Sunset breathed in the fresh evening air. She was doing what she loved most - spending time with her friends on the beach. The sun was setting, and the sky was orange and pink. Sunset looked around at her friends. Rarity was painting Fluttershy’s nails, Twilight was reading a book, Applejack was just lying on her back, staring up at the sky, and Rainbow Dash was lying down next to AJ with her sunglasses on. And it would have been quite calm and quiet, but Pinkie Pie, of course, could not stop talking.
“That one looks like an iguana! Wait - now it looks kinda like Gummi,” Pinkie Pie giggled as she guessed the shape of each cloud that passed by. “And that one looks like cotton candy! It’s also pink, like the real thing!”
Sunset smiled. She glanced at the sky. It was a beautiful shade of scarlet. The bright orange sun was slowly setting into the horizon. Sunset never wanted this to end. She enjoyed spending time with her friends, and no matter what they were doing, they always enjoyed themselves as long as they were together. And she had come such a long way...
A sudden flash of light interrupted her thoughts, and as she looked in the direction of the flash, she saw Princess Twilight and dragon Spike from the pony world. They disappeared as suddenly as they appeared. Even though the flash was only for a fraction of a second, she could see the two creatures very clearly, as if they were sitting right in front of her. Sunset blinked. Was she seeing things?
“Are you alright, Sunset?,” Twilight asked. “You look… startled.”
“Oh, um, I’m fine,” she replied. “I just, um, was, um, thinking about… something?”
“Okay… ,” Twilight said suspiciously, but she continued reading her book.
‘I’m probably just imagining things,’ she concluded.
Sunset completely forgot about the incident, until it happened again. And again. And again. She kept on seeing flashes of the pony world. Sometimes the flashes would disappear in the blink of an eye, but other times, they could last for minutes at a time. When she was in school, she would see pony Cheerily; when she was playing video games with her friends, she would see a boring book instead of the screen.
One night, when Sunset was in bed, she heard Fluttershy singing a lullaby. Surprised, she suddenly jolted up from her bed. But as soon as she did, the singing stopped. She closed her eyes again, and Fluttershy continued singing. It didn't take long for Sunset to figure out that this had something to do with the flashes she kept on seeing. She decided to tell Princess Twilight about. The princess would probably know what to do and why this was happening.
Dear Princess Twilight,
Are you still awake?
It took about two minutes for Twilight to reply:
Yes. Is everything alright?
Well, not really. I'm not able to sleep. I keep hearing stuff. And in the daytime, I keep seeing things in Equestria, as if I am there.
What Twilight replied was unclear. Some words were missing, some words looked slightly erased, and that was only the first half of the sentence. The second half just looked like a bunch of dots and dashes.
When Sunset wrote back to Twilight saying that she wasn't able to read her message, Twilight's reply was even less readable than the last. Sunset panicked. She didn't know what to do. Whenever she had a problem she wasn't able to solve, she would ask Princess Twilight via the journal. But now she couldn't even use the journal. Then Sunset realized that she could just explain to Princess Twilight in person - or pony, so to speak. She planned to go that very night, as she felt that she had to stop this as soon as possible. She quickly went to the statue in front of her school. Sunset was feeling both nervous and excited. She was nervouscited. It had been quite some time since she had visited Equestria. She hadn't met Twilight in a long time, and she didn't use the journal as much as she used to. She didn't really know much of what was happening to Twilight these days. And the sooner they figure out what was going on, the sooner they could fix it. Sunset took a deep breath and slowly entered the portal connecting the two worlds.