Relentless Boundaries

My head throbbed and I rubbed my temple in pain, ‘Shit… what happened?’ I asked myself as I sat up. I looked around to see that I was in a very strange looking forest with some funky looking plants. I let out a sigh and I laid back down on the cold dirt, rubbing my throbbing head extensively hopping that the pain would simply vanish.

Well this was fantastic, stuck in some crazy forest in god knows where and the last thing I remember was… a purple flash of light, “hey maybe I’m dead” I chuckled as I lay my hand on my chest, reaching for where I always put my combat knife. It was there, along with the rest of the chest harness. I mustered the strength to sit up and look at myself, my camouflage was the classic style camouflage, proper classification was M81 camouflage but I like calling it woodland camo. My chest harness had taken quite a beating but the ammunition belt was still intact with a lot of the ammo still there to, along with my 6 inch K-bar knife. On my leg there was a strap with a knife sheath containing a devastating foot long bowie knife with a blade with a 1 inch thickness.

I looked off and seen my SKS rifle lying on the ground not too far from my current position, well I guess I wasn’t dead but this is one of those moments that I probably came closer to death than I’ll know. I tried to stand but quickly lost balance and ended up crawling over to my rifle. I clutched the rifle in my hand and opened the receiver just a fraction to see if I had a shell loaded, it was loaded and it was probably a live shell, considering that the rifle is semiautomatic it would spit out spent cartridges. I let out a sigh and fell back onto the ground “where-ever this place is… I don’t like it, gives me the heebie jeebies” I said out loud but then realized I was talking to no-one but myself, “figures” I muttered as I tried to get some rest on the cold ground.

* * *

I wasn’t sure how long I was out but it couldn’t have been for long because it was still very dark out. I thought I had heard footsteps, or rather I heard deadfall breaking under someone’s or something’s footing. “Hey Ricardo is that you” I yelled out and the footsteps stopped, “Ricardo stop screwing around man. I could have mistaken you for a…” I was cut off as a giant… thing, it had the body and head and stuff of a lion but the tail of a scorpion and had bat like wings. It swung its tail at me and I lept out of the way effectively dodging the attack. I unslung my rifle and lined up a shot on its enraged face and pulled the trigger on my SKS, BOOM, the gun thundered in the night and the shot seemed to echo on forever. Blood erupted from the creature’s skull as the 7.62mm round pierced its skull and severed its way through its brain and exited out the back of its skull, taking a large chunk of brain matter and skull fragments with it. The creature collapsed on the ground and I just simply laid there, completely freaked out at what the hell this thing was.

I came to my senses and quickly scanned the area for other hostile predators, I must’ve been sitting for some time because my ass started to hurt and I stood up and went to examine the creature. Nothing from my original description of the creature changed, well except the massive head trauma caused by my rifle. I let out a deep sigh “Ricardo you better not have put drugs in my coffee this morning” I yelled out and my voice echoed throughout the forest. I had never intentionally done drugs, only once had I ever done drugs and that was in Christmas of 2003 when Ricardo mad weed brownies and didn’t tell me that they were weed brownies and I ate 5 or 6 of them and got really high but other than that I was a straight edge, no drugs, no smoking, and I only drank on special occasions with Ricardo. I continued to look at the animal, even if this wasn’t a hallucination I bet I could get hundreds for this thing on the market.

My stomach rumbled and I looked down at my stomach “good thing I brought food eh?” I asked my stomach and quickly devised a little campfire and heated some water, even though military rations tasted kinda bad the odd one like the beef pack wasn’t too bad and I couldn’t really complain on the fact that I was hungry.

The meal was ready to eat pretty damn fast and I had a nice warm fire to sit beside now. As I sat there and ate I got this weird feeling like I was being watched and I turned to look into the black expanse of the forest “hey Ricardo I got beeeef mmmmm” I taunted as I took a tauntingly big mouthful of the food out of my tray. A terrifying wold howl was let out not 20 yards from where I sat and I immediately stood up, dropping my food to the ground.

I lined up my rifle from where the howl had come from and waited, but nothing came out, “come on you sons a bitches fight me” I challenged. Still nothing came out of the forest so I grabbed the end of a stick that’s top part was burning and brainlessly walked towards the darkened forest, the makeshift torch leading the way.

I stood 30 yards from my fire and started waving my torch around “hey stupid wolves” I taunted then thought about my words, ‘wolves?’ I asked myself ‘there aren’t wolves in Africa, dingoes maybe but wolves?’ I thought to myself but my thoughts were cut off as a set of illuminated eyes approached me, I lined up a shot but stopped as multiple eyes lit up and stood in front of me no more than 10 yards away from me.

Shit there must’ve been at least over a dozen, 15 maybe 16 wolves, or whatever they were. A set of eyes walked up slowly and came into the torch’s light and its face wasn’t like that of any wolf I had seen before, its eyes glowed pure yellow and it had multiple fangs and its face, good god what was wrong with its face. “Okay time to give pooch some facial surgery” I muttered as I dropped the torch and I lined up a shot with its head and pulled the trigger, the gun thundered for the second time that night and the wolf’s head disintegrated into a gooey red mess, I heard snarling as the eyes raced towards me “next” I yelled as I shot another wolf that came at me, but I slammed the round into its chest rather than its head. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM, my SKS thundered in the night and the muzzle flare leaped out of the barrel each time I triggered a shot of, but the wolves kept coming, BOOM BOOM, then I turned and ran, I knew I had only 9 rounds because I had spent one on that lion-scorpion thing.

The wolves or whatever they were chased me down like prey, not giving up. I pulled out another stripper magazine and fed the gun another 10 rounds into its internal feed mechanism. I pulled out the stripper magazine and pulled the charging handle back and let it go, the gun’s receiver slammed shut and the gun was ready to rock but I was still running. “Piss off doggies I ain’t supper” I yelled as I spun around and fired off 5 more rounds, I seen two wolves’ fall and another whimpered and howled a painful howl. I spun around and continued running firing off the remainder of the magazine wildly into the night. I saw an expanse of open field and I pushed myself to the absolute physical limit and charged towards the end of the forest.

I burst from the forest and didn’t dare look back. I ran another 30 yards from the tree line and loaded up the SKS rifle with a full magazine and turned around but there were no wolf things chasing me. I walked with my chest puffed out “what’s wrong puppies? To scarred to come out into the open? Come on you scarred pieces of shit, I’ll kill all of you” I roared but still nothing came out “yeah well fuck you” I yelled and began randomly firing the rifle into the forest hoping to hip one of those things.

I emptied the entire magazine from the gun and loaded up a new magazine and turned around to look into the field. I realized at that moment that it was a field for a little while but then quickly turned back into another forest. “Shit” I muttered and walked disappointedly towards the pasture of apple trees, “they’ll probably wait till I’m asleep then eat me while I sleep” I muttered.

I approached the tree line but figured best to stay away from the wolf things and stay close to the open field as best I can. As I sat down my stomach rumbled, “figures, not only did they chase me away from my campfire but the bastards are probably eating my food as well” I muttered as I tried to get some sleep.

* * *

I probably hadn’t even been sleeping ten minutes when I heard soft footsteps approaching, ‘fuck off what now?’ I thought as I quickly lept up and leveled my SKS, “told yah it was weird” said a somewhat southern little child’s voice, “yeah but just what is it Applebloom?” asked another young feminine voice but this one was more… well sort of squeaky and had a higher dignity with herself. “Don’t know but it woke up the entire family” the southern one informed the other “yeah I could hear that from Ponyville but I just thought it was thunder until you called me” said another voice, ‘great three little kids get the jump on me’ I thought to myself as I pressed up against a tree. “Yeah Granny Smith and Applejack said tah stay inside while Applejack and Big Macintosh went out to look but ah just had tah see it fer myself” the little southern voice said again. “Cutie mark crusaders detectives” one of the normal voices peeped up as they walked closer. As they came closer I nudged around the tree to stay out of their line of view.

As soon as I was sure they were past me and had their back to me I spun off the tree and pointed my SKS in their direction. “Freeze” I yelled and they all stopped, “what the…” I trailed off as I looked at what looked to be 3 young… horses? “Can we move now?” one of the voices asked innocently, “don’t try anything” I ordered and they stayed frozen ‘what could some talking horsed do anyway, wait no hold on these weren’t horses they were too small, they would barely even reach my knees.

“Okay you can move just… don’t try anything stupid” I ordered them and they all let out deep breaths and turned around, okay not horses either, well one might pawn off as a baby pony but the others… one had wings and the other had a horn. “Gah” I gasped and took a cautious step back, okay now I know that Ricardo put something in my coffee this morning. “What’s wrong Mr.?” the one with wings asked, “what the…” I stopped before I swore thinking, whatever these things are they’re probably young and aren’t meant to hear swearing, but I’m probably hallucinating so… “Uh if you don’t mind me asking, what are you?” I asked curiously, “well that’s a dumb question haven’t yah ever seen a pony before?” the southern one asked, “yeah and they don’t talk, or have wings or have horns” I retorted, “where’d you come from then if ponies don’t have horns or wings?” the fancier one asked, “uh well…” I trailed off “well what?” the southerner one asked but then I heard voices more voices “ah heard something down this way” said a masculine southern voice.

“This day gets better by the…” I began but was cut off as one of the little horses or ponies or whatever grabbed me and began to pull me “come on if muh sister finds me out here ah’ll never hear the end of it” she pleaded and I scooped her up in my arms and ran, the others following close behind. “Wrong way, go back to the farm” the southern one informed me “what farm?” I asked and she yanked my head to one side “that way” she ordered and I switched directions. “Uh what’s yer name?” the pony in my arms asked “what?” I asked, “What’s yer name?” the pony asked again, “uhh my name’s Ron why?” I asked. “Well I’m Applebloom and this is…” she began but the fancier one cut her off “I’m Sweetie Bell and this is…” and she was cut off by the one with wings “Scootaloo”. I rolled my eyes, ‘ridiculous names’ I thought to myself as we entered yet another clearing but this one had a nice farm.

“Please don’t tell me some random redneck’s gonna come out and blast me with their shotgun” I pleaded, “what’s a shotgun?” Applebloom asked and I looked at her curiously, a southerner who doesn’t know what a shotgun… I trailed off my thoughts figuring it wasn’t worth the headache. “Where to now?” I asked and she pointed to the barn and I quickly ran to the barn and cracked open the barn doors and slipped in. “Okay Scootaloo, Sweetie Bell you should get outta here before muh sister and brother get back” she whispered and the nodded and zipped away in a comical fashion. “You can set me down now” Applebloom told me and I realized that I was still holding the little pony. I set her down gently “okay you stay in here for the night and tomorrow we can all figure this out” Applebloom told me and I nodded.

As she left the barn she let out a wave with her hoof, god this hallucination was weird. I looked around the barn and shuffled together some straw and hay and made myself a makeshift bed and laid down. I laid my SKS beside me and thought ‘I’m gonna kill Ricardo’ and quickly fell to sleep.