//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: The Terror Below Hayseed Manor 
// by the7Saviors 
//------------------------------//

After receiving directions to Wispy Willows' cabin, I thanked Evening Star for her time and we departed once more for the inner city. I prepared myself again to convince Moon Dancer to hold off our journey one more night so that we could get our affairs in order, but to my astonishment, she was the first to make the suggestion.

I looked her over carefully and it was only then that I noticed that the mare looked just as fatigued as I felt—more even. With the slight gauntness of her features and the heavy bags beneath her eyes, it was a wonder I hadn't seen it before. It was enough to make me question my own state and if I looked just as haggard. Needless to say I agreed without hesitation and together we returned to the hotel to pay for one more night.

I was happy to see that Moon Dancer seemed to be coming out of whatever mood she'd been in and felt it was an apt time to talk about her recent behavior and what it meant. Up until now I'd been content to let Moon Dancer hold onto the tome, mostly because I'd come to loathe even touching the thing, but I was starting to feel that it would be best to separate my bespectacled friend from her object of obsession. I'd felt that way for some time, but had been afraid of the response I would've received had I tried to take it while she was acting so strangely.

Now that she'd returned to her senses somewhat, I figured I could coax the mare into letting me care for the tome for now. That was what I'd intended, but as I would soon find out, I'd made a grave mistake in assuming Moon Dancer had any kind of sense left whatsoever. All seemed well once we had entered the room, but as I discarded my saddlebags and sat down on the bed to rest my legs, Moon Dancer spoke, her tone holding a curious casualness as she asked me a question I hadn't expected to hear.

"Have you seen them, Twilight? Those horrible things in your dreams? Is that why you've had so much trouble sleeping lately?"


It was a question I wasn't prepared to answer, and the way she spoke, her unsettling tone of absolute calm struck me speechless. For a brief moment I couldn't do anything but stare open mouthed at the mare standing across from me. She stared back, her eyes fixed on mine and her expression tense and expectant. She hardly gave me any time to respond before speaking again in that same unnervingly calm tone.

"Well, I've seen them, and I know they exist. I was scared at first—terrified, and I still am, but I think I'm beginning to understand, at least a little bit. Even if I can't read what's written, I think... no, I know it's because of the book. I can't read them, but I can hear them, Twilight. I can hear the words, telling me all kinds of things, trying to make me understand, but I couldn't, not in the beginning. I tried, and I kept trying and now I think I'm finally getting it."

As she spoke her expression began to change, her calm façade falling away to reveal a twisted look of revelation—her face alight with the kind of mad exaltation one would show at having discovered some great fundamental life-changing truth. Now afraid for my friend's sanity, I tried to ask her what she meant, what kind of horrible things she'd been seeing in her dreams. I tried to bring reason into the conversation, and for a moment I thought I'd succeeded.

The moment I told her I hadn't dreamed of any horrible things, and had no memory of any dreams at all, her face fell and the calm façade returned, though she now looked slightly disappointed. Unfortunately her calm façade was still only that, a façade. She spoke once again, but her words were no more sensible than before.

"So you haven't seen them then... that's a shame, but I also kind of envy you. You may not understand now, but there are things out there; horrors and wonders—things that exist that you can't possibly imagine, Twilight. I've seen them, and I know they're real, the tome proves it.

"You've seen it with your own eyes. You've seen what's in that book, but apparently you don't get it, not like I do. Not like Lucerne did. He gave her the book, and she understood. She knew there was more to our meager existence than what our limited senses could tell us. Magic is a wonder, but now I know that there are far more beautiful and terrible things that sit just beyond the bounds of our own reality."

Here she stopped and heaved a long and weary sigh, as if the weight of the entire world had fallen on her shoulders. Then she looked at me, and for as long as I continue to live I will never forget the expression she wore. It was a look of pity and sadness so profound that I was vividly reminded of an owner forced to put down their cherished pet.

"You may be a Princess, Twilight Sparkle... you may be the head of your very own school, you and the other Elements may hold the fate of Equestria in your hooves... but I'm the one that now holds the heaviest burden. Just like Lucerne Hayseed before me, I hold the burden of truth, and while that truth may be incomplete right now, I'll be the one to uncover the whole of it. For some reason you can't see it, but that's okay... I'll show it to you."

She smiled a horrible pitying smile and cold dread flooded my veins, but before I could act or speak a word in response, Moon Dancer's horn blazed to life and in an instant that same overpowering drowsiness fogged my mind completely. I could only form half a murmured plea to the smiling mare before I stumbled and fell away in a sleep no doubt fit for the dead.  

I don't remember much of what happened next, only that I woke screaming. I don't know whether from sheer terror at the sight of something I couldn't remember, or the horrendous agony of a migraine that threatened to split my head in two. The pain abated quickly as before, but it took much longer for the fear to die down. For several moments I sat on the floor, wide eyed, sweaty and shaken, but unable to understand why.

It took another moment for the rational part of my mind to reassert itself, and once it had I realize I was alone. Moon Dancer was nowhere to be found and I was left on my own in a room that had become eerily silent. The light streaming through the window revealed that Celestia had brought forth a brand new day, but the bright morning sun did nothing to ease my panic. The fear and dread were only aggravated as I realized how long I'd been asleep. I searched the room and my saddlebags,deep down already knowing that I wouldn't find the tome.

A few minutes of searching and my fears were confirmed; Moon Dancer had disappeared, and had taken the tome with her. I'd seen the signs, but I'd chosen to ignore them until it was too late, and now my friend had become an obsessed madmare intent on showing me some kind of 'truth'. I hadn't the vaguest idea of what she was talking about, nor did I know what her plans were, but I knew her final destination was most likely the old abandoned manor just past the Hayseed Swamplands. 

As I was packing away my belongings and preparing to follow after my deluded friend, somepony knocked at my door. The sound was like the deafening rapport of a cannon in the absolute silence that filled the room, and my heart nearly leapt into my throat at the sudden noise. Once I'd gotten my heartbeat under control I answered the door, and saw that it was a mare—somepony working as part of the hotel staff to be exact.

Evidently my earlier cry had scared a few of the other guests and somepony had reported the noise. I assured the mare that had been sent to check up on me that everything was fine, though I did ask if she or anypony else had seen the unicorn mare that had accompanied me. My heart sank at her negative response, but I thanked her all the same and made my way down to the lobby to inform the staff that Moon Dancer would not be returning and to check out of the hotel myself.

I paid the remaining expenses, including the fee to have the rest of mine and Moon Dancer's personal effects returned to our respective homes, and took flight southward towards Dodge City, the closet town to the Swamplands. Though I wasn't aware of it then, it wouldn't be long before I returned to the city, but the next time I came to Manehattan, it would be not as the Princess of Friendship, but as a bound and babbling madmare who'd seen far more than she could bear.