The Good, The Bad, and...The Ponies?

My body was falling back first into a void of nothingness. “So this is what dying feels like, huh?”  The cool wind blowing past made me feel very calm.  Sadly, that calm wasn't meant to last.  As I descended throught the darkness, I felt I was gradually slowing down.  I positioned my feet beneath me, considering that I was now descending at a near crawl.  When my feet landed on an invisible surface, I took my time and let my eyes scan my surroundings to only see darkness.

“This is not what I was expecting.  I was actually hoping to see something a little less…”  I tried thinking of a word to describe the place, “dark.”

I searched myself for any changes whether it’d be physical or my possessions.  Black zip-up hoodie, white t-shirt with red kanji in the center, blue denim jeans, grey running-shoes and my boken still on my back.  Nope; everything was the same.

I gazed throughout the empty void for anything I could go to.  The darkness’ reach seemed almost infinite, except for a glowing speck of green off in the distance.

“What is that?”  I asked myself.  Hoping I could get an answer I started heading for the light.  With each step, I noticed that it looked more and more like a floating ball of light green fire than a tunnel.

“If this is how I’m supposed to enter heaven, then this is a little disappointing.”  I gave a little humph of dissapointment.

I’ve been told all my life that when you die, you see a tunnel of light and that when you approach it you can see the golden gates of Heaven, blah blah blah, be judged, blah blah blah, and be welcomed into The Lord's holy embrace.  So far, everything was being proven otherwise.

"I'm starting to think that this is hell."

I was looking at the floating orb one foot in front of me after walking for a few minutes.  Or was it hours?  It didn’t matter, I wasn’t tired and I got to the place that I wanted to get to.  The orb glowed with a great brilliance of seafoam green amongst the darkness that surrounded it.  As I looked into the orb, I could feel something inside me getting warmer and it was slowly spreading.  It was a good feeling to have amongst the unyielding cold of the darkness.  But that warmth died when I heard the same psychotic etheral laugh from earlier.

"Come out and show yourself!"  I spun around looking for the source of the laughter, a nervous sweat on my brow.  The laughing ceased as a discernable tsk-ing could be heard.

"Aww, no need to be like that, Kiyoshi," the voice said.  "I'm only having a little fun with ya."

I looked at the shadows around me with a raised eyebrow.  "You call this," I spread my arms out indicating to the darkness around me, "fun?"

"Hmm..."  The voice seemed to be thinking really hard as I waited.  "Yes!"  It started to laugh once more.

I crossed my arms over my chest once again looking back at the floating green flame.  "Man, you're weird."

The invisible being took on a hurt tone.  "And here I thought that I was your favorite."

I turned and looked back into the darkness.  "Wait, how can you be my favorite if I don't even know you."

"Of course you know me!"  The voice said excitedly.  "I was your favorite!  I 'support'ed you through the tough times.  I 'warded' away those that wished to do harm.  You could say that I am the 'champion' you'd bet on all the time."  That alone took me by surprise.  There was no way I could be talking to who I thought I was.

I looked between the green flame and the darkness with a dumbstruck expression.  "No... freaking... way."

Suddenly, a lantern made of bone sprung out of the ground in front of me, illuminating the area around me with a greenish light.  The chain connecting it to the ground was made completely out of bone.  A skull made of bone and what looked like green fire slowly rose up out of the ground.  It was wearing a dark cloak that the chains dissapeared into the mouths of demon skulls on its left and right side.  The being held a a bone sickle by a chain that was swaying back and forth slightly.

Thresh put on a smirk as well as a skull could and said one word.  "Way."

"I would be much happier seeing you if I wasn't dead right now."  It was true.  I would be way happier to see my favorite champion from League of Legends had I not kicked the bucket.  Every aspect of him screamed awesome; his abilities, his design, his voice, hell, even his very presence was cool.  But in my situation, meeting the Chain Warden himself was a frightening and intimidating thing for sure.

He gave me a quizical look.  "Who said you're dead?"  He walked around me, inspecting my being.  "You look fine to me," he said nonchalantly

There was something inside of the orb; it kind of looked like a body of some sort.  I had to strain my eyes to get a clear picture of what it was.  I recoiled when I saw not what, but who it was.  It was me.  Or at least it was my body.  I stood there shocked at this discovery.  My body looked like it was asleep, slowly breathing, at peace with itself.

I chuckled to myself.  “How cliché, find the light in the darkness to only achieve peaceful eternal rest.  This so fits the definition of boring!”  I began to circle the orb to see, myself at different angles.  Upon further inspection of the orb, I noticed that my body looked like it had been beaten up pretty badly.

I was going over the different possibilities of what could have happened to it until someone interrupted my train of thought.  “So nurse, what in tarnation d’yall reckon “it” is?”

“Cool I can hear someone…”  My mind immediately jumped into high gear at the sudden realization.  “Wait a minute, WHAT!?  How can I be hearing a voice? I’m dead!”  My mind was racing at what felt like a million miles per hour.

“Honestly I’m not sure,” Another being replied.  “I’ve never seen this kind of “thing” before.  It has a vast amount of resemblances to that of the primate genus.  Where did you say you discovered it again?”

My mind felt like it was going to explode with the questions I had.  “Whose voices are those?  I’ve never heard them before.  What’s going on?  Why are there women talking about some sort of monkey?”

“Well,” the first voice started, “ah was out in the orchard buckin’ the apple tree’s when ah saw it fallin’ out o’ the sky.  It was goin’ faster than Rainbow doin’ a Sonic Rainboom n’ that’s sayin’ somethin’.”  She said with a matter-of-fact voice, “Ah saw it hit the ground near the edge o’ the Everfree Forest n’ followed the giant cloud o’ dust to the crash site.”

The first speaker sounded like she was about 20 and from the southern U.S., possibly Texas or Tennessee.  This occurred as strange to me because I didn’t know anyone with a southern accent.  Well except for my mother, but she managed to hide it very well.

The nurse said with a surprised tone, “That would explain the scrapes, contusions and broken leg.” Then her tone immediately changed to one of great inquiry, “But what I don’t understand is, how could something that is flightless, be falling out of the sky.”

The “nurse” sounded like she was in her mid-twenties or early thirties.  Her voice was calm, collected, very knowledgeable, and sounded like she genuinely cared for me.  It seemed like she was able to pick up on any small detail.  Hearing her voice almost made me relax from my mental turmoil, just almost.

After hearing that story, it really got my mind going.  “What do they mean by “it” and “thing”?  They couldn’t possibly be talking about me, could they?” This was seriously starting to freak me out.  “Also what do they mean by falling and broken limbs?  Last time I checked, I was on my back looking up at the stars as I died.”  That was the last straw.  I had to know what was going on.  “Ok, enough is enough.  I have to say something.”

Out of pure desperation I grabbed the floating orb.  At first nothing happened, and then the ground started to shake.  Worried for my life I just continued to hold onto the orbhoping to give me some sort of protection.  Cracks of white light began to appear above and below me in the darkness.  Right when I thought that the shaking couldn’t get any worse, everything seemed to freeze.  “Hm, well that wasn’t so ba-AAAAAAHHHHH!!!”  The darkness shattered like a pane of glass being hit with a hammer and I began to fall, screaming as loud as I could.  I looked down to see that I was falling towards my other body. I reacted the only way I could at the time.  “FFFFFUUUUUUUUU-!!!”  but before I finished the statement I made contact with my other body knocking me unconscious immediately

I was regaining my consciousness.  Slowly but surely my strength was coming back to me as well.  “What happened?”  I thought to myself.  “I feel like I got ran over by a train and then mauled by a pack of angry German shepherd’s.”  At that moment, I remembered the conversation those two had. “Oh… right.”

I opened my eyes to look around, but was blinded by the sudden brightness so I immediately closed them.  “Wait a minute, something’s not right here.”  I slowly opened my eyes one more time and noticed that I could only see out of my right eye.  I reached up with my left arm to try and touch my face, but was stopped by something.  I looked down at my arms only to be welcomed by an unnerving sight.  They were in strapped to the bed in leather restraints.  I continued to look over the rest of my body only to see that my legs were also restrained to the bed, with the exception of my left leg because it was in a cast that reached up to my thigh.

“WHAT THE HELL!!!”  I shouted.  My heart was beating faster, my breathing rate increased.  I started to struggle to try and break free as the sense of fear began to wash over me. The restraints must be made of something pretty durable because as a lineman on the football team we are required to very strong, and they weren’t even showing signs of weakening.   At his point I didn’t care what I looked like trying to get free.  For all I know, I could have looked like I was having a massive seizure at the epicenter of a category 8 earthquake.

During my episode, I heard a door slam open and something running at me from my left.  I quickly turned my head to see who it was, but my vision was blinded for someone or something had placed a bag over my head.  “WHERE AM I?  GET THIS BAG OFF OF ME!!!  I WANNA SEE MY CAPTORS FACE!!!  COME AT ME BRO!!!” I screamed as I continued my fruitless attempt at attaining freedom.

“Y’all need to calm down; unless you wanna go ‘n hurt yourself again.”  I immediately stopped thrashing around after hearing their voice.

“Oh thank God you’re here!” I said with great relief, “You have no idea what kind of day I’ve had so far.”  It was the southern girl.  She had come to rescue me somehow.  But then again, who cares?  I was about to be freed.  I quickly changed my attitude remembering what situation I was in, “I need you to get me out of here.  I don’t know how long my captors are gonna be gone, so you need to release me as quickly as you can!”  I sat there for a few seconds which felt like hours, in silence, waiting for an answer, “Well?  Aren’t you going to get me out of this?” I shook the restraints to get the point through.  Still more silence.

Then she spoke up, “I can’t let you go,” My heart sunk at that moment when she uttered those words.  If there was a time in my life where I couldn’t feel any more depressed, this one took the cake.  “But ah do know someone who can.  Ah jus’ need y’all to stay here, and try not to cause a fuss.”  I chuckled a bit when she said that.  “What’s so darn funny?”

Apparently she didn’t get the joke she just made, “Well, I’m kinda tied down so I can’t go anywhere even if I tried…which I have.”  Realizing what she had said, she gave a small laugh as she left the room.

I didn’t have to wait long before she returned.  I heard the door open again but this time it wasn’t just one person, it was a whole group of people that entered the room.  Honestly I thought she was only going to bring one person with her.

Before I could say anything, one of the people from the group ran up to the side of the bed and started to say really fast, “Ooo, so THIS is what you were talking about!  When you said that you needed help with something, I thought that you needed help with planning a party.”  Whoever she was, she sounded like she enjoyed parties and was having one hell of a sugar rush.

“Oh Pinkie darling, please do be careful.  We don’t know what this…,” she took a minute to come up with a word, “monstrosity is capable of.”  This new lady sounded like she was from higher class.

Well, at least I now know two things.  One, the hyper one’s name is Pinkie, strange name for a person but whatever, I

don’t judge.  And secondly, the person from higher class is quick to judge things, or this case, other people.

Someone else decided to speak up before I did.  “Rarity, you probably shouldn’t insult something that could possibly destroy us.”  Oh, so the others name Rarity.  Well, yet another strange name in an unknown place.

“It looks weak.” Someone else cut in before Rarity could argue. “I could take him down in ten seconds flat!”

There are not many things that can piss me off.  Racist jokes, I laugh with everyone else, being called stupid or idiot, not a big deal.  But when someone calls me weak, I just go ballistic.

“WHO SAID THAT?” I screamed, “I’LL TAKE YOU ON RIGHT HERE AND NOW, BRING IT!!!”  I started to try and get out of the restraints again.

Everyone started screaming; some, out of fear, while I did out of rage.  That’s when she spoke up, “Hey there partner, didn’t ah tell y’all not to cause a fuss?”  I immediately stopped struggling.  She sounded mad and yet, at the same time, very calm.

“Well, when you said you’d bring people to help me, I didn’t expect them to start insulting me right off the bat.”  I think my argument had an impact because she didn’t respond for a few seconds.

“Yeah, ah thought so too.”  I’m guessing that she scowled at her friends.  “Anyway, mah friend Twi here can get those restraints off o’ ya.  But before Twi does, ah just need ya to promise me two things.”

This caught my attention.  “And what would that be?”

“One, promise to me and mah friends that you won’t do harm to anypony and two, that ya won’t freak out.” I had no Idea what she meant by that but whatever, simple enough.

“Ok, I promise I won’t harm “anypony” and that I won’t freak out.”  There was a momentary pause then I felt the restraints being released and the bag slowly pulled off my head.  “Now what makes you think that I would… freak…out?”

I sat there motionless, with eyes that were the size of dinner plates.  I could finally see who, well I should actually say what, I was talking to.  There surrounding me were some of the most colorful horses I have seen in my life.  They all varied in color; pink, white, cyan, purple, yellow, and orange.

I only managed to utter one phrase before something hit the back of the head.  “What in God’s name are you?”