I felt awful. My head was spinning, my whole body was numb, my eyes throbbed with excruciating pain, my ears rang louder than I have ever heard before. My mind was also processing over million things. I could not bare it. I couldn't think. I tried calming down and at least, try to open my eyes. My eyes opened slowly and all I felt the entire time was a searing, burning pain in both my eyes. It felt like years before my eyes were fully open and I was actually able to process any of my surroundings without it seeming like a Michael Bay film or J.J Abrams film.

I looked straight ahead. A canopy. Dark leaves and twisted branches. But there was a noticeable gap in the canopy, in which moonlight flooded the surrounding clearing that I was currently laying in. Speaking of being led down, where was I? I tried to sit up, but my body felt it was not able to contort in such a way. I raised my arms into my vision and I could not have been any more horrified. My hands were gone. No fingers, no wrists, no palms. Just black stubs that ended where my palms should begin.

It was a feeling I have never experienced before. My heart started to race as I felt myself slowly panicking. I used my eyes to observe what was at the edge of my peripheral view and that frightened me more so. It was a gray body, with shorter legs, more distinct knees, which were even shorter and I had no feet. If I did have feet, there was near to no characteristics about normal looking feet. No toes or anything. It looked like my ankles were my feet. My heart was in my mouth, I couldn't focus on anything. My breathing became erratic and short, my eyes shot around my surroundings, not focusing, but glancing.

I had to stand up. I used what stumps of hands I had left to push myself off the floor so I was now facing the ground. I was now led on my stomach and I used my arms to position myself so I was able to try balancing on my legs, as I clearly had no feet. It was difficult, but I got the hang of it. I didn't need much balance on my legs, as my arms gave me most of the balance I needed. But I was on all fours, I needed to stand up. Although, it felt oddly comfortable to be on all fours. Standing didn't really feel natural. I looked above me without moving my neck and my hair was very odd. It was a flicked-fringe type of haircut, which was red, with a natural white highlight straight through the middle. I turned around to see the rest of me. It was with a chilling realisation, I recognised what I was. I was a pony.

A goddamn pony. Four legs, the mane and even the tail, which I checked to see if I had. I felt a little more at ease, with a slight idea of where I was. I looked around the clearing in the horrible forest, and I saw three other ponies, led on the floor in a comatose state. One had a brown body, a blue mane with black highlights, and a blue tail, with black highlights. I gathered he must be a Pegasus as he had feathered wings. Another pony had wings, but he was a dark orange, with a bright yellow mane and tail. The last was a unicorn, with a sky blue body, dark blue mane and tail that also had deep red highlights all the way through. I walked over to see if they were okay, and I listened to their breathing and watched their chests to see if they were still alive. Thankfully, they were.

"Mario? Damon? Ollie? Is that you guys?" I asked the group, as I was hopeful for some sort of response.

I waited around for a few more moments, and the brown and blue pony started to move in the slightest of ways.

"You okay!? Who are you? What's your name?" I shouted as I walked over to him to ensure he woke up calmly.

"It's Damon... Mate, what happened..? Did we get drunk again?" He mumbled in a sleep-like state.

"Not particularly. When you open your eyes, you promise not to freak out, okay?" I told him, but there was a shaky tone in my voice, which I'm sure made Damon slightly unnerved.

"What, why? What's wrong? What happened?" He muttered.

He slowly opened his eyes, which were bloodshot and black, which scared me slightly.

"Agh fuck! It burns!" He screamed, immediately closing his eyes and using his arm to shield his face.

I was panicking as well, as Damon could be blind for all I knew. I tried to reassure him as I thought of something to calm him down. I looked over to see a mildly large leaf that was resting on some fauna that could help Damon shield his eyes. I tried running over towards the leaf, only to completely lose balance and collapse. Running was not working for me at the moment, as I now had to master the technique of using four legs instead of two. So I stuck to what I knew and walked toward the leaf. I looked at the leaf, and then down at my hooves. I wasn't grabbing that, I had no fingers. I decided to use my mouth to grab it and drag it towards Damon. I pulled it over his head and he stopped his panicking and thrashing, and finally started to calm down.

"What's happened? Help me mate!" Damon quivered from under the large leaf on his face.

"You may or may not be glad about what has happened to us." I warned him, as he remained to lay there.

"We... Have become ponies." I blurted to him, expecting a freak out of a reaction.

His movement calmed right down, as he also had sudden realisation towards why he had no hands, fingers or toes.

"Wait, you mean ponies from...?" He uttered in complete surprise. Before he was able to finish his sentence, I said yes, as I knew what he was going to say.

"Holy shit.... That is amazing! But why do my eyes fucking burn?" Damon certainly sounded excited to be a pony, a Pegasus as well. But why he is nearly blind, confused me also.

"I don't know mate. But my eyes were burning too. But I can now see fine." I assured him, but I knew that my eyes were okay by this time he had been awake.

"Can you squint, look at the floor and keep the leaf over your head? I need to get you on your feet- I mean hooves."

I could no longer see his eyes, but with my help, he was able to stand up and balance the leaf on his head to avoid future burns. With Damon on his feet and feeling slightly better, I turned my attention to the sky blue pony, who was staggering to his feet. I walked to him and supported him in standing as well. By the time I had already reached him, he knew that we were not longer classed as humans.

"You okay man? You able to stand? What's your name?" I asked, stabilising his balance.

"Yeah, I'm good buddy. It's Ollie, dude! Can you believe this though? We are ponies! Do you reckon we are in the same universe?" He questioned me, which sent a shiver down my spine. That feeling still felt the same. I asked myself that as well. Will we see the others that are in the show? Does Ponyville exist? And where were we in this universe?

"It is pretty mad, isn't it? Cannot figure out for the life of me, where we are though." I replied, unsure what to reply with, as I didn't want to unnerve any of the lads.

"Hey Ollie, can you help me in waking Ryan? He is still unconscious. Well, I think it's Ryan." I asked.

We both walked over to the dark orange pony, who was still led face down, on the surprisingly soft grass.

"Ryan? You alright mate? You all there?" I asked him, not knowing if I would get a response.

He suddenly took a massive intake of air, screamed to his lungs capacity, and thrashed away from me and Ollie in a crawling fashion. My heart was again, in my mouth. I needed to stop him panicking.

"Ryan, it's us! Cally, Ollie and Damon! Calm down dude! It's okay!" I told him, trying to reassure him to the best of my abilities.

He was looking all around his surroundings, his breathing was short and very erratic, and he was shaking uncontrollably.

"What the fuck!? Where are we!? What's going on!?" Ryan screamed at me and Ollie in his state of panic.

"We'll explain everything, you just need to calm down! Stop the shouting and freaking out." I said to him, making my tone of voice softer as I tried to calm him.

He took some breaths, sat up straight and slumbered.

"We are ponies from the talking horses universe. You remember watching talking horses?" I asked him, making sure I didn't trigger another panic attack.

"You mean ponies from My Little Pony? Like, the Mane Six and all the rest of it?" He replied, more confused than scared.

"I believe so, at least I think so. Come on, on your hooves so we can get out of here and figure out where we are." I told him.

We all walked towards Damon, who was still struggling to open his eyes to a capacity to where he could actually see properly.

"How are your eyes mate? You able to see yet?" I asked him, wondering if he will ever be okay.

"Still burning. It feels like I am constantly staring at the sun. And I am guessing it is in the middle of the night?" He replied, because he shared the same fears as I did.

"Yeah, it is. Can you see enough to follow us?" I asked back, as I didn't like spending time in this ominously creepy forest.

"I suppose so. You lead the way then dude." He answered, focusing on the searing pain.

We walked in a pack, and made our way into the only path leading out of the clearing. The canopy instantly became thicker and visibility from the moonlight dropped dramatically. Damon was able to see a slight amount more, but still not a lot. We kept walking in one direction, but it looked the same every way we went. It was until after we walked in what seemed like a straight line for ages, that things became even darker. The surrounding noises were more intense. The growling grew louder. We were looking all around us, starting to panic as we needed a way out of here. Four shadowy figures started to fade into vision in front of us, and I instantly became very afraid. I stopped, and everyone else followed suit.

"I hope that isn't what I think it is..." I muttered, trying to keep my cool.

The four shadows finally took shape. Four legged beasts. Made of sticks, trees and off cuts. Timber Wolves.

"Fuck. Back away... Slowly." I whispered to the rest of us, knowing we were in immediate danger.

But the wolves were gaining on us. We needed another idea.

"Anyone here know how to run?" I whimpered, as my cool was quickly fading.

"Fuck it, we'll learn... RUUUN!" Ryan screamed as we turned around and tried our best to run in the opposite direction.

My footwork was very sketchy, I was all over the place, constantly missing steps and injuring my hooves, but as I was pumped with adrenaline, I didn't feel any of it. I was running, that was all that mattered. The guys were right ahead of me, with Damon leading the pack, despite having no idea where he was going or even what he could see. We ran, and ran. Our very lives depended on it. I looked ahead of Damon to see a opening between two very narrow rocks that we could possibly fit though. It was our only hope, as those wolves would continue to hunt us down until dawn. And we couldn't run forever.

"There! That clearing! Go there!" I shouted to Damon, hoping that he saw what we did and would run between it.

Using blind luck, he ran right through the rock formation, nearly hitting his head. But he made it unscathed. The rest of the lads ran through, also escaping the wolves. By now, I could practically feel the hot breath on the back of my hind legs as I ran with all my might towards the gap. I leaped as far as I could towards the gap and landed just short, but due to my momentum, I slid right into the mud near the formation and right through the gap. Due to the wolves being too big and going too fast to slow down, all four wolves collided with the rocks, and shattered into pieces. All four of us collapsed to catch our breaths. We nearly died. But we were no longer in the forest. We were in a large green field. We looked all around us, and in the far distance, we saw a bustling town with lights, music as some sort of civilisation. We decided to make our way there, as we didn't really have a choice.

As we neared closer, we started to hear other voices, very loud music and fireworks going off periodically.

I looked in the distance and there was a large stage, supported by crudely constructed speakers and framework.

"Hey lads look, a freaking dance festival!" I joked, but I loved the look of how it was going.

The music playing was remarkably similar to modern electronic dance music. It was rather bizarre, but something that I enjoyed. We passed a few houses behind the festival so that we could pass through the town without drawing too much attention.

"Guys, we need to find some sort of inn or some place to stay, get Damon's eyes checked out, then we need to find work." I said aloud, to which we all unanimously agreed upon.

Walking away from the festival, we found a run-down house that had a sign with "space available" in the window. We decided to try our luck. But before we entered, I stopped and had a small talk with the lads.

"Now guys, try and act as natural as we can. We can't afford to fuck this up." I said to the group, to which I was met with nods and hums of agreement. Apart from Damon, who just wanted to rest.

"Hello there, me and my fellow friends have run into a spot of bother and we do not have a lodge for the night. Would we be able to have one room for us to all share and we can repay you back in the morning?" I politely asked the book keeper at the front desk.

"Since you are a kind fellow, I'll let you have room 42, here is your keys. Be awake for the rooster?" She replied, with a kind smile.

"Sure thing, see you then. By the way, you don't happen to have some sort of bedside nurse or anything of the sort, do you?" I just had to ask, because Damon's condition was worrying me. He had his eyes closed ever since we arrived in this town.

"If you get yourselves settled, I'll be up in a while and I'll see what's wrong with you." She replied, smiling more than before.

I thanked her for her kind generosity and we all headed upstairs to the 42nd room, making sure Damon didn't fall or bump into anything on the way. Once in the room, I locked the door, dimmed the lights and got Damon seated on the only bed in this small room. It wasn't posh, but it had warmth and it was safe.

"Guys, since we are now in this universe, we need different aliases for when we bump into other ponies. Try and think of something that resembles our past selves." I said to everybody.

"Well, I was building, maintaining and repairing guns... So how about Smoking Barrel for me?" Damon said aloud.

"Sounds good mate. Well, I was a electrician when I was human, so I'll go with... Circuit Boost." I announced, to which everyone acknowledged.

"Aw, that is cute. I was in the Yu-Gi-Oh World Championships before this, so I'll name myself after my favourite card; Star Eater. Speaking on which, I'll miss the fucking final now." Ollie said.

"That's a little close to mine. Space always fascinated me, and I was extremely inspired by the Apollo missions, so I'll be Story Armstrong." Mario said last.

"That is that then! Circuit Boost, Smoking Barrel, Star Eater and Story Armstrong!" I said as I pointed at everybody in the room.

"That's another thing, do not mention this to anybody else! If anybody finds out about where we came from, we'll be outsiders. Just say we have passed through and this looked like a nice town. If they ask us where we are from, just say you have travelled all over, never really finding a good place. Good enough?" I said to everybody, in a quieter tone of voice.

Everyone agreed. Who knew what would happen if anybody found out about where we were from originally. Just as we finished that conversation, we heard the sound of trotting coming up the old, rickety wooden staircase that lead to our room. There was a polite tap on the door.

"Is everypony okay in there? Do I have permission to come in?" A sweet voice said from behind the old door.

"Yeah, we are all good in here, let me let you in." Ryan said as he walked over to the door and unlocked it with a slightly bent hoof.

The door opened and the book keeper from a few moments ago entered with a small first aid bag suspended in mid air, surrounded by a green aura that was sparkly and was a pleasant view to the eye. "It must be her Unicorn magic holding that there." I thought to myself. It glided through the air flawlessly, until she rested it onto the bed on which Damon was laying on.

"So, what seems to be the problem, dearie?" She politely asked Damon as he shifted uncomfortably.

"Basically, I cannot see." Damon muttered, very bluntly.

"May I look?" She asked, hesitantly.

Damon gave a disapproving sigh as he edged towards the edge of the bed. She opened his eyes, much to the wincing from Damon, took his temperature, shone a light into his eyes and did a reflex test.

"I know what's wrong with your friend." She said, in a monotone.

"What's wrong with him? Can anything be done?" Ollie asked, hastily.

"He has mild glaucoma. His pupils are very photosensitive and may require UV protection on his eyes so he can retain vision." She told us.

"Sorry to be rude, but what does that mean?" I questioned.

"He will need to wear sunglasses. Hold on, I may have a spare pair downstairs." She said before we walked out and went back down the old stairs.

"Aww mate, you are gonna need sunglasses! How do you feel about that?" Me and Ollie joked.

"Not too bad, don't like people looking right into my eyes anyway." Damon said as he reclosed his eyes and rolled over.

"Sorry mate, was that a touchy subject?" I asked him.

"Not really, just grouchy, that's all." Damon grumbled back.

I looked at the other lads and shrugged. The book keeper came back upstairs with some cheaply made, hardly black but acceptable sunglasses for Damon to wear.

"Here you are, mister...?" She asked, awaiting Damon to say his name.

"Dam- uh, Smoking Barrel, but call me Barrel." Damon smiled, as he placed the sunglasses on his head.

He instantly perked up after getting those sunglasses on his head. We all thanked the book keeper for her generosity, we turned the light out and we arranged where we were going to sleep. Two of us hit the hay on the floor and the other two shared the bed. It was awkward trying to get comfortable on the rickety floor, but I finally found a spot, closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep.

Next Chapter: Wolves in Sheeps Clothing Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 16 Minutes