Life In Shambles

        Birds chirping,

        Woodpecker,

        Bees,

        ‘urgh...My head...What happened?’ Our currently unnamed protagonist placed a hoof on his forehead, it was quite drafty, he felt a chill right down to his bones. He gazed around a moment, he was currently sitting, or laying in a pile of dried up blood, in a large forest. The clouds overhead made the sky gray, kinda depressing if you ask me. Anyway, this poor stallion was all alone in the woods, without a single memory to aid him. “...Where am I?” He said as he got up, his bones cracked as he did so, as if he had been there for a long while. Another look around he saw he was in a small clearing, he wondered what he could be doing here, was it something he did a day before?

        Of course, while in thought it is very hard to hear something sneak up on you, but when that thing rips off your leg, thats is a different story. His leg disconnected itself with a mighty heave from a large creature, a manticore, and it began to gnaw on the leg like a tasty snack. Our protagonist fell over immediately, losing balance without a fourth leg. He did the only thing he could at this moment and picked up a large branch that had been sitting on the ground. With his new weapon, the gray pony slammed the manticore over the head multiple times until it dropped his leg and ran off. The fact he wasn't bleeding escaped him while he was in his adrenaline filled rage, but that only lasted a moment, he gazed at his stump of a front left leg now.

        “.....Huh.” It was strange, he felt....Nothing, not fear, nor confusion, it was like he knew he didn’t have to worry. Something told him to grab his leg and put it back, so he complied, grabbing the leg from its resting place on the ground and placing it where it disconnected. After a moment some force held it in place, so he let go and got up. “This feels strange, yet natural.” He spoke, but placed a hoof on his chin “What was my name...?” He looked at his previously dismembered leg, and got an idea. “We’ll go with Shambles, since that seems to be the case when it comes my body.” He chuckled slightly and looked back to the forest that surrounded him, he had to find civilization to find out who he really was. Shambles took a gambles and walked straight forward, only stopping to wipe saliva off his leg on a tree. After what seems like hours he finally stumbled on a small house, it looked kinda like a voodoo witches house or something, masks hung around outside, he could only imagine what it looked like inside. He walked up to a window and saw no one was inside, but it did look a LOT more voodoo witch doctor inside then out, hanging bottles and more masks. Shambles began to wonder if it was abandoned as he entered, looking around for something he may need. All he found was a cloak, which would come in handy since his leg currently looked like a murder victim, and he could only imagine what the rest of his body looked like.

        In fact he wanted to know, there should be a mirror around here somewhere, who wouldn’t have at least one mirror in their house? At least there could be something really reflective, like a plate or something. Shambles finally found a mirror, and he did not like what he saw, his eyes were glowing a deep red and the bottom left of his jaw was torn open, showing the bones, the same case for most of his body, like his back right hoof and some of his ribs were visible. He still felt very calm about it, there is only one explanation.

        He’s dead.

        He quickly grabbed the robe and left, not wanting to get caught by whoever lived here.

        ---A few hours of walking later---

        This was terribly boring, there was no sign of civilisation anywhere and his legs were starting to make a creaking noise, that worried him slightly but he kept pushing forward, the worst of his damage covered by the robe he swiped. He hoped he wouldn’t run into the owner, but what could they do to him that wasn't already done? He continued until he broke out of the forest and in sight of a small hill like structure, a cottage built into the hill perhaps? Or was the home constructed on the small hill and made to look like it was built in? He could go through the possibilities or he could continue, so he chose the later and made his way over to the bridge leading up to the hill/house/thing. Animals around him reacted badly, how else would they react to a walking corpse? He made it to the door and knocked, its not like he would just enter without warning or something, who in their right mind would do that?

        In another world, a child in a green outfit fell over while traversing a flooded structure, and had to start over.

        The door opened to a mare with a pink mane and tail, he could already see she was a shy thing, when she saw his robed self she made a sound between a newborn kitten mew and a puppys yelp, which he had to admit made his dead heart beat once. “Excuse me, but could you tell me where I am?” He asked politely, his wispy voice starling the poor thing further.

        “U-um...You're in Ponyville...” She replied, not making eye contact with the red-glowy-eyed stranger.

        “Ponyville? Never heard of it, but it sounds like a nice place.” He spoke more to himself than her. “I’m....Shambles, and you are?”

        “Fluttershy...” She whispered.

        “Excuse me?”

        “F-Fluttershy...”

        “You're going to have to speak up mam, It is very hard to hear you.” He was getting a aggravated, this was getting old.

        “Fluttershy...” She finally spoke in a higher tone.

        “Huh, your name sounds familiar, thank you for your help.” With that he turned away from the shy pony and walked back down the way, of course the animals acted up again, but this time a bear got involved. It didn’t look too good for old Shambles, this bear stood almost as tall as Fluttershy’s house, which in this case it was bigger than the manticore was, and much angrier. It looked down at him and thought it a good idea to slash Shambles across the face, so it did. Shambles didn’t really react, the pain was just a small feeling, as if being stung by a bee or a pinch. He looked back at the bear, it looked at its claw then back at him, fear slowly creeping into its eyes as blood was not present.

        “Sit.” He ordered, the bear jumped at his voice, twas commanding, unlike it’s friend Fluttershy’s voice, whose was soft and sweet. The bear sat down, not taking its eyes off the strange and frightful pony. Shambles huffed and walked past the bear, that was rather rude, sure it was a predator but it didn’t need to hit him for no reason. As he made it past the bridge the soft beat of wings behind him caught his attention, he turned to see Fluttershy following him with a curious look. “...What?”

        She jumped slightly. “U-um...Doesn't that hurt? I’m terribly sorry he did that.” Did she really just apologize for the bear? She was a strange one.

        “Not really, a lot of things should hurt, but I’m different.” With that, he turned back around and continued on his way.

        “What do you mean?” She was still following him? Might as well scare her off.

        “Because I’m a zombie.” He mumbled, silence followed, even then soft beat of her wings had stopped, maybe he had chased her off? He turned around to saw the poor thing scared stiff, for some reason she had not touched the ground yet, which was strange. “Is it really that surprising? I just took a bear’s claw to the face without a single drop of blood, and my leg was ripped off by a manticore.” He chuckled. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go....Find out who I really am.” With that he left her again, still shivering there, slightly floating.

        ---After searching for a library!---

        It seemed the library was a tree, thats not as shocking as it would seem to a normal pony, he passed a building that seemed to be made of sweets not too long ago. He pushed open the door to the building, seeing as it was open. He took a quick look around, it seemed to be empty at the moment, that was fine with him. There was a desk in the far left corner covered with what looked like research papers and books of all kinds. He decided to steer clear of that, in case it was important to someone else, so he turned to the actual book cases. On closer inspection they seemed to me a bit mixed up, but tolerable enough to search though, now he just needed to look for some past records, hopefully this library kept them. After searching for a few minutes, with no further progressions, a book caught his eye.

        “The Blood Knights Of Equestria?” He quickly pulled the book out and looked at the cover, there he was, out of seven others he sat in the middle, a red spiky halo [Could only find white one.] of some kind hung over his head, surrounded by others with similar halos, every single one of them with stupid grins on their faces. He opened the book and read a few pages, these knights seemed to serve under Celestia, a few years ago they all died out due to the demon blood that ran through them. “Wait, so I am dead? Damn...” He continued reading until he found the page describing him, he was the leader of this little army, and died last after getting lost in the woods, body never found. “You’ve gotta be kidding me...” He mumbled.