~Chapter 1 - Unexpected Fate~

"Ugh, what time is it?" I groaned as I rubbed my bloodshot eyes, rolling over in bed I gazed through drooping eyelids at my clock. "Six o'clock, how wonderful."

Dragging myself out of bed I lumbered down the hall towards the staircase and to the kitchen. Rubbing my eyes as I reached the bottom, I failed to notice who was waiting at the entrance to the kitchen. My leg caught on something soft and I began to fall forward until my forehead collided with the doorframe accompanied by an audible thud.
"Why is it always the head?" I groaned as I directed my gaze downward to meet the brown eyes of Sam, one of my two dogs. The sheltie gave an excitable bark and scurried through the doorway. "It's too early for your food," I called after him before making my way to the kitchen table, rubbing my sore and already swelling forehead.
I went about methodically preparing my breakfast; a simple bowl of my favourite cereal, Applejacks. Sitting down at the table I began to eat, slowly of course as I was still tired, four hours of sleep a night for weeks on end will do that to a person.

I'd be able to manage a six hour sleep seeing as I climb into my bed every night at twelve on the dot, but my brain can never seem to slow down enough to allow me a decent rest. Ideas and thoughts continuously run through my mind, words and sentences I could possibly if I found myself in any situation created in my head.
Imagine a dull pain in your brain caused by continuously spinning imaginary cogs that's been there for so long you can no longer notice it. The unrelenting activity in my mind often makes it hard to fall asleep.

My ruminating came to an end as I heard the water shut off in the shower upstairs, meaning my mom was finishing up. 'That's my cue,' I thought to myself as I wolfed down the rest of my breakfast. Placing my bowl in the sink and heading upstairs I grabbed both my comb and my nice fuzzy blue bath robe. Don't judge, it feels good. The washroom was available by now so I hurried inside, stripped, turned on the water and hopped into the steaming shower.
Several minutes later I shut off the water and stepped out onto the cold tile floor. Jumping from the chilling shock to my feet I quickly grabbed a nearby towel to stand on. I proceeded to comb my hair, not that it needed it, and grabbing my electric razor I stood in front of the mirror. As I worked I gave myself a quick onceover. I had short dirty blonde hair, very straight and ordinary, blue eyes, nothing special other than being bloodshot, and I stood at an average height of five foot eleven. My body was not too muscular and nicely toned; ten years of martial arts plus a lifetime of things like camping, skiing, biking and diving tend to make a guy fit.

Finishing up I pulled on my bath robe and hurried to my room to get dressed. Next I went fishing in my closet for my favourite shirt, a black polo shirt with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark as a small crest on the left side of the chest. After pulling it on over my head I reached underneath my shirt and pulled out my pendant, a bone carving that supposedly it brings the wearer protection and good fortune. I rarely ever take it off, except for when I shower. I guess I forgot that I still had it on earlier.

Oh yea I forgot to mention, I'm a Brony. I'm probably the biggest Brony in Bedford, my home town in case you were curious. On my laptop I have two of every single episode, tons of fan art and songs, plus an archive of my favourite My Little Pony fan fictions; Cupcakes isn't a favourite, but that's pretty much something every Brony reads at some point, right? No? Well damn... I've even begun writing my own fan fiction, perhaps you've heard of it, 'The Sentinels: The Conversion Bureau'? No? Oh well…

I proceeded to pack my bag for the day, my binder, a couple text books, and my laptop. I cast a glance out my window at the grey sky then drew my eyes over to my bureau where a black toque with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark rested, contemplating whether I should wear it or not.

'Meh, I'll settle with my hood. Besides, it isn't that comfortable wearing both a toque and headphones.'Making up my mind I grabbed my black hoodie with the name Dalhousie emblazoned across the front off the back of my bedroom door and unplugged my iPod from its charger. As I left my room I pocketed my wallet, cell phone and house key, and I put on my analogue watch while checking the time.

"Six forty five, I still have some time to kill before I need to leave."

Sitting down at the piano in the living room I began to play some game music like Legend of Zelda's Lost Woods and Song of Storms, and the Overworld Theme from Super Mario Bro's 1. And as always, Sam decided to curl up beneath the bench to listen.

'Oh... what I'd give for a good piano,' I thought moodily as my fingers 'tripped' over yet another key that had popped up and gotten stuck. Sure, it's still a decent piano for being of a lower quality make, and being roughly forty years old on top of that, but the keys that stick and don't work, and the fact that it can't stay in tune for more than a few days... playing it can be a pain at times.

Nevertheless, despite the piano and its problems, sitting down and letting my fingers dance across the keys is always relaxing. Also it allows my mind a brief respite. As the notes flow my focus is directed solely at my playing, and the music literally carries me away. Sometimes this makes it hard for me to stop playing though, and someone usually has to tell me to get off the piano. However, that is one of the few things that truly get on my nerves; someone interrupting my playing, resulting in my mind rushing back to its frantic storm of thoughts.

Afterwards I glanced down at my watch and noticed it was time to go, so I threw on my hoodie and stepped into my shoes. Before I could reach for the door however, an impatient bark reminded me of what needed doing prior to leaving.

Quickly running into the kitchen, I gave a sharp whistle. Both Sam and my other dog- another sheltie by the name of Abbie -came running.

"Sit!" I said sharply as I turned to scoop their food into their bowls. Setting their breakfast down and taking a step back I motioned to the now sitting dogs, "Okay." At that they hungrily dug into their food, and I flew to the front door, grabbing my black grey and white high collared Rossignol ski jacket out of the closet on the way. I quickly pulled it on along with my backpack, and was stopped from leaving yet again by a voice from upstairs.

"I wish you'd stop playing those video game songs so much and focus on your actual music," my mom called from her room.

"Don't worry, I'll play some Mozart for you when I get back," I replied slightly irritated.

"I'm going to be running a bit late at work today, so I'll see you later tonight. There's some left over stuff in the fridge for you to make a chicken quesadilla when you get home."

"All right, thanks. See you later." With that I put on my headphones, and turned on my AcousticBrony playlist as I hopped out the door and jumped down the front steps, nearly slipping on a patch of ice as I landed.

This winter had been incredibly mild so far. The only real snowfall we had was just a couple days ago, and almost immediately afterwards it all began melting and covering the roads in water. Well, the streets were wet yesterday evening, now I could see the telltale sheen of ice covering sections of the road here and there. The temperature had dropped significantly over the night, and the weather station had given a black ice warning.

So zipping my jacket closed and pulling up my hood I made my way to the bus stop on this frigid Monday morning, feeling my nose hairs freezing together and falling into my regular dark musings.

My friends would call me cheery, albeit a lack of talking, but that's only what they see, my view on life is actually kind of depressing... alright, really depressing. I see the human race as a parasite to the Earth, taking whatever it wants and not bothering to give back, our actions are killing the life on the planet at an ever increasing rate and there is nothing that will ever stop it. I was studying at Dalhousie University to be a marine biologist, but it's kind of disheartening to think that what you want to dedicate your life to is being destroyed before even having a chance to study it for yourself, and I found out that I wasn't as into biology as I had originally thought. Also, the same thing day in and day out doesn't help improve my mood much; wake up, get ready and leave for school, come home, go to work, return home and go to bed. Just rinse and repeat. I've even thought about suicide once; take some sleeping pills while sitting precariously on the edge of a dock. Don't worry; I'm not a coward so that is never going to happen, especially after two of my friends introduced me to My Little Pony.

Said two friends are the only Bronies in the group I hang out with, but aside from the others disliking the show we all have the same interests. We all go to University, we're all gamers, so on and so forth. I don't speak much when we hang out; they just pass it off as a result of me being a ninja. It's nothing, just some crazy joke they came up with to explain my silence, the lack of noise when I walk and how I always seem to blend into a crowd no matter where I am.

I've read too many human in Equestria fan fictions to count, and I constantly find myself wishing that something would happen to transport me to Equestria. I'm not crazy, seriously! Alright, maybe I am a little... Though if I did somehow end up in Equestria, my first course of action would probably be finding out how the Princesses would react to me. I didn't want to be living there for several months before being discovered and getting a one way ticket to the moon.

Anyway, my life is pretty good, I can't complain. I have money I can spend, my parents care for me, though they tend to be incredibly controlling most of the time, constantly talk about others- strangers and family members alike -behind their backs, and constantly get on my nerves. My parents are home for the weekends and holidays, I see my mom all the time, but my dad wakes up early for his job and works late so I don't see him that much. Still, I want to get away from this life, the way society and humans have grown is sickening to me. Greed, corruption, pollution, and it seems as though there's constantly a war being fought somewhere in the world, yada yada. I know I know cliché as hell, but it's not really an opinion per se, not anymore anyway. The notion is accepted by enough people for it to be considered fact.

I nearly lost my balance as I stepped onto another patch of ice at the top of a hill. Quickly catching myself before I could fall I used the long sheet of ice to slide down the hill, nimbly jumping over the sad remains of a snow bank at the bottom.

Well... I guess there's one detail about my life I left out. One thing, a single detail that irritates me to no end, yet I'll most likely never be able to talk about it. My parents, mainly my mom... they tend to shoot down most opinions I give voice to. They'll either yell at me and say I'm wrong, or they'll tell me to stop arguing with them. I guess this is probably the most significant reason behind my silence... Why am I even bothering to tell you this? It's not like what I say matters much...

I shook my head in an effort to clear my head and simply enjoy the music and this short time to myself. 'Ha. Only eighteen years old and in my first year of University, and I'm already thinking like an old man tired of the world,' I though rather drearily, spinning on my heel to look for any oncoming cars before crossing the street, which happened to be yet another downwards hill.

Bedford is basically situated on one big hill facing a natural harbour with the main thoroughfare being near the bottom. Seeing nothing coming, I stepped out into the street and around another large patch of ice.

I was into my fourth week of the second term at Dalhousie, and though I didn't have any classes that I needed to get up this early for I still needed all the time I could get at school to study. My chemistry and calculus marks last term were pretty low, and I only passed those courses under the condition that I do a decent job this semester. 'Still, I do like the peaceful stillness of the mornings.'

I was crossing the road at an angle, a more direct line to the bus stop at the corner ahead. Still deep in thought as AcousticBrony's song Spectrum began to play through my headphones, I didn't notice the car turn onto the street further up the hill behind me.

I snapped my head around at the sound of squealing tires, my eyes popping out of their sockets in shock at the four thousand pounds of metal skidding towards me.

You'd think that all my martial arts training would have given me the increased reaction time to at least try jumping out of the way, but things are different when something like this is actually happening to you. Besides, I haven't been seriously training for the last year or two so I've lost most of my endurance speed and flexibility.

This skidding car made contact with my side and I was knocked off my feet. My mind went blank and time seemed to slow down. I could see the car still sliding on the ice, but all I was aware of was the throbbing pain that seemed to course throughout my entire body. Suddenly everything went black as my head slammed into the guard rail at the side of the road.

Endless shadows... I was drifting. They all lied; there was no light at the end of the tunnel, though I certainly felt light, as light as air in fact. I was floating through the void and I couldn't possibly fathom a guess at how long. Slowly, even this drifting sensation began to disappear, I felt heavy, heavy and sore all over. 'Having pain after dying. Worst afterlife ever... of all time.'

If I was dead, I didn't care. My life had run its course and my time was up, no complaints from me seeing how death is an unavoidable end for everyone and everything. No, I wasn't scared of death, I was scared of the pain that usually accompanied it... but that didn't matter since the aching in my body was already beginning to fade.

My thoughts ceased as darkness overtook me.