Ryan awakened blissfully from her sleep, the sound of the wind whistling a merry tune harmonized by chirping birds greeting her ears.

She vaguely recalled a dream she had, but it was largely faded as dreams tended to be. She could make out some details about a party and her mother and… horses. Oddly, that combination actually seemed familiar outside of her dream. Come to think of it, didn’t that match the place her mother had described to her years ago when she had been effectively trampled as a child? She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t remember much about that day other than an unpleasant lasting effect it had left revolving around a certain animal. It didn’t matter much anyways. That was a dream last night and a forgotten memory almost twenty years old. Instead, she leaned back into the dirt she was on and decided a few minutes more of sleep couldn’t hurt. She smiled as the sound of nature came to her once more.

Then she realized she wasn’t in a comfy bed on the third story of a city apartment.

Ryan’s eyes rapidly opened, her mind turning the pleasant imagery into warnings of wrongness. Laying on her back, she got a view of the blue, tidy sky, only interrupted by shades of green that the blue only could occasionally shoot through. She pushed herself up, her dark, blonde hair falling in front her face, and went into a sitting position to get an all-around view of her surroundings.

To her relief, she wasn’t in some random patch of nature in Whereverland, but instead an orchard of some kind, judging from the neat and orderly rows of trees going in all directions, including the one she had apparently been napping under. The woman also noted every single one of the trees contained nothing but apples. Some ways down the rows she could see a different kind of apple that wasn’t the one in the trees next to her, based on the coloration, being grown. I’m on a farm, she concluded. It was easily the second weirdest place she’d ever awakened at with no memory. At least this time it didn’t come with a splitting headache that no amount of pain reliever could cure.

Ryan wasn’t one to sit around thinking, however. She intended to find just where the heck she was and hopefully be on her way within the hour. Assuming, of course, it was close by. She couldn’t have gotten that far away in one night, right? Although, she didn’t know of any local farms near her bustling city. Nonetheless, she scanned her surroundings, taking in a panoramic view of the pasture by turning her head from left to right. To her dismay, the plantation was either expansive or the owners simply lived far away from her current position. There wasn’t anything to break the repetition of trees except for the occasional boulder that decided to roll in one day.

Ryan had a backup, though. She reached into her pants pocket, smiling at seeing her phone was there along with (score!) her headphones and some other knick-knacks like her key ring and some spare change; all the things she always kept with her. Her happiness at the discovery, sadly, was short lived as she pushed the power button to find a distinct lack of signal. Figures there wouldn’t be one in the middle of nowhere. Well, back to square one.

Ryan picked a random direction, walking off in search of civilization. She pulled the earbuds out of her pocket, and after fumbling with an illogically tangled knot, found herself enjoying the fast paced beats of both rock and techno, often at the same time, that so contrasted the serene nature around her. Despite the mystery of where she was, she inexplicably found herself feeling relaxed.

It was in a minute or two that her stomach decided to remind her that she had not had breakfast. She felt it more than heard it, but had the same reaction either way. The woman looked at the apple-carrying trees that now looked like so much more than pleasant scenery. The thought that the owners relied on these for a profit crossed her mind but she argued back that just one couldn’t make that big a difference. She reached up to a low branch and plucked one off. Besides, she thought, who would find out all the way out here?

She didn’t bother admiring the prize; she took an experimental bite. And it was delicious. She widened her eyes in surprise at the splendid taste. It beat anything a store could put out by a landslide. Eagerly, she took a larger, greedy bite, emitting a loud and audible crunch.

An entire orchard away, an orange-coated ear perked. The owner took a moment to register the distant sound, then narrowed their eyes.

Ryan continued her walk through the endless maze of apple trees, her head slightly bobbing to the beat, and having finished the delectable fruit. If she had any sense of time, it was telling her that she’d been walking for a good ten minutes without any progress in her goal. She could’ve been where she started for all she knew. Moping about wouldn’t change anything, though, so she simply pushed onwards.

In the meantime, she tried to remember how on Earth she’d gotten here. When she’d said she had no memory, she meant that as plainly as possible. She didn’t have amnesia or anything like that. She could remember everything from the night before as perfectly as her memory would allow. It was another boring night of her usual routine, she recalled, complete with even going to bed in her home. Another thought crossed her mind. Had she slept through whatever had gotten her here? Maybe she was the one who had brought herself here! She’d never been a sleepwalker before, though, and this didn’t seem anywhere close to where her home was if the abundant nature said anything.

A sudden scare came to her. What if she’d been asleep for over a day? That would explain how she had gotten so far. Pulling out her phone once more, she checked the date. To her relief, it was where it should be, the day after yesterday. It was comforting but didn’t help her in her predicament that much. Maybe I’m just going crazy, she thought jokingly, It’s as good a guess as any.

Before she could come up with any more self-depreciating theories, however, a loud shout came off from her left some distance away (That’s all it was; there weren’t any words to it, it seemed). Ryan turned, startled but relieved. That meant someone had found her! With a little luck, they’d be able to give her a straight answer that neither she nor the nature had been able to. She pulled out her earbuds and identified the spot it had come from, a hill, expecting a person to be walking over it into view. Someone did do so in a moment, but it most definitely was not a person.

It was a horse.

Ryan froze, her long-held fear taking advantage of the perfect opportunity to hold center stage. She held back the urge to back away slowly as she forced herself to look at it; to keep track of its movements. By some strange fate, the equine locked its own gaze at Ryan, stopping its movements. Much to her agony, it seemed to simply want to have a staring contest from its perch on higher ground, gazing down at the helpless woman like a cat and a mouse.

The two held each other’s gaze, Ryan ever-so-warily and the horse unreadable. Ryan observed, as one tends to when watching something, that it was shorter than normal (A pony? She wasn’t an expert in this kind of thing), but easily came up to Ryan’s height, and was sporting an unusually vibrant orange coat. Atop its slightly over sized head, complete with eyes to match, appeared to be, of all things, a hat. I guess I am going crazy, Ryan thought, her tone forced into seriousness in contrast to her earlier demeanor.

Neither seemed willing to break the stalemate, that is, until the orange-coated one took a cautious yet confident-looking step forward with one of its front hooves. Ryan took a matching step back, but this only seemed only to encourage the animal. It took more steps, its hooves hitting the ground hard in a steady trot that brought it closer to Ryan, where she maintained her own backwards pace. This was exactly what Ryan was trying to avoid! The horse was continually getting closer with its larger gait and the woman could feel her own hammering heart beat climbing in synch with each step. At least it wasn’t charging her, her mind tried to console in rationality.

Spoke too soon.

The horse broke into gallop, closing the distance much faster. A squeal flew past Ryan’s lips as she swiveled around and bolted, her own legs pacing the ground faster than she thought they could. Her mind flew into a panic, all pretense of staying calm forgotten as the very thing she feared came rushing at her. Even with adrenaline pumping through her, she knew she couldn’t out run it. It’s a horse! It was built for speed! She turned her head to get an idea of where it was but shrieked as she saw it was mere seconds from catching up to her. What could she do?! There was nowhere to go; no time to hide. There were only small hills and trees for acres. The only thing she had was herself and the useless things in her pockets. A lot of help those would do.

Wait… the not-actually-useless things in her pockets! Phone still in hand and had been the whole time, she took one brief glance backwards, trying to suppress the turmoil the sight of the charging animal brought to her, and threw the device backwards. A strangely human-like cry of pain and the sound of a large mass impacting the ground told her she’d aimed perfectly.

A weak cry of happiness came out as she sprinted away. She knew that her distraction would only buy her time if the horse didn’t want to give up the chase, so she needed a plan. Ryan quickly glanced through the scenery around her, one particular large tree gaining her attention. Seemed like the best place to hide, if not the only.

She would hide and wait it out, even if it took all day, the somewhat-irrational instinct of survival commanded.