Part 3: Practice
It took her only a few moments to gather everything she would need. Notes? Check. Candles? Check. Chalk? Check. A knife… Twilight shuddered. That was the one part of the ritual she certainly wasn’t looking forward to. She decided to grab one from the kitchen on her way out. She hoped against hope that Spike was asleep, so that she wouldn’t have to think up an excuse and have to lie to him yet again.
She delicately stepped past Spike’s basket without waking him, and safely made it downstairs. Twilight stopped by the kitchen, grabbing a small, recently washed utility knife with her magic and quickly tucked it away with the rest of her things. With a shaky sigh to calm her nerves, Twilight left her home and stepped out into a streetlamp-lit Ponyville.
She kept her head down, hoping against hope she wouldn’t encounter somepony on her way to the Everfree Forest. She had settled for the outskirts of the Everfree as the location to test the spell, as it was far enough away from the town to be safe from prying eyes, but not deep enough in the forest to be dangerous, or so she figured.
“Almost there…” she whispered victoriously, as she saw the Everfree come into view, well lit under the radiance of a full moon. She managed to keep Fluttershy’s cottage in view just long enough to make it safely to the edge of the forest. However, she hesitated, and stopped to look back.
She paused and took in the cool night air. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the wind. In it, she could almost hear the voice of her mother, and her warnings of dabbling in darker magics. Twilight frowned.
“I’m not a little filly anymore,” she whispered defiantly as she turned to face the dark forest before her. But she did not move. Something deep inside was telling her that there would be no going back; that there is a world of difference between theory and practice.
“But I have to know… I have to know,” she reminded herself. She steeled herself and entered the forest, knowing that there would be no turning back now.
Minutes ticked by as Twilight went over the steps to the ritual in her mind. She stuck to the path that led to Zecora’s hut for a short while, before branching off once she deemed she was deep enough in the forest to be free from any interruption.
After several minutes of meandering, Twilight halted. In her mind, it was the perfect place to stop. She didn’t want to get too close to Zecora. Better safe than sorry, Twilight figured.
She had come to a small clearing and decided to do it there. Carefully, she set down her saddlebags and began brushing leaves away to make a small patch of earth available. She then took out her notes, and went over them one more time, if only for the sake of redundancy.
The wind was howling as it tore through the trees of the Everfree, putting Twilight on edge. She knew she wasn’t deep enough in the forest to have to worry about any monsters, and was comforted by the fact that she was but a minute’s sprint to the edge of the forest if anything awful did happen.
She stopped as her ears picked up on something. There was something else in the wind, something like a whisper that she couldn’t quite hear, that she couldn’t quite understand. She chose to ignore it, thinking, “I’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
Twilight magicked her supplies out of her bags and set them before her. She would do this as methodically and as scientifically as possible. Without any more procrastination, she began the ritual.
She drew an unfamiliar star-like shape in the dirt, and then encircled it with two concurrent lines. She found herself humming a tune she didn’t know she knew as she finished out the shape. Once it was completed, she set out tea lights at each of the five points on the poorly drawn star, and lit them each one at a time, counter-clockwise.
She stopped for a moment to survey her handiwork. She found it unsatisfying, and desperately wanted to erase it and try again; her OCD would not tolerate an imperfect circle or uneven lines. However, she also knew that if she began over again, she’d never draw it satisfactorily before dawn. Twilight ground her teeth and chose to go on instead, imperfections and all.
Now for the part she wasn’t looking forward to… She nervously sighed as she picked up the knife. The book never mentioned precisely how much blood was needed; only that pony’s blood was necessary for the spell to work. Twilight couldn’t imagine intentionally cutting herself, but she had come this far…
“It’ll be over quickly,” she reassured herself. She levitated the knife over to her left hoof. “Here goes…”
She shut her eyes and bit her lower lip as the knife blade slowly sliced through her skin and into the capillaries below. Once she felt the knife finish it’s painfully slow caress, she immediately dropped it and inhaled sharply.
“Celestia, that hurt!” she whispered loudly. “And I thought paper cuts were painful-“
She interrupted herself as she felt the first drop of blood run down her leg. She hastily stepped over to her diagram on three legs, and let the blood fall onto it. After eight or nine drops, the bleeding stopped.
“I hope that was enough…” Twilight wondered aloud. She quickly put the knife back into her bag, tempted to leave it behind so she wouldn’t be reminded of all this every time she saw it. She applied a bandage to her leg after sterilizing it with a basic medical spell, and then turned her attention once more to the task before her.
With the blood part finally out of the way, a relieved Twilight sat down in front of her circle in the dirt, and began the final few steps in the ritual. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before reciting the poorly translated words she had practiced in her mind over and over and over again:
“Spirit black,
Void and cold,
From below in Darkness’ hold;
Come back to light,
Rise again,
To the land from which you came.
By darkest night,
And Shadow’s lies,
I command you to rise!”
Nothing. After several seconds in sickening anticipation, Twilight began to believe that the spell didn’t work, or that she had done something wrong. Just as she gave up and was about to open her eyes, she heard something.
“I… arise…” a soft but pained voice whispered.
Her shot open. There was nothing before her but her diagram and the candles. She froze, thinking perhaps that what she heard was but a figment of her imagination.
“Why…”
It was like distant whispering, and she could not pinpoint where it was coming from. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say it was coming from… around her.
“H-hello?” Twilight called out.
Silence.
“Perhaps I am just imagining things again,” she uttered quietly as she stood up and turned to pack her things.
“…did you summon me?!” An ethereal voice called out suddenly. Twilight was frozen with fear. Did she really do it? Did she really just call up a spirit of the dead? She very slowly turned around, back to her diagram in the dirt. She saw… nothing.
“Hello?” Twilight called out a bit louder, growing extremely nervous as her mind raced.
There was a sound like a long, pained sigh.
“I’m sorry-“Twilight began, before being interrupted by a scream.
She threw her hooves to her ears in a desperate attempt to lessen the sound that was assaulting her. It passed as quickly as it had come, and Twilight was left shaking and hyperventilating in the darkness, the scream having somehow extinguished the candles.
She tried in vain to fight through the haze of fear that gripped her mind. She had to move, she had to do something!
“Why did you awaken me…?” the voice asked, returning to a whisper, and much clearer, as if its source were nearby.
“I… I…” Twilight stammered, still unable to move.
“I…” the voice repeated, growing angry.
Twilight was dumbfounded; the icy grip of fear held her in place like a vice.
One moment, she was standing there in the Everfree, alone with a spirit she had summoned. In another, she was bolting towards the edge of the forest, instinct finally having taken over.
Her heart beat rapidly, threatening to burst from her chest. Just as the field was coming into view, she tripped on a root and was sent sprawling. Her momentum dragged her a few feet across the forest floor.
She rolled onto her back, and came face to face with whatever it was she had summoned. The look of anguish and hatred on the pale eyeless face was indescribable, and the image was seared into her mind. She tried to look away, but the same icy fear came over her once more. She blinked, and the spirit was gone.
Twilight sat up, panting heavily. Maybe it was over?
Without warning, she felt something. Something strange. Something entering her very being. It took a full four and a half seconds before it clicked in Twilight’s mind: she was being possessed.
Panicking, she tried to stand up, but found that she couldn’t. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of the field surrounding the Everfree Forest. She was so close. If only…
All thoughts ceased as endless screams flooded her mind. She tried to grab her head, but found that she no longer had control of her hooves. She fell backwards, writhing on the forest floor. She could feel the darkness closing in, and in the bleakness of her folly, she resigned herself to her fate and began sobbing.
“Twilight Sparkle!” a loud and commanding voice called out. In the haze of shadow, Twilight tried in vain to turn to the louder voice calling her name. Something about it sounded familiar.
“Twilight Sparkle!” a different voice called out. Twilight wanted desperately to respond, but could do no more than to continue writhing on the ground.
“Sister, I have found her!” the first voice shouted.
Twilight heard something, or thought she did. Like the sound of a Pegasus landing, but heavier. However, deep in the black void of her mind, she was unsure of everything. Was she even real anymore? Was she ever real?
“Oh, Twilight…” the second voice said softly, like a mix of pity and disappointment.
Twilight heard the voices being drowned out as she was pulled deeper and deeper into her mind until she could no longer think, feel, or be. Whether she was in that state for a minute, or a millennia, she could not tell.
Suddenly, a warm light pierced the blackness. Twilight thought she heard screams. But then again, she wasn’t sure that she was awake, let alone real. Then came the pain. Every possible nerve ending was fired. Twilight began screaming alongside the vicious screams that had begun fading. Then finally, everything ceased. There was silence, and nothing else. Twilight let go and fell into unconsciousness.