She sat bolt upright in bed, hitting her forehead on a low hanging rafter. The blow was hard enough to make her flinch and roll around in her bed for a moment, holding her head as it throbbed in pain. Though she had come to love a many things about this world, the exposed cross beams in Principle Celestia's attic were not one of them. The pain ebbed away but she could feel an egg shaped knot taking form on her forehead. "What a great way to start the day," Sunset Shimmer grumbled to herself with a little moan as her fingers brushed against the injury. At least she wasn't bleeding.
What had caused her to awaken so suddenly anyways? As far as she could tell, from the slatted window on the far side of the attic, it was grey and overcast outside. Perhaps there had been a peal of thunder from a nearby bolt of lightning? Sunny listened intently, but there were no tell-tale pitter-patters of rain on the roof above her head, nor did she hear so much as a low rumble of fading thunder. So what then had awakened her with such a start? Vaguely, as the ache in her head subsided further, Sunset recalled that she had been dreaming. Was that it? Had she had a bad dream? It was difficult to recall, but perhaps that was it.
She remembered dreaming that she had been back in Equestria, the palace in Canterlot to be precise. She had a vague feeling it was meant to be the night she had snuck back through the mirror portal to retrieve, what she thought at the time, was her rightful crown as the soon to be princess of Canterlot High. The memory made her wince. Remembering how far gone she had been back then never ceased to make her uncomfortable. The very idea of trying to use all her new friends as a puppet army to take over Equestria filled her with an intense dread and nauseous feeling whenever the memory crossed her mind. In her dream though, she had felt that way for other reasons. The castle had been abandoned, the furniture was all broken down and coated by a thick layer of dust. There were no ponies around what-so-ever, and though she could dimly sense the Elements of Harmony, they felt miles away.
For whatever reason, the vagaries of sleep or the blow to her head, she had difficulty remembering the rest of the dream. She tried harder to recall as she dangled her feet over the edge of her bed. The city outside of the palace had been wrong, she knew that much. It had been just as abandoned as the castle and shrouded in fog, but that hadn't been what had disturbed her. She vaguely recalled a song, one she hadn't heard in a long time, and a snatched bit of childish schoolyard laughter. The rest was a blur of images, bright colors, sharp smells and...teeth? Why had she been dreaming about teeth? Her head throbbed as she tried to remember and she slowly untangled herself from her twisted sheets. That's when her eyes lit upon the glowing digital readout of the alarm clock on the chest of drawers on the other side of her bed. The digits silently, but urgently, flashed 7:45. She'd forgotten to select a radio station for her clock radio, so when the alarm had gone off it hadn't made any noise.
She was going to be late!
Sunset jumped out of bed, barely missing the same cross beam she had banged her head on when she awoke, and hurriedly began to dress. "What a great way to start the day!" the fiery haired girl growled as she tugged on her dress and searched frantically for her jacket and her book bag. It was bad enough for other students when they were tardy, but they didn't live with the principal and the vice principal. If she didn't get a move on, it didn't matter how much progress she'd made since the last Fall Formal, there was no way she'd be allowed to attend the one this year! Dragging a brush painfully through her tangled hair, she grabbed her book bag and thundered downstairs. Sunset vainly hoped there would be at least a little time to grab some breakfast, maybe a doughnut or something.
She didn't know why, but she felt a craving for something sweet to bite.
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School that day wasn't much better than her rough night and rude awakening. Sunset didn't have time to visit with any of her friends before classes started, barely skidding to a halt in front of Miss Cheerilee's room as the bell echoed through the halls. Soaking wet, Sunset had been caught in a sudden downpour as she had made the short run to Canterlot High. She apologized as she dripped across the classroom, drops of rain water falling on other students papers and book bags. Finally reaching her desk Sunset thought she could, at last, relax.
And relax she certainly could.
Unfortunately class just never seemed to end! Boredom was somehow worse after the adrenaline rush of trying to beat the clock to class. Sunset Shimmer could have sworn she actually saw the minute hand tick backwards once or twice now that she was sitting at her desk. It wasn't that she was a bad student, far from it, it was just that she had studied intensely with Princess Celestia for years before she had ever even set foot into this school. True, most of that had been magical studies, but the complexities of Algebra 2 paled in comparison to the intricacies of advanced thaumaturgical dynamics. It didn't help that, despite sleeping in, Sunset's dreams didn't seem to have been all that restful. She found herself fighting her bodies natural impulse to slowly lower the lids of her eyes and lay her head on her desk. After almost being late and causing such a scene with her entry, the last thing she wanted to do was attract more attention by falling asleep in class.
She was fighting hard as she closed her eyes for a moment. It was only a moment... Or so she thought.
When she opened her eyes again, however, all the desks around her were empty. Not just the students, but the teacher was gone as well. She panicked, was it possible she had slept through the rest of class? The door to the classroom stood open. Getting up from her desk and grabbing her things, she rushed towards the hall outside. Perhaps it wasn't too late to make it to the next class? Outside in the hallway, everything seemed equally deserted. Had she managed to nod off in class and sleep through the rest of the school day entirely!? Why hadn't anyone woken her up?
As these thoughts raced through Sunset Shimmers head, she noticed that she was not as entirely alone as she had first thought. Far at the end of the hall, by the emergency exit, there stood a tiny child. She didn't move or even so much as speak, but a wave of dread crept over Sunset. The child didn't look old enough to be in high school, indeed she looked much younger than Applejack and Rarity's little sisters. Facing away from her as she did, Sunset couldn't tell much else about the child aside from what she was wearing. The raggedy patchwork dress that draped the girls tiny frame was covered in filth. The thick, foul coating seemed to extend down the lengths of her stick thin arms and legs as well, dripping into a tiny pool around her bare feet. Her long hair, equally encrusted with dreck, was glossy as a ravens wing and a vibrant crimson.
The lights in the hall began to flicker, like something out of a bad horror movie that Pinkie Pie had convinced Sunset to watch once upon a time. Indeed, she had the sense that what she was seeing wasn't what was really there, but somehow rather the way her mind had chosen to represent something too terrible to readily comprehend. As if sensing Sunset's realization herself, the small child laughed softly. Slowly she began to turn her head so that Sunset could see the rows of sharp teeth in the mouth that had let forth that girlish chuckle. Then the rest of her body turned as well, causing the shocked Sunset to gasp in surprise. The child had no eyes, only vacant bloody holes that a pair of swirled lollipops had been jammed into. None the less, the sweets locked onto her gaze as if the monstrous child could see her through them. The girls razor toothed grin only widened at Sunset's shock.
That was when she began to sing.
"Nightmare Night...What a Fright..." sang the horrifying child as she began to walk slowly down the hall. Sunset was frozen in place, suddenly paralyzed less by fear and more by a force that seemed to grip her in tight iron bands around her chest. She couldn't run, she couldn't scream, she couldn't even so much as blink or turn away. The floor squelched as the little girl came closer, and Sunset Shimmer could see now what had happened to the other students and to her teachers.
"W-what's going on?" Sunset stammered. The hallway was smeared with blood and gore, the lockers, the ceiling, even the flickering light fixtures. Larger lumps of viscera fell from the ceiling with a damp plop on the piles of bodies below. The students littered the hallway, torn to pieces. What little was still recognizably human had been gnawed on by many tiny, sharp teeth. The same blood stained teeth that lined the horrible child's smile. Her feet glided smoothly over the bodies, slipping only once as they popped a wayward eyeball, but that seemed only to make her grin more fiercely. "Stay back!"
She was so close now Sunset could smell her, almost taste the revolting sickly sweetness of her. That sharp, shark toothed mouth filled her vision as the girl seemed to grow to fill up the hallway. Indeed the hall seemed to have become her throat, her mouth was the door, and Sunset could see deep down inside the child. All the way down into the hell that was waiting, with eager grins all their own, to welcome Sunset Shimmer home. "Give us something sweet...to...b-"
The rap of the ruler against Sunset's desk made her wake with such a start that she fell out of her chair. She could still feel the iron bands of panic clasped tight around her chest, the creatures teeth sinking into her skin. As the classroom erupted in laughter she looked around wild eyed, trying to get her bearings, slowly realizing that the nightmare was over. Her friends were all still here, all still alive! Miss Cheerilee crossed her arms and glared at Sunset for a moment as the teen smiled sheepishly and tried to retake her seat. She couldn't believe she'd fallen asleep in class!
Cheerilee looked as if she was about to give Sunset a talking to, when the lunch bell rang. Her classmates laughter faded away in the sudden rush for food. Taking advantage of the distraction, Sunset managed to slip out of the classroom before the teacher could corner her for a lecture about growing girls needing their rest, but not in her class. She knew she'd be hearing it all later from Vice Principal Luna, who took a dim view on such laziness, but that was a problem to worry about later. For now, Sunset couldn't help but wonder why her dreams had taken such a dark turn.
Or why the song that the monster in her nightmares had sung had sounded so familiar?