Sour Notes

***

“It won’t be easy but if you succeed, you won’t regret a single thing you had to endure.” said The Light.

“I’m ready.” I answered.

***

I wasn't always like this, the state in which I was "found." I used to be a pretty normal kid, a bright one even.

That was a long time ago. Things went sideways relatively early in my life, starting with the night my parents died.

Their vehicle was completely smashed to pieces by a train, I wasn’t even allowed to see their bodies one last time. People said I was lucky I wasn't with them at the time but the truth is: I often wished I was. That was where my downfall began…

It was my 13th birthday; the day I got sent to an orphanage. A depressed individual who is looking for some kind of escape from reality can easily become hooked on something unhealthy, naturally.

After all, I’ve seen the older kids that I lived with smoke and drink everyday. That was my stepping stone towards my “bright” future. I started doing harder drugs as soon as I was able to get my hands on them.

I liked to think that it wasn't my fault. I probably could have been stronger. Probably.

The years passed as I watched “friends” come and go. It was here that I learned not to get too attached to any one person with whom I shared a common interest or bond.

They let me out on my 18th birthday, back to my family house. By that time I already knew how and where to get a hold of various substances:

Smokes, alcohol, weed, LSD, MDMA, ecstasy, meth, crack, even heroin, I didn't care.

Over a single year, I managed to lose most of my heritage and descend even deeper into my addictions. I practically became one of the homeless junkies, passed out on the street, except I had a house. It was destroyed, unkept and almost empty, but I had one.

I didn't sleep there most of the time though, it reminded me too much of my parents, so I spent most of my time on the street.

I think I might have been a little over 19 years old, already a full blown junkie, when the colorful horse invasion began. I didn't have a TV, didn't know about any previous negotiations with this race, so I had absolutely no idea what was happening. By the time they started spawning in our cities, I thought I had finally lost it. I was 100% sure that I went completely insane at last, especially when it was mere minutes after injecting some potent shit straight into my veins.

“None of this is real!” I thought.

I ran out into the streets, laughing and screaming like a maniac while the humans and horses were fighting each other all around with occasional explosions detonating in the distance.

Contrary to my belief, it was real. It was as real as the train that had changed my life back then and I was about to get hit by it myself.

I realized as soon as one of the horses noticed me, knocking me down with a single kick. Even though I was high as shit at the time, I remember vividly the moment our eyes met:

My side hurt. We were both scared. Me, in sudden realization that the pain was real and that this might actually be happening. He, because he couldn't bring himself to finish me with the weapon he was holding.

Never in his life he had to kill anyone before. I could see that from his strangely humanlike expression. He might have even spared me if I pleaded.

But I didn't.

I sprang up, fueled by the ungodly amount of crack in my blood, and punched his face so hard that he fell unconscious after the first hit.

Scared shitless for the life that I was so eager to throw away before, I started running. Like a wild animal, I ran and ran. I outran or knocked out every one of the horses that tried to chase me; even slipping away from their spells.

I didn’t stop outside the city, I kept running, into the forest, into the wild, and in the wild I stayed for some time with nothing but the torn clothing I had on me and one last dose in my pocket.

I found a place for myself by a creek so I’d have water nearby and with my bare hands, I dug a hole to live in.

After a couple of hours had passed, possibly days, I went looking for some food. I found berries and bugs. I didn't need to eat a lot anyway, as long as I was still high but I knew once I ran out, I’d be a total wreck, unable to even walk.

I was right. All the fatigue and body damage came back to me as soon as the effects of my last dose wore off, leaving me laying in my hole like a carrion.

I was still questioning myself if this was real. Maybe I just overdosed myself, died, and this was purgatory. I got my answer sooner than I had hoped, though.

…

It couldn’t have been less than a month when the "birds" started sweeping through areas for survivors and refugees. I was an easy target for them, so I soon found myself locked in a cage, at the mercy to one old, smelly gryphon.

The first few days, while still experiencing the withdrawal effects of the drugs I had binged, I wanted to die more than ever. The gryphon however, didn't want me to. Supposedly, I was no good to him dead so he fed me some slush food and even treated some of my wounds.

Later on when I got better, I found out why.

The horses came back to the empty human cities and there were way more of them than gryphons. They started rebuilding the places as their own settlements. I’ve been a living witness of my old city being turned into a completely different realm in just a few weeks. I was not just a witness though, I had even helped in rebuilding it.

The old gryphon used to "lend" me and a few more humans he caught to the horses as a helping workforce. We were convenient for some specific jobs to them, yet our overall abilities were nothing compared to unicorn magic. To see the old houses being ripped out of the ground with a combined force of only a few ponies, the things they can do just with their minds, it filled me with a deep mixture of respect and fear for these creatures.

Not only for the unicorns though, I wouldn't dare to disobey any of the pony races; not pegasi nor even the earth ones with nothing but incredible strength in their hind legs. It didn’t matter. They all seem harmless at a first sight. They weren’t.

As harsh as it seemed, most of my “provisionary masters” were actually somewhat nice to me, a dirty wreck of a human being, so I always did what I was asked without any rebellion.

I was very aware that it was them who brought the downfall of human civilisation in the first place, but I never really was that patriotic about my race to begin with.

I was a junkie with not too bright of a future. Even if no invasion ever happened, a few more years like that and I would have been found dead in the street anyway.

Overdosed, beaten to death, stabbed for a line of meth, there were many ways I could have breathed my last breath, sooner or later. What happened was almost like a second chance at life for me.

...I emphasize the word “almost”.

Throughout the withdrawal symptoms, I was often wishing for death so all of this would stop, but I just couldn’t do it myself. The upside was that it was the only way for me to stay clean; that and the constant work.

It's not like I could get any drugs anywhere in this new pony-dominated world.

The withdrawals I experienced however, caused uncontrollable mood swings through which I once even punched one of the gryphons and got harshly punished immediately afterwards. They called me "Schizo" ever since, poking fun at my mental health.

Sometimes I would hardly care about what was happening to, or around me. Other times I was banging my head against the bars. It was only after managing to calm myself down, I was all submissive again. This of course only added to their thinking that I was brain damaged.

Over time I began stabilizing again; not just physically from drugs but mentally as well. That would be: Somewhat accepting my fate here so that I could live on.

I wasn’t exactly finding happiness in my new norm, God no. This was far away from anything close to it, but I was stabilizing…

***

When a horse offers a good enough price to the gryphon, he would sometimes sell him a human for good and not merely for borrowing.

Sure, it would cost a lot more than just one day and it only happened to some that were already favourite among some of our equine masters.

The days became routine as the time passed.

”...When we're done here, I’m gonna take you home with me Cindy,” said a stallion, winking an eye at one of the human girls belonging to Goldbeak. Each day, he demanded specifically this one young girl to be his helper and just as he said, one day I stopped seeing them both.

As the time went on, more humans were getting sold as slaves/pets to the pony workers going home or settling in. Golbeak's thugs were still occasionally bringing fresh humans too, slowly turning the business into a regular slave shop by the time my old city was almost re-built.

While most of my “friends” or newfound acquaintances were gone eventually, it was okay for me to stay. I was scared of everything outside my little world. Until one day, things had to move on...

***