Andrew sat at his desk, mulling over the message on his computer screen from his boss. Part of him was was ecstatic at the opportunity but another part of him felt quite the opposite. No matter how many times he read it, he couldn't shake a part deep inside of him that felt like it was a big mistake. Like accepting it would would further cement this path that he had chosen which is not going where he expected it to go. He removed his glasses and sighed, wishing that the day would just end.
While Andrew was deep in his thoughts, a head popped up over the wall from the cubicle next to his. It was Terry, his supervisor. He was the one that showed Andrew the ropes and introduced him to some of the other workers at the company. The two of them have lunch together pretty much daily, except for the days that Terry met up with his fiance to eat. Terry looked over at Andrew's desk and looked at the photo of a young boy and girl on a roller coaster. The boy looked terrified while the girl was pointing and laughing at him.
"Isn't your sister's birthday coming up soon? Are you going to visit her?" Terry asked.
"Yeah, it's in a couple of weeks." Andrew replied, looking back at the same photo.
Terry saw the distress in his friend's eyes and sighed. "Look, I know it's none of my business but have you ever thought about..."
Andrew turned his head to look at Terry with a puzzled look, "About what?"
Terry waved his arm, "You know, doing something else? Don't get me wrong, you're good at your job. You even surprised me at how quickly you picked everything up. Heck, the boss noticed too. Wouldn't you be happier doing something else?"
"Ugh. You're starting to sound like my mother." Andrew rubbed his forehead.
"Hey, I'm just trying to look out for you. I'm only doing this job so I can pay for the honeymoon and get a nicer apartment or house down the road. Doing technical support call center isn't for everyone you know."
"Well, if you want to talk about sometime, let me know. Speaking of which, the other guys and I are going out for drinks later. Do you want to come with us?"
A few moments later, Andrew pulled himself away from his screen. "Thanks but I'll pass."
An email popped notification rang on Andrew's phone. He looked at it and it was an email from his mother.
"Speaking of the devil. Is that what I think it is?" Terry asked.
"Yeah, another one. That makes the second one this month so far." Andrew groaned.
"You should really give it another chance." Terry said.
"And fail again? I told what happened what happened when they had me sit on that one class?"
"Oh yeah. The teacher had to use the bathroom and told you to take over. You just stood there and couldn't say a thing. Then you ran out of room into the hallway and-"
"Thanks. I remember what happened." Andrew rolled his eyes. "Not exactly my proudest moment."
"Sorry." Terry said before clearing his throat. "So maybe teaching wasn't your thing. I couldn't teach a room full of spoiled brats but there has to be something else you can do."
"Yeah, well if I don't get these evaluation reports submitted to Mr. Jacobs, I just might have to."
"Ouch. Good luck with those."
"Thanks." Andrew smirked.
During his walk home, Andrew noticed that the mostly clear sky above him started to darken. Drops of rain started to bathe him. He was grateful that his apartment wasn't very far away from work. Minutes later, Andrew made it back to his apartment building, only managing to get a little wet from the rain. Walking up to his door, he thought that he could hear a very faint humming sound. Turning his head to look down the hallway, he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. It was probably coming from one of the other apartments, he thought to himself. Andrew shrugged his shoulders and unlocked the door.
Andrew walked inside his apartment and cooked himself dinner. Nothing too elaborate but putting what he learned from his mother to good use. He then turned on the TV and relaxed on the couch for the evening. Sometime during the second TV show, he had trouble keeping his eyes open and put his head against the pillow, falling asleep. A couple of hours later, Andrew was awoken to the sounds of thunder and lightning piercing the night sky. As they got closer, the power flickered a few times and then went out. Looking outside, he noticed the street lights were still on and the other apartments had power as well.
"Oh, this is just great."
The serenity in the apartment was broken by a familiar humming noise. Andrew thought that it sounded a lot like what he heard earlier outside his door. A small white shining sphere, no bigger than his hand appeared out of nowhere in the living room. On closer look, it wasn't white but a mixture of all colors. They were swirling and changing with each beat of his heart, which was beating pretty fast night now.
"What the hell is that thing," he asked himself as he moved a little closer to get better look. He hadn't seen anything like this before except for in movies.
All of a sudden, the humming sound got louder and the orb started to pulsate almost like something was trying to escape from inside of it. Andrew started to back away not knowing what was going to happen next. Suddenly, there was a bright blinding flash of light that emanated from the center of the orb, followed by a pulse of energy. He felt it hit his body like he had been shoved really hard and it knocked him to the floor. Momentarily blinded and dazed, Andrew shook his head to get his bearings. He rubbed his eyes until his vision returned. After re-adjusting his glasses, Andrew turned his gaze back towards the sphere.
The sphere now had a purple glow around it with rainbow colors swirling inside of it. It was also now bigger than his head and it was slowly still getting larger. The air around the sphere started to crackle as if it was giving off a lot of energy. Suddenly, the bright colors in the center of the circle started to swirl around faster. All of a sudden, a shape started to appear in the center but he couldn't tell what it was. The clearer it became, the more that he could swear that whatever it was looked like the head of a horse. It had teal eyes and something like a horn on top of its head which was glowing. Whatever it was, it started speaking. Andrew couldn't understand what it was saying but he could sense from the sound of its voice that it was in distress.
"It can' be. Is that a unicorn? There's no way this could be real. I must be dreaming."
Before Andrew could make a run for it, a large shimmering gold ring appeared right underneath his coffee table, swallowing it up. Inside of the ring were swirling lights that flowed down a tunnel which seemed to go on forever. After Andrew saw his table disappear down the hole, he felt himself being pulled inside of it. It was like an invisible hand had latched onto him. Panicking, Andrew frantically waved his arms around, trying to grab a hold anything. As his legs disappeared inside of the ring, he managed to grab onto a leg of the couch. The sweat on his hands made it difficult to hold on until only his fingers were left touching it. A few moments later, fear overtook Andrew as the couch leg slipped from his grasp.
"NOOOOOOOO!" He shouted just before the rest of him was enveloped inside. The strain was too much for him and he passed out.
Once he was completely inside, the ring pulsated and disappeared in a flash of light along with the glowing orb. The room was dark again. All was quiet in the apartment as if nothing had happened. Andrew felt like he was falling through the vortex. Tears were flowing from his eyes as he felt like he was being torn apart. It seemed like the vortex went on forever until a flash and the bottom opened up to to show a grassy field. Andrew landed hard on the ground and blacked out.
On a hill, on the outskirts of Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle sat with her telescope pointed up at the sky. This night, she was studying the constellations and making notes of their positions in her notebook as she observed them through her telescope. Sitting around her were some snacks, a stack of parchment, and some books. As she was making notations in her notebook, part of her wished that her friends were as interested in astronomy as she was. But like with a lot of things that she liked to do, she did them on her own. If only I could have somepony that could share my interests, she said to herself.
"This is so exciting! I hope that I get to see some shooting stars tonight." Twilight said gleefully.
As if the heavens were answering her call, a bright shooting star raced across the night sky making her gasp. Soon several other ones appeared as well. Giddy as a school filly, she started making notations. This went on for several minutes until something caught her eye. Another one appeared but this one was a lot bigger than the others. But what really got her attention was that it was falling towards the ground nearby. It got closer and closer to the ground until it impacted in a field not far from where she was. Throwing caution to the wind, she decided to check it out and started galloping as fast as she could. She had never seen anything like this before. Part of her was both scared and excited.
As she got closer, she slowly trotted up to whatever it was that crashed into the ground. The brightness from the ball of light caused her to cover her eyes with her hoof. Moments passed by as it slowly lost it's brightness. Twilight lowered her hoof, blinking her eyes a few times and squinting to get a better look at whatever it was. The small form splayed across the ground looked very strange to her.
"It's some kind of creature!" Twilight gasped bringing her hoof to her mouth, not believing what she was seeing. It didn't look like anything she's ever read about before in any of her books. And she a lot of them full of pictures of creatures from all over Equestria but nothing like this. She surmised that it must be a mammalian type creature.
"Is it alive?" She asked quizzically to no one but herself, tilting her head to the side, bringing her hoof to her chin.
As if the creature could hear her, its eye's opened slowly. A pair of blue eyes seemed to stare right at her violet-colored ones. It groaned and then it spoke.
"He..lp...m..me.."
Before Twilight could respond, its eyelids closed a few moments later.
Twilight gasped loudly, staring at the creature in shock. "By Celestia, it talked!"
Twilight noticed that its chest rose and fell gradually. Even without knowing its biology, she guessed that it was still alive but knew that she should act quickly. During her studies, she had learned some basic healing spells but decided against using them since she didn't know enough about the creature's anatomy to try them.
"Well, I can't leave it out here or it could die. Oh, I wish Fluttershy were here. She'd know what to do. I'll have to contact her in the morning."
The lavender pony's horn glowed as she concentrated to cast a spell to teleport both herself and the creature back to the library. In a blink of an eye, both of them were gone. She'll come back for her other things later, she decided. Oh, and send a letter to Princess Celestia.