Cereal

        No, I don’t take LSD. I’m just using it as comparison to what I witnessed as I woke up.

‘But- but- if you haven’t taken LSD, how do you know you can compare it to whatever?’**

Shut up.

        I woke up slowly. Blinking sleepily, I stretched myself out, and finding where I was lying to be oddly comfortable, I fell back to sleep. It’s a special skill of mine. The process repeated itself another two times, until the sun began to shine directly into my eyes unbearably.

        Grumbling to myself, I swayed slightly as I got to my legs, still blinking, trying to clear my eyes of moisture clinging to my eyes. I raised my arms to rub the sleep out of my eyes, feeling a bit of resistance, and a blurry pair of hooves enter my field of view. I go ahead and rub my eyes, my priorities perfectly straight and nearly scratch my eyes with the hooves.

        Sighing, I raise my leg instead and give my eyes a rough rub and suddenly stand up straight as I hear a twig crack somewhere in the woods around me. I squinted into the trees around my, looking for the source of the noise.

… wait. Trees? Unless this is some kind of nature hotel… Which was not where I was.* My frown grew deeper as realization slowly dawned. *Wow, that fucking creeper had to kidnap me too, didn’t he. And judging by my cartoonish surroundings, he’s also drugged me. Fucking brilliant.

Trying not to imagine what unspeakable acts ‘Flash Vector’ may be committing while I was supposedly unconscious on my drug trip, I try walking around my clearing in the middle of what looked like the Everfree Forest. I didn’t like it, but whatever drug it was that was making me see Equestria was pretty cool. Even if it was probably being used as some kind of substitute roofie substance.

But…* I bent to examine a bush, *this amount of detail in a hallucination is pretty amazing. And weirdly normal. I still had yet to see the graceful elephant fairy princess prance up to me, as so many of my patients had described in their own drug trips. As I tried to focus onto a leaf and see just how detailed my little drug trip was, I realised there was something in my vision. Right smack dab in the center. It was a wonder I hadn’t seen it already. It was a little nub of a horn and was getting exponentially more annoying as I stared at it.

The fuck..? I pondered sophisticatedly as I stumbled backwards like a cat with a bad stuck on it’s head. *How.. What.. Can I get it off? I took a few swipes at it, hitting my face in the process. *Okay.. Deal with that later then.

I finally took a look at my body. Hooves, long slender legs, scales, a long tail ending with a tuft of fur. Overall, I looked like a thin pony, something like a scaled down Celestia, without the wings and with a more annoyingly placed horn. *Wow.* was all I could think as I looked at myself, which was in itself a first. I was a shade of silvery white, with a similarly translucent shade of purple in the parts of my mane I could see, as well as on the tip of my tail, the shade changing colors as it shifted, catching the sun at different angles. I had what looked like scales scattered around my body, with larger patches on my back and around my legs. My scales were a silver similar to my coat, except for the ones that ran down my spine, which were the same shade of purple as my mane (terminology courtesy of MLP).

Hot damn. This John guy can create controlled drug trips? He said something about kirins and Equestria but holy shit. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts, I guess.* Then my gaze was drawn to the horn in the center of my view. I could do without this thing though. I realised that I could also see most of my nose.. muzzle.. as well. *If I don’t stop, this is gonna become a mental tick.

        Just in time for the timberwolf to finally lose its patience and charge at me.

        Thank God the wolf was either stupid or a pup, ‘cause it charged at me from across the clearing, giving me some precious reaction time, instead of following me around the clearing, waiting until I came near the edge to pounce right onto me.

What a convenient coincidence. Not that I’m complaining.

I ran towards what I hoped was the exit to the Everfree, running towards wherever the canopy seemed thinner. Making sure to watch the ground as I ran as well, having seen enough of the stupid ‘tripping at a vital moment’ cliche about twenty times too many. Thankfully I didn’t run in a circle and end up in the clearing where I started, and I soon ended up at where I assumed should have been the edge of Ponyville. There was nothing, thankfully, because of the lack of trees and potentially life threatening tripping roots/twigs/whatever bullshit trips people these days. I did wonder, though. *I probably just need a map. I’m on the other side of the forest or something.*

I didn’t realise how far I had run, but I was already breathing hard and when I looked back, the timberwolf was nowhere to be seen. However, when I turned my head to look back, it meant I wasn’t looking *forwards.* A cleverly placed hill concealed a lake from my sight and when I stepped over it, my hooves met nothing.

Wha- Oh shi-* “AAAAAAAAHH” I cried out as I tumbled head over heels in the air, falling into the water with a terrific *SPLASH! Hooves, I soon found, were not the best at treading water. As I floundered around helplessly in the water, kicking desperately, animals had begun to peek out of their dens to look at the commotion.

“HELP M-” *BLUB.*I came up coughing and spluttering, desperately trying to paddle to shore with my useless hooves. The animals just watched with interest at the stupid pony-looking thing that couldn’t even swim, and yet still decided to jump into the water.

After another minute of flapping around in the water like a drowning fish, I realised that I was in no real danger, like a drowning fish. If I stood on my hind legs (which wasn’t hard with the water reducing what body weight I had, and because I was a human, duh) I could just barely reach the river bottom with my back hooves. I slowly ‘walked’ over to the closest bit of land I could see and immediately collapsed onto the muddy bank. I sank slightly into the soft ground, and it felt *good.* A lot better than drowning, at least. Breathing hard, I gave the ground a long hard kiss (no, I didn’t use my tongue. What the hell?) and filled my mouth with a healthy helping of mud.

        The mouthful of dirt did nothing to help by shortness of breath and I began spitting it out and dunked my head into the lake to rinse out the dirt, which tasted like any normal mouthful of sand, despite the bright colors. When I finished washing my mouth out, I pulled my head back out of the water to prevent another embarrassing ‘drowning incident. As my head came out of the water, I saw the rippled reflection of my head in the water.

No time like right now to explore my body,* I reasoned. Waiting until the lake settled, my attention was immediately directed at the two antlers sprouting from the back of my head. What am I, a pony triceratops? Between my nose-horn and my pair of antlers I officially had three horns. *I’ll bet that there’s a triceratops club somewhere around here… My eyes were still the same as back in the human world, a brown dark enough to look black, with a slight contrast. There wasn’t much remarkable about my face. I had a patch of scales around my horn which I could see anyways if I crossed my eyes.

Making a mental note to find one later, I decided to gather my bearings. The animals that had watched so cruelly when I almost drowned were nowhere to be seen. *Musta’ run off when I got out. Probably thought I was going to eat them or something. Speaking of, what do magical triceratops ponies eat? I studied the grass. Hmm.. Couldn’t hurt to try. Feel like I’m going to regret this though..*

The grass was surprisingly okay. It was nowhere near delicious, but it was good to know I could at least get food easily wherever I was. I still didn’t buy the Equestria shtick, but I also didn’t have much of any other explanation. *Not sure drug trips can get this vivid, to the point of almost drowning me. Huh. Wonder if I can even die anymore.*

        Turning my mind away from such morbid thoughts, I take a quick drink of water and begin to roam the grassland. It was useless, however, and my thoughts soon wander again. What can I say? Being alone left me with nothing better to do.

If I* am *in fact in Equestria, of all places, then where are the ponies? Where’s everything, for that matter? Not a single cutesy pastel building in sight. Why? I stop to take a look around. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. I was in the middle of nowhere.

No Ponyville… Canterlot? I don’t know any other Equestrian cities beyond that. Oh wait, Manehattan. But I won’t be seeing* that*from the middle of freaking nowhere.

An iconic mountain catches my eye. *The iconic mountain, in fact. The one where Canterlot was… supposed to be. Hahahahahaha just when I had my hopes up. I knew it. Nothing could be this perfect. Figures. Life, man you are just so* funny.

Then I remembered something just before I appeared here. I was having a strange dream with flying whales and Trump as president, yelling at the whales and threatening to deport them, making them pay for it. Before that, though, I recalled my conversation with ‘John.’ “Have some time, you’ll need it” he’d said. Did he… No. He did, didn’t he. That’s wicked cool. Holy damn. He didn’t just send me to Equestria it seemed. He also sent me back in time. *Unless I’m in a drug-induced coma in the back of his big white van...*

Without any iconic landmarks to guide me along, I was as lost as I could get in a whole different world than the one I was used to. *This is how I die, I guess. If I can die. Might actually just wake up, if this was all just a crazy drug trip. Don’t wanna risk it though.*

Severely in need of a reference point, I thought hard. *Train tracks.. Nope. Cloudsdale? I don’t even have wings. Appleloosa? Too far away, from what I remember. Does it even exist yet? Wait. Something old is all I need to find, right?*

Well, yeah.

How about… The Castle of the Two Sisters!

Back in the Everfree?

...Well, where else can it be.

I see a few problems with this plan.

I do too, but I also see the merits of this brilliant plan.

Like what?

Like we have no other idea what to do.

Damn.

I stopped suddenly, realising I was talking, or rather thinking, to myself again.

Man, I am lonely.

Tell me about it.

I roughly shook my head and made my way back into the Everfree Forest.