Twilight leisurely strolled through the halls of the Canterlot Library, her nose buried in the folds of the library’s index. Her plans in Canterlot had ended a day ahead of schedule, and with the extra time she was eager to study within the halls of the expansive library. She had already made a list of the subjects she was searching for the night before, which made the task of locating and gathering the books she needed rather trivial. With her magic, she tugged a loaded book cart behind her and made her way to the last area on her list: Spellcasting.
The spellcasting wing was the largest and oldest within the library, housing nearly a thousand books on spells, magic, unicorns and the history surrounding them. Twilight had found a few books that covered similar topics, tucked away in other sections of the library, such as autobiographies or general history books, but it was here that she hoped to find the best books on the subject of spells, magic and their histories.
Diligently, Twilight went through her list and the index, weaving through aisles and grabbing each book from its proper place. Filigree’s Fundamentals. Breakthroughs of the Pre-Equestrian Era. Advanced Arcana. Before long, her book cart was finally at capacity, and probably impossible to move without her magic. As she made her way to the wing’s back wall to pick up one final book, Enigma’s Enchantments, she caught sight of one of the library’s many reading rooms, #36, and breathed a thankful sigh of relief.
Leaving her book cart and her saddlebags just inside the doorway, she grabbed the book from an aisle nearby and returned. Next to the door in the room was a small “Do Not Disturb” sign, which Twilight quickly hung it up outside before closing the door. Finally, a bit of peace and quiet, Twilight thought to herself as she sat down at the reading room’s large table. Placing her list to the side, she began to grab the books from her cart with her magic, categorizing and stacking them either beside her or on a small table tucked into a corner.
Before long she had everything sorted and set off to reading. The hours passed by like seconds as Twilight gleefully read through and took notes of each book. However, without a window on either the door or walls of the reading room, the only thing to alert Twilight to the passage of time was the eventually unignorable rumbling of her stomach. The clock above the door was able to confirm the time: 8:44 P.M.
The library would be closing in a little over an hour, and while the librarians would certainly sort and place the books back in their proper place, Twilight was more than willing to do it herself. She took down the current page she was on in her notes, placed the books one by one back onto her cart and then set off to the door, only to find it locked tight.
Her first reaction was a simple one: that the door was simply stuck. With her magic, she tried to turn the knob in every possible way that she could, pulling and pushing on the door as she did. “How is,” Twilight began, growing frustrated with the door. “These doors shouldn’t even have locks from the outside.” Twilight inspected the door knob and was even more alarmed to not find a keyhole at all.
“Okay, Twilight, just take a moment to think,” she said aloud as she stepped back from the door. Sitting down, she tapped her chin with a hoof before quickly arriving at a second conclusion. “I bet Pinkie has something to do with this,” she muttered under her breath, stepping back up to the door. She knocked loudly a few times before shouting through the door, “Pinkie, I know you and… possibly Rainbow Dash are behind this. I get it: locking Twilight in the reading room is so funny, and you never had a chance to do it before, but I really need to get these books back to their proper place before the library closes.”
Twilight heard no response from beyond the door, and after waiting a few moments knocked again. “Pinkie, or someone, please! I have a really early train ride tomorrow and I just want to get back to my room before it gets too late.” Again, she heard no response from the other side. With a groan, she walked back to the table and sat down. Idly, she thumbed through her notes, certain that Pinkie’s intention must be to have her sweat it out for a few minutes.
After being certain from a glance that her notes hadn’t missed any seemingly vital information, Twilight took her first real look at the reading room. It was fairly small, enough to house four or five ponies at the large table in its center, with two small corner tables in the corners opposite the door. The only things on its walls were a set of lit lanterns in the corners of the room and the clock above the doorway, whose ticking and tocking now echoed through the room without any reading to keep Twilight distracted. It had been over thirty minutes, with the clock reading 9:27, that Twilight pushed aside the idea to continue reading from where she left off and went back to the door.
She knocked loudly again. “Pinkie, you got me, okay? I was really scared and it was a great prank. I honestly didn’t see it coming, really. So just let me out so we can have a good laugh about it and I can go back to my room, please?” Twilight pressed her ear to the door, hoping to hear Pinkie or Dash’s distant giggling, passing hoofsteps or even the sound of wind on the library’s window panes, but she heard nothing except for the ticking of the clock above her.
Dejected, she turned back to the table once again, and jumped with a gasp when she saw one of the books from her cart back on the table, next to her notes. It was the same one she had stopped on when she decided to leave the room. The list of possible suspects had expanded from just Pinkie and Dash, to the unlikely possibility that they had recruited Rarity in their efforts, or the more likely chance she’d become the target of some local prankster. Slowly, she walked back to the table and picked up the book, placing it back on the cart it had been removed from.
“Look,” Twilight said, glancing around the room, “I don’t know who you are, or why you’ve been doing this, but the joke’s over.” Twilight turned to the door and grabbed her saddlebags before closing her eyes. With concentration, she focused and used her magic to teleport just outside the door, only to find as she opened her eyes that she was still staring at the same plain wooden door, with the ticking of the clock ringing in her ears.
She was still and silent from shock for several moments before trying again with the same result. She took a deep breath and tried again, but was still standing in front of the plain wooden door. It took a few moments after that before she reeled back from the door, shaking her head in disbelief. She took slow, deep breaths as she spoke. “No… No that’s not possible. There’s no way that… someone could do that. I… I- I- I’ve never read about...” Twilight ran to the book cart, scanning through the titles until she found one she had yet to reach in her list: Filigree’s Fundamentals. Flipping to the index, she scanned for anything related to what she had experienced.
The Teleportation entry had nothing about failing happening so many times or leading to the same spot; the main shortcoming from a failed spell would be appearing in a different location than the intended one, or simply having the magic fizzle. The Spells entry had nothing about ways to block or cancel out magic, on one pony or in an area. She grabbed Advanced Arcana afterwards, but even its more detailed explanations didn’t cover anything similar to this happening, or even being considered plausible.
Twilight’s worry was partially quieted when she heard the rumbling from her stomach again, and she chalked up her failings to an empty stomach or the beginnings of exhaustion. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself and then grabbed an extra sandwich she had packed in her bag before sitting down at the table.
She began to glance at her notes as she ate, her mind racing to find other explanations for her predicament. The door could easily be locked by a spell or held shut by something heavy. Why she couldn’t teleport out of the room, however, had many more potential answers, though Twilight had to admit she was grasping at straws by considering them.
Perhaps the door or walls had some unknown magical material that could keep her from teleporting through it, and no one else had been trapped and tried to leave. Maybe it was some concoction only just discovered by this trickster days ago. It could even be some bizarre astrological event that had left her and maybe others unable to cast certain spells. It could even simply been exhaustion like she wanted it to be. Whatever it was, there had to be an explanation, and she’d find it.
With the rumbling in her stomach sated, and her mind feeling slightly less frantic and slightly more alert, Twilight stood up and walked to the door. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she tried to teleport through the door once again and failed once again. When she opened her eyes, her expression changed to a glare in some hope of burning a hole through the door. In frustration she turned around, ready to deliver a swift kick and curse at the door, but stopped when she felt a breeze, not from the door behind her, but somehow from the empty wall in front of her.
She barely caught a glimpse of the wall, appearing solid and normal, before the breeze picked up, spinning in all directions and putting the lanterns’ flames out, and then stopped as soon as the room went pitch black. Twilight yelped and backed into the door. Amidst quick, ragged breaths, she tried to calm herself, certain that the wind was another trick of her unknown prankster, just like the stuck door and, hopefully, her inability to simply pop out of the room. After calming herself once again, she closed her eyes tightly and focused. From the tip of her horn, a small orb of light formed and then floated towards the center of the room. Twilight opened her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, as the room had been undisturbed, aside from the unlit lanterns.
“Okay, Twilight,” she said to herself, sitting down at the table, “you’re not one hundred percent sure exactly what’s going on, but you can still get out of here.” With her magic, she grabbed a few spellbooks from the cart and placed them on the table. “Teleporting doesn’t work, but maybe there’s another way out. I could try to get the door unstuck or find some way to… blast through it, or the wall.” She started thumbing through Enigma’s Enchantments, “Maybe there’s a way to enchant a piece of paper to go to Princess Celestia or one of the librarians for help.”
She glanced back up at the clock and saw that the time was 10:05. Twilight was sure a librarian would be by soon, at least to check on the rooms, especially if the “Do Not Disturb” sign was still hung outside. Regardless, Twilight remained persistent, and found a spell close to what she was looking for. She grabbed a piece of paper from her bags and read the instructions aloud, “To cast this spell, say the recipient's name while envisioning them in your mind.” Twilight wrote a simple message to the Princess, folded it up and walked to the door.
She placed the letter on the floor and stepped back. Focusing on the letter and the Princess in her mind, she simply said, “Princess Celestia.” As she opened her eyes, she saw the letter hover into the air. It pointed in multiple directions, twitching as it did, for nearly a minute. It then began to move back and forth in the air, even going close to the bottom of the door before backing away in confusion. Then, it simply dropped to the floor, lifeless.
Twilight was baffled. She had been sure the instructions were that simple, and had even focused on where the Princess might be, just in case the more vivid instructions would help it along. Her reward was… nothing. There had to be a reason for this. She ran back to the book, flipping through the pages, until she found a description of reasons for the failure of spells. It offered two: 1) A lack of focus on the recipient or 2) Focusing on someone that did not exist.
The first was impossible, it had to be. She saw the Princess, just as she always was, in her mind, and she pronounced her name perfectly. It may have been a high-level spell, but that was nothing too difficult for her! The second, well, that was even more impossible. The Princess was real, Twilight’s magic was working fine. Maybe whatever was cancelling her teleportation just didn’t allow magic to move things out of the room. That could explain why the letter “hesitated” at the doorway.
Twilight searched through the other books on the cart; if she couldn’t find a way to get things past the door, she’d get the door out of the way. With a mischievous grin, she grabbed the book Battle Casting and Magical Self Defense from the cart and flipped through its pages. “Alright, first option: blow it open.” She glanced at the door. “I’m sure Applejack or Rainbow Dash wouldn’t have any problem knocking it down on their own, but for me, this will work better. Hopefully.” Quickly, Twilight scanned the pages and found what she needed. After a quick read, she closed the book and stepped back up to the door.
Leveling her horn at the door, Twilight focused, causing her horn to glow brighter and brighter with each second. After a few moments, she released, sending a bolt of energy straight at the wooden doorway. The impact was loud, both from the door and the shaking of the wall around, but the wood refused to crack and the door was still securely shut. Twilight took a few deep breaths and then leveled her horn again. Again and again she fired bolt after bolt at the door in quick succession, hoping she would hear the hinges burst or the wood shatter, but the door was still solid and locked after each hit. The shaking of the walls hadn’t even managed to knock the clock, which note read 10:35, off the wall.
Her breathing quickened, but she remained resolute. “Okay, that’s fine,” she muttered, grabbing the book again. “If I can’t get it to budge, option two is to blow it up or disint—” Twilight stopped flipping through the pages when she saw something move along the paper. She recoiled in shock, dropping the book to the floor. On the pages, she saw the letters begin to jumble and shift, almost scurrying like ants along the paper. Cautiously, she leaned down to inspect them. The letters hadn’t uprooted from the page; instead, they seem to slide over one another, and she even saw them vanish from one side of the margin and appear on the opposite page.
Based on a few moments of surveillance, the letters didn’t seem to have any pattern, randomly changing directions or pausing to spell out gibberish words. Reluctantly, Twilight tapped the paper with a hoof. It felt like normal paper, even as she saw the letters slide underneath her hoof. Then, she flipped to another page, and its letters were doing the same. With every single page she checked, it was the same. Quickly, she ran to the book cart and grabbed another book. Each of its pages were the same, with letters skimming around to form gibberish, and on one page she found a picture, splintered into lines and curves, reforming itself into odd symbols and what seemed like runes.
One by one she checked the other books, and they were all the same. With each one she checked, though, the speed of the letters became faster, their movements more erratic and the shapes formed by the scattered bits of broken pictures, and even letters, became more complex and almost sinister. She closed all of the books, placing them back on the cart, and tried to shake the images from her mind. With a few deep breaths of preparation, she returned to the door.
“Whoever this is… You’ve had your laugh, now let me out. I’m sure it’s been very hilarious for you, and you’re very proud that you managed to frighten a pony trapped in a room, but it’s time for this to stop!” She pounded on the door with her hoof every few seconds. “I said let me out! I’m the personal student of the Princess, and she will not stand for this!” Slowly she sank to a sitting position, turning her back to the door and ceasing her knocking. She sat there, unmoving for a few minutes, with thoughts racing through her mind.
She couldn’t read her books, under the assumption that they’d remain jumbled and useless, and every attempt she’d made to leave was easily trumped. Her only hopes were mercy or another’s intervention, and by now the librarians had surely left. Perhaps they didn’t even check the rooms before closing, or worse yet they’d been paid off by this sadistic prankster. Maybe it was something more sinister than that, as improbable as it might be.
Now, however, Twilight just felt tired. Her captor had some sense of morality, given that they hadn’t… hurt her since she had been locked inside, so they would surely let her go eventually. For now, maybe she could get some sleep. She walked over behind the table and curled up beside her bags, but only had a moment to close her eyes before she heard a loud pounding against the door. She tried to ignore it, keeping her eyes shut, but it repeated every few moments.
Hesitantly, Twilight opened her eyes, only to see one of the books from the cart shoot up into the air and hit the ceiling with a thud. She followed it with her eyes and saw both it and four other books already stuck to the ceiling. The book cart began to shake and rattle as more books flew off into the air, faster than her eyes could follow. Each one hit the ceiling with a loud thud, and Twilight could swear a similar sound echoed from beyond the door. Within seconds the book cart was half empty and its shaking grew more and more violent, knocking over the books still sitting on its shelves. Those that were knocked off quickly flew up to the ceiling, but the rest were still, until the book cart shot up like an arrow.
It hit the ceiling with a clang, sending the rest of its books pouring out into the air. Unlike the others, however, these seemed to hover weightlessly, unaffected by whatever gravity spell must have been cast on the other books and the cart. Slowly, the books stuck to the ceiling floated away, hovering in mid-air. They began to drift, floating in circles around the orb of light Twilight had left in the center of the ceiling, casting long shadows along the wall. Twilight kept herself pressed up against the wall, her legs tense and ready to leap away should the books begin to fly in random directions.
Twilight’s eyes grew wider and her jaw agape as the books began to form shapes, directed at her, but they weren’t complex or odd like the ones being formed within the books. They were letters. They retained their shape for a few moments before shifting and settling once again.
H
E
L
l
O
Twilight’s head shook from side to side gently as she muttered to herself, “Please, just please stop this.”
The books stopped and floated away towards the walls, except for one, which hung directly under the light at the center of the room and above the table. In a flash, it shot down to the table, and landed with a crash, its front cover towards the ceiling. Its impact sent her notes flying towards the edge of the table, with the majority falling to the floor. Twilight was still, afraid to move toward it for fear of what would happen next, but her curiosity won out. Carefully, she walked over to the table and sat down in front of the book. The cover was black, without any distinct markings on it or the spine; it wasn’t one she had brought into the room.
Twilight decided not to use her magic, and reached out with a hoof to open the front cover. As she flipped through the pages, she found all of them blank, without even any indentations to show that someone had tried to write without ink or any scraps of paper within the binding to indicate that pages had been ripped free. Twilight’s eyes darted around the room as the books continued to float and orbit around her. Some of them even began to open and flip through their pages, granting her a glimpse of the still shifting letters and symbols. When she looked down at the book again, she was shocked to find the word “Hello” printed on the page, greeting her.
Twilight was frozen, a bit out of fear, but mostly in contemplation. What am I thinking? she asked herself, shutting her eyes for a moment. I can’t keep playing along with this. I can’t let them think they’re winning at this… sick game. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Underneath their initial “greeting,” more letters had appeared.
I know you’re there, Twilight. I’ve been listening.
Twilight was reluctant, words caught in her throat as she stared at the paper. After a few moments, however, she spoke up. “W-who are you?” she asked, keeping her eyes locked on the paper. Slowly, the letters seemed to bleed into the paper from underneath. On closer inspection, their type face was different for every character, even in the same word; some of the letters were even faded in the shade of their ink. Around her, Twilight could still hear the books flipping through their pages.
An enigma, to you. One you could not comprehend, nor understand.
Twilight glanced up at the ceiling and then towards the door. She glimpsed the clock, just as a book floated past it: 10:57. “Do you… want to hurt me?” Twilight asked, looking back at the book. She prayed the answer would be no. If it wasn’t, she would have to be ready for something. She honestly didn’t know what.
You already know. You are alive. You have seen what I have done.
Twilight’s eyes darted from side to side, searching the room for some warning of what would come next. “Look, if you’re still playing some joke, trying to scare me, I told you I’m done. I just want to leave. I won’t tell anyone about this, okay?” She shuddered as she felt the room shake, a cold wind forming and blowing from the wall behind her. In the distance, beyond the walls, she heard something low, like a faint rumbling, but in one ear it was close, and sounded like a ringing in her ears. Twilight winced, bringing her hooves to her ears in an effort to stop it, but it ceased after a matter of moments. The words began to bleed into the paper again, but they looked more like fresh quill marks, overflowing with ink, which poured out before dripping up toward the ceiling.
This is no joke. You will not tell, because you will not leave. You have no where you need to go, because you have finally returned home.
The words made little sense to Twilight, and they had to be some far-fetched further attempt at horror that she had already been past the point of entertaining. She slammed her fore hooves onto the table before standing up. “Stop playing with me and tell me why! Why are you doing this to me?! Why won’t you let me go?! Just answer me!”
Twilight gasped as the books around the room and even the cart fell down to the floor, one by one, sending thunderous crashes through the room in quick succession. She ducked and hid underneath the table, her eyes shut until she heard the last book drop. Slowly, she opened her eyes and peeked out into the room; the air was empty of anything except the orb of light, still perched above her, and the floor was littered with books. Some of them had landed open, and a short glance at one near her showed that it was perfectly normal again. Its letters were arranged normally, no longer skittering about the paper, and a figure on the page was in order, rather than twisted into some sinister symbol.
Twilight kept herself tense as she tiptoed around the room, checking the other books; they were all normal again. However, the black tome on the table had vanished, perhaps snatched away by her assailant in Twilight’s confusion. She made her way slowly over to her bags, pulling her notes out from amidst the clutter and stuffing them aside. She was distracted, however, when she heard a creak from the doorway. Quickly, her head turned to find the door ajar by only an inch.
Without hesitation she jumped over the table and dashed through the doorway, using her magic to open the door wide. The other side was nearly pitch black, even with the light from the room, which only illuminated a small patch of the floor on the other side. She stumbled through the doorway in a trot, but was stopped as her hooves tripped over something. With a crash, she hit the floor, groaning in pain as she tried to get up again.
As soon as she was on her hooves, however, the door slammed shut behind her. Twilight stood in pitch black darkness, without even the light of the stars, the moon, or even Canterlot to give her the faintest bit of sight, and she could still hear the clock, clear and loud behind her head. It didn’t make sense, just like everything else. She left the room, and the Spellcasting wing had tall, wide window panes along its side; there would have to be some light. Hesitantly, she closed her eyes and formed a light at the tip of her horn.
She opened her eyes and gasped in terror. It was the reading room, the same one that she had left. The book cart sat in the corner, with all of the books neatly ordered on it, just as it was before she had prepared to leave. However, the walls were no longer clear, and plan. Now, in black ink, marked more times than Twilight could count, with streams of ink like blood running down from the letters, was an answer.
WHY NOT?
Twilight’s breathing became rapid as she turned to the door, trying desperately once again to tear it open. She pulled and pushed as hard as she could with her magic and her hooves, but it did not budge. She tried to teleport through it, at least a dozen times, one after the other, but she arrived in the same spot, with the same walls oozing and bleeding ink around her. Slowly, she sank down to the floor, trying to hold back tears as she banged faintly on the door, muttering, “Please, please let me go.”
The room shook once again, and the distant, low drone assaulted her ears, making her forehead throb and every inch of her body ache. She pressed her hooves against her ears in an attempt to stop it, but it was no use, as if it came from within her ear drums. It stopped when she felt something land on her shoulder. She turned to see a piece of wood, drenched in ink, on the floor, soon joined by dozens around the room. Slowly she looked up, just in time to see the ceiling ripped away from the room, swallowed by a void of black.
It looked… limitless, endless, and gloomy. Not the faintest bit of light came from it, and it seemed to deflect the light from her horn. It wasn’t, however, empty. Something in the back of her mind, like a primal instinct, told her that this void, or something within it, was more dangerous than she could know. Her mind told her to run, and her body felt pumped full of adrenaline. Her heart pounded within her chest, her breathing became ragged and she wanted to run, but she was frozen in place.
“It won’t do anything,” she muttered under her breath before swallowing a lump in her throat. I can’t run. I can’t hide. I can’t escape it. I wonder what I look like to it: an ant? No, like a germ under a microscope.
Tears poured down Twilight’s face as she began to laugh, her eyes locked on the endless void. Hopefully, it would get tired of studying her. Hopefully, it would put her back into the wild then. Hopefully, it would make the dissection quick, and painless.
Twilight sighed, wiping the tears from her face, and waited for it to finish.