Twilight was screaming when she woke up as she couldn’t see anything around her but swirling clouds of darkness like she had seen in the middle of the crater. She stood up and wandered around aimlessly, since she could not see anything. As the darkness lifted, she suddenly found herself back in Canterlot Castle. She looked around, but she couldn’t see anypony and just started to walk around in the silent castle. Anything told her about the whereabouts of the people … the nobles, the princess … the castle seemed to be completely empty. Twilight could smell the disgusting smell of burned flesh in her nostrils. She didn’t even wanted to know where this came from, but she was drawn to it, she couldn’t resist. It was like something else was pulling her to the source of the smell. She didn’t pay much attention to where she exactly was, as she suddenly realized where she was going: The door to the library just appeared in front of here, the door to the place where she learned for years before she went to Ponyville.
She just stood there, as the door opened on itself. Twilight closed her eyes as she didn’t want to look into the library, but it was like something forced her to look into it. What she could see was almost too much for her to bear. In the library were books piled up to stakes, each one covered with a thick layer of ash. A spear reached out of each stake of books, and on each spear were impaled bodies of ponies, burned to nothing more than black bones. Twilight couldn’t bear it anymore and shook off the mysterious might that kept her here and made her look at it, as she ran through the emptied floors of the castle, she could hear a manically, evil, and dark laughing in her ears, which followed her until she found herself not far from the exit of the castle. She tried to open the large front doors with her magic, but they didn’t budge.
“Did you think I would make it so easy for you to escape, little Twilight?” It was the mysterious voice which was laughing before. “Who and where you are? Show yourself!” Twilight yelled into the empty floor, her voice echoing back from the walls. “Who am I, you ask? You’ve seen me coming down on your world. Such a nice world, so full of life …” The voice paused. “Where am I, you ask? Where should I be, where should I go? I’m just a lonely traveler looking for some company …” The voice changed from dark and foreboding into a more conversational tone.
“Why are you even trying to fight me, my little unicorn? Why can’t you just give in like your two friends and give me your life?” The voice said. Twilight spun around as the door behind her opened. Just outside of the door were Fluttershy and Spike lying on the ground, without any sign of life in them. Twilight could feel the tears in her eyes. She couldn’t believe it, she didn’t wanted it to be true. Then she realized what was going on. This demon was playing tricks on her mind, trying to get her to give up and surrender to him. “Aww, look at that smart little unicorn. It almost looks like you’re too clever for me to trick you, but anyway … You won’t get out of this nightmare.” The doors slammed shut again, as the voice was saying those sinister words. “NEVER!” The voice echoed from the walls. Twilight walked over to the wall and touched it. She found it unbelieveable that it was a simple dream, it felt so real to her. Anyway, she had to wake up and she needed an idea how to manage to do it. “Think, Twilight, think …” She whispered to herself, burying her face in her hooves. “You have to figure out what to do …”
Spike woke up and looked around at first. He was still inside of the darkness, which was swirling in clouds around him. And he was still separated from Fluttershy, or at least he couldn’t see her somewhere around. He walked around in the dark, without seeing anything until the darkness cleared. He found himself back in the upper room of the library in Ponyville. He looked around, wondering why he was back here and why everything was empty in the room. He went down into the reading room of the library, but also here it was completely empty. Not a single book was left in the blank shelves. He looked out of the window, but he could see nothing than white. It was probably in the middle of the winter and it was probably a snowstorm outside.
He looked around again and spotted a certain purple unicorn on the other side of the room. “Twilight, I found you again!” He was happily yelling and ran over to his friend as fast as he could, but stopped when she disappeared. He didn’t understand what just had happened at all. Why was he here, why did Twilight just appear and disappear again? “Such a smart little dragon we have here. You’re almost asking the right questions, Spike, but still … almost.” A deep dark voice said within his head, with an amused undertone in it. “It almost looks like Twilight moved out of the Ponyville library, don’t you think so?”
Spike was looking around nervously but he couldn’t see anything but empty shelves around him. “Looks like Ms. Sparkle found another ‘Number One Assistant’, huh?” Spike, who was still looking around, didn’t answer to the voice. It would have been the wrong thing to answer it. “How does it feel to be replaced, little dragon? How does it feel to be left behind without a single word of goodbye? It hurts pretty badly, mh?” Spike tried to ignore the voice in his head and was pulling on the door knob to get outside of the library. “Oh, don’t even try that. You will be trapped in here forever; your so-called ‘friend’ took care of that.”
Spike could feel a sting in his heart; he didn’t want to believe that Twilight would just abandon him like this. He just didn’t believe it. There must be a way out of this nightmare, away from that voice, which was whispering those lies to him. He tried to break a glass window, but it didn’t even take a scratch from it. He sat down at the wall, feeling a hopelessness growing deep within him, and he didn’t know what to do. If Twilight just were here, she would surely know what to do … But this time he was on his own, and this time Twilight probably wouldn’t come to help him out of this mess. He just wished for some books which could help him to get out of here and back to his friends. He didn’t want to be alone in an empty library. He breathed out heavily. “Do you want something … like this?” The ominous voice asked and a small, golden key was floating before Spike’s eyes, but it was gone as fast as it appeared as he tried to grab it.
“Oh no, it is not that easy, my little dragon.” The voice laughed. “If you want that key, you have to give me a little something first …” Spike was trying to resist the voice, but not with as much success as he wanted. “You know, I’ve travelled for really long now … and I’ve grown hungry … If you want to wake up, you just have to …” The voice paused and Spike was holding his breath. “… Give me something to eat …” The voice paused again. This time, it was Spikes turn to let the voice within his head waiting for an answer. “Well, and what do you want to eat? Besides, could you show yourself and get out of my head?” He just received a maniacal laugh as answer. “I’m feasting on the energy of your life, little dragon … And the longer you are in here, the more I will feast on your life … all you would have to do is to abandon your friends like they abandoned you … Or can you see any of them here? All you have to do is to grab the key.” The little piece of golden metal was floating temptingly in front of Spikes eyes.
While Twilight and Spike had to fight with their own nightmares, Fluttershy woke up in the same darkness like her two friends before her and was walking around like they did. But as the veil of darkness lifted for her, she found herself in the middle of the Everfree Forest at night. She didn’t want to move at first, but then she realized that she had to get out of here, before any wild animal would find her here. So she started walking, first slowly and carefully, but then she took up speed until she just ran through the woods, in the hope to get out on of the sides. She ran until she saw the shade of a unicorn on a glade. The pale moonlight wasn’t shining bright enough for her to make out if it was a statue or a living pony, but she felt remembered at the one time Twilight went into Everfree Forest alone.
Carefully she was approaching the shade, and it turned out to be a statue – A statue of Twilight with Spike on her back. Fluttershy screamed and ran away from the glade, her eyes closed, she just rushed through the woods, ignoring the branches hitting her in the face and the scratches she got from them. “Well, it seems like your friends aren’t there for you anymore.” The dark voice she suddenly heard just made Fluttershy even more scared, and she even sped up, until she came to another, this time empty, glade. She felt exhausted from the running and took a deep breath of the cool air of the night.
“Why don’t you take a break and talk with me, dear Fluttershy?” The voice just didn’t stop. “Go away, go away, go away! I don’t want to talk with you!” She screamed, hoping that the voice would just remain silent or even better – that it just was her imagination. “Why should I? I have an offer for you, pegasus. I can show you the way out of this forest … if you just abandon your friends and leave them to me …” Fluttershy shook her head furiously. “NO! Go away!” But the voice didn’t go away. “I didn’t get much to eat since I came here, and the life of some ponies would just be right to fill my stomach – if I had one.”
The pegasus cowered onto the ground and ignored the voice in her head completely. “So, you don’t want to cooperate like your friends? Then I guess I should just leave you here in the forest … alone … with all the wild animals who live here … in the dark …” Fluttershy tried to convince her that his all was just a dream, until she just heard the voice screaming in a unnaturally high pitch. She tried to hold down her ears, but it didn’t help much since the voice was inside her head. She felt like her head was going to explode. But then, the wailing stopped. She stayed in her huddled position before mustering the courage to look around
She just could see the swirling darkness around her like before, but now the clouds were moving faster, almost aggressive. Fluttershy could see a small, white light through the darkness, but she was too scared to move towards it. Then the darkness faded away, at first it was slow, but then it went away faster and faster until it was gone completely. She could see how Twilight was standing in front of a black stone which emitted a dark aura and seemed somehow … alive. The unicorn was breathing heavily as she stepped back from the comet, then she turned it around and rammed her horn into the downside. The comet cracked and then broke into a million tiny parts, and it was like Twilight and Fluttershy could hear a distant screaming as the pieces fell apart.
Twilight then came over to Fluttershy and helped her to stand up. The pegasus’ hooves were still shaking in a conclusion of the events, but she could stand alone. Twilight said nothing at first, and she was still heavily breathing. She then picked up Spike, who was still lying unconscious on the ground, and was walking upwards the crater again. Fluttershy looked a while after her friend, and then followed her on the way back home.
Twilight didn’t say a word as she was carrying Spike out of the crater with the remains of the comet on the craters bottom, followed by Fluttershy, who was still thinking about what had happened. The unicorn reached the top at first and turned around to wait for her friend. She also didn’t say a word when Spike woke up again and was hugging Twilight closely; she just ignored him and walked ahead. Fluttershy stayed a bit back with Spike. “Why do you think she isn’t talking with us?” The pegasus asked her friend, and the little dragon just shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just happy that this stuff is over.” He pointed back to where they came from. “And I just hope Twilight will get better soon.” Fluttershy looked at her friend walking ahead of them. “Yeah, I just hope so too…” They just walked for a while side by side.
The landscape slowly changed again: The pale and dead looking trees were growing green again. “I think that comet had something to do with the corruption of this land. Look at the trees recovering.” Spike followed her explanations, and another idea came into his mind. “What about the wildlife in this region? If the plants come back, the animals will come back, too. Or am I wrong?” The pegasus thought a while about it. “Yes, you’re right, Spike. The animals will come back when the time is right, but it will take some time …” Spike looked up to the pegasus. “So there couldn’t be any dangerous things around, hm?” Fluttershy didn’t answer right away. “Well … There could be something around, but I don’t think so.” Spike accepted her answer and felt relieved about that nothing bad could happen to them anymore now.
They soon passed the abyss they came through on their way to the southwest, and went through it without any major problems besides of some snakes between the rocks that freaked Twilight out once more and her friends had some problems to keep up with her just running away from the snakes, luckily in the direction of the way up. Soon they entered the Everfree Forest again and went through it. The trees with the former, unnaturally pale color of their bark were growing again and the silence was gone since the animals returned into this part of the forest. “That was definitely the effect of that creature within that rock.” Those were the first words Twilight spoke since they were walking back to Ponyville. “Just imagine what had happened when they reached towards Ponyville. Or even across all of Equestria.”
“Are you sure that this thing is dead now?” Spike asked her, and Twilight just answered with a shrugging. “I don’t know, but I hope so. When we’re back in Ponyville I’ll write a letter to the princess about this. Maybe she knows what has to be done about this.” She was shaking her head afterwards. “I think it is dead, but I’m not entirely sure about it.” They passed the cave in which they encountered the first creature they saw on their journey. They didn’t stop and just walked on this time, eager to make it home. Each one of them was longing for a bed, some rest and probably something to eat. They soon were reaching Ponyville and were just felt happy that they went to investigate before the effects reached Ponyville and it probably would have been too late.
Shortly before they reached the Town, Twilight turned around. “Just let us keep quiet about what had happened there, okay?” She was asking her friends, who looked at each other for a second and then nodded. “Sure, Twilight.” They both said in a unison. They didn’t ask why, they knew that they wouldn’t tell anyone about what happened in the crater anyways. They all just hoped that it was over once and for all.