//------------------------------// // Nightmare // Story: In Reflection, The Same // by Faedelaide //------------------------------// The cold winter wind whipped in Twilight's face, stinging her eyes and covering her coat in a thin layer of snow as the trio flew. The trip to the Crystal Empire had barely begun, and yet the sky was already reddening as the sun began to touch the mountains below. Twilight hadn't expected the trip to continue into nightfall, but she had neglected to account for the Wall's sheer magnitude. For the past five minutes, the trio had been flying along the side of the Wall, all of them not all that entertained by the blueness that surrounded them everywhere but above. "Uuuuugh, this is gonna take forever!" Rainbow Dash moaned, keeping pace with the other two. "We've got no other choice. The Wall is too high to fly over, and if we took Gillian's boat, it'd take us days." Gillian took up the rear, her flapping slightly uneven as she tried to catch up with Twilight. "Um, I know this might not be all that helpful, but I've never flown for this long. I'm gettin' a li'l sore," Gillian complained quietly. Rainbow Dash sighed and rolled her eyes. "Well we can't stop now, we've got nowhere to land. You're just gonna have to tough it out until we make it to the open ocean." "I know... I know." Gillian shrank a little, going back behind the two ponies. Twilight looked guiltily back at the griffon. "We're sure to reach the edge of the Wall soon. It can't be that big. After all, It was pretty small on the map." "I think the fact that it showed up on the map at all proves how big it is," Rainbow responded. "It seems so. Let's just hope we're nearing the edge." The three continued to fly in silence, listening only to the whipping of the wind and the quiet crashing of waves against the Wall down below. Twilight even found herself dozing a little as they continued to fly. Fortunately, Rainbow took quick notice. "C'mon, Twi. If you can't make the trip across the sea, how can I expect you to make it all the way to the Crystal Empire?" "sorry, Rainbow. I'm just a little tired." Twilight rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes. "Well knowing how much sleep you've been getting, I'm not surprised." Another mention of sleep. Was her sleep talking really that loud? Surely Spike would have told her if it were so drastic, and why did it only show itself now? And what in Celestia's name was that horrible noise? Twilight suddenly snapped out of her trance as she realized that the noise wasn't coming from her head. "Hey girls... y'hear that, right?" Gillian asked aloud. "Yeah, and It sounds freaky. It sounds like... screaming?" "This doesn't make any sense, we're in the middle of the ocean. What could possibly be making that noise?" "Maybe something near the edge of the Wall?" Rainbow pointed forward, and sure enough, the edge of the Wall was just a little ways away. "Oh thank Grover, I thought we'd be flyin' forever." Gillian quickly caught up to the two ponies as her excitement to see the shore mounted. As the three approached the edge of the wall, the cacophonous choir of moans, yells and screams grew louder and louder until it made Twilight's head throb. She held her hooves to her head and closed her eyes as she, Rainbow and Gillian turned the corner towards the back of the Wall. "In the name of everything good in this world what is that noise!?" Twilight shouted over the symphony of howls. When she didn't receive an answer, she looked over at her friends. Gillian's eyes were wide as dinner plates as she held her talons to her mouth in shock. Rainbow was equally as shocked, though her face betrayed more a feeling of disgust and repulsion. Twilight turned towards the back of the Wall to see what her friends were looking at, and possibly identify the source of the noise. But there was no source, at least not a singular source. All along the rear face of the wall, creatures of various shapes and sizes hung from the wall. Large, leathery winged, bat-like creatures flapped frantically as they attempted to escape the ice's iron grip. Dozens of the starfish that attacked Gilda and the others writhed and slithered, and many more of them hung lifelessly, their arms swaying gently in the wind. A giant turtle with the scales of a dragon roared in pain as a serpent with the face of an elephant gnawed at one of its many legs with ravenous thrill. Fish the size of islands thrashed whatever parts of them weren't encased in ice, insects of all kinds tore pieces off of whatever monsters were too weak to fight back, and all along the wall, thousands of other creatures squirmed and clawed and gnashed at the very thing that held them in place. An odd avian creature with reptilian skin extended a long, boney hand out to Twilight. "Pleassssssse misssssss, I'm trapped... and you musssssst help me! I beg of you, ssssssssspare me a kind gessssssssture and I will forever be grateful!" the beast smiled, it's metal beak clanging and screeching as it did. Twilight, still in shock, refused to move, and in no more than a moment, the thing exploded in rage. It's metal beak unhinged, releasing a mouth full of writhing, hook tipped tentacles. "Wretched poniessssssss, I'll feassssssssst upon the flesh of your children and usssssssse your hide asssssssss a new cloak!" It clawed and thrashed at Twilight as it tried to reach for her. She screamed at it's sudden outburst, flying backwards and nearly tumbling into Rainbow, who herself yelled at the sudden unexpected contact. Upon hearing her scream, the odd elephantine serpent turned its gaze to the three horrified watchers and raised its tusked head at Twilight. It whispered to her in a voice that somehow drowned out the ear splitting screaming of the creatures around it. It stared through her eyes and directly into her very soul as a message pierced through its unmoving lips and found its mark deep in Twilight's head. "Ah, Sammakött, always the hard worker. Perhaps our goal is not as far away as I believed. Heh, Forzoa will have my head, I'm sure, but I have hope you will give her more than enough to repay my... actions. The army knows, Sammakött. Even if the rest of this putrid world has forgotten, we see you, and we await your command, o great king of the dead." It's mouth stretched wide in a nightmarish smile, and that was the last thing Twilight saw before she blacked out.