9:39 P.M.
Canterlot Library: Southeast Wing, 3rd Floor
The sublime ambience of chirping crickets filled the atmosphere of the library as the moon steadily rose in the night sky. The excitement and exhilaration taken place during the day had started to dim down to a peaceful, serene calm. The lights seen from many towns in the distance slowly began to flicker out one by one, until the illumination had died down completely, turning hustle-and-bustle towns into small dark mounds peering out of the moonlit earth.
Along with the various towns spread throughout the land, Canterlot also started turning in for the night. The windows of the castle began to turn to a near-black darkness, as the indoor lights were almost simultaneously doused in unison. The inhabitants returned to their homes, retiring all activities experienced and undergone during the busy day.
Although most everypony had gone to rest, there were the guardsponies stationed to work the night shift around the castle and facilities. Despite the notoriety of such a position, it wasn't a job to complain about. The nights were usually always serene and peaceful, and rarely anypony tried to cause problems during the shift. The position was, surprisingly, a highly-revered one.
As the library personnel began to close for the night, guards were scheduled to patrol and make certain that the individual wings were secure. From ancient scrolls to forbidden tomes, each section was locked up to the point of being completely airtight. It wasn't too often that anypony would attempt to break in, but precautions were still taken to the furthest extent.
The southeast wing was the last to lock up for the night, following directly behind the other sections of the library. Only two guards were stationed in the wing, mainly due to the simplicity of the duty given to them. As the first and second floors were confirmed locked, both guards encountered each other in the hallways of the third floor.
"Hey there, Ezekiel!" shouted one of the guards.
"Oh, hey Lowen!" replied the second guard, "I see they have you running the graveyard shift too."
"Yeah, I got called in last minute. Can't really complain, though."
Lowen glanced over to one of the large-framed windows in the hall, gazing at the starlit sky above the serene landscape.
"Beautiful night, isn't it?" Lowen continued.
"Sure is. I'm actually pretty glad I got stuck up here tonight!"
"Heh, same here! A scene like this doesn't come by too often."
"Don't I know it. The stars are shining, and there isn't a cloud in sight. The pegasi must've pulled out all the stops when they cleared the sky tonight."
"Well, they sure did a good job."
The guards continued to chatter and catch up on recent events as the moon continued to rise in the sky. As the minutes passed by, both of the ponies had remembered the reason why they were in the library in the first place, and decided to continue with their duties.
"Ah, I should really be getting back to my patrol. Only a few more sections to lock up, then it's stationary duty." Lowen began.
"I should do the same. I'll head the other way and get the sections around the corner."
"Sounds like a plan, Zeke. Be seeing you around the bend."
"Later, Lowen."
After an exchange of friendly farewells, both guards traveled in opposite directions, continuing with their rounds. Lowen nonchalantly trotted down the abandoned hallway, locking the last of the opened library sections as he progressed. After securing two of the wings, he walked over to the hallway windows, staring into the night sky.
Dark, eerie clouds began to fill the diamond-gleaming sky, concealing the shimmering stars with an opaque gray fog. The clouds moved so quickly that the bright illumination of the moon was snuffed out within mere seconds, leaving the earth darkened and devoid of light.
"So much for the pleasant working conditions..." Lowen mumbled to himself.
Lowen reached his right foreleg behind his head, turning on a standard flashlight that had been mounted onto his armor. The beam pierced the ominous darkness that seemed to pollute the halls after the unwelcome clouds had concealed the glowing moonlight.
After securing the last section on the current floor, Lowen began to progress back towards the front end of the wing, now grimacing at the thought of filling in for the stationary guards out front. As he drew closer to the staircase near the front of the wing, the guardspony was snapped out of his pessimistic trance by a startling sound.
The noise was a mix between a shrill shriek and an elongated gasp. As if somepony had attempted to scream before their voice was muffled into a noisy whisper. Its pitch and tone were enough to make Lowen's mane almost stand straight into the air, as his eyes shot open and adrenaline rushed through his body.
"Z...Zeke? Is that you?" Lowen called out, concerned about the well-being of his friend that had gone in the same direction as the disturbing sound. No response came, worrying the startled guard even further.
Despite the sheer eeriness of the noise, Lowen quickly proceeded downstairs to find his friend who didn't, or couldn't, respond to his call. After reaching the bottom flight of the staircase, the frightened stallion found a sight that chilled him to his core.
A set of guard's armor laid in the middle of the library lobby, as if its wearer had suddenly vanished into thin air. The chestpiece and helmet sat directly next to each other, as they shimmered in the beam of Lowen's flashlight. Lowen instantly began to think of the untimely fate that could have befallen his friend, as he began to shudder in his own armor.
"Oh no... Zeke! Zeke, where are you! Answer me!" Lowen shouted in desperation, to which no response came.
As he examined the armor that laid in the open, another sound began to come to his attention.
Whispers. Faint whispers echoed through the lobby walls, repeating themselves in an eerie reiteration. The whispers sounded as if multiple voices were speaking at once, as each individual sound seemed to mesh with the others in a macabre harmony.
Lowen, now frantic with fear, instantly turned around and bolted through the front doors of the library, trying to find an area of safety where other ponies would be present. As he ran outside, his flashlight revealed more sets of armor that had been dropped throughout the courtyard.
"No... no, no, no, no, no!" Lowen repeated to himself, desperately attempting to find help.
"Is anypony there?! Hello?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, only to receive no reply.
The whispers followed him into the courtyard, echoing in his ears as he started to lose every trace of his sanity with each passing moment. Tears welling in his eyes, Lowen ran to the opposite side of the courtyard, forgetting his bearings and location due to the fear he was experiencing.
The voices continued to play like a broken record in his mind as he ran through the pitch-black plaza. His flashlight was only able to light the way ahead of him, revealing only a straight pathway in front of his face. Before long, Lowen had run into the corner of two converging walls, trapping him between them and the origin of the voices.
Lowen slowly turned around, whispers becoming louder as they continued to drone through his ears. The flashlight mounted on his armor began to flicker and fade, showing that the power source was nearly completely depleted.
As he shuddered in the corner, he noticed that the whispers started to become more legible, as they started to form recognizable words. As the voices grew louder, they also became clearer, revealing the two words that were repeated continuously:
"I exist."
"Leave me alone... just leave me alone!" Lowen screamed, stuttering as he continued to quake.
As Lowen's flashlight began to die, the eerie shadow of a pony began to grow from the grass in the courtyard, despite having no source of light or host to cast it. The shadow grew only a few yards away from Lowen, facing him almost directly.
As the whispers continued to replay and repeat, the shadow began to stretch out and move towards Lowen as the beam from his flashlight was nearing the point of completely dying out. He attempted to step backwards and tuck further into the corner, but could only press himself into the corner as the shadow drew nearer and nearer.
It wasn't long before the shadow was only a couple of feet away from him. It progressed with no haste, as the terrified guardspony could only shake in sheer terror. There was nothing he could do to escape his unknown enemy now. The whispers were now loud enough to be ear-shattering, and the shadow was only a few inches away from him.
Paired with a terrified scream, the light flickered out to a pitch-black surrounding. Everything went dark within an instant. The whispers ceased, as the guard's armor clattered to the ground, leaving Canterlot plagued with an eerie silence.
The moonlit streets of Ponyville were calm and placid as they always had been, each paved path gleaming with the silent bliss of the night sky. Each shop had closed its doors for the evening, settling as if each individual building let out a sigh of relief from a productive work day. The local townsfolk followed the example that the sun had recently set, as neighbors and friends began to simultaneously retreat to their homes, awaiting the bright dawn of another promising morning.
Though the hustle and bustle of the town's majority had died down to a near-mute whisper, there was one unique house that hadn't yet become dormant and dim like its surrounding neighbors.
In the midst of dozens of other homes remained a brightly lit library; its inhabitants seeming to refuse to let the day end in its present moment.
Twilight paced around the library lobby as usual, as if there was an intention to brand a noticeable rut into the solid floorboards beneath her. Not paying attention to the irrelevant weathering under her hooves, she gave a focused stare into a partially rolled-up scroll, which seemed to spiral inward into all of eternity past what was visible. Ink and quill at the ready, she meticulously reviewed each and every particular date that was scheduled and already revised once or twice, in order to make certain that there were no misplaced dates or errors in the planning of upcoming events.
All the while, Spike was lazily seated in a chair that had began to grow cobwebs and collect dust, implying that it had been stationed there for quite some time. Perhaps this "schedule-check" was a nightly routine for both Twilight and the baby dragon, and the decrepit wooden seat had been a part of it for as long as the not-so-rare occasion had gone on.
"Alright, let's review," Twilight said aloud, "Lunch with the mayor is scheduled for next Tuesday, followed by my appointment at the spa with Rarity and Fluttershy later that afternoon. Wednesday morning will include Spike's bath..." she paused, glancing over at the baby dragon for a split moment.
"Huh, wha......uhh......" Spike groaned, attempting to stay awake while his friend droned on as she always did. To no avail, of course. Within a second, he'd gone back to a light sleep, allowing his ears to be spared of the boredom-inducing lecture.
With a small chuckle, Twilight continued to give a verbatim reading of her near-flawless schedule, ignoring the fact that her audience had lost all interest in listening to the narration. About thirty minutes had passed before the end of the calendar was reached, signaling the completion of yet another error check.
Spiraling the scroll back into its wrapped form, Twilight felt more than contempt with her work, fairly certain that the days ahead would have no unexpected surprises or drawbacks, due to the careful planning that had taken place. As the violet unicorn prepared to finally end the day with a few hours of rest, her meticulous eye caught a detail that no other pony would have noticed.
Looking out of the nearest window, Twilight noticed that the illumination from the night sky began to dim, blocking out the light from the moon and stars above the town, as the paved roadways began to lose their shine and tint.
"That's odd..." Twilight stated.
Stepping out onto the library balcony, Twilight gave a partially confused gaze into the sky, focused on the oncoming storm clouds that were rolling through from the direction of Canterlot. The pegasi hadn't scheduled a storm until next Thursday, which had obviously made the instance even more unexpected. Not only was the timing of this storm's arrival odd, but also the storm itself.
The eerie clouds that were rolling in seemed far from normal. Their shade was that of an opaque black, with an extremely condensed texture that made them impossible to see through. What made them even more bizarre was the fact that they didn't seem to move by themselves.
Instead, they appeared to expand and multiply.
Twilight's eyes instantly shot into a shocked and worried state, as she froze in place upon the realization that had just made itself present. The horrifying discovery sent chills throughout her spine, causing her pupils to shrink down to near nothingness and her jaw to hang agape.
This was truly terrible; a nightmare in reality.
A storm would conflict with the schedule.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no..."
Twilight brought herself back to her physical reality as she sprinted back into the library lobby, hyperventilating and reciting the same two words like a broken record. She quickly retrieved her extensive list for yet another revision.
"If it rains, Rainbow Dash will get stuck with clearing the clouds tomorrow, and she'll be too busy to come to the picnic with me and Pinkie in the afternoon. The weather conditions will be too inconvenient as well, so we'll have to call it off completely!"
Twilight quickly made swift strokes of her quill, almost as if practicing an advanced form of swordplay, as she rewrote and revised the ink-saturated parchment. All of time seemed to melt around her, as she hypnotically focused on each letter and character of her calligraphy, making certain that there were no conflicting errors, overlapped dates, or unnecessary typos.
"TWILIGHT!"
The familiar voice snapped Twilight out of her worried trance, as she glanced over her shoulder at the balcony doors, which were still left completely open from her recent episode. Barely visible in the sky was a cyan-colored pegasus with a wild mane sporting seven colors, flying at blinding speeds underneath the cloud cover towards the library.
Bolting in through the balcony doors came Rainbow Dash, panting and exhausted from the race from Cloudsdale. Despite rocketing through the doorway like a missile, she was able to come to a complete and controlled stop on all fours, without any momentum to throw her body to the opposite wall.
"Twilight...*huff*... something's happening... something...*huff*" Dash panted, trying to squeeze words through the demands of her lungs.
"Dash! What's going on? There wasn't supposed to be a storm scheduled until Thursday!" Twilight replied, focused on the importance of her regimen.
"I don't know... We didn't plan this..."
"Didn't plan it? How could it not be planned? Is everypony in Cloudsdale sleeping on the job today?" Twilight responded, frustrated from the grief that had been cast upon her.
"They're gone... Everypony in Cloudsdale! Completely gone!" Dash yelled, with a mix of anger and terror.
"Gone? What do you mean they're 'gone'?"
"Gone! Vanished! Disappeared! POOF! Cloudsdale is completely abandoned! It's a ghost town!"
"Are you sure? Have you checked everywhere?"
"As much as I could, yeah! I looked in every house, on every cloud... everywhere! I had to leave as quickly as possible to get here after it happened!"
"There could still be somepony that you missed. There has to be..."
"There's no way. Not anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"It's the reason I had to bolt here. I didn't know where else to go! I didn't know what to do!" Dash screamed, obviously shaken and disturbed by something.
"Take it easy! Just slow down and tell me what happened." Twilight responded, attempting to calm the frightened pegasus.
"Listen, we have to do something fast. If we don't hurry, they'll--"
Rainbow Dash's explanation was halted by a sound that chilled her and Twilight to the bone. Something that Dash had experienced in Cloudsdale, and that had followed her all the way down to the town where all of her friends had resided. The mere resonance and pitch was enough to make any creature shudder and shake in pure terror.
Screaming. Ponies screaming outside the library.
Bloodcurdling screeches. Horrifying shrieks. First delivered by one voice, then followed by another. Then another. And another. Ponyville quickly became an amphitheater hosted by a lingering choir of terror and dread.
"Oh, no..." Dash whispered, her words quaking as she tried to mutter them.
"W-what... what's going on?" Twilight stuttered, trembling on her hooves.
"Shut all of the doors and windows! Keep the lights on!" Dash responded, hell-bent on keeping this unknown terror at bay.
The frightened duo quickly did as Rainbow Dash had instructed, making sure to shut every single opening to the horror show that was occurring outside. Every light source was activated, every candle and lantern lit up to a near sun-like quality.
Though the security was foolproof, it provided no comfort, as the two horrified ponies stood in place next to each other, subjected to the flurry of shrieks and cries from outside. Colts, mares, and fillies all took place in the chilling song. No same voice screamed twice. Everypony only had the chance to let out one final and fatal cry of terror before the unknown pestilence silenced them completely.
For several minutes, the screams and cries continued to blare from the town. Some were familiar, some were well-known. It didn't matter. Almost every voice sounded out once, followed by a mute silence. After what seemed like an eternity, the choir had ceased, leaving Ponyville in a plague of complete quiet.
The shock still rang in the minds of both Twilight and Rainbow Dash, as they continued to tremble and quake in sheer horror from what had happened all around them. Through the silence and muteness, Dash was only able to whisper a small sentence through her terror and shock.
"... It's here..."
