How Friends May Fall

How Friends May Fall – Part 9

“Hello.”

Twilight’s body completely froze in shock. She didn’t dare to look backwards. She didn’t dare to breathe. She didn’t dare to move even a single muscle. All she could think of was the terrible horrors she had experienced from her previous dream and the hallucination, and all she could feel was the chilling anticipation of terror lurking but seconds away.

“No, no, no…” she said softly, closing her eyes to help her focus. “This isn’t real. It’s just another hallucination. Nothing can hurt me here. Just--”

A loud, ear-shattering screech her interrupted her sentence. It came from right behind her, from the exact location where she knew the filly stood. Her body shivering all over, she forced her neck to turn her head, allowing her to only just look at the filly from the corner of her eye.

The moment she laid her eye on the filly, the screeching stopped. The filly was just standing there, her mouth shut and her eyes staring into Twilight’s. But her mouth was shut, as if she had never screeched at all. Or… hadn’t she?

“Hello.”

Twilight could hear the second filly’s voice. It was just like the dream she had before. The exact same area. The exact same fillies. The exact same voices. And she knew exactly what was going to happen next.

Every single emotion in her body was crying out for her not to turn back her head, but she believed that she would have to endure another one of those screeches in she didn’t. And so, despite her better judgment, she turned her head back and found both fillies staring right into her eyes. The fillies smiled as she looked them in the eyes. The smiles slowly turned to a grin, which got wider, and wider, and wider…

Twilight closed her eyes and covered them with her hooves so she wouldn’t have to witness what followed. But it was no use. The image was burnt into her eyes. No matter whether her eyes were open or closed, and no matter which way she turned her head, she always saw the two fillies. In terror, she once more witnessed their cheeks being torn apart, and their eyeballs swelling and bursting in their sockets. She could feel her stomach turning, and chills ran down her spine.

A deafening road echoed behind her. Yet overwhelming as it was, she couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. All she had to do was look backwards, and it was over. Just like the last time. With cold sweat dripping from her forehead, she turned back and--

She faced the most terrifying abomination she had ever seen. A being of no logical sense, created solely out of ponies’ mangled bodies, twisted in unnatural shapes and curves. A hunk of living gore and flesh, with ponies’ decapitated heads mounted on top of fleshy tentacles seemingly sprouted randomly upon its body. Just a mere look at the beast made her lose her lunch, which slowly seeped into nothingness. Hopelessly sitting down on her rump, she could do nothing but stare at the thing in pure terror.

“Why…” She whispered to herself.

Five tentacles slithered through the hunk of flesh, leaving behind a trail of blood and gore as they moved in Twilight’s direction. On each of them, a familiar head was mounted. The tentacles’ heads froze right in front of her, allowing her to take a closer look at them. But she didn’t need a closer look to know who they were. Even from far away, she could have seen their heads standing out.

“Why?”

The decapitated heads’ eyes opened widely, each reveling one empty socket and one dead, dried out eye still remaining in its socket. But, as if they were still alive, they all stared right into Twilight’s eyes.

“Why am I not waking up?!”

Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain soaring through her front legs. The two fillies had both locked their teeth in one of Twilight’s front legs, penetrating her flesh and fiercely holding on. Screeching in pain, Twilight desperately tried to get them loose. Yet their jaws were too strong, and they bit straight through her bones, severing her front legs from her torso.

With a smack, Twilight’s disarmed torso landed on the inexistent floor. Crying out in pain and terror, she begged to be awoken from this terrible nightmare as she witnessed her front legs being torn apart and consumed by the two fillies. She was convinced that the hallucinations were never actually able to hurt her, but now that she had experienced otherwise, she was going crazy with fear and adrenaline.

“I DON’T WA--”

Before she could finish her sentence, a tentacle burst from the hunk of flesh and grabbed Twilight by her throat, forcing her trachea shut as it lifted her in the air. She struggled as much as she could, but she couldn’t do anything without her front legs. She tried to teleport away magic, but with all the panic surging through her body she could barely even conjure a spark.

She softly cried as another tentacle burst from the hunk of gore and slowly made its way towards her. Never before had she experienced such pain and terror in her life. But how could she be in so much pain during a mere hallucination? Was all of this real? Was this really the end for her?

As the tentacle pierced through her skin and into her intestines, all she could let out was a soft gurgle. She could feel the tentacle expanding inside of her, scraping against her insides and tearing them apart as it travelled upwards through her throat, where it exited her body through her mouth despite still being strangled. The terrible agony being the only thing to keep her from falling unconscious, she could only watch as the blood gushed from her stomach, running past the tentacle and being mixed with the flesh and gore it was tailored together with.

The decapitated heads of her friends began to cackle madly as the blood was being drained from her body. As they laughed, their razor sharp fangs became visible, large enough to tear apart their cheeks and dislocate their jaws. Blood and pus began to gush out of their empty eye sockets, forming a new gruesome tentacle as it touched the hunk of flesh they were attached to. The tentacle grabbed Twilight by her neck in an even tighter grip, crushing the two other tentacles in the process. She couldn’t even let out a gurgle anymore as she felt the muscles in her neck being crushed one by one, her body twitching heavily in the proce--

SNAP.

With a gasp and a hacking cough, Twilight jumped up from her bed. She felt completely out of breath, her entire body was aching, and her coat was completely soaked in cold sweat. Her heart was beating fiercely, and her body was shivering all over.

Still groggy and recuperating from the intense hallucination, Twilight stared blankly across the room. She seemed to be lying in some kind of hospital wards, or a medical wing. The room was dark and only faintly lit by the moonlight seeping through a window on the opposite side of the room, so she couldn’t make it out too well.

The shock and terror finally reaching through to her, she curled up in a fetal position and began to sob, tightly holding herself with her front legs. Never before had she felt so scared, so hopeless and weak. Never before had she experienced such agony and pain. She could still see the gruesome horrors in front of her when she closed her eyes. And she knew that such hallucinations were going to happens again, and again, and again… It was no wonder why Rainbow Dash had lost her mind. There was no way that she herself could endure this for long, either.

A door on the other side of the room opened, and the lights were switched on. Princess Luna was standing in the doorway, followed closely by Lieutenant Mane. With great worry reflected in the princess’ eyes, she and the lieutenant made their way to Twilight’s bed.

“Princess… I…” said Twilight, barely able to utter full words through her sobs.

“Don’t speak, Twilight.” said the princess, gently stroking Twilight’s mane. “You’ve been through enough. Please, rest.”

“I- I was just… so… so scared!”

For a moment the room fell silent, with the exception of Twilight’s soft sobbing. The princess stared at Twilight with pity and sorrow in her eyes. She knew all too well what Twilight was experiencing right now. The process had been much slower for herself then it had been for Twilight, but that feeling of terror and powerlessness was something she had never forgotten.

“Ahem.” said the lieutenant coldly, breaking the silence. “I think that it’s about time that we check on her friends, princess.”

“My friend?” said Twilight softly, raising her head to face him. “How… For how long was I out?”

“You’ve been out for half a day, at least.” replied the princess.

Upon hearing the princess’ answer, Twilight immediately sat up straight and tried to leave her bed. Yet the princess restrained her with her magic, forcing her to stay on her back.

“Let me go!” shouted Twilight, still struggling to get out.

“Calm down, Twilight Sparkle!” shouted the princess back, tightening her grip on Twilight. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Have you got any idea how weak my friends are right now? They could be in terrible danger! I must--”

“Quiet down, miss Sparkle.” interrupted the lieutenant. “I’ve already checked on them once while you were out, and they were still in the same condition as when we brought you here. We’re checking back every three hours to see if there are any changes.”

“But what--”

“AND there is no way that they could undergo worse changes then you’ve went through over the course of a whole day in just three hours, miss Sparkle.”

With a sigh, Twilight gave in to the princess’ magic and let her be slid down under the sheets. There was simply no arguing with this colt. He would either just interrupt her again, or he would ignore what she had to say entirely. She hadn’t seen him be anything else but stubborn ever since she met him.

“Just sleep, as much as you can.” said the princess, as the lieutenant left the room. “They can only hypnotize you once every few hours, and they cannot penetrate your subconscious when you’re dreaming.”

The princess turned around, and walked towards the doorway. She turned her head back towards Twilight once, and spoke.

“I promise you, we’re doing everything in our power to track down this cult. Just hang in there, and remember that despite what you may experience, none of it is real.”

She closed the door behind her. Twilight could faintly hear her hoofsteps as she walked off through the corridors, off to another floor, wing or room.

Lost in thought, Twilight just stared at the ceiling for a while. She couldn’t help but to still feel worried about her friends. Despite everything, she had to admit that it was unlikely for her friends to turn out as herself or worse within just a few hours. But although she trusted the princess’ word, she couldn’t trust the lieutenant’s as much. This whole time, he had just been cold, rude and distant. Almost suspicious, even. But even so, the princess was behaving naturally around him. And surely she would have known by now if the lieutenant was a traitor, or if he was even just acting a little bit different, right?

But whether he was a traitor or not, she still felt troubled about her friends. Even if they weren’t being hallucinated, who says that others surrounding them weren’t being hallucinated, or perhaps manipulated in some other way? In fact, what if the cultists in Ponyville decided to take a more direct approach?

Twilight sat up from her bed, and slowly stepped back on the floor. She felt that she simply couldn’t stay here; Not with this crisis going on. She had to be there for her friends. The worries regarding her own hallucinations would just have to wait for a while.

She sneaked over to the door, and tried to open it. But the door was locked. Fortunately though, it was locked for a simple lock instead of a magic spell; Simple enough for a unicorn to break through. Twilight took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and tried to focus her magic. Her magic seemed to work fine again, and with the least bit of effort she opened the door and walked into the corridor.

She was unfamiliar with this wing of the building, and her hoofsteps echoed across the corridors during the silence of the night. In order to not be caught, he had to remain as silent as possi-

A sudden gust of wind went through the window of the medical room, and closed the door behind Twilight with a loud bang. Almost immediately she could hear multiple sets of hoofsteps and voices rushing to her location, and she could see lights being turned on in the corridors around her. Wasting no time with making a clever scheme, Twilight burst into a full gallop into the nearest dark branch of the corridor. She could still hear the hoofsteps behind her, but they were not going after her. Instead, they all seemed to stop at Twilight’s door, where the other ponies began to murmur with eachother.

“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”

The sound of princess Luna’s voice echoed from the door’s location. The princess was been amongst the crowd that the door’s bang had attracted, and almost immediately she could hear the echoes of their hoofsteps again, scattering around the entire floor. The princess must have ordered them to track her down.

Twilight slowed down, and sneaked forward through the corridor. Now that the officers were looking for her, drawing attention with her own hoofsteps was the worst thing she could do. Instead, she decided to take a stealthy approach, sneaking across the floors and hiding in the shadows. Fortunately, her purple coat and dark mane blended in well with the darkness, making her difficult to spot.

But still, she had no idea where to go. She had only seen a few of the many floors in the building, and while she had paid a close attention to her surroundings while she followed the princess, the current floor she was on seemed completely unfamiliar to her.

Suddenly, the lights in Twilight’s corridor turned on. Blinded and startled by the sudden flash of light, Twilight lost her balance and fell down on the ground, hitting her head on the wall in the process. She closed her eyes and gentle rubbed the sore spot on her head, until she suddenly heard hoofsteps coming from in front of her.

She opened her eyes, and saw a big, light-brown coated colt with a short blonde mane standing just a few steps away from her, staring right into her eyes. The colt slowly approached her, narrowing his eyes in a frown as he drew close to her.

“Where are we going, miss Sparkle?”