Finding Those Left Behind

The lavender unicorn's head felt like it was about to split in two as she began to regain consciousness.  She couldn't remember what had happened before she passed out, but it had to have been a doozy for her to be feeling like this.  She knew there had to be light around her because the inside of her eyelids seemed to be glowing red.  She tentatively pulled her eyelids apart from each other, awaiting the pain sure to come with the light, but rather than being encompassed by a harsh light, she was surrounded by an ethereal glow.  Instead of intensifying her headache, it brought warmth and comfort.  She couldn't explain it, but the mysterious light made her feel more secure.

The safe feeling brought by the light quickly evaporated as the purple mare realized she had no idea where she was.  She looked around, trying to find something that could help her identify her location, but all she could see was the strange glow all surrounding her. What had previously comforted her became ominous as it withheld knowledge from the panicked unicorn.  Fear began to overtake her as she was confronted by one of her biggest phobias: the unknown.

As she realized that she was hyperventilating, she raised a hoof up close to her chest and then stretched it outward while releasing the breath she had been holding in.  "You have to keep calm," she told herself, "you won't figure anything out if you panic."  Having calmed herself down, she stood up and tried to determine the best course of action.  The lavender pony decided she couldn't properly assess the situation until she understood her surroundings, so she began walking forward, hoping to find something that could help her.

***

The purple unicorn felt like she had been walking for hours, but she had no clue as to how much time had really passed because there was no movement, no passage of the night and day, to base time on.  She had searched the entire time, even running to try and cover more ground, but she had found nothing but the strange ominous glow.  As she had continued to search and found nothing she felt the panic she had dismissed earlier begin to rise up once again.  Finally, she reached the point where she could no longer continue, emotionally or physically.  The young mare collapsed to the ground, unable to contain her tears any longer.  She didn't even try to quiet her sobs, as she hoped they might bring some pony, any pony, to her.

Eventually, as the frustrated mare ran out of tears to shed, she just laid there, thinking of her friends and family, wondering if she would ever be able to escape this seemingly never-ending prison.  As she began to consider sleeping, she noticed a dark blur that seemed to be far away, but she couldn't really tell the distance in the flat, empty expanse.  She didn't care what it was or how far away it was, only that it was something other than the white light that had accompanied her for the past several hours.  The relieved unicorn trotted towards it, hoping the mysterious object would give her some answers to the question racing around in her head, but as the dark blur became clearer she began to hesitate.  It seemed to be another pony, and while she should have been ecstatic to find somepony else, something about the pony seemed off, but she just couldn't put her hoof on what that was.  As she approached the strange figure, she began to realize what that was.  The pony was abnormally tall, although not quite as tall as Princess Celestia, and was extremely thin, to the point that the lavender mare wondered how it even managed to stand on its own.  At first, she believed that its eyes were black, but she froze where she stood as she realized that where it's eyes should have been were empty eye sockets.  Mortified by her realization, she wanted only to get away from this appalling figure, only to find she couldn't get away.  Stuck within a few meters of the grotesque being, the panicked mare began to hyperventilate, and it only quickened as the thing began to approach her.

The mysterious pony took a few steps toward her and stated in an ethereal voice, "Welcome, Twilight Sparkle, to the land of the dead."