Only five minutes until playtime! Sunflower Seed thought, excitedly. The sunshine-yellow, orange-maned Earth pony filly sat in English class, staring at the clock and occasionally glancing at the writing tablet on her desk. What is with these stupid dots and commas?! Sunflower thought in frustration. English was never her best subject; just one more thing to forget about when recess finally came.
Sunflower perked up as the teacher, Eraser Dust (or Miss Dusty, to the class) clapped her hooves.
“Time to go outside! Have fun, everypony!“ The poor teacher didn’t even have time to finished her sentence before fillies and colts began running outside into the bright, warm sunlight.
Sunflower galloped towards the swings. She wasn’t a very fast runner, so she didn’t get a swing to herself—again. Instead, two colts got the swings this time; they saw Sunflower arrive late, and just laughed at her. Like always. It was not just because she was slow, but because she had bigger ears than the other fillies. At least, that was the most common reason they laughed. As bad as that was for her, she took solace in knowing she also had a better sense of hearing than others.
She walked away from the colts on the swings. She was often alone at school, because she hadn’t bothered to make some new friends. She'd had friends before, but they were in Ponyville, where Sunflower and her family lived until they moved to Manehattan a year ago (her granny was being treated in a hospital here). At first, Sunflower's mom thought the move was temporary, but she grew to like Manehattan very much and had made several friends. Eventually, she bought a house, and the family was settled in, permanently.
Sunflower stared at the grass beneath her sadly as she walked along the school’s front yard. Aside from a black van curving up toward the schoolyard, there was nopony else around. Recess was winding down quickly already, and Sunflower turned to walk back toward the school building, when she heard a noise. The van had stopped in front of Sunflower, and a tall, thin unicorn stallion came out.
When the Unicorn came closer, Sunflower start to panic and walk backwards.
“Don't worry, little one,” the unicorn said with a weird, high-pitched voice, “nothing to worry about. I won't hurt you.”
Sunflower stopped moving, her worsening panic holding her in place. “O-okay...” she stammered. Suddenly, the unicorn began to run at her, and Sunflower freed herself from her fear and bolted for the school building. She had gotten about five meters away before she felt the ground taken out from under her hooves. That weird pony had stopped her with his magic.
“You're coming with me,” he whispered in that weird voice.
Sunflower tried to scream, but the magic holding her up was too strong. She was not able to move or speak. The unicorn opened the van’s back doors and swiftly threw Sunflower in. She landed inside, hitting the inner wall of the van with such a hard THUD, her vision started to grow blurry and distorted. In seconds, she fainted.
When the trunk closed, the school bell ringed. All the colts and fillies—except one—walked inside, upset that playtime was over.
“Don’t be so sad, kids. After all, you have art class next!” Miss Dusty tried to cheer them up. Noticing something wrong, she counted the number of students that walked back in, counting in her head twice and out loud once. “
Where is Sunflower?” she asked. Nopony answered, so nopony seemed to know. Miss Dusty began to worry, hoping she had gone home sick and wasn't playing hooky, or had gotten lost. Or worse.
Slowly coming to, Sunflower opened one eye a little. Colors swam around in blurs, so she couldn’t quite see anything.
“I'm glad you're finally awake,” an upset voice spoke up. Still groggy, Sunflower didn’t answer right away.
“So, they brought you here too? I'm sorry...” another voice spoke in the middle of loud sobbing
As Sunflower sat up, she thought her vision was returning to normal, but found that she still couldn't see anything in the darkness. She strained to look around, and saw faint, colored blurs that could only be the two ponies whose voices she heard.
“Eh.. Can you tell me your name?” the first filly asked. “My name is Sweet Dream, but you can call me Sweetie if you want.”
“Okay, my name is Sunflower Seed,” she replied woozily, “call me Sunny or Sunflower...” Sunflower trailed off a bit before asking, “Why I can’t see anything?”
“There aren't any holes in the walls, here, so the sun can’t light up this place,” Sweet Dream answered. “Do you remember? You're in the back of the van.”
“Oh yeah...” Sunflower trailed off again, facing the fearful reality that this wasn't all just a dream. Doing her best to stay calm and be a big filly, she kept asking questions. “How many ponies are in here with us?”
“I think I was first. Right now, it's me, you, Jackpot and one other one. I’m not sure whether it's a filly or a colt, though...” Sweet Dream slowly stopped, but recovered with some effort, “I'm too scared to see if they're alive or not...”
“Does anypony know where we're going?”
“No. That weird unicorn just took us...” Jackpot answered amidst his cries. There was a long pause in which everypony just sat in truck. Nopony spoke, and nopony kept track of how long the silence went on.
Finally, the children jumped when the silence broke.
“What.. happened..?” came a weak voice. The fainted pony appeared to be waking up.
“Don't be scared,” Sweetie answered. “You were just foalnapped, like the rest of us. This is Sunflower, that crying colt is Jackpot, and I'm Sweet Dream. What's your name?”
“Oh... I'm Magical Moon... but you can call me Moony,” the filly introduced herself. “It's so dark in here. Hey, I know! I can do that one spell, how to make my horn glow!”
Moony tried to use her magic, indicated by a spark of blue magic that flickered in the dark. After two tries, she did it! The light covered all four of them, and Sunny, Sweetie, Moony and Jackpot were able to look at each other. Sweet Dreams was a light blue-coated Pegasus with darker blue hair, Jackpot was a light yellow coated Earth pony colt with light pink and purple mane, and Magical Moon was a purple unicorn with orange hair. By the light of Moony's horn, they saw that there was fifth pony amongst them: a smiling unicorn.
“Hi, when did you come here?” Sweetie asked. “What’s your name?” the unicorn didn’t answer.
“How can you be so quiet?” Sunflower asked the next question. Still, the unicorn did not answer.
“How come you didn’t light up the van before? You have a horn, don't you?” Jackpot asked tears in eyes. The unicorn just showed a bigger grin and gave a tiny laugh.
“Helloooo?” Sweetie asked and tried to look closer at the unicorn’s face.
“I was caught first,” the unicorn filly whispered in a chilling voice, answering one question at a time, “and why should I tell you my name, or make noise, just to make you feel better? And just so you know, I like being in the dark.” She gave another laugh, a bit louder this time, making the other foals shiver.
“Eh... what's with the laugh? Sunflower asked suspiciously.
“Why should I be sad, when I can be happy?” the unicorn answered. Nopony seemed to want to answer—they all looked frightened.
“Oo-okay... w-whatever you s-say...” Sunflower stammered. Another long silence fell over the group as they sat in the van.
After a few more minutes, the back doors opened again, and a pegasus colt came flying in, close to smashing against the wall. Luckily, he seemed to be a very good flier, and knew how to brake.
“Huh, close one,” the pegasus sighed as he landed.
“Who are you?” Moony asked.
“I’m Iron Wing,” the colt answered as if it should have been obvious. “Who are you then? And what’s happening?” Moony explained everything she knew to Iron.
“Hey, you unicorn there!” Iron shouted. “If you were here first, do you know where we're going?”
The mystery unicorn just laughed again and turn her face to the wall.
“Don’t speak to her,” Jackpot warned, “she's weird and scary...”
“But—“ Iron began, but was cut off. The van felt like it had suddenly stopped. Everypony tumbled forward and smashed against the wall; Jackpot, Sweetie and Moony screamed. The van’s doors opened, the big, weird-voiced unicorn appeared before them, and wrapped the fillies and colts up with his magic.
“Welcome to your new home.” he said…
