Darkest of Days

“Come on work, please work” was all i could say as I began to jostle and hit my flashlight, begging it to light up once more. My surroundings grew increasingly dark as the barrier of light my flashlight resinated burned out. Shadows began to leech their way along the walls, growing closer and closer to me.

The whispering began, barely audible as I furiously hit and slammed my flashlight. Slowly and frightfully the shadow like hands inched their way closer, but with a small stroke of luck my flashlight burst to life, resinating it’s bright life saving light. The shadows quickly withdrew to the corners of the room leaving me be.

“W... way to close” i muttered as i made my way to another large room, seeming to hold food and drinks. It was so dark, making out what kind of building this was, was seemingly impossible. It seems to be a market due to the collapsed aisles, throwing caution to the wind I began to scavange what i could from the mess of fallen aisles.

The store was ravanged, all i could get was a few sodas and three cans of tuna. “Damnit, oh well it’s food” i said loading up my bag with my new finds. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small reflection, moving over to investigate I noticed that they were two AA batteries. In this world batteries were like gold. I quickly snatched them and stuffed them in my coat pocket. Looking back up to the mess I slowly made my way up to the front of the store.

Making one last once over of the store from where I stand it was proven that nothing was left. I turned away from the store and began Making my way through the dark streets and to continue on my to, I don’t know where. The shadows slowly encircled me, my only defense was my flashlight, without it they would take me.

“What kind of fucked up reality is this, one day everything is completely normal, and before you know it’s dark at 12pm and everyone you know is gone” I said to myself, hoping someone would hear. Of course no one would hear, their gone, the shadows took them.

Taking out my small notebook I scribbled some notes in. “Been somewhere around two weeks since this whole mess started. Haven’t seen anyone for I think three days now, so difficult to tell time when there is no day. Why did this all have to happen.” Seeing all that as fit I quickly put my notebook away continuing onward.

Walking for what seemed hours I finally came across a sight that seemed too good to be true, a light, not like the sun, but a street light not far away either. My pace quickened, going from a fast walk to a slow jog. The light grew brighter, as I grew closer. With my excitement i didn’t notice my flashlight slowly began to dim. I only noticed this as my surroundings began to darken.

Hands of darkness began to grow from my dark surroundings growing closer, with the new change in events I quickly sped up my pace, the whispering began to grow louder with the dimming flashlight. Finally only about ten feet away from the safety of the street light, at that same moment my flashlight finally burned out. In a last ditch effort to save myself I leaped towards the light. Feeling the icy cold grip of the shadows along my legs as i landed half in the light and half outside. The darkness began to pull as I resisted it's icy grip.

“Please let go, leave me alone” I whimpered in distress as i fought the icy pain that resinated within my lower body. With one last massive pull I managed to escape into the bright light. Breathing a sigh of relief I reached into my pocket and pulled out the batteries, quickly replacing the old spent ones in my flashlight. Deciding that there weren’t many options I might as well rest here.

Leaning up against the pole I drifted off into a dreamless slumber. Not noticing the flicker of the street light.

When I awoke It was still dark, not that it would be light, but darker than usual. Looking around I noticed that the circle of light that I lay in had significantly shrunk since I had last seen it. The whispering has returned and louder than ever as the light slowly dims I move to grab my flashlight. At that moment the Street lamp dims to a light flicker and then it’s gone.

I clicked the on button on my flashlight, nothing happened. Again it clicked, but no light. Now the shadows were closing in on me, tendrils of darkness grasped my now shaking legs in their freezing grasp.

“Please light please I beg you, I don’t want to die” I begged to the flashlight as the darkness had covered every part of me except my face. My body felt cold, numb, lifeless. As the darkness slowly clouded my vision. Everything stopped, and I was gone.

I was jolted awake by what felt like an electric shock, My eyes flew open to the sudden burst of energy to be greeted with darkness once again. slowly moving my arms and legs I began to get back up.

“Oww my head where am... Oh shit darkness, where’s my flashlight” I screamed scrambling around to find my life saving light. “Wait, there’s no whispering, the shadows aren’t moving” I said slowly calming down to notice that the killer darkness was gone. Finally realizing this I began to scan my surroundings, I was in a forest of some kind. Not like the ones back home, but much more dense and menesing, but yet oddly cartoonish.

“Where the hell am I, and where’s my stuff” I said looking down and searching for my backpack and flashlight. Not long after my search i found my flashlight in a nearby bush. Brushing it off i took out the batteries and realized why it wouldn’t light, I put the batteries in wrong. Quickly putting them in correctly I snapped it on with a satisfying click, the light burst to life growing slightly more sure about my situation I got back up.

“Now time to find my backpack” I said looking up into the trees. Like magic it just appeared stuck on a limb. Oh this should be fun a muttered to myself as i began my ascent into the tree.

“Crap, oww that hurts” I muttered to myself as I got up from my position, turns out falling out of trees sucks. Well no sense in wasting time might as well get moving. With that I began my trek through the dense woods. The uneasy feeling of being watched began to creep upon me, and since it’s not the darkness watching me, what is it.

What seemed like hours of hiking through the dense bush has led me nowhere. The trees never seemed to end and the darkness wasn’t helping either. I decided to pack up my flashlight not wanting to waste my batteries.

As i continued onward I happened to come upon a small clearing. Not wanting to waste my energy i kept up my pace and was soon enough at the heart of the grassy sanctuary. I cast my gaze over to the horizon and noticed a small amount of light. Waiting only granted me more light until the entire world was rid of the darkness that i had come to know and is now bathed in the soft warm glow of the sun.

“It’s finally over” I said out loud, with my changing luck I scanned the area, and with luck found a small trail leading back into the trees. Not seeing any other option I followed the trail back into the dense forest.

After several minutes of hiking the forest began to thin out. Slowly at first, but gradually quicker as i continued onward. The sun was now creeping it’s way up the sky, sending warm beams of light through the forest canopy.

Eventually the trees began to space out, out in the distance the silhouettes of buildings came into view, I began to run quickly reaching the tree line.

I cast my gaze over the town to be greeted with a weird and disturbing surprise. I jumped into the nearest bush to prove if my hunch was correct. From my new hiding spot I looked once more at the small town. It’s inhabitance were brightly colored ponies.

"Well shit looks like i'm dead." was all I could mouth out as I stared blankly at the scene before me. Deadly shadows and evil darkness is one thing, but a whole town of talking ponies is in a whole new category of weird. As I continued to watch them walk around their small town I began to notice things. For one some of these things can fly, they have wings. Not just that but others have horns.

One of these horned ponies caught my eye. It had a light purple with an even darker purple mane, it also had a lighter shade of pink flowing through it's hair as well. But that's not even close to the most striking feature, right in front of it was a pile of books, yet they were floating, covered in some kind of purple aurora.

Looking away from it I noticed two other ponies. One of them had wings and other seemed normalish, the winged one had a cyan coat with a rainbow mane. The other one well, was pink nothing but pink. They seemed to be talking, about what I don't know but talking.

"Since when can horses talk" I whispered to myself as I stare in awe at the whole town. None of this makes sense, how can I even be here. Last thing I remember is the darkness and the cold, the deep piercing cold. Thinking of this sent shivers down my spine as I pulled myself back to reality.

Now I could hear voices, they seemed childish, as though they belonged to young girls. Scanning the area revealed nothing, yet the voices grew louder and the words became audible. With a little more looking I finally found their source. Not even twenty feet away where three smaller ponies. This sudden realization made me cringe as they continued up the hill directly in front of my position.

"I'm telling you girls I saw the bushes shaking up here" said one of the ponies. It had a orange coat with a pinkish like mane, not to mention wings.

"Are you sure Scootaloo, I mean for all we know it could be dangerous" said one of the other ponies. This one had a horn, with a deep snow white coat and a light purple mane.

"Yea Scoots, for all we know it could be ah pack of timber wolves" said the last pony. This one seemed to be lacking wings and a horn. It had a yellow coat with red hair, not just that but it had a large red bow on it's head.

"Aww come on were almost there" said Scootaloo as she stopped a good 5 feet away from my bush. The two other ponies stopped on either side of her and continued to stare at my hiding place.

"Well i'm officialy screwed now" I thought to myself as the three curious ponies slowly cam forward, none of them muttered a word to each other as they stopped inches away from me. Their large eyes fixated on the bush.

"Ah think I can see something in there" said the yellow pony.

"I think I can to" said the white unicorn.

Without even thinking I burst out of the bush and ran straight past the three young ponies. They immediately fell to the ground and began to scream alerting all other ponies in town. Running and hiding was all I could do as larger ponies with armor began to run and fly in my direction. My vision was blurred by how fast I began to run. Quickly running on the outskirts of the town.

Looking up revealed three pegasi closing in on me. One quickly dive bombed me and swiftly kicked me in the side sending me flying. I quickly recovered, but not quick enough, I was now surrounded on all sides by these ponies. They all seemed shocked, scared even. Finally one spoke up, all it said was "what in the name of Celestia are you". By now a crowd had begun to form around us.

Saying nothing back I quickly ran at one of the guards, but was just as quickly stopped by some invisible force. All I could see was a weird like force field around me and around the horn of the guard I was charging at. Slowly I felt my eyelids begin to droop as a weird sensation of fatigue hit me and boom just like that I was asleep.