Monday morning, the first day of a big change in the lives of many in the small town of Anwater, Montana. Following a painful weekend of fever and sickness eating up his scarce days off work, Mason rolled out of bed several hours before the sun was scheduled to rise, only to collapse to the carpeted floor as his limbs contorted in ways that he didn't recognize. His attempts to flex his hands were in vein as his fingers seemed absent, perhaps he'd slept on his arm again. Fumbling in the dark, Mason continued to collapse and fall over his legs as his center of balance continued to throw him forward.
"A-alexa!" Mason shouted, "Turn the lights on."
The device in the next room blinked it's blue ring once or twice before responding, "Okay. Playing 'Turn the Lights Off' by Tally Hall."
Mason groaned as the song played from the speaker, "Alexa, stop. Bedroom lights on."
With an annoying delay, the music stopped and the bedroom light came on, subjecting Mason to a flashbang of dazzling light flooding his room and assaulting his poor eyes that had adjusted to the pitch blackness of night. He brought his hooves up to cover his eyes from the light before a spark of realization pierced through his half-awake brain. Hooves... Hooves!
Mason screamed in shock, trying to scoot back and away from the alien limbs that followed him across the room. Soon enough, simply shouting and kicking his legs proved to be more tiring than productive as he panted and tried to plan his next moves carefully. The situational assessment was that he'd woken up as a pony with no context or warning, Mason was thinking it was an isolated situation only affecting himself up until the news anchor on TV was missing. In fact, it seemed like something was happening at the studio and they just kept broadcasting. Mason watched the empty news desk, listening of the off-camera shouting for several minutes until the broadcast finally cut to commercial. Usually someone was in the control booth for these live broadcasts and would have cut the transmission long before this.
After several commercials repeated trying to sell dish soap and cheap flights to Vegas a final FlexTape commercial was interrupted by the early morning news coming back with just the female co-host. She had a plain smile and was going through some headlines like nothing was wrong, like... There wasn't just some strange argument happening off-screen just minutes ago.
Mason went through the kitchen while the news continued in the background, talking about the coming snow. A heavy feeling in his stomach was a combination of dread and hunger, half of that could be remedied by some yogurt. Mason looked at a steak he intended to cook before being bedridden all weekend, it just looked so immensely unappetizing unlike the yogurt that he could stomach easily. While Mason was working on fixing the emptiness in his belly, the news took on a different tone. The lone female co-host was explaining how there was a plane crash earlier in the morning leaking potentially toxic chemicals into the area and the town of Anwater was to be under lockdown. There was no evacuation order. If Mason could still drive as a pony he'd leave town, but no such option was available.
Mason certainly wasn't going to work today, he looked through the curtains at the rising sun, slowly filling his apartment with reddish-golden light. The news continued to repeat the same messages of a local lockdown, urging any viewers to report in if they felt a headache or fever coming on, as they may be suffering from chemical exposure. Mason looked down at his hooves, then back to the co-host. She was blatantly lying now, he was sure of it. If the town was being locked down like this, maybe other people were dealing with this same situation and they were trying to cover it up? Mason had an eerie feeling that being covered up like this wouldn't end well for him.
He needed to get out of town before he was found out and taken to some CIA blacksite for the rest of his days, which meant he needed to get help from outside the town. Mason cursed himself for not being social at work, if he was better friends with John he might be able to trust him for a ride out of town. But as things stood, the closest friend from out of town was someone he met at Bronycon the previous year. Despite Emily living in the next town over, they maintained a mostly online friendship due to the fact that both of them were social hermits and driving a couple hours wasn't something either really wanted to do.
The ancient digital alarm clock that Mason had found on the side of the road as a child and took home read that it was nearing 6am, in a few minutes the relic would emit the horrible chirps he'd woken up to for over a decade. Rearing up on his hindhooves, Mason very carefully flipped a switch that turned the alarm off in lieu of pushing the nonfunctional snooze button.
Mason stared into the glowing red numbers, he was dreading what he was about to do and felt certain that Emily wouldn't come help him. While her number was technically in his phone, he couldn't get his phone to unlock as his hooves didn't like to interface with the touchscreen any more than his nose did. It was a pathetic moment of desperation where Mason cutely pressed his nose against the screen hoping he could tap in his pin code to no avail. The device was little more than a black mirror to gaze into a foreign reflection.
The keyboard of his computer was more than happy to oblige to the tap of a pen held in Mason's mouth. The computer would have been considered a high-end gaming PC almost a decade ago, it still ran modern games if he dialed all the setting back, so it was more than enough. Mason paced anxiously while Windows decided right now was the perfect time to begin installing an update. The stallion cast a baleful glare uncharacteristic of a pony, if looks could kill...
40 minutes later, Discord was open and it was nearing 7 when Mason's hooves very carefully guided his mouse to the little button shaped like a phone on Emily's discord profile. A small circle bearing a close-up of a green filly's face grinned wildly as the program's awful chime played, it felt like an eternity before the chime stopped and was replaced by a cautious and curious "Uhh, hello?"
"Emily, I need your help. It's really complicated but I need you to come to my house."
There was a silence on the other end of the line, "Why?"
"Please? I'm kind of in some trouble and you're the closest friend in the area I can trust with this."
"Uhm... What's wrong? I'm about to leave for the stables, are you like stuck somewhere or something?
"Can I be honest with you? Like, don't tell anyone about what I'm about to tell you." Mason says, sounding increasingly desperate.
"Talk to me."
"Listen, I woke up this morning and I swear to God... I turned into a pony. I'm stuck in my house and I have no idea what's going on."
Emily is quiet for a few seconds over the line, leaving Mason to wonder if he'd messed up.
"That sounds like a prank, a really stupid prank. Is this like a ligma setup or something?"
"Emily, I am really freaking out right now. It's not a prank, I know it sounds so unbelievable but I need your help."
"Switch to video, I wanna see."
Mason felt a surge of relief, navigating the mouse to the button that looked like a video camera, "Hold on a second, mouse is hard to move." his half of the screen changed from an icon of a bird to a block of video streaming from his webcam.
Mason felt a little bit of shock staring at the disheveled white stallion with a blue mess of a mane staring back as the call goes silent.
"Holy... Is this like a vtuber avatar or something?" Emily asks, still on the fence, "Put a shoe on your head or something."
Mason does so, scooting his chair back and letting the video show him walk across the room and come back with a sandal that he tried to balance on his head to little success.
"Okay, uhh... Are you able to wait a couple hours? It's just me and Jessica volunteering at the stables today and the horses need to be fed but I can come by right after."
In all honesty, you were terrified that any second the CIA would kick in your front door and take you away to Area 51, but this was your best chance of getting out of town before that happened. "The news said Anwater is under lockdown from a chemical spill. I think they're using that as a cover-up for whatever happened last night. Can I lay low at your place for now? I don't think I'm safe here."
"No guarantees, but I'll see if I can sneak in and pick you up. I'll let you know how it goes." Emily reassures Mason. "See you in a bit, I gotta drive." The call hangs up, leaving him alone in his apartment.
Author's Note
Oh yeah, I've got some good (read: dumbest shit you've ever read) lore planned for this.