Oneirophobia

by Valorousspectre

Welcome... to my Nightmare!

Twiiiiiii-Liiiiiight~

Twilight groaned, batting ineffectually at the empty air.

Come now Twilight, you're not that sleepy.

She groaned again, muttering something about leaving her alone.

WAKE UP!

The voice that woke the little unicorn up was certainly NOT the sibilant hiss of a voice that was whispering to her before. Instead, it was vaguely familiar, like she'd heard it in a dream before.

"Tal... Talisman?" she murmured softly before her eyes cracked open.

And then shot open in shock as she sat bolt upright, looking around in horror.

The world around her was burning. Cracked earth beneath her hooves gave way almost periodically to fire in places and what trees there were were burnt to ashes, standing in forlorn agony of their own existence. Skeletons and rotten corpses rested here and there upon the floor, in the branches of the broken and burnt trees.

"What!?" She cried, distressed, "Wh-where am I? What is this? Talisman? Tal, if this is you it's not funny!"

The world around her fluctuated and wobbled as a giggle hissed its way through the air and Twilight took a step back, glancing around her furtively.

"Twiiiiiiii-"liiiiiiight~"

There was that voice again! The sibilant, malevolent voice. She took another step back and bumped into something. With a small shriek, she spun around, shaking and her jaw dropped.

It took her a moment to recognize the place, burnt and a skeleton of what it was, but the one thing that seemed only singed was the single letterbox where a gate or fence must have once stood.

Sweet Apple Acres

She looked up at the burnt out and destroyed farm and barnhouse in horror, then at the burnt and destroyed land.

"This... This can't be happening..."

"Oh little Twilight~ You failed them. Your friends are all dead...~"

"No..." she whispered, shaking her head, "This is a dream, it's all just a nightmare, it can't be real!"

The landscape around her blurred and her hooves left the ground. She was falling and she screamed, closing her eyes but unable to move her shaking hooves or legs as, with a solid 'thud' she landed on the crumbling earth once more. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes and tears flooded them. She was outside the remains of Sugarcube Corner, the rusted steel girders and burnt and rotten wood all that was left. Inside she could see four skeletons, and the voice laughed again.

"Oh yes, but then how can you tell a dream from reality, when even reality cannot be proven?"

"No..." She said, her logical brain repelling the idea, the scents, the sounds of crackling flames and the grisly sight of a family of four skeletons within the confines of the building, two of them obviously only foals.

The cakes... no...

But look as she might, the family were missing something... something that would never have left, something... Twilight let a small smile grace her face.

"I don't see Pinkie here," She said, a note of triumph in her voice, "So this can't be real. If I'd failed, Pinkie would be here right now, in there with the Cakes. This is all a fabrication!"

The world rippled again as the voice sighed and tutted.

"Tsk tsk Twilight Sparkle, Tsk Tsk. Pinkamena Pie killed herself, years ago. Didn't you know?"

Twilight froze and, no matter how hard she try, a worm of dread crawled into her stomach.

"Wh...what do you mean?" She asked nervously, trying and failing to hide her fear.

"When you were proclaimed out of action for an indefinite time, your friends all took it differently."

The ground left her again, much to Twilight's shock and she yelped as she landed once more, this time at the dilapidated building that could only have once been the Carousel Boutique. Rarity's home, and Sweetie Belle's.

"Spike, the little dragon you once loved so much, went almost mad. He went after the grief stricken Rarity and..."

Twilight's head was taken in some sort of invisible force and, despite her attempts, began to be turned until she saw, on the only floor with any sort of floorwork left, or at least enough to support a full grown pony, a pair of skeletons, blackened and bare. The older one had a broken horn and jaw, the younger over the older's ribcage. Twilight burst into tears.

"Rarity... Sweetie... Spike'd never..."

"Harm them? Perhaps not in his right mind..."

Somewhere in Twilight's mind, a little voice was shouting, desperately trying to make her listen, to make her realise he was playing on her fears and deepest concerns, that he was playing her like a professional plays an instrument, but it couldn't be heard. The fog of grief and horror would not, could not be penetrated or cleared away. Twilight tried to take a step and fell, crying into the ashes of the once beautiful town of Ponyville. The voice came back, this time tinged with sympathy.

"Do you want to know what happened to your other friends?" it asked, masking its glee with sorrow. Twilight shook her head despertely. She didn't want to see any more, hear any more...

She didn't want to have anything to do with any of this anymore. But there was one niggling thing her head that wouldn't go away.

"Ce-Celestia," She choked out past her sobbing, "W-what happened to the Princess?"

There was a long silence before the voice sighed.

"Very Well."

Once again, Twilight felt herself leave the ground. She didn't feel scared anymore, she wasn't taken by surprise. She landed at the gates of Canterlot.

Or, what was once the gates of Canterlot.

Bricks littered the ground covered by twisted plants with pulsing fruits and foul smelling, rotten looking flowers. The once proud and mighty oaken door that had heralded the city's opening or lockdowns was splintered and broken, pieces of it scattered over the ground. There was a shattered guard helmet not far from where Twilight lay, looking on in horror.

No... not Canterlot...

She forced herself to her hooves and took a step forward. Every step she took, she found another terrible detail. The crushed skull of a pony, a severed leg of a somehow still partly preserved changeling leg, the doll of a young filly on the side of the destroyed path. Craters littered the city's paths and sites where buildings once stood proudly. Twilight recognized the city library, still burning seemingly perpetually. Her logical mind cried out against this, but Twilight was too anguished to care about logic or physics.

"Time has not even avoided the ravaging Equestria was put through..."

Twilight barely heard the voice as it spoke. She saw a primary school in ruins, scattered with bones and the same twisted plants by the gate, the blossoms pulsating. As she watched, one of them bloomed. The pod split and red, cloying sweet smelling liquid spurted out. It took Twilight a moment to realise it was blood. But so numb was her body and mind, she wasn't even phased by it anymore. The blossom bloomed gruesomely, still dropping fluids as Twilight moved on, oblivious now to the world around her. Oblivious to the 'crunch' of a nearby plant as it move over the ground and settled over a desiccated corpse and began to chow down with teeth filled roots.

The castle, the once proud palace and final sanctuary of Twilight Sparkle, lay before her, in ruins. The stones were blackened and bare, parts of it broken away, Holes in the once great walls and rotten wooden beams showing through here and there. The windows were spattered with a dark substance that Twilight's mind refused to identify. Step by step, she entered the destroyed place. Two guard skeletons were pinned to the wall by long, lance like spines of obviously organic origin. She ignored them, walking past them in numb horror. The entrance hall was almost pitch black, but it didn't matter. The few shafts of light that fell through lit almost nothing, but Twilight knew where to step. She continued, set on first checking the throne room.

What she saw affected even her numb mind and with a cry of absolute despair, Twilight collapsed in the doorway, tears streaming down her face as she finally broke down.

The doors to the great throne room boomed shut behind her as Twilight screamed her grief to the broken roof of the throne room.

~*~

"She'll be alright, I'm sure of it, you girls need sleep. Go."

Talisman all but shoved Twilight's friends out of the room. Demonheart had not attended this visit, admitting a massive headache and severe nausea. He'd also refused treatment, saying it would pass quickly. Talisman had no doubt about this, but it had taken more to persuade Fluttershy to leave him behind. Twilight had been asleep for almost a full day and Tal had not left her bedside since, even going so far as to request to be able to stay there officially from Luna, whom had smiled knowingly and granted his request.

Truth be told, as the girls left the room, he wasn't sure of anything. Whatever hit her had hit her hard and fast. He didn't like it. He couldn't find her consciousness anywhere in the castle, like she was deliberately shutting him out of wasn't even there anymore. It worried him. More than that, it scared him. He'd tried a few times to wake her up, even shouting at her at one point, but nothing had worked. The best response he'd received from the comatose unicorn was a mumble of his name, then nothing. She was still breathing thank Celestia, so he knew she was alive, but...

Celestia had visited earlier, concerned for her precious student, but hadn't had much time before having to leave, trusting her medical staff to take care of Twilight and Talisman to explain things when she woke up. Except she had yet to wake up, and yet to even move save for the once she'd spoken his name. Things were looking grim. Tal sighed and returned to Twilight's bedside, sitting before it despondently.

"I'm sorry Twilight," He said quietly to the immobile unicorn, "I should have seen this... Should have helped you earlier... I'm so sorry."

He lay his head on her chest, closing his eyes, trying not to cry.

Twilight's eyes opened.

But there was none of the Twilight Talisman knew in those eyes. He had yet to notice, so busy was he. Twilight looked down at the grieving stallion and smiled wickedly as her horn slowly started to spark.

Comments

[Rainbowblitz]

well that was unexpected