Amber fell asleep rather quickly in the large plush bed, after shedding his cloths and hanging them up. He saw them disappear after a few minutes of lying on the bed and suspected that the mare above him that must have been sleeping the room’s rafters was fixing or cleaning them. The moon shone brightly into the room as Amber laid back closing his eyes, drifting off into a deep content sleep.
As the night went on, Amber Shine dreamed as all ponies do. Most did not fully remember their dreams, but most remembered the nightmares they had, and what Amber Shine was having was most surely a nightmare.
The place he where he stood was a dull grey and nothing was around him for miles. He breathed in and felt a thin bit of air making him cough and stir up the dust around him. Shaking his head he started to walk along the dull grey landscape, searching for something or somepony that might have been the point of this strange dream.
Eventually he saw a crater in the ground, with the light of the sun casting a dark shadow inside. As Amber stepped into the crater he saw the shadows dance around the crater, his own slowly growing on the floor in front of him, taking a fearsome shape and eventually pulling itself free. Huge shadowy teeth and terrifying blue eyes stared at him, a long forked tongue sliding over the jagged teeth before the creature lunged.
As Amber ran out of the crater he saw the creature was getting closer and closer, his breathing grew heavy in the thin air until he stumbled and fell onto the dusty ground, causing a huge dust cloud to form around him making him cough loudly. As he finished he looked up and saw the face of the shadowy beast, its blackened lips pulled back to show its blood red gums with tar black teeth before it pounced causing Amber Shine to scream.
His vision fading into an inky darkness, his breath coming harshly as he struggled against the mass in his dreams before he felt a pressure within his horn. A pressure unlike he had ever felt before, as started to become unbearable he was able to see again. The inky blackness now gone after a final shot of pain, like a pony was trying to shove a barrel into a tin can, the darkness seemed to disappear completely from his vision.
Amber stumbled and put a hoof up to his head, stumbling forward as he did and felt a jolt of pain coming from his horn. Reaching up to it he felt nothing different before the landscape before him started to melt away, turning into what seemed like a blank canvas. Amber stared into the emptiness and saw something standing in the distance.
As Amber started to walk toward it, he saw that it was a colt. As he got closer, the copy got clearer and more terrifying. Its face was gaunt, his eyes were stuck in a blank stare, but its eyes moved to stare into Amber’s with a startling clarity coming to them. The colt’s body was little more than a skeleton covered with the taunt canvas of a skin, as if he were an art exhibit on how a body might look after an unknown amount of time.
“You must beware, you are next.” The colt said, his voice sounding like air being pressed out of a small bag. “Beware the darkness; do not allow it to repeat history.” As the final word escape the stallion’s lips, it started to shudder and Amber saw its broken horn glow lightly. The signal for the rest of the body that it was done, the body starting to glow itself as Amber stared in amazement as the body stiffened and the face let a faint smile trace its lips before it turned to dust.
A wind picking up and blowing the body across the empty plain before Amber felt a jerk and his eyes opened into the waking world. Seeing that the Thestral who he was rooming with was staring into him.
“What were you muttering in your sleep?” She asked with a concerned look on her face.
“I…I have no idea.” Amber Shine said rubbing his head and felt a liquid on his horn, pulling it away and seeing a light sweat had formed on his forehead with only a single problem with it.
His sweat was a shade of inky black.