It's been three months.
I was working. I'm a stocker at walmart, and things there aren't really exciting, but that didn't matter to me. As long as I was getting paid well, and treated well, I had no issues with it, and for the most part that was the case. No problems, just a simple job to do for eight hours a day.
I never hated my life, nor the people around me. Yeah, I didn't like a lot of people, but that goes for just about everyone. I somewhat enjoyed my life. It was hard sometimes, but at the end of it all, I got to enjoy it with people I knew and had some really fun moments. I liked to focus on the few parts of happiness than the many parts of sadness.
I never really liked the world I lived in, but I didn't hate it. There was a lot of things going on in the world, most of them not good. I didn't like to watch the news because of that. I didn't want to start my day thinking about whoever got shot, or whatever bad happened. No, I liked to start my day off with some coffee, some bread with butter, and a little bit of cinnamon ontop of it.
The world was sort of shitty, but it was home.
Now? Well, wherever I am, it's definitely not home. Quite the opposite of it.
As I said, I was working. Setting in the last carton of milk into the desired slot, where it would slide to the front of the freezer for people to pickup. It was a simple task, really. I turned around and took a few steps and, boom. I'm no longer there.
You know, the stories I've heard from the others match the same, the transition from our world to this one was seamless. No sound, no bright light, no portal. It was just, turn around and you're there.
It was hard to process at first. I mean, I went from working in a big walmart to being outside in the daytime, in the middle of a forest. The transition was instant, so fast that my brain had to do multiple double-takes.
From that very moments to now, it's been three months.
Luckily, I'm not alone. In fact, from the population count we have going on right now, we're already in the millions. It's crazy to think about. A million of us, just doing whatever we were doing, at wherever we were in the world, and all of a sudden we're all here together instantly.
It caused mass hysteria.
Within a couple of days, we lost thousands. People were at eachothers throats, people were leaving on their own in droves. The couple of days were a shit-show, and it was extremely terrifying to experience. I went without food for two days before someone gave me something to eat.
The 'someone' that gave me some food is actually now the leader here. His name is Samuel. He's an older man, in his mid-forties. He isn't middle age yet, but he looks like he's been through hell and back in his life. Me and him for the next few days were trying to get people to calm down, trying to get people to get level-headed.
Among a million or so people, that's extremely hard to do. Yet, we got a small population going. A couple hundred people were willing to listen, and it was paying off too.
Samuel knew all sorts of things. From hunting, carpentry, and making tools, to things like topography, making maps. The guy was talented, that was for sure, and it helped because he was the one driving the others to start doing things. Of course, there was bumps along the road, and a lot of people weren't willing to pull their own weight. But we got things done, enough to call it a starting point.
We had tents, cooking stations, and a little area for carpentry and tool-making. We had bow and arrows for hunting, and homemade knives. With all of the things we had, more and more people began to join us. We were so far the only ones doing good compared to the groups that were in the surrounding area.
With each new pair of hands, we got another skillset. Someone who is good with wood, architecture, farming and anything else we might've needed. With so many people that were teleported with us, we had a good selection of skillsets that made it possible for us to survive.
The most difficult part came in the form of food. Feeding thousands of people back home was easy, because there was a system in place for it. Farms were already set up, and automation took a lot of work out of it. Yet here, we needed food fast and now, and it doesn't work like that very well.
We got through it though. For the most part. I'd say we did pretty damn good for the hand we were given. And with Samuel leading us, we were progressing faster than any of us imagined. Gardens were made, and animals were herded into small farms to breed. Food was well on its way, and with this rationing plan that Samuel put in place, we were golden.
With our population way into the thousands, Samuel knew he couldn't lead things by himself. He put in a leadership system. Essentially, he was the main person that lead everything that happened, and he would have smaller people that he trusted lead for him.
Sound familiar?
So, Samuel picked three people to lead under him. They would be put into different sections of the land we had, and would lead according to Samuel's idea's. Those three were John, Trish, and Tristan, and they knew what they were doing too. They had a good set of plans, and would regularly help Samuel out with his own idea's, so they would of course become the secondary leaders.
The fifth in the authority placement surprised me though. It was me.
I asked why he wanted me to be apart of the authority, and he said that I was considered the morale booster of the town. He said I was good at making people get to work, and to realize they needed to get things moving. I still didn't quite feel like I was ready, since in my normal life I was some stocker at walmart, with no real skillsets.
Though, I went with it anyways. I went from place to place in the town we had, helping out wherever I could and talking to people. I became known around people, and mostly everyone I encountered was extremely kind to me. I don't know if it was because they actually cared about me, or if they were doing it just because I was considered an authority.
Who knows, right?
Either way, we're here now. Three months in, and things have been going surprisingly well. Samuel had the idea to start counting up the population, and so far we're over a million. People are coming in everyday, and we just keep growing. Even a few new people are coming in, freshly teleported from home.
We never really went far out into the surrounding lands that often, and usually stayed close to the area that we all arrived at. We were comfortable with the area, and if anyone knew arrived they would be right at our doorstep.
Though, we went searching for land not that long ago. The people that were in charge of animal breeding needed big open fields for grazing, but we were in a forest, and surrounding us, was a darker, denser forest. It was like, the place we were living in was the border from light to dark.
The outside darker forest had all sorts of strange plants and tree's, and strange creatures too. We've already had a few people come to us for aid because they were attacked by wooden wolves, or something like that. No one believed them until me and Samuel, along with a few others ventured out into it.
Back on topic, the farmers needed land for grazing. Big, open land would be ideal.
Samuel had been taking me and some other people out to teach me and them how to hunt and all of that great stuff, so we of course were the first ones that headed out. All we had was some clothes, a homemade knife, and some bow and arrows. Simple stuff, but we made it work.
On our way in the dark forest, we put down a couple of those 'wolves,' if you could call them that. Those weird wooden things were definitely not anything we've seen back on earth. We didn't dwell on that though, and kept heading out further and further.
This is where things will most likely lose you.
Me, Samuel, and three others were walking along when we heard voices. We thought they were human at first, and we were going to call out before Samuel stopped us. He urged us to hide, so we did.
We all got behind some tree's, and looked over where Samuel was pointing too.
I swear I had been tripping on acid or something. Perhaps it was all really a dream? I mean, sure, I accepted these 'wooden wolf' things, but what we were looking at here was unbelievable.
Three small ponies were walking in the forest ahead of us, passing right by. They weren't regular ponies, definitely not. Number one, they were speaking english. Number two, one was colored orange, the other white, and the last one yellow. Number three, one was a Pegasus, and the other a unicorn.
Crazy shit, right?
We couldn't hear what they were talking about, only a select few words we could hear. They had apparently decided to turn back, as they turned the opposite direction they were previously going.
We all stared at Samuel to tell us what to do next, to which he did. We were going to follow them.
We crept behind them silently, keeping our distance, and with the amount of tree's in the forest it was easy to hide from them. Though, that didn't stop us almost getting caught a good few times.
It was so strange, though. I mean, you've heard myths about a Pegasus and unicorn before, but to see them in reality, along with them speaking actual english, was something that interested me, yet terrified me. I didn't know what the hell to think- how was I supposed to react? How was anyone supposed to react?
The smartest thing I thought of was to simply suppress my questions, concerns, and thoughts, and to simply do what Samuel said. That was, to follow them.
They were obviously young. They laughed giddily as they walked, they would smile at eachother, and we could hear a little bit of the words they were saying. It usually had to do with something about a sister, or school, regular kid stuff that you would hear back home.
You know, from a human. Not a talking, colorful horse.
As we continued to follow them, we began to see the tree's began to grow sparse, and sunlight poured in. And within a few minutes, the little colorful horses we had been following, had made it out of the dark forest, and along with them were us.
We stayed behind the tree's still, keeping our existence hidden, but we seemed to have made it out of the dark forest. In front of us was a wide, open field, with what seemed to be a town way off in the distance.
Definitely wasn't human. We could see tiny colorful blobs walk around, so it must've been more of these colorful horses.
The five of us stared from our hiding spots, not really believing our eyes. First, we've encountered a new species, one that was intelligent. Two, there was a whole town of them.
And three, the biggest question yet.
How come they haven't found us, and how come we haven't found them until now?
The thing is, the forest was dense, which is why it took so long to traverse through. Yet our 'little' town we had in the forest wasn't exactly far away from this outside area. For three months, not one human had stumbled upon this?
Or.. what if they did, and never came back from it? What if they were spotted by these ponies?
Didn't have time to ponder, Samuel ordered everyone to start our trek back home. He said we needed to get this information out as soon as possible, and to make sure nobody goes out into this open land we just discovered. We don't have any information, and if they were possibly hostile, we didn't have enough defense to combat them.
This is why he was named the leader.
Our return wasn't as exciting as our earlier journey, but we talked with eachother. It was nice, and as usual we talked about home. One of the guys traveling with us, Jetson, was a huge gambler. He had been drinking the night he landed here, and thought it was just a hallucination. Ended up getting into a fight with some random guy.
We kept talking, and came up with the ludicrous plan of opening our very own gambling business here in this new place! Of course, it was all jokes. It was something to keep our minds off of our current predicament.
As we neared town, if you could call it that since it's mostly tents and small housing, something kept poking at me in my head. Why was our first instinct to sit where we landed, and make shelter? I understand we were teleported here, and that alone is extremely confusing, but shouldn't we have gone looking for any civilization? Why did we automatically assume we were on another world?
It didn't make much sense, because I also automatically assumed that. There was something very strange going on here, and it felt like we were being mind-controlled for the first few weeks here and we just believed in it.
No time to keep pondering on said thoughts though, because we had just made it into town. One of the farmers that needed a large pasture was waiting for our response at the gate, and Samuel told him it wasn't good news. Samuel ordered the co-leaders to gather everyone around for an announcement.
The announcement was about our latest findings. The small horses, how they could speak english, one being a pegasus and another being a unicorn, and how there was a town not too far from here. People were obviously skeptical, yet when given the urge to go 'see for themselves,' they immediately backed down. Even if they didn't believe it, they weren't going to take that tiny risk.
As soon as the next day started, Samuel wanted to get housing built fast. Though he also feared that clearing out the tree's around them might just give their little hiding spot away. If you could call it little.
He ordered a couple groups to go far off into the forest, an hour or so away, to get cutting. It would take awhile to transfer the logs and wood, but it was better safe than sorry as Samuel said.
Speaking of Samuel, i'll give a brief description of him. He's older, in his mid-forties. He's mexican, as he proudly stated in one of our first conversations. He's got a couple scars on his face, and dark hair, some of it graying slightly. He looks like a total bad-ass, and everybody knew not to mess with him. I've seen him get into a one fight here, and it wasn't pretty. The guy would have been dead if someone didn't convince him to stop.
Poor guy lost his eye that night. Shouldn't have started a fight with Samuel.
Oh, and did I forget to introduce myself? I must have.
I'm Henry. I know, basic name. I'm white, and I got dark brown hair. No scars, no bad-assery to my name, none of that cool stuff at all. I'm decently fit, I used to work out to pass the time, and it paid off. Without those sessions, I would be tired out my ass right now.
Enough about me, and more about this place i'm currently in.
All of the stuff I just mentioned now was earlier, starting from when it all happened up to about two weeks ago. Things have been going well, and with more groups going out to search the dark forest, we haven't found anymore of those little colorful ponies. Samuel hasn't been getting much sleep thinking about them, asking constantly if they might be hostile or, if they found any of our people and killed them off or jailed them.
Honestly, with how cuddly and furry those little ponies looked, they can't be that bad. But I can't let looks deceive me. I'll go with Samuel until i'm proven otherwise.
Housing has been going good. With some architects that know what they're doing, it's been easier than what it could've been. We aren't planning on building big houses for anyone, and right now we're focused on building big living quarters for hundreds at a time.
Spacing has gotten better too. Samuel split this giant group into multiple, telling them to go off into their own territories. They were the manors, essentially, to Samuel's kingdom. It was working efficiently too, though Samuel was afraid that if we moved any further out in any direction, being found out by the ponies would happen.
So far? No reports on any ponies nearby.
However, there was a report about some strange ruins. Not much has come up of that other than a description saying it looks like some sort of dilapidated castle. Area was too open though, so the scouting party ditched. Probably for the best.
Honestly, there isn't much else to say as of right now.
We've got food, water, small housing, and small defenses. It isn't terrible, but it could be better. With being here only about three months, we've done good. Way more than good.
I got faith.
Author's Note
This is a project i'll be working on in my spare time. Expect the chapters to be long after this one- this was just the starting point.
Hope you guys are gonna' like it!
If you have any criticism, or want to show how much you like it, be sure to do it in the comments! I always read them, and for anyone that needs to hear this:
Doing the hardest thing can sometimes be the best thing, but doing the easiest thing doesn't always mean its a bad thing.
