Soarin really hated the early hours at which he always had to get up. Indeed, dragging himself out his bed was usually the hardest feat of the day. He had tried many things to make the job easier. He tried going to bed earlier, eating not so filling foods, even sleeping with his clothes on so he wouldn't have to put them on in the morning. No matter what he did, it was always torture. He just couldn't wait for the weekends when he could finally sleep in, which he did far into the afternoon. He always got up at the latest possible hour, choked down his breakfast, and quickly trotted to the bus stop. Two things bothered him about the bus stop. The first was that it was way longer than the average distance between a bus stop and a filly's house. The other was that he was the only pony to have that bus stop. Another pegasus used to share the bus stop with him but she was one year younger and rode that bus an hour later to go to middle school. So technically I guess they still had the same bus stop, they just didn't go at the same time. It was near the end of fall one day when Soarin retired to bed. He decided to set his alarm clock a little bit early. He figured that if he could get himself to wake up earlier for a week, then the next week, when he woke up at his usual time, he wouldn't be as tired. When he woke up the next morning, he saw that the clock said 6:05. Since he usually woke up at 6:10, he figured he would just lay there relaxing until that time. Unfortunately, he fell asleep again. When he woke up, he realized it was 6:20. The scream he let out was probably loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. He got dressed, ran down the stairs, put on his backpack, and galloped all the way to the bus stop. Obviously, he had to completely forget about breakfast. A blanket of fog had settled over the town overnight so it was hard to see. Along the way, he often saw pairs of red lights glowing faintly in the distance. He never knew if they were car lights or those of his bus. It was not until he reached the bus stop that he finally shut up. As it turned out, he had been screaming the whole way. Then, he waited. I mean, what else was he supposed to do? Then, Soarin realized one con of being the only person at the bus stop. It was impossible to tell whether or not he had missed the bus. Should he just wait there, or should he start trotting to school? Soarin decided to try his luck and wait for a bit. He stood there, alone in the dark, the stars barely visible through the fog, rolling a pebble around under his shoe. He waited. Part of him knew he had missed the bus for sure. But part of him was too lazy to walk and so just decided to stay there waiting for something to happen. At long last, he realized he was waiting for nothing and began to start the long walk to school. Suddenly, he heard a familiar roar. In the distance, a light began to flash. It was the spinning thingy they have on top of buses. A pair of red lights rounded the corner and up came his bus. "Wow, I must be a faster than I thought", he said to himself as the bus pulled up in front of him. The door opened and he got on. Something didn't feel right as he walked down the aisle to his seat. He then realized that there was somepony already in his seat. He had a flashlight and was reading what looked like a textbook. He approached the filly and asked him to move over. The thing in his seat looked up and Soarin almost screamed. Staring up at him was a skull. Luckily, Soarin managed to restrain himself. Casting a quick glance around, he realized that the bus was full of skeletons. Most of them were barely awake and very drowsy. Several were chatting with their friends. A few were clearly sleeping. "Sure thing", said the skeleton in his seat as he grabbed the backpack next to him. Sliding the backpack under the seat, the skeleton scootched over making room for Soarin, who promptly sat down. He didn't feel like his legs could support him any longer, and only part of it was due to his massive sprint to the bus stop. His wings also felt numb. I'm not going to even bother trying to explain what was going on within Soarin's mind right now. The conflicting thoughts, emotions, and confusion are simply too much to put into words. If you can forget yourself for a moment and recreate mentally Soarin's situation, completely immersing yourself in his shoes, you might catch a brief and fleeting glimpse of what it was like for Soarin. As the bus drove on, Saorin tried to calm himself and focus. Outwardly, Soarin didn't look the least bit distressed. He wanted to be a wonderbolt someday and had been training himself to keep a strict watch on his composure and outside appearance so he would not embarrass himself in front of his fans. Inwardly, though, Soarin was a mess. After a while, Soarin just decided that he would go along with everything and just wait for fate or whatever to bring him to where he needed to be. He glanced to his right. The skeleton next to him was still reading the textbook. Upon closer inspection, he saw an anatomical diagram of a creature. Different bones and muscles were labeled. At the bottom was a short description of the creature. As much as this looked exactly like a page from any textbook on biology or anatomy, the creature depicted was impossible. It had a body shaped like a violin, humongous metallic teeth, a tail with made of tennis balls, and multicolored scales which let a dazzling array of light. Soarin read the description in the bottom. Both the common name and scientific name were really long and contained several characters not in the English language so the one letter thing that's like half an "a" on one side and an "e" on the other. Anyhow, I have no idea how to get those characters from Microsoft word so I'm not going to bother writing them. It doesn't matter though. The creature had almost been poached to extinction for pretty much every part of its body. Its ribcage was wanted for making giant cellos. Though why anyone would want one of those, Soarin had absolutely no idea. Its scales were at first wanted at first because of their immense beauty. Then, a scientist realized that when arranged a certain way in a certain color order, they could magnify the intensity of any laser shone through them a hundred fold. Its metal teeth weren't as precious as a pony might think at first sight. The reason is because you could easily make them artificially. There was absolutely no difference between a tooth, actually they looked more like fangs, that someone made out of metal in a mold, and one taken from an actual whatever the heck it's called. The creature, scary as it might look, was actually an herbivore. Its favorite source of food was a plant called a didilylopudizain. The process of digesting this plant caused chemical reactions that created an extremely flammable gas called sinodroxide, which the creature stored. Whenever the pressure of the gas buildup became too much, or whenever an enemy approached, the creature let out a loud burp expelling a column of the gas at the enemy. At the same time, the creature would spark its teeth together lighting the gas on fire. In other words, it breathed fire like a dragon. Although there was some basic resemblance between the creature and a dragon, it was way crazier and screwed up in appearance. Soarin returned to just staring at the seat in front of him trying once more to collect his thoughts. His eyes happened to glanced out the window at one point and he realized that he had absolutely no idea where he was. He continued looking out the window because he realized that it was much more interesting than looking at the back of the seat in front of him. The moon was just beginning to turn into the sun. Next to him, the skeleton kid kept flipping through and reading his textbook. Soarin caught glimpses of creatures and eventually plants which were scarier and more insane looking than anything even the most talented costume artist or science fiction writer could come up with. As the moon finally completed its transformation into the sun, the skeleton kid put away his flashlight and continued reading with just the light of the sun. A few seats back, Soarin could hear a group of what he assumed were girls gossiping. As Soarin looked around, he realized that he couldn't really distinguish between the boys and girls. They all just had skulls poking out of their cloaks. Ahead of the bus loomed a bridge. It wasn't like any bridge in Equestria. Despite the fact that it stretched for at least half a mile, it had neither columns and pillars beneath, nor support cables above to keep it from collapsing downwards. As the bus left the bridge and turned the corner, it began to go through a series of streets. The buildings were weird. I'm really tempted to leave my description at that but since I've done something like that already, I'll make an honest effort to describe them. First of all, all the buildings had a solar panel and a lunar panel. Soarin didn't know these specific details at the time. He just knew they looked exactly like solar panels. The two panels each were of a different color. "What color, were they?" you might ask. That's the problem I'm trying to figure out. Ok, close your eyes and image a color that's outside the visible color spectrum. The best you could do is come up with some bizarre color you've never seen before. Maybe aquamarine with a bit of brown and a touch of periwinkle added it. Something like that. Either way, though, it'll still be in the visible color spectrum. For humans, colors outside of the spectrum of visible light are practically nonexistent because after all, you can't see them. It's the same case with ponies. Thus, I've basically just asked you to imagine a color that doesn't exist. The problem is that the colors which the solar and lunar panels were made of were in fact outside of the visible light spectrum for humans. It really pains me that I can't describe them because they really were beautiful colors. It's just that try as I might, I just can't find anything to compare them to. Soarin was a pony. Still is, actually. Thus, where the solar and lunar panels were, Soarin just saw emptiness carved in the shape of solar panels. It's a weird sight. Perhaps it is even more weird than the sight of nonexistent colors. The buildings themselves retained a general pyramid shape, but they had stuff sticking out of them besides the two panels. Some had balconies with things growing in pots. I call the things instead of plants because most of them didn't look like plants at all. Nevertheless, they grew in pots. The windows were made of some crystal ten times harder than diamond, which never got dirty. The bricks of the buildings themselves looked like marble, with the difference that it seemed to glow and emit a light of its own. The skeleton next to Soarin reached down and pulled his backpack out from under the seat. He closed his textbook and put it inside. As he did so, Soarin could see the letter Honors Really Weird Biology written across the front in shining gold letters which gleamed as it contrasted with the background, a photo of a waterfall. Surprisingly to Soarin, the waterfall looked just like any normal waterfall. In fact, if there weren't creatures next to it that looked like they were in fact made of water, it would have looked like any picture taken in Equestria. Water, Soarin realized, was possibly the only thing the same between this world and the one he had come from. He thought back to when the bus was crossing the bridge. "Yep", he thought to himself. "I didn't see anything strange about the water in the river below." He couldn't base this only on sight though. There might still be something different about. Soarin was right in thinking this. Water, in this universe/dimension/whatever you would call it is extremely magnetic. I'm sure you all learned that on earth, to make a magnet, you need to get another magnet and stroke a piece of iron with it. In this place however, All you need to do is fill a bottle up with water and tah dah, you have a magnet more powerful than any on earth. Soarin wouldn't learn this until later but I'm telling you this now because I think it's very interesting. In fact, I've wasted many good hours doing absolutely nothing but messing around with that stuff, water. If you wear magnetic gloves, you can almost "waterbend" like they do in that one kid's show. Anyhow, the bus slowed down and slowly pulled up in front of a big building with the words Falxifer High School above the door. The skeletons began standing up and preparing to exit the bus. As the door opened, the skeletons poured off with Soarin in the midst of them all. As he got off, the skeleton which he had been sitting by spoke to him. "I assume you're new here", he said. "I guess", Soarin replied. "Don't worry" the skeleton replied, "Just follow me." You can share my schedule for the school year. And so Soarin followed the skeleton around. The first class they went to was physics. By paying attention, Soarin realized that certain natural laws were different here. For example, in the universe Soarin was from, net force was equal to the mass of an object, times the acceleration. In whatever absurd dimension Soarin was trapped in, it was equal to the square root of the mass divided by the acceleration. In addition, In the universe Soarin was from, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the universe Soarin was currently in, every action had an opposite reaction, but the magnitude was equal to the original magnitude of the first action times the cube root of pi. By making use of this weird phenomenon, these beings, skeletons, whatever, were capable of harnessing the power of perpetual motion. It was also for this reason that they did not have to rely on coal, petroleum, or any other fossil fuel. As a result of that fact, there was pretty much no pollution in the air. Looking out the window during the next period, English, Soarin marveled at the cleanliness and purity of the vast glowing sky above him. He did this when he was in Equestria too, because instead of using fossil fuels, ponies just use magic. In other words, Soarin just didn't pay attention in general. In this instance, though, he really couldn't understand a word the teacher was saying. Literature, in that world, was about as bizarre as bizarre could get. Even more bizarre than the story you're all listening to. They were currently studying a work by an ancient poet named Colored Pencil. That was the name of the poet. Not the name of his work. The work, which was a massive epic was named "The Flash Drive". It was about a flash drive who was really good at eating Sun Chips. It's a really long epic but to give a really brief and oversimplified summary. One day, the flash drive mistakens a copy of National Geographic for a Sun Chip and eats it. As he lies dying, he begins to hallucinate. The next three hundred pages of the epic are about his hallucinations. He's saved when an army of sentient bobble heads who take him to the hospital. Unfortunately, he can't afford to pay the hospital bill so the hospital just locks him in the morgue in the basement. The flash drive escapes, hijacks a flying saucer, and tries to make an escape toward to planet Cygnus X-1. There was only one problem with that plan which anyone with even the faintest knowledge of astronomy should know. That would be the fact that Cygnus X-1 is a black hole, not a planet. The flash drive flew straight into the black hole. The flying saucer vaporized around him. Luckily, it vaporized slowly and just as the last bit of it was dissolving, the flash drive was propelled out of the black hole into an endless field of pink. No gravity, no sense of location, position, no landmarks or variations, no up or down - just pink as far as he could see. Now, the only sensible thing to do when in a universe of no sensory stimulus except the endless plains of pink around you is to go insane. For some people, it's instantaneous. For others, it may take a few days. Truly strong willed individuals may last a week. The flash drive, however, was a creature of incredible willpower and managed to last close to 32 trillion year before hints began to emerge that he was going insane. The epic, at this point, is one humongous list of every single thought that crosses the flash drive's mind during this time. It gets kind of repetitive every now and then. Finally, to prevent himself from going insane, the flash drive realizes he can teach himself to hallucinate at will and has great fun with that. I won't tell you the ending because it's really interesting and kind of sad and I don't want to ruin it for you. Anyhow, the bell finally rang and Soarin followed his skeleton friend out. The next class was the foreign language the skeleton was currently taken. All you need to know is that the alphabet was weird, the pronunciation of the words was weird, and the teacher was weird. After that was lunch but Soarin wasn't hungry for obvious reasons. He looked around was slightly disturbed. The skeletons were eating what appeared to be crumpled balls of grey construction paper. "Come on", said my skeleton friend, "Eat". "Why?" I asked. "Because once you do, you'll be just like us", he said. Soarin was horrified and vowed that no matter how hungry he got, he would never eat that stuff. He wanted to go home. He didn't want to be like the weak willed Persephone, who, if she had held her ground for only moments longer, would have been freed. No, he would rather die. Then, realizing the futility of the situation, Soarin himself went crazy. He would never get out of this place, he thought to himself. In an insane rage, he ran outside and almost smacked into me. "Get me out here", he screamed. "Sorry", I replied, "I would if I could but I'm not knowledgeable enough. Try asking Fluttershy." So he did. I never heard from him again and haven't gotten around to asking Fluttershy what she did to him but if any of you see happen to see her anywhere, be sure to ask her how she reopened the wormhole because I'm also kind of still stuck there and she kind of took Soarin with her and now I can't get out of that place. If she won't give up her method, don't worry about me, I won't starve. I found that if I chanted the phrase "Rainbow Dash is best pony" 108 times over the food, I could break its power and safely eat it. It tastes absolutely disgusting of course, but at least I won't starve. The skeletons are constantly trying to find ways of tricking me into eating but I'm too smart for them. Though apparently still not smart enough to find a way out of this place. Oh, hey the building's on fire, better run now. Bye.