Warm Welcomes
November 6th, 2012
I slowly opened my eyes and squinted as they adjusted the brightness of Sun's rays peering through the leaves of the tree. After rubbing my eyes to get rid of my eye crust, I began to slowly climb back down tree while being cautious of the creature that chased me. I than jumped off the lowest branch and landed with a grunt. Turning my head towards the tree, I discovered these nasty looking gashes or claw marks on the side and huge paw prints that led back in the opposite side of the woods.
“Uh, uh, that ain’t happening.” I said to myself.
I walked back onto the gravel path and looked both ways to remind myself where I was heading to and continued westward. Along the way, I encountered smaller and more friendlier animals such as rabbits, squirrels, birds. Pretty much the commons animals you would see in the woods, but I still didn’t my guard down on that one thing.
I felt like I was walking forever until I came across a T-intersection with a sign that pointed right for Ponyville. I followed the directions and took a right turn. The woods became less dense than it was before and I could actually see through the trees. As I walked onwards more, I came across something new: an apple tree that was filled with bright red apples.
“Alright! Something to eat.” I exclaimed out loud.
I rushed over to the tree and jumped upwards, grabbed an apple, and yanked it on the way down. After plucking it off, I took a big bite into it and my tastebuds were hit with a burst of sweet flavor and a hint of sour from the juices inside. After finishing the apples, I collected two more and continued on the path. However, something seemed different. The sunlight was dimming a tiny bit and then I realized that sunset was near.
“Sunset already!? How long was I asleep for?” I questioned myself.
I now needed to hurry because if i’m out here when nightfall hits, i’m pretty sure that thing will not hesitate to come find me again. To speed things up a bit, I began to jog on the path.
I’ve been jogging for a short amount of time and I came across some hoof prints. When I mean hoof prints, I mean the footprints of a horse. The hoof prints were relatively small, could possibly be a small horse or a donkey. This sparked a thought: If there are hoof prints on a path and they go in a straight direction towards that supposed village, than that means there are people with domesticated horses in the area.
“Okay, just gotta follow these prints and they should lead me to somebody…..hopefully.” I said.
As I was following the hoofprints, I noticed the environment was dimming even more. When I looked up, the sun was on the verge of setting. I was now jogging even faster now because I just wanted to get to the end of the trail of the hoofprints before it’s too late.
I continued jogging at a fast pace and noticed something up ahead. It was something small, yellow, and red at the top. I started to close in on and realized it was a small pony with a yellow coat and a red mane, it also had bow in its mane. As I got closer, it turned around and its face made me stop dead in my tracks.
First of all, the shape of its face is not like a horse i’ve ever seen. The head more rounded and has this rounded triangular muzzle. Second, its eyes are really big and look exactly like a humans. Complete with a set of eyebrows and eyelashes, but they do fit the size of the head. And lastly, the face, including the body, looks like it was pulled out of a cartoon and put into reality. I’m now questioning whether i’m awake or dreaming. I proceeded to pinch my side and nothing happened.
"Welp, I guess I'm not dreaming." I said, mentally.
Me and the pony made eye contact and I could see it was absolutely terrified by the facial expression it made. The pupils had creepily shrunk a little bit and its mouth wide open. All of a sudden, the pony turned around and got the hell out of dodge.
“Huh, must’ve scared it off.” I thought.
The pony continued to sprint further away than took a left. Shortly after it turned, I heard a voice in the distance that sounded like a little girl and I could make out what it said. It said "Applejack.” But it was in a shout. The weird thing was that it came from the direction of the pony. Maybe the left turn the pony made was a path that lead to a house and the shout could’ve been the owner of the pony calling for it.
“Yeah, that seems like a pretty legit explanation.” I assured to myself.
I had to figure out if what I just saw was real, so I decided to follow it. As I got to the left where the pony turned, I quickly took notice to the sign above me that read 'Sweet Apple Acres.' No wonder there’s so many apple trees, it’s an apple orchard. Just as I was about to continue walking, the pony came back with slightly larger orange pony….and they were talking.
“C’mon Applejack! Its right here! Some kind of monkey!” it yelled in a southern accent.
"Monkey!?" I thought to myself while taking some offense.
“Alright, Applebloom, let's see what this thing i-.” said the orange pony also in a feminine southern accent. The orange pony stopped and stared right back me with the same shocked expression I probably had when I saw the smaller yellow one.
“APPLEBLOOM! GET AWAY FROM IT!” she yelled. The orange pony sprinted over toward the yellow pony and swooped her away from my direction, causing me to back up a little.
“Applebloom, go get Big Mac and tell him to get the rope. I'll hold em off.” Applejack demanded.
"Oh, fudge." I screamed internally
“But Applejack, now that I think about it, it doesn't look that harmful. It looks rather friendly to me." Applebloom replied in a sympathetic tone.
“Applebloom….go." said Applejack, sternly.
With that, Applebloom took one more look at me before she ran off towards the other direction.
Now it was just me and Applejack. She began to scrape her hooves against the dirt, kicking dust behind her, indicating she was about to charge. I was still somewhat lost in a trance of bewilderment due to seeing two ponies talking in perfect english. Before I knew it, Applejack was running towards me. Quickly, I dodged to the left avoiding the tackle. But Applejack quickly bucked me in the abdomen with her back hooves. The force sent me flying upwards a good distance and I landed on my back. The wind was knocked out me and I had a sharp pain in my abdominal area. I desperately wheezed trying to suck oxygen back into my lungs while clutching my abdomen with my hands. Fortunately, I was able to regain my breathing.
Just as I was about to pick myself up, Applejack had pinned me down by holding down my arms with her forelegs. I tried to lift my arms up, but she was too strong. Applejack’s strength was absolutely terrifying and astounding at the same time, she was putting so much pressure on my wrists that I felt the blood circulation stop in that area. Suddenly, my wrist joints started to hurt. Finally, I spoke up.
"Ow! Hey, ease off! You're hurting me!" I cried in pain.
I than felt Applejack take some pressure off my wrists while looking surprised.
“What in the hay? You can talk?!” she asked.
“Yes! And I mean you no harm! Please get off me! I feel like my wrists are about to break!” I exclaimed, frantically.
With that, Applejack quickly got off me, still staring me in surprise. Instantly, I sat up while looking at my wrists. The sweet relief on all that force caused the circulation to start flowing again. Applejack rushed over to me and said:
“Ah, horse apples! I’m sorry for hurtin yah’ there.” Applejack asked compassionately while looking at my wrists.
“Ahhhh, don’t worry about it.” I said in a angry tone, but I was still sort of thankful for the apology.
“You okay?” She asked.
“Yeah. Thanks for a warm welcome.” I replied, sarcastically.
“Hey, I said I was sorry for gettin’ to rough on yah’. I just took you as an intruder at first” retorted Applejack.
“Yeah, you’re right. Guess you’ve never seen anything like me before.” I said.
“Never in all my days.” she replied.
Suddenly, a big red pony that was much more bigger than Applejack came around the corner with a rope in its mouth while lassoing it.
"H-h-hey! Stop him!" I exclaimed to Applejack.
Applejack ran over to him to intervene the pony.
“Hold up there, Big Mac! Turns out he ain’t no threat.” Applejack confirmed. Big Mac quickly came to a halt and stared at me with this look as if he just saw a ghost.
“Howdy.” I said, calmly.
“Howdy to you too.” replied Big Mac in a deep southern voice. Shortly after, Applebloom came sprinting around the corner.
"You see, Applejack! I told you it was friendly.” exclaimed Applebloom.
“Well you sure did prove me wrong, Applebloom.” Applejack said, annoyingly.
The small filly gazed at me in amazement and excitement rather than the shocked expressions of Applejack and Big Mac.
“So i’m guessing this little filly’s name is Applebloom?” I asked.
“It can talk to?! I can’t believe it! And it said my name too!” cried Applebloom while jumping up in place. “I can’t wait to show you to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo!”
“Who are they?” I asked
“Oh, they’re just Applebloom’s little friends.” replied Applejack. “And Applebloom, you can’t just take-...... by the way, you got a name?”
“Oh, right, my name is Caleb.” I answered.
“Nice name ya got. As I was saying, you can’t just take Caleb around as some show an tell item.” said Applejack.
“Oh don’t worry about that Applejack. If i’m gonna be new around these parts, I might aswell make myself know” I said.
“Well you do have a point there, Caleb.” Applejack agreed.
“So...you’ll stop over again?!” Applebloom asked, eagerly.
“Sure. I’ll make a deal with you. Give me two days to check out the local area and i’ll come back when i’ve got time. Deal?” I proposed.
“It's a deal!” Applebloom agreed while extending her foreleg for a handshake or hoof shake. I extended my arm in response and we shook on it.
“So uhhh, I best be going, really nice to meet you kind pony folk. Have a nice evening.” I farewelled.
Right when I turned to walk away, I was suddenly stopped by Applejack.
“Caleb, wait!” Applejack yelled.
“What’s up, Applejack?” I asked.
“Look, we can’t just let you out on your own this late.” said Applejack.
“Would that be because of a certain pair of glowing green eyes?” I asked in curiosity.
“Yep. You may be quite the shocker to us, but not to Timberwolves. You would just be a snack to them.” said Applejack in a concerned voice.
“Yeah, I had a close encounter with one last night.” I said.
“Well in that case, you should stay for the night. In the morning, we’ll give ya directions to Ponyville. How does that sound?” Applejack offered.
“That sounds great! Thanks a lot, Applejack” I said, gratefully.
“No problem, follow us.” Applejack instructed.
A New World
November 5th, 2012
I groaned while stuffing my face in my pillow with my digital alarm clock beeping in the background. Lazily, I waved my arm around in attempt to press the snooze button until I finally pressed it, resetting the alarm for ten minutes.
“Thanks for the wake up call, Monday.” I mumbled to myself.
After taking in the next ten minutes and going through that annoying beeping again, I hopped out of bed and headed off to the bathroom. I slightly brushed my hand against my hair that stood up on end in the mirror's reflection. With that, I commenced the morning routine.
When I finished taking my morning shower, combing my hair, putting on some fresh clothes, and brushing my teeth, I walked into the kitchen and popped two slices of bread into the toaster and got out some strawberry jam.
Shortly after having my rather bland breakfast, I packed my folders into my backpack and headed out the door. While driving, I reached over to radio knob and pressed it. I twisted the knob to right and stopped on a news radio channel. At first they were talking about traffic conditions on Milwaukee’s Zoo Interchange and then they switched to a more interesting topic.
“In other news, reports of an attack on a research lab in Vancouver, Canada has led Canadian authorities scrambling to the area. Find out why after the break.” the anchor announced.
“That’s interesting.” I said.
A few minutes later, the news came back on.
“All right, coming back to that attack in Vancouver. Most of the staff have evacuated the building, but many say that one is still inside and is the reason for the disturbance. Canadian news stations have connected with WISN and revealed that employees who work with the one suspect still in the building are saying that he will activate “it.” Very vague answer, but we will have more updates shortly. Cathy, back to you.” the anchor concluded
“What the heck is “it” supposed to mean?” I thought to myself.
After driving a little while longer, I made it to my high school and parked in my usual spot. I headed in the back entrance and ran into my friend, Ryan.
“Sup, man.” He greeted.
“Oh, hey, what’s up?” I responded.
“Monday, Caleb. Monday is what’s up.” said Ryan.
“Same with you.” I agreed.
“What’s up with you?” he asked.
Not much. Hey, have you heard about that attack up in Canada?” I asked.
“Nope. What happened? Did some Canadian run out of their monthly supply of maple syrup?” he joked.
“I see what you did there.” I said, while laughing with him.
Once me and Ryan made it to our lockers, the bell for the first class rang which indicated I had five minutes to get my butt to class. With a minute to spare, I made it to Strength and Conditioning on time. Seventy minutes later, the bell for the second class rang and I was off to German. Class went very normal as usual, but three minutes before second hour ended, we got a shocking announcement from the principal.
“Good morning staff and students, this is your principal, Chris McCormik. Due to a national emergency issued by the U.S and Canadian government, school shall cease throughout the entire day and until the emergency has been lifted. All sporting events and practices have also been cancelled as well. So please, calmly collect your belongings and leave school grounds. Once you leave, return to your homes and tune into your local news network for more information. Thank you, and stay safe.”
Everyone in the classroom looked at each other and than looked at the teacher.
“Ok, well, I guess class is dismissed.” our teacher told us, who was just as confused as us.
Immediately, my classmates began to chatter at each other while we exited the room. I headed to my locker to collect my folders and books. After getting those, I ran into my buddy Garrett.
“Garrett!” I said in a raised voice.
“Hey, Caleb. Dude, do you know what’s going on?” asked Garrett.
“Nope, I have no idea.” I responded.
“Has to be pretty serious if the principal just called off school.” Said Garrett
“Yeah, some sort of national emergency or something.” I added.
“That’s what I heard too.” Said Garrett.
“I also heard this report on the news earlier about this attack on some research lab up in Canada.” I said.
“No way.” exclaimed Garrett.
“Yep, maybe the emergency and the attack are connected.” I theorized.
“Was it a terrorist attack?” asked Garrett.
“Actually, it wasn’t. It was some crazy scientist who worked there.” I confirmed.
“That’s pretty weird. He must’ve done something pretty bad if it called for a national emergency.” said Garrett.
“I thought the same damn thing.” I said.
Me and him walked to our cars while thinking up of possibilities of what the crazy scientist could’ve possibly done. We reached my car first and we parted our ways.
“Hey, Caleb! Be careful out there.” Advised Garrett.
“You too, Garrett. I'll see ya when I see ya.” I said back.
“Later, dude.” he said.
While I was driving home, I switched on the radio, hoping to find some EAS alert system going off, but only got white static for some reason. About ten minutes later, I finally made it back home and walked inside my house. I saw my dad on the computer browsing the internet, applying for jobs. He looked at me with wide eyes.
“What are you home early for?” he asked, surprised.
“Didn’t you hear? There’s a national emergency that was issued by the U.S and Canadian government, so we go let out early until the emergency is lifted.” I explained.
“National Emergency!?” he exclaimed while getting out of his chair.
“Yeah, i’m gonna put on the news.” I said.
“Did the elementary school get let out?” he asked.
“I would imagine. You should probably go pick up Eveline.” I suggested.
“That’s what I was gonna do.” he said while grabbing his car keys and putting on his camo hat.
He than ran to his car, started it up and drove off to pick up my little sister. When he left, I turned on the T.V and switched the channel to WISN 12 News and sure enough they were talking about this emergency. Shortly after, the EAS alert system finally came on. God, those tones are so eerie. Anyways, here’s whats going on:
Apparently, a research facility who has ties with the Canadian government up in Vancouver were working on some sort of contraption they came up with in early 2003 that could, and I quote, “open doorways to other dimensions.” The contraption would shoot a stream of energy into the atmosphere and that would create a portal. The research facility was planning on to scrap the entire project because they thought it was very dangerous and now is not the time to mess with dimensional technology. But that one scientist who worked there intentionally turned it on. Witnesses said he was so angry that all of that work was about to be flushed down the toilet. The witnesses also described seeing a giant blue laser like anomaly shooting up into the sky and the clouds starting joining together in a swirling motion, just like a hurricane. Then that blue energy joined into the center, which created a glowing, light blue center. What the real kicker is that a gusty wind pushed the portal clouds southeast and is travelling at 66 miles per hour, at this time, it’s now over Montana and is expected to go over Elkhorn at around 3:00 AM. Everyone is advised to stay indoors while it passes over and to do your daily activities now before it arrives.
“Jesus H. Christ.” I whispered to myself.
Fourteen minutes has passed and I was pretty much pacing back and forth around the living room while watching the news at the same. My pace was broken when my dad and sister walked in the house.
“Hey, dad, check this out! This Canadian research facility up in Vancouver created some sort of portal.” I informed.
He remained silent and looked at the T.V in confusion while my sister looked at me and asked:
“Is that bad?” Eveline asked.
“I don’t know, we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m sure we’ll be fine.” I reassured.
"The news said the portal will pass over Elkhorn at 3 A.M.” I whispered to my dad.
“Oh yeah?” my dad asked in shock.
“Yep.” I responded.
“Those Canadian’s are friggin wackos.” my dad whispered back, causing me to slightly chuckle. A few minutes later, my mom walked in.
“They let you off work early?” I asked.
“Yeah, they were talking about a portal or something that’s coming our way.” she responded.
“It’s all the news right now.” I said.
My mom than sat down and watched the news, taking in all the information.
“Soooo, it’s a portal that can open doorways to other worlds?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s pretty much it.” my dad said.
“Mm, they shouldn’t be messing around with stuff like that. Those scientists are pushing the limits.” my mom said.
“No kidding.” I said.
For the rest of the day, we kind of just took it easy and relaxed while keeping up to date with the news. Around three in the afternoon, the portal was now starting to slow down to 55 mph because the wind was dying down a little, but was still maintaining its course. The portal was now causing power outages in the cities it floats over. The city of Elkhorn also plans to shut off the power to decrease the possibility of any power surges or fires.
It’s now 9:00 PM and the portal has now picked up speed and is moving at 77 miles per hour. My parents also headed off the bed and decided to just ride out the passover by sleeping. I on the other hand decided to stay up late and watch the passover. I knew it was a serious situation, but it just caught my interest so much. I peeked out my window and the outside was pitch black. I couldn’t even see my own hand. The only source of light I had was a flashlight and some candles.
Three o’clock had finally arrived. I took my flashlight and walked out to the back patio to watch the portal go by. It was so quiet outside. All I heard was the rustling of leaves and the wind blowing into my ears. Hell, not even the crickets were chirping. I looked at my non-digital clock I took out with me and it read 3:34 AM. My guess is that it bypassed Elkhorn for some other city, but that was about to change.
I started to hear this humming sound in the distance, it was very faint, but still audible. As it got a little bit louder, there was a blue glow in the sky. I now knew that the portal was here. It came in from the northwest and was coming in fast. It was still pretty cool watching it, the blue center would undulate in a wave like movement. It was quite the sight. The humming was much louder now because it was basically right on top of me right now.
The humming was much louder now because it was basically above me. However, something wasn’t right. It slowed down and stopped while it was above me. I knew right away that something wasn’t right. I slowly backed to the door. While backing up, it felt like something was lifting me up, causing me to panic. I flailed my arms and legs in desperation to escape, but it was too late. Before I knew it, I was sucked even higher into the portal.
“Woah! Help! Somebody help me!” I yelled, knowing I was screwed either way if help somehow came or not.
The more a flailed, the faster I went up until I finally reached the blue center. I felt all the hairs on my body stand up on end as I entered the portal. I was expecting to be transported somewhere else, but everything inside was calm. My surroundings were very bizarre. It looked like the little color effect you see when you look at oil on the street, but the stillness did not last for long. Just like someone switching on overdrive, the colors began to undulate back and forward rapidly and my body was flung forward like a ragdoll. I closed my eyes tightly and yelled out a few times while speeding through the wavy energy. It felt like forever, but the sound of electricity running past my ear made me open my eyes. I could distinctly make out a little hole that grew bigger as I slowed down gradually. I came to a halt right at the edge of the large hole and gravity came back.
I fell out of the portal and landed right on my feet, causing me to stumble and fall forward. Slowly, I raised myself back on my feet and looked around. It was still late at night. The moonlight was my only way of knowing where I was at the time. I appeared to be in a field with knee high grass and I could make out the silhouettes of trees and hills in the distance. But what I really thought was odd was this castle that protruded for a mountain. It was far away, but it was still distinguishable from the interior lights.
Finally, I decided that I needed to find my way back to or find the nearest town because I was in the middle of nowhere at the moment. I couldn’t get to the castle because that was on the side of a frickin mountain. I searched the area more and spotted a gravel path that pointed into a heavily wooded area that read “Ponyville.” I knew I had to go through the woods in order to get to this village. I went to grab my flashlight, only to find out it was not with me.
“Well this idea is going to bite me in the ass.” I said to myself.
With caution, I started heading into the woods and it was nearly pitch black when I really got in there and my heart began pumping faster. I couldn’t get the idea of someone following me in pitch black out of my head. While slowly walking, I heard the snap of a twig on the right side of me. I jumped in shock and my adrenaline began to take into effect. Quickly, I sprinted away from the sound in the dark and looked back only to find a pair of glowing green eyes following me.
“Holy shit!” I cried in fear.
When it seemed like all hope was lost, I made a life saving decision to quickly make a left turn and climbed the nearest tree. I jumped as high as I could and pulled myself up in one explosive movement and kept climbing upwards. I looked down and saw the those glowing eyes looking up at me while whatever it really was, scratching at the tree. I and the eyes made eye contact with each other for a minute or so before it decided to leave me alone.
At that time, there was no doubt that I wasn’t going back down until it was morning. So I decided to feel around for a sturdy branch that could support my weight. After finding one, I slouched uncomfortably and leaned my head against the tree and closed my eyes.
“Please be a dream.” I said to myself, softly.
