Applejack ran down the corridor, she ran faster than she ever had in her whole life. She ran, because she was being chased by them. 'Them' being white creatures that vaguely looked like ponies except they were completely featureless. They had no faces. They had no manes. They looked like the bare minimum of what a pony looked like. And they were chasing after her.
Applejack turned a corner and saw a shelf full of books. She knocked it down as she ran past it, in the hopes that it would slow them down, even for just a little bit. She took the risk of looking back at them, and immediately regretted. The book shelf had no slowed them down at all. In fact, they seemed to be running even faster now.
Applejack screamed as the monsters pounced upon her and wrapped their front legs around her body, as if they were childishly hugging her. As soon as the monsters made contact with her, she could feel her body temperature dropping. She tried to buck the monsters off of herself, but failed. She could feel her losing herself. She fought furiously to buck the monsters from herself, but she couldn't.
When her body temperature fell low enough, she finally stopped fighting the monsters. She fell to the floor, and the last thing she remembered was the monsters letting go of her and gently stroking her mane.
Applejack lay in bed, trembling slightly. "Another nightmare." she said out loud. Three weeks, this had been going on. Three weeks, she had nightmares of the same monsters that had been chasing her, the same nightmare night after night. There was, however, another nightmare that happened occasionally where she was being drowned by a large, white pony with a pale blue mane. The large pony also wore a mask that seemed to be made of solidified darkness.
She got out of bed and opened the curtains, only to recoil at the sight of such brilliant sunshine. "Mornin' already?" she asked out loud. That was the last straw. For three weeks, she had nightmares, and for three weeks, she refused to ask for help. At first, she seemed to be doing fine, but now, the nightmares were getting to her. After all, she just flinched from sunlight, and she loved the sun.
She needed help. But who was there to help? She needed somepony intelligent, somepony, great with the workings of the mind. "Twilight!" she said out loud. "Maybe she'll have a spell to cure me." And with that, Applejack walked out the door and went on her way to the library.
She did her best not to be seen in the current state that she was. All of her friends had noticed that the usual optimistic, hard working Applejack had become more solitary and withdrawn. None of them had yet seen her the way she currently was, though. Not this messy, unkempt Applejack with bloodshot, baggy eyes. Not this Applejack that seemed so weak and exhausted.
Despite all of her efforts, though, somepony did see her. It was Rarity. "Applejack, darling!" Rarity said. "I haven't seen you in so long and-" Rarity let out a gasp in her usual overdramatic fashion.
"Applejack!" she said. "Are you alright? You look positively dreadful! And I haven't seen you in three weeks!"
"Well, shucks, Rarity, I didn't want ya to see me like this." replied Applejack somberly. "I've been having nightmares for three weeks now, and I was going to ask Twilight for help, maybe possibly a cure."
"Well, I'll be there to support you." Rarity said happily.
"I think this is going to need more than that, but I appreciate the thought, sugarcube. Tag along if ya want." And then they walked the rest of the way to Twilight's place.
Applejack knocked on the door to the library. Nopony answered it. "Consarnit, Twi, ya can't still be asleep at a time like this...." Applejack grumbled as she knocked on the door again, this time a little harder. The door started to open. "Oh, finally." said Applejack. "Look, Twilight, I nee-" Applejack stopped herself as she realized that it was actually Spike who answered, not Twilight.
"Hi, Applejack." he said, rubbing his eyes. "Haven't seen you in a while." He stopped rubbing his eyes and took one look at Applejack, and then let out a gasp of concern. "You ok, Applejack? You look exhausted."
"I AM exhausted." said Applejack. "I've been having nightmares for three weeks and I was wondering if Twilight could help."
"Well...." began Spike. "She's not here right now. She went out."
"When will she be back?" asked Applejack, not meaning to sound desperate, but not being able to hold back her frustration.
"I don't know, she could be a while.......but I do know this: Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy had similar problems, too." explained Spike.
"Really?" Applejack asked, surprised to find out that two of her closest friends also had similar problems.
"Yeah, really. And both times, Twilight used a spell to cure them."
"What spell?" asked Rarity.
"Oh, hi Rarity!" Spike said, completely forgetting about Applejack and nearly facepalming himself for not having noticed her earlier.
"Hi, Spike." said Rarity, smiling sweetly at the young, lovestruck dragon. "Do be a dear and show us what spell she used, will you?"
"Will do!" Spike said happily as he bounced back into the library, leaving Applejack and Rarity outside.
"Why do you want to see the spell that Twilight used?" Applejack asked Rarity.
Rarity laughed quietly. "Isn't it obvious? Since Twilight isn't here, I'm going to give it the spell a try."
"Uh...." Applejack began. "Are you sure about that? I mean, that's sweet and all, but..." Applejack tried her best to not show doubt, but she made it pretty clear: she didn't want anybody besides the smartest pony in Ponyville to cast any spells on her.
"Of course I'm sure. After all, we're both unicorns, so we can both do magic. Come now, do you not trust in my abilities?" Rarity looked at Appeljack with big, pleading eyes that just screamed 'Oh, Applejack, please let me do the spell for you instead, please.'
"Fine." Applejack relented.
Spike had returned and stepped out with a peculiar book in his claws. "Here." Spike said, handing the book to Rarity. "The book that has the spell."
"Perfect!" said Rarity. "Thanks, Spikey-wikey." She placed one big smooch on Spike's cheek, much to his delight.....and his sudden loss of consciousness. After laughing at the sight of a baby dragon fainting before her, Rarity turned to Applejack. "Well, shall we?" she said.
"We shall." replied Applejack. They closed the door to the library, turned around, and went on their way to Carousel Boutique.
"Ya sure ya know what ya'll are doing?" asked Applejack nervously as she watched Rarity flip through several pages. After they had arrived at the Boutique, Rarity had immediately sat down and flipped through many pages.
"I....I've got this..." Rarity said, uncertain. She flipped through several more pages before stopping and saying: "Ah-ha!"
"Found something?" asked Applejack as she got up and walked over to Rarity's side.
"Why, yes, darling. I found this spell that lets me look at your dreams." said Rarity.
"Uh....look at my dreams?" asked Applejack, who received a nod from Rarity. "Are you sure you want to do that?"
"Well, if I don't know what you're dreaming about, I won't know what spell to use, now, will I?" asked Rarity, in a haughty manner. "Now, hold still, won't you?" Rarity focused her magic into her horn, making it glow with a pale light....only for it to fizzle out. "Um....don't worry....I'll get this right..." Rarity said sheepishly as she focused her magic again. This time, the magic stayed, and she lowered her horn to Applejack's forehead.
Applejack ran through the corridor and narrowly dodged the deathly embrace of one of the pony-esque monsters that chased her, and then ducked under a table. She burst through a door and came out the other side and was surprised to see an enourmous hole in the floor, filled to the brim with freezing cold water, and the only bit of dry land being next to the entrance.
She was trapped, with no way of escape. Applejack turned around and saw the monsters galloping towards her and shrieking in high pitched voices filled with anticipation. They abruptly stopped in their tracks and lowered their heads, seemingly bowing to a higher power.
A low growling sound could be heard from behind Applejack. She turned and saw it. The white pony. It had either suddenly appeared out of nowhere, or Applejack had somehow missed it the first time. It approached her slowly. The closer and closer it got to Applejack, the further and further her body temperature dropped, until even her very blood seemed frozen solid.
Without warning, the white pony quickly grabbed Applejack by her neck and forcibly dragged her to the edge of the pool. It forced her into the water, causing her to gasp at the coldness. The temperature was even lower than that of her own body. The white pony forced her entire body into the swimming pool, drowning her.
From somewhere, a woman's scream could be heard.
"Oh, my." said Rarity as she stepped back, trying to catch her breath. Not only had she seen the images in Applejack's head, but she had felt them, too. The coldness of the monsters deathly embrace, the dropping of the body temperature, everything. She shivered at the thought of all that she had just seen and felt.
"I warned ya." said Applejack quietly. "Do ya still want to keep doing whatever it is ya'll are doin', or do ya want to wait 'til Twilight comes back?"
"Applejack...." Rarity said slowly. "After I saw what I just saw, I can't just wait for someone to help you. Besides, you heard what Spike said. It could be a while before Twilight gets back."
"He said it could be a while. He didn't say it would." said Applejack.
"Well," said Rarity. "I'll keep going. I can't just leave you like this." And it was true. Although Rarity and Applejack didn't always see things eye to eye, they were closer than they appeared. She flipped through several more pages, quickly reading through descriptions of spells before dismissing them and searching again. "Ah-ha!" she said again. "There's this spell called the Mind Delve. It's supposed to help directly find the source of nightmares. Let's try it out." Rarity's horn glowed again. She slowly started to lower it to Applejack's forehead.
"Uh, sugarcube?" Applejack began as Rarity's horn got closer and closer. "Are you sure you should be using some random spell you found in the book?"
"Well." replied Rarity. "The other spell that let me see your dreams worked, so why wouldn't this one?"
"I supposed you've got a point." said Applejack, right before the horn touched her on the forehead. Applejack's vision slowly blurred out, and then went black. Applejack thought she felt herself falling, but she couldn't be sure if she was or not. The sensation of falling and the blacked out eyesight stayed that way for a while, until everything suddenly returned.
Applejack looked around to see where she was, and just as she suspected, she was still in Carousel Boutique, although something about it was different. Not just something, but a lot of things. All the carefully organized materials and sewing equipment was gone, the entire boutique was empty. Rarity was also nowhere to be seen.
"Rarity?" Applejack called out as she searched throughout the boutique for her missing friend. She was nowhere to be found. Applejack then noticed some items on a table. The items were a bag, a digital camera with a strap on it and a small screen used to show pictures, and a flashlight with a band on it that allowed it to be strapped to a pony's head. Or, in Applejack's case, her hat. Another item to be found was a map of Ponyville. On the map was an X. Applejack looked at the location of the X closely and saw that it was Twilight's library. "Well, I might as well find some clues there." Applejack said as she put all of her items into the bag and stepped out of the boutique.
"What in tarnation?!" Applejack did a double take when she saw the sudden shift in weather. It was snowing heavily; practically a blizzard at how much snow was piling up in the streets of Ponyville. It was also nighttime, as the sun wasn't shining.
"Now what could have caused it to snow so hard all of a sudden?" Applejack muttered. "Some smart aleck pegasi looking to prank all of Ponyville or something? And why is it nighttime already?" It didn't matter, either way. Applejack had to get to her next location, so she strapped the flashlight to her hat and began galloping at a steady pace towards the library. The snow was several inches deep, and everytime Applejack took a step, her legs went all the way down to the ground, making progress a bit sluggish.
She stopped dead in her tracks when a high-pitched whining sound suddenly came from her bag. "Now, I wonder what that could be." She looked in her bag and dug through her items to find out what was making the noise. It was the camera. Her flashlight flickered between dim and bright, on and off. She had no idea what was going on, but something told her she shouldn't just brush it off.
She took several steps forward, with the light flickering even more than before, and the camera's whining noise becoming louder. Without warning, a bright flash of light shone in Applejack's eyes, and the whining noise stopped, and the flashlight stopped flickering. The bright flash dimmed before it vanished completely, and Applejack could see again. "Now what in tarnation was that supposed to be?!"
A buzzing sound abruptly came from the camera and stopped just as soon as it came. Applejack took it out of the bag and looked at it. On the small screen of the camera was a picture of a stallion unicorn wearing a business suit. His face had a malevolent look to it. That pony looked familiar. Looking at him brought up fuzzy recollections of old memories from Applejack's past, but only mere glimpses. She had a feeling that this would not be the last time she saw this pony.
Putting the camera back in the bag, Applejack continued on her way to the library.
Upon arriving at the library, Applejack saw that the door was already open, as if it were beckoning to her to go in.
"Twi?" Applejack called out as soon as she stepped in. But no. No Twilight Sparkle to be found. Nor a Spike. The library was completely empty, just like the boutique. The only bit of furniture that Applejack could see was a table in the middle of the library. On it was a note. Applejack walked over to it and read it.
"Can you feel the sunshine? Does it brighten up your day? Don't you feel that sometimes you just need to run away?"
"Now I wonder what this could mean..." Applejack muttered. She looked around and see what looked like a cellar door that originally wasn't in the library. The peculiar thing about it was that it was completely frozen in ice.
"Now how long has this been here?" Applejack wondered out loud. She inspected it closely. It was strange that the cellar door was completely frozen, because it was a lot warmer inside than it was outside. Applejack tested the strength of the ice by stomping on it. It didn't even make a scratch.
Applejack searched the library even further and found a set of shaped prisms, and a box with holes to fit the prisms. There was a cube, a triangular prism, and and a rectangular prism. On the cube was a picture of a smiling sun, on the triangular prism was a picture of a calender, and on the rectangular prism was a picture of a running cheetah.
"Oh, ha-ha, real clever." grumbled Applejack as she set the prisms in the correct holes, and the correct order. "Can you feel the sunshine..." said Applejack as she set the cube in first. "Does it brighten up your day...." she then put in the triangular prism. "Don't you feel that sometimes...you just need to run away..." she then put the rectangular prism in.
Suddenly, the ice melted off, the water quickly evaporated, leaving the cellar door accessable.
"As if I couldn't solve a simple puzzle like that." Applejack grumbled as she opened the door to the cellar and stepped inside.
It was a very small cellar. There was a single lamp in the center of the ceiling that shown weakly but valiantly in the darkness. However, the one thing that got Applejack's attention was a note that was in the center of the floor of the cellar. She stepped over to it and read it.
"Welcome to Silent Ponyville, kiddo."
As soon as Applejack read the note, the entire world seemed to tremble. "An earthquake?!" yelled Applejack in surprise.
But no. It was anything but. Ice started to form in one corner of the cellar, before it rapidly spread over the walls and ceiling. The ice slid underneath Applejack's hooves without interfearing with her balance, albeit, the trembling still continued. Before long, the entire cellar was covered in ice, and the ladder that led into the cellar was glowing a soft blue light.
Applejack barely had enough time to comprehend all of this, before she heard shrieking. The high pitched shrieking of the pony-esque monsters.