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// Nightmares 
// Story: A time of sadness 
// by Slick Dash 
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I went over to the chest of drawers and placed the bottle on top of it. I then turned back to my friend, she was crying in earnest now. I took hold of her and guided her to the bed so she could sit down. We never made it. She collapsed halfway there, and instead I sat beside her on the mahogany floor. 

She looked up at me, her eyes filled with pearls of saltwater. “Y-you don’t hate me? For... not telling you?” My heart panged at the idea of Twilight thinking that. 
“Of course not!” I smiled sadly down at her, I could feel myself welling up, combined with how sad my friend was and how terrible I still felt after everything, I had begun to give into the misery always close by. “I could never hate you Twilight, you’re my friend! No matter what’s happened.” The unicorn tried to wipe her eyes, but as soon as she did new tears replaced them. 
“I just... I just miss him Rainbow!” I felt a shiver run up my spine from how familiar this convocation felt. 

“M-me to, me to Twilight.” I leant down and hugged her, but the unicorn pushed my hooves away. She stood suddenly, furious. With me or herself I couldn’t tell. With tears running down her cheeks and dripping off of her chin, she screamed. 
“HOW CAN YOU BE SO FORGIVING? How...how can you simply ignore the fact I kept this from you for so long? I wouldn’t! I’d be angry! Rainbow, get angry! Shout at me! Yell at me! Anything!” She was distraught, words seemed to spill from my mouth without my approval. I don’t know what made me think of it, it was far too sappy to come from my mind.

“Why would I get angry at you? Because you felt the same way about the man I loved? If anything that makes me feel closer to you, knowing we felt the same feelings for a person who we really shouldn’t. That just proves that we’re a lot alike.” Twilight frowned at my sudden poetic statement. But she soon grew angry again, 
“But, if you forgive me... than... than that makes me a terrible friend...” I didn’t say anything to this; I couldn’t because I didn’t understand her logic. “Because... for a long time I didn’t forgive you! For the whole time Tom lived here and hurt so much over you, I...I couldn’t bare to think that you liked him too! When you told me I felt so angry! I’m... I’m such a horrible pony!” She bolted from the room.

I tried to follow her. She rocketed up the stairs and to her room with me in close pursuit, “Twilight wait!” but as we reached the second floor she threw herself through the open door and slammed it behind her. I crashed into the door hard, unable to stop in time. My shoulder screamed with pain but I ignored it. I banged on the wood and shouted. “Twilight? Twilight come on open up! I don’t hate you! I understand why you were angry with me! I took him from you, and I’m sorry for that. But I loved him with all my heart.” There was no response from inside her room. “I know he wouldn’t have wanted us to fight over this!” Still nothing.

I couldn’t believe this, first I’d lost Tom and now my friend was being completely unreasonable when I’d told her I didn’t hate her! My temper rose for the first time in weeks. “FINE! BE THAT WAY! HE CARED ABOUT YOU AS WELL YOU KNOW! BUT OBVIOUSLY THAT ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH! I’M LEAVING!” I turned back down the steps, and headed for the old bedroom. I picked up the bottle that Applejack had given to me under an hour ago, jeez only that long? And I left for home.

When I got home, I placed the bottle on top of the fireplace-the most honourable place I could think of seeing as Tom and I would sit by it nearly every night- and then I locked the front door and went to bed, furious with how Twilight had acted towards me. I threw myself onto the bed, and tossed around to try and get comfortable. My hoof caught on something. I looked down and saw a black coat. But... Tom had worn that on the night he... 

The room seemed to explode into darkness. Although there was nothing around, I seemed to be illuminated by some source of light. Noises screamed into existence all around me, car brakes, wheels screeching, the sound of crushing metal, “RAINBOWWWW!” TOM! The noises died down leaving me in silent darkness once again. I looked around, trying to find Tom but of course he wasn’t there. A muffled voice began to speak, at first I couldn’t hear it properly but as I listened the dark around me seemed to dissolve into the interior of Tom’s car. He sat beside me at the wheel smiling at me, his voice seemed to cut into focus midsentence. 

“-the place I realised I wanted to be with you no matter what.” I realised where I was, what was about to happen. I looked out of the windshield, there was the large rock. I watched in fear as I knew what happened next. The dark shape erupted from behind the rock, I had been wrong. It wasn’t a black shape, it was dark blue and seemed to glisten slightly in the moon light. The car crashed again, but it didn’t seem to happen to me, it felt as though I were watching it from a great height watching a different me fall to the side of the road inside the car. I watched the shape as it shot of towards the sky. Towards the moon. 

“NIGHTMARE MOON!” I screamed as I bolted back into a sitting position. For the second night in a row I had woken up in a cold sweat, I panted, trying to make sense of what I saw in my dream. Why was this only coming out now? Had I seen the shape before we crashed but simply buried it deep in my subconscious because of the worry for Tom’s health? If that was true, that would explain why it was rearing its head now. I wasn’t coming to terms with Tom being gone, but as time moved on maybe the event was simply trying to surface itself instead of tearing my mind to pieces inside. Tom’s coat was gone, had it ever been there at all? Or had it all been a part of the dream? Was I losing my mind?

I moved to the window and looked out into the night sky, the sky was dark blue and dotted with sparkling stars. Just like that shape in my memories. The moon hung solitarily in the sky, the mare in the moon had long since vanished, but as I looked up into the silver orb I could imagine it still being there. Nightmare moon was gone. Princess Luna was proof of that. Princess Luna...

I hope you're enjoying this story so far, What do you think will happen next!?!