Chapter 1
My name is unimportant. If I told it to you, you wouldn’t recognize who I was. You could pretty much be my next door neighbor and you likely wouldn’t know me. But, just in case one of you does happen to know me, it’s me, Josh. I’m that one kinda nerdy guy who you saw sword fighting with foam swords in the front yard as a kid, pretending to be a Jedi with the other boy that moved out of state a few years ago. Or maybe you noticed me with the kids in the corner of the middle school cafeteria playing with Yugioh cards, back when it was popular. Now you may see me wandering through the local mall wearing my t-shirt with a picture of Rainbow Dash with the word “BRONY” emblazoned across the chest.
Let’s be honest, you don’t really know me. Hardly anyone actually does. I’m the loner you never bothered to talk to. But, in your position, I probably wouldn’t talk to me either. I am kinda weird, 19 years old, living in a small apartment alone because my parents kicked me out, telling me to get a job and perhaps a girlfriend while I was at it. At least I managed the getting-a-job part. Now you see me on the “grill” behind the ice cream machine at McDonald’s making just over minimum wage; enough for the bills but not for college. Maybe someday I can find a more respectable job and make a bit more money to help pay for the local community college.
You remember those kids now, right? The ones with the swords? And you remember me mentioning one of them moving away right? That guy happened to be my best and only real friend. Everyone else was more of just an acquaintance of some sort or another. But when he moved away for his dad’s work, that one true friend took with him most of the good times I would have had. After that, I never really sought the comfort of another friend like him. I never found anyone who could replace him, or came close to being like him. And I was sure I never would. Sure I watched My Little Pony, and I saw all of the results of the mane six’s friendship with each other, but as far as I could see, it was just a TV show, and none of that could possibly be like a real friend. If I had thought it was, I may have put forth a greater effort to make more friends. But that’s enough of my background. I doubt anyone actually cares anyway.
Now we find ourselves in the present. I’m sitting on my old couch, laptop in my lap, with a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fanfic story on my screen. The crazy things people come up with still amazes me to this day and probably will continue to do so for a long time. This latest one was a collaboration project of self-inserts where Discord sends the major characters to Earth as humans, and the chaos that ensues for the authors as they try to get everypony back together and back to Equestria. Sadly, the project is incomplete and I cannot find out what will happen in the end for a while to come.
I come to a scene from the view of the poor kid who finds the Cutie Mark Crusaders where the three girls are in a brawl with a humanized Discord. As evil as he is, I still had to feel bad for him, as one of the CMC gave him a good hard buck in the balls. It was about this point when my watch made a small “beep” indicating the start of the new hour. I looked down at my watch. It read 1400, as it was set to military time because I thought it was cool. 1400 translated to 2:00 pm, which meant I had ten minutes to get dressed and get to work.....
“Shit. Scheiße. Dammit. Verdammt. Fuck my life!” I quietly exclaimed to myself, switching off between English and German for no real reason. I rushed to change from my normal t-shirt and shorts to my McDonald’s uniform that always had the distinct aroma of french fries with it no matter how much I washed it. As soon as my shoes were on, I grabbed my apron and visor and ran out the door and down the steps of the apartment complex to the parking lot. By the time I was in my old, slightly beat up Ford, I had six minutes to make a fifteen minute drive. So I shoved the key in the ignition, threw it in reverse and began to storm out of the parking lot as quickly as I could.
The speed limit on these back roads is generally around 35 miles per hour. To make up for a lack of time, I was going a nice steady 55 miles per hour. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but I haven’t seen a single cop on this road in the whole 11 months I’ve been living here. There were only two stop signs between me and the main road that runs from one side of town to the other. It is on that main road that my place of work happens to have been built on. The first stop sign can be seen from a good distance away. I could see there was no one at the four way stop, so I decided to keep on truckin’, so to speak. For this next sign, I am not so lucky. It happens to reside directly behind a tight curve in the road. But for this four way stop, there is almost never anyone there. Exactly why, I wasn’t sure. I never took the time to see what is beyond the stop signs to my left and right here.
So there I was, speeding down the road, taking this curve at around 48 miles an hour, far faster than I should be going. As I mentioned earlier, there is almost never anyone at the second four way stop. As a result, I decided not to even bother slowing down for this stop either, as I now had three minutes to get to work. I silently cursed myself for not paying more attention to the time while I was reading, but the Crusaders had my attention well in hand for a good long while this particular afternoon. This is what happened to be on my mind, along with how the managers were going to be pissy if I was late for work again. Granted, this isn’t the first time I was late for work, but it isn’t a frequent thing, either. As long as I kept my job, I would be fine.
I rounded this final corner at 48 miles an hour, and as I did, my mind snapped back to the present just in time to see a black Jeep turning directly into my path that I was about to speed through. I slammed my foot on the break, but it did me no good. My small car ran directly into the back of the much larger, suspended Jeep in front of me. The momentum from my speeding car sent my forward into the steering wheel, where I hit so hard I could practically hear my ribs crack under the force. Luckily for me, I blacked out instantly, or else it would have hurt a lot worse than if I was awake for it all.
