//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 ☆ A Bitter Psychosis 
// Story: My Name is Nightmare Moon 
// by Pyromaniac 
//------------------------------//

The dark is swirling, a sickening haze of a half-wakened state. Drifting, a soul lost between dreams and nightmares, the mind and the reality. 

I'd felt as if I'd been awake for days. My eyes burned with restlessness brought on by fear. If I dared to look outside of my window, I would see some furred monster with glowing eyes ripping at the screen. My one rule, a mantra almost, that I repeated to myself feverishly for hours is that it cannot hurt me if I do not look at it. These episodes had been getting worse for some time now, the aching fear that something inhuman is following me, the shadows that crawl up in the corner of my eyes and disappear if I frantically turned around. I could hear skittering claws on the hardwood floors even though I kept no pets, I could hear voices when I knew no one was awake. If I was daft enough to dare try to rest, the horrors only dragged me in so intimately they stole shreds of my sanity from me. Their insidious claws tore the inside of my eyelids and left me feeling drained.

The night time was my enemy, although I pleaded for her to be my dear friend. The night time haunted me, choked me, left me alone to fend for my own fearful mind. How cruel, I'd have thought if I didn't have enough innocence left in me to still be afraid. That innocence burned a hole in me, that unwavering smile until the setting sun brought back my paralyzing, childish terror. 

My trembling arms tightened around a soft toy horse, the soft faux fur that comprised it's body nothing more than white noise to my numb senses. I could hear it whispering to me, words that my brain could no longer parse. Acrid tears stopped falling long ago, the knot in my throat refusing to be removed so easily. It was unfair, unfair, unfair. My body ached as if I felt nothing and everything at once.

A hand, outstretched towards nothing. My eyes trained on my arm in the darkness, the sheer moonlight dancing down from a wonderfully full moon illuminated wound upon wound that lay etched into my skin. I focused on them, my vision forcing itself away from the shadows that danced and snarled at me menacingly. The creatures lurking in them were not real, if only I told myself over and over they were just tricks on my eyes, my tired prayer to my own psyche.

The shadows seemed to envelope my arm, staining my flesh an inky black. I squinted, sitting upright quickly as my fingers went stiff, paralyzed as they melted together. My heart was a jackrabbit, slamming itself against my rib cage as I tried to move the mannequin that my body had become. The shadows traveled through my veins, infecting my skin and clouding it like ink dropped into water. Useless, hot tears fell from my eyes once more, unable to scream as I heard my bones horrifically grind and my felt my muscles tear apart and sew themselves back together.

The pain was so searing, so hellish that my mind could no longer process it. It was simple, you see, to merely not feel pain. So easy to cut yourself off from a situation, to tell yourself it is happening to someone else. 

So I did.

I allowed my own darkness to melt my vision down to nothing, my memories fading into the haze. By the time I returned to myself, the pain had become a dull headache. I splayed out on my bed, my body seemed fatigued although I had not moved an inch. Though, as my senses returned to me, I could process that suddenly my body was much too large for my bed. Or, rather, was too large. My bed was now a small pile of rubble with a blanket over it. I willed myself to roll onto my side, feeling distinctly dragged down, as if I was running in a dream. 

In the corner of my eye, I saw it- a slender hoof, black as the night bathing me. And another... and two more after that. Stars danced around my vision, only adding to my confused fear. I moved my head, unprepared for how off-balance I would be. My movement was too wide, gravity teased me by withholding any announcement of a lengthy horn that had muddled my sense of balance. My neck must've had wonderfully strong muscles to be so long and elegant without aching under the weight of the horn- my horn.

I scrambled to my feet, limbs shaking like a newborn foal as I tried to balance on four legs. I wasn't stupid, no, I just felt crazy. I took a shaky step out of my room, already unbearably cramped when it housed my human body but truly impossible to fit this equine one in it's clutch. I pushed myself through the door frame that truly was not made for a creature so tall, a pain like a knife bore itself into my already sore skull as my horn hit against the top of the door. My teeth ground together, eyes squeezed shut as I braced myself to accept the rippling pain. My recovery from the brief accident was thankfully only seconds, I returned to moving one hoof in front of the other, unsteady and unsure. The clicking sounds of my hooves on the floor was muffled by the soft velvet skin that covered them, striding towards the front door with increasing confidence. The world melted into a dreamlike state, the door swinging open by itself, but I couldn't muster the energy within myself to question how or why, I could only drift closer in a possessed fashion.

I slipped outside into the dew-kissed grass, silvery light bathing my form. I lifted my eyes to inspect the sky, a new wave of fear rippling through my nerves like poison as I took in a swirling blue mist enveloping the moon. I had merely blinked by the time the mist had dissipated, leaving me to sickly wonder if it was ever really there. My head turned, looking up and down the road that passed by my home, unsurprisingly it was devoid of people or cars, no lights to be seen near or far. Turning, my gaze settled on the cliff my house sat on, looking out over the forest below that was the bane of my existence, the home of the monsters that haunted my vision and dreams. This once, just this once, I felt the fear melt out of my veins.

I spread my wings, stepping closer dully. 

Run.

Eyes hazed over, my brain full of cotton.

I jumped.