Who gets struck by lightning, I mean really? Whenever my friends said something like “don't go out in the storm, you might get hit by lightning.” I ignored them, laughed at them even. I like a bit of rain, and thunder and lightning just add to the experience. I like walking out in storms, as long as it's not a torrential downpour. I probably should have listened to my friends though, but come on... I mean who gets struck by lightning? besides me I mean.
I woke up in a daze some time later. Now you're probably thinking, if the lightning knocked me out, then how do I know I was struck by lightning at all? Maybe some thug knocked me on the back of the head to steal my wallet? Well let me tell you, when you've been hit by lightning you just know. When the last thing you remember before waking up is an intense flash of light, and every muscle in your body tenses up right before you fall into unconsciousness, you KNOW it was lightning. That and a hole had been burned through the bottom of my right shoe where I'm guessing the electricity exited my body.
But that wasn't really the most important thing right now, the important thing was I started in the Melbourne CBD, and now I was lying in a grassy field. Now I don't mind telling you I was scared. For a few brief moments I thought I might have somehow ended up in one of Melbourne's parks, but I couldn't see the city line no matter which direction I looked in, which blew that theory out of the water. I must have been somewhere else, further out of the city I thought to myself, but there were no paths, indicating that this probably wasn't a park of any sort, but how could I have ended up way out in the bush?
okay just forget all that I thought to myself, I switched into Man vs Wild mode (actually this is the mode I'm in when I'm WATCHING Man vs Wild, but I figured it was better than confusion mode.) First rule of survival is... protein? Damn, I kind of wish I'd been paying attention, but I mean come on... who actually gets lost in the wild?
I groaned and got to my feet. For all I knew there was a major road right through that tree line, hell for all I knew there was a taxi stand right through that tree line. So I walked through the tree line, there was just more trees.
Forget this, I don't have to stumble blindly through the woods, I have technology! Holding up my phone triumphantly I unlocked it and instantly came to the realisation that I had no signal. Grumbling, I tried to connect to the GPS service anyway, I mean I don't really know how this stuff works, surely GPS satellites don't connect through telephone towers. No signal. I grumbled again and packed my phone away into my laptop bag
Guess it's just me and you Gigabyte I said patting the bag as I made my way through the woods.
Now I'm not a fit guy, I'll be the first to admit it, I figure I probably only made it about three kilometres before I collapsed under a tree, wheezing my lungs out, to be fair though, it was pretty rough terrain, and I had just been struck by lightning. After a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself I got back to my feet and took a good look around.
Apple trees. I smiled, I must have accidentally crossed into an orchard without realising it, and that meant there must be people somewhere nearby. It's easy to forget how tired you are when you're skipping to what you're pretty sure is salvation. I stopped abruptly though when I emerged from the trees and saw a farm house off in the distance.
A red structure with an apple shaped wind vane. I immediately thought of... okay, well I guess I can't put it off any longer, you see I'm actually a brony, that means I'm a guy who watches My Little Pony (I know right), and the first thing that came to mind when I saw the farm house was that it looked pretty much exactly like the apple family's house. The second thing that came to mind was all those fan fictions where a brony somehow gets teleported to Equestria (But I would never write something like that).
I took a second to compose myself, surely it's not incredibly unusual for an apple farmer to have apple shaped... things, no this house definitely did not belong to talking ponies, why was that even in question? Suddenly I heard the crunching of a footstep on dry leaves, I turned my head and came eye to eye with a large red pony wearing some sort of work collar.
Now I'm not proud of what I did next, but I screamed like a little girl and ran, and I mean really bolted... right into unconsciousness.
I don't know how long had passed before I woke up again. All I know is that this time I wasn't in a field. In my semi conscious state I pulled my blanket in tight and snuggled up against my straw pillow.
Straw?
My eyes shot open and I looked around. I was in a barn of some sort (to be honest I don't know what different sorts of barns there are). My mind was flooded with fragmented memories of earlier that day. Waking up in a field. Lost in the forest. Sweet Apple Acres. Big Macintosh.
No I thought to myself That's stupid, it was just a house with an apple shaped weather vane, and a horse that LOOKED like Big Mac.
Then I remembered the reason I became unconscious again. I raised a hand to my forehead and instantly recoiled from the pain. There was a sizable bump from where my head had impacted that low hanging branch. I sighed, it really wasn't my day. The creaking of the barn door opening near by quickly grabbed my attention. A yellow pegasus that I knew of all too well walked in, carrying a basket in her mouth. She set it down on the ground and then spoke.
“Hi there, don't be afraid, my name's Fluttershy, I'm helping you get better.”
“F...F...Fluttershy?”
“Oh! You c...can talk.” The timid pegasus shrank before me, trying to hide her face in her mane.
“W...Where am I?”
“Umm, S...Sweet Apple Acres.”
Sweet Apple Acres, oh good, I'm crazy. Growing tired of the stuttering contest between Fluttershy and myself I rose to my feet. The yellow pony recoiled further into her mane.
“Fluttershy, I'm not going to hurt you, my name is James and I... I'm kind of lost actually, or crazy, or both.”
She was too busy trembling to reply, thankfully the barn door opened again and a new pony stepped in.
“Applejack?”
The orange earth pony looked at me for a few moments, “You can... How did you... What the... You better be explainin yerself mister.”