In My Dreams

In My Dreams

Chapter 1

”So, what’s happening tonight?” Mike asked as he walked towards the bus stop with his friend Jonathan after school on a Friday afternoon.

“I dunno. Probably nothing. At least I don’t have any homework so I’ll probably just go home and spend the night watching TV”, Jonathan replied with a monotonic voice.

“Oh, what’re you watching? Maybe I can come around later and we can watch something together. We could even rent a movie”, Mike said.

He already had the perfect movie in mind. He had seen it before, but would gladly watch it again with his best friend. But instead of accepting the idea with enthusiasm like Mike had expected, Jonathan looked down towards the asphalt and said:

“Actually, I’ve kind of already decided what I’m going to watch, and I have a feeling it’s not exactly your ‘thing’, if you know what I’m saying.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I’m open for new stuff. So what are we watching?” Mike asked interested. He knew Jonathan liked anime so probably it was something like that. He didn’t really like anime himself but he wasn’t totally against it either.

Jonathan looked a bit troubled and thought to himself. “Well it was bound to come out sooner or later, might as well be now.”

“I found this series a few years back and I really liked it”, he said still shying away a bit. “It’s called MLP.”

“MLP? Never heard of that”, Mike sounded like the name rang a bell somewhere in his mind but he couldn’t figure out where he’d heard the name before.

“Oh, you know the series all right”, Jonathan said with a bit louder voice. “Everybody knows it by now. You know, MLP as in My Little Pony.”

“Um… Sorry, come again?” Mike asked. He must’ve heard wrong. Jonathan couldn’t have seriously said he liked to watch a show about little colorful ponies adventuring in a cartoon world.

“You heard me right”, Jonathan sighed. He just knew Mike wouldn’t take the news well. “MLP as in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”, he said louder this time just to make sure Mike understood.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Mike gave a shout and facepalmed. “You’re watching THAT show?” Mike hadn’t actually seen any episodes of the show but he had a pretty good idea from what other people had said about it. He couldn’t believe his best friend actually watched the show every other boy in their class basically hated and despised.

“Yeah, I watch it! And guess what? I like it!” Jonathan shouted back, louder than he had originally meant to. He didn’t know why he had gotten angry all of a sudden. Mike’s reaction had been exactly as he’d expected. First disbelief, then a facepalm, he was prone to facepalms. Disgust would follow soon and then Jonathan knew he would’ve lost basically the only friend he had. Just because he liked a certain TV-show.

“Whoa, there”, Mike said and raised his hands in a protective manner. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t think you liked that kind of things. I’m not judging or anything.” Jonathan was stunned. Mike wasn’t judging him? He didn’t mean to shoot him down for liking the show? This was a bit unexpected. “But..?” Jonathan asked waiting for more.

“But. You were right. It’s really not my kind of thing. So how about we watch the movie some other night. I can see you have the evening planned for tonight”, Mike laughed. He wasn’t laughing at Jonathan. He just found the whole situation a bit amusing.

“You… still want to be my friend even though I watch My Little Pony?” Jonathan asked. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Mike actually didn’t care and he still wanted to watch the movie with Jonathan?

“Well duh...” Mike said and rolled his eyes. “It’s not like a TV-show could stop me from being your friend Johnny, no matter how… questionable a TV-show it was.” Jonathan felt like hugging Mike. Luckily he realized how strange that would have looked like. Instead he just beamed at him and said:

“Thank you, Mike.”

- - -

“My Little Pony! I used to wonder what friendship could be!”

Jonathan was alone in his room the opening of MLP playing on his computer screen. He had his headphones on so his parents wouldn’t hear what he was watching. They didn’t know, and as far as Jonathan was considered, they didn’t need to know. It was his life and he watched whatever he wanted. No questions asked. Jonathan was still smiling happily. He had been ever since his confession to Mike. He had known he’d have to tell Mike at some point, and frankly, it had been scary as hell. He knew what the major population thought about grown men watching children’s cartoons. He was eighteen years old and fit perfectly to the definition of a “brony” as the internet slang referred to older MLP fans these days. As far as he knew, bronies were thought as a disgrace to the human race and hated throughout the world. He knew he wasn’t the only teenage boy who liked the show and he was even sure some of the boys in his school secretly watched the show. Still, confessing he liked the show to someone had been scary… so terrifying he didn’t know how he had made it out of the situation without wetting himself or started crying. But he was glad it was over and even better, his friend had accepted it and wanted to be his friend even after he knew! This had to be the best day ever.

Tonight’s episode had been just as great as every single one before it. The show was well across its fifth season and it didn’t show any signs of slowing down. Johnny  knew that the show had almost been finished after its third season but then a group of bronies who had experience in the business had come out and continued the series even further. They said that they were nowhere near the end of the show yet and that they had enough ideas for at least five more seasons. The news was welcomed with unbelievable cheers and applauds at the 2014 Bronycon. Jonathan had been there too, secretly of course. His parents had thought he was visiting a friend in New York at the time.

“Honey! We’re heading off now! Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Jonathan’s mother shouted from downstairs.

“Yeah, mom, I’m sure! Have fun!” Jonathan shouted back.

His parents were going to the park to see the meteor shower like everyone else in the town. They said in the news that it would be the largest meteor shower for the last thousand years and that there wasn’t any information when another one this big was going to occur, so naturally everyone wanted to see it. Everyone except for Jonathan. Frankly, he didn’t care about some meteors enough to spend the night at the park freezing to death. Even though it was only October, the nights could get extremely cold and the viewing was probably going to take at least four or five hours. “Enough to get hypothermia”, Jonathan thought.

So while his parents left towards the town, Jonathan was sitting in his room watching old episodes of MLP and reading fan-written stories on the internet. Little did he know what kind of effects the meteor shower would have on his life. That is to say, his life would never be the same after that night…

- - -

Jonathan was laughing.

Well… actually more like giggling but he would never be heard using that particular word about the way he laughed. The episode he had watched always made him laugh uncontrollably for some reason. It was the one about Applejack’s rodeo competition failure. He always broke out laughing when he saw Pinkie Pie finding out AJ had broken a pinkie promise. Her face was priceless!

It had been almost three hours since Jonathan’s parents had left for the meteor viewing and Jonathan was sure they’d be out for at least an hour or so, maybe even more. His parents were amateur astronomists and there was no chance they would let an opportunity like this slip by. Jonathan thought it was pretty stupid, gazing at the stars and hoping you see something interesting. To Jonathan the stars were always the same. Every time he looked up at night he would only see small bright dots, nothing more. Sometimes he thought his parents were crazy being such fanatics but then he remembered that he was just as obsessed about MLP. Most people would probably label him crazy if they knew about his obsession.

Jonathan was just about to play the next episode, “Luna Eclipsed”, when suddenly he saw something bright in the sky behind his window. “Well, I guess I could watch the meteors from my window for a while. At least I won’t freeze to death”, he thought and moved his chair closer to the window. He gazed up and froze his mouth agape. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw in the sky. The dark night sky was totally filled with meteors burning in the atmosphere. At any moment he could see at least two or three at the same time. This was absolutely the most amazing meteor shower he had ever seen. He had been to a few viewings with his parents when he had been younger but never had he seen anything like this. It was like the sky was putting up a fireworks show for all to see. It was, as Rainbow Dash would’ve said, totally awesome!

Jonathan felt a small pang of regret when he looked up at the sky. He bet it would be even more amazing down at the park. Well worth a little chilliness, he thought. He wouldn’t have time to go to the town anymore as it would take him at least an hour by foot. Damn, how he wished they had a second car!

“Well, perhaps I can’t go to the park anymore, but at least I can see them a little better outside”, Jonathan said aloud and went downstairs. He put on his jacket and gloves and opened the door to the backyard. He pulled a garden chair from the patio and sat down gaping at the stars above. He was a bit cold but the show above was worth some numb cheeks and ears. Jonathan sat there for about half an hour and the meteors weren’t showing any signs of an end. “It’s like the MLP episodes”, he thought. “Enough for a long, long time.”

For a moment Jonathan’s eyes locked on to a single star at the far horizon. For some reason something about that star was strange. Jonathan wasn’t an expert but he was pretty sure stars weren’t supposed to grow larger. Yet this one was definitely getting bigger. “Getting bigger, or getting closer?” Jonathan’s mind was suddenly filled with silent panic. The star wasn’t a star! It was a meteor coming straight towards the Earth! What if it hits? If it was big enough, it could cause an explosion much larger than a nuclear bomb.

“Well, at least there’s no chance it’s going to hit straight at our house, right?” Jonathan said to himself. “It’s probably not even going to come down. It’ll just burn before it gets even close to the ground, just like all the others… Right?!” Jonathan’s silent panic was far from silent now. The meteor was close enough for him to see it clearly. And it was, in fact heading straight towards him!

“Okay feet. Now’s the time for a little maneuver called: RUN!” Jonathan shouted to himself, but his feet weren’t running. Fear had frozen Jonathan to place and even if he started running now, he knew he wouldn’t make it far before the meteorite hit. He was done for and he knew it. He could see the rock coming closer and hear the whistling sound it made as it fell towards the place he stood on.

“Mummy…” was the only thing Jonathan had time to whimper before the stone hit the ground about three feet from where he stood.

- - -

Jonathan opened his eyes slowly. He was still at his backyard standing on the now half-melted snow. He raised his hands and stared at them in amazement.

“I – I’m alive?” he asked in disbelief. He felt his legs and torso carefully with his hands. “I’m… Alive! I’m actually, one hundred percent, completely alive!” He shouted out in awe.

As far as Jonathan knew, he was the only person ever to survive such a close encounter with a meteorite. At least he had never seen anything in the news or the internet about someone being practically hit by a meteorite and living to tell the tale.

“Oh. My. God, NO!” Jonathan exclaimed as he looked down on the ground where the meteorite had landed. It had opened a hole to the ground around three feet across and about a foot deep. It had practically ruined the lawn of the backyard garden Jonathan’s mother worked every summer to keep in top shape. Naturally, since his mother held the garden so close to her heart, like another child, Jonathan too had a feeling as if it was not the garden lawn but a brother or a sister being hurt. They had worked together with his mother planting the flowers and nurturing the garden as best as they could and now it was ruined. Ripped open by some stupid rock. His mother would be devastated. The hole wasn’t irreparable but they would still always know that was the spot the meteorite hit, and it would always have a scar in their eyes. Of course Jonathan realized the garden wasn’t a person but he loved it all the same.

After about a minute of grieving for the garden and almost shedding a tear for it, Jonathan decided to approach the crater and see if there was any sign of the stone left or if it had broken to tiny shrapnel when it had hit the ground. He walked around the small mound of dirt the impact had raised and looked into the hole in the ground. To Jonathan’s amazement the rock was still intact. It was a bit less than five inches wide and shaped like some sort of a disc. And what was the most interesting thing about the stone was not its shape or the fact that it was still in one piece after the impact, but the strange greenish glow it emitted and the low humming that could be heard. It was almost hypnotizing.

Entranced, Jonathan lowered his hand towards the disc and for some reason the pulsating light grew brighter and the hum louder. Jonathan’s fingers were only inches away from the stone when the disc suddenly flashed brightly and emitted a crackling sparkle that hit Jonathan’s index finger. The sudden spark startled Jonathan and he jumped backwards only to trip on a small piece of rock hidden under the snow right behind his heel. He fell on his back with a small shout and hit his head on the ground. Everything went dark for a moment.

When Jonathan opened his eyes he was still lying on the soft snow looking up at the dark sky. The first thing he noticed was that the sky was totally dark, not a meteor anywhere to be seen. He found it a bit strange for the meteors to stop falling this abruptly but didn’t think of it longer and stood up only to find the meteor-made crater missing.

“What the…” he started but then the sudden feeling of nausea filled his stomach and the next thing he knew was being on his knees throwing up. “Well, I guess that’s to be expected since I hit my head”, he thought and got up. Jonathan started to walk towards the house with a splitting headache that suddenly hit him like a hammer.

“Ugh… Straight to bed it is…” he said as he opened the backdoor. He went first to the medicine cabinet to grab an aspirin and then walked upstairs where he fell on his bed without even closing his computer first. Jonathan was asleep in less than two minutes.

________________________________________________________________________________

Author's note:

While reading this fic please bear in mind that this is the first story I've ever written. Any and all advice and criticism is appreciated and seriously welcomed but please make it polite. If you notice any mistakes in the text, please comment and let me know so I can fix them. And don't forget to rate! :)