Chapter 1: A Nightmare Too Real
Equestria Girls
Inside Her Shadow
Chapter 1: A Nightmare Too Real
It was a night like any other for Twilight Sparkle as she sat at her desk inside her Canterlot High Dorm room. Ever since her arrival here after transferring here from Crystal Prep, despite the warm welcome by her friends, there were still moments where she would overhear her friends talking about the other Twilight that had come here before her, the alternate version of her that was apparently a pony princess in another world similar to this one, but at the very same time, different. Twilight had hard so many amazing things about this other version of her, and while they let her join their friend group with smiles, Twilight still couldn’t help but be a little envious about this other version of her.
They may share a name and high intelligence, this pony version of herself sounded so much better, That Twilight was the Princess of Friendship, and knew everything there was to know about magic, sure they shared the same element, but there were many times where this Twilight felt a little inferior when compared to this other Twilight they had met long before her. If only there was a way to contact her, if it were possible, she would ask this better version of her for advice so she could become just as amazing as she was.
“Wait, that’s it! I’ll find a way to contact her!” Twilight exclaimed to herself.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Twilight? Magic is a pretty tricky thing. You’re still learning how it all works. Wouldn’t it be better to just ask Sunset about this?” Spike, the dog, says, scratching his ear with his back leg.
“I know, Spike. But I don’t want to bother my friends with my own personal problems. They’ve already had themselves a long and eventful year, and they deserve to just relax. I need to get over this problem myself. That’s what the other me would do.”
“Well, just be very careful. That magic can be dangerous if mishandled,” Spike says, moving to place himself in his bed, circling around once before laying down.
“I will. I just need to know how to be like her. That way, the girls will know that I can be just as capable as the other me is.”
Twilight spent hours working on a brand new device, one that would hopefully be able to connect to the other Twilight’s world. During the one time she met the other version of herself, she recalled the other Twilight mention that she come through to this world by some kind of magical mirror. After a lot of work, Twilight created some kind of magical remote beam that would automatically form a connection to the magic of the other world.
“It’s finally done! I have so many questions to ask her.” She sighs, a bit unsure if this would really work. Aiming the remote at a mirror, she fixes her glasses and then presses the button. The antenna began to glow, and not long after, it shot a purple beam at the glass, and the glass started to become some kind of portal or vortex.
“Hello, can anyone hear me?” She cautiously called out to the mirror, hoping that someone would answer. Watching carefully, Twilight heard nothing and sighed in disappointment.
“Oh … who am I kidding? I’ll never be as amazing as that other Twilight..”
One second later, she spotted something, a dark figure of some sort. Looking closer, she could see that this figure had soulless, glowing white eyes. A second later, it got closer, causing Twilight to jump a little. Before she knew it, in the blink of an eye, the dark figure reached out for her, black shadowy tendrils came through the mirror grabbing hold of her causing her to scream, the sound waking up Spike, who jumped out of bed immediately
“Spike! Help!” she pleaded, struggling to grab onto anything as the tentacles tried to pull her into the mirror.
“Twilight!” Spike called out. It didn’t take long for him to see what the problem was. Thinking fast, Spike growled and jumped at one of the tentacles, biting it, sinking his teeth deep into it. There was a cry of pain at the bite, a cry that sound like it belonged to another person.
Right away, the figure disappeared, the mirror returning to normal, Twilight fell to the ground. Spike grabbed a pillow for her just before she landed. “Are you alright?” Spike asked, concern in his tone.
“Yes … and no. But I’m just glad that I’m still here..” Twilight pulled her dog into a hug, which he returned with a paw on her shoulder.
She sighs. “I should just face it, I’m never going to be as incredible as the other me is … I should just give it up.”
“Who says you have to be just like the other Twilight? You’re perfectly fine as you are,” Spike softly replies, trying to cheer her up the best he could. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to work.
“I appreciate you saying that, Spike. But that’s really hard to believe. Come on, let’s get some sleep … I have a headache.” She lightly dismissed, getting herself in bed and wrapping herself up in a blanket and turning over onto her side, finally closing her eyes to try to sleep.
Twilight’s eyes open. Everything is dark, and she can’t see a thing. It’s all a pitch black void. “Ugh... where am I?” she asks herself, her voice echoes throughout this plane of darkness. Reaching around, she is able to find her glasses, and once she puts them back on, she’s finally able to see around her. As her eyes finally adjust to the darkness, the girl is able to see where she is. It was some kind of long hallway with nothing but shadow surrounding every corner.
“What kind of place is this?” She asks herself, taking a look around her, but it’s hard to see too far out. Suddenly, a flashlight appears on a desk right next to her. Unsure of what else to do, she reaches out and grabs it, pressing the button as the beam turns on, finally giving her a clear line of sight in this seemingly endless darkness. A door appears, so she cautiously opens it, revealing a much longer hallway. She shines the flashlight in front of her, but for some strange reason, the beam of the flashlight is unable to see past the hallway in front of her—it was like the darkness was so thick, that it was blocking out the light and preventing her from seeing what’s ahead of her.
“H-Hello?.. is anyone here?” She nervously asks, but receives no answer. The sound of a piece of glass crunching under a boot makes her jump. Something else was here, and there was no other way out.
Without any other options, Twilight had no choice but to go forward. Stepping out into the hallway, the door behind her disappears entirely, leaving the young woman alone in the darkness. There were two hallways, one left, the other to the right. Before she can make her decision, the sound of slow, calculated footsteps makes her blood run cold. She had no idea who or what it was that was walking behind her. All she knew was that her gut was telling her that who or whatever this as, meant immediate danger. Terrified, Twilight slowly takes a few steps forward, walking as slow as she could while trying to be as quiet as possible.
A few more careful steps, and her boot steps on a piece of wood, causing a loud crunch as the slim piece broke under her foot, the noise sounding out all around he, a second later, she hears the sound of a very low guttural and inhuman growl, the noise causing her body to tense up and shake; she began to shiver.
The sound of steady footsteps began to speed up significantly, and several beastly snarls with each step. She could feel her body freeze, paralyzed in fear. Twilight knew that the longer she stood still, the closer to certain death she’ll become. A panicked whimper emits from her lips, and her legs can’t stop shaking. She’s about to close her eyes and await her imminent demise, until something inside her mind clicked, and she heard her own voice speak in her mind, one single word, but it’s all she needed to hear.
“RUN!”
As quick as the snapping of a finger, Twilight took off down the dark hall, the sound of fast, heavy footsteps only seems to be getting louder, but she keeps running without looking back, she knew whatever this thing was, that it was close, one second to look back was all it would take and then she would be dead. So, instead, she ran as fast as she could. After several minutes of non-stop running, Twilight opens a door, rushes in, and closes it behind her.
“W-What do I do?” She asked herself, her heart racing one million miles a minute, double taking left to right. She’s in a frantic panic. Suddenly, her voice again speaks inside her mind.
“What are you doing? Hide!”
Thinking fast, Twilight opens a wardrobe closet and steps inside, closing it behind her, switching off the flashlight soon after. Not even one second later, the creature bursts through the door, looking through the thin crack between the two doors, Twilight clamps hands over her mouth at the horrifying appearance of the thing that had been chasing her. It was a tall humanoid, its arms long and lanky, one hand had a disgusting-looking hoof where a hand should be, while it’s other hand was a hoof with rotting little digits sticking out of the top of what was supposed to be fingers, it had piercing red eyes.
Its hair on its head split down its back, forming was looked like a disturbing mane made entirely out of fleshy limbs, it had a long hard protruding out of its head; it looked like a horn, but one made entirely out of bone, its face was completely disfigured, a human nose pulled out and extended to create some warped version of a muzzle.
This creature was some mad scientist’s twisted idea of a human and pony hybrid gone wrong. The worst part was these long, thin wings that poked out its sides, guts, and other inner organs hanging from the wing bones like some morbid, overly realistic Halloween decoration. Each step it took, it would shake, probably because this thing had hooves with little pieces of flesh sticking out of what’s meant to be toes.
Keeping both her hands over her mouth, Twilight remained as silent as she could, terrified about what would happen if this thing were to catch her. The monster looked around the room, ground shaking a bit with each step as he continued to search for her.
“Twilight.”
Suddenly, a familiar voice was heard calling to her. She didn’t know where it was, but it sounded like was coming from behind her, which was confusing. She knew she was inside a closet. Looking back through the crack, she looks left and then right to find that the creature is nowhere in sight. Thinking the coast was clear, she looked back behind her.
“Spike..?”
Without warning, Twilight was met with blood-red eyes staring right at her through the cracks. Her irises go small as fear shakes her to the core, the loud growl as it stared at her causing her to scream.
“Twilight! Wake up!” And just like that, it’s gone, and in a random flash of white, she opened her eyes, adrenaline from her experience making her sit up really fast, screaming a bit before she realized that she’s back in the safety of her bed.
“Twilight? What’s wrong?” Spike asked, the dog jumping up onto the bed and approaching her with concern.
“Spike!” she says, her voice shaky. She just pulls the pet into a hug, to which he returns by placing a paw over her arm.
“Everything alright?”
“I... I just had the worst nightmare I’ve ever had.” She replies, slowly starting to calm her nerves.
“Nightmare’s about her again, huh?” He asked, recalling the bad dreams about Midnight Sparkle that often seemed to plague her.
Twilight shook her head. “No, it wasn’t about her.... something much worse.”
“That doesn’t sound good. What was it about?” He asked.
“I.... don’t want to talk about it.. this dream was so horrible. And the scary thing about it is that everything felt so real..”
“That’s awful... I know, maybe we should go see the others?” He suggested, hopping out of her arms after she lowered him.
“Some fun with friends is the best way to shake off a scary dream. By the time the day is over, you’ll forget all about that nightmare.” Spike says, jumping down to the floor from the bed.
“I really hope you’re right, Spike..” With a worried sigh, she finally steps out of bed and makes her way to the bathroom to change.
The moment she’s in the washroom, Twilight freezes at a random sight. For whatever reason, there was what appeared to be a kitchen knife in the bathroom sink. It looked shiny, like it had been freshly cleaned. Confused, she changed into her daytime clothing.
“Spike?” she called, opening the bathroom door.
“Is there any reason why there’s a kitchen knife in the bathroom sink?” She asked, scratching her head in thought.
“Huh? Maybe you ran out of room in the dish rack? I remember you doing the same thing with a fork a little while ago. I think it’s time to get a much bigger rack.”
“Really? I don’t remember doing that recently..”
“Maybe you forgot? You were in a hurry to read that new book the other day.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” As weird as it was, Spike was probably right. Maybe she did forget. At least she hoped that was the case. It seemed to be the most likely reason in her book. So for now, as strange as it was, she thought nothing of it, not wanting to dwell on something she had no explanation for.
Turning on her cell phone, Twilight is shocked to see that she had several missed calls and texts from all her friends. Opening one from Rainbow Dash, all she needed to do was read one of the seven. The most recent text sent read: Whenever you see this, meet us in the Music room ASAP!
As soon as she read the text, Twilight with Spike in her backpack made their way to the music room. On her way there, Twilight noticed that the police were here, part of the main hall blocked off by crime scene tape. Something very bad happened. Concerned, Twilight entered the music room, shutting the door behind her.
“Sorry I took a bit. What happened? Does it have something to do with the police being here?” Twilight asked, bracing herself for the answer.
The girl turned to her, shared a glance, and then looked back at Twilight.
“Yeah, all of today’s classes were canceled today.” Rainbow Dash replied.
“Lucky Clover.... was found lying in the hall, they say someone killed him..” Sunset Shimmer said, giving Twilight the grim news.
End of Chapter
Author's Note
Hello dear readers
It took a bit, but I'm finally able to release my horror story.
Please keep in mind that this is a short story which is why chapters are much shorter.
The second chapter will be released either later on today, or tomorrow either way, I'll be finishing this story hopefully tomorrow, if not, then as soon as I have free time. Definitely before this year ends though.
Anyway I hope you enjoy.
Happy Halloween,
And as always, happy reading!
~Darkslayer
