Nightmares

by GarnetRose

Chapter 4: Vivid Dreaming

Chapter 4

The dark clouds loomed overhead, the smell of ozone permeating the air around the lone pony in the grassy field. The wind effortlessly pressed the trees behind her backwards, her mane and tail flailing all around her.

She noticed a faint, tingling feeling. At first, she raised a brow in confusion. Scarlet hissed when the ticklish feeling became a pinch. Her head throbbed, forcing her to sit back on the grass as the world dulled. Her eyes shut while her head threatened to split in two, the mare struggling to remember the simple instructions left behind by Orion.

‘Let them have it.’ She internally repeated this rule, offering no favors to the pounding that was coursing through skull. Scarlet rubbed it with her forehooves, taking in slow, deep breaths. Just as promised by her new friend, she felt something invasive inside her mind. Her mind pried open and the contents of her dream were exposed for a grand feast. She felt something pull inside.

Her dream reacted violently to the tug in her head. Her eyes crossed for a second as the dull, dark colors of the stormy field jumped about. The grass beneath her flank flashed a bright variety of blues and greens. The sky and trees flickered, and the awkward scent of the bazaars of Canterlot wafted from seemingly nowhere. The ground beneath her gave way, her body sinking into oblivion below.

She repeated Orion's order. Giving control to the nightcrawlers was easy enough. The pull on her dream was powerful, and her instinctual reaction to cling to it was easier to resist than she had anticipated. To Scarlet, it was much like a game of tug-of-war. She took another breath, trying to steady herself, ending her resistance. The world she had been cast into since she fell asleep drained of all color and sensation. She fell through it, as if punching through a cloud of smoke, before tumbling into the void below. Her headache disappeared, a sense of accomplishment welling up inside of her.

Scarlet continued this for some time, letting go of her dreams as they came. She gave a quizzical glance at some of her older dreams, many of them from her youth, images and scenes playing out in front of her. A nightmare about a monster under her bed? Gone. Dreaming of jumping from cloud to cloud? Easy to let go. So many frivolous sensations of fear and joy played their role, casting her from place to place from her fillyhood. Though each was being sacrificed, the nostalgia of seeing each of them before they were swallowed up by the nightcrawlers was a welcome sight. A bittersweet frown formed on her lips as she sent them off to be sacrificed.

Her silvery eyes glanced around as another dream took shape around her. Many of them came in chunks of choppy details and semi-solid shapes surrounding the main subjects of the dream. Namely her and her friends or family. This dream was far more vivid in its imagery, the complexity deep enough that the sidewalk she was on clapped against the sound of rushing hooves.

A gentle river ran through the area, with healthy, fresh-cut grass adorning its banks. Concrete spiraled around the grass, several benches forming along the path with incredible detail.

Scarlet gasped as the situation began to draw itself out. She rushed down the road, towards a familiar lump of grass by a small bridge. Her head absolutely pounded as she came face to face with what lay before her- an image so perfectly crafted from memory that, just for a moment, she had forgotten that she was within the dreamscape.

A stallion lay under the bridge, his deep blue coat darkened by the shade granted by the dip in the land. His black mane and tail lay sprawled out against the grass, lifeless and dull. His jade eyes, frozen in time, did not blink, twitch, or stutter.

"LET ME GO!"

"HOLD HER DOWN!"

"GET HER OUTTA HERE!"

"I NEED TO SEE HIM!"

More screams echoed deep inside. Her eyes shrank, her legs giving out underneath her. The day her father was found dead. Memories flooded her, her ears folding back in pain as her headache violently throbbed. It was so vivid: Steele pushing her away, a crowd of ponies doing their best to cover his body, and that unmistakable scent of magic being gathered nearby as the Canterlot emergency unit warped him away.

In a flash of light, the body, and everypony in the area that had gathered to investigate, had vanished. Only she and her friends remained. The last time she'd ever see her father. She choked on her own breath as tears ran down her cheeks.

That familiar tug pulled against her head, and for the first time since her trip into her own dreamscape had begun, she pulled back.

"No. Don't take this one. Please."

Another rough tug knocked her off balance, forcing her to the ground on her side. She stumbled back to her hooves, a single forehoof pressing up against her forehead as she looked down. She didn't bother wiping the tears away, letting them rain down on the green hill. Another tug pulled deep inside, each time draining away more and more detail from her. The river came to a complete stop, the sidewalk crumbled away, then the bridge faded.

Scarlet kicked out behind her with a grunt. She looked back at the empty spot where he had been. She approached it, kneeling and taking in the small grooves that shaped his body in the grass. Scarlet couldn’t help but think about all of the little details about him: the scruff he was always to lazy to trim, the way his muzzle sorta curved to one side of his face, and how a single thick strand of hair always bobbed in front of his face. She leaned down and nuzzled the empty spot before backtracking a few steps away.

Looking straight up at the blackened skies, she wiped her tears. Scarlet calmed herself, enjoying the frozen moment in time before finally releasing her hold. The world around her disappeared one blade of grass at a time as it was devoured by the nightcrawlers in the waking world. She felt herself float back into the empty stream of her memories as she waved goodbye.

"I love you."

==========

Scarlet passed through a dozen other dreams through her dreamscape, many bringing back fond memories of her life as a foal. Training under the tutelage of her mother and father, learning how to investigate. Slammed with tons of books at the library by Mysty and her incessant drive to make sure Scarlet could recite a dictionary verbatim on the fly. She was studious, and a hard worker, but raw talent for the job was a power that she knew she didn't have within. The one component that held her back from truly making her parents proud.

There was another dream of the very first time she tried coffee. A single taste was all it took for the mare to spiral into a comically crippling addiction. She waited for the next stop, plopping right down on a bed that was far too familiar to mistake for any other.

The room was compact, clearly designed for only one pony to live. Everything was connected by a single walkway, from bedroom to kitchen. A sink that led to the private bathroom on the other side of the room from her bed dripped from its leaky faucet as she dropped off the springy bed.

Scarlet stumbled across the messy room, cautiously pulling herself towards the sink to look into the mirror. A different mare stared back at her. Puffy, dark bags hung under her deep green eyes, and her pale grey coat looked messy, as if she had just woken up from a bad dream. The pony in the mirror looked back at her, matching her movement perfectly as she twisted and turned her head. The reflection's mane, as red as her name, sagged, devoid of energy and absent of life.

It was another vivid dream, one that relentlessly shoved itself into many of Scarlet's sleepless nights back when she was living in Canterlot. When she used to work for the Royal Guard.

A single mocha hoof rose up against the mirror. She could see the entirety of the room behind her reflection, her bed the same mess it was every morning before work. A pipe in the ceiling drooled right above the small area that was her unused kitchen. A black coat and hat hung against a pole right next to the exit, an outfit that Scarlet tried to look away from once it caught her curious eye.

"It's..." she paused. Her reflection's ears drooped as it looked back at her brown coat. Her bright pink hair. Her glowing silver eyes. Scarlet's hoof reached out to touch the grey hoof that mimicked her every move.

The glass that separated the two rippled like a puddle, and a small clop of hoof against hoof rang out into the emptiness behind her. Her eyes widened, letting her hoof extend past the grey mare. Scarlet's hoof grazed against her cheek through the mirror. Immediately, the reflection, granted a life all its own, stepped back. She backed away from the mirror, turning her body to the side and raising a single foreleg up as if to defend herself. Her green eyes, as beautiful and familiar as they were, refused to look into her own for more than a moment, her head cast down and away.

Scarlet pulled her hoof back through to her end of the mirror. The reflection sniffled, and she could barely make out the shimmer of moisture in the sad pony's eyes. She stared at her, her ears folding as she watched the other mare sit, still turned half-away from her, struggling to make eye contact.

"It's me."

She knew what was going to happen next. Her heart raced, and the pain in her head began to build up once again. Scarlet took another careful step towards the sink, leaning her face towards the mirror. Her muzzle dipped into the mirror, sinking through to the other side without any hesitation. Calmly, she slipped her head through, followed quickly by her legs and body, until everything slid through the rippling waves.

The other end of the mirror was different. It was all black, filled with absolute emptiness save for the oval shape that made up the mirror behind her. Her apartment was still intact on the other end. She skipped a beat as she approached the mare sitting in the middle of the void, her grey coat a morbid beacon in the vast emptiness. Scarlet's hair stood on end as she came up to the pony, hearing the sound of gentle sobbing beneath her messy red mane.

This wasn't part of her dream. Nothing like this ever happened over the numerous times she had experienced it. It was bizarre being so close, and far more intimate than anything she would've been capable of dreaming up. Scarlet tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. Silver met green, and the look of utter defeat on her other self did something to her that she hadn't felt since the initial attack from the spiders.

It was the feeling of familiarity. This pony was her. Fear crawled down her back.

The gray pony looked back to the floor as Scarlet sat next to her.

"It's all my fault," she said.

Scarlet leaned in closer, wrapping a single forehoof against her dream-self. She looked at the ground with her counterpart, knowing full well what she was going to say throughout the entire exchange. She no longer cared whether or not this was a dream. A sensation deep within her chest urged her to answer regardless.

"What is?" Scarlet asked.

The other her continued, "Dad died because of me. Mom quit because of me. I disappointed them both when I joined."

Scarlet winced. In the dream proper, she would rail against herself in the mirror without pause. Each uttered word would tear into her self confidence like a hot knife, to the point that she would start waking up in cold sweats because of how abusive the words coming from her nightmare would become.

"No," Scarlet said. "Dad didn’t die because of us. It was beyond us at the time. We... You can't blame yourself for something like that. It’s not fair."

The grey Scarlet hesitated, trying to look her way, but failing.

"Mom had all sorts of internal troubles at the Agency way before that too," she continued. "She disliked Steele and hated the hours. She grew tired of it. She didn't quit because of us."

"And what about me?" she replied. "I was a failure. I was given the paperwork. I filed. I barely went out on call. It was a disgrace to the both of them. Anypony could’ve done what I did. I was replaceable."

Scarlet growled as the tug in her head pulled harder. “We did our best. Someone had to take care of the work back at the offices, and we were plenty capable. You knew that putting us out on the job was a big risk. We weren't ready for it!"

Grey Scarlet immediately snapped and looked at her, teary red eyes on full display. "Is that what you tell yourself when you cry at night? Just excuses to make yourself feel better about what happened!?"

Scarlet jumped back with a gasp. That wasn't part of the dream.

Grey Scarlet turned back to the floor, crying under her breath.

"Did you just?"

The grey mare remained quiet.

Scarlet stepped closer, this time far more carefully. "I'm telling you the truth," she said, sitting down next to her, not as close as before. "I'm not happy with the answer either. It's not enough for me. It makes me upset just thinking about it.

"I wish so much that I could go back with what I know now. Even if it was just one small detail, anything that could've saved them. I could’ve changed everything.

"But that's not an option anymore. Like it or not, I have to accept my life for what it is."

Her dream-self sobbed harder. "I know. I think.” She couldn’t hold herself back any longer. “I-I'm sorry! I just want them back so much."

"Me too," Scarlet scooted until she was close enough to hug the other mare. "I miss them all so much."

"Do you miss me?"

"Huh?"

"Do you miss being me?" The grey Scarlet traced her hoof against the darkness, her tears dripping quietly against the black ground. "Do you miss being what I am?"

Scarlet waited for a moment. "I've never even considered that you and I were different ponies."

The grey Scarlet scoffed, "Not even once? I'm not like you." She looked deep into Scarlet's eyes. "You know how it was being me. Being so tired all the time. Being so weak and so scared of everything because of it. Y-You've forgotten how that feels, haven’t you?

"That's what it feels like to be me, Scarlet. I don't have your magic. I don't have your strength. And I certainly don't have your confidence."

"...You want to know the truth?"

Grey Scarlet nodded.

"You're right about a lot of that. Since Jessica vanished, the magic that had been suppressed all my life has been flowing through me. It's world changing. It makes me feel strong. That's something I just couldn't afford to be back then. I had to be careful because any wrong move could mean life or death for me.

"But I haven't forgotten."

"How?" she asked.

Scarlet replied, "Because I'm still scared. All of the time. I don't know what the hell I'm doing out here. I don't know what I'm going to run into. I'm on the verge of death at this exact moment! I have no idea where I'm going, or how or if I'll even get there! I have no idea what's going on in my life anymore!

"I just took this opportunity because somewhere deep down, I feel like I'll find some place where I belong. Where somepony like me can survive."

Scarlet looked back down and hugged her dream. "Truth is, even though I seem different, I still feel very little different than when I was you. You, Scarlet, made the choice to pursue the case. To travel to Ponyville and back, even with your condition worsening. That takes a special kind of strength, and that came from you. Not me."

The pull from the spiders grew. The entirety of the dream shuffled about, the mirror shimmering as her apartment on the other side tumbled and spun around.

"That's why I cry at night," Scarlet said. "Because I remember what it felt like. Because I still feel it all the time. I still feel lost."

The grey mare wiped her eyes. A small, gentle smile grew on her face. She nuzzled against Scarlet. "Thank you. F-For making me feel better. I'm sorry if I upset you."

The pain in her head finally gave out, and she let go of the rope. The entirety of her dream crumbled around her, the image of the mare next to her fading away.

"Please don't forget about me."

"Never."

==========

Scarlet's eyes flashed open with a gasp. Sweat was running down her face, the sound of crickets chirping in the distance snapping her out of her daze. The sky was dark, stars littered across its entirety. All four of her legs were spread apart, and a warm substance felt as though it was spread throughout her entire body in large patches.

She tried to move, feeling a force snap her body back into position with little resistance. More of the substance was wrapped against her forehead. Suspended, she looked around in the dim light. A pulsing ring of lights ran down the strings that were wrapped all over her, with stars flashing against large, moving bodies that ran across the network of string.

'Oh my god. I'm awake.'

Her senses didn't lie. She could see the same sky she saw in her tent earlier that night. The uneven, feral image of the treetops alone was enough to confirm that she was still in Everfree Forest. She could feel her hair and tail pulling down. Laying completely still, she could feel the strings keeping her suspended in the sky. With another pull, some of the string snapped, giving her a good look at it.

It glowed against her hoof, the strange, sticky webbing. A chill ran flush against her coat as the warning Orion had given her repeated in her mind.

"The toxin is gone. If I get bitten now..."

Scarlet could already feel the web shifting underneath her as the spiders moved in, undoubtedly curious as to why the feed of dreams from their fresh meal had so abruptly ended.

Her heart pounded against her chest. She closed her eyes and tried her best to calm down, her mind racing to find any way to distract the mindless predators. Her nose scrunched up, her throat shifted as she swallowed dryly, doing her best to try and lull her body back to sleep to no avail.

"I can't sleep," she said. Her eyes roamed along the tangled webbing plastered in splotches all over her body. She couldn't see the form of each individual nightcrawler making its way over to her, but she could easily make out the stars glowing on their backs, each one pulsing an eerie bright blue that mimicked that of the adhesive keeping her trapped as their nourishment.

"I can't give them my dreams if I can't sleep," she felt some sweat run down the side of her chin. "I can't! Shit!"

Scarlet could feel the particular tingle of legs crawling up her tail and onto the back of her suspended body. She shivered as it moved further up towards her neck, the nightcrawler investigating her to see where its food source had gone. Little clicks and chirps gave her goosebumps, and her ears couldn't help but flicker and flinch with every noise coming out from its creepy little mandibles. The spiders nearby waited patiently as the one on her back crawled around her sides, until it was nestled cozily against her chest.

She stared right back at it with her wet silver eyes, unable to look away from her killer. Two little fangs twitched as the blue color of the star on its back faded. The spider's front two legs hungrily squirmed around her chest and belly, fondling the webbing that had been messily attached to Scarlet's body during transit for the feeding.

Her final moment had arrived, and Scarlet, well aware of this, simply stared at the form of her little killer. Flashes of her friends and family back home swept by. The silly and not-so-sober smile of her mother as she leaned on her daughter for support. Amethyst's stoic, expressionless face bending into an almost unsettling smile. Locks ever-present smirk, and even Steele's permanent frown.

She prayed to the starry sky above her. She prayed for a painless death. She imagined whether or not her body would be found as a morbid heap of bones, or that it would be completely gone before anypony would stumble upon it by chance. Scarlet's thoughts drifted over towards an inevitable question that had plagued her mind for years. She wondered if she would see her father when her spirit eventually made its way towards Tartarus. Whether or not she'd recognize him, whether spirits wandering about in that dark land even had enough awareness to realize one another. The idea of meeting him after so long, and not knowing who he was forced a stray tear down her cheek.

She remembered resting on the couch back at home as a foal, Mysty playing with her mane while cuddling her, and her father leaning against his wife, nuzzling his family.

The strange aroma of stray magic filled the air, and it was at this point that Scarlet realized that she was still very alive and awake. She took another breath to make sure that what she was feeling wasn't a fantasy. The scent was similar to that of a magical spell that had just been fired, or more accurately, the discharge from a powerful spell. It was unmistakable, the scent of aether was strewn all over the webbing that was covering her.

Another scent interrupted, one so foul that Scarlet wretched the moment she smelled it. It hit her like a wall, her eyes unable to contain her curiosity as she looked at the smoking remains of the spider that had crawled on top of her.

Its legs twitched uncontrollably against her chest. It's abdomen was ripped open, blooming outward. A blue mist rose from the innards of the beast as it stumbled. It fell to the side, sliding off of Scarlet's body and plummeting to the ground below. The rest of the nightcrawlers, the dull creatures that they were, scurried around her, continuing to feed on the magic flowing through their webs as the arcane essence drifted into the night sky.

"What the hell happened?" Scarlet blinked in confusion. She didn't feel any puncture of fangs, no sensation of drifting off into a permanent sleep. She just remained suspended in between the trees, hanging by the sturdy network of webbing from the still starving spiders surrounding her. Orion's words continued to ring in her ears as the scent of the deceased cretin drifted carelessly away in the quiet night.

"Give them your dreams," Scarlet repeated. The swarm on the nets approached her again, far more cautiously after witnessing the death of one of their own. She thought of the smell of magic that came from the spider one last time.

"Did I do that? With my thoughts?"

She struggled, trying to calm herself down once more as the spiders crept closer. She remembered what had passed through her mind just moments earlier. Her family and friends again drifting by in her memory as a colorful assortment of ponies that she relied on.

The longing sensation of meeting her father in Tartarus. It stung to remember the bittersweet feeling of seeing him once again after so many years. She gasped, something clicking in her mind as she focused on Orion’s words.

"Give them your dreams," she said with a wrinkle of her nose. Her eyes opened. They grew wide with the realization of the dreamweaver's words.

"Give them your dreams." Scarlet took a deep breath, feeling the small tingle of legs roaming her lower half once more. Closing her eyes to focus, she bit her lip, the images of her life back in Canterlot coming to the front of her mind.

An image of Scarlet laughing with Locks as they drank coffee at their favorite little shop cropped up. Instantly, a pop rang out that made the young mare wince. The scent of magic once again invaded her senses, quickly followed by the familiar, toxic scent of nightcrawler innards. The web swayed as the weight of another from the swarm fell to the darkness of Everfree Forest.

Scarlet dreamed of embracing Amethyst, feeling her friends' mighty wings hugging her back in turn with a gentle grin. The monster hanging off her back instantly dropped dead, falling into the depths below.

One by one, Scarlet remembered everypony once more, dreams of future encounters with each and every one of them given up to save her life. With each pop, a huge strain pulled against her, much like how it felt within her dreamscape. Pain shot up the back of her neck and pounded against the inside of her head, no longer just the numbing pressure that she had felt when she was asleep.

Each dream that was devoured caused her body to twitch with agony. Tears freely ran from her eyes. An image of her sober mother vanished with a cry that came from the back of her throat. Several pops from around her went unnoticed as the nightcrawlers uncontrollably fed on the dreams she was willingly giving up.

Her eyes shot open, completely bloodshot and welling with more tears. She could see the image of everyone she held close to her heart in front of her. Surrounding and embracing her. Locks, Mysty, Amethyst, Steele, Conroy.

Even her. Jessica. The mare responsible for destroying everything she held close.

She felt it being pulled away from her by the greedy webbing. Scarlet instinctively pulled back, hesitating to let her impossible dream go without some kind of fight. The nightcrawlers practically sucked at the webbing they hung by, savoring the flavor of Scarlet's most precious memories and friendships. They couldn't stop feeding on her succulent dreams. Stopping was an impossibility!

A scream forced all of the nearby fauna wide awake, each of them fleeing in complete fear of the the cry that echoed into the darkening night. The skies above Everfree Forest lit up with a brilliant show of varying blue fireworks. Flaming balls of legs and webbing rained upon the wild forest. The magical flames erupting from several nightcrawlers ate through the webbing that suspended Scarlet in the air, forcing many of its connections to snap under her weight.

Scarlet felt her body dropping. With a pop, she broke free from the trap, dangling by a single hind leg. Bags hung under her eyes, fatigue blurring the darkened trees surrounding her.

Her ears twisted at the sound of wings frantically beating against the night some distance away. She heard the ever-familiar sound of a horn buzzing to life with magic. The final strand of web suspending her finally gave way. Only when she felt the sensation of crashing against a body below her did she understand what was happening. The feeling of a soft, warm coat beneath her all but confirmed it: Orion succeeded.

She drifted into her first real sleep since she had been attacked with a defeated sigh. Her head was pounding, she was completely drained, and despite all of the answers she wish she knew about her encounter with these vicious creatures, all she wished for was a dreamless, peaceful sleep.