So before I give you all the excerpt from this story, let me get this clear: The writing is terrible. This was back in 2020, and I thought I was this great writer that could write deep and interesting fics. So I did it for this one, and oh man is it pretentious. I like the story idea though, and I wish I knew what to do with it. Alas, with other ideas occupying my time, I doubt I'll ever get the chance. The basic summary is Twilight is getting ready for a meeting with her friends. However, there is something off about this whole thing. Below is the first part of the half-finished story. If anyone is interested, comment on this or PM and I'll give you the details. So here's the story, still unedited:

The knot wouldn’t go away. No matter what Twilight Sparkle tried to do, it just wouldn’t go away. It seemed stuck there as if nothing in the world could cause it to disappear. Twilight felt, and looked, like a complete mess as she saw herself in the bathroom mirror. ‘How long was it like this? How have I not noticed this tangle before? Is it too late? Is there nothing I can do to fix it anymore?’ Twilight continued to stare into the mirror at herself for several minutes, just looking over her appearance several dozen times. Finally, she snapped out of her self-pity, slamming her hoof down on her vanity set. It’s fine Twilight. Just one more time! Do it one more time and you’ll succeed. I’m the Princess of Friendship, I should get rid of this without a problem! Finally, Twilight once again picked up her blue brush and began to stroke her tightly knotted mane.

Yet still, the knot wouldn’t give. Everything Twilight tried to do seemed to only make it worse. After another 5 minutes of unsuccessful combing, Twilight was on the verge of having another mental breakdown.

Twilight let out a few breaths to try to calm herself. She was the Princess of Friendship. She wouldn’t let a bad hair day cause some crazed rambling. She looked back at herself in the mirror, her mirror-self staring back at her with a concerned look. Twilight forced a smile, and she started to feel a little better. She almost went for the blue comb again but decided against it. It was just her friends after all. No need to impress them. They would love her for who she is. They always did.

Twilight Sparkle calmly walked out of her bathroom, still a looming sense of paranoia following, which Twilight did her best to ignore. She wasn’t going to let it ruin her day. She shut off the bathroom lights behind her and began to walk towards the end of her bedroom to exit into the castle’s hallways. While walking, she turned towards her left, where her double pony bed was located. Spike, her number one assistant, was laying on the mattress, under both covers and blankets, sound asleep, his back turned towards Twilight. Twilight suppressed a giggle with a hoof to her mouth. She sat on the unoccupied side of the bed and planted a warm kiss on his cheek. Twilight flinched.

Spike was startlingly cold. Sure, his scales were never all that warm, but still, it just felt…… wrong. A voice in the back of Twilight’s mind demanded her to turn Spike over, to make sure he was alright. Because something was definitely not right. ‘No….. no. He’s fine. He’s just sleeping. He’s always been this cold Twilight, you’re just making it more than it really is. This whole meeting is just getting to you. He’s fine. Just trot away. You will be fine if you just trot away.’

Yet Twilight still reached over to Spike, and no matter how much she tried to stop herself, she found herself turning the baby dragon on his back. His body was still cold but started to gain some warmth from Twilight’s shaking hoof. Her mind was on the fritz, and she could swear she could hear screeching violins playing in her brain, only increasing the tension of the seemingly normal action. Biting her lip anxiously, Twilight finished turning over Spike, his face now looking at the ceiling. Once she finished, Twilight closed her eyes with an ‘Eep’. She was too scared to look, frightened of what she might find. ‘Look Twilight. LOOK DAMNIT.’

“FINE!”, Twilight yelled out loud, opening her eyes at once and glaring down at Spike…. to find him sleeping peacefully. He had a sheepish grin on his face, obviously dreaming about something pleasant. Possibly with Rarity in it giving him compliments, Twilight liked to assume. His chest heaved in and out, and every couple seconds, a soft whistle could be heard from Spike’s nostrils.

Twilight let out a relieved sigh and then blushed, embarrassed about her yelling fit. She reached down and kissed Spike again, this time on his forehead. Spike’s scales were now warm, lowering Twilight’s suspicions even more. ‘See Twilight, everything is okay. You’re just worried about the meeting today. Everything is going to be okay.’

Getting off of the bed, Twilight made her way towards her bedroom door, sparing one last glance at the sleeping Spike before exiting the room. 

“Are we ready to start girls?”

All of her friends gave Twilight a nod, honest smiles stretched upon their faces. All 5 of her friends sat down in the respective chairs around the Cutie Map in her castle’s throne room. Well, except for Rainbow Dash, but that was for the obvious reason. Returning her friend’s nods, Twilight sat down in her chair, the top’s emblem representing her own star-shaped cutie mark. Just like she guessed, her friends didn’t even seem to notice her messy hair, even Rarity. Twilight nervously rubbed her hooves together, then carefully laid them on the map.

“So-” was all Twilight managed to say before her voice suddenly caught in her throat. Twilight suspended a hoof in the air, unable to say what she wanted-no, needed to say. Twilight looked around at all her friends, fixed with matching concerned expressions.

“Twilight dear, are you all right?”

“I’m fine Rarity,” Twilight shakily replied. She was still having trouble finding her voice to say what had to be said. Twilight let out a few throaty coughs before trying again. “Alright, so as we all know, we aren’t getting any closer to finding out what’s behind this darkness epidemic. It still seems to strike at anypony randomly, and we don’t know how to cure it as of yet. Now-”

Applejack cut her off. “It ain’t damaging them none though, ain’t it?”

“Yeah! I wouldn’t want Dashie or Miss Cherillee or any other pony to get seriously hurt from this!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie, jumping frantically from her seat before bouncing back down. Fluttershy seemed to be too intimidated by the meeting’s subject, so she just chose to hide behind her pink mane and observe.

Twilight tried to give out a reassuring smile, but it instead came off as shaky and nervous. “Don’t you all worry. While we all know it makes the victim-“

‘Don’t call them that!’ 

“-I mean the pony more violent and less subjective to reason, it doesn’t seem to internally injure them in any way. It’s more of a neuroscience thing. Anyways, the point is that we are starting to translate the weird sentences they all seem to be screaming, and good news everypony! It may reveal who’s behind all of this!”

That got a cheer and hoof stomp out of everyone around the map. Even Fluttershy gave her own little cheer with a little flutter of her wings. Everyone was celebrating. Everyone except for Twilight. That wasn’t the bad news, the one that caused Twilight to struggle to even tell the good news. ‘Time to get this out of the way.’

The Alicorn raised a hoof for silence, which her friends obliged. “However, I’m afraid that Starlight Glimmer has… parted with the researching team. She left earlier this day, you might even have seen her. She left somewhere she didn’t say, most likely her own town. I think it’s best that we… we leave her alone.” 

Twilight licked her lips while sweating profusely. She looked at her friends for a reaction. She hoped they wouldn’t ask why Starlight Glimmer left, and find out it was all Twilights fault. She didn’t particularly want to relive that memory, even if it was already pretty hazy. 

Yet there was no expression of disappointment or sadness on any of their faces. Nopony even asked any questions. They just stared at her with a blank expression, an expression that conveyed no emotion, and who’s host would never show emotion. To Twilight, her friends looked dead. Not the reaction she expected.

Yet before Twilight could react with alarm and a yell, her friends disappeared in the blink of an eye. There was no flashy POOF, nopony broke out of their trance. One blink her friends were there. The next blink, they were gone as if they were never even there.

Now Twilight did have time to panic. She slammed her hooves on the map and thrusted herself up from her seat. “GIRLS! WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE ARE YOU?” She seached frantically around the room, hoping they were somewhere, hiding in plain sight, in a place Twilight didn’t already see. Unsurprisingly, Twilight was left unsuccessful in her search. Giving up, she slumped down in her chair, rubbing her forehead with both forehooves. The knot in her hair seemed to get even tighter. “What is going on with me today?” she whispered to herself, wishing the answers to everything, especially to the darkness, would just be laid out in front of her.

A glorious trumpet sounded behind the Princess, scaring the wits out of her. The trumpet was followed by a familiar charismatic voice. “WELL Twilight, I’ll be happy to oblige. Do you want the long or short version?” Twilight turned her head around, and sure enough the Lord of Chaos was behind her standing in front of the doorway to the castles central hallway.

“Discord!” Twilight sneered. “I should have known you were behind all this.” Twilight actually felt a little relieved. This explained everything! Discord made her friends disappear somehow somewhere, or maybe he made her hallucinate them and her actual friends were somewhere else. He also probably did something with Spike to mess with her, and it wasn’t below the draconequus to do something with her hair. Probably to mess with her or something. The bottom line was that Twilight could finally get answers.

That's all I have written, but I do have the rest of it finished in my head. So if anyone's interested, leave a comment and I'll give you the rest.