It was another beautiful night created by Princess Luna. The sky was clear, the stars glimmered beautifully and the moon shone from the sky onto Princess Twilight Sparkle’s tree castle. Princess Twilight sat at the window in her tree castle on her bed. She couldn’t sleep. And it wasn‘t because of Spike who laid next to her in his basket talking about something, while dreaming about Rarity and rubies, his two favorite things. Twilight let out a sigh, thinking about last night. A strange light had appeared the night before over the Everfree Forest, most likely above the Castle of the Two Sisters.
"Just what was it?", she thought to herself.
The light was too bright and most certainly too close to the ground to be a star. After watching it, she noticed five things at least as big as the light itself falling to the ground while the light was still there.
"If only I could have gotten there in time. Unfortunatly, it lasted only for a few minutes. I doubt even Rainbow Dash would have made it there before it disappeared.“
She thought about it for a moment.
"Just what kind of light does something like that?"
The castle itself seemed to be fine. Well, about as fine as an old castle falling into ruin could be. Unfortunatly, she didn’t check the surrounding area. Perhaps she would have found something, anything which could have given her a clue. But it was too late now. She didn’t do it. Though the question was, of course, whether anything she may or may not have found actually would have given her an actual clue or just opened up more questions. As far as she knew, this phenomenon had never occurred in Equestria before, after all. She spent the whole day looking through her books, hoping to find anything, even if it just one sentence, about this light, but neither she nor Spike were able to find anything. Fluttershy didn't have any luck asking the creatures of the Everfree Forest about it either. Apparently non of them had been near the castle the night in question.
"Maybe, just maybe, it'll appear again tonight. This time, I'll be ready."
She looked up to the stars. She sat there and waited. And waited. And waited. But after a few hour of waiting, the light still hadn’t appeared yet. Disappointed, she started to turn away. Suddendly, she noticed something. A shadowy mist moved quietly through Ponyville. It enclosed the houses, plated the lanterns and covered the plains, moving slowly. Right next to her castle. It was close enough for her to see something in the mist. Twilight rubbed her eyes and got closer to the window in order to get a better look. She wasn’t imagining things: There was a silhouette of a creature moving with the mist. She leant out of the window opening it even further to get a better look…
*CREEEAK*
Twilight froze as the window squeaked. Normally there were other sounds to mask it but this night was dead silent. Well, up until now, that is. Nervously, Twilight saw how the mist stopped at once. A part of the mist formed into something looking like the head of a pony. She continued watching as it formed into the head of a unicorn. Once it was finished forming, a pair of red eyes suddendly appeared at its sides. And then, it turned around! Twilight's heart beat faster. She stood there with her widened eyes and her mouth opened. She felt goosebumps crawling down her back while staring at the “head“ unable to move. She could feel its red eyes on her. Eyes that narrowed until they were only slits. She stood in front of the window as if she was struck by lightning. She wanted to move, to call out to the pair of eyes, to do anything! But she couldn‘t. Suddenly, a light started to glow above the eyes. But it was no ordinary light. It was a black light. A dark light. Darker, than the night and the mist. Darker, than the mist which surrounded King Sombra. Darker, than the darkest night Princess Luna or even Nightmare Moon could ever create. Darker, than anything she ever saw. And it expanded. The darkness expanded, covering everything it touched shrouding houses, windows, the sky, the stars, even the moon itself and finally, the red glowing eyes in a void of pure darkness. Twilight was overcome with fear, but only for a moment. She quickly closed the windows. She could still feel the creature's stare laying on her. But she still felt being watched even though no one was in her room. Except for the snoring Spike, of course. Suddendly, Twilight heared something. Twilight shivered. A voice spoke two sentences:
"The circle is closing itself. The end is near.“
"Who said that?! Where are you?!", she called out into the darkness in her room.
She shook her head and her expression grew darker.
"Enough! My fear hasn't taken over me before, and it sure won't now!", she thought to herself determined.
She knew countless of spells to light up that darkness, both literally and figuratively. Something like this was a piece of cake. She closed her eyes. She could feel the magic flowing through her body and into her horn. Twilight opened her eyes and...it was gone. The darkness was gone!
"What in the name of Celestia?! The darkness just...vanished? How is that possible?"
She looked around and outside, but there was no trace of that shadowy creature or the mist. Everything seemed to be as it was before. Well, almost everything. Spike muttered something unintelligible and covered his head with his pillow to avoid the light.
"Sorry, Spike.", she whispered and turned off her light.
But she was still confused. But also reliefed. As she stood there wondering what that was, she felt a new feeling. Tiredness! She was tired at last.
"That's no real surprise." she said yawning. "I can't say this night wasn't as exhausting as it was exciting."
She laid down in her bed. There were even more questions than before. What did she just see? Where did it come from? Twilight yawned again. It seems these question would need to wait until tomorrow.
"Maybe I'll find the answers in a book tomorrow. I'll try to look in the Canterlot library too.", she thought to herself before falling asleep.
But as she slept, the bright light shone above the Castle of the Two Sisters for a short amount of time once more.