//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 (Hunter and Ben's Side) 
// Story: The "Twilight" Zone 
// by Thatonepony9495 
//------------------------------//


The “Twilight” Zone
Created by: 
Thatoneguy9495
DarkMephiles
Ben_is_not_dead_yet

Ch. 7, Part 1
(3rd Person View)

Fluttershy tries to shake Mark awake, but he doesn’t show any signs of getting up soon. Applejack tries also, but still nothing.
“He might still be stuck in his dream, Fluttershy! We gotta go tell the others!” Applejack runs to the door and tries to pen the doorknob. Her hooves are slipping, trying to turn it. She backs away to let Fluttershy try.
She flies up to it, and while still in the air, grabs the knob with her teeth and does a little barrel roll, opening the door. They leave the room. Applejack gallops over to Hunter’s door and bucks it hard enough to make a loud noise, but not to break down the door. Fluttershy taps quietly on Ben’s door.
“Come on, Fluttershy! Ya gotta make them hear it! Like this!” She bucks Ben’s door. Hunter opens his own door, rubbing his eyes.
“What’s going on girls?”
“Mark’s not waking up! There’s something wrong with him!” Applejack says, getting ready to buck Ben’s door again.
Ben opens his door in time for AJ to buck him in the stomach. He falls on the ground, writhing in pain.
Twilight comes out of Hunter’s room in time to see this. “AJ, you really have to control those. Look what happened again.”
“Oh Celestia...Ah’m sorry. Are you okay Ben?”
Ben gets up, still holding his stomach. “I’ll be *cough* fine. Why’d you *cough* wake us up?”
Fluttershy starts going back to Mark’s room. “There’s something wrong with Mark. Come and look.”
Hunter opens Mark’s door and sees him lying still on the bed. Ben goes over and checks his pulse. The heartbeat is steady and the breathing is relaxed. “He’s still breathing, but he has coma-like symptoms.”
Pinkie Pie jumps on the bed and slaps Mark in the face. No response. “What could’ve happened that he’s not waking up?”
AJ calls everyone’s attention. “I think I know what’s going on with him. Last night, Fluttershy and I were cold, so we got in bed with him.” When Hunter and Ben heard this, they snickered a little bit. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing. Please continue.” Hunter looks up towards the ceiling.
“Anyway, when we all fell asleep, I saw him in my dream, but he said I was in his dream. It was all kinda confusin’ ‘til he figured that our dreams were connected together.”
“What do you mean connected?” Twilight said.
“It was kinda hard fer him to explain, but it might have to do with the trinkets. Being near him out in this world linked us together in the dream world.”
“We get it AJ. Now get on to the part where you think Mark isn’t able to get back here.” Rainbow Dash was hovering in the air with her forelegs crossed.
“Okay well...We all started the dream in this house, but when we left; the door didn’t head back into the house, but instead, a void.”
“And this is where you lost him?” Rarity said.
Fluttershy spoke up this time. “Well...no. We all got pulled through the doorway into the void and just...fell. We were falling for a while, but then...something dreadful happened.”
Applejack jumps up and shouts. “He got pulled away from us!” She lands back on the ground, recollecting her cool. “But he helped us by telling us to wake up before Fluttershy and I got dragged in also. So we did, and here you are.”
Twilight taps her chin. “So, Mark is trapped in his mind? I think I read a book like this before. It was about a pony whose colt could separate his soul from his body and travel around the ghost world. But one night, the poor colt travelled too far from his body and got lost. So the father had to regain his own talents to get the colt back in his own body before the ghosts grabbed him and permanently had his soul in the underworld. This is probably a rough concept of what happened to Mark.”
“Brilliant. There’s only one problem. How are we gonna find him in the void?” Hunter said, sitting on Mark’s bed.
“It was kinda strange how the author wrote it. The father was able to find his colt by listening to the noises the colt made, then calling back, expecting an answer. I’ll bet we could do the same thing with Mark.”
“So how would we all be able to get to the dream that he’s still in?” Rarity tossed her mane a little.
“I guess we could try the same way that Fluttershy and I did. But we should pick a better spot for it. Let’s take him downstairs and set him on the couch.” Applejack tried pushing Mark off the bed. “Boy, this sucker’s heavy!”
“Here. I’ll get Fluttershy to help me pick him up.” Rainbow Dash nudges one of his arms to get under it and sits him up in the bed. “Come help me guys!”
Hunter and Ben grab Mark and pull him off the bed onto the backs of AJ, Twilight, and Rarity.
“Hey Twilight, *oof* where’d you learn to lift like that?” Applejack struggles to hold up the upper part of his body.
“How do you think I was able to carry Tom?”
“Hey! I thought I told you to never speak of that again!” Rarity huffs a little.
Hunter gets annoyed. “Girls, just take him downstairs! I don’t care how you do it; just get him on the couch!”
The three ponies go over to the stairs and let Mark fall, hitting every stair on the way down.
Ben is laughing hysterically. “I don’t think he meant like that!”
Hunter jumps down to the bottom and gets under the arm of Mark and lifts. “Ben, help me drag him to the couch.” Ben jumps down also and they work together to set him on the couch. “Oh and Twilight, where’s Spike?”
“He’s a heavy sleeper so nothing will be able to wake him up at this hour. He’ll be fine. Anyway, how are we gonna sleep to be connected in the dream?” Twilight jumps on the couch next to Mark.
“I got it. AJ and Fluttershy you go near where Mark is sitting and try to fall back asleep. It should be easy since it’s the middle of the night. Twilight and Dash, I’ll sleep on the couch with enough space for one of you to be next to Fluttershy. Ben you sleep close enough to the group with Rarity and Pinkie.”
Everyone gets comfortable on the couch and the floor, and the room is quickly filled with snoring.
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Pinkie Pie wakes up in the house first. She’s where she was laying in the real world. She gets up and looks at all the others still sleeping where they were, only one thing is missing. Mark isn’t where he was supposed to be. Rainbow Dash starts moving.
“Rainbow Dash, look!” Pinkie helps her up.
“Huh? Wha...” Dash widens her eyes when she sees what’s wrong. “Where’s Mark?”
“I don’t know! Wasn’t he on the couch?”
Meanwhile, everyone else is getting up. They all notice that Mark is gone.
“Well, that proves that he isn’t anywhere near his physical body.” Hunter says, touching the couch where Mark was supposed to be.
“So we have to find him. I guess the linking dreams thing worked, but why are we back at the house? I thought no two dreams were different?” Twilight rubs her head with her hoof.
“Yea, but Mark’s dream is still running in his mind no matter where he is, so we all got in his dream without creating a separate one.” Ben says. “Let’s try to same scenario that got Mark to where he is now. Applejack, Fluttershy, where did the three of you go after you got here?”
“Well...um...we just went out the front door, but there was nothing around, just white space.” Fluttershy says.
“Then let’s go out front and see what happens.” Twilight leads everyone outside and huddles on the porch. Ben slips a foot off the step and lands it on the white space. It’s solid under his weight.
“Hey guys, the white space is able to be walked on! Let’s give each other some space out here.” He says, stepping completely on it.
Everyone spreads out and the door to the house closes.
“Okay everypony, this is the part it gets a little unsettlin’. Hunter, go ahead and open the door.
Hunter turns the doorknob and pushes the door open. It’s the same outer space look as before. “I guess we have no choice but to head inside. Ready everyone?”
Every pony hesitantly nods their heads. Hunter gets a running start and jumps in. He’s followed by Twilight, then Rainbow Dash, then the rest, with Fluttershy being the last one.
They start falling. Looking at all the stars around them, then Ben notices something strange about one of the moving stars.
“Hey! You see the star moving over there? It looks like it’s using the other stars as a sort of jumping point.”
Hunter looks over where Ben is point. “You’re right! And look again, there’s a flash of light that stays for a bit at every couple points. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll bet Mark is with it.”
Pinkie Pie is doing trick in the air. Then she stops and it looks like she notices something. “Hey! Do you hear that?”
AJ looks at her. “What is it Pinkie? I don’t hear anythin’.”
“Exactly! There’s no whooshing sound going past my ears!”
“Whoa! She’s right!” Hunter checks his ears along with everyone else. “If there’s no whooshing noise, then that means there’s no air!”
“That would make it a lot easier to call and listen for Mark. But if there’s no air, then that means Fluttershy and Dash can’t fly.” Ben keeps checking his ears.
“Well, Nightmare Moon really pulled all the stops on this one.” Twilight says.
“DID I HEAR SOMEPONY SAY MY NAME?”
Everyone looks around. They turn towards the little jumping point. But when they do, the point becomes larger and closer. The ball of light stops in front of them and the light dissipates. Nightmare Moon starts appearing out of the light. She gets in front of everyone, but she seems to be standing in space while everyone else is falling. Mark is in some kind of cage made out of the energy of the dark.
“Look you guys! There’s Mark!” Twilight points at the cage.
Mark looks up from his slump. “Whoa, guys! You came back for me! You don’t know what Nightmare Moon has been doing in this place while I’ve been imprisoned!”
“Silence! I didn’t say you could talk! Now, for the rest of you...”
“What are you gonna do with us?” Ben says.
“I have no reason to deal with you! I’ve got all I need to keep you from stopping me!” She starts to turn back into a ball of light, but something else happens.
Mark is on one side of the cage sticking his arm out. He’s holding his trinket out. “Come over here! This could get me out, and hurry!”
Ben and Hunter quickly lean themselves to get closer to Mark. When they close enough, there’s an unlocking sound and the cage disappears from around Mark just in time for Nightmare Moon to fly away in the ball of light.
“Now what?” Mark says, putting the trinket back into his pocket.
Before anyone says anything, the void melts away and they are left standing in the living room of the house.
“Oh...did we defeat her?” Mark scratches his head.
“I didn’t see anything happen to her, so probably not.” Ben says.
“Can we just get back to our bodies and wake up out of this crazy dream guys?” Hunter says as he’s walking out of the living room. Everyone follows him and back to the couch and finds themselves.
“I can’t thank you guys enough for saving me. I’ll tell ya, it was pretty crazy what I saw. I’m just glad my mind is free once again.” Mark finds his body sitting on the couch.
“Yea, yea, we’ll talk about it on the other side.” Hunter fades away from the dream. Pretty soon, everyone fades away also. Mark takes a little time before he does the same thing.