Rainbow's Dream
It's time. I've been having nightmares ever since my friends disappeared. Have you ever had someone in your life that you took for granted? That you knew was important to you, but didn't realize just how important until they were gone? Multiply that by five. Given how shook up I was, nightmares weren't really a big surprise, but the dreams I've been having have been getting worse lately. More vivid. More painful. That last part really doesn't make any sense to me. Sometimes you dream that you can smell or feel something, sure, but I've never felt anything that hurt this bad that didn't end with me waking up on the floor. The dream starts innocently enough.
I'm in Cloudsdale, just like I was that night, having a blast and partying with the other Wonderbolt hopefuls. Who wouldn't want to rub pinfeathers with the best flyers in Equestria? For that matter, who was I to deprive them of the one and only Rainbow Dash? But, just like that night, a pang of guilt makes me think about all my friends back home. Which in turn makes me glance out across the star choked sky and search for the lights of home. That's when I see it, and every time it makes my heart drop into the pit of my stomach. Ponyville is burning. This is where the dream changes from just being a dramatic replay of memory, because in the dream everypony is cheering and stomping their hooves like this is the best thing that could possibly happen. Everypony is smiling and, as I gaze in horror on the bonfire that was a town, the stars are blotted out by the rising smoke. Only the moon remains shining through the haze. A thin sliver of a moon, like a crimson smile in a hellish cinder choked sky.
Without realizing I've even taken off, I find myself flying over Ponyville. Once I realize where I am, my first thought is always "this time it will be different. This time Rainbow Dash, Ponyville's own weather pony, is here to save the day!" Though no matter how fast I fly, no matter how high or wide I search, there's never a cloud in the sky. Just smoke and that ever smiling crescent moon. I couldn't make it rain even if I wanted to, and meanwhile all the little rivers and streams that exist around Ponyville in the real world are bone dry. As always, I find myself growing tired, my wings drooping as I search in vain for a pond, a puddle, or even a bucket of water. As always I find myself dipping closer and closer to the flames. The fact that I can't feel any heat from the fire doesn't surprise me anymore, so I land without much alarm. It's weird how dream logic works, where the fantastical can seem common place, and the mundane bone chilling. Still, as my hooves settle into the ashes of Ponyville I can never truly prepare myself for the shock that awaits me. Everypony is here. There goes Cheerilee, leading a troupe of skeletal children into the blazing schoolhouse, each of them barely more than a collection of blackened bones and sinew sitting at crumbling desks. The bell rings dully as other children gather in front of a blood smear blackboard for class. Further on, the market is busy with activity as the charred remains of customers haggled over the price of withered goods, their grinning skulls making it difficult to read how their bargaining is progressing. Lyra, another familiar pony, sits stoically upon a park bench as flames dance in what is left of her mane and slowly consume the right side of her face.
Ashes rise all around me, sweeping into the smoke choked sky like a reverse snow storm. Cinders tumble across my path as I walk the smouldering streets. The last time I had walked the streets of Ponyville, in the real world, day had already dawned and the ashes were already cooling. Though a few clouds of smoke had lingered, the fires had all long since burned themselves out. Yet in my dreams, in these nightmares, the town is always burning. The citizens of Ponyville, though all missing and unaccounted for in the real world, go about their business as if nothing at all has happened. As I keep walking through the flames, many of my friends and neighbors burn, trotting merrily along the paths and byways as their hooves leave little puddles of melted hoof behind. What always hits me the hardest at this point is the smell. I don't remember actually having much of a sense of smell in my other dreams, before the nightmares, but here the scent is like a buzz-saw on the sinuses. The smokey, sweet stench of charred corpses fills my nose to the point that the stink will haunt me long after I wake up and these images fade to memory. In the full grip of the nightmare, as I am now, the nausea I feel is overwhelming.
Even though I feel myself crumble to my knees, I am still pulled unwillingly through the dream Ponyville, the scenery changing around me. As I look up, dizzy with the sense of displacement and the reeking odor of death, I pass familiar faces. They are the same faces every night now. Here's Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, playing jump rope with a filly who's drenched from head to hoof in some sticky brown goo. The 'rope' is made of their own broken and twisted limbs, tied together in horrible knots. With each hop over the rope, a little of the sludge drips off the third pony, and it's only after a pink bow pokes through that I realize she's Applebloom. Her sister Applejack is never far away, impaled on a fence post like some obscene carousel pony, the sharp stake jutting out of her gaping mouth. She looked as though she had been skinned alive and half eaten, but is equally as drenched as her sister in caramel colored gunk. Further along is Rarity chatting amiably with Spike. Her white coat is charred black and flaking, a thick bloody goo dripping from beneath her peeling skin. The baby dragons face looks like it's been scooped out, a gooey hollowed out cavity like an empty bowl where a smile should be. The frightening images don't stop as I round a corner and find myself in the middle of a dance of the dead, ponies in various states of death and decay undulating their ruined bodies to a slow but steady beat. On stage, DJ Pon3, a celebrity who had disappeared along with the rest of the citizens of Ponyville, performs despite the fact that shards of her trademark sunglasses are jammed into her empty eye sockets.
The nightmare changes, and at last I find myself at a familiar door. All the horror and nausea the rest of the dream had inspired is nothing compared to the dread that grips me every time I see that terrible door. The town library blazes like a Hearths Warming tree, its skeletal branches blossoming with flames. It looks exactly like it had that day after Nightmare Night, the day after my old life had ended, gnarled leafless limbs clawing the sky. The door creaks slowly open and, just like its exterior, the interior of the library is a roaring inferno. It's heartbreaking to see the shelf of the "Daring Do" series I had once borrowed from Twilight Sparkle burning just as brightly as all the rest. As always, that feeling seems to conjure my old friend into life. Twilight, impossibly tall in my nightmare, is the worst blood dripping horror I have seen so far. Visible bites are taken out of her all over her body, her intestines trail across the floor, and her jaw hangs by a loose thread. Her eyes, bulging and blood shot with pain, lock onto mine and I can't suppress a whimper. Part of me hopes I haven't wet the bed. Again. It doesn't help that not all the guts being drug across the floor belong to this walking corpse of my long lost friend. Beneath me the soft bits and pieces that had once been Pinkie Pie slip and slither in a living carpet, writhing back and forth in the throes of a death that never comes. I'd rather not describe how I know it's Pinkie Pie. Lets just suffice to say that the high pitched giggles and the texture of her tongue have grown all too familiar.
I feel my mouth open in a soundless scream, every fiber of my being wanting to be somewhere else, anywhere else as Twilight reaches out to touch me. I close my eyes, unwilling to watch. I don't want to look, she can't make me look! The laughter that floods the dream is deafening, it's only then that I feel the heat of the flames, feel my skin peeling and bursting as the juices beneath my flesh turn to steam and bubble out of my pores. I won't go through this again. It's time. I have to wake up. I will wake up!
Rainbow Dash sits bolt upright in her bed. She hugs herself, panting for a moment before punching the wall by her nightstand. It's less satisfying than she would like. Like the rest of her house the wall, after all, is just made of cloud. "Again. It's bad enough it's happening every night, but now I can't even take a nap!?" She gave a little pulse with her wings and shot out of bed, leaving her twisted up blankets behind. She shook her head to try to dislodge the last dregs of sleep. The fear and horror melted away along with the feeling of burning, but the stench of smoke and rot would linger in her nostrils until she had the chance to get out and really spread her wings. She glanced at the letter on her night stand. Exhausted though she was, she'd have plenty of time to clear her head and get some fresh air in her lungs on the flight to Canterlot.
It had been almost a year since she'd last seen Princess Celestia. Rainbow Dash didn't know what her monarch wanted from her, but Rainbow Dash was always ready to serve Equestria. She had to be, if she was ever going to make up for failing Ponyville so miserably. That dark thought almost drove her back into her dreams. Truth be told, if it weren't for the nightmares she'd sleep as much as she could. Not because she was lazy or even really because she enjoyed it, like she used to. She just wasn't very happy with the way her life had turned out lately. She didn't understand it herself, but she knew she wasn't happy and she just wanted to get away from herself. She'd never admit it, but she was struggling with emotions she didn't quite know how to process. She wouldn't put a name to it herself, of course, but right now the main thing she felt was self-loathing.
Trying to block out darker thoughts, she instead mused about the nightmare she had just awoken from. Thinking about her bad dreams, she realized that there was something different about it this time. Usually after she roasted alive, her friends wouldn't take long to gather around her. That's when they'd start doing much worse things to her, stuff she didn't really want to think about right now either. This time though, maybe the dream would've ended differently. Maybe this time she would've just died and been able to join them. It'd be nice to be with her friends, even if it meant being dead. But it was day dreaming like that which cost pony's their lives. Over the last year she'd done her best to become a more serious pony, a more dependable pony. She often found herself wondering how Applejack or Twilight would handle a situation. Sadly, they weren't around anymore. Rainbow Dash was.
So no longer did Dash slack off on her work, often taking longer hours than any other weather pony, despite the fact there was no one in Ponyville anymore to really appreciate her effort. Privately Dash worried she only did this to stave off sleep for as long as she could. Everypony else worried she was working herself to death trying to make up for one night of inattention, the one night when Ponyville needed the fastest flyer in all of Equestria, and she wasn't there. Last Nightmare Night, when Ponyville had burned almost to the ground. But dwelling on her thoughts wouldn't help her get to Canterlot any faster. After a quick breakfast, she stretched her wings and stepped out her front door. A black smudge spread below her, crumbling timbers poking up from the earth like broken teeth. This was all that was left of Ponyville. The grass was brittle and yellow as far as the eye could see beyond the dark reminder of her failure. The few trees spared the flames were weak and sickly, their leaves already long gone instead of the more seasonal displays of brilliant scarlets, golds, and oranges. The pumpkins should've been being harvest around this time of year for pies, cakes, and jack-o-lanterns. The apples, corn, and hay should've all already been harvested too. It ought to have been cider season, or at least the tail end of it. But not much grew around Ponyville anymore. Any farmers that moved in to try and cultivate the land had a hard time getting anything to so much as sprout, let alone thrive. They usually ended up leaving over night, gone without a trace. This land really didn't need a weather pony anymore, Rainbow Dash thought to herself. But how could she leave?
Everypony back home had said that Dash should just move back to Cloudsdale, or to Manehattan, or anywhere but stay floating above a daily reminder of all she had lost. Rainbow Dash wouldn't dream of it. Partially, she knew that this was a form of penance. More than that though, as her nightmares got worse, she needed badly to see Ponyville in the light of day. Heart breaking as it was to see Ponyvvle like this, she needed to see that the fires had long since burned out. That the dreams were just that. The product of a sad little pony's mind and nothing more. It was a glorious day. Rainbow Dash knew, because she had scheduled one. She could see Canterlot glistening on the mountainside in the distance, the sun hanging pendulous over the horizon bathing it in hues of bronze.
With a sigh, Rainbow Dash spread her wings, "I guess it's time to get started."
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Wow poor dash
She recognised Pinkie by her tongue? And that she was familiar with the texture of her tongue?......You know what I'm getting at right?
Yas! So creepy and AWSOME!
No wonder i've been having nightmares like Dashie.. fuck..
Holy fuck....somepony give Dash a hug.....or maybe those drugs from We Happy Few or something. Jesus Fucking Christ.
Rereading this. Again. Still one of my favorite series on the site. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I'm still happy that this series had a profound change on how some of my dreams are..
‘The texture of her tongue had grown too familiar’ uh, what does THAT mean?!😂😂😂😳
10596827
That the Candy Mare had been torturing Rainbow Dash and killing and eating her in her dreams for some time before they ever met IRL.
So, where is Flutters? We know she did not die, so... what?
11508108
Actually she met the same fate as Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo go back to A Knock on the Door: Fluttershy's Nightmare Night she ate a piece of candy.