Going from the farm to the library means going across town, and that means Fluttershy can no longer avoid the busy main streets. At this time of day, trips like this are a nightmare for Fluttershy. Tired, impatient ponies, pushing their way through the streets as they return home. Night owls just starting their days, mingling and procrastinating and blocking traffic. Fluttershy grimaces at the thought of it as she walks onto Mane Street, the busiest road in Ponyville.
The low sun casts an orange glow over empty shops and vacant homes, stalls with no customers and no owners, restaurants with no patrons or servers. That same hollow breeze kicks up a cloud of dust and swirls it around, giving the world its only sense of movement, the only faint trace of life.
Reality crashes in on her. She reels, stumbles, her mind buzzing as it works through what she’s seeing. Everything that’s happened rushes back as the pieces fall into place. Rarity, nowhere to be seen. Angel, mysteriously missing. Applejack. Big Mac. Applebloom. All gone. They’re all just gone
Fluttershy finds herself glued in place, hardly able to think, let alone walk. She begs with her body, asking it to move, to find something to prove her wrong. As long as she moves forward, there’s hope. Follow through with your goals, and eventually something has to work.
How can she move, though, when faced with such enormous solitude? Where would she go? She doesn’t know what’s happened, nor how to fix it. Anything in Equestria could be the solution. There’s no clear path forward, no guidance. When you’re able to go wherever you want, it can become impossible to go anywhere at all.
Just one step at a time. This is what Fluttershy tells herself, over and over, as she finally forces her body into action. One shaky step, then another, and soon she’s walking. With walking comes vision, clarity, thought. Twilight’s house, she decides. I can figure out the next step from there. One step at a time.
Her attempts to ignore the world around her prove to be futile. The lack of crowds is so jarring, so completely wrong that she can’t help but remember what it should be. They’re clear in her mind, the children playing, the merchants chatting with customers, the customers sweet talking merchants. That bench, home to untold love stories. These steps, worn and cracked through use they may never see again. It’s not just a town, it’s a home, and the marks of its denizens are everywhere.
Then, a crash. Movement in an alleyway, and before she knows it her hooves are moving. No hesitation, no fear, all forgotten in the rush of adrenaline, the faint hope of seeing another pony. She skids as she turns into a darkened alleyway, narrow and crowded with some pony’s old junk. The mountain of trash is still shifting, settling into a new position after collapsing in on itself. Possibly just a tremor caused by age, an old rot, but Fluttershy can’t keep herself from hoping there might be some other cause.
With bated breath, she steps into the darkness. The dark swarms in on her, pulling her deeper into the void, snatching the light away. Her legs shake, her teeth chatter as she pushes herself to investigate. She peeks around the wall of debris, but sees nothing. More trash, fluttering in the wind, and more shadows, dancing in the faint light of the setting sun.
As she turns to leave, she catches something in the corner of her eye. A movement on the wall as a shadow vanishes. She wheels around, searching for the source, but again sees nothing. A box shifts in the breeze and tumbles down, landing in front of Fluttershy with a dull, empty thud.
She stares at the box. There’s nothing special about it, no markings, nothing inside it, but still she stares. She stares and stares until it’s too much, all of it, and her legs give out. She sits there, in the loneliness of that dark alley, staring at an empty box as tears well up in her eyes.
Why? Everything was fine yesterday. My friends were fine. My friends were here, and now they’re… She sniffles loudly. They’re gone, and I’m here. Something took them, and left me, and I might never get them back. Why…
She lies down and buries her head in her hooves as the tears flow. It all floods over her, drowns her, and it refuses to let up. She has no recourse, no way to fight this off, not anymore. All she can do is sit, and cry.
Why am I still here?
Eventually, the tears dry. She pushes herself up, out of the alley, down the street. Forward. She makes herself move, as difficult as it may be. It doesn’t help much, but it’s enough. She gets her legs back under her, her eyes focus, her mind starts to move again. She’s able to forget the emotions, at least slightly.
At this point it’s well into dusk. Darkness begins to take hold, warping the empty homes of Ponyville into strange, hostile shapes. Fluttershy moves faster as anxiety wells up inside her. It fills her up, and in doing so quashes some of the heavy thoughts trapped in her head.
By the time she makes the final dash up to Twilight’s home, Fluttershy is in a full sprint. The darkness surrounding her is seared into her vision, threatening to become all she can see, and all she can think of. She skids to a stop at the door, knocking harder than she wanted to, and taps her hoof on the ground as the void devours her thoughts.
A noise in the distance steals her attention, and then a shadow snaps her back around. The horrors of the night close in, set to overtake Fluttershy. Sound, light, movement, she feels a strange malice from them all. Soon panic overtakes politeness, and she barges through the door into the library.
She slams the door shut and leans against it as she catches her breath. Her racing heart slows, her legs stop shaking. The light and warmth of Twilight’s home beckons her back into the world, out of the depths of her own mind.
She takes a deep breath, and another. You’re okay, Fluttershy, she tells herself. You’re safe. You were always safe. More deep breaths, eyes shut tight as she strains to push away the fear. Soon enough she’s put herself back together, at least enough to look out into the house she’s broken into.
It is, as it always is, overwhelmingly spacious. Twilight isn’t much one for privacy, so nearly the entirety of the home is a single massive room. It makes Fluttershy feel tiny, insignificant.
The lack of ponies doesn’t help. No sound of shuffling pages, no whispered gossip, no rowdy kids or embarrassed moms. Just a grand hall of towering bookcases and silent books, empty furniture surrounded by all the odds and ends that make it Twilight’s home.
Twilight’s home, but no Twilight.
Fluttershy sighs. I don’t know what I expected, she thinks to herself. Out of energy and running low on optimism, she walks over and slumps into a chair by a reading table. They’re all gone, whisked away by some magic or machine or…
She glances towards the back of the library and sees the heavy door leading down into Twilight’s basement. A world of science and experimentation, gadgets and gizmos. Any number of things could be possible down there. Maybe, even, something that changes the whole world.
No, Fluttershy tells herself, don’t be silly. She would never be so reckless. Right?
She turns and looks at the next door, leading further into the library. Twilight only keeps the most popular books in the front, the rest sequestered to the maze deeper within. Of course, this includes books on all kinds of strange magic, hidden away in isolation where anypony could find them.
As she mulls it over, Fluttershy’s eyes start to droop. With a yawn, she drags herself out of the chair and walks towards the door. Nothing to do right now other than just go home and sleep, she tells herself.
She catches a glimpse outside through a window and flinches. The sun is gone, set completely in the time she wasted here, and all that awaits her is darkness. She freezes, her mind strained and exhausted, but she forces herself to think. You have to go home, Fluttershy. You can’t stay here all night. You have to… Oh, but I won’t sleep at all if I go out now. Surely Twilight wouldn’t mind if I just…
Fluttershy looks at the door, then up at Twilight’s loft. One cold, menacing, the other familiar and inviting. She shakes away her worries and makes a decision, floating up into Twilight’s room. She’ll understand. Right? Yeah, I’m sure she will. Hopefully. Gingerly, using as much care as she can muster, she lifts aside Twilight’s blankets and lays down in her bed. She stares up at the ceiling, breathes deeply, and shuts her eyes.
Then, a moment later, she opens her eyes again. How can Twilight sleep here? She sits up and looks around. On one side of her, a vast window into the darkness of the night. On the other, an aerial view of the shadowy library, shapes dancing around the corners of her vision. She’s surrounded on all sides by the unknown, and it plagues her thoughts. She can’t stand it.
With a groan, she gets out of bed and starts rummaging through Twilight’s things. She must have something I can- there! Prepared as ever, Twilight of course has a myriad of sheets and blankets to suit any occasion. Grabbing them all, Fluttershy gets to work. She ties corners together, uses pins to close gaps, carefully measuring distances. Then she raises it up, hanging her makeshift wall up at the edge of the loft, a quilted curtain covering the view downstairs.
After giving the window a similar treatment, Fluttershy once again settles down into Twilight’s bed, yawning and pulling the covers up over herself. Much better, she thinks as she drifts off into an uneasy sleep. Tomorrow will be better…