Let me ask you a question. If you knew when you were going to die, what would you do?

Would you try to live your final days to the fullest?

Would you search for a way to prevent your demise?

Or would you just hide away and cry, sealing yourself off from the world and wallowing in your own self pity?

Hello there, my name is Neo Rayleigh, but you can just call me Symbol, it's the name I choose to go by now. I don't know why I chose that name, but I felt that since I was starting a new life in a new world, I should start from scratch, starting with my name.

Yeah, I wasn't the happiest person on earth although that's not to say that I wasn't happy, I was, but I'm not gonna bore you with the details of my life, that's not what you're here for. No, you're here to hear a story, my story. The story of my quest to save my sister and stop the countdown to my death.

Now, the whole countdown thing didn't happen immediately, it was awhile before that actually happened.

I'm not going to explain how I got to Equestria in the first place, because firstly it's a waste of time and secondly I don't remember anything from the day I was taken from Earth. Now, normally when a guy ends up in Equestria he is either called or chooses to be called Anonymous, but as you can tell I wasn't going to go down that route.

Luna was the one to find me, laying unconscious in the Whitetail Woods while patrolling the land in search of someone experiencing a nightmare. Turns out, that someone was me. Now, I don't know exactly what made her take me back to Canterlot, but I wasn't about to question it, she saved me from freezing out there and fought off my nightmares.

When I finally woke up, I was more confused than freaked out when I had found out that I was in a world of magical talking ponies. To be honest, once I had been taken to see the new world around me, I actually found it beautiful, and since the ponies here had sentience and acted like humans there was no reason for me to act differently around them.

I've been staying around the castle, trying to get settled in with the help of the princesses, who had become good friends of mine in time. Not many ponies seem to consider the part of Celestia and Luna that acted like normal mares. From Celestia's playful and joking side to Luna's love of video games and interest in other cultures, which we spent a good few hours talking about. I'd tell her of some of earths cultures and in turn she'd tell me of the traditions of way back before the thousand years of peace.

Things were quiet, and that's something I'm grateful for. I've never really like busy places with lots of noise. I'm fine in places like shopping malls or schools, but that's because I'm usually around people I know, but if I'm alone in a busy street or other public places, even rooms filled with people I find myself shutting away and trying everything I could to get out of the situation. Damn sensory issues.

But, I'm getting sidetracked. It wasn't long before Celestia had invited her former pupil Twilight Sparkle and her friends to meet me, including a mare called Starlight Glimmer. After Celestia had managed to stop Twilight from poking and prodding at me in curiosity, we got introduced and talked over lunch where they told me of their adventures over the past year. I was suprised to hear that a seemingly peaceful world like this could have such demons and monsters, but I guess every world has to have its flaws, just like people and learn to grow through those flaws and become something better, with every monster or demon defeated the world gets that much brighter and another step is taken towards peace.

Do I miss my life on Earth? Of course I do, I've spent fourteen years on that planet, it's my home...well...was my home. The princesses and I quickly found out there was no way to send me back without knowing how I even got there, I don't even remember what had happened beforehand anyway.

I had taken time to get to know the mares in the group, I told Rarity what little I knew about human fashion, I talked with the shy Pegasus Fluttershy who warmed up to me as she figured out that my body was similar to an ape or monkey but didn't treat me as such, she was just more interested in my species in general as well as their relationship with animals...I made sure to keep away from the whole topic of eating meat and made sure to hide my canines while talking to her which was no easy task. Then I talked with Applejack, who I quickly took a liking to for her down to earth personality, reminding me of myself a bit. Next was Pinkie Pie, who had immediately tried to throw me a welcome to Equestria party, I wasn't going to turn down her kindness and asked to keep it to just the ponies I knew, which she agreed to.

At the party, I came across Rainbow Dash. She seemed to have a tomboyish feel to her, was alright to be around despite being slightly egotistical, but I saw the passion in her eyes as she explained her dream of becoming a Wonderbolt. Then there was Twilight, she seemed to be the most curios out of the group of mares, asking me question after question about humans and earth, most I could answer but there were things I couldn't explain. Not for the lack of trying mind you, but there's only so much a fourteen year old can describe about the world. Granted I had taken an interest in the worlds politics and conflicts, be it with governments or equal rights movements which just seemed silly to me, not the concept but the actions of those involved.

I bring this up because from what I had learned so far everyone in Equestria was treated as equals...well, everywhere except Canterlot it seemed. I didn't care much for the nobles other than three that acted nothing like the others. They were Prince Blueblood, Fancy Pants and Fleur De Lis. Rarity and company seemed to have bad blood with Blueblood though, I don't know why though, he seems like a decent enough guy. After the party he had explained to me that when he goes to social events he puts on a metaphorical mask and acts like the rest of the higher class ponies for Celestia and Luna, keeping up public appearances while they were busy. He didn't however explain why Rarity was so against him.

Most of my time I'm either wondering the castle looking for something to do or reading in the Canterlot Library, I had taken a liking to some of the romance novels they had. Sometimes I would sleep through the day to have energy for the night to spend some one on one time with Luna, either to play video games or explore the dream realm, which was an interesting experience to say the least.

I have yet to meet six other people that my friends want me to meet, Princess Mi Armore Cadenza who everyone calls Cadence but I still call Mi Amore, it just sounds better to me, if I kept saying Cadence when I met her I would be calling her Candy or something. The next two were her husband and child, Shining Armour and Flurry Heart. There were a number of jokes I could have made on the irony of Shining's name and what had happened so far in Equestria, but I decided against it. Flurry Heart interested me though from what I was told about her, maybe I should go up to the Crystal Empire to see her sometime.

Then there was Discord, the Spirit of Chaos. I wondered why they would want me to meet someone with a name that literally meant disharmony, but when I had questioned Celestia about it she had informed me that Fluttershy had reformed Discord, although there still were cases where it was hard to tell if he actually was on the ponies side or not. I figured out that a being like him would probably just do things for his own enjoyment, figured I'd stay away from him for as long as I could, at least until I had a better understanding of magic.

Starlight Glimmer was one, she had stayed in Ponyville while the group had come up to see me for some reason. I figured she was either busy or shy, so I just left it alone. I had learned from Applejack about Starlights equality scheme and learned of her motives through Twilight. While I felt that her reasons for robbing someone of their individuality weren't justified, I remembered that even if it wasn't a big deal from my standpoint, Starlight was the one that felt hurt and betrayed, so I didn't hold anything against her.

Lastly there was Spike the Dragon. From the unicorns to sprits of chaos, learning that there were dragons here wasn't all that surprising. From everyone I had been told about, I noticed that the majority were female. I figured it was just the friend group but quickly learned that the population of Equestria was mostly female, it's lucky a feminist wasn't brought here with me, who knows how they would react.

I had found a private spot for myself where I could think freely without interruption, a cliff that looked over the country located above Canterlot. I had found the route to the hidden area when I was exploring the Canterlot Gardens, behind a cluster of bushes a cave led upwards. Letting my curiosity get the best of me I began to explore the cave, coming out above the city on a small open area. I'd go there now and again to watch the sunset and think about my life and whatever else came to mind.

Mostly, I just think of my life on Earth. I was an orphan, the only person that I had left was my sister, who had gone missing two years before I arrived here. There was no sign of her, no clues, no information or leads, the search by the authorities didn't last long before it was shut down.

Sometimes, Celestia and Luna would sit beside me while they set the sun and raised the moon. In time, I accepted that my life was here, an accepted Celestia and Luna as my new family. Celestia was a mother figure while Luna was like a sister.

All in all, I had it pretty good. Good food, good company and a good mind-set.

I just wish it could have stayed that way.

Author's Notes:

To celebrate my one year anniversary on Fimfiction, I'm rebooting my first story with a new storyline and characters. Please feel free to point out any mistakes, it will help me greatly.

If you want, you can see the original Second Universe here. Word of warning, it's not the best in terms of quality as it was the story that I started when I just arrived on this website. I've improved since then and I want to show it with this.