A gentle nuzzling breaks my peaceful slumber. In response, I groan and roll onto my other side. Somewhere else in the house, the dogs are having a fit. The morning sun is pouring into my closed eyes, causing me to drape an arm over my face. I mumble something along the lines of “Friggin’ cats... Gerroff my bed.”

“Oh, um, excuse me...” croons a soft voice into my ear. “Um... Why are you sleeping on a roof?”

Removing the arm from my face, I ease open my eyes. Fluttering in the air just above me is a familiar butter-yellow pegasus pony with a soft pink mane. I recognize Fluttershy almost immediately, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why she’s in my bedroom—or why I have a clear view of the sky from my room in the first place.

“Huh? Fluttershy?” I whisper dumbly, staring at her.

“Oh, you know my name?” A look of concern crosses her face. “Twilight wasn’t lying, you really do have her memories.”

“Yeah, her memories...” I reply with an awkward titter. As my mind clears, and the last two days become fresh in my mind, I realize that I’m outside on the roof of the shed beside the pool. “Wait, if Fluttershy is here, where is Twilight? This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Oh, Twilight is just below us, in the shed. Her doorway spell split a metal wagon in half, and she wanted to fix it before we go.” I looked at her blankly. “Oh, but don’t you worry. We’ll get you all fixed up and home, I’m sure.”

This is it then. Twilight is already here to take me to Equestria, where she can hopefully find a way to stop this brain rewrite. Alternatively, this is the last vestige of normalcy crumbling away from my life. Either way, I’m about to go where fans can only hope to go. Part of me wants to be excited, but the part of me that remembers the Lyra that was inside my head just feels guilt.

“So, um...”

A bright flash of light blinds me, and then Twilight Sparkle is standing over me with a pleased look on her face. “There, all fixed. Sorry about the wagon,” she says, her cheek flushed red. “The gateway spell was intended to create a doorway between two places in the same realm, not two separate realities. I guess my calculations were a tiny bit off for interdimensional travel. Your realm, as it turns out, is perpendicular to our own, so instead of opening up in front of that wagon, the gate bisected it. Don’t worry though. I fixed it up as good as new.”

Looking up at her, I have no doubt that I look completely and utterly confused by her monologue. I understand the gist of it, from a perfectly science-fiction standpoint, but I’m trying to piece together what the hell she’s talking about. Metal wagon? Oh yeah... The trailer for the lawn tractor.

“Soren? Are you alright?” she asks, after I don’t respond for a few moments.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I was just trying to figure out what metal wagon you were talking about.” I smile sheepishly. “It’s all good though.”

They’re both giving me this wary, appraising look, as if they’re not completely convinced that I’m telling the truth. After an awkward minute of their staring, I realize it’s not because I’m being awkward, but because I’m still on my back on the roof of the shed. An embarrassed noise escapes my throat as I quickly scramble off of the blanket and onto my hooves.

I look at them nervously before asking, “So... What now?”

“Ideally, we go through the gateway back to Equestria, have you get a check-up at Ponyville General Hospital,” she counts off, not missing a beat. “Then, I’d like to interview you and perform a few magical scans. If I can’t help you, though, we have no choice but to take you to the university hospital in Canterlot.”

“That simple, eh?” I reply flatly. “You mind if I grab some things before I go?”

A concerned look crosses the unicorn’s face as I limp across the roof and make for the ladder. I’d wonder why my leg is suddenly sore after not bothering me all that much yesterday, but then again I just slept on a roof. “Things? I thought you’d be in a rush to get to Equestria so that we can get this all sorted out.”

“Twilight, please!” Fluttershy interjects softly. “She, er, he probably just wants to take some things with him to remind him of home.”

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” Twilight admits. “Being surrounded by familiar objects and smells has been shown to help amnesiac ponies, and he is suffering a memory based condition, so familiar objects might help to ground your personality and resist an overwrite.”

What? I was just going to grab my messenger bag, my favorite polar-fleece blanket—yes, a grown man can have favorite bedding materials; go eat a dick—to keep warm, and my digital camera along with some batteries and its USB cable in case I get access to Lyra's laptop. Sure, I might not get to actually upload anything, but it’s worth having an album proving—at least to myself—that I was there in the meantime.

“Alright, then. I’ll be right back then.” Wrapping my makeshift bed in a telekinetic field, I step out onto the ladder. It’s only when I have all four hooves on the top rung of the ladder that I have no fucking idea what I’m doing, and quickly tilt backwards out of panic, spilling me into the pool, the ladder atop me.

Before I have much opportunity to freak out, however, the fallen ladder lifts off of me, and I find myself surfacing. Just as quickly, I’m pulled by a pair of hooves out of the water and back onto the pool deck. Coughing out what little water entered my lungs, I glance up gratefully at Twilight and Fluttershy, who’ve both joined me on the pool deck. Like the complete spaz that I am, I grin sheepishly. “That’s a perfect example of how not to use a ladder... Thanks for the save.”

“Oh it was no problem at all!” Fluttershy replies sweetly. “We know you’re not used to having hooves.”

“Why were you up there in the first place?” Twilight queries. “It’s hardly the ideal spot to be, given your lack of motor control in quadrupedal locomotion.”

I look down at my sopping wet self, and realize that I can’t just go straight into the house. “I wanted to sleep under the stars at least once, here in my own realm.” With a sigh, I levitate the blanket from the spot it landed on the pool deck. With a deftness granted by Lyra’s memories, I’m dry in moments. “There’s no guarantee that I’ll get that opportunity again.”

Without giving them the opportunity to respond, I trot off the pool deck, up onto the patio, and enter the house. Snubbing my mother as she drinks her morning coffee, I make my way for the stairs. Immediately, I grab my messenger bag off of the banister and scramble up the stairs. There’s nothing to stop me from getting into my room, not even the hissing ball of fur that is Julianos.

After stepping into my bedroom, I carefully open the messenger bag, dragging the zipper open with my teeth while it levitates. There isn’t much in it: some hair-nets from a previous job, a packet of resumes, a pocket first-aid kit, an empty notebook, and a mechanical pencil. In other words, the usual fare. What more do you need when you make the odd trip into town and walk back?

I won’t need the resumes or the hair nets, so those can go. The notebook and pencil could be useful, so I’ll keep those. Levitating my digital camera off of the dresser, I drop it gently into the bag, along with a quad-pack of batteries and its USB cable. On a whim, I also snatch my cap off of the headboard of my bed. Sure, an olive green patrol cap with faded sergeant’s chevrons above the bill isn’t fancy, but if anything reminds me of home, it’s gonna be that. Loosening the band to it’s furthest allows me to sit it comfortably and snugly on my large head.

The blanket is probably the most difficult bit of packing. In order to make it fit in the messenger bag, I can’t just ball the thing up. With a focusing breath, I telekinetically pluck two adjacent corners of the brown fleece cloth up off of the floor and hoist it up until the bottom edge of it is no longer touching the floor. As I grab the bottom two corners and begin lifting them to meet their brothers, I bite into my lip to stave off concentration loss from an oncoming headache. The strain eases when each paired corner meets up, but as I pinch it again, sweat beads up on my brow. Finally folded the way I need, I gently lower it to the floor so that I can roll it manually.

As the blanket touches down, I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding in. Unicorns do these kinds of things on a regular basis? Wow... Clearly I was not warned about the mental discipline required for the use of magic. Still, that’s pretty good for the guy who blew up his telephone handset just two days ago. I’ll allow myself a mental pat on the back for that.

Once the blanket is rolled and stowed away in the bag, I zip it back up and let the Velcro seal the flap. Amazingly, I’m able to adjust the strap so that there is no extra slack on it, but I quickly realize that it’ll still not hang properly off of me. It’ll just get in my way. Still, I’ll take it with me. I’m sure I can figure something out.

Just as I’m about to open the door once more, and say goodbye to my room for what might be forever, I notice my smaller, crimson fleece blanket hanging half off of my bed. Remembering how I’d often drape it around me like a cloak in wintertime or particularly cool days, I decide to take that with me as well. It might not be fashionable, and I might just be accused of imitating the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but I’m me, and fuck all of them.

Idly, I levitate the fleece blanket over my back, draping the long side over either shoulder. Gripping the corners telekinetically, I pull them forward in front of me. There, it is only a matter of tying them into a small, firm knot, twisting the slack into a figure-eight, and pulling the knot over the top of my head, resting it behind my neck. One cloak good to go, and I can even pull it up into a hood if I need to. Human ingenuity, fuck yeah!

Slinging the pack onto my back, I open up the door and depart my bedroom. I don’t look back once. I make it down the stairs with only minimal stumbling, and trot towards the kitchen and the patio beyond. As my hooves lead me into the kitchen, however, I’m brought to a halt by my parents. They’re both standing in front of the patio door, staring at me.

“I guess this is it then,” my father comments gruffly. “Stay safe, son.”

“I will, Dad.” My response is hoarse, bereft of any emotion.

To my surprise, my mother crouches down, wrapping her arms around me in a great big hug. “Remember, Soren. We’ll always love you,” she whispers softly, pulling away to look me in the eyes. “I really hope you can get back to normal.”

I look away, weakly, her words last night still fresh in my mind. “I love you to, Mom.”

Allowing me to pass, they open the patio door. I trot out and down the steps, joining Twilight and Fluttershy at the gate to the pool deck. There’s a giddy excitement building, clashing with my own sorrow. On one hoof there’s this thought inside my head screaming, “I’m going home!” On the other, there’s the conflicting thought urging “I’m leaving home behind.”

Shaking my head, I look from Fluttershy to Twilight and back again. “Alright ladies, after you.”

Twilight nods and begins silently walking around to the shed’s door, Fluttershy hot on her tail. I bring up the rear, never looking back. Even as we reach the shed door, I can feel the magic in the air. The air is almost completely charged with magic, making my fur stand on end. As Twilight pulls the shed door back open, I’m awestruck by what I see.

Floating maybe an inch or two off of the ground is the ‘gateway’ Twilight mentioned, and it’s nothing at all like I expected. It is comprised of a tall wrought iron frame, inlaid with indecipherable inscriptions, and two hinged doors. The doors are a solid black material—carbon fiber would be my first guess—etched with glowing symbols and pictographs that I can’t comprehend, yet something deep inside me knows the symbols relate to the infinite nature of the universe.

With a flourish of Twilight’s horn, the gateway opens, spilling forth a blinding white light. “Step through, and we’ll be on our way to Equestria!” she says proudly. “You’re looking at the first transdimensional subspace highway in Equestrian history.”

“Highway? As in, not instantaneous?” It’s all I can think, really.

“Don’t worry, Twilight assured me that it’s completely safe,” Fluttershy replies reassuringly. “I wouldn’t have come if it hadn’t been completely safe.”

To be honest, I’m still not completely sure why Fluttershy is even here. The human world can be a pretty scary place. Didn’t Lyra tell them anything that she found on the Internet? “About that, Fluttershy... I’m confused, why did you come? Surely your menagerie needs you, doesn’t it?”

Fluttershy gives me this look that I can only compare to a ‘you just killed my puppy’ look, and shrinks away. “Oh... um... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bother... It’s just...”

Oh fuck me. If she starts crying, I’m just going ram some rebar through my head and get this over with. That’s not the kind of guilt I can live with. “I’m not angry Fluttershy; I’m just wondering why you came is all.”

A relieved look replaces the ‘you killed my puppy’ look, and she smiles softly. “Twilight thought that if you were hurt and confused, I would be best equipped to help, and I agree. What Lyra did to you was kind of mean, and as her... well, friend, it’s the least I can do to make it up to you.”

Wait, what? So, because Lyra fucked up, you have to help fix her mess? Is this some of that freaky ‘It takes a village' bullshit, or is it just an excuse? Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t wanna know. “So...” I say, turning back to Twilight, admittedly quicker than I intended to. “This ‘subspace highway’: what is it? Oh, and do the short version please.”

Twilight looks only the slightest bit dejected. “Certainly. A subspace highway is a pocket reality that links two points in space-time, allowing for fast travel. Until somepony enters, it is unknown how it appears, only that it takes on attributes of the mind of the first one inside.” There’s this look in her eyes that says she knows what I’m thinking. “They’re usually naturally occurring, but such examples are largely undocumented. Only a few have ever been found by ponykind, and they aren’t available to the general public.This one, is an artificial one, and unlike the natural ones, they do not remain very long. In addition, the spell required to create and maintain one is incredibly difficult and draining on the caster. I probably won’t be able to cast it again for at least a week.”

“So... in other words, Pinkie Pie is the only pony to have access to a large number of undocumented subspace highways?” I say half-jokingly.

Twilight looks at Fluttershy, and then back to me, almost horrified. “I never thought about it that way, but in retrospect, that makes too much sense.”

“Um, Twilight, didn’t you say before we left that it would only remain open for half an hour?” Fluttershy politely asks. “I really do think we should go now.”

“You’re right, of course,” Twilight says, nodding. “Let’s go, Soren.”

Just like that, she wraps me up in her magical energies, and tosses me into the gateway. Suddenly recalling that she said that the subspace highway takes on the attributes of the mind of the first one in, I am very afraid. It isn’t just because I’m kind of perverse and who knows what they’ll end up seeing, but because of the state of my mind. The fear and guilt could turn it into a scary place.

As the bright white light of the gateway envelops me, I have just enough time to scream my last words on Earth. “Shit!”

Author's Notes:

Re-edited 11 July 2017