The Passage of Time

by MasterFrasca

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Doctor Whooves, Twilight Sparkle, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Colgate, Dark, Other, Adventure
Length: 36827

Colgate discovers the horrors in the Frozen World

Colgate is your average pony with a special talent in time. This is a tale of the special powers she and she alone possesses, and the other world she can visit. Something is wrong with this frozen world, though, and Colgate is about to find out about the dangers of manipulating the time around her.

(This was originally written for a group I created that challenges writers to describe some aspect of a background pony's cutie mark in 2000 words or less)

The cover art was created by Eldorado. Check him out!
Read, Comment, Enjoy -MasterFrasca99

Published 2012-03-31 10:24:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-11-14 19:28:39 UTC

The Frozen World

I stood there as the world lay silent around me. The birds stopped their beautiful songs and the creatures of the forest stood frozen as if they were being suspended in ice. The clouds had stopped erupting in rain and the wind had stopped blowing as the entire world around me lay in silence. The rain froze in place in mid-fall and the ponies unlucky enough to be caught in the storm stopped galloping for home.

I had stopped the passage of time itself.

This was a trick that my parents had taught me as a little filly. There was a certain spell created by my great-grandfather and handed down through generation after generation until I was finally taught it. When I first tried it out, my parents had come with me into what they referred to as “The Frozen World.” A few more times later, they let me venture into it on my own, but that was years ago, when they were still alive.

It had been ten years since I had last traveled into the Frozen World. I didn’t want to return after last time, as my parents never came back with me. They had just disappeared off the face of Equestria. Now though, my curiosity got the better of me. I had always wanted to try to enter the Frozen World during a rain storm, so I could walk through the rain as it lay frozen in time.

Glancing around again, I saw that the rain had stayed in place, unlike what I thought would happen. Apparently gravity had no effect on the individual droplets in the Frozen World. Reaching out a hoof, I poked one of the droplets and it instantly unfroze and ran down my hoof and through the fur of my leg. I lowered my hoof and took a few steps forward running into a good bit of droplets. When they came into contact with my fur, gravity would take over and they would run down my body, which in turn sent a chill down my spine.

Looking back, I saw a vaguely pony-shaped tunnel where I had been walking. By this time, my fur was thoroughly soaked, so in order to stop any more rain from clumping on my body, I focused on my horn and charged up a pulse inside it. Releasing the pent-up energy, all the rain within a hundred feet of me fell as if I had started time again. I giggled as all the rain directly above me splashed onto my face.

Many times before I had stopped time around me, entering this Frozen World, but this was different from all those other times. I looked around and saw a bubble of air, a perfect sphere that had formed due to the pulse of magic I had sent out. The stillness of it all sent my spirits aflutter, and I couldn’t help but smile.

I stood there taking the amazing sight in when a thought crossed my mind. My parents had disappeared one time when we were doing this, so what had stopped them from coming back to the normal world? Something must have stopped them, because no matter how many times I tried, staying in the Frozen World was impossible. Moving around in it would slowly drain my magic to the point where I couldn’t hold on any longer. I would pass out and wake up in normal reality. Coming back was almost mandatory, so what had kept them there, since it wasn’t their own willpower?

As these thoughts passed through my head, A shiver went down my spine as I felt the atmosphere suddenly become tense. My eyes darted back and forth as my heart rate sped up. A sudden feeling of being watched came over me, and I feared that I might not be alone in this Frozen World. I took a step back as I thought I saw something dart past in the distance.

I tried reasoning with myself, “Calm down girl,” I said to the silent world around me, “This is your world. Nopony else can get in with you.”

Immediately after my short pep-talk, I caught a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of my eye. Spinning around, I looked down the street looking for anything different. Nothing looked odd or out of place. Even the rain frozen in mid-fall had not changed. Something in the back of my mind wouldn’t let me calm down as paranoia started to seep through into my head. Nothing was happening, but my subconscious felt something out of place, something demented, something dangerous.

Another shadow crossed by the outer reaches of my vision and I snapped my neck to the left looking for its owner. Nothing had changed, and I was starting to become genuinely terrified of whatever was causing these disturbing feelings. I turned around again, feeling as if somepony was staring at me. The street was empty, but this time there was something wrong with the frozen scene in front of me. I couldn’t put my hoof on it until…

My eyes saw it and I slowly started backing up. There at the end of the street was a pair of glowing orbs that, if I wasn’t mistaken, were eyes. I took a step backwards and kept my eyes glued to the floating orbs. They didn’t advance, but the very sight of them had my hair standing on end. They were out of place. I looked away for a second to make sure I wasn’t going to step in the rain and freak myself out. I turned back and…

They were closer.

The eyes had moved forward when I turned back. I could see the blood red pupils now. I couldn’t take it any longer, and I closed my eyes, willing magic into my horn to return back into the normal world. After a quick second I opened my eyes and released my magic, willing the world to revolve again. The eyes were directly in front of me for a split second before the world started up again.

I jumped back as the rain once again fell onto my coat. “I guess that was what had kept my parents in the Frozen world,” I mumbled to myself. “But what was that?”

The Reveal

“Colgate,” Lily directed at me, “are you ok? You haven’t even touched your tea since we sat down, and you’ve had the same look on your face since I got here.”

Indeed I hadn’t touched my tea or looked away from the corner of the table I had my eyes fixated on. I had invited Lily over for a morning session of tea, because we always met for tea on Saturdays. I wanted to tell her about those things I saw in the frozen world last night, but I had never told anypony about it before. It had always been my personal hideaway that could only be accessed by me. Now, though, there was something else there. There was something there I know wanted nothing more than to hurt me.

The creature reminded me of the ones that used to plague my dreams after my parents disappeared. I would always be standing on a patch of dirt in the middle of nowhere with a lantern sitting next to me. Blackness would be spread out around me, so thick that I couldn’t see anything through it. For a few moments, I would stand there, not daring to stray out from the light.

But then the eyes would start appearing. The blood-red eyes would pop up one by one until they formed a sea surrounding me. There were too many to keep track of, and when I looked away from one, it would advance. Before they would get close enough, the lantern next to me would go out. The eyes stayed, though, as if they were glowing. Silently they would approach me until I could feet their hot breath on my fur. Then they would leap forward and…

“Colgate!” Lily nearly screamed at me, marking me jerk backwards out of the trance I was in. I nearly fell over in my chair, only just catching myself with my magic before I toppled over. “Colgate, what’s up? You’re never this quiet when we’re together for tea.

“Sorry Lily,” I apologized, shaking my head to clear my mind. “I’m just out of it today. I…had a bad dream last night.” I instantly regretted that, as it came off sounding really childish.

“No offense Colgate,” she said, trying and failing to hold in a laugh, “but a bad dream?”

“At least I wasn’t freaking out about bunnies invading town screaming, ‘The horror!’” I mocked her as she instantly stopped laughing.

“You wouldn’t get that Colgate,” she said, blushing slightly. “Rabbits are terrible for a gardener like me. Those pests get into your garden and eat up your flowers and produce…”

I couldn’t help but let out a smile when she trailed off. I took a sip of my tea, and nearly spit it out when I realized that I had let it sit too long. It was lukewarm now and tasted horrible. I must have forgotten to ask Pinkie to add in my sugar. “I think I ordered the wrong tea,” I told Lily, setting the cup back down with my horn. “This tastes more bitter than I would have liked.”

“Colgate,” Lily started with a smile, “I can always tell when you’re trying to hide something. What’s on your mind?”

I never could evade that girl when it came to hiding a secret. She always called me out when I tried to change the subject or avoided a question. I knew it was pointless trying to keep her from figuring out what I was hiding from her, but I didn’t know how to tell her about my secret power. “If you must know, I’ve been hiding something from you for a while now.”

“Whoa, Colgate,” she jokingly started. “I don’t need to know about some poor stallion that you gave a botched dental job to or anything like that.”

“You and I both know that my dental skill are the best in Ponyville, just like your lilies and other flowers are the best,” I felt the need to say, even though I knew she wasn’t being serious. “And I want to tell you that I’m not joking around about this. This is serious.”

“Well then tell me, Mrs. Serious,” Lily said, with a fake expression of surprise on her face. “I don’t want to make you hold onto this secret any longer.”

“I can stop time,” I blatantly stated.

For a few seconds, Lily stood there with an open jaw, staring straight at me. Suddenly she burst out laughing and fell over backward in her chair. “That classic Colgate,” she managed to say in between laughs and gasps of air. “You thought I’d fall for that. You can stop time. Of course you can stop time.”

“I’m not kidding around with you, Lily,” I said, a little angry that she didn’t believe me. “I can really stop time. I’ve done it before!”

“Then why haven’t I noticed?” she said, still laughing, but fighting to control it.

“Because when I freeze time, everything freezes, including you. You wouldn’t notice unless you saw me disappear in front of you.”

“Colgate,” Lily started, getting back into her chair while giggling still, “I’m sorry, but I’ve been with Twilight, and she told me that time spells are nearly impossible to conjure. She only knows of a few, herself, and no time-stopping ones are on that list.”

“That’s because no one else knows about this spell but me, Lily,” I said, staring directly into her eyes, willing them to believe me. "My grandfather invented the spell himself!"

“I’m not convinced, Colgate,” she responded with a straight face, not joking with me anymore. “Twilight is the element of Magic herself, and I don’t think there’s a spell she doesn’t know. You and I both saw what she was capable of when that Ursa Minor came into town.”

“Then it looks like I’m going to have to show you, Lily,” I said grabbing her hoof with mine. “This may feel weird at first, but whatever you do don’t let go of me.”

“Wait, Colgate, what do you mean ‘show me,’ and why can’t I let go?” Lily asked, a her eyes darting from her hoof to my face.

Ignoring her questions, I closed my eyes and concentrated on a clock like my father had taught me when I was a filly. I imagined the hands of the clock ticking forward at a regular pace, and then concentrated on making them slow down. I heard Lily screaming for me in the background as time must be slowing down in front of her eyes. I ignored the pleas and concentrated on slowing the clock even further and further until the hands stopped ticking completely.

Opening my eyes to Lily’s shocked face, I told her, “Welcome to the frozen world.”

Wandering Too Far

Lily stood speechless as she observed the silent landscape around her. The falling leaves of October had become suspended in mid-air as the wind disappeared entirely, leaving the air motionless. Her mouth stood agape, and she stood as still as a stone, the only thing discerning her from the frozen ponies around her was the light breathing and periodic blinking. “But that’s impossible...” she mumbled, staring at a leaf frozen in time before her eyes.

“I didn’t say I was lying, Lily,” I commented, walking over to her as she held out a hoof near the leaf, making sure nothing was holding it up. She even gave a small push off the ground with her front hoof to make sure that gravity still applied.

Poking the leaf gently with the tip of her hoof, Lily startled herself as gravity regained control and the leaf fluttered gracefully down. She hesitated a moment, watching as the foliage bounced off another suspended leaf as if it had hit a solid stone before it dropped to the dirt below. She reached out again and gave it a cautious poke to make sure she wasn’t just seeing things before reaching out her hoof to pick it up.”How is that even possible?” she wondered as she turned the leaf over and over to see that nothing had been changed in it.

I poked a few leaves around me, watching as they bumped into each other and other things before saying, “They’re frozen in time, Lily. If you touch them, then you’re taking them into the Frozen World with us, and all the rules of physics still apply.” I blew on one leaf and it flew sideways before graciously fluttering to the ground. “Do you believe me now?”

“Of course!” She said, poking a few more leaves before walking over to a pony stuck in mid-trot. “Does it work on other ponies?”

I yelled out,”Wait!” but it was too late as she pushed her hoof into the side of a familiar walleyed pegasus. Derpy Hooves fell into the dirt below like a ragdoll dropped onto its side. The angle that her body was at caused her to fall forward a little, knocking over Lily and toppling onto her. Lily started to push back on the grey mare in an attempt to keep her from crushing Lily on the ground

The act was fruitless as the full of Derpy’s body slammed into Lily’s and they both toppled to the ground in a heap. Walking over, I lent a hoof to Lily who was trying to push Derpy’s body off herself. Pulling her up I chuckled and said, “I could have told you that would happen Lil.” Pulling with all my might, I got her out from under the girth of the pegasus. “You need to try and avoid doing that though. If too many ponies get toppled over here, what do you think might happen when they all resume their ways in the normal world, but suddenly they find themselves in heaps on the ground?”

“Well they’ll probably be confused,” Lily jokingly answered, avoiding the answer she knew I was looking for.

To make sure she knew I wasn’t kidding about all this, I sternly told her, “The more ponies topple over, the more suspicion rises. If they kept track they might be able to notice I’m the only one who isn’t affected by these time glitches.”

“So,” Lily retorted, brushing herself off and poking leaves while trotting down the street. “Why is it such a big deal if everyone knows about this place? I think it would be awesome to visit here every so often! Why, I--”

“That’s just the thing, Lily,” I cut her off, running up so I was trotting next to her. “I don’t want the fame that comes with it. I don’t want to try and teach this to every unicorn that wants to know. I don’t want them coming to me to see if they can have their chance to come to the ‘Frozen World.’ Besides...” I trailed off considering whether or not to tell Lily the next part. I figured I had already brought her this far and I might as well spill all the beans.. “Besides, I come here because...it’s my little hideaway from the world.”

Lily stopped trotting and glanced sideways at me. “I see what you mean there,” she said averting her eyes quickly. “Sorry about that...”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said placing a hoof on her shoulder. “You’re my best friend Lily, and I would love to take you here, but I just don’t want it to turn into a chore by taking pony after pony into here only to tell them what they can and can’t do.”

“Alright, Colgate,” she said with a smile before breathing out a sigh, “Now what are you hiding from me? I saw you glancing around and how nervous you were when I poked Derpy. You were worried about something, so spit it out. What has you so strung up?”

I looked down at the ground and blushed a little when she told me this. I knew she had a knack for knowing when somepony wasn’t telling everything. I was surprised her cutie mark hadn’t been a question mark. “I’m not sure we’re totally alone in here,” I admitted, looking up at her to see a questioning face staring back at me. “I think there might be something else that can go here.”

“You mean there might be other ponies that can travel here?” Lily asked, glancing casually around at all the frozen mares and stallions in the street.

“Yes and no,” I said honestly. When I saw that she was even more confused at this I explained, “I think that some other creature can come here, but I’m not sure if its a pony or not. Last night during that storm, I was out here, and I had the feeling as if somepony or something was watching me.”

“So why didn’t you call out and ask who they were?”

“I don’t know,” I said scratching the back of my head. “I just had this...feeling that whatever it was wasn’t going to be nice. I guess I didn’t want to know” I left out the part about the demonic eyes to see if Lily would just leave it at that.

“Have you tried asking Twilight about it?” She asked, thankfully not poking around for any more of a description of those “creatures” I saw.

“I haven’t given it any thought...” I trailed off, brushing a few leaves in front of my hooves to the side. “I didn’t want to reveal my secret to you, much less Twilight. I was just afraid that she wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret and then the entire town would be on me and... well... you know...”

“Colgate,” Lily laughed, cupping a hoof to my mouth, ”I get it. You’re scared that you’ll be discovered and you don’t want to tell anyone. Don’t freak out about this.”

She smiled and dropped her hoof from my mouth to walk back over to Derpy who was still lying in a heap on the ground. I sighed and walked over with her to help give the grey mare a lookover to see that she wasn’t hurt by the fall. Lily tried to get her into a dignified, normal position and we looked at her side to find that a slight red scar had been scratched into her right wing. Lily had a perplexed look on her face and I turned to ask, “How are we going to explain this? Do you think she’ll notice the cut right away?”

Lily just shook her head and took the lily out of her hair that she always had tucked above her ear. “This is a special type of lily that was cultivated in Canterlot Gardens by Princess Celestia herself,” Lily said, showing me the tan coloured flower she had removed. I gave her a look of confusion before she explained, “She said it was meant to ‘heal what ailments troubled you’ and told me it was called a ‘Lilium magika,’ or Magic Lily.”

“When did Celestia start handing out magic flowers?” I asked sarcastically while Lilly gave me a tired look of frustration.

“It was a prize for my outstanding lilies in a flower competition during the Spring has Sprung festival in Canterlot last year,” she said exasperated.

I gave her a nervous smile because I didn’t have any clue what festival she was talking about. “You went with me to the festival...” she said with a blank stare, before continuing. “You went somewhere and got drunk before wobbling back to me. I had to walk you back to the train, and thank Celestia we left late enough that no one else was there to see you in that state. You kept talking about a pony called Berry Punch before passing out.”

I vaguely remembered going to Canterlot for something with her and I blushed even harder. Trying to change the subject away from my drunken shenanigans, I asked, “So, what are you going to do with the flower?”

She rolled her eyes at me before smashing the petals up in her hooves and spreading the dust onto the gash on Derpy. “I can heal the cut, but I’m not certain how we’re going to get her back on her feet,” She said as the skin and fur seemed to mesh together and mend itself very quickly. It was as if the skin was healing completely before our eyes. “Do you have any ideas?”

I put a hoof to my chin while trying to think of how to re-freeze Derpy to her original state. I had never tried freezing the world a second time while I was still under the effects of the time spell, and I wasn’t sure what would happen if I did. I figured that at this point it was worth a shot and spoke up, explaining to Lily, “I could try and stop time again while you're holding her up, but I’m not certain what will happen if I cast it again if anything.”

“Then go for it,” Lily said, wrapping her hooves around Derpy’s torso. “The worst things that could happen is I get frozen too, or nothing at all.” Pulling her up, Lily tried to position Derpy into a sort of standing position. She tried holding up the front hooves while I held the back, but Derpy just flopped into an odd kneeling position where her torso was still lying flat on the ground with all four hooves spread out around her. After fighting with her limbs for a bit, I levitated Derpy completely off the ground while Lily stood underneath the grey mare. Lowering the pegasus’s stomach onto Lily’s back, I eased up on the lift until Lily was supporting the entirety of Derpy’s figure.. It was awkward, but with Lily bending her knees, all four limbs of Derpy’s touched the ground with a sudo-standing position.

“That looks like it should work, Lily,” I said stepping back and looking at Derpy again. “Just hold tight and I’ll try casting the time-freeze spell again. I may freeze you too, so sorry if you seem to teleport.”

Lily simply nodded as she struggled to hold the pegasus on her shoulders. “I don’t see how she can even lift this stupid body off the ground, much less fly,” Lily muttered under her breath as she started to shake from keeping the grey mare in a standing position. “Hurry up and get this muffin-muncher off of my back. I can’t hold her up like this too much longer.”

I couldn’t help but smile as I closed my eyes and thought of a ticking clock again, the hands slowly taking longer and longer to tick every second away. I had trouble imagining this again with only the sound of Lily grunting  and panting every so often. Usually I did this on a busy day or in a crowded place so that I could physically hear the sounds around me grind to a halt. It was an odd feeling that made my spine tingle, but at least it was something to go off of.

The imaginary hands slowed down more and more while I imagined every tick getting louder and louder to try and emphasize to myself that time was indeed slowing to a halt. Finally the hands were almost immobile until the clock struck twelve and stopped entirely. Just then a chime broke my concentration and my eyes flew open. Looking over I saw that Lily had indeed been frozen under Derpy, but that wasn’t the only difference in the second Frozen World.

The sky had gone away.

It seemed that the sky had vanished and been replaced by a void with an unnerving shade of black that didn’t seem natural. The light was still there, albeit a bit darker than before I had cast the second spell, but that wasn’t the only odd thing about this second world. Dropping my eyes back down from the empty void above my head I noticed the ponies that had already been frozen. They were all in the exact same spot as before, but something seemed very off about them. I couldn’t tell what was different until I had walked over to un-freeze Lily and drag her to a spot where no one would see us leave this frozen place. I rose my hoof to touch Lily, but jumped back when I finally noticed what I had missed about the frozen pony.

Her eyes were gone. There were indentations, almost holes, where her eye sockets should have been, and they seemed to fade into the same unnatural black that the sky was composed of. My heart sped up at this chilling sight, and I took a step back, looking at the rest of the ponies around me. Every one of them had the same thing happen to their eyes and suddenly I felt as though something wrong and twisted was going on. The feeling of being watched seeped into my bones.

Giving a haphazard jab to Lily to make her body collapse under Derpy, I grabbed her hoof and drug her out as quickly as I could without hurting her or the pegasus above her. Once she was out from under the grey mare’s girth I levitated her onto my back, which tired me out a great deal. I quickly glanced around before deciding to unfreeze us in a nearby alley in between the café and another shop. Taking a few steps, I thought I heard a whisper from my right.

Turning my head I saw nothing but the eye-less ponies that populated this place. Taking a few more hurried steps, I heard the same whisper and whipped my head back towards the sound with a few beads of sweat running down my neck. Again, I could not locate the source of the whisper, and again, something felt different besides the already creepy mares and stallions around me. I looked a bit harder, trying to figure out what was different that my mind was noticing, but I was failing to see. Looking at a few of their faces, my brain clicked and I gave a gulp as I saw what I had been missing.

Everypony on the street had changed the direction of their stance since I had first frozen the world. I hadn’t noticed it until now because I was worried about getting Lily back into the real world. The ponies that had been trotting up and down the street were no longer facing the direction they had been going, nor were they in the same poses as when they had been frozen. There were more of them than there had first been as well, and I didn’t recognize their faces. I started to run as fast as I could for the alley with Lily on my back, because every single one of them was facing me.

I lunged into the alleyway and laid Lily down next to me before closing my eyes to begin the reverting spell. I imagined a clock at a standstill and with all my might pushed the second hand to start moving. It was resistant first, but I managed to get it to start grinding forward after a few nerve-wracking moments. Opening an eye to see if Lily had started to become reanimated again, I saw four figures blocking the exit to the alleyway that hadn’t been there when I started the spell. All four had pairs of glowing red eyes and nearly shapeless features, seeming to be made out of a smoky mass. They could be described as pony-like figures, but they never moved any body part individually.

Slowly they seemed to advance towards Lily’s frozen body almost hovering across the ground. Their limbs seemed to dissipate as they started their short journey, causing them to look like a limbless pony. The sight of them sprung fear into my soul and I forced every ounce of energy that I could into conjuring the de-freezing spell. As they advanced closer and closer, the air around us started to chill down to a point where I was shivering. It felt odd as the temperature in the frozen world was usually the exact same as it was before time stood still. Before I could do anything to try and dissuade the creatures, Lily’s body started to slide towards the black figures as if being pulled by an invisible force toward them.

With my heart pounding my chest, I grabbed for Lily’s arm, trying to keep her safe, but she started to slide faster towards the figures at the end. Pulling back, I tried to keep them from getting to her while still maintaining enough concentration to keep the spell going. I was starting to tire out from performing the spell and keeping my friend out of harm’s way. I didn’t know why they wanted her and not me, but I wasn’t going to let them take my best friend away.

I yanked a few times with all my might I could muster while concentrating on making the Earth turn again, but she was still being pulled with me grabbing onto her leg, even to the point where I was being dragged along with her. The seconds started to tick by faster and faster when suddenly my hoof slipped and she flew towards the beings. A flash of ignition occurred and suddenly her entire body caught fire and blinded me. I covered my eyes to shield them from the light and heat, but when I opened them, I saw that the world was back to normal and the shadows were gone.

But Lily was nowhere to be found...

Twilight's Folly

"Twilight!" I yelled out of breath, bursting through the door and nearly knocking over her dragon assistant, Spike. Instead of being pummeled by my body, he just jumped back and dropped the pile of books he was carrying. “Sorry about that Spike,” I apologized, panting and almost buckling over from my sprint. I had run non-stop from the alleyway where I came back across town to the Ponyville Library so I could see Twilight and try and straighten this out. I needed to see her before something happened to Lily, if it didn’t already.

“It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened,” Spike sighed, bending over to pick up the overturned novels and nonfiction titles that had been launched from his grip by my startling presence..

Reading a few of the books, I saw interesting titles that I would have never connected to the baby dragon, like Cupcakes from Canterlot: A Recipe Book for the Best Pastries of Royalty and Assorted Muffins and Pies. “Are you going out somewhere with those books, Spike?” I asked, helping to levitate a few volumes back into his arms. I assumed that if he was going out, then Twilight must also have been away. She always seemed to have something for him to do whenever I had seen the two together.

“Yes, actually, Colgate,” he answered with a smile. I looked around the library to see if Twilight was just inside, looking at a book or writing a note or something else she was always doing in here. I couldn’t catch a glimpse of the purple pony, and Spike continued on, saying, “I was about to go down to Sugarcube Corner to drop off these books for the Cakes and Pinkie was going to give me my first lesson in baking...” He trailed off a bit when he noticed that I was looking behind him for Twilight, and simply told me, “Twilight went out to grab a bite to eat and get some supplies for her studies in Astronomy. She told me she might be out for a bit, though, so I’m not sure what else she plans on doing.”

“Thanks Spike,” I said, helping levitate one final scroll back into his pudgy arms, “I hope you have fun making pies and cupcakes and whatnot!”

“Thanks a bunch, Colgate,” the baby dragon replied, shutting the door with his tail while I faked a smile. As soon as he was out of the room, I raced over to look through the massive shelves of reading materials to see if I could find anything that could even remotely help with my problems. I needed to find some help quickly, even if Twilight was my first choice.

Skimming through the titles I could only find two books that caught my attention. The first was a guide on accidental magical disappearances of objects and ponies and what to do in situations where they may occur. The clever book, titled My Invisible Friend and Me, had many reverse spells for things like invisibility potions and spells as well as fixes for failed transportation and teleportation spells, but there was no chapter or section about freezing ponies in time at all, much less unfreezing them from a time paradox. The second was about a time traveling pony that oddly resembled a stallion I knew quite well, but it was a work of fiction and the jargon in the text seemed too confusing for me to even understand what was going on half the time.

I started to panic now that I really had no other option other than to reveal myself to Twilight. I didn’t want to do that, but losing Lily was more of a fear than losing a well-kept secret from a part time friend. I looked around to try and remember where I had found the two titles, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the Library’s layout. Skimming through the titles again, I noticed that the books were not in alphabetical order, nor were they labeled in any way besides a color on the spine. Those colors weren’t any any semblance of an order in themselves as most of them were scattered around the room sporadically.

Realizing that I was pressed for time, I gave up and left the two books on a table in the center of the tree, feeling slightly sorry for inconveniencing anypony who had to clean those up. I threw down the novel and the guide and ran for the door, expecting to throw it open and make a mad dash for the downtown market to look for Twilight. Right as I was about to open the door with my magic, though, a purple aura surrounded the frame and the door swung lazily open. I tried to stop myself in time, but ended up tripping and careening right towards the purple unicorn standing on the other side at full speed.

She reacted quickly and caught me with her magic just before we collided, dropping all her things and breaking a bag as well. It felt as though I had slammed into a wall, but at least I didn’t take the mare out. She set me down on the ground and sighed a bit, realizing how close I had come to completely tackling her over before saying, “Good afternoon, Colgate.” She rose an eyebrow before asking rather accusatively, “Any reason you were about to burst out of my library at full speed and almost knock me out?”

I blushed a good bit and averted my eyes when I told her, “I was actually about to go look for you.” Noticing that she was looking over my shoulder into the library, I added to relieve her, “Don’t worry, it isn’t about the library. Nothing’s wrong in there save a book or two out of place.”

“Alright then,” she said, her face revealing that she wasn’t entirely convinced by the squinting of her eyes. She was probably still cross from trying to catch me while dumping all her stuff on the ground. “Why, then, were you running as fast as you could out of my library? What’s the emergency?”

“Here,” I offered, avoiding the question as long as I could, “let me help you pick up your stuff.” It was the best I could offer for almost tumbling into her.

“Thanks, Colgate,” she said picking up nearly every object in sight and arranging them at speeds that made my head hurt into her few bags, and then walking into the Library to unload them, “but I can get it. Now, tell me what you needed me so badly for.”

“Well, Twilight” I said sighing and getting ready to reveal my secret at last to her, “How much do you know about time spells?”

She hesitated a moment and looked at me with a slightly shocked expression before shaking her head and said, “Well enough to know that they’re no easy task.” She levitated the bags over onto the table that held the two books I had hastily pulled off the shelf and skimmed through. Noticing that they were out, she picked them up and proceeded to put them back where they belonged before continuing on. “You won’t find any books of it for public use, though, because many time-bending spells are dangerous and easy to hurt oneself with. I don’t even try the subject myself, knowing the dangers involved and the impracticality of many of them. I can guarantee that you won’t find much to help you out in this fictitious series, though,” she said levitating the book about the time-traveling pony back into place on one of the lower shelves.

She levitated the quills and ink out of her bag and into a few drawers,accidentally spilling a bit onto the hardwood beneath. After finishing her task, she concentrated a bit longer and a magic aura surrounded the newly-made ink blot on the floor, causing it to fade away ever so slowly. I was amazed at just what she knew to do, and slightly confused why she didn’t try even a few time spells since they did exist. I had always seen her reading through a book whenever I came in to get a novel or two to read whenever I went on a trip, but I rarely ever saw her actually practicing magic. She was the Princess’s student, so I assumed that a scholar like her knew the ends and outs of nearly everything magic related. I guess she just practiced in private.

“Twilight...” I began, wondering if she would look at me like I was crazy once I asked about time-stopping spells. I paused to make sure she was really listening to me, because I didn’t want to have to ask this burning question more than once.

“Yes, Colgate?” Twilight called out, turning her head slightly and cocking an ear towards me. She was still organizing her supplies, already down to the last bag. Items were flying every direction, slowing down just enough to gracefully land on a table or a shelf. “I’m listening.”

I took a deep breath and let it out before asking, “How much do you know about time-stopping spells?”

Her graceful placing of her items faltered just after the words left my mouth. A few quills that she had meant to put on a table flew over their intended target and hit the wall behind it with a damp thud. Everything else she was holding froze in the air, only bobbing slightly from her levitation spell. She slowly turned around and set everything that was levitating back on the table with the last bag. “Time-stopping spells,” she slowly repeated, pausing a moment and staring off into space, “don’t exist. There isn’t any way a pony can bend time so much as to break it, and even if they had somehow broken this rule, the power required to cast something on such a large scale would be a challenge for even the Princesses themselves. I can’t help you out in trying to do the impossible, Colgate.”

“I can do it,” I said to her with a straight face. She laughed a nervous laugh thinking I was kidding, but after a few seconds, she stopped laughing and just stared at me with an expression of mixed skepticism and nervousness. “Don’t believe me?”

I closed my eyes and willed time to slow to a standstill. A few moments later, the silence of the Frozen World surrounded me, and I wanted to try to do something to prove that I hadn’t simply teleported as I had seen Twilight do on many occasions. Although she would be impressed by it, I didn’t have time to show off my magic. Looking around at what was there, I saw the few quills that had been knocked off the desk when I had asked about the spells, and I got the idea to arrange them into some words.  Picking up the quills with my magic, I levitated them on the table in front of Twilight, attempting to arrange them into the simple phrase “Hi.” Unfortunately, my penmanship was not the best and the “h” looked more like an “n,” but I didn’t have any time to be picky.

Closing my eyes once again, I thought of a clock frozen in space, willing the hands to fall into motion.  After a few moments I heard a low vocal sound that sounded like a record being played slowly on a machine. The sound sped up with the rest of the word and I heard the tail end of my name being spoken by Twilight. Leaning over her shoulder, I asked with a smile on my face, “Believe me now?”

She jumped sideways in shock before even noticing the precise arrangement of the quills on the table. I took this as belief, but a few seconds passed before she started to mumble, “This is bad... bad... This is terrible...”

“Um, Twilight, all I did was perform a spell, and I’m fine,” I said, leaning over to see she was still staring at the quills that I had placed. “I arranged those quills like that. Sorry, it was supposed to say hi, but I ran out of quills for the rest of the ‘h’ and--”

“No, Colgate!” she interrupted, giving me a look of sheer panic. She looked as if she had just seen a pony die. Is that what it looked like when I stopped time in front of her? “I know that you did that, but you’re not supposed to do it!”

“Woah, what?” I remarked, confused. “I thought you said that time-stopping spells didn’t exist, and that they weren’t physically possible?”

“I-I did, b-but...” she stuttered, making me realize that she knew something that I didn’t. She took a deep breath through her nose and let it disperse out her mouth before she continued on. With a clear and serious tone she said, “Time-bending spells do exist.”

“Well then why did you--”

“But,” she cut me off, not letting me finish my question, “They aren’t supposed to be known or be used by anypony due to their nature and the dangers involved in casting and using them.” She had been looking off into the distance, probably trying to remember the exact reason they were a bad thing. “How did you ever learn about them, much less gain the ability to cast one? I’m even forbidden from studying them!”

“Really?” I commented, not really wanting to tell her that I had learned the technique for casting them from my own parents. “Not even the Princess’s personal student can learn about them?”

“No,” she said, walking up next to me, “I’m not even allowed to discuss them with anypony. I’m not even supposed to be having this conversation! But I need to know how you got information on this. The only books I know of with the spells are guarded by Celestia herself. So tell me how you know how to stop time!”

She trotted further towards me while I slinked away a bit. Her frightened expression turned into one of awe when she realized that I was about to tell her something forbidden by the Princess. “I learned about this from my parents when I was a little filly,” I started, nervous by the curious purple mare standing in front of me, “but I don’t know how to explain it very well. I just sort of close my eyes and pretend I’m stopping a clock.”

She instantly shut her eyes trying to do exactly what I had described, but after a few moments she cracked open one eyelid to check her surroundings. I waved to tell her that she hadn’t stopped the world yet, and she shut her eyes once more. I let her have a few seconds of peace before I interrupted her concentration by telling her, “It takes a little more than that, Twilight. If it was that easy, don’t you think somepony else would have discovered it long ago?”

She blushed and admitted that it was a little silly and pretentious to try and do a spell only by a verbal description. I smiled and continued on, telling her, “There’s also this sixth sense sort of deal where you have to incorporate your magic into this vision of stopping a clock,” I looked away, trying to think what exactly I did when I froze time. Mumbling, I went over a list of things I did, like, “I always imagine that the clock is ticking at normal seconds, and that everything is in working order. Using my imagined magic I then try to stop the clock itself; not simply the hands, but the entire machine as a whole. I think to myself that the entire world stops and even sound and light pause for a tiny fraction of a second. Literally everything freezes...”

Turning around, I began to say how its more of something you have to feel than something that can be taught, but when I did, Twilight wasn’t there. She may have just gone to get something or put something away, but looking at where she was standing, I saw that the bags of ink quills and other paraphernalia had stayed in the same place. Besides, knowing Twilight, she would try anything to get her hands on a spell like that. She must have actually made it to the frozen world, but if she was there, then why hadn’t she come back? It should have been nothing more than a second for me.

Then I realized I never taught her how to come back, but even with that minor detail in the way, she should still be passed out on the floor in front of me like I had all those years ago when I became too exhausted to hold myself in the world. There was no reason for her to suddenly go missing. Starting to panic again, I yelled out her name only to get no response. She had to be trapped in the world with those things like Lily was. Now two ponies were lost in this forbidden frozen world, and I couldn’t let any more get caught up in its clutches.There was no denying what I needed to do.

I had to go in after her.

Into the Unknown

Sound once again halted and I opened my eyes to see that I had entered the frozen world again, only this time I was ready for whatever resided in there. Looking around the tree, I saw that everything was the exact same as when I had closed my eyes, except for one odd detail. Where Twilight had been standing there was now an odd glow of light purple in the four spots that her hooves would have been. The glow seemed to pulse every so often, getting less energetic as the frozen seconds ticked by. I laid a hoof on one of the spots, not noticing anything different with it to tell me why they were where they were. If Twilight had been stuck in here, then she would have been right in front of me.

Dragging my hoof toward me to make sure that the spots weren’t some sort of odd paint that could only exist in this realm, a very light pulse energy shot up my leg and sparked out of my horn. I pulled my hoof off the spot, not wanting to get shocked by the glowing aura, and looked closer at the glowing substance. I had never seen it before, but the pulse reminded me of the type of pulse sent through my body when someone used a spell on me. Soon, I put my hoof back down on one of the other spots and ran it along the edge, seeing if it wasn’t just one particular section or some anomaly in that exact spot out of the four.

The same mix of a shock and tingling sensation once again ran slowly up my leg before I lifted it away from the glowing stuff. This time I noticed that a mist-like substance stuck to my hoof before slowly sliding off and falling to the ground like dust. I stomper on the ground near one of the spots and some of the blue mist scattered away, but most of it stayed in a ring shape, almost as if there were glue on the ground holding it in place. Once more I ran my hoof along the ring, getting the same tingling sensation, but nothing stuck to my hoof or kept it in place. I had no idea what to make of it and just ran my hoof along all the spots causing my horn to spark whenever my hoof made contact. If I didn’t know any better it looked as if Twilight had cast a spell or something to try and deliver a message.

I just didn’t know what spell she would have used to try and get me to do something. Laying my hoof on a spot, I let the tingling sensation run up my leg once more, only this time I didn’t stop it after it reached my torso. I let the sensation overcome me until my entire body felt as if it was going to explode with power and my horn was sparking like mad. Closing my eyes, I channeled all of my energy into my horn and suddenly, something felt as it was going to burst from my head. I shouted and pushed with all my might and a hologram spurted out from my horn in the exact likeness of Twilight. The hologram looked around the room for a few seconds and I called out “Twilight?” to see if it could notice me.

“Colgate,” The hologram started, eyes still darting around the room uncertainly. I was about to shout that I was right here when it continued, “This is a pre-recorded message, so don’t try to respond to it.”

“Alright,” I said, only to realize my silly mistake a second later. I put my hoof into my face and closed my eyes in a defeated manner and just listened for whatever Twilight was going to say.

“I realized after I had cast the spell that you had never told me how to reverse it,” the hologram said, still glancing around the room and pacing back and forth. “I’m going to try to get myself out of here using that spell again,”

“No Twilight, that just sends you...” I began before realizing again that I was essentially talking to a ghost and that it still couldn’t hear me.

“If something is to go wrong I’m leaving this message in the hope that you’ll find me,” she said, glancing anxiously behind her. “If I don’t return...” she trailed off with a look of pure fear in her eyes before finishing the thought. “I hope you know what to do. I’m sorry I didn’t stay to listen to you. I thought I had learned that lesson... Good Luck Colgate.”

The horn on the recorded Twilight flashed and the hologram was gone in a flash of light. I stood there entranced in thought. Twilight had just done what I had earlier when I visited that demonic parallel world with Lily. Now Twilight was stuck in that second world with those moving demon-ponies and shadows. I stood there for a few seconds thinking over what I needed to do. If she had really cast the spell then there was no doubt that she had been captured by those shadows like Lily had, and I would have to figure out what to do.

There was no way of defeating those creatures though. It would be like trying to kill smoke. Not only was it absurd, but it was also impossible to do without extensive knowledge of spell casting. Even then the smoke didn’t fight back. I looked around the room at the moonlight shining through the windows and the glowing substance at my feet fading substantially. I felt that with every second I was getting further and further away from Twilight. I needed to act now, but I didn’t have even the semblance of a plan. If I went now, I’d get caught instantly by those creatures, but there was no telling what their weaknesses were without trying to study them. I had no time, unless I...

The thought was crazy, and there was no other way of telling what they’d do to me, but I had no choice at this point. I had already lost two people, so now I may as well see what they went through. The creatures couldn’t just kill me, because I was the only way ponies could travel into their world. The must need to eat or use their victims for something, so my best shot would be to let them take me in. I could try and convince them before the killed me or ate me or do whatever they do to me. There was no going back.

Calming myself down, I took a deep breath in and slowly let it out, shutting my eyes tightly and beginning to conjure images of a ticking clock once again. I stepped forward and tried to turn the hand back as I had always done, but this time the Clock looked to be a cuckoo clock painted purple with blue and pink streaks intertwined in the woodwork. When I tried to slow it down this time, it refused to change its course as easily as it had the last time. I concentrated harder and put all of my might into getting the hand to stop moving, pulling harder and harder with my magic. Soon I started to hear popping sounds coming from my own horn, but I didn’t dare to open my eyes in fear of losing my concentration.

Pulling harder than I ever had, the clock handle seemed to be stuck fast with the inner mechanisms. It was as if somepony was pushing the handle for every second that ticked by, making it impossible to stop. I jumped forward and struck the clock in the hopes of maybe breaking it to see what would happen. As it tipped over, a dark shadow emerged from it bringing with it a whisper of Lily’s name. The clock shattered into hundreds of pieces and an ear-piercing scream sounding distinctly like Twilight voice shattered the air, causing me to jump backwards and knock myself into a shelf, dumping a plethora of dusty tomes onto my head.

I pushed the books away from me, coughing from all the dust that was raised, and blinking a few times to make sure I wasn’t about to pass out. Looking in front of the piles of scattered books, I noticed that the four rings where Twilight had cast her spell were no longer glowing, and instead there looked to be a spot burnt into the floor as if there had been a fire or some sort of explosion had gone off. I got up and brushed the titles aside, transfixed on the burnt patch of the ground.

Walking over to it, I placed my hoof onto the patch and slid it along the edge before picking it up and looking at it. A bit of ash had rubbed off onto my hoof, and the spot itself still felt warm as if a teleportation spell had been placed there recently. I brushed off my hoof and looked out the window to see if the spell had worked or not. An unnaturally black sky met with my eyes and I knew that I had crossed over, but that scream in my head had sounded too real for me to have imagined it.

It was as if Twilight herself had screamed when I had broken the clock. Now that I thought about it, the color scheme reminded me of her mane. I called out vainly in case she was still here. “Twilight!” the word echoed about the silent room with only the sound of moving air as a response. I paced back and forth planning my next move in this dangerous land. I had no idea where any of the creatures that had taken Lily had gone or if Twilight had even met them yet.

The wind rose and the white noise caught my attention. The thought crossed my mind that usually when I was in the frozen world, the air stopped moving around me. I assumed that it didn’t change until I forced it to myself, so it shouldn’t be moving unless somepony was causing it. “Twilight?” I cautiously asked, creeping closer and closer to the front door as the noise rose in volume. When I took the final few steps towards the entrance, the noise became almost unbearable and I grasped the latch with my magic and pulled.

I expected to be met with the normal town outside, granted it be in a more demonic state with a missing sky and eyeless ponies, but something even worse met my eyes. The doorway seemed to be replaced by a wall of static that seemed to resonate with a scratching sound. I took a step back from shock, only to step forward again when I realized that the static was static and wasn’t going to harm me. Gingerly I raised a hoof to the surface of the static doorway and let it fall into the blocked entrance.

My hoof stopped as a dull thud resonated back to me. The passageway was covered in what felt like glass. Tapping a few times on the surface, I could feel that the glass was thick, and I didn’t want to break it anyway. The static droned on, and shut the door to try to drown out the noise. I turned around and looked out the window to see that it was still black as the sky was earlier, except I could see the tree outside. Thinking I could get a better look at the other Ponyville, I climbed the steps into Twilight’s personal bedroom and peaked out the window. What I saw caused my heart to start racing.

Nothing. There was nothing.

The only thing I could see out the window was the tree branches jutting out above me and ever those were a few shades darker than normal. I took a step back from the window and started to panic. Twilight was in here somewhere and I had to find out how to get her back, not to mention Lily. But how was the rest of Ponyville missing, and why had that static appeared over the doorway. “This doesn’t make any sense,” I mumbled to the silent air around me. Glancing out the window once again, I tried to light up my horn to make sure there wasn’t some kind of covering keeping me in. Try as I could though, I couldn’t produce any feeling in the tip of my horn. It was as if all of my magic had gone.

I grunted pushing with all my might to get my horn to at least glow, but nothing was produced. My heart started racing as I realized that not only was my magic not working, but my tether to the normal frozen world was gone. I also had no way of fighting off those shadows if they were to come. My mind started to go wild at the thought of the shadows capturing me. “What if they take me and dissect me or rip out my soul or something...” I mumbled out of fear. I shook my head to try and elude those thoughts while tensing up my body and shaking. It occurred to me after a second that the shivering wasn’t from fear, but the room seemed to have suddenly dropped tremendously in temperature. I glanced outside the window to see if something had changed outside, and something caught my eye.

In the distance was a pair of glowing red orbs.

I screamed without thinking of the consequences when I saw them and jumped back, falling on my side as my heart pounded against my chest. I quickly got up and sprinted for the stairs, tripping and tumbling down the steps and landing on the floor with a thud. For a few seconds a dazed numbness overcame me and my vision blurred as my head swam, then reality came back as a sharp pain coursed through my head. Blinking a few times, I stared at the floor, trying not to fall to vertigo and vomit.

A drop of blood landed on the wooden floor, followed by another, and I could feel a small stream running down my forehead as the drops became faster and faster. Pushing myself to my hooves, I reached up and gingerly touched my front left hoof my head before pulling it away to see a small puddle of blood. Panicking, I closed my eyes and tried to perform a healing spell, but that just sent even more pain across my forehead. My magic still wasn't working, and I probably just chipped my horn, but that was the least of my worries at the moment.

The front door slammed open and the static screen seemed to be frozen. I backed up as blood trickled into one of my eyes. I gave a yelp as it stung my eye, and as soon as I did, three of the shadow-like figures seemed to pass right through the frozen static doorway. Hastily glancing behind me, I saw that I was in front of a shelf. I picked up one of the lighter books and threw it at one of the figures slowly advancing on me.

The novel passed right through the head of one of the figures, who stopped momentarily as the smoky substance started to reform in the shape it had previously been in. With my eyes wide in shock, I picked up another book and threw it, hitting one square in the chest but with the same result. The book even hit the static doorway and bounced off with the thud that the glass had produced earlier. Again I yanked a book off the shelf, and again I threw it, but the effect that it produced was only the slowing of one of the three figures for a second. I started to bombard the three figures with books, but the hazy ponies kept advancing on me.

Throwing a book, my arm suddenly felt heavy and I could see my own breath as the room chilled further. I threw another book, but this time it felt as if I had just tried to throw a boulder. I picked up one last novel, but it suddenly felt too heavy to carry and I dropped it on the floor in front of me. I slumped into a lying position with my chin resting on the ground and my legs fanned out around me, suddenly feeling very drowsy and weak. As the figures stood around me, I asked, “Why...?”

“You shouldn't mess with time,” one whispered as everything started to fade. I began to ask what that meant when the figures crouched over me and I closed my eyes, warm blood trickling down my face.

Finally a black mist filled my brain and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

Time is Fleeting

A ringing echoed throughout my brain, sounding almost like an alarm clock shouting at me to wake up. I opened my eyes slowly with my head throbbing as if someone had hit it with a sledgehammer. An insignificant light shone in through a crack far above me, and dust fell through the broken opening, slowly drifting down until it landed on the wooden floor I was currently lying on. After a minute of watching the dust float down, a low rumble growled through the air, causing dust to cascade from the small opening and blocking the light even more. I jumped up into a standing position, quickly finding out just how sore my legs were. I was ready to run should the place collapse inward on me. The rumble faded as quickly as it had began, and the air once again filled with silence and dust. I took a step forward to test my balance, only wobbling a bit as I was still woozy from the recent injury.

I could see a distinct black wall on the other side of the gymnasium sized room, and unfinished wood stretched out towards the wall from beneath my hooves. Giving a tap, I found that the floor seemed solid enough to walk safely on, and the room echoed vibrantly from the slight knock. I took a few steps forward to be directly under the crack of light. Looking up, I tried to make out what was above the crack producing the hazy light, but the dust started getting in my eyes, and there wasn’t anything noteworthy above that I could make out. A bit too much dust caught up in my throat and I snapped my head downward sprouting in a coughing fit that echoed through the room.

When I had cleared my throat, I looked around at the massive empty room and called out, “Twilight?” I paused as her name echoed furiously around the room as if I had been calling out constantly for her. “Are you in here?” The phrase echoed a little less than the last as I didn’t put as much volume behind it, expecting the echo to take care of it.

Almost immediately, a muffled voice seemed to call out, “I’m here.” I couldn’t tell if it had been Twilight’s actual voice, or if I had just imagined it. Once again, I called out as loud as I could with the noise reverberating along the walls to the point where it sounded like I was shouting at myself. Again, the sound faded slowly with my voice carrying on throughout the room until it became less than a whisper. After a second the voice I thought I had heard earlier called out a little more audibly, “Colgate?”

I turned around because I had distinctly heard the sound come from behind me. All that I could see was another black wall that seemed to also be made out of the same wood and painted as haphazardly as all the others were. Walking over to the wall, I reached out my leg and gave the section a small tap before putting my ear against the hard surface to listen for another tap to respond. I waited a few seconds in silence before starting to think that this strange place was playing tricks on my mind. Taking my ear off the wall, I wondered where I had gone after passing out in that demented second-frozen world.

Looking around again, it seemed like I was in some sort of box made of wood, not unlike the bird houses scattered around Fluttershy’s yard, and the paint that spackled the walls, floor, and presumably the ceiling all seemed to be a very low quality of black paint that had only been applied to the surface one or two times. Scratching the ground, I managed to chip off a piece of the paint and saw the unfinished wood beneath. It reminded me of the one time I had visited Mr. Whooves to fix my alarm clock, and he showed me how most of his clocks weren’t painted as well as they could have been.

Those shadowy figures had dropped me inside of this massive room, but why hadn’t they just killed me? What did they abandon me here for? This room seemed utterly pointless and deteriorated, as the crack from the top didn’t seem like it was intended for the room, especially with the massive amounts of dust flowing through it. Suddenly, my ear picked up a low rumbling sound that grew into almost a bellow before it faded away in a few echoes of the room. The rumbling sounded identical to the one that got me up a few minutes ago and sounded almost mechanical as if some machine was doing something that was causing it.

A massive thud from my side made me jump back, as it sounded like somepony had slammed their body into the wall. I waited a few seconds, and the thud resounded once again, with a crack starting to form in the wood. I wanted to go help whoever it was that was trying to break down the wall, but I was hesitant with the recent memory of the strange ponyville and those mystic creatures that seemed to seep the warmth out of the air. The thud reverberated once again, and the crack got a little bigger, pieces of the paint now chipping off and falling to the floor, and the wood beneath the coloring starting to splinter from the force. I took a step back, simultaneously eager and horrified to see what figure would pay me a visit from the other side of this wall. One final blow was dealt to the wall and wood splinters flew towards me as dust was scattered in every direction. I had to cover my eyes to keep the splinters from getting caught in them and as the dust settled a figure stepped out from the dark room on the other side breathing heavily.

“Twilight!” I called out, going over to her and giving her a tight embrace that she accepted and tried to return. She grunted and I let go of her, taking a step back and noticing that she wasn’t the same as when she had left me. She was shaking quite a bit from the effort she had just put forth in trying to break the wall down, and her legs and hooves seemed scratched beyond recognition, blood visibly seeping from her wounds and dripping on the ground. A bit of it had gotten on my legs from our embrace. The splinters may have accounted for some of the damage, but there was no way the wall did all of that to her. Her face seemed to be bruised and one eye was swollen almost completely shut. Her breathing seemed labored and I noticed that where her horn was missing, with a patch of dried blood in its place.

“Oh dear Celestia!” I called, reaching out to Twilight, catching her as she started to collapse. “Twilight, what in Luna’s sacred night happened to you?”

Her breathing decreased before she managed to squeak out, “Shadows...coming... horn...gone...”She closed her good eye, and her body went limp in my hooves as she passed out in front of me. I dragged her body away from the hole she pierced in the wall and tried to use my magic to patch up the splintered wood, but suddenly a searing pain bolted through my head almost as if someone set my horn on fire. I reacted without thinking, dropping Twilight and pushing my hooves into my forehead, willing the pain to stop.

I could feel blood trickling down my face and I dropped to the ground rolling around and screaming out in pain, wanting the sensation to halt. Slowly the searing pain dulled into a heavy throbbing  and I could finally open my eyes back up without it feeling like my head was exploding. Removing my hooves from my forehead I saw that the tips were covered with glistening fresh blood. Gingerly feeling around my head, I slid over the base of my horn and a sudden, sharp stab of pain shot through it. I retracted my arm slightly out of instinct. I reached up and slowly made my way up the horn, trying to see if it was snapped off and my magic was rendered useless.

Brushing the most sensitive point on my horn, another hot nail-like feeling stabbed my head again, but I fought through it, finding my problem almost instantly. My horn was bent slightly to the left, and I knew that if I left it, the thing could never heal properly. I laid my head back and took a deep breath in as I contemplated trying to snap it back in place. It was the only chance I had at recovering the horn for magical purposes, but It was also going to be dangerous and really painful. The low rumble once again resounded through the air, exactly as it had before, telling me that whatever Twilight was mumbling about was probably causing whatever noise that was.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in, slowly letting it out and calming my beating heart to try and keep my adrenaline levels down for the dangerous procedure. I lifted both hooves and wrapped them as best as I could around my bent horn, wincing slightly at the pain of touching them. “I’m going to regret this,” I mumbled tensing up my muscles. I counted under my breath, “One...Two...Three!” I yanked.

Crack!

“CELESTIA FUCKING DAMNIT!” I screamed as blood poured out from my horn and onto my face. I thrashed around, rolling on my side so the blood wouldn’t flow into my mouth, as an indescribable pain riddled my head, feeling as if it had just been cracked completely open. “Shit!” I yelled out, clenching my face and trying to ignore the pain by swearing, “Son of a bitch!” The tactic wasn’t working and the pain kept coming, a small puddle of blood starting to form underneath me.

My hearing faded and I could no longer feel anything, feeling like I was falling into and endless black pit. The pain faded and before I knew it, I blacked out.

“Colgate!” Twilight’s dampened voice rang in my ears, my senses suddenly coming to me as I felt a dull throbbing pain in my head. I opened my eyes to see her blurry figure standing hunched over next to me. I grunted as best I could, not even able to feel my lips or tongue. “Colgate?” she repeated, looking into my eyes to see that they were now opened. I glanced down at the small pool of dried blood resting in between my outstretched hooves where my head was lying. I looked back up into Twilight’s eyes, noticing that she was still pretty beat up with her left eye still swollen and the various cuts on her face scabbed over. She was also still missing her horn, only having a patch of dried blood caked in her hair in its place.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, putting a hoof on my side and rolling me onto my back. “You lost quite a lot of blood before I came to. I tried my best to stop it, and it looks like its done for now.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled looking back down at the dried pool at my head. I reached up and gently patted my hair, feeling caked blood stuck in the strands. Running my hoof through the messy hair, I reached for my horn, careful not to hurt it anymore. I winced when I tapped the horn, but it felt back in place, unbent, although covered in dried blood.

“Of course,” she answered, looking nervously back at the hole in the wall and pacing back and forth. “Do you feel well enough to stand up?” She glanced back at the hole while reaching out a hoof to help stand me up.

“I think so,” I answered, grabbing her hoof and pushing myself off the floor into a sitting position. I leaned forward and stood up quickly, suddenly overcome with a dizzy feeling. I sat back down and shook my head. “Give me a few seconds to muster some strength,” I requested, staring at the floor and taking a few deep breaths to try to lose the nauseating feeling.

“Can you walk?” Twilight asked staring into the black expanse behind the shattered boards. I was starting to think that she was worried about something, as if those creatures were about to attack again.

Ignoring her question, I asked, “How did you get so beat up Twi?” I wanted to know how she ended up in the clock with me. I also wanted some time to get my body functioning again.

“Those...things,” she replied with a shudder, closing her eyes and turning away from me. “When I used that time spell, I instantly met with those black shadows. I have no clue what they did to me, because the next thing I remember was waking up in that pitch-black room over there. I discovered soon after that my horn was gone when I tried to cast a simple light spell and went through an indescribable agonizing pain. I heard your tapping on the wall and broke my way into this room. That’s when I passed out and woke up with you bleeding out on the floor. I just don’t want those things coming after us while we’re down on our knees. So again, can you walk?”

I looked at her from my awkward sitting position and leaned forward onto my hooves, slowly standing up, once again getting a dizzy feeling as I tried to take a few steps forward. “More or less,” I stated, closing my eyes and trying to get the room to stop spinning. I took a few hasty steps forward before stumbling right into Twilight.

“I don’t want to rush you,” Twilight told me, trying to help me steady myself and looking gloomily into my eyes, “but we need to get out of here as soon as we can.”

“I can walk well enough on my own,” I mumbled, pushing Twilight’s hoof off my shoulder and standing as tall as I could without feeling dizzy. This unfortunately amounted to me hanging my head and standing on shaky legs. “Let’s see if one of the other walls has any promising signs of something on the other side. Maybe we could try and break through another one together.

“Got it,” Twilight replied, turning her head and walking toward the opposite wall of the one already adorning a pony-sized hole. I started to trot behind her, but lost my balance when the large loud rumble vibrated through the floorboards.

“What do you suppose that is, Twilight?” I asked, quickly regaining my footing and trotting up beside her with my heart pounding from the scare.

“I have no idea,” she pondered, starting off for the opposite wall once again. “It sounds very mechanical, and happens about once every minute, though. Do you think we might be inside some sort of clock?”

“That would explain the sub-par painting job that this place received, but why would we get put in a clock by those things? Why wouldn’t they just kill us?”

“I’m not sure, but that tells me that these creatures want us alive for something. That still doesn’t explain why they put us in a clock.” She stared off into space, slowing down slightly in her trot, thinking about the reasons behind our entrapment. Suddenly she stopped completely as her eyes lit up and she burst out, “Wait a minute!”

“What?” I asked, trotting quickly up to her. “What is it?”

“I knew those creatures looked familiar to me!” She said, staring at the wall and seemingly talking to herself. “How could I have not put two and two together. They called themselves the guardians of the hour, the protectors of the minute, and the safe-havens of the second! The red eyes and smoky figure. The chill of the air around us. Their appearance only in the timeless world! Colgate don’t you see?”

“No,” I answered, worried about her sanity at the moment and backing away ever so slightly to let her have her moment. “What should I be seeing?”

“They are Time Lords! I read about them in one of my books. They are the creatures making sure the balance of time doesn’t get out of hand. Those shadows are just trying to keep time under control and make sure ponies don’t mess around with it. Did they not say something about time to you before they transported you in here?”

“They mentioned something about not messing with time, but I was passing out and...”

“This must be our ironic punishment, being stuck in a clock for the rest of our days!” She laughed at the irony, but I didn’t find it too humorous.

“I’d rather not stay in this clock, if that’s what it is, for all eternity, so lets try and find a way out instead of laughing at some demonic joke, ok?”  I took the last few steps toward the wall before turning around and asking Twilight, who was blushing, “How are we going to know if something else is behind this wall?”

Instead of answering my question, Twilight brushed past me and put the side of her head to the wall and closed her eyes. She stood silent for a few seconds before I tried to speak up, saying, “Twilight, what-”

“Shhh!” she hushed me putting out her hoof and closing her eyes further.

“Is this about-”

“Shhh!” she waved me off once again, this time adding in a whisper, “I think I hear something!”

I put my head to the wall and listened as best as I could. From the other side, some mechanical sound seemed to be resounding through the wall. The noise was almost something that you would hear if you put a clock next to your ear and listened carefully. It sounded like the whirring of gears and clanking of metal suspended in the air.

“That sounds promising,” Twilight said, opening her eyes and taking a few steps backward looking up at the wall. “Unless you have a better idea, do you want to help me buck through this wall? They aren’t as tough as you might think.”

I nodded my head and turned around, poised to send a strong kick straight into the wall. Twilight followed me and I spoke up, “On three. One...Two...Three!”

I kicked back as hard as I could in sync with Twilight, hitting the wood wall hard and a resounding crack filled the air. Looking back I saw that part of the wall had dented in and the paint had chipped a bit. There was also a single crack running a few feet from the base up to where we had hit it. “Again,” I told Twilight. “One...Two...Three!”

I threw another kick as the wood splintered even further. My back hooves felt as if somepony ran a cart over them, but I knew that I could make at least one more kick before I needed to rest. “The wood seems... really splintered,” Twilight said, panting heavily and having to pause after every few words, “ so I’m sure... we can break it...in one more try. Ready?”

I nodded my head and we counted together panting in between each number, “One...Two...Three!”

We bucked hard onto the wood, and a massive crack bursted our eardrums as the sound of boards colliding on the ground accompanied them. Twilight and I both stood there panting for a few seconds, and I turned around to see that the room we had broken into had light streaming from it. “Look Twi,” I pointed to the archway we had created. “There’s light, which means there's an opening!”

She turned around and we both looked in to see a room alive with what seemed like a hundred gears all turning in sync above us. It did look like we had been transported inside a clock. Before I could get a look around, a distinct shape met my eyes across the room. Suddenly the single shape turned into four and then fifty, suddenly filling the entire shadowed back wall.

“Twilight,” I said grabbing her hoof as adrenaline started rushing through my body, “We need to go.”

“What’s up Colgate?” she asked not noticing the hundreds of glowing orbs that were hovering on the other end of the room. I grabbed her head and pointed it right at them.

“Time Lords.”

Like Clockwork

“The gears!” I shouted as the red eyes all darted towards us, looking like a massive black haze filled with pricks of red. I discovered that what I thought had been a shadow was actually the bodies of the creatures filling the back wall with their hazy figures. The gears constantly turned, and there was a large one low enough for us to both fit on one tooth of the gear itself. “Jump!”

Twilight lept first, making the turn of the gear easily, but the few seconds it took to get herself out of the way enough cost me. I lept up at the same tooth, but as my hooves left the wooden floor the gear gave a jolt upward, catching my chin and flipping me violently backwards onto the unrelenting hardwood floor beneath. I saw a small piece of tooth land in front of me and felt a burning pain in my jaw. My vision blurred a bit, but I knew that I couldn’t pass out now.

“Colgate, Come on!” Twilight screamed down at me as she ascended further and further up the massive gear. I pushed myself into a standing position, my eyes still slightly disoriented, and looked back. Even with my vision subdued a bit, I could tell that if I didn’t get out before the next turn of the Gear, then I’d be fighting off those creatures by the dozen. Absentmindedly I rubbed a hoof against my chin and pulled it back to see it was glistening with fresh blood.

I ignored the pain and trickles of blood and turned around, lunging at the slow-moving gear, which was two entire teeth below the one Twilight was standing on at this point. The gear once again lurched upward, but instead of catching me on the chin and smashing me backwards again, I managed to grab onto the side with my hooves. The force of the movement threw me into the air and for a brief second I flipped over to see just how massive the hoard beneath us was. A sea of red eyes greeted mine for a tenth of a second before I crashed onto the tooth above the one that I was trying to get to in the first place.“Twilight,” I shouted up to her with my aching jaw through the one tooth separating us, hoping that she could hear me, “If you fall there’s no saving you. The floor beneath us is swarming with those things!”

“I saw that!” she hollered back as the huge gear jumped once again, going just diagonal enough to make me lose my footing and crash into the side of the metal circle. I was now standing at a very steep angle, and Twilight was probably near the top of the gear. Looking to my side, I tried to calculate a path to get the both of us to the top of this tower-like room. The gear we were on right now was large enough to carry us almost halfway there, but there would be some intricate jumping to get to the shelf that ran along the top of the inside of the tower.

The gear jumped once again, and I lunged for what was soon to be the top of the tooth, but I miscalculated my leap, and instead of landing perfectly on the top area, my hooves barely clung to the edge as I smashed my face into the metal yet again. I hung there for half a second, trying to regain my senses and blink the stars forming in my eyes away, but I managed to get back into it and pulled my beaten body half-up the tooth. My back legs dangled down, but with one final kick my body flopped onto the top of the tooth as it jerked forward again.

I laid there for a second breathing heavily, but my ears perked up when Twilight’s panicked voice rang out next to me. “Colgate,” I heard my name again, turning to see Twilight on a small gear next to me, ticking further upward every few seconds. “Get on here before they catch up!” She pointed a hoof at the bottom of the gear and I saw that the shadow figures had started ascending the same way we had, except they were climbing on top of each other in a frenzied attempt to get closer to us. It was working, too.

I lept to the rising gear and barely made it onto the small tooth, my senses still dull from the blows I had received. I slipped a little on the landing, but quickly regained my balance, knowing that a fall from this height would probably cause me to break something, not to mention that the creatures seemed to be multiplying by the second on the floor. Twilight was a few rungs above me and we were a little more than halfway up the room now. Taking a quick look around I saw that the next move was to jump onto what looked like a conveyor belt right next the the top of the gear I was on, and then we could hop onto another massive gear where it looked like we could jump a gap onto what looked like shelving running along the top of the room. “Conveyor belt!” I shouted upward to Twilight, who nodded her head and lept forward on the flimsy surface.

A sudden shiver ran up my spine and I glanced down to see that a few of the creatures were at the rung just below me. In fear I kicked downward at one of them trying to stop the others coming. It felt like I had just tried to kick ice-cold water. I felt my foot make contact, but it seemed to sink in a bit before the creature lost its balance and fell backward into its companions, buying me just enough time to leap onto the conveyor belt that Twilight was trotting backwards on to let me catch up to her. When I leapt forward though, my back right leg, the one I used to kick the creature, felt numb.

This sensation caused me to not jump as far as I intended, and I made it just far enough to barely grab the end of the conveyor belt with my front two legs. Luckily the conveyor belt was going away from me, so I pressed my body on the cover of it and the force of the movement pulled me up onto the belt itself. I pushed myself to my feet and tried to take a step, but my back leg was still numb, and I lost my balance. My two back legs slipped off the side once again, and my heart skipped a beat..

“Twilight!” I shouted in fear, flailing my hooves in front of me trying to grip the slippery surface of the belt to no avail. “Help me!” I glanced backward as my hooves slipped completely off the surface and I started to fall. The red eyes seemed to pierce through my skin as time seemed to slow down. Fear rose up in my soul as I realized that this is how it was all going to end, not peacefully, but horrifically and painfully.

A jerk upward brought my mind back, and I saw looked up to see a purple hoof gripping onto mine. Twilight had saved me at the last second from plunging into the sea of darkness below. “You aren’t dying on me,” Twilight said, a tear running down her cheek and falling onto my arm. I gave her a slight smile as blood rushed to my head, my adrenaline pumping. “Not today, Colgate.”

Looking down the belt, I saw that we were going to run out of room before she could properly pull me up. My brain flew as I tried to make sense of the situation, dangling with only Twilight’s weak grip separating me from life and death. “Swing me up onto the gear!” I shouted up to her.

“What?!” She responded hysterically, “Why?!”

“If you try to pull me up, either we fall off the conveyor belt or those Time Protectors catch up to us!” I harshly asserted, not wanting to waste any more time. “Now swing me onto that gear damnit!”

She swung backwards with all the might she could muster, and I helped her out by swinging my back hooves in rhythm with her pulling. She threw me with all her might toward the massive gear in front of us, and I swung forward at the same time. The force was just perfect to land me on a tooth just as the gear shifted upward. I stumbled and landed on my stomach, a little winded, but otherwise fine. I then cocked my head to see that Twilight had only a few steps to go before she needed to jump, but she wasn’t alone.

“Jump, Twi!” I exclaimed, looking at the horde of red eyes following close behind her. She noticed that I wasn’t looking at her, and glanced back for a split second. This tiny move cost her, as she misjudged where the precise end of the conveyor belt was. Her two front legs lifted up just in time to miss the edge of the belt as her head slowly revolved back around to face me. Her back legs pushed with all the strength she could give, but they hit the conveyor belts edge just a little too late and she didn’t jump nearly as much as she had meant to.

Her eyes widened as she realized her mistake and she began to descend towards the black sea below. The only sound I could hear was the slight gasp she uttered when she realized that she wasn’t going to make the gap. Her eyes plunged downward, and her mouth widened into a scream as gravity took its course. She stretched out her hooves in front of her, before wildly swinging them to try fruitlessly fly to safety with her legs. We locked eyes for a split second, and a tear escaped from her left eye before it was instantly frozen by the power of the creatures behind her. She closed her eyes and-

“Got you!” I cried out, grabbing the very tips of her hooves as the gear jolted upward. She flung her eyes open and looked up at me, tearing up and giving me a smile. “Just returning a favor.”

I pulled up as hard as I could, and managed to get her body onto the tooth with me. I tumbled backwards with Twilight lying on top of me. We both laid there for a few seconds, and just stared at each other, hearts pounding in our chests and gasping for air. Twilight suddenly gave a chuckle in between breaths of air. I returned it, realizing that we had just avoided death twice collectively. She laughed back, and I returned the gesture doubly.  She rolled off me and we both stared at the ceiling laughing and wheezing until our sides hurt. We didn’t die, and that was enough to celebrate.

The gear lunged, and our hearts skipped a beat as the situation at hand came rushing back at us. We both looked at each other and glanced back down to see dark shadows pouring onto the tooth below ours, a few even slipping and falling to their doom. “When we get to the shelf above, where should we go next?” I asked Twilight, standing up and helping her off her back.

She looked around a moment before pointing a hoof and noting, “On the other wall is a small hole. Do you see the artificial light pouring through it?” I nodded yes and she continued on, telling me, “The shelving seems to run all around these walls, so if we sprint, we might be able to get out there before those creatures catch up to us.”

“Got it,” I said before the gear shifted upwards once again. Two more jumps in position later, we would be close enough to get on the shelves and make a mad dash for it. “We should get near the top of the tooth so we don’t have to climb the next time this gear shifts.”

We both went to the top and saw that the tooth below had three shadow creatures all fighting to get closer to us. The one even went to far as to push his buddy off the gear itself. “They care about getting to us more than their own well being,” Twilight noted aloud, squinting her eyes and scratching her chin. “Maybe we could use that to our advantage later...”

“Or maybe we could use it right now,” I stated, moving to the far left of the tooth.

“What are you doing?” Twilight asked. Instead of answering her I kept my eyes on the two creatures that remained on the gear. Watching intently, I made my move, jumping to the right, causing the two to scramble to the far right of their section of the gear. The unlucky one on the right was shoved by his fellow comrade just a bit too hard and was knocked off the edge, plummeting silently downward. I noticed that the remaining creature would have fallen off had his buddy not stopped his skid. “I see,” Twilight said, suddenly lunging to the left. The creature followed her and overshot his jump, joining his friend on the long trip down into the black sea. The gear jumped upward again, and we were finally close enough to get off the wretched metal structure.

“Lets go, Twi,” I said, jumping up on the thin shelving and then holding out a hoof to assist her up onto the platform with me. “We bought a bit of time taking out those few stupid shadows,” I said looking down at the swarming black mass, slowly following the path we took, “but I think they’re going to catch back up to us pretty quickly.”

She nodded at me and darted ahead, swiftly running over the small wooden ledge, a bit more used to being in peril danger than I was. I carefully trotted as fast as I dared along the creaky old wood and constantly glanced back to see how far the shadows were making it. The final gear we had pushed the three ones stupid enough to follow my jumping game off was now brimming with the creatures. It was so full that by the time one reached the top, it had pushed nearly ten of its comrades off. There was no way I was going to make it to the hole before those haphazard creatures caught up with me unless I did something. I sped up my trot a little, my heart pounding as the first few shadows lucky enough to not be pushed off by a friend made it far enough to jump onto the ledge I was now practically running along.

Then an idea came to me as I turned my head back to the flow of those things following me almost like a wingless swarm. The conveyor belt that I had struggled on earlier was a weak point for the Time Protectors as well, with them going through the same trouble of jumping the gap onto a moving platform. They were having even more trouble due to the relentlessness of every creature trying desperately to get closer to us. I absentmindedly put a hoof up to my horn and gave it a rub, thinking about the recent injury. The horn was still a little sore but there was no time to check it out. I needed to slow up the opposition.

“Take this, you bastards!” I shouted, a surge of energy shooting to my horn. A slight pain accompanied the energy I felt, but I fought through it, charging up as big a blast I could muster without passing out. The energy swelled in my head, and my vision started to blur, and finally I let the energy release in a blast that knocked me back into the wall. I stumbled and almost slipped off the edge again, but I regained my balance in time to see the result of my handiwork.

The energy blast shot toward the conveyor belt with a blue glow, and it hit the front end, sending the belt flying across the room and into another gear. The gear snagged on the belt and  pulled it into the works. I gave a smile as the gears slowed from the obstacle embedded in it. The other end got caught in another bigger gear, and they both pulled on each other, tensing up until the belt snapped.

My smile quickly faded as the gear that had been stuck whipped back, sending its partner spinning backwards and flying up towards me. I lept out of the way just in time to avoid the flying gear that smashed and stuck in the wall next to me. I glanced quickly down and saw that the inner mechanisms were falling apart before getting up and jogging toward the hole that Twilight was now waiting at.

“What the hell did you do?!” she shouted, looking at the chaos below. I started sprinting, realizing that I was never going to make it to the hole before the clock was going to break up entirely.

“I think I broke the clock!” I panicked, now sprinting full force at the opening.

“You think?!” she said, grabbing my hoof and pulling through the opening as another few gears got knocked off of their course. A few more rumbles told me that the pieces were finally completely collapsed.

“I was just trying to slow down the shadows by getting rid of the conveyor belt,” I panted, glancing at the clock face, which was covered with a thick layer of dust. “Why do you think there’s so much dust on that?”

“Who knows...” She walked over to the spot where the six was, breathing just as heavily as I was was. She had to be about half the size of the number. “It looks like this clock had fallen into disrepair even before you busted up the insides,” she continued, looking at the number, which had fallen onto its side. She glanced upward at the massive face and the hands, which were now stuck on the time 10:24.

“Why would they stick us in a clock, though?” I mumbled to myself, walking up the sloped path as far as I could, passing up the minute hand and stopping only once I reached the four. I reached a hoof up and pushed down on the minute hand in front of me, curious if it could hold my weight or not. I pushed as hard as I could, but the hand didn’t budge. Bouncing on my hind legs a bit, I thought out the small leap and finally crouched down low. I pushed off and landed gingerly on the tip, wobbling a bit and nearly falling off. I regained my balance on the sloped platform, and looked up the long black hands, noticing something glowing at the tip of the other hand. It almost looked like...

“Colgate, did you find somewhere to get out of here?” Twilight called to me assuming I had gotten on the minute hand for a reason. “I’d rather not spend the rest of my shortened life in here, and I’m sure you don’t want to either.”

“I didn’t find a way out,” I replied as she walked over beneath the hand I was now standing on, “but you might want to look at that.” I pointed to the glowing object at the end of the hour hand.

“What is it?” she asked squinting before hopping up next to me. “It looks to me like its glowing purple... You don’t think...”

“I’m not sure...” I trailed off, looking directly into her eyes. We both knew what the object glowing at the end of the hand is, but neither of us wanted to say so in fear that it wasn’t what we thought. We both stared at each other for a full minute before Twilight spoke up.

“We should check that out,” she calmly suggested. “We’re going to be stuck up here for a while, so we may as well see if that thing’s important.”

“It could be a bit,” I suggested, not taking my eyes from hers, the tension strung so tight you could cut it with a pair of scissors, “or a piece of metal.”

“It could be a fallen star,” Twilight added.

“...Or a bomb.”

“Or my horn...”

We both snapped our heads sideways at the glowing object, and stared for a full three seconds. Then as if our minds were connected, we both sprinted up the hand towards the glowing object, pumping our legs as fast as our muscles would allow. As we got closer, the object began shining brighter and brighter. My hooves felt lighter than usual as I seemed to glide across the surface.

The light became so bright that I couldn’t see anything else at this point. It was blinding, but I pressed on, not wanting to let up when I was so close. I felt like I wasn’t even running on solid ground, almost if I had started to fly into the air. The pulsating light sent waves of light right into my retinas. My eyes burned, and I started to tear up, all other senses lost except the light that was blasting into my skull. Finally I hit the floor with a loud bang.

Looking up, I saw Twilight lying in front of me completely unscathed. Every scratch and bloodied patch of skin was now completely healed. There were no scars on her legs and no patches of blood stuck in her fur anywhere. The bruises were gone completely, and her color looked completely natural once again. Her mane was no longer caked in dried blood.

And her horn was back in place.

Reunited

“It’s back!” Twilight gleefully proclaimed once more, rubbing the purple shaft of her now undamaged horn. “Colgate it’s ba...” She trailed off when she looked at me before forgetting about her cured horn to look me down. “You certainly seem better than before,” she observed, looking intently at my neck and legs. “Your various cuts and bruises have completely vanished, as if they had never existed.”

“I was just about to say the same about you, Twilight,” I replied, looking again at the perfectly unscathed body that had collapsed in front of me not more than an hour ago. Not only did she seem unhurt, but she seemed to have nothing wrong with her at all. It was as if the bright light had revived every aspect of us before dumping us on the floor of wherever we were.

“We ended up in a clock shop,” Twilight commented, turning around and looking at the various clocks littered about the room. We were indeed either in a clock shop, or a crazy stallion’s basement, as the walls were filled with clocks of all sizes and shapes. I would have thought the ticking sounds would have been maddening, but the entire room was silent. Looking around at each clock, I saw that all of them were frozen at the same time the clock we had just escaped from was situated. Every single one of them were stopped at the same time, and everything in the room was covered with a thick layer of dust, as if the clocks hadn’t been in working condition for quite a while.

“These probably haven’t been used for ages,” I commented, seeing that the layer of dust wasn’t only confined to the clocks themselves. “In fact, this entire room seems to be covered in dust.” I brushed my hoof along the ground and noticed the streak it left. There had to be at least a paper-thin layer of grime glazed along the entire room, save the ceiling. The floor even had various dust bunnies scattered about its surface, and mismatched debris strewn about the room.

“This building probably hasn’t been used for ages either,” Twilight responded as I walked around the room and inspected the state of all the clocks. “Look at the ceiling,” she said with her eyes transfixed on a large crack running through the plastered roof of the room. I looked up from one of the fancier cuckoo clocks that had the bird lying on the ground next to its shattered face. What I had originally thought was one particularly large crack actually had many intertwining broken bits all strung together. The ceiling itself even had the impression that it was starting to dip inward. It seemed like a miracle that the ceiling hadn’t collapsed inward as we stood here.

“I don’t feel safe in here,” I commented, looking around at the broken bits of clock and shattered glass strewn across the tile floor. “Nearly every clock in here is shattered, and there’s glass all over the place. Plus, the ceiling seems like it could cave in at any minute.”

“This place is oddly familiar,” Twilight said, ignoring my comments about the hazards around us. “I can’t put my hoof on it though.” I sighed, knowing full well that at this point it was going to be impossible to pull her attention away from whatever memory see seemed to be trying to get a grip on.

Pulling myself away from her, I traversed to the other side of the room, careful not to step on anything that might get stuck inside my hooves. The place seemed to be laid out like a minefield, with broken bits hidden in plain sight due to the musty atmosphere of the building. I carefully sidestepped my way through the miniature rubble and finally made it to a set of steps. I dusted off the bottom step with my front hoof and coughed as the dust particles scattered around. I sneezed once, and a cloud of dust arose from what was left on the bottom few steps. I rubbed my eyes a bit and opened them back up to the gloomy atmosphere of this basement of a room. I sat down to check my hooves for loose objects when it dawned on me.

The entire room should have been cast into darkness as there was no way a source of light could stray in from anywhere. The door at the top of the steps I was sitting was the only conceivable place light could be seeping in, and even then it wouldn’t light up the room as much as it was being lit. The room seemed to almost glow with an unnatural light, but it didn’t seem to originate from any one spot. Now that I was paying attention, everything in the entire basement seemed to have a slight hue of red mixed in with the normal greys and browns.

“Twilight,” I started, standing up and looking around at everything, a sudden feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach starting to rise, “Do you recognize this place yet?”

“It reminds me of...” she trailed off, staring into space and instantly becoming unresponsive. She stood there for a few seconds almost frozen in time before seeming to develop a haze around her. Suddenly, the sound of distant static caught my ears, almost exactly like the one in Twilight’s Library when I had tried to leave. Her form started to warp and stretch impossibly, as if I was watching just her through a television that was losing reception.

“Twilight!” I shouted, wanting to sprint over to her. I felt stuck into place though, and as hard as I willed my feet, they wouldn’t budge. “Twilight what’s happening!” I shouted as loud as I could manage, although all the came out was a loud whisper. I tried to scream again as Twilight started to fade away, the same quizzical look plastered on her face, but my mouth refused to open. It felt as if I were slowly turning to stone.

Twilight warped more and more, her figure slowly transforming into an outline of static and her colour fading as the seconds ticked away. Soon her entire body had been replaced by static, and I was helpless to try and go save her, as I felt glued to the spot by some dark force keeping me from lifting my hooves. I started to panic, darting my eyes back and forth as I lost the control to even turn my head. I couldn’t move anything else. I suddenly found it difficult to breath in and out, as each subsequent breath felt harder and harder to take. The air seemed thick and impossible to breath. It got worse by the second, and when Twilight’s still frozen figure started to fade, I found I couldn’t breathe altogether. My heart raced as I tried to figure out why I wasn’t able to take in air. I looked down and found out why.

My mouth and nose had both gone.

I panicked even more, breaking out in a nervous sweat and trying desperately to tear open the spot where my mouth had previously been to try to let fresh air grace my lungs. My vision started to fade as Twilight started to slide backwards towards the wall with broken clocks.  The room around us started to form massive cracks on the walls and ceiling, and the floor fell out beneath us. Twilight stayed afloat as my mind reeled to comprehend what was going on. The walls around us shattered as my heart started to slow down from the lack of oxygen, and the pieces created fell into a massive black expanse going infinitely down below us. The clock we had escaped from was the only thing left between us, and soon it floated to the middle of the room, growing massive and blocking my view of Twilight altogether.

I tried desperately to scream, but my vocal chords felt frozen into place. Soon the clock face was all that I could maintain in my vision, but instead of the dusty and grimy face that had greeted us on the inside, this glass was unblemished and crystal clear. I could see my reflection in the glass and could make out that the same thing that had been happening to Twilight had also been happening to me.  My shape and color in the reflected image had been replaced with static in the reflection, and I was starting to fade. Looking down at my own lipless and noseless face, I saw that my green hue was still there in contrast to what the reflection was telling me. My vision started to fade as the lack of oxygen was finally getting to me. In a few seconds I was sure to pass out.

Looking down at the six,  where we had escaped recently from, I saw thousands of pricks of red and heard saw the hazy smoke of the Time Protectors. My heart skipped a beat and I closed my eyes, not knowing how I was going to survive this. It looked like my end had come. Mother... Father... I thought, on the verge of tears, Help me... I don’t want to die... not yet...

“Colgate,” I heard a voice whisper to me, and I opened my eyes to see my mother’s green eyes looking at me from a distance. I wanted to shout back, but I had held my breath too long. My vision faded entirely to black, and a black mist took ahold of me and dragged me under, taking control of my mind.

“Colgate,” I heard somepony whisper into my ear, almost sounding like a desperate cry for help, “wake up and save us.”

My eyes shot open to reveal I was back where I had began before Twilight had started to fade into that horrible static. I was lying on the floor, and my head was pounding against my skull, almost as if somepony had knocked me out by bucking me right in the head. I rubbed my head gently and winced when one spot felt as if I had just set a lit match on my skin.

I blinked a few times before hoisting myself up with the dusty table next to me. I stood shakily on my hooves feeling extremely lightheaded, still leaning on the table of clocks for support. Looking around I saw that Twilight was no longer with me. I panicked a bit and my eyes darted around the room for any sign of struggle or anything that might indicate where she might have been taken. The room looked exactly the same as it had when I passed out, only Twilight wasn’t there. The clocks were stuck on the same time, the dust not been disturbed at all, and the tables and bits of broken glass were all the same, save where I had fallen on the ground.

I glanced down at the table and saw why my head was throbbing. A patch of dried blood was stained into the corner of the wooden structure. I lightly tapped the throbbing wound, wincing at the small pain that pulsed through my head, and shuddered, wondering how long I had lain on the ground since I had passed out. I patted my horn, which made it through the ordeal unscathed. I wanted to be sure that the appendage still worked as it was supposed to, though, so I closed my eyes, and, ignoring the dull throbbing in my brain, willed a simple light spell to be cast.

The light spell came easily, telling me that nothing was seriously damaged on my horn, but when I opened my eyes, the eerie yellow glow it produced cast long shadows on the floor and sent a shiver down my spine. I extinguished the light, noticing that the odd red glow that seemed to emanate from the walls was still present. I stood there for a second, almost in a daze, before snapping my mind back to attention and thinking about what to do next.

“Hello” I called out, just in case somepony happened to be around. I stood for a second in the complete silence, noticing once again the creepy atmosphere that it produced before hearing something.

It was nothing more than a whisper, but I heard a distinct and distant voice whisper, “help me.” The sound had come from behind me, through the door leading outside.

I turned my head around slowly, not knowing what to expect behind me. The stairs were empty, covered with a thin layer of dust that, like the rest of the room, seemed to have been undisturbed. I placed a hoof on the grime and wiped it slowly towards me, noticing the dust and dirt clung easily to my hoof. When I pulled my hoof away, there was a distinct patch of dust gone. I wiped the grime off onto my coat, which seemed to be riddled with tiny pieces of glass and dirt already.

“How did she get out of here without disturbing any of this dust?” I wondered aloud, taking a step and noticing the tiny dust cloud raised from the motion. “Did she do the time spell again? Maybe if I just...”

I closed my eyes, willing power into my horn, trying to cast the time spell once more. I planted my feet and grunted, forcing magic into my horn, building up the power to cast the spell. I imagined the clock ticking and I tried to slow down the hands. They wouldn’t stop, though, and I concentrated harder, willing more magic into my head. A dull throbbing reminded me of my recent injury, but I paid it no attention, concentrating on the spell at hoof. I concentrated more and more, the pressure building until suddenly, the imaginary clock burst. I shot my eyes open, flying back from the pulse that erupted from my horn and smashing into one of the stairs behind me, completely shattering it.

That had never happened before.

I coughed, pushing a chunk of wood off my chest as dust rained down from the ceiling, the blast apparently having shook the entire room. I pushed myself to my hooves and looked around to see that everything had fallen into place against the wall from the shockwave. “At least now I don’t have to worry about stepping on any glass shards...” I said lightheartedly, trying to keep myself calm.

Looking up, I noticed that the curve of the ceiling seemed to be further indented than it had been before. I panicked a bit when I saw the indenture, but I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, calming myself down again. On the third breath in, I swore I heard a faint whisper say something from outside the door.

“Hello?” I called up the steps to be sure that I had not just imagined the sound. “Is anyone there?”

Great, I thought to myself. Now I’m starting to go insane and imagining that I’m hearing noises. Any other brilliant ideas you want to go through with? You already lost Lily and now, when you go back to save her, you lose Twilight, the most advanced magical unicorn you know!

“Colgate” the faint whisper resounded again, but I felt as though I recognized the voice this time.

“Twilight?!” I shouted, my ears perking up and my head staring intently at the door. Excitedly and in a slight state of panic, I jumped over the massive hole I had made in the wooden stairs and rushed up to the door, skipping two steps at a time. When I got there, I pushed hard on the oak frame, but the door seemed to be locked. “Twilight, are you there?” I asked again through the woodwork of the door.

“Colgate, help me,” I heard Twilight’s voice call out in a muffled whisper. The voice sounded really far away, but I couldn’t place how far since the door was in the way. She needed help, though, and I wasn’t about to let a slightly-rotted door keep me in. I turned around on the steps, placing my forelegs on the top step and my back legs on the wooden door. I rocked back and forth a bit, trying to determine my balance in case the door didn’t break on the first. I rocked forward a final time, lifting my hooves off the door itself.

I kicked back with all my might, and the wooden door cracked near the hinges, but the frame still stood upright. I replaced my front hooves firmly on the wooden-plank step and replaced my back hooves on the door exactly where I had just bucked. The wood creaked softly when I placed my dirty blue hooves on the doorframe once more, making me smile a little. Giving the door one last swift kick, the wood splintered and the door fell over with a massive thud.

I rubbed my back hooves, an odd numb feeling from bucking a solid wood door partially immobilizing them. I looked around to see that I was now standing in the middle of a back alleyway. The cottage next to me had a window that was oddly barred from the inside with wooden planks. I turned to my right, noticing the crunch beneath my hooves as I did so. Looking down, I saw that the grass in this obscured alley was completely dead and browning. Glancing up, I noticed that the alleyway led to a wooden fence off to the right, and to the left, there was a cobblestone street.

Unlike when I had first gotten into the world, there was now a thick, red fog out on the street. I could barely see the cottages on the other end of the road. Crunching my way over the dead grass once more, I stepped out into the cobblestone road, my hoofsteps seeming to echo up and down in the dead silence. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead as I realized that something about this frozen world was different from the one I normally visited.

The weather usually was the same as the regular world, but never had I seen a fog so unnaturally thick. Also, the sounds in the other frozen world never echoed, regardless of the circumstances. My hair stood on end as my skin seemed to crawl. Something about this place just creeped me out. I just wanted to go back into the cellar of broken clocks, but I knew that Twilight and Lily were out there somewhere.

“Hello?” I shouted to the emptiness, my voice echoing up the street far too many times than should have been possible. “Twilight?” My voice reverberated back to me, almost seeming like it was mocking me. I felt uneasy standing in this abandoned road full of fog by myself.

“Lily, can you hear me?” I asked the red cloud in front of me, taking a few steps forward. The repressing clip and clop of my own hoofsteps was setting me on edge. “Can anyone hear me?” I softly said to myself, not wanting to shout since the echo already raised the volume to uncomfortable levels.

I walked down the street a little, the scenery not changing one bit. I had no idea where the trip through that clock world had landed us, but the buildings vaguely reminded me of Ponyville. No streets in Ponyville were this long, though, and I was at a loss to what other village had a need for this many cottages. My slow walk soon became a quick trot. I wanted to find an intersection so I knew where I was going.

Finally, after about five minutes of fear-induced trotting, I came upon a crossroads. I looked down the intersecting road as far as I could with the red fog blocking my vision, which meant that I could only see a cottage or two before everything else was blocked out. The intersecting street seemed to be made up of cottages as well. I looked left and right, not knowing what to do when it dawned on me.

Every cottage was the same.

I looked even harder at the buildings around me. Every single cottage I saw had the same front door, the same color exterior, and the same amount of windows obscured by wooden planks nailed in the exact same fashion. Curious fear got ahold of me, and I walked up to the nearest cottage. Walking up the three steps identical to the cottage next to it as well as the one across the street, I put a hoof on the identical wooden door. Pushing on it, the wood wouldn’t budge. I gave it a kick, and, unlike the door I had smashed out of, it didn’t budge the slightest inch. It had felt like I just kicked a brick wall. The hinges didn’t even vibrate.

My heart sped up as I gave the door another kick to see if the first had loosened it in the slightest. The door reproduced the same solidity, and I started to panic. Images raced through my mind of something coming down the street. Where would I hide if one of those “time lords” came marching down the avenue and I couldn’t outrun it? My eyes darted to the side, looking towards the alleys between the cottages. I jumped off the stairs and in front of the alley to the left, my heart pounding as the echo of my hooves landing on the cobblestone seemed to threaten my very being. Looking down the alley, I hoped to see something different or out of the ordinary.

It was identical to the one I had left, smashed door and everything.

I trotted over to look down into the cellar and saw that it was the same one I had left not ten houses back.

“Twilight!” I shouted to my surroundings, hoping that she could somehow hear me through the think and suppressing fog. “Twilight, help!”

“Colgate,” a voice whispered behind me, clearly in great pain. It sounded like Twilights, and I wasn’t about to stand and start guessing. I ran out onto the street to see a figure in the fog, just beyond what I could view with detail.

“Twilight?!” I shouted at the pony-like figure which seemed to be limping towards me at a deathly-slow pace, its hoofsteps rattling the houses around me. “Dear Celestia, Twilight!” I shouted again, the figure finally collapsing on the ground.

I ran forward, and sure enough, it was Twilight, but she looked nothing like I had seen when she disappeared. Her back left leg was bent at a horrifying angle, the bottom half completely covered in blood. It looked as if it was slightly shorter than the other three. The smell of dried blood and decay covered her, despite her only being gone for a few minutes. Her back was caked with patches of dry blood and there were other sections where her fur had been completely ripped out. Her horn was once again snapped completely off, and she seemed to be breathing very heavily.

“Twilight, speak to me!” I cried, putting a hoof under her chin and lifting her head up. What I hadn’t noticed was that her face was covered with cuts and bruises. “Please don’t be dead,” I said, tears coming to my eyes.

“C-C-Colgate,” she gurgled, barely opening her eyes. I could see that they were completely bloodshot.

“What is it Twilight?” I asked, trying to get her sweaty, rank mane out of her face.

“R-Run,” she said before closing her eyes once again, her chest completely motionless now. Before I had the chance to say anything, a strange wind blew over us. Had I not been so worried about Twilight, I would have realized that this shouldn’t have been possible in the frozen world. A tear escaped my eye, and I closed them to wipe away the grief I had held for my friend. As I was about to say a prayer for her, I opened my eyes to take one last look at her. She was gone, her body completely disappeared. There were no traces of her anywhere, not even a sign that she had ever been there.

“Am I going crazy?” I asked myself, glancing around and standing up. I looked down at my hoof. “She was holding my hoof. How is that possible?”

I stared at my hoof for a little bit before it dawned on me that my mane was still blowing in the wind. The only problem was, that couldn’t have been possible. Wind can’t be produced in the frozen world because everything, even the air currents, gets paused in whatever state it’s in when the spell is cast. I turned to my left, looking down the intersecting road where the wind was coming from. I took a few steps forward when I thought I saw something right on the edge of the red fog.

I took another step and suddenly a blood-curdling screech, one of pure agony rang out in front of me. For a second I was paralyzed with fear, but then I saw another movement at the edge of the fog. A black mass was running directly towards me. It filled the entire street, but I could detect no sound. I squinted, trying to make out what it was, and whether or not I should heed the imaginary Twilight’s words. That’s when I saw them.

The tiny red dots I knew all too well.

Master Time Lord

Master Time Protector

        “Hello, Colgate,” a voice contemptuously greeted me from the left. “Have you been having fun manipulating time and space?” I could hear the acidity of his tone slicing through the air.

        I turned around to see a simple brown earth pony standing in front of the now-closed door, a stern look of anger plastered across his face. “Who are you?” I spat back, my own anger starting to show from the hours of running across this fake town and being chased by those evil black creatures. “What have you done to my friends?”

        “What have I done?!” he shouted with a grimace, taking a step towards me. “I haven’t done a damn thing to either of your friends. They brought this upon themselves.” He looked at me in disgust before turning around and walking over to the window.

“Don’t lie to me, you bastard.” I shouted at his unmoving figure by the window. He stood silently gazing through a crack in one of the boards on the window next to Twilight and Lily. “Don’t you ignore me!” I shouted again, noticing that he wouldn’t budge from his spot. “What did you do to Twilight and Lily?!”

He turned his head just enough that I could see his one eye. “I. Didn’t. Do. Anything,” he stated, putting a pause in between each word he spoke. “Did you not hear me the first time. Your friends came here on their own.”

“Bullshit,” I replied, gritting my teeth.

“Colgate,” Twilight started before I cut her off.

“Why won’t you let us leave? Why did you trap us in here? Do you have some fucked up plan for our corpses after you have your minions kill us? Do you? Come on now!” I was ready to charge at him and buck his face in. My blood was boiling, and I knew he was the reason we were stuck here.

The brown stallion slowly turned away from the red haze of the window, and in the faint light, walked right up in front of me. His glare was no longer that of hatred, but that of an apathetic frown. “Understand this, Colgate,” he said to me, my anger subsiding at this sudden change of expression. “I’m not the one keeping you here. Those ‘minions’ you talk about are Time Protectors that are no longer under my control. I’m as trapped in this hell-hole as you are. If you want to leave the library, then by all means, leave.” He paused a bit staring into my eyes as if waiting for a rebuttal. “I’m not going to stop you from walking out to your doom. Your safest bet at the moment is to stay in this library. I had Twilight call you here, for your own safety. I just didn’t think it would take you through what it did.”

I tried to come up with a response to all of that, but my mind was only drawing blanks. I suddenly felt bad for yelling at this guy without even knowing who he was or  why he was here. “I’m…sorry about that…” I sheepishly said, my anger completely dissipated and my embarrassment stopping me from saying much else.

“Now if you don’t mind Mrs. Colgate, please keep it down so that we aren’t discovered by the Time Protectors,” the brown stallion calmly replied with the same frown he had been wearing since he started explaining his situation. He turned and walked back to the same window, staring back out into the murky red fog.

A silence settled over the room, the only sound echoing on the hard, wooden walls was Lily’s incessant whimpering and muttering about something her parents that nopony would have been able to understand. I glanced over to Twilight, who looked into my eyes with a frown and nodded as if to tell me that what the brown Earth pony had just said was true. She then glanced over to his figure who remained unmoving next to the window. She glanced back to me and without saying a word, motioned to me to talk with him.

“Um…” I hesitantly began, the stallion barely turning his head at the sound. “So, I never caught your name. Since I already screwed up once, why don’t I try again?”

“My name is Time Turner,” the stallion responded before turning back to the window, stone-faced.

I turned back to Twilight and bit my lip to tell her I didn’t know what to do. She took the hint and turned towards Time Turner herself. “Mr. Turner, You mentioned that those Time Protectors were ‘no longer under your control.’ What do you mean ‘no longer’?”

Time Turner stood there for a second in silence before sighing and drooping his head slightly. “I mean just that,” he said turning around and walking over to one of the bookshelves. Pulling an old book seemingly at random off the shelf, he continued explaining as he flipped through the old pages. “They used to be in my control. When I was a kid, I was always fascinated with potion-making and non-unicorn magic.”

He flipped through a few more pages before seeming to find something in the old book. He walked over to me and handed me the book as Twilight got up and trotted over to see what he had just handed me. The page seemed to contain complex potions that I couldn’t follow. “I remember reading this book recently,” Twilight said, taking the book from me and staring intently into it. “This book was based on the theory that there were multiple planes of existence, and it claimed to have a potion that had the ability to create one. I tried creating the potion with Zecora, but we never had any successes.”

“Exactly,” Time Turner replied as I tried to keep up with what Twilight was saying. “The potion failed for me multiple times as well. It wasn’t until I had had a fight with my parents about attending the University of Canterlot for potions-making. They said that they would refuse to pay for me to attend the school for a ‘silly filly’s game.’ I tried the potion one last time in a fit of rage to show them that I wasn’t some crazy colt. I made the potion and used it right in front of them. That time, however, it worked exactly as the book had said it would, and I was taken to this hazy world.”

“Dear Celestia,” I said remembering reading in the newspaper just a few days ago about how a colt named Time Turner had gone missing. “You were that colt that was missing in the newspaper, weren’t you? But you’ve been here for…”

“Five years,” the stallion finished for me, as my mind struggled to comprehend how that was possible. “Time must pass much slower here than on Equestria, because I remember hearing about Twilight Sparkle defeating Queen Chrysalis in Canterlot before I sent myself into this forsaken world.” He finished his sentence, staring at Twilight who still had her nose buried in the book that I had given to her.

“That happened less than a week ago…” I said, baffled. I remembered having to help my friends fight off some of the changelings with my magic.

“Five days ago exactly,” Twilight said, a surprised tone escaping her lips as she shut the book and curiously gazed at Time Turner. “Time here must move a year for every day we experience in the real world.”

“So if you were the one who created that potion supposedly making this other plane, then where did those shadowy Time Protectors come from?” I asked

“Another one of my accidents,” Time Turner said, going up to the bookshelf again. This time however he pulled out a dilapidated book that seemed like its pages were about to fall out. He walked over and instead of handing me the old text, passed it to Twilight. “This is a personal journal I have made documenting the experiments I have done and potions I have created in this world. One of my potions accidentally summoned the Time Protectors to this realm.

“At first I could command them, for there weren’t that many, and they loyally carried out any command I gave to them. It was wonderful having a friend with nearly limitless power. They gave me everything I requested, and I found I could easily make any potion I wanted. After a few weeks, I realized that I wanted to go home and see my parents, so I started working on a return potion. All of a sudden, the Time Protectors seemed to grow angry with me, and their numbers grew. Soon they overran my command and now they control this place, and I have no way of finding the necessary components for a return potion.”

“And you haven’t found a single thing since then?” I asked as Twilight made various gasps and noises of interest while reading the old book Turner had given her.

“I couldn’t get some of the necessary elements after those creatures started manipulating my world. Those creatures took my perfect replica of the real world and twisted it up so damn much that nothing made any sense.” Turner seemed really angry, pacing back and forth between the middle of the room and the boarded window. Suddenly he stopped and stompped abruptly on the ground, his eyes shut tightly as he seemed to shout at the window. “You took away my best creation, you bastards! I had my perfect world, and you twisted it into my personal HELL!”

Twilight dropped Turner’s book and jumped back, caught off-guard by the sudden bout of anger spewing from the vehement brown stallion in front of her. I was just as scared at the outburst, and I didn’t know what to say. Twilight had a look of pure horror on her face, and I tried my best to reassure her, giving her a sheepish smile to ease the tension. After a few brooding seconds of silence, Turner sighed and opened his eyes back up and glanced in our direction.

Turning away from us again, he quietly apologized. “I’m sorry for the outburst,” he mumbled, his face turned away from us. He walked over to us and hung his head low, finishing his apology. “It’s just that…” he started. “I want to get out of here as much as you three do. I’ve been stuck here for five miserable years. I want to leave…”

I paused for a second, giving a big sigh before embracing the stallion. “It’ll be ok,” I whispered in his ear while squeezing his head. I knew exactly how he felt, and I knew that, were I in his position, I would want to be comforted by whoever would take me. “We’re going to get out of this.”

Time turner put a hoof around me and squeezed back before doing something I thought he wasn’t going to do. He buried his head into my shoulder and let out a sob. Then he let out another, whimpering as I tried to comfort him. “Shh…” I softly spoke, “We’re going to get you home Time Turner. We’re all going to go home.”

He sobbed a few more times before finally shuddering one last time and letting go of me. He took a step back, shut his eyes and took a deep breath in, slowly letting it out. With a solemn face he opened his eyes and muttered, “Let’s go home.”

“There you go!” I said, excited to see my encouragement had worked. “So what do you need us to do for you? Do you need us to go find something for the potion?”

“I don’t think that it’ll be possible to get the few ingredients to finish the potion when the world is so twisted like it is. The last ingredients were Zap Apple Paste and pure essence of magic. I think I may be able to get some essence of magic out of one of you ladies if you don’t mind, but even then, I’d have no idea where I could find zap apples in this damned realm.”

“Actually,” Twilight cut in, once again reading the book that she had dropped when Turner had snapped. “If I’m reading your notes right, we could use a regular apple if I performed a certain low-level spell on it.”

“Twilight,” I cut in before Turner could respond, “how are you casting spells? I’ve been trying the handful of spells I know and none of them are working. Is there something special that you have to do?”

“I’m not one-hundred percent certain about this, but as long as a spell doesn’t relate to time manipulation or lighting, it can be cast fairly easily. I was actually testing the limits of this while I was hiding in here with Time Turner, and I found that any spell I tried related to time manipulation caused a migraine. Trying to light a room caused the same effect, and I found levitation is possible, but extremely difficult to maintain for longer than a few seconds. I haven’t tested it too extensively, but I’m sure I can pull off the spell to replace the Zap Apple paste.”

“Alright, so where do we go to get the Apples? I don’t imagine too many of them grow in this odd world. It doesn’t seem like much of anything could survive here.”

“Actually,” Turner replied before Twilight could answer, walking back over to the widow, “There are some apples over at the Apple Family property that we could easily take. They never go bad over there. They’re the only reason I haven’t gone hungry. I usually stay over there, but I moved to the center of town when I noticed that the Time Protectors were getting restless. I actually haven’t eaten in a while because I can’t sneak around when they’re on the prowl.”

“That works!” I said, excited before I backed off once I realized what he had said. “What do you mean ‘sneak around’ though? I thought those creatures just left you alone.”

“Exactly the opposite, actually,” he said, staring out the window once again. “they’ve been searching for me ever since I’ve lost my control over them all those years ago. I just know how to avoid them. Speak of the devils...”

“Oh shit, are they here?” I muttered, moving over to the window as quietly as I could.

“Yeah they’re just outside,” Turner mumbled back. “I don’t think they know where–”

“I WON’T LET THEM TAKE ME!” Lily suddenly shouted from the floor, jolting upwards and sprinting towards the back door.

“Woah, Lily, No!” I shouted, running after her and tackling her to the ground. She struggled and squirmed as I tried to calm her down. “Lily! Nopony is going to take you, but you need to calm down. Calm… Down…Lily”

 I pinned her hooves to the ground with my own, putting my entire body weight on top of her and holding her limbs in place. I held her down as best I could, but as she squirmed, one of my hooves slipped off and she managed to kick me square in the gut. I got the wind knocked out of me and she easily got the better of me, pushing me off. As I was trying to catch my breath, Twilight and Time Turner ran over and kept Lily down.

“Lily,” Twilight tried to calm her as Turner held Lily on her back. “You need to snap out of this. This isn’t you. I know this isn’t you Lily. Snap out of it!”

Turner struggled to hold Lily down while Twilight pleaded with her. I shakily took a breath, the wind still knocked out of me, and pushed myself slowly to my hooves. Closing my eyes, I took a labored breath in and jumped up. Letting it out, I calmly walked over to Lily who suddenly let out an ear-piercing scream. I jammed a hoof in her mouth as I leaned over to her, noticing a ghostly image in her eyes. “Lily,” I calmly said, embracing her in a hug. “It’s ok. It’s your friend, Colgate.”

Lily stopped struggling and Time Turner let up on her, letting me embrace her fully. “Colgate?” she asked, the ghostly image I could make out in her eyes lifting as she seemed to finally return to her senses.  “Colgate, where am I?” She blinked a few times, looking around the room. “Who are you?” she asked Turner, obviously very flustered. “Why are you hugging me, and what is going on?”

“Lily you’re back!” I said squeezing her all the tighter.

“That doesn’t really answer any of my questions, Colgate,” Lily responded struggling to speak with me squeezing her, “but thanks for the hug.”

I let go of her and stepped aside, helping her back to her hooves. “Well, I won’t really be able to explain too much now,” I said as Turner motioned for us to follow him to the back of the Library, “but to make a long story short, we’re in another world being chased by monsters. The brown stallion is Time Turner is going to help us, but we need to get him an apple.”

She gave me an odd look when I mentioned the apple, but I just shook my head and continued on, saying, “Don’t worry about it. We’re going to Sweet Apple Acres to get some, and we need to help Turner out as much as we can, ok? Just remember to stay quiet so we can sneak past the creatures.”

“Alright,” she whispered, following Time Turner, Twilight and I out a window in the back “I think I remember Twilight trying to explain this to me. Everything is so hazy though…”

“Don’t worry about it, Lily. It’s good to see you again,” I said, helping her out the window. “Let’s get going.” We stood outside the back of the treehouse, leaning on the wall so that we were still as far in the shadows as we could get.

“Ok, the farm, granted those creatures haven’t messed with this place that much, should be down this street here,” he said pointing into the fog at one of the many openings. “The trip is going to be hectic. There’s no way we’re going to make it without those things noticing us. Twilight, how long will it take you to produce enough power for the essence of magic?”

“I’ve already started to build up my charge,” Twilight said, pointing to her horn. Turner glanced around the corner briefly before turning back to us. “It will take me around five minutes to be ready to release the magic, but I won’t be able to perform any spells while I’m charging up.”

“Alright, we may as well set off now while we have the upper hand. They’ll notice the movement, but I don’t think they’re too quick to catch on, so we’ll have a few seconds of a head start. Just remember, we need to go to the farm and collect an apple. Then, we need to get it over to the barn where I have all my potions-making equipment set up. I can whip up everything there. Just follow my lead, and we should make it out of here alive. Ready?”

I nodded and turned my head to see the determined faces of my two friends nod as well. “On you’re que, Mr. Turner.”

“Please,” he confidently remarked with a grin. “I prefer Master Time Protector.”

With that, he bounded towards the street as fast as he could go. Twilight raced right behind him, a purple spark shooting out of her horn with an audible blip. Directly after her, Lily galloped at lightning speeds. I hesitated a second and let a small grin creep across my face.  We were finally going to get out of this hell.

I bounded towards my friends, turning my head while I ran to see how many Time Protectors we’d be running from this time. When my eyes locked in place, I saw dozens of pinpricks of red staring back at me. Their gaze was ice cold, and as I was running towards the street to escape, I felt a chill going down my spine. I stopped dead in the middle of the road and felt a sudden empowerment swell up in me. Instead of the usual fear-induced adrenaline, a joy overcame me, and I started to laugh. After a few seconds, I was belting laughter across to the creatures, their gaze only heightening my spirits. “Come get us, you bastards!” I shouted at them before taking off once again towards my friends. “I’m not afraid of you,” I added in under my breath.

A few heart-pounding seconds flew by as all four of us rocketed down the street as fast as we could. I cocked my head backwards, making sure not to slow down and I saw the red eyes of the vermin “Time Protectors” that had been haunting me ever since we came here. In the split second it took for me to turn back, I heard a moan rattle the very street beneath me erupt from the massive cloud of them that was building.

The scream sounded like a rabid animal crying out in pain, and it felt like little pricks of ice were bombarding my ears. A chill ran down my spine from the unnerving noise, but I couldn’t help but feel a sudden pang of sadness. The noise, although unearthly in sound, felt oddly familiar, as if I had known the person or thing making it. It nearly reminded me of my parents voices, although the noises seemed too off to be them.

“Keep running!” I said, a new sense of fear welling up inside the pit of my stomach. A wave of adrenaline shot through me as I barreled down the seemingly endless street behind two close friends and the brown stallion who promised a way home. The fog around me turned into a hazy blur as I felt the wind whipping my mane around. Fear powered me through, but I felt a sense of pride flow through me. I couldn’t help but smile, because we were finally going to get out of here.

“Girls!” Turner shouted to us over the ambient noise of air whooshing past our ears, “you have to follow me regardless of what I do, ok?”

“Got it!” Twilight shouted back, starting to already look a little exhausted with sparks flickering and shooting out of her horn every few seconds.

“We’re following you, Time Turner,” Lily responded just ahead of me, a look of determination plastered across her face.

“Colgate, you got it back there?” Turner shouted, turning his head ever so slightly to face me. I gave him a little grin.

“You jump off a cliff, and I follow you over the edge, chief!” I called back, giving him a wink. I seriously hoped he wasn’t planning on doing that anytime soon though.

“Good,” he said, giving me a smile back before turning his head back forward. “Things are going to get a little weird up ahead. Don’t doubt my steps. Ever.”

As we kept running, I stole a glance behind me to see the there didn’t seem to be a massive crowd following us this time. I  turned my head back to the front, curious as to where they went. I just kept on galloping, hoping that we had somehow actually lost them. I knew they were there just out of view in the fog, following us as closely as they could. We ran into the fog some more, passing the same buildings again and again, when I started to notice something odd.

“Is it just me,” I called out, starting to pant a little, my legs starting to grow a bit weak, “but is the fog getting thinner?”

“We’re almost there then,” Time Turner called back, slowing up enough that he was running nearly beside us. “This next bit is going to get tough. If you slip up, get back to your hooves immediately, or you may not be getting back up ever again. Do you girls understand me?” He was looking directly at us with a serious expression on his face. We nodded in agreement and he sped back up in front of us. “When I say to do something, do it,” he reminded us.

        As soon as the last few words escaped his lips, the fog disappeared entirely, as if someone had taken a vacuum and sucked it completely out of the air. I glanced back and noticed a solid brick wall was no blocking our path back. I stopped mid-gallop and stared at the impossibility. “Guys, there’s a wall now,” I shouted to the others, noticing that they were still plowing onwards. “Can we rest a bit, now?” My legs were aching now, and I was nearly out of breath.

        “No, Colgate!” Time Turner stopped and started sprinting towards me. “Move! Now!”

I looked back and saw that the brick wall was now directly behind me, my nose no further than a few inches from the rough, reddened surface. My heart skipped a beat, and I jumped up in fright, leaping as far forward as my tired legs would allow. Looking back, I noticed that the wall was even closer than it was before. “What the hell is that thing?!” I shouted as Time Turner turned back and sped in front of Twilight and Lily.

“I would tell you if I knew,” Time Turner said back to us as the surrounding houses meshed into a solid line of trees. “but I’d prefer to be on this side of the wall and away from the Protectors. We’re entering the Everfree now. It’s just as sensible as anything else in the place, so don’t get lost.

I glanced back and noticed that the wall was keeping up with our pace. Whenever I looked at it, the thing was stationary, but when I glanced away it would move closer; I decided that it would be best not to pay attention to it and just keep running. The trees around us now seemed to have minute gaps between them. I could only see a black void through the spaces, but there was no conceivable way of fitting a pony through the gaps.

“Keep following me no matter what it looks like I’m about to do,” Time Turner barked once more behind him. Looking ahead, it seemed as if the forest was about to end with only a black void extending into eternity when, without seeming to have any sense of danger, Time Turner leapt into the air right where the path seemed to drop off into nothing.  As he started to fall into the black void he shouted at the top of his lungs, “TO FREEDOM!”

“To escape!” Twilight shouted as she leapt, her body disappearing over the edge as well. Lily was just behind her.

“To home!” Lily half-shouted and half-yelped as she slipped off the edge, misstepping a bit.

“To leaving this hell,” I muttered, approaching the edge fast. I took my final step and took a leap of faith, closing my eyes and feeling the mind grace my mane. I opened my eyes and stared into the fresh void, it's horrible gaze fixated on me.

“Unless death should stop us cold.”

Going Home

Gravity took hold and I felt my body careen into the pit, the wind whipping past my head, my eyes watering as I felt myself go into free-fall. I tried to look around, but a sense of vertigo overcame me as my brain tried to figure out which direction I was falling. I started spinning, feeling the wind push my limbs around. I felt like a piece of paper caught in an updraft, and I was starting to feel sick. I couldn’t see anything in the void, not even my own legs. Even the path that we had been on had seemed to disappear completely from existence. The dark surroundings seemed to squeeze around me, the blackness seeming to pull breath out of my lungs.

I was starting to get nauseous when I heard a voice call out from the black surroundings. “Don’t trust your surroundings,” the whisper of a voice called through the thick nothingness. “Close your eyes and just land on the ground. You can make it!”

I listened to the whisper and shut my eyes, trying to focus on being upright and on solid ground. I could still feel my head spinning and the wind whipping my mane around. As I tumbled, I tried to focus on something, anything to take my mind off the fall. “Home,” I said to myself, flipping end over end. “I’m going to go home.”

“I’m going to get out of here,” I said a little louder, focusing on the memories of the past day. “No more Time Protectors. No more clocks. No more confusion. I’m going home, and I’m going to sleep in my own bed tonight. I’m going to wake up in the morning and my friend Lily will be there to greet me.” My eyes were completely shut, and I was almost shouting. “I’m going to be back in the real world. I’m going to survive this! I’m not letting it end here! I AM going home! I’m going to MY home!”

“Then let’s get to it,” a voice spoke in my ear. I opened my eyes to see that Time Turner was standing in front of me with a grin on his face. We were no longer in the void, and I hadn’t even felt myself land, but now we were standing in the middle of a massive apple orchard, presumably Sweet Apple Acres. The fog had even disappeared completely. I blushed when I realized he had probably heard most of my rant.

“Twilight is still working on the essence of magic spell,” he said, pointing to a shaking Twilight who was now lying down and seemed to be having difficulty breathing.

“Oh my god, does she need help?!” I worried, running over to her and leaning over her spent form.

“I...I’ll be...fine,” Twilight managed to say between labored breaths. “Get the… Apple… use the spell…”

“But Twilight, I don’t know the spell,” I said, trying to cradle her head in my hooves. “Twilight, we need you. Stay with us.”

“You can… manipulate time…” she gasped, her eyes fluttering. “Do what you do… for… that..”

At that moment, her horn glowed and released a shower of sparks. She produced a guttural moan and closed her eyes once more, her body falling limp to the ground. “Twilight, no stay with me!” I shouted, placing my hooves on her limp side and giving a shake. “I don’t know what to do!” I pushed harder, rolling her purple form on its back, her legs spread at awkward angles. Tears were starting to form in my eyes as I realized that she was out cold. “I don’t know what to do, Twilight! Wake up and help me, please! I don’t know what to do!”

“Colgate, stay calm,” Turner said, pulling me away from the unconscious pony. “What did she say to you?” he asked, leaning over and mumbling what sounded like an incantation. Lily came over and kneeled over the mare’s body as well, looking intently for what seemed to be any damage. Turner’s eyes were closed, and he had set his hooves on Twilight’s head. I watched in confusion, trying to figure it out. He turned his head slightly to the side and muttered audibly, “Colgate?”

I blinked a few times before realizing he was still waiting for me to answer. “She said to do what I do for time manipulation, but… I don’t know what that meant.”

“Come over and help me with this, Colgate,” he said, not reacting at all from my revelation. “Lily, I need your help too. Colgate, hold up her head for me, and Lily, run to that barn over there.” He pointed to what looked like a dilapidated version of the Sweet Apple Acres barn rusting in the distance. “There should be a few bottles on one of the shelves. Grab one and bring it back here so I can get this essence of magic out of her. Now!”

Lily nodded and quickly turned, galloping to the rustic building as I still held Twilight’s head aloft. “How did you know there would be bottles inside the barn?” I asked, blinking a few times as I still tried to understand what Twilight had meant.

“That’s where my lab is at, my home now. Soon, hopefully I won’t have to spend another night in its silent woodwork. Now, Colgate, I need you to think hard. What did Twilight mean when she told you what to do?”

“She told me to do what I do for time manipulation,” I repeated, “but‒”

“What DO you normally do when you manipulate time?” he cut me off, staring straight into my eyes. “This is important, Colgate.”

“I just normally think of a clock slowing down, but it’s so abstract I never–”

“What do you do, EXACTLY? Don’t just summarize it. Explain to me every single step. If you can’t perform this spell, then running from those Time Protectors will be the rest of your life. This is crucial for all of us, so either you do this, or we all perish.”

I gulped, a fear clouding my mind. “Ok…” I trembled, taking a deep breath to try to calm my shivering form. “First, I picture a clock, usually a cuckoo clock, ticking away the seconds in my mind. The hands are always pointed at twenty-four past ten if I remember correctly. I sit and let it tick the seconds away, focusing on the second hand.”

Closing my eyes, I focused on my technique, trying to remember exactly what I did each time I froze the world. “Then I conjure a magic aura around the hand, pulling it backwards. I always watch and pull as the seconds tick by slower, and I never let up on my magic until the hand is completely silent.” Opening my eyes, I finished the description, “Then I open my eyes and I always ended up in a frozen version of Equestria.”

“Fascinating…” was all the brown stallion could mutter as he looked down, a hoof resting under his chin as he seemed lost in thought.

“But how does any of that relate to turning a normal apple into a Zap Apple? I don’t get it Turner...”

“That’s just it, Colgate,” he replied, looking up and lowering his hoof slightly. “Magic isn’t a bunch of fancy words strung together to create something. It’s an art as much as it is a science. You have to create what you imagine, which is why many light spells are easy to conjure. A pony want’s light so they create a light.”

“What are you getting at, Time Turner?” I asked, trying to follow his thought process. From what he was saying, I could see why it would be easy to conjure up something from my magic, but this was a physical apple we were talking about.

“Magic is a process you control,” he ecstatically replied, getting up from Twilight and looking down the rows of trees. “If you imagine it, then it’s possible. You can change the apple into a Zap Apple if you only put enough will into it. The only limit is what strength you have to give the magic. Don’t you get it?”

“I think so,” I said, closing my eyes and imagining a shiny red apple with a stem and green leaf attached like the ones I’d always see on Applejack’s carts. I saw it spin around and I willed a rainbow to be formed by my magic, the colors filling the black void that surrounded the perfect apple. The shades swirled around the apple, seeming to close in on it rapidly. Soon the surface of the apple was nothing but a blur, and I willed the rainbow, which was also rapidly spinning at this point, to merge into the apple’s surface. I felt my hoofs life off the ground, but I kept my eyes shut, determined to finish the spell.

Suddenly, I felt strained, but I willed even harder, digging my feet into the ground as I noticed a wind blow my mane around. I pushed my magic harder, a sizzling now audible in my ears. The rainbow grew close and the apple seemed to spin even faster, but I pushed the rainbow until suddenly, it contacted with the surface. A sudden surge of energy burst forth from my horn, but I kept my eyes closed to watch the unexpected scene in front of me.

The apple seemed to shatter into a million different pieces. It didn’t explode into mush, but instead formed perfect puzzle-piece-esque bits that blew around. I could almost feel the bits brushing against my fur as if they were a fine dust. The pieces then slowed to a halt and suddenly spun rapidly in the other direction, my body feeling a bit drained, and my magic controlling nothing. As The pieces spun around, they started to float back to the center, their color changing as they moved. Finally, the reformed in a burst of light and in front of me there laid a Zap Apple, surrounded by the black void of my mind.

Opening my Eyes, I saw that I was no longer sitting by Twilight, but floating down to a circular patch in the ground that was sparking with blue streaks. The colors of the grass and dirt underneath had changed into a perfect rainbow with a red dot in the middle and the other colours surrounding it in rings.

“Good show,” Turner called from behind me. I turned to see the brown stallion panting with Twilight flung onto his back. “Next time, warn me when you’re about to turn somepony into a rainbow.”

I blushed and walked over to him, looking Twilight over to see if she got hit. “Sorry, are you guys ok?”

“We’re fine. When you started levitating a few feet off the ground, I dragged her out of blast range. Now we know how to make the Zap Apple, but we still need to find a regular one.” He glanced down the Orchard trees and softly cursed to himself. “Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have started with the trees next to the barn…”

“Get Twilight to the barn. I’ll find an apple and meet you–” A massive rumble knocked me off my feet and cut me off mid-sentence. “Oh no,” I muttered, knowing the only thing that rumble could have been. “Go! Get Twilight to the barn!” I shouted at Turner who was rapidly glancing around trying to find the source of the rumble. “I’ll find an apple and meet you there. Start making the spell!” I saw Lilly galloping as fast as she could out to us, undoubtedly because she had just felt the same rumble. Turner nodded and ran towards Lilly as fast as he could while carrying a grown mare on his back.

As he caught up with her, I turned and looked down the orchards to see that nearly every tree I could make out was barren. I looked to my right to see that the same was true. I glanced in nearly every direction I could, but there was nothing to see but dark and dying trees. As I glanced back at the barn which seemed to be sitting in the middle of it all, I saw Turner waving his hooves at me. When he noticed I was looking at him, he pointed multiple times to his left. I looked over and squinted my eyes. At first, nothing came to view, but about seven trees away from me, I spotted a glint of red in the sea of brown.

There’s our apple.

I gave a large nod to Turner and he backed into the barn, carrying Twilight in with him. The door closed and I took in a deep breath in, licking my lips and preparing for the worst. “I am going home,” I whispered. Almost leaping forward, I sprinted for the tree that had the apple on it, reaching it in a matter of seconds. Looking around, I saw that I was still alone, but as soon as I looked back up at the apple, an unearthly screech rang through the air, causing me to shut my eyes tight and cover my ears. The yell lasted for a good ten seconds, and it sent a shiver down my spine. It almost felt like I had just listened to dozens of ponies screaming out in agony as they faced death.

As the sound finally stopped, I opened my eyes to see that the horizon was now filled with a black smoky substance filled with pricks of red. I glanced to my right to receive the same image.  I looked behind me to see that they were forming in the distance as well. I was surrounded by thousands upon thousands of the Time Protectors. There were more than I had ever seen before. I knew I should have felt fear or anxiety, but adrenaline was coursing in my veins, and all I do was smile. “Come and get me,” I softly spoke, twisting around and placing my back hooves on the tree. “I’ll be waiting.”

I gave a hard buck and shook the tree’s roots, feeling a sharp pain course through my legs. I had probably kicked the tree too hard in all the excitement. The apple fell directly in front of me and I grabbed it with my mouth, turning to take off. I took a step, and another sharp pain bolted in my back left leg. I had probably broken it in the kick to the tree. I yelped and took the pressure off my leg, trying not to bite into the apple in my mouth. Limping, I started off for the barn, going a few feet every second.

Glancing around, I noticed that the dark mass was closing in quickly, the individual red eyes now easy to make out. I cringed and put my broken hoof back on the ground, trying to grunt away the pain. My eyes teared up and I started a slow jog towards the barn.  My leg seemed to be on fire, and I could barely see through my blurry, teared-up eyes.

I was within a few feet of the barn when suddenly, a black haze appeared in front of the door, blocking me from getting in. Instantly, there was a form in front of me, and I saw a pair of familiar eyes. I lowered my head and dropped the apple onto the ground. “Let me through,” I said, staring into the red eyes, almost touching his black fur.

“Why not stay here with us? Isn’t that what you wanted?” He replied, not budging from the spot, a serious expression hammered into his face. “Or do you really want to abandon your parents again?”

“Let me through damn it!” I shouted at the stallion, looking him straight in the eyes. I could see the fake red glow pulsing behind the pupils. I knew this wasn’t my father. This was just a trick to keep me from escaping. It wasn’t going to work.

“But why would you leave? Don’t you–”

“No!” I shouted at the figure posing as my father. “I don’t want to stay here. I am going home, and I am taking my friends with me!” I could feel my magic building up inside me, and I kept on shouting, the magic flowing in my horn. “I am done with this fucking place! I don’t want to be chased by your minions anymore. I didn’t want to mess with time. I just wanted to come in and save my friend. I wanted her back! ITS NOT LIKE YOU COULD EVER UNDERSTAND!”

I released the charge I had been building up, and it blew a hole in the door, the figure standing in front of it having disappeared. “They can’t understand,” I whispered to myself, pushing the door open and grabbing the apple once more.

“Oh my god, Colgate, what was that?” Lilly asked, galloping to the front door. Before I could answer she gasped again, “What happened to your leg?”

“Afole tee,” I said, the apple still in my mouth. I spat it into my hoof when I realized how stupid I had sounded. “Apple tree,” I repeated. “Don’t worry about me. How’s the potion coming along? We have guests, and I’d rather dinner be ready before they get here.”

Turner gave a half-hearted laugh from behind a big black kettle with a brew boiling inside. He stirred the contents a few times before spitting the spoon out of his mouth and informing me, “I’ve put in the essence of magic. Give it a few minutes to boil, and then we add in the Zap Apple paste and we spread it on some wall. That should make a portal escaping back into our world, but I need to boil this magic just long enough. Start on the Zap Apple. I should be ready by then.”

“Alright. Lily, they’re coming. I don’t know what you can do, but hold them off. We’re getting out of here today.”

She gave me a silent nod before I set the apple down in the middle of the floor and took a step back. This time, though, I kept my eyes open, focusing my magic on the Apple. Imagining had worked earlier, but I couldn’t miss this time. I wouldn’t have the strength to do it again. I took a deep breath in and let it slowly out, clearing my mind of any distractions. “Here we go…” I whispered to myself.

Using my magic, I shot an invisible beam towards the Apple, picking it up and spinning it, just as I had before. This time, a slight breeze started to swirl around it, the dust getting scattered in the wind. I spun the apple faster and faster until it once again was a blur. Lilly had turned around to watch and Turner had stopped stirring to look at what I was doing. The doors of the barn rattled and I suddenly felt very light on my feet. I kept focusing on the apple which had started levitating a few feel in the air. I concentrated harder, forcing the apple to spin as fast as it could go.

Suddenly, my hooves lifted off the ground and I floated up to the same level as the apple. Not wavering in my concentration, I willed a rainbow into existence in front of me. A beam of colour pulsed from my horn as I felt an energy surge through me. The wind had picked up and now the dust was creating a small tornado beneath the apple. The rainbow started pulsing and spinning around the apple, the colours splitting up and forming seven different rings around the spinning red fruit. I pushed harder, willing the coloured beams to close in. Every ounce of strength went into pushing the beams closer and closer.

I may have heard Lilly shout my name, but the wind was not blistering by that I could hear nothing else. Giving one final tug, the beams met with the surface, and the fruit shattered into a thousand tiny particles, a deafening pop echoing in the air. My body fell limp and my magic was drained. I fell to the ground as the particles quickly gravitated inward and formed once again into an apple shape. The rainbow was now stained into it’s pristine surface, and the stem was sparking just a bit. As soon as the apple had reformed, however, a brown hoof smashed down on top of, producing a multicoloured paste.

Turner collected a bit of it and threw it into the pot mixing furiously as I struggled to stay conscious. My eyes fluttered and everything was blurry. I remember Lilly ran over to me and shouted something to Time Turner. He shouted back before the door suddenly burst open, the cloud of Time Protectors waiting just outside. Lilly screamed and dragged me over to the kettle. She grabbed Twilight as well, and she and Turner said a few quick words. Turner kicked the pot over and spilt the entire substance into the floor in front of us, blocking the creatures from going any further.

 The purple liquid seemed to burn the floor almost instantly as if it were some strong acid. It smelled really sweet though, and it seemed to seep into the ground beneath. Soon, the substance had burned a hole so deep it looked more like a pit.  I was so close to passing out, and my ears were still ringing from casting the spell, but I heard Turner yell that we had succeeded. The potion had worked, and he jumped in, dragging Twilight with him. Lily glanced down into the pit with a nervous look before hoisting me on her back. She closed her eyes and leapt as I glanced back at the creatures with a smile.

“I’m going home.”

“Hey, sleepyhead,” a voice rang in my ear. I must have passed out after going through the portal. “Come on, Colgate, wake up. I thought you were taking me out for tea today?”

“What” I groaned, sitting up and looking over at the pink mare. “How can you want tea after all that? It’s not like I could even walk any...” I stopped mid-sentence as I pulled the sheets of my bed back. My leg was fine, and there was no sign of any damage whatsoever. “...ways.”

“Well, I knew you weren’t a morning person, Colgate, but I highly doubt you broke your leg so you didn’t have to get up,” she replied, sticking out her tongue. She started to leave the room, finishing up by saying, “Now get up and come on. I want to get to the cafe before they stop serving those breakfast sandwiches.”

“Lily,” I called out, looking around the room and upon myself to try and find some sort of scar to prove the past day’s events. “What did we do yesterday?”

“Well, we got up and saved the world of course, going on a massive adventure with a gorgeous hero. I fell in love and we got married all in a single day.”

“You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?” I asked, knowing the obvious answer. A part of me still wished that even that absurd story were true. I don’t understand how she could just forget an adventure like that.

“Colgate,” she chuckled, trotting out of the room. “That stuff only ever happens in your dreams. Now for Celestia’s sake, get up!”

I sat there for a minute taking in what I had just heard. I knew I hadn’t dreamt that nightmare. As illogical as it was, the pain felt too real, and the story was so absurd that even I couldn’t imagine it happening. The last day couldn’t have just not happened. The hours we spent in that other world weren’t just figments of my imagination.

Were they?

I had to find out, somehow. I couldn’t just lie here and pretend what happened didn’t happen again. I needed to warn others about my mistakes. I needed to go and tell everypony not to mess with time and create something they can’t control. I need to tell them all that if they do mess with the timestream that guardians, monsters, and whatever else would come by and try to stop them, to kill them, or something even worse. I needed to tell those curious that nothing good ever happens whenever–

I needed to see if Twilight still knew.

Throwing the covers off myself, I bolted for the doorway, not even bothering to check my mane. A surge of energy was rushing through me, and I sped past the kitchen to hear Lily shout out, “Colgate? Where are you going?!”

I didn’t respond and simply flew out the door, running down the street to many ponies looking at me in confusion. I galloped straight towards the center of town where Twilight’s Library was located. A part of me was almost waiting for the same buildings to start appearing beside me and for a red fog to descend upon the entire town. The blow of the wind in my mane and the occasional disapproving stare from passerby kept my wits about me, and soon the familiar green-laden branches came into view.

A small moment of panic came over me as I realized that Twilight might not have made it back from the other world. I grimaced and sped along toward the tree, running straight for the door. When I was just a few feet in front of the door, it opened, and the unicorn managed to let out a gasp of surprise and jump out of the way before I almost bowled her over. I tumbled for a few feet before my back slammed into the wall.

“Colgate?” Twilight managed to say as I opened my eyes to see the upside-down mare giving me a look of concern. “Here,” she said, lifting me up with her magic and placing me the right way up on my hooves. “Now what the heck was all that about?” she asked, closing the door and levitating a basket over to the steps.

“Twilight, do you remember what we did last night?” I nearly shouted at her before realizing that there was no need to. Twilight paused a moment and blushed. “Twilight?” I asked again, now a little hesitant to hear the answer. I didn’t think she was thinking of the same night I was.

“Well, Colgate… I’m not completely certain what I did last night with anyone,” She said, avoiding my gaze. “Spike, can you keep the place under control while I go get some pastries from Sugarcube Corner?”  she shouted to another room before walking over to the basket and levitating it upwards. I hear a half-reply from the little dragon from upstairs before Twilight proceeded out the door saying with one final breath, “I never want to drink that much cider again…”

A frown spread across my face as I realized that she was definitely not talking about the Frozen World. I could only assume that even if she did remember our trip that she’d just dismiss it as some sort of fever dream. Sighing, I pushed the library door open and stepped outside. I walked slowly down the street thinking to myself. Had I just imagined the entire thing? Every step I took, I wanted to believe that more and more. There wasn’t any way I could prove what had happened. My leg was fine, and I was the only one to remember everything.

The spell.

I could cast the time stopping spell again. It was a long stretch, but maybe there was some evidence in the frozen world that could prove it. There could have been a portal or signs of extra magic like the time Twilight cast the spell the second time. I ran over to the side of the street and waited for everypony to ignore me once more. Glancing around hastily to make sure nopony was watching, I closed my eyes and thought of the clock. I did the normal routine, imagining the ticking hand and cuckoo clock.

“Already back for more?” a voice said in front of me. I flung my eyes open and jumped back, startled at hearing the familiar voice. When I saw who had spoken, a smile grew across my face.

“Time Turner!” I shouted, embracing the brown stallion as he gave a chuckle. Letting go of him I suddenly realized what it meant. “I’m not going crazy!” I gave a little pause before backing up slightly “Am I?”

“No, Colgate,” he replied with a smile. “Everything actually happened. You actually found me in my desolate second world, and you actually fought those monsters.”

“Then why am I the only one who remembers it?”

“Well,” he started, scratching his head and looking down, “I didn’t want anypony else discovering the time-freezing spell. I knew you already knew it, but I didn’t want what happened to me happen to anyone else. So, I wiped the memories from your friends when we got back to equestria last night. I’ve been waiting to talk to you. You were out cold last night, and no potion I could mix up was waking you.”

“That makes sense, I suppose. What were you waiting for me for? Why not just meet me in the real world?”

“Colgate, I’ve been gone for so long,” he said, his smile fading as gave a small sigh. “My parents probably wouldn’t even recognize me, and I don’t have any connections to society. You’re the only pony I know.”

My throat clenched up a bit when I realized just what kind of a situation he was in. I looked awkwardly around for a second before remembering something. “My friend and I were about to go have some tea, actually. Since you kind of owe me for rescuing you from that place, would you like to join us? Do you think you have the time?”

His smile returned brighter than ever as he gave a nod.

“I’ve got all the time in the world, now.”

Memories Resurfaced

My heart skipped a beat and my mind momentarily stuttered as a cold shiver ran down my spine, the pricks of red seeming to almost float and bounce toward me in the deafening silence. I took a step back, the tiny eyes increasing as every moment passed, as if they were multiplying inside their shadow cloud that was careening toward me. I instantly remembered the fake Twilight’s words, and my mind jumped into overdrive. I turned to my left to see if I could sprint back the way I came, but there in front of me was something that could not have possibly been there before.

A brick wall sat not two feet from me, the top of which extended into the red fog above, not seeming to end. My heart sped up, adrenaline now coursing through my body. I started hyperventilating, taking a few steps back. “No... no, that can’t be right,” I whispered, noticing the black mass had stopped in its tracks, the red eyes multiplying by the second. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I quickly turned around, hoping to get out of there.

I had not taken two steps when I tried to stop myself, tripping on my own hooves and smashing into yet another brick wall, directly opposite the other, seeming to extend into the sky forever as well. I pushed myself to my hooves, wincing at a pain in my front left leg. I had probably torn something if not broken a bone. Had I been a pegasus, this probably wouldn’t have been a problem, as I could just use my wings to fly away from the mass of black, but I was a unicorn, and an inexperienced injured one at that.

I needed to get out of there while the mass was occupied with whatever it was doing. I didn’t want to stick around while I had the upper hoof, so I turned to the street opposite the swirling fog and thanked Celestia that this one wasn’t blocked off by yet another wall. Looking behind me I saw that the horde of creatures was now on the move again, their smoky figures seeming to silently glide towards me.

I took a quick step, trying to gallop out of there when a burning pain shot through my front left hoof. I yelped as I tried to yank my leg back, not realizing that most of my weight was already on it. I tumbled down as my hoof buckled, smashing my head against the hard dirt and biting into my tongue. I grunted in pain as I lay still for a moment, whimpering and trying not to black out. I took a sharp breath and rolled over, blood dripping out of my mouth. A burning sensation filled my jaw, overpowering the pain in my leg. I felt like a log that was being sent through a chipper.

Get up now! I mentally screamed at my limbs, rolling back onto my stomach. I put my weight on my right hoof, careful not to collapse again as the dark horde careened towards me. I spat out some more blood, the burning sensation not getting any better, and grunted as I pushed myself shakily to my hooves. I took a step forward with my left hoof, gritting my teeth and grunting through my clenched jaw as another bolt of pain shot up my leg, reminding me that there was indeed something wrong with one of the joints. I quickly lurched forward, putting my weight back on my right hoof to ease the pain when I looked back to notice the horde wasn’t going to stop this time and courteously wait for me to recuperate.

Feeling hopeless, I started slowly limping down the street, the burning sensation in my mouth slowly being replaced by a puffy numb sensation. Step after step I went, but after a few brutal lurches, the pain resided and a numbness replaced it. It felt as If I were walking with a peg-leg, but it was better than having to give a yelp every time I took a step. With a little more certainty in my step, I trudged forward, picking up my pace until I was half-limping and half-galloping down the street.  A small smile crept up on my face as I realized I might still have a chance of getting out of here alive after all.

A glance back shattered that confidence as I saw that while I was was gaining speed, so was the cold, dark mass of glowing eyes that followed in my wake. “You can make it, Colgate.” A voice whispered in my ear, startling me and causing me to stumble a few steps, slowing my gait slightly. “No keep running!” the whisper encouraged, a nervous tone present in its voice. “You can’t slow down now!”

I took a few awkward steps before breaking out once again into my injured gallop. “Who is this,” I managed to say between breaths and through my injured tongue, which had finally stopped oozing blood. “How do you know who I am?”

“Colgate, it’s me,” the whisper said. I couldn’t recognize the voice at all, but then it continued, “It’s Twilight.”

“TWILIGHT?!” I shouted, almost stopping before I realized that the horde was still behind me and the cottages only kept repeating as I frantically ran down the nonsensical, never-ending street. The whisper didn’t sound like her, but with my heart pounding and the horde gaining, I had no time to question the legitimacy of this Twilight. “How do you know where I am?”

“I’m casting a location spell as well as a mind-transference spell. Those things are holding me hostage in the Golden Oaks Library. Come help!” the whisper seemed to plead to me.

“How are you casting spells?” I asked, my breath running short. I couldn’t keep this pace up much longer. “I couldn’t cast–” I started, taking a huge breath as my lungs screaming for air, “couldn’t cast anything.”

“I don’t know, but we need to get you out of there.”

“How are you going to get me out of this, I’ve been running and limping down this street for a while, and it never seems to end!”

“It never will”

“What?!” I shouted, angry and confused at the thought of a street that would literally never end. “What do you mean ‘it never will.’ Does this street run across the entire world or something?”

“No, in fact it only runs the distance of about one block,” Twilight’s whisper told me. “You’re stuck in what essentially is an infinite loop. When you run the block, you get magically transported unknowingly and silently back to the beginning. You’ve been running across the same strip of road for a couple minutes now. The houses around you look identical because they are identical. The mechanics of a spell like this are actually quite simple to produce. It would only take a bit of power mixed with the right–”

“Twilight!” I shouted, cutting her off before she got too complicated and long-winded. “We can do a history on spells later. Right now, I just want you to get me out of here before I become a dead mare! Where should I go?”

“Ok, sorry, sorry,” she apologized, pausing a bit to think. “Stop where you are!”

“But Twilight, I’ll–”

“Stop!” the female voice shouted. “Now!”

I skidded to a halt, stopping between what seemed to be two exact replicas of the same house sitting across the street from each other. “What now?” I asked, glancing behind me to see that the smoky creatures seemed to now be melded into one solid black cloud with thousands of pinpricks of red bouncing and swaying of their own accord. Now, not only the street was covered in the bodies of those creatures, but the swarm had even engulfed entire cottages in the smoke. The horde had turned into a black smoky wall, charging directly towards me. Twilight hadn’t responded to my question, and a sever panic started to seep into my mind. “Twi! Twi, what do I do now?! Tell me!”

“Turn left and head into the alleyway!” she shouted back almost immediately. I turned and obeyed her orders, running directly between the two cottages to my left, only to come upon the same fence I had seen before and a boarded up window.

“Twilight…” I started, frantically looking around for some way out of this dead end.

“Oh shit...” she replied. “I meant right. There should be an opening in the fence on the right! Go before the horde catches up!”

“Damn it, Twilight!” I shouted, both from my anger at her misguiding me, and from putting all my weight on my screwed up leg, sending a burning sensation throughout my body and re-igniting the pain in the numb limb. Lunging forward to get the weight off my bad leg, I glanced to the right.

The smoky figures were directly in front of my eyes. For that instant, time seemed to slow down as an unnerving chill was sent down my spine,  my breath forming a cloud in front of my face. I stared into a pair of red eyes, and it seemed to judge me and look directly into my soul, almost as if I were some evil monster. The eyes stood unwavering in the thick black fog cloud, almost seeming to glow. I wanted to scream, but my lips felt numb and I felt like I had no control over my tongue. For a mere second in the heart-stopping moment, I swore I could almost make out a figure in the shadows. One of the pairs of eyes near the back faded slightly into a distinct shape.

“Mom?”

I put my weight back on my injured leg, not realizing it and shut my eyes tightly from the pain. I opened them back up and stumbled on after shouting out, but the figure I had seen had disappeared. I ran to the other side of the street into the alley that Twilight had told me about in panic with sweat drenching my body. The alleyway was indeed there, but there was no exit to be found.

“Twilight, there’s no way out!” I screamed, my heart beating a mile a minute and my brain still arguing with itself whether or not to go back out and verify if the figure I saw was my mom. That had to be impossible though, because she had been gone for almost twenty years.

“But there has to be,” Twilight responded, sounding worried. “From what I can see, the only way out is through that alleyway... Maybe it’s hidden. Look around!”

I looked around the little corridor, but I saw nothing different about this alleyway than the few that I had already been down. Glancing back, I saw the horde had finally caught up to me. The smoky cloud stopped at the alleyway and sat there menacingly, not even attempting to come any further into the small space. I sat frightened, knowing that there was no way for me to escape. The eyes stared at me and I stared back in horror waiting for them to make a move. For a few tense moments, we both stood there waiting for the other to do  anything, me scared out of my mind. I could hear a faint whisper that sounded like a mix of wind and somebody screaming in pain emulating from the dark mass in front of me. The eerie red fog swirling around us only heightened the tension.

I stood cowering when finally something moved in the black smoke. A hazy figure slowly materialized in the horde, slowly walking toward me. This time, the glowing red eyes seemed to belong to an actual body, not just some smoky figure. The figure started to take the shape of a normal stallion, although its body seemed to be bigger than any stallion I had ever seen. The glowing red eyes partially illuminated his face as he slowly emerged from the smoke. His fur was jet black and face was contorted in that of an angry growl, staring directly in my eyes. I shivered as he seemed to loom over me. After a few seconds, he finally emerged from the haze, standing directly over me. I could feel his breath on my fur; the chill from it biting into my skin. I couldn’t tell whether I was shivering from the sudden freezing temperature or from fear when I realized who it was that was staring into my eyes.

“D...Dad?”

“Why Colgate?” my father asked me, a frown plastered on his face, his eyes seeming to burn a hole in my skull. “You never came back for us Colgate. You never even tried to save you own parents.

“B-but daddy, I…” I replied trailing off, a tear escaping my eyes, “You told me to run away and never–”

“I told you to run because I expected you to come back and help us.” His gaze seemed to grow angrier and angrier with every word. “My own daughter couldn’t save her own parents when all they did was love her. You didn’t even try to come back.”

“Daddy, I was scared,” I told him, tears now flowing out my eyes and blurring my vision. “I didn’t want to get hurt…”

“You were scared?” he bellowed as I whimpered, flinching away from his unmerciful gaze. “You didn’t want to get hurt?! Then why did you come back now? We’ve been gone for twenty years, and you didn’t come back until now.”

“I was with Twilight, Twilight Sparkle, and…”

“You wanted to show it off to a friend did you?” he asked in a menacing tone. I was about to explain when he said, “You even gave away our only secret. The only thing we held dear to our hearts, you ripped up and stomped on.”

“No, dad!” I cried, holding out a hoof. “Please... I was only trying to help…”

“No you weren’t,” the black stallion said, walking up to me and raising a hoof. He swiftly brought it down and I felt a stinging pain pulse in my cheek as I fell backwards. I wailed, the pain mixing with the humiliation of my own father hitting me to the ground. “You don’t care about anyone.”

He turned around and walked to the edge of the mass as I laid on the ground weeping and nursing my bruised cheek. “Dad! No!” I managed to yell out. He turned his head and looked at me one last time. He waited a second, a scowl on his face before speaking one last time.

“I have no daughter.”

I sat there in shock as he disappeared back into the thick smoke and glowing red eyes of the horde. I watched him until he completely dissipated in the thick fog. My mind was numb, and I knew I wanted to cry as well as get Twilight to get me out of this trap, but all I could do was sit there and watch the creatures stare at me as I gazed into the place my father disappeared. I couldn’t move at all, and it wasn’t until I heard Twilight practically screaming at me before I saw the horde closing in on me.

“Go through the fence, Colgate!” her voice shouted into my ear. “It’s a fake fence, Celestia damn it! Just go through it! Colgate, can you hear me? Please say you can hear me…”

I turned around and jumped directly at the fence, not even bothering to test first that it was indeed fake. I went right through what appeared to be wood, my fur tingling as I went through. I stood there for a few moments, tears silently gliding down my face. I didn’t want to go on, but I knew that without my help Twilight would be trapped here forever.

“Colgate,” Twilight said in my ear, “are you ok? You stopped moving.”

“Just give me a second, Twilight, I need to look around and figure out where I am,” I lied. I needed some time to recover from what had to have been fictional. That figure that had just berated me looked exactly like my father, but I know it couldn’t be him; he would never blame me for what happened.

Looking around, I saw that I had appeared on yet another desolate, fog-filled street, and when I turned around to check if the horde had followed me through the fake fence, I saw that I had just appeared in front of another cottage, almost as if I had just walked out the front door. This one was different from the ones I had run past on the endless street, though. I recognized this particular cottage the moment my eyes glanced over it.

It was my parents’ old house.

The windows were boarded up, and when I gave the door a tap, I found it to be solid wood. It appeared as if whatever portal I had stepped through was now closed. I tried opening the door, but as I suspected, it was shut tight and wouldn’t budge, almost if it were just a part of the wall. I looked up at the two story house, tears still in my eyes from the encounter with my fake father. I tried to push the bad thoughts to the back of my mind, knowing I needed to focus on the task at hoof. The room directly above the doorway, which would have been my bedroom If this were an exact replica of my parents’ cottage, had what looked to be a candle flickering in it. The inconsistent golden light was creepily out of place, since everything else still seemed to be frozen in time. As I was watching the light dance on the wall, a shadow crossed over the light of the unnatural flicker and suddenly, the candle went out.

“Twilight, are you up there?” I called up to the window, my voice quivering ever so slightly. The silence that followed told me that either she hadn’t heard me or she wasn’t the pony who was in the room.

I was about to call again when I heard her whisper into my mind, “No, Colgate. According to my location spell, you should still be a few blocks away. Why were you calling my name?”

“I thought I saw something in one of the windows of this house,” I replied, turning around and walking down the few steps that led away from the door.

I had not taken another step when a sound caught my ear. I turned towards the noise coming from behind me and noticed that it was being produced by something in the second-story window, the same one I had just seen the candle in. It sounded as if some filly was laughing or giggling.

“Colgate, will you stop?” a voice said from the window. I immediately recognized it, gasping and calling back to it.

“Mother!” I shouted. “I–”

“Come on Mom,” another higher-pitched voice replied to my mother’s, cutting me off mid-sentence. I stopped cold, a sudden realization hitting me that I knew that voice. I didn’t know whether to trust my gut or not. “Do I have to go to bed?”

“Yes you do,” my mother’s voice replied to the other one. “You need to get some shuteye for tomorrow. We were going to let you try out the spell.”

I gasped, backing up from the window and the house itself, tears starting to well up in my eyes again. I recognized this conversation; it was the one I had the night before my mother and father disappeared with those creatures nearly twenty years ago. I didn’t know what to think about it. How did this world know about my past and why is it replicating it now? Half of me wanted to run and find Twilight, and the other half wanted to stay and listen.

“Really?!” The childish voice that must have been me yelled in delight. I took another step back from the house, staring at the window the voices were coming from. It was too dark to see inside, so I couldn’t actually see my mother, but the tears welling up in my eyes would have made it impossible anyways. “You guys are gonna let me do it all by myself?”

“We’ll help you out if you need it,” my mom’s voice softly consoled the younger me. “But you need to get some sleep if you want to do it at all, my little dentist.

I heard my younger self giggle and then there was a pause. After a few moments, my mother started to hum. The melody was one I knew all too well. I turned around at the first verse and started to run down the street. I knew the lullaby all too well. It was my favorite one as a child, and my mom would sing it to me every night before tucking me into bed.  I ran down the short street, the lyrics floating in my head. As I sprinted down the road, familiar cottages and places I knew appeared and, as quickly as I saw them, disappeared. No matter how fast I ran, I could hear the lullaby being hummed softly in my ear.

Hush little Colgate, don’t say a word.

Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

I ran past a grey concrete building that looked exactly like the orphanage I was sent to after my parents disappeared. As I sprinted past the massive double doors, I could hear my music teacher yelling at me for missing the notes again and bringing down the rest of the choir.

And if that mockingbird won't sing,

Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

Another building on the left resembled my first foster family house, a ragged shack that didn’t look fit to house people in. I remember getting yelled at there for accidentally losing the mother’s ring when she told me to hold on to it. I dropped it down the drain by accident.

And if that diamond ring turns brass,

Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass.

Another of my foster parent’s houses passed on the left. Soon, despite my injured leg, I was galloping down the street, my eyes blurry and my throat tight. I just wanted it to end. I didn’t want to hear the final verse any more than I wanted to be in the forsaken place. The hum of my mother refused to stop and it’s final verse came in.

And if that looking glass turns brown,

You'll still be the sweetest little filly in town.

I stopped where I was, not wanting to move and not wanting to move on. In front of me stood the one house I knew very well. I stared at the old white cottage, tears streaming down my face. I had shared the place with Lily for almost three years now. We had been best friends in the orphanage, and we both ended up moving to Ponyville when we finally got out of school. She had gone into her own business setting up a local floral shop and I had become the town dentist. We both bought this house together and we planned to live there until either one of us got married. Lily had just moved out with her fiance not more than a month ago.  I wanted to go home, but this was too much.

After standing there in a daze, I decided the only way I was ever going to see that house or Lily again is if I soldiered on. Wiping away my tears as best I could, I stepped up to the door and pushed on it. Surprisingly, the wooden door opened with ease. Inside, the building was empty, save for a few pieces of furniture here and there. It was just like it had been when we first bought it. I took a few steps forward, closing the door behind me.

“Twilight?” I called to the old walls in a somber tone, hoping she wasn’t very far now. I didn’t want to stay here for too long, because I wanted to find Twilight and Lily and go home to my real house. I was done with this screwed-up world, and I never ever wanted to come back.

Twilight failed to respond, so I took a quick walk through the few rooms of the house. Nothing was out of place aside from the boarded-up windows, and even though the entire house was quiet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong. I looked up the stairs to see if there was anything different about the attic entrance when I saw that there was a light glowing from the door at the top that led to the attic. “Twilight, is that you?” I asked once again. I was starting to get really nervous at her sudden silence.

Slowly making my way up the stairs, I looked at the light glowing from under the door. Instead of the general red-hue that I was slowly becoming used to, the light was more of a golden-yellow color like the candle from my parent’s house. As I made my way closer to the top, I could hear muffled shouting, making me step as lightly as I could manage. I made it all the way up the stairs as quietly as I could, being careful not to step on any of the creaky steps. Taking a deep breath, I placed a hoof gingerly on the door and slowly pushed on it. The door swung silently open and it took all I could not to yell out at what I was seeing.

It was Lily, and she was crying profusely and begging a figure at the window not to jump out. “Please, Mom, don’t do this!” she shouted at the mare in the window, bawling her eyes out. Before I could intervene or even speak up, the mare turned around and lept from the window. Lily shouted and ran to the sill, crying and putting her face in her hooves.

I wanted to go over and help her, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to approach her. I let her cry for a few minutes on the windowsill, letting the shock pass a little before I finally spoke up. “Lily,” I calmly said, trying not to startle her too badly. However, she leapt up in surprise and shouted when she heard her name. “It’s ok Lily,” I tried to console her. “It’s me, Colgate!”

“No, Daddy!” she shouted back at me. She seemed to not even notice I was there, looking  past my eyes and into space. Her eyes were milky white and she seemed scared beyond all belief. “You can’t make me!” she yelled again, galloping directly at me. I jumped out of the way just as she careened past me and down the stairs.

“Lily, wait!” I shouted as I heard the door slam downstairs. “Shit,” I said to myself, running down the stairs after her. I hopped down the last few steps before turning around and running for the front door. Smashing through it, I noticed I wasn’t on the street I had come in on. I watched as Lily disappeared into the fog ahead of me, the surrounding landscape completely void of any buildings. There was nothing but a dirt path in front of me. Looking behind me, I noticed that my house was entirely gone as well. The only thing I could see around me was the thick red fog that ominously swirled about the ground.

I took a few steps down the path where Lily had ran, when I finally saw it. Twilight’s treehouse, the Golden Oaks Library, stood right in front of me. The door was half open, and I heard Lily scream from inside along with a shout from Twilight. “Twilight! Lily!” I shouted, sprinting for the door. I would finally be able to see my friends again after such a long time apart. I kicked open the door and ran in, but Lily was cowering in the corner and Twilight was with her, trying to console her.

“Twilight?” I asked the lavender unicorn who was silently stroking Lily’s mane, staring off into space with a grim expression on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m so sorry, Colgate…” she said, not even glancing away from the wall she seemed to be staring at. “They made me do it.”

“Who made you do what?” I asked just as I heard the door slam behind me, blocking out all the light in the room. “Twilight! What’s going on?!”

“I’m so sorry.”