The young lavender Unicorn groaned as she tried to cover herself further with her cloak and failed, the wind too strong and relentless, yet she again realized that she was not imagining it. It was all completely and infuriatingly real.
Up ahead on a heightened elevation along on the road there was a large building, not that far away. It looked like some form of old castle, and she quickly realized that if she hurried she could make it inside.

She had been on the road for too long now, about three weeks and four days to be a bit precise, and still hadn’t found her destination yet. She was in search of The Golden Pillars Library, an ancient source of knowledge that the Princess had told her about, one which held a special collection of ancient and forgotten secrets.
But so far, she hasn’t seen mane or tail of that fabled place. Twilight was getting desperate, and this crazy weather was not helping.

At all.

Without any more choices(unless she decided to just randomly teleport somewhere far away), the Unicorn continued onward to the stone structure, fighting to keep her coat closed with a Spell and to keep her head covered with a foreleg. Fortunately, her Magic was strong enough to keep her traveling garment from blowing right off.
The shadows of the approaching night appeared about her slowly, but Twilight could still see the last light from the Sun.

Once, she had flown using Telekineses and covered a whole lot of distance in record time.
She was proud of that achievement.
She had taught it to herself, no need for any teachers doing that or anything!

Yet the stupid wind came and now made it too darn hard to fly now. Twilight thought maybe it was for the best. With this wind, she was going to crash into something sooner or later, she wasn’t stupid enough to face a force of nature like this head on.
She frowned and whimpered, remembering how when she had been a foal, she had tried to best the wind and ended up stuck on top of a particularly high tree halfway across town, some of the other foals preferring to laugh at her than to get help.
She lost her first streak of youthful independence that day.

After several incidents where her Magic had gotten too much for her teachers to handle, that had been the last straw and it wouldn’t be until YEARS later that she was permitted to try any sort of advanced Spells again, and only with heavy supervision.

As Twilight walked across a rather large and admittedly well-made bridge, she noticed that the dark castle showed signs of abandonment, but there was something in it….like a glamour or something like that, a certain sort of mysterious and mystical affect to it.
She couldn’t trust her eyes at this moment. She was barely able to use them properly anyway, with cold air hellbent on blinding her.
Unfortunately, her caution would simply have to wait until she got inside. If it was some kind of trap or an illusion, she wasn’t able to tell at all.
Her instincts were telling her she had to be careful, however. Question was: careful about the castle or about this really strange weather?

Wait, what if the castle itself was causing the weather?
That thought died as soon as it was born. She was a prodigy in Magic, and would have been able to sense a Curse or a Medium being used for certain Spells. There was nothing like that here.
The lavender bookworm had finally reached the door, latched on for dear life with one hoof, and let go her hood up and felt the freezing air upon her face, her deep purple mane beginning to fly furiously. She struck the door several times, only for it to open and reveal an open courtyard.

“Oh, come on…!” Twilight shouted.
She continued struggling onward until she hit another door, almost as big as the other one, and hit it harder.
“HELLO?!”
A big leaf hit her in the face.

“Ugh!” the Unicorn smacked it off “IS THERE ANYPONY HOME???!”
The wind roared, pulling and pushing her all over the place.
When Twilight didn’t have to grab onto the door, she continued to knock and scream, yet no response came at all.
The sun was setting, she was losing light quickly. There was no time for her to look around for another entrance, and she really didn’t want to continue fighting against this wind; so she dug into her magical reserves, and the door handle glowed her signature purple Magic glow.

The lock remained strong, but she cast her Spell again!
“Come on! OPEN!”

The door seemed to shudder for a moment, then it creaked heavily and moved just enough for her to squeeze in. And as soon as she got in, the door slammed, leaving a loud echo inside a very much obscured room.
The mare took a deep breath and sighed just a bit loudly, relieved that nothing was hitting her anymore.

She suddenly felt cold…

There was also some humidity in the air, as if she was in the bottom of a well.

With a blink of her eyes, her horn brightened up, and now she could have an aura of light extending along the entire horn. Twilight moved her head around and found, surprisingly, that the foyer she was currently in actually some showed signs of recent care.
The place had no trace of leaves (at least, not besides the ones she let in with her clearly unexpected arrival), no tree visible roots, no holes on the roof, it had a clean crimson carpet and portraits of various figures hanging off the walls.
This place screamed of royalty. Of power. Greatness.

There was nothing humble about this castle.

“Woah” the Unicorn gasped as she took her first steps inside, the normal clacks of her hooves now muffled by the carpet.
It was so fluffy it made Twilight smile a bit. This definitely beat needing to trek through mud and leaves and over hard cobblestone roads.
The young mare slowly walked, with one hoof she used for the obvious task of moving and with the other one she tried to swat and pulls off everything that had gotten stuck in her mane, leaving a small trail as she walked around.

“Uh….hello??”
The echo was not as terrifying as she thought it would be.
“Sorry, but I had to let myself in. I….I..yeah, this weather is horrible. Seems like a mid-level hurricane is out there. Definitely a good thing that there’s no rain, though. Oh Goddess, that would have truly sucked, hehe, fortunately that was not the case, it was just the wind. Really bad wind, y’know.”

She continued to walk deeper into the place.
“Really…..bad…..wind….and, I saw this place and took the only chance I had since I needed some shelter. I knocked, but there was no answer and I really needed to get inside and….and…now I’m talking to myself. Great job, Twilight.”

The Unicorn chuckled.
“Are you asleep? Are you home? Sorry to bother you if that’s the case!”

Twilight expanded the range of her light, hoping to see something.

Nothing moved.

Nothing came.

Nothing happened.

She then hummed.
Surprisingly, the place was not creepy, it was just… eerie. Like, somepony had left to go and buy some stuff and just forgot to leave the lights on.
The pony noticed there were torches, but they haven’t been used in a while, still clean, though, no webs or anything at all over them. They were well-maintained for sure.
She saw some doors here and there, but preferred to use the big stairs in front of the main door and go upwards, steps still muffled thanks to the carpet she was walking on.

“Dunno if I should even try being stealthy at all here. My big voice has definitely given me away…”
She muttered to herself softly.

What was really starting to get to Twilight more and more was the fact that there was NO sound at all. Not even from the wind outside. She would have thought that she would have heard some dripping noises, maybe rat feet hurling here and there, but there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

As she reached the end of the stairs, the young lavender mare found herself with two options: going to her right or to her left.

Aside from the red carpeted floor and non-burning torches, it seemed that both were identical.
“Decisions, decisions, decisions…”
She moved the light from one side to the other.
“Eine meenie meini moe, steal an Earth-Pony’s favorite hoe. If they near you, throw it back. Or they’ll grab and break your back.”

And so, the Unicorn chose the path on the left and slowly walked down it.

-

Twilight wasn’t sure how much she had walked now, the place was seriously more massive on the inside than it was on the outside! So, there was decently advanced usage of Spatial Magic here, meaning whoever lived in this place was a genuinely proficient Spell-Caster who may or may not be hostile or friendly.
She’d cross that bridge when she got to it. But now was not the time.

She was thankful that the carpet was cushioning her steps, it was really helping not making her hooves hurt (more). But she had to admit she was getting tired of just walking around and not finding anything…..
Or anypony.

“Hellooo…?” Twilight called out again.
Again, only the echo of her own voice. Nothing else. This was starting to feel just a bit too much like one of those ghost stories where nothing happens until the last moment.
As she made her way through the long hallway and finally exited it, she found herself in one very long aisle with huge windows that allowed her to see outside. Approaching it and almost smushing her face to the glass, she found to her disappointment the night had completely set in and it was almost pitch black out there, but the wind was evidently still raging.
Twilight directed the light of her horn to the outside and saw the poor trees thrashing about under the fury of the storm, but… there was still no noise whatsoever.

That was truly when the lavender mare realized that something was truly wrong with this place. Much more so than she had originally anticipated.
This kind of wind would make strong whooshing sounds, and the kind of haunting moans that she would have made as a foal when she put a sheet over herself and pretended to be a ghost.
But there was no sound at all, as if there was a complete stillness in this place and she was the only thing moving. The only thing LIVING.

And this was increasingly terrifying her.

Looking away from the outer darkness, Twilight stood stock-still for a few good moments, trying to collect her thoughts and ponder on what to do next.
“I… I’m already this far inside and the storm out there isn’t gonna let up anytime soon. Sooooo… I might as well keep going. Maybe I’ll find SOMETHING worthwhile and someplace remotely safe to rest in. If I can even close my eyes here for a second…”

Slowly, and with a feeling of fear that didn’t allow her to look outside anymore, the nervous Unicorn made her way down the aisle towards the other doorway on the other side from where she’d entered.
Getting to it at last, she telekinetically began to open the door while looking back down the way she’d come.

As if on cue, lightning struck and a flash of light illuminated the hallway, enough for Twilight to notice a large dark form at the end of the aisle, right next to the door she’d come through to enter it!
The shuddering mare gasped and speedily flowed her light towards where she saw the figure, only to find a large suit of armor.
She froze on the spot, counted the seconds until the crash of thunder came….
But it never did.

The furs on Twilight stood and she felt goosebumps on her limbs and barrel. How had that armor been there that whole time and she herself had never seen it?
“Uh….hello?”
Nothing. She lit up the entire aisle, still found nothing.
“Look, I’m sorry to intrude, but I swear that I had no choice. There was nothing around outside for hours, and I needed shelter. Sorry if I am trespassing, I did knock, I really did. If…..”
The poor pony gulped.
“If you want me to leave, please, just say so, OK? Give me a sign or something…?”
Now she held her breath perfectly, heart pounding on her ears, expecting to hear a slam, a door closing, something to hit her, but nothing happened!

“……pretty please…?”
The Unicorn whimpered, both in sadness and in growing panic.
After this event with the armor, she needed to decide to either go back the way she came from or proceed further in.
Ultimately, she decided to keep heading inside… but to go back and take the right side hallway back at the stairs. Her gut was contradicting itself, telling her both to run away and yet that she couldn’t because the weather outside was too dangerous.

The castle layout as she had explored was overall pretty straight forward, but because of the situation she now found herself in, the poor mare basically found herself scared half-witless by the very real possibility that she might have gotten herself into a hellish maze.
And so, she decided not to open any doors whatsoever as long as she could help it, growing more and more fearful that doing so may unleash something unspeakable or start a chain reaction that would end in her becoming an insane prisoner of this place on her own.

But it was already too late for that.

As Twilight reached the foyer and this time chose the path of the right, she started to feel something else odd happening to her by the minute: her powers were either getting weaker, or the darkness was more oppressive. She touched her horn and found that she wasn’t imagining it. She had to pour more energy into her Spell to keep a decent amount of space around her lit up, but it did not do enough to allow her to see that far ahead at all.
She found herself getting more confused and fearful by the fact she could even see her own breath coming out of her mouth, and this knowledge came with a chill in the air. Wait, when did it suddenly get this cold?
“Crabapples….” The young pony cursed.

As she continued walking, she started to hear sounds now. Too bad she was already freaking out before that, but no she heard something.
Something was following her!
Now nearly in full-panic mode, the Unicorn could feel her heart beating as fast as a champion pony racer sprinting at full speed across the finish line and her brow starting to become slick with sweat.
Her breathing was starting to become difficult, and her limbs shuddered with every step.

The sounds now were like the sound of… breathing. Like somepony was exhaling on the back of her neck.

Right now!

With a sharp cry of alarm and fear, the terrified Unicorn spun around and let loose an instinctive blast of bright purple mystical fire down the length of the hall! The burst of magical energy sailed down the same way she’d just come, but to her initial confusion and rapidly rising horror, it just… disappeared, after a single moment of being visible. As if the shadows themselves had swallowed it up, ambient noise and all.
She didn’t even hear it strike a wall or the floor or ANYTHING. The sound of her blast disappeared just as swiftly the Spell itself.

And now she finally realized it: the shadows themselves were not natural in the slightest. The darkness itself was what she’d been feeling this whole time, pure and utter blackness that snuffed out any and all noise and left her with only her own breathing and walking and occasionally speaking to listen to.
This sensation, she understood it now. She had been watched, stalked, HUNTED by whatever the hay it was that was now following her and closing in on her.
And now it was right here. All around her, she could feel it. Like the razor-sharp fangs of a Timber Wolf nipping at her tendons, the pincers of a thousand ants that were covering her back and flank, limbs and neck.

“P-p-please, wh-whatever you are… d-don’t kill me…”
Twilight didn’t need to see clearly to know that the tears were running down her cheeks as she desperately made her plea to the surrounding blackness, her own horn barely keeping up even a little sparkle in this overwhelming place of despair that was now clawing at her mercilessly.

A grunt, no, a GROWL. A deep and guttural rasping sound that was everywhere and nowhere, unnatural and not at all equine in it’s entirety.
It was in the walls to her sides and in the floor under her hooves. In front of her face and right in her ear, directly behind her and above her head.

“…p-please…”
She gasped and sobbed out as her voice quivered like a chair in the midst of an earthquake. Her body was as stiff as a stone, yet her legs wouldn’t stop shaking.

Her fur started to become damp with sweat. Her tears had already been falling to the floor at her hooves, her voice thick and flooded with emotion as she tried and prayed for any sort of mercy from the hopelessness that closed in on her little light that faded more and more with every second as the shadows grew impossibly thicker around her.
Urine trickled down her shaking legs and pooled on the floor, her stomach feeling like her organs were suddenly stiffening up and her bowels becoming uncontrollable.

Her long coat may as well have been lost. It provided no warmth or comfort for her at all anymore.

Twilight shook in helpless terror, her legs buckling beneath her as they lost all strength. She fell on top of them as they folded in on themselves, her head lowered now as she shut her eyes and sobbed openly in despair.
It was as if the shadows themselves were pressing her down, she could almost feel them physically covering every inch of her in their sadistic violating touch. Her heartbreaking sobbing was like a foal that had been abandoned by cruel unloving parents, her snot dripping down her nose and her hot tears pouring down her anguished face in a never-ending stream.

She suddenly felt an irresistible urge enter her mind. She could feel the presence, the solid presence, of something real. Right in front of her! Even filled with tears, her purple eyes could make out, with increasingly clarity, the large and dark shapes of some sort of fierce hooves that had somehow appeared in front of her where she was on the now-cold ground. The darkness was standing before her, and it was giving an order to her own mind.
And she knew what the thought was, that foolish and yet overwhelming order that she NEEDED to obey:

Look up.

With a sound from her throat that was a mix of a gasp and a bawling moan, she slowly raised her trembling head and looked up… straight into the eyes of fear itself, blazing in all its monstrous glory with unholy green and blood-red fire that burnt in those sockets or leapt up from them into the air as if attempting to escape this mortal place and go beyond the veil.
The Unicorn gasped, immediately feeling her body turn ice-cold, a fresh horrified shudder speeding through her as she took in the face of the nightmarish horror that was now in front of her within the inky blackness of this place of shadows. Her heart simultaneously nearly exploded in her chest and went completely still.

And everything went dark.

Author's Note

No idea how long this one will be, but we’ll see!