As I watched the curtains get pulled over Tyler, a wave of shock washed over me as we just witnessed our pilot’s heart fail. I’ve seen things die before. Things like animals and such. But I’ve never witnessed an actual human death before. And up close, for that matter. Trying to hide the look of shock was a bit of a challenge for me but I believe no one noticed it on me.

The doctor stuck his head out from behind the curtain. “Nurse, we’re going to need this room cleared! Get everypony who can walk outside into the hallway, NOW!”

Before I knew it, almost everyone was pushed out into the hallway. The doors slammed behind me and we all heard muffled shouts and rushing hoofsteps coming from the room, but as soon as it started, it died down.

The doctor poked his head out of the room and said, “I’m sorry for moving you all out here like this, but for now we need as much space as we can to make sure we can keep your... ‘friend’ alive. The nurse will direct you all to the lobby.”

Right then, a nurse came from the same room and lead us all into the lobby, where we sat in silence. A sense of dread and awkwardness filled the air as no one made a sound. That, and the smell of fecal matter coming from that peppermint-colored pony we all kept at a distance.

We all sat by ourselves, excluding the girl (or should I use the term mare now?) and the creepy guy with a razor blade for a cutie mark. It seemed strange, though. I never saw anybody like that get on the plane.

I took to my own spot in the room and looked around at everybody, just staring at nothing and wondering what was going to happen. I took a look over to this one certain person (or should I use pony now, this is getting really confusing) and he looked like he had a lot on his mind.

It was that same pony that was crushing me during the crash landing. He was just sitting there smiling and giggling, and I was thinking that he had already lost it. So out of curiosity, I picked myself up and trotted (Yes, I’m using pony terms now) over to where he was sitting. Even when I was right in front of him, he didn’t seem to notice me, which wasn’t really news to me at all.

“You okay, little dude?” I asked him. He still didn’t seem to notice me. I asked a bit louder and nudged him in the shoulder, and he stopped talking and looked up, surprised, and still not noticing me somehow.

“What? Huh? Who?” He stopped when his eyes landed on me. “Oh, Quad! Sorry, what were you saying?”

I was confused for a moment when he called me Quad, but then I remembered that it was the name I’ve given myself.

“I asked if you’re okay. You seem to be acting like... well, me on one of my walks.” I said, chuckling. It’s a habit for me to do that, but I don’t really want to break it anytime soon.

He looked into my eyes with his sparkly globes of magnificent innocence, smiling like no other. “Oh my Celestia, I am doing just fabulous! Thank you, friend! Say, now that we’re ponies, care to join me for lunch and, perhaps, the beginning of an excellent friendship?”

“Uh, I think that friendship already started when you lunged for me at the crash site.” This kid was weird, but I’ve been used to it for so long, it doesn’t bother me. “So what exactly do you think of the situation at hand?” I ask, sitting down next to him.

“By Luna, I love it! Everything is so fantastically, spectacularly, beautifully ponified! Ah! I can’t take the ponies!” he said, apparently feigning a heart attack and falling over. Or maybe he actually had a heart attack, but soon he swiftly shot up, a grin smeared all over his pallet of a face. “I love it,” BP concluded, whispering.

Seeing this reaction from him, I could safely say he was one of those die-hard fans of the show.

“That’s great and all, but I was actually talking about the situation right now with one of us dying.” I felt a bit awkward making that statement while he still felt happy.

“Oh, right, that! Yeah, that’s cool too, I guess!” he waved a hoof, either not really paying attention or he really meant it. I hoped it was the former, or else things could get complicated between  him and everypony else who was on this flight.

I picked myself up. “I’ll see you later, uhmm...” He must’ve noticed that I didn’t know his name, because he interrupted me saying “Oh, my name is Brony Pony, but I would love it if you called me BP!”

I chuckled sheepishly and rubbed my hoof on the back of my head and nearly falling over since I still wasn’t used to this body. I regained my composure and replied “Thank you BP. I’m Quad Ruple, in case you didn’t know.”

“Oh, I know your name already!” He said cheerfully. “Remember? I said it earlier!”

Oh fuck, he’s right, I thought to myself. I suck at remembering names. I said my goodbye once more, along with an apology, and went off.

There wasn’t really much room I could go to, at least not leaving the lobby that is. The only thing I could do was interact with the others (please note, I’m not very sociable) sitting around me and many of them were sleeping, except for those two ponies I saw earlier and the one covered in shit.

As I was thinking, a voice called out to me, “Hey you. Peckerwood.” I look over to see the fecal pony calling out to me. “Can you come over here for a minute?” He asks.

“Well, um... Sean, is it?”

` Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard Sean say his new name in front of the princess.

“It’s Static X Charge, now.” he said, as though just coming up with it. I guess not all of our names came so suddenly.

“Well, Static...I would rather stay over here if you wouldn’t mind.” I reply.

“Come on. You get used to the smell and we don’t want to wake the others” He made a point, so I took a deep breath and trotted over to where he was sitting. I sat down next to him and took a breath. I almost gagged when the smell hit my snout. It was not something anypony could get used to and it never would be. I felt sorry for this stallion.

“So... What did you need to see me about?” I asked, trying not to vomit against the smell.

He looked over at me and nudged his head over to BP. “Did you know that guy from before?”

“You mean from before the crash?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Not really.” The question made me curious to ask. “Why? Do you?”

The fecal pony smiled, “Talked to him every day, pretty cool dude.”

“Did he ever seem oblivious or something during your talks?” I ask, hoping for a yes.

The fecal pony nodded, “But I think its better for him to be like that, so many things in this world that are cruel and uncaring. I’m glad he’s like that.”

A sense of relief spreads across my mind. “So... How exactly are you taking all this?”

The fecal pony sighed, “Not well...trying to decide if this or real or not, dealing with the realization that I’ll never be able to listen to heavy metal again...knowing that I’ve lost my friends and family, still trying to find one of the bronies in our group, I know he’s around here.”

Listening to this made me feel bad for us all. I couldn’t say that we all had good lives back then I could guess that most of us did. I tried to cheer him up with a little optimism. “Come on, man. We don’t exactly know that. This is Equestria! The land of magical talking ponies! I’m sure that if we managed to find a way in, we can find a way back out.”

The fecal pony sighed, “Who said I wanted to go back? I don't mind living here, just scared of what I’d do to the innocence in this perfect...perfect world.”

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Let’s just worry about more current matters at the moment.”

“Like what? The almost dead prick back there? Why should I care about him?”

“Because he...” Nothing was coming to mind. After everything that happened, he gave no good reason as to why we should care about whether he lived or not. Nopony here looked like they wanted to go back, so him flying us back was out of the question. And really if he did die, it would make things easier for us to live a new life in here if we all ignored our connection to him. Would save us a lot of questions.

But it wasn’t really his fault that it happened. He had a spasm and nopony died. We’ve all had a rough day and we need a break. Him more than us. I didn’t want to think that he deserved it. Not now at least. I finally knew what to say.

“Because he’s the one who brought us here. He’s also the one that made sure we got out of that plane crash alive. And if he would care enough to make sure you were still breathing, the least you could do is do the same.”

The fecal pony laughed “I'm good, he’s just another body to add to the graveyard... Well I’m going to find myself a shower, fuck ya later.” The fecal pony got up and walked out of the room, causing some of the ponies to wake and gag when he walked by them. After the air got clean again, they closed their eyes to drift back to sleep.

I was left speechless as he walked away. I never really met anybody like that before in my life. I’ve read this type of character in many stories before, but meeting one on one in person (Or pony? God it’s confusing) left me with an empty feeling in my chest. I needed to get away from everybody, to think to myself for a moment. Noticing that nopony was paying any attention to me, I picked myself up off the floor and trotted towards the hallway.

Unfortunately though, BP saw me and asked “Oh, are you going somewhere, Mr. Ruple?”

I look at him, my mind still processing what just happened and replied “Just on a walk, BP.”

“May I come with you?” he asked, his head tilting to one side.

“No. I want to be alone for now.”

I went into the hallway hospital wing of the castle and forced my mind to go off into it’s own little world. I became oblivious to my surroundings and others around me. Mumbles and small giggles escaped my mouth as I walked along.  This habit of mine makes me happy, but most people think I’m weird when I do this. I don’t care anymore,  but I never cared before when it came to things like this. I like being happy.

You’re definitely not going insane. I thought to myself. And so I escaped reality, my body on autopilot going wherever it pleased, excluding outside of the hospital wing.

I walked down the long hallway of the infirmary, humming a peaceful tune. “Now where would a young boy like myself find a shower?” I asked myself as I walked down the hallway. It wasn’t fun smelling like a plane’s shit tank. I walked around the infirmary for a little bit until I found a doctor. I walked up to this doctor and asked if he knew where a shower was, and he said that there’s one upstairs on the left side of the floor. I thanked him and headed towards the stairs. I entered the second floor and started my hunt for the showers, it took me a few minutes but I found it. There were individual showers lined up with glass panels covering them for then no one could see inside of the showers.

I smiled and looked inside one of the showers. It had a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of conditioner, plus a scrubbie “Thank you, Luna.” I reached my hoof inside of the shower and turned the nozzle to the shower to the right, causing the water to spray from the shower head. After a few minutes of trying to get the right temperature, I finally got it. I smiled and hopped in the shower, enjoying the warm water spraying the shit and piss off of my coat.

After spending half an hour rinsing the piss and shit off of me, I was finally clean and got the smell off of me. I walked over to a nearby mirror and looked into it, this was the first time I actually seen my new form. I had a white coat with red zebra-like stripes running down my body, but they looked like cuts instead of stripes, almost like those peppermint candies everyone’s grandma seemed to have an infinite stock of. My mane and tail were black with blue highlights. “Damn...I look alot better in this form then my human form, I even lost most of my fat and gained it in muscle.” I smiled and walked out of the room containing the showers.

I walked through the infirmary, enjoying being clean again

I hate hospitals.

There’s just no way to be comfortable in a building that smells like sanitation, sickness, and death. No matter what the situation is, if you’re in a hospital, you’re in pain.

And then, of course, you have the whole “psychosis diagnosis” that occurs every now and then. I can tell you from personal experience that those suck ass. Overall, I’m not happy.

I glance over at Tod. He’s scanning the other passengers. Judging by his expression, he’s not impressed. No big shock there. He rarely is.

I turn away to stare out the window, but look back quickly as he starts. Quad’s moving over to BP. I swivel my ears in their direction, laughing on the inside as I do it. It feels so weird, like I’ve got tubes of cardboard stuck to the sides of my head. Still, I’m glad I got them. Eavesdropping is so much easier to do when you can turn both of your ears to the direction of the sound.

I’m not sure what to make of the two of them. BP’s a little too giddy for my taste, but Quad seems okay. That doesn’t guarantee anything, though. I’ve known plenty of people who acted nice until I was with them alone.

Tod loses interest quickly. He looks back at me a bit cautiously. I smile at him and wink. I know exactly what he’s worried about. I don’t usually cope with stress well. And I’ve got a rather...obvious way of showing my discontent. The carnage that usually follows it...well, if you saw it, you’d understand his worries.

He nods in acknowledgement and moves closer to me, just to be sure. I almost flinch away, but stop myself at the last moment. Whenever he touched me before, there would only be some sort of odd warmth, but nothing other than that. Now I can feel his pelt rub against my skin. It’s a bit jarring.

Tod crinkles his nose in disgust as the pony covered in shit moves around and fans his scent in our direction. He glances back at me with a small smirk. “Aren’t you glad that I made you use the restroom before we left?” he asks.

“You could say that.” I laugh.

“So, do we have a plan? Or did you barge into this without a clue about what you’re doing?”

“The latter.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Why did I expect anything other than that?”

“Because you hope I’ll know better some day. But I never will, so you can stop hoping now.” I nudge his stomach playfully and he swats my hoof away.

We watch as the crap-pony stands up and wanders off. “Good riddance.” Tod grumbled. “If I wanted to smell shit, I’d stand by a trench.”

“Hopefully he’s looking for a shower.” I sigh. “If it smells bad from over here, just imagine how bad it is for him.”

I look over my shoulder to the room where our pilot is currently dying. I should probably be shaken up by this, but after all my years with Tod this sort of thing doesn’t faze me. I still feel a bit bad about it, though. He finally got to someplace awesome, and his ticker times out. Luck’s a bitch.

What I’m really worried about is the fate of my pen-pal. I don’t see him anywhere. He’s probably alive. Hopefully alive. I’m a bit pissed at him for forcing me to go down with the ship, but I don’t want him dead. But he’s probably fine. He just didn’t wake up in time to join our group, that’s all.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it unless proven otherwise.

I should be over the moon right now, but I don’t feel particularly happy. Yeah, Tod becoming real is pretty damn awesome, and I’m  thrilled about having wings, but currently all I feel is anxious. This might’ve been a mistake. I don’t know what I’m going to do or where I can stay, what’s acceptable, what’s forbidden, how to move around...it’s like I’m a toddler all over again, and I don’t like that feeling.

And then there’s the fact that the authorities back in good ol’ Arizona are definitely going to blame my disappearance on my parents. As much as I hate to admit it, some small, primeval, and incredibly stupid part of me still cares about them. But there’s really nothing I can do about them. This might have been a mistake, but there was no way in hell that I’d be going back to the asylum. I chose to go on this trip not only for the laughs, but for the small chance that I might get a chance to start over. I’ve got that chance now, and there’s no way I’m going to give it up.

The clicking of hooves snaps me back into reality. Banterful and Quad are heading our way. Tod sits upright and narrows his eyes. I smile at them and elbow him in his side. We’re all screwed here. There’s no point in not being nice. “Hiya, you two are Shadowed Rainbow and Wolfy Hige, right?” Phrase asked.

Quad looked over at BP and stared blankly at him. “I know I’m not good with names but I’m pretty sure they’re not Shadowed and Wolfy.” He looked back towards Tod and I.

“Er..no. I’m Ghostly Glow and this here is Tod.”

“Oh, alrighty! Wait, I don’t remember a Tod! Oh my Celestia, is he a native?” BP shouted erratically.

“No.” Tod answered flatly, sporting an expert poker face. Well, at least he wasn’t trying to stab anyone yet.

“Wait, so if he’s not native to this place, and he didn’t come along with us on the plane, where is he from?” Banterful Phrase asked. He then gasped and continued, “Oh, is he from Zebraland?”

“Um...you mean Zebrica, right?” I asked. Tod glared at Banter, and I could hear him growling about a zebra-mane joke and how stupid it was. I elbowed him again-hard, this time- and said “From what I know, he was my imaginary friend, and then some weird magic happened and now he’s real.” Weak explanation, but hey, state what you know.

Quad’s eyes widen a little and his smile grows a little bigger. “Really?! That’s awesome! An imaginary friend come to life. Now you know somepony has your back.”

“Yeah, you could say that..” I chuckle. Tod grants him a strained smile, but says nothing.

Quad nods a little without saying much more. BP then took the talking wheel, saying, “Whoa, like, he came to life just like that? What if other stuff became organisms back at the plane? We totally have to go check!”

“I doubt that.” Tod deadpanned, going back to his emotionless state. “I was alive before the crash. Unless someone else had someone with them in the same state, then I’m the only new pony.”

“I would doubt someone else had a friend like Tod. Anyway, what do you guys think about the situation?” Quad asks.

“It’s a bit sketchy. I mean, it’s awesome and everything, but I’m not sure if I can settle myself in a totally different culture. I barely fitted in anywhere at home...I don’t think I’ll be able to do the same here.”

Tod shrugs. “It’s nice to be noticed again. Other than that, I have no opinions as of yet.”

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying, Tod. As for the not fitting in, well... Really, I don’t think the others here will have an easy time fitting in too. We’re all too different so while we might not be able to fit in with the ponies, at least we can fit in with the group here hopefully.”

“It’s not so much as being different...” I began, but Tod shot me a warning glance. It probably wouldn’t be wise to mention my previous problems. I smiled sheepishly and shrugged.

“Uhh, I won’t ask if you don’t want to talk about it... Do you think the pilot will make it? Because part of me is starting to doubt he’ll come out okay.”

“He’ll live” Tod stated. “I’ve seen people come back from worse.”

Quad looks at Tod quizzically. “Weren’t you basically brought into existence right after the plane crash?”

“Not quite...”

“Did you and Ghostly, like, share bodies?” BP asked excitedly, hopping in place. “Was Tod always a pony, or was he a human?”

“We’d rather not talk about that. Touchy subjects, long story.” I said quickly, glancing over at Tod nervously. He had tensed up, and his face was starting to contort into a dark scowl.

“Sorry about that. We won’t pry.” Quad throwed a suspicious glance towards BP. “Or at least I

won’t.”

“Oh, but I really, really wanna know! Please?” BP whined.

“BP it’s not polite to get into other people’s business. Especially if it’s private.” Quad told BP

“It’s definitely private, so...um...LOOK!! IT’S A DISTRACTION!!” I pointed my hoof in a

random direction, and they both turned quickly to look. “Oh, you missed it.” I sighed. “Better luck next time.”

“By Luna, what was it? Was it a pony? An alicorn! A pegasus! Were they wearing clothes?

Were they on fire?” Banterful pressed, stoically facing in the mentioned direction.

“Um...they were running from...a Shoggoth. Yeah. A Shoggoth.”

“A sloth? I don’t think sloths could really chase anypony very successfully, Ghost, in fact, I think you’re lying! Why would a sloth even be in a hospital?” Phrase misphrased.

“Not a sloth, a Shoggoth. Y’know, huge purple-black shape-shifting monster covered in green eyes?” I asked hopefully. Please tell me you read Lovecraft...

“I’ve never heard of that! Is it, like, some kind of Changeling? Oh my Celestia, did you write a

fanfic about it and now it became real?” BP stuttered in a mockery of fear.

“It’s not a Changeling. And I didn’t write a fanfic about them.” I deadpanned. “She did, however, summon one.” Tod snickered. I glared at him. “I thought we agreed never to speak of it again!”

“If I recall correctly, it ate the Headmistress’s cat.”

“Tod!” I protested.

“You should’ve seen the look on her face when this huge abomination started twisting her precious kitty around like a towel.” he smirked. “I never heard someone scream so loud.”  

“Whoa, what?” BP asked, actually stunned.

“I didn’t know it was actually the real Necronomicon! I mean really, who puts that out where any kid could get it?!” I squeaked.

“Well, they certainly couldn’t get their hands on it after that.” he laughed.

“Shut up!”

“Whoever put it that way must have been really irresponsible with it.” Quad mumbled to himself.

“Wait, Necronomicon? That’s a book I’ve heard about! You summoned something from it? No way! Hold on, did you summon that sloth?” Banterful Phrase asked, stated, and shouted.

“My only regret was that she didn’t summon Yog-Sothoth before they took it from her.” Tod cackled.

“It was an accident!! I swear!!” I yelped. That’s when I noticed everyone was now awake and staring at us.

Oops.

Well... Shit.

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