Author's Note

Worry not dear reader!

The rest of the story's chapters shall be longer than this, and according to how well the story is reacted to, the update rate should be fairly frequent!

Thanks! Bye!

Chapter 1: Bedtime

Dreaded Shadows

Chapter 1: Bedtime

"Sleep well darling." Rarity cooed to her younger sibling before tucking her in, a warm, welcoming smile spread across her face.

"Goodnight Rarity." Sweetie Belle replied, before yawning and turning to lie on her side.

Sweetie Belle had been through a rather tiring day of Crusading. Her energy had finally run out, and she was more than ready to welcome slumber and drift off to a wonderful dream. She could only faintly hear Rarity softly closing the door behind her as the room was submerged into absolute darkness, save for the white light of the moon shining through her bedroom window.

Tomorrow was the beginning of a new school year, so I had better get some sleep tonight so that I don't pass out in class... again.
Sweetie Belle thought to herself.

A soft smile emerged as she found herself losing consciousness and slipping into the dream world.

Suddenly, a light tapping sound broke the silence somewhere in the corner of the room. At first it didn't disturb her, but as time passed, the tapping grew progressively louder. Sweetie's smile slowly turned into a frown, as she began tossing and turning in her bed, the tapping growing louder and louder. Finally, Sweetie awoke from her slumber, beads of sweat dripping from her.

The tapping had stopped.

Sweetie, lay back into her sweat stained bed and sighed, "Darn nightmares." she complained, before turning on to her side again. Just as she closed her eyes, the tapping started up again. Again Sweetie Belle disregarded the tapping completely and attempted to fall asleep again.

Then she heard the breathing.

Same as the tapping, it too begun as something barely noticeable. Almost as if it were distant and far away. But as time progressed, it too grew louder, until Sweetie Belle finally took notice of it.

Still sleepy, she opened her eyes slowly in an attempt to locate the source of the sound. It appeared that it had come from an especially dark corner of her room. No... this corner was just darker than the others, it was completely pitch black, like some kind of void.

It was only when the void seemed to shift slightly that Sweetie Belle truly accepted what was going on. Something was in the corner of the room and as the tapping and breathing grew louder, she realized that it seemed to slowly inching it's way towards her. Sweetie Belle was completely overcome by fear, she dared not move, lest she disturb whatever monstrosity lurked in the shadows. Constantly closing and opening her eyes, she silently prayed that her eyes were simply playing tricks on her and that nothing was really in the corner.

Of course however, these prayers were in vain.

She contemplated calling out for Rarity, but began second guessing herself. What if Rarity couldn't get here fast enough, what if the monster tried to hurt both her and Rarity?

Another shift in the darkness made Sweetie realize that she was running out of time, she had to think of something quickly, lest the creature come to close. The monster shifted again, now less than two meters away from Sweetie's bed. Sweetie's breath became strained and her heart rate quickened.

Sweetie Belle stared once more into the void, and to her horror, it stared back.

Indeed, the shimmer of two beady black eyes became more pronounced as the rest of the monstrosity's feature began to emerge from the darkness of the shadows. The creature's head slipped from the darkness, it appeared sticky and slimy, similar to the wet skin of an amphibian, except as black as night. Perhaps the only part of the creature that was darker than it's skin was it's eyes. It had no muzzle, nor a snout or nose of any description, merely a flat forehead, accompanied by a wicked mouth which was curled into a horrid grin.

The monster placed it's claw-like appendages onto the edge of Sweetie's bed, before it opened it's mouth, revealing hundreds of pristine white, sharp, pointed teeth and a disgusting tongue, not dissimilar from that of a serpent's.

Instead of pouncing on Sweetie Belle (of whom was already in tears), the creature began to wheeze and cackle, a certain sense of wickedness emitting from the abomination's mouth. The creature's breath was vile and putrid, smelling of decay. It washed over her, making her gag and eliciting frightened whimpers from the terrified filly.

It raised one of it's claws and began stroking her scalp, Sweetie dared not move, if the creature was enraged, it would surely spell her doom. So instead, she remained as still as possible, doing her best to control her whimpering and shivering as the monstrosity continued to claw at her scalp. The stroking was not painful, simply unpleasant and it made Sweetie feel increasingly uncomfortable as the creature quickened it's pace.

Sweetie closed her eyes, she could no longer bare to see the creature, it was all simply too frightening to the young filly. The creature didn't take well to this, not even a second after she had closed her eyes, the monstrosity leapt onto her bed and pinned Sweetie underneath one of it's claws. It yet again opened it's foul mouth, the creature's tongue began rapidly wiggling around in it's mouth as it neared Sweetie's face.

When the creature tried stuffing it's tongue into her mouth, Sweetie's attempts to stay calm and resolved had been completely abandoned. She hastily pulled her head away from the creature and desperately wiggled out of it's grip before screaming as loudly as she possibly could, "RARITY, HELP ME!".

Almost immediately, the creature leapt off the bed and shrunk back to the shadowy corner from whence it came.

Rarity had spent her night in bed, reading a designer's magazine and sipping from a warm cup of tea. She smiled to herself gleefully as she spotted one of her own dresses in the magazine, astounded by how beautiful it was compared to all the others.

With another sip from her tea, Rarity laid down her magazine and instead lifted up her knitting kit and set to work repairing one of her client's scarves. She always felt so at peace when knitting late night. Sweetie Belle had gone to bed much earlier and with surprising ease as well. Normally it would've been a battle to ensure that the filly was asleep, but after checking on her a few minutes afterwards, she found the filly deep into slumber.

Rarity slowly closed her eyes unknowingly, her magic working to the pattern of the scarf.

Suddenly, somepony screamed from somewhere in the house "RARITY, HELP ME!".

Rarity shot out of bed, sending the knitting kit and scarf tumbling onto the floor as she stumbled towards her door and hurried towards Sweetie Belle's room. As she reached Sweetie's door, she could still hear her screaming frantically inside. She pushed the door open and turned on the lights, "Sweetie Belle, are you all right? What's wrong darling?"

Sweetie Belle was cowering against the headboard of her bed, her screaming had ceased but she was still panting and crying uncontrollably. Her bed was soaked and the duvet and covers had both been undone and messed up.

Rarity approached her sibling and sat on the bed, "Sweetie, what happened darling? Did you wet the bed?" she asked, cutting a glance at the drenched beddings.

"I-in the corner..." Sweetie Belle mumbled quietly.

"I'm sorry darling, what?" Rarity asked with the most caring voice imaginable.

"It's in the corner..." Sweetie spoke up, too afraid to gaze upwards.

Rarity looked around the room, still confused as to what her younger sister had meant by 'In the corner'. She looked back to her obviously terrified sibling, "Sweetie... what do you mean by 'in the corner'?" she asked softly.

Sweetie Belle finally built up the courage to look at her sister, "It's in the corner, please make it go away!" she cried before gazing once more at the corner from where the creature first emerged from. She reeled back, crying out once again, "RARITY, HELP ME!" before burrowing her tiny head into her older sister's fur.

Rarity looked up at the corner confused, "Sweetie, what are you talking about... there's nothing in that corner, or this entire room for that fact," She stood up and looked underneath the bed and then in the closet ", See? There's absolutely nothing in here!." she said, in an attempt to comfort her frightened sibling.

Sweetie Belle stopped crying for a moment and looked up at her sister in shock, "W-what do you mean that there's nothing here! Don't you see it in the corner?" Sweetie looked at the corner again, her eyes widening further, "It's smiling at me!"

By then, Rarity had begun to become exceedingly worried about her younger sister. Oh dear, what could this poor filly possibly be talking about? There's nopony in this room excepting myself and her she thought to herself. "Sweetie Belle, what exactly is this... thing which you're talking about?

Sweetie Belle's mouth gaped wide open, her sister truly couldn't see the monstrosity standing right behind her, it's ugly head hanging right over Rarity's shoulder. It was still smiling, it's piranha-like teeth cascading over each other. It tilted it's head to one side, before opening it's mouth again, to reveal it's horrid tongue once more. It looked at her and then at Rarity's ear. It's one eye had twisted itself to a angle so that it could always watch Sweetie Belle in the corner of it's eyes.

"NO DON"T!" Sweetie Belle cried loudly!

The creature sniffed once, before thrusting it's tongue down Rarity's ear, releasing sickening sloshing sounds as it grasped Rarity tightly with it's claws.

Rarity remained completely confused as to what exactly Sweetie Belle was crying about, she looked at Sweetie inquisitively as her younger sister continued demanding that she stop.

In Sweetie's perspective, the creature was choking her sister, it's tongue still deep into Rarity's ear. Her sister had stopped struggling and appeared to be losing consciousness.

When Rarity finally stood up, Sweetie Belle seemed to have calmed down slightly and wrapped her tiny forelegs around her sister's neck, constantly repeating the phrase "I'm sorry." over and over again.

The creature had returned back to the shadows, having released Rarity from it's grasp, it's wicked smile never leaving it's face even once. It crawled into an impossibly small space underneath her closet, it's eyes still watching from underneath. Fortunately, it appeared that Rarity hadn't been affected by the creature.

Rarity realized that her sister had probably just woken up from a nightmare or something of the like, "Darling, would you prefer to sleep in my bed tonight?" she asked sympathetically.

Sweetie simply nodded, her gaze staying on the monstrous creature residing underneath her closet.

Rarity smiled, "First, let me clean up your bed a little, why don't you go wait in my room a bit while I change the sheets?"

Sweetie's breathing picked up again, there was absolutely no way that she was going to let Rarity be in this room alone with that... thing. "I-It's okay Rarity, I'll help you with that!" she chirped as convincingly as possible.

"If you're sure darling." Rarity replied with a gentle smile.

Sweetie Belle didn't get a wink of sleep that night.

She watched the door, acting as a look out, just in case the creature attempted to enter their room. She wondered about the beast, where did it come from? How did it get into her room? Things she would have to investigate.

She was fairly certain that it was still there in her room, hiding in the shadows

Sweetie couldn't have been happier when the sun finally rose up. She crawled out of bed and made her way back to her room. With some hesitance, she opened the door and as she suspected, the creature was nowhere to be found. Had she imagined it all? Perhaps it had all been a terrible nightmare of some kind and Rarity had found her and brought her to her room.

Yeah, that's it she thought to herself, before returning to Rarity's room and collapsing onto the bed. She opened her eyes once, a gleeful smile spread across her face.

And then the tapping started again.

She searched for the origin of the noise and to her horror, there sat the creature tapping against the base of one of Rarity's closets, a smile spread onto it's face.

There it sat, in the dreaded shadows.