Masked by Fear. Bound by Love.

Stupid pretty pony princess, I thought as I watched the blue equine realize that it was being kept from the surface by the chains. Stupid, because she had burst into this room and didn't even take in a lungful when the water came down. Pretty, because... well she was a strange beauty with stars in her mane and a beautiful coat to match. Not to mention the sharp, intelligent eyes that locked onto mine showing me that it was, in fact intelligent. Albeit a dream construct and as for the other things, they were self evident from her crown and form. At least it wasn't that spider with the lace, thinking about it still made me shiver.

This nightmare had been haunting me for some time and it rarely showed the same participant that would be bound with myself by these infernal chains. This was however, the first time that the other subject of my nightmare was a sapient animal as far as I could tell. Most of the time if it wasn't a human, it was a young animal that I would feel sorry for and want to protect. Other times it would be the various people that I had known throughout my life; coworkers, acquaintances, old friends, ... family. This pony was very detailed though, it was an odd thing for my mind to conjure something like this and try to make me care about it when I had never seen or known about it beforehand. For some strange reason though I did. Maybe it was how real it looked, despite being a pegacorn princess with stars in her hair that is, or maybe it was how fluidly and confidently it moved in my nightmare.

Maybe it was how it locked eyes with me and started to swim towards me. That was definitely a first, most of the time they would try keep swimming up or just pull at the chains until we both drowned. My heart actually started to race, this time not from the impending watery death, but instead because with her I had a chance to escape this nightmare for the first time. Over the course of the other nightmares that I had suffered through I had found that at the bottom, where the chains were held, was two buttons that had to be pressed at the same time. I had never been able to do it on my own, I had even tried using the chain to press one, but it hadn't worked. As I looked back to she if she was still following me, my heart swelled with hope as I saw that she was already moving to one of the buttons and was prepared to press it. We could do it, thank you!

Perspective of Luna

The strange creature that she was stuck with certainly seemed to be the subject of the nightmare, and she saw it's eyes light up with hope. Currently it's eyes were the only thing constant about its form as the rest of it's body seemed to constantly shift and change, although it was mostly obscured by shadow so she saw very little of its body. She followed the strange entity to the bottom of the room where their chains were held and saw immediately what it was trying to show her, a pair of buttons that would likely have to be pressed around the same time to activate. She did not know what these buttons would do exactly, but for right now they were their best chance at escape as her powers over this dream had not fully manifested yet.

When both she and the creature were positioned at their buttons they both pressed theirs after a nod of confirmation. The chains at their necks then went limp and easily slid off and they were free to swim to the surface, the only issue being how far away the surface was from their current position. The creature had taken a great breathe before the water had come down so suddenly so it might make it, but even with her alicorn fortitude she had barley enough air to make it a fourth of the way before she started to choke. 'At least the creature would have escaped it's nightmare and I will have fulfilled my duty to those who sleep within mine and my sisters realm.' Luna thought to herself as she felt herself begin to fade from the creatures dream.

Suddenly she felt something grasp her and pull her close. It was the creature trying to save her by swimming with her, but she saw just as well as it did that it could not pull her up to the surface and with so much further to go it was running out of time.

Please let me go, I have done my duty! I will be fine creature, just save yourself from this nightmare!

No matter how hard she tried to push her thoughts to the creature, it would not let her go to save itself. She started to feel it's movements slow and it's grip loosen when her mind finally found the resolve that she needed to do what had to be done. If the stubborn thing wouldn't save itself from this nightmare then she would just have to dispel the nightmare itself from the astral realm of sleep.

Gathering the last of her energy that she was able to spare, she tried to banish the nightmare only for her form to be pulled from the creature's mind at the same time. This turned out to be catastrophic for the poor thing because instead of the 'needle' of Luna's spell swiftly and precisely destroying the nightmare, it was instead torn from it's mind while the needle was still buried deep tearing open its psyche and throwing it's consciousness into the astral realm. She would have tried to save it from being lost, but she had a duty to protect everyone else from the nightmares that were spilling out of it's fractured psychic sphere and could not spare enough time to stop it.

Oh no, no please no. Stop! Why is this happening? I was just trying to help the pony...

HELP THE PONIES

W-what?

Before I could focus on where that voice had come from I was rocketing in an entirely new direction, flashes of images flying through my head until I was finally stopped by a larger bubble of flashing images. As I slowly sunk into it, I began to realize that I was in a new environment, more specifically a child's bedroom.

Why am I in here?

As I pondered where I was now I heard a small whimper come from underneath the covers of the bed, where I spotted what looked like a scared child was hiding. I had thought that I was the one scaring the child so I tried to soothe them by speaking softly.

"Hey, there kiddo. I'm not here to hurt you or anything, I just happen to be a bit lost at the moment so you don't have to be afraid of me."

"I-I'm not afraid of you... I'm afraid of them"

"Sorry what was that d-AH!" As I had been trying to listen to the scared child, I had not noticed the giant spiders crawling down from the ceiling. Yes, giant spider from the ceiling and here I was without my napalm. Instead, out of reflex I swung my arms like I was wielding a blunt instrument as I was more used to and surprisingly a crowbar connected with one of the nightmarish spiders. I was surprised to say the least as I stood there with my crowbar covered with spider gore, so many memories of my youth playing on the old computer came flooding back to me then. Large amount of head-sized bugs? Check. Badass protagonist with a crowbar? Check. After letting out a small, "Mr. Freeman." I set to work.

With more of their focus on being scary rather than actually being able to fight back, I was able to swiftly dispatch all of the nightmarish spiders with great ease. It was almost therapeutic. After making sure that there was no more threat to the child I made my way over to them to make sure that they were okay.

"Hey kiddo? The monster are gone, you're safe now. Kid?" As I pulled back the sheets of the child's bed I found that they were a pony, much like the one from my nightmare except this one had neither wings nor horn. She did have a large red bow in her hair... mane? Whatever, she was adorable and she was safe and that was all that mattered. She did seem a bit frightened by me, so I made sure to toss my precious crowbar aside before holding up my hands to her.

"See, kiddo. I ain't a monster and I just want to help."

At this she lost some of her previous fear and seeing the dead spiders she lost the rest, albeit with a bit of her appetite if she had any at the time.

"So what're ya mister? Some sorta ghost?"