//------------------------------//
// Dreams 
// Story: Creating the impossible 
// by theunknownuniverse 
//------------------------------//

When Strider opened his eyes, all he could see was a grey mist enshrouding a rocky ground. The sky was pitch black and there was no moon or sun. Strider slowly lifted himself up off the ground feeling strange as he stood up. The last thing he could remember was something hitting him over the head and him falling. Was he dead? Strider had no idea on how to tell if he was. In the hive, death wasn't unusual but all changelings were so busy working in their lives, they never had time to think about anything else.Maybe that was the point, if the hive never thought about anything, then they were just tools to be used. Never a problem and never questioning their orders. Still this was his life and he had his brothers and sisters. This thought of his life meaningless and himself just one tiny piece that keeps the hive working boiled Striders blood right to the core.

"Best to stop thinking about things. Just find out where I am." Strider said to himself. He had no idea why he was talking to himself but it did reassure him a tiny bit as there was no one else. 

Strider continued to walk hoping he could find answers in this place. But he continued through the mist with no success. Something didn't feel right at all. He looked down at the ground and noticed tracks on the ground. Not only that but his legs were dark black and bug like. he was in his true form which mean't two things. One he was dead, two he had been caught and was sentenced into this realm as his prison.  He studied the tracks carefully to see what else was here with him. Turns out the tracks were his and he had been walking in circles. That wasn't what made him feel weird though. It almost felt like someone was watching him. 

Strider thought that maybe flying up into the sky might give him a good view of what this place was. He flapped his wings like he normally did in his disguise but it didn't work. He remembered that he was in his changeling form and not pony so he had to work harder to lift himself off the ground. He tried again and this time shot up into the air. The sky was exactly the same as it was on the ground. It was dark and mist everywhere.

"This is hopeless!" Strider growled frustrated. He headed back to the ground but to his shock.The ground had risen to where he was in the sky. Whatever this place was, he was always in the same spot. 

"Where am I?" Strider questioned himself. He had doubts he was dead as he had no killing wound anywhere on his body and he could still feel. One thing he was feeling was scared as what previously he thought was stalking him in this mist was now whispering into the wind.

"Come to me, come to me." The voice whispered. It was cold and raspy. Almost as if the thing calling out was dying.

The voice continued to chant those words indicating something had changed in Striders environment. The mist was giving way and in the distance, Strider could make out a silhouette of something. It was still to misty to make out what it exactly was but he could still see it.

The figure turned and started to walk further into the mist. Disappearing from Strider's view.

"Wait! Come back!" Strider chased after the mysterious figure in the mist, this time not running back to where he started.

"Who are you!?" Strider continued to shout to the mysterious figure in the mist. The only thing it replied was "Come to me, come to me."

For what felt like hours, Strider chased after the figure in the mist until something Strider wasn't prepared for happened.

Cracks appeared beneath him in the ground. Small at first but slowly they began to rip open, increasing in length and width, until the entire ground beneath Strider had fallen apart. It seemed like a earth quake but when the earth fell it disappeared into a dark empty abyss. Strider dashed to try and get out of the area where the ground was disappearing but wherever Strider set his hoof on, the ground would begin to crack. Everything Strider tried failed and the rate of which the ground was falling was accelerating. 

"Uh oh!" Strider gulped feeling the world slip before him.

"What is happening to me!?" Strider continued to shout to himself until all around him disappeared into darkness. Even the mist faded away and Strider was left in a world of emptiness and silence. The only thing that was still with Strider was the mysterious person in the mist.... 

Strider could see clearly now who this pony was... It was his leader, his queen. His mother... With her dark colored skin and bug like body, it was easy to tell it was a changeling but her dark blue hair hanging down to her neck like vines along with her tall size for a changeling.

"My queen?" Strider trying to bow but failing as the void he was floating in made it hard for Strider to lower and part of his body without floating down or up.

"My children, now your queen needs you!" Queen Chrysalis roared into the darkness and towards Strider.

"Our enemy has found our hive and destroyed us. Many, my children, many of us have been either murdered or captured by these vermin!" Queen Chrysalis's voice was fading and falling back into the voice Strider first heard, the cold and raspy voice almost like someone dying....

"I order you my loyal subjects, who have been through all hardships and now scattered across this filth called Equestria, come to your brothers and sisters aid! Help your queen in her hour of need! Destroy those who wish to squash us like bugs!" Strider could hear voices in the dark all chanting rising into a uproar. Strider figured out that he wasn't dead but he was inside the hive mind and the voices must be his comrades. He guessed if a changeling was asleep they would vision this instead of hear it when they're awake but as changelings never sleep due to their constant feeding on love, no one ever knew this could happen.

"But where my queen? Where do we go?" Strider asking to his mother.

"You must go..." Queen Chrysalis stuttering, not finishing her sentence. It seemed almost as if she feared where she was asking the hive to go. "You must go to Canterlot!" 

Strider just floated in the void stunned at what she had said. They had his queen, his mother captured in the strongest place in all of the lands. Canterlot was also now prepared for anything because of the failed invasion from the changelings. Looks like Strider now knew where to go when he was prepares to leave Ponyville. Suddenly, the world around him started to fade into white and a voice in the distance was calling out to him.

"Strider wake up!" The voice said. 

Now the planning begins.... Thought Strider