Both of my legs began to feel numb. It wasn't an anaesthetic feeling, but more like one of sudden coldness. No, not coldness… Fear. It was like I had just stared death in the face, and his visage alone paralyzed me. But then again, I guess being cuddled by a strange pony princess in the middle of the night was almost the same thing.
I felt a warm gust of air beat against the back of my neck, sending a shiver that ran right down my spine. I felt my skin crawl, goose bumps forming on my arms. And then I felt something tickle the sides of my neck, then trailing quickly along my cheek. It wasn't until my eyes shifted from looking at the ground that I saw the starry haze of indigo flutter to the side of my head, that mane of hers waving about.
A giggle—no, more like a devious chuckle—sounded into the side of my ear. Her head was only inches behind my own, her stifled laughing breathing rhythmic vents of warm breath down my neck again. I dared not turn around. I couldn't. It was like I was having a horrible night terror that I just couldn't do anything within; I couldn't move, my breathing was almost nonexistent, and I was so terrified that I just couldn't turn to face her. It was like trying to convince myself that if I don't look at her then she'll just go away. But I knew, no matter how much I wanted it, that wasn't gonna happen. It was a night terror after all.
A ticklish sensation brushed around the outer ridges of my ear coupled with gentle breaths of air washing through it. The short fur on Luna's snout brushed casually against the skin, whispering something that should never, ever scare a mature adult.
"Boo!"
Admittedly, though bitterly, I overreacted way more than I should have done. I let out an ear-piercing shrill like a terrified four year old girl and jumped heights only Olympic pole-vaulters could dream of. Suddenly my entire body reacted as though completely driven by survival instinct. I leapt forwards as far as I could from her, stumbling and tripping on the grass as I collapsed on my hands and knees. I scrambled up as quick as I could, clawing at the soil to try and drag myself away even if it was only an extra inch; an extra inch gained was an extra inch further from her. And as I clambered back to my feet, long strides carried me as far and as fast as my legs allowed.
I dared not turn back. My only focus was trying to cover whatever ground I could, to find some way of just getting out of this dream. As I sprinted across the fields I tried to do whatever usually worked when I was having a bad dream—Closing my eyes tight and wishing it away; lifting my head as fast as I could; holding my hands out in front of me and clawing them apart like I was tearing a hole open. But nothing. Nothing worked, not even in the slightest. And so my legs kept me just running through the meadow tirelessly. It was all I knew to do.
And yet I felt uneasy. My sprint was without end, and so was this meadow. It wasn't until several moments later that I began to realize that I was just running around in an endless loop. I noticed patches of flowers pass by me over and over again, those same daisies bordered by lilacs. In my shock and denial of what was happening, I stopped on the spot. Even the dark skies and the clouds had not shifted in however long I had been here.
I began to ponder on what was going on, thoughts rushing through my head like motorway traffic. And it wasn't until I got to about a mile through those thoughts that I saw the horrific crash that was my conclusion. if I was running in loops, nothing changing at all... then does that mean Luna was still close behind me?
I didn't know what to expect, but in the split second decision to turn around I felt a sense of dread wash over me. But as I turned behind me... she was gone. Completely. No trace. The hill was still there, plain as the nose on my face, complete with the large tree that I was leaning against. But Luna was nowhere to be seen.
And no matter how much I tried, I couldn't wash that sense of dread off of me. It clung like a stain on a shirt, and it wasn't gonna come off no matter how much I mentally scrubbed. If she wasn't there, then exactly where was she?
My skin tingled as a cold sweat dripped from my brow and down my cheek. It hit me almost as soon as I had thought that. Against my better judgement, I turned around. Slowly.
"I'm right here."
A shrill escaped my tightened throat as my body flung itself backwards so hard that I ended up just collapsing onto my back as though someone just emptied a chamber of twelve gauge shells into my chest at point-blank range. I didn't even focus on the ache and pain of landing hard on the ground, but perhaps there wasn't any to feel at all; it was all a dream, after all. Yet everything felt so real… especially my terror of her.
"I must admit that it is quite fun watching you run round and round like a hamster. You're certainly got some good speed on you, that's most certain." Her grin sent chills up my spine, and made my limbs ache numb. She was still just toying with me, perhaps demonstrating how in control she was in this land of sleep. But it was that absolute control that terrified me the most; she could do anything she wanted. Absolutely anything. "But now… I think it's time we upped the tempo of our game, wouldn't you agree?"
I didn't respond. Didn't even so much as part my lips to let out even the smallest of whines. My teeth gritted and clenched together so hard that I could feel the strain of my lower jaw. I gazed back at her, trying to push myself away with my legs as best I could but my feet felt like lead, barely able to tug them back towards me let alone trying to push at the ground with them.
Another stifled giggle purred from the lips of Luna as she stood there, staring right through my soul with those aqua eyes of hers, locking with mine. She sounded so innocent, so playful, that it was hard for me to even fathom that she was doing this to me. But that thought was soon drowned by her grinning chuckle. That sweet, high voice of hers soon lowered into a more sinister tone as she bared her teeth—her fangs—at me. That dark chuckle soon became a maniacal laughter as she lurched forwards. Her whole body lunged forwards, pouncing at me with her forelegs outstretched like a tiger pouncing upon its wounded prey. I cried out as my arms flung themselves up in front of my chest and body, my legs suddenly finding strength to curl up against my body as I braced for what was most likely going to be three hundred-odd pounds of pony glomp.
But what I felt instead was a strong gust of wind that blasted against me. I felt the pressure beat against my limbs, my body and my head as it battered against my clothes, tingled the hairs on my arms as it went down my sleeves, and ruffled the hair on my head. For a moment I paused, until I peaked up past my crossed arms. My eyes opened sharply as I saw nothing but continuous darkness and old, dank, shrivelled trees that lined a soil-ridden dirt path upon which I sat curled upon. The entire scenery around me had changed, and none for the better. The air was as cold as death itself, carrying the scent of autumn about it; the smell of rain-soaked soil, damp bark and dead leaves filled my nose as I breathed in.
My feet shifted ever so slightly to reveal how loose and light the ground beneath me was, and yet left no stains or markings on my shoes. As my hands touched the ground to push myself up it didn't even feel like what my eyes would have suggested it would. The black soil looked soaked from heavy downpour, and yet felt like a mix of soft clay and dried sand against my palms. Even as I stood myself up the soil did nothing to stain or cling to the rear or leggings of my pants.
Nothing at all made sense here. But perhaps that was exactly what Luna wanted—to toy with my senses and to dismantle logic to disorientate me. And she was doing a fine job of doing just that.
I didn't know what to expect or from such a place as this. I didn't know what to do or even where to go. The only thing I could see was whatever scenery was within several meters in front of me, and it was just the same repeating soil and trees over and over again. With nowhere else to go, I proceeded onward.
Each step sounded like I was trudging through small cobblestones, and each breath I took made my nose hairs stand on end from the rustic stench of decaying nature. The wind howled past my neck and ears, its cold touch feeling like ice against bare skin. And yet none of it bothered me after the first few yards. It wasn't until a few more meters that I realised that I was just walking aimlessly.
A sudden distortion of howls and gasps echoed through the forest for a second before I heard Luna's voice sound through the skies. "I am quite surprised," her voice reverberated with a ghost-like echo. "Others would find horror in seeing their world turned upside down, but you… You are different. In fact, you only seem to find terror before the Princess of the Night." There was a pause before a tired sigh followed. "Are there still those who fear me? Are there still those who look upon me and see only Nightmare Moon?"
She was right. I had not paid much mind to it but she was right. All of this imagery and the twisting of sense and logic was nothing to me. It was just her that scared me, irrationally so. And yet her last words confused me, though it was only to my own lack of knowledge about her.
"Your world doesn't scare me, I'm afraid," I replied in turn regardless if she could hear me or not. No pun intended, either. "Every night I sleep finding myself within a dream such as this to the point where the lack of sense becomes… normal. Bad dreams, nightmares, night terrors, they all are the same to me—figments of the subconscious that you must face in sleep because you refuse to confront them in wake." What came after was mere silence. I waited for a response but all I heard was the rustling of the swaying branches.
Then she spoke once more, showing that she could hear my words. "Very deep for a human. I am impressed." Well it was nice to know that she had a low opinion of humans. I guess Twilight told her things of humans that weren't quite shining. "But then I must wonder, Summers, what it is you refuse to face in your wake that you have constant nightmares."
"Something that I would prefer to leave in my subconscious. Leave it buried there for all time with not even a tombstone to remind me of what it was."
"You mean to say that you cannot remember?"
"That's right."
In our conversation I had not realised that the sky was beginning to lighten. I looked up through the arch-formed branches above me and saw that sky turn from a colourless pitch black to a faint yet noticeable indigo. Just staring up at it reminded me of the fine fur on Luna's body.
"Is that why you do not like cuddles? Because they scare you?"
A sudden jolt ran through my body and my mind. I felt something just click in my brain, like a floodgate opening and releasing opaque waves of thoughts and, I think, memories that were mottled and dull in that I couldn't tell what they were. I felt my chest tighten a little. "I don't know."
Before I could even begin to shift through the images in my head, my attention was drawn to the sudden dispersion of everything around me. Like a blast of wind splitting through the middle, everything before me parted and tore away to the sides. The trees split and disintegrated to nothing more than black powder, swept away in a powerful current, while the soil beneath me melded back into the dirt as grass began to grow in its place. The entire scenery shifted from that deadened forest back to the grassy, flowered meadow.