Lying on your back, staring at the sky above, is something you only do when the internet connection in your house stops working, yet the last thing you remember is kicking ass and taking names on that first-person shooter you enjoy so much.

But here you are, gazing up at a beautiful blue sky with nary a cloud in it; jumping out of your seat and screaming with joy may be a valid method of celebrating a victory, but it may have led to some minor brain trauma this time around.

You get to your feet, dust yourself off, and take a look around. There are some buildings in the distance, so you decide to go over and see if you can figure out where on Earth you are. It's a warm day, the birds are singing and the delightful aroma of flowers and freshly cut grass is being carried on the wind.

It's a hell of a lot better than the smell of whatever it was that your neighbour had for their dinner last night, that's for sure.

It doesn't take long for you to cover the distance to the buildings, which appear to make up a town of some kind. But, as you get closer, a feeling of dread makes its presence known when you realise that you can't see any people.

What you can see, however, are a lot of multi-coloured ponies; some of them have wings, some of them have horns, but all of them are talking away to each other without a care in the world.

Naturally, all of the activity in the town grinds to a halt as soon as the ponies catch sight of you. Many of them back away a little as you continue walking, but many more seem intrigued; a few of them even reach out to try and touch you as you pass, almost as if they want to check that they're not imagining things.

"Hey, you!" a voice calls out. "Stop right there!"

You stop and turn to the source of the voice to find a group of six ponies walking towards you, the rest of them standing aside to let them pass. The pony at the front of the group has wings and a horn, which tells you that she must be important... either that, or she's the pony equivalent of a genetic experiment gone wrong.

It is this pony who addresses you. "Hello there!" she says eagerly. "My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am the Princess of Friendship. This is Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie; we just wanted to welcome you to Ponyville."

"Uh, hi." you wave meekly. "My name is Anonymous, Anon for short, and I have no idea what in the world is going on right now."

Twilight nods sympathetically. "That's perfectly understandable," she replies. "You are clearly not meant to be here, so why don't you come with us? We'll go back to my castle, get something to eat, and you can tell us what you can remember; maybe together we'll figure out a way to get you back home?"

"Yeah, okay," you say. "To tell you the truth, though, I probably just need to go to bed and rest for a while; I was up most of the night playing games, and I think I hit my head while celebrating a win."

"Oh, my!" Rarity says dramatically. "In that case, we should get you to the castle immediately; hurting your head can lead to all sorts of problems. Twilight, darling, do you have any spare rooms?"

"Of course I do, Rarity," Twilight says. "I've got about thirty-five spare rooms." Her friends raise their eyebrows and she blushes, rubbing one foreleg against the other. "What? I had some spare time, so I counted all the rooms in the castle."

You rub your temples. "Can we just go?" you grumble. "I want to get into a bed as soon as humanly possible; I've got a thumping headache, and want to end this dream already."

Twilight nods in response and leads the way through the streets to her castle, which looks like something out of a child's playset. You follow her inside, marvelling at the size of the place, and straight to one of the spare rooms. As soon as your eyes fall upon the bed, your legs go into overdrive; you rush across the room, almost knocking over Fluttershy in the process, and throw yourself onto it. You kick your shoes off and enter full-on burrito mode, wrapping yourself in the covers as though your life depended on it.

"Um, okay?" Rainbow Dash says. "I guess he's going to go to sleep; come on, everypony, let's leave him to it."

"I'll go and prepare my notebooks." Twilight is beaming from ear to ear. "All the testing and experiments I'll be doing, I can't wait!"

"And I have a welcome party to prepare!" Pinkie says with a flourish, before disappearing in what looks like a cloud of confetti.

"I'd better get back ta the farm," Applejack says. "But I'll be round in the mornin' to see how yer tests are goin', Twilight."

Fluttershy doesn't say anything; she just smiles at you in your fortress of comfort and leaves with the others. As the last one leaves, the door closes with a gentle click and you slowly begin to drift off to sleep, promising yourself that you will never stay up past three in the morning ever again.

Next Chapter: Day Two - Twilight Sparkle Estimated time remaining: 14 Minutes