Day 1: Blocked Emotions and Cemetaries
Twilight Sparkle stared down blankly at the table, blinking only when her eyes began to sting. There was a faint sound, almost like talking, but her mind blocked it out. She had stayed up late studying again, and everything was sort of blurry and hard to comprehend.
Twilight?
Yes, almost like words, but not quite...
Twilight.
Was it...her name?
"Twilight!" Twilight snapped out of her trance and looked up, blinking rapidly.
"Huh?" she said, unable to form any other sound to express her surprise.
"You drifted off again," the stallion sitting across from her, Flash Sentry, said, giving her a worried look. "Are you sure you're alright?" Twilight quickly nodded, though it wasn't true.
"Yeah, sorry, I...stayed up late again." Flash sighed at this, knowing how obsessed Twilight was with her books.
"You've really gotta stop doing that," he said, giving her that worried look again. "It's not good for you."
"Yeah, sorry," Twilight said, directing her gaze back to the table. Her horn glowed violet as she levitated her teacup up to her lips and sipped. She grimaced at the bitter taste, but it did it in a way so Flash didn't notice.
"So," Flash began, waiting for Twilight to look at him before continuing. "Princess Cadence is having a baby."
"R-really?" Twilight stammered. She hadn't known that. Why hadn't Shining Armor told her?
"Yeah. I was lucky to get away from the palace for this long since they're upping the security."
"Hm..." Twilight shakily took another sip, her head beginning to throb. "That's...good for them."
"Yeah, and..." Flash trailed off and sighed, noticing that Twilight had begun to drift again.
~~~
Everything was dark, much to Twilight's surprise. She remembered going to bed late that night, but if she had awoken then wouldn't it have been light out by now? And...why was she standing up? Had she been sleep walking? Twilight took a tentative step forward and her snout hit something. She shook her head, then tapped the thing in front of her with a hoof. It felt wooden, and almost like...a door? She tried to use her magic to open it, but the familiar tingle of her magic wasn't there. Alarmed by this, Twilight brought a hoof up to her forehead. Her horn was gone.
Twilight gasped and felt panic begin to grip her, but quickly tried to calm herself. This was a dream, it had to be. She couldn't have just lost her horn, and that would explain the unnatural darkness. Twilight reassured herself of this, then used a hoof to carefully push open the door. A bluish light streamed into the dark space she was in and she was forced to blink to adjust her eyes. Once the painful sting of the unexpected light had faded, Twilight cautiously looked around. The scene she saw convinced her it was a dream.
It was some sort of enormous stone room, with the occasional window here and there. Twilight stood on what appeared to be a staircase of blocks. A staircase that defied gravity. There was nothing to support it, and when she looked down, past lower rows of blocks, Twilight saw a dark, assumedly bottomless pit.
Quickly, Twilight stepped back from the edge, frightened by the dizzying abyss and unfamiliar world. Then, before Twilight could even begin to try and understand what was going on, the bottom row of blocks on the staircase rumbled, and then collapsed into the abyss. Twilight blinked, her mouth slightly agape as she stared at the empty air where the row had previously been. Another noise, a loud slam, brought Twilight's attention to the door she had entered through. It was shut. Twilight frantically banged her hooves on it, forgetting for a moment that she was in a dream. When the door didn't open, Twilight whipped back around to look down over the edge once more. Another row of blocks had fallen.
"Wh-what kind of dream is this?" Twilight mumbled, leaping up a row of blocks to get further away from the abyss. "H-hello? Is anypony there? Hello!"
"Don't just stand there!" a strangely familiar voice suddenly yelled, "Start climbing! Or do you want to die?"
"H-huh?" Twilight looked around, searching for the owner of the voice. "Who are you?"
There was a brief silence, but then the voice spoke up again."It doesn't matter at the moment, but you need to climb, now! You fall, you die!"
"I...die?" Twilight choked, shocked.
"Yes, and not just in the dream! Now stop wasting time and climb!"
"A-alright!" Twilight quickly began to clamber up the rows of blocks, the rumbling of the rows beneath her reminding her of the danger. It wasn't long though before she came to some blocks she couldn't find a way around. "How do I get past these?" she exclaimed, hoping that whoever had spoken before would hear her. Whoever it was thankfully did.
"You move them! It's like a puzzle. You can understand that, can't you?"
"Move them? These things are huge! They'll fall anyways, there's no room for them!"
"Listen, I don't know how you can, you just can. The laws of the real world don't come into play here! Don't ask why that is either, just go with it and keep going!"
"B-but...!"
"Just climb!" The voice sounded agitated now. "Do you want to die because you wouldn't stop asking questions?" Twilight had a feeling whoever it was wouldn't speak anymore, so she took a deep breath, wrapped her forelegs around one of the huge cubes, and pulled. She expected it to be impossible, but she was able to move it without much difficulty, but this block needed to be pushed, so now was as good a time as ever to try out the "no gravity" aspect of the dream world. Twilight moved her hooves to the side of the block facing her, and pushed. Once more, it moved without much difficulty. She shook her head, confused by all of this, then continued to push it, the loud rumbling of the bottom row collapsing bringing her back to her senses. She shoved the cube to the last block on the row, then pushed it once more till it was hanging in empty air, connected to the row by a single edge. The edges connecting the blocks glowed bluish white, and there the suspended block stayed, defying the laws of gravity like the rest of the staircase. Twilight blinked and took in the strange sight, then quickly got back to work pushing, pulling, and climbing.
"This is crazy!" she thought, as she made her way up the nightmare staircase. "Even for a dream, it's insane! Princess Luna wouldn't allow a dream like this; one where you can actually die!" All of a sudden, there was an almost deafeningly loud bell tong, startling Twilight out of her thoughts. "What is that...?" she said, unconsciously thinking out loud. The voice from before didn't answer this time, but Twilight didn't notice the silence. Eventually, she decided to ignore the bell and continued on.
Just when she was starting to think the tower was endless, Twilight clambered up a block and caught a glimpse just above that was different from the others. It was gold, and had a red top. A door sat on it, a ram's head knocker on it's front. She only saw it for a moment before getting back to work trying to reach it.
"Is that the exit?" Twilight wondered, beginning to hurry towards it.
"Looks like you're almost out," the voice from before suddenly said. "We'll probably meet again, but for now it's goodbye."
"W-wait! Who are you?" But whoever it was had already gone. Twilight sighed and continued climbing, the bell's tongs getting louder the closer she got to the top. "Almost... there!" Twilight grunted, pulling herself up onto the block she had just pushed towards the one with the door and reaching up to grab the edge of the golden cube with her hoof.
She eventually made it up, and took a ten second breather before looking towards the door and tentatively pressing a hoof against the handle. It turned, and the door swung open. An unnatural golden light shone out, preventing her from seeing what lay beyond. Twilight swallowed dryly and stepped into the light. Just as she did, a scratchy deep voice erupted from the abyss below, screaming words that Twilight didn't catch. The door swung close behind her and everything went dark.