As Vinyl had gone exploring this place, this "dream," things began turning much worse. She notice strange creatures, which resembled other ponies, lurking about. Vinyl had done her best to avoid most of them, and made her way down to the castle fairgrounds. Since she was very aware this was a dream, though nothing about it felt so. she began to ask questions to herself.
What is going on? There must be an explana--
She was cut off when she had looked up at the castle. On the banners were the the very same engraving on the record she played. She forgot about ever playing or seeing that record though. After seeing the pentagrams on the banners, she couldn't help but let a shocked look overcome her face. She completely lost the urge to explore her surroundings and just wanted to leave right then and there. But how could she? She immediately made a break for the castle gate. Anywhere she could go to get away from the castle was better than there. crashing through the gate, she felt safer. Still afraid, but safer. Then she noticed one of the creatures had spotted her, but not fully. She did her best to stay hidden. Watching it skulk around the place nearby, beads of sweat started to bead on her. She had no idea of knowing what would happen if she got spotted.
Just then, when she looked back to where it was, it was gone. Just plain gone. No trace or sight of it anywhere. Vinyl hadn't let her guard down. It could still be close by. Suddenly, she felt a weight drop down on her back, causing her to fall. She rolled over and saw it. Seeing it close up... she was speechless. The creature was a pony, but nothing other than the shape said so. It appeared to have its skin turned inside-out. She could see the blood inside its veins moving and dripping off of its body and legs onto the floor, and onto her. As she looked into its pitch-black eyes with yellow pupils, it looked down at her and called her name in the most horrifying, demonic voice.
'Viiiiinylll..."
Vinyl had cringed that it knew her name. It brought itself closer. As it did so, she felt very uneasy. Its eyes slowly started to melt out its sockets. It repeated her name again. Eyes completely gone. Then right there. It all went black.
"Vinyl? Vinyl! Wake up!"
Vinyl had looked up and saw Octavia standing over her.
"Vinyl are you okay?"
Octavia seemed very worried.
"Tavi..."
She hugged Vinyl.
"I didn't know what to do! I came down here and saw you lying on the floor, sweating and trying to run on your back. What happened? Is everything alright?"
Vinyl didn't really have an answer. She wasn't sure what happened. All she knew was she had a VERY messed up dream. As Octavia released her grip on Vinyl, she said,
"Can you tell me anything?"
Vinyl looked up at Octavia.
"I... I honestly don't know..."
A sudden flash of that demon pony replaced Octavia for a brief second, causing Vinyl to jump a little and move away from her.
"What ever is wrong? You're not afraid of me are you?"
That was one of the last things Octavia had wanted. She was very curious and worried about what was happening to her friend.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
Vinyl stopped. She was still trying to piece together what happened to her.
"Tavi can we leave this place? Like get out of the basement?"
"Of course."
Octavia seemed a little puzzled but once they were out of there, Vinyl looked somewhat better. Like she was starting to revert back to her old self slowly but surely.
I had... such a horrible dream," Vinyl began. "Everything looked like Hell had run through the whole city."
Octavia looked with surprised eyes.
"What? Why would you happen to dream of such a thing?"
"I really can't say... but my head is killing me..."
"When I came downstairs I saw that you had moved the record player and had a record in. But, the record wasn't playing. It did have various scratches and such though..."
After she said that, it all came right back into Vinyl's mind.
:"That record... Where did it come from?"
Vinyl had a very serious look on her face.
"I'm not sure. I really haven't seen such a record before. So I wouldn't be able to tell you..."
"The scratches... aren't scratches, Tavi. Those are there on purpose. Did you look close at it?"
"No," Octavia said. "I just removed it and dropped it into a box that I guess you were looking through."
Vinyl had a small sense of relief. But one thing didn't make sense... Why wasn't the record playing when Octavia came downstairs?