I dreamt of nothing.

When I woke up, I was back in my apartment. Lying in the empty bedroom. It was morning. Late morning, given the light streaming through the windows.

I was on my side, the warmth of the sun slightly uncomfortable. My body was different than normal. The muscles were unfamiliar, my posture strange. Even my vision was slightly off. That would take some time to become accustomed to.

In front of me was a person I did not know. He wore glasses and had close-cropped black hair. He was not wearing a white coat, but I recognized the thing around his neck as a stethoscope. So he was probably a doctor.

He looked at me with a soothing smile and pressed the cold metal instrument against my chest. I flinched slightly at the touch. His focus on my heart drew my own attention to it. The beats were slow, drawn out. From the doctor’s reaction apparently that was not out of the ordinary.

“Everything looks normal,” he said, turning away from me. I noticed for the first time that Daisy was standing right behind him. She looked at me with concern. Her eyes were red. She had likely been crying.

I moved my head, looking at the rest of the room. Andy was here, too. He stood watching us with his arms crossed. That meant the doctor person must be his roommate. So, not a doctor, a veterinarian. Made more sense.

Daisy looked at me. Her mouth opened and shut without a sound, indicating she was not sure what to say. “Are you okay?” she said, finally.

“Yes,” I said in response. I sounded hoarse. Could probably use a drink of water. “Can I have some water?” I said. Andy nodded and hurried out of the room.

The veterinarian had taken several steps back. He was staring at me. “I know you said it could talk, but I didn’t quite believe you.”

“He’s not an it,” Daisy snapped.

The veterinarian frowned. “Also not a he.”

I moved my legs. They worked fine, just different than when I was human. It took me an awkward moment to stand. Daisy rushed to my side and tried to help. Once I was actually on my feet, I was fine.

Walking was more difficult. It was not in any way like crawling. One foot at a time, carefully.

The veterinarian watched me for a moment. “Start with the back leg, then the front. One side, then the other.”

I tried that. It took a few wobbly attempts, but it worked. My head bobbed slightly along with the movement, keeping my balance.

Andy returned, carefully holding a cereal bowl filled with water. “I didn’t know if a glass would work, so...”

I slowly walked over to him. The movements had already started to click. Even if my brain did not know how, my muscles remembered. Leaning down, I took a long drink. The bowl was quickly emptied.

I looked up and straight ahead. Just a plain wall in front of me.

Daisy had pulled the veterinarian and Andy off to the side. They were conversing in whispers. My ears automatically swiveled in the direction of the sound. My hearing was better now than it was before, though it needed to be directed. But that happened instinctively.

“There’s clearly something still wrong with him!” Daisy hissed, furiously. “He’s not like... this!”

“What do you expect me to do?” the veterinarian asked.

“You talked about an animal psychology class last semester,” Andy whispered. “Couldn’t you use something from that?”

“That’s stuff like animals being scared of loud noises and the proper attitude to keep a dog calm,” the veterinarian said. “I must have missed the lecture on what to do when the talking green pony has a voice in its head!”

“I don’t have a voice in my head,” I said. They all turned to me, surprised at my interruption. “It’s gone now.”

I walked forward to leave the room, pushing my nose against the door to open it.

There was another pony pacing back and forth in the hallway. It opened its mouth and started to move in my direction, but stopped. I ignored it.

I walked through the living room. There was an instrument sitting on the floor. It wasn’t important either.

I was going to the kitchen. I turned my head to the side and gripped the refrigerator’s handle in my mouth. Then it was simple to pull my body back. The door swung open. Someone had gone shopping. There were apples inside, so I took one in my teeth before closing the refrigerator again.

I ate the apple on the kitchen floor. It tasted fresh. It would be more normal if it wasn’t cold from the refrigerator.

Daisy walked in behind me. “Tyler...” she started. “Are you Tyler?”

“Yes,” I said.

She did not appear to be happy. Normally she would be smiling. “Are... are you feeling okay?”

I thought about that for a moment.

“No,” I said. I was not feeling okay.

I was not feeling anything at all.

The veterinarian had more tests to do. His name was Mark, he told me.

He gave me a few shots as well. Horses get different diseases than humans do. I didn’t know if I was actually a horse or not. It was still the safest option to be prepared.

The other pony got examined and had shots too. I left when it came in and went to sit in the living room instead. It would have been a good time to stop and think.

I didn’t have anything to think about. I just waited.

After a few minutes, Andy came out and waited with me. He was quiet too, but it looked like he had plenty to think about. He kept looking at me, and then the instrument thing.

It was in the room still. I thought for a moment that it would be nice if someone would take it away.

It was not important enough to matter.

After some time, the veterinarian and Daisy came out. They discussed me and the other pony.

Daisy got angry at him when he suggested taking us to somewhere where we could be more carefully taken care of.

They were talking about me as if I wasn’t in the room. I did not mind. It didn’t concern me.

He left, along with Andy. That left just me, Daisy, and the other pony. The other pony was staying away from me.

We had apples and carrots for lunch. I took my food to eat alone.

Most of the day I was alone.

Daisy occasionally tried to start a conversation, but I did not have much to say. She eventually just started talking about what had happened last night.

I already knew most of it. All the talking just upset her more.

She went to the other room with the other pony for a long time. I could hear the faint sound of the conversation but not what they were saying. There was no reason to try and listen.

After that, she stayed away from me too.

I waited. Not for anything, particularly. Just because there wasn’t anything else to do.

We had more apples and carrots for dinner. Daisy tried to make a joke about hay fries and daffodil sandwiches.

I took my food to eat alone.

As the sun went down, Daisy asked where I wanted to sleep. It didn’t matter.

She offered the bed, but I walked to the empty bedroom. There were blankets in there still. I pulled them out into a more flat pile and sat down there.

It was still early. I was not particularly tired. I did not have anything better to do. I sat on the blankets, facing the windows.

The light outside turned orange but eventually gave way to darkness.

I sat in the darkness.

Later on, I heard a noise behind me. I did not look, but I could tell someone had opened the door.

Then I felt warmth behind me. The other pony had sat down next to me. It leaned against me.

I shifted uncertainly.

I could feel the other pony place its head on my back, and one foreleg pull me closer to it. My back was uncomfortably warm. And wet.

She was crying.

I could hear it too, though the sound was very soft. She was not sobbing or wailing, she was just crying. It was worse that way.

I had caused it, hadn’t I?

Is that why I suddenly felt so awful?

The other pony had eventually fallen asleep, still huddled up next to me.

I carefully extracted myself from her grasp, trying not to wake her. As I stood up, she shifted, reaching out for me. Her lips moved, mouthing a name. But she remained asleep.

Now that I stood apart from her again, I missed the warmth of her body against mine. I felt cold, and that awful feeling inside deepened. That was a start. I needed to go... somewhere.

I quietly walked out, only looking back once at the pony still sitting in the midst of the blankets. In the living room, Daisy was sprawled out on the floor, snoring softly. She had decided to stay with us rather than go home. It did not look very comfortable on the carpet.

I walked back to my room and pulled the blanket off my bed with my teeth. I returned to the living room, and gently placed it over her. It would not make the floor any softer, but it would help with the cold.

Opening the door out to the building’s hallway was more difficult. Unlocking it was not bad, but to open the door I had to grip the knob it my teeth and it kept slipping. After several tries, I got it open. My neck ached slightly from all the twisting.

The door to the stairwell was better. Rather than a knob, it had a handle that turned. Even without a hand, my hoof was able to push it down and a shoulder against the door caused it to swing open easily. Even the stairs were manageable. They were meant for humans, meaning they were much more narrow and steep than I would have preferred, but it was simple as long as I took my time.

At the very top, a door opened out onto the roof. Thankfully it was unlocked. My old roommate used to come up to the roof to smoke occasionally, and I was counting on it being accessible.

I trotted out onto the roof. There wasn’t much up here other than boxy machines that handled the building’s ventilation. That was fine.

I wasn’t concerned with the roof itself. I just needed a quiet place to be alone again.

I looked up into the sky. The moon was out, providing soft light. I turned in a small circle, craning my head upwards. There was the North Star, always shining brightly. Not many other stars were visible. Hm, where were they all at? Were there just not as many? No, it was because we were in the city, and the lights tended to drown out—

Wait, that was it. I grabbed ahold of that questioning thought tightly, squeezing my eyes shut. It threatened to slip away back into the recesses of my mind, but I fought the impulse.

“Stop,” I said, out loud.

There wasn’t exactly anyone around to hear. Besides myself. Well, and the person that I hoped was still there, somehow.

“I need to— We need to talk.” I swallowed. Was I just talking to myself? I still felt nothing. Nothing except that anxious pain that hadn’t quite subsided. The pain from the other pony crying.

I held onto it like a lifeline. It was the one thing keeping me from sliding back into emptiness.

“We have to do this together. I don’t know why. Or how.”

Was there a point? Hollow words by an empty pony on a deserted roof.

But they were all I had.

“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. But you can’t just go away.”

That was what happened, wasn’t it? She was gone. That was what I wanted, what I had been looking for from the beginning.

No. That wasn’t right. Or yes, it was what I wanted, but it was still wrong.

“I think if you go, some of me goes away as well. I— I can’t do this alone.”

I took a shaking breath.

What should I do? I had to do something.

The wind gently blew as I stood in silence on the deserted roof. One of the machines whirred to life, softly humming.

“I don’t want you to go away. I just don’t want to go away either.”

I don’t know how we got tangled up. But I was no better when she left as I was when she had taken over.

I didn’t know what to say or do.

“I... I guess I don’t even know anything about you at all, huh?”

She clearly wasn't going to start talking about herself. But... I couldn't imagine this situation being any easier for her than it was for me. She had to be just as twisted up, stuck in the head of some guy that she knew nothing about.

We were both strangers, but we were in this together now. And that thought made me realize what I should do.

It was a silly idea, but I had to do it. Not because I thought it would work. But because it was the right thing to do.

I cleared my throat, feeling foolish. “Uh. Hi. My name is Tyler Hawkins. I was born on May 2nd, 1995 in...”

I trailed off. Those were just facts and figures. They weren’t really important. They weren’t who I was.

I began again, uncertainly. “I started playing the guitar at eleven. I had to beg and plead to get out of having to take piano lessons like all the other kids, but it was probably the best decision of my entire life.”

The words started to flow faster, more assured. “When I first met my first teacher, Mr. Nichols, I thought he was irredeemably lame and that the lessons would be awful. Heh. I was probably a pretty dumb kid, now that I think about it. And dead wrong in that case. He taught me a great appreciation for music, and I learned how the sounds flowing through my brain corresponded to melody, harmony, rhythm. All the ways to actually look at music and make it real.”

I smiled, the images easily rising to mind, bringing with them long-forgotten emotions. “Where everyone else was playing by rote, he encouraged me to find my own path. I can still remember how proud he was at that first recital, when I performed an original piece. It was amateurish, I know, but it was mine.”

“It's still an important memory to me. I guess that was when I would have earned my cutie mark, if I was a pony. It felt like for the first time that I had a place, a point to my being here. Have you ever have that feeling?”

There was nothing but silence. But I got the feeling that the answer was yes.

“Not that things went perfect after then.” My smile twisted a little. “I had plenty of ups and downs. There were so many times when I doubted whether it was really what I was meant to do for the rest of my life. It can be hard to pay the bills as a starving artist. And I wasn’t always the easiest to get along with.”

I paused to sit down and make myself comfortable, looking up at the stars again. “I don’t know if you ever played in a band or anything, but boy. Musicians can be crazy. I have so many stories of shows going horribly horribly wrong, but in retrospect they were probably pretty amusing...”

Out under the night sky, alone but not, I talked and talked and talked. Funny stories, laughing at my own bad jokes. Sad memories, things that I had deliberately not thought on for many years. Stories about my friends, including how I had actually met Daisy, and all the scrapes we had made it through together. Even talking about Brooke, the moment that I had first met her and was completely star-struck.

An hour passed, then another, my voice eventually dying away to a hoarse whisper.

When I finally stood again, I felt different. I still didn’t know exactly who I was, or what was inside me, or what would come in the future. And honestly, that still scared me. A lot.

But I was no longer so empty inside, and that was a good first step.