The Darkness among the Stars

by Haseo

Chapter 1 - Living Nightmare

Chapter 1
Living Nightmare

Night had fallen upon the small village of Ponyville, a cloudless sky stretched over the homes of various little ponies. Not a single light was burning in one of the countless windows of this village that seemed to sleep so peacefully. Everypony except a certain, lavender-coloured, unicorn mare. She was twisting and turning in her hay filled bed, struggling in unbelievable agony within her sleep.

The name of this certain mare was Twilight Sparkle.

Her number one assistent furiously tried to wake the screaming unicorn up. “Twi!, Twilight! Wake up!”
The eyes of the unicorn ripped open in an instant. Her bloodshot eyes zoomed around, trying to focus on something in her dark bedroom. Her heart pumping a seemingly endless stream of blood and adrenaline through her body. But it didn’t last for long. Her pulse calmed as her eyes were finally resting on her reliable, little assistant. There was a worried expression written on his face. Of course, he was concerned about the well-being of his best friend.

Her wide-open mouth formed into a loving and caring smile. “I'm sorry Spike, I didn’t itend to wake you up. Everything is alright. It was just another nightmare.”

The little dragon took her front leg in a tight hug and burried his face into her soft coat. “It was that dream again, wasn't it?”
Twilight sighed in defeat. Her nightmares were bothering her for a far too long time now. “Yes, this is the thirteenth time now. And I still don't know what this dream is supposed to mean.”

Spike´s pleading eyes only grew bigger with every single word that left Twilight’s mouth. “Maybe you should ask the princess for help. I can't take your nightly screams anymore. Not only are they scarring me to death, they even interrupt my dreams of lovely donuts spiked with gems!”

Twilight couldn’t resist to giggle at Spike’s dreamly desires. She slowly sat down, changing to her thinking position. “Hmm, maybe you're right, but I don't want to annoy the princess with such meaningless matters. Tomorrow I'll meet up with the girls, I'm sure they can help me a getting over it. They helped me in so many different ways that I’m sure they will be able to help me with my nightmares as well.”

Spike scratched his little, scaled chin and looked questioning at his friend. “And what will you do now? I mean, it’s so early in the morning. You still have plenty of time until you have to meet them.”

Twilight thought about it for a second. Quickly, she changed her attitude and pushed the tiredness away. Her anxiety was gone and replaced with the gleeful anticipation of learning something new. “Well, sleeping is out of the question right now. I think I’ll do some research about the time travelling spell I used in the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing back then. I’m so eager to learn how to use this spell more than one time. Think about all the possibilities! So many desasters could be prevented!”

The gaze of the baby dragon slowly followed Twilight as she trotted downstairs into the library, while she was still talking about the endless possibilities. His expression was still worried, a huge frown was flashing on his face. „I just hope this won’t take a bad turn at the end.“

Twilight randomly ripped books out of her perfectly organized bookshelves in hope to find the right one. Old books, like the History of the Chronomancer, were useless to her. Nothing in her library could compete with the books inside the Royal Library of Canterlot. “Hrrgh, This is impossible! Why is there such a ridiculous lack of information concerning time travel! It is like nopony ever did something like that. There is time travel for sure, so why did nopony come back into the past to leave a detailed instruction how to do it?”

She groaned in annoyence while she flipped through several diffrent books, after several hours of unsuccessful research attempts, she threw herself on her back and claped her hooves in front of her forehead.

Spike couldn't ignore the noises from below any longer and decided to take a peek from upstairs down to the distressed unicorn. “Twilight? Are you really alright? I heard a loud noise, it sounded like something very heavy fell from some shelf.”

Twilight took her hooves off her eyes, now shooting Spike a unpleasant glare.

His eyes opened wide, when he realised that really has happened. “Oh, I didn’t mean to say you're chubby or something, I just assumed...”
Twilight waved her hoof repellently at her assistant and groaned in complete annoyance once more.“Just stop it, Spike. It is fine, you didn’t mean anything bad.”

Her sight randomly wandered around, until her eyes come to a halt on the clock attached to the wooden walls of the library. “Oh no, no, NO!” The unicorn jumped back on her hooves in the manner of a pegasus athlete.

Spike dropped down on his back, knocked over by the sudden movement of the lavender librarian. “What is wrong, Twilight?”

He slowly stood up, still dizzy by the sudden impact. Twilight passed Spike and run to the bathroom to straighten her mane. But returned as quick as possible to the main room. “I´m late! I´m meeting the girls in three minutes at Sugarcube Corner! I can’t possibly make it!”

Spike was now standing in front of the stairs and looked amused at the trembling unicorn. “Ahh... Twilight?”

Twilight desperately searched for a mirror to check her appearance a second time. The words of her number one assistant didn't seem to reach her properly. “Spike! I've got no time for you now!”

Spike rolled his eyes and approached the speeding path of the unicorn with big steps. With his inherent dragon reflex, Spike grabbed Twilight's face. “You actually realise that you could just teleport there, right?”

Twilight was standing perfectly still in the library and slightly began to blush, smiling awkwardly at Spike. “Of course, I did. See you later, Spike”
As fast as her horn began to light up, as quickl she vanished in a flash of her purple magic.

Spike sighed in defeat. „She may be incredibly smart, but sometimes the would forget her own head if it wasn’t attachted to her neck.“

Not so far away from the library was the famous Sugar Cube Corner located. Five of the six pony friends were already in and munched on some delicious-looking cupcakes and cakes. Rarity waved her hooves around to illustrate her speech to her not-so-interested listeners. “And then I said to her: You look dreadful, you have to...”

A sudden flash of purple light interrupted Rarity and filled the whole room in a smooth purple steam, causing the five mares to fall from their chairs.

Twilight slowly climbed off the table and placed herself on a nearby chair that wasn't thrown over by her teleport. “Hehe, sorry girls. This didn’t come out as planned. I didn’t want to startle any of you.”

Applejack was the first to recover from the sudden blast. “Ya really have to be more careful when ya teleport, you know.”

Rainbow Dash carefully stretched her wings and proceeded to sit down mid-speech. “Yeah, everytime you do that, I have to preen my wings to reach my top performance. It is cool to do once a day. But this is definitly not even close to being awesome.“

Rarity slowly leaned over to Twilight and whispered a little bit too loud into her ear. „She could at least once in a while brush her mane as well.“

Fluttershy slowly started to rise out of the pile of sweets and cookies, “ “Ehhm… I’m sorry to mention it. But it really looks like you are getting better with magic each time we see each other.”

She seemed to sink more and more again in the pile of pie and cupcakes while she spoke, leaving only her weavy mane stick out of the pile.
The pink mare jumped up and down, full of joy and wearing a huge grin on her face. “Woohoo, that was great! Please please please, let’s do this again!”

“NO!” shouted nearly everypony in the whole bakery in unison.

“Okie Dokie.” stated Pinkie Pie as she jumped exactly into the last available chair at the table, with the precision of a surgeon.

Twilight was sitting dull and lifeless in her chair, her eyes underlined with big dark half-circles, the silent witnesses of her sleepless nights. “I´m really sorry girls, I haven’t really slept well the past few nights.“

Applejack laid a comforting hoof around her magical friend to comfort her. “Ya really look bad, sugarcube. Is there anythin' botherin' ya?”

Her gaze slowly moved upwards again, where she met the looks of her worried friends. “Sorry, that I made it so obvious for you.”

Rarity and the others carefully leaned in Twilight’s direction. The fashionista was eagerly interested in learning what exactly was bothering Twilight. “Please tell us, Darling.”

Twilight gulped at the thought of her dream world, but she collected her thoughts and described it in detail to her friends. “It started roughly two weeks ago. I’ve been having these crazy nightmares. It is always about the same creeping creature. In the very beginning it was so beautiful in the forest there. The vibrant colours of the numerous trees, rare flowers and herb everywhere. It was such a marvellous place. Critters you've never seen before, animals that are nearly extinct today, running freely in huge herds through the woods and swamps. A phoenix, tenfold bigger than the ones here in Equestria, hydras living happily in the swamps – they didn’t even try to attack me! They acted like they never had seen a pony before. In the valleys were hundreds and hundreds of basilisks. This dreamworld seemed to be so wonderful for any kind of scientist. Even the sun looked so young and unspent. The sunset there was just breathtaking, when the sky would turn
crimson and slowly vanish behind the mountains, and on the other side, a blue shining moon would slowly rise. It was a view you would die for. Everything felt so old, like an ancient Equestria.”

Fluttershy was literally standing on the table in front of her out of excitement. Her eyes had grown to the size of pineapples from the description of this wonderful place. “What could possibly be so terrifying about this wonderful place? I'd bet my little critter friends would love it!”

Twilight’s gaze began to wander down slowly, deadlocked on the blank table in front of her. “In the darkness in between the woods, there was always something looking at me from the distance. Something big, something strong.. I can feel the magic radiating from it, but I never really saw anything. I only felt its glance. After only a few of these dreams, I noticed that there were never any animals close to the mountainside. So I decided to explore that particular area, to see why nothing wanted to live there.”

Tears begin to form in her eyes, her entire body began to shake.

Rainbow slipped closer to the scarred unicorn and comforted her as well. “You can stop any time, Twi.”
Twilight could only smile at the compassion her friends showed her. “No, it’s okay. I have to do this, otherwise I will never tell anypony about it and have to endure more sleepless nights.”

She concentrated for a short moment to find the spot she quit before and continued her story. “The... The mountainside was the exact opposite of the life-filled woods and swamps. There was no sign of life to be found. Not a single plant, not even a single bird drawing its circles in the sky. It was just plain rocks, but it still crept me out. As I went deeper between the rocks, the cliffs around me rose higher and higher. They swallowed almost all the sunlight that came from above and left me in darkness. I was only able to see about five pony-lengths ahead. This was the very first time I noticed that I couldn't use magic in this dream. With every step, I felt the gaze of this thing becoming stronger. Just when I thought this path would go on forever, the light came back and a little valley stretched in front of me. In the middle of the wall opposing me was a big hole, the entrance to his hideout.”

Her tears ran now freely over her lavender face. She buried her head under her hooves and began to sob quietly.
Applejack rubbed her shoulder and whispered into her ear.“Shhh, Sugarcube. Everythin' is alright, we are here with ya, here to help ya.”

The five of them took Twilight in a caring group hug. Everypony had small tears in the corner of their eyes.

Twilight couldn't believe how much love her friends had to share with her. “Thank you, girls, but the dream isn’t over yet. I saw this predator for the first time. I have never seen such a horrible creature before. It slowly stepped out of its cave as it noticed me and just stared at me. In this very moment I wasn't scared at all. It had the height of two and a half full-grown stallions and its fur was pitch black, but it was a different kind of fur. It seemed to float like it was constantly moving like a pond on a windy day. Two giant blazing wings were attached to his back, they were a little bit smaller than those of a full grown dragon. He had wonderful angel-blue eyes. For seconds, we looked each other directly in the eyes. I could see pain and sorrow raging inside of it, slowly devouring his heart. I made one step in his direction, just one step... and I think he felt threatened by my presence. His eyes turned from blue and circular, to glowing red daggers. The emotions inside of him were changed. He didn't feel sorrow anymore. It had turned into anger and hatred. I began to run as fast as I could. Along the endless way back, I tripped over a rock. I turned my head to see if I got away, but all I saw was a giant, black shadow leaping at me, his fangs ready to kill. I started screaming as loud as my lungs would let me.”

Twilight sobbed quietly alongside her last words. Only barely she forced the next sentence. “And that is the moment Spike woke me up.”
Fluttershy was already curled up into a ball under the table. “Oh my, that is just ho-ho-horrible.”
Rainbow slowly pulled Fluttershy from under the table, whose pink, wavy mane was still hiding her face. “Calm down, Flutters.”
While Rarity tried to comfort Twilight, everypony nodded in agreement. “Twilight, always remember that we are there for you at anytime. I think I can speak for everypony when I say that if anything happens, if anything scares you, you can come straight to us, darling. But tell us, why is a dream scaring you like this?”

Twilight rubbed over her own arms, while she thought about it. „It is because it felt so real. Not like any other dream, more like I was physically there.“

The voice of the timid butter-coloured pony became quieter while she tried to help her bestfriend in need. "I'd like to offer you a bed at my home, if you need some company."

The blue pegasus next to her nearly crashed into the ceiling out of excitement. "That's a great idea! I'm first! We will make it a sleepover in my cloudhouse, it will be so awesome!"

Twilight could offer the two pegasi only a small smile. "Sorry Rainbow, but I think you’re forgetting something."

"And what exactly did I forgot?” the winged mare asked with an annoyed underlining.

Twilight rolled her eyes at the rash friend of hers. “I don't know... clouds? Unicorn? You noticed anything?"

Now even the proud, speed-loving Rainbow Dash slightly began to blush. „Yes, I remember there was something.“

Rarity quickly tried to change the subject and leaned over the entire table just make sure that everpony could hear her well. “I think we should do a picnic now! It's a marvellous day, it will be absolutely smashing!"

"Seriously?" The farmer wasn’t the only one that looked a little bit confused at the fashioner in white.

Twilight beamed for short moment at Rarity, but her smile quickly turned into the face of a pony with worries. "This is a wonderful idea! It would distract me a little bit from my night terrors, but I have to reject your offer for today. Is it okay if we do it next time?"

Applejack took off her hat and waved it around a few times before it landed back on her head. “Hmm, I guess it is alright, Twi. But what in tarnation’s name do you want to do now instead?"

Twilight raised from her chair and proudly announced her newest plan for today. "I will send a letter to Princess Celestia and tell her how great everypony is! Thanks girls... for everything... what would I do without my best friends?”

The skilled unicorn ignited her horn just in time to escape a massive group hug offensive. She quickly concentrated upon her magic and left. Once again the room was ignited with the same purple light as before. Once again everypony was quite light-headed from the sudden blast.

Applejack quickly set herself up. “Ah really don't like it when she does that thin’ out of nowhere.”

As fast as Applejack’s words left her mouth, she fell down again back to the others.

Back at the library, Twilight’s voice suddenly boomed through the building. “Spike! Spike!”

Spike almost fell over his tiny feet as he tried to stand up from his little afternoon slumber. “What?! Is Nightmare Moon back?! Is Rarity here? How do look my scales? Are they straight?”

Twilight playfully rolled her eyes and nudged Spike gently against his forehead.“Of course not, Spike. I think I have to write a letter to Princess Celestia.”

The little dragon beamed in glee at his friend in unrest and took an empty scroll from the shelf.“Finally!”

Twilight cleared her throat and poetically pointed her hoof into the air.“Please take this down:

Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I've learned that friends can not only help you when they’re around, but in your dreams as well. The past weeks I've had terrible nightmares, but since I've spoken to my five best friends this afternoon, I'm feeling more confident in facing my fears. I don't know what I would do without them. I'm glad that I have found such caring ponies, which is another reason for me to be happily looking forward to attend the Grand Galloping Gala along with them.
Sincerely, your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Spike sealed the scroll up and sent it via his magical green flames to he princess.
Twilight sighed at the relief that she could record something today and smiled at her little assistant. “Maybe today, I will sleep soundly again.”

And so, Twilight and Spike went upstairs to read their favourite books until they could embrace the world of their dreams for another time, but maybe she will find herself looking once again into the face of the devil himself. Fearing for her life.

Author's Note:

Comments

[Evilpresident]

Hi, I immediately read your story after that message you send me and I'll try my best to help you out.

Since you mentioned that English isn't your main language, I think you should look for an editor to help you out with your story. They'll find and point out any grammatical errors you make and help you fix them. I'd offer to help you myself but English isn't my main language so I would probably miss a whole lot of things.

One thing I can tell you is that there's way too many capitalized words in your sentences.

Night has fallen upon the small Village of Ponyville, a cloudless Sky stretching over the Homes of Various little Ponies. Not a single Light was burning in one of the countless Windows of this Village which seems to sleep so peacefully. Everypony except of a certain Lavender coloured Unicorn mare. She is struggling in unbelievable Agony within her sleep. Terrible Nightmares must have occurred her.

The Name of this certain Mare is Twilight Sparkle...

I've bolded the letters that shouldn't be capitalized.
I do think you have an interesting story here, from what I could tell from this first chapter. It just needs some TLC

[Visiden Visidane]

There's something odd with your story's formatting. It looks like it's structured like a poem even though it's not. As the previous comment said, there are capitalized letters all over where they shouldn't be. Missing dialogue tags also make it difficult to determine who is talking sometimes. It's not bad for your first try, especially with a second language. It just needs a bit more work.

[Night Daze]

Well, this helped a lot! I'm writing my own story, {i didn't focus on the spelling and stuff like that}, but this was a perfect example for my story!

[Panicing_in_pain]

Twilight thought about it for a second. Quickly, she changed her attitude and pushed the tiredness away. Her anxiety was gone and replaced with the gleeful anticipation of learning something new. “Well, sleeping is out of the question right now. I think I’ll do some research about the time travelling spell I used in the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing back then. I’m so eager to learn how to use this spell more than one time. Think about all the possibilities! So many desasters could be prevented!”

Twilight... Really.