Midnight will reign.

by Roodush

Prologue

Frantic pounding of hoofsteps on packed earth and pine needles echoed between the trees. Quick gasps from lungs that were far too overworked created little clouds of mist in the cold night air, illuminated by the weak moonlight that filtered down through the gently swaying branches overhead.

A colt was running, stumbling through the intermittent pines, he went without direction, only going forwards, to where safety was assured. He had been galloping for a good while and he still had some distance to go. In the very far distance lights twinkled from what might have been the town, he would be safe there, it couldn’t follow him there, not yet. It had kept him for 2 years, keeping him alive only so much as to keep siphoning off of him. So it could grow its strength.

Tears dripped slowly down his muzzle, mingling with the sweat that had beaded on his skin and soaked through his ragged fur. He could make it, he thought, he would live. He let out a choked gasp, partially from immense relief and partially from deranged amusement. He had hardly allowed himself the hope of freedom but now it was within his weak grasp.

Then he tripped. He caught his foot on an upturned root and went sprawling face first in the dirt. He spat out the old pine needles and clambered shakily to his hooves and quickly backed against a tree, feeling the rough bark through his damaged hair. For a few seconds he did nothing except for dart his eyes around, he dared not even breathe. Absolute silence reigned until he snorted in relief, creating a puff of mist. He thought it had been “her”, going to take him back, or to finally kill him but it was just a stupid root.

He stepped away from the tree feeling the distance between him and it. The air swirled around the newfound gap and chilled him bringing up goosebumps. He shivered and let out a shaky breath. Just then a shadow flitted across the sky, hardly even noticeable in normal conditions but to the pony it was akin to a death sentence, his eyes widened in fright and his pupils shrank to the size of a pen nib. The shadow came back.

“No…”

He had been so close.

He looked up in terror as a gigantic shadow suddenly covered the sky above him, plunging the area around into darkness that was so familiar to him by now.

He exploded away from the tree he had been leaning on, sprinting now, hooves covered in scratches flew back and forth kicking up poofs of dust that hung suspended by gravity for a few seconds before dropping back down to the ground. The branches stopped moving, regardless of the frightful wind that pushed against them. It was most probably pointless but he had to try. He had to warn someone. The exhaustion wasn’t going to stop him.

Wind suddenly picked up tenfold and the rough, ragged colt fell again. This time it wasn’t because of an upturned root. He snapped his head around to see behind him, sweeping greasy dark mane out the way as he did so. The pony’s mouth opened of its own accord in terror as he looked at his legs and saw roving black tendrils of cloud wrapping around his hooves and licking up and down his forelegs, wherever the cloud touched his skin was plunged into icy numbness. The tendrils led back to an incredibly dense cloud a few feet away, it was so black it was as if everything just stopped at that point. It was a void.

The battered pony on the ground flopped weakly and moaned while losing his mind to the insanity he had been fighting off for months as he gazed into the centre of the cloud. Two small luminous eyes snapped open out of the mane of stars and flared with malice as they gazed right back.