//------------------------------// // Foreboding // Story: Dark Horizons // by Thespurgin //------------------------------// Chapter 1: Foreboding Twilight was running in panic, though why she couldn’t remember, and for once she didn’t care. The forest around her blurred into a dark sinister mass through the cutting rain as lightning illuminated the sky, painting the silhouetted foliage in stark lines for a moment before the shadows consumed them again. Mud exploded under her hooves as she galloped pell-mell through the rain, the waterproof saddlebags on her back shaking forth a torrent of water and sweat with each hoof beat. She was hurt, probably bleeding somewhere, but couldn’t tell where or why. She also couldn’t see more than twenty feet, but these things didn’t register on her fevered mind at the moment, it was to otherwise occupied. Where was she? How did she get stuck out here in Everfree Forest, for indeed it could be nowhere else, in the middle of this downpour? How long had she been running? She didn’t know, she just knew she had to run, to find shelter from this storm. The lavender unicorn was soaked to the skin and the winds bit into her like timberwolves, tossing her once straight navy blue mane with its magenta streak every which way. The grit and debris dancing on the wicked currents kept getting into her eyes and made them smart. Oh Celestia she had to find shelter! This wasn’t just a storm, it was an Everfree Hurricane! Twilight had first heard of the legendary storms of the Everfree Forest back when she was a filly and Princess Celestia’s personal student. She’d been reading as she always did, but when she found a book on weather patterns she’d gotten nothing but a legend. She’d asked Celestia about it, and found out that the reason the book couldn’t offer any actual detail was because no one had ever actually managed to perform weather experiments and measure the incredibly rare phenomenon. Regardless, it was common knowledge that being out in one of the legendary storms for long was suicidal. Those that didn’t vanish without a trace were discovered mangled by flying debris and ripped to shreds. She’d read one autopsy report from about thirty years ago, and it had left her unable to sleep for a week straight. The nightmares… she’d managed to forget them after the longest time… Now she was living out those nightmares. She’d die out here! Shelter… shelter… she had to find shelter! Stopping for a moment in the lee of a rock on the edge of a clearing, she squinted and tried to get her bearings. Around her, the wind whipped the sleeting rain into a scything frenzy that knifed across her skin like razors. Every inch of her body seared with agony, as if she’d been covered in paper cuts, but something drew her attention away from the pain. Something desperately trying to penetrate the wind’s frenzied screams. Was that a voice? Twilight listened intently, wobbling from the strain on her body, and through the deafening roar of the gale and the cracks of thunder, she heard something. It was a voice, a female voice, probably a pony’s, crying for help. What was anypony doing out in this storm?! Was that why she was out here? Was Rarity or Applejack out here? She had to help them! She scrambled to her hooves, ignoring the pain as best she could, and dashed out into the open air again. Instantly, she was lashed with vines and twigs and rocks picked up by the winds, and she cried out in agony but continued to run. She couldn’t leave a pony out in this… she wouldn’t! She was almost across the clearing now... there! She’d made it back into the partial cover of the woods, and ran on to find the voice, to help. The forest melted away as she ran, and a part of her, the part that wasn’t focused solely on the voice and finding it, noticed that she was running on a kind of rough path. To her left was a wall of gnarled trees, but to her right… to her right was empty space. The wind was impossibly strong here, callously ripping across her already ragged skin like sandpaper. It was hard not to scream with every step. The trees to her left started to rise up as she ran. The trail had sunk halfway down the cliff she’d been running along. She wondered how long she’d been running, how far could that voice possibly be? She must be hearing things. At the same time, she’d come so far, and if she wasn’t imagining things and that pony got hurt out here because she gave up… Abruptly, Twilight's hoof snagged on a large tree root, ripping her out of her thoughts as she pitched forward and fell with a cry. She rolled a couple times from the momentum before finally bashing against a particularly hard rock sprouting up where the path merged with the rising cliff again. Her head spun, and absently she wondered if she’d gotten a concussion. Everything was a blur, but Twilight shook her head and staggered to her hooves. She took one step, then screamed and fell again as fire shot up her soaking limb. She lay in the mud for a moment, trembling against the pain, but managed to summon up the will to crane her neck and look at the leg in question. It wasn’t as bad as it felt. Even with the mud caked onto her hoof the mare could see it wasn’t more than a small gash, maybe with a small stone stuck in the wound. “Well,” she chuckled mirthlessly, “Now I know how that Manticore felt…” It was a bit ironic, but now wasn’t the time to laugh. She was hurt, lying in the mud on a trail cut out of a steep incline, in the middle of the Everfree Forest during the worst storm she’d ever imagined, and she was all alone. A bitter taste filled her mouth. Why was she in Everfree alone? Alone. The word rang in her head, more deafening than all the roaring thunder and howling rain in the world. She was alone. She’d never hurt this much being alone before… why did it hurt now? The beleaguered mare rose again, careful to avoid putting too much weight on her leg. Even then, it burned cruelly, but she’d suffered worse. Pinkie Pie and her quest to explain her ability to predict the future came to mind. Carefully, she stepped out, and again, then gently broke into a walk along the trail. Everything ached now, but nothing more than the feeling gnawing on her heart. She was truly alone… cut off… isolated. Had they all abandoned her, or had she abandoned them? Why had she come into this forest in the first place? What was going on?! Twilight slowly continued on her miserable march, practically numb now to any pain of the body. No one should have to suffer this. This was how it felt to be completely abandoned… completely alone. Her tired hoofsteps slowed imperceptibly as her mind sank within itself, working like a computer to make sense of something, anything, that had happened to her. The chilling wind was null to her, so deeply was she lost in her own thought. A familiar sound, louder now but still faint, shook Twilight out of her thoughts, and she cursed softly under her breath. How could she just let herself stand out in the storm like that!? As if in response to her actions, the storm flared again with greater force and in an instant she found herself lashed by branches torn from the trees up the slope. She sunk down. What else could she do, and weathered it while she sought an escape. In her panic, the mare half wondered if the storm was consciously trying to kill her, but that thought was banished by her rational side as quickly as it came. Even exhausted, she wouldn’t let herself fall apart like that again. It was a disgrace to her teacher! The voice came again, and Twilight’s head snapped around to find it. Where was it coming from?! Her eyes were everywhere at once, trying desperately to pick out details through the whirling debris, but she couldn’t see anything! There was nothing, nopony out here! Now she was going to die all alone because she’d been stupid and not sought shelter sooner! Suddenly, a dark spot against the cliff face not far up the trail caught her eye, and she fixed on it. “Wait… is that a… a cave?” She stammered, only just realizing how severely chilled her body had become. A faint glimmer of hope sparked. That was it! It had to be a cave! Perhaps somepony was hiding there, the source of the voice she kept hearing! Even if there wasn’t, it would be the shelter she needed so badly. With her rational mind back in control, she could start to pinpoint the effects of hypothermia and exhaustion, possibly a concussion and blood loss as well. If she could get to that cave, she could hunker down and wait for help, maybe even patch herself up and get a fire going! She was going to make it! Twilight took off at a limping run along the trail, her saddlebags shaking wildly. Dang, they must have finally started to come loose from all the excitement. The only thing on her mind was “Get to the cave get to the cave get to the cave…” but fate decided otherwise. A black shape lanced across her vision, but before she could react it struck her, eliciting a scream from the battered equine’s throat, a raw and hoarse thing that echoed even in the fury of the storm as a massive branch whipped through the air and broke over her face. She could feel the crack as it fragmented over her horn, then everything was pain. She couldn’t see! Her horn seared with agony… the branch must have cracked it. But then why couldn’t she see? She fell from the impact of the branch, lifted up and thrown several feet simply from the force. She lay there for a moment, simply in shock. There was a metallic taste in her mouth. Blood? She didn’t know. All she could do was howl her panicked questions in her mind. Why was this happening!? Why?! How did she even get here?! It was enough to make her break down into sobs there on the ground, and she did for a time… but a surge of defiance brought it up short. Taking a moment to rub her eyes, Twilight managed to clear her vision enough to get some small modicum of sight back. Staggering again, she spat whatever was making the taste in her mouth into the wind. She wasn’t going to fall to this storm. She refused! She was the bearer of the element of magic and friendship itself! She would not die here! She would not die alone! The mare rose shakily to her hooves again, spiting clouds above her. Throwing herself into a desperate sprint, she saw the cave growing as she came closer; closer to shelter, to survival. She was so close! Another branch whipped towards her, but she threw herself out of the way just in time. She stood to run again, slower this time. How she even found the will to stand was something not even she knew, then suddenly an impossibly loud sound, something she could only describe as an earthen explosion, cut the air above her. She spun to look, and her eyes widened. The cliff loomed over the pony as a torrent of wood and earth cascaded down like some kind of chunky waterfall, but she didn’t stay to admire the view. Driven by the raw inequine fury of one hellbent on life, she ran. She ran like no pony could run. She ran like one possessed, praying that she’d be able to make it out of the path of the splintery avalanche in time. She didn’t make it. A tree crashed onto the path next to her, one of its branches ripping off her saddlebags as if they were nothing by scraps of paper, and then it swatted her like a fly. All she had time for was one final scream of agonized terror, and then she was swept off the trail. Falling… Falling… Falling… Alone… She was going to die all alone. It hurt. Falling… Alone… Falling… Pain. Darkness. Alone. And then she knew nothing. Twilight shot up in bed with a stifled scream, cold sweat dripping from her bedraggled mane. Panic was etched into her features as her eyes roved the room, then reality managed to set in again and she finally managed to relax. Again… she’d had the nightmare again. She shivered, though whether it was a remnant of the dream or the soft draught of night air from her open window it was impossible to tell. It was still the middle of the night, maybe 3 AM from the position of the moon. It was the same… every night it was the same... She’d gone to sleep, and tried to rest, but every night that nightmare came back. That first night, she’d woken up screaming so hard she’d sent Spike into a panic. At first, she’d merely slept and woken up more tired than before. She hadn’t even remembered the dream… but as time passed, it got worse. Even now, all she could remember were vague impressions of it, and the sensations. How strange was it that she could feel the sensations from a dream but not remember the dream itself? Twilight shuddered to herself trying to shake off the ache and chilling wetness that clung to her memory, and slid out of bed. Pacing softly so as not to wake up Spike, her poor assistant had suffered enough from her inability to sleep. She knew… even if he didn’t want her to know, she walked gingerly over to her dresser and looked in the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Her eyes were sallow and her hair a disaster worse than that bird’s nest she’d tried to build back during her first Winter Wrap-Up… she looked like she was half dead. “Three months… She whispered softly, “it’s hard to believe it’s only been 3 months since my brother’s wedding.” Spike mumbled something in his sleep, rolling over in the little basket he had been sleeping in for a long time. The sound brought Twilight’s head around, with a worried expression, but at the sight of Spike smiling in his sleep she let out a breath. Thank Celestia he wasn’t having bad dreams too. She couldn’t bear it if her little brother was having nightmares because of hers. As it was she’d troubled him enough… he was still so young. The mare turned back to her dresser and softly opened the drawer. Inside was a single book with her cutie mark, a dazzling magenta six-pointed star with smaller white star behind it of the same shape, both irregular and surrounded by a quintet of smaller, white stars much like the one hiding behind the magenta brand. Her cutie mark The thing that was most deeply hers The thing that represented her entirely Her skills, her hobbies, what she was meant to do… Twilight shook her head forcefully. This was no time to let her thoughts wander! Opening the modest book, she skimmed over the pages written in her own handwriting. It wouldn’t do to call it her diary. A diary is the chronicle of everything in a mare’s life, her deepest secrets, her fears, her feelings. No. Twilight had a diary to be sure. She had several actually. Blame it on being an obsessive note taker, but ever since she’d been a filly the gifted mare had kept a diary, of everything… and it kinda used a lot of ink and paper. Celestia had been kind enough to arrange a supply for her when she’d moved to the castle, but before that her parents had given her one a month and enough ink to cover it… it had limited how much she could record. Her mentor had changed that. Perhaps she’d spoiled her even, considering how much she used in a week back then. Nowadays, she contented herself to one every two weeks… but she was wandering again. The book that sat in front of her, gleaming in the moonlight, wasn’t a dairy, but a journal that was even more special to the mare, for it was hers; it was a journal of her dreams. Twilight smiled faintly, a half-hearted smile that would no doubt have failed to fool even little Poundcake if he had been there. To say she was troubled was an understatement. This book, this tome of hers, was no less sacred to her than her diary or any of the journals she used for research. There were dreams in this journal from before she’d been Celestia’s student… childish, innocent dreams that probably sounded ludicrous to most people, but to her they were precious things. Other dreams… her foalhood nightmares and her more *ahem* embarrassing dreams as a filly… they were here too. She’d managed to keep it hidden for a long time, even from Spike, but it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him to keep a secret. This was just… something that was hers alone; a chronicle of her subconscious, for her to contemplate and try to understand. It had happy times wrapped up in its pages, good memories of those times; times all from the past. The present was another matter. The lavender equine’s most recent entries were all the same… two weeks in a row of the same horrible dream night after night. She didn’t know which was worse… the fact that she couldn’t actually remember the nightmare, or that she could feel everything from it. Gritting her teeth, she silently cast a spell and a purple aura rose into existence around her pen before lifting it gently into the air. Carefully, she dripped the quill in her inkwell so as to not disturb it and risk waking the sleeping dragon, and set the tip to the paper. As she wrote, chronicling again everything that she could think to say about the incident and any other thoughts regarding it. It hurt to do it, and not metaphorically either. Even thinking about it brought the ache back into her heart, one she could practically feel in her chest and ache that grew worse and worse each time the terrible dream came. She was afraid. She’d already poured over her library’s contents at least twice searching for possible sleep aids or studies on dreams, but all her efforts had proved fruitless. The sound of the quill scratching on the now partially full page seemed so very loud to her in the silence. Thank Luna for the especially bright moon. It gave her plenty of light to write by through the window so she didn’t have to find a lamp and risk waking Spike. More than once she’d considered asking Spike to write a letter to Princess Celestia asking for help, but the Royal Patron of the Sun was busy as Twilight well knew. She couldn’t bother the princess for something as trivial as bad dreams! The same thing went for her friends too. They all had busy schedules, and she had no place imposing on their carefully laid plans or happiness with her personal problems. Twilight had made up her mind by the second day. She wasn’t going to drag anyone else into this. She’d already deprived her little brother of far too much sleep, and they both knew that there wasn’t much more he could really do, aside from take over more of the running of the library when she was down. Bless the little scaly rascal, he’d tried so hard to help her when the nightmares had first started, but even he had to admit after exhausting all his options and she’d refused to tell anyone else about it. The quill’s quiet scribbling ceased as she finished her notations. Looking at the page, she sighed the sigh of a tormented soul. To the moon with this dream! With each recurrence, she recalled more of it, but it was still so vague! She hated this. She wanted to sleep peacefully through the night like she used too when she wasn’t on a study-spree. She was tired, worried, aggravated, and simply fed up with it. She’d had enough. By Celestia, she was going to get to the bottom of this and put an end to that blasted dream! Another purple glimmer shrouded the tome, closing it without a word and drifting it gently into the drawer of her dresser, which she closed with a single hoof. Twilight knew she’d get no more rest that night. She may as well try to read through some of the books she’d recently received on order from the Canterlot archives. With any luck, one of them might hold the clue to solving this mysterious affliction- for yes that was the only thing she could think to call it, before it started to have a serious impact on her health. She made no jest in assuming anything else; as it was, she was unique among the population of the town in that she was capable of running for twelve days with practically no rest, but even she needed to rest, and anyone could tell the signs of sleep deprivation on her face. Any other pony would probably be in the hospital already. Maybe she should too… That thought made the mare grimace. “No.” She hissed lowly, again so as not to wake up the baby dragon but a few feet from her. “I can’t start thinking like that now. My dreams are my own problem, and the last thing I’m going to do is check into the hospital over a dumb nightmare. I’m a grown mare not a foal.” The lavender equine shook her head to clear any remaining such thoughts, and walked softly over to her little dragon companion’s bed to kiss his forehead. “Sleep well Spike. You deserve the rest.” She whispered, and then quietly made for the stairs to start reading. She needed to take her mind off that dream. Outside the window, the moon shone softly as if applauding her determination, before an ominous flotilla of clouds swallowed its light, and even the stars grew dimmer. To Be Continued…