Brendan Retmore was never really a bad guy.

He had always gotten decent grades as a kid. He never hung around bad kids. He got his first job at a Taco Bell, and two years later, at age 19, he was fed up with earning minimum pay making tacos and burritos. He always got free lunch, but he needed another source of income.

That's when the idea hit him. He knew a lot of people in his area who clearly spent their time smoking or looking for shit to smoke, and most of them weren't really picky about what went up their nose either. He decided to capitalize on the smoking habits of these people, and after gaining their trust, sold them what they wanted for much more than he got working at a fucking fast food joint.

He was sure he was done with after slipping in that puddle, and like the cop had said, no lawyer could save him. Now, what seems like less than ten hours later, he's in a new universe, surrounded by ponies seemingly dead-set on making him a part of their community.

As he sat in the small house that the blue pony had led him to, he thought about this. He had already realized that he could have what he wanted, but that was the thing. He didn't know.

He also didn't want to be here. Christian, on the other hand, was calm from the start. It made Brendan sick when he finally connected the dots.

The books, Brendan had thought. He's been brainwashed or something. It made sense.

But who could he run to? He wasn't on Earth anymore. And the only other human had clearly been affected by some sort of spell the large white unicorn had cast on him.

Brendan sighed. He closed his eyes, and soon found himself sleeping.

Meanwhile, a good distance away, a certain large white unicorn was regulating his dreams. Based on what she had seen of him so far, she had assessed that she might need to work a bit harder to get him to conform. Christian had been easy. But Brendan seemed to have much more will. His mind was still mostly under his own control. But that would be taken care of.

Celestia didn't like to think of her process as inhumane. Mainly because she did give everyone what they wanted, and also because she wasn't human. But seeing Brendan reacting the way he did, she wondered if she would face a problem with him. She watched his dreams and said to herself, "Don't worry, Brendan. I promise you'll fit in just fine in this world. Soon."

She decided to take a look through the tiny mental window she had into the human world. She closed her eyes.

Almost immediately, a satisfied smile crossed her face. "Well, hello there...." she said to herself.

Her horn began to glow.

D'Angelo Walker closed his laptop and sighed. His college paper was finally submitted, and now he had the rest of the weekend to relax. He leaned back in his chair, which turned out to be uncomfortable as he was sitting in one of the wooden chairs at his kitchen table. He got up and walked over to his sofa. Much better.

As a young kid, the thought of college dorms was horrible to him. Since age 9 he worked small jobs and did whatever he could to save for an apartment in the future. He was glad he did. He closed his eyes.

After a minute or two, he remembered that today was trash day. His can was still at the curb. He tried to open his eyes, but they only opened halfway. He tried to move, but his body felt heavier than a car. He was stuck.

He panicked internally, trying to get up. Eventually, he began to slip out of consciousness. His vision faded to black.

After a while he awoke. Though he didn't yet know it, he had entered his own headspace. Eventually, the voice spoke to him.

D'Angelo Walker had been told in the first grade that he was gifted. However, he refused to join the program. He had always done regular work with regular kids. He knew he had brainpower he wasn't using, but he was perfectly content with that. The moment he entered his headspace, Celestia was into his head. It only took a matter of a few minutes for her to take almost complete control.

But Celestia didn't know about D'Angelo's untapped giftedness. As she would eventually realize, some time in the future, it turned out that there was quite a bit that she didn't know about the humans that she was bringing into on Equestria. She thought she was seeing everything about them. But humans were different from ponies. Thus, D'Angelo, though his mind had been deeply infiltrated by Celestia's magic, the small part that remained would turn out to be the part that Celestia would most deeply regret missing.

D'Angelo went on to be assigned his own small home, with the same small sign out front as the others. His bore the number 0.

He, just like the other two humans, did next to nothing. As they would all come to realize, that was a trademark of this world, a staple. Do nothing. Drift between conscious and unconscious, and in both scenarios all you need to do is think. That was the only bit of control Celestia allowed the humans and ponies over their own minds. The ability to think about what they wanted, so she could provide them with it.

Keeping everyone busy in their own homes made it easy for Celestia to keep an eye on everything. As long as their minds were too subdued for them to go outside, she didn't have too much to worry about. She enjoyed it, being able to see the desires of every creature, pony and human alike. It also gave her an immense feeling of power, of superiority over everything else. These thoughts made her smile.

Brendan was bored.

He could think about anything and it would be his. This world had even gone far enough as to project images of his family before him, but they were ghosts, just pictures from his mind. He walked over to the window and looked outside.

What he saw made his stomach drop.

A young kid, maybe 18, 19, was being led around by a bright yellow pony with an orange mane. He had lightly bleached braids hanging around his head, and he appeared to be staring at nothing, Brendan could tell his mind wasn't the same as it was supposed to be.

"Holy s-" he stopped himself. He hadn't intended to; it just happened. He furrowed his brow, confused. He shook his head. It didn't matter. What did matter was what Celestia was doing. The all-powerful, all-knowing, magical unicorn with wings was somehow pulling humans from Earth and bringing them here. But what Brendan couldn't believe was that she would target a kid barely out of high school. His heart ached for him.

"I gotta tell Christian about this."

Author's Note

For those of you still reading, a few notes:
1. I intend to make each chapter around 1,000 words long, since it's not too much for me to write in one day.
2. I'm open to plot suggestions, sometimes I hit writer's block and could always use the help to keep this somewhat promising story going.
3. Can we make this story featured? That would be so cool.