Twilight looked down the small flight of steps, the dark, damp air bringing an unpleasant taste to her attention. She illuminated her horn, and looked around the space, but the darkness was a creeping, festering thing, and it only allowed her to see two feet in front of her. She descended the steps, cracked and slippery, with a strange sensation of dread. But curiosity got the better of her, and she continued down the slope of broken steps. The shed she had discovered behind her castle, in the woods, had drawn her, beckoned to her, and she knew she needed to go down there, though she knew not why. Her mind was pleading, screaming with her to retreat, but she only went deeper into the damp, moldy space. Her magic was starting to give her a migraine from use, so she dimmed it, resulting in even worse vision. She heard a squelch under her hooves, and didn't dare take a look, for many unspeakable things could have been down there.
After some time of descending the steps, she came upon an old, wooden door, which looked sealed from years of neglect. Mustering her strength, she tried to push the door open, but it budged not. Using her magic, she manage to open the door in the slightest way, just enough for her to fully remove it from its hinges. A gust of foul air greeted her, and her stomach churned at the stench of rot and decay. But curiosity is a strong thing, and she stepped inside, propping the door open with a rock she found. Inside, she lit her horn, and the contents of the room made her gag. Corpses and skeletal remains lay on the cold stone floor, and flesh and blood stained the walls, giving it a reddish brown coloring. The filth and rot made her stomach completely empty itself, and she turned for the stairs from whence she came, but the door slammed shut, sealing her inside. She pounded on the door, trying to open it, but it was too heavy. She was trapped.
She sat down on the floor, gasping for air in the enclosed confines of the tomb. Thoughts ran through Twilight's head, engulfing her in a tidal wave of dread. What if she died down here? What if her body was never found? She pounded the damp, unforgiving walls, beating them until her hooves ached, and tears welled in her eyes. Her magic wasn't allowing an escape, for something was preventing anything more than illumination magic. She tried again to channel energy into a destruction spell, but nothing happened. She tried teleportation, but was given the same results.
She shivered, the cold, unnatural air chilling her to her very core. Looking around in the dark, her horn faintly shimmering, she saw a small, round knob in the wall. Gaining a sliver of hope back, she pushed herself up, and grabbed the handle. She pulled, but nothing happened. But then she pushed, harder and harder, and the stone gave way, letting in the last, fading rays of the sun. She shielded her eyes from the glare, and looked around. But something was indeed wrong, for this was not a place known to her. In fact, this was nowhere even close to Ponyville. She walked along the dirt path, and a crow perched upon a dead log, staring at her with void-like eyes. It cawed, and in a moment flapped its wings, taking flight. It stayed low to the dirty, overgrown path, and Twilight followed. Indeed, the path was old and worn, and weeds, roots and other things covered the surface, leaving her guessing as to where the path would lead. As Twilight walked, the crow suddenly flew up into the sky, leaving her entirely alone. She looked around, and found an odd sight; to her left, rising high as the trees and black as the night sky, stood a tower. The trees around it grew thickly, and the cold air was filled with a steadily growing fog.
She went towards the tower, the crunching sounds of twigs and leaves surrounding her. Her heartbeat was rising, telling her to never venture forth into the dark tower, but curiosity was a dangerous thing, and she came to the entrance. A stone, Gothic doorway blocked her way, and a picture of a nightmarish creature adorned the top. It had hideously deformed limbs, face and body, with a veil of darkness surrounding it like a cloak. The rest of its body looked scaly, but its entire form was black. It seemed as if it were made of shadow, as to not be destroyed. But the most horrible part to hr was the eyes; black, void-like and seeming as if they burned into her soul, the eyes of the creature stuck in her mind, and her head started pounding. She looked away, and opened the door to reveal the dismal interior of the tower.
The floor was covered in dust and filth, and the rough stone and wood echoed her hoofsteps as she wandered through the chamber. Several small doors stood on each side, and one had previously been opened, revealing a long, dark and cold stairway down into inky blackness of the earth. She saw a torch on the wall, and grabbed it, trying to light it with her magic, but still the slight glow was the only spell she could muster. It seemed as if the chamber she had first set hoof in had inhibited all her other spells, and this fact terrified her; no room had ever been able to do that to her before, and she tried the teleportation spell again, with a negative result. She sat on the ground, trying to steady her breathing to concentrate, and tried the destruction spell. This time she managed to conjure it, and she excitedly aimed it to the other doors, but the shot merely made a small mark, and she growled in frustration. The mental strain was taking a toll on her, and she decided there was only one thing to do, and descended the stairs.
The damp, cold air of the passage sent a smell of fear, and she reached a flat spot on which to try and see around. Nothing but blackness and foul air met her, and she noticed the door not too far away. Descending the last few steps, she readied herself to open the door, unsure of what she would find but curious as to what lay ahead. She pulled the door open slowly, creaking on rusty, unused hinges and she peered around the space, searching for something. But all she found was outside again, but this was impossible; she had just gone several feet underground, right? But this didn't look, or feel, like the Everfree, and the sky was dark yet glowing, as if some mystic force kept a slight glimmer for her to see by, which was impossible unless Celestia or Luna knew what she was doing. She stepped forward, her hooves crunching on the fallen leaves and dead twigs, the trees looming above her as if silent judges deciding her fate. As she walked through the trees, she felt unseen eyes gazing at her from the inky darkness of the trees, and she tried to steady her breathing as she attempted to see what she assumed pursued her. Her heartbeat went faster and faster, and the ringing in her ears rose to a pitch higher than she'd ever heard before, making her drop and cover her ears in pain.
But when she opened her eyes she knew something was wrong. Not a single noise could be heard, not a single thing moved, and she ran. She ran like her life depended on it, which she knew it surely must, and she attempted to escape this nightmare in which she was certain she inhabited, for this couldn't be reality; could it? She saw nothing but darkness and the blur of black trees, their long, bony branches like fingers reaching out to drag her into the depths of the void-like forest in which she ran. She heard the cracking of twigs behind and around her and she knew for certain now that she was not, indeed was never alone as soon as she had descended the stairs. She thought back to that statue and cringed, and she hoped she was wrong when the thought entered her head that it was the thing pursuing her. It didn't make any logical sense for such a thing to exist, even with all magical elements working in the world, but then again, nothing in this dream made any sense, and she looked behind her and saw the unnameable, the unthinkable, the maddening sight of what chased and sought after her. A writhing black mass of shadows and daemonic protrusions was behind her, leaking foul substances and waving it's tendrils and sliding over the ground like a ghost, the veil of shadowy vapor emitting a foul odor of rotten skin and metallic blood, making Twilight gag horrendously as she tried to escape. She saw a mossy, cracked stone wall ahead, and the first thought in her head was a building or some form of escape, but alas it was a simple wall, and she found herself with her back against it. She looked ahead and the unspeakable thing came ever closer, it's scaly body and slimy, black protrusions waving wildly as it neared her. It was almost up on her now, and she screamed to try and call for help or assistance, but her magic still failed, and soon her screams simply ceased to be.
