Darkness Scoots

~So when we all sit down and venture into our own subconscious mind, we can often find the path we seek in life is fraught with many many trials. Often times, we will find that the smallest obstacles in our lives can become our worst fears and from there...can turn into the things our nightmares are made of.~

-An excerpt from the Book of Fillysophical Studies, by: Dr. Rhindquarters

===D.W.===

Scootaloo wasn't still sure she entirely trusted this Pegasus, but for the moment she had little choice. He had wandered back out into the chilled, fog filled air of the dark Ponyville with that same glaze-eyed look that he'd flashed her a few times since they'd arrived. It was really beginning to eat her, wondering if he truly had any idea as to what he was doing. It wasn't until then that she had realized exactly why it had bothered her. Stealing a quick glance at the objects that so unnerved her, Scoot took notice to one simple thing she couldn't believe she'd missed before.

The black circles in his eyes were missing. Well, not missing really, but more faded and dulled to a dimmer color of which ever eye they were supposed to be in. If she remembered right; according to Twilight, Dream was supposed to be blind if he was in fact the same pony that was in her book. This realization fell on her harder than any other so far. If he couldn't see what he was doing, how had he known what to pack...let alone where to get it from or to tell it apart from any of the other detritus that was lying about what he claimed to be his home?

Scootaloo put the terrifying ideas out of her mind and examined the contents of her saddlebag while they walked. The ornate music box sat deep within the bag along with a few bottles of some kinda cough syrup looking stuff. Included in there was also a roll or two of bandages for each pony, a bottle of lamp oil and a small lantern that hung from a pole strapped securely to the bag. It hovered securely just over her shoulder below eye sight so that it wouldn't blind her as she followed Dream Catcher who knew where. Somehow, the only thing out of place was the music box, but even that in itself was an oddity with the gold embossed filly riding the scooter over the letter S.

"Hey...just where are we going, anyway?" She finally broke the silence after a few blocks to shake her mind of its train of though. His not-so cold-shoulder routine was getting old.

"Hmm? I'm just wandering around right now, waiting for you to decide what you're going to do." He replied casually, as though they were friends shopping at the Ponyville General Store.

Scoot's jaw nearly hit the ground at his answer, but...'I guess I shouldn't have expected less...' she thought grimly, her mind now firmly back on its previous track. He really was clueless.

"So this really is something that I have to do?"

He nodded, illiciting a slight moan from the fitful filly.

"Well...where do I start then? What should I do?"

There was a soft click and a slight crack as the pony ruffled his wings uncomfortably. He turned to look down one street, then arched his head around to check out the other behind him; a much stranger sight now that Scootaloo had come to her revelation.

"First thing's first I guess. Where do you live, little filly?"

Scoot turned around and began walking towards what she presumed to be the outskirts of town, feeling a light haze come over her mind. Her thoughts became jumbled as the two pegasi pressed on, Scoot finding herself having more and more trouble thinking straight. It didn't matter though. She picked up her pace; half to get home and half to get away from the crazy-eyed pony.

"I think it's this way. I've lived in Ponyville my whole life, but we just moved not that long ago so I gotta see where we are first." She nodded.

"Very well then. Lead the way." Dream Catcher smiled, though his eyes kept shifting about warily.

Scootaloo was pretty sure she could find her house if she could get through the fog and see what was what. They'd gone a fair distance from Dream's place, turning here and going this or that way just wandering aimlessly for a bit. But, if her memory served correct, all they needed to do was turn left about three streets back in the direction they came and follow that road until they hit the fence at the end of town...and they'd be right in her back yard. With a direction in mind for the moment, she trotted off at a brisk pace hoping that the other pony could keep up. He hadn't seemed to be the fastest moving thing on four hooves. But then again, he hadn't really been in a rush to get anywhere but his own house since they'd arrived. Not exactly strange for a pony who most likely couldn't see his hoof in front of his face. Even for that though, he'd still surprisingly navigated his way fairly well, to Scootaloo's enlightened amazement.

They walked in silence together for a bit, the only sound being that of their own four hooves on the ground as they continued until she faintly overheard him humming something as he followed along.

"Hey...I recognize that song. It's Fluttershy's lullaby." She stopped, craning her neck around to look at him. He paused too, giving her a curious look.

"Fluttershy? I've never heard of anypony with that name."

"How do you not know her? She's only like...the best animal care-taker in all of Ponyville." Scoot cocked an eyebrow at him. He merely shook his head.

"Sorry. This song is something my own mother used to sing to me. It was very popular, so I can imagine that other ponies would know it. After all, it's soft and catchy at the same time."

She shook her head, clearing away the thought that maybe Dream Catcher and Fluttershy were somehow related, passing it off that there was no possible way someone as kind and careful as her friend could be connected to this dolt. Just as she put the last bit of it out of her mind, there was an odd mechanical clicking that erupted from her bag.

Scootaloo sat down, pulling the music box from the saddlebag to see the key turning awkwardly. It clanked and twisted itself around inside the keyhole as if inserted improperly. But when she tried to fix it, the key wouldn't budge. Instead, the box itself began to play a very distorted version of the lullaby. Picking it up, Scoot shook it around lightly, and the box rattled like some of the pieces had fallen out and were dislodged somewhere inside the mechanism.

"Hey, I think this box is broke." She said, turning to look at Dream Catcher.

He wasn't paying her any attention though. His eyes seemed to be fixed on something just past her down the fog enshrouded road. With the slow realization of the emotion seating in those blue and gold eyes, Scootaloo gulped, turning to follow his gaze.

A black form was moving through the fog, just far enough out of sight to cast a silhouette on the shroud. Whatever it was, there was no pony in town big enough to make it. That was for certain. It was roughly about as tall as a carriage if the swaying shadow was anything to go on, and just wide enough that they'd have a hard time getting past it had there been any stands or carts alongside the side of the street. It didn't seem to be getting any closer though, just looming there beyond their range of vision, idly listing back and forth as though it were being blown in a gentle breeze.

"Uh...Dream Catcher? What is that?" She asked, slowly backing towards the Pegasus.

"Just what are you...", He paused mid-sentence, slowly swiveling his head down to look at her in shock when the form shifted...only continuing when it didn't move again,"that whatever this thing is could be the least of your troubles?"

He almost literally picked his jaw up from where it had fallen, motioning to Scootaloo to continue moving away from the monster. The two continued backing away in the direction they had come, only to feel the ground shake under them. Dream Catcher turned around and froze, prompting Scoot to stumble over him.

"Hey, watch it." Picking herself up, the young pony turned to look at him when there behind them, she saw another black shadow...just as big as the first...but much, MUCH closer.

There was a deep and low rumble from the new shadow. It began moving towards them at a lumbering pace, the ground shaking as it neared with each thunderous step. Both ponies retreated back, only to find the other shadow was now fixated on them as well and on the move, closing off their escape. They were trapped in the middle of the block between the two massive shadows.

They had little time and both of them knew it. Dream Catcher ran off to one side of the street, trying all the doorknobs he could find. Scoot took the hint and tried the other side, both shadows growing ever larger. As they neared, a pressure started to build behind Scootaloo's eyes. It slowly began to throb the nearer they got until at last, after checking door after door, she found one whose handle didn't rattle locked when she tried it.

"Here!" She cried out as she bolted inside, the music box blaring its mechanical crunching louder than ever.

Dream Catcher was on her heels almost immediately, moving surprisingly faster than she thought he could. Within seconds, the door was closed and locked.

The music box didn't stop grinding however. What little light poured in from outside through the front door window was soon blotted out by a massive form. The door began to shake on its hinges as one...or maybe both of the creatures started throwing its weight against the wooden frame. The door splintered and rattled harshly, urging both ponies to venture further into the building.

All was pitch black, though far from silent. If not for the light from their lanterns, they wouldn't have been able to see the tips of their noses. The music box was still grating, though not as harsh, now that they'd temporarily escaped the brutish things outside.

Thankfully, the pressure in Scootaloo's head had lessened as well, but still pounded in time with the creatures outside throwing their weight against the door. Just the fact that it resonated in time with those monsters made her want to get away from them all that much more. Fortunately though, the seemingly flimsy wooden structure held and after a few more tries, the noise stopped as the creatures seemed to give up.

"Where do you think we are?" She asked, once it seemed that the two beasts had left.

"I'm not sure. This looks like a plain old earth pony house to me." Dream Catcher spoke up as he looked around the room.

Holding the lanterns aloft, the two ponies started searching around for another way out of the building. It proved difficult to say the least. The house was in various states of disrepair. Floor boards were pulled up, the walls looked water-logged and there were no visible light sources to be lit to aide them in their search. Everything was in a dilapidated mess.

"This place is creepy." Scoot voiced firmly. Her wandering had brought her to a fireplace with figurines on the mantlepiece and portraits on the wall. The figurines themselves appeared to be ceramic headless mock-ups of ponies all engaged in different activities. If not for their fractures and missing pieces, Scoot would've wagered that they'd have been some kind of collectible. The portraits however seemed to be in pristine condition when one compared them to the rest of the house.

There were four of them total, two on each side of the fireplace. Taking a closer look, the orange pegasus could make out words in small hoofwriting on aged golden plates at the bottom of each frame. From left to right, they were titled "Home", "Family", "Friendship" and "Heart".

The picture of Home depicted a pony standing outside of a small, single story house. It was simply designed with two windows and a door, but the pony in the image seemed overjoyed with it. Family showed four ponies all standing together in some kind of room. Three of the four faces had been cut out though, leaving only one left intact. Friendship was much like the Family picture only there were a lot of different ponies of all types grouped around in a group embrace. Heart simply showed two ponies, muzzle to muzzle, framed in a rather large, tacky heart shape.

"Ugh. This is boring." Scoot thought aloud as she backed away from the pictures. "No wonder nopony is here. It's not just falling apart, but these decorations are just...lame."

Dream Catcher sauntered over to her and looked up at the pictures as well. The Pegasus didn't appear to be feeling all that well, now that Scootaloo looked him over. He stood before the pictures as he had outside of his own house, his body looked shaky, and with his mane down over the blue eye. Truth be told, the slightly older pony looked to be on the verge of being diseased or deathly ill.

It was just in that second that Scootaloo noticed that his golden eye was glowing ever so slightly. The color in the eye seemed to be moving as he gazed at the portraits, unblinking.

"Uh hey...you okay?" She asked.

The Pegasus just continued to stare at the portraits.

"Hey, crazy pony." She tried again. Dream made no acknowledgement of her.

"Fine! I'm going to look around some more. You just...do whatever." She huffed, walking through the only other door in the main room. It led her into a sitting room of sorts. Mahogany chairs done up with iron studded feather-down stuffed fabrics were sprawled out here and there, some overturned, other pieces just broken or against the logic of everything else in the building: normally arranged and perfectly fine. One exit led to what looked like a kitchen in the dim lantern light, and there was a staircase that went upstairs though some of the stairs had broken, leaving a gap in the set too big to jump up and over.

Shaking her head clear of what little pressure remained, Scoot pushed on into the kitchen. It was much the same as the rest of the house. Appliances toppled or damaged, a very slowly leaking faucet. A table upended and broken, missing three of its four legs. She went on, moving past it when something caught her eye.

There, on the last remaining leg of the table was her name, etched into the wood in very bad hoofwriting. Beneath it was an arrow pointing down towards the underside of the table.

That caught her interest as she moved onto the table, inspecting the construction of it for anything that the arrow might've been pointing at. After a few discouraging minutes of searching, she turned up nothing special. With a sigh, she sat down on the underside of the table, looking around the room. Maybe the arrow had been pointing at something else and somepony had moved it. But who? And why was her name on it?

There came a sharp crack.

Scoot felt herself falling. Everything had gone black around her, and wind was now rushing up past her face.

The table had been covering a hole in the floor. It had been a trap...and she'd fallen for it like some silly filly caught in a sick prank. She was still falling for it, quite literally. With nothing to break her fall in sight, Scoot did the only thing she could think of. She started flapping her wings feebly in an attempt to slow her descent. Odd though, hard as she tried, it felt like she was still falling. Her mind screamed at her that she should've collided with the basement floor by that point. She kept flapping however, expecting to suddenly feel cold, hard stone smack her in the rump painfully. But it never came. Instead, she just continued falling.

After what seemed like forever, Scootaloo could finally see some sort of light coming up from beneath her. It started out as a soft red, almost like that of a morning sunrise or late evening sunset. It was of a shade that reminded her of countless mornings spent with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom out in the Crusaders Treehouse, and despite the surroundings she had found herself in, the orange filly couldn't help but feel slightly relaxed. As the light continued to grow from a pinpoint to a full glow however, the space around her was slowly illuminated.

Any thought of the beauty of the light or fun mornings full of adventures with her two best friends in the world vanished as Scoot screamed.

Ponies in cages. All over the place.

Rushing up past her and out of sight.

Row after row of caged ponies, all crying out. Some were pale, others were dreadfully thin. All of them appeared to be in pain. Their faces were scrunched in agony being brought on them by some unseen force.

And then it hit. She landed with a muffled splash into something sticky. Something that made it very hard for her to move. She could feel herself sinking into it with every attempt to get to the surface. The hazy red light from above had cast everything into a deep orange glow in the liquid, making it very hard to see. She knew somewhere up there was freedom, yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't push herself up. It became increasingly hard for her to move until at last, her limbs froze in place. She was stuck tight and almost...out of...

Finally, with her lungs on fire and her limbs aching, Scoot's lung gave up and expelled what was left of her air. Just before she blacked out, the sound of something shattering echoed in her ears.

===D.W.===

"Hey...Little Filly!"

Somewhere a voice was calling to her.

"Come on, wake up. Oh...this isn't good. Hey, Scootalong or...was it Scooterloo...Whatever, just Wake Up!"

Somepony was shaking her roughly. Tapping on her cheeks. Folding and unfolding her wings. She could move again, she noticed with a start.

Opening her eyes, she saw Dream Catcher standing over top of her, that unnerving pair of eyes looking down at her in worry. She bolted up, almost knocking heads with the older pony before looking around.

A cursory inspection provided the idea that she was still in the kitchen, lying on top of the table bottom. Her lantern sputtered pitifully, its oil supply already growing low. In the dim light, she could see one of his hooves had been bandaged up, a red stain on the white gauze.

"Are you all right, little filly?" He asked.

She nodded, getting to her own hooves.

"What happened to you?" She pointed to his hoof.

He looked down at it, obviously favoring it for the pain it was in.

"I was examining the portraits when one of those brutes from outside tried the door again. The first picture fell off the wall when the thing hit the door and I tried to catch it, but the corner grazed me and the frame cracked on the ground. Glass everywhere. It's a bit of a mess." He sighed.

'Well...that's what made the noise then.' She silently nodded to herself, picking up the lantern and reattaching it to its pole.

"Are you sure you're okay?" His voice came across in genuine worry. For a moment, he almost sounded like Twilight or Fluttershy.

"I'm fine. Did you find another way out of here?"

He shook his head.

"Without any way to get past the hole in the stairs, we can't go up, so that leaves only the front door. We appear to be in a section of row homes, smack dab in the middle of all of them."

"So what next then?" She asked.

"What happened to you just now?"

Scootaloo shrugged.

"I dunno. I think I just kinda passed out or something. I don't get it either."

"Did you see anything?" He seemed persistent.

"Well...not much." She started, unsure if she really wanted to share what she'd just gone through.

"It could be something of importance little filly. I'd advise you to share, if you feel you can."

Scoot took a deep breath before nodding.

"All right." Her ears folded back as she began, thinking about everything that had happened. "I was falling for a long time and I couldn't see anything. But then there was this light. It showed me that there were ponies in cages all around me, the whole time I was falling. It was weird...and then I fell into this lake of something or other that I couldn't move in. I thought I was gonna drown, but that's when you woke me up."

"Is that all?" He sat down in thought.

"Yup. That's all." She finished. 'Wasn't that enough? It was scary...where did it come from?' Her mind was racing at that.

Without another moment's pause, the pony stood up and started pacing around the kitchen. His eyes were focused for pretty much the first time since she'd met him, as if he was really thinking about what she'd told him.

"Any ideas?"

He paused for just a second.

"I'm hungry."

Scoot nearly face-planted at that. How could he be thinking of food at a time like this? They were stuck in a house in a strange alternate reality of Ponyville, surrounded by monsters and nightmares that threatened to sneak up and knock you out or worse when you least expected it! The very thought made her forget her fears of the dream-thing that had just happened and in its place set a need for her to kick him hard.

"What does THAT have to do with what just happened?!" She yelled in disbelief.

He merely shrugged.

"One thing you must understand, little filly..."

"My Name is SCOOTALOO. S-C-O-O-T-ALOO!"

"Okay...Scooterloo."

"AUGH! Nevermind!" She stormed off back into the sitting room.

"What I'm just trying to say is that nothing in this world happens without a reason little one. The sooner you come to realize that, the better. If I'm hungry, then this world is pointing me in the direction of a place that deals in food. But that's just me. I can't say that it'll get YOU any closer to the Ponyville that you know, but I am out of ideas." He continued, following her back into the room.

"Whatever! You go do what you want. I'm gonna go find my friends." She spat back, irritated beyond belief with his nonchalance of the situation.

"I wouldn't advise that. Besides, I told you I'd look out for you." He replied.

"No! I'm a tough pony! I don't need anypony to look out for me! Especially one that can't even see where he's going!" That seemed to halt him in his tracks. "I'm Just like Rainbow Dash." She growled through her teeth. "I hate it when others think they need to protect me. I'm good enough at taking care of myself."

"Please, Scooterloo..."

"SCOOT-AH-LOO!" She yelled again. "Ya know what, nevermind. I'm getting out of here. I'll be fine, you go do whatever it is that your crazy-eyed self wants to."

Scoot stomped off for the front door. Dream Catcher was still following close behind.

"Please, just listen to me. You don't know what's out there..." he tried again.

"And neither do you, apparently! I remember what you said earlier. You didn't know what those monsters were either! Just go. Go eat until you get stuffed." She kicked at the door after finding the monsters had jammed it so bad the handle wouldn't open it. After a few tries, the door flew free of its twisted hinges and collapsed with a crash on the front steps of the house. Outside, the fog had neither lifted, nor lightened.

Scoot made her way out into the street again, not really caring to look back to see if Dream Catcher was still trying to keep up with her. She found she really didn't care for her questions about the strange pony anymore. He was going to just treat her like all the other adult ponies did. Like a little filly. True, her mind reasoned, she was only a filly...but that didn't mean she was incapable of doing things for herself. She'd find her own way. She'd beat this...whatever it was that was going on. Even if she had to face down whatever monsters it was going to throw at her.

With new determination, she walked off down the street, coming to an intersection. The streets seemed familiar enough, so with her mind made up, she turned right towards what she believed was going to be the way to Sugar Cube Corner, looking for Pinkie Pie. If anypony could help her find everypony, it would be Pinkie and the pink mare was rarely seen elsewhere unless she was with the others, or throwing a party. It wasn't until a few more steps down the street that she was hit by the irony of the situation.

"Hungry..." She thought, realizing her current destination. 'Maybe there Is something to what he said...'

Scootaloo shook it out of her head. No, she'd do this on her own. She didn't need his help. She didn't need those creepy eyes staring at her all the time. She didn't need...

There came a crash along a side alleyway that halted Scoot in her tracks. She turned to look, but only saw more fog, more shadows. Nothing moved. When she was at last sure she was still alone, Scootaloo took to the alleyway to figure out what had made that noise.

"Hello? Is anypony there?" She called out.

There was no reply.

"Hello? I heard something down here...is everything okay?" She tried again.

Still no reply.

Sucking in a deep breath, Scoot pressed on into the shadows and fog, searching for the source of the crash.

===D.W.===

"I should have gone after her. Why didn't I go?" Dream Catcher paced the front room, furious with himself. "I'm responsible if anything happens to her...so why didn't I go?"

"Yrassecen saw ti wenk uoy esuaceb." Came that strange, haunting voice again.

Dream Catcher poised himself over pieces of broken glass from the portrait of Home that had fallen, staring down into them.

"Really? Was it? Why am I not allowed to interfere! Somepony of her age shouldn't have to experience this kind of nightmare!" He blared angrily at his reflection in one of the shards.

Blue-Gold eyes stared out at him from multiple pieces of the framed glass that now lay all over the floor. The deathly thin figure mocked him in every way, right down to its cheap imitation of his once joyful laugh.

"Ereh seog ti woh tsuj staht. Niaga dna emit erofeb uoy dlot I."

"Well then...you want me to do this so bad, what ideas do you have? How can I help her?" He asked.

"Woh wonk ydaerla uoy." His reflection smirked.

Dream Catcher's head hung.

"Are you sure there's no other way?"

"Uoy od sa. Hturt eht ees ot sdeen ehs. Yaw ylno eht si siht."

He kicked his hooves out, striking a hole into the wall in frustration.

"Fine! Fine!" He cried. "All right, I get it! If I can help that little filly out of here...then..." He sighed, his head hung again..."I guess there is no other way."

"Yaw ym ti was uoy emit tuoba sti." His reflection sneered.

Dream Catcher put a hoof to one of the shards, closing his eyes as his mane and tail began to float up all around him, a breeze whipping up as the room was bathed in a hazy red glow.

"Just promise me this will help her."

There was a gut-wrenching feeling as Dream Catcher felt his world ripped away from him. It was a feeling he'd become used to, much to his regret. Once the ground beneath his hooves stopped spinning, he opened his eyes to stare his reflected self face to face.

"Oh, it will." The other pony smirked. "Welcome home."

===D.W.===

Scootaloo had found a trashcan tipped over on its side, its contents spilled all over the ground. She had side-stepped it the first time, crossing over only to find a dead end at the opposite side of the alley. A high wooden fence blocked the passage way, leaving no escape for anypony who might've been the cause of the trashcan being knocked over.

"That's just weird." She thought out loud, going back to inspect the trashcan. It was full of rubbish, as one would expect. "But then again..." She began to pick through the trash, bit by bit until she turned up a small key with a tag on the end. "Nothing happens without reason here..." Scoot's eyes lit up as she saw the words 'Sugar Cube Corner' in the now common style of hoofwriting she'd been seeing lately on the tag.

"I guess there is something to that crazy old pony after all." She smiled softly as she made her way back towards the entrance to the alleyway.

===D.W.===

Dream Catcher was standing atop a tall building behind an odd contraption. He gazed out over the desolation, though not much could be seen. Higher up, the Fog only obstructed more from his vision as his gaze searched for the filly from above. Resigning himself to the duty at hoof, he returned his attention to the small machine before him that had been affixed to the edge of the roof. Confused as to where its normal operator was, he gingerly took the crank-handle in his mouth and began to turn it slowly.

iI really hope this is the right thing to do...' He thought to himself, his shadowy doppelganger standing on the opposite side peering out into the fog with a look of pure glee plastered all over his charlatan muzzle.

"If you truly want to help her, you'll have to turn that crank faster than that." The other pony chuckled. "It has to spin fast to work right."

Dream Catcher stopped for a moment, spitting the handle out.

"You're SURE she'll be okay?" He demanded.

The other pony merely casually nodded.

"If she's strong enough. If not, her worries will be over anyway." The dark pony's face contorted into a wicked grin. "Now get back to it. If that doesn't get up to speed properly, it'll never work."

Dream Catcher sighed, resigning himself to his now-solid-reflection's orders. With a tear glistening in one eye, he lowered his mouth back to the handle of the device.

'Please be safe, little filly.' He thought disdainfully...and began to crank with all his might.

===D.W.===

"Okay, I know the alley wasn't this long before." Scootaloo sat on her haunches, looking down at the street that never seemed to get any closer. It couldn't have been more than a couple yards away moments ago, but now it seemed as if the alley stretched halfway across town. Even as she looked at it...it seemed to grow longer, faster, every second.

Suddenly, there was a deafening noise that split the air. It rose in pitch, even as Scoot ducked her head and put her hooves to her ears. When it reached its apex, it slowly wound down though kept its volume...and then began to pick back up again.

'A Siren? What's that going off for?'

Even as the words crossed her mind, the entrance to the alleyway disappeared from sight and the sky around her began to darken even further...as if the blackness from above was slowly descending upon the town. As the sky seemed to fall down around her, the lantern on her pole flickered and died as well, leaving her to hope that she could still see once everything was said and done. Scootaloo continued to plug her ears, but watched in both awe and a little bit of terror as the world around her started to go blacker than the blackest night...until even with her eyes open, she couldn't see the ground in front of her nose. It lasted for a bit before the siren finally died down in one long tone. Once it had finally quieted, Scootaloo picked herself up and tried feeling her way around.

"Wait a second...this wasn't here before..."

She found a three-point intersection in the small, tight alleyway that she'd somehow missed in the light and began to feel her way down it. As she did, she found she could start to see around her. There was some source of light at the end where the buildings parted into another street that was thankfully providing enough illumination as she made her way.

"Maybe I can refill the lantern up there..."

Once at the end of the alley, she found herself standing on top what was a metal plate set into the ground. Looking around, the entire street had become a sheet of metal. The sidewalks that had been hard packed dirt were now made out of some kind of mortar, like they'd use in building bridges to hold the stones together. A bigger shock though, was the structures around her. Not only could she see, now that the fog had mysteriously vanished; but all of the buildings were either falling apart or done up in metal mesh and I-beams, or chain link steel, brick and something slick that covered their outer surface.

It took a moment for Scoot to calm herself down, seeing all of the changes. There was definitely something wrong here. Not that there hadn't been before, but all these new changes had taken her by quite the unwelcome surprise.

"Oh man...maybe I should've stayed with Dream Catcher..."

The thought was solidified when she heard another crash come from behind her, back in the alley. Turning around, and not just the bit scared, she stared hard into the still encroaching darkness she'd just come from.

There.

Something had moved.

"Hello?" She called out, hoping that maybe the crazy-eyed pony had caught up with her.

She felt a knot form in her throat as the music box in her bag began its grinding melodic complaint again. That knot deepened and wrapped itself around her lungs as she saw what had made the noise.

It was a pony...no, a filly...

The tiny thing looked so fragile that it could've fallen apart at just the slightest hint of a breeze, yet it came crawling after her, hoof over hoof, its hind legs and flanks so swollen they couldn't move. It was in obvious pain as its underside was being scraped along the rough steel, leaving it rubbed raw. The filly's eyes were blank and lifeless, yet its lungs worked as it let out a harsh scream, trying to pull itself closer and closer to Scoot.

Scootaloo left out a yelp of her own and turned to run, only to see that two more of them were making their way towards her from the street. To make matters worse, there came a resounding boom. The ground trembled once...twice...three times...and the shadow monster that had appeared in the fog now stood at one end of the street. The overgrown Pony glared down at her with two beady little eyes from atop its four massive legs, its entire body covered in what looked like graffiti.

No...

Those were all different Cutie Marks! It was covered in distorted, nightmarish versions of Cutie Marks!

She could also see that they were all boiling like they had been paint that was put in a pot and left on the stove for far too long. The patterns of the marks had bubbles growing and popping all along them, sizzling and searing the creature they resided upon. The titanic pony bit down on itself and sloughed off a good portion of its own skin, trying to rid itself of the pain. Even as the shed skin hit the ground, it boiled its way through the steel leaving a gaping hole in the road.

Scootaloo had seen enough. She closed her eyes, took a breath...

And felt the filly monster from the alleyway clamp its teeth down upon her tail. How had it gotten so close?!

With a scream, Scootaloo tore off down the street, ducking between the two other filly monsters, leaving the third with a mouthful of her tail.

Once the music box had stopped its whining, Scoot stopped running, taking to the sidewalk as she panted and huffed, trying desperately to catch her breath. Her mind was made up. It hadn't been a good idea to leave Dream Catcher behind. It was common knowledge that buildings and streets just don't change like that in the blink of an eye. That monsters don't just walk around in plain sight.

She was officially terrified now.