Then came the night of the first falling star-a line of flame high in the sky, traveling with a hissing sound and leaving a greenish streak behind it. Most observers thought that another meteorite had fallen-an event of such little importance that nopony took the trouble to look for it the night it fell.
But Spike, who had trouble sleeping that night, saw the shooting star. He tried to wake up Twilight, but the unicorn was to deep in sleep that it was hard to wake her up. So Spike decided to sneak out for the night and set out along Valley commons-a stretch of open land-between Sweet Apple Acres, Ponyville, and the Everfree Forest to find it. And find it the little purple dragon did, near the sand pits.
An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the Thing, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction, forming high mounds visible a mile away. The small evergreen bushes, known as heather, were on fire all around the hole, and the Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in the sand.
As Spike reached the edge of the hole, he looked down and saw one section of the Thing partly uncovered. It seemed to be a huge cylinder about 90 feet in diameter, and was caked over by a thick gray crust. Since it was still extremely hot from it's flight, Spike was unable to get close enough to examine it.
As he stood on the edge of the pit at sunrise, the sounds of faint movements came from inside the cylinder. "An unequal cooling of the surface," muttered Spike, never dreaming that the Thing might be hallow!
Suddenly, some of the grayish crust covering the meteorite began falling off the uncovered end of the cylinder. Spike was disturbed. "Why is it falling only from the end of the cylinder?" he asked himself. "If the meteorite is cooling, the crust should be falling from the whole body."
And then he saw the circular top slowly...slowly rotating on it's body, then gave a sudden jerk an inch or two outward.
Great Celestia!" he cried. "The cylinder is hollow, with an end that screws out! Something or someone inside is unscrewing the top. They must be roasting to death and trying to escape! But where did they come fr-?" And then the realization hit him. "That flash on Mars!" Spike exclaimed. "Oh, that poor creature trapped inside! I must free him!"
And forgetting the heat, Spike ran down the embankment of the sand pit to try to help turn the cylinder. But the radiation that the Thing gave off stopped the little dragon before he could burn his hands. Spike froze for a moment, then scrambled out of the pit and set off running wildly into Sweet Apple Acres to get help.
The first few ponies he approached on the way to Sweet Apple Acres thought of the purple dragon as a raving lunatic and hurried on their way. Spike finally arrived at Sweet Apple Acres and found Apple Jack pulling a large wagon full of apples.
"Gee whiz, Spike! What are you doing here at this hour?" Applejack asked.
"Long story," Spike replied catching his breath. "But never mind that! Did you see the shooting star last night? It's out on Valley Commons."
"Great Celestia!" cried Applejack. "A fallen meteorite!"
"But it's more than a meteorite," explained Spike. "It's a cylinder-a hollow cylinder-and there's something inside!"
Applejack froze, letting all that she heard sink into her head.
"What did you say?" she gasped
Spike told the orange earth pony all that he had seen. When the purple dragon was done, Applejack unhinged herself from the wagon, and the the earth pony ran off down the road with Spike riding on her back, toward Valley Commons.
The cylinder was still lying in the same position, but the sounds inside had ceased.
Spike and Applejack rapped on the crusty cylinder,Spike with a stick and Applejack with her hoofs, but got no response.
"They've either fainted, or they're dead!" whispered Spike.
"No! NO! Spike!" shouted Applejack. "We must find those little critters alive!" Then bucking again with her back hooves, Applejack called to the opening, "Hold on in there whoever y'all are. We'll get you out. We'll go for help."
They ran for Ponyville and went up and down the streets in the bright sunlight, shoutung the news to the pony folk who were heading toward their daily destinations, and to ponies opening their bedroom window, including Rarity. One of Princess Celestia's guards, pegasi, who was on patrol, flew back to Canterlot Castle, to report the news to the nearby city.
Twilight heard the news an hour later from the lips of a young colt while she was on her search for Spike.
"And," the colt added, "colts and stallions from allover have already gone out to the sand pits to see the dead ponies from Mars."
Twilight was startled, but she lost no time in going out to the sand pits herself, hoping to find Spike there.
Since the papers had already come out with headlines shouting, "A Message from Mars!" hundreds of ponies were crowded around the pit.
Twilight made her way to the edge of the pit and saw half a dozen unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi working below, including Applejack and her Brother, Big Macintosh. Spike was also there as well.
A pegasi whom Twilght recognized as Rainbow Dash, was standing on the Cylinder.
"Good afternoon, Twilight!" welcomed Spike when he saw the purple unicorn at the edge of the crowd.
"SPIKE! Where have you been?!" scolded Twilight back "Don't you know that you nearly scared me to death?!"
"Gee nice to see you too." answered Spike in a sarcastic tone. "Anyway I'm sorry about that Twi." Spike apologized "It's just that..well you see what I mean right?"
Twilight nodded and accepted his apology. "Now I was going to tell you that we've been hearing faint movements inside, but the other ponies can't seem to open it. Not even the unicorns could unscrew it with their magic! We shall just have to wait until it opens by itself."
Feeling somewhat disappointed herself, Twilight moved away through the crowd, when suddenly from the edge of the pit, she heard loud voices and felt the crowd pushing back.
"It's a-movin'," shouted a colt as he ran by her. "It's a-screwin' and a-screwin' out. I don't like it one bit. I'm goin' home, I am."
When Twilight reached the edge, she heard a peculiar humming sound coming from the Thing, and she saw the end of the cylinder being unscrewed...automatically from within!
Just then, somepony in the crowd pushed against Twilight, and as she turned to retain her balance and keep herself from falling into the pit to find that the lid had fallen completely, and now lay in the gravel. Spike and the other ponies were scampering (or flying) out of the pit. Spike ran over toward Twilight to watch with her.
Twilight guessed she expected to see a pony come out from the Thing-Not exactly a pony like her, but pony of some sort nevertheless. As she gazed into the shadows, the purple unicorn saw some gray wavy movements, one above the other, and two luminous circles-like eyes.Then something resembling a little gray snake, about as thick as a cane, coiled up out of the middle of the form and wriggled and writhed its way through the air. First one, then another and another.
Twilight drew back from the edge of the pit, staring, still unable to tear her eyes away from the many tentacles that were now projecting from this grayish mass. Horror showed on every face around her as most of the ponies turned and ran.
The purple unicorn stood petrified, staring, as a big grayish rounded bulk about the size of a bear rose out of the cylinder. As the last rays of the sun hit it, it glistened like wet leather.
Two large, dark-colored eyes stared back at Twilight, and the surface above them was flat, with no hint of a ridge where eyebrows usually grew. The mass that surrounded those eyes was round-almost like a face. Below the eyes was a strange V-shaped mouth, with it's pointed upper lip quivering and saliva dripping from it as the creature trembled and panted, almost as if in a convulsion. There was no chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip.
As one of its thin tentacles gripped the edge of the cylinder and another swayed in the air, the monster suddenly toppled over the rim of the cylinder and fell into the pit. It's fall sounded like a loud leathery thud. The creature gave a strange cry, and immediately another of them appeared at the opening of the cylinder.
Twilight turned and ran wildly towards a group of trees, Spike followed, stumbling as he ran, for Spike could not tear his eyes from the pit. The field around the pit was dotted with ponies standing, like Twilight and Spike, staring at these creatures in fascination and terror. Twilight's body was paralyzed with fear, but her brain was sparked with curiosity about these creatures and the cylinder in which they had came to Earth from Mars.