Today was a long awaited day. Today, I couldn’t wait for my shift to end at the shop. I was the desk man at a mechanic shop. I generally dealt with listening to people’s car troubles, tracking the finances, janitorial matters, and the occasional flat tire. But that doesn’t really matter.
A couple of months back I had ordered something. You see, I am a massive brony, even though one might not guess just by looking at me. It had taken me a good couple months excess savings, but I had finally gotten enough money to commission a plushie maker from overseas, and today was the day that it was planned to arrive.
I watched the time tick by. It slowly crawled along as I counted down the last hour until the shop closed and I could swing by the post office to claim my prize. Nobody had car troubles on a Monday. The odd oil change here, thermostat wrong there. Finally, five o'clock rolled by and most of the mechanics who were working today said goodbye as I started to pack up everything I had to keep track of.
The post office was just the same as it was pretty much every day. Perfectly empty, except for the odd person who was checking up on their P.O. box, just like I was. I fumbled through my keyrings (I had a small collection of keychains) and found the brass key labeled USPS: DO NOT DUPLICATE. It was smaller than my other keys, and within moments I had opened the small box. Inside were a few advertisements, some bills, a new magazine, and a key to one of the bigger boxes.
My heart rate jumped up. It was here. That’s the only reason I would have a key to one of the larger boxes, reserved for packages that wouldn’t fit in the averages P.O. box. I pocketed what mail I could fit in my plaid coat, locked by box back up and made the small journey to the larger parcel boxes. I inserted the key, and with a little bit of confusion as to which way to turn the thing, finally opened the box and retrieved the box, which was rather light.
One final, short, car ride later, I was home. I retrieved a knife and sat down on my couch, parcel in my lap. I took a deep breath, and slipped the knife into the flaps, cutting the tape binding the top to the sides. Now the risky part. I had to cut the tape on the top of the box without damaging the goods inside. So, with one good, long, and carefully shallow cut along the space between the flaps, the tape was cut. I opened the box, dreading the worst, that I had inadvertently cut a large gash down her side.
Lifting the flaps, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that Twilight Sparkle was perfectly fine, and that if I had cut anything in the box, it was the packing foam that ensured she was safe during her journey. I quickly lifted her out, admiring the work. It was very well made. I fished around in the box, thinking there might be some sort of invoice, and eventually found what felt like a sticky note. I grabbed hold of it and lifted it out of the sea of green, to find two pills taped to it.
“What on Earth?” I whispered to myself. Underneath the pills I noticed that there was a message scribbled on the note, so I carefully peeled the pills off, setting them aside. The note read:
There are three rules to PON-E:
Never name yourself
Never take alone
Never take more than one in a twenty four hour period.
These pills take effect in five minutes or less, and I’m sure you’ll find the effects quite enjoyable.
The effects will last for twelve hours at a time.
I’ve sent you two in case the friend you decide to take this with decides they want a ride as well.
At the bottom was signed the plushie makers name. What had they just sent me? What was PON-E? Something told me I wouldn’t find it from a Google search, nor would I want to. I got up, taking the note, pills, and plushie with me upstairs to my room, where I placed Twilight on the shelf with all my other “nerdy items,” which mainly consisted of my army of Funko Pop figures. I then walked back downstairs, placing the note and pills side-by-side on my small dining table as I set some water out to boil for some pasta. As I waited, I sat down at the table, staring at the two items. What had they sent me? Was it poison? Some sort of drug? Should I even bother taking it, just to see what would happen?
I’m not sure how long I sat there in my internal debate, but I was roused from my thoughts by a vicious bubbling coming from the pot across the kitchen. The water had boiled, and was threatening to run over. I jumped up and turned down the cooktop, referring to the box for how long I should cook, how long I could focus on what I was going to do.
Within the next twenty minutes or so, I sat down at the table, opposite where I had sat, staring at the pills in front of me. They were a distraction, that much was clear. The note was very cryptic, as if they knew that I wouldn’t be able to rest easy until I knew what it did.
After yet a few more minutes of thought, I decided that I would take it in the morning, unless I had a change of mind, in which case they would be going straight into the garbage. I figured that whatever this was, it would probably be better enjoyed at a time other than late at night. I didn’t know what effect it would have on my poor brain, but if that thing lasted twelve hours like the note said, I’d rather use my day off tomorrow rather than exhausting myself halfway into it. I finished off my dinner, cleaned up my dishes to be washed tomorrow, and finished off my day zoning out in front of the television, like so many other people.
Little did I know, I wouldn’t be doing the dishes tomorrow, nor would I be doing anything I had planned tomorrow. Tomorrow I would take the pill that would change my life.
The next morning was simply average. I woke up at ten, got up, and went downstairs, where the pills and note sat right where I left them the night before. Figuring that it’d probably be best to take them on a full stomach, I set to work with that morning's breakfast, which consisted of waffles and bacon. About a half hour later, I put my plate in the sink, which by now was overfilled, and sat down across from the pills and note, half a glass of milk off to my left side. They were still attached to the tape. With shaking hand, I reached out and plucked one from off the piece of tape, checking the note to see if it said anything else about taking this. Other than not taking more than one per twenty four hours, there wasn’t anything that would help.
The other two rules lingered in my mind, and had been all night and during breakfast. Never Take Alone. What was that supposed to mean? Was I just supposed to tell a friend that I was going to take what was most likely an illegal drug I had received in the mail, and I wanted them there? Equally as ambiguous was never name yourself. I tried not to dwell on whatever that could mean.
“Fortune favors the bold.” I muttered to myself. It was one of my favorite phrases. I said it regularly, and it was one of the reasons I had been employed at a mechanic shop with no resume. It inspired me to take initiative. I placed the pill on my tongue, and immediately was met with the overwhelming taste of spaghetti sauce. It quickly began to dissolve into powder in my mouth, prompting me to chug down the entire glass of milk in one breath. I flopped back into the chair.
“Five minutes until I find out what I just took.” I still wasn’t sure I hadn’t just take some sort of poison, so I flopped down on the couch, as close to the phone on the small table as possible. I turned on my TV and went to Netflix. The fifth season on My Little Pony had just been put on there, and I was in the mood to see how much I could marathon.
I pressed play on the series premiere, and forced myself to be sit relaxed. I actually managed to forget about the pill, at least, until about halfway into the exposition when a jolt of numbness ran through me, causing me to practically leap out of my seat from shock. I leapt over to the phone, ready to mash 911 just as fast as I could, just to find my fingers growing steadily stiffer as took to wanting to touch one another.
The phone dropped to the ground almost as soon as I had picked it up, and looking at my hands, I observed the effects of the drug that I found most strange:
1: My fingers were merging together
2: My fingernails were slowly encroaching on my hand, furthering the connection
3: light red hair was slowly growing and spreading across my arms.
Panic could have summed up my feelings towards this. Horror would also have fit. The hair continued up my arms, growing thicker until my skin was no longer visible. My hands meanwhile, had become useless, fingerless nubs covered with what was now my one fingernail, which had thickened and hardened. The hair, meanwhile, had spread down to my feet, and began the same process that my arms had fallen victim to. I quickly wrenched off my shoes and socks, ensuring they would be undamaged. I began to lean forward involuntarily until I could no longer stand, and fell onto my face as my legs began to shift and shorten, my arms changing to match. I stood up in my new quadruped stance, and an idea suddenly hit me: I needed to find a mirror, and fast.
I ran up the stairs as quickly as I could, amazed at how I knew the ins and outs of whatever was happening to me, only vaguely aware of my spine tugging outwards and my ears shifting position. I ran into my bathroom, where I clambered on top of my toilet (of which I was very glad I had the habit of putting the lid down), and then on top of my counter, where I negotiated a way that I could see myself and still be clear of the sink. It was at this moment, when I noticed a block of red obscuring the bottom of my vision, that I realized what had just happened to me. Staring back at me in the mirror was a red earth pony stallion with a dark blue, almost black mane.
“No way.” I muttered to myself, shocked at the fact that my voice had changed as well. I looked down, admiring the changes, when I settled on my cutie mark: a single D20 with the twenty side facing up. I leapt off the counter and made my way into my room. There was something I had to try. I reached up onto my bookshelf by propping myself against it, and clutched a small cloth bag in my teeth. It was tricky, but after a few minutes I had all fourteen of my dice on the carpeted floor. I took the D20 in a curled up hoof and dropped it in a vaguely rolling fashion.
20.
I rolled it again.
20.
And again, just for good measure.
20.
Somehow, I had just rolled three twenties.
Natural Twenty. The words cropped out of nowhere, nibbling at the back of my mind once it had made itself known. My mind went into a giddy haze as I proceeded to make up imaginary scenarios, rolling every single one of my dice with glee, staring down at the ludicrously high numbers they presented. This went on for what felt like hours, but I was knocked out of it when the doorbell rang.
The giddy haze still in my mind, clouding proper sense and judgement, I sprinted downstairs like a five year old on Hearth’s Warming… Christmas morning, almost slamming into the door with my momentum.
“Who is it?!” I cried in a sing-song voice.
“It’s me, Jacob. I thought you had invited me over about now Brian.” Crap. The one event I had forgotten about. I had invited Jacob, a friend from work and fellow brony, over to play some video games and maybe a bit of DnD. Honestly, if it weren’t for the psychoactive effects of the drug I was currently on, I would have cancelled right away, but instead I replied with,
“Nope, no Brian’s here. Just Natural Twenty, but you can come in anyway!” I propped myself against the door, and with a bit of fiddling, managed to turn the knob and open the door. I looked up at Jacob, beaming so wide one might have thought my face was mostly teeth. Jacob was not amused.
“What have you gotten yourself into Brian?”