Lucidity

by Indulgence

Intermission

The moon’s silvery rays fell from above, coming to rest along with the light of the stars focused on a single cottage. This three storey dwelling was but one of many forming a village not much bigger than a hamlet, surrounded on all sides by the imposing shapes of dense woodland, the limbs of its gnarled denizens reaching up towards the speckles of the night’s sky. The clustered buildings were rustic and simple (much like their counterparts in Ponyville), mostly plainly whitewashed with thatched roofs and few exceeding a second floor in height, making them look squat against their background of tree trunks. In most cases drawn curtains veiled their windows from within, but from this single taller house, set apart in its lunar spotlight, orange burned outward to pierce the evening’s shadow.

Twilight, having stepped through the unknown doorway, found herself immediately in the main street of this world as soon as she crossed its threshold, facing ahead of her this singularly illuminated dwelling. What was strange about this (bearing in mind her expectations) was the fact that there was nopony in evidence anywhere populating the space, leaving her none the wiser as to whose dream she was stood within. In spite of this she was definitely sure that this was somepony’s unconscious imaginings because of the alien familiarity which had beset her on entering it, combined with a crushing melancholy despite its almost idyllic setting, both of which feelings were certainly not her own. More than this though she was aware of a low murmuring, just barely audible, as if the speakers who were creating it were more like insects buzzing about her ears than real, although in any case they were entirely invisible.

‘No, please don’t go! I’m sorry!’

A lone filly’s voice; loud shrill and scared, sliced through the others silencing them in an instant, whilst the sadness Twilight was experiencing hit a new peak, becoming actually painful in her heart. The central house’s front door flew full open, swinging wildly on its hinges to crash against the wall it was set in, and out through it strode the imposing figure of a night pegasus in the full battledress of a Lunar Guard. The relatively tall pony’s features were mostly covered up by its armour, revealing only its membranous wings and a few patches of fur (all granite grey) and its eyes shining deep crimson through the slits of its plumed helm. A single azure iris shone out from the breastplate of its interlocking steel carapace, a match with its own slitted pupils in their deep red settings beneath its helmet. As the door swung closed behind it, the unknown soldier sighed deeply before taking off in a single fluid wingbeat from her bat-like limbs, swiftly aloft and climbing in flight towards the clouds of the far off horizon.

‘Get out.’

A fresh voice broke in lower than the first one, obviously a stallion’s in its gruffness, whose tacit anger forced Twilight’s ears back against her head and tied a knot of guilt within her. The door swung wide again and a young onyx coloured zebra filly tumbled through as if blown by a strong gust of wind, losing her hoofing to land roughly in a heap as she did so. Sharp pain shot up through the alicorn’s leg as she looked on, watching the grey striped filly (her markings a total match to the hue of the departing night pegasus’ fur) pick herself up from the dust, wincing as she did so. Almost instantly the young mare’s eyes (electric pink with catlike pupils) sprung to attention, searching after the fast vanishing pony which had preceded her.

‘Mummy?! Mummy please don’t go!’

The filly’s desperate words went unheeded by the one she called after however, and in a few final flaps she had departed over the horizon, disappearing into the suddenly darkened clouds. In the self-same moment the cottage door slammed shut without warning, turning the filly full circle on the spot to scrabble and bang against the closed portal.

‘No, please let me in! I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!’

The surface was unyielding to her frantic blows and her words dissolved into sobs on the doorstep. Loss hammered down hard on Twilight, welling up from nowhere within her, equally afflicting her as much as the one she viewed, almost to the point of forcing tears from her own eyes. With this latest and most severe of the alicorn’s strange extra-personal sensations she was broken from her frozen state, filled with the intensive need to do something. Before she could act however the distraught filly far in front of her took to flight, running full tilt for the edge of the glade. ‘Wait!’ Twilight yelled, but if she was heard it had no effect, leaving her only the option of pursuit, crossing into the forests beyond the village.

Shadows became all pervasive as the sky was masked by the covers of foliage, twisted branches weighed down with leaves acting to shield the under canopy from all but the barest minimum of light. The dark brought with it an old fear, or rather a youthful one, of what might lurk within or of what it might conceal. Her body answered her apprehensions before their reality became visible, a buzz of scuttling clicking in her ears whilst her flesh began to crawl. As she passed between ancient trunks, tracking the faint hoofprints of the one she followed in the root crossed dirt, the sources of this became gradually evident in webs strung above and creeping down to ground level, growing ever thicker till they covered every surface. In amongst these their creators moved, forcing her to repeatedly remind herself that she was not in fact afraid of spiders in spite of the terror they seemed to instil. Nonetheless she chose to lightly hover onward rather than walk, feeling further pity for the filly whose dreams had conjured the creatures and whose whimpering invisibly reached her hearing.

Ahead of her the tight scrum of trees came to an end, dispersing to provide a round gap in their number. This new glade was no more illuminated than the woodland that came before it however, an overcast sky of clouds maintaining the shadows. Twilight touched down in this openness before its singular feature of a huge stump with a large hole nestled between its buttresses. The running hoofsteps she had been following stopped before this gap, becoming a scuff mark as they slipped inside, so thus she followed, folding her wings in close and hunching over so she could fit through. Walls of green tinged sludge pressed in on all sides, as a tunnel sloping ever steeper downwards, dirty water in places oozing between the layers to create a stream of mud beneath her hooves. She slipped and slid deeper down into the earth, still beset by senses beyond her own, in this case a feeling of filth and matted fur all over her being.

‘Why?’

The zebra filly’s questioning voice, thin and cracked, drew the purple alicorn from the passage, entering into what could be best described as a cavern, with domed ceiling formed of the dead stump’s roots as well as its living kin like veins in the muck. Surrounded by tendrils sat a pool of clear water into which the grey and onyx mare (now caked in marring streaks) was staring, her dishevelled twin looking back up at her. She extended a forehoof sending ripples across the mirrored surface, but then before she could recoil two matching hooves sprang up, latching onto her neck and then her reflection dragged her in. Her scream split the air and everything instantly dissolved into black. Only Twilight remained, as if all else had been switched off, in the infinite darkness.