Hollow Mask

Twilight moved silently down the stairs. She stopped as the strange pegasus mare shifted into view. She had a bright cyan fur and dirt-brown mane. The only thing missing was a cutie mark.

She looked peaceful lying on the couch, just breathing slowly. Twilight thought about the day before. This pegasus had appeared from nowhere. She scared Fluttershy to the point that she had used the stare on her. As Fluttershy had reported she had just stood there and completely ignored the stare itself. She had mocked her and then just walked away like it was nothing. Twilight had found Fluttershy crying later the day.

When she had reached town she immediately crashed into Twilight. The pegasus had stared at Twilight in what looked like confusion before she blurted out an equation. An equation that had solved the problem that Twilight had worked on for over a month. She told Twilight that her name was 'Hunter' and fell unconscious. A rather strange name for a mare. After she woke up she had explained the equation to her and a few other things the alicorn still didn't believe.

Twilight proceeded to walk down the stairs and closed in on the couch. The breathing of the pony was the only sign that she was sleeping and not dead. Without any warning her eyes shot open and focused on her. Without moving her head, Hunter studied her intensely before she spoke up, "I see you are awake too."

"Yes. Care for breakfast?" Twilight asked. She moved back towards stairs to wake up Spike.

The pegasus got up quickly considering the fact that she was still learning to walk. Her eyes quickly scanned the room  before she moved towards the kitchen. "I will help him," she determined, "Do you still have any questions?" There was little emotion in her voice.

Twilight stopped shortly on her way up, "Later. You should eat first. You need the energy."

"Maybe," the short response came back. Twilight vanished into her bedroom and walked over to Spike's bed. She looked at the sleeping dragon baby before she woke him up, "Spike!"

After a few seconds the small dragon slurred back, "What is it, Twi?"

"Can you make breakfast?" suggested the alicorn.

"No."

"Good. Then I will cook and you have to eat it," threatened Twilight.

The dragon shot up instantly and yelled, "NOO! I will do it!" He stormed through the door and down the stairs. The lavender alicorn snickered. There are perks to not being able to cook. That reminded her of something else.

The dream from last night shot up from the depths of her memory. What where 'the things in the dark'?

Spike had made pancakes. He had finished his sapphire pancakes a few minutes ago and was currently busy reshelving the library. Twilight rejoiced at the sensation her taste buds reported to her brain. On the opposite side of the table sat Hunter. She was very clumsy with the silverware. "Should I help you?" asked Twilight.

"There is no point in not trying to master my hooves," the pegasus replied, "You can ask your questions now."

Twilight was baffled for a few seconds before her brain shifted gears, "I don't think I understand that Space-Time thing fully yet. Can you explain it a bit better?"

The pegasus paused to try and eat his pancakes shortly, "You can think of it this way; Imagine everything moves in four dimensions. The fourth represents time. Your total speed is alway the speed of light. If you stop moving in the normal three dimensions you move with C through time. If you start moving in the normal three dimensions you have to slow down in time so the total speed does equal C. Time and Space are part of the same thing. The only thing you have to carry over is the causality of events. This is however are very rudimentary metapher."

Twilight stared at the strange pony for the good part of a minute, "This is going to give me a headache." She held her head in her hooves. For the past months she had worked on the problem why things can move. Equestrian scientists had discovered that no matter how fast you move, the speed of light is always the same. This had been a discussion for over a year now until this pegasus appeared and solved it in seconds. That thought reminded her of her dream tonight. "What are the 'things in the dark'?" she asked suddenly.

For minutes the pegasus remained silent and scanned every visibly inch of her. "I will not ask how you know of my theory and I don't want you to explain it to me," he said, "but I will answer nonetheless. Before I begin I have to ask; Are you afraid of the dark? I mean the real dark, that lingers in the corners of your vision when you wake up in the middle of the night. When you walk down the stairs only to find the darkness around you moving as if it will consume you at any moment. Are you?"

Twilight thought back to her dream when she had thought she had woken up, "Yes."

"Why?"

Twilight wondered about this question until she discovered that she didn't know any answer, "I don't know. It's just scary"

"Exactly. A wise man once said; 'Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark. But they're wrong. 'Cause it's not irrational.' It was part of a fictional story. Were I come from we don't know any other species yet. Well, except me for now. However I knew that it was partly true. We instinctively know that we are never alone in the dark. That something watches us sleeping. Not everybody, or everypony in our case, comes back out of the dark.

"I don't know what exists in the dark, it could be anything. Vashta Nerada. Nightmares. Windigos. Skinwalkers. In short: Monsters. You could also say, 'the things in the dark'. I am a very rational being but I still think this must be true. Especially now, that I know that this seems to expand to here."

"Windigos don't live in the dark. They are beings of ice and disharmony," stated Twilight.

The pegasus smirked, "Here maybe. Were I come from the tale is different. Eating the flesh of your own kind will transform one into a windigo. They are fast. Faster than you could believe. They will happily rip the flesh from your bones and devour it. Their hearts are made of ice. I think that is the point where your lore is correct. They are immortal and they will forever feel the hunger for more flesh."

Twilight stared at Hunter in horror, "Why would anypony even think of something like this?"

"Exactly. Let me explain the other beings I mentioned.

"A skin walker is a human that rips the skin from others to assume their identity. Rather brutal. As long as they find a skin they can continue to survive. Nightmares are part of the lore of my people. The original would name would be 'Nachtmahr' which literaly translates to nightmare. They sit on your chest, induce nightmares and live of the pain the cause. It is believed they can also implant ideas and thoughts into their victims. Both are rather harmless compared to the last one.

"Vashta Nerada. If I remember correctly that means 'the shadows that eat flesh'. They are microorganisms. They live in dark woods. Have you every seen the little dust particles in the sunlight? That's them. They hunt in the dark. Sometimes ponies won't come back out of the dark. Am I right? As soon as they attach to you, you are lost. They never stop pursuing their victims. They are literaly the thing that lingers in the dark."

The pegasus paused shortly. "You don't look so good, Twilight," he determined.

The alicorn had become more and more pale as the pegasus continued with his story. The lavender fur had somehow shifted to a greyish white. "Is any of this true?" she whispered.

"That is the big question isn't it?" smirked the pegasus, "The truth is that all this is just a theory. But you have to ask yourself; why do people, or ponies, tell stories about those things? Why do people believe they are true? Why are we afraid of the dark? That is the big question, Miss Sparkle, and now I am in a world where I could finally find an answer it."

Hunter had finished her pancakes and slowly left the kitchen, leaving a disturbed lavender alicorn behind to think about what she just told her.

The pancakes had lost their taste to Twilight. She moved the plate away, stood up and followed Hunter out of the kitchen.