Starlight felt indescribably numb, as if her body was severed from her mind in a stasis. She couldn't tell where she was, what she might lying on and whether she was even conscious or not. She at least thought she was unconscious, because being conscious wouldnt mean feeling like your mind is floating. Or like your mind was spinning and floating, for that matter. It would most likely be nauseating if she could actually feel her own stomach; she hated spinning too much. It often forced her food to one part of her stomach due to momentum and then it would try going out the way it came in. Thankfully she hadn't really endured that kind of torture in many, many months and intended to at least make it to a year. Perhaps if all the feeling was gone like it was now for a while, then she wouldn't have to worry about feeling motion sickness.
She couldn't tell how many minutes passed for she could feel her hooves twitch on the ground- scrape on the ground that felt flat and coarse. After finally registering this, the mare focused on her other senses and the other areas that she could feel again; her belly was lying on the ground from the side, and her horn was grazing something solid. Starlight was more than certain that her ears had come back to her, but she had yet to hear anything except for...whirring? Something crackling in the distance? Drafts of air over extended time periods?
After all this time, her eyelids officially opened, even though it was a mere sliver of distance. Her vision was so blurry that she had to own her eyes more, in hopes that she would be able to tell where she was lying. It was a huge, wide space that looked insanely alien in origin: nopony could have possibly constructed a giant hallway made entirely out of metal platforms and metal walls and metal ceilings. After looking down at the floor in awe, she noticed an array of glass shards that she followed to a tough looking door just to her side. The window of the door must've been the original place for the glass, and she was willing to assume that the rubbery gray tube hanging limply out of the windowpane was also supposed to be behind the door. Confused at this, her eyes followed where the tube was was going and then widened in horror when she discovered the end of it. The tube ended inside of her.
Her heart stopped for a full minute at the sight; the tube was feeding inside her jaws like a thick spaghetti noodle and down her throat. Starlight would have gasped at the sight if she didn't have this thing in her body. The pony's hooves trembled softly until they gripped the sides of the tube as best as she could, adding in her levitation spell for extra assurance. She gagged or choked loudly when she pulled and pulled and pulled on the tube, while it slid out at a sickening pace completely covered in her saliva. Except for the end of the tube, which had pints of blood spattered over it's nozzle. What was this terrible thing, and how far down into her body had it gone?
Starlight also questioned where she was with a deep fear. No part of ponyville or Equestria that she knew of had any land like this. Maybe this meant that she wasn't in Equestrian any more. Still, this only raised more questions in her head- and they were starting to give her a serious headache. Starlight stood to her legs weakly and decided that she'd just have to live without answers for the time being. For now, she had to find a way out of here.
The pony chose to to head in the direction behind her and traversed the long metal hallways. It felt so alien and coarse to her hooves, which were used to crystal or dirt floors in ponyville. The more she traveled down this curving hallway, the more she noticed that metal pieces were scattered around like pieces of torn of paper and that the level of walking seemed to tilt ever so slightly to the side. A mammoth door stood before her eventually, completely metal and just partially open. The sliver of the inside that she could see had sunlight streaming in and electriciry sparkling from torn wires. She stood up more hopefully; this was the way out, right?
Starlight forced her shoulder against the unclosed part of the door and pushed with all of her might, because the door was as heavy as it looked. Once it was open enough for her to squeeze through, the unicorn discovered wide y-shaped space and a gigantic window somehow on the ceiling yet also on the wall. It was still too high for her to see out of properly, so she'd have to climb into one of the metallic looking chairs in front of the window. The moment she walked around to the frontbof the two chairs though, she almost shrieked. Some kind of creature was sitting in one of the chairs.
It looked absolutely terrifying: it's body was about three times larger than hers, almost completely covered in a bulkly looking suit with odd devices, and loomed over her even in a sitting position. She thought it was alive at first but to her horror, she discovered the maskless head: a sharp piece of metal was lodged into it's neck far too deep to be safe. Dried up, navy blue blood gushed from it's slackened jaws and disturbingly contrasted with the dark purple skin like a twisted painting. Strangely reptilian eyes were staring up at the ceiling with a foggy haze.
Starlight's body recoiled from the smell she soon picked up, turning her head away to vomit all over the cold grey floor. She shuddered deeply after emptying her stomach; she'd never seen a dead body in such a grotesque position. She had no idea who or what the creature was, but she didn't believe that it should die in such a painful way. The mare decided to move towards the empty chair to the right, keeping her eyes on anything but the lifeless body to the left. The pony climbed onto the bulkly thing and leaned upwards to get her best glimpse of where this strange place was. Her eyes bulged.
This wasn't anywhere near Ponyville.
The world she was in looked entirely different to the town that she left behind. From what she could see, thousands of skyscraper tall trees stood as one big army in front of the window while one or two trees had been knocked down by the front of the vessel she was in. These trees werent normal though- they were thick and very bright in color, yet sometimes twisted like an old oak. Dirt from the ground had been kicked up, hinting that this vessel had endured a grave impact to the ground long before she came here. That might explain the bent floors and the glass shards and the...body. Starlight sat there for another ten minutes, trying to make sense of what was going on and how this all had happened. She didn't remember going aboard this thing or feeling the crash that freed her from the strange cage, but if she did get the chance to come here she wouldn't have done it on her own will.
Starlight shook her head and reluctantly leaped to the ground. She squeezed back through the door with a strong determination, reluctantly looking back at the body before doing so. The mare knew that to find answers, she would have to get out of this barren ship and venture this new world. The search for the opening didn't last very long; a large hole with stair steps awaited her as if it had already been opened. She didn't pay attention to this though.
"...this is probably the worst day of my life." Starlight sighed through her nostrils, her walk growing slower and slower as the hours went on. Said hours had been very informational though: for instance, the unicorn learned with confusion that this world had two moons that were strangely visible during the amount of sunlight she was having. One was miniature in size and the other looked so close that she would've thought it would crash into the ground. She also discovered that everywhere she walked, the land was one big jungle.
She sat on a tree root for a moment to rest her hooves and once again look around. So many vines and trees were around her, sprinkled with roses, petunias and so many other flowers that could put a garden to shame. The animal sounds oddly worked together like some kind of ambience, yet she never got to see any of this natural symphony. The aquatic hooting sounds, the random thumps against trees, the shrill cawing? She never saw an animal making any of those noises.
Once she got herself back on the move again, Starlight wisely steered clear of the territorial tree marks in her path and went in the opposite direction. The jungle grew denser here unfortunately, forcing her to push and shove through several walls of tangling vines or leaves. Her heart would leap at the occasional, sudden sounds of birds chirping above or even a few unidentifiable things. The distance roamed became something along the lines of a mile or a half, bringing Starlight nothing but what she had began with: no sign of her answers. Needless to say, he was growing quite irritated with her issue.
Everything looked the same in this forsaken waste of plant life! It was untouched by anypony, there were no paths or housings for her to rest in and the lack of social interaction was getting to her. She wasnt the most talkative pony in Equestria, but she had never endured such silence. The social quiet had defied all logic to her because it had now become absolutely deafening. There were no more birds to be heard after a while, which alarmed her enough to get her slow down to a halt. Her ears strained to detect anything to warn her. Nothing.
But she did spot a bird after a few minutes of searching, perched on a high up tree branch. It's body was about as large as her own body, yet with the addition of it's neck and head, she seemed smaller. It's blood red feathers were ruffled in a feral fashion which made it look as if it were made of nothing but mangled flesh. The bird's beak was wave the shape of a thick claw and actually seemed lined with teeth, as tiny as they were. Blazing orange eyes gazed upon her form with a hungry stare and she took notice of how menacing they looked with the blood dripping from it's beak.
Whimpering softly, Starlight stepped back slowly until the staring bird was obscured by tree branches. Even then, her hooves still moved backwards unaided by her eyes.
"Oof!" Starlight had walked for so long without looking down that she tripped over own hooves and went over rhe edge of a small cliff edge muzzle first. Spitting out a mouthful of soil and growling, the mare decided to pause and look around her surroundings. She noticed that a wall of densely packed trees and flora stood before her to block her path. After taking a detour to the left she found an opening that faded into a dirt clearing as large as a garden. But there were no plants here, let alone other signs of life. There were several hoofprints in the area...at least, they looked like hoofprints. Whatever had made them had stubby toes and far larger hooves than she did. Starlight shrugged off the discovery by clopping through the clearing and over to the other side of it.
It was the same wandering routine she had before, except with a few random rights and lefts in her path. Her eyes once again failed to focus on anything in her path, but rather a small grove of flowers that caught her gaze. She was about to consider plucking one to briefly sniff, when she collided muzzle face first with something else. This time she found that it was a huge, brown rock in her path. Not paying much attention to the fur the rock had, Starlight turned her head to the left to see if she could walk around it from there. The rock suddenly gave a low grunt and moved, which certainly got her attention.
It was difficult to describe the creature that turned it's head to look at her, but there was a close enough description to make in her case. It was like a bear with more fur than a regular bear would have, but instead of a bear head there was a head more similar to the head of a cobra. With the eyes of a bumblebee.
Starlight's jaw dropped at this,both of them staring at each other in surprised confusion. She wasn't sure what to do next short of screaming and running away, but she also wasn't sure how fast this thing could run if it needed to. Perhaps she could distract it with a--
"What's the matter with you?!" Starlight gasped at the strangely normal voice coming out of the bear-thing, who narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. "Can't you see I'm trying to sleep off a good meal here?"
The unicorn flinched at the forked tounge that flicked out towards her, causing her to take a good couple of steps back. "I-Im sorry to disturb you, sir. You see, I was l-lost and I kinda needed--"
He cut her off with a well placed snort and curled back up into his napping position as if nothing had happened." Go away. I'm not in the mood to talk with you...whatever you are."
"I-I'm a pony...Look, Sir! I just need you to help me..." Starlight's firm statement was cut off again by the creature moving to his paws with a growl and standing high above her head. She swallowed quietly at the claws she saw on this creature, and sheepishly started to crawl backwards. "On the o-other hand, maybe somepony else can help me...?"
The creature grumbled something particularly offensive under his breath, and settled back down on the ground. She sighed sadly and walked away from one of the only intelligent things in this jungle-- one of her only chances at some social interaction in a while. She glared to herself however; who cared about that cranky old thing? If one of the beings here could talk, then there was a good chance that another creature would talk to her.
If they didn't try to kill her first, as she was soon to discover.
