Eyes Wide Closed

THUMP!

Sweetie Belle shot up from sleep, panting and sweating. Another nightmare. She pulled herself out of the makeshift bed, looking over at her two friends. She smiled, happy that she could remember their names today. That wasn't always something she could do.

She trotted over to where they stockpiled the water, taking a gulp from the bucket. If she ever started to get tired of these difficult living conditions, she only needed to look to the videos, piled in the corner, to realize why they had to live like this. Her and the other Crusaders needed to vanish, along with the thing that was chasing them. It was the only way to keep all the other ponies safe.

"Applebloom, Scootaloo, time to get up." Sweetie Belle walked between each of them, giving them a light nudge with her hoof.

"Ugh... Five more minutes..." Scootaloo rolled over, grumbling.

"Now, Scoots. We need to move camp. Applebloom, help me get her up, will you?" Sweetie Belle looked over to her other friend, blinking. Applebloom was snoring silently into her pillow. Sweetie Belle groaned, pulling their blankets off with a burst of magic. "Get up. If we stay in one place too long, it'll find us."

"It'll find us anyway... Sweetie Belle." The delay meant that Scootaloo had to struggle to remember her name. Sweetie Belle felt her chest grow tight with worry. "Just... Let me sleep..." Scootaloo was taking this harder than any of them. Sweetie Belle was always too scared to be depressed and Applebloom was like a pillar of strength, no matter what happened. But her Pegasus friend, for all her boasting, wasn't made of stuff nearly as strong as Applebloom and, unlike Sweetie Belle, fear didn't keep her moving - it dragged her down.

Applebloom grumbled, but rolled over. "Scootaloo, it's too early to argue. We ain't stayin' here and we ain't leavin' you behind, so get your orange flank up and lets get this camp movin'." The earth pony pushed herself up, giving a little shake to help wake herself up. She licked her lips, trying to dispel the dryness in her mouth, eventually giving up and going to get a sip of water. "We're gettin' low." She noted, eyeing the bucket speculatively.

"I saw." Sweetie Belle sighed, peeking out from the cover of leaves and twigs they'd used to hide their little camp. "You think it's out there?"

"It's always out there, Sweetie Belle. The real question is, how long can we keep doing this?" Scootaloo said, still laying where she had slept. She showed no signs of moving, except to curl in a little closer to herself to keep warm. "We're not getting away. It took all those other ponies away and now it's coming for us. It's only a matter of time."

"Scootaloo, please get up..." Applebloom moved to Scootaloo's side, nudging her friend to her feet. "We won't let it get us. We'll run to the end of Equestria and back before then."

Scootaloo stood reluctantly, but her eyes still had the empty quality they'd gotten on the second day of running; they were distant and baggy from lack of sleep. Worst though, they were bloodshot. On the second day, Scootaloo started claiming that, when she blinked, she saw the monster, staring at her.

"Do you think those other ponies ran, Applebloom? How far do you think they got?" She shook her head, looking down. "Not far enough. I'm starting to think there isn't anyplace far enough away. I still see it in my dreams. And Princess Luna doesn't come to help me. She just... isn't there."

The other two knew how she felt. They all had nightmares of the creature that was chasing them, but none of them remembered enough about the dreams to place what the monster actually was. Sweetie Belle had the worst nightmares of the group, though Scootaloo was always afraid to go to sleep. When they woke up, all they remembered were trees, lots of trees, which was why they stuck to the forest for cover. It was safer there.

"We'll be fine, Scoots." Applebloom walked to Sweetie Belle's side, peering out of the foliage with her. "It's clear. Come on, get our things and get goin'."

The three friends went about their tasks; Applebloom carrying the saddlebags of food, Scootaloo carrying folding the blankets, stashing them in her saddlebag along with the tapes and camera, and Sweetie Belle carrying the water with the help of her magic.

"Where to now, Applebloom?" Sweetie Belle asked, looking over to her friend.

The three fillies were traversing through the White Tail Woods, hoping to reach the distant west. The further they were from other ponies, the better. The three had been thankful they had tried to be astronomers once. While they couldn't tell the names of all the planets, they had learned how to judge direction from the stars and sun.

"Same way we go every day, Belle. West." Applebloom hiked up her bag, slipping out from the cover of the trees.

THUMP!

This wasn't the first time Sweetie Belle had heard the sound while awake. Nopony else, not even the other Crusaders heard it, but she knew it was real. She knew it meant it was coming for them. "Faster! Don't stop!"

"You don't need to tell me twice!" Applebloom rushed alongside her friend, ducking through trees. Scootaloo was right there with them, at least in body. Mentally, however, she was miles away, completely overcome with fear. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle had made a point to run on either side of their friend, protecting her in whatever way they could. It wasn't much and when things got bad it didn't help at all, but Scootaloo always appreciated it.

THUMP!

The sound shook Sweetie Belle's whole body, threatening to make her legs turn to jelly. Yet she kept running, panting and afraid. Applebloom looked all around as she ran, trembling. She was always the first to spot the monster when it came for them; even though she could never remember what she saw. Whenever Sweetie started hearing the noises, she would eventually see the monster. Running in the opposite direction was usually in order, at that point.

Applebloom saw a telltale figure among the trees, almost a pony, but not quite. It was just wrong, with too-long forelegs and tendrils lashing to tree branches as it moved. And, yet it didn't move. Applebloom had no idea how to explain that the monster was there, but also wasn't. She just knew, instinctively, that it both could and could not see them. It could and could not take them. She had no idea what any of this actually meant.

Scootaloo gave a loud cough, stumbling between the two of them. Both turned, looking in horror as Scootaloo tripped, skidding to a halt. The two other fillies stopped, rushing to their friend.

"Scootaloo, get up. Please, we can't stay still." Sweetie Belle was panicked, the sounds getting louder, closer. Applebloom didn't talk, focusing all her attention on their surroundings. She wouldn't let this thing take her friends.

"Scootaloo?" Sweetie Belle nudged her friend, who rolled a little to look up at her.

"Sweetie... Belle..." A black ichor, like blackened blood, was oozing from Scootaloo's mouth. She went to speak, but turned, coughing violently, hacking up a growing pool of the black sludge onto the ground. She screamed in pain after she was done, trying to walk away from the pool of filth. This had never happened before. Sweetie Belle had no idea what to do.

She frantically pushed Scootaloo to her feet, trying to get her moving again, but her Pegasus friend simply wasn't able to go any further. Her eyes were glazed over, though the ooze had stopped leaking from her mouth. Instead, a thin line of it leaked from her nose, dripping onto the ground.

"It's not like we were doing anything wrong..." Scootaloo swayed slightly as she spoke in a deadpan tone, staring up at the branches above them. "We did it all the time. We just wanted to know who we were."

"Scootaloo, now ain't the time for whatever it is your talkin' about! It's out there, somewhere!" Applebloom was growing more afraid of her friend than she was worried for her. "A-and stop talkin'! You're freakin' me out!"

"It's not like we unlocked the door. We didn't break it. He just... We saw how to get there, and we were there." She opened her mouth in a silent scream, tilting her head back as far as it could go. "We were just playing pretend... I don't know what happened."

"That's it! Sweetie Belle, knock her out!" Applebloom was trembling now, eyes darting all around in untold terror.

"B-But Applebloom, she's..." Sweetie trailed off as Scootaloo fell to the side with a thud, like a puppet who's strings had been cut. There was a thin line of blood seeping from one of her ears, but she was still breathing. "Scootaloo..." Sweetie Belle leaned down to her friend, nudging her a few times. "She's out cold." Sweetie Belle lifted her head up, staring to Applebloom. Her friend was still panicked, spinning this way and that, as if they could somehow see everywhere all at once. "It's okay, Applebloom... I don't hear the noises anymore..."

Applebloom visibly relaxed, then looked over to Sweetie Belle. "You coulda' told me sooner..." She turned her eyes to Scootaloo, who's face was smeared with that strange black ichor. Applebloom shivered, getting their water bucket and a spare rag. "Come on... Lets clean her off..."

"But, we're almost out of water..." Sweetie Belle commented, but obeyed all the same.

"Sweetie... If things keep up like this, we won't need water much longer..." Sweetie Belle shivered at Applebloom's emotionless tone, looking up to watch her friend clean Scootaloo's face. She looked like Scootaloo was already gone; like they were just cleaning up her corpse. She felt terror and regret wrench through her body.

Why was this happening to them?