It was cold winter night, when Twilight Sparkle was spending it relaxing in her own nerdish way. Namely she lied comfortably on her bed by the dim light of a candle, with a cup of hot tea standing on the nightstand next to her, and read a new book called Equestrian Magical Creatures. Her eyes quickly followed the text, stopping only for a moment to sip the tea, which levitated to herself with magic and turned the next page…

“Twilight?” she heard a muffled voice of her trusted assistant calling her from the lower floor. She took her eyes away from the book, and looked down at him with a small smile. “Ugh, you're still up.” He said scratching his left eye tiredly “It's late at night, you should go to sleep...”

The corner of her mouth raised slightly “I know Spike, and I could say the same thing about you.” she remarked.

“Yeah, I know, I know… I just wanted something to drink, that’s all.” He yawned covering his mouth with his claw. “Just... promise me you don't stay up all night, okay?”

Twilight looked at him sympathetically. The little dragon was always concerned about her well being. Even though he at times was a little clumsy or grumpy, it was him who helped her running this place, made sure everything was in check, helped her contacting with princesses, took good care of her and vice versa. Nodding a few times she said “I promise.”

Spike yawned again “I'm going back to sleep.” With that he turned around, and went back to his basket.

The librarian stared at the clock hanging on the opposite wall for a moment, it marked at 9:30 p.m, then she looked out the near window. It was dark outside, the clouds were hiding the moon, and snow was heavily falling on the ground, covering it with fluffy, white cover. The mare went back to reading her book, but in the last moment, out of corner of her eye she saw something. She turned to the window again, even in all this dark blizzard she could see a barely noticeable, bluish light in the far distance… It surprised her, because most ponies should be inside of their houses during weather like this.

"Probably just somepony with lantern or magic trying to get back home in this snow... Poor thing." She thought ignoring this unusual thing.

Twilight went back to her book, and read it for several more minutes, but turned back to the window, curious of the blue dot in the dark winter night. It was still there, but a little brighter than before. The unicorn dismissed it again, and went back to reading... She read page after page until she noticed, that her teacup was empty. She looked back at the clock, which now pointed at 10:10 p.m.

Yawing purple mae thought to herself “Time to get some sleep..." Tired librarian warped the book with her purple magic, and put it on the nightstand. She looked out the window for the last time, and to her surprise noticed that the light hasn't disappeared. "That's weird... why somepony would do that?" She asked herself as she stared at the light when suddenly, for a moment it got a little brighter... bright enough to draw attention.

"Maybe it is trying to draw attention... but why?” She started thinking about the reasons for which someone would do such a thing... The bright blue dot was coming from direction of Everfree Forest. The same dangerous woodland that everypony were scared to go in. The same forest where lives many of the dangerous creatures with whom she had just read in the book. "What if someone is hurt and is trying to get help?"

Her ears for a moment fell flat and she became worried. Even if it really wasn't someone in danger this... anomaly, still should be investigated - at least this is what her tired mind told her. The mare quickly went down floor to the bathroom and with her magic grabbed first aid kit. Then she proceed to the drawer and pulled out her sweater, vest from last Winter Warm Up, winter horse booths, a wooly scarf, beanie and hastily put everything on.

Unicorn glanced at the clock - 10:14 pm. "I've hope I'm wrong with this ,,somepony in danger", I really do... and I should ask for help or tell someone what I am going to do first." she thought. "It's too far and it would take too long to get to AJ or Rainbow... Spike!"
She went back to the bedroom, walked up to the basket where the baby dragon slept and halted. He was snoring slightly tucked comfortably in his blanket… Twilight knew that he had a hard day, today and just like every baby dragon needed some rest.

“Maybe I shouldn’t wake him up…” the dragon shifted slightly in his sleep and turned on his side. Unicorn looked around as if she tried to find a clue what should she do… and spotted a piece of paper and a quill. “A note might be a better idea, in the end if something happened to me they will know where I went and if nothing happens then I’ll be back and no one will notice.” A purple aura wrapped a feather and paper... Few moments later the note has been written and Twilight carefully put it on the basket, then she went downstairs.

She opened the library door and immediately was met with wall of cold air rushing inside her home. It was colder than she originally thought. Even with her fur and clothes she could feel it, but curious mare has decided to not waste anymore time. She trotted through the town and down the path in direction of the light slowly, because the blowing wind and the falling snow started gaining in strength. She crossed the bridge and saw Fluttershy’s Cottage in the distance.

"Maybe I should ask her for help?” Twilight began to trot in the direction of the cottage, but stopped when she remembered that Fluttershy was on a trip in Canterlot with Rarity. "Shoot..." She murmured putting flat her ears again and looked at direction of the light it was still there, but weaker than before. The unicorn turned in its direction and picked up her pace, but stopped again as soon as she found herself on the edge of the forest.

Twilight suddenly felt a cold and unpleasant feeling creeping up her spine. Like a nasty spider with hairy legs it walked up making her fur to rose under the clothing and her body to slightly shiver.

"Most of the predators should be asleep in winter... most of them." Shaking the feeling off she entered the forest with one thought: someone could be in danger.

The forest was dark... darker than before she entered it. She could barely see her hoof in front of her face and falling snow hasn't helped at all. The purple unicorn has casted a spell and her purple magic has warped around her horn casting a glow of the same color in range of a few meters. Normally it would be more effective, but unfortunately due to the snowstorm it couldn't work like that. At least now she wouldn't be tripping over her own hooves. With that she walked deeper into the forest, forward to the bluish light... which began to move.

Twilight was tired due to late hour, but she clearly saw that the light was moving. Picking up her pace she struggled to move forward because of snow. She was close to her target when it suddenly disappeared. Just like that it stopped giving the light when she passed one of the trees.
"What?!" She screamed in her thoughts as she broke into run. After a minute or two the young mare appeared where she thought the source of the light was and found nothing... she began to look around and found nothing, but darkness, snow and cold. "Did I imagined that?" She kept searching for something, anything that could prove her wrong, but if there actually was something it was probably under the snow by now.

"But... I was sure i saw it." She muttered and sat down, looked around again, then she put back her ears realizing that she has no idea which way leads back to Ponyville. "How would I be so stupid going alone in the middle of night and blizzard to investigate some stupid light in the middle of Everfree Forest?!" She said angrily to herself, then began to search the way out.

She tried to go back by her hoof steps, but snow already covered them with fresh fluffy powder. The cold, unpleasant spider started to creep up her spine again, but this time much larger and much more effective… A loud snap of the branch right behind her made her straighten up and like two small radars her ears navigated in that direction. She felt how her heartbeat speeds up, the blood in her head rushed and seemed to tight her brain.

"Please, let it be Zecora..."

She slowly turned her head around only to see a pair of yellow eyes staring back at her just a few steps outside the circle of purple magical light. Then she saw another... and another. Because the wind blew really hard in the direction of thous eyes she failed to smell the terrible stench of timber wolves.

The heart sinking, wolf howl made the fur on her neck reared and her legs to bolt out forward.

The timberwolves have started running too. The chase was on, the hunt began.

She ran in the direction where she thought was the way out. Her boots loudly crushed snow and fallen sticks just like timber wolves paws, they barked and howled from behind and her sides. One of them jumped out of the darkness at her from the right side, which she responded, without halting her run, with a quick, panicked shot of her purple magic. It made the timberwolf crush into pieces, but she knew it would come back to life in a moment.

In all of this she failed to pay attention to what's in her way, and unable to do a dodge her cheek was caught by a branch, its naked sticks scratched her painfully, but in the last second she saw the log of wood on her path and barely managed to jump over it. A pointy stick coming out of it caught and slightly torn her vest at the bottom.

Then right before her, bursted out of the snow another wooden creature. It surprised her and made her fall and slide through the snow spreading it everywhere. Whatever it was her luck or wolf's bad luck it blinded the predator in the process. She heard how the rest of the pack quickly nears to her and she knew that the monster before her won't be confused for long. She hastily casted a teleportation spell and popped out a meter above the ground, right behind the wolf, and slightly awkwardly landing on all fours started to sprint again.

The timber wolf shook off the snow from itself, and gave a chase soon after.

Twilight ran. She ran as fast as she could, but not being the most athletic pony or rather being the exact opposite made her tired really quickly. She felt how crazy her heart was beating from exhaustion and fear, like it was going to burst out of her chest any minute now. She was barely able to focus on keeping up the light up and on boulders before her. She jumped over another fallen tree trunk, somehow gracefully...
And she landed on the really steep slope of the hill.

Her front legs gave away and less gracefully she fell on her face, then backs and began to roll sideways down the hill by the way really painfully bumping against the trees and larger rocks. Twilight lost her focus after the first hit and the magic around her horn disappeared. Her molested by natural obstacles body ceased to slide only at the bottom.

At first she thought that it's end of her life, that the timberwolves will got her. But this thought quickly disappeared, because she hasn't heard them at all. They probably won't risk sliding down this hill and will take the longer, safer path down, then will ambush her later... at least that's what she read in the book earlier.

The blizzard seemed to slowly fade and unicorn mare took few deep breaths to calm herself down. It helped a little, but her fatigue and coldness started to make themselves clear and her sored, hurt body started shaking uncontrollably. Apparently staying in one place, without moving, during a snowstorm is not a good idea...

“The last thing I need right now is freezing in this cursed, creepy forest.”

She very slowly got up and focused her magic. Her horn with some difficulties lit up, once more creating a light and she proceed to walk... somewhere. She had no idea how long she was here or where she was walking, but the began to abate to the level, where Twilight could barely see shadows in front of her. The silhouettes of trees and bushes seemed to move on their own and watch her intesfilly. It felt so weird and creepy to her, she began to watch every few moments behind her or left and right.

She heard a crunch next to herself and jumped like burned with a fire. Holding her breath she backed up against the tree and casted a spell ready to engage whatever was there. Her body began to shake even more as she stared into the darkness of the forest waiting... and waiting... and finally realizing that she stares at nothing. There was nothing, but trees, bushes and their dark silhouettes all around. But still, she was sure she has heard something.

After a moment Twilight slowly and shakily exhaled a cloud of hot air through her mouth. Then she looked around and very slowly, as if made from stone, moved one front leg, then back leg, then another front leg and slowly, as quietly as possible, resumed walking. Now almost all the time she began to look at creepy shadows and movements surrounding her.

And again a loud noise startled her, made fur and ears to stand up and body to tense up. It was a crack of moving branch of a tree. Unicorn closed her eyes, furrowed brows and let out irritated noise... then began to move again, faster.

She wandered through the woods for unknown amount of time in the back of her head still having stick monsters hunting her. The time seemed to drag on. For her it could be a few minutes as well as an hour or two. Suddenly, as if appearing from thin air, she saw a bluish glow on the right side from where she was facing. It was close... very close. She began to run in its direction only to trip herself on some branch sticking out of the snow and fell in a large hole. She hit her head against the trunk of a fallen tree and the purple aura which she has casted disappeared.

Opening her eyes she looked around slowly, everything was blurry for a few seconds then went back to normal, but what Twilight saw in front of her definitely wasn't normal at all... In front of her was white and blue ball of energy, casting sky blue glow around, it was size of her head maybe little less and it was beautiful. Almost hypnotizingly beautiful.

The next thing Twilight noticed was that it was warm and it felt nice... she carefully walked up to it and reached her hoof to it, but stopped half way. She slowly took it away and instead of hoof she used her horn to check if it was safe. Once her magic made contact with the thing, it flashed blinding white light and she fell to sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

Unicorn slowly came to her senses. She felt how tips of her hooves, nose, whole ears are cold.

"Cold... So cold..." she thought as her body shivered. Twilight slowly regained her consciousness and opened her eyes. Everything was blurry again, she shook her head a little, set her ears up, got up on her hooves and stopped with head low to the ground when a rush of blood hit her head making dark blimps before her eyes for a moment. When it stopped she slowly got up, shook off like a dog, then looked around slowly…

Darkness everywhere is what she saw, the only thing that give a light was a moonlight coming from small broken window creating equally small rectangle on the floor. She casted the spell again and her horn shined with purple aura once more, illuminating room she was in.

It was small and dusty, shards of broken glass were lying on the floor, near the parallel wall of the destroyed window was a desk with papers scattered all around and broken chair. Behind the desk was a large shelf with rotted books. Near far wall was standing an old couch and broken in half coffee table, on another side were a large metal door with some scratches.

"H-hello?" unicorn asked quietly, thinking that maybe someone will respond her from the other side, but the silence was her only response... "Hello? Anypony?" she called little louder... nothing.

She took double take at the room and noticed, that everything was way too big for a normal pony. She came up to the window, it was too high for her so she had to stand on her hind legs to look through it. What she saw made her let out a small gasp of surprise.

The sky was clear and the moonlight was strong so she had no difficulties with recognizing what’s outside. In front of her stood a really large, grey building... or at least what was left from it - it was collapsed from the inside. Next to it was another, devastated one for that matter, and it was half collapsed too. She could see what was in each rooms on each floor. When she looked down she saw, that what would be normally 4 floors for her, in this place was at least two floors above the ground. The street was completely covered in snow, some kind of broken street lamps were placed every few meters along with many, metal, destroyed and weird looking for her... vehicles? When she leaned out her head to look further down the street, she was able to see similar buildings in different conditions, crossroads, dead trees, large billboard with hidden by snow informations, something similar to a train and more vehicles, everything was covered in snow and ice.

For a second she thought she has seen a movement in one of the alleys...

"I never saw something like this. Something so... alien." Twilight again had no idea where she was, but one thing she was pretty sure, was that, she wasn't in Everfree Forest anymore, or Equestria for that matter.

It made her feel awfully small. Like a tiny, purple dot somewhere in the background of an alien, gigantic, dark, white and grey painting.
The small unicorn was so stunned, scared and confused by all of it, that she failed to notice earlier how tired, hurt and cold she actually was. Slowly getting back on all fours she turned around and examine the room again. She trotted to the bookshelf and looked at the titles, which she couldn't read. Some of them had unrecognizable for her letters like "ż" or "ł", she didn't even know how to say them... She wanted to go away, but one book caught her eye. One lonely, white book with two titles. She couldn't read the first one, but the one below it has written Polish-English Dictionary, where "dictionary" was a keyword. She took the book with her telekinesis and opened it…

Like in every dictionary there were words written in both languages, but what catch her off guard was the quality of the paper and how the book itself was made. It clearly was manufactured and printed by machine. Something, that clearly was much more advanced than a simple printing device used to make newspapers…

Twilight felt how cold fear and uncertainty began to creep inside her heart driven by thoughts of her mind about being lost and alone.
She didn't know where she was, how exactly she ended up here or how to go back home and if her friends... her friends... She thought about her friends, about Spike, about home... She was alone here.

A shaky breath escaped her mouth. She wanted to cry, but quickly sucked it up. "Too tired to do anything right now. I really need some rest. I can find out how to go back home tomorrow, when I'll be able to think straight.” her logical side thought.

Taking few deep breaths she calmed herself and turned to the old and smelly couch. It had springs extending from it "No way..." she thought, instead she turned forward the door and opened it, but what she saw froze blood in her veins.

In front of her was a creature a head taller than her, it had dirty, white fur, light blue eyes and face covered in nasty scars. It was similar to wolf, but had claws and fangs size of the kitchen knives. It looked at her, then stood up on his hind legs and jumped at her with terrifying roar- she quickly shut the door and blocked it with her body. The monster tried to ram itself inside the room.

After a first bang at the door, Twilight tried to use more advanced magic - a teleportation, but failed and winced as pain shoot through her horn. She started weeping, because she almost immediately realized, that she is trapped in here and this doors were the only way out without breaking her legs…

After another try the door opened slightly, but Twilight quickly put more pressure to it, "Please go away..." she pleaded as she felt that she physically won't be able to hold it closed for long.

Another hit at the door, more powerful this time, and again she shut the door putting a lot more strength in pressure "Please..." she looked around once more, her sight quickly stopped at the desk, it looked heavy...

Another loud bang at the door, this time the door opened in one quarter. A long arm of the monster reached from it and tried to grab her with its paw. She screamed and quickly thinking grabbed with her magic shards of broken glass that laid on the floor and with all her force stick them in the paw.

The wolf-like creature howled in pain and backed away from the door, the unicorn hasn't wasted the moment and with great effort pushed the desk with her magic against the doors, then slowly backed away.

The banging at the doors resumed, with time growing more furious and chaotic. She could hear muffled, angry snarls, growls, barks and other sounds of the monster.

It worked... she was still scared, confused and crying, but safe for now.

Twilight sobbed and sat down on the couch, she felt pain in her chest she looked down at herself and saw... blood... both her and monsters. There were three slash marks across her chest. She hasn't felt the weird creature hurting her back there - probably thanks to adrenaline. Somehow now really badly torn up vest leveled some of the damage and wounds weren't deep. She quickly remembered about the aid kit, reached for her bag and pulled it out.

Twilight sobbed while opening it and took out bandages and wound cleansers. She remembered how Fluttershy treated wounded by something animal at some point and after taking off the cloths started cleaning them. Only now she felt how terribly cold it was and a thought of getting better cloths came to her... With few hisses of pain later she started bandaging the wounds, when she finished she dressed up, curled in a ball, put her hooves over her ears and tried go to sleep.

"Leave me alone." she muttered to herself and eventually slowly fell asleep in acompaniament of un-rhythmic banging at the doors of the monster...

Author's Note

I beg for some feedback