You try to open you eyes, but it hardly seems to matter. Everything shifts from a solid wall of black to a solid wall of blue and white. Your fingers and toes seem to tingle like crazy as well, your body barely obeying your commands. You sense yourself lying down upon something flat, hard, and not comfortable in the slightest.
Waterfalls... You can notice your breathing, at least, as well as whatever endless flow of something is passing across your face. Doing your best to press the ground in front of you, you suddenly burst out with a fit of coughing. You close your eyes again, body jerking about. Come on, seriously! What the hell is going on!
Your senses wrestle back control of your limbs, scraping the ground from up to down. You let out a low groan, the tingling feelings giving way to a dull but serious pain that seems to come from all over. It's, uh, it's still going... What seems like an endless waterfall ripples across your face, cold and stingy. I just can't... I can't remember what the hell happened this morning. You just recall getting into your car, opening the garage door, and then basically driving your car of a cliff through space and time as a sudden blast of wind and light hit you.
The waterfall stops for a moment. You blow your nose, taking in the crisp air. Seeming to have more control over your functions, you brace your hands upon the ground. Suddenly, a gigantic splash of freezing water hits you in the head.
"Hey!" you call out, managing to shove yourself to the side. Body resting upon your knees, you blink rapidly, scraping your hands all over your t-shirt upon you. Batches of sticky gravel fling off of you. "Just, hey, hang on a-- a second-- when--" You brush your hands against your collar before bringing them to your eyes, trying to get a sense of the incredibly bright surroundings.
"I told you that dumping the whole bucket on him would be the only way!" cries out a young, squeaky voice.
You make out a small, hazy figure like a gigantic marshmallow. Around you, a pastel-colored, bright array of buildings jut out besides a flat, simple street. You take in a deep breath, cupping your hands around your eyes, and make out another figure looking like an orange-feathered chicken wearing a bright blue UN peacekeeper helmet.
"Well, hey, miss smarty-arty-can't-get-invited-to-a-party," retorts back another, young sounding voice, "he clearly was waking up anyway from just pouring it across his face!"
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
"Was not times a thousand!"
"Girls," you murmur, standing up as you brush your face for the last time with the underside of your shirt, "that's not... uh..." Your eyes move down towards the two figures, giving them a seriously long stare for the first time, and your mouth hands open. They seem somewhat like miniature horses, but they have such sunny, pastel-like colors and such cartoon-ish bodies that you can't help but scratch you chin. "So..." They simply both stare at you, faces pointed straight up. You feel like such a giant compared to them. "Hello."
"Hello," the one in the blue helmet comments, shifting about a bit in place. You notice that she has budding clumps on her sides that appear like growing wings.
"So, I'm, ah, glad to meet you, I guess," you began, wondering how to even start knowing what to say. Alien species or something? The lights, well, maybe I was abducted? Should I be flashing prime numbers then? Or... damn, this has to be a dream. Right? The dripping water going down your neck along the backside of your shirt shoots down that theory in a split-second. "I can't pretend to know how I got here. But I guess I'm happy to be here." You glance around at bit. Though the area appears oddly deserted, picturesque shops with nicely-trimmed bushes and shiny metal benches stand tall all around you. "Anyways, my name is--"
"Scootaloo, you can see him talking, right?" the plump-looking, white equine says to her compatriot.
"Well, duh, Sweetie!" Scootaloo replies, rolling her eyes and standing up a bit straighter, "I can see it's lips moving and everything."
"He," you say, reaching out with a finger and stabbing it at base of the gigantic black arrow upon your shirt. You let your irritation flow through your voice. "I'm a 'he', not an 'it'."
Sweetie bobs a hoof against her mane for a moment before going on, her ears flipping forwards, "I can see that too, but are those even words? It looks like it's burping or something." She steps a bit closer, her hooves brushing against your right leg.
"Uh, Sweetie," you say, staying still. Having a cartoon pony curling up against your skin like a puppy would beneath you feels more than weird. "I think maybe I should--"
"They're like clicking and tooting sounds. Almost like it has a musical instrument stuck in its mouth, gosh," Sweetie remarks, stepping away from you for a moment, "we should show it to Twilight immediately."
"How could it fit a whole clarinet or a tuba or whatever in it's mouth? That makes no sense," Scootaloo argues back, gesturing over Sweetie's head. You find yourself subconsciously sticking your jaw out and opening your mouth up a bit. "Look at the size of it's mouth, that stuff would never fit." Scootaloo gives you a suddenly frustrated look as you scratch your cheek. "Ugh, isn't it just like one of those other aliens that have popped into Equestria recently? Why can't it just speak Equestrian to us already!"
"If he's a space alien, then why the hay would he know how to speak Equestrian in the first place, stupid!" Sweetie retorts, pushing against Scootaloo's shoulder. You watch as Scootaloo flips about and poises herself, looking ready for a full-on slap-fight with the other pony in full cartoon fashion.
"Hey, listen!" you scream out. You immediately mentally kick yourself, having a PTSD flashback to all of those days spent playing Legend of Zelda, but you gather your bearings in not too long. "Just take me to whomever the hell you want to take me too, seriously."
They blankly look up at you. After twenty awkward seconds of silence and lack of movement, Sweetie finally presses her hooves against her cheeks. She narrows her eyes, and she slurps her tongue around her lips while making a 'clorp'-'clorp'-'crup' noise. You scrunch your face back in response, folding your arms together in front of you.
"I think its mad," Scootaloo comments. She glances over at Sweetie, who shrugs back in a 'worth a shot' gesture, and she starts to step out down the street. "Let's just tell Twilight right now." Both ponies start moving.
You begin to follow them, but your first step leaves you tumbling down onto the blasted gravel street once again. You wiggle about like a snake loaded with E for a moment, trying to figure out what on earth (or, well, 'what on Equestria') could have just happened. They glance back at you, worried expressions flashing over their faces, as you force yourself upwards onto your own two feet again.
"Well, great," you whisper to yourself, "am I going to have to learn to walk again in this new planets new gravity or something?" You try swinging your arms out and shifting your hips as you make step after step. It feels more like 'prancing' with dainty moves, like a Glee character energized by his boyfriend's kiss, than 'walking'. But you might just have to get used to that.
"Not so far now," Scootaloo says, putting on a very fake looking smile. Both her and her plumper, cuter-looking friend don't seem to know what to make out you.
"Damn, not just walking will take getting used to, but, oh, I--" You hold your hands up before your eyes, holding still for a moment, and glare at them. They look somewhat the same as before, but you notice that the same pastel shading and sharp visual outlines going all over the ponies and their town applies to you as well. Sighing, you keep on walking as you make out a sharp ninety degree angle in the street above. "Alright, then, I'm a mutant cross between a real human and something out of a Newgrounds animation then myself, too." What a wonderful... afterlife? An alien abduction? And where the hell have I heard the term 'Equestria' before, anyways?
The ponies lead you over to what looks like a gigantic tree crossed with an M.C. Esher drawing. Your eyes scroll across the various windows, small platforms, patches of flowery plants in boxes of pots, and stacks upon stacks of leafy branches. Okay, so, that doesn't look too bad. It kind of reminds me of one of those early to mid-90s PC games. You step up to the front door, spotting a plain brown sign with a picture of a book on it to your side, and you almost expect Pajama Sam or maybe Spy Fox to hop out.
"Is it going to knock?" Sweetie asks her friend, the two of them bunched up behind your legs.
Damn, they're tiny. You visualize picking Sweetie up and clamping her upon your shoulder, seeing her burst out in tears and pee herself in terror-filled surprise in your mind's eye. You giggle and turn back to the door.
*Knock, knock*
You hear a quick rustling sound, and the door flies open in just a matter of seconds. "Hello, what can I hel--" says a bigger looking, though still fairy small, pony standing inside the door-frame, the mare freezing mid-word as she stares at you. You both size each other up very quickly. Her eyes flick up from your simple sneakers to your plain white shorts and big t-shirt with the prominent blue, black, and red The Who! logo; you stare at her sleek, striped-colored mane coupled with her bright purple body and her unicorn horn, which seems to glow with a matching purple aura at the moment.
"Oh, not again," the mare groans, putting her front right hoof against her face and drooping her ears down in a universal ly sad gesture that, frankly, irritates you a bit.
"What do you mean 'again', you violet twerp?" you reply, throwing your shoulders back and standing over her. The mare only reaches to your mid-riff, her head lined up right beside your shirt-tail.
Unimpressed with your dominant pose, she side-steps you and locks eyes with the two curious-looking fillies clumped behind your legs. "Thanks for bringing him over, but he really looks upset." She anxiously turns her head between you and the two young mares. "You didn't do anything to him, did you?"
"Of course not, Twilight! Nope, nothing," Sweetie replied, pressing her front hooves together and smiling in a sort of 'I'm an angel' pose.
"Nothing... except dumping a bucket of water on it as it slept!" Scootaloo yells, pointing an accusing hoof.
"Hey, using the water at all was your idea!" Sweetie hopped over and glared at her companion.
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
"Was not times a hundred!" Scootaloo stood up on her hind hooves and wiggled her budding wings for emphasis.
"Well, ah, was too times the cardinality of a set using bijections!"
Scootaloo's mouth droops open at Sweetie's last retort, her body crumbling down a bit into the doorframe. Meanwhile, you step to the side of the scene, heading off into the library. Aside from the homey looking foliage theme, bookshelves stick out everywhere around you. Idly clapping your hands upon your shorts, you eye a tray covered with two large glasses, filled with reddish-brown liquid and thousands of pieces of crushed ice.
"I'm happy that you paid attention during Cheerilee's math classes," Twilight responds, patting Sweetie on the head, "now, then-- hey! What are you doing?" She spins around and glares over at you.
You freeze in place, having already taken a sip of what tastes like strawberry-lemon iced tea. Your fingers slide up and down the glass upon your lips. Five seconds of silence passes.
"I had already sipped out of that," Twilight mutters, putting on a defeated expression. You have to admit, her full cheeks and big eyes at this moment appear insanely pretty. You shrug, stepping back over to the door-frame with the glass held out, and Twilight flutters her front left hoof above her face. "Oh, oh, ah, it's yours now."
"Oh, well, thanks," you reply, finishing it up. You had apparently felt way thirstier than you had thought at first. "Well, now, I'm happy to meet you, Twilight, and I--"
"Goodness," Twilight says, inviting Scootaloo and Sweetie into the library as she shuts the door, "I can't make out a word of what he says." You let out a pained sigh, leaning down and sitting upon your knees besides the end table. "Well, girls, it's like he's clicking and slurping and so on, not really coming across as a language at all." You glare at them, your hands scratching against your chin.
Twilight leans over to the ears of the fillies, whispers going back and forth between the three pastel-colored equines. You grab yourself another iced tea besides you, feeling more than willing to ignore them. Okay, so... ah... space aliens. How the hell do space aliens talk to each other again?
Your mind flashes back to the 'babel fish' from A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book that you were assigned to read back in High School but passed over to play Call of Duty instead, cribbing some of the class notes from that one acne-nosed kid. If memory serves me, the aliens grabbed the humans and shoved the squirming, wet babel fish out of a fish-tank down his ears. Then, the aliens understood him. You wince, your ears already feeling moist sensations in anticipation.
Twilight gestures for the two fillies to leave, opening up the door and leading them away. You simply remain sitting, hoping that you could level with her some way. Play charades? Write something down? Ugh! She gives you a sort of 'high-sign', her two front hooves rubbing against each other before one flops about in a windshield-wiper motion. You shrug back, but she still makes her way into a back room, a smile appearing across her face. I'll just wait for her, then. I should get those silly Hitchhiker's Guide's thoughts out of my mind while I'm at it.
"Well, Miss Twilight, I think maybe you should just start about you. Who you are. What this place is. And so on," you remark, slurping up the last of the crushed ice in your glass. You blink. Before you know it, you spy Twilight popping back into the room. Her horn has lit up brightly, her purple aura floating off of her body and somehow holding up a large object in the air right above her tail. You open your mouth to say something else, but the color drains from your face as you make out the object.
It's a fishtank.
"No!" you scream out-- making a feminine whine as your body scampers against the ground and rubs against the wall, tossing the end table, tray, and both glasses upon the floor with loud bumps. "Get your fishes off of me you purple alien dipstick!"
To Be Continued...
