I was jerked awake by the crisp, piercing buzzing that I'm all too familiar with. Most other ponies see (hear, rather) that as nothing more than an alarm clock; I see it as a gateway into the hell which is my daily life. Life... this torture could hardly deserve such a misleading title. Once you factor in the multitude of disorders, negativity, and constant arguing, eroding my very sanity, there's not much left besides a smoking husk filled with broken dreams, fashioned out of recurring nightmares.
As I drug myself from the abyss of sleep back into my falsely secure reality, I rolled over my bed and groggily searched for the button to turn off my alarm. As I reached over, my hoof was greeted with the cold silver that I felt every single day at that exact moment. I shuddered, as the clock felt very much like the cold steel of the sword that ran me through in my most recent, and most common Nightmare.
Before I could react, the wave of emotion sucked me back into the vortex; a black hole containing all the remnants of what I ever wanted but didn't get, all I was told I'd get but didn't; all the broken promises. At the hole's singularity, they all coagulated into the Nightmares' open jaws. You may be wondering why I capitalised Nightmares. That's because these aren't your typical, bulk standard run-of-the-mill nightmares; they're the mental epitome of Death; His personal servants, formed from the negativity and basic animalistic instincts, lingering at the back of your mind. They have but one instruction, and one mindset: destroy. To do this, they break into seemingly harmless dreams, infecting and corrupting them and eventually, the memories are just shadows of their past forms.
As I floated, watching that unfold before my eyes, I felt my body being pulled towards the centre; I was moving forward, and gaining momentum. Before I hit the point of no return, likened to the event horizon of an actual black hole, I collided with a cloud that contained some of my darker dreams. As we met, I was sucked into it, entering yet another nightmare.
I "awoke" into the dream, opening my eyes as a foot soldier, in the war between the princesses Celestia and Luna. As I looked ahead, I got a glimpse of what used to be the Princess of the Night, dressed in full battle regalia, ready to lead her New Lunar Republic into battle against Celestia's forces. She had been long since corrupted; she had gained the physical form of a Nightmare, the farthest a Nightmaric infestation has ever gotten. As I watched her from the corner of my eye, giving orders to her army, behaving as if she were a mare possessed, I saw the truth. Luna was imprisoned within her own mind, watching the Nightmares' actions on the outside world without being able to control her own body. All she could do was sit, and wait, while the Nightmares only got stronger.
Anywho, back to last night's dream.
Long story short, I was standing at the front of the line, in a row of about forty to either side of me, waiting for commands from Luna while watching the war ensue before my eyes. I was running every scenario through my head, and just before we were given the order to charge, my dream abruptly shifted.
I was back outside the vortex, peering into dreams and memories as we floated past each other. Even though some memories I saw were sad, it was nice to know that they were safe from the Nightmares - for a time at least. Peering past the clouds floating past, I turned my attention to the centre of the vortex; I wanted to get a good look at one before I awoke. Or died. Or whatever. As I looked onward, all motion ceased. The main Nightmare, known to their kind as the Gjjin, slowly turned, breaking the stillness, until it was staring directly at me. Trying to escape its paralysing stare, I tried looking away, squirming, even swimming away, but I soon found that I couldn't even blink. I was hopelessly stuck, with no chance of escape. From then, it only gets worse.
While I was imprisoned, I could only stare at the Gjiin as it began to climb from the centre of the vortex, which was now nothing more than a disc surrounding him, with no forces to pull the memories into the middle. He, it, she, whatever it was, began to crawl towards me, before standing upright on its hind legs. It was black as pitch, sleek and shiny, and very armoured; its very skin was formed from rough, reptilian, dragon-like scales. It was very reminiscent of a troll, about 9 feet tall, and arms stretching past its knees; all was topped with a head like a mix between a Draconequus, and an ogre.
It began lumbering towards my invisible prison, now just a few hundred yards away, and I was stuck there, watching him proceed. He didn't exactly walk, for there was no solid surface. It could be better described as a rampage, but a slow one at that. He jumped into a dream could, and as he left, the could turned as black as his scales. After he left one, he'd jump straight to another, leaving that memory to the same fate. Then another, then another. Since I couldn't move, I became keenly aware of even the slightest sound, for there was none now that all was still, except for the Gjjin. Each heartbeat weakened my already frail mind, and it seemed as if there were a century between each one.
Suddenly, everything stopped. The Gjjin, my heartbeat, everything. Looking back, I realise that even my thought process had stopped. The entire world before my eyes faded to pitch, then to white, with just faint grey outlines where clouds used to be. Those became streaked downwards, as if I were flying vertically at a million kilometres per hour, in a rapid blur. Next thing I knew, I was on my floor, in the real world, coughing and wheezing, shuddering and quaking as I recalled what had just happened to me. Not sure how long I'd been out, I looked over at my clock, still buzzing, which read 7:00. I hadn't even been out for longer than a few seconds, yet it felt like eternity. Nonetheless, I was still more grateful than I had ever been to be free from that monster in my head, at least for a time.
Before I go for today, I feel like you need a bit of backstory on the Nightmares. In case you though they were bad enough, here's an outline of what exactly happens when a Nightmare infestation begins:
Being consumed by Nightmares is comparable to having your consciousness slowly torn apart, thread by thread. There's no escape. Even your very Soul isn't safe from the torment, the endless pain that you suffer. You may pass it off as an ordinary illness, and think to just "sleep it off", but that's literally the worst possible thing to do. Because they are Nightmares, they are most active in your slumbers. The more you sleep, the more power they have over your free will. Another thread of your sanity and Soul goes every night, the very second you fall asleep. Even if you just doze off in class or something, you couldn't have woken up quickly enough. You know that they feed on your subconscious, mostly when you're actually unconscious, but you also know that you need sleep, or you will die from a multitude of ailments, including exhaustion, stress, fear, shock, and more. There's nothing that you can do. Nothing but wait. Watch and wait as you feel your very Soul getting corrupted and torn to shreds by a force that is so powerful that you can't even think to begin to comprehend. Sorry it's to morbid, but that's just blunt fact. But, anyways, that's about it. I'll probably be able to explain a bit more later.