Oliver stepped out from the front door to his residence and pressed his bare feet into the powder snow that blanketed the ground. He ignored the slight pain of the cold and dreamily ambled across the front lawn towards the road. The cool air of the night felt welcoming, and the empty streets were beautiful in the warm light of the street lamps. An intoxicating sense of purpose filled him as he walked further from his residence building.

It was late enough that there was no traffic on the town’s roads, so Oliver drifted off the sidewalks and into the middle of the street. It felt so surreal, like the world was empty save for him. He caught his reflection in the corner of his eye from a darkened shop window, and stopped for a moment to take in the ridiculous sight of himself. A worryingly thin boy in a tee shirt and pajama pants stood shivering in the snow. His gaunt face and sunken eyes made him look like some kind of ghoul, and his pale skin glowed in the moonlight. Oliver trembled as a fluttering of anxiety shot through him, and he pulled himself away from the store window. If he took too long he might not be able to get to the overpass before sunrise.

We have promises to fulfill and people to save.

Normally he tried to ignore or suppress the thoughts of that sort, but tonight he let himself indulge. The words echoed in his mind, blotting out the painful cold that was saturating his feet and propelling him forward.

It’ll be okay. Everyone will be better for this.

For once, the sinking feeling of chills which crept up his gut felt natural, coherent with his surroundings. Everything felt natural for that matter. Even the chattering of his teeth seemed to distract from the malnutrition headaches which he had been suffering from the last couple weeks. At the best of times he found it hard to keep down food, but as the fall semester passed, it had become harder to motivate himself to even eat at all.

It's good that you don’t eat. You are rotten and satanic, so the less of you there is, the less bad there is.

Adrenaline made up for the strength that was quickly leaving him in the cold of the night. As he crossed the mainstreet of the town and picked up his pace into a light jog. He couldn’t feel his feet anymore. He didn’t care. He drew in large breaths as he began to run. His lungs burned from the cold air. Everything burned. The pain kept his mind silent. Without thought, he ran through the town, as if something was chasing him. Only when he reached a highway overpass ten minutes later did he stop. He leaned against the cement railing, and pulled himself up above the highway. He hadn’t chosen to arrive here, his legs had simply carried him exactly where he belonged. Below, the highway was completely empty. But in the distance, a light from a car was gently cresting the hills, growing imperceptibly closer.

Oliver crumpled against the railing. The cold had been creeping up his extremities, and now intruded deep into his chest. His thin clothing was plastered to him, frozen stiff with sweat and slush from the roads.

You can do it, You’ve gotten yourself this far, it’s only one step more.

He thought of his parents, and all their hopes and ambitions for him. He had always known he would fail them. The indignities and embarrassments which constituted their relationship with their son couldn’t be allowed to continue. He had failed them so often, and he could see in their eyes how much it hurt them. The longer he stayed here, the more he would cause them pain. He hoped that their mourning would last a short while. The note he had left behind was mostly apologies and pleas for them to quickly forget.

This felt right.

This felt like the first right thing he had done in a long, long time.

Soon there would be oblivion. He couldn’t wait for the silence, for the nothingness he would soon be granted. The car was now only a hundred meters away or so. Its speed comforted Oliver. With a flash of purpose he pulled himself up and threw himself over the railing. Vertigo and the howling wind ripped away the dreamlike stupor, and time seemed to slow. Now just twenty meters away, the car was enrapturing. Oliver found himself staring into the headlight as he tumbled downward. He wondered what kind of person was driving it. For a moment, he felt proud of himself. Then a moment later he felt dread wash over him.

You fucked it up you fucking idiot.

The car was moving faster than he thought. It passed under him. It was close enough that Oliver felt the wind shearing off it’s roof. The ground rushed up and his body bounced off the road. He didn’t feel anything but the kinetic force of it as shock kept him numb. He turned his head towards the car, almost like he expected it to turn around and run over him properly this time. But the backlights of the car just grew fainter and fainter as it sped away, before eventually disappearing into the night.

Fuck you.

Oliver rolled over onto his back and stared at the inky black sky. The world felt like it was spinning. He pressed his arms and legs against the ground to fight the sensation as best he could, but his arms refused to move away from his chest. He was too cold.

Everything hurt. Most especially his head. His breaths were deafening in the silence of the night, the only thing louder than them was the ringing in his ears. Involuntarily he curled up, pulling his knees to his chest. He laid in the middle of the highway and reeled from the shock.

You couldn’t even fucking kill yourself.

Tears streamed down his face and froze against his cheeks.

You couldn't fucking do it. You fucking useless piece of shit. You fucking piece of shit. You useless piece of shit.

The thoughts chastised him over and over again like a mantra. He couldn’t bother registering them, they simply bled into the background sensation of pain and coldness. He weakly swore at himself, before his throat clogged with tears and the swearing degenerated into guttural croaking. Through tears he looked up in both directions, hoping to see an approaching car that might still run him over. But nothing was in sight.

Something will come

But nothing was in sight.

It will come

No it won’t.

It will come

No it won’t

You’ll see, something will appear in the distance any moment now

Get up

It’ll come

Get up you fucking idiot.

It’ll come

Get up. Nothing will come, and if it does they’ll just swerve out of the way of you.

The thoughts in Oliver’s head grew silent. He resolved himself to lay and wait for another car. But his resolve wavered a moment later as the raw pain of the cold began to come back into focus. His upper body tensed in desperation as he lifted his head again to look around, but there was nothing in sight. He drew in a large breath, before screaming as loud as he could. It was little more than a pathetic whimper. His ribs groaned in pain from the exertion.

You can’t stay here all night, the cold won’t kill you quick enough. Someone will see you and alert an authority. You’ll be made even more of an embarrassment for your parents.

Oliver squeezed his eyelids shut trying to will away the thoughts.

Pull yourself off the road, and crawl back to your fucking dorm room.

He didn’t have the strength to make another attempt. Not tonight, He had spent all of the adrenaline he had. With a redoubled sense of hopelessness, he rose to his knees, before limping off the highway and climbing up the embankment.

Half an hour later Oliver stumbled into the lobby of the residence building. The warm air of the building felt like a sauna after being in the cold for so long. He took in as much of it as he could with deep, greedy breaths. His whole body stung with frostbite, and half of it roared in pain from the pathetic excuse for a suicide attempt. His mind was uncharacteristically lucid and cohesive in that all of it was united in self loathing.

Limping through the hallway to his dorm, he spared a moment of gratitude for the placement of his room on the first floor. The stairs up to the front door had proven difficult enough, he doubted he could make it up a flight to the second floor. With a shaking hand he eventually managed to get his key into the keyhole of his dorm. As he entered the sound of a television struck his ears. His roommate Tyler was sprawled out on the couch, half asleep watching some show. It seemed like Oliver’s entrance had stirred him to wakefulness.

“Oliver, w-what the fuck happened to you. Why are you up so fucking late?”

Tyler rubs some sleep out of his eyes and inspects his roommate over again.

“Where you outside in… in your fucking pajamas?”

Oliver stood for a moment staring at Tyler, before summoning up the energy to speak.

“Yeah. I needed a walk.”

His voice sounds hollow and forced even to him.

He can’t make out the expression that flashes across Tyler’s face before he speaks.

“Everything okay?”

Should I just tell him the truth? That I just threw myself off a fucking highway overpass and missed the fucking car I was aiming for? Do I tell him anything at all? Holy fuck I could really use some fucking Ketomine.

“Do you have any Keller left?” Oliver said after debating himself.

Tyler is thrown off guard for a moment.

“No, actually I need to talk to my guy to get more.”

What the fuck is the point of having a drug dealer as your roommate if he fucking can’t even spare you some fucking god damn…

“Do you have anything else? Anything that will fucking keep me from needing to think about anything?”

Tyler could feel the bad vibes slough off every word. It probably freaked him out a bit because a long moment passed before he spoke.

“Nothing all that similar. I mean I do have- um…”

His voice faltered and his eyes darted around the room, looking for something to focus on other than his roommate. Oliver felt his gut tie into a knot. He lumbered over to his room and quickly retrieved a fist full of bills from his wallet. It was supposed to be for his food for the upcoming week. He passed the lot of cash to Tyler.

“What ever the fuck it is, give it. I don’t care how much you want it for right now.”

Tyler leafed through the bills, not making eye contact with Oliver.

“I mean its pretty fucking strange and like, I don’t even think it counts as a um..”

Jesus fuck do I really have to threaten him?

“Whatever it fucking is, give it or I might let slip-”

Finally Tyler surrendered.

“Okay okay jesus fuck, just don’t say I didn’t fucking tell you. This shit is weird from what I’ve heard, which isn’t much. It’s still pretty new.”

Tyler climbed up off the couch and disappeared into his bedroom. For a moment Oliver zoned out on the ringing in his ears. It hadn’t lessened much since the fall. He probably had a concussion or something. Eventually Tyler reappeared with a prescription bottle in his hands. The pills inside looked like grey sad little things. He rattled the bottle in his hands a moment, thinking something over, before popping open the bottle and retrieving two pills from inside.

“I ain’t giving you any more than this tonight.”

He doesn’t want me to OD myself in the dorm. Fair enough.

Tyler dropped the pills into Oliver’s hand and slunk back to the couch. He then cranked up the volume, seemingly eager to put the interaction with his mess of a roommate out of mind.

“I’m gonna have a shower I think” Oliver mumbles.

Tyler nods while keeping his eyes on the TV.

“That’s a good idea, do that. Just don’t slip and crack your head open.”

Oliver murmurs in acknowledgment before limping into the bathroom. His reflection in the bathroom mirror would have depressed him most other days. Right now he just stared into it, slowly blinking, pleasantly surprised he felt nothing. The pain of the frostbite and heavy bruising was still catching up to him. Although he could sense he would be really sore in an hour or two. Eventually he pulled away from his reflection and inspected the pills in his hand. Inside of the bottle they had looked grey, but in the pale fluorescent light they were a gentle sky blue. He popped both of them in his mouth before running the faucet and drinking from the stream to wash them down.

Whatever the fuck these are they’ll probably do the job

After another moment of staring at his reflection Oliver stripped and walked into the shower. He turned the knob to the sweet spot he had found his first week of university, before sitting down on the floor of the shower and curling up in the fetal position. Even the room temperature water which initially shot out of the showerhead felt blisteringly hot to his frostbitten skin.

Good, I need this to hurt

He pulled his head down to his knees and let himself relax under the shower of water. The burning sensations all over his body were cathartic. He focused on the pain. It cleared his head of any thought spirals. His body trembled as he took deep breaths, finally giving in to the exhaustion and strain of the night. It must be 3 or 4 AM by now.

Thank fucking god Tyler has insomnia or I might have had to go through the rest of the night sober.

He could feel tears melding into the water streams that trailed down his face. It felt good. Ten minutes later and the warm water had stirred most of Oliver’s body back to life. Only his fingers and toes still felt numb. He slowed his breathing, and felt a wave of calmness soothe him.

Finally these fucking pills are kicking in. Thank fuck.

With a deep breath he unfolded his body and sat with his back flat against the wall of the shower. The water coming down on him felt sublimely pleasurable. He closed his eyes to soak in the bliss. Especially on his scalp. Little cascadences of sensation rippled across his scalp. For a moment he mourned the loss of his hair. His parents had forced him to have it buzzed off a few months before university. For some reason he cried afterwards. It hadn’t been touched since then but it was still incredibly short. Back when it was down to his shoulders he always liked the feeling of it plastered to his face by the water. It made him feel comfortable, and sort of protected his face from the spray. Although currently his face had a shit load of dried tears and snot gummed onto it. Oliver raised his head to position his face directly in the shower stream, but an odd sensation came across it.

It felt like he had his bangs back. He probed around his face with a hand and a feeling of pleasant surprise fell over him when his fingers found long locks of hair, exactly how it used to be before it was cut. Oliver opened his eyes, and was met with a confusing sight. There was actual hair in front of his eyes, but it wasn’t his normal shade of dirty blond, it was much darker.

He scooted out of the way of the water to the corner of the shower and inspected the hair between his fingers. He half expected it to disappear under scrutiny, like some hallucination brought about by the pills.

Funny, it even feels real. Wait…

Oliver brought the lock closer to his eye, checking for what he thought he had seen. The hair wasn’t just darker, it was colourful. A deep seafoam. He continued to turn it around in his hand. Strangely enough as he did, the lock seemed to flow downward and lengthen right in front of his eyes.

Those pills must be something really special. Thank god for Tyler.

Another sensation of comfort passed through his mind, this time accompanied by the oddest bout of exhaustion. He slumped over in the shower and for a moment he thought he heard a woman call out to him. He didn’t understand the language she spoke in, but it sounded beautiful. Her voice carried so much singsong in it he thought she was actually singing to him for a moment. Reminded him of lullabies his mother had sung when he was little. His eyes felt so heavy he couldn’t bear to keep them open. They closed only for a moment, before shooting back open. A singular feeling struck him as the exhaustion drained from his body. A feeling that he had just woken up from a dream.

The events of the night suddenly felt distant, irrelevant even. The world seemed so much more in focus than it was a moment before. Oliver took in the mundane view of the shower with a newfound clarity, drinking in all the details of his surroundings like he was a newborn. He reached over to the shampoo bottle in front of him, eager to see it’s bright colouring up close, but stopped as his arm came into his field of vision. The sight of it caused him to pause, but there was no fear. Only fascination.

The skin of his arm was peeling away in tiny flecks, and the flecks were floating up and turning to ash in the air as though they were embers from a fire. Slowly being revealed beneath the skin was a pale blue coat of… fur? It was smooth and seemed to be laid flat against his flesh.

The calming effect of the pills was enough for Oliver to relax and simply enjoy the spectacle which was unfolding before him. It was strangely beautiful in a way. The flecks peeling away from him felt like a warm sort of pins and needles. As it crept up his arm, thoughts of concern briefly flash in the back of his mind.

What’ll happen when it gets to my chest, or my head? What is happening to me?

With a contented smile Oliver dismissed the thoughts. There was nothing bad happening. This was good, whatever it was. These pills were a godsend. The strange hallucination continued down towards his hands and up into his shoulders. He watched in awe as his hands unspooled and floated away into an unfelt breeze, turning to ash and then to nothing in the span of a few seconds. As the last of his fingers twisted away and disintegrated, the form underneath began to be revealed. His coated arms extended up to where his palms used to be, and ended in pleasantly curved hoof sort of.. things. He moved them around and clinked them together. The ends of them were hard, like they actually were some cartoonish version of a horse’s hooves.The feeling of moving them around was like having a hand inside of a perfectly fit glove, albeit one that restricted any movement of one’s fingers.

Elsewhere on his body, the flesh continued to peel away. It had become a feeling of satisfying pleasure. He could feel it spreading across his chest, and up his neck. Oliver closed his eyes again, basking in the moment.

Everything is okay

He pushed himself back under the shower stream and laid down on his side. He was having a hard time sitting up straight, and this felt much more natural. The transformation buzzed across his face, eliciting a small moan of comfort, the warm water beating down on him only adding to the delightful feelings creeping across his body. When he twitched for a moment, a strange pressure on his back came into focus. It had been there for a few minutes now, but only now was he cognizant of it.

Oliver shifted himself and rolled his shoulders, attempting to work out the pressure, but it kept building and building. When he tried to stretch out his whole body, his form felt warped and strangely proportioned. He lifted his head and tried to look around at himself. His neck craned above his body far higher than he expected, and for a moment a wave of vertigo threw him for a loop. Yet the sight in front of him dared to confuse him even more.
Oliver’s pale anorexic body had burned away, leaving behind a pale blue coat of fur soaked against his skin in the shower. Softly muscled quadrupedal limbs lay in front of him, also covered in the coat of fur. In the steamy air, flecks of his old body danced and turned to ash in front of his eyes. The entire scene would be unbelievably surreal if not for the water beating down on his body. It seemed to ground him inside of this obvious hallucination, each droplet making contact with his body reinforcing the physicality of his new flesh.

He stared at his body for a moment more, before a jolt of movement followed an alien spasm near the base of his spine. With an unsure twitch, he tried to make the same muscle group which had just spasmed tense up. His eyes widened as he saw a tail wave up into view over his flank. When he relaxed them, it fell behind him out of view again. Caught up with a giddy curiosity, Oliver waved his tail back and forth a few more times. It was the same colour that his hair had changed to, a deep seafoam.

The colours really suit you.

He smiled as he reflected on that thought. At least until the pressure in his back turned into a sharp pain. He had been so transfixed by his new body that he had forgotten about the discomfort in his back. He twisted his head even more, until he was looking at his backside. About half way down what used to be his shoulders, two extrusions of bone pressed hard against his skin. His breathing caught in his throat as he realized that the pain had grown significantly even in the last few seconds. Whatever it was, they were about to burst out of his back. It felt almost like the final moment before one vomits, the momentum of the physical process overpowering any willpower. Oliver couldn’t stop himself from screaming.

His vision blacked out for a moment from the pain. His neck lost its strength and his head slapped down onto the shower floor. His insides shuddered as he felt his back tear open. Blood flowed down and washed into the drain in front of him, and something limp slid out onto the shower tile behind him. His breathing slowed, and he realized only half of the pressure had been alleviated. Whatever it was, he felt a compulsion to force it out of himself.

Oliver curled his whole body in a painful flex, and tensed every muscle along his back. Again his back split open, this time just a few inches to the left of where it had a moment ago. New nerve endings and musculature tensed themselves, and both of Oliver’s wings spread open. After a painful second, the two limbs folded along his back, instinctually resting along his sides.

Blood continued to flow out of his back, but it felt so relieving. Oliver laid on his side and tried to catch his breath. It took a few minutes, but he eventually sat up with his back legs folded next to him and his forelegs extended. He relished his long hair being soaked by the shower. The hot water was starting to run out for his apartment though, so he clumsily turned the handle off with his forelimbs.

These drugs are really some crazy stuff. It’s like I can’t even feel my fingers when the hallucination is on full tilt.

Experimentally, Oliver brushed his hoof against the shower curtain, expecting there to be some incongruity with the body he was seeing and the one he knew he had in reality. But there didn’t seem to be one.

Fascinating

With a stumble, Oliver tried to stand up on two feet. He was standing for only a second before he had to set his forelegs back onto the shower tile. It seemed like the drugs had also altered his sense of balance.

Maybe the only way to move around while on these things was to stay on all fours?

He laughed as he imagined what Tyler would see if he left the bathroom. He would probably look ridiculous, zonked out of his brain crawling around on his hands and knees insisting he was some kind of animal now. He took a step forward with his back left leg, then another with his front right leg. His body didn’t seem to have the wiring to intuitively walk, so he would just have to brute force it for the time being. With careful hoofsteps he carried himself out of the shower and over to the towel rack on the side of the wall. He hadn’t noticed in the shower but he felt like he was a lot smaller than before. Even much smaller than he would normally be crawling around on all fours. He awkwardly pressed his hoof on the towel, trying to pull it off with his currently numbed and invisible fingers, but it refused to budge. For a moment he stared at the towels thoroughly frustrated, until a twitch began to roll over his back. Before he could realize what he was doing, his body shook most of the water off of him like a wet dog.

He thanked god no one was there to witness the indignity.

Both his hair and newly grown tail were still dripping wet, so he pressed his head into the towel he knew was his. After a moment of rolling his head around, his hair was dry enough not to be dripping all over the apartment. He moved to dry off his tail when he realized that his tail probably didn’t exist. It was obviously some part of the hallucinations, so… was it even possible to dry it? Was the water that had been dripping off it part of the hallucination?

He wagged his tail back and forth.

It felt real enough, and he could even feel water droplets falling out of it onto his back legs. After thinking for a moment he decided he suddenly felt silly debating the existence of his tail and just dried it off on the same towel he pressed his head into. He walked with a slow deliberacy to the bathroom door, when out of the corner of his eye he caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He blinked three times over, and the tiny pony in the mirror did the same.

Oh my goodness that is surreal

I look so…

Oliver shook his head, fruitlessly trying to banish the thoughts which were now stirring within him.

I look so… familiar?

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Oliver looked back over his body, and found that he felt like he was forgetting something very important. His head strained to recall something, but whatever it was eluded him.

I look so...

Oh my god.

Feminine

Oliver stood still for a moment, before slowly turning himself around and pulling his tail to the side. His head easily swiveled on his swan-like neck to look himself squarely from behind. He hadn’t even noticed when this happened.

How did…

It suits you very well.

A scream of surprise shot out of Oliver’s throat followed by manic giggles, both of which sounded nothing like his old voice. He called out to Tyler in disbelief.

“These pills are something else man, what were-”

He stopped as the sound of his voice truly hit him. It was so unbelievably feminine and high pitched. For a moment panic began to bubble up in his stomach, but he reminded himself this was all just part of the hallucinations. Tyler had warned him it was pretty weird, so maybe he should just try to take the changes in stride. Even if he was a female pony right now.

As if to drive in the oddity of the experience, his wings flared out a bit involuntarily.

He was a winged horse pegasus thing. This hallucination really felt like nothing he had ever had before. His mind felt comforted and happy, but other than that he swore everything felt completely real. Maybe even more real than anything had felt in a long long time.

Oliver called out to his roommate again. He could still hear the television playing in the living room so Tyler was probably still half asleep on the couch. He should probably make his way out there to get some more info about how this fucking drug was supposed to work, and how long it was supposed to last. He settled on just pulling his pajama pants up over his rear, as it seemed like it would be more trouble than it was worth to go through the difficulty of shimmying into his tee shirt. The pants hung off his rear incredibly loosely, but he decided it was probably just another facet of the hallucination.

The doorknob proved a resilient foe against his hooves, but finally gave in when he simply bit onto it with his weird horse mouth thing. With an awkward rotation of his head and a firm bite, the door swung out of his way. His walk had grown a little more natural, but it was still stilted and slow. He imagined what he must look like doing this stupid routine. A nearly fully grown man crawling on his hands and knees half dressed. At least Tyler was a bit anti-social so there was little risk of this whole debacle ending up on snapchat or something.

Oliver came up next to the couch, before clumsily climbing on, scrambling a bit at the end to get his back legs onto the cushion. Tyler seemed to have nodded off again in front of some reruns of Seinfeld. Oliver briefly wondered what cable company was broadcasting Seinfeld in 2022.

With one of his hooves, Oliver gently poked at Tyler all curled up on the couch.

“Hey roomie, If you are gonna sleep you should really drag yourself to your bed. You don’t even have any pillows or blankets out here.”

Hearing himself speak was still very strange. Not bad, just fascinating. He gave another poke and Tyler groggily roused from his nap.

“If you are gonna sleep you should try to drag yourself to your bed dude, you don’t even have any pillows or blankets out here.” Oliver repeated himself.

Tyler’s eyes shot open, immediately finding and zeroing in on the thing sitting on the couch next to him. He was speechless as his mouth hung agape. Without even blinking, Tyler reached a hand out toward Oliver. It trembled a bit as it grew closer and closer to him. Oliver found himself scooching himself backwards from Tyler’s hand.

“Y-you okay Tyler? I thought I was the one who was supposed to be on drugs right now.”

Tyler froze up and blinked a few times. One of his eyebrows raised and he tilted his head in genuine confusion.

“Am I dreaming right now?” He asked warily.

Oliver gave a nervous chuckle and tried to answer in as good a humor he could muster.

“Do you normally dream of half naked men?”

Tyler’s confusion gave way to utter befuddlement.

“W-wha?”

Oliver grew worried. Tyler was often really fast on the sort of ribbing they would give each other every now and again. He probably was still waking up. Oliver tried to defuse the tension by explaining the joke.

“Well cause like, you just woke up alongside a half naked-”

“Pony,” Tyler cut in.

Oliver felt the blood drain from his face. If he hadn’t been covered in a thin coat right now he would probably look like he had just seen a ghost. He felt his ears flatten against his head and his tail instinctively curl around himself.

“A talking pony is on my couch. A fucking talking pony is on my couch.”

Tyler’s voice grew more and more excited.

“A fucking talking pony. How did you get here?”

Oliver could feel his heart racing as his roommate stared at him in awe. A moment later and his mind was racing too.

This is just a hallucination, this is all some strange trip. I’m laying in the shower passed out, or in my bed. None of this is real, none of this is real.

“Do you need my help, little pony? Who are you?” Tyler asked with a strange reverence. It sounded like he was going through a bit of a moment himself.

With a shaky voice Oliver answered

“It’s me dude, Oliver.”

Tyler seemed really caught off guard.

“Oliver?”

The little pony shifted uncomfortably.

“It was your fucking drugs that did this dude.”

Tyler’s brow furrowed and he leaned in close, studying the little pony as best he could.

“Holy shit it is you. What the fuck happened, this… this is from the drugs?”

Oliver couldn’t help but jump to his hooves suddenly filled with anger.

“What do you mean ‘this is from the drugs!?’ THEY WERE YOUR DRUGS, HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW THEY FUCKING TRANSMUTE PEOPLE INTO LITTLE PONIES?”

Tyler stumbled back from the screaming little pony.

“I- I don’t try everything I sell -My guy just said it made you calm and small and diminutive and horse like- I- I thought it was poetic language.”

“POETIC LANGUAGE? My dude, I have HOOOVES.”

Oliver looked down at himself, the nature of his transformation really setting in.

“Oh my god I have a tail, I have wings. I have a fucking horse puss.”

Tyler did a double take before getting up and walking over to his room. A moment later he returned with the familiar bottle of horse pills. He began listing off a bunch of technical sounding medical information before raising his voice as he reached the important bit.

“M4re only lasts 4-6 hours depending on the dosages used. See? We just have to wait this out and you’ll be back to normal okay?”

Oliver collapsed on the couch with a sigh of relief. For a minute he had been worried the transformation was permanent.

It would have been nice in its own way

The intrusive thought made Oliver deeply uncomfortable. He mentally berated himself for letting such a thing cross his mind even in passing. Tyler must have picked up on his discomfort cause he broke the silence after a few seconds.

“So, is that mane of yours like, soft?”

Oliver twisted around so he was facing Tyler again.

“Um, I don’t know. It feels sort of light and bouncy I guess.”

“Come over here, let me check it out. My mom was a hairdresser and I used to help her out from time to time. Your mane is some kind of triumph, what with the colour and the shape. It's almost unreal.”

Oliver felt a bit strange having his roommate poke around his hair, but he guessed he didn’t mind. Not like he really had anything else to do at like five in the morning. He stumbled a bit as his hooves sank into the couch cushions, but he eventually made it over next to Tyler in one piece. He laid down in a bit of a loaf, before focussing on the television as Tyler began to examine his “mane” as he had called it. The gentle tugging on his scalp actually felt really nice.

“So the colour just came in along with the hair? You were almost bald before.”

“Yeah it changed while I was in the shower. I only noticed when it got long enough to get in my face.”

“I know like seven women who would kill to have hair like this.”

Oliver couldn’t help but laugh.

“Just tell them they need to take some of your sick horse drugs and turn into a cartoonish little pony.”

“I think saying that sort of thing would draw out a different sort of girl altogether. The incredibly rare and dangerous, horse-girl junkie.”

“You know it sounds like you’ve just discovered a lucrative market segment, you might make a killing off this m4re yet, or whatever it was called.”

Both of them chortled from their banter. This was nice. It was weird but Oliver hadn’t realized how nice it was just talking with Tyler. They hadn’t really just relaxed like this before. Weird that it took him transforming into a pony for it to happen.

“Do you mind if I check out your scalp? There is a slight gradient in your hair and I wanna get a better look.”

“Sure sure, just be careful and stuff.”

Tyler’s fingers gently brushed half of Oliver’s mane to the side, before they descended on his scalp. The feeling of it was sublimely nice, pleasurable even. Oliver couldn’t help but fidget a little.

“I think...I think my head is a lot more sensitive than it was before.”

Tyler raised a curious eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, give it a little bit of a scratch okaaaaaa-”

As Tyler gently dragged his fingers over Oliver’s scalp his voice slurred and he failed to finish his sentence. He fell silent and simply drank in the sensation. His body pushed his head up and against Tyler’s hands.

Oh god this feels so amazing, more please more god please more.

Oliver snapped out of the daze only when Tyler pulled his hand away laughing to himself.

“Why did you stop? W-what's so funny?” Oliver’s voice held a desperation which betrayed himself.

Tyler snickered a bit

“You were acting like a touch hungry cat dude, I seriously thought you were about to start purr-ing.”

You loved it you little whore, you might as well present yourself to him and ask to be serviced like the mare you are. Maybe you can ask him to tug on your tail and slap your ass next.

Oliver jolted in disgust at himself, and turned away from Tyler so as to hide his face, now blushing as red as a tomato. He cleared his throat and summoned up what composure he could.

“It um, it just really did feel great. I think this pony drug thing wires you a bit differently. I’m getting some um… some weirdness.”

Tyler leaned back on the couch and drew his arms behind his head, stretching out his back.

“So, are you feeling any better from earlier in the night?”

What even happened earlier tonight?

Oliver searched his memories for clarification on what Tyler meant, but he couldn’t draw on anything before taking his shower. Had he been studying?

“What do you mean earlier in the night?” He asked earnestly.

“Like, whatever was going on when you fucking stumbled in frost bit to hell and wearing nothing but your pajamas. Whatever that was about, do you feel better now?”

Oh god, the cold. The overpass. Did that actually happen? It all felt like a half forgotten dream at this point.

As the details of the night finally struck Oliver, he realized he hadn’t thought about any of the usual dark shit which had been clouding his mind the last few weeks. Everything felt so distant and unimportant. It was like that whole affair had been nothing but a bad dream, and now he was awake. He laid his head down in front of him, answering Tyler with a low voice of contentment.

“Yeah, I feel alot better. I can barely even remember what I was so beat up about.”

Tyler nodded and absent mindedly gave his attention back to the Television. Oliver let out a little yawn and nestled himself into the couch cushion. The indistinct conversation and laugh tracks of Seinfeld faded into the background, and Oliver felt sleep come upon him. He didn’t resist.