Project Anima
Chapter 1: Booting Up
"So what's in it for me?"
"Besides relaxing for a few hours and a new experience? C'mon, whatta ya say?"
He pulled up a mug of coffee to his lips, already cold from denying himself the time of day to relax and ease off the strenuous amount of work. He forced an old tired friend of his from off the infamously familiar keyboard in front of him and onto his head to give him a little rest. He passed that hand through his robust short brown hair to shake off the loose strands that clogged up his sight, and more importantly, productivity.
"Get this, I was reading the newspaper yesterday and I came across a very particular article about relaxing and taking days off from work. Hold on to your trousers for what I'm about to say..." He created a short moment of dramatic silence. "It doesn't make money, and possibly gets me fired. Go figure." He would have laughed at his friend's expression of bitterness from his sarcasm, but that would shed off seconds from productivity, something that his friend was impeding him from a lot lately for the past week or so.
"Just... please Mark, the thing is going to be tomorrow, you don't know how much this means to me." He kept insisting.
"Oh, don't worry, I do know. You only ask me every day and every other hour of it."
"Then why haven't you agreed?"
"You of all people should know my situation, you should have had a clue six days ago." He turned back to the computer screen to resume his endless typing. "Besides, if you hadn't interrupted me for so long, I might have been able to finish already and possibly not join you either way so I could get some rest, which I need thank you very much."
"Then you should have gotten that rest every night instead of staying up late to watch that little girl's cartoon." Oh, that was a cheap shot.
"You stay away from those accusations. I hope you aren't trying to make me not go for good, Jarred."
"Look, Mark, if this is about money, I will go out of my way to repay whatever you lost from your paycheck for the measly day that we are going to take off. I'm basically paying you to have fun for once and I will put a word out for the boss. Deal?"
Mark looked almost surprised. Now that was something he could sink his teeth into. "Now if only you could repay me all those annoying hours of you asking me to go."
Jarred laughed amusingly. "Well maybe another time, I'm not the richest man in the world myself, but I can pay for one day off, since I know you'll be asking for more than you'll let on."
"You know me too well. For your sake, you best hope this will be worth my time."
"Oh, I know it is."
~~~
Mark sighed to counteract the all too familiar creaking noise of his front door. He wouldn't fix it any time soon though. Required too much work and too much time. It wasn't like he was trying to impress anyone, no one ever visited his home anyways, and it showed. The door opened to reveal and equally disturbed apartment, a small living room was the entrance and to the left and equally if not smaller room for the kitchen. Things lay about the carpeted floor, dishes needed cleaning and were stacking up, and were he would iron his clothing every morning was now littered with clothing he used the day before and to sleep, only to throw them quickly to the ground and try to do everything as fast as possible as he rushed to work the morning after.
Aside from this mess however, everything stayed relatively clean. Once a week he would put off everything he usually did the hour he came home before he slept, and within that hour, he would have everything neat and clean again. Today however was not one of those days.
He walked over the small restroom that rested in the middle of the two small rooms. He looked towards the small mirror the sat on top of the sink. His features looked almost as worn out as his hand did and his robust dark brown hair was now beginning to fade in color. His green eyes as restless as his body, for being only eighteen. He walked back to the living room where a small couch lined the wall and to the opposite side rested a small television.
He sunk deep into the one single cushion couch he had that faced the relatively old television and turned it on manually by hunching over. The apartment itself was very small. He sighed once more as commercials lined up the air time as he had turned it on. Worse yet, when the show finally appeared, it wasn't what he wanted to watch. Of course, the show he wanted to watch was half an hour from now. In this time, he could clean up around the house. Which was what he would have usually done, but today was a special occasion.
He stood back up to his feet, realizing what needed to be done. Today was a special day. Today marked an anniversary, one that he could never dare to let it pass. On March ten of every year, he would have grown a special type of flower to commemorate this special day. A Lunaria annua, also known as annual honesty, one that she loved and grew faithfully every year...
Strange how fate worked... This day marked the time were he began a care free life brimming with happiness, but it also marked a day to the beginning of the life he lead now. The life of solitude, of working endlessly to be able to live, a painful life. It began how it would end.
He lost his mother as he was born into the world, and lost his father when he was still young, a car crash in a densely foggy day. Adopted by his father's close friend, his new father was unmarried and a poor man, yet he had accepted Mark without a second doubt the day Mark's father had died. Even then Mark had known the weight of his own life and disciplined himself at a young age.
His step-father was a generous and kind man and he did not wish Mark to trouble himself in his concerns as he tried his best to make ends meet. Mark began to work in what he could, day in and day out trying to earn his keep and alleviate his father's financial troubles. He loved his step-father very much as he was his inspiration to what he would do. He worked hard to earn his step-father's last name, to earn the name of Mark Dylan.
He worked hard, in school and in the jobs after school that he had. Through this regime, it was no coincidence that he was able to land a good job after graduation. It was at this point were his life finally began to improve. He was able to pull both himself and his father out of the poverty-stricken life that they had for so long, and at last his life was finally bright.
Then she came along. Her name was Scarlette Reygard. The features of an angel. Light brown hair and green eyes. A bright smile that warmed him from the inside. It wasn't all of this that particularly took him aside. It was her good-willed nature. She was as nice as they would come, as gentle as the flowers she grew, and as lovely.
He wouldn't have noticed her to be truthful if it wasn't for what had happened the day he met her. He was never the type of person to bother with too personal emotions, it kept from productivity, from more important things in his life. He would have ignored her all together and kept on walking on that rainy night in the city of Baltimore if it wasn't for his morals and his aspiration to be like his father. Well, maybe because she was the only one outside at the time, curled up in a ball by a bench near a bus stop in the outskirts of town, a grocery bag in one hand and no umbrella on the other, wet and shivering. He just happened to walk on by and by a force of fate, he morally convinced himself it was the right thing to try and help her.
He didn't know what to say, or what to do, so instead, he just held out the umbrella to cover her even if meant getting wet himself. She uncurled from the fetal position that she was sitting like and looked up at him.
"Need any help?" He remembered saying. She only nodded at him. Turned out, she was looking for a store that sold flower seeds, but not just any kind. She told him how she had wandered off on her own trying to find them, but she had gotten lost and decided to wait by a bus stop to be able to return home and it was then it began to rain. Had she walked a long way into the city to find such a store he did not know, his first impressions was that she wasn't very familiar around the town, maybe a stay-at-home person?
"Well, I was walking over to a small store not far from here, I believe they have a green house there, you might want to try looking there." She responded to him by saying she did not know the way. And so, he lead her there, she hanging all too close to him due to there being one umbrella. Sure enough, they were able to find the specific seeds she required, placing them into a bag the grocery bag she had, which was filled with vegetables and other assortments of greens. Then it came up to his job again to lead her back home. Surprisingly, he knew exactly were she lived. Mostly because she wasn't very far from were he lived, but also because he had worked for the man there. How was she able to get lost so close from home?
It turned out that the man he worked for was a rather wealthy man who worked as a doctor and specialized in lung surgery and research. He remember working for him for almost a year or two every month to cut his lawn, occasionally talking to him about his job when he was around, a very nice man too. It was the most money anyone had ever payed him, and then one day, he stopped answering his calls and he was never home. The grass was always kept strangely tidy after then. That was ages ago however, when he was eight or nine at the time. Now he was eighteen, a month going into nineteen. The girl before him looked no younger or older than him, and she wasn't.
Coming from a rich parents, he wondered if this girl was too pampered to even know her way around town? Accusations in his minded started early, but it wasn't until he began to involve himself a little more until he understood why. Her father was waiting by the roofed porch expectantly and even ran out into the rain when he saw them walk into the driveway of the small mansion-like house. He ran to hug her, bombarding her with questions on why she had left or where she had been. It was only until the question of how she came home that he noticed him when she answered that she was guided by Mark.
He recognized him immediately, the small poor boy who did his best to keep both the lawn and the man happy. Of course, he left a lasting impression, he talked a lot with the man, he was almost like a second father, up until the point he vanished. He thanked him profoundly and Mark couldn't help himself but ask why all the commotion? As it turned out, the girl was indeed a stay-at-home person, and with all good reason. She suffered from a hereditary lung cancer and that she was ill-advised to be away from home all her life.
Mark returned back to earth from all those memories, large gaping holes across his heart and throat and tears beginning to swell up his eyes. He brushed them aside, all there was to say was the he had lived a good life with her and it had ended... four of the longest and only years of his good life... but everything has its end...
He held the flowers in his hands and went outside into the chilly night. He walked over to an empty lot of dirt and planted them, sitting silently beside them looking over at the night sky. She loved the night, and that was something that grew on him too. With his step-father in a nursing home, life slowly draining from him now that he can't walk and barely even able to speak, Mark payed the expenses for the nursing home, pays for his father's debts which had grown very large from the years of poverty, and paying for his upkeep to be able to live, it was hard seeing the world beautiful anymore. The night, however, suffice to say that it could never lose its beauty, no matter how much life has already put him down.
He was shot and wounded, barely able to drag on. All he had left was hopes that his life would change... or end... whichever came first, it did not matter to him anymore.
He got up and walked back inside to stop himself from dragging his mind into dark depths. Despite all that, he did his best to stay in the best mood he could, even it meant having that dreaded scowl of his every day as he walked to work, ignoring everything else. He repeated a mindless routine, and that was all he had left. Work was his life now.
He stopped at the doorway for a bit to take a last look at the night sky and sighed, walking in and shutting the door behind him. He sunk himself into the couch once more and turned on the television. His luck must have been turning, because just as he did, the interlude before the theme song for a new episode of MLP: FiM had barely began. So, okay, not all things were as grim as they seemed.
Despite his now colorless life, this show had given it a little color over the past few months, and it had lightened up his mood drastically. His life was now pony-oriented, and he wouldn't have wanted it any other way, even if it meant taking in ridicule from his best friend, who didn't put him down because of it. Seriously, these ponies were so cute and nice and... everything about the show just gave him a warm fuzzy feeling. A guy could lose himself in a wonderland like this... or at least a guy like him.
He'd often catch his mind wandering into the depths of thought, creating with his imagination scenarios that included the multicolored ponies. It reminded him that his life still had some importance to it. That it wasn't all grey, like his cubicle at work. He wouldn't hesitate to be able join in such a paradise. If only for a few minutes... he wished that he could get away from it all...
~~~
"Larry! I need to speak to you, asap." A strange middle aged man wearing an lavender lab coat yelled across the small lab-like lobby.
"I'm right here sir." A normal and young looking assistant stood up from his desk, a laptop in his arms and thick glasses on his face.
"Have you double-checked all the participants for tomorrow?" He asked.
"Done and deal, manually filtered out the two-hundred entries and narrowed it down to seven participants."
"You made sure none of them are idiots?" He scowled at the response.
"Um, sir, please refrain from that sort of language else we get the project shut down by the feds."
"This is my damn project, if they want their share later on than they'll have to put up with it. Don't you dare tell me what to do." He narrowed his eyes at the already nervous boy.
"And yes, I did make sure none of them are below the expectations."
"Because see, if we get stupid people, this test will be harder, and you know how important this is. Dumb people don't know how to follow instructions, and if they can't follow instructions correctly, the test can't go right! And if it doesn't go right, then my life's work has gone down the drain!! And if it goes down the drain, then you'll have a very angry Joseph Clarkson!!!" His voice had gone from dank to dankly aggressive.
Anyone else would have backed down, but Larrison Clarkson knew better than to fear his own father. He was generally a very nice man, with anger spouts and all with good reason. He was the driving force of an important operation. This man... oh this man was a complete genius, and it had taken his entire life to do what he has done, he understood his impatience well, and that is why Larrison, or Larry for short, has always worked to meet his demands and make him proud.
"I know Dad, trust me, I wouldn't be telling you that I've found all the candidates appropriate if my life didn't stake on it."
Joseph sighed and looked towards him with a warm smile on his face. "Thanks son, I'm just a little worried is all. How do you find it to be so patient with me?"
"How do I find reasons not to?" He hugged his father and began walking away.
"Wait up, tell the team to boot up the project. Tell them to test run the systems one more time, and leave them on for tomorrow, I want some of the men stationed there to check up on all progress at all time."
"Isn't that a little excessive? I mean, wouldn't that make some of the guys drowsy, what if they can't work properly for tomorrow?"
"Well then give them energy drinks or something. I don't care about the details now, I just want someone to overlook everything. I'm heading to bed."
"Well... okay." He knew better than to question his crazy father. Larry was almost exactly like his father as he commanded every man in the testing rooms to start booting up the system. He felt like a police guard directing traffic, better yet a commander giving out orders in the heat of battle, a battle against electrical wiring and computing, and it felt damn good. Everything began to sound off just like it was supposed to. He looked into his notes once more to make sure everything was correct.
Alias: Project Anima.
Status: Beta.
Physical Condition: Operational and secure. Up to optics.
Description: Prototype organic subconscious emulator. Translates dreams and thoughts and projects them into the human cerebral to create conditioned scenarios. Allows for safe mental conditioning and rehabilitation. Specific use for Project Anima, entertainment.
Beta Testers: Jarred Liam, Evan Lorso, Mark Dylan, Catiline Brush, Sebastian Marion, April Rosella, Athema Hendricks.
"Systems operational!" One of the men sounded off.
"Integration in both inputs are working as intended."
"System software is running smoothly and are running insight scans for immediate reports. Project Anima has successfully booted sir."
"This is very good, very good indeed. Job well done men." He stopped for a brief second and smiled widely, finally being able to say it. "All systems are go."
Chapter 2: Logging On
He promised himself that he needed to stop sighing, but it was like trying to stop sneezing in the middle of a field filled with daffodils and many poofy cats that began calling it home. Not to mention the fact that you would be severely allergic to both of them. Like every morning, he hesitated on the footsteps of the bleak and small corporate building for which he worked in. Sometimes to ponder about life and its misgivings, and other times to rehearses his course of actions that he would take upon that day.
This time however, he was completely brain dead. He had stayed up very late into the night looking through some pony-related content on the internet. Yawning and sighing at the same time was difficult on its own, but Mark had already mastered the art.
Trying to get his mind straight, he took steps forward and began by opening the door, almost being able to enter the building until he was whisked away from the arm by a very enthusiastic Jarred.
"Whoa, hold on partner. As much as you think that I think I like you, I ain't no broke back cowboy." Mark was finally released at his comment, that always shut Jarred up good. Except not this time.
"If you don't hurry your ass, I might have to slip some heavy sleeping pills into your coffee and find someone who will reenact it with you."
"That sounds scary... what's the rush were the hell are you taking me? I need to get to work." Mark tried squeezing any info on the sudden kidnapping as Jarred began pulling his arm again.
"Don't tell me you don't remember..."
"Alright, I won't tell you that I don't remember. Instead I'll tell you that I forgot whatever I was supposed to remember that you told me."
"Don't be so coy with me right now. You aren't exactly on my good books, but it isn't important that you remember, just get in my car."
"What about work?"
"Already spoke to the boss, got you covered."
"This seems awfully suspicious..."
"Not if you would remember about what I've been telling you about for the past month!"
"I don't know what you're talking ab-" Mark always seemed like he was drunk when he was half asleep, but now that he was regaining consciousness (somewhat), he was beginning to remember that promise... and those godawful times he pleaded. "Ooohhh. Its that thing with the place."
"Yes, and it'll be totally friggin' awesome. Just you wait. Get in the car, it looks like it's starting to rain." And he was right, tiny but cold droplets began to kiss his cheek. Without further questions, he got himself into the passenger seat and they drove off into the heart of Baltimore.
"So, what is it that we are going to do exactly?" Mark's gaze drifted off the outside of the window, distracting him from the question that he had asked.
"Don't tell me you forgot that too? Or... were you even paying attention all those times I told you about it?" Jarred slowed his car down into a red light and looked at him funny.
"Hey, give a man a break... from you. You can't seriously expect me to listen to you all the time. That is like... physically impossible. Seriously, it's like you speak braille half the damn time."
"Ha, good one. Fine fine, I should have seen it coming anyways. Well, if I had to sum up everything I said in a week into a ten minute drive is that we are going to be pioneers my friend!"
"Are we going to discover Atlantis as modern man? Or are we going to dwell deep into some inhospitable and indigenous land that no man has seen before?"
"Your humor is as bland as you sometimes."
"Yeah, sorry."
"When I was a boy, I always interested in science. Anything with science fiction, I was all over. I think I still have mountains at my parent's home of books and movies from the first man on the moon to Doctor Who. Anyways, one day, my dad read to me a newspaper article that a scientist had gone mad and began on working on something from the future. Of course, this was back twenty years ago when I was like 8."
"Get to the point."
"Oh, yeah, okay so I got interested in all this stuff right? I hadn't looked much into it until I got on the internet and tracked down the name of the scientist from all those years ago. Apparently, now people don't think he is that crazy anymore. The government is even funding his project."
"How does all of that factor into me joining you and me being interested? Don't get me wrong, I like science-fiction too, but work is more important."
"Hold your horses there pony lover. I'm getting to it. His project is actually a prototype device that allows you to play games in your mind."
"What? You know how absurd this sounds?"
"Wait, shut your trap for a moment and listen me out. I did some background checks to make sure this wasn't complete ludicrous. I confirmed that the government IS funding his project and they already have a prototype ready. They even had some submissions for people to test it out. They need beta testers apparently. I signed us both up, and we got accepted too! So I thought, why not try it out and see for ourselves if this is complete nonsense or if this is true."
"How does it even work?"
"It is supposed to simulate a person's thoughts or dreams and generate a game and project into your mind. Like for me for example. I might be on the death star fighting Lord Vader with a robocop outfit. Since I like action games and sci-fi, the device is supposed to generate scenarios like that. They said it is even supposed to make you feel what is happening in that game. Like if you touch water, you would feel it without doing it in real life."
"It sounds like you think I'm an idiot and trying to explain it to me in the simplest way possible."
"I know I know, but I don't have many details on the device to say anything smart. I read this all in the homepage they have. Even read some of the forums, couldn't dig up anything. I asked my own questions but they never answered. It is like they want to keep what it does in secrecy, and whatever involves technology and mystery..."
"We're there, I get it. Anyways, if you said that we could feel the stuff that we are playing in our heads, does that mean we feel pain too?"
"I'm guessing so."
"That sounds awfully unnerving."
"Come to think about it, yeah that does sound strange. How about we ask them, we're here anyways."
And no better timing as they drove into the small parking lot of a large laboratory-looking building. The rain outside was already pouring hard and there were very few cars outside.
"Where is everyone? How many people do you think signed up?"
"Lots, the forums were filled with people who wanted to join. Strange. Well, no point in staying here." Jarred took out his umbrella and quickly got out and closed his car door, rushing his way through the rain and into the automatic doors.
Mark took his time as he took out the umbrella he had brought in his suitcase. He got out of the car and let the leather seats get wet just to troll on Jarred. He'd done it many times before and it was always superbly funny. He closed the door when he thought it was wet enough and began walking to the building. The sky was filled with light grey clouds. It seemed so familiar... The rain... It was as if... Almost identical to the rain from that day. Strange... how fate worked...
Without noticing, he had actually let himself get wet from the left side as he stared off into the sky, his umbrella drifting off to his right. He quickly pulled it over himself and rushed towards the doors. Thankfully, the doors had a roof over them, so he was able to dry his umbrella before heading inside. Still outside, he began to ring out his hair from water and began shaking it like a wet dog. He began to tumble it to his sides with his hand like he did every morning. That was his way of brushing his hair. Going in as he did, his eyes began to adjust to the whiteness of the inside.
Still combing his hair, he looked straight forward at his friend Jarred by the counter talking to the receptionist lady, showing her his identification and registration for the beta thingy.
"I'm sorry sir, doesn't seem like you are on the list."
"What do you mean. We got accepted, I got the email a week ago. Must be some mistake."
"I don't see both of your names here. I can't really do much about the situation, I'm sorry."
"Aww. Seriously? How anticlimactic. What a bummer. It's okay then." Jarred turned to him. "First time I convince you to go anywhere and we get stuck going down the drain."
"It wasn't to be." Mark stretched his arms into the air and yawned. "Hey, at least say you got me to stop working for a while. Not even your persistence could pull that off or your intensive nagging." Just as he said that, he heard multiple bouts of laughter, some giggles, some straight forward laughter, and one amused grunt. He looked around finally to realize that they were in a waiting area. Five other people were sitting very separably from each other on comfortable looking couches.
On the left side of things, a boy with a strange sigil on his shirt with cargo pants and short black hair that looked no older or younger than him sat with an amused smile on his face. He looked very similar to Jarred in stature and build, their hair were in a similar style, except the boy's was black and Jarred's hair was blond while the boy's eyes were brown and Jarred's were blue.
Against the other wall still on the left side sat a cross-legged very tomboyish looking girl with black hair and brown eyes. He expected that the amused grunt came from her, and he didn't doubt his instincts.
He looked to the right again and saw two girls sitting closely together and laughing. They were twins, both with the same style of hair, both with blond hair and blue eyes. It was scary to try and tell them apart. The only thing different were the clothes.
Lastly, by the other end of these two girls sat a very fragile looking girl and the only dressed in a dress. Strange how anyone ever used dresses anymore. Her hair was a very deep, dark brown and her eyes were just as florescent as they were green. Strangely... something was odd about her. Mostly because he caught himself thinking of how pretty she was after he had taken his sights off her.
"Well, at least now you don't have to put me to sleep because I didn't agree to do whatever you wanted me to do. I was starting to get rather afraid at your strange sense of humor. And since you took me off work for today, I might as well get some shuteye when you take me to my house... and I lock my doors and windows..." Again, more joyful laughter, the kind that said they were laughing at his jokes and not at him. He could almost feel as if they were nice people. Shame he couldn't stay a while longer.
"Or go back to watching that cartoon of yours."
Mark would have flipped his stuff if it wasn't because he didn't say the name of the show. "Ah, well, its quality tv unlike what you like to watch at twelve in the morning. *cough cough*." To be honest with himself, Jarred was his best friend because of this. No matter the situation or frustrations, he could always laugh whole-heartily with him. It truly a nice thing to have him around.
"Alrighty kiddies, I hope you all are ready. We are going to begin testing now. FOR SCIENCE!" A short man wearing a lavender lab coat appeared as he nearly ran out of the door that lead to into a corridor next to the receptionist booth.
"Whoa! It's really you! I'm like... your biggest fan sir. I've studied everything there was about your project when I first read it several years ago. Wow. You are my inspiration." Jarred literally threw himself to his knees praising them man before him.
"Thank you, thank you. But please, call me Joseph. You make me feel old with the sir thing."
"Yes sir, I mean Joseph sir."
"Ha, good lad. Will you be joining us today and your partner too?" Joseph only turned his face away in a disappointed sigh.
"You see, Jarred wanted to be part of the testing but it happens that we got an accidental invite, so we came here thinking that we would be a part of this. We were actually leaving now. Thank you though, for seeing to put up with my friend's fan boy side." He heard more snickering, but this time he was being sincere. Not a joke, srs.
The short man laughed again. "It was my pleasure, say, we were supposed to have seven beta testers and without you two I only see five. What was your names again?" He said looking into the tablet in his hands.
"I'm Mark Dylan and my friend is Jarred Liam."
"Hmm, your names are here." The smile on Jarred's face was huge as the short man walked up to the receptionist and came back telling them that there was a slight misunderstanding. "It seems that you two were the last two chosen by my hard working son and weren't registered in to our accountant's list. You are on my the list though. Congratulations!" The short man cleared his throat and looked at everyone. "You seven are the chosen seven from over two hundred entries. Let's begin testing. FOR SCIENCE!"
A young man wearing a white lab coat appeared behind him. "Meet my son, Larrison. He'll be the one guiding you through the tests. I have to tend towards technicalities. I have to travel for a few days out of town to address some concerns to the government who is funding the project. When I get back I expect great results." Just as he had appeared, he had disappeared into the rain and into a the largest truck in the parking lot. What was it with short people and big cars?
"You guys can call me Larry. My dad's only instructions for you all is to enjoy yourself, have a good time, and get to know everyone else here. We can do that another time, now if you all could please follow me." He waved at them to follow and everyone did. Jarred was so excited he wanted to burst.
His jaw dropped through the floors and into the center of the earth when he saw the large machinery handling in a very large corridor with several pod-looking beds.
"This is amazing."
"No... this is epic... truly... epic." Jarred wanted to cry in joy.
"Alright, my dad goes by a philosophy. Learn from experience and not by the experienced. So instead of giving you a rundown and instructions on what you all need to do, how about we place you in training?"
Everyone but the twins remained silent, and it was obvious everyone was nervous about the sudden procedures. The lab was brimming with lights and machinery, and the average person, this was intimidating. Not for Jarred though, he was having the time of his life. Finally, Larry began to instruct everyone in what they needed to do as they got into the pods one by one. The latches began to close off and you could not see them anymore. Mark got into his pod obediently as Larry got to him and the boy placed a strange contraption on his head made of medal. Thankfully, the metal was room temperature, so it wasn't stinging cold nor did it make his forehead sweat. The pod closed and he could only see a blue light.
Mark had no idea what to expect, but then, a voice started sounding off in his head. Not his ears, strange as that may sound. His ears seemed mute, but his head was talking to him. The voice was like his thoughts, but he could hear them loud and clear like if someone was talking to him directly. In honesty, it was uncomfortable.
Welcome Mark Dylan. You are now logged into the Project Anima network and you will proceed into testing. Please close your eyes and relax. This was the voice of a women. An AI no less.
He did as he was told. Suddenly, he couldn't hold his eyes got heavy and he couldn't hold them open anymore. He drifted off into a deep sleep.
~~~
A fresh breeze washed over him, soothing him in a blanket of soft wind. The grass below was strangely soft. The air smelled like wet dirt. He opened his eyes slowly, regain consciousness again. First thoughts was of what had happened. He wasn't entirely sure. Second thoughts. WHERE WAS HE. Oh gawd. His eyesight took a while to adjust but he could see large moss covered stones with a stream running through the cracks. Trees with lush green leaves towering above him, making the shadow patterns of glinting sunlight through the gaps between the leaves. Everything was so... surreal.
Where was he... how did he get here? Strangely... He couldn't remember anything... All he could remember was his name. Mark... Mark Dylan? The name began to bring realizations. He remembered being in a car with Jarred... looking out into the park...
Jarred! Where was he.... more importantly where was HE?! He began to try to get up on two legs but suddenly, he lost balance and began tumble forward and roll down the small tree covered hill. Thankfully, he didn't hit any trees on his way down and the grass was soft enough to cushion even the hardest tumbles. Finally stable on the ground, he looked at his hands to see if he had gotten hurt, since he had felt a bit of pain as he bumped into small rocks.
It could have been a dream. Maybe it was a dream. Finally, he concluded that it was a dream. What he saw when he looked down where hooves... This was a completely strange dream conjured up by all the times he had spent late into the night looking at ponies.
He was freaking out, don't get him wrong, but he was doing his best to keep it under control as he was trying to convince himself it was a dream. He bit himself on the light brown foreleg of his to cause some pain to try and awake. It hurt. Still, he tried his best convincing himself it was a dream. Finally giving up, he started surveying the details.
His forelegs were light brown, which meant the rest of his body was probably of that shade of color. He didn't have a horn or wings, so that meant he was a regular horse, err pony. And his surroundings were strangely familiar. Everything seemed so lush and colorful... it almost hurt looking at everything.
He dragged himself across a small hill, still not knowing how to walk, to see his surroundings a bit better. If it wasn't for his jaw already touching the ground, it would have broken as it forced itself to the ground when he saw what lay beyond.
Across a small lake with small bridge over it, a very familiar town appeared. Anticlimactic. The word appeared in his head again, almost as if he heard it before. Suffice it to say, it surely fit the situation, for across the small lake lied Ponyville.
