//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: The Nightmares Never End // by SkyeBeam //------------------------------// Twilight forgot to mention it was night-time. It’s actually pretty stunning to hear the crisp silence of night hover around me. The moon whispered gently through a few stray clouds that hung around. Judging from its position it’s about midnight. Back home there would still be a lot more noise. Some late night cars, some rubbish in the wind, drunken people wasting their time. Those were common actually; some even tried to break in. Hah, they didn’t know what they were doing. If they did they wouldn’t have. The adults normally know to stay from our place. Knew. The streetlights are different here too. Instead of that glaring orange bulb it’s a warm candle flame. It’s also a lot fainter. I guess if they don’t have cars they don’t really need to see too much detail. And thanks to it you can see all the stars perfectly. I may have spent a lot of time staring out of a window, but I haven’t seen stars for years. They’re… A lot more beautiful than I remembered. I’m still in shock over all of this. I’m walking. Sure, the rhythm is completely different and it feels strange too but I’m walking. I feel the pressure my legs exert onto the ground and I feel the pressure the ground exerts back. I feel each breath I take of the night air, how it enters my lungs. How it is carried into the bloodstream. I feel it being pumped in my heart all around my body, and then pumped back out. It’s unbelievable. “We’re here.” Wow, I really started to ramble on for a bit. I probably would’ve walked right into a wall if Twilight hadn’t have stopped me. Wow, the castle looks stunning at night. But that might just be my nostalgia glasses. “It’s… Nice.” Bit of an understatement. “It actually pretty unnecessary. And big. And unnecessarily big.” Typical Twilight behaviour. Most little girls dream of being a princess with their own castle yet when she gets it she only complains. Though she did lose her old home, along with most of her personal belongings, keepsakes and probably a lot of family photos… Okay that’s understandable. “Well, at least it’s a place to stay. And it has a lot more room for book storage.” Oh Twilight. It’s always books. “Come on in. It’s pretty late, you’re probably tired.” I’m not, actually. I’m used to being up this late. But thanks for being considerate. Plus, you need to get some sleep too. It seems you haven’t been getting much. The entrance is just like in the show. It’s literally a photo copy. Hah, photocopy. Get the machine ready!!! But seriously, it’s identical. “The guest rooms are this way. Follow me.” Up the stairs? Yeah, up the stairs. Okay… Oh, that’s not too hard to remember. “This is it. I’ll leave you to some privacy. Call me if you need anything. Goodnight!” Okay, bye. This room feels a bit generic. A small bed, a window, a mirror… A mirror! I can finally know what I look like! Great! Now, remember how to walk… Yes! I… I look like… Me. Kind of. A bit. The hair, sorry mane, is exactly the same colour as what I had. The coat, it’s a less saturated version of that colour, maybe a bit lighter. Wings… I just need to get them open again… The wings are different shades of red compared to the rest of the body, but they’re still dark red. The outside seems darker than the inside. They really look like bat wings. I have slitted eyes, pretty cool. They’re the exact same colour as before. I basically look like myself as a pony. So the others would probably look like them but ponies too. Bonnie would be still be purple, Chica still yellow and so on. I bet they’ll be super confused when they wake up. They don’t know as much about ponies, so they’ll panic. Probably a lot more than I did. Unless they’ve already woken up. That’ll have probably surprised Nurse Redheart a lot. A bunch of foals waking up, seeing themselves and screaming their heads off! … Wait. Why weren’t we in the same room? It would make sense to put similarly afflicted patients in the same room, and it’s not like there wasn’t enough room. And wouldn’t she have mentioned something about them when performing my check? Twilight didn’t mention anyone else when explain what happened… They weren’t with me. Okay, let’s be logical. They might have appeared somewhere else. That’s not too illogical. In Equestria, a huge country that covers most of a continent. They could be about anywhere, including the middle of the desert. In a body they don’t know how to use. With no chance of knowing where they are, and where the others are. And who said they had to be in Equestria, there’s a whole planet worth of land. A planet populated by millions, if not billions. No, don’t think like that, they might be nearby. Or they might be stranded alone in the middle of a forest on the other side of the world. Stop thinking that, be positive. But… Who said they had to be on this planet. If this fictional world is real, then who said others aren’t? Maybe every fictional world exists. And there are nearly infinite different worlds, if every fictional world is real. And if that world exists, it probably also has fictional worlds made up. Which are probably also real… And they’re in one of them, with infinite other people. I’ll never see them again, will I? I’m alone. Forever.