It appeared suddenly one day with little fanfare. A plain brown door with a brass knob and no other distinct markings, save for the words Twilight Sparkle engraved neatly into it. It stood independently, save for its doorframe, in the middle of Twilight’s bedroom in the Castle of Friendship.
When Twilight woke up one morning and first saw it, she was struck by curiosity, rather than the fear and dread that would soon become staples in her future. Her first thought was that it might have been some kind of prank by Rainbow Dash or Pinkie. That didn’t seem right though. The eeriness of something like this didn’t fit into what she was used to from those two. No, not eerie, creepy.
I better check to make sure nothing is going on with it, Twilight thought to herself, preparing her magic to reach out and grasp the door’s handle. After all, she could never be too careful, in her time as an element of harmony she had made a few powerful enemies, not to mention that she was a princess now, one with no royal guard at that.
As soon as Twilight’s magic made contact with the door, she immediately recoiled. Most physical objects when held in magic tended to have a certain feel, different from what you might get if you held it directly in your hooves, but still consistent. This door though was unlike anything she had ever felt before.
Twilight then decided to run a series of tests to ascertain the nature of the door. But each test that she ran only served to greatly increase the deepening sense of wrongness that she felt. The door’s nature defied all logic, both scientific and arcane. Twilight was becoming more and more certain that this door didn’t belong here. Not just in this castle, but in this plane of existence.
The thought that this could be Discord did cross her mind, but she was familiar with chaos magic and this was nothing like it. Besides, she recalled an earlier conversation with Fluttershy where she told her that she hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks now.
With no other recourse, save for contacting Celestia, Twilight decided to try and ignore it for now, it wasn’t really doing anything anyway. She just hoped that it would stay that way. Twilight didn’t have much of a choice either, seeing as how Spike and Starlight were away in the Crystal Kingdom.
Twilight set out to try and get some things done, but the door remained firmly fixed in the back of her mind.
Twilight hadn’t been able to get anything done that day. Thoughts of the door had remained in her mind all day. The more time passed, the more questions plagued her. Why was the door there, how did it get there, why did it have her name on it, and where did it lead?
That last one didn’t make much sense to her at first, it was a freestanding door in the middle of a room after all. But Twilight couldn’t shake the sense that it definitely lead somewhere. Questions of exactly where were what had left her exhausted and more than a little frightened.
It was getting late, so Twilight resolved to at least try to get a little sleep. However the thought of sleeping in the same room as the door was too off-putting, so she settled for taking one of the guest bedrooms down the hall.
Twilight went through the motions of preparing for bed and then laid down to sleep. The door hadn’t done anything all day as far as she was aware, she just had to hope that that wouldn’t change. She managed to fight the constant feeling of unease long enough to fall asleep. It was short-lived.
She didn’t know how long had passed since she last closed her eyes when she was awoken by a noise, if you could even call it that, coming from her room down the hall. Quite frankly it was indescribable, even more so to Twilight’s sleep-addled mind. She was quickly waking up however thanks to the deepening dread that was flooding her system.
If Twilight had to liken the sound to something closer to pony comprehension, then it would be a choir of voices singing (talking?) discordantly but in perfect harmony. They didn’t speak any language Twilight had ever heard and yet she could understand them perfectly. They were beckoning her towards the door.
At first, Twilight tried to ignore it, putting a pillow over her ears and humming to drown it out. All her efforts were for naught, however, as the noise persisted, seeming to echo directly in her head.
The fear she was feeling was overwhelming now. She could sense the seething mal-intent in the voices, and she knew with absolute certainty that whatever lay beyond that door wanted to do terrible things to her, and that were she to cross that threshold she would never return.
At the same time, the voices possessed a hypnotic quality, one that drove her toward that room, and in turn the door. It wasn’t long before her limbs were moving seemingly against her will. In what felt like no time at all she was standing in front of her room
When she entered, the first thing she noticed was that the entire room was bathed in a soft red glow. The glow’s origin was a red light that seeped from under the door’s frame. Aside from that though, nothing seemed to have changed.
It struck Twilight then that she would definitely be going through that door and that free will had long since abandoned her. A mix of emotions rushed over her, helplessness, fear, and profound sadness at never seeing her loved ones again. The voices had reached a deafening crescendo at this point, swiftly working to drown out every other thought.
Twilight reached a surprisingly steady hoof forward, turned the knob, and walked through.
She never returned.