It all started when one of the lightbulbs went off.
As usual I was working on my new music late at night, sitting in the living room, staring at my notes with the sleepy eyes and drinking fifth cup of coffee, when one of the light bulbs flashed and went off with a loud cracking sound. I didn't pay much attention to it, fortunately there were three more in the lamp.
So I just continued with my work. The new piece was coming out to be great! It was a rare opportunity to compose and actually try out everything I came up with that late at night, I always had to consider that Bon Bon is a very light sleeper. And let me tell you, it is in the town's best interest that she gets a good night sleep, otherwise even Pinkie will have problems dealing with a sheer amount of the grumpiness this pony can produce. But tonight that wasn't an issue, and I was going to use it for a fool extent.
The second light bulb went off in about twenty minutes later.
That's when I started to feel a little unease. I definitely didn't want to be in the dark. Normally it would not be an issue, the moon always shines bright so nights aren't all that dark. But a big storm was scheduled for tomorrow, and the weather team worked all evening, covering the sky with a thick layer of storm clouds, so it was pitch black outside.
For as long as I can remember, I was afraid of the dark. Now, I know that this is a really foalish and irrational fear, but I simply can't help it and when ever I find myself in complete darkness - I panic. Sometimes to the point of being completely paralyzed by fear, unable to use even the simplest of spells like illumination. And as the result I always was sleeping with my nightlight on. But being a street musician has some perks to it, and I can usually work all night long and go to sleep with the first rays of the sunlight.
Third light bulb didn't just went off, it exploded scattering pieces of the glass all over the living room.
At this point I was legitimately creeped out. Our living room was now lit only by one slightly flickering light.
Not wanting to be caught off guard by the sudden blackout I lit up my horn with an illumination spell and decided to get a broom and clean up that mess. I could practically hear Bony grumbling about leaving me alone for just one night and how hard it is to wash the blood stains off the carpet with the cuts on the hooves.
I took the broom out of the closet and started to clean up this mess. One would think that been the unicorn and having magic would make cleaning the glass shards a relatively easy task, and normally it would. But in order to levitate so many small objects I would have to concentrate much more than when using a simple levitation spell, thus forcing myself to drop the illumination spell. So I decided to do it the old fashioned way.
I stood on my hind legs, took the broom between my front hooves and began swiping the floor while humming the tune of a song I've been working on the whole night. I wrote it for Bon Bon and was sure that she would absolutely love it. I wanted to play it to her after she returned from her candy-maker conference, maybe after a dinner for two.
That’s when I heard it. Tap-tap-tap. A light tapping noise that was coming from the door that led outside. The sound was soft, as if somepony was using only a frog of their hoof to knock on the door. I briefly wondered who would be knocking on my door at this hour and slowly made my way towards the door.
I tried looking through the peephole, don't know what I expected, considering the streets outside were shrouded in the impenetrable darkness. Then I noticed something strange, the sound faded as soon as I approached the door. So I stood there, straining my ears, trying to hear if there's anypony standing on the other side. I was so focused that a distant rumble of thunder almost caused me to jump.
I let out a nervous laugh as I backed away from the door. It was probably the wind. Yeah, the wind simply pushed something and it bumped into our door, that's all. But honestly, nopony could blame me for being a bit jumpy. Ponyvile is probably one of the few places in Equestria where ponies install locks on their doors and actually lock them. Bony even got a bit overboard with that and installed several locks.
I was back in the middle of the room, ready to start cleaning, when I heard a sound that made my blood run cold. A lingering creak of the opening door... The door that was locked on all those locks just a moment ago.
I started to turn when the last lightbulb suddenly flared up and, with a loud pop, went off, casting everything outside of a small bubble of light produced by my horn into inky darkness. I silently thanked Celestia that I didn't loose my concentration on the illumination spell.
After a moment of shock I grabbed my broom with both hooves and brandished it as a spear in the door's direction, simultaneously pouring more magic into my horn to extend the light's reach. Unfortunately I was beginning to panic and it was increasingly difficult to maintain the spell, so the light could barely illuminate the doorframe, failing to penetrate the darkness beyond.
The outside was quiet. The storm was scheduled to begin only in few hours, so even the wind was put on hold so it wouldn't set off the thunderclouds that were blotting out the night sky. I didn't even know that I was holding my breath until my lungs began to burn. Everything was so damn quiet that even my own gasp for air sounded alien in this overwhelming silence.
Then I saw it. It was... a hand. A small furless hand, that looked sickly pail in the light of my horn, was reaching out from the darkness and feeling the doorstep with its long thin fingers.
I stared at the appendage and briefly wondered if Fluttershy had any monkeys in her care. The idea of a lost monkey sitting at my door seemed so silly to me that I let out a small laugh, but to me it sounded more like a whimper.
At that moment another slightly bigger hand joined the first one and started feeling the edge of the doorframe. Then came the third one... forth... fifth... seventh... twelfth... more and more hands were reaching out from the darkness. Some were big others small, some had long and sharp looking nails, some had non at all. Their long and short fingers were silently sliding along the wooden surface of the doorframe until, all of a sudden, they all stopped and grabbed the edges, as if readying to pull something big and heavy through the door.
At that moment some rogue cloud let out a lightning and in that brief moment I saw... it.
I think I screamed but the sound was drowned by a roll of thunder. The next thing I knew was a searing pain in my chest, I clutched it with one hoof as I fell to the floor and tried to crawl as far away from it as I could, cutting myself on the shards of broken glass. The last thing I remember was the dim light of my horn fading away.
When I came to I heard a rhythmic beeping sound. I opened my eyes and looked around. Hospital. I was in a hospital bed and the sounds were produced by the machine I was hooked up to. The room was lit by a small lamp on the bedside table and dim light that was coming through the closed curtains. There was a quiet pitter-patter of rain on the window. It sounds like the scheduled storm was coming to its end.
I had a hard time remembering what happened at night or how I ended up in the hospital, everything was so hazy, like the fading memories of a dream.
As I look around I noticed somepony I didn't expect to see. Rainbow Dash was sitting in a chair in a corner of the room, fast asleep. My voice was groggy but I managed to wake her up. As soon as she opened her eyes she bolted to my side and practically bombarded me with apologies.
Apparently Rainbow blamed herself for what happened to me. Last night she was on the weather patrol and somehow managed to "lose" one of the thunder clouds. She spent a long time searching for it and when she finally found the rogue cloud she kicked it in frustration, accidentally making releasing the lightning that was stored inside. After the thunder died Rainbow heard a scream and rushed to see what happened. That’s when she found me, laying on the floor, clutching my chest. Rainbow thought that she scared me to death with that sudden thunderclap, so she grabbed me and flew to the hospital as fast as she could. After the doctors stabilized me, she asked to stay by my side to make sure that I was okay and to apologize.
Was that it? Was it all just a hallucination brought by my panic and heart attack? It must’ve been.
I assured Rainbow Dash that there were no hard feelings, even thanked her for saving my hide back there. The look of relief on her face was priceless. She apologized again and was about to go get the nurse to check on me when I remember about the locks on my door and asked her, how did she get in?
She said that the door was wide open when she got there.
Rainbow left to get the nurse and I was left alone with the growing sense of unease. Things didn’t add up. If that was a hallucination, then why was the door open? Did I open it for whatever reason? Why would I do that? Or was it all... No! I refused to believe that! There’s no way that it was real!
As I laid there, waiting for the nurse, the room suddenly was filled with a warm light coming from behind the curtains. The clouds probably parted enough to let the sunlight through.
I smiled at that. The sun always chases away the horrors of the dark.
I lit up my horn and used magic to open the curtains and let in the sunlight.
My smile vanished almost instantly. My breath caught up in my throat. The machine beside me went silent for a moment only to start beeping like crazy as my heart was trying to jump out of my chest.
There, on the other side of the window I saw dozens of handprints.
