Echo-4882

I have to say, the multiverse is an odd place to travel through. It looks like a nebula with small vortexes strewn throughout them, each vortex leading to a different universe entirely. Normally a child going through this would probably be going through massive amounts of inner turmoil but honestly, I was strangely calm. Yes I was in shock for a long time, the speed at which things happened caused my brain to have to repeat the scenario over and over again before I started to come to terms with it.

My family, my friends, everything I knew was gone, so why was I so calm? Surely I should be crying, angry... hell, even delving into insanity would have been fine. But I couldn't feel anything.

Millions of thoughts passed through my brain at one time, each one crowding for attention. “What happened?” “Why me?” “What am I going to do now?” were some of the more common ones. In order to purge these thoughts from my mind, I tried to remember things about me. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe I figured I would find peace in thinking about things I understood.

“Ok, I'm 9 years old. I have two parents that love me. I got my cutie mark last year, a picture of a planet with a yellow ring around it. My fur is light grey and my mane is black. My name is... my name?”

It was odd. No matter how much I tried I couldn't remember my name for the life of me. I simply passed it off at the time. “I'm sure it will come back to me sooner or later.”

Slowly my brain switched back to reality and noticed I was heading directly towards one of the vortexes. I had been taught on what to do when passing into a vortex and started to get into position. Normally multiverse travel is safe for the user but it can, on rare occasions, be fatal. So the user needs to be ready to fall from a great height, dig through the ground, or simply brace for a short impact.

Naturally there wasn't any way of me surviving a fall from a great height and due to the state of my body, I doubted I could dig through anything stronger than fine sand. So I went into the basic bracing position, bent my knees, get ready to allow my legs to take the brunt of the fall so my body wouldn't be too damaged. Legs heal easily, organs not so much.

The vortex before me opened up to reveal a field of some sort. The portal was going to drop me maybe 6 feet down which is actually extremely lucky for portal placement. I swear whoever created some of the portals in the multiverse must be some sort of sadist... or just really stupid, whichever one works for you.

I could already feel the gravity of the planet taking hold of me, pulling me towards the ground at an ever increasing speed. It was when I was around 20 feet from the portal that fear and doubt started to set in.

“What if something goes wrong?” I thought, “What if the gravity suddenly changes and I fly into the portal at some breakneck speed?”

As absurd as it may sound, there have been stories told of such things happening. Where the gravity is weaker in the multiverse but as soon as the user passed through the portal they immediately splattered onto the ground from the sudden change of gravity.

Thankfully nothing like that happened. There was a slight change to the gravitational pull but not enough to cause me any harm. It still knocked the wind out of me when I hit the ground though. I lay there gasping for air; the bracing position had worked. The fall had sprained a leg but other than that I was fine. Maybe a little bruised but no real damage done.

After what felt like hours (it was actually near enough 5 minutes) I opened my eyes, squinting them at the sudden change of light, to see the most beautiful sight I had ever laid my eyes on. It was just like home, but without the war, and far more primitive technology. There was a small town sitting a couple of miles from me that I could only assume to be Ponyville and an immense city built on the mountains that I could immediately identify as Canterlot. I had never really visited Canterlot but everypony knew what it was. The capital of Equestria and home to the two princesses.

A few moments passed as I took in the landscape around me. The majority of the landscape was plains but I could see forested areas and a few mountains scattered around. I had seen pictures of what it was like before the war but to actually see it with my own eyes was impressive to say the least.

I was unsure on what to do at that point. I couldn't go home; I didn't belong here and I literally had nothing with me. After a minute of thinking I decided the best course of action was to try and head into town, maybe I could try and get help from the ponies that lived there? Who knows, I might even like it here...

And with that thought I started the long walk to Ponyville, not knowing that a certain chaotic god had been watching from a tree line nearby...