How did I get here? (V2.0)
“Shit!”
An alarm blared loudly throughout the cockpit, flashing red lights filling every nook and cranny in the ship. The ship was quite small, about the size of a master bedroom, give or take, meant to hold only one passenger. Its right wing was set ablaze, black smoke coming out of the gashing hole, making the ship extremely hard to control.
“Come on, come on, come on!” the voice of the pilot shouted frantically, panicking as they tried to regain control of the ship. Their voice was female, holding a raspy tone. The pilot in question being a young cyan mare with a rainbow mane, all hidden under her pearly white suit, scuffed with dirt and scratches. A helmet wrapped around her face, only showing her face where she was sweating profusely.
“Dear, fucking Celestia!” she shouted. “Who in Tartarus took out my right engine?!”
As if her troubles weren’t already enough, she saw a red laser suddenly lock onto her other wing, aimed straight at her only working engine. Her eyes widened as she realized what was going to happen. A beam with the width of about one foot struck her other wing down, putting it in a similar state of the other wing.
“Fuck! Oh, fuck!”
The smell of leaking gas filled the cabins, signaling that her fuel tank had been hit. Shortly after, a loud groaning sound came from her left wing. Looking over, her eyes widened as she saw the metal plating slowly melt and peel off before the entire wing separated from her ship. The missing wing caused her ship to start spiraling counter clockwise, completely out of control.
“Oh no, no no no no!” she screamed as the ship descended at an increasingly fast pace. “Pull! Pull!” she shouted, pulling back as hard as she could on the steering wheel. It squeaked from the pressure before snapping completely, rendering it unusable.
She stared at the steering wheel that she held within her hooves as tears came to her eyes. It was hopeless. She was going to die.
Tossing the wheel aside, she reached into her front chest pocket to reveal a gold locket. Opening it up, it showed a picture of a purple mare unicorn, smiling kindly back at the hopeless pilot.
She shut her eyes, sobbing as she held the locket tightly to her chest. And as the plane came crashing down, only one thought filled her mind.
“I’m sorry…”
The sound of blaring alarms filled the room. Inside, a nearly unrecognizable ship interior was present. The door to the cockpit was completely blown off, hitting the back side of the ship. A wing was skewered directly through the middle, going through both sides as some sort of liquid leaked.
In the midst of all the chaos, a small figure twitched on the cabin floor. The figure looked to be a mare wearing a suit and a helmet, though the metal face covering had been torn basically completely off of the suit, only hanging on by a thread of suit fabric. Bits of the suit had also been torn off, scattered on the floor, some pieces not even showing as they had disintegrated during what seemed to be a horrific crash.
The mare’s coat was scorched black, barely showing the blue coat of fur underneath, much like her rainbow colored mane that rested on the floor, half of it completely torn off. Her body began to stir, causing a loud groan to escape her throat as she came to.
Slowly opening her eyes, she winced. Her body felt like it was on fire and she was pretty sure a few of her ribs were broken, too. As she breathed in through her nose, only the smell of ashes greeted her, causing her to cough and wheeze.
Slowly, she sat herself up and rubbed her head. After she stopped rubbing her head, she saw her hoof, stained red, revealing that she was bleeding. “G-great…”
She stood up, examining her surroundings before her heart dropped. Where am I?! Why am I here?! Thoughts barraged her head as she felt an overwhelming sense of dread. Quickly, she scanned her brain for any memory on how she got here. Her worrying continued to intensify when she realized something.
“Who… am I?” she spoke to herself.
A wave of feelings crashed down upon her, making her feel hopelessness and dread. She started hyperventilating, crawling into a ball and crying to herself. I don’t even know who I am! I don’t know how I got here, what I’m doing here, I’m probably going to die here, too!
She shook her head. No. I have to stay focused. I need to get out of here. It’s not hopeless yet. With a newfound sense of confidence, she brought herself to her hooves and looked for an exit. Okay, what is this? She asked herself. And as if it was second nature, her mind responded. It’s a GT-13. Galactic Traversal Version 13. She paused for a second. Wait, why do I know that?
She had a strange feeling that someone had told her that information before. Shrugging it off, she looked for an exit. Expecting it to be difficult to find an exit, she was surprised to find it almost instantly. Near the back side of the ship, there was a large gaping hole that revealed the outside. She would need to crawl through.
After walking over, she attempted to fit her legs inside and then her body. However, her bulky suit blocked her path, causing her to groan in frustration. Quickly, she stripped herself of the suit and tossed it aside before trying again.
This time, she barely made it through, wheezing in pain as the tight space applied pressure on her chest, crushing her already crushed ribs. Crying out in pain, she barely managed to fit herself through before flopping down to the floor below. Her face landed directly into a wet puddle on the floor, which showed to be made of sand. The taste of the liquid quickly told her it was gasoline. Ew…
As she got up, she looked down at the puddle and saw herself, causing her to pause. The gravity of the situation hit her again. She didn't recognize herself at all. This was the first time she had ever seen herself. Taking in the opportunity, as there probably wouldn’t be any other time to do so, she examined herself, spinning around to look at every detail on her body. She saw that she had blue fur along with a rainbow mane. She also saw that she was wearing an orange uniform of some sort. It had a name tag that read 'Rainbow D. Dash'. Her name was Rainbow Dash? She kinda liked it. It fit her looks.
Her suit also had plenty of front pockets and a couple of back pockets, which is when she saw something weird on her flank. Some sort of cloud with a multicolored lightning bolt shooting out of it? A cutie mark. Her brain told her. Yours.
She smiled a little as she finally had something that she knew about herself. Her smile was cut short when she saw something laying besides the puddle, shining in the sunlight. Picking it up, it was revealed to be a gold locket of some sort. It had the words ‘Good Luck!’ engraved in the gold covering. Was she on some sort of mission? It felt like it. She was the only one around and it looked like the ship only fit one person.
When she flipped open the locket, her heart stopped. Inside of it was a pony. A purple unicorn with magenta and violet striped hair, holding a kind, caring smile, looking at her. Huh. She had never seen this pony in her life, but there was something about her… She felt her heart flutter, and all of a sudden she had an intense feeling of grief. Like she had let that pony down for some reason.
As she stared at the locket, a teardrop landed on it. She was crying. Why am I crying? I don’t even know this pony… Suddenly she felt like punching herself for being stupid. No… I know this pony. Maybe a good friend? She still felt angry at herself. Maybe… a lover? Her mind felt more at peace with this answer. My wife..? Yeah, that feels right. She carefully put the locket in one of her pockets so that it would stay safe.
After she was done looking at herself, she left the wreckage and finally saw the condition of the ship. It was completely torn up, bent in angles that made it nearly unrecognizable as a flying vehicle. Pieces of metal were torn off, scattered across the desert floor behind it in a large crevice that was made from the crash landing that separated the sand apart from each other. The heat had caused it to get so hot that the sand nearby the center of the crash site had turned to glass, spiking outwards.
“Jeez, how did that happen?” she spoke to herself.
So now she stood there. Outside a ship wreckage. The only surviving and noticeable form of life for what seemed like miles in each direction. She gathered her thoughts to brainstorm what to do next. Okay, her name was Rainbow Dash. Her middle name started with a ‘D’- whatever that stood for. She had a beautiful wife who was a purple unicorn. Now what?
Panic entered her mind. She still had no idea what to do. There was no life in any direction, only endless desert. The sun was still blazing down on her back, causing her to sweat profusely in her clothes. Get yourself together, Rainbow! So what? You’re stranded out in the middle of nowhere? No sweat. Well- actually I’m sweating a lot- but that doesn’t matter! So you’re out here in some desert you don’t know where. Still! You flew here. You were probably selected to go on some mission or something out here. You should know what to do! Think!
She dug through her mind looking for any clues that she could use. Her brain had been answering her questions thus far. She should be able to find something that she can use, right?
…Right?
After minutes of pacing around in circles, nothing came to her mind. Suddenly, rage surged through her veins. “Damn it!” She kicked the sand in frustration.
Then, all of a sudden, a large pulse-like feeling was sent through her head, like an intense headache that brought her to her knees. Then, her vision turned white.
~~~
“Damn it!” she saw herself yell out, kicking the sand up in frustration. “There’s nothing but sand and rocks! No life, nothing!”
She started pacing in circles. “C’mon, Dash… You should know what to do. Use that brain of yours and think!” She kept walking for what seemed like minutes. “Come on… what would Twilight do?” she thought out loud. “She would look for any sort of distinction in the environment - like a stream of water or something - and follow it. But there’s no stream of water. No distinction. Just desert in all directions!”
She started panicking again. “It doesn’t even change in altitude! It’s all flat! It all looks the same!” She calmed herself down. “I can’t panic… not now. Panicking is how you lead yourself to make irrational decisions, that’s what Twilight always told me.”
After pacing around for a bit longer, an idea crossed her mind. “The best thing I can do here is to pick a direction and follow it… But I have to make sure I know what direction I’m going, or I’ll end up accidentally going in circles… How can I track my path?”
She looked up and saw that the sun was setting. “That’s it! I’ll follow the sun! Of course, I’d have to follow it when it’s sunset and not sunrise, but it’ll work! I just have to hope I make it somewhere in time.”
She pulled out her locket and looked at it. “I’m coming home, Twilight.”
~~~
Slowly her vision dispersed until she could see her surroundings again. She was lying on the floor with sand in her hair. Quickly, she sat up and shook the sand out before standing up again. Was that me I just saw? I mean, it was me, but that’s impossible… It doesn’t make any sense. I guess I’ll just do what I did? I look like I remember more than I do right now.
She looked around for the sun, finding that it was blaring directly above her. It was currently noon. She’d have to wait.
Though, she did see where her other self went off to… No, it’d be too risky. She thought to herself. When she looked over to where she had went, suddenly she felt a strange, uncomfortable sensation. It was as if a huge magnet was pulling at her, threatening to rip her apart. It gave her a headache and her vision went blurry, making her catch her self as she stumbled around.
As she solidified her ground, she looked in the direction once more and the pull seemed to grip her even harder. She was put into an almost trance-like state, where she stared blankly forward. Subconsciously, her legs carried her forwards.
It gave her an unsettling feeling of comfort, and so like a moth to a light, she followed the path that her other self had once walked, pushing through with determination in her eyes. She was going to make it back home. Back to her wife. She will get back. No matter the cost.
Author's Note
I wrote this quickly to get the thought off my mind. This is the unnamed story I was talking about in my most recent blog, and I have a huge story planned for this one. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter (even though it was more like a teaser for the story).
As always, feedback is welcome! 
EDIT: Finally rewrote it to more like I imagined, with some feedback taken into consideration (you know who you are).
Version History:
V1.0 - Wrote quickly to get my thoughts jotted down.
V2.0 - Completely rewrote the entire chapter to better fit what I was going for. I might come back again to rewrite some parts as I was getting slightly tired towards the end of writing this (which usually means I write with less quality, meaning I'll probably have to rewrite some stuff to sound better).
An Unfortunate Demise (V1.0.1)
The rough sand burned her hooves as she walked, though after hours of walking, she had gotten used to it. As she trekked, her mind eventually slipped focus from the pulling feel she was experiencing earlier and more into her own thoughts.
Where was she again? Oh, right. She arrived here from somewhere somehow and doesn't remember a thing other than her own name and her wife whose name was probably Twilight. Twilight something. She didn't know the other part. It was stupid. Just thinking about it made her stomp her hoof in the sand, causing her to flinch because her hoof had been actually burned from traveling on the hot sand for so long.
Then she thought back to when she first woke up. It was weird- she just knew stuff. It was like a gut feeling, you just have to follow it, y'know? Maybe, since her brain obviously held answers, she could just search through it and try to remember something. Trying for what seemed like the millionth time, she closed her eyes and looked within herself only to find the same thing she had found from the previous bazillion attempts; a feeling of total emptiness. Like a part of herself was missing.
It felt unnatural, to say the least. "Yeah, just like the pull I've been following for-fucking-ever..." Rainbow grumbled to herself. "I don't know, maybe it fucking lied to me or something," she spoke to herself angrily.
And as she continued to walk, she saw the sun set in the distance before eventually going underneath the hill completely, going out of view. How long has it been?! She groaned loudly and fell to the floor, covering her face with a hoof and mumbling something about how stupid all of this was. Her muscles were growing weaker and she was running on empty. She figured it was time to take a nap.
She took her hoof off her face and looked around to find a good place to rest. Oh, right. Sand. It's all sand. "Celestia, damn it!"
~~~
Waking up the next morning was about as painful as falling asleep. Her eyes opened and got sand immediately stuck in her eyes. She spent a good ten minutes wiping herself and her face of any sand particles that got into any nook or cranny.
Walking was about the same too, that was until she started to notice a change in territory. "What the-"
As she climbed a hill of sand, she looked over and started seeing dirt. Like actual dirt. Even though there was no grass, the new surface to walk on was a nice change of pace. It lifted her moods and she walked with more of a stride in her step. Maybe she was almost there?
And as she continued to walk, the dirt started introducing some bits of rock, a little bit of dead weeds, before stretching out to actually seeing dead trees. Like full on trees, not little plants. And eventually the terrain got bumpier, more diverse, different. To be completely honest with herself, it was admittedly quite fun. She took in the new sights (even though there was not much to see) and cherished it.
It was enough to keep her entertained for a good hour or two. Well, before she got bored. Then it was back to just walking. Endless walking.
Though, her eyes lit up when she saw something in the distance. Is that a town?! "Holy shit!"
She saw, in the very very far distance, some wreckage forming what seemed to be a small village of sorts. The mysterious pull had led her in the right direction. "Thank you, whatever you are," she chuckled lightly before running off in a full sprint towards the town.
By the time she got there, she was panting, trying to suck up as much oxygen into her lungs as possible. She gave herself a second to relax, but her excitement quickly got the better of her and continued running into the abandoned establishment.
"Nice!" she spoke to herself. She spotted a building in the distance. "They even got a boutique! Well, it's abandoned, but it's still a boutique!" Though, with the feeling of new accomplishment held an unsettling feeling of familiarity. She decided to shrug it off.
Then, all of a sudden, that pull from earlier, the same one that had led her there, doubled intensity, making her stumble forwards and land on her knees. "What the heck-" Her head began to pulse in pain, like tiny daggers were stabbing at her, making her bleed all over. Then, an overwhelming sense of fear struck her heart out of nowhere.
She didn't know why, but she knew she had to move.
Quickly, she picked herself back up and started moving at a slight jog in just a direction. She didn't know where she was going, but just followed her gut feeling. The pull had for some reason stopped directing her.
Y'know, she thought to herself, I probably should not be out in the open like this... She quickly made her way to a nearby building and shut herself in. She tried to lock the door behind her, but realized that all the stuff was so broken down that the door had no lock.
"I'm safe... safe..." she muttered quietly to herself. She tried to calm her breathing.
A few seconds passed before a low growl sounded from behind her. Her eyes grew wide and she quickly turned behind her to see two yellow eyes staring at her through the darkness. "Oh, fuck!" she shouted, nearly screaming like a school-girl before booking it back outside and slamming the door behind her.
It didn't help much as the door was knocked completely off of its hinges, shattering into multiple pieces revealing the attacker. It looked like a wolf, although its fur and skin was replaced with large chunks of wood and bark, acting like armor. It bore sharp wooden teeth and its eyes glowed with some sort of magical aura. This seems familiar...
She shakily got into a battle stance and locked eyes with the beast, who bared its teeth and snarled. She snarled back. What are you doing? Those things travel in packs! Get out of there! Her brain screamed at her. They what?!
All of a sudden, she got tackled from behind her by another wooden-wolf-thingy and scraped her face on the rocky floor, causing it to cut open and bleed. She quickly turned around to face the second wolf and put up her hooves to block as the wolf's teeth came down onto her left hoof.
Panicking, she started smacking the wolf in the face repeatedly, hoping to get it loose but to no avail. Then, its eyes shun brighter than normal and its teeth started to glow before the force on her leg increased by about ten fold, making her scream in pain as it was ripped clean off, spurting blood everywhere.
She kicked the wolf back slightly and started inching backwards holding up her other hoof as defense, crying out in pain as her open wound burned like Tartarus. Her eyes widened in fear when her attacker threw the ripped limb aside and went in again for another attack, this time shoving her other foreleg aside and aiming for her neck.
She didn't have enough time to react before it bit into her flesh and shook her body rapidly, quickly snapping her neck, causing her body to go limp.
The last thing she saw were two more wolves approaching hungrily, looking ready to feast. And as her consciousness slowly faded away for the last time, a single tear fell from her eye.
"Shit!"
The ship's alarm screamed at her to do something as her right engine was taken out.
"Fuck! Oh, fuck!"
The ship came crashing down into the rough sand.
Rainbow gasped as she woke up. She could hear herself hyperventilating as her breaths echoed through her helmet, which she had on. Quickly, she threw it off and sat herself up, trying to calm her breaths as to not get a heart attack. She looked around herself.
I'm... back at the ship? She closed her eyes and shook her head before opening them again and rescanning her environment, trying to make sure that what she was seeing was real. Unless her eyes were deceiving her, she was indeed back in the ship...
"What the fuck?"
Author's Note
In case you couldn't tell, this was inspired by Returnal (even though I have not beat the game. It is really hard.). I had fun writing this chapter, even though it's quite short. Hope you like it though! Remember that feedback is always welcome!
Version History:
V1.0 - Wrote the chapter in all of its original glory. Probably will come back to it later for some small fix ups.
V1.0.1 - Made a small detail change.
