Chapter One (Prologue): Growing pains
The room was almost exactly like that of a typical 15-year-old's. The walls were decorated with banners for the local cloudball team, a Wonderbolts poster and a couple of shelves with a few books on. There was a set of drawers for a few items of clothing, with some small models scattered on top. The ceiling was dark blue and painted with star constellations that glowed in the dark, the bedsheets were striped with shades of red. The only abnormality to the room was the constant smothering of a magical glow.
A young unicorn colt entered the room. He was a relatively thin pony, not greatly so, but he had no appetite and a growing metabolism. His coat was sand-coloured and dense, and his mane and tail were a dark turquoise, mid-length and tangled from lack of care. His hair fell over his eyes, which were a murky, greyish-green with spatters of brighter colour radiating from the irises, and purple splotches of tiredness underneath. His face was a picture of permanent fatigue but he didn't want to go to sleep; nevertheless, he wearily climbed into bed and lay down.
The colt's mother called from downstairs, his ears flicking at the hint of trepidation in her voice. "Good night, Beach!"
I hope so. He thought. I really hope so. The worried look didn't leave his face as he drifted off to sleep.
Beach Comber slept restlessly that night, but this was not unusual; he always slept restlessly, jumping and shifting from one dream to another, a troubled mind never able to settle on a single reality for very long. He was in the woods, taking a walk, then at home, eating dinner with his family, then at the park, playing with friends. Whatever the first dreams were, though, they always ended with the same one, the final one that would take him through to a painful morning. The one that was always the same in many respects yet different in, somehow, many more, cutting through the rest and easily outmaneuvering all the mental blocks he attempted to halt its course with.
The hallway was dark, the outlines of the windows made by the moonlight slicing through the blackness at regular intervals. Again. The space stretched away from Beach Comber in both directions, curving round to the left, giving it a sense of perpetuity. He glanced around with unease. Again. Shadow was smattered on the navy-blue surfaces where it should not have been. The floor felt hard and unforgiving underneath his hooves, and it was horribly cold, again. The unicorn sniffed the air tentatively. There was even something off about that, but he couldn't quite put his hoof on it, again, for the millionth time, again, again, again.
There was a soft, rattling intake of breath behind him. His muscles tensed. Again. Run! His brain shouted as he slowly begun to turn round. Run! Unwilling hooves slid round on the cold floor, gliding easily over the smooth surface. Don't look, just run! Yet he continued to turn, feeling like he had already gone far further than a half-circle before finally meeting it.
If something could be described as wrong in every respect, then this could be. There was no definitive structure or solidity to the entity; the bluish-black smoke it was made from constantly shifted, every so often forming an irregular shape on its surface. The pony that stood rigid before the demonic being took a sharp intake of breath, and instantly regretted doing so. Despite its cool colours, the terrifying monster reeked horribly of fire, ash and blood.
Finally, the Nightmare spoke. "Your time has come, child." It ground out, its feminine voice broken and fractured like glass. It whispered with no rhythm to its voice, little pauses and jolting cracks randomly interjected into its speaking. "Welcome me, child, and know pain no longer, but find strength!" The nightmare said, its voice rising. Had it had a mouth, the creature would almost certainly have been grinning like a cat.
RUN! Beach Comber's brain screamed once more. At last his hooves obeyed him, and he turned away from it and galloped as fast as he could down the corridor. The Nightmare laughed with glee and gave chase. Oh Celestia, that laugh. Beach Comber thought, chancing a glance back at his pursuer, who was catching up, drifting almost lazily along after the colt. Forcing energy into his horn, the unicorn focused his magic and blew out a window behind him.
The Nightmare cackled again, shrugging off the shards off glass like confetti. Beach Comber responded with another spell, this one stronger than before, tearing out an entire section of the wall and flinging it backwards. The demon dissipated around the mass of strange materials and reassembled on the other side, still laughing all the way.
Quickly running out of options and running out of breath, he found himself with nothing but his last resort; a magic redux overpower, or more commonly, a feedback. Reaching out with a tendril of magic, he stabbed the strand into the base of his spine, gasping as he did so. Feeding power directly into the magic circuits of his body, Beach Comber jolted as his magic returned into itself, causing a buildup of energy that surged back through the tendril and again reran its course, empowering itself as it did so. The catch to this, however, apart from the blinding headache it caused, was the terrible explosion it caused after the magic broke out of the system.
It only took a few minutes for the buildup to exceed the limitations of Beach Comber's magic system. With a brilliant flash of whitish light and a scream of fear and pain, the colt was violently ripped from the dream world, back to reality, and to rain, cold wind and an intense pain throughout his back and skull. Beach Comber looked up from his position on the floor, at the gaping wound in the roof of the house that he had unwittingly made, and sighed, his eyes closing, head dropping and limbs loosening.
It's getting stronger.
