When Sparrows Fly

Chapter 1

A/N: This is the first time outside of English class that I've tried creative writing. This is a HiE (pretty obvious from the description, I guess), with a little bit of self-insert, but as far as I know it's the only HiE self-insert written in third person. I've also changed a few major and minor details of Nathan's life. Anyways, since this is my first shot at fan (or any) fiction, it would be very much appreciated if you would review this. I'm sure that I'll make some mistakes along the way, and if I accidentally have someone sound out of character, feel free to yell at me.

Alright, let's get this show on the road!


As Nathan ran through the wide, unpaved streets, he could see the burning buildings ahead of him-and he could hear the... things that were behind him. He had three choices: try and find a way around the fire, turn and face the creatures with the blood-spattered frying pan that had, thus far, kept him alive through the night, or plunge ahead through the flames in an attempt to reach relative safety.
He stopped for a moment to mentally review his path. He had seen the blaze from the air; knew that by now it must encircle the whole center of the town. If he tried to look for another way to get through, he would just end up getting killed by the abominations that were following him, and the ones that were sure to show up wherever he went.

With that option off of the table, he now just had to decide whether to run through the flames, or stand and fight. The frying pan-it had saved his life God only knew how many times in the last few hours, but he heard the beasts approaching and knew that he couldn't possibly fight off that many, not on his own and certainly not with his current weapon. Which left option C.

He hesitated, knowing that there was a very good chance that he was about to die-but it was tens of millions of times better than the alternative. Making his decision, he started running, sprinting towards that crackling, blazing hot wall against every instinct in his body and-

Sat straight up in his bed, covered in a cold sweat, his alarm clock-the bane of his existence-blaring its unholy noise. He was just about to blearily smack the snooze button like he did every morning at 7:00, but stopped. He wouldn't be able to get any more rest after a dream like that, and knew it, so he stood up, yawned, and slid the switch to the "off" position.

As he went through his daily before-school ritual-get dressed, put potatoes in microwave, brush teeth while they're cooking-he pondered the dream that had just ended. He hadn't dreamed in well over a year, and never before in his life had he had a dream that... vivid. Usually it was just floating around a landscape and hearing things through some weird kind of mental telepathy. This was different, though. He actually felt the heat from the fire, smelled burning... well, he actually wasn't sure what had been burning in the dream, but he had smelled it nonetheless. And he had heard whatever it was that was chasing him, of that he was sure.

When he finished the potatoes, he glanced up at the clock, which read 7:30. "Oh, shit, I'm going to be late," he muttered under his breath. He wouldn't actually, the same thing happened every morning, but he didn't think about that fact as he hurtled around the house grabbing his backpack, lunchbox, iPod, throwing on his shoes, and remembering just before he left that his backpack was empty. He threw his single binder that contained all of his papers, notebooks, and pencils in, then ran outside to the garage and jumped onto his bike. At this point it was 7:45, which was, even for him, behind.

After hurtling through the streets for a few minutes, he arrived at the ugly brick building that was his school. He locked up his bike, then walked in, bracing himself for the day ahead. First he had study hall (why in God's name there was a first hour study hall he had no idea), followed by English, Spanish, algebra, lunch, health, biology, and U.S. history. As the day passed and Nathan stared off into space, bored out of his mind, the thoughts of the dream faded until he barely remembered he had had it. Now, we could go through Nathan's day right by his side, providing moral support from beyond the Wall, but nothing interesting happened, so we're going to skip right on through.

It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and Nate had been beaten senseless by two tests, a pop quiz, a sub (not literally, it was just frustrating dealing with them), and another round against two pounds of homework facing him, he could not wait to get home and pop open a soda. Sweat covered his body as he strained against gravity, shoving his legs down against the pedals to move him just a few more feet, to the crest of the hill. C'mon, Nathan, just up to this tree, he mentally cheered himself on as he finally ended his bitter struggle against the laws of physics.

At that precise moment, 4:03 in the afternoon, Nathan Tagg ceased to exist in the universe as we know it. Had anyone been looking, it would have looked simply as if the teenager had vanished into thin air. The bicycle, with no one to steer or keep its speed up, continued on its journey for several seconds before wobbling and falling over on the wouldn't be reported missing for several hours, but nobody knew when he would be found, if at all.

From Nathan's point of view, he was riding his bike one minute, and the next he was standing straight up. His brain, however, did not realize this for several seconds-except for his ears popping like when on a plane, and he continued making pedaling motions as he had been only seconds ago. He fell flat on his face, amazingly not breaking anything, though it would hurt like hell for a few hours. As he stood up, the first thing that came to mind was, What the hell just happened? The second thing he noticed, after the fact that he had just fallen onto grass on his face when a moment ago he had been riding his bike on the sidewalk, was that he was surrounded by trees in neat rows.

What he saw upon standing up not only shocked him; it made him question his sanity. There, standing right in front of him, were six very oddly colored... ponies. He'd never been much of a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but he had been forced by his mom to watch it with his sister on several occasions, and had taken a moderate interest in it. Which is why he recognized the equines in front of him as the Mane Six.

His jaw not only dropped, it very nearly hit the ground. He wasn't quite speechless, but very nearly, with the only sound coming out of his mouth for almost half a minute being, "Wha-wha-wha," as if he were trying to ask a question but was unable to string together something coherent. The ponies, who were still shocked, seemed to recover relatively quickly, and simply stared, wide-eyed, at the strange creature that had just appeared until it managed to stutter out, "Wha-what the hell just happened?"


A/N 2: So, yeah, please review. Also, bonus points if you find the Stephen King reference.