Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is to say "Hello."
-Charlie Andrie, The Triumvirate
-Applejack-
This sure ain't where I'd want to spend my evening.
Although it was still sunny in the forest, the afternoon sun was quickly falling below the horizon and would disappear in a matter of hours. Applejack knew that they would have to stop soon; if they didn't, they wouldn't have enough daylight to set up camp. Plus, this part of the forest was quite dense with foliage and underbrush. They would have to sleep on the branches, since the forest floor would be filled with creepy crawlies and dangerous wildlife. Setting up their cloth sleeping bags would take a lot of time - time that they wouldn't have if the sky went dark.
"Uh...Twi?"
"What is it, Applejack?"
"I think we should stop for the night. It'll get real dark soon, and we don't wanna run outta daylight."
"Good idea. I think I've had enough walking for a day. Let's set up camp."
The three ponies stopped in the middle of a ring of oak trees, their coffee-brown bark standing in contrast to their orange and red autumn foliage. The leaves that carpeted the ground were the same shade as the ones on the trees, and they crunched as Rainbow Dash took off with a rope between her teeth. Soon, with the help of Applejack's lasso-tossing skill and Twilight's magic, three sturdy rope hammocks were strung up across the branches of three different oaks. A few more minutes and their packs were hung from the trees, safe from the creatures that prowled the forest floor at night.
Applejack took a look around her surroundings as she climbed up her tree. Having hooves made the task quite difficult, but her earth pony strength allowed her to tightly grip onto the branches and pull herself up to her bedroll. As she ascended, the leaves gave way to the blue and orange sky. The setting sun over the orange and yellow forest canopy made for a breathtaking image, and Applejack paused for a moment to take in the scenery before settling down in her bed.
As she pulled up her bag to get some food, she noticed Rainbow Dash and Twilight pulling out books from theirs. Rainbow Dash, unlike Twilight with her magic, couldn't just make light, so she pulled out a tiny metal lantern from her bag as well. She held it with her wing as she grabbed a flint and lighted it. Dash strung the miniature lamp above her head just as the last red sliver of Celestia's sun slipped beneath the horizon, taking its life-giving light with it.
Applejack, however, didn't have a book with her. She was a simple pony, and though she could read and write decently well her interest were elsewhere. Earth ponies were born to care for the land, and literacy was rarely a concern for an apple farmer such as Applejack. Besides, it was always important to get enough rest for the next day. Pegasi and unicorns always seemed to be out of time with nature, and they didn't seem to have the same connection to the world that earth ponies did. Applejack, on the other hand, knew that sleep was always a well-appreciated commodity, whether on the farm or away from home. After she swallowed the last clump of Pinkie's food and took a sip from her canteen, she simply turned away from the other two ponies and closed her eyes. The wild cadence of crickets and owls quickly put her to sleep.
With Celestia's warm sun gone, the bright, white crescent of Luna's moon soon took over the sky...
-Luna-
It had been a long time since Luna had felt fear in the dreamscape. When she had been banished to the moon so many centuries ago, she had still been able to visit her dear ponies in their dreams. Her separation from Equestria, though, had prevented from going any deeper into the dreamscape, where the real night terrors resided. Even when she had returned several years ago, she hadn't faced anything that would have truly had her shaking at her knees. Now, however, she was staring into an enigma. These beings might be harmless, or they might have hostile intentions. They could be laughably weak, or devastatingly powerful. If she wasn't careful, there was the possibility of serious consequences. She couldn't just ignore it, however; from what she had seen, not acting could have just as disastrous results. She was worried - so much, in fact, that she had had some difficulty in slipping into the right mindset for dreamwalking.
Many ponies would have entered the military mind first had they been in Luna's position. Luna, however, knew that repeated excursions into the same mind would cause her to become more noticeable - the exact opposite of what she wanted. The blue light was the ideal choice that night for one reason: it was the least explored. Whatever was in it might be immensely important or of trivial significance; it was still the best choice for Luna. With the same gentle slip she had learned to employ over the past few days, she dived into the mind.
The same blank space that she had encountered in the past two consciousnesses came into her view, and Luna looked around for something to examine. She quickly spotted the shelf behind her, its wooden panels holding all manner of planks and tools, and stepped closer to examine the legs and the shelves. The wood was quite straight and well cut, though its unvarnished exterior and lack of carvings meant that it wasn't built for appearances. Nicks and cuts were evident everywhere, and paint marks occasionally dotted the wood.
The top three shelves were occupied by planks and some sort of white tubing, whereas the bottom two held an assortment of tools. Some, like the nails and wrenches, were quite familiar. Others, however, were more obtuse, such as a rather heavy tool that seemed to be a drill and a hammer with a claw on the back of the head. On top of all that, the tools were clearly of advanced manufacture. The nails were as straight as a line, and it would take the finest blacksmiths in Equestria to produce screwdrivers of such high quality.
As she passed her eyes over the tools, she couldn't help but notice a small wooden ruler with a crayon scribble decorating its length. "Property of Andrew", it proudly announced in a crude, child-like scrawl. Although it was a lot of information to take in, Luna only continued to survey the shelves and push the questions further back in her mind. She could think about what she had seen later; for now, her priority was looking for objects to examine.
Though she could gloss over them for days, Luna soon ran out of things to look at. The pipes were smooth and strong yet flexible and light, and the planks were well cut but otherwise uninteresting. Even the tools, once she had committed them to memory, were nothing to fawn over. There was not much reason to stay, and Luna prepared to leap out of the dream and back to her office. She would have much time to think about her observations.
Something caught her attention, though. In the corner of her eye, she saw a black mass ominously floating just outside of her vision. Luna turned toward it - and found a squat, grotesque figure hunched over a bloody, mutilated corpse. The monster was completely pitch black, with tentacles and insectoid limbs spurting out from its body at oblique, unnatural angles and glowing white eyes randomly scattered across its amorphous body. It snacked on the body with a series of demonic, malformed teeth as Luna stood in pure shock and terror.
Then the monster noticed Luna and turned its eyes towards her.
Although it was about thirty meters away, the creature quickly scuttled towards Luna at a frightening pace. With each uneven step, the monster dripped a black, frothy goo on the floor. Luna, though she had once fought greater dreamdemons, was shocked by the sudden appearance of such a ghastly creature. Never before had she encountered a creature like that in all her years, and Luna didn't know how dangerous it could be. She backed away from the approaching creature, slowly withdrawing before turning around and galloping at full tilt. Wasting no time, she quickly opened a gateway back into reality and leaped through, immediately closing it once she was through.
Luna woke up sprawled on the ground, her head pounding like a hammer and anvil. The high ceiling was blurry and hard to make out, and her headache didn't make it any easier to gain focus. She felt ill and queasy, and Luna only barely managed to keep from vomiting all over her beautiful rug. Abruptly leaving a dreamscape without easing oneself through the magical field takes a harsh toll on the body, but Luna was no mere pony. Whereas the average unicorn would have been in a coma, alicorns could get away with just a bit of discomfort.
Still, Luna couldn't help but cough and sputter as she lay spread-eagle on the floor, and thirty minutes passed before she could gather enough strength to stand.
-Noah-
Noah twiddled a pencil around in his fingers as he sat on the aluminum folding chair, his gaze staring somewhere past the plywood walls of the house. Crickets droned on through the night, a mind-numbing backdrop that dominated the forest's soundscape and ground against his ears. The late night moon cast a dim glow onto the rotting remains of the mutilated hydra just outside of the house, highlighting the poor choices that the group had made just a few hours ago. Without anything to distract him, Noah couldn't help but stew in his regret as the night pushed on. He was supposed to be keeping watch - they had started to sleep in shifts so as to always be ready for threats - but the boredom of the night had left him with no choice but to wallow in self-pity and misery.
In retrospect, nuking the dead monster was a bad idea. Noah had known about the people who had tried to blow up whales before - it just hadn't occured to him that something similar would happen. Even though they had gotten off scot-free, the potential damage they could have caused wasn't a laughing matter. What was worse, they had expanded some of their precious materials. Sure, high-explosives weren't exactly in high demand as of now, but they couldn't just needlessly use it. Lord knew when they would return...if they would return to Earth.
Every nagging detail, every overlooked mistake and consequence swam around in Noah's mind, aggregating into an enormous mass of worry. What - or who - had heard the explosion? How much longer would they have to survive here? How would they handle a much more serious disaster?
"Are you alright, Noah?"
Leah had gotten up from her desk and walked over to Noah, the concern in her eyes evident even in the dim lighting. Her laptop was brightly glowing on her table, its screen too far away to discern any details. Without any warning, Leah wrapped her arms around Noah and gave him a big bear hug.
"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. Don't worry yourself over me."
"I'm not going to stop until you tell me what's wrong, you big doofus."
Leah could be a bit childish at times, but Noah appreciated her ability to maintain an upbeat attitude all the time. It was one of the things that kept him going throughout this entire mess.
"Well," he sighed, "I can't help but think about the mess we've gotten ourselves into. I mean, we haven't been making the smartest decisions since we've arrived. Andrew and I should have spent more time thinking about our plan before we blew up the dragon thing and almost destroyed our house. Seriously, someone could have been injured, or killed..."
"You're the one who needs to stop worrying. We might have made some mistakes, but we can't change them now that they're all in the past. Just suck it up and be more prepared in the future. I can't believe I'm telling you this," Leah huffed. "You're a grown-ass man!"
"I understand. Thanks, for-"
The two turned towards the sudden shuffling that came from somewhere in the other room. They were startled by the sudden movement, but not scared. Leah casually walked through the doorway and into the other room to check on Andrew as Noah sat and listened.
"...Ugh, that was a freaking scary dream."
"You awake? Tell me about it."
"Alright...you know that movie? The, the one with the freaky spider monster," Andrew stuttered out.
"Crawler?"
"Yeah. That one. I was in my old middle school, and that thing was chasing me through the hallways. I tried to run, but I was slowing down, and..."
"And what?" Leah sat down on the floor, intrigued by his recollection of the dream.
"I don't know. I mean, I saw what happened, but it didn't make sense. All of a sudden there was this white room, and I was the crawler. There was a dark figure in the room...I couldn't make it out. But she was next to my childhood tool rack, and that made me mad for some reason."
"Wait, she?"
"Yeah. For some reason, I knew it was a she. I remember that really well, maybe a bit too well for a dream. Anyways, I was mad, so I chased her down. She ran away and disappeared, and then I was sad..."
"Then?"
"Then I woke up. Weird, huh?"
"Yeah, for sure. Maybe it's because of all the weird stuff that's been happening recently."
Leah nodded. "Want to get up now, since you're awake and all?"
"Why not. I think Noah could use some sleep after all he's gone through." Days on the alien planet were surprisingly uniform with those of Earth, and the humans managed to effectively sleep in shifts without any ill effects. Each day was an hour longer than back home, but it wasn't hard to adjust. Noah slept from the equivalent of 4 in the morning to noon, Leah from then to 8 in the evening, and Andrew from 8 to 4 through the night.
"What are we doing today?" Andrew asked.
"Moving more dead beast," Leah replied as Andrew pulled himself off the plywood floor, throwing his space blanket off of his body.
"Fun."