"Time and Thoughts are Different, Twilight"
Twilight awoke with a sneeze. Her head and limbs felt light, like they'd been floating in space. She felt very weary and dull. She tried to move her hooves in the darkness; however, they would not move, as if bound by invisible chains.
Looking up, Twilight examined the pale wood ceiling of the library: it was cracked, splintered, and scratched.
She slowly opened her mouth, breathing in to speak.
"H-he-ha—"
She coughed. Her throat was dry and her skin ached.
Instantly her body felt like it was crushed by a great weight. All her limbs felt heavy as iron. Using what little strength she could muster, Twilight rolled to the left and fell down, her ear and left cheek hitting the hard wooden floor.
Her body slowly returned to its normal state; the heavy weight on her limbs vanished. She quietly stood up, scanning the room with weary eyes. Next to her was her bed where she had originally lain.
"What in Equestria happened to me?"
Her room was incredibly empty. All picture frames, items and souvenirs she kept—either in boxes or shelves—were gone. The walls and ceiling were cracked; pieces of wood rested about the pale floor. To Twilight, this was either a bad dream or she was hungover. She peeked through her round window, but it was hard to see. Some kind of thick and heavy ashen-grey fog was lolling freely in the empty air.
"What's going on here?"
She trotted downstairs to the living room. "Spike!" she cried. "Spi~ike!" After hearing no response, Twilight began to worry and think. "Spike, this is hardly the time for a prank... Spike!"
Still no response came but the humming of the still air. Spike always slept in his small bed, next to Twilight's, but he wasn't in the Library. "Weird," said Twilight, her mind splaying to different thoughts. "Spike's not home, and something's wrong outside, too..."
Twilight trotted out of her front door, walking down a single dirt road. There was no movement anywhere. All the food stands at the market were missing, and not a single creature in general could be seen. Twilight squinted her eyes as she ran, seeing at most several yards ahead through the grey fog. Dim shadows of buildings and homes were flitting by in her peripheral vision.
"Everypony is gone," said Twilight in despair. She looked up, hoping to see the one thing she thought could cut through this dark fog. But it was in vain; she could not see the radiant sun, only more haunting fog above her. Wires and specks of the mist latched onto her every once in a while, hanging on with ease. Everyone was gone. Every building was empty. There was no sound except that of her own bated breath and nervous hoof steps.
"What's going on here? Where is everypony?" she said, louder and more thickly. "Something's not right. I got to find my friends. Maybe they will know what's going on."
To the end of her days, Twilight never thought she'd be in this situation. Nopony was here; no happy, cheerful smiles or chatter of the markets, no clopping of hooves on the dirt roads. Ponyville was empty, lifeless, but Twilight clung to the thought of her friends still being here. She ran, faster than she normally would, up to Sugarcube Corner. The pink-painted bricks on each level of the ceiling lacked their previous vibrant color, now turned a bright pale pink. Rips of wallpaper snaked down the walls. The door was broken off its metal hinges, inwardly, and cast inside the bakery. Looking through the entrance, Twilight noticed that inside, too, was grey with fog.
She trotted inside, noticing counters, tables, and chairs all scattered about the cracked floor.
"What happened here?" she said. "This place is a mess—a pretty big one at that, which isn't normal." She took a pause, then called out: "Pinkie!"
Twilight, with all her crying and clamoring, didn't receive a single response, as expected. Twilight walked down into the small arched entrance of the counter. Every shelf without the inner lower walls were torn open. Several papers were lying on the floor; where they came from, she didn't know.
Twilight opened a back-door; it creaked as she pushed it aside. It led to a long, white room. Metal shelves hung on several parts of the icy wall. Bits of frost were stuck to several thin pillars which supported the metal shelves. Brown boxes and plastic containers rested upon the shelf, but they were all empty. Ice cream and chocolate stains streaked the inside and outside of them. Twilight noticed, from the low temperature, she was in a large freezer.
"Okay, Twilight, calm down," she whispered to herself. "If Pinkie isn't here, then where can she be? This is too weird. Is this a dream? Is Discord behind this? I need to find Pinkie."
Twilight walked down to the very end of the room, looking at a closed box resting on the end-wall. Without thinking as to why she would open it—for it was probably stained with ice cream or frozen pieces of chocolate—Twilight slid the lone box open. She tilted her head in thought; a crumpled piece of paper stood in the very center. Using her magic, she levitated the mysterious paper to her, and flattened it in mid air. A note was scribbled with black ink.
"Helm is arisen and comes back to the center"
"Helm is arisen?" said Twilight. "I wonder what that's supposed to mean?" She then left the freezer, searching about Sugarcube Corner. All she could find were many empty rooms with loose pieces of wood sticking out of loose doors, and the grey mist which seemed to thicken as time went on.
Twilight walked out of the building and back out into the dense, rolling fog. For some unknown reason, the buildings that Twilight could only make out by their silhouettes in the fog appeared to look much darker than before. It bristled her coat the longer she stared at them. She felt the air become dense, almost choking her with its thickness. It was as if the mist had a mind of its own, and it wanted her gone. The buildings crept closer to her. Closer still they came until they felt so close she could touch their walls with her hoof, and yet she dared not to. Then she blinked, and they were back where she saw them; the previous darkness was gone. The fog still remained.
"Weird," Twilight muttered. "Pinkie's not here. I better check up on Rarity. Hopefully she'll know what to do... I hope."
Twilight ran down the ever-growing dirt road. While she couldn't see more than ten yards in front of her, she still remembered every road, its leading, and every path to her friends' houses. Eventually, she managed to spot the Carousel Boutique's shadow through the heavy fog.
As Twilight drew closer, she noticed something: every fine detail, every colorful line and picture the Carousel Boutique once bore, was ripped away and replaced with stale colors and broken pillars. The grass around the clothing store was black. The fog danced and played up on top of the pointy roof. The front door was gone; the main entrance was a hole with neatly arched sides.
Walking in the misty room, Twilight's eyes drooped. The white floor was littered by dozens of different dresses and suits, all of which were buried under a heap of mist.
"This isn't good," said Twilight, beginning to panic. "Pinkie Pie, along with the Cakes, are nowhere to be found. And why are all these dresses laying on the floor? Rarity would never create such a mess. But then again, she's not in this room."
Following along the spiraling staircase, Twilight gaited onto the second floor. Walking down a hallway, Twilight's ears were struck by a horrible swallowing noise. She turned, shifting her eyes from left to right.
"Who's there?" she said. "Come on; show yourself... Rarity?" Only silence responded. Twilight raised a curious eyebrow. "Nopony is here, like last time. What is going on?"
She found herself going inside Rarity's master bedroom. A Queen-size bed stood in the south-center, and a shelf with an oval mirror stood in front of the bed. An empty chest, along with bits and pieces of clothing, were resting against the foot of the bed. However, what really got Twilight's attention, and even scared her, were the curtains. They were ashen-grey, and the same grey fog crept between them. Somehow, they were flowing freely, even with the absolute lack of wind.
"What in the world?" Twilight whispered. She stepped closer to the moving curtains. With each step, a bead of sweat rolled down her forehead. As she got closer, something, a faint screaming perhaps, rung in the back of her head. The low screaming became duller and thinner. Twilight's eyes seemed dead. As she made her way to the moving curtains, she was concentrating on that noise in her head. Without realizing it, the noise suddenly stopped. Twilight snapped back to reality. She was standing in front of the peculiar curtains, but they were still, as if no wind ever existed.
She extended a hoof, moving the curtains aside and peeking over the balcony. A sea of grey fog seemed to go on for miles; at least, for Twilight, that was her sight. Black shadows wavered dimly under the fog. There was one shadow in particular which Twilight noticed. It was small, far out into Ponyville, and it was the blackest one. High up, another ceiling of fog danced in the air. Twilight backed away, pressing her back to the Queen-size bed.
The poor unicorn was flooded with emotions. She felt confused—no, misplaced. She felt cross, but in a terrifying way, one she never wished to be. She was in grief, feeling saddened and darkened. Her heart felt like iron, and it was about to rip out of her chest. "This can't be happening," said Twilight to herself, with a shaky tone. "Pinkie is gone—there's nopony in Sugar Cube Corner, as far as I saw—Rarity and Sweetie Belle aren't here, either. There's a wall of fog everywhere I go... what's going on?"
Twilight tapped a hoof to her forehead. She was deep in thought. "I know," she said, "I'll go to Sweet Apple Acres. Maybe I can find something there. Maybe Applejack, if she is there, I hope. Then I better get going."
--
As she trotted quietly along the west-side field of Ponyville, she felt as if every step she took her hope continued to dwindle and fade away. A dark, high hedge was to her right: The Everfree Forest. It made a wall of trees, very dark, and with the fog, made it seem even denser. To her left was a view of Ponyville.
Twilight climbed to the top of a high hill overlooking the acres belonging to the Apple family. However, she could scarcely recognize it. The fields of apple trees she should have seen were not there; in fact, not a single apple tree was to be seen. Instead, all that remained was a dark, blackened field of short grass as if scorched by a furious wildfire, and a thin white mist covering it all.
The unicorn made her way downhill to the large farmhouse. The bright white slabs and planks were no longer white, but dark grey and marked with deep scratches. The red-painted walls looked extremely old, making the farmhouse appear bole in color.
Twilight stepped inside. It was very normal, in stark contrast to the previous buildings she'd entered before: a table, chairs, couch, sink, carpet—but every piece of furniture and every wall seemed very aged. The white mist turned back into fog once Twilight was indoors.
"Applejack!" she cried. "Applejack! Big Mac! Granny Smith! Apple Bloom... Applejack!"
Like the last two times, only silence responded. The room seemed to get darker—and great darkness loomed over Twilight and the farm. The very air seemed to turn to nightshade. "Is it night time?" said Twilight. "But how? That was so instantaneous."
Squinting her eyes, she moved with difficulty through the dark fog. She was nearly blind, as if nightshade took over. After several bumps into old furniture and black walls, Twilight hurried outside.
Once she was outdoors, things became a little brighter, if only just so. Darkness still claimed most of Twilight's vision, limiting it to five or six yards at most. At least she could make out the floor beneath her hooves, if one could call it that; for it still looked as dark as the rest of the world around her.
"Why is everything so dark?" she said. "This doesn't make any sense. I'm getting nowhere. Pinkie Pie is missing, Rarity is missing, and Applejack is gone... where are they?" She fell to her haunches and placed her fore-hooves over her head. Unexpectedly, she began to silently cry, biting her lower lip, and laying quietly for almost a minute.
Then, from the very corner of her eye, Twilight spotted an oddity amid the deep darkness surrounding her. She turned, noticing an extremely odd carving on the lower part of the barn wall. She walked closer, eyeing the mysterious scratch marks.
It was in the shape of a compass—a not very neat one—but it was only marked north with an N. All of the other ends were empty.
"I'm getting nowhere," said Twilight. She wiped her eyes. "There's no time for tears. Come on, Twilight, think! I've already checked all my friends save for Rainbow Dash. There's no way for me to get to her cloud house." Twilight then began to rapidly rub her head with a hoof. "There's way too much fog here. It's not normal. With nopony around and no proper sight of where I'm going outside of Ponyville, there's no way for me to get to Canterlot... wait, that's it!" Twilight jumped with a tinge of hope left in her heart. "Fluttershy! How could I have forgotten! I still need to check there. I just hope she's home!"
Twilight, running up the hill again, noticed in her peripheral vision the blurry movement of the door swinging an inch. But she was so caught up on moving towards Fluttershy's she instantly ignored it and kept on running. As she ran, the fog became thicker and denser, and the sky only grew darker still.
--
Reaching an earthy dike, Twilight climbed over, and spotted Fluttershy's cottage. The little lake which snaked its way in front of the cottage was dry, left as a dark marking, like a great snake slid over the ground. Not a single animal could be seen. Not even one.
"This can't be," said Twilight. "There's always, at least, a critter or two roaming around these parts."
She then looked to the cottage. It was dark. The door was gone, and only blackness remained inside. As Twilight stepped inside, the fog followed her, and the only light which barely lit the black room was the opening to outside.
"Can't see a thing," said Twilight, irritated. Then an idea came into play.
With a thought, Twilight's horn was encompassed by a purple aura. She illuminated the area. Black shadows of furniture and other objects stretched, distancing themselves from Twilight. "Why didn't I do this back at the barn?"
She shrugged, and walked about the cottage. There were many birdhouses hanging about the ceiling; all were still as stones. As Twilight walked, the shadows around her shifted, making her constantly shift her head. "Fluttershy!" she called out. "Is there anypony home?"
The windows were impossible to see through. Not because they were barred up—no, they were quite open and visible—but the thick grey fog hugged against nearly all sides of the cottage. When you looked out, all you'd see would be grey.
Many empty bags of linen were everywhere: on the floor, shelves, counters, and all else. As Twilight walked, she noticed there were bits of bird food scattered on the floor, coming from a few lone bags.
"There has to be a clue here... something I could work with," said Twilight. "If only my friends were here. Where could they be?"
The dim light from outside shut down. Becoming round-eyed, Twilight turned. She ran to the front door, but was met instead by a wall. "W-what?" she said in despair. She brought her horn closer, illuminating the pale wall. Twilight tapped a hoof on it, quickly.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
It was just a plain wall. "B-but h-how," said Twilight as she backed away. "There was a door here just a second ago. What's happening?"
She fearfully ran off upstairs where Fluttershy slept. Opening the door, she saw a plain bed with a ripped carpet on the floor. Ahead was an opening to a short balcony. As Twilight made her way to the opening, she noticed how her hooves stepped on sticks. There were large pieces of splintered wood scattered throughout the floor. She quickly made her way to the entrance, standing against the guardrail and looked down to see a wall of grey fog. Twilight noticed how far up she was. She was at most as high as the roof of the cottage, yet it seemed much higher.
"How am I going to get down?" said Twilight, grieved to be in such a situation. As she thought of possibilities, her ears twitched. "Wait, that's it! I can teleport down." But before she could fire up her horn, a light noise of rushing wind blew on her back. It began to get louder and louder, until a buzzing noise—which lasted for a fraction of a second—flashed in Twilight's brain like dark thunder.
"Huh?" Twilight was about to turn around, but she fell past the guardrail, hitting the bottom floor with her right flank.
"A-ah—ah!" Twilight grunted in pain. The grey fog started to envelop around her, claiming even more of her vision and absolutely threatening her the longer she lingered in its presence. She slowly, and painfully, got up to all fours. She felt a dull pain course through her body, and her back leg which she landed on was shaking violently. "Damn it," she said. "A-ah-ow-a-ow," Twilight moaned as she dragged herself down a dirt road.
Looking back, she saw Fluttershy's cottage. On top was the short balcony; it had grey mist overlapping at its edge, coming down to the dirt. And, impossibly, beneath the balcony stood the doorway she came through: the same doorway that vanished and turned into a wall shortly after she entered, wide open with the same blackness beyond the frame. It was as if it never disappeared at all.
"B-but that's impossible... that door wasn't there."
Twilight turned away, walking down the path back to Ponyville. Her heart and spirit had shrunken. She went from being confused, to searching for her friends, to simply wanting to get out of this place. The fog closed in on Twilight. Her eyes started to hurt, but she squinted them to look ahead.
"I-I need to get out of here," said Twilight in grief. "I need to get help. Everypony is gone in this town. Something is wrong with Ponyville. I need help."
Instead of going back to the familiar Ponyville, Twilight took a different route. This one led southwards, away from Ponyville and into Manehattan. After several hours of walking straight, with nothing but grey fog behind and in front of her, Twilight collapsed. She rubbed her flank and rested against a nearby tree.
She looked ahead, seeing only fog and more fog. "I don't understand," she said. "I should have reached a-a sign or something an hour ago. None of my friends are here, and I just want to get out of this place."
The quietness of the air was unchanged. Twilight was truly alone... she began to cry. Lines of water slid down her cheeks. "W-w-why is-is this h-happening to me? Ponyville is encompassed by all this fog, there's no help I can find. If only the Princess were here... damn it!"
With nothing coming, Twilight wiped the last of her tears aside. She shakily got back to all fours, and achingly walked down the never-ending path. The fog turned dark-ashen, in between grey and black. It seemed like all things lost color. The ground, the sky, everything was lifeless. Twilight kept telling herself that she was dreaming, or that her friends would come any second now... would they really?
--
Twilight bit her lower lip. Cold sweat poured down her head as she stood aghast. The road which took half a day to get through lead her back to Ponyville.
"No!" she cried. "T-this can't be! I was sure that that road I took lead out of Ponyville! I even made sure to look back! How am I still here?"
The fog seemed to freeze, holding still and freezing time, and turned into a great cloud of misery which held all over Ponyville.
"No, no, no, no!" Twilight started to hyperventilate. Her pupils were shaky; she saw her library and the rest of the town up ahead. "This is impossible. Everypony is gone, nothing is normal, and now, I can't leave town... I need to get to the bottom of this... but I can't."
Her hope had completely shattered upon her admission. Fractured, bruised, and broken in mind, body, and finally her spirit, she sunk to the floor of her library in a pit of her own tears. Defeated, she eventually rose and left the library, walking with her head bowed low as she entered the market. The stands themselves were still intact, but they bore no food. Twilight rested her heavy back against a brick building of great height. She looked around the field of fog: everywhere was misty; only dim shadows stood out around her, shifting and flickering as they had before
Twilight's stomach grumbled. She held a hoof to it, and sighed with a disheartening tone. "Now I'm hungry," she said, "and I can't even remember the last time I ate." She then noticed how dry and sticky her mouth was too. "And I'm dehydrated."
Looking over to her left, Twilight spotted a closer shadow with a pale pink hue through the thick fog. It was Sugarcube Corner. For some odd reason, Twilight stared at that building longer than necessary.
Like electricity kicking a discharged battery back into place, something hit her. She stood quietly, deep in thought.
Something about Sugarcube Corner rung a forgotten, yet relevant memory in Twilight's head. "Oh yes," she thought. "That letter I picked up. What was it about that letter? I need to think. I've been to almost all of my friends' houses, but that's not stood out the most."
Twilight didn't move, but kept still and closed her eyes. A flashing memory flowed through her aching head as she thought back to earlier events.
--
Twilight walked down to the very end of the room, looking at a closed box resting on the end-wall. Without thinking as to why she would open it—for it was probably stained with ice cream or frozen pieces of chocolate—Twilight slid the lone box open. She tilted her head in thought as a crumpled piece of paper stood in the very center. Using her magic, she levitated the mysterious paper to her, and flattened it in mid air. A note was scribbled with black ink.
"Helm is arisen and comes back to the center"
--
"Hm," Twilight thought back hard. "comes back to the center... to the center... but what does that mean?"
--
She extended a hoof, moving the curtains aside, peeking through the balcony. A sea of grey fog seemed to go on for miles; at least, for Twilight, that was her sight. Black shadows wavered dimly under the fog. There was one shadow, in particular, which Twilight noticed. It was small, far out into Ponyville, and it was the blackest one. High up, another ceiling of fog danced in the air. Twilight backed away, resting her back to the Queen-size bed.
--
Those strange carvings back at Applejack's farm. What did it mean?
It was in the shape of a compass—a not very neat one—but it was only marked north with an N. All other ends were empty.
--
"North. Center. That one shadow standing out..." Twilight suddenly gasped, as she rose up to all fours, ignoring the pain in her side. "That's it: there's only one major building which is north from my library, and it must have been the same one as that shadow that stood out from Rarity's Boutique... the center... Town Center!"
Twilight turned around, seeing the tall building of the Mayor looming over her like a great shadow. She walked along the sides, eventually finding a door. It was arched, made of wood and stood high. Using her magic, she grasped the long handles, sliding the mighty entrance open. Twilight stepped up, entering inside a circular room.
She looked around, seeing nothing but waving fog. The room was empty. The slabbed floor was pale with specks of mist dancing about it. Pillars which rested against the round walls were wrapped in mist. The entire room was quiet.
"But-but there's nothing here," said Twilight, her voice shaky and unclear. "But there's nothing here!" she said again, much more clearly and thickly. Her ears drooped low as she walked back outside.
There was nothing there. Her single-day journey throughout Ponyville had been pointless. Tears poured down her cheeks as her face darkened. Her heart was grimed as her hope died down. She looked about Ponyville: it could have been mistaken for a cemetery. The grey fog seemed to close in on the suffering unicorn. Her eyes dropped low.
"There's no way out of here. I have no way of knowing what's going on... what's happening," she said desperately for the final time.
Terrifyingly, a sudden noise of rushing wind came back to her mind. A voice, much darker and deeper than anything Twilight had ever heard of before in her life, spoke in the stillness of the grey air. It spoke rapidly, all in a fraction of a second.
"You are in a dream!"
Author's Note
I prefer an ambiguous ending over continuation.
