"Where am I? Is this a dream? I just want to leave..."
Twilight began to wonder to herself as she walked through a seemingly endless black void. She blinked, only to tear her eyes open once more to keep herself from seeing images of a burning Ponyville, accompanied by the sounds of all her friends screaming in agony. She continued for a little longer, trying her hardest to keep her eyes open, when she heard a soft chuckle behind her, making her whip around, ready to attack. However, what she saw made her walk back in fear, for she was face-to-face with a large, seemingly mutated pony with remnants of flesh still left on it's bare bones, including it's cutie mark, which brandished an image of the sun. Appearing to stare right into her eyes, the horrifying creature said in a distorted, demonic voice,
"Why...? Why didn't you warn us...?"
Twilight woke up in a cold sweat, yelling from the nightmare. Her door burst open, revealing a guard whose eyes instantly focused on her.
"Is everything alright, Princess Sparkle?"
She nodded her head, reassuring him,
"Yes, I'm fine, don't worry."
After lingering for another few seconds, the gruff pony nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him as he did so. Laying back down in her bed, Twilight stared at the ceiling and began to think to herself,
"Why do I keep having these nightmares?"
The thought of returning to that nightmare kept her awake the rest of the night, depriving her of any sleep she could've possibly gotten. When morning came, she slowly got up and walked out of her bed chambers, being escorted by a guard to the royal mess hall, all the while, a constant thought ran through her head,
"So tired... I need some sleep..."
When she reached the mess hall, she walked up to a gruff pony, whose job it was to serve her breakfast, and retrieved her usual breakfast; two eggs with a small side of hash browns, on her request. She walked over to a table near him and sat down next to Celestia and Luna, Cadence seemingly absent.
"That's strange... Cadence is always here for breakfast..."
She shrugged it off and began to eat her breakfast while making small talk with the two princesses on the other side of the table. They talked for a short while about small things (politics, Equestria's economy, etc.) before memories of the horrible nightmare she had last night came flooding back to her after she accidentally looked down at Celestia's cutie mark. She closed her eyes and repeated in her head,
"Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head..."
She felt a hoof on her shoulder and opened her eyes, looking up at a concerned Celestia.
"Is something wrong, Twilight?"
Twilight shook her head and moved out of Celestia's grasp.
"No, I'm fine."
"Thou art a terrible liar, Twilight."
She heard Luna say to her in a rather serious tone. Twilight looked over at her and stared into her eyes, which seemed to say,
"Talk to us about your problems."
Twilight shook her head and gave in to Luna's stare, saying to Celestia,
"Fine, I'll tell you, just not right now."
Celestia nodded and continued to eat her breakfast, Luna doing the same after a quick look of concern was shot towards Twilight.
Once all three of them were done eating, Celestia proceeded with Twilight to her bed chambers. Once they were there, Twilight sighed and began to explain to Celestia,
"I've been having these terrible nightmares for the last few weeks. They've been keeping me up at night, and no matter
what I try, I can't get them to leave me alone."
Celestia listened intently as Twilight explained her dilemma, and waited another 3 seconds after she was done talking to ask,
"Why haven't you come to me about this before?"
"I was thinking about doing that about a week ago, but then the nightmares changed..."
Twilight trailed off and tried to think of an easy way to tell Celestia about her most recent nightmares. Seeing no easy way to explain it, she continued.
"The most recent nightmares were always the same thing; I would show up in a sort of dark void with nothing around me but the sound of my friends screaming in pain, and every time I would close my eyes, I would see Ponyville and everyone living there burning."
As Twilight continued, Celestia's eyes began to gradually widen with concern for the purple mare.
"And last night was the most vivid, because after a few minutes of that, I heard a soft laugh behind me, and when I turned around, I saw..."
She paused for a minute, thinking about whether or not she should tell Celestia what she had seen.
"You saw what?" Celestia asked intently.
After a few seconds, Twilight reluctantly said,
"I saw you, but not as you are now, as a rotting corpse staring at me like you were going to swallow me whole."
Celestia's eyes widened in surprise as she stared at Twilight.
"And after I had stared at you for about 10 seconds, you asked why I didn't warn you in a horrifying voice that sounded almost demonic. After that, I woke up screaming and I couldn't get anymore sleep because I didn't want to see that again."
Twilight finished and opened her eyes, looking at Celestia, who had a rather shocked expression on her face. She sat there for another 2 minutes before asking,
"What did it want you to warn me about?"
"That's just it... I don't know."
The two sat in silence for an hour before Twilight got up and returned to her bedroom without another word. As she laid down in her bed, she couldn't help but think to herself,
"What did it want me to warn Celestia about?"