At last, after what felt like hours of staring at nothing but darkness, your senses slowly began to return to you. The smell of nature filled your lungs, despite not fully knowing what exactly nature smells like. You could feel warmth on your body, making you realise you were outside as the sun beats down on you. Nearby, it sounds like a river is flowing, and it’s almost relaxing.

As you finally awaken, you realise that you’re in a forest. How the hell did you get into a forest?

You painfully recall the last few moments before you awoke here. The alleyway, the stabbing, and lastly the falling. You could have sworn you heard your bones breaking upon impact with the floor, yet you could feel yourself stretch out perfectly fine. You decide to roll over onto your back, yet all you can feel is unimaginable pain radiate through your entire body. It looks like the fall did some damage after all.

“Am I dead?” You ask yourself. Surely not, dead people can’t feel pain.

You stretch what you assumed to be your arms out in front in you, but something was very wrong. They weren’t a distorted mess of broken bones like you thought, but they weren’t exactly fine either. Before you, you’re arms had been transformed into two grey cylindrical limbs that did not have any form of hands at the end. They were just smooth.

“What the hell?” You say out loud.

Surely you didn’t lose both your hands in the fall. Especially this painlessly. Speaking of which, how did you even get that high up to begin with?

Despite the throbbing pain in your back, you attempt to raise yourself from the slightly sharp grass you were laying on. Similarly to your ‘arms’, you couldn’t feel any feet on your legs either. Using all your energy, you attempt to balance yourself on your hind legs, but to no avail.

Almost instantly, you fall back and another wave of unimaginable pain shoots through you, with a strange crunching sound. Sitting up, you stare at you legs and arms. Something about them seems incredibly familiar. With new courage, you decide to try getting up again, but, as embarrassing as it may be, decide to stick with all fours. Surprisingly, it feels strangely comfortable, almost as if it was what you were intended to do this whole time.

Suddenly, the feeling of thirst hits you. The dryness in your throat quickly makes itself apparent, and you rush over to the nearby river you had heard. You instinctively reach your forelegs into the rushing water and attempt to bowl the water, but quickly remember you were now lacking hands, so instead dip your head into the water. The river’s water quickly soothes your dry throat, and you slowly raise you mouth from the gushing stream.

Staring into the water’s reflective surface, you see something that you realise may explain the changes to your arms and legs. Your face now matched that of a pony from ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic‘. Your eyes were large and yellow, yet your coat was a contrasting grey colour. Your mane seemed almost similar to that of Rainbow Dash’s, yet a lot shorter and was a bright yellow, contrasting your grey coat.

And then you saw your cutie mark. It was simply a cloud, with a large yellow bolt of lightning emerging from it. Once again, pretty similar to Rainbow Dash. Slightly unoriginal, but you didn’t mind it. Unsurprisingly, you had no idea what it meant, but you were sure you’d find out at some point. Then, you saw the cause of the crippling pain you had been experiencing.

Cringing with slight pain, you see a pair of grey wings at your sides, folded unnaturally and unsymmetrically. That must have also been the cause of the horrific crunching sound you had heard. It was the sound of your wings folding and breaking against their will. You figured your now inactive wings were the reason you had fell from so far, but you had no idea how to fly so how did...

Then it dawned on you...

“How did I get here?” You ask yourself in a panic. There was no way to explain it other than that you died and went to the afterlife, but this all felt too surreal to be the afterlife. You reach a foreleg round to your broken wings and tap them lightly, and sure enough, you cringe with pain.

This was very real. And you had no idea how to process it.

This whole time, the show you had been adorned with was actually real, existing in an alternate reality. This whole time the characters you had been so engrossed with have been genuinely living their lives, with their own free wills. It was almost to much for you to handle. You could feel yourself about to pass out under the pressure, but before you could black out for a third time in the day, the sound of footsteps suddenly puts you on alert.

The soft steps sound like they are slowly approaching, as the occasional branch snaps beneath their feet. Whatever or whoever it is, you didn’t want a confrontation, especially as you had no idea what the hell was going on right now. You could not wrap your head around the fact that you were a pony.

Making a split second decision, you decide to hide in a large bush that shrouded the base of a nearby tree. Looking out from between the leaves, you eventually saw the cause of the footsteps. Emerging from between the trees stood Twilight Sparkle, confirming your belief that you were indeed inside of Equestria.

“Hello?” Twilight shouts, loudly. She seems to be looking for someone, or somepony. “I saw you crash down! Are you ok?” She questions, still shouting. Finally, you decide to emerge from your bush and greet the princess.

“Princess-“ you say timidly, unsure of how to greet one of the princesses of Equestria.

A look of shock overcomes Twilight’s face as she stares at your crippled wings. “O-oh... you’re wings...” she states, a look of grimace on her face.

You were new to this world, more confused than you had ever been, but you still knew you had to act formally around royalty.
“Sorry if I caused any disturbance, Princess.” you reply, worried amount formalities.

Thankfully, the Alicorn didn’t question your knowledge of her royalty, and instead giggled at your formality.
“Oh, there’s no need for that! Please, call me Twilight,” she says, smiling warmly. “But how exactly did that happen to your wings, if you don’t mind me asking.”

Great. How were you gonna explain something that even you didn’t understand. You had to make up a story, and fast.
“Um... well, I was out flying, and then out of nowhere I crash into a cloud and...” You pause momentarily. “I guess you know the rest.”
That was good, let’s just hope it’s believable enough for her.

“Well, it doesn’t look like you’ll be flying again any time soon,” she informs you, a look of regret on her face. “I don’t supposed you have any way back home?“
Back home. You didn’t even know where home is, let alone a way back to it. You shake your head, looking at the floor wondering how the Alicorn would respond to this.

“Don’t worry, you can stay with me until your wings heal up if you’d like!” The smile returns to her face, as well as a sparkle in her eyes.

“Really?” You ask. You were really blown away by the kindness Twilight was showing you, when anyone back on Earth would’ve just ignored you.

“Sure! As Princess it is my duty to look after other ponies. You can stay with me at the Golden Oak Library until you can get back home.” She states, reassuringly.

Knowing the characters as well as you do, you knew Pinkie Pie was going to throw a party welcoming you, wether you were supposed to be just passing through or not. You weren’t complaining, a party means free food. “Are you sure? I mean, you only just met me...”

That same smile never leaves Twilight’s face. “I’m sure, and in the condition your in without proper help you won’t ever be getting home.”
It felt strange having such kindness showed to you, especially after the events of New York City, which were still painful to recall.

The blade sunk into your chest as you were twisted around to face him. It didn’t hurt, not a single bit. You simply stared at the blade lodged in your chest. The mugger pulled the knife out of your chest, and plunged it back in slightly above the first wound. Again, no pain came. You watched the knife puncture your chest again, and then turned your gaze back up to him.

Snapping out of your traumatic trance, you quickly thank Twilight for her actions.
“Thank you, Twilight, but It really doesn’t feel right without doing something in return...” You politely state as you begin following her through the forest.

“Well, you could start by telling me your name!” Twilight laughs.

“O-oh, right!” You’re name. You had never thought of what your pony name could be. No human name, no matter how bizarre, would ever seem right here. Remembering your mane colour, you think of grey skies and lightning.
“Storm...” That’s a good start. But what next. There were so many words to choose from. Storm Bolt, Storm Surge, Storm Flash.
But eventually you settle with the name Storm Strike.

Was that a strange name? You had no idea, but you thought the alliteration sounds cool and your mane looks like a storm cloud, so you think it fits.

“So, Storm Strike, once we get to the library I’m gonna need to patch up your wings using some unicorn magic to let them heal up as quickly as possible.” It looks like your new name is just fine. “And, just by chance, do you happen to be living near or in Ponyville?”

Twilight turns to face you, waiting for your answer.
“I actually live in Cloudsdale, but you know... Wings...” you lie. Thankfully, even an Alicorn like Twilight didn’t have the magic to detect lies.

“Oh, good! Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to my friends! I’m sure they’ll all love to meet you!” Something about the thought of meeting the rest of the Mane 6 makes you incredibly nervous, but giddy all at the same time.

What would they all think of you? Would they even like you?
Then you realised that you’d have to meet Spike as soon as you got to the library. This wasn’t too much of a worry, since impressing Spike didn’t really concern you.

“What’re they like? Your friends, I mean,” you ask with a look of worry on your face.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get along with them fine,” she says reassuringly. “Some of them might be a bit hard to get to know at first, but I think you’ll like them!”

The two of you continue walking through the forest until finally Ponyville appears on the horizon.
“There it is! Ponyville!” Twilight lifts a foreleg and points at the town in the distance, smiling at you. You instantly recognise the thatched buildings and colourful ambiance, and then you turn you attention to the giant tree in the centre. You knew what it was, but you couldn’t let any of you knowledge of this world slip out.

“What’s that huge tree? It looks cool.” You say, in awe of how magical the tree looked in person. Despite, being very far away from the town still, the structure dwarfed all the surrounding buildings.

“That’s the Golden Oak Library! And that’s also where you’ll be staying with me for the time being.” Twilight states as she begins walking again.
You couldn’t really see any other notable structures from where you stood, but you could see the familiar apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres lining up even further on the horizon. The two of you continue walking towards to the village, and you begin to feel butterflies in your stomach. You had no idea how this was happening, but you were far from complaining.

Your brand new life was about to begin. And you couldn’t wait for it.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 1 is done
I’m gonna try to make each chapter slightly longer than the last until I find a point that seems like a good length. I didn’t want to much dialogue between Storm and Twilight yet as that is gonna be in the next chapter, as well as introducing Spike.