Something was not right tonight.
Something was definitely not right, and even if Twilight Sparkle didn't know quite what it was, she knew that something was wrong.
It seemed quiet for a Nightmare Night, and even though Twilight could see young foals running about, their voices were strangely muted. It was odd, unnatural.
She paced the floor of the library, her hooves making overbearingly loud clomps on the wood as she trotted back and forth. She felt anxious, but for what? She wasn't doing anything tonight. Maybe it was that full moon that was making nervous, the full moon with the starless sky. That wasn't right.
Spike was gone, off doing...something with someone. She found that she couldn't remember quite when he had left or what he was doing. As a matter of fact, she couldn't remember anything from the last hour. It was though she had suddenly come into herself just clomping here, as if waiting for something.
Maybe if she went out, it would do her some good. The fresh air might help clear her head. Twilight Sparkle creaked open the heavy oak door of the library and stepped into the night.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Twilight was in Sugarcube Corner. It was odd that she didn't quite know how she had gotten there. She looked around. It was very dark in the kitchen where she was standing. The only light came from that eerie full moon through the window. As she tried to remember why she had come, she became very anxious upon realizing that she didn't know, but her rational side won and she forced herself to relax. She probably came over to get some support from a friend, after all the weird things she had been feeling tonight. She probably just needed some comfort, and who better to help cheer a pony up than Pinkie Pie?
But then, why wasn't she here?
Her panic rose again before she calmed herself. Pinkie was probably out with the foals on a quest for candy like she was every Nightmare Night. She had just chosen the wrong place to come, but she could probably find Pinkie if she went outside.
As Twilight turned to leave, she stepped in something a bit wet. It seemed a bit sloppy for Mr. and Mrs. Cake to leave a mess on the floor, but perhaps they were just caught up in the Nightmare Night rush and didn't have time to catch every spot. Twilight mopped it up with a dishrag and left the kitchen.
Something was not right tonight.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Twilight was in the Carousel Boutique, up on the second floor in Rarity's workroom. That was odd, she wasn't usually so intrusive when it came to entering other ponies' homes. It was very dark in this room, too. She was honestly feeling pretty creeped out. She had no idea what she was doing here, or how she had come here from Sugarcube Corner. It was like there was a huge memory blank in her mind. At this point, she just wanted to go back to the library and snuggle down with a good book. And Rarity obviously wasn’t here. She should actually probably leave before the other mare came back, Rarity wouldn’t be very happy to find Twilight up in her private work room.
As Twilight turned to make an exit, the moonlight glinted off of a piece of fabric draped on a nearby chair. It was a beautiful rich red color, and looked very heavy. It would probably make a beautiful winter coat. Twilight made a mental note to ask Rarity if she could make her something with the fabric.
She took a step forward and paused. Her hoof felt oddly heavy when she tried to lift it. She peered at it in the moonlight. It was coated in a red substance, the same red as the fabric on the chair. Twilight suddenly felt very embarrassed. Rarity had probably been dyeing the fabric, and Twilight must have felt it during the time when her memory had blotted out, getting the dye all over her hooves. Hopefully she hadn’t ruined the beautiful fabric by touching it! She’d tell Rarity about it tomorrow.
Twilight hurried out of the room, feeling the stick of the dye on the floor of the boutique. It was rather sticky for a dye, she’d ask Rarity where she got it tomorrow. For now, she was going to hurry home.
As Twilight stepped outside, the full moon beamed down on her, and a weird feeling rushed over her, twisting her stomach and almost making her throw up.
Something was not right tonight.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Twilight was in the living room of Fluttershy’s cottage. She looked around, now very confused on how she could have travelled so far out of town. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten there. The last thing she remembered was wanting to go home after visiting Rarity’s Boutique. Well, home was where she wanted to be right now, where she could relax and hopefully forget all about this weird night.
She took a step towards the dimly lit door, and paused as a floorboard creaked underneath her hoof. Suddenly, she became aware of something… odd in the cottage that she hadn’t noticed while she was absorbed in her own thoughts. It was too quiet. There were no tiny squeaks or snores, even though it was quite late, judging from the height of the moon in the sky. All of the animals that normally inhabited the pegasus’s home were mysteriously absent.
Confused but curious, Twilight did a bit of poking around in the living room. It was strange, as though all of the animals had vanished without a trace, along with Fluttershy herself. She doubted Fluttershy would be out on Nightmare Night, especially this late. So where was she?
It was very dark in the room, and other than a few odd dark splotches of something that she couldn’t identify, nothing was out of place. It was getting a bit creepy alone in the house, and Twilight resolved to add the cottage to her list of places to visit tomorrow. She took a step towards the door when she heard a very quiet squeak.
Twilight peered down at the floor to see a small, white mouse at the entrance of a hole in the wall. It looked up at her and gave one loud, frightened sounding squeak, then turned around and scurried as fast as it could back into the hole. Twilight blinked at the spot where it had been for a few moments before coming to a conclusion.
The night must have been making all of the animals go crazy. After all, there was something odd with the moon tonight. They were probably all just hiding somewhere safe until it was morning. And she should do the same thing.
Twilight finally made it to the door of the house. Her hooves felt heavier than normal, but when she looked down all she saw was the same dye from the boutique. It felt like there was… more of it, but that couldn’t be possible. An itch formed at the back of her brain, something she should know but had forgotten, but Twilight ignored it.
Something was not right tonight.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Twilight was inside of Rainbow Dash’s cloud house. This scared her more than anything else that had happened on this night. Rainbow’s house was comprised entirely of clouds, and that meant that she would have had to cast the spell that allowed non-pegasus ponies to walk on clouds on herself in order to get up there, which she had no memory of doing. It really felt like she was imposing on Rainbow’s privacy, and she wanted to get home, where she could lock herself up and have Spike watch her, to make sure she didn’t do anything else odd.
A few tears pricked at her eyes, and her heart began beating faster when she looked up at that moon. It was beating down on her, and she became very dizzy, almost toppling over on her hooves. She lowered her head to try and shake the itchy feeling inside of her skin. She took a step towards the open door, and stepped in something.
It was warm and a bit sticky, and she nearly slipped on it in her clumsy state. It was a bright red, the same color as the dye at Carousel Boutique. But there was no way that a whole puddle of the dye had made it’s way to Rainbow’s house. She couldn’t have tracked that much in, and the dye that was on her hooves was already dry. In a sudden burst of curiosity, she lifted her hoof, still dripping in the substance, to her mouth and gently tasted it. It tasted a bit… metallicy?
A wide shudder went through her body as she realized that it wasn’t dye after all. It had never been dye.
As she emerged from the house, the moon poured onto her, bathing her in that overly-bright light. Before she could stop herself, she let out a loud cackle, gazing at her hooves.
Something was not right tonight. Not right at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Twilight was in a barn at Sweet Apple Acres. It was rather nondescript and looked newly built. It took a few seconds for her to come fully back to herself, and she shook her head, dazed. It was strange, she couldn’t quite remember what she had last done. She was at Rainbow’s, and…
The memory blurred as Twilight’s mind slewed to the side. She listed, almost falling onto the dirt floor. A ray of moonlight had come in through one of the cracks in the ceiling, and it was hitting her on her side, and it hurt. She weakly rolled over so she was in darkness once again, and the crawling under her skin stopped. She shakily stood up and looked around.
There weren’t any features in the barn other than a few splashes of that… dye? She couldn’t remember. There was also a large burlap sack filled with something lumpy, possibly apples. Twilight’s stomach growled a little, and she realized it had been hours since she’d last eaten. Applejack wouldn’t mind if she took just one. She made her way over, avoiding the patch of moonlight, and opened the bag.
There were apples in the bag. Three of them, to be exact. But they weren’t physical apples. They were a cutie mark, on the flank of an orange pony. Twilight poked the bag, tears beginning to leak out of her eyes when her friend didn’t respond. Now in a panic, she galloped out of the barn as fast as she could, but stopped directly in the moonlight just outside of the door. It covered her, and she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
Something-
~~~~~~~~~~~
Spike opened the door of the library, whistling as he peeked at his haul of candy, kept securely in a tied pillowcase. It had been fun going out with the Cutie Mark Crusaders and hanging out in the clubhouse afterwards, way past any of their bedtimes.
A blue horn slipped off of his Discord costume, covered with tape from when he had hastily repaired it after his rather sloppy sewing job had come undone. But he had made it all himself, so he was proud of it all the same.
The library was very dark, and he hesitantly scooped up the horn and nervously played with it in his claws.
“Twilight?” he called out. She hadn’t said she was going anywhere tonight, but maybe she had made plans at the last minute. Or maybe she was just asleep. She had said she was pretty tired when he left. But, still, he didn’t really want to be all alone in the dark library, with the ghosts and monsters just waiting behind the bookshelves…
He snapped himself out of his thoughts. He’d obviously just been a little freaked out by the ghost stories Applebloom had told, that was all. He’d be fine. Besides, there were no such things as monsters.
He took a few steps inside and gently closed the door behind him. The only light came from that the small crescent moon outside of the window. It was illuminating something on the table, a book that had been left open. Twilight must have been reading it after he left. Well, he would put it back for her, and then he could prove that he wasn’t a scaredy-dragon in the dark.
He lifted the book, and right away knew something was up. It was entitled Dark Magic Spells for the Aspiring Unicorn. Why would Twilight be reading a book like that? He carried it a full arm’s length away from himself, not wanting of that creepy dark magic to seep out into him.
As he walked, he heard a quiet noise coming from the library’s basement. Maybe it was Twilight, working on learning some new spells, hopefully not from this book. He walked over to the stairs and looked down into the darkness.
“Twilight?” he called again, but there was no response. He made his way slowly down the stairs, now very apprehensive of what he would find at the bottom.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw a figure of a pony sitting in a beam of moonlight coming from a high-set window. “Twilight? Are you alright? I found this book on dark magic upstairs and I-”
The mare whipped around to face him, and Spike jumped backwards. Her mane was a mess, and her eyes were wild, darting around in every direction. One had a slight twitch. Her entire body from the chest down was coated in blood. She gave him a huge grin, and her teeth were stained red.
“It wasn’t their night tonight, Spike.” Twilight cackled, her eye twitching like mad. “No, it wasn’t their night at all.” She shook her head rapidly and let out an insane laugh. Spike stared deep into Twilight’s eyes, which no longer looked like hers at all, and backed away until he was pressed against the wall. Twilight stalked towards him, that beam of moonlight seeming to track her, and he closed his eyes, knowing what was coming.
Something was not right tonight.