//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: It came from Golden Oaks // by Exelzior //------------------------------// Prologue Twilight fought to keep her horn lit. The darkness around her was slowly drawing closer as the light from her horn diminished by the second, but she fought with every fiber in her body to keep the small crawl space lit, dreading what would happen if she stopped. She had no idea how long she’d been up there, tucked inside the small room at the highest point in the Golden Oaks library that served as the attic. Had it been days, maybe even a week, she really couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter, she knew there was no point to it, but she still kept the light going. Maybe somepony would still be able to come for her. To rescue her from whatever she was hiding from. She doubted it. Her ears suddenly perked up as the floorboards started creaking, and a shiver ran down her spine. She pushed herself even harder than before and managed to squeeze enough power out of herself to light up the room completely. The creaking stopped. Twilight sighed in relief and winced. Her throat was completely dried up and it hurt to breathe. With bloodshot eyes she looked around the room and caught her eyes on the saddlebags that lay scattered just a few feet away from her. They were empty. She knew they were. What little food she’d had in them was gone, same with the small amount of water she’d been carrying. She almost started crying, but she’d run out of tears to shed long ago, and the only thing she could do was to keep the light going to keep it away. She glanced over towards the door to see it was still boarded up. Good. At least it wouldn’t be able to get in through there; at least she hoped it wouldn’t. She shook her head and forced on a fake smile, of course it couldn’t get in, if it could it would’ve done so a long time ago and she wouldn’t be sitting here right now thinking about it. No, it was probably still down there, in the library, waiting for her to come out so it could take her as well. She relaxed a bit, letting the light die out a bit until she could only see a few feet in front of her. She laid down on the floor and pressed her ear against it, but she heard nothing. She sighed again, sending another jolt of pain through her throat. The silence was suddenly broken by the sound of her stomach rumbling. It felt like such a long time since she’d eaten, but she didn’t dare to venture out for food. She didn’t have nearly enough strength to teleport, and even if she had, where would she go? It would probably be there waiting for her no matter where she ended up. Waiting to take her. Her eyes started to feel heavy, and for a moment her mind started drifting. She tried to fight it, but her body didn’t listen, and soon she started falling asleep. Suddenly, the floor creaked again. Twilight’s eyes shot open and she skipped to her hooves as fast as she could, spinning around the room trying to locate the exact source of the sound but to no avail. She lay back down, looking at her dirty hooves in the dim light of her horn. Her entire body, in fact, was matted with dirt from the attic. Spike hadn’t been doing his duties. She suddenly got the urge to cry again, thinking about her little dragon assistant. If only he’d been here with her, to comfort her, hold her tight and assure her that all of this was just some kind of horrible nightmare. But there was no Spike anymore, no one to hold and protect her. She was all alone in the attic, with no food or water, and not a friend in the world to help her. And then there was that thing just a few floors below. The thing that had driven her up there in the first place, that had taken Spike from her and was just waiting for her as well. She gritted her teeth as she could hold back anymore. Clenching her sore eyes she felt warm tears starting to run down her cheeks, as a flood of emotions came rushing back in a tidal wave of hopelessness. Her entire body seemed to tense as she cried. She wanted to do something, hit something, or someone. But she couldn’t, her body simply didn’t have enough strength left in it. The only thing she could do was to cover her eyes with her hooves as she kept sobbing in the dark. For the longest time she just lay there crying, her thoughts drifting back to that fateful day when everything went wrong. She cursed it all. If it hadn’t been for what had happened that day Spike would still be with her, and she wouldn’t be stuck in the damn attic. Oh how she hated it. The floorboards creaked again.