Fire, Smoke, sulfur, and ashes; all these things were what made up the area surrounding me. Every which way I looked, piles of broken and burning houses continued to flicker while small sparks rose into the heavens before disappearing. The sight was beautiful to me, in some way and somehow, instead of panicking in fright at the raging flames of death that surrounded me, I was perfectly calm in what could only be considered a sense of finally attaining peace. With no reason to fear the flames present in my mind, I start walking through them.

Instead of catching fire though and burning to my death, the flames seemed like that of a warm breeze on my skin and simply helped ease my muscles as I now noticed the much more burning sensation coming from them as I had just pushed my body to its limits and back again. Ignoring this though, I continued through the flames until the edge soon came into sight.

The dark greens and browns of the trees that stood before the flames were shadowed which gave the much larger connected forest a haunted look. Not liking this, not liking these trees blocking my path as I made my way closer, I raised my hand, now noticing a vaguely familiar object as its clear blade glowed purple with barely contained power. Ready to strike at the offending objects before me, I reared my arm back and prepared to swing forwards with all my might, even in my tired state.

Before I could do so though, a bright angelic white light suddenly shined forth from behind me while piercing through the moonlight night and my burning flames onto me. Both surprised and angry by this for some uncontrollable or understandable reason, I slowly turned to face while just barely keeping my seething rage inside of my self to face whatever dared wish to now possibly impede me.

“Everything seems alright honey, his pupils are dilating correctly.” I stop mid turn hearing the unexpected male's voice that seemed to echo around me.

“Are you sure? Why would he be just be lying on the side of the road then?” This time, a female, one filled with worry for some reason.

Curious now, I continued my previous movement of turning in hope of understanding whatever was causing these voices to appear. Now fully tuned to face the, I continue to hear the male and female talk with each other but the words are garbled like they were barely being heard. Angry at this, I started making my way forwards and noticed the sound becoming clearer with every step I took closer and closer to the light before finally everything was white and indistinguishable from each other.

Suddenly, the light disappears and is replaced with black. This blackness was not ordinary though as it felt like my eyes were being forced closed and I had to fight against it to finally open them. What I saw upon doing so confused me though, instead of standing in either a white void or a burning village surrounded by trees, I found myself lying down while looking up at what appeared to be the last stretches of night fading away to the rising sun while the voices from earlier continued.

“I already told you Velvet, besides his wallet and driver’s license, he doesn’t have anything on him; not even a single bit to his name as far as I can tell and until he wakes up, I can’t give you any more information than what I know.” It was the same man’s voice from earlier when I was apparently dreaming but without the added echo to it.

“I know Light but for a boy no older than Twilight to be out here alone and unconscious, It just doesn’t sit right with me.” This time it was the female who spoke, the one who was apparently known as Velvet. Storing the info for when I would obviously be talking to her in a bit as Light for the apparent man, I slowly start to get up before realizing the same feeling of tiredness from my dream had unfortunately carried over into the real world.

‘If only my dream strength came as well.’ I thought before closing my eyes to focus all my remaining energy solely on sitting upwards. It was about the halfway point when I heard the man known as Light suddenly gasp and make his way over to help me with the rest of my task. Velvet seemed right behind him as she spoke softly with a worried tone in her voice.

“Are you ok, how did you get here, what happened to you, why-”

“Velvet, I think the boy’s struggling as it is to stay awake, I think it would be best to let him rest for a second before asking him questions.” Having relaxed now at this point, my eyes were still closed as the man known as Light had been right about it taking a lot of effort to sit up and I was slowly catching my breath while using their arms as proverbial crutches while I stayed upright. As well as this, my eyes hadn’t opened either and I knew it would be wrong to make any kind of thanks without being able to even know what they looked like.

Slowly the covers moved from blocking my view while I turned in the direction of the man of the two to give thanks. Before I could do so, however, my words get caught in my throat from what I finally see. Instead of a possibly middle-aged man at oldest normal looking guy, or even slightly abnormal looking man, the man who held me had the skin color of dark blue, hair that was a few shades brighter, and literal horn jutting from his forehead and out from under his bangs in the same color of his skin.

While I said nothing and tried to process the sight I was now looking at that seemed to defy every conventional means of normal I knew, the man seemed to notice my silence as I looked at him and gave a confused look of his own in return.

“Are you ok?” Nodding my head barely to his question, I continued to stare at him before the thought of what the woman looked like popped into my mind. With little effort now, save for the pain of moving my stiff neck, I looked to see a light gray colored human with the same similar colored horn jutting from under her bangs but instead of simply having a different shaded hair color to her skin, it was instead a mix of white and dark purple vertical lines that seemed to be sectioned off evenly from each other.

“Who are you?” While a better question would have been to ask what, who was the first thing to come out of my mouth instead. This seemed to be the best choice though as the woman known as Velvet smiled slightly while she looked down at me being as she was kneeling beside me and not sitting.

“I’m Twilight Velvet and the man beside you is Night Light. We found you on our way into town, laying by the road. Can you tell us how you got there?” I shake my head no to her question and I could see her smile dropping somewhat. “I see, well can you tell us where you're from?” Actually knowing the answer to this question, I tried to answer her but no sound left it. It was if my brain and my voice just stopped communicating at that exact moment and I was just sitting there with my mouth open like an idiot.

At this point, Night Light Chimed in, “He must have hit his head at some point and can’t remember everything. Something like that is a common occurrence, he just needs to wait for it to come back to him.” While I would have agreed with the dark blue colored man, I was more concerned with why I couldn’t say the name of my hometown or even state for that matter when I tried.

“Oh, you poor baby.” I was suddenly engulfed in a tender hug by Twilight Velvet. “Don’t worry, we’ll help you until you remember.”

“Huh,” responded not only me but Night Light as well before he continued. “We can’t just take Velvet, he needs to get to a hospital. They can take care of everything and help him get home.”

“But doesn’t that cost money to do it? You said so yourself that he doesn’t have any money on him. How is he going to pay the bills?” At this point, Night Light had gone quiet but Twilight Velvet continued. “Besides, you’re a doctor, you can help him for free after you start working.” Neither horned person says anything at this point while Twilight Velvet simply stared at her apparent partner in some fashion with honest to goodness puppy dog eyes and Night Light seemed to be looking for some way to respond. Eventually Night Light closes his eyes and sighs.

“You’re right Velvet. It’s the only way we can help him without messing things up for him. That’ll take time though since I’m the new guy. They won’t just let start accessing government files after just meeting them.” Twilight Velvet’s puppy dog eyes vanished instantly and she gave a simple smile to him before looking to me.

“Is that ok with you? We can’t force you to stay with us but we can still offer to help.” As any sane man would, I quickly nod my head yes as I didn’t want to be stuck in god-knows-where while people with pastel colored skin walked around with actual horns growing out of their heads.

Twilight Velvet looks to her partner and with just a nod, they both start counting backward from three before suddenly standing up at the same time while they were still holding onto to me. After a quick onset of vertigo and almost falling face first back to the ground below, I sigh in relief for finally being able to stand up, even if it was with the help of two other people. Before I could think on it for long though, the two starts walking forwards towards a large van that I had only just now noticed, in my case the walking was more like hobbling in comparison.

Once within only few feet of the side doors, the door handle begins to glow a dark blue color and moves just enough for the door’s automatic functions to take over while the energy disappeared. Both confused and intrigued by seeing this, I say nothing but look at Night Light who’s horn was slowly losing the same glow from the door handle. Putting two and two together was easy but the answer was still somewhat tricky to determine.

‘Did he just use telekinesis or was it some kind of magic?’ deciding best to wait till later before even thinking of asking, I allowed myself to be helped into the van where I noticed two other sleeping individuals were now seen one. One, much like the two who were helping me, had a similarly colored horn sticking from her head that matched perfectly with her lavender colored skin and her hair was a dark blue with small pink vertical stripes to one side. The other individual looked much younger, no older than twelve at the most, with lighter purple skin, spiky bright green hair, and was snoring louder than a train.

Seemingly noticing my confusion, Twilight velvet spoke up while she finished situating me in the vehicle. “Those are our kids, Twilight Sparkle and Spike. Twilight is the same age as you but spike just turned 11 a few weeks ago.” As if realizing something, Twilight Velvet’s eyes go wide and she quickly retrieves a familiar object from her purse what had been laying nearby now. “Sorry about taking your wallet, we couldn’t find anything else to identify you with. Everything you had in it should still be there but if you’re missing anything, be sure to let us know.”

Taking my offered personal item, I flipped it open to see that everything of mine was still inside of it. The only problem as far as I could see was that my supposed license wasn’t the one I had been received through the mail. Instead of being a plethora of information such as my birthday, date of birth, and other such information; Everything was blanked out on the sturdy plastic leaving behind only the basic information of who I am, how old I was, and easy to see physical descriptors like hair and eye color.

Surprised to see this, I make to thank the nice woman anyways but notice she’s already moved to the front of the vehicle and getting in her seat while Night Light continued to wait in the drivers until she had finished. Once done, and without a word from either, Night Light started the van’s engine and began driving slowly along the road. Even with this slow speed, reaching the apparent nearby town took no time at all. Driving among the morning traffic, I watched the outside town pass by slowly with the pastel-colored townsfolk going about their morning business as well.

Surprised by my lack of surprise, I figured it to simply be mind quickly adjusting to all the strange sights I now saw so as to not be constantly confused 24/7. This was made especially apparent when I noticed a dark grey colored person with blonde and dark grey-feathered wings passed by suddenly while she carried a mailbag. Simply taking the strangeness in stride now, I continued to watch and see what other sights there were to see before the car made a sudden turn and I found us to quickly be entering a large suburban area filled with multiple similar colored and shaped houses neatly erected next to each other. After only a bit more driving, the van turned into the driveway of one of the many cookie cutter houses before stopping completely and the engine turning off.

“We’re here,” Said Night Light as he quickly got out of the driver’s seat and made his way to the back to open the trunk. Turning my head to watch him do so, I see the light of outside come in through the back before the father’s hand followed quickly after to reach forward and shake the shoulders of the siblings one by one until they both were awake.

“I’m hungry.” Said, Spike, as he started rubbing the sleep from his eyes; in doing so, I noticed his fingers were extra sharp looking with pointed claws instead of regular fingernails. Once he had finished doing this, he yawned as well to where I could see his fang-like teeth resting peacefully in his mouth.

“Don’t worry sweetie, we just have to unpack the rest and we’ll finally be done.” Spike nods to his mother’s words and began sliding his way out of his row and away from a still drowsy looking Twilight Sparkle who was rubbing her face tiredly. After reaching the end of the long seat that both he and his sister shared, he scooted past me, either uncaring or unnoticing and opened the sliding door to exit the vehicle and make his way to the trunk to begin helping.

At this point, Twilight had seemed to finally wake up completely now but the bags under her eyes were extremely apparent under her eyes as she groaned and made her way to the now opened door. Unlike her brother though, she was much more observant while half asleep and stared directly at me upon being ready to exit.

“Mom…” She said while not taking her eyes off of me, “who’s this?” Having exited the vehicle at this point, Twilight Velvet was by the door waiting on her daughter to exit.

“This is Seth Ryder,” She said, answering the unasked question from her daughter. “He’ll be staying with us until we find a way to get him home,” She continued before grabbing her daughter’s shoulder and pulled her out the rest of the way. I would have followed after but being as I had only been sitting for a short while, I was still extremely tired and couldn’t move my body much even while I tried and movement I tried to make by myself was met with a considerable amount of pain as a result. With no other choice, I sat in the van in slight embarrassment that I couldn’t leave it on my own while also now being left to my thoughts as the family was talking to each other and working to carry boxes into the house.

‘How did I ever come to a place like this, what even is this place, to begin with? 11-year-olds with fangs for teeth, people with wings and horns, no one having even remotely normal skin colors as they were all bright or dark pastel. I swear this place couldn’t possibly get any weirder.’ apparently, it could though as Spike suddenly sneezed and neon green flames spewed from his mouth while doing so and singed the top of the box he was carrying. Unsure how to respond to such a sight, I simply sit where I am until the family finishes moving boxes and both Night Light and Twilight Velvet came back to help me out of the vehicle and closed the door behind me.

Quickly heading inside now, the both placed me on a nearby couch that was surrounded with boxes and the two children were standing in front of me with confusion on their faces. Waving slightly, I cringed at my forgetting of the pain I received whenever I tried to move. Waiting for the pain to go away now, I say nothing and the two parents had finally come back to finish what they had left to do and stood before me.

“Kids,” Said Night Light like he was about to give a speech. “This is Seth Ryder. Due to certain circumstances, he will be living with us for a while until we find a way to get him home. Until then, he will be sleeping in the guest room.”

“That’s right,” Continued Twilight Velvet as she continued for her husband. “Until we can get him home though, you are to be respectful and treat him as a guest until then. Is that understood?” The two children nod their heads. “Good. Also, your father and I thought it would be best that until then, he would also be enrolled at your school as well so as you can keep an eye on him Twilight.”

“School?” Being as I hadn’t said a single word since the two woke up, they both jumped in surprise from my unexpected interruption. The two parents didn’t seem affected though and Twilight Velvet was quick to turn around and nod.

“That’s right. Being as you were found on the side of the road, I felt putting you in school during the day instead of either staying here or wandering the streets would be the best option. Plus, if any truancy officers found you while in town during the day, it might cause a bit of a mess where you would be sent to school anyway.” Understanding what she meant now, I simply nodded my head to let her know as such. Seeing this, Twilight Velvet smiles and pets my head gently before standing up again. “Now then, I believe we have some boxes to unload.”

And with that, the group of four suddenly scattered to different boxes before carrying them to specific rooms while either using the own strength or by using the same glowing telekinesis from earlier to do so. Going from room to room, the sound moving cardboard could be heard as well as what sounded to be dressers, cabinet, and closets opening and closing. It looked like I would be just sitting around doing nothing for a while until my strength finally came to me.

Author's Note

I hope you all enjoy the newest chapter. I had originally planned to add the first bit of going to school as well but decided against as I figured putting all of the first day of school events together in the next chapter would be a better move.

Anyways