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Twilight jerked awake.
“I...I am really starting to get tired of this.”
“Now you know something of how I feel.”
The voice was soft, echoing far beyond what the acoustics of the tunnel should have allowed for. There was a softness in its hollowness. A wistful tone under the bitterness.
It came from right behind Twilight’s head.
Twilight shot forward, corkscrewing around as she did to stare wide-eyed back into the complete darkness that surrounded her. The air was cold, her body stiff and sore, but a fresh dose of adrenaline shot through her veins and kicked muscles into gear. She landed hard on the stone floor, coughing out everything in her lungs and flailing helplessly. “Sta..! Stay away from me!” Twilight sucked in breath and started swinging her hooves. She was no melee fighter, but she knew well what a wide haymaker could do to a pony. So fail away she did, connecting with nothing but more chill air. Wriggling back, she felt something recoil from her wild swings and put all her remaining strength into a final buck.
The old root never saw it coming. Twilight hit it, desperation and Earth Pony magic via alicorn nature added to her strike, ripping the root and a considerable amount of earth from the ceiling to come crashing down on her. The wind knocked from her lungs, Twilight pulled her head down and threw up her legs and wings to protect herself long enough to cast a simple sp...
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pale
round
up
above
thing
Thought?
Breathe.
dirt
Do it anyway.
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coughing
pain
Space?
Do it again.
More coughing. Less dirt.
Again.
Even less dirt. Less pain. Same amount of coughing though.
Pale? What?
Blink.
See? Light?
Blink. Breathe. Cough.
More space to breathe, less dirt in her face and nose.
Move? No. Stuck.
Move anyway.
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More coughing. More space. Blink again. Turn head. Upward.
Twilight gasped, forcing more of the frigid air into her chest. Forcing the dirt and rocks around her core to pack and move, give her more space for the next breath and more space for the breath after that. She struggled, fighting fatigue and pain and press of who know how many kilos of dirt, but after an eternity, she moved her head a little further into the clear. Above her, the moon hung like a pale orb in a completely featureless sky. It was the only thing she could see. After being in the dark for...she wasn’t sure how long...seeing anything was like a dream.
I can just make out the Sea of Meghan and the edge of the Mare’s Crater. Twilight sighed, twisting microscopically from one side to the next. When I get to Canterlot...after I inform the princesses of the thing coming after me...I am going to lock myself in the observatory and not come out for a week. The weight around one of her hooves loosened up and she wiggled it out into the open air. She couldn’t see it in the moonlight.
I’m not coming out until I have mapped the face of the moon all by myself and I’ve named every rock and pothole I can make out. Twilight worked out a wing and groaned at the feeling of cold air shifting over her feathers. I’m also not coming out until I’ve preened myself raw. She couldn’t see her wing either.
The moonlight wasn’t illuminating the surroundings either.
Twilight looked back up at the moon. Now that she thought about it, wasn’t the Mare’s Crater on the other side of the facing hemisphere? When she squinted, the surface looked textured in a way that was faintly familiar and haunting. The more she looked, the more she was filled with a sense of growing dread. More dirt crumbled down from above making her cough and blink the grit out of her eyes. When she could see again, the moon was fuller and paler, the face rotated to reveal the dark recesses of more craters. A mirror of the Mare’s Crater and two others capping an impossibly tall mountain edges with regular spaced walls.
Walls that were teeth.
A mountain that was the ruin of a muzzle.
Twin craters that were the empty eye sockets of a pony skull.
Twilight clenched, her recoil halted by the rock that still held most of her in place. Above her, in the darkness of those eyeless voids, two points of cold blue flames sparked, and the frost once again hung in the air around her.
“Twilight Sparkle.” The skull spoke, lower jaw be damned. “I will have my Night.”
“Wha...what are yo..u?” Twilight shivered, her breathing speeding up, but the urge to run was burnt out of her. “What do you want?”
“Revenge.” The skull seemed to answer both questions at once, the voice growing closer, the glowing blue flames brighter. “You stole from me. Stole my right. Stole my world from me. Tonight, I make things right.”
“I don’t understand.” Twilight blinked, tears welling in her eyes. “Who are you? What have I ever done to you?”
“FOOL!” More dirt rained down on Twilight. “I am the one called the Nightmare! You stole everything from me on the eve of my ultimate victory! You killed me, Twilight Sparkle.”
“No! I didn’t! Luna...you…she’s alive!” Twilight’s shivering started to shake her entire body, shifting the coating of soil on top of her to free another leg. “I didn’t kill you! The Elements, they pur—!”
“Do not finish that sentence!” The voice was as loud as Twilight’s own now, bouncing off the walls of the collapsed tunnel. “You know what your precious Elements of Harmony did! My body might have walked off back to Celestia’s embrace, but I died that night and you are responsible!”
“No!”
The skull cracked, the flames blazing out of the eye sockets and ice forming across the surface as the voice rose into a wordless cacophonous scream. More dirt fell and there was a rush of air as the ceiling gave way to leaves and roots, grass, ground and the stars in the sky. Twilight strained, pushing with her last bit of strength, her horn flaring to life to free herself from the rubble. The sound of the scream got louder and louder, drowning out everything else as she freed her last leg.
The ice and blue fire swept up, out of the open chimney and into the sky, curling around into the shape of a face Twilight only remembered from her own nightmares. Giant slit eyes roared at her as she pulled her body up toward freedom. The blue light lit the cave and forest alike, getting brighter and brighter. The wind wouldn’t stop either. Wet leaves slapped at her face and roots tore at her mane as Twilight climbed. She was almost to the top when the swirling mass of the Nightmare came crashing down.
“I will have what is rightfully mine!”
Twilight grabbed the lip of the chimney and gave it her all to haul herself out. She looked up and the blue light covered the entire world. It filled her field of view, changing down at her like a raging storm given unnatural life. She dived forward, sparks flying from her horn as she cast a shield around herself.
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She could feel the moon on the horizon when she opened her eyes.
Dew lay heavy on the leaves around her, the eternal cold seeming gone. In fact, she felt warmer than she had in what seemed like a long time. She took a deep breath, savoring the taste of the damp forest air on her tongue.
“I’m...I’m alive?” Twilight sat up slowly, the sheer surprise and elation she was feeling tempering the aches and pains of all the damage she’d taken. She turned her head gingerly, licking her canines and testing to make sure nothing vital was broken beyond repair. Her spine popped, but otherwise seemed intact.
Twilight then began the arduous task of repeating her experiments, one limb at at a time. The discomfort she was in was indescribable, but the fact that she felt anything at all was a miracle. She knew she just had to beat the dawn, and as dark as the forest was around her meant she’d indeed done so.
Once she was back on her hooves, Twilight’s slit pupils widened until her surroundings were merely shaded, instead of lost to shadow. Only then did she start her next series of tests and take a step toward her goal, Canterlot and the throne room.
“I can’t wait to tell the Princess about this. We have so much catching up to do!”