//------------------------------//
// 8. Frights, Fears, and Failures 
// Story: Shadow in Equestria 
// by ClankHoof 
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I didn't know when I made it back to the hotel, or even into my room, but eventually the torrent of thoughts rolling through my head like a small boat caught in a storm were replaced by brief scenes and images, what I guessed was something of a dream, but it was scattered and jumbled together.

There were images of the six Elements, though not as I've seen them. In one, Rainbow was drained of color and running away from her friends. In another, Pinkie's hair was straight, and she had a strange expression on her face as she stood on her hind legs, seeming to talk to a bunch of inanimate objects on stools around a giant cake. There were other images and scenes that seemed to flash before my eyes, some so fast I hardly got glimpses of them. Dragons, serpents, shadows and chaos, all popping up from random points of my vision, but not a sound, as if i was watching a movie on mute. I couldn't make sense of anything. The only thing I could do was crouch into a corner, flinching away each time one of these horrors tried to reach out for me, but still trying to look for clues as to what I was seeing.


-S-


After an indefinite amount of time, the pictures began to scatter, making way for a larger shadow to come forward from between this retched mess. I knew what was hidden within this cloud. The same that's been haunting me since Haystown. I wanted to rush at it, clearing away the darkness and revealing the monster underneath, but my body refused to move.

As the cloud came closer, the air around me became colder. I could see my own breath as it drifted from my mouth. I thought it was going to swallow me whole.

When it was within a foot of my trembling form, the cloud stopped. Then, the cloud parted, revealing...my parents. Or at least their heads, the darkness obscuring the rest of their bodies.

They called to me, calling my name in the same mute way as the images that preceded them. Though I couldn't hear anything else they said, I could see their expressions in their faces and eyes: fear. Fear, and also sorrow. I have seen the same expression on others, such as the young filly when she recalled what she'd seen. The same expression as my own fellow friends and villagers is Haystown, during the last few hours I'd seen them. My own heart filled with heavy emotion, my...helplessness at all I've not been able to do.

I fought hard against the invisible bonds that seemed to bind me to he ground, but I could only succeed in opening my mouth. It was dry, and hard to get my words out: "I'm coming to save you, Mother! I'm trying, Father!"

My voice nearly startled myself, it being the only thing I've been able to hear in this awful void of silence.

My parents looked me in the eyes, and then their fear melted away. No, more than that. All of their expression melted away. They stared seemingly nowhere with unfocused, blank eyes, their mouths pulled into tight lines.

Then, to my utter horror, their entire faces melted away, revealing two dull-white skulls, rotting meat still clinging on to the jaw, and one still had a bit of an eye hanging out of the socket.


-S-


I screamed, falling out of bed as I gagged, nearly emptying my stomach's contents on the small room's carpet. Then I just sat there, breathing deeply and failing to hold back tears. I look out the window at the great expanse of stars the covered the night sky, but it seemed to make it worse. In the end I just curled up on the floor, crying softly.

Meanwhile on the other side of town, a young filly at the Boutique was also having a similar, horrible nightmare. The third one she's had in as many nights.