There was something in the room. There had to be.
Twilight blinked at the ceiling of her bedroom. She didn’t even remember waking up, but she was awake now. Hoofs clenched the top of her bedspread to her chin tightly, the lip pulled up over her nose. She breathed in the smell of cloth, slightly musty from her heavy breathing. Her eyes felt tight around the sides from tiredness, but she dared not close them. Even blinking was a shock when it happened, a quick flash of deeper darkness that made a shudder ripple through her skin. It was that shudder that broke the hold on her mind and she began to think.
She couldn’t remember how long she’d been staring. She knew she’d been asleep and now she was awake, but the transition would not come to mind. She traced the swirling lines in the wooden ceiling, each groove etched into her mind from hundreds of glances up before drifting off to sleep. There was no comfort in their familiar patterns now, though.
Her heart beat painfully against her chest, so hard she was amazed she wasn’t bouncing in place. She couldn’t seem to get in a deep enough breath. Calmly, rationally, she focused on her breathing. She was trying to breathe as slightly as possible; taking only shallow gulps of air and letting them out quickly and as quietly as she could. She tried to slow down, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Her eyes remained glued to the ceiling.
Twilight could feel it, whatever it was. The room was silent, but not just silent, oh no! It was the deep kind of silent, the kind of quiet you get when somepony was trying to be quiet. She could feel it, a sort of presence that hung heavy on the night air. It felt like an unbearable weight pressing down upon her chest, threatening to smother her. Her breathing got even shorter, and she clutched the blanket tighter to herself.
Whatever it was, it was standing right at the end of her bed. She was sure of it. She would look down and see it, and it would see her, and then it would strike. That’s all it was waiting for. Her eyes were starting to feel a little dry, but the thought of sleep was the farthest thing from her mind. Close her eyes and it would get her. She wouldn’t even see it coming. Staring at the ceiling was safe, it couldn’t get her if she didn’t look, it hadn’t gotten her while she wasn’t looking, staring at the ceiling was safe…
With agonizing slowness, Twilight brought her eyes down to the end of her bed and looked. There was nothing there. The tightness in her chest didn’t lessen one bit.
Little light entered through the large glass window along the wall. The sky outside was overcast; not a star glimmered through the portal for her to see. Her room lay cloaked in a deep gloom, dark enough that even her night-adjusted eyes could only make out the dimmest outlines. Familiar shapes like her dresser and the clock by the side of her bed loomed out of the darkness, deeper shades than the walls around them. Nothing seemed out of place.
Fear gripped her, and Twilight didn’t know why. Her ears strained to catch the slightest sound, but the library was silent. There wasn’t even the creak of it settling or the rustle of wind along the leaves outside. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound, but the certainty that she wasn’t alone only grew stronger. Her legs, curled up against her under the blankets, started to tremble a little. There was nothing at the end of her bed, but if it had moved…
She jerked her head to either side quickly. The hairs along her chin scraping along the bedspread sounded far louder than it should have to her ears. The sides of the bed were just as empty as the end had been. Not even the shadows moved, but the fear remained. Something was wrong. If she could only put her hoof down on what… she pulled the cover tighter against herself and tried to stop trembling.
Something must have woken her. She’d never woken up in the middle of the night like this before. Twilight tried looking at the clock without turning her head again, but it was too dark to make out the time. She slept through the night with her friends over, until they had started fighting. She’d slept through Spike’s occasional fits of snoring. She’d even…
Her thoughts ground to a halt. She couldn’t hear Spike. She should at least be able to hear him breathing, but there was nothing. The silence hung unbroken, weighing oppressively in the air. Twilight tilted her head down, but she couldn’t make out his basket bed from where she lay. She would have to move.
Suddenly she realized she’d stopped breathing at some point and forced herself to breathe deep, pulling the air in through clenched teeth. There must be some kind of reasonable explanation. Spike had probably just gotten thirsty and gone downstairs for a drink of water. Yes, that was it. There was nothing wrong, and the two of them would share a laugh about it in the morning.
Only… if Spike had gone for a drink, why couldn’t she hear him walking? The stairs creaked when stepped on, especially the third and four ones from the bottom. Why hadn’t she heard the water pouring or a glass being set down? The quiet seemed to grow even more oppressive by the second. She must have been listening for hours now. It couldn’t have only been a minute or two. She realized she’d stopped breathing again.
There was no other option. She’d have to get up and look. The though sent ice running through her veins. An image, unbidden, came to mind of her setting a hoof over the edge of the bed and something grabbing it. When was the last time she’d looked under the bed? She couldn’t remember; not even what was under there or how much space there was. All she could seem to think of was putting her hoof over the edge and getting grabbed and pulled under the bed and then…!
Gritting her teeth, Twilight tried to calm down. She was one of the most powerful spell casters in all of Equestria. She was the personal student of Princess Celestia. She was the bearer of the Element of Magic, the most powerful of the Elements of Harmony. She had been on dozens of adventures. She’d set hoof in the Everfree forest all the time. She’d faced down the changeling queen’s army and challenged Discord to his face. She’d stared down Nightmare Moon all on her own, without any of her friends at her side, and charged. Compared to all of that, what was this? Slowly, the blanket dropped down to her chest and she edged towards the side of the bed.
The far end of the bed squeaked and shifted slightly, and Twilight Sparkle, powerful spell caster, personal pupil of the Princess, bearer of the Element of Magic, vanquisher of all the foes of Equestria, pulled the covers over her head with a whimper and huddled into a ball.
Something was there! She shivered, hugging herself tightly, waiting for whatever it was to make another move. Fear pressed in on her from all sides, threatening to smother her. The covers suddenly felt restrictive and sweat broke out all along her body. Her heart was beating so fast that it threatened to burst from her chest, but she had to get out from under the restraining blankets. She poked her head out with a small gasp and looked around wildly.
Nothing was there.
Twilight should have felt relieved, but the worry just wouldn’t go away. Why had the bed shifted like that? Had it settled because she’d moved? Had she pulled the bedspread and the end had caught on something… or had something pulled on it? Maybe it had been Spike, returning to bed and nudging the bed as he passed? Possibilities swarms through her head as she lay with her eyes glued to the spot, unable to move.
Blinking snapped her out of the stupor again, her eyelids dragging over dry eyes tight with tiredness. She didn’t know how long she’d been staring at that spot, but it felt like hours. Maybe… maybe she didn’t have to get out of bed. Maybe if she just called his name…
“Spike?”
The sound of her own voice startled her even more than breaking the silence had. That small squeak couldn’t have been her voice! Why was she so terrified? She swallowed around what felt like a desert and tried again.
“Spike?”
There was no answer. The empty room seemed to swallow her voice immediately and the silence that remained was worst than ever. It loomed. She didn’t know how the absence of sound could loom, but there was no other word to describe the utter and complete silence around her. It loomed, and it took all of her willpower not to dive beneath the sheets once more.
“…Spike… I’m coming… just hold on…”
Inch by agonizing inch, Twilight slowly scooted over to the side of the bed. Peering down, the floor looked much farther away than should be possible. Once again the certainty that her hoof would be seized if she left the safety of the bed coursed through her mind, robbing her of what little courage had gotten her this far. She could picture it in her mind perfectly, a claw with sharp, gleaming talons lashing out right before she touched the wooden floor. Or… or a slimy tentacle, or a heavy paw, or even worse, an ordinary hoof! Just an ordinary pony, but something went wrong in their head and now that ordinary pony was waiting under her bed with a knife, just waiting…
This is ridiculous! Twilight shook her head to clear it of the images that threatened to overwhelm her. There’s nothing under the bed! There couldn’t be! It was stuffed with… with her clothes! Yes! And some books she was reading and hadn’t had time to put away yet, some of those probably had fallen under there. It was a low bed to begin with, so there couldn’t possibly be any room for something to hide anyway.
Before she could think about it any farther, before the fear still squeezing her heart caused her to start second guessing, she reached out and put a hoof to the floor. The floor felt cool beneath her hoof. She waited, barely daring to breathe, but nothing reached out to grab her. Sighing with relief, Twilight stepped down with her other front leg. She was halfway out of the bed now, and nothing had happened. She started to feel like she was going to be OK. The terror even felt a little smaller. Third hoof down, and now she could peel her eyes away from the sinister slit of darkness beneath the mattress. Almost there. She stepped down quickly with her last hoof, eager to get the ordeal of getting out of bed over with.
Something closed tight around her leg.
Twilight tried to scream, but she just couldn’t get it past the enormous lump in her throat, so all that came out was a strangled, high-pitched squeak. It had her! Whatever it was, it had her! She jumped and twisted around in midair, landing painfully on her back and shoulder. There, stretching out from her bed, a long and sinuous shape wrapped around her leg. Her heart stopped and her eyes threatened to roll up into her skull. She kicked wildly at the shape with her free leg, frantic to break its grip. Desperately, she tried to concentrate on some kind of magic; teleportation, magic blast, levitation, Star Swirl’s ancient tickling curse, anything that would help! Her mind remained frozen on the horror that was still gripping her leg!
Suddenly her hoof was free. Twilight scooted on her backside until she hit up against a bookcase, pressing back into it as if to melt into its shelves. The shape lay unmoving by the side of the bed where it had fallen. She had to kill it, kill it before it got up and attacked her again. She’d blast it, scour it with magic, kill it with fire! She was chugging like an engine, breathing far too quickly. Some small part of her mind tried to tell her she was hyperventilating. The other parts screamed for that part to shut up, there was a monster in the room right there!
Gathering herself, she prepared to launch the largest fireball she… it was her blanket. The shape lying on the floor was the coverlet from her bed. She sat where she was, not moving, just staring at it. She should have felt relief. If there was any justice in the universe, she should have started laughing at her foolishness and gotten back into bed. But she couldn’t. Something was still in the dark with her.
It didn’t seem possible, but the room appeared even darker than it had been. Her skin crawled with nerves and adrenaline. She felt like hundreds of eyes were watching her from all sides. She wished she was back in her bed, under the covers. She wished whatever it was would just go away. She wished she knew why she was so scared.
Once, when she’d been trapped in the crystal caves under Canterlot, she’d let her horn glow bright so that she could see where she was. The light hadn’t revealed anything positive, in fact the closed space had made her feel even more claustrophobic than the dark had, but the light had been a comfort. She’d been able to put a shape to the prison she’d been in, and with knowledge came the sense that she would make it, if she could only think rationally about the situation.
But this was different. She wasn’t in some strange place; she was in her bedroom! She knew every inch by heart! There was the dark shape of her end table next to her bed with the unicorn head statue on top. There, next to the oval of the window, was the spindly triangle of her telescope. The clock on the wall, the plant in the far corner, the curtains hanging from their wooden rod; she knew what every single shadow was as if the room was lit by the morning sun. Everything was comfortable and familiar.
But she didn’t feel safe. Nothing was out of place, nothing she could put a hoof on was wrong, but she just didn’t feel safe. This was the one place where she should have felt the most secure, and she could not stop herself from pulling her limbs tight against her chest in fear. If she was in danger here, where could she ever feel safe again?
Tears threatened, but she held them back. She had to be able to see. Whatever it was, she had to see it coming. Unless… she had been face to face with a cockatrice once before. The memory of being frozen into stone, knowing she was trapped and nothing she could do would stop her from becoming a cold, lifeless statue…
In her mind’s eye, she could see the scaly creature slithering along the floor below. The stairs would pose no obstacle; a cockatrice could easily raise itself up the distance between floors on its tail. That was why Spike wasn’t making any noise; the cockatrice had already gotten him. And now it waited, swaying silently just to her right, just waiting for her to look to the side…
Twilight gritted her teeth and forced the mental image away with all her focus. It was getting hard to breathe. She was back in the tunnels under Canterlot, and this time there would be no escape. No! She was in her bedroom! Why was it so hard to think? Shivering, taking all too much care not to accidentally look over the side to the next floor, her gaze slid over Spike’s basket. If she could just make it over there, then she would be fine. She would find Spike, and everything would be fine.
The six feet seemed almost a mile away, but after the first tentative step the rest followed more easily. She fixed her eyes on the basket and refused to look away. As long as she didn’t see anything, nothing would see her. Her insides quivered uncontrollably. Icy fear laced every second, and with each step she expected the skitter of spidery legs crawling up her hooves, or the swoop of wings falling from above, or the clop of the insane pony finally breaking from their hiding place…
She reached the basket and peered down at it through too-wide eyes. The basket was empty.
The strength went out from her legs and she collapsed next to the basket with a whimper. He was gone. Something had gotten him, taken him, eaten him… the possibilities swirled through her head unmindful of her attempts to stem them. The darkness was pressing in around her, feeding on the terror leaping about in her heart like a living thing. Images of horrible creatures, ones she’d met and others just pictures from a book she’d read, cavorted through her imagination like a demonic parade. Something was here! It was!
Desperate for anything, Twilight pawed through the basket. There, a piece of paper! A note of some kind! A note was good. A note meant someone had written something. Unless… a ransom note, from a foalnapper… no! Stop thinking! She ignored the icy spear that went through her heart. She had to read this note!
But… but she couldn’t make her horn glow. She was too scared. The thing, whatever it was, would find her if she used her horn to make light. She’d never gotten over needing to squeeze her eyes shut tight when the spell was difficult or she needed to concentrate. And she couldn’t focus on even the simplest spell, not with this fear still coursing through her. She’d have to close her eyes to use magic, and it would get her if she closed her eyes, and there’d be nothing she could do to protect herself…
There was a candle on the end table by her bed. She remembered putting it there before going to sleep. Had it really only been hours ago? It felt like she’d been trapped in this nightmare for weeks. Stumbling, she closed the distance in a rush. Were the walls closing in? She felt the dread bearing down on her from behind. The darkness was closing in, she wasn’t imagining it!
She collapsed against the table with a cry and dragged the candle close with both hooves. She almost sobbed in terror as she realized she’d need to use magic to light it. Was that a step behind her? Everything was closing in. She felt what must be a breath along the back of her neck. The fear welled up inside of her and threatened to drown out everything that was her. Not caring that she was blubbering, Twilight squeezed her eyes tight and lit the candle.
After a long, long moment… Twilight opened her eyes.
The light was weak, but enough to see the whole room by. Everything was just as it always was. Her blankets lay in a disheveled pile at her feet, but they were just ordinary blankets. There was no cockatrice coiling over the landing, no winged demon hanging from the rafters, no crazy murderer sneaking out from the closet. She was alone.
And most startlingly of all, the fear was gone. Just gone, as if a switch had been flipped and it had simply been turned off. She couldn’t even imagine it anymore, mere seconds after it had vanished. It was just… not there anymore.
Twilight slipped slowly to the floor, relief flooding her mind. Dimly she was aware of reading the note from the basket. Something about helping Rarity and working late… all at once she felt too tired for rational thought. The floor was so comfortable and it was so late in the night and she just felt so safe, so finally safe…
Her last thought before sleep snatched her away was to wonder one last time about what had woken her. It had something to do… with... a… dream…
