Shadows and Lies

by Witchery


Chapter 2: Arrival

Damon:

Emptiness. That's all that I feel inside of me; A great emptiness where my emotions used to be. After what feels like hours of drifting through the darkness I hear something start whispering in my mind to give in and let myself be taken by the surrounding darkness. It whispers promises of quiet slumber and eternal peace. To just drift away into sweet nothingness.

'Maybe I should do it and give in to the void...' After several more seconds of persuasion by the voice, what little resistance I had left is gone and I am about to give in to its desires but I hear a beautiful voice as sweet as an angels, ring out pure and clear screaming at me to stop and that the voice I was hearing was trying to hurt me. When I hear this voice I push the foreign thoughts out of my head fill up the gaping hole inside me with pure rage. 'This voice wanted take away who I was! It wanted me to give up! HELL NO.' I roared out in anger and thrashed wildly.

Moments later felt myself start to speed up. Not long after, a small grey dot of light quickly grows closer but before I reach it, I jerk to a stop and hear the same voice as before 'Heh...heh...heh.... so you think you can escape me do you? We shall see about that...' it slowly says before my back explodes in excruciating pain as something is forces itself between my shoulder blades. The pain quickly overshadows my rage and before it subsides, I am thrust forth and thrown out of the void.

I'm blinded by the sudden brightness of the moon after having spent so long in darkness. I breath a sigh of relief but my elation was cut short by the realization that I was moving through the air and was high above ground. "Oh shit!" I yell loudly as tendrils of panic begin to claw their way into my heart. I look around and see a large storm brewing to the east with dark and ominous clouds that shoot out lightning every few seconds illuminating vague shapes around it. To the north is a large castle that I am flying towards.

As I get closer to the castle more details begin to stand out. It's white with several large, spiraling, golden capped towers, it has large walls with a few guards on them, and large stain glassed windows, one of which I notice I'm rapidly approaching. My eyes widen in shock as the windows get closer and I put my arms in front of my head to protect it in anticipation of the coming impact.

"OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--" I scream but am interrupted by crashing headfirst through the window and hit the floor, sliding across it and feeling bones break. I hit the far wall and finally come to a stop, but when I try to stand up my legs collapse under me in mind numbing agony and I let out a small whimper as I barely catch myself when I fall. I look up from my hands and knees a few minutes later when the pain dies down some and only just notice that there was a long smear of blood from where I first hit the ground. I look down at myself and only realize then that I had pieces of glass covering my arms and a large shard through my chest and that it is covered in blood. I cough up blood and fall to my side as it grows harder to breath. I hear a faint popping sound which is quickly followed by a gasp, and then a voice.

As my vision darkens I hear the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, and.... flapping wings? After what seems like an eternity I see two beings enter my vision as I weakly grasp for them and faintly utter "Help...me...please..." and then for the second time that day the darkness takes me.

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Luna:

She sat in her room arranging new constellations in my night sky that nopony would ever appreciate the beauty of. I sigh as I think about how lonely I am. Being alone on the moon for a thousand years left me with very few friends primarily my sister and the friends I had before my imprisonment that had long lives. That is to say very few. 'I just wish someone out there could understand what I feel'. I finish another and as I gaze upon its beauty, I hear a voice in my head "Maybe I should let myself go to the void..." As I look around for the source of this voice I close my eyes and focus on it to try and locate it. Before I can find it however, I get a feeling of overwhelming despair and sadness. 'Where is this creature that it is surrounded by such horrid thoughts?' I hear another voice that sounds oddly familiar and incredibly menacing, trying to persuade the first to let itself go to something called The Void but I yell out "Stop! Don't listen to it! Whatever is speaking to you is trying to harm you!."

Moments after as I say this, I get a feeling of primal rage and hear a terrifying roar, followed by excruciating pain and a loud pop. A sudden sense of dread grows over me and I get up to roam the castle and make sure everything is alright. I motion for my guards to follow me but then think better of it. "Stay here. There is no need for you to follow me while I walk tonight" I say to my guards after they start to follow me during my foray through the empty castle halls. After wandering through the lonely hallways for several minutes I soon find myself in one of the castles many towers.

As I step out onto the balcony I hear something very faintly say "Oh shit!". I look around, searching for whatever could have said but disregard it after several minutes of silence. As I am about to walk down the steps to leave the tower I hear a loud whistling sound, soon followed by somepony screaming "OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--" before I hear the sounds of glass breaking and something hitting a wall. I run back outside to the balcony and see that one of the stained glass windows in the room above the throne room is broken.

I teleport to the entrance of the room thinking out loud "Now what could that have possib--" but am cut off mid sentence by what I saw when I opened the door. A strange creature is lying against the wall at the end of a trail of broken glass and blood. I watch as the creature gets up but falls down after uttering a small cry.

It stays in that position for several minutes before it looks up and coughs blood. It then falls over and as I rush over to where it's lying on its side. As I rush to it, I hear the sound of somepony entering the room through the window. I look over I am surprised to see the Element of Loyalty.

"Hey Princess Luna did yo--" Rainbow Dash starts before noticing the trail of blood and visibly turns paler. She quickly rushes over to my side as I run over to the creature. As we get it to where it is I feel the same feeling of familiarity but my thoughts are interrupted as it slowly crawls forward a little bit and says "Help...me...please..." then passes out.

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Rainbow Dash:

"Oh ponyfeathers" Rainbow Dash exclaims. "Why the hay did Cloudsdale give us orders to have a big rainstorm tonight only after everyone went home for the day?"

As the captain of the weather team I have to stay later at work each day to see if Cloudsdale sends down any last minute orders which unfortunately, they do today. This leaves me to set up the rainstorm by myself late that night. I start gathering clouds and mashing them together and eventually I have a decently sized storm ready that only needs a few more clouds before I can go to sleep. As I move to grab the last few clouds I hear somepony yell "Oh shit!" I look around and see something moving swiftly across the night sky. As I rush to catch up with it I hit the cloud I was going to use for the storm, After several minutes of struggling I manage to free myself from the cloud but by then whatever was flying is gone.

I shrug and move to finish my job but I hear another scream this one filled with panic "OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--" When it gets cut off in the middle of its screaming I get worried. What on Equestria would scream like that? It sounded scared. As I fly to where I last heard the screams I see that one of the windows in the Canterlot Castle is shattered to pieces. I quicken my pace and when I get to the broken window I see Princess Luna running to the other side of the hall. "Hey Princess Luna did yo--" I start to ask her but when I see where she is running to the blood drains from my face.

Over by the wall is an odd looking creature but leading to it is a trail of smashed glass and blood. I sprint over to Luna's side and as soon but as we get closer I realize just how bad shape this thing is in. Its hind legs were bent in weird angles and one had bone sticking out of it while his forelegs were covered in tiny shards of glass. The part that makes me throw up in my mouth a little though is a piece of glass the length of my foreleg going thorough his chest and out his back. When we finally make it over to it, it reaches for us and I take a small step back as it splashes blood on my hooves. "Help...me...please..." it quietly moans but passes out. The Princess and I give each other a look of worry mixed with horror and move to help the strange being.

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Damon:

Beep...beep...beep... 'What the hell is that beeping?' As I open my eyes I start panicking. I am in a strange bed and room. I try to remember what happened but when I try to think about it, my head starts throbbing. "Okay no more of that" I say to no one in particular. As I sit up and try to get more comfortable, the doors at the end of the bed open up and a nurse walks in. 'Finally maybe I can get some answers about what happened' After a moment however I realize something. The nurse that walked in was 4 feet tall. And a pony...

"...."

A low rumbling chuckle forms in my throat that soon turns into full blown laughter. "Oh man this one one crazy fucking dream. Time to wake up though cause this is really freaking me out." I do the cliche thing and pinch myself but when I can actually feel the pain, the laughter is quickly replaced by panic. "Oh god...oh god oh god oh god...OH GOD!" I start yelling in fear and jump out of the bed I was in, scaring the nurse. The door flies open and a tall dark blue horse with a dark blue mane and tail filled with what looks to be lights walks in followed by a smaller sky blue winged horse with a rainbow mane and tail.

"Nurse, what is going on in here?!" The tall one asks. Before the nurse can reply though I start freaking out even more. "What. The. Hell. A winged and horned horse wasn't freaky enough? It has to be able to fucking TALK too!?" By this point my heart is hammering in my chest and I am hyperventilating. I look for a way to escape this house of horrors and spot a large window. As I move towards it the tall one speaks again. "What art thou doing? Move away from that window immediately." It demands.


"HELL.NO. I don't know what the fuck is going on here, and I don't intend to find out." As I prepare to defenestrate myself, I feel something grab me from all sides and lift me up. I notice a blue aura around the tall ones horn but as soon as it appeared it disappeared and a look of confusion is splayed on the tall ones face. An instant later a throbbing pain emanates from my back.

"Oh man that hurts. What the hell did you do to me?" I ask but the tall... thing just looks at me in confusion. "That was just a simple levitation spell. What do you mean what did I do to you?" Before I can yell at her however, the pain in my back increases as I feel something under my skin squirm. I let out a grunt of pain and move to lie down on the bed but I trip and reach for the nearest thing to keep from falling but only succeed in pulling the bed sheets off. As I hit the ground, my back explodes in pure agony. It feels as if molten lead is being forced through my veins while my bones turn to jelly.

By this point, I am close to blacking out from the sheer amount of pain I am in. But just when I think that the pain can't get any worse, it is multiplied a hundred fold as I feel something try to force it's way out of my back. As much as I mentally beg anything that could answer me I do not fall unconscious. When my arms and legs collapse under me, and I fall to my stomach I am able to get a perfect view of these strange creatures. All three of them have a look of horror on their face and seem to look a bit green as the look at me.

The pain continues for several more seconds but with a loud squelch, a wet pop, and a small spurt of blood, the pain immediately disappears. I let out a small moan from the relief of the pain being gone but as I move to get up, I see something out of the corner of my eye. It is black and seems to be made of pure shadow and is right behind me. 'Is there something behind me?' I whip around to try and get a look at it but when I do I feel something move along with me.

A sudden dread comes over me when I begin to realize what this shadow thing is. I slowly turn my head and sure enough, the shadow is right behind me. When I get a better look at it, I notice with great horror that the shadow looks like a pair of wings and is....connected to me.

"...ha...haha...HAHAHAHA!" As I stood there in shock, laughter began to escape my throat from the sheer absurdity of my situation and after several seconds of this my brain can't handle the mental overload so it shuts down and I black out for the second time that day.