He couldn’t really tell when what he assumed was common cold had evolved into a disease of apocalyptic proportions. The nail of a migraine was hammered in, breaching his scalp, sanding his dry throat, and pressing his heart against his rib cage. The swimming heat had left him disorientated from time to time, every cough a jarring return back to reality.

A laptop provided by the college sat before Sammy, a piece of coursework half complete. The college labs were simplistic, white and decorated by factual posters, from periodic tables to di-hybrid bonds. Sammy combed his freshly cut hair with his hand, his hand slipping to the side of his head as he leant on his elbow for support.

A stylish grey jumper embalmed his broad chest and shoulders; he wasn’t a burly young man, but he always thought if he just applied himself he would have a decent body. As it stood, he had to rely on style, what little he could afford. His jeans were a few years old, worn but the indigo colour compliment his charcoal toned trainers.

After another short coughing fit, he leant back on his lab stool groaning before surveying the scene around him with his earth brown eyes. He sat at the base of a ‘U’ shape table arrangement- it was a small class of fourteen, so pooling students together would help the teacher from where he sat at the front- and his gaze fell back to his work.

He had a small amount of facial fuzz growing that shadowed his soft, rounded chin, shaded his defined jaws and connected to his sideburns. The collection of imperfect, un-groomed face fur contrasted his tidied short back and side hair style. Then again, styling short hair was hardly difficult even for someone who cared very little like he did for such a thing.

“Jesus, Sammy, it’s breathe in and out, not breathe in and cough up.” Joe, a college friend he’d known for nearly a year, joked without looking from his new iPhone. Sammy turned, regarding him with a half-smile.

The young man before him had a hawkish look to him, thin in the face, black hair, and dressed the darker shades of the colour spectrum. His black shirt had the imprint of some Dj headphones and his jeans had stains of leaked glow sticks on them.

“Thank you for concern,” he simply stated, quickly turning away to cough into his elbow. “Much love.” He finished with flat sarcasm.

“I know it’s nearly December, and the shops are already putting up the Christmas decorations, but keep it to yourself.” He looked up from his phone, his blue eyes twinkling with mirth. “I don’t want you germs touching me!”

Sammy glanced at the phone before rolling his eyes. Joe was using that Hot or Not app, where women (or men jokingly dressed as women) shamelessly posted pictures of themselves and people could mark them either attractive or not in their tastes.

“Sharing is caring,” Sammy replied, turning back to his work.

“Sharing a pint is caring,” Joe pointed out with a stern look before fiddling around in his bag for a file, “Giving me an apocalyptic disease is biological warfare.”

“What if I cough into a box and wrap it into a bow?”

“I’d give it to a kid and his mates so they can play pass the parcel.” Both of them chuckled, Joe’s being slightly deeper than Sammy’s.

“I’d love to see you running around a playground shouting ‘I’ve got something I want to give you, it’s in the box’." Sammy retorted earning another chuckle from Joe.

“What’s this about Joe stalking kids?” A raspy, yet feminine voice said by Sammy’s other side. Sat on the corner of the ‘U’ shaped table collaboration was Abbie, a friend he had known since nursery. She was sporty, as presented by her netball hoody for the team she coached in a nearby high school. She had raven hair done up in a bun, and the scent of deodorant infiltrated his nostrils as he turned to her. Her cute cherub cheeks rested beneath her vibrant blue eyes, her eyebrow arched as she looked over her laptop at Sammy.

“Well after being friend-zoned by many girls his age, he thinking about going down a league.” Sammy retorted with a smirk, sluggishly gesturing towards Joe.

“Hey!”

“Ah,” was all Abbie said in reply, her flat tone somehow matching her knowing look, “So he’d gone from stalking women to stalking little girls.”

The small session of friendly banter lasted for a few more moments, Sammy’s dry comments and Abbie’s tenacity picking apart Joe. It all came to a stop the moment the ill man began coughing a fit once more.

“I think you should go home and rest, maybe see a doctor,” Abbie commented, wincing and leaning back from what she thought was a picture of un-health. Sammy recovered and gave her a knowing grin.

“Sod that, he should be in quarantine!” Joe insisted, making Abbie chuckle.

“And you should be on the sex watch with the amount you go on about girls,” Sammy fired back, taking a moment to rub his eyes. “Traditional gentlemen may be a dying breed, but hey, I like a woman with class.” His last statement barely registered as Joe looked to him.

“But seriously get yourself checked out,” Joe added with a hint of sincerity. With a sigh, which set of a tickling sensation in his burning lungs, Sammy returned a conceding nod.

Truth be told he only came in because he had to. He had deadlines to meet and a demanding course that was entering its final six months. He couldn’t afford to miss out, he was behind on a particular piece of coursework, an assignment that would identify an unknown sample. With a nostalgic grin sprouting, the times he skipped school with the feigned tummy aches to play on his PlayStation.

“You know, it’s funny how when I’m not ill I don’t want to be here, and yet when I’m patient zero of the zombie outbreak I don’t want to be anywhere else. I’m the same when it comes to my job.” Sammy stated, earning wary glanced from his peers.

Quick as a whip, Abbie voiced her concern.

“Don’t you serve food in a café?”

Joe burst out into up roaring laughter, whilst Sammy simply grinned and shot her a conspiratorial look.

“I’m the secret ingredient.”

“Ew!” she grimaced, her smile still breaking through.

Sammy sat there, feeling a little bit better despite the wave of nausea and heat that struck him. He didn’t need to laugh as loud as Joe did, wasn’t his way. He liked clever humour, the type of banter that could permit him to say ‘apply cold water to burn’ and, yes, certain funny pictures on the internet.

He was still young, and maturity could hit him hard at a later age. Like seventy or until he couldn’t type with a keyboard anymore. For now, however, he could appreciate a joke that brought a smile to his lips regardless. Didn’t mean he didn’t prefer a clever joke.

Before Abbie could continue an odd ringtone echoed throughout the room.

It was uplifting, whimsical, but lacked the lyrics that flooded Sammy’s burning mind. Everyone in the room stared at the source, a small cluster of people at the end of the bent train of tables. One was a cherry red headed girl, soft in features and petite in her frame. Next to her, following her gaze and everyone else’s, was a lad who always seemed to be slouching as if he hid a weight in his shoulders.

‘Maybe it’s the social prejudice of wearing a fedora that keeps him like that,’ Sammy mused, glancing over the nice young man. He didn’t have any quarrels with him in particular, nor anyone in the room for that matter.

“Ste, can I take this?”

'Big adventure… tons of fun…' Sammy mentally recited, looking to source of the ring tone.

The owner of the white phone -which in Sammy’s eyes was more of a tablet- picked it up in his chubby fingers. The song was still playing as the greasy haired, plump man pointed between the phone and the door behind him. He wore an olive green jacket, unzipped to reveal a plain blue shirt beneath.

Stephen, the chemistry tutor, looked over from assisting someone with their work and frowned. He was starting to age, his rounded head having an already receding hairline that barely touched the scraggily beard he had grown. His professional white shirt and tie was only mildly skewed by the chemical stain at the knot. He sighed and nodded.

“Go on, but you have got to stop leaving your phone on loud in lesson, it’s okay to listen to music-“ Looking to Joe, Sammy spotted his ‘are you serious’ stare- “in lesson, but please bring headphones and put it on silent.”

“Yeah, okay,” the large teen conceded, for what must have been the millionth time, and quickly excused himself.

“I’m serious, Jack!” He called after him, but Jack was already answering his phone. Everyone was already aware of his antics; it was after all hard to ignore an overweight eighteen year old who openly looked up cute ponies on his laptop.

‘Hell, that’s not even the worst song in his music collection.’ Sammy mused, joining the many others who returned to their work. ‘Be it immense confidence or stupidity, Jack, you can do something I can’t at the moment.’ Most were used to Jack's fascination with technicoloured ponies, at least by the fifth time he was seen browsing the cartoon equines.

“I really don’t get it,” Joe announced, continuing his work on his laptop. His clacking of keys was silenced when he shifted his gaze back to Sammy.

“What’s to get? A man likes a cartoon show. Family guy is no different in that regard,” Sammy quickly retorted, frowning as his vision blurred. Having reached a point where he felt he was in an oven he closed the laptop and rested his head in his hands.

He felt the burn that embalmed his heart spread further like venom, but kept quiet about it. He just needed to print off his work and he could go.

“No,” Joe started off sharply, somewhat offended. Sammy could understand since Family Guy was his favourite show. “Family Guy has more mature humour and-“

Sammy summoned all his strength to elevate his head from his palms an shoot Joe a questioning look.

“Okay, adult humour, but it’s still miles better than My Little Pony,” he mocked, scoffing whilst shaking his head.

‘Can’t say I agree with you there, mate,’ Sammy thought, thinking about what he watched Saturday and was going to watch on following Saturday as well. He kept that fact to himself. After a brief shrug Sammy rubbed his tired, aching eyes.

“Can’t say I disagree, but hey, we live an era where a person can be whoever they want, sleep with whoever they want, make videos of whatever they want.” He shot a wry smile, his warm eyes glistening through his pale complexion as he leant on his hand. “I’m sure you’re for letting a man watch whatever he wants.”

Joe looked less than impressed.

“I could tolerate it if it was that Japanese hentai crap.”

Both Abbie and Sammy burst into laughter, the tomboyish girl going bright red and Sammy was reduced to yet another coughing fit.

“What?” Joe asked as Sammy recovered.

“Its anime, you dirty sod, otherwise you’ve been watching cartoon porn!” Abbie teased as Joe brought his slender hands to his face in shock. Blood flushed his face, his cheeks betraying a grin that was forming behind his hands. It wasn't long before they fell into another bought of laughter.

“Tell you what,” Sammy started, gulping to clear his mouth to fill it with words, “If you’re admitting to being into that sort of thing, you’ve lost the right to be against Jack.”

“I’m not, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s an eighteen year old watching a little girls show,” Joe remarked before turning back to his work. “Isn’t that like their day time television in japan?” Sammy shrugged, recoiling as he felt his ears pop and throat burn, as if a tasteless spirit had been poured down his gullet.

“My Little Pony is actually a family show, so technically there’s no age limit. You got to remember, if there’s a video on the internet, there’s an audience for it.” He could either feel Joe’s suspicion or his own paranoia kicking in as he said that. He played it smart and called upon Joe’s past time.

“You know how you love airplanes and air traffic control?” After receiving a nod, he continued, “Well, to be fair, you were Ahuawaargh!”

Once again Sammy folded his arms and pressed against his diaphragm, spluttering the first few coughs before his elbow slid over his mouth. He paused and turned to Abbie, his face reddening and his half smile fading.

He could barely manage a strained squawk as he rolled his hand and spoke, “Abbie… tell him a man can watch what he wants and how weird Joe’s obsession with planes is.”

“Firstly it’s not an obsession if it lead to me getting accepted for an aeronautical degree,” Joe was more than happy to correct.

“Look, I’m not exactly comfortable talking about what guys watch on the internet, so could you two leave me out of this, okay?” she replied curtly, raising her hands in the classic surrender pose before turning back to her work. “I need to get this done, so can I continue or what?”

“Yes, please do.”

All three of them looked up to see Steven standing opposite Sammy. His burrowed brow was betrayed the by his sincere stare.

Sammy simply grinned back.

“As for you, Mister Wright, I think its best you go home and get some rest- you kinda look…” Ste trailed off, his round head bobbling as he pursed his lips looking for the right adjective. Fortunately, Joe had one in mind.

“Crap.” He earned a smirk from Sammy, whilst the teacher conceded to the notion.

“Not the words I would have used but… yeah.”

“Don’t worry,” Sammy reassured, “I’m gonna finish and then print this off and then go home.”

Steven shook his head, taking the closed laptop from the table and putting it under his arm. “You need to go home, right now. Don’t worry about the deadline, I’ll sign it off as if you handed it today so long as you hand it in the first day you come back in.”

This was why Steven was the most wanted chemistry tutor in college. He understood what a student needed. Whether or not it was due to experience or a natural talent in both chemistry and teaching combined. Of course, he was strict with disorganised students in order to get them to work to a satisfactory standard, and luckily Sammy always pushed to try and reach the high marks along with all his peers. Being lenient with one piece of coursework in regards to the deadline was a reward he would more than happily cash in at this point.

“I’m going to need my laptop back in order to save and send myself my work so I can work from home.”

He followed through, leaving the class to head home. He greeted Jack warmly and earned a nod is acknowledgement since the big guy was still on the phone. Sammy was curious as to how he could watch such a show and revel in it so openly. He could never do that; Sammy couldn’t see how he could wedge the subject into his everyday life, and it would be awkward to randomly bring it up in conversation. It would certainly be a skill to switch the topic of a talk from identifying Alkenes and reading mass spectrum graphs to discussing the latest episode about pastel ponies.

However, it was mostly the scarring embarrassment he wanted to avoid.

Sammy ignored the aches that was developing where his blue shoulder bag hung in the crook of his arm for a moment. He slung it back over his shoulder and, the weight of his text books settling in, and then he began his journey home.

It was a half hour walk home through the late November weather, winter’s wind mercifully cooling his slowly escalating temperature. He barely noticed, his mind elsewhere as he tried to ignore his already developed symptoms. He clutched himself tightly as he migrated home with a migraine, pricks of pain fizzing in his throat with every suppressed cough.

He hated the retching, it felt vile.

He hated the sweat that was mostly in the pits of his arms.

He hated Movember, and how his itchy beard amplified his dirtiness.

All in all, even though he wasn’t a vain man, he had standards. Gentleman standards. He would walk with his back straight to minimise slouching, he kept his head up and eyes ahead, and even smiled to a few dog walkers. If he was going to feel like a corpse, he could at least salvage some sense of being presentable. Haggard or not, it was simply rude not to return a friendly ‘hello’ from a passer-by.

He finally reached home, a small semidetached house with a white door. Orange brickwork crumbled here and there, brown spots appearing here and there. The garden was separated into two, a grey tiled half that lead to the porch and the square of neatly cut green grass. The blinds were down, the curtains closed, all the signs of the house being empty. He stumbled towards through the gate, his mind catching up with him as he approached the door.

“Going to watch the more recent episodes…” he muttered to himself, keeping his spirits high and mind elsewhere, “Gonna sleep this off before my little brother’s get home, then I’m gonna eat dinner, and then I’m gonna…”

He mouth ran dry, his chapped lips cracking like salt flats in a barren waste.

“Season four…”

The pain had caught up to him, subtracting his feeling of the flat pavement below for vertigo and nausea.

“Bollocks.”

Internally, his core body temperature was sky rocketing as he stepped onto the inbuilt porch. Steam drifted from his form as he nearly fell back, his misty eyes widening with realisation. Through ragged breathes he spluttered the next thought to pass through his mind.

“Not good… need… ambulance.”

Another coughing fit brought him to his knees, his skin starting to redden to a dangerous hue. It was no longer the fever pink that pinched his flushed cheeks, but a red hot tone that spread along his skin. He could feel the heat within reside, giving way to a cooler embrace. His clothes itched. The sensation changed to be akin to his skin being shredded by sandpaper, the rashes being bandaged by thistles.

His hand was not responding properly, making fishing out his phone an incredible feat. His slippery grasp, combined with his sluggish descent to the square stone tiles below, were challenges that were beating him. Every gasp was like having his throat scrubbed by a sea urchin, a salty taste lining his frothing mouth. He couldn’t even feel fear anymore, he simply succumbed to convulsions whilst defiantly trying to bring his phone to his face. That was what mattered.

He held down the home button on his iPhone, seeing the screen through the haze.

He heard the tell-tale beep.

“Siri… call me an Ambulance.”

Dabeep-beep.

“From now on, I shall refer to you as Ambulance,” his phone replied, moments before he collapsed to the floor.

His hand curled into a claw as he gazed towards the front door. No one was in, and his neighbours were likely working.

The world kept shifting, between a fiery gold and dark brown to the view of the first step of his porch. It was mere meters away, and yet whenever the illusion of the flames washed over him, a far wall appeared, complete with a single lit candle. Back and forth his perception of the world shifted, his hand being coated in flame in between. The pain crippled for a few moments longer, until, strangely, his mind came rushing back.

‘Fire.’

It was all over him, licking his form as he rolled over to take the brunt of the impact. Disorientation crumbled as the seconds passed, a terrifying realisation beginning to course through his veins.

“I’m on fire!” he yelped, the intense torture of his symptoms retreating at the sound of his voice. The burning headaches vanished slowly, the pressure in his chest slacking as cool air entered his lungs, and his throat not soothed.

One might imagine why a man may not notice such changed when wrestling with a blanket of flame.

Rolling to his side was an instinctive response, one that helped him ignore whatever he barreled into. The metallic clatter barely registered as he beat the flames on his form into submission. Panicked yelps became more defined screams as his motor control returned, his mind freed from whatever aliment clouded his thoughts and corrupted his body. Whilst the flames may have been present when this occurred, Sammy saw it as an inconvenience… one that threatened to kill.

Sammy bumped into a wall, but still rolled resulting in him propping himself up and looking down upon his burning jumper. He fiercely patted down the lingering flames, coming to a slow halt stop as something caught his eye.

His sleeve was alight, but the air was still cold.

A white-gold flame danced on his wrist, hardly noticed by his skin. It didn’t hurt. It felt like someone was rubbing their finger gently wherever it roamed, but that was the extent of his physical discomfort. Mentally, the fact that he was being alight but not roasted disturbed Sammy, but it left him in awe of the sight.

‘Well isn’t this something?’ he pondered deliriously, waving his arm about until the flame died out. Many questions skimmed his mind. Why wasn’t his sleeve singed? Looking to his whole attire, he asked himself why he wasn’t a smouldering pile of ash. His hand fell beside him and the hard ground greeted his renewed senses.

The floor he sat upon was cool, dirty and littered with stones. More importantly, everything close by was brown. He simply stared at the wall beside him. It was smooth, rounding slightly, but most importantly it wasn’t brickwork. It was stone, or carved earth, but definitely lacking any sign of modern day building material. No eroded orange cuboids but instead a single brown wall.

He could hear a rustling breeze shoot towards him in a rhythmic pattern, steady and as reserved as his quiet breathing. The unusually warm touch of winter’s breathe almost drew his attention as it met his face, but something glistening beneath by his hand.

It was small and round. He shakily swept the up kicked dirt aside to find a coin the size of his palm. Between two fingers he inspected it, finding it may have been coated in actual gold, but imprinted with a strange design.

A Regal unicorn head posed with a proud smile, a number one printed at the bottom. The other side featured a tiara in the centre, the number stamp ‘1006 ADE’ at the top, and the sentence ‘Equestrian Currency.’ Those words made him freeze, both his eyebrows elevating to new found heights. Reaching into his pockets, he dug out and English pound and found the golden coin to be easily triple its size.

“Is this a… bit?” the dumbfounded man asked himself. What else could it have possibly have been with that inscription? He mind, having been restricted by his sickness was working overtime to make up for its shoddy performance, but even his rational thinking could not could determine an alternate answer.

Was it real? That was debatable. It could have been a lost replica for all he knew.

Which would imply someone lost it.

Following that trail of thought lead him to ask a key question.

“Where am I?”

The natural response to investigate his surrounding lasted all of one second.

The first half second gave way to his body’s aching desire to find out what was causing the oddly warm breeze to brush against him from time to time.

So he turned to his left.

The next fifty millisecond belonged to his eyes dilating and his maw dropping.

An incredibly large reptilian snout, as broad as a Land rover, was mere meters away. The hook like nostrils flared with every quiet breath that washed over him. Mint, strangely, filled the air with every exhale. The scales were a polished ivory, glistening with a crystalline property all over the giant. At the other end of the snout, two serpentine slits bore into his soul from their artic blue pools. Where the whites of where the eyes should be, a pale yellow filled in. Scaled brows portrayed the beast’s curiosity, as did the sparkling awe in its eyes. Two spiralling white horns followed the smooth groove of its features, becoming an extension from the back of the head.

“Yes, that is a bit…”

That voice, her voice. It was graceful, not booming but more flooding the room with a resonance of etiquette and loud volume. It made him jump in his seat.

“…And it’s mine.” She finished, sounding unsure.

‘Holy crap she’s a dragon!’ was a programed neural pulse, based upon a dreaded realisation and his mind tossing a file labelled mythological in the air. His mouth did not receive such a message and promptly followed his body’s natural response.

He screamed.

Author's Notes:

Well, after a long break I have decided to write once again. I've been itching to get back to writing stories and now I feel as though I can with this new story.

Comments are welcome. Please give reasons for down votes.

Now then, lets get back to writing.