Thud. Thud.

The door was solid steel, and streaked with dried blood. Deep dents peppered its lower half, each the same semi-circle the size of a pony's hoof. It clung to its hinges, immobile, a stubborn barrier designed to withstand the worst a human could throw at it. Light spilled out from under the warped frame, the single source of illumination for the tiny prison cell.

Thud. Thud.

The cell itself was a typical design and could have been built anywhere in the world. A concrete cube, with a single bed, sheets not included; a steel toilet with no accessible parts; and a sink with special rounded tap. There was no window, there was just a single, broken, light and a lone door that lead to the outside world. Before the bloodied door a pony stood.

Thud. Thud.

He was a strange specimen. Far too small to be a real horse, the stallion had a deep blue coat. Muscles rippled down his flank as he lashed out with both hooves, slamming into the door with a powerful buck. Thud. Blood stained the ground beneath his hind legs, trickling down from the cracks in his hooves yet he showed no signs of pain.

Thud.

His name was Michael, or maybe that was just a stolen memory. He certainly didn't remember being born as a miniature horse, and it wasn't like turning into a pony was a normal thing to happen to a human. People didn't get their pony license on their sixteenth birthday. They weren't allowed to change on their twenty-first. It was ludicrous. Insane. Laughable.

Michael was still a pony, though.

It was funny how little common sense affected reality.

Thud. Thud.

The cell was far more familiar than his new form. Michael didn't have a problem with drinking, he was quite good at it. The consequences of drinking tended to bite him in the arse, though. Still, sometimes it was easier to deal with a crappy week by obliterating a Friday night than trying to solve problems at the office. He knew his limits. He wasn't hurting anyone. He wasn't like his dad, who had a home and a kid to screw up. So what if Michael ended up in the drunk tank on occasion? That was his right. It never hurt anyone.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Blood continued to seep from his hooves as he bucked the door. He didn't even have to think about the motion any more. He'd come a long way from his first, hesitant, stumbling steps. His hooves blurred as he lashed out at door, the impact echoing through the tiny room. There was no sign of the panicked human in the wrong shape any more. Just grim equine determination.

Thud.

Michael had thought he'd crossed a limit when he'd first woken with hooves. He'd never touched anything illegal before, that wasn't his poison, and it wasn't like he had the money to have those kinds of habits. The comforting thought it was just an acid trip hadn't lasted long, though. Acid wore off after a few hours and it had been days. Or maybe a week, it was hard to tell. The only time the light had changed was when he'd broken the lamp.

Thud. Thud.

He'd been near inconsolable that first hour. Screaming, kicking, raging at the door which kept him trapped in the tiny cell. The fire had burned its way out pretty quickly. It's hard to rage against silence, and Michael had never been a dedicated man. Screams had turned to tears, tears to pleas. Eventually, there had only been silence and his own ragged breathing.

Thud. Thud.

There are few times in a man's life when he is truly alone. So Michael waited. There must have been some agency to his predicament. There must have been. It wasn't logical for a thirty something male to turn into a pony for no reason. It was an experiment, or a hallucination, or some strange dream, but help would come. Be it coma, or catastrophe, someone always came to help.

Thud.

His conditions weren't awful, after all. He had a bed, and a toilet, and drinking water once he'd figured out how to grip the awful smoothed tap with his lips. The room stayed warm, and dry and the light kept burning. Michael could endure such conditions, until help came.

Thud. Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Help never came, of course. There had been no scowling jailers, no friendly doctors. There had been not a sound through the solid steel of the door, no matter how hard Michael had strained for even a whisper. He would have killed to hear the familiar tread of boots on concrete, rather than the alien clop of his hooves.

There had been no food either. He didn't know just what a pony ate, but he doubted it was water alone. It was strange what hunger did to a mind after a while. Little things began to grate. The fact the whitewashed walls had not taken their coat evenly. The slight lump in the mattress. The way his tail would scratch against the plastic coating. The infernal buzz of the halogen bulb that built to a crescendo until the pony was screaming in rage at the incandescent tormentor.

Thud.

He'd smashed the bulb in the end. It was in an insane thing to do, pungling him into the twilight gloom that had been his only companion since. For his own sake, at least light kept leaking in through the cracks in the door, or else he feared the madness would have kept its grip on him. Not that the berserk fury that gripped him truly left. It warped upon seeing the shards of glass twinkling in the half light. Michael had scooped one of the larger shards up on his hoof and stared for a long while at the cutting edge.

It would have been easy. It would have been logical. It would have been sweet, and spiteful end. When they came back for him, for they had to eventually, they would find nothing but a useless corpse. Perhaps it was a petty vengeance, a paltry revenge for costing him his form, his life and his hope. It would have been his choice, though. One final act before he went the way of his father.

THUD!

Michael's hooves smashed into the door. He stood there, panting, his sides heaving as he stared at a spot of blood on the far wall. His hooves were agony. An empty pit had opened in his stomach and it was clawing at his insides. His mouth was dry and his vision swam. Part of him still wished he had the glass. It would have been swift at least, rather than dying by inches, but Michael figured he would have botched it. He'd botched everything else.

Thud. Thud.

Maybe he had done it. Michael was in enough pain to believe he was in purgatory. His dad being right about that would have been too much irony to stomach, though, so he soldiered on. Life was all about survival in the end. Whether his form was a fever dream or some twisted machination of an alien mind, he refused to lie down and die.

The glass shards had vanished down the toilet. It had been the wrong choice, but the one he was stuck with. Ironically, the water had stopped just a little while later.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

The dents became deeper and deeper with each strike. A little more light crept through. Freedom came a millimetre closer.

Thud. Thud.

Michael had not really considered what was going on beyond his four walls. He'd clung to the belief that someone was out there. Someone was coming to help, or at least bring a change to the monotony of his imprisonment. The water failing had been the final straw, however. Water didn't fail. Power flickered, servers dropped and cars failed to start, but the water always kept flowing. It had been a slow realisation, but one long overdue. There was no one coming to save him. He had to save himself.

Thud. Thud.

And so he did. Just stood there and started kicking. Something would fail eventually, be it steel or flesh. Michael intended it to be steel.

Thud. Thud.

There was no other option really. Rescue wasn't coming. The water was gone. Even the scraps in the toilet bowl.

Thud. Thud.

Survival boiled down to kicking a door.

Thud. Thud.

Michael would succeed at that.

Thud. Thud.

Or die trying.

Thud. Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Crack.