It was bound to happen

Three years ago:

Back then I was twenty-one years old. I am 6’4” with a fairly light tan despite living in Florida. I was young, spiteful and, as most of the other guys said, was as healthy as a horse. I was born in Canada though my family moved to the states when I was very young and we lived in Florida. Most people just absolutely loved Florida but I didn’t really care that much for it. It was the same old thing day after day.

When I was only thirteen years old I began to read muscle builder magazines and soon got into it.

To me it’s always hot and always the same. I wake up in the mornings at 4:30am, go for a jog until 7:30am then go to work until 5:30pm then hit the gym. Most of the other guys either use protein shakes or some weird fat losing drink but not me. The way I figure it is that in another few years they’ll come out with some medical study that says drinking those protein shakes is bad. It’s always like that, hell even milk was starting to get a bad rap.

Back then I used to hang out with all my buddies at the gym when we worked out. They always had nicknames for each other. For example Danny was called ‘Dan the man’. But for some reason they thought it would be funny to call me ‘The Canadian Maple’. I didn’t think it was a cool nickname but they all said it was because I was built thick like a maple tree, they were probably lying and just made that last part up.

It was January 16th 2010. It was about 7:45pm and I was on my regular routine. I had just arrived at the bench press and I started my stretches. I heard a couple of the other guys whisper and walk over.

“Hey Maple, want me to spot you?” Dan asked and I gave him a stupid look, the look I always gave him when he called me Maple. “Just asking, you know you should have a spotter at 385lbs.” he mentioned.

“Four hundred and ten” I told him as I laid down and readied myself. I let out a deep breath and both Dan and Jackson stood on opposite sides of the bar and got ready to spot me.

I grabbed the bar tightly in my hands then began to lift the weight bar. I brought the bar all the way down to my chest in one fluid, slow motion. Then pushed the bar back upwards using quite a bit of effort.

“ONE!” I said through a heavy breath. Then again.

“TWO!” I grunted. Four hundred and ten pounds was really pushing it and I didn’t really like to push myself to the limits but I was almost done for the night and figured it couldn’t hurt to show off a little.

“THREE!” I grunted and Dan chuckled. He really didn’t even need to be there.

“FOUR!”

Jackson laughed and saw some women who had looked over to see me weight lifting. He smiled and gave them a wink but they paid him no mind, instead watching me as I weight lifted an incredible amount of weight. Considering my age and that I didn’t use any sort of muscle builder like steroids or protein shakes, it was quite impressive.

“FIVE!”

Jackson smiled to the girls then did a muscular pose and showed off his physique for the girls.

“SIX!”

Dan rolled his eyes as I continued my reps.

“SEVEN!”

A few of the other guys had stopped working out and began to watch me.

“EIGHT!”

A few of the guys murmured to each other.

“NI…NINE” I grunted, starting to feel the burn. Jackson and Dan both got ready to help me if I needed it.

“T…TE…TEN” I gasped then extended my arms to full length, finishing my reps for this set. I set the bar back on the holders. I got up, breathing heavily as I tried to swallow. My saliva was sticky and hot, not wanting to go down. Instead it stuck around in my throat and making me feel uncomfortable.

“Enough steroids?” Jackson laughed as he gave me a friendly punch to the arm. The women were talking to themselves as they looked at me.

“Nah man, you know me. All natural and all Canadian” I said as I flexed my biceps, showing off my large muscular frame. It wasn’t freakishly huge like those steroid body builders you see in the movies but it was still noticeably large.

“Yeah and all Maple” Dan laughed and I snickered. God I hated it when he called me that. I began to do a cool down stretch when suddenly an electric portal zapped and crackled in the air. Suddenly a zap of what I could only figure to be lightning struck me and my mind went black.

‘Okay, really? Did I just die?’ I thought to myself. ‘I can’t feel my body so I guess I’m dead. Well shit, this sucks’ I thought to myself. I felt my body begin to rest on a soft grassy field.

Sunlight crept through my eyelids and I could feel a nice draft of wind blowing against my body. I could hear the wind blow and the birds chirp. Okay yeah… I was dead.

The strands of grass grazed against my skin and tickled me. I let out a small smile. Though I loved life, this kind of afterlife didn’t seem to be all that bad. I heard footsteps racing over towards me.

Probably an angel coming to greet me. I stayed lying on the ground without a care in the world. Hey I’m dead right? So I didn’t really have much to care about.

I heard the footsteps stop a few feet away from my head. “Uh-oh… Spike, send a letter to Celestia… this isn’t good” said the voice. ‘Celestia? Who in god’s name is Celestia?’ I thought to myself as I opened one eye and looked over to see a freakish looking unicorn… no wait, a purple unicorn with wings and a purple mane with a pinkish streak in it. ‘Man heaven has got some fucked up angels’