Chapter One

Nightmares

{Twilight}

There's a light.

Somewhere... something... Searching.

Waiting.

Reaching, hooves outstretched. Think I can touch it –the light that's breaking the sky, shatters the clouds. Almost, little higher. Lights... flicker, break, shatter, spark-

-I'm flying. How? Soaring, wings propelling. Need to catch it. Need to contain it. The light! Must make it leave. Magic- must use-

No horn. No magic. Just wings. Reaching, climbing, flying wings speeding towards the light. The light! Sky is dead, broken, dark... so dark. Can't find, can't see, just the light. Must reach. Like a moth. I'm a moth. Have to catch it, have to find it, caress it, glide into its warm and glowing embrace.

Soft. Comforting. The sky is gone.

Dead.

The clouds have disappeared. Wings are gone –still flying. How? Can't say. Can't think. The light! Have to reach the light! No horn- no magic. No hooves, no eyes, no body, no substance. Only light. So soft, so warm, so-

Pain. Suddenly –like a flash. Like a sting. Electricity surging, pulsing, grasping onto me. No body, can't move. Trapped. No voice. No help. No...

No, no, no...

One more flash –bright white, blinding white. A flicker, a movement. Eyes shoot open.

Then plummet into darkness.

I lay there confused and terrified, staring unblinkingly at the endless dark I know must be my ceiling. But I won't move. I can't get up. I can't turn on the lights. I just stare, not daring to breathe, not daring to sleep again. I'm panicking. I don't know what else to do but lay there and hope the morning comes soon. Hope that the sun will ease my fears.

Minutes pass.

Hours.

Lifetimes as I lay there in the cold, unforgiving dark. As I lay there confused and scared and lonely-

But that's silly. It can't have been very long. Why am I so scared? It's just the dark. There's no reason for anything in my own bedroom to scare me. Though I can't help feeling that something's off. Something's wrong. It shouldn't be this dark. Not in my room. Not anywhere in the library.

As fear grows, a sickening feeling begins to form in the pit of my stomach. A nauseous, uneasy feeling that starts small but grows and swells, taking me over. A feeling of panic. I want to get up, find out what's going on, see what's wrong; but I can't. I'm so overwhelmed by this feeling that I can't even turn my head. Can't look somewhere else. Only up. Staring forever at the abyss.

And I know it's just my imagination but I can almost feel it staring back.


I can't explain it. There was something about that nightmare that was somehow... more than just a nightmare. An almost real quality. Is that why I'm so scared? Is that why I can't even move?

Oh, why can't I do anything! I try to use my magic but there's a strange lightness to my head. I can't focus. I feel dizzy –tired. I feel like I've been hit over the head with something, like I want to pass out. I try to resist the urge. For some reason, it seems like a bad thing to do. Like if I fall asleep, pass out, whatever, something bad is going to happen.

But I'm suddenly just so tired. So, so tired...

My eyes fall shut.

There is no light in my dreams this time. Only darkness and a never-ending feeling of dread.


I awake to the sound of voices. Murmurs in a dim, but not totally dark room.

This is not my home.

I can feel the fear begin to rise again and I try to sit up as my eyes adjust. My head is pounding. I feel like I'm going to be sick. The room is large, a dingy cement cell without windows. The light is coming from one single ceiling light in the middle of the room. Beds line the walls, some of them occupied by confused, terrified bodies, desperately trying to grasp the situation. From what I can tell, they're all mares, all around my age or younger, few older. It's hard to tell. Some are crying, some pacing back and forth, some throwing themselves at the walls or screaming for help and some just sit there, dazed, eyes unfocussed and distant.

I try to stay calm but I want to scream too. I want to run somewhere –anywhere! But there's nowhere to go. The door's at the end of the room. A large steel block with a huge, heavy lock and no handle. Some ponies are trying to break it open but I know it's not going to work. Even from way back here near the end of the room, I can tell that door isn't budging.

Stay calm... stay calm...

I slowly pick myself up, stepping out of the bed. I stumble on my first step and nearly fall but I catch myself and take it slow. Steady. Don't rush.

My head is swimming and a heavy pulse echoes through my temples as though they were trying to communicate with one another. My forehead feels weird too. There's this dizzying numbness radiating from it. A sort of diluted pain shooting through my horn.

I pause, looking around again. I know this situation is frightening enough but there's something very disturbing about these mares. I can't find one unicorn, or a pegasus either and none of them look strong.

I look closer.

Wait.

No. Oh no...

I can see a mare in a bed two down from mine. She lays curled up in the middle of the mattress, sobbing, with the sheets strewn across the floor. Her gasps and cries shudder through her body, from her head to her hooves to...

To the torn, stitched-up stumps that were once her wings.

I'm shocked. My heart races. What's going on! I start pacing now, not bothering to think this through, not able to stop and try to figure something out. The only thought that runs through my mind is; I need to get out of here. Now.

I start to realize I'm shaking. So badly my legs feel like rubber. I don't want to know... I don't want to know. I don't, I don't, I don't.

I squeeze my eyes shut and lay down on the floor, burrowing my face in my hooves. It's not real. I'm back home. This is a nightmare. Any second now and Spike will wake me up. Or one of my friends will come over and they'll tell me it's alright and I was just having a horrible nightmare but it's over. Oh, Celestia, let it be over!

I feel a hoof on my shoulder and I take a deep, unsteady breath and dare to look up again. It's not Spike. It's not anypony I know but she looks concerned. A pair of deep indigo eyes gaze into me, as though trying to be of some comfort. I notice she's having trouble moving closer and I can see why. Her back legs look as though they've been broken in multiple places. Based on that observation, I realize she must be an earth pony.

I'm so overwhelmed. I don't know what's going on and I don't want to know. I just want to wake up and be home. I want this to be over now.

I look back at the Earth pony and force myself to get up. "D-do you know what this is about?" I manage in a small, broken voice.

She shakes her head. Then, suddenly angry, she smashes her front hooves on the floor, which looks like it hurt but she doesn't lead on.

"I-it's okay," I murmur, because that's all I can think to say. It's not okay, though. Whatever's going on here –it's just not okay.

Then the numbness in my head flashes away and pain begins to blaze through my horn, electrifying my nerves. I cringe and automatically hold my hooves up to my head, trying to rub the pain away.

That's when I feel it.

I stop. My heart leaps into my throat. My mouth is dry. I'm shaking again and I feel weak.

I don't have a horn anymore.

All I have is a jagged, mangled stump and a pulsating pain that ebbs as my magical essence drains away. It drifts off to a place where I'll never reach it, where my destiny ends. I feel it glide away on invisible wings. It doesn't look back. It doesn't stop. It just keeps floating away as I stand here, lost and broken.