A Whole New World

It took several deep breaths for Zoe to take her first unsteady step out the front door. It felt like stepping off of a ledge at an impossible height and she kept her eyes fixed to the ground to avoid looking up at the threatening sky. An involuntary whimper escaped her lips as she left the shelter of the porch; with nothing above her head Zoe had the dizzying sense that she might slip and find herself somehow falling into the clouds.

Don't look up, don't look up, don't look up...

Despite Katie's assurances that they were alone, and the disconcerting emptiness of the world around them, Zoe still nervously scanned the street for witnesses, clutching her breasts protectively as she slunk into the yard.

“You're sure there's no one...?” She whimpered.

“I'm sure Bambi” Katie called, coolly. Though the moment the words left her mouth she straightened up, eyes wide with guilt.

Bambi?!

Zoe froze, a spike of humiliation stabbing at her chest.

“Sorry... I didn't mean... It's just you still look unsteady...” Katie tried with a weakened smile of apology.

Zoe swallowed her shame, **** to change the subject. She looked out at the abandoned boots and shifted her weight onto the balls of her bare feet, “What do you want me to do?”

Katie turned, awkwardly following Zoe's gaze, “I don’t think the barrier will affect you... so...”

Zoe gave her a sideways glance, her cheeks reddening further as she tried to calm her breathing. Of course, What use would the track be if not for racing ponygirls?

The irony of her trying to retrieve a pair of boots for Katie while she was stuck naked and barefoot was not lost on the embarrassed red-head.

“Okay…”

Zoe was too afraid to touch the rail when she approached it, terrified that just feeling it would confirm it was solid, and it being solid would make it and everything else around her dangerously real. Instead, still holding herself in a lame attempt at modesty, she moved to the opening at the end of the driveway and paused beside Katie, her bare toes inches from the sandy edge.

Tentatively she held a hand out to where Katie's had been stopped... but felt nothing. Zoe waved her hand in the air for a moment before she withdrew it and, with a deep breath, tipped her head into the open void.

Looking up and down the sandy expanse gave her vertigo. The white rails and posts blurred together as they got further and further away while the air was thick, fogged with the strange purplish light from her dreams that was so flat it seemed to not generate any shadows at all. What made it even more surreal was the sight of the intersection at the end of the 'street', where the track merged perfectly with another. A single traffic light still hung overhead, cycling through colours without purpose.

Are all of the roads tracks like this? Have I really changed the whole town? The whole world...?

“That’s further than I could go…”

Jolted by Katie breaking the blanketing silence, Zoe jerked back, stumbling as she lost her balance. It made her tail whip up and the nude girl bit her lip to avoid screaming, how could she ever get used to having a tail?!

“Easy Zo...” Katie warned, catching her by the harness, “Its a miracle you can walk at all...”

“I'm fine...” Zoe lied, trying to ignore the aching tenderness between her legs and forget the torturous pleasure she'd been subjected to.

Katie lifted her other hand and Zoe watched in distress as it slapped impossibly against the air above the threshold of the track, exactly where her own head had been just a moment before. Because the track isn't for Katie. It's for me...

“Do you think you could make it to my boots?”

Zoe cast her eyes at the several yards of sand between her and Katie's discarded footwear with trepidation. The track wasn't meant to be here; it was wrong, the sand was wrong and the idea of walking on it, naked, was terrifyingly wrong.

Zoe bit the inside of her cheek. What if she stepped onto the sand and the collar whipped her for it? What if it made her run on it?

...What if something else is already running on it...?

“Zo?”

The redhead jolted from her thoughts with a shuddering gasp, feeling the heat in her cheeks as Katie eyed her expectantly.

“S-s-sorry… right… y-y-yeah…”

Focus.

Zoe looked at the boots, then up and down the length of the track one last time to steel herself. Closing her eyes, she reluctantly lifted a foot and let it hover over the surface of the sand before letting it fall with a muted squeak, her toes digging lightly into the surface.

There was no crack of the whip. No white pain. No cry from her collar… just stillness… and the unbroken eerie silence.

Breathe.

The sand was firm and cool, and her foot didn’t sink into it anywhere near as much as she thought it would.

Light resistance, low impact... Perfect for running...

Nervously Zoe opened her eyes and moved her other foot onto the sand, stepping out of the safety of Katie's reach and fully into the dizzying confines of the track.

“Easy Zo...” Katie cooed soothingly, her hands flat on the invisible barrier that now separated them.

Not wanting to stay on the track any longer than necessary, Zoe anxiously willed her legs into motion, walking awkwardly out towards the boots. With every footstep she glanced up and down the track for any sign of movement, shivering at the alien feeling of the strange sand beneath her feet. Her new tail swayed with every awkward step, touching her thighs as though it meant to deliberately remind her that no matter how alien it felt, it was a part of her.

She felt like she was walking on train tracks, and any moment something would come barrelling into her from the direction she wasn't looking.

Relieved to reach the nearest boot without incident, Zoe timidly crouched to pick it up, hand outstretched.

“Bad girl!”

No!

The sudden familiar sharp white pain against her bare ass and the voice at her throat threw Zoe backwards. She yelped, standing and stumbling in a mad panic.

“Good Ponygirls don’t wear clothes.”

“T-t-they’re not for me!” the redhead pleaded, shrieking as she kicked at the sand and spun on the spot, her tail swishing out behind her. I'm trying to be a good girl! I'm trying!

“Zo!” Katie rushed along the rail to get closer.

“I… I can’t… I can’t touch clothes!” the nude girl wailed, looking up at Katie’s pristine outfit and filling with resentment, “Y-y-you know I can’t!”

Katie stopped and took a breath to reset, “Can… can you kick them over here?”

“W-w-what?” Zoe snorted derisively, her cheeks reddening, “Katie… I can't touch them!”

“Try.”

Zoe clutched her hands to her chest and, determined to demonstrate how wrong Katie's stupid suggestion was, stomped around the first boot. Anticipating another strike of the crop she closed her eyes, and begrudgingly kicked.

There was no pain, no voice – just the sound of her foot touching the boot and the leather’s dull whoompf as it shifted through the sand. Zoe opened her eyes and felt her spark of defiant anger extinguish into crippling embarrassment; her little tantrum had been for nothing.

“Good Zo!” Katie beamed with encouragement; it only made the naked girl feel even more patronised.

Good Ponygirls don’t use their hands…

Feeling demeaned, Zoe stepped forwards and obediently kicked the other boot back towards her friend.

“This is so...” Stupid. Embarrassing. Dehumanising.

“It doesn't matter,” Katie waved a hand dismissively, “it's working!”

It doesn't matter. Me wanting to feel like a person doesn't matter.

Zoe took a quivering breath, biting her tongue, before continuing to kick her feet, pushing the boots foot by foot back towards the rail. Katie crouched and pressed her hands to the invisible barrier beneath like she was watching Zoe through a pane of glass, like she was an animal in a zoo...

“Just a little closer...”

With a final huff of effort Zoe kicked both boots clear of the sand and back into the yard. Katie snatched them up with a triumphant squeal and Zoe had to swallow her own jealousy watching the girl so easily handling what she couldn't touch.

“Good job Zo!”

Such a clever pony!

Zoe shook her head, **** to stop her own intrusive self-deprecating thoughts. Katie turned away to tap the sand off of both boots, and Zoe took the opportunity to sheepishly duck under the rail and step back onto the relative safety of their lawn. Being off of the exposing openness of the track sent a shiver of tail quivering relief up the naked girl's spine and with nothing else to steady her balance, Zoe reluctantly leant her hip against the railing.

Overhead another distant rumble of thunder echoed across the spiralling sky.

So... What now...?

With Katie occupied with her boots, Zoe glanced nervously around again, eyeing the darkened windows of the other houses. She was unable to shake the uneasy feeling that they were being watched, constantly, by someone or something that was always just behind them...

Where is everyone...? Where are WE?

The collar felt ever tighter... the longer she stood still the more aware Zoe was that she was wearing a timebomb around her neck. When the silent countdown reached zero, it would make her run into this nightmare and she would find out if they were truly alone, whether she liked it or not...

Katie moved back to the porch and Zoe instinctively went to follow – **** to get back into the relative safety and shelter of the house. She was **** to stop though, her path blocked, when the blonde turned on the steps and sat down so she could put her boots on. It left Zoe standing awkwardly exposed to the street, shifting her weight from foot to foot as her tail rocked behind her.

“K-K-Katie...” The naked girl croaked, anxiously eyeing the front door.

“Hang on Zo… I just need to…” The blonde stopped, her mouth open and her fingers tapping on the leather boot as she held it to her foot, “I’ve got to...” she repeated to herself, seemingly in a daze. Zoe caught Katie nod nearly imperceivably before snapping back into action and slipping her feet into the boots. “There!”

“Katie… what are we going to do?”

“I said we’ll fix it Zo...” Katie’s voice cracked slightly as she stood; elevated by the porch step, and strangely Zoe found herself having to look up at her for a change.

“H-h-how?”

Katie placed her hands on Zoe’s bare shoulders, her lips parted to speak before she stopped. She didn't have an answer and the pair could only look at each other with glassy eyed worry.

Without warning, Katie pulled her into a fierce hug and Zoe found her face buried against the nape of her friends neck. The feel of her clothes pressed against her bare skin made Zoe mewl softly in longing, unable to stop herself from rubbing her cheek gently against the fabric just to remind herself what it felt like.

“I promise I will always be here for you”

What?

Zoe opened her eyes to question it but with her head turned and her cheek rested on Katie’s shoulder she found herself looking out across the driveway and up towards the garage beside the house. Through the strands of Katie’s hair, Zoe’s thoughts were derailed as she realised something else was wrong.

“… Katie…”

“mmm?”

She struggled to lift her chin against the grip around her neck, reluctantly clearing her vision of Katie’s hair to get a better look at…

Obsidian.

No…

Jet black, glassy, obsidian – just like the demonic material Zoe had seen in her dreams. Impossible, imposing, alien darkness. She clutched at the front of her friend’s polo, knuckles white as she twisted her grip, “… Katie… d-d-do you see that…?”

She felt Katie’s head turn before her body tensed against her, “Y-y-yeah… I see it…”

The garage door was gone.

Replaced just like the street.

It was nowhere near as wide as what was meant to be there and despite the demonic black material is was made from, the design was terrifyingly recognisable as the distinct split-door of a stable...