Cruising Into the Unknown

Molly blinked as her vision was suddenly filled with green fur and the haze of alcohol vanished from her brain. There was a scream from above her and she backed off shocked at what was going on.

Laying on the bed in front of her with a terrified look on her (Molly had gotten a close enough look at her to see that she was indeed female) face was a green horse like creature with outstretched bat wings that just stared at Molly in shock as she tried to back away from her.

"Wh-what are you?" She asked scared as she tried to cover herself up with the sheets of the bed and kept staring at Molly in shock.

"What do you mean, I'm a human, you're the..." Molly started to say as she raised a hand, but when she raised it in front of her face she saw that it was a yellow hoof. "What the..."

The bat horse creature just looked at her strangely before she looked down at herself and screamed again when she saw what she had turned into. Once the shock wore off Molly recognized the voice as belonging to Izzy, the woman she had brought back to her cabin, but now she was some sort of weird, bat-like horse creature, what was going on?

That's when she saw her own reflection in the mirror, looking back at her was a yellow coated horse creature with a short blue mane and a horn pointing out of her forehead. Her eyes went wide in shock when she saw herself and she looked over at Izzy who was starting to calm down a little.

"What happened to us?" She asked as she struggled to get to her hooves only to fall flat on her face because she wasn't used to walking on four legs.

"I... I don't know," Izzy said as she tried to calm down from the ordeal and looked at her body again, her breathing was starting to slow down a little. "This isn't even possible, how could we be turned into... what even are we?"

"I don't know, some sort of horses I think... and it looks like I'm a Unicorn," Molly said as she poked her horn a little with her hoof, yeah it was real alright.

"What are my parents going to say, they were already freaked out enough when I told them I was a lesbian, now they're going to think I'm some sort of freak!" Izzy said as she started to cry, her breathing was turning heavy again.

Molly managed to balance herself enough to crawl over to where the other mare was laying in the bed and pulled her in close. The last few hours were still a little hazy to her, but she remembered distinctly meeting this woman, when she wasn't a horse at least, and she wasn't going to leave her hanging like this.

"Shhh... its okay, we're going to figure this out together," she said softly, maybe it was something they had drank, but they hadn't even shared the same kind of drink, what was going on? "And hey, if your parents freak out, then you'll still have me, okay? I'm not going to let you go off on your own."

"Do you mean that?" Izzy asked as she started to dry her tears a little as she looked at the yellow Unicorn worriedly. "You wouldn't leave me like this?"

"Hey, if you're a freak then so am I, at least you have those cool wings, I just have this horn and I don't even know if it does anything," Molly said as she cradled the bat mare gently. "Don't worry about it Izzy, I'm not going to let you go, I promise."

Izzy looked at Molly for a long moment, she had to admit that it was hard to understand what was going on and what had happened to them, but it was actually nice to know that she had someone there who was willing to help her out. She smiled a little and hugged her back, and the two mares just held that for awhile as they tried to figure out what they were going to do next.

"So, what's the plan?" Izzy finally asked as they looked over at the door to the cabin. "Umm, how are we going to get in and out of this place if we don't have fingers?"

"That, is a very good question," Molly said as she looked at the door for a long moment, maybe there would be some way to work around it, they would just have to figure it out. "Well, there's not much point in dwelling on it while we're laying in bed right? Lets see if we can't figure this out."

Izzy nodded and the two got to their hooves, Izzy stumbled a little but Molly helped her walk as they got down off the bed and started looking around for anything that might give them a clue as to what happened or what to do next.

00000

Up on the top decks of the ship things weren't going much better, people were starting to become more and more aware of exactly what had happened to them and they were beginning to freak out over it. The ship's crew tried to maintain order, but it wasn't going well at all.

In the midst of it, two horse creatures, one brown with no extra appendages and a winged one with a grey coat and red mane and tail were frantically looking around. They were trying to find their children who had been somewhere on the deck when, whatever had happened happened.

"Emily, Ben, where are you!" The stallion called out over the sound of the worried passengers as he looked around for his children. "Please, answer me!"

There was a moment where the only sound that could be heard was the sound of hooves and the occasional claw moving along the ship's deck as the passengers and crew tried to figure out what was going on. He was half afraid that something had happened to them in the panic and he felt a hoof resting on his shoulder.

"Abe, they'll be okay, don't worry," his wife Janet said reassuringly but he wasn't sure if he had the same confidence she had, he couldn't imagine something happening to his children and was terrified that they could be lost or worse.

Finally he heard the sound of a familiar voice crying out, it was his son's voice and he sounded like he was close. "Daddy, Mommy, come quick, something's wrong with Emily!"

The two parents pushed through the crowd as they frantically searched for the source of the voice. They found a small Unicorn with blue fur and a darker blue mane who was crouched over a purple, creature, it looked like half of a pony that had a fish tail and it was breathing heavily as if it was stuck out of water.

"Ben is that you, where's Emily?" Janet asked as the colt looked up at his parents with a worried look on his face.

"That's her, I swear, I don't know what happened to her!" Ben said as he gestured towards the strange sea creature that had once been his little sister. "What happened to any of us?"

"I, don't know," Abraham answered but he ran over to the flailing creature and cradled her gently in his forelegs, he didn't care that they were in new bodies right now, his daughter was in trouble. "Shh, Emily, calm down, its me."

"Daddy?" The filly asked as she looked up at him trying not to freak out. "Why can't I feel my legs?"

Abraham's heart fell at that as the filly flipped her tail, she couldn't feel her legs because they had been replaced with a tail and that scared him. What was going to happen to her? Could she even survive out of water in this body?

Her breathing became a little more erratic as she looked up at the sky. "Daddy... what's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you, you're going to be just fine," Abe said as he looked around and he finally rested his eyes on the swimming pool that was at the center of the deck, that was going to have to do for now. "Clear the way!"

He carefully picked his daughter up and placed her on his back and rushed forward as she held on as best she could. The crowd realized that something was going on and parted to allow the father and daughter to get through as he rushed for the pool and deposited his daughter in it carefully.

He watched the filly for a moment worriedly, what was going to happen? Was she going to be okay or had he been too late? Emily flicked her tail and dove into the water more on instinct than anything else before coming back up, her breathing seemed to be back to normal, but she looked afraid.

"Daddy, what am I?" she asked as she looked up at him with big eyes that broke the stallion's heart.

"I don't know Emily," he admitted with a sigh as he knelt down next to the pool and hugged his daughter gently, neither of them had any real answers as to what was going on but at the moment they were just glad to have each other, answers would hopefully come soon.

"Emily, are you alright?" Janet asked as she ran over to the poolside with Ben. "What happened?"

"I don't know,' Emily said as she looked at her mom, she was starting to feel a little less scared right now that she had her family nearby, but she still had no idea what was going on. "Am I going to be okay?"

Abe and Janet exchanged a long look, neither of them really knew how to answer that question. They had all seemingly turned from humans into some sort of weird horse creatures, and none of it made any sense to them.

What had happened? Why them? Was this only limited to the Anthem or was something else going on that none of them understood?

00000

When Sam became aware of her body once more the first thing she felt was a strange sensation between her legs like nothing she had ever experienced before. She looked at herself in a mirror that had been set up in the Doctor's office and gasped in shock.

Staring back at her was a Zebra, not like one of the Zebras she had seen at the zoo, this one was smaller and had a slicked back mane with strange colors to their stripes that didn't feel like they would be natural for Zebras, even if they were black and grey, something about the colors felt weird to her.

She kept feeling that strange sensation and couldn't imagine what it might be. Her new body was weird to her, maybe that was something normal for Zebras? Of course she had no frame of reference for what might be normal for Zebras, she wasn't even sure what she was given that everything felt so weird to her.

"Okay Sam, you're going to be just fine, its just a dream or something and you probably fell asleep because you've been staying up too late, yeah, that makes sense," she said to herself, but her voice didn't sound familiar to her, it sounded almost deeper somehow.

Finally fed up with the mystery she laid back on the ground so she could get a better look at herself and she froze. Between her legs was something that hadn't been there before, it took her a moment to realize that it was a horse sheath. What had happened to her? Why did she suddenly have a penis?

She let out a scream of fear and rolled over onto her, or now his front, what had happened to him? This made even less sense than the whole Zebra thing, he had gone from a woman to a man and that didn't make any sense, but what about any of this made sense anymore?

He sighed a little and stared at himself in the mirror again, the Zebra stallion in the mirror stared back at him with green eyes that were filled with fear and worry. She didn't blame him one bit and that was certainly how she felt about this situation, but nothing made sense.

Sam was a doctor, she was someone who had always had an idea of exactly how biology worked and one thing that she was definitely sure of was that people didn't just randomly change species or genders! Something about this was weird, what had happened to him and what was going to happen to the rest of the people on the ship?

He sighed a little and looked at himself in the mirror again, this was going to take a lot of getting used to, but he had a duty to try and help the passengers aboard the Anthem no matter what species or gender he was. He sighed as he checked his clothes, there wasn't really going to be anything that would fit him without some modifications so for now he had to go naked.

After a little bit of doing he managed to get the door to the medical center open and headed out once he made sure his key was secured around his neck. It was now just a matter of hoping that everything would be okay and maybe this was just limited to him.

At least he could hope, he didn't know the first thing about treating anything equine.

00000

In the Windjammer Cafe, Mitchell Marlowe was in a similar situation to Sam's when he realized that a long golden hair was in front of his eyes. He brushed them aside, that was odd, his hair wasn't that color and it hadn't been that long, what was going on?

He was about to turn and look at his wife and say something when he realized that she wasn't sitting next to him. Instead in her place was a horse creature with a pink coat and purple mane that was tied into the same braid that his wife usually wore her hair in.

"Who are you?" He asked and put his hand over his mouth when he realized his voice was a lot more high pitched than it should've been, and that his hand didn't feel like a hand anymore.

"Who are you?" The pink horse creature said in his wife's voice. "What have you done with my Husband?"

"What are you talking about? I am your husband," Mitchell said as he looked at his hoof again, it was a silver color and strangely he could feel some new appendages growing out of his back and he turned to see a pair of wings that were the same color as his hoof. "What happened to us?"

"Prove it, you don't look or sound anything like Mitchell!" Donna demanded of the strange horse creature sitting next to her. "How do I know you're not some impostor?"

"Donna, its me, you have to believe me," he said and then sighed. "Do you remember what happened on our Honeymoon? We went out on a Yacht and you got seasick, you nearly fell overboard, who else would know that?"

Donna just stared at the strange silver and gold pony more, she was still trying to process exactly what had happened but no one else had even known about that. Mitchell had fished her out of the water and they had a good laugh at it, how did this strange horse creature even know that, unless it was Mitchell.

"Mitchell, is it really you?" She asked as she stared at the horse thing in astonishment. "How..."

"I don't know, but the same thing happened to you," Mitchell said with a sigh as he looked around, there were others like them who looked just as afraid or confused. One thing looked kind of like a Griffon, but with brown and red colors and was looking around confused.

"Come on, lets get out to the main deck, maybe we can find some answers there," Mitchell said as he got to his hooves and looked towards the door, at least everything seemed to be untouched, and their clothes were, mostly intact but felt a little too big for them.

"Why do you sound so..." Donna started to say as she tried to think of the best way to put it. "Feminine."

Mitchell stopped in mid stride as he looked back at his wife, he had admittedly been wondering the same thing but he had figured it was all in his imagination. Why would he suddenly sound so feminine? That was something that really didn't make a whole lot of sense unless...

"Give me a moment," he said as he ducked into one of the bathrooms off the ship, he didn't want to imagine what the answer could possibly be but he was terrified that there was only one explanation, and it was one that didn't make a whole lot of sense right now.

Thankfully the bathroom was empty as he ducked into a stall and let the loose pants he had been stuck in fall down as he looked at his lower body and froze. Now everything was starting to make sense, the voice, the hair, and just the strange nagging filling that something was wrong.

Whatever had turned him into a horse creature had also swapped his, or more specifically her gender. She let out a scream that echoed through the bathroom and pulled the pants back up, she wasn't going to let Donna see her like this, not until she was ready at least.

She headed back outside and Donna looked at her with a concerned look on her face. "What's wrong Mitchell?"

"Nothing's wrong, nothing," he said with a forced smile as she offered her wife a hoof. "Come on, lets go see if we can't figure out what's going on, shall we?"

She nodded and the couple walked along the deck, there was so many questions and not a lot of answers, and both of them just wanted to figure out what was going on.

00000

Naudia rubbed her forehead as she managed to reorient herself, she froze when she felt her hoof brushing against something on her forehead and as she felt around she realized what it was. It was a horn, there was an actual horn growing out of her forehead.

"Ugh, what happened?" A feminine voice said from next to her and she looked over to where her assistant had been walking and in her place was a strange half bird half lion like creature that looked around confused. "I feel like I just went through the longest bender of my life."

"Sophia, is that you?" Naudia asked as she looked at the Griffon with a shocked look on her face. "What happened to us? What's going on?"

"I don't know Ms. Thompson," Sophia said as she looked at Naudia and her eyes went wide at the sight of the green and blue Unicorn standing there in a suit that looked like it was too big for her. "Ms. Thompson you're a..."

"Yeah, I know, I'm a Unicorn," she said with a groan as she looked down at her new hooves. "And you're some sort of Griffon I think."

"So, what do we do now?" Sophia asked as she looked around, they were still a few decks below the main deck and there wasn't a lot of signs of life right now, the hall had been empty last time they remembered, and it was still pretty empty, so everyone had to be elsewhere in the ship right now.

"I don't know, we need to get up top, maybe the Captain will..." Naudia started to say when they heard a banging on one of the doors and muffled cries for help. "What's that?"

"Passengers maybe, lets check it out," Sophia said as they walked over to the door.

"Can you hear us?" Naudia asked into the door and waited a moment for a response.

"Yes, we got turned into some sort of, weird horse creatures and we're trying to figure out how to get out of here," the female voice said on the other side of the door. "Can you help us?"

"Maybe," Naudia said and fumbled around in her pockets for her master key to the various staterooms but when she found it it just slipped out of her new hooves and she cursed. "Darn it, hooves aren't built for holding these things..."

"Here, I've got it," Sophia said as she picked the key card up in her talon and used it to unlock the door, inside another Unicorn with a yellow coat and a blue mane was standing next to a green creature that looked like a small horse with a pair of bat wings growing out of her back.

"Oh thank goodness, I was afraid we'd be stuck in there forever," the Unicorn said as she hugged the Griffon and Naudia, catching both off guard but they just smiled a little. "What happened, did this happen to everyone on the ship?"

"We don't know, you're the first two we've seen," Sophia said with a sigh as the Unicorn returned to her place next to the Bat horse creature. "What do you two remember?"

"We were..." The bat horse said and her face turned red, it was surprising that it actually showed through her fur. "Occupied and then one moment we were like this, that's all we really remember."

Naudia smirked a little, she didn't need much of a hint to know what these two women were up to in the cabin when whatever had happened to them happened, but this wasn't the time for that. "Alright, we're heading up to the main deck,
I'm sure the Captain will want to say something to the passengers."

"Okay," the yellow mare said as they followed the others towards the center of the ship and to the stairs. "Can't we just take the elevator?"

"Well we could, but we don't know what's going on, so we need to take the stairs," Naudia said as she looked back at the two. "What are your names?"

"Molly."

"Isabelle."

"Well its nice to meet you both, I'm Naudia and this is Sophia," she said with a reassuring smile as she started leading the two scared women up the stairs, she was just as afraid as they probably felt but she wasn't going to show it.

If there was going to be any chance of making it through this ordeal they were going to need to figure out what was going on and stay calm above all else. This wasn't going to be easy to say the least, none of them really knew anything about these new bodies, but they were going to make it through this somehow.

At least, she hoped that they would, this was all new for her too.

00000

Captain Charles Smith groaned as he looked at his reflection, he had been turned into a white horse like creature that had a short green mane and strangely enough a green beard. This was not something he had really expected, but it was the situation he found himself in.

"Sir, the passengers are panicking, they want to know what's going on," a Unicorn said as he walked in with a worried look on his face. "What do we tell them?"

"How many of them have been transformed into something?" Charles said as he put his hat on his head.

"All of them that we've been able to find sir," the first mate said with a shake of his head. "The crew is all accounted for and we're sending people to search the ship to make sure that all the passengers are here. Its going to take awhile though, there are a lot of people out there."

"Of course," Charles said with a sigh, there went his quiet retirement. "What about Christine, do you know where she is?"

"She's down in your cabin still I think, she should be fine," the first mate said with a nod and looked at the Captain. "What are your order sir?"

"Make sure everyone is on board and get in contact with Doctor Sawyer, she might be able to give us some sort of answers on what's going on," Charles said with a sigh as he struggled to pull up the GPS but found it blank. "That figures, the GPS is out."

"What does that mean sir?" The First Mate asked and Charles just shook his head.

"It means we're without our primary navigation tool and we're stuck in the middle of the Mediterranean without it," he said with a sigh. "What about engineering?"

"Uh, it seems there was something of an accident that cost the life of the Chief Engineer, his assistant is taking over the job and says the engines seem to be working but she's not sure how she's going to work them with hooves," the first made said with a shake of his head.

"Looks like we're all going to have to learn how to operate with hooves," Charles said with a sigh as he stroked his beard. "Okay, send out a distress call on all frequencies, maybe there's someone else out there who can help us."

"Yes sir, and what are you going to do?"

Charles paused a long moment and looked at himself again, this was not something that he had ever expected to happen, no one ever really would. If they couldn't get in contact with anyone outside the ship then they were going to have to figure something out on their own.

Was there even anyone out there who could answer their call? Was this just limited to being aboard the ship or was it everywhere? That was not a thought he wanted to consider right now especially since they weren't even human anymore.

"I'm going to do what I have to do, I'm going to address the passengers," he said with a sigh as he looked out the window again. "Is there anything that I should know about what's going on?"

"Well, most of the passengers and crew have turned into some sort of horse creatures, and the rest seem to be an odd mix, we've got a few people who are sort of... half horse half fish, they're being confined to the pool areas for now," the First Mate said with a sigh as he shook his head. "The weirdest one is Claudia Beretta, she's a dragon."

"A dragon, you're kidding me right, like large fire breathing dragon?" Charles asked, that was the last thing they needed aboard a cruise ship right now.

"Well, no, she doesn't seem to be breathing fire yet, so I don't know what she is really," the First Mate said with a shrug

"Alright, get on that distress call and patch me into the PA system," Charles said with a sigh and after a bit of work they got the PA system's microphone working. "This is Captain Charles Smith, I'm speaking to all of you right now from the bridge of the Anthem. I know that we've all found ourselves in this, bizarre situation and none of us really know what's going on right now. I'm here to tell all of you that none of you are alone, things aren't going to be easy sure, but we're not going to just let whatever this is beat us."

He paused for a long moment, he wasn't sure exactly what he was going to say and he didn't know how many people might even listen to him. Right now he just wanted to take the time to try and reassure them and hope that they'd all be okay.

"Things aren't going to be easy, and we're going to keep trying to make contact with someone in the outside world, hopefully this was just isolated to our ship but in the event that it wasn't we have to be ready for anything. Until we can get the ship running again we'll remain adrift in this part of the ocean. In the event that we're stuck out here for awhile, I would like everyone aboard to report to the crew and give them whatever information on yourselves that we may find useful, we still have a long way to go before we're really sure what's going on, and we need to work together to survive."

He paused again, he wasn't sure what all might come in handy, maybe if there was someone on board who knew something about equine physiology that would help at least. This wasn't something that worried him, the ship's Doctor probably didn't know anything about it, so maybe if there was a vet that would help at least.

At least he hoped so, now it was just a matter of seeing what all they had aboard.

"If we have anyone aboard that has veterinary training, in particular with horses or other equines that would be useful as well. Since most of the population of the Anthem seems to have been transformed into equines, we need to know everything we can about them in the event that there is a medical emergency. I just hope that we will have this all figured out soon and it won't be necessary, but if you do have any training please report to Doctor Sawyer in the medical center as soon as possible."

He sighed a little and turned off the PA system, he looked out at the ocean ahead of them and hoped that everything was going to be okay. Even if they were stuck as whatever they had been turned into, there was a chance that they could all make it through this alive.

He hoped so at least.