Twilight was running. She’d been running for a while now. It had to be close, they hadn’t walked that far. She could still hear running beside and behind her. Spike was beside her, down on all fours. Behind them was that… thing. The thing from the dark.
“Twilight look!” Spike shouted, his voice echoing off the tunnel walls. “Light up there, that must where we came in!”
Twilight didn’t respond, she just ran faster. Spike was right though. She could see the light up ahead that must be where they’d made their descent. The two of them emerged into the better-lit area and slowed down. They were standing in a very wide circular room that stretched up far above them. Twilight’s head snapped side to side, looking for the section they had used to make their descent. Spike stood up next to her and looked up. Above them he could just barely see the moon, and knew that it was setting. Suddenly a loud scraping came from behind them and he turned, nervously watching the tunnel they’d just come from.
Twilight tried not to notice his height but she could never help herself. He was almost as tall as she was now, with a longer, more athletic form than when they’d first arrived in Ponyville so long ago. They might not be going back. Don’t think that way, she chided herself, you’re going to get out of here, just find the part you climbed down.
She took a deep breath and looked again. There. “Spike, over here!” She cantered towards the portion of the cave wall that was webbed with cracks, divots, and small ledges. She launched herself at the wall, hooking her hooves into the highest crevasses she could reach. Climbing as quickly as she could she felt the wall shake as Spike did the same.
She could still hear it. That horrible scraping, slithering sound. She shuddered and tried to suppress thoughts about its source as she climbed higher. She was maybe fifty feet off of the cave floor when she’d reached a larger ledge. She remembered this, there’d been a few of these large, flat platforms that indicated an older civilization may have carved this out of the mountain. They must have made this to contain that thing, she thought as she pulled herself up onto the platform.
She turned around and pulled Spike up behind her. The two sat, panting heavily for a moment. The climb down had been hard, but not nearly this fast. Spike quickly stood back up and gestured for Twilight to keep climbing.
That was when they heard it. The thing had reached the chamber they were in and let loose a terrifying roar. It sounded like metal grinding on metal. And it sounded angry.
Twilight sprinted along the platform they stood on until she reached another point that appeared climbable and began to scurry up, not daring to look down. It was getting darker. Twilight looked at the moon in desperation but it hadn’t moved at all.
She gulped and slowly turned her head to look back at the thing that was chasing them. The entire floor of the pit was covered in shadow. Twilight could see the darkness slowly creeping up the walls like a fog. She didn’t know what that thing was, or what the darkness that was claiming the chasm was, but she knew she couldn’t let it catch them.
Climbing faster than she ever had Twilight found herself on a second platform. She started to run for the next climbable section but stopped in her tracks. She turned back to the edge she had just crawled over and looked down to find Spike still some distance below.
She called out to him and he grunted in response. She could only watch helplessly as he struggled up the rock face, away from the darkness below. Spike finally pulled himself over the edge, breathing hard. “Shouldn’t… have moved… all those rocks… at the bottom…” he panted.
Twilight looked over the lip at the advancing shadows. “Spike, get close,” she said. “I’m going to try and teleport higher up.” Spike complied, and the two looked up. “I don’t think I can make it to the top, I’m too tired. But about a hundred feet up, does that look like it will be enough room to buy us some time?”
Spike nodded wearily. Twilight screwed her eyes shut and furrowed her brow. Her horn sparkled and the air cracked. There was a blinding flash, and Twilight collapsed. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was definitely higher up. She went to nudge Spike and cheer only to find empty air.
She sat bolt upright. Her heart felt like a jackhammer. “Spike!”
“Down here!” a voice called from the pit. She threw herself at the edge, hanging her head down, searching frantically for the young dragon. He was sprawling on a platform about fifteen feet below her. The magic in the shadows must be interfering with teleportation.
“Spike, just– just hang on!” Twilight frantically searched for a way to get the dragon up to her.
“Twilight?” he called out. “Twilight, just go. You need to stop this thing from getting out. Fly out, and collapse this thing. Bury it down here.”
“I can’t! I’m not leaving you!” Twilight shouted.
“Twi, please. Just–” she wasn’t listening, she was preparing another spell. There was flash and a loud crack and suddenly spike was lying next to her. She fell to the ground next to him, with tears in her eyes.
“I’m not going without you Spike. I don’t even think I’d be able to fly all the way up.”
Spike stared up through the pit at the night sky, so far above them. “So what do we do? We can’t let it reach the top.”
Twilight stood shakily and swallowed hard. “I know,” she whispered, “I’ll have to bury it.”
Spike struggled to his feet and put a claw on her shoulder. He looked into her eyes and spoke firmly. “Do it.”
Twilight screwed her eyes shut again, grunting and straining as her horn began to glow brighter and brighter, bathing the entire pit in a bright red. Spike put an arm around her shoulders as the walls began to tremble.