A Nightmare Like No Other
Twilight yawned. The sound of water lapping against the shore made her ears swivel before she opened her eyes. The feel of sand under her body and in her fur was a telling sign she was at the beach and the warm sun on her body told her it was a great day.
She listened to nature in its glory. Birds chirped, frogs croaked, wind rustled the leaves, and in between it all was a lingering silence. Something she longed for, even from the rush of thoughts, plans, ideas, and worries of her own mind; silence still existed.
Opening her eyes the world blurred into focus as she lifted her head from her forelegs to take in the scenery.
To her left was a sprawling forest full of life, hidden amongst the shadows and canopy that blocked much of the glorious sunlight, letting in harp strings to break the bleakness. To her right was the water.
Clear, blue, fresh water of a lake that reflected the light of the sun into her eyes just once, causing her to squint and turn her gaze away as she winced and sniffed.
The scent of flowers, not wild, no… these were familiar. Lily’s? Tulips? Certainly not dandelions. She giggled inwardly as she fluttered her wings and inhaled deeply. It was truly serene. The best moment she’d had, book free, in days.
No castle. No lessons. No hassles. Just her by the water on a beautiful beach. The sun was warming her spirit as well as her body at this point. Tingles ran down the length of her mane and to the middle of her back making her smile as she pushed herself up.
Sand rained from across her body. Ignoring it she turned to the water and galloped as quickly as she could, jumping into the air, wings tight to her body. She squealed in delight as she splashed into the water screaming ‘cannonball’ once she was submerged.
She broke the surface with a laugh and splashed water away from herself a couple times as she floated in the cool rippling waves she’d made. Her mane was soaked and lay flat against her neck. She looked through her bangs and giggled as she tried to count the individual hair spikes that were stuck together.
She stopped herself and shook her head. The sound of her hair splashing the water away in one turn then splatting against her fur the next began a complex series of calculations on acoustical dynamics and wave refraction.
She inhaled sharply a portion of her lungs’ worth of air and submerged again, only to scream her lungs empty.
She slowly resurfaced this time, paddling ahead, panting like a dog.
“Doggy style… Paddle, Twilight, sheesh. Definitely not gonna think about pet husbandry right now,” she huffed and plunked her face into the water. “Why’d I have to read that section in Manehattan? Now everytime I think of dogs it goes to mating habits.”
She groaned and submerged again, screaming and surfacing, this time wiping her bangs from her face and turning over and floating, letting the sun dry her belly and legs, which were curled to her body, as her wings kept her aloft and balanced. Her tail moved every so often to guide her, move her slowly.
She heard the sound of filly’s giggling and smirked at the thought of watching the cutie mark crusaders running through town, around pony's’ hooves, or causing some trouble in the search for that which was within them all along.
She tried to sit, floundering like a fish out of water while falling into the water with a gurgle.
She surfaced with a giggle and swam several seconds to the edge of the lake and climbed out, slipping and chest planting into the sand. She forced herself up and blushed lightly as she began to look around for the location of the filly’s. With a quiet fracas the laughter stopped and silence returned.
Beginning a slow walk she followed the lake toward where the sounds of delight were coming from when finally she noticed a filly playing in the distance by the edge of the lake, facing away from her.
“Huh, I think that’s Apple Bloom. I think I’ll go say hi, maybe she knows where Applejack is, I’d love to go for a swim with somepony… a more adult somepony… As a friend,” she kept mumbling, rationalizing as she made way.
As she walked she shook some of the sand from her coat, fluttered her wings, kicked her legs once each, and shook them instinctively to clear them as she approached the filly.
The closer she got she noticed a melodic a song that the filly hummed until she was nearly four lengths away.
Twilight stopped and smiled at the back of the filly, who was making a sand castle, but her body was blocking it.
“Apple Bloom, hi, have you seen Applejack?”
The filly went silent and sat tall very quickly, yet still.
“A-are you alright, Apple Bloom? Would you like me to help you build that castle?”
Apple Bloom stood and craned her neck awkwardly to the side as she turned, slowly, to Twilight.
Twilight’s blood ran cold and her body froze. The filly had no face, only a small candle lit in the opening where her eyes and muzzle should have been, the candle resting where her tongue would have resided on the filly’s lower mandible… Twilight blinked the thoughts away as the filly stood still, the flickering candle was the focal point.
An ear piercing, shrill, melodic howl emanated from the faceless filly as it began a jerking walk towards Twilight. Every step was awkward from the filly, her head twitched. Her neck wobbled and bent at odd angles, and her legs moved in an almost forced animatronic way.
Twilight reflexively began to stumble back.
“A-A-Apple… N-no, wh-what are you?” Twilight asked as she swallowed hard, her mouth dry as her stomach began to cramp and threaten to empty. She began to cast a spell but the creatures shrill noise got louder as Twilight’s horn began to glow, distracting her and making her lose the needed magic.
Twilight screamed out of fear and turned to gallop away, slipping in the sand and falling to her chest.
Scrambling to get to her hooves she quickly trotted ahead, sweat beginning to matt the fur across her body at random spots. The filly’s noise become slightly quieter as Twilight kept her pace, looking back after a few random thoughts went through her head, none of them conducive to solving her current problems.
The filly was still walking in a jerking motion after her, the sound it made quieted exponentially the farther apart they were.
Chills ran through Twilight as her eyes locked onto the flickering flame in the filly’s face and a spider fell from the opening, dangling on a string of spider silk, bouncing with the creatures movements. Twilight scrambled faster and turned to enter the forest, leaving the sandy beach, clear water, and… filly, behind to find help and, hopefully, her friends in the shadowed safety of the trees.