Chapter 1 - Déjà Vu
I was walking through the forest. The night air was crisp and the coolness of the late Autumn breeze began to nip harshly at my face. I shivered slightly as the wind began to pick up, rustling the trees around me. After only being out walking for the best part of half an hour I decided that it was time to return home. I turned around to face the opposite direction and started walking.
Reaching the edge of the forest I happened to glance up at the sky and noticed that it was rapidly getting darker from clouds that were moving in above me. It was at that moment that the weather took a turn for the worst. I heard a rumble of thunder from not too far away as what can only be described as a 'wall' of rain began quickly making its way towards me across the rolling hills ahead.
Choosing dryness over getting home I made my way back into the forest and took refuge under a tight cluster of trees, hoping it would give the best protection. I slumped down at the base of one of the trees and hugged myself tight. The wind whistled through the trees around me making the chilled air even colder. Thankfully the trees were taking the fore front of the weather head on blocking most of the wind from reaching me. It was then the rain reached me. Seemingly I had chosen a good spot to wait out the storm, as very little of the rain was able to even make it through the thatch-like arrangement of the pine needles above me.
There was another rumble of thunder and all of a sudden out of nowhere a strange glowing orb of light, that was accelerating towards me at an alarming rate, appeared from somewhere within the dense forest. The strange orb seemed to omit a strange buzzing electrical sound. It was deep violet and looked as if it were about the same size as my head. I struggled to my feet to attempt to make a move to evade the floating object. I failed to move out of the way in time causing it to hit me square in the face and I collapsed on the ground, blacking out.
What seemed hours later I woke up with a terrible headache in a clearing in the forest. As I slowly lifted myself up from the ground, I saw a pale white aura illuminating the forest floor I had been laying on. It seemed to be originating from the large milky sphere that was hanging so majestically in the clear night sky. I finally got up and observed my surroundings.
I had no clue where I was...
I sat down on a nearby fallen branch and tried very hard to recollect what had happened prior to blacking out. I managed to remember that I had been walking, but for what reason I do not know. I recalled the glowing orb hitting me hard in the head and a pulse of electricity flowing through my body. Then nothing.
I wrapped my fore-leg around my head due to a sudden stab of pain. As the pain softened I tried again hard to remember the events that led up to my current situation. To my dismay, as far as I could remember, there was nothing that happened before the orb. Panic struck as I realised that I also couldn't remember where my home was and worst of all - who I am.
As my head filled with thoughts, most of which were new to me, a fizz of bright red light shot from my horn. Not knowing what this was, I stumbled back in fear, falling off the branch on which I had been perched. Slowly the light faded leaving only a faint glow around my horn. It gave me a strange sensation inside my head and before I knew it the pain had completely vanished.
I began to get up. Feeling a little light-headed I staggered about a little before regaining my balance. I started walking off through into the dense forest ahead of me hoping to find some way out. I was only walking for little more than a minute before I spotted a well trodden track a little way off to my left. Hoping it lead out of the forest I began to head towards it.
As I reached it I looked either way down the track. Assuming one of the directions led out of the forest I had a fifty-fifty chance of going the correct way. I made my choice; I headed right.
Continuing on through the forest, the track became more and more narrow, the air colder and the dark darker. The moon was now only barely visible through the thick canopy above. Still, I continued onward into the unknown, becoming increasingly aware of strange sounds emanating from the blackness around me. I picked my head sharply as there was a terrible howling sound causing the rest of the sounds to stop briefly. Judging by the way it echoed its way around the forest it can't be nearby. I gave sigh of relieve, although quickening my pace just in case I was wrong.
Over the noises of the forest I heard a trickling of water up ahead. As I approached its source I realised it was a river. Thankfully I didn't have to return back the I came as there was an old, half-ruined stone bridge that looked like it had seen better days. I crossed to the other side slowly, wary of its condition. I looked over my shoulder checking there wasn't something following me, but as I did so I heard shouting from far up ahead. They seemed to be calling. With lack of better judgement I started walking towards where the voice was coming from. As I approached, I could see a silhouette of a pony walking the track a distance ahead of me as they moved in and out of patches of moonlight.
The pony was still calling out, now with a hint of desperation in their voice. Hoping that they could help me, I increased my pacing moving faster towards the pony and called out to it in a voice that I had never heard before, coming out as more of a whisper; they didn't hear me. As I got closer towards the pony a twig snapped beneath my hoof. I froze. Now wondering what caused me to reason that this pony would try to help me, and not try to harm me, I backed away a few steps. They looked around sharply in my general direction. Clearly not seeing me under the shadows of the trees, they slowly turned back to the track ahead. I began to follow once again. They now seemed to stoop their head low, perhaps anxious that they were being followed by something. Of course they had every right to be anxious, they were being followed after all, by me. They then started calling out again that same name they had been calling earlier, only now a little quieter and more timidly. This time I was close enough to understand them.
"Wake up!"
I stopped briefly, obviously mishearing what they said...
"Spike, where are you?"
Spike? Are they calling to me? Dozens of thoughts flooded through my head. Suddenly I realized that I was galloping at full pace towards the pony. As they walked through a stray shaft of moonlight that seemed to cut through the trees like a knife would through butter, I caught a glimpse of the pony belonging to the silhouette I had been chasing. They were female (how I know this, I'm not sure) and their hair, no, mane was of a dark indigo colour with a lighter pink and violet streak running through it. Her skin, coat, was lavender coloured with what seemed like a tattoo emblazoned on her flank. The tattoo type mark seemed to represent some kind of star. I thought for a second. Could it be possible that I too could have one of these? I stared around at my own flank. Astonishingly I was right, I did have one. Mine looked as though it depicted some kind of bolt of lightning or electricity.
While I was pondering over what it meant and how it got there, I suddenly remembered that I was still running towards the lavender coloured mare. I quickly returned my vision forwards once more only to see the star shaped mark rapidly growing larger before my eyes. Before I could stop myself or at least change direction, I landed face first into the mare's flank. This sudden assault on her person caused her to jump into the air before spinning around and firing a bolt of brilliant purple towards me. Having already had a similar experience only hours before, I braced myself for the worst. The bolt hit me square in the face. The last thing I see being the mare's silhouette towering over me, with horn still glowing faintly. My eyes closed and I blacked out for the second time.
Déjà vu: The impression that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Rewritten at last! Sorry for the delay, running a YouTube channel and a Minecraft server takes up a large proportion of my time, leaving me doing this at 3AM. Hopefully my brain has produced something a bit better than last time. Please tell me if I've done stuff wrong in it (hopefully all the spelling and grammar is correct, I'm rather OCD about that. This being another reason why I took so long to upload it.) Thank you for reading it! I hope you enjoyed it (although the likeliness is that you didn't) and I hope you enjoy the chapters to come (Celestia only knows why I'm continuing to write this.)
