The rolling while still annoying had given me the chance to get a peek at my surroundings. It was a forest. Forests as a whole are a rather uncommon sight back home, and the few that I was aware of weren't exactly arboreal wonders. They only substantial forest I had ever seen was at hogsback, a backwater that was named after the geological formation it was nestled upon. I had only learnt that particular piece of information when I had started doing geography in grade eleven. Now when I say backwater I mean backwater, in the words of a Swiss chef I encountered when my family dragged me away from finishing my borrowed copy of watch dogs to have tea "I go left there's bugger all, I go right there's bugger all and if I go straight there's a bunch of drunks so I don't go that way I come straight home." I was far more used to the tall, scraggly grasses of the veld and the occasional clump of thorn trees.

After what I assumed to be the five minute mark I had started getting quite nauseous and in an attempt to combat it I initiated a form of time wasting so ancient and so well known that virtually every human being alive has used it at one point or another.

Two hundred and sixty eight bottles of beer on the wall two hundred and sixty eight bottles of BEEEEERRR...

Two hundred and sixty eight bottles of beer later.

By the time we had caught up to the wagon train my captors were panting and stumbling to the point you would swear they had run a marathon, but then again I suppose rolling around a guy who is capable of filling up a doorway would tire out just about anyone.

"HEY, STOP FOR BUCKS SAKE!" Came the ragged cry and I identified it's source as one of the several nameless faceless henchmen under Sparky and Nettie's command.

The wagon train came to an abrupt halt along with a cacophony of startled animalistic shrieks. My curiosity quickly overtook my sense of caution as I began squirming in an attempt to roll myself over so I could see what made such a bizarre racket. My efforts were rewarded with a harsh kick to the gut from a nearby guard. I rolled onto my side from the force of the blow and curled into the foetal position in an attempt to ward off any further blows. The guard in question had a smug look painted on his face but was prevented from continuing his barrage when he was half heartedly scolded by one of his superiors and told to "stop breaking the merchandise".

He looked thoroughly put out that his new game had been shut down before it had even truly began. Sighing, he quickly lost interest and wandered off, presumably to flick staples at his cat. Releasing the breath I was unintentionally holding, I decided it was time to take stock of my somewhat sad situation. My shirt was in good shape albeit rather dirty, ditto on the jeans, wriggling my hands confirmed my suspicions of it having been ripped off during my struggle, thankfully my necklace was still intact and my boots were still fully laced despite the bonds looped almost artfully around my ankles.

But how did I get here?

That was a question I had mulled over whilst mentally drowning myself in beer. I had already considered multiple scenarios: alien invasion, fever dream, overly elaborate prank and coma. The usual reasons why someone would find themselves enslaved by talking, Technicolor horses. Racking my brains for what might have been the cause of the previous events turned up a blank. I couldn't for the life of me recall anything other than sitting in the back of my father's car with my dad driving, my mom in the passenger seat and my sister next to me before being rendered nonsensical and waking up in a forest. Come to think of it though I also recalled a rather queer feeling of being stuffed in a bag. Though as to where the hell someone could even get a sack big enough to fit someone standing at 6,5 I had no idea. Also, how would you justify carrying around a bag that big to a curious passer-by.

"Oh what, you mean this? You see, I'm too cheap to take my son to gold reef city so, I'm just going to stuff him in the bag and swing him around for a bit."

I quickly try to shake away the mental image of my dad swinging around my five year old self. However, try as I might I am unable to remove the aforementioned image my mind. Oh boy! Something to think about whilst I scream myself to sleep tonight. Closing my eyes I released a drawn out sigh from my nose. Despite having done precisely bugger all during the course of the morning (it was still morning as the sun had yet to reach it's zenith) I felt severely fatigued mentally.

Am I crazy?

I examined a lizard that had decided to sun bathe on a nearby rock attempting to distract myself from pursuing that very familiar train of thought. The lizard looked at me briefly before leaping up onto it's hind legs, retrieving a top hat and cane from behind the rock and proclaiming in the voice of George Takei:

"Yes. Yes you are."

My eyes snapped open as I jolted awake. To an outside observer it would look as though I had woken up from a nightmare. Slowly exhaling I spared a cursory glance at my surroundings, revealing that no more than a few minutes had passed and that my captors were too engrossed in their own problems to have noticed my shock. I sat upright before crossing my legs and attempted to roll my shoulders so as to loosen the tension from being restrained for so long then I began to scan my surroundings in the hopes of finding a conveniently placed escape route, but alas I was surrounded. While my guards most definitely were not going to be signing up for MENSA any time soon, they were far from stupid. However it seemed that the man upstairs was piss drunk mad at me as my captors chose that very moment to get their shit together, as Sparky and an entourage of several other horses appeared seemingly out of nowhere and began barking orders like drill sergeants.

"And would somepony load this freak onto the train? 'Cuz I did not chip a tooth just so we could leave his stupid flank behind!"

I cringed at the butchered pronoun but managed to identify the source as a lilac mare (?) that I hadn't spotted before who was clearly peeved that her hard work might be for nothing. The entire group of horses which now numbered over forty strong immediately looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. There was a chorus of "Oh right" and "My bad" before they were silenced by the bellowing of an older stallion with a pristine white coat and a greying orange mane.

"YOU SHIT STAIN'S MEAN TO TELL ME, YOU MANAGED TO CATCH A SIX HOOFER AND THAT YOU FORGOT ABOUT HIM? HOW BUCKIN' STUPID ARE YOU? NOW SHUT UP AND GET THE CRANE."

My ears were ringing from the display of pulmonary fortitude doubly so for the horses with their keen sense of hearing. The tinnitus cut out after several seconds and the horses seemed to be apathetic however and immediately began fulfilling the Screamers demands. A rumbling grinding screech alerted me to the presence of what I assumed to be the aforementioned crane. Pushing myself up onto my haunches and shuffling my legs in order to turn so as to be able to see what was creating such a grating cacophony confirmed my assumption of it being the crane. After a shouted order I was knocked on my back before being picked up by what looked like an oversized claw machine, the only key difference being that it wasn't designed to drop things the moment you pick them up. The muzzle was removed I immediately opened my mouth in the hopes of clarifying this as being nothing more than a terrible misunderstanding but all that came out was an inhuman braying that degenerated into a hacking cough which caused the attendant to pause just long enough to slap me upside the head before removing the bindings on my hands and feet. The claw lifted me high above the pen before stopping. I estimated that it was at least a five meter drop to the holding pen where several other humans were gawping at the spectacle before them.

I barely even noticed that the claw had released me before I started screaming.

Author's Note

My wifi finally came back on today so I decided to get off my arse and type up another chapter. Hope you enjoyed it.