Lost Passengers on Earth

Everything hurt.

Abigail struggled and groaned against the strange weight pressing on her, shifting, fighting clothes that didn’t seem to fit. The pain was much worse on one side of her body, suffering that brought with it a wave of directional disorientation.

She managed to open one eye. Not quite move her head yet—that would take more time. For now, she could only look forward, staring along the dark plastic carpet covered in discarded wrappers and miscellaneous stains. The legs of rows and rows of metal seats stretched ahead of her, each one with an identical cushion resting atop them.

I’m on the Greyhound.

Through her throbbing headache, Abigail tried to sit up. But the damage must have been more severe than she initially thought, because even her back didn’t want to work right. Instead of sitting up, she managed to press something painfully into the metal side of a seat—her arm?

It must be a concussion.

She’d been in an accident. Where was her boyfriend?

No matter what other difficulty might be between them, Damon would help her now. He’d call emergency services. “H-hello?” Her voice was strange in her throat, somehow raspy and shrill at the same time. The accident must’ve distorted her perception of sound—that wasn’t good.

No one answered; not Damon, not Jaz either. Her best friend had to be close, she’d only been one row back. What was going on?

For a few minutes Abigail just lay there, occasionally calling out for help that did not come. While she waited, her senses became clearer. The throbbing in her head finally eased, and she got her other eye open.

Her physical senses returned too, though what they told her still felt impossible. Her clothes felt like they’d been replaced with something much too large, somehow expanding around her so they no longer fit. Her shoes were gone, her jeans barely clinging to her body, and both arms resting comfortably inside her top. Except—maybe her legs were too?

That part didn’t make sense. Neither did the view out the windows around her: bright sunshine, and hills covered with bright green. Where were the buildings?

I’m not bleeding, Abigail thought. And no one can hear me. Maybe they’re in worse shape than I am.

If Damon or Jaz needed her help, she wasn’t going to lie here pathetic, waiting for rescue. Abigail would do something.

She crawled. Her hands didn’t feel right, or even look right. But her whole body felt strange, and the shadowy gloom of the bus did little to make the truth clear to her. If she could move, she could find and help them.

Damon wasn’t in the chair next to her. She even reached up to his seat and felt his pants still clinging to the cushion. But that was it—his pants. His backpack was gone from under the next row.

Did he get out of the bus?

Hard to imagine her boyfriend leaving her here, even after their experiences in Grand Rapids. He wouldn’t do that to me.

She crawled forward a row, propping herself up on one numb hand, peering up at her friend’s seat.

Jaz’s clothes were all there, sundress and jewelry and the rest. Her purse was still strapped into the empty seat next to her, as though it was a person who might fall. In fairness to Jasmine, the seatbelt worked. Her purse was exactly where she’d left it. But what about her friend?

“Hello?” Her voice was a little clearer now, recovering with her body. It made her head move a little when she spoke, in ways that had to be part of the head injury. Ears didn’t have muscles, they couldn’t point in different directions to follow the echo.

Obviously it was in her head.

I have to get out of here.

She shuffled forward down the aisle, dragging herself by numb hands. While she moved, other things flailed uselessly—her legs struggled against her jeans, until they finally came off and slipped into the aisle. Whatever; there weren’t any other passengers on the bus. Just them and the driver.

Strangely, it still felt like her arms were trapped against the blouse clinging to her, even though she saw and felt them under her when she crawled. They strained at the same time, her mind still not quite sure what she was moving at any given time.

Not a pleasant sensation—pressure against the shirt made it tug on her body elsewhere. Though not in any of the ways she expected—her breasts were nowhere in sight, with only the lace of her underclothes around her neck reminding her they were missing.

It’s in my head. The ambulance will help me. She didn’t hear sirens—didn’t even hear the squealing tires or shouts from other drivers as they swerved to avoid the accident. Maybe their driver got them to the shoulder.

With each step, she dragged her hands through the sticky, never-clean fabric of the bus. That smell would be its own kind of horror, if she didn’t have much bigger problems at the moment.

Soon she reached the front of the bus. She stopped in the aisle, staring.

Out the front wasn’t a highway at all, but an overgrown hillside. A single piece of twisted metal or rock emerged from within, piercing the glass and impaling the driver through to his seat.

The driver wasn’t human. Even from her strange angle on the ground, she saw that: furry legs, ending in cloven hooves rather than feet. His clothes stretched over an enormous muscular body that couldn’t contain them. It did him little good, what with the sharp spire of metal piercing him through. Blood soaked into his torn clothes, pooling around the driver’s seat and onto the plastic steps leading down.

“Hello? Sir?” Abigail asked, a little quieter. The driver did not react, didn’t move or breathe. His eyes stared forward, hands still clutched on the wheel. He’d probably died that way the second this… happened. Whatever it was.

The rocky cliffside ahead had crushed the windshield and much of the front, obscuring her view and limiting the light flowing in. But the bus’s side door was open, and a few bloody footprints led outside.

In that same light, she saw herself a little clearer, and wished she didn’t. But the nearby corpse gave her enough reason not to look. Nothing she could do to help him now, but—that didn’t mean she was comfortable right next to him. She had to get out of the bus!

Abigail glanced nervously at the bloody stairs. No way to get through that except to go down the steps…

She squinted through the opening, backed up, then flung herself forward. Not a “jump” since she was still mostly on the ground. Even so, she got far more air than she would’ve suspected, leaping forward over the narrow steps and towards the dirt.

She cleared the half-dried blood easily enough, at the cost of tumbling face-first out the side of the bus and onto the grass. She grunted in pain, feeling something tear as she moved; her shirt, finally giving up under the effect of so much strain.

She landed on her back in the dirt, sprawling out in the sun.

This wasn’t Chicago anymore—or anywhere else she recognized. Beside the bus was a forest of tall trees, some so high she couldn’t even see their canopies from the ground. A clear patch near the bus let sunlight stream down on her, illuminating shrubs and wildflowers and other natural things.

The shreds of her shirt fell away from her arms, though of course those didn’t look much like arms now that she was in the light. In fact, nothing looked correct. The body stretching out beneath her wasn’t the one she’d grown up in. Her legs stuck up, rather than extending out. Her belly had none of the familiar shapes, and laying here pressed sensitive limbs she couldn’t see into the ground under her.

“What happened to me?”

She lay in the grass for a few seconds, confused and overwhelmed. The sky overhead gave her no answers—bright blue, with little clouds drifting slowly across from one side to another. No aircraft, or supernatural beings to explain exactly what she was going through.

“Abigail, is that you?” asked a voice from nearby—very close, like they were right next to her head. “Has to be. We wondered when you’d get up.”

“Jaz?” She turned sharply in that direction, and felt her head smack into something in the air, like a bug had been floating next to her.

An annoyed squeal echoed from that direction, then a gasp of pain. “Watch it!”

Abigail sat up as best she could. Her body responded, just not in any of the ways she expected. Accurate, yet—wrong, like so much else.

With the shreds of her shirt no longer clinging to her, something emerged from her back, opening in the air while only sort of responding to her desires. Two separate limbs, about the same size and weight, pointing out to either side.

There was no bare skin to speak of, despite her lack of clothing. Instead, she had vivid pink fur, with a slightly creamier section on her belly and more vivid colors on her limbs. The strands of hair in her face were soft purple, maybe with other shades too. It was very hard to see from that angle.

She looked to the side, searching for the voice. “Jasmine? Did I hear you?”

“Over… here…” someone grunted, not actually that far away. Close enough that she could’ve leaned over and squished the speaker by mistake, if she wasn’t observant.

She moved closer, looking down towards a cluster of purple wildflowers in the grass.

At first she thought it was a dragonfly, until it started moving and all her impressions turned wrong. Not a wildflower, because it too was shaped like a lanky, stretched equine, with thin legs and enormous transparent wings, far larger than her actual body.

The flowers had broken the creature’s fall, a pale blue fur and a fluffy green mane.

Already an impossible wild animal, the kind of thing that would make her rush over with her phone and record something for her socials. If it wasn’t for her own body, she’d call it completely impossible.

The little horse-fly thing struggled into an upright position, stretching out its delicate wings. Maybe her wings, though she was too small to make out those details clearly. Her voice made it a little more obvious, seeing as Abigail had known it since she was a little girl.

“Abigail? Careful, you’re gigantic! Could’a killed me!”

“I’m a… giant…” she repeated, glancing once over her shoulder. The bus was still there, damaged from the impact. Still bigger than she remembered, if she had to guess. “Are you okay?”

“Technically. I think nothing’s broken.” The horse-fairy “stood” atop the flowers, her weight so minimal that the leaves remained upright as she did so. “Wondered when you were gonna wake up. Or if maybe you’d been hurt worse than us in the crash. Damon and I weren’t strong enough to get you out. You see why.”

She pushed off, then started to fly, huge wings beating steadily in the air beside her. So large compared to her tiny body that she barely had to flap them, pushing herself up a good distance then drifting down again between strokes.

“Damon too? Does he look like…” She gestured at herself with her stumpy not-hand. A hoof, judging by the horse-fairy in front of her. Which probably meant something similar happened to her boyfriend.

“No,” Jaz answered. “I mean, yeah, he’s a freak. But we’re all screwed there. Guess you can decide if he got it better or worse than you.” She pointed along the bus, between brush crushed by its wheels. “He went looking for water so we could get you up.”

“Bus has a tank in back for the bathroom,” she said. “Pretty sure the sink water isn’t drinkable, but if you were just—” She trailed off. “Wait. Damon left?”

Her boyfriend wasn’t there. Of course he’d gone off on his own without talking to her, again. It would be exactly like him.

She tried to stand up again, pushing off the ground in front of her with one flat hoof.

Her back wobbled, and she flopped forward, falling past the flying thing so fast she squealed and fluttered away to avoid her. “Hey!”

Abigail caught herself on all fours. She pushed off again, intending to get up that way. Yet when she rose that time, the position actually didn’t hurt. She stood up with all four legs at the same time, and naturally stretched out, into something like a comfortable position.

A natural position for a horse, anyway. Something long trailed between her legs, brushing against where her ankles would’ve been. A tail, of course she had one of those now.

“Probably stay like that,” Jaz said, floating just beside her now. “You don’t look like you can walk on two legs. Even if you don’t exactly look like a horse.”

“I don’t know what I look like,” she said, exasperated. Though glancing back showed her only more signs of an animal form—albeit not one that resembled any real creature.

Those limbs she had felt before were still there, poking out from her sides—wings, that faintly twitched and half-opened when she looked at them.

They resembled avian wings, covered in feathers of various colors and shades of pink and purple. She focused on one, trying to extend it the way she might open her arm.

It obeyed, flooding her mind with more strange sensations. She felt those feathers brushing up against each other, and a faint breeze running over it. It tugged on powerful muscles along her back, muscles that twitched from disuse.

“How did you know how to fly?” she asked, watching Jaz hover along beside her. “I always knew you were talented, but—”

“Good question.” The fairy creature floated in front of her, face twisting into intense concentration as she flew. She seemed almost out of breath as she reached Abigail’s other side. “It’s a good thing I could. It kinda hurts to walk around. But I wouldn’t mind…”

She dropped lower, settling tiny feet onto Abigail’s back. Closer to her neck, though with her new body plan that extended horizontally as much as vertically. “You’re huge, so you can carry me.”

“Seems fair.” She moved cautiously forward along the bus, a few halting steps at a time. There was a rhythm to walking on four legs, one that she knew nothing about. God help her if she had to run anywhere.

“So we ended up in… another world, I guess?” Abigail said. “I’m looking for another explanation. But it’s hard to think of what else would do this.”

She gestured at the expanse behind them. Their bus had cut through grass, shrubs, and small trees, crushing everything flat to the ground and leaving deep tire-prints to mark its path. They had obviously tried to stop as fast as they could… but not fast enough.

They’d still crashed into a cliff, and the driver was still dead in his seat.

“Damon said something like that too,” said the little voice behind her, speaking into her ear. “Guess it makes as much sense as any other answer to why this… insanity… is happening. Transported to another world. And all transformed into different freaks along the way.”

“Similar themes, though. We all have hooves.”

Abigail reached the back of the bus. Relatively unharmed, despite the impact on the front. Now where was the water tank on these things? She circled around the other side, past the undercarriage compartments. One of these held the emergency kit. Though what were they supposed to do with what was inside?

“I guess I should… get my stuff.” She backed towards the entrance again. Her tail moved without her conscious effort, flicking nervously to either side behind her. One more strange detail for her to get used to.

“Get my purse while you’re at it!” Jaz exclaimed. “No point with the rest of my stuff. But I want my phone and my ID, even if my suitcase is the size of a house.”

That was what she did. It meant getting past their unfortunate driver again—but with the heat and sunlight, that would only get harder over time.

She carried her own backpack out of the bus in her mouth, dumped it onto the grass, then saved only the items she thought looked useful. She left all her clothes behind, except a hoodie that might fit, with enough effort.

Nothing else she owned would fit her this way, or else not cover anything meaningfully. She could solve that problem as soon as she had some fabric and time to do it.

Assuming she still had the dexterity, of course. Her new body didn’t move the way the old one had—no hands meant no fingers, so she had to do much of the sorting with her mouth, only using her legs to hold things in place.

Her pack got much lighter when she was finished. Souvenirs from Grand Rapids, a few outfits—none seemed useful right now. Too bad they hadn’t gone camping, or she’d be completely loaded.

“Abigail!” called a voice, when she had just about finished zipping up the backpack. She turned towards the sound, which came from the road behind them.

Two creatures walked that way. One was a horse, shorter and smaller than herself, with a strange green coat. The other was even stranger, an orange-colored… lizard?

It walked on two legs, with flat scales down its front and spines along its back. It also wore fabric straps over its shoulders, with something heavy weighing it down from behind. Damon’s missing backpack? It was the lizard who spoke, in a high-pitched yelling, squealing sound. “Abigail! You’re up!”

You sound like someone’s kid brother. Abigail finished zipping up the pack. She shrugged it over one leg, and it promptly slipped off her back, landing with a thump in the grass beside her.

There was no longer body trailing behind it. Just a tail that dragged in the grass, that he didn’t seem to notice was even there.

He still managed to wear more clothes than either of them could; one of Damon’s old tee-shirts, with the arms rolled up and the back bound to keep it from dragging on the floor. Even on two legs, he was much shorter than she was.

He stumbled and tripped and jogged his way over. He didn’t have very far to fall each time, and managed to get up without much difficulty, until he finally shuffled over.

“Abigail!” He hugged her, or at least hugged her legs, wrapping stubby arms around her. His body felt strangely cool to the touch, like metal pulled out of the shade. “Didn’t know if you were gonna make it! I brought help!”

“About time!” said the fairy hovering in the air beside her. “Was afraid you got eaten or something! If it got dark…”

The bus wouldn’t make for the worst shelter in the world, if it wasn’t for the dead. But with so much metal in the way and the bus driver grown so large, Abigail wasn’t sure she would be able to get him out.

“Didn’t die,” the lizard said. It was Damon’s voice, she grew more confident of it the more he spoke. At the same time, he also sounded smaller—younger, maybe. More like a child, the way she’d seen from a few of his old home videos. “Think we got lucky. Found someone, see!”

He let go, pointing at the newcomer again.

Abigail looked up from her transformed boyfriend at this stranger.

She guessed the stranger looked a lot like Abigail: four legs, a vaguely equine shape, and hooves instead of feet. She had messy yellow hair with a pale stripe running through it, and bony ridge faintly visible within. She wore nothing, though she did have better control over her wings. She kept them both precisely folded against her sides, instead of sprawling them half-open when she moved like Abigail.

“You come to rescue us?” Abigail asked. Not wearing anything meant the stranger didn’t have weapons to threaten them with. But that green fur and brown eyes also didn’t come from any wild animal. If she was as smart as a human, she might have human ways to hurt them.

“Not… intentionally,” said the horse. “The dragon found me by accident. Was out visiting… somewhere important. Didn’t think anyone lived out here.”

Dragon. The word might fit if her boyfriend didn’t sound so small and pathetic. Shouldn’t dragons breathe fire, and wave around deadly claws?

Damon felt too cold to breathe fire. He did have “hands” of a sort, with sharp bits on his fingers. Maybe those counted as claws. They might cut like them, anyway.

“We don’t live here,” Jasmine said, floating closer to the stranger. She got braver as the seconds passed, apparently not as intimidated as Abigail felt. “We were on our way back to Chicago. Our Greyhound…”

“Crashed,” Abigail supplied, wincing as she said it. “All at once. Whenever we came through to your world.”

“She probably doesn’t know what Chicago is,” Damon said. “We didn’t talk about how I got here. Wasn’t sure if we would sound… insane.”

The stranger laughed. Her wings spread behind her as she did it, making her look a little less small. But standing closer, she was only an inch or so shorter than Abigail. She laughed for several seconds, staring at them.

Abigail’s irritation grew over the next few seconds, overcoming her fear. Of course they had to find some jerk who wouldn’t take them seriously. “She thinks we’re crazy.”

“No…” She trailed off, lowering her wings again. “Sorry, sorry. Just… the odds. You are some of the luckiest ponies I’ve ever met. Or unluckiest, depending. Was there anyone else on the bus with you?”

“No one alive,” Jaz said. “Driver… died in the crash. We were the only passengers.”

“I’m guessing you can’t fly with those,” the stranger said, gesturing at Abigail’s wings. “No one’s out here to give lessons, so…”

She concentrated, opening her wings with a shudder of effort. She focused to keep them open, with strange new muscles twitching. “No idea what I’m doing,” she said. “You think maybe you could get us directions to the way back? I assume we’ll change back when we go through the other way.”

“We don’t know if portals work that way,” Jaz whispered, speaking into her ear. “She might not know what they are!”

The green horse looked between them, her expression unreadable. There was such pain there for a creature so small and apparently young. Granted, she didn’t know how horse-creatures aged. “My name is Alex,” she said. “You can come with me, if you like. There’s a little town north of here. Nothing compared to what it used to be, but it’s safe.”

“Alex,” Abigail stepped toward her, her wings opening a little larger. It was probably subconscious, making herself bigger and harder to ignore. In reality, she was already the largest one here. “I’m Abigail, this is Jasmine, and my boyfriend Damon. We’re not trying to find somewhere new, we’re trying to get home. What’s the fastest way back to where we came from?”

The horse creature looked between them again, her eyes lingering on Damon the longest. Finally, she pointed ahead, where a road would’ve been. “I think you’ll see on the way. The museum is still there. Think it’s easier if I show you.”

“Don’t piss her off,” Damon whispered, on Abigail’s other side now. “I saw her move things with her mind. She’s dangerous.”

Apparently being small had also compressed his common sense, because Alex was only a few feet away. Her ears moved and pointed themselves toward him when he spoke. “Not to you, Damon. Other people you meet, though—some might be. Some nations are unkind to refugees.”

She walked past them looking up at the bus. “If there’s anything else you’d like to get from inside, should probably grab it now. I’ll take care of the driver.”

“Take… care of…” Jaz repeated, floating behind Alex as she walked past them. “Don’t think there’s anything you can do for him, green. He was dead before Damon and I woke up.”

“That’s true,” Alex said, her voice distant and sad. “But I can bury him.”

They left the scene of the crash behind about an hour later. It was afternoon by then, and the smattering of clouds was soon joined by many more, staining the sky with spreading blotches. Jaz was soon overwhelmed by the wind, and forced to land on Abigail’s back while they walked.

Damon didn’t do much better, dragging himself along until the green horse offered to carry him.

“Careful with the fire,” she said, helping him up onto her back. “My mom’s a dragon, and she’ll be pretty upset if you burn me.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Damon said, panting from the effort of walking so far. Big baby; they’d barely been walking an hour by then. “I’m… don’t know anything about fire. Or dragons.”

“You will,” Alex said. “Normally there would be a guide, this… thick leather book, with everything you need to survive written inside. I think coming through on a vehicle confused the spell.”

Despite her greater size, the green horse knew how to navigate much better than Abigail did. Even carrying Damon, she had to slow down to let her companion catch up.

Abigail had decent endurance, and kept going despite the miles. She did still ask. “How much further to the way back?” she repeated, a few hours later. The sky had gone fully gray by then, with an occasional spatter of raindrops falling around them. “This isn’t gonna be a multi-year trek across the world, is it? I’ve got a life waiting for me, and I’d like to get back to it.”

“Not much further,” Alex promised. “We’re already in the ruins now. Just looking for an entrance we can use. Like… maybe that one.” She pointed, at what might’ve been a cave entrance somewhere in the brush and strange stone. Albeit a strange cavern, with a relatively flat entrance that curved away from the gap beneath.

Almost as though it had been built deliberately for that purpose, protecting it from the increasing spatter of rain.

“You’re sure this place is safe?” Tiny feet shifted on her back, and Jasmine took off, floating in the air alongside her. “That looks kinda… dark. I wouldn’t put my secret portal down there.”

The bone on Alex’s head lit up as though there were lights hidden in the tip, illuminating a path leading sharply down into the dark. Not steps, but a gentle ramp, without any sharp corners or gaps for debris to get stuck.

“How are you doing that?” Damon asked, staring. “You don’t need a flashlight?”

“Sure don’t,” Alex waved them deeper. “Before you ask, no, you can’t do it. Your pegasus friend can’t either. Though most pegasi I’ve known are happier with their weather magic. The Breezie—I don’t know as much about you. Your powers aren’t as simple as the others.”

“Breezie. Pegasus,” Abigail followed her. There was no point keeping her distance, not with Damon on her back. She wasn’t about to abandon her boyfriend to whatever the stranger wanted to do to him. Even if Alex seemed friendly so far, there was no telling where they were going. They hadn’t exactly seen hundreds of other people to speak for her. “I know the Greek myth. I’ve got the wings, why can’t I do… what you’re doing?”

“Horn.” She turned to the side, pulling her bangs away with a hoof to show it. It wasn’t exactly long, protruding through the dark streak in her coat. “You don’t have one. Far as I know, no one ever came through as an Alicorn. That’s what I am, with the… horn, and the wings.”

The ramp continued down, past an ancient metal grate covered in various dust and bits of mud. The ground there was damp, though most of it remained clear. Just past it, the path ascended again, widening considerably. The green glow from her horn reflected off bits of metal railing, forming queues leading toward a distant shape—an entrance.

“Is this a subway station?” Jasmine asked, settling back on Abigail’s back. “Dunno if we can find a train back to where we came from. Trains aren’t supposed to transform people.”

“Buses don’t either,” Damon called back. “But here we are, freaks.”

“It wasn’t the bus that changed you,” Alex said, walking between ancient railings. Her voice echoed strangely off the curved ceiling, so high up now that the light of her horn didn’t reach it. She stopped beside a set of old turnstiles, simple mechanical things built from brass and covered with corrosion.

She gestured at a locked gate beside them, and the lock fell away, a heavy bolt sliced down the center. Chunks fell away to either side, glowing orange. The gate swung backward, groaning with ancient metal. “This isn’t the only museum like this. But I wanted one in my hometown, so I had somewhere to take my kids. Wonder if his hoofprint is in the cement in here, somewhere.”

She stopped in the gate, waving them forward through the darkness. “Sorry the staff isn’t here anymore. There’s no one to give you the tour. But you know where you came from, I don’t think you need ponies to misinterpret parts of Earth for you.”

Abigail stopped next to the shorter creature, only a foot or so away. She loomed over Alex, glaring down at her with all the anger and indignation she had. “Hold up. I’m sick of being told where to go. We don’t have to go in there. If it’s not a way home…”

“You don’t have to go inside.” Alex took a few steps forward, toward a little building near the entrance. She touched one hoof on a metal object there, protruding from the wall. A little crystal above it began to glow with the same light as her horn, getting brighter and brighter as the seconds passed.

White light overflowed from the ceiling above them, washing down in a straight line from crystal stubs set into the ceiling.

They were in a tunnel all right, as wide as those once bored for the widest tunnels. It continued vertically ahead, level. The space beyond was… a town? At least one street of a town, with asphalt street and light poles and metal shapes that might’ve been cars parked in some of the drives. Fake green grass “grew” in front of every house, covered in a thick layer of dust. Spiderwebs grew over some of it, and a few of the windows were shattered.

“Alexandria’s Earth Museum,” their guide said, turning back toward the street. “We used to bring refugees here, right when you showed up. Some people even worked here for a few years after their arrival, giving tours and teaching visitors. We’ve… seen better days, as you can see.”

“Human… museum,” Jaz floated vertically, several feet over Abigail’s head. “Abby! There’s people up ahead! I see ’em!”

“Mannequins,” Alex said. She set off down the road, walking between the fading white lines.

Abigail followed Alex deeper into the exhibit. The human-shaped figures stood frozen in poses throughout the mock neighborhood—some washing cars, others tending to fake lawns. Like everything else, the colors had faded from their threadbare clothing. Their glass eyes remained convincingly vivid, almost lifelike.

“How long has this place been abandoned?” Damon asked, still perched on Alex’s back. His voice was small, frightened.

“Over a century,” Alex said. “I’m still a little fuzzy on the dates. Was dead for a lot of it, but—we probably shouldn’t talk about that.”

Jasmine buzzed ahead, flitting between mannequins with growing anxiety. It must be even more frightening to her than it was to Abigail—even from her size, the human shapes seemed huge, towering and stretched.

“We just want to go back,” Abigail said. “You don’t have to show us this. Just take us home.”

They walked past a block of simulated houses, until they reached what appeared to be the central hub of the museum. A large circular room with multiple paths branching off—each labeled with signs in block letters.

Alex pointed to one sign that still had visible lettering: “HUMAN HISTORY: FINAL CENTURY”

“Wait,” Abigail said, her wings instinctively opening. “What are we here to see?”

Alex met her eyes. “What makes you think you came through a ‘portal’, Abigail? Would you even recognize a Worldgate if you used one?”

She slumped to her haunches, feeling the cold concrete floor against her coat. Abigail tried to form words, some strong objection that would silence the thoughts congealing in her mind. She found none.

“It has to be,” Damon said. “Whatever word you wanna use for it. One minute we were riding our bus for home. The next, we looked like this and we were… here. Some overgrown jungle planet.”

He slipped off her back, stumbled a few steps, then made his way to Abigail’s side. He rested one clawed hand against her. Maybe there was some vestige of her boyfriend left in there after all. “Just send us home.”

“What you experienced was a temporal displacement. Part of the magic that saved humanity from extinction. Specifics… don’t really matter to you. But this does.”

Her horn glowed brighter, her face suddenly focused. Soon the light was overwhelming—so bright Abigail covered her face with her leg. When it faded…

They were somewhere else. Dirty asphalt stretched away under them in the purple-orange light of sunset. They were outside, somehow. No more storm clouds filled the sky—instead, it was clear, shining down over the wreckage of a city.

Familiar wreckage. Abigail had only been here once, but she’d seen this exact scene a hundred times in movies and photographs since she was a child. A particular junction of strange buildings, with dirty glass facades and broken screens hanging from abandoned buildings. “Times Square,” Abigail whispered.

A little weight landed on her back, featherlight wings brushing against fur. “You moved us?”

“Planned on it anyway. It’s the only place I know is safe right now.” Alex said. She dropped to one knee, the light from her horn extinguished. “Welcome to the future, Abigail, Damon, and Jasmine. Humans as you know them haven’t lived on Earth for many centuries now.”

The words hung in the air. None of them moved.

“You’re saying we time traveled?” Jasmine’s wings buzzed nervously. “That’s ridiculous.”

Their guide shrugged. “There’s a town just ahead. After our battle with the… things got violent for a while, but it’s safe now. You can live with us until you get your hooves under you.”

She gestured down the street, and Abigail saw it. Walls, built from overturned cars and rubble, blocking a distant street. Over them were electric lights, strung between nearby buildings. Not abandoned like the rest of the city—shapes moved there, colorful shapes that might’ve been horses. Or maybe creatures like them.

“Not good enough,” Abigail yelled. “You have to send us back! We don’t belong here.”

The ‘alicorn’ shook her head once. “I think everyone who wakes up here wishes they could go back at some point. But that’s not how it works, I’m sorry.”

Silence answered. Abigail had no reply. They could flee from the stranger, or even attack her. But what good would that do? She hadn’t brought them through time. But she had apparently crossed hundreds of miles in seconds to bring them here. Violence might just end with dumping them in the Pacific Ocean.

“Can you make us human again?” Jasmine asked. “At least that way we could try to rebuild as ourselves.”

“You would die,” the green pony said. “Magic is… deadly. That’s why this happened in the first place. As confusing as it is, you’re safer that way.”

The sun set, taking the last shreds of purple and orange with it. Reflected light off old glass and screens vanished, turning the ruins dark. Wind whipped between them, whistling through empty buildings and broken glass.

One glow remained: a huge cord of lights, strung over the gate far away. More lights radiated out from within, one little seed in the dead city.

“What do we do, Abby?” Damon asked, prodding at her side again. Not so much like her boyfriend. But at that size, looking up toward her with huge slitted eyes—she knew that relationship was gone too.

For the best. If their vacation couldn’t save it, changing into freaky animals wouldn’t do them any favors either. He’d always relied on her for help—it was about to get a little more literal.

“We survive,” she answered, straightening. “Find our feet.”

“Good answer,” Alex walked past them, gesturing down the sidewalk. “I think you’ll like it here.”