I felt terrible. Sleep was still lagging behind in my mind, still slowly being cleared away by awareness. With this came the reluctance of a tired mind and body, all telling my internal alarm clock to shut it. Something niggling in the back of my head kept the battle in the favor of waking though; the thought was nothing distinct enough to pin down though, just poking my awareness. My posture probably wasn't helping me sleep either.
With my lower half propped-up, my body ran down at a slant, putting a good portion of the weight on my head. My neck was currently bent so my head met my shoulder, with the side of my face and neck nicely planted in the ground, waiting to bloom with morning pain and discomfort. While the soreness in my neck seemed to be accompanied by a great majority of my body, moving out of this position required me to, well, move, and lying for another hour and ignoring my position to catch some more sleep sounded like a great idea. After analyzing the situation and weighing my options, I settled on flailing my back legs until my lower body toppled over to a move comfortable position and allowed me to sleep peacefully, taking the best of both worlds. However, Mr. Inconvenient Rock decided to nullify my decision by existing where my hip should have been resting peacefully. Now awake, I slowly sat up, cursing nature for not being more comfortable, and looked up.
I was not expecting to see trees.
While the rock should have been a bit of a spoiler to this realization, I was left staring wide eye and slack-jaw at the wall of trees. It almost made me forget that my neck wanted me dead for a moment. Around me lay the wreckage of what looked like a cart, some cases and a few freshly downed branches. I must have been riding the cart when it crashed. Doesn't look like there's much around here that would be worth traveling to. How it got out that far was also a mystery, considering there was no trail in sight or sensibility in going through the woods, as thick as they were, with something as clumsy as a wagon. Maybe that's why it crashed? Maybe it hit a root or something and tipped over. But how would tipping over end in the cart exploding into pieces?! I was fairly certain the cart hadn't been laden with dynamite.
Aside from the pieces of vehicle strewn about the pine needles, there were also the cases, which seemed to have fared the crash in better condition. Deciding that the small blue case a few steps away looked particularly inviting, I began to get up to investigate, immediately flopping back down as a wave of nausea and pain hit me, my head in particular. Reaching a grey hoof up to my head, I felt the silver mess of twigs and dirt that was my mane, as well as a small bump. Moving slowly to the back of my head, I felt a stinging sensation as my hoof ran over a small gash, still slightly wet, but for the most part dry. I'm no doctor, but I'm fairly sure that rubbing sticks and dirt into a cut are not apart of the first aid response to this kind of injury.
Once again going towards the box, this time at a slower pace, I opened it to find what looked medical papers. They were filled with measurements or readings of some kind, filled with 20 bit words like "alkaline" and "bioaccumulation" At the bottom of the case underneath the forms were test strips of some kind, along with a small container filled with a yellowish-red gas. Seeing that the container was covered in warnings, I decided against looking further into the gas. What kind of doctor carries around toxic gases? Probably an insane doctor. Maybe I was foal-napped by an insane doctor, taking me to his lab to perform strange experiments on me? That would explain why I didn't remember the crash, since he would have knocked me out or something. But that didn't explain what had happened to the doctor, why the cart crashed so violently, or why that idea was so impossibly stupid. Maybe it has something to do with my job? That's right, my job...
What's my job?
With that little question, I found myself fumbling around mentally trying to remember any career I had and having an avalanche of questions spill into my mind. Where did I even work?. Or, for that matter, where did I live? Did I even own a house, or was I some kind of traveling sales-pony? I couldn't even recall basic things, like my age or mother's name. Wait, what about MY name?! At that point, my train of thought derailed and apparently hit something important in my mind, because I blanked out. Not like I forgot, which I was already doing, but I stopped thinking about anything. I settled on staring ahead, looking at the remains of the cart, tossed about the woods. Well, why not look at the positives then? Since I don't really have a name now, why not rename myself something cool? Like Tiger Claw? Naw- that sounds terrible. Mega Pony? No. Maybe something ominous and intimidating? I could be The One... No, that still sounds bad. Nothing starting with "The"...Super Pony?.....Genius.
And so, Super Pony, now slightly less dazed, continued to look through the remaining two crates. Looking through the contents, though, I couldn't figure out the purpose of the devices for the life of me. They were filled with what looked like expensive and intricate pieces of machinery. While the first crate's device was nothing more than a black box with a several small meters and a few holes for some kind of plugs, the second crate contained a mess of wires and magical devices of some kind. Backing away from the tangle, I stopped as something tugged at me. Turns out I was wearing a jacket, which was now caught on the a wire. How did I miss that? It's on me. It wasn't anything too fancy, just a light green jacket with the sleeves rolled up. Better than nothing I suppose. Looking ahead, smaller pieces of debris seemed to carry onward, further into the woods. Looking back now, the crash was actually stretched-out over a fairly large distance.
Continuing further into some bushes, I arrived on the other side to a sight that sent me stumbling back. A few steps further out, the forest floor disappeared, ending in a cliff. Crawling closer to the edge, I looked out to what was actually a pretty nice view. There seemed to be a small gully, with a nice little water fall at one end. The other end continued stretching onwards past a bend, further into the woods. It would have looked quite scenic, if not for the dirty yellow mist covering the bottom of the crevice. Seeing that it appeared to be the same gas that I found in the blue box, I sent a small prayer of thanks to Celestia that I didn't land in there. I could see what looked to be one of the long bars that would attach to the pony drawing the carriage sticking out, just above the mist that swirled around it. Apparently the pony pulling hadn't been so lucky.
Seeing that going further wasn't an option, I decided to turn back and look over the crash again, hopefully finding a first aid kit for my head. Emerging once again from the bushes, I stopped as I noticed a fairly large hole in the tree cover, slightly behind the majority of the wreckage. My first thought was how much dynamite would be needed to launch something that high from the crash and send it through the thick cover of the trees. Then, after a moment, I came to a slightly more logical conclusion. ....Oh...it was a flying carriage. That explains a lot. Well, there goes any hope of following any tracks left behind. That also means that, unlike a ground bound cart that is limited in distance by the terrain, the carriage that had carried me would have a much larger range to crash at. That's good, I needed to get away from civilization. You know, relax and all that.
Since the situation had now changed from "a jog back to town" to "surviving in the wilderness for possibly days until help is found", I took the next logical step in reasoning. Finding my nice little indent in the pine needles from before, I laid down, and went to sleep. Who was I kidding? I'm not going survive in the wilderness. My name is Super Pony, not Survivor Pony. Sleeping is a much better option, besides, I need my strength reserved... or something like that.
Waking up to googly eyes is infinitely more terrifying than you would think. In some kind of primal dash of instinct, I found myself pushing the lower half of my body under a nearby chunk of carriage and holding my head in my hooves. After a few moments of expertly camouflaging myself to be one with the wreckage, I noticed a few things.
I wasn't the only one breathing heavily.
The googly eyes were still looking at me in a similar fashion to a porcelain doll.
The googly eyes were not, in fact, disembodied, but connected to a griffin.
I suppose being able to add a face to the eyes helped with alleviating the creepiness, if only a small bit. Combining that with the heavy breathing, I concluded that either he was a mentally unstable serial killer drawn to my good looks like a moth to the flame, somepony very enthusiastic in being able to help me, or a pervert. Please be enthusiatic. He had a slightly off white head, while the rest of him was a dark, if not black, brown color like coffee. He also appeared to have a similar taste in fashion, seeing as we were sporting the same jacket. Maybe a coworker? Partner? Seeing that neither of us were taking action, I decided to take the first step in defusing the situation.
"Uh, hey there, guy"
"...."
"Hello?"
"...."
"Can you understand me?"
"...."
At this point, the only reply I was receiving was in the form of his eyes steadily sucking my soul dry. Maybe he was deaf? I tried raising my hoof and giving him a nice wave. For a few moments, nothing happened. That's when I saw it. A little spark of realization flashed in his eyes, the kind signifying some kind of degree of thinking was taking place.
He tilted his head.
Well that's...something. And, as if the head tilt were not enough of a break through in the fields of communication, he slightly opened his beak, and then closed it after a few moments. Seeing as he had just expended his available brain power, the griffin turned and walked over to a piece of a wheel and began nudging it with his beak. Right, back to being not saved. Maybe the griffin was feral? He didn't seem too sapient, maybe he was a lesser known breed that roamed the wild. Probably found the jacket and put it on, because there was no way I worked with that guy. This also brought up another question, "Would it be wrong to have a pet griffin?"
The sun now turned the sky a deep red as it began to set somewhere in the distance. Using my amazing survival skills, I created a small hut to shelter myself from what the elements should happen to throw at me, mainly comprising of a already conveniently flipped half of the carriage and some of the medical papers lying around it. As it turns out, making a door out of paper was not one my best ideas. The material, however, does make for a nice fire. Hope that mad scientist understands it was for survival. As well as paper, I also learned that pine needles are excellent kindling after nearly creating a forest fire, lighting my first fire using a magnifying glass I found in the blue case. In my defense, I didn't actually think I would be able to lite anything with it. Now sitting inside of the wide ring of cleared ground I made, I soaked up the heat from fruits of my labor. My newly dubbed sidekick, Super Griffin, slept in a small nest of pine needles he pushed together after a tiring day of scratching trees, staring me down, and eating the occasional pine cone. Just the kind of pet I always wanted. Seeing as it was getting late, I decided to turn in, going into my hut and lying down on a bed of paper and pine needle. Tomorrow, I would venture in the direction of which the cart had been traveling and hope that the carriage hadn't flown as far as I had feared.
