Sleep is a pathless labyrinth,
Dark to the gaze of moons and suns,
Through which the exile clue of dreams,
A gossamer thread, obscurely runs.
-Clark Ashton Smith
"Time for bed Luna!" said the soothing voice of mother.
A yawn later I was tucked into bed. For nights before I've noticed a plethora of peculiarities in my perceptions when asleep. That which replaced my endearing innocence into morbid realizations and intrigue from the peeping into dreams of more mature ponies. Curious I had thought that it all seemed vividly real. Every sense in the waking world remained, but most interesting of all is that memory persisted as well. With my reverie interrupted by the dimming of the lights wonder permeated my thoughts as I found myself back in the expanse. I had fallen asleep.
Being there brought a nebulous anxiety, as if one wrong trot would send me into oblivion. Simple direction could seldom be understood for a momentary conformity of its proposed dimensions would obscure shattering my determination. Hence I remained still, discovering here that I could detect a myriad of dreams when I focused through that indefinable space. A Gravitation would sow the direction, slowly unearthing a path through the unseen and imperceptible landscape. Onward I slunk to the beating of my heart, engrossed in a trance of godly bearing.
Some time passed when I felt palpitations at an assailment of auditory portent. There was an implacable wailing derived from a nearby mote of gravitation as it drew me in. My other senses picked up my surroundings; I had went through a shift. Dreams came to me that way in my inexperience, finding myself unable to steer from that beguiling call due to lack of the necessary conception. I understood that when the dreamer awoke I to would be free. Since then I've ascertained new and more unpleasant methods for egress, but in the case of regular dreams was not desired. That dream however was irregular, It was a nightmare. How I welcomed the abyssal embrace of that dimension of perpetual misdirection. Only now do I understand the comparative bliss that even the most harrowing dreams yoke than the discoveries I made in that paradoxical void.
Encapsulated in a sense of oppression beset upon me from the starless sky I lost my composure. That dream dominated by darkness took place at a plateau with jagged rocks structures thickly interspaced with bizarre foliage. If it could be called that, for it had consisted of the fore/hind legs of ponies stretched at varying lengths. They wavered listlessly and had seemed to desire contact with me. As they wriggled closer sudden revulsion had overthrown my will and I had tried to flee back into the merciful blackness of the expanse but 'twas to no avail. There was no intelligible way back from that eldritch reality so I pressed onward searching for deliverance.
Looking for landmarks I noticed an incline in the landscape and heeded that anomaly. During my decent the stone surface I had resided upon changed to a gross excrescence. The surface was coated with minute wriggling hoofs, extraordinarily ticklish. I took to the sky to stave delirium and observed the pattern of weather, or rather lack thereof. There suspended in the sky I heard a guttural cackling chorus of yen. The din created was daunting beyond measure, threatening to pull me into obscene destruction at the means of that unseen bestial multitude. With haste I had flown downwards along the incline to stifle the concert and hovered centimeters away from that abhorrent mat of ticklish inclination. When the mat dissipated I landed with a groan, reassured I cast my attention forthwith.
The scene was befuddling. I stood before a great depression in the ground spanning the entirety of my vision so fathomless I could feel it sucking me in. Suspended in the midst of the space some distance away was an earth-pony stallion. His limbs stretched stilt-like downwards into the tenebrous depths, his face contorted by what appeared to be extreme perturbation as he writhed. His cute mark was visible despite the perplexing nature of his immensely elongated dangling fur and I had managed to ascertain the identity of this hapless soul. A groundskeeper that works for my mother, terminating the encroaching wilderness from our secluded castle. It remained that way for an uneasy minute or so, then his limbs compacted and shot him screaming downwards. His cries reverberated during his enigmatic decent making it difficult to determine its depth. I remained there stunned in contemplation before apprehension brought me thither by means of flight.
Upon my decent after the stallion I began to feel inertia halt me in the air some meters down. Like that stallion my limbs and fur began to lose cohesion, slowly and disturbingly elongating into that blackness. The air rippled around me in the depths of that place, something of tremendous immensity was stirring. Having realized the folly of this seeking I've attempted to retreat skywards rather than illuminating that space. Before I could flee I had been clutched by the coiling appendages of something in trifold. The staggering strength left me tottering with its ferocity as it attempted to take me down. Like a quarry caught I was struck with expeditious purpose as I struggled against annihilation, but trifold instantaneously became six-fold and I was pulled into the exponentially multiplying embrace of that unknown quantity of unbeknown intent.
There in the dark I learned a maladaptive lesson that had set me forth to my now terrifying awareness. Festering in what felt like a sea of Boa Constrictors I was in a state of unhinging dread, too petrified to attempt escape. Life was squeezed and torn from my fleetingly stiff body and I had felt it all, severe pain blotted indolent thought. The insufferably slow obliteration of my body was terrifically perceptible as I had failed to lose consciousness in that unbounded chaos of monstrous trapping. A deep vibration made its wave through the host and I had begun to stir with newfound angst. Sounds of hideous feasting where then concurrent with the reduction of my body, I could feel my four limbs slink away as I perceived a decent through that unbelievable incubus of terror. Suddenly being released from this sea I had unfurled into an open web of viscera serving as a macabre sort of suspension in a new cavernous space.
Struggling through my reduced consciousness caused by grueling agony I dared to open my eyes, what lay before me was terrifically stunning. It rose from a dimly glowing essence that ran down its silhouette, hydra-like protuberances cast beauteously starry light from their gracefully wavering tentacles that had illuminated the intertwined limb walls of its den. Its shadowy bulk had undulated to the immensely deep throbbing of its unobserved circulation, fluctuating as it excreted freakish newborns into the ethereal mixture at it's base from its porous mid section. Those young emerged from that essence as thrashing nodules in the gloom and meandered off in all directions. When illuminated they betrayed equine deformities inexplicably spliced with remnants of their iniquitous mother. During my struggled viewing of that terrifying spectacle exsanguination through my suspension claimed my last vestige of imagery. Not until my means of cerebral function have been annihilated was I able to hear the serene sing-song voice of my immediate consolation.
"Luna breakfast is ready!" called the voice of my older sister.
I woke up, trembling and despondent from the ordeal. From the moment I went to bed it was as if I had never slept, abducted and violated by my own heedless action. My sister noticed my apathy and came closer to offer me solace. Being recently traumatized made the divulgence of my grievances unconquerable, instead she held me until the tremors subdued. Consumption I found to be particularly disagreeable that morning, hunger and exhaustion compounded with the news pertaining to the disappearance of our Groundskeeper sent me down avenues of thought most woeful. Hence I attempted to attenuate the affect of that abysmal visage employing magic. The night afterwards when I couldn't sleep terrified that I'll once again fall into the death grip of a nightmare's manifestation; I cast a somnolent spell. Emptying my mind of disquiet I preconceived a solution to that question, how to evade those grotesque nightmares.
Sleep came as gradually as the submergence into that labyrinthine obscurity. Again the dreams could be sensed, only that time I had been adamant to retreat from their lure for my mind then was one bad shock from lunacy. I cast my focus between the dreams searching for dark as if dreams where the deathly pull of fiery stars. Occasionally I could catch fleeting images of all sorts emanating from a reality I had narrowly avoided, usually benign but no chances where taken. After passing hundreds of these dreams they withdrew from my cognizance and for the first time I saw the culminating gestalt and folly of my ignorant intentions.
This was ponydom's sub-subconscious, the framework of my ability. I had successfully avoided nightmares but in the process found one anyway. A relief's evanescence betrayed me for proliferated amounts of uncertainty couldn't be overcome. Gravitation towards regular consciousness was no longer occurring, I was falling into that depth of vacuous infinity. By that time all my attempts to alternate my heading where fruitless, I plunged into that nothingness wracked by the abomination of my newly found oblivion. The busy motes of dreams on the ambit of my perception dissipated as I observed helplessly in egress. For seemingly hours I remained on that insensate departure until something caught my yearning attention in the light of my luminescence spell.
Masses of odious huge translucent-grey veins wandered around me and had bifurcated exponentially in the direction of my ingress. Worming with a loathsome intent as its newest endings ramified towards distant targets. Seeing ground I skirted through even larger veins as they whooshed past. Ground had then formed at my hooves and I landed gracefully on that vaguely moon-like grey surface, albeit the dearth of craters and familiar firmament alienated me. Noticing a zephyr of the air I heeded it lighting the way with my magical vigour in a fevered attempt for illation. Having traveled against the subtle expulsion suddenly a powerful impulsion nearly overtook my hoofing and I took to ground. Eyes tearing I held on for dear life in the face of that ferocious gale as its monstrous howling encumbered me with it's sheer immensity. The encroaching sounds of cackling barley audible over the whipping of the winds played with my now terrified state, imminent ruination expedited my proceedings.
I consolidated my forethought, magic, and focus for one last concatenation towards freedom. With those cackling tormentors nearly upon me I let go and tumbled away. I rocketed along the warm current with my wings outstretched and managed to soar high above the ground, from there careening towards an outlandish silhouette from below. Soon to intersect with a multitude of congested appendages jiggling on its underbelly I had been focused on formulating an escape from its malignity. Seeing a ledge at a precipice I had managed to teleport with much strain to its relative safety. Panting on that rocky outcrop from the unexpected maneuver I had gathered my senses and observed an ancient edifice through a field of obsidian brambles at the apogee of that alien landscape. Through the masses of dangerous foliage the elephantine trunks of veins jutted arbitrarily out of the top of a roof that had been coated in a familiar titillating anathema; suspended on sprawling lattices coated with an ethereal translucent encasement that had formed its walls. Mysterious light was flickering inside from numerous points that radiated an appealing warmth. Finding an increasingly lightened polished jet path that carved through the petrified thicket I had followed it towards the seeming tranquility of the interior as I approached a low entryway.
The interior walls where mostly transparent and I could see out through the obsidian shrubbery, to the sterile moon-dust expanse by what I had presumed to be a forgotten enchantment from bygone eons. The whole interior looked beyond ponykinds doing, I had taken it for something truly otherworldly. Beholding a spacious chamber made vast from the nature of its walls I began to identify the furniture and wall accessories. Inky Ichor was pumped up through a colossal artery that was held in place with primeval stone and festooned five-fold upwards into the ceiling. At its base a grotesque organ was pumping with unfathomable ability, nearby a resident had slithered through the air. The thing on display had a vague likeness to an eel of interminable length, excusing its plethora of wildly groping limbs and the odiously powerful siphoning of it orifices. It had been floating, slithering through the air as it expelled a terrifying inhaled screaming. One of its gropers grasped at an arcane interface and in an instant the walls and entryway went opaque shuttering the space into semi-darkness as the hankered inhaling screams roared louder at its approach. Propelled by fright I took flying to the only visible point, the exit artery. Within proximity with that obscenity on my hooves I teleported into that warren of horrifying perversion. A loud thunk rang at my departure, that monstrosity had apparently failed in pursuit.
My body shot up with the powerful current, along with that torturous Ichor of terrifying origin. Quickly it had beset its violations upon my psyche. Phantasm visages of a blackest depravity with abhorrent disregard burrowed wounds that to this day have not healed. Fighting for transient consciousness by momentarily dislodging that tenacious inks influence I had managed to weave a path along the thickest veins to ensure I would reach a sensible reality. The dreams could be sensed again and I raced to intersect the closest one. What seemed simple was soon turned into an arduous circumvention as that ghastly groping alien slithered along the outside with a prodigious propensity. I saw it swerve in a wide arc then breach into the vein not far behind to better pursue me. Insurmountable terror overthrew my exact retention while it crammed its massive body effortlessly through the shrinking space.
I had managed the recollection of a dream, a burgeoning nightmare. Having been pumped from the chthonic depths of unreality that disturbing yet preferred scene was tolerable at first. I was in the midst of a nearby settlement I’ve since identified, it was now utterly deserted except for a single earth-pony and her manifestations. She was engrossed in her dream sequence involving intermittent romanticism muddled with personal peculiarities as the ground had begun to tremble. The sky had turned dark and starless, The buildings surrounding the plaza where we stood had started to crumble. The mare had taken notice and swerved wide-eyed at the frighting transformation of her stead.
Transfixed on the degradation of her dream she had been unaware of the sinkhole that had been forming underneath her. As I levitated her towards safety I at last saw the bearers of that perturbing laughter. An engulfing swarm of bestial falsity had flooded out of the sinkhole, stolen faces stared us down with wide unfettered grins and piercingly cold yawning eyes. Their ungainly ascent assisted by an exhaling force from below that flooded the air with an unpleasant bilious scent. The mare was safely suspended as they only scathed her hooves. More where nearly upon me as they flooded across with their numerous shanks pattering along the stone surface of the fractured street. The mares face took on a visage of extreme shock during her mid air observation of my imminent evisceration.
“W-wake up! Ma’am, please wake-” I screamed to the mare as she clenched her teary eyes.
Bolting upright in my bed I had gathered my surroundings in the gloom of early morning. That was the first time I had exerted my providence over a mortal and she released me in kind. The purpose of that sub-subconscious daemon has evaded me for I still refuse the descent. Cession of my existence would cause the unceremonious obliteration of Equestrian life for that voracious interloper would abduct every last dreamer. This phenomenon is under control, it’s my perdurable obligation to ponykind. The province of an immortal goddess of the night and evil theirin. Sleep now my children, for I am here to protect you. From yourselves and the trans-dimensional horrors from beyond.
Author's Note
Thanks for letting me let you read. Any appreciably helpful suggestions or corrections will be edited after and questions shall be answered promptly.