Herald of Shadows

"Sleep," a quiet voice hissed into Twilight's ear.

The moment she had been given the command she dropped to the ground and slept.  The voice continued muttering quietly.  The words were ancient and unknown by any living pony.  As the whispers continued, the pitch-black shadow encased the weakened purple unicorn tightly.  She was unaware of everything around her until that one fateful morning.

* * *

"Ah sure hope she'll be okay," said a southern voice.

"Relax!" said Rainbow Dash as she tried to remain cool, "She'll be perfectly fine!"  Nopony was fooled by her voice, because they could all see the pain and fear on her face.  Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie just stood huddled together crying for their friend.

Rarity, wanting to stop the crying for fear of smearing her mascara, changed the subject slightly.  "Remember when we first met Twilight?"

Everypony nodded, but Spike just sat sadly next to Twilight on the bed as he remembered how unhappy she was that day. They all started talking together about their favorite memories with Twilight.

"If it weren't for Twilight, there might still be a hurricane of me bouncing around!" Said Pinkie Pie.

"Yes, and don't forget all the other times she saved us," said Rarity.

Rainbow Dash decided to join in too, "Yeah, remember when she took down Nightmare Moon with us, and helped defeat Discord, and even released Cadence so that she could help Shining Armor and defeat Chrysalis!"  They all nodded in agreement.

As they continued talking, Twilight groaned and rolled over but it wasn't noticed by anypony.  That is, anypony but Fluttershy.  She rushed so suddenly over to Twilight's side that she knocked everypony else to the ground.

"Twilight?" She whispered.

Twilight opened her eyes slowly.  Everypony gasped in horror.  Twilight's eyes were red instead of purple, with green where white usually was.  Her eyelashes were also dark purple.  The only reason nopony noticed it before was because it looked black against her fur, but against the red and green.....

"What's the matter?" Twilight asked innocently, "And where am I?  Why do you all look as if you've seen a ghost?"

Her friends couldn't speak, but Pinkie --feeling it would be rude to just stand and stare-- rushed over to her and, knocking Fluttershy out of the way, she swung her arms around Twilight's neck and burst into tears.  Twilight was suddenly filled with rage as this show of kindness.  She attempted to move Pinkie off with her magic, but got a nasty shock.  Her magic flung Pinkie across the hospital room and caused Pinkie to make a crack in the light blue wall.

Twilight's eyes were wide with shock as she tried to run to her friend.  She was blocked immediately by a line of doctors and nurses forcing her back into bed.

"Pinkie," Twilight whispered hoarsely.  She hoped her pink friend wasn't gone forever.  The last thing she saw before the familiar voice telling her to sleep was her friends glaring at her in shock.