Lyra and the monsters

Lyra had awakened to find herself lying alongside the road. She noted the ground beneath her head was wet. Was she crying? She couldn't remember a thing. She looked up. Before her spread a huge mountain range. She assumed that this must have been part of the Griffin kingdoms. There were small grey points, jotted all around the peaks. Those must have been the towers. Lyra couldn't stop any longer. She set for what seemed the biggest and closest point on the mountain range. The road slowly began turning to a hard rocky ground. The journey was beginning to get tough and small rocks began to get stuck in between of her hooves. After couple hours of march it was getting quite cold and the hooves were aching with unbearable pain. Lyra sat where she stood in her usual manner. She looked around the rocky mountain side. It wasn't steep and there were a lot of sharp rocks lying on the sides of the road. Further up the road became steep and snow slowly began crusting over. Even further up there was a the tower. Covered in snow and frozen over. The wind beating against it relentlessly. Lyra stood up once again and set off towards the keep. After travelling for what seemed like hours she finally arrived at the tower. The snow was coming down and Lyra was cold and beat up by the journey. She looked to the keep once again. It was much bigger than she originally thought and upon closer inspection the whole keep seemed to emit an aura of darkness. The tall tower seemed to be partially falling apart and yet it was the only place to hide. Directly in front of her a big wooden door was placed. The wood was slightly rotting away but remained firm in its hinges. Lyra gently pushed at the door which had easily opened and stepped inside. As she did so the door smashed shut and a torch set alight.

Lyra took a quick look around in fear and brushed the snow off her head. She turned back at the door and tried tugging at the door handle. It did not budge at all. She was stuck here and the only thing she could do is explore.

It wasn't a huge entry hall. Rocks around her formed a perfect circle with a diameter of about 10 metres. She looked up to notice stone stairs spiralling alongside the wall. The tower seemed to grow larger the higher it went. She was determined to get to the top of the long staircase. Minutes passed and Lyra began losing her new-found determination. In her books the protagonist could go on for hours without getting tired or scared. Lyra felt both. Some steps were missing and the tower was in near complete darkness. There were two points of light, near the top and bottom. Lyra assumed that by now the original diameter must have doubled if not tripled in length. She continued onwards. As she got to the top she had used her magic for the first time during the trip. She wasn't the most talented, she couldn't heal, or teleport and her telekinesis was still clumsy. Like all unicorns she had an expertise and that was playing her harp. It relied on bending the air around the strings in various ways rather than actually pluck them with her hoof or telekinesis. She did the same in order to get the rocks out of her hooves. She took a look around. There was a small window peering out to the road by which she came. The rest of the room was in darkness. She approached the window on her fours, attempting to keep the noise down; with no success. She continued to gaze around while approaching the window. Once there she peered out. The wind blew against her face, violently and as though trying to cut her. She felt a small breeze down her neck. Getting the chills and a bad feeling she turned around. Facing her, were two red eyes. It was an another pony. Only something was different about this one. It had lacked a mane and was of a black colour. It continued to stare at her. Slowly the form of the pony distorted and as though turned into mist. Lyra in fear began approaching the stairs. As she did so a swarm of bats lurched towards her. Biting at her legs and blinding her with the leather wings beating on her eyes. An evil laughter filled the air. Another silhouette appeared in front of her. This time a timber wolf like. Again it was black with the red eyes. It had bared its fangs at Lyra and jumped. Lyra shut her eyes in panic but again all she felt was wind passing through her, as though a mist. She opened her eyes and noticed the way she came was gone. Evil laughter once again filled the air. Lyra was panicked and began retreating. She hit something with the back of her hoof. She turned and made out a shape. A coffin. She was panicked and terrified. She stood on her rear hooves when the same black pony gripped her and bared its fangs. It had leant to her neck and Lyra screamed. She tried to fight back, some kind of force held her back though. The pony licked her neck and seemed to be toying with her. Lyra shuddered. She was terrified at what was happening. The black pony looked back at her and leaned in close to her face. Licking it once again and stroking with his hoof. The pony bared his fangs once again and leant in for the neck. Lyra screamed once again. Suddenly the pony halted. He looked out of the window and then back into Lyra's terrified eyes. He threw her against the wall and Lyra heard a bone in her body crack. She felt her outer tissue skin rip and let the blood flow. The pony hungrily looked at her blood, instead of leaning to drink it, the pony dispersed into a thick mist and soon disappeared. Lyra was left there. On the cold stone floor. Slowly bleeding out. She realized that what she had just encountered must have been a vampire. Her eyes dimmed, and soon she was deeply unconscious.