~~~
Something soft brushed against Rainbow Dash. Something plush, like a velvet blanket yet firm like the mattress of a bed. She caught the whiff of coal-smoke and lubricant grease as a gust of wind pushed the odors into her face. Her hooves shook as she tried to stand. Her knees buckled, and her head stung as she fell to the ground.
She didn’t know where she was. Her eyes were open but her vision was black. She couldn’t see anything, not even the muzzle in front of her own face.
She could feel, however.
Rainbow Dash crawled on her hooves and knees, unable to stand like a dog inside of a moving carriage. She felt nothing but cold, hard steel. There was something oily slicked onto the surface she was touching. It made her hooves feel grubby. The floor was also vibrating. A constant chug, fast and rhythmic, as well as a deep rumble, like thunder, that she could feel swelling inside of her chest.
Wherever she was, she was moving; and she was moving incredibly fast.
Something soft brushed against Rainbow Dash again, her hooves this time. It was supple and soft, and felt like a body. But before Rainbow Dash could get a sense of what she was touching, it squirmed away out of reach. Out of existence.
Rainbow Dash scrambled frantically after whatever had just happened upon her. It was warm, and quite possibly the only touchstone of reality in this black void she currently found herself in. Desperately, Rainbow Dash tried to stand again, only to be knocked back down by inertia. She wanted to find whatever it was that she felt. She clambered at the ground, frightfully searching, but all she could feel was steel and oil and dirt.
She was crying. She didn’t know why. She didn’t feel like crying, she felt more perplexed than sorrowful, like she wasn’t really performing these actions herself; more so just feeling them play out. But Rainbow Dash could feel a tinge that stung her eyes and a plasma of wetness running down her cheeks; so she must have been crying.
It wasn’t long before whatever was moving lurched to a halt, slinging Rainbow Dash forward. She could hear a high-pitched squeal as she felt her world slow to a stop. The squealing was proceeded by a loud release of air, sounding something like dragon’s breath, and suddenly everything was quiet and still.
Rainbow Dash found the softness again, inertia had flung her into it. It was all around her, except it was squirming and kicking at her, and it felt like a tangle of hooves. She could hear now, much better than before when everything was moving and loud, and there were sounds coming from the softness that surrounded her.
The sounds were almost animalistic in nature. long moans, soft whimpers, hushed crying. Rainbow Dash could hear her own voice adding to the amalgamation of noise. She was calling out to somepony, somepony whose name she’d never heard before and couldn’t remember. She did remember, however, becoming very distressed when not getting a response, and called out again; more frantic this time, and with a real sense of urgency.
But before she could get a response a door was opened and light flooded in, chasing the darkness away.
Suddenly everything had dimension and shape. There were walls and a floor and ceiling, that seemed to make up the inside of a large cargo train. And there, on the other side of the train car, was the object of Rainbow Dash’s distress: A filly the looked like Fluttershy. Except, this filly wasn’t Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash called out to her, excitedly and relieved, but once again she called out a name she still couldn’t recognize.
The entire train car was filled with foals. In fact, Rainbow Dash was in a pile of at least half a dozen that were thrown to one side as the train came to a stop, but this yellow filly with a name she couldn’t understand was the only one Rainbow Dash seemed concerned about. But before Rainbow Dash could even attempt to remove herself from the foal-pile, a shadow cast itself across the interior of the train car. A tall figure with an ethereal flowing mane stood at the mouth of the car, obstructing the light that was pouring in.
And then, Rainbow Dash was awake.
~~~
Rainbow Dash awoke to a resounding boom that startled her out of her slumber.
Her cheeks were wet as if she'd been crying, and her body was drenched in a sticky sweat. Her bed sheets were twisted and tangled around her body as if she had been struggling and her throat stung as if she'd been screaming for hours; but as she looked at her alarm clock, it only read '3:15 AM', two hours after she had originally fallen asleep.
The blue pegasi’s mind was strangely clear, despite not sleeping for very long or even the exhaustion that still clung to her body from a day of intense aerial exercises; every sense seemed to be preternaturally alert.
She looked around the room, wondering what had awoken her.
The room itself was entirely dark. From her bed, Rainbow Dash could only make out the vaguest of figures of her armchair or her dresser in the dim light of her alarm clock. The room was essentially empty.
From the window she could hear the sounds of the Equestrian Express departing from Ponyville station on a red-eye to Vanhoover. A loud exhalation of air and steam, the slow wind-up chug of the engine as it started down the track, and a long, solitary horn that echoed softly against the hills as the train headed towards the horizon. They were lonely sounds.
The remnants of the dream still clung to Rainbow Dash's mind. The traincar, the foals, the sadness and panic she felt. As she tried to make sense of everything, a flash of lightning streaked through the sky outside, and illuminated the room in a blinding white, causing Rainbow Dash to let out a frightened cry. The light faded just as soon as it arrived, leaving the pegasus flash-blind, and once again the room was shrouded in the darkness of the night.
Rainbow Dash's eyes were open but her vision was black. She couldn't see anything, not even the muzzle in front of her own face.
She could hear, however.
A low rumble of thunder rolled across the rooftops of her cloud home, followed by the soft patter of rain-drops. Rainbow Dash could smell the freshness of the rain from her open window as the last of the thunder grew faint, like the Equestrian Express rounding the edge of the horizon, and Rainbow Dash could feel the strange adrenaline that had awoken her slowly start to wear off.
She fell back into the plushness of her cloud bed and resituated herself under her blankets. The rain was coming down harder now, forming a steady rhythm as it pitter-pattered against the marble columns and window-arches of her cloud home, and It didn't take long before she felt the warm embrace of sleep returning once again.
Her mind began to fade away from reality like the fuzz of an old television that had been switched off. And then, with a few phantom twitches of her hooves, Rainbow Dash was asleep again.