Winter Flowers

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Expedition
Chapter 2 - Survival
Chapter 3 - Fever
Chapter 4 - The Goddess
Chapter 5 - Celestia

Chapter 1 - Expedition

There was nothing left to do but run. Run from the evil chasing you. You felt like there was this entity watching you as you run, never dropping behind, but never catching up. Your lungs burnt and your limbs threatened to fail you with every step.
You heard nothing but the throbbing of blood through your head, the sound of your steps and your breathing.

There were other sounds around you, but they were all drowned out by the sinking feeling of fear flowing through you. How long until it caught you? How long until whatever it was chasing you decided to stop playing it's game and just take you for itself? Did it enjoy this? Watching you run as hope disappeared from your eyes?

It was sadistic.

Unrelenting.

Sooner or later, you had to rest or collapse.

You couldn't do this forever.

No one could.

Your throat was dry, even from before you started running. Now, it was like you had gulped down a kilogram of salt and sand. You blindly ran forward before out of nowhere, a tree branch caught you under your chin, causing you to flip backwards and smash into the undergrowth heavily, ejecting all of the oxygen from your already empty lungs.

Your eyes felt heavy as you saw an ominous figure appear over you.

Before you could scream, you felt your head swim and all of a sudden, your world went black.

__________

One week ago.

Four weeks of planning was finally going to pay off today. You had worked hard, earning both the respect of your boss and quite a bit of money from all of the extra shifts you had been taking. Tonight would make it all worth it. Tonight, you were going camping! You had always wanted to go camping again, ever since you were a kid. When your Dad was alive, he had taken you out to all of his favourite camping spots, mainly Flower Valley. It was a beautiful spot, filled with abundant flora and fauna, incredible views, and miles and miles of untouched wilderness.

There was this one spot that you had always wanted to find. When your Dad had taken you out the first time to Flower Valley, he talked of this amazing spot on the top of a hill surrounded by stones. They were placed in a circular formation and it was clear that some indigenous tribe had carved what was possibly local folklore or tales of achievement into the stone.

Unfortunately, you never got the chance to go there with your dad, as he was taken from you by terminal lung cancer not long after that first visit.

Today, you were going out there again to find that spot and experience how amazing it was for yourself. It wasn't only something you had always wanted to do, but it felt a lost like a tribute to the memory of your father. He was an amazing person who deserved better than to have his life cut so short.

Accompanying you on your expedition was two of your closest friends. Paulo, your coworker and best friend since primary school, and Rick, who you had met on your first day of highschool and formed an inseparable bond with. Paulo and you had been friends for longer, but Rick had a much more meaningful presence in your life, providing more than just friendship during your troubling times.

You packed up, clocked out and then made your way to your car after the days work was done. The brisk, early winter breeze blew strongly, causing you to pull your collar up. You were definitely glad to have fixed your car’s air con last week, or you'd be sitting inside a fucking icebox.

Shivering, you turned the car on and sighed happily as the air was quickly warmed by the newly fixed air con. Just before you drove away, you typed in the location of the first camp site into your GPS. It was a few hours east of the city, but the drive would be worth it.

__________

The drive was uneventful, and eventually, you arrived at the camp site. Waiting for you there was Paulo, who was sitting inside of his own air conditioned car, waiting for you and Rick to arrive. He stepped out of his van, covered thickly in his parka and mitt’s.

“Well dressed as usual.” You quipped and smirked at Paulo who shook his head.

“I didn't dress to look cool, man, I dressed to stay warm. Shame it's not fucking working.”

“I'm afraid it's only gonna get colder from here on out.”

“Remind me why the fuck we're doing this again?”

You raised your hands in mock offense.

“Hey dude, you were the one who asked to come along if I remember right.”

“Yeah, you remember right. Remind me why the fuck I asked to come along again?”

“I dunno, man. I said this trip wasn't going to be easy. All I did was tell you what I was doing, you were the one who asked to come.” You laughed as Paulo’s teeth began to chatter from the cold.

It wasn't long before a crappy little 90’s hatchback turned up, sputtering as it came to a halt. That shit heap could only belong to one person. Rick.

Rick was a nerd type, completely engrossed with geek culture and frequented conventions. A real fuckin’ stereotypical shut in nerd. How he agreed to leave his cave and come along was a mystery to you. But he was a true friend, and sure enough, he was here now, ready to go on a two week expedition.

You had with you a satellite phone, a GPS and two weeks of food and water, although you did plan on doing a little trapping while out here. Not just for the experience, but also to help your food and water reserves go a little longer. You had each packed one tent each, made to fit one of you per tent.

A few flecks of snow fell as Rick got out of his car in a similar outfit to you and Paulo. He was shivering, but substantially less than Paulo. He was from further up north originally, so he was much more used to the cold.

“So, you ready to do this, Rick?” You asked.

“I hope so. You know where we’re going, right?”

“Of course I do! I’ve got the hill itself marked out on the map, and even though I don’t know the exact pinpoint location, I do know it’s on the peak of the hill. Easy.”

“As long as you’re sure.” Paulo said, warming himself by rubbing his arms.

“Well, let’s head off. I wanna get going before this cold front reaches it’s peak.” You said before your group retrieved your pack’s from your cars and began moving off into the forest.

__________

As the name suggested, Flower Valley was a valley, filled with thick trees, a river in the very center, and very little clearings. The snow had fallen heavy overnight and you sat huddled together behind a tree.

A deer stepped into view and you pulled out your camera, eager to get a shot of it before it smelt or heard your group. There was a snapping of a twig next to you and the deer's ears perked up before it bolted off.

“Shit, sorry man.” Paulo apologized.

“Ah, it’s fine.” You said, but you were still a bit pissed off.

The three of you stood up and began to make your way toward camp. Night was only a few hours away and you wanted to gather firewood and start it up before the night fell completely.

Rick went off to gather wood while you and Paulo started to assemble what you did have to a small makeshift fire pit. You pulled out your flint striker and began to strike, eventually causing the sparks to catch and a small fire begin.

“Hey, there we go. Good job, Mitch.”

“Thanks.” You blew at the kindling, trying to get it to spread to the other pieces of wood. “It’s good to know how to do this stuff. Never know what will happen.”

“Yeah, it’s honestly kinda fun, you know? Living off the land, “scrounging for survival”, you know? I mean, we’re not actually scrounging to survive, but it feels… I dunno, very back-to-nature stuff.”

“I get what you mean.” You smiled as the fire caught to a couple of twigs. “Me and Dad used to do this stuff a lot. You know, before he… You know.”

“Yeah man, that’s why we’re here, right? Paying homage to him or something.”

“Yeah.” You blew more at the twigs.

Shortly after, Rick walked into camp with a few thick branches and sticks, a little wet from the fresh snow, but not too wet to serve well as firewood. You thanked Rick before you started to pile a few of the thicker branches into the pit in the perfect position so that they caught alright not long after placement.

You smiled and sat back in satisfaction as the fire roared to life. You and your friends sat down in front of the fire to warm yourselves.

“So, how much longer now?” Rick asked.

“We should be there by…” You brought up “Oh sweet, tomorrow at around midday, if we make good time.”

“Good. I’m starting to get a little sick of the weather.” Paulo shivered out.

“Don’t worry too much, man. Just relax a bit and warm up for now, we’ll be out of the cold sooner than you think.”

He shook his head, but warmed his hands by the fire. You pulled out a can of soup and warmed it up with the fire. It was bland soup, but it warmed your insides and filled your bellies, so it was more than enough.

__________

“So this is it, huh?”

“Yeah, man.” You put your hand on your hips. “This is it.”

You got to the top of the hill after a huge hike and found a large clearing with around thirty stones in a perfectly circular formation. It was strangely eerie, seeing these undisturbed relics, left alone by not just humans, but by plants as well. There was like this… Invisible line, surrounding the spot where plant life tapered off to dead ends and twisted branches.

Honestly, it creeped the fuck out of you, but it also had this strange tranquility. It was a safe area, free from the dangers of anything outside. Invisible wards protected this place. Maybe it was just coincidence, or hey, maybe the ground was salted intentionally to stop plants from growing at the site.

Whatever your theories were, they didn’t matter right now. What mattered is that you did it! You got here, to the “Sacred grove” that your dad had talked about so often, and now, it was time to experience for yourself what made this place so wondrous. The carvings.

You walked over to a rock and brushed the snow from its side, revealing an amazingly intricate carving on the side. Was this really done by natives many years ago? It was surprisingly detailed for the regular cave drawings you had seen in pictures, and the story that it told was quite obvious to you.

It showed a group of people, huddled in what looked like a cave. Outside, bears and wolves gnashed their teeth angrily, and deers ran from them. There was a fire at the mouth of the cave, presumably both for warmth and to drive off predators. It must have been a very dangerous area, for them to be so scared of these animals.

You walked over to another stone and brushed it off, revealing another carving. This one showed a man on his hands and knees, almost… Praying, as a huge bear with deep holes for eyes towered over him. Next to the man, was a group of people fleeing, scared for their own lives from what this bear might do to them.

Another stone, another carving. The group was all on their hands and knees, just as the previous man had been, but now, they weren’t praying for mercy from the bear. It looks like they had gathered to pray for help from whatever god they believed in. From the symbolism, it looked like they worshiped the sun, it’s curved rays shining down on the people.

On the next rock, the humans ran alongside these small… Horse-like things. They were chasing away the animals, who were now the ones running in fear. They weren’t exactly horses, though. Wrong head shape, wrong proportions, wrong everything. These humans were very good at stone carving according to all the previous carvings, why would they get this much wrong?

Wait… No. No way. This couldn’t be real. No way.

Running alongside one of the humans, was… A unicorn. Or at least, it was one of these strange horse lookalikes with a god damn horn on it’s head. Oh, what the fuck. After a little more inspection, you could now see one of the horses with god damn wings.

“What the heck is going on in these carvings?” Rick asked from behind you.

“I dunno, man. Looks like it depicts some humans running away from animals, getting killed by them, etc, then they pray to… The sun, I guess, and then they suddenly get all these weird horse things with wings and horns. Now, they’re the ones doing the chasing.”

“Wings and horns? Fucking unicorns?”

“I don’t believe it for a second.” Paulo crossed his arms after looking at the carving you were currently in front of. “Cool carvings and all, but it sounds like they were tripping hard.”

“I’m not so sure…” You get up and move to a rather large stone, facing in the direction of the late midday sun. Was this one of the praying sites of this ancient society? It kind of made no sense though, why would this society have left no traces of its existence? Why had scientists not found bones, relics, other carvings, literally anything in the surrounding area referencing this?

Cleaning the large stone, you found that it was relatively bare for it’s size compared to the others. There was nothing on it except for a large flattened area with the sun expertly carved in the center. The very same symbol that it showed the group praying to.

There was something else about the symbol that caught your eye. In the center, there was a faint indent of… A hand print. What the hell? You raised your hand up to touch it, but felt a strange heat emanating off of it as your hand got closer. You pulled away before reaching into your pack and grabbing out a camera and snapping a few pictures of the symbol.

“This is pretty amazing, Mitch. Thanks for bringing me along.” Rick said, looking around at all of the amazing carvings.

“No problem, man.” You smiled.

“Gotta admit, despite the crap weather, this trip has been pretty cool.” Paulo added before approaching the stone you were taking photo’s of.

“Hey dude, take a picture of me next to the rock? I wanna send it back home to prove to my parents that I’m not a complete shut in.”

You nodded and he posed next to the rock, reaching around behind it and giving it bunny ears with his fingers. You snapped the photo and looked down at your camera to browse the photos you had taken of the stones.

“What’s this thing?” You looked up to see Paulo placing his hand directly in the center of the sun marking.

There was a blinding flash, and a bolt of… Something struck down from the sky, smashing directly into the ground where Paulo was standing. He was thrown back with immense force, landing him heavily into the ground in the center of the stone circle.

“PAULO!” You shouted and began to run toward him. As you did, another blinding strike hit, now engulfing Rick and sending him flying as well. You were filled with panic and confusion, your mind racing on both what the hell to do, and what the hell was going on.

You ran toward Paulo, but before you could get close, your vision was suddenly filled with a brilliant gold flash, and your mind began to float. It felt strange, almost like what you imagine an out of body experience would be like, yet… Still inside your body. Time seemed to slow as you looked around, the brilliant gold covering everything. Where were you? Were you still in the valley?

Were you… Dead!?

No. This didn’t feel like death. It felt like life. Like pure life was flowing through you. Instead of feeling like this was the end of your life, you felt almost as if this was a new burst of life. What the fuck was going on?

You looked down at your body, only to see nothing. You could still feel like your body was there, it was just… Strange. Almost like your entire body was numb, but you could still sense its existence.

You could hear something strange coming from somewhere out in the white-gold expanse of nothingness. You struggled to hear what it was, but instead, the more you paid attention to it, the sleepier you got.

It was a voice. It was whispering things to you, but you could hardly make them out. Whatever they were, they started to relax you. Your eyes drooped, but even as they drooped, you could still see the gold light, as if it permeated your entire existence.

Eventually, your eyes closed completely and you fell into a deep sleep like state, but you were still awake. Sought of. You were aware of time passing at the rate it should have, but it was one hundred times faster. You felt and thought every minute, every second, but you experienced this in what felt like a fraction of the time.

You felt a strange tugging sensation at your head and all of a sudden, you blacked out.

__________

You awoke, groggy and lethargic, your otherworldly experience still fresh in your mind, but blurred and messy from your recent return to consciousness. What the fuck was that? What had happened to Paulo and Rick? Did they go through the same thing as you?

Your rubbed your eyes with balled fists, but your hands still felt kinda numb. Not the rest of you, though, just your hands. And your feet. Your vision was blurred as you looked at the surrounding forest. The first thing you noted is that everything was tinted orange. Initially, your thoughts went back to the weird gold scape you were in before, but soon enough, you realized it was a much more normal explanation. The sun was setting. Twilight.

How long had you been out? Scanning the general vicinity, you saw nothing out of the ordinary, besides a few patches of snowless ground, one at the center and one near the rim. In the exact location where Paulo and Rick had landed after they had been flung through the air.

Looking downward, you saw that the ground around you was snowless as well. It was dry and honestly, rather soft. You saw that there was dead grass, acting as a sought of pillow for you. You also noticed something else when looking downward.

Hooves.

What the fuck. Hooves. You stumbled backwards, only to see the hooves move back with you. Slowly, you raised your arm to your face, confirming your fears. The hoof belonged to you.

This wasn’t happening. This isn’t real. You died and now you’re in heaven. Hell. Purgatory. Jehovah's witness hell. Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Whatever. But you felt alive. You breathed in, the fresh, cold evening air filling your lungs and helping to wake you up.

As calmly as possible, you looked downward again and inspected your body. Besides the hooves where your hands should be, your feet had also been replaced with hooves. Your legs were shaped strangely and it almost felt as if you had one super long foot. Oh yeah, did you mention that you were pink? Yeah. You were bright pink.

A minty green lock of hair fell in front of your face and you looked upward. Oh god, the weird hair and skin colour was the least of your worries. Protruding from your head, was a stick of some type. Were you flung through the air and injured? Why wasn’t it painful then?

You lifted up a hoof and gave it a nudge. Yep, definitely kinda sensitive, but not painful at all. But what was it if not an injury? It seemed to be thicker at the base and taper in a spiral motion toward the top, kind of like a narwhal’s horn-

Oh. Oh shit, it all made sense now. The carvings, the praying to the weird sun god, the horse things… They were turned into them. You had a horn. You looked like a horse. You were a fucking unicorn. A fictional, or at least, previously fictional, race of horses with god damn horns on your head that had the ability to grant wishes to virgins. Although you doubted that you could grant wishes or detect virginity, there was definitely a certain magical air to this. You know, besides the whole being-magically-turned-into-a-unicorn thing. That was pretty magical.

You tried to pull yourself to your feet, but your fears were realized when you lost balance and fell forward onto all fours. No more human walking for now, not at least while you were still like this fucking shetland pony thing.

Speaking of shetland ponies, you felt almost half the size of one too! While standing before, your head had almost reached the top of the large sun-stone which started this whole mess, but now, you only reached about a quarter of the way up if you included the extra height from your horn.

This explained the weird proportions from the carvings, although not exactly. They were smaller than normal ponies, but the ones in the carvings were a bit bigger than you, maybe reaching the hips of the humans at most. You probably reached their fucking knees.

You looked over your shoulder at you backside. It was strange to see a pony body where previously there had been a manly, chiseled, handsome torso, with rippling muscles. Alright, maybe you were giving yourself a bit too much credit. Maybe a lot. Regardless, your new body was much smaller, much pudgier, and decidedly more… Feminine? Was that was this was? Your waist was thinner, your hips were wider, your fur was pink…

Fuck off.

No.

No no no.

You were not a fucking female unicorn. This was the gayest fucking shit ever. You quickly banished the thought from your mind and tried to think of something else. The only thing you really could think of was “What the fuck do I do next?”. You looked over to your packs and lo and behold, yours was the only one there. Did Paulo and Rick leave without you? Were they in the same situation as you? You could only hope that they were together. What made them leave without you?

A snapping of a twig. Your ears swiveled toward the source of the sound and your head followed afterwards. A huge, hulking shadow moves through the treeline beyond the stone circle.

“Wh-who’s there?” You called out, your high pitched, feminine voice confirming your fears. Now was not the time to grieve your lost gender. Now was the time for your heart to race and you to panic at the looming presence approaching you from the treeline.

All of a sudden, the shadow leapt forward, traveling ten meters through the air and slamming with immense force into the earth in front of you. You were frozen in fear, only able to look upward slowly, taking in the body of the terrifying creature in front of you. It was enormous, furry, and had huge paws that ended with razor-like claws that almost glinted in the setting sun. As your eyes reached it’s face, your stomach sank even further.

It’s eyes were pits. Not like pitch black, or figuratively pit like, they were pits. Holes, that seemed to go forever and then fade to darkness. This thing… This bear. It was the one from the carving. Now, the literal holes in the stone for the bears eyes made sense. It wasn’t a normal animal that group of humans were running from. This was not a normal animal. This was… A demon. Worse than a demon. It was death incarnate.

You turned and ran.

Author's Note

Let me know your thoughts on this! My first time writing anything with the slightest of horror elements, so let me know how it turned out :twilightsmile:

Chapter 2 - Survival

You turned and ran.

And then, you tripped.

These fucking hooves…

You stumbled to your feet and ran as fast as possible, still not used to having different appendages than normal. Anyone looking at you would probably be laughing if it weren’t for the visage of horror following behind you.

You ran as fast as you could, leaves and branches whipping past your face. Behind you, you could hear the smashing of trees and a low, terrifying roar that sent chills up your spine. Doubling your efforts, you quickly got a hang of what hoof to place forward first, and it seemed to pay off. The sounds of smashing grew quieter and quieter, further and further away, until it became echos from the distance.

You slowed down, only just realizing now how exhausted you were. You panted, facing the floor, icy sweat, almost frozen by how cold it was, dripping to the floor. What the fuck was that thing!? Where did it come from?

That’s when you noticed the deer. Torn to shreds, not for food, not for hunting. This deer was slaughtered. Bile rose in your throat as you glanced up and down a nearby tree, splattered with entrails and blood. Skin of the deer was hanging off of the snapped branches as if something had picked it up by the legs and smashed it into the tree repeatedly.

Slowly stepping forward and examining the corpse… Oh god. It’s hind legs were broken. It really was swung against the tree, like a living baseball bat. That could have been you, if this thing had caught you.

Oh no. Paulo and Rick! What if this is what had happened to them? No… No way. There wasn’t any blood or anything. But what if it had happened somewhere else? Tears ran down your face as you thought of the possibility, that two of your closest friends were now dead. You shook your head and wiped the tears away. You needed to focus, think of what to do next.

You needed help. You needed to contact someone. Just grab the satellite phone and… Oh no. It was back on the hill.

You were not going back there, not until you knew the bear wasn’t there. It was too dangerous. So what? Now, you needed food. Your belly rumbled and your mouth was dry. Food and water. A strong wind blew from behind, penetrating your thin layer of fur and chilling your skin. Food, water and shelter.

What had happened to your clothes anyway? They weren’t there when you woke up, but you were wearing them when you were struck by that light. Burnt off? You didn’t smell any burning when you woke up, but it was a possibility. You shook your head. Why were you worrying about such trivial things?

Go find water. You need water. There was a river in the center of the valley right? It’d only been snowing heavily for a day now, the river had to be not frozen and flowing. Flowing water. Safe to drink. You vaguely got your bearings by looking around and noting landmarks around with the position of the setting sun. So, if you were right, and hopefully you were, the river was west of here. You had no idea how far away it was, but it spanned the length of the whole valley, so you were bound to run into it.

You set off, your hooves becoming sore from your initial burst of running. It wasn’t just tiredness, but you really should stretch out before running. Not that you were given time to really limber up, what with the eldritch bear chasing after you.

Thankfully, it wasn’t too long until you heard the rush of flowing water. If this quick influx of cold was anything to go by, it wouldn’t stay unfrozen for long, but for now you just needed to rehydrate.

You reached the stream and immediately ran to it, trying your hardest to scoop up water with your hooves and drink it. For obvious reasons, this didn’t work. You were going to have to stick your head in and drink. Slowly, you lowered your head to the rushing water. Opening your mouth, you faced it against the flow of water and lowered your mouth in, letting icy water flow down your throat. You had to pull up quickly, as the water was painfully cold, but after letting yourself warm up a little bit, you did it again and repeated until you were sated and hydrated.

You sit back, happy to finally have water inside of you. Hopefully, if necessary, you could return here and drink again. You didn’t want to /have/ to come back, but worse comes to worse and you couldn’t find your camping gear to boil some snow and make it potable, you’d probably have to. Either that, or eat the freshest snow you can find and pray that you don’t get horribly sick from it.

Food now. But what to eat? You were a horse/pony thing now, so what could you eat? You looked around at the tree’s. None of them were fruit bearing, not that this would be the season for any of that anyway. You looked to the bushes around, covered by a small amount of snow. There was leaves on those bushes, and you were now an equine. An equine with a stomach able to handle leaves, possibly. That’s a last resort. You’re not gonna eat grass or leaves until you are well and truly out of other options.

There’s gotta be something around here. The bushes around were bare of any berries they may hold, and no telling which ones were poisonous or not either. You didn’t want to chow down on any unknown berries.

You wracked your mind for something, anything you might remember from trips with your dad about survival in the wilderness. You’d never really gone camping in winter before, this was a huge fucking mistake. The only reason you’d gone on this fucking expedition at this time of year was because your boss had made you take it in the down season. Two weeks.

Oh fuck, two weeks. It’d only been four days. That means it was going to take thirteen days for them to send out anyone to look for you, and they weren’t looking for a fucking pony, either. They were looking for people.

“FUCK!” You screamed outward, your high pitch voice startling you and a few animals nearby.

Animals! You knew how to construct a basic snare out of reeds at sticks, so this would have to do. Plenty of Rabbits around here, maybe you could catch one overnight? Your stomach growled as you thought of the delicious rabbit meat.

Unfortunately though, that would have to wait until tomorrow at the soonest. Who knows how lucky you would be with catching the rabbit anyway? Regardless, you pulled some reeds and sticks together to create a makeshift snare. It was really hard without hands, but you figured out an effective, if disgusting, way to use your mouth and tongue for the finer movements. You really missed your hands right now.

You placed the snare in the undergrowth somewhere, but by the time you got back to the riverside, it was way too dark to look for anything else to eat right now, so a few leaves and some grass would have to do. It filled you up a little, but there’s hardly any nutritional value to this stuff. It was tough and tasteless, but your teeth seemed to be geared toward eating greens, so it wasn’t anywhere near as hard as it could have been.

Shelter. Let’s see if you could still do this…

You found a small sapling of a tree with plenty of pine needles for cover. You stripped more reeds back with your teeth and tied them together, forming a makeshift rope. It sucked hard, but it only had to last one night, then you’d just do it again the next. And the next.

Hopefully, you would find your pack and you wouldn’t have to do it again. Hopefully, Paulo and Rick came bounding in out of nowhere and you’d magically become human again. At this point, you had no idea which one was more likely.

You bent the pine sapling down towards the closest tree until it formed a makeshift covering. You tied the sapling to the tree with your shitty rope, and after a few failed tries and having the sapling whip back at your face, you managed to tie it down. On the side of the sapling, you laid broken branches thick with needles to help against wind chill and protect from falling snow.

After about thirty minutes, the job was done and the sky was dark. Off in the distance, you heard a very quiet roar of a bear. That thing… The Eldritch Bear. It was angry. At you? At what? If it really was the thing that killed the deer you found before… There was nothing but anger left in it.

The Deer… Fuck! You were so scared that you didn't even think to take note of where the deer was for food! Yeah, it was pretty messed up from how the bear killed it, but hey, food was food. You weren’t gonna die out here for being prudish about what food you ate. Didn’t matter now, you had been just running blindly for fuck knows how long. If you came across another one of the bears… Victims, then maybe you could take some then. Regardless, you had no knife, no bag, nothing to cut it up with or to hold the meat in.

Maybe you could make a bag with the reeds? No, that’d take too long. Your best bet would be to tear chunks off the deer and tie them around your neck or torso with the rope. Crude, but it’d work. You could cook some, and dry out the rest. You vaguely knew how to cry meat, so that’d be helpful for keeping it longer than usual. Plus, it was freezing out here. The cold could only help it keep, right?

For now though, the exhaustion finally set in and you let your eyes close. You were curled up under your makeshift shelter, protected somewhat from the wind and snow. That was a welcome luxury, of all the little comforts you had, and it didn’t take long before you were dead asleep.

__________

What was this place? The gold expanse? What caused you to see it?

Before you was the place from your… You guess you could call it a dream? When the light struck you. The life giving place that felt more like a state of existence than an actual physical place.

You could hear them again. The voices. They were slightly clearer now, but what it said was still unintelligible. You swear you heard your friends names being said, as long as a few nonsense words, like “Feather” and “Heart”.

It had no real meaning to you, and it sounded like they were just saying a few words after another with no real rhyme or reason.

Whatever it said, the voice still had the effect it had on you the last time you heard it, and to be honest, the relaxing effect was welcome. You’d been way too stressed over the past few days and you needed some time to relax.

__________

Unfortunately, that time was now up. You woke up shivering, the shelter only able to provide the little heat for you that it had. To your delight, the morning sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky, helping to thaw what was frozen of the river and to warm your body up with it’s rays. Praise the fucking sun.

You ate as much of the nearby leaves as you could fit, before going to the stream and drinking deeply. You cursed after seeing the empty snare but left it there. You intended on coming back here anyway, it was only a little bit of a detour on your way back to the cars (You think. Serves you right for relying on that GPS too heavily). Feeling satisfied for the first time in a while, you smiled and closed your eyes, breathing the crisp morning air and listening to birds chirping nearby. If it weren’t for the fact that you were completely naked right now, you’d be pretty happy right now. Thank god there wasn’t any other people around right now, or you’d be blushing like a wee babe.

Except, you were actually a babe. You shuddered at the thought of your missing genitals, only to remind yourself of a need to urinate. Shit.

Well, you didn’t need to do that yet, but to be sure, it was coming.

Where to do your business? The stream? It is flowing water, not like you’ll be accidentally drinking your piss later on. Plus, it means it’d wash your scent away, if the bear could actually smell you. Doesn’t seem likely that it could, or it’d probably have found you last night. This bear seemed a lot more primitive and ferocious in nature. You doubt it’d be winning any duels of wits any time soon.

You went over your plan for today in your head. First, take some reeds and tie them into more ropes. Tie them around your neck for later. No telling when you’d need an emergency shelter.

Second, make your way back to the hill and find your bag. It had food, water, bedding, even the GPS! You’d be saved for sure! You can only hope that Paulo and Rick had the satellite phone and could find their own way out of here, ‘cause the chances of you running into them out here were slim to none.

If they weren’t already dead, that was.

Third? What was third? You to guess start making your way back to the cars. Maybe Paulo and Rick would be there? Probably not. They probably went back for help if they did get to the cars. You could only hope that they did actually make it there.

So you set off on your path back to the hill with reeds in tow.

__________

You finally neared the peak of the hill for the second time in two days. Thank you jeebus! Thank you Budha! Thank you mysterious sun god that the ancient dudes prayed to! Actually, fuck you. You made me this. Unfortunately, you hadn’t found the deer carcass on your way back here, or you would have stopped to harvest it a little.

It didn’t matter now, though, as you had reached the peak and found your bag! Torn to shreds.

“Fuck.” You mutter.

“Fuck, fuck fuck.”

The bags of jerky and preserved meat you had in the bag were completely gone, but luckily, this wasn’t the work of the bear. Whatever had torn apart your bag had not done it with malice, but just for the food inside. Probably a fox or a wolf, maybe a wolverine, though you had no idea if they were even in these parts.

You searched through, finding that the water bottles, granola bars, and clothing were still in tact. Unfortunately, it seems the animal tore through your tent on it’s way in, rendering it completely useless now. Luckily, besides the hole in the front pocket, the bag was mostly in a good condition, meaning you could still carry it about and not have to worry about stuff falling out.

Wait, where was the GPS. WHERE WAS THE FUCKING GPS!

You scurried around, searching frantically. Your heart raced as you searched through all of the pockets in the bag. Not there. Your eyes shot around, searching the area around the bag, still nothing.

Then you saw it. Peaking out from under a bush, the GPS lay. Thanking whatever god was looking down on you, you ran toward it, picking it up with your hooves and pressing a few buttons on it. The screen lit up.

Cracks. The screen was completely smashed. What little of the screen still working was bleeding pixels everywhere.

“FUCK!” You ditched the useless device off the edge of the hill, hearing it smash to little bits on a nearby tree trunk. Fuck your life. Fuck your shitty luck and fuck your shitty life. Of course this had to happen to you. You worked hard all your life, went on a single camping trip to pay respects to your dead dad, and life repaid you by saying “Well now, you’re as good as dead too.”

Now, with nothing but a vague direction to head in, thanks to your reliance on that GPS, you were lost.

At least you had warm clothing right? You pulled the spare parka over your head and slipped your hooves through the sleeves. It was huge, way bigger than needed and got in your way a little, but it covered your entire body like a coat, which was a lot better than freezing to death. You’d need it on the colder nights. You didn’t need the pants, but who knows when you could use the fabric for something? A tougher makeshift rope, extra carrying bags, you name it. Pants could be used for a lot more than just clothes, especially when in dire circumstances.

You pulled out a granola bar and shoveled it down, glad to finally have a little bit of real food in your stomach. It was probably psychosomatic, but you almost immediately felt energized after eating the bar.

Humming happily, you made your way back to the camp.

__________

Oh thank god! Real food! A rabbit! You caught a rabbit! It was already dead, thanks to the snare, so you untied it and brought it to your makeshift camp site. You spent some time gathering sticks and branches for a fire and used your flint striker to light it up again. You still had a little bit of trouble getting it to light with these clumsy hooves, but it eventually lit and you gave yourself a mini cheer as the flames took.

It wasn’t long before the fire was blazing and you had done your best to remove the skin from the rabbit. It was a scary, confronting and messy job, holding the rabbit still with your back hooves, while gripping your knife between your front hooves and slicing it off. There was quite a bit of meat wasted like this, but there wasn’t a lot you could do with the amount of experience you had doing this stuff, which was to say none at all.

You stabbed the messily skinned rabbit onto a stick and held it above the fire, turning slowly. It smelled a little strange, but you’d never actually smelled a cooking rabbit after all. Maybe they just smelled like this. After a while, the outside of the rabbit looked nice and cooked, so you took your knife and cut into the rabbit. It was a little pink still, and you had no idea if it was safe to eat raw rabbit, so you put it back over the fire until it was cooked all the way through.

You hungrily bit into the rabbit and chewed. It was tough and thick, but with enough chewing you finally got a bite down. It tasted dry, oily and bitter, almost unlike meat entirely. You had heard from your mum that rabbit meat was disgusting, so you payed it no mind and reluctantly chewed down the rest of it.

Now, with your belly full, and a short trip to the stream later for fresh water and to refill your bottles, you were ready to get back on your way to the first campsite, and hopefully, salvation.

Hopefully.

Chapter 3 - Fever

You had decided to walk along to side of the river for now. It made the walk a little bit longer, but the constant source of reeds and water was worth the detour. Your hooves ached from both the cold and your long walk as they sunk into the snow. You didn’t have the resources or time to create any snowshoe style things, so you’d have to deal with it.

The wind picked up and snow blew strongly against your face, frosting up one side of your body. You considered using the pants as some sort of scarf, but it would take too long to unpack your bag and retrieve it, so you decided to do it next time you stopped. Instead, you slowed down and pulled the coat closer to your body for a short while, helping to warm yourself for a few seconds before heading off again.

Above you, clouds began to gather and the sky slowly turned gray, the wind picking up in speed as it did. You were battered with gusts of wind, almost knocking over your small body. Fuck this body. Fuck this place.

You continued on for a bit, hoping that the wind would lay up, but as time went on, it only got more and more intense. Suddenly, a gust hit you, so strong that you tripped up and fell to the ground. No way, you couldn’t keep going. This was a fucking blizzard.

Pulling yourself up, you looked ahead only to find that the treeline was gone. Not exactly gone, but the blizzard was so thick that you couldn’t even see five meters in front of you. You had to get out of this storm.

Frantically, you pulled yourself as close as you could in the direction of the treeline, or at least where you thought it was. Eventually, you saw a few trees and rushed toward them. You searched for a sapling to make a shelter with, but when you found one, it was being buffeted so hard that it was being kept bent by the wind. No way was that going to be good enough.

What the fuck were you going to do? You tried to hide behind a tree, but even with your decreased size, it wasn’t enough to protect you. You wracked your mind for options, anything to protect yourself from the cold, but you were so distracted by the intense cold that your mind was messy and confused.

Wait, that’s it! A snow cave! You could dig yourself a hole in the snow and use that for shelter. You had seen some survival documentary where a guy was caught in a blizzard and used one to escape from it. Sure, it was snow, so it wouldn’t exactly be warm, but right now, all you needed was protection from this wind.

You searched through your pack in a panic. Anything that you could use as a makeshift shovel would be fine. There! The cooking pot was vaguely scoop shape, so it would have to do for now. You shoveled as fast as you could in a downward diagonal direction, trying to find a spot where the snow was solid enough. After a few feet, you began to dig forward, hollowing out a very small hole to protect you from the wind.

Your muscles were freezing up by the time you had finished it and you crawled out of the hole you had made for yourself. Definitely one of the perks of being this small was fitting into this small of a hole, you weren’t sure if you were going to have the energy to dig any more before you’d freeze to death. You pulled yourself into your sleeping bag before crawling back into the temporary shelter. It was still uncomfortably cold, but you were out of the wind. Noisily, the storm raged on outside, but in your little hole, you were safe. You pulled yourself in as deep as possible and covered yourself with as much of the your clothing and your sleeping bag as you could. Finally, the fatigue, staved off by adrenaline, set in and you quickly fell asleep.

__________

The expanse of gold light was before you again, but for some reason, there was a strange patch of grass in the center. A feeling of warmth filled you and you slowly approached the lush green grass, your hooves making no noise as you walked. That was new too, you could see your hooves. Previously, in all of these dreams you had, you could sense your body, but not see it or feel anything with it. Now, you were tangible and solid.

You reached the grass and felt it’s freshness beneath your hooves. You tentatively stepped around a bit, testing the grass to see if there was anything up with it. It didn’t seem to be some sought of nightmare grass, so you happily sat down on it.

As you did, you heard the voice again, this time still muffled, but clearer than before. You heard your names again, Mitch, Paulo, Rick, along with the nonsense words. A few you couldn’t make out, something that ended in a “dee” sound, but the rest was muffled and warped. You could hear the other words that were said before too. “Stripes”, “Feather”, and a few new words. “Flitter.” and “Seed”, or at least it sounded like that. Could have maybe been glitter or something else. What the hell were these words supposed to mean? They seemed to be random in order every time the voice said it.

Again, just as before, the voice sent a wave of calm through your body and you began to relax again. Didn’t matter why it relaxed you, to be honest, all you knew is that it did, and you took advantage of this time of relaxation as must as possible.

The sky turned black. You were still sitting on the patch of grass, but the golden light had gone out. As had the voice. You were no longer filled with calm, but a sense of dread. What’s going on? This hadn’t happened any of the previous night's, why now?

You were ripped from your dream and you gasped awake, breathing heavily. It was pitch black inside your cave and you could hear nothing but the sound of your staggered nervous breathing. The storm had stopped during the night, but the entrance of your hole had been mostly covered up besides a tiny gap.

Almost immediately, you noticed that you were shivering, yet sweating profusely. Your body felt both freezing cold and boiling hot at the same time. With your teeth chattering, you tried to pull yourself up only for an intense cramping pain to shoot through your stomach, causing you to gasp and fall back down.

There was a large thud and a snort. Something was out there.

You could feel the vibrations through the snow as the thing outside walked around. You held your breath and tried to cease your muscle spasms as a few grains of snow fell down from the roof of the hole. You could hear snorting as sniffing as the thing stomped forward. The vibrations and sounds were getting more and more intense as the thing came closer.

Your heart raced and you clenched your stomach muscles again as pain shot through it, your heart so loud in your head that you were scared it would give away your position. Then you saw it. Through the tiny gap in the cave and illuminated by the moonlight, you saw the Bear.

Your whole body froze with fear, scared to breath, scared to move, scared to do anything. It growled and stopped a few meters away from your hole. It rose back onto two legs and sniffed at the air. Luckily, it didn’t seem to have that great a sense of smell, or it would have been able to literally smell the fear and sweat emanating from you.

The bear growled and another chill went all the way through your body. It fell forward and slammed into the ground, sending a shock through the snow. You suppressed a yelp as your hole caved in and fell around you. You held your breath, surrounded mostly by snow as you heard the footfalls of the bear around you getting quieter.

It was walking away. Your heart began to beat faster now, but with hope instead of fear as the steps of the bear became quieter and quieter. You waited until you couldn’t hear it and then even longer before finally taking a full breath of air. Relief swept over you as you thanked whatever god was out there for sparing you from the bear.

You reached forward and began to dig your way out, frantically pulling at chunks of snow until you had freed yourself from the caved in hole. Immediately, you doubled over and began retching, remnants of your dinner last night in your spew. It made you feel a little better, but you head still felt like it was on fire and you were ready to throw up again at any second.

You had slid out of your sleeping bag while attempting to crawl out of your hole, so you turned around and tugged at it, slowly pulling it out of the snow. All of a sudden, you fell backward and heard a huge ripping sound coming from the bag. Cursing at yourself, you examined the bag and found that a large hole, about the width of your body, was ripped into the side along the seam. It wasn't too much of a problem, seeing as you were so small now, but it still pissed you off. More bullshit to deal with.

You thought about your condition for a bit. Was this a fever? Was it gastro or something like that? What did you do in the last few days that could have you acting like this? You had only eaten three different things, a granola bar, perfectly safe, some leaves, safe as long as it wasn't poison oak, and the rabbit. Was the rabbit ill? You caught it fresh so it couldn't be off.

Oh crap. You were a horse now. Horses are fucking herbivores, aren't they? You weren't really sure, but It definitely seemed like your body was rejecting the food, at least. You ate a rabbit, something that your body probably isn't even geared to absorb.

You had food poisoning. You fucking idiot.

You swore at yourself again and began packing up your bag again. It was an especially difficult task now that you felt nauseous and dizzy the whole time while doing it, and as much as you couldn't go far in this condition, you needed to move before the bear came back.

You began to walk again, this time a lot slower and more cautious. You didn't want to make your food poisoning worse and as soon as you felt safe, you were going to stop and rest for the day. You needed to give your body time to recover, food poisoning and fever can kill, especially without antibiotics or medicine of any kind.

You walked along the river again, now frozen from the overnight blizzard. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. You tripped on a branch while walking and got a face full of snow and pine needles. Spitting it out, you tried to pull yourself up again, knees wobbling from the effort before you slammed back into the freezing snow.

This would have to do, you had to rest. After a small breather, you managed to pull yourself back to your hooves and pulled yourself behind a tree. You covered yourself as much as possible with your coat, shirt, pants, sleeping bag, as much as you could find to keep you insulated and warm. You sat, pressed up against the tree, holding back your nausea while trying to get some rest

As hard as it was while you were feeling sick, eventually, you began to feel consciousness slip away from you and you fell into a restless, dreamless sleep.

__________

You woke up many times during the night, your head spinning and messy, full of not-quite nightmares that filled your mind when awake. Your whole body felt like it was rolling around, contracting and releasing with every pulse of pain.

You could feel the cold, but it felt strange. It seemed to dot weird parts of your body and only increased how confusing and jumbled your thoughts were. Your eyes were heavy, almost as they were falling out of your head. You bent over and threw up on the snow before attempting to correct your position, only to fall over to your other side.

Slipping in and out of sleep, you imagined ponies. Things like you, all living together in happiness and warmth. They went about their daily lives, eating apples, reading books, spending time with friends, and just being happy. What you wouldn't do for the slightest bit of warmth right now.

Your lips were dry and cracked from all of the moisture lost by sweat and vomit. You tried to reach into your bag for a water bottle, but stumbled and fell again.

You resigned yourself to rest and welcomed the sun, now high in the sky. It warmed you a little, but not much.

You passed out again, unsure of what to do but sleep the worst of it off. Luckily it wasn't too much of a problem to fall asleep again so soon, as your sickness left you feeling plenty exhausted.

You felt so weird, almost as if you were moving while lying down. You tried to close your eyes and rest, but you had such a strange sense of motion sickness that you had no real luck. The trees seemed to be passing you by as you lay down, wondering if this would ever end. After a while, the spinning of your head and the motion sickness feeling ceased a bit and you were able to sleep again.

__________

Your eyes fluttered open, now substantially lighter feeling than before. You felt a strangely alien but comforting warmth now enveloping your body. Your fever seemed to have lowered quite a bit, but you were still starving and your lips were still parched.

When you pulled yourself up to get water, you noticed two things. First was that the sun was now setting, and the second is that you were sitting in front of a blazing fire.

What.

You tried to pick yourself up, but a bit of your fever induced dizziness remained, and you fell to the forest floor.

“Woah, take it easy.” A voice said from next to you, causing you to jump.

“Sorry, I, uh, didn't mean to startle you... Uh...” You stared, shocked at the orange stallion sitting next to you.

“Miss..? Sorry, I don't know your name.”

Wait, That voice…

“Uhh…” You started.

“Hey, sorry to ask, but you didn't have to see two other guys around here? One’s kinda skinny, black haired dude. Others kinda average, tall, brown wavy hair?”

Holy fuck. The short one was Paulo and the average one was you! It couldn't be…

Could it?

“R-Rick?” you squeaked out.

He gasped and looked at you.

“Wh-what? How do you know my name?”

You began to cry, relief washing over you. He was alive!

“Woah, miss, what’s wrong?”

“I-I can’t believe it, Rick.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Fucking hell, it’s me, Rick. It’s Mitch.”

He blanked for a second, staring at you before looking you up and down.

“No.” He shook his head. “You’re not Mitch.”

“I am!” You said in a panic. “R-remember back in high school, how we met.”

He looked at you cautiously with an unsure frown on his face.

“I was looking for my first class and I dropped my books. Y-you helped me pick them up and it turned out we were both lost and looking for the same class, so we went to the front office together and found where it was. Please, you have to believe me.”

The frown disappeared from his face and a look of shock and surprise replaced it.

“M-Mitch?”

You nodded up and down, tears streaking your cheeks. Rick rushed forward and threw his arms around you, pulling you into a hug. You were a bit taken aback by how large he was compared to you, but you accepted and returned the hug none the less.

His body was warm and soft, filling you with comfort and safety, a feeling that you hadn’t felt beyond your dreams for three days. You let your tears flow freely, staining his coat. You heard him start to sob as well, his whole body shaking. You could tell he was holding it back, but it didn’t matter. You had found Rick.

Or, more like, he had found you.

Eventually, Rick released you from the hug and looked at you again.

“I don’t get what the fuck is going on, but… I’m really happy that I found you.”

“M-me too, Rick. Thank you.”

“No problem.” He smiled before moving back and sitting next to the fire.

“So…” Rick said, fidgeting with his hooves. “You look a little bit… Well… Uh, what I mean is-”

“I know, Rick. I’m a girl. Or, mare, whatever.”

Rick nodded and stared at the flames.

“You’re also… Kinda small.”

You looked at him and gave a proper comparison of size. You were definitely around half his height when on all fours, but his body was also much more bulky and manly. It wasn’t a surprise, seeing as you weren’t exactly a man any more.

“Yeah, I noticed that you’re a lot…” You cleared your throat. “Larger than I am.”

“And I got this weird butt tattoo as well. You don’t have one.”

“You do?” I looked at his rump and noticed that on it was a mark. A seed with a sprout sticking out of the top.

“What the fuck?”

Rick suppressed a chuckle while staring at you.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Oh, uh… You just sound so cute when you swear. It’s like a little kid.”

You threw a punch at his arm only for it to bounce off ineffectually.

He laughed again.

“Ha! You punch like a little kid too!”

You scowled at him and looked away, your face blushing bright red. You heard a low growl coming from your stomach and looked up at Rick.

“Can you grab me my bag? I need some water and food. Been kinda delirious with a fever and food poisoning for the past day.”

Rick nodded before retrieving a bottle and a granola bar for you.

“Do you mind if I have one too? Haven’t really had anything except for leaves and cat-tail stems for the last few days.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

He sat back down next to you and handed you the bottle of water and your bar before digging into his own. It wasn’t long before it was gone and your hunger was sated for now.

“Oh god, thank you.” Rick sat backward. “You never really realize how much you take food for granted until you go without.”

“Yeah, man.” You smiled at him. “You know, I’m really glad that you found me.”

“Me too, you looked like you were fuckin’ dying. Your face was covered in sweat, you were muttering and shaking, fuck. It was… Honestly, pretty fuckin’ scary, Mitch.”

You nodded and smiled at him.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I’m just so relieved that you’re alive, man. Even if you have turned into a… Mare.”

Your mind returned to a few days ago at the top of the hill. You remembered Paulo putting his hand on that obelisk before being struck by the white light. Rick was next, and you could only assume that you followed.

“That day… On top of the hill. What did you see?” You asked after a sip of water.

“I… I don’t really know. I saw Paulo get hit by that light, then everything went white. I had assumed that… I was dead, but I wasn’t. I just… Kinda saw nothing. Nothing but that bright golden place.”

So he had seen the same thing as you.

“When I woke up, Paulo was gone, and this huge… Thing was there.”

Your body froze up. Rick had seen the bear.

“I was so freaked out by being… You know, like this,” He gestured to his body. “that I didn’t even think about helping you. I’m so sorry, man. I just… I thought I was going to die. I grabbed my pack and ran. I-I’m so sorry.”

You put a hoof on his shoulder and smiled understandingly at him.

“It’s okay, dude. I… I saw it too. The bear, with it’s freaky eyes… It’s the same bear that’s on the stone carvings.”

“So what, this some sort of eternal demon that lives for ever?”

“I have no idea, but whatever it is, it’s not a real bear. Bears don’t… Real bears don’t kill for fun. I found a deer before, on the first day that was… Fuck man, it had been swung against a tree. Like a fucking bat.”

“Shit… Fuck this. Fuck all this shitty fucking crap. What the fuck do we do?”

“My plan was to get back to the cars and go find help, maybe get a search and rescue thing going. How people are going to react to a miniature unicorn asking them to help find her friends is beyond me, but that was the plan.”

“Fuck… Better than my plan. I was just trying to look for you guys on my own.”

“It’s the best idea I have. Unfortunately, the GPS is fucked and I was relying on it completely for navigation before the whole deal with the stone circle. I knew the vague direction of the road, so I was just gonna travel until I found the road, then walk along it until I either reach the cars or find a person to hitchhike from. Not that there’s going to be any people driving along this road at this time of year.”

Wait a second… Rick had the satellite phone!

“Rick! The satellite phone!”

He grimaced at that and hung his head.

“I… I lost it. Along with the rest of my pack, besides my jacket and a few other things.”

“Wh-what!? How?”

“On that first day, when the bear was chasing me, I was cornered against the side of a ledge. I didn’t have the time to put it on, so I was carrying it in my mouth when the bear swiped at me.” He rolled up his sleeve to show a deep gash that he had wrapped in cloth.

“Rick, oh my god! A-are you okay?”

“As okay as I can be without medicine or proper bandages.” He said grimly, rolling down his sleeve. “I dropped the bag when I got hit and it fell off the ledge. I had no choice to run, and when I had lost the bear, I returned to try and grab the gear. The bag had been torn by something on the way down and the satellite phone was smashed on a rock. The most of my gear had fallen into a stream and was completely fucked, besides my jacket and a bottle of water. I’ve been pretty much wandering blindly since then…”

You punched him in the arm.

“God damn it, Rick. You’re my best friend, but you can be a goddamn idiot sometimes. Wandering blindly?”

“Hey, I might be a “nerd”, but I don’t really have any survival knowledge. Being good at games doesn’t make me good at surviving in the wilderness. When I ran from that bear, I got all lost and turned around, I had no idea what direction I was heading! It was pure luck that I found you when I did.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I really do owe you for helping me back there.”

“No problem.”

You sat in silence with Rick for a while, just watching the embers of the fire sizzle and the flames lap at the logs. After a short while, Rick left and gathered a few more branches before coming back and throwing them in the fire.

“So…” He sat next to you and pursed his lips. “Ponies, huh?”

“Yeah. Pretty fucked up.”

“At least you got that horn thing, I’m just a regular horse.”

“The horn is completely useless, Rick. I’m not gonna be goring anyone with it anytime soon either, so I don’t think it’s that much of a good thing. Plus, the last thing you could say about yourself is “Regular”. Nothing regular about magically transforming into bright coloured ponies.”

“I guess so. Hey, do you think you’ll get time off work for this?”

“What, like, sick leave? I dunno. I have no idea what the fuck I’m gonna do if I get back. What, just live my life as a tiny pink mare? What will my mum say?”

“I have no idea. Probably turn you into her pet or something.” He chuckled.

“You reckon there’s any way to turn back?” You asked.

“I don’t know. I tried putting my hoof on that stone again before the bear showed up, but it didn’t do a thing.”

“Fuck. Maybe it’ll just wear off?”

Rick laughed at that.

“I doubt it, turning into a pony isn’t really a disease that you can wait to be cured.”

The sun had completely set now and you were still feeling exhausted from your fever despite the fact that you had been sleeping for a large majority of the past few days. You yawned, finally comfortable and warm despite your fever still being present.

“Time to sleep.” You said mid yawn and stretched your forelegs.

“Hey, uh… Just saying this ‘cause I don’t have one, but… Do you mind if I sleep in your sleeping bag with you?” Rick asked, fidgeting with his hooves and looking away slightly.

You thought about it for a second, and even though it might be awkward, it was a necessity. You nodded and Rick smiled thankfully at you. Awkward it might be, but you didn’t really want Rick to freeze to death in the middle of the night. You slipped into the bag and positioned yourself before Rick followed afterwards. You thought the whole experience might be strange, but instead, you found yourself comfortable enough to press your back up against Rick’s, both of you enjoying the warmth that you gave each other. Your eyes drooped and after a short while, while watching the fire die out, the both of you fell asleep.

Chapter 4 - The Goddess

Your eyes pulled themselves open and again, the golden landscape covered your vision. You looked around the expanse and noticed a few changes since last time you were here. The area of grass seemed to be a little larger than before and now, there was a cutesy park bench at the edge of the patch. You cautiously walked towards it, still afraid that there might be something up with it, even though the grass itself was fine. You placed a hoof on it.

It was simply made of wood. The texture of the bench was just as you would expect. The armrests were spiraling and decorated with small metal flowers adorning it, almost as if it was a vine growing them.

“What is this place?” A voice said from behind you. You spun around and saw Rick, who was looking around with an inquisitive look on his face.

“Seed? How… How are you here?”

“Uh, what?” He looked at you with a raised eyebrow. “This place? I don’t… I don’t know. I just kinda turned up here. We were in the sleeping bag, and then…”

“This place… It’s where I go when I dream.”

“It reminds me of when I was struck by that light. This place is just like that.”

He walked toward you and looked at the patch of grass before approaching the bench and sitting on it.

“H-hey, careful, Seed. I don’t know much about this place, but it’s weird. Unnatural.”

“Why are you calling me that?”

Huh? What were you saying wrong?

Seed shook his head. “Ugh, nevermind. You said this was where you came when you dream, right? You’re safe! Even if you see something weird, it’s just in your head.”

“I-I guess…”

He patted the side of the park bench and smiled, signaling for you to sit next to him. Still unsure, you walked forward and sat next to him.

“This is nice.” Rick sighed out and relaxed his body, slumping down on the bench.

“Yeah, it is. That’s why I want to be cautious.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, maybe it’s lulling me into a false sense of security.”

“Chill, Stripes! I’m not even gonna argue about how the fuck I’m here right now, but I’m going to use this time to relax.”

Stripes?

“What’s with the nickname?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Stripes. You called me Stripes.” You deadpanned.

“Yeah, that's your name, dummy. Don't tell me you lost that along with your dick.” Seed laughed at his own joke.

Your name was… Candy Stripes. But no, no it wasn't! You knew that it wasn't your name! You searched your mind for your name, your real name, but the only name that came up was Candy Stripes. No matter what, your mind was convinced that was your name.

You though for a second about Seed, and you knew that was always what you had called him. Deep Seed. That’s his name.

“Seed. Your name is Deep Seed, right?”

“What? No, my name is… It's… What the fuck. My name isn't Deep Seed!”

“And my name isn't Candy Stripes! Something’s fucking with our heads.”

You heard the calming voice talking again, immediately filling you with a relaxing feeling. It spread through your entire body and your eyes began to droop with relaxation and calmness. You looked over at Seed, who was doing the same as you. Eventually, your head hit Seeds shoulder and you began to relax even more.

The voice spoke louder and clearer this time.

“Candy Stripes, Deep Seed. I have found you, my little ponies…”

What was this voice? Was this the this that was messing with your heads?

“Please do not fear me. What happened to you was… Unfortunate. I did not know that the stone still held power. My connection to your world is strengthening, and soon, I will be able to help you.”

“Can… can you hear us?” You spoke out to the golden expanse.

“I can, but time is short.”

“Why can't we remember our names?” Seed spoke out.

“Ah yes, please let me explain. I will get to your names soon enough, but you must know the story of what happened here first. A very long time ago, A dark being named Sombra scattered seeds of hatred and darkness throughout many worlds. This world was one of them. I attempted to stop the spread, but he disappeared before I could. I sought out the places that the seeds had taken root in, but alas, all were destroyed bar one. Your world. The people there were relatively primitive, living off the land in nomadic tribes. I stopped the spread of the seed on earth, but the damage was done. Dark evil monsters began to slaughter and prey on the people of this valley until a sorcerer in my world came up with a solution.”

There was a pause.

“The Sunstone. It transformed the people of this land into ponies, like yourselves. These new forms granted them many powers, stronger bodies, resistance to the weathering of nature and made them able to live off a smaller amount of food. It helped them fight back against the creatures, and when they were gone, I offered them the chance to come to my world.By then, they had began to worship me as a god, even though I am far from it, and they all accepted. The name changes were part of adaption to my world, to help them adapt and integrate to their new lives. Unfortunately though, they had not eliminated all traces of the seed as we had initially thought. One creature still remains.”

“The Bear.” You spoke grimly.

“You are correct. The Bear remained and now, It pursues you.”

“What do we do?”

“Survive, for now. Eventually, I will come to your aid, but you must survive and you must work together.”

Holy shit… Holy fucking shit. That bear was out to get you. It lived for nothing but to see you die.

“Seed, I-I can't d-do this.”

He looked at you.

“Stripes, I know it's scary, but we have to do it. We have to. You're my best friend.”

“Y-you’re my best friend t - too…”

The golden voice began to speak again.

“Do not be afraid. The Bear may be strong, but it is dull. Without its connection to the original seed, it's senses have failed it. While it may be blind with rage, it is also blind to the world around it. It does not think, it does not plan, it just attacks. It will not be too hard to outsmart it, if it comes down to it.”

You nodded shakily, still unsure of how you were going to deal with all of this. Your mind traveled to the other questions that had been plaguing your mind.

“I… I want to ask a few other things.”

“Quickly, my time is short. You will wake soon.”

“Why am I a girl now?”

“...Were you not before?”

“No!”

“I see… it looks like the stones effects might have changed with time. Tell me, how old were you in human years before you changed?”

“I was twenty two.”

“...Oh dear. The stone has definitely lost some of its power. It seems that the body it created for you is only, in earth years, twelve years old.”

You blanked. Your mind was absolutely white. You were twelve. Twelve fucking years old. Tears began to fill your eyes and you broke down. You sobbed loudly and heavily mourning your lost gender and maturity. Seed put his hooves around you.

“Shh, It'll be okay, Stripes. It will be fine.”

“No it won't!” you shouted, tears pouring down your face and dripping to the floor. “I'm not a fucking kid, I'm not a fucking girl!”

Seed hugged you harder and stroked your mane, unsure of what to say. It was calming and relaxing to hug him, but you were still filled with this enormous sense of loss.

“Please, my little one, be strong.”

You looked down and scowled. She had done this to you. She had forced you into this body without your consent and now you were stuck like this, being pursued by an otherworldly animal who wanted nothing more than to kill you.

“I will try my hardest to fix this, but right now, my access to your world is very limited and I-”

She cut off all of a sudden and the sky immediately changed from the bright gold to black. Oh no.

“Stripes?” Seed held you tight. “What's going on?”

You though for a second. Last time this happened, you woke up and saw the…

Oh fuck. The bear.

__________

Your eyes shot open and you were greeted by the cold morning air and a sensation of imminent dread. You twisted around in your restrictive sleeping bag, looking for danger. The sun was still mostly down and trees around you were shrouded by a thick fog. Your eyes darted around, trying to spot any movement or shapes that might be the bear.

“Stripes? What's going on?”

You quickly turned to seed and threw a hoof to cover his mouth. He quickly got the message and shut up.

After a while, you didn't see any signs of imminent danger and so you slowly slipped out of the sleeping bag, Seed following behind.

“We need to… we need to pack up and get out of here. The bear could be really close.” You whispered, still on the lookout for danger.

“What?” Seed whispered back. “How can you tell?”

“I can't, but last time my dream turned black, I woke up and saw the bear. Just… Just be careful.”

The two of you began to pack up your campsite as quietly as possible. You threw the pot into your bag and rolled up the sleeping sack. Eventually, your pack was full and your camp site was clear.

You thought about what to do next when you realized that the fog was completely obscuring your vision. You couldn't see where the sun was coming from, you couldn't see through the trees, and you could hardly see Seed standing a few meters away.

You took a few steps forward only to trip on something. Your pot fell out of your bag as you fell and a huge metallic clang rang out through the forest. You sat still with a grimace, waiting for any response…

Thud.

You could hear the footfalls of the bear. It was coming for you.

“Fuck, Seed, RUN!”

Immediately the both of you shot off, speeding through the trees. You could hear the roar of the bear behind you and the smashes of leaves and branches as it bowled through the underbrush.

You tried to speed up, but the weight of your pack was too much and your muscles couldn't push you any faster than they already were.

You had to take the voice’s advice. It was dumb. You could outsmart it. Confuse it.

“Seed!” You called out as he ran alongside you. “We have to split up!”

“What, are you crazy!?”

“No! We need to confuse it, make it unsure! I'm small, I can hide, but you're fast! You can outrun it if it follows you and I can hide if it follows me!”

He still looked extremely unsure, but you looked him in the eyes with a steel stare. He grunted in frustration but pulled away from you and ran in a different direction. You could only hope that it would work.

A short distance later, you ducked behind a tree. You heard the footfalls of the bear grown louder and louder, but slower as it slowed down. Shit, it had decided to follow you. Don't freak out. Calm down. Stick to the plan. You flattened yourself against the tree tree and covered your face with the hood. The fog was thick enough that if the bear did see you, you would blend in with the tree enough to not be seen.

At least, that was the plan.

You heard the footfalls get louder now and you could tell it was close.
You didn't move your head, but you looked around with only your eyes, glancing as the thick, black shape appeared to your right. You froze and held your breath, intent on letting out as little noise as possible.

Your heartbeat thundered through your head and sweat dripped down your brow. It was so close that you could smell the scent of death almost leaking off of it. It smelled of blood, sweat, and rotting meat, causing you to gag at the horrifying smell. The bear turned around to face you and you were faced once again with the empty pits of it’s eyes. The holes that went on for ever.

You sat as still as possible as the bear slowly approached you. Your heart was racing and you were trying to force yourself to stay calm, to little effect. It stopped, one meter from you and began sniffing at the air. You tried not to breath in, but but even the passive presence of the bears smell still filled your nostrils, causing you to gag once more.

The bear roared, showing it's rotten teeth as phlegm and blood flew from its mouth, spattering you. It reared back on its legs and you jumped to your hooves jumping out of of the way just as it slammed to the ground, crushing the snow where you were sitting, not a millisecond ago.

You darted off as fast as you could, but it was hardly fast enough. You ditched your pack, but you were so out of breath and tired by the time that you did It that it hardly seemed to matter.

It was sadistic.

Unrelenting.

Sooner or later, you had to rest or collapse.

You couldn't do this forever.

No one could.

Your throat was dry, even from before you started running. Now, it was like you had gulped down a kilogram of salt and sand.
You blindly ran forward before out of nowhere, a tree branch caught you under your chin, causing you to flip backwards and smash into the undergrowth heavily, ejecting all of the oxygen from your already empty lungs.

Your eyes felt heavy as you saw an ominous figure appear over you.
Before you could scream, you felt your head swim and all of a sudden, your world went black.

And then, white. An enormous, deafening boom emitted from what felt like right next to your head. You were flung backward through the trees, smashing yourself against a branch before falling to the snow below. You looked upwards, head swimming with an extreme fatigue only to see the bear fall to the ground with a hole in it’s stomach the size of a manhole. Just as it’s body hit the floor, your fatigue took hold and you passed out.

Chapter 5 - Celestia

A few kilometers away…

Your eyes were heavy from lack of sleep and your stomach was empty. You had run out of food last night and now you were starving, your mind searching for ideas of what to eat. Stripes had always been better at this kind of stuff, but he wasn’t here now, was he? You were fucked.

Four days of mindless wandering. Four days of almost sleepless nights. Four days of almost freezing to death. Your strange new wings were helpful, as they offered a little bit of insulation but you had lost half your pack to that fucking freaky bear last night, including your sleeping bag.

It had turned up out of no-where, causing you to abandon your fire and half your pack to sprint off into the forest. Your wings flapped uselessly, trying your hardest to both speed up and possibly take off at the same time, to no real effect. It was a lot harder to run with your pack strapped to your side, and even if you had taken off, there was no guarantee you wouldn’t have just smashed into the floor two seconds later.

You had spent the large majority of last night sitting up and watching the forest, shivering from the cold and forcing your eyes open to keep awake. You were so fucking scared that the bear would turn up out of nowhere and rip your throat out that you forced yourself to avoid sleep, sleep that you definitely needed. Eventually, you had fallen asleep and had nightmares of abandonment.

Now, it was the morning and the cold had forced you awake. Mist had fallen in overnight and now, in the dark light of the rising sun, you picked yourself up and forced yourself to light a fire. You had avoided lighting one last night in case the bear could see it, but now, the fear of freezing to death was higher than the fear of the bear. Worst comes to worse, you could always run again.

You took out your striker and got a small fire started, warming your hooves against the small flickering flame. It wasn’t amazingly effective, but it was definitely better than nothing. You drank a bit of your remaining water and wet your parched throat. You knew how to purify water by boiling, but you had lost your pot last night.

You had no idea where you were headed, you were losing more and more sleep every night, you had no idea where your friends were, and you were hungry and out of food.

You were fucked.

The sky was suddenly lit up, like a huge persistent lightning strike had struck. Half a second later, a deafening boom struck your ears and you were pushed over with the force of the blast. You swiveled around and saw the remnants of a huge beam of light fading away a while away.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”

You sat, stunned by the massive blast of light. What could it have been? Cautiously, you picked yourself up and began walking toward the source of the light.

__________

Your ears were ringing and your head was filled with a heavy dizziness. You tried to pick yourself up, but you felt so strange and heavy that you fell back to the ground again. After a while, the ringing began to fade and the dizziness lessened. You glanced around, seeing that the ground around you had been completely cleared of snow, revealing the grass and dirt below the snow. Your vision was still blurry, but you forced yourself to look toward the place where the bear had been. There was a large black lump lying in the snow, motionless and steaming.

Did… Did you kill it? What had happened? The bear’s corpse was quite a bit from you, but you were still worried that it would jump up at any second and rush at you. You were awake enough now to see a green light shining above your head. You looked up at your forehead and saw that your horn was glowing green. You tapped it with your hoof, but pulled away quickly as a strange electric feeling surged through your horn.

That light… That blast… You had caused it. You had somehow shot a huge beam of light out of your horn and killed the bear. Magic? Some kind of alien technology? Magic was the most plausible answer, what with the whole “Magically turning into a unicorn” thing.

“Stripes!?” You jumped up in shock and a few green sparks flew from your horn. You turned to the source of the noise and saw Seed standing there with hit jaw dropped and his eyes wide open.

“Did you do that? That huge fucking laser thing, was that you?”

“I don’t… I don’t know, but I think so. My horn is all glowy and stuff.”

“Where’s the bear? We gotta get out of here before it comes back.” Seed said and ran to your side.

“I think I killed it, man.”

You pointed at the steaming lump and Seed gasped.

“...You killed it?”

“I… I think so.”

The both of you slowly approached the bear together, hooves crunching in the snow, almost heightening the suspense. As you arrived in front of bear, you examined the huge hole in the stomach of the bear. It was reeking, the smell of rot and blood that you were familiar with mixing with the new smell of burning flesh. It’s face was motionless and blank, it’s mouth gaping open.

You nudged it and jumped back, expecting it to lurch up, but it sat still.

It was dead.

“Seed, it’s dead!” You smiled widely.

“It’s dead!?” His face filling with relief and happiness.

“It’s dead!” You jumped at Seed and wrapped your hooves around him. He stumbled back a bit, but threw his hooves around you as well, hugging you tightly.

The both of you laughed in hysterical relief as Seed spun around swinging you with him. You were so happy, the weight almost disappearing from your shoulders in an instant.

“We did it, Seed!” He slowed down and placed you back on the floor. Tears of happiness dripped down and you wiped your eyes, the smile on your face shining almost as bright as your horn.

“We did it.” Seed smiled back, his eyes watering as well.

“What the hell happened here?” A new voice spoke from behind you and the two of you spun around.

Standing at the edge of the treeline with a shocked look on his face was a pastel blue stallion with a pale grey mane.

“Flitter…?” Seed muttered out before walking toward him.

Could that really be him? By process of elimination, there’s only one person that could be! That was Flitter!

You ran toward him, barreling past seed to stop right in front of him.

“Woah, kid, slow down! What the hell is going on?”

“Flitter, you stupid fuck! It’s me! It’s Candy Stripes!”

“...Stripes?” He looked you up and down, just as Seed had done when he first saw you.

“But you’re... “

“A girl, I know.”

“I was going to say “a kid”, but I guess that’s accurate too.”

Seed walked beside you and smiled at Flitter.

“It’s good to see you again, man.”

“Seed? Holy fuck, dude, I’ve been looking for you guys for so long.”

Now that you had gotten over the surprise of seeing your old friend, you got the chance to actually look at him. His face was gaunt, his eyes were lined with darkness and heavily bloodshot. He was shaking and every time he blunk, he almost seemed to lose consciousness for a split second. He was in a horrid condition and you needed to help him.

“Seed, we need to start a fire as soon as possible.”

“What? Why?”

“Look at Flitter, man! He needs food warmth and water as soon as possible!”

“Flitter? No, I’m…” He closed his eyes and tried to straighten himself, but ended up stumbling a bit. “I’m fine.”

“No you’re not” You shouted at him. “Seed, go get my striker, I’ll get him warm and fed.”

Seed nodded and ran back toward the camp where you had left most of your gear last night. Meanwhile, you walked an extremely shaky Flitter to a nearby tree and lay him against it. You had one last granola bar in your bag, so you pulled it out and unwrapped it for him. He greedily ate it and afterward, you handed him a bottle of water. He drank deeply and sighed from satisfaction.

“Th-thanks, man. Seriously.”

“It’s fine.” You smiled warmly at him.

He was still shivering from the cold, but at least he had some food and water in him. Luckily, he had his parka still, but looking through his pack, it was mostly empty. He had a fire striker, a mostly empty bottle of water, a few reeds and his pants, which had a huge rip through them.

“Flitter, don’t let yourself go hungry again. If you haven’t noticed, we’re animals now. You can eat leaves, grass, shit like that.”

“Grass? That’s gross, man.”

“I know it’s gross, but it’s better than starving.”

He cringed but nodded and sipped from the bottle.

You sat together and waited for Seed to get back. It almost seemed unreal, but after all you had gone through, starvation, the fever, the bear, everything had been worth it. You had found your friends. The bear was dead. Things were finally starting to look up. You rested peacefully and slipped into a deep sleep.

__________

Once again, the gold world surrounded you. Just as before, the patch of “reality” seemed to be larger than the last time you were in this dream land. You could see a few lush bushes at the edge of the reality patch, and a small cobblestone path, going on for a few metres before disappearing into the gold again. Standing in the center of the grass, examining his surroundings with awe, was Flitter.

“Pretty cool, huh?” You spoke, causing Flitter to jump and turn around.

“Jeez, man. You scared the crap out of me.” He rubbed his neck nervously.

“Ha. Not sorry.”

You smirked at him and giggled, his face getter an even deeper red from embarrassment.

“I-I’m just still on my toes, Stripes. The bear might be dead now, but we’re not out of the woods yet.

“Literally.” You laughed and sat down on the park bench. Flitter cautiously joined you, but once he was sitting, he relaxed completely.

“It's good to have you back, Flitter.” You smiled warmly at your friend. He grinned happily and closed his eyes, leaning back into the surprisingly comfortable, yet still quite solid bench.

“It's good to see you again.” He said, satisfaction in his tone and on his face. “I legit owe you my life, man. I was… I was really fucked. If I hadn't found you, I wouldn't have had any food, any water, the nights are getting colder and colder. Without you guys… I could be dead right now.”

“Fuck… Flitter, I'm so sorry.”

“Why? You should be the opposite of sorry right now.”

“I know, I just… I wish I could have found you sooner. I know exactly what it's like. The last few days have been absolutely insane, and I had a steady supply of water. I can only imagine what you had to go through.”

“Trust me, I'm tough. We’ll get home together.”

You smiled, his words filling you with confidence regardless of how true they may or may not be. Flitter sat back in the bench and sighed audibly.

“Gah, what I wouldn't give for a fucking burger right now.

“Trust me dude, meat is the last thing you want right now.”

“What?”

“I set up a trap and caught a rabbit, ended up with food poisoning and a fever that only just wore off. I'm pretty lucky I didn't fucking die.” Your face scrunched up, remembering previous few days of your life.

“H-holy crap, Stripes…”

The beautiful, relaxing voice spoke out from the gold void again, this time hardly muffled at all, almost as if she was talking to you from a few meters away.

“Good day, my little ponies.”

Flitter jumped and scrambled backward in the bench with a shocked look on his face before turning to me.

“Holy crap, what's that!?”

“Please do not fear me, Flitter Feather.” The voice calmly spoke. “I have spoken to your friends, Candy Stripes and Deep Seed. They are aware of me and know that i mean no harm.”

He glanced at me and I smiled back, nodding to assure him he was safe.

“You have all struggled so hard, and come so far. I am proud of all three of you.”

“Uh… Thanks?” You rubbed the back of your neck nervously.

“Who are you?” Flitter asked.

“Oh how rude of me! I believe I haven’t introduced myself to you before. My name is Celestia.”

“...Celestia? Sounds like something from an eighties fantasy movie.” Flitter quipped.

“I’m not too sure what you mean.” She laughed

“Nevermind.” You laughed and nudged Flitter playfully. “So what’s going on?”

“My strength grows, little one. My connection to your world is getting closer and closer, and in a few hours, I will be able to help you.”

“Y-you will!? That’s great!” Relief began to spread throughout your mind. You had no idea what the hell she could do, but this apparently all powerful being was going to be able to save you all!

Flitter tapped you on the shoulder and you turned to face him, seeing a worried look on his face.

“Wh-what’s going on, Stripes?”

“I… I don’t really know, honestly, but I’ll explain this whole thing once we wake up, just know that… I trust her.”

He pursed his lips and hesitantly nodded.

“Alright… If you’re sure, then I trust you.”

You smiled at him before addressing Celestia again.

“So, my little ones, I see you have been reunited. I am very glad. I was worried that you would not find each other in time. Pray tell, how did you find each other?”

“I saw this… Massive beam of light in the sky. I was desperate and hungry, and had no idea what the hell it was, so I walked towards it and found Stripes with Seed.” Flitter spoke up.

“A beam of light?” Celestia said, an inquisitive tone in her voice. “Where did it come from?”

“Uh, I think… I did it.” You said.

“Oh dear. A magical outburst at your age is not uncommon, but one that powerful is usually quite dangerous and only spurred in times of turmoil.”

“M-magic?”

“Yes, all unicorns are able to summon a certain amount of magical power with their horns.”

Holy shit, you could do magic!? That’s fucking awesome!

“Kinda wished I knew that earlier.” You giggled.

“I am curious, what caused your magical outburst?”

“I was being chased by that damn bear again, but you’ll be happy to hear that it is currently lying a few hundred meters away from us with a hole in it’s chest, thanks to this magic thing.” You laughed, almost unbelieving of what had happened.

Celestia let out a gasp before remaining silent.

“Is… Is something wrong?” You asked.

“My ponies, you must wake up, immediately!”

“Wh-what? Why?”

“There’s a reason why the ponies who were here before were unable to eradicate that bear! It is able to regenerate, even after death!”

As soon as her sentence was over, the sky dipped to black once more. You knew what that meant. It meant Celestia was right.

__________

You jolted awake, struggling for a short bit to free yourself from Flitters hooves. Your head whipped around, searching the trees around you for the bear. Eventually, your eyes fell on the spot where the bear was lying. Or at least, was lying.

It was gone.

You shook Flitter with your hooves, shouting his name as you tried to wake your sleeping friend.

“Flitter, wake up! You have to wake up!”

Emotions rushed into you once more as your mind swam with fear and worry. The looming presence of the bear felt almost everywhere, there was pretty much nowhere it couldn’t be.

Eventually, Flitter began to stir and his eyes blinked open.

“Thank god, you’re awake!”

“S-Stripes? I just had this… Weird dream. You were with me in this strange yellow place, with a chair and some grass…”

“It wasn’t just a dream! I was there too, and Celestia… That voice was telling the truth! We have to get out of here n-”

You were cut off by an un-natural roar coming from quite a while away accompanied by a familiar scream…

“Seed!”

You jumped to your hooves and ran through the forest, weaving through the trees towards the scream. You heard Flitter shout something behind you, but right now, you didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was helping your friend.

You burst out of the bushes to find Seed pressed up against a rock with the bear looming over him, claw raised in preparedness to strike. In a blind panic, you tried to replicate what you had done before with your horn and tried to cast some sort of magic at it.

You felt your horn heat up and begin to glow, the magical power that your body somehow possessed now building up at the tip. A green light shot out and hit the bear directly in the back. It was pushed a little by the light, but aside from a small smoking spot on it’s shoulder, it had not affected it in any way.

What the hell was wrong with you? Why couldn’t you do it again? You tried to fire once more, but the light was even dimmer this time and did nothing but enrage the bear further. It spun around, it’s black pits staring directly into your soul. It roared again and you felt your body try to shrink backward in fear.

You heard the rustling of leaves as Flitter ran out of the bushes you had just come from, skidding to a halt at the sight of the bear.

“Oh, fuck! It’s alive! How the hell!?”

You saw now that seed was completely stunned, still pressed up against the boulder with a face full of fear and shock.

“SEED!” You shouted out, grabbing his attention. “RUN! NOW!”

This managed to pull him out of his stupor and he ran off to the side. The bear span around to the boulder again, only to roar, seeing its prey gone. It dropped to all fours and sprinted towards you, rage in it’s monstrous face.

“Stripes, I think it’s time for us to run now!”

You silently agreed and started off, running as fast as your stubby hooves could take you, toward where Seed had ran. You could see him about fifty meters ahead of you, occasionally glancing behind him, only to pick up speed when he saw the bear running almost directly behind you.

Your breathing became ragged and raw, as you pushed your body as fast as it could go. You twisted your head around and attempted to fire off another beam of light, this one having absolutely no effect besides tiring you out even more.

As you went back to looking forward, you had to force yourself to stop, skidding as your hooves tried their hardest to grip onto the soil and snow beneath you. As you finally stopped, you managed to see what exactly you had stopped for. In front of you was the edge of a cliff, dipping off at a ninety degree angle. If you hadn’t turned around at the time you had, you would be hurtling off of that cliff right now. Beside you was Seed and Flitter, both cowering in fear. The bear had come to a stop and was now standing behind you, growling a horrifyingly unnatural growl.

It stepped forward once and you tried to back up, hooves slipping as you fumbled at the edge of the cliff.

“What do we do!?” Seed shouted in a panic. “Flitter, can you fly with those wings?”

“N-no! They… They don’t work!”

The bear menacingly stepped forward again, it’s growl almost sounding like a laugh now.

You looked down the edge of the cliff, seeing if it would be safe at all to jump, but there was nothing but jagged rocks below.

Suddenly, the voice that you had heard in your dreams spoke out to you.

“You must jump!”

“WHAT!?” Flitter shouted as the bear took another step. “You trying to get us killed, lady!?”

“Please! There is no other way, you must jump!”

Glancing out over the cliff’s edge once more, you began to contemplate her words. She wouldn’t say to jump if she knew you would die, right? Right?

“We… We have to!” You called out to your friends.

“Are you crazy, Stripes!?” Seed shouted at you.

“No! I… I trust Celestia! We have to jump!”

Seed and Flitter looked at each other, and with a fearful look in their eyes, they nodded toward you. Oh god. You were really doing this.

You spun around and launched yourself off of the cliff. You could hear screams from beside you as Flitter tried to flap his wings and Seed silently plummeted.

Eventually, all you could hear was wind rushing past your ears. The rocks flew closer and closer toward you. You trusted Celestia. She would help you. She would. You closed your eyes, and the rushing of the wind stopped.