a modicum of fucking self-control.
Then as we took a break near some edible grasses. The better man said, “I’m sorry guys, we should have looked for another way through. We’re all gonna starve because of me….” Jack lowered his head. “ I've let this leader thing get to my head, I’m so sorry.” I let him blame himself.
“It’s ok Jack, you were worried, we are all in this together right?.” Chelsea said, attempting to comfort Jack. She wasn’t doing well, it really was his fault, but none of us really could hold this against him. We were all scared and wanted to get home as soon as possible, we depended on each other. I should know, I took advantage of that.
“I-I'm not going to die here.” Susan said to no one. If she knew....
“We’re n-not quite dead yet, did any of you happen to bring binoculars?” I asked nervously trying to find some way to help. You know, instead of being a leech on everyone.
“No, but ah haves some scopes fer the guns ah brought, here take em.” Jocelyn offered. Take, hah! That's all I seem to do.
I need to stop it. Wallowing in self-loathing isn't going to get me out of this cage or find any hint of why we are here in the first place. Once we are free I can hate myself all I want.
'You still need to recognize your own guilt.'
I'm not denying it though! I'm just... avoiding it til later. So I can focus on more relevant things.
'There will always something more relevant.'
I will deal with it later. Where was I? Oh yes, Jocelyn offered her scope.
She gave me the scope for her rifle and I scanned the area. I did a quick 360 around our area to see if anything immediate apparent. I then scanned slowly around. I found a great mass of moving, dark shapes to the left of the mountain.
“Hey, Jocelyn? What does this looked like to you.” As I said this everyone looked my direction.
“Do you see something out there?” Susan asked hopefully.
Jocelyn took the scope and I pointed it in the direction I was looking.
“Hot damn! Those look like animals! Ah think we may be in luck!” Jocelyn exclaimed. Susan yelped in excitement and hugged me. I didn't react, she was in pretty bad shape, we all were. She realized what she did and awkwardly disengaged from her embrace.
‘“Why is that?” Jack asked, “I mean it could solve our food problem but we still need water….”
“A herd of animals that aren't really moving usually means we’ll find water, and the springs we found during our car ride give me hope.” I replied with excitement. “We need to head over immediately!”
Jack agreed with me saying “I agree, Jocelyn help us set the scopes on those guns, we’re going hunting!”
We head over to the direction that I saw the animals, it took a long time but we eventually started to see the herd. We stopped just short and decided we need to walk so we don’t startle the herd.
The area around was had lots of plants to set up around. Chelsea and Susan decided to stay with the horses and the rest of us headed out to see the animals closer. We approached and quickly identified the animals as the American Buffalo. We were prone fairly close out from a side of the herd and behind a particularly thick growth of brush. I'm surprised we were able to sneak this close to the herd in the first place, they seemed to be preoccupied with whatever they were doing at the time.
“What are Buffalo doing in the desert?” I asked, “They are grasslands animals. I also didn’t think there were this many left in the wild, look at the size of this herd.”
“It is strikin’ me as odd, but nothing has been makin’ much sense lately. These guys here are protected, but ah don’t think the government would mind us huntin’ em to survive. I'm not sure how we're gettin' so close neither.” Jocelyn replied.
“So, I’m not much of a hunter so what’s the plan?” Jack asked.
"Ah'll worry about aiming fer a kill zone, you two just focus on on landing a shot. It shouldn't be to difficult as I reckon. We’re close enough in that we don’t need to adjust too much fer distance.” Jocelyn said. “The sound should drive off the herd and we’ll get Susan and Chelsea after and set up here for the night.”
“Ok, which one should we aim for?” Jack asked.
“See that one o’er there?” Jocelyn pointed out our target so we could see it. “We’ll take ‘im out, after that shoot out a few more shots to scare ‘em into running. Alan, we’re pretty far out, just aim fer the middle as best you can and load two more in, just in case of trouble.”
Jocelyn had explained to our group how to handle guns and tips during our trip just for a situation like this during our long horse rides. This was a test of what we learned. We sighted in our target, the closest buffalo we could see.
“On the count of three.” Joceyln commanded quietly.
“One.” I inhaled. My life depended on this shot. We needed to eat. I aimed as well as I could with a shotgun. I knew where I was going to aim for.
“Two.” I started to exhale, my heart was starting to pump. Time crawled ahead as I cleared my mind for the shot. I recalled everyone who has ever given me advice on how to fire accurately, ignoring the emotional stabbing I just gave myself from reminding myself that I am away from my family.
My eye caught a glance of the chief of the buffalo tribe. His headdress indicating that this was Equestria, that these buffalo were intelligent and could possibly help us. I quickly yelled "Stop!" to my friends. I saved the buffalo from- no I just told myself to recognize my own guilt, I can’t hide from this fact. I need to face the truth in the eye.
Jocelyn whispered the last number, “Three.” I pulled the trigger with resolve and three simultaneous blasts thundered through the wastes.
