“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, this is the third time this week I’ve had this strange dream. I’m in a gloomy world, the sky is engulfed with gray clouds, and the ground is flooded with snow three feet high. I'm in a thick forest standing in front of a small, thick, dark gray, cement structure that only has a single black metal door on it. When I try to open it, it would not budge. I try bucking it multiple times but it refuses to give in and then I walk around it only to find out that it is no bigger than two chicken coops maybe even a little less. I look around to see if there is anything else but all I see are a vast amount of oak trees with their branches completely consumed with snow. Then I hear a sound in the distance.”
“What was the sound you heard?”
“It sounded like a branch being stepped on.”
“Hmm... interesting, please continue”
“So I slowly started flying towards the sound then the snow starts to fall and in the distance I see something.”
“An animal?”
“No... well I'm not sure. It was so far away that I couldn't make out any details. It was a shadowy figure and was walking on two legs and was carrying something on its back. I tried to fly after it but the closer I got the harder it snowed. I had to drop to the ground because the snow was putting a lot of weight on my wings and I continued to follow it but my vision goes completely white and I wake up.”
“Are you sure you're not in the Ever Free Forest?”
“I'm positive. The way it looked is nothing that I have ever seen before, I mean the texture and the color is nothing that I personally have ever seen in this world before.”
“That is strange, have you been reading any books or watched any movies that could trigger such a dream?”
“No”
“Hmm, i'll see if I can come across something but if anything Fluttershy it is probably nothing.”
“Yeah you’re right just a random dream I suppose but thank you for listening.”
“Not a problem other than the dream how are things going?”
“Okay just the usual. I’m going for a picnic tomorrow would you like to come?”
“I would love to but I have to help spike shelve the new books were getting tomorrow from Canterlot.”
“Oh okay. How are the wings?”
“Ehh its new, sometimes they extend out randomly.”
I can’t help but chuckle a little.
“Oh, well you'll be able to control that with practice.”
“If you say so. Have you tried asking Applejack and Rarity?”
“Yes. Applejack is having to help her cousin out in Appalosa and Rarity just got a big order today so she won’t have the time.”
“Did you try Pinkiepie?”
“She is babysitting the twins for the Cakes.”
“What about Rainbow Dash?”
“I am actually going to ask her as soon as I was done here. Speaking of which do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah its about three thirty.”
“Oh my I should start heading on my way before its too late. Thank you again for listening.”
“Of course! If you need anything or get any other weird dreams again you know where to find me. Oh and before you go can you take this to Rainbow for me?”
“Sure what is it?”
“Thanks, its the new Daring Doo book. I know she has been dying to read it.”
I took the dark green book and put it in my saddle bag, waved Twilight goodbye, and started making my way to where Rainbow usually takes her naps. Today was quite a nice day. Almost no clouds in sight and the sun was shining bright with its rays hitting me with its warmth. Even a nice day such as this could not get my mind off that dream. What could it mean? I mean I know it is probably nothing but why have it three times in one week? What were those figures and what was that structure? I just can’t figure it out. That place, it just seems so.... so gloomy. I hope Twilight can find something out. I wonder if I should bring it up with Rainbow Dash.
================================================================================
Ahh! This is ridiculous, It is such an easy stunt how do I keep messing it up? I get the first two flips down followed by the barrel roll but when it comes to making the sudden ninety degree turn it all falls apart. I can’t afford to break my wing again. Hmm... I wonder if I …. wait, is that Fluttershy?
“Hey Fluttershy, up here!”
She looked up and started waving at me. I Slowly made my descent down towards her.
“Hi Rainbow how are you?”
“Oh you know same ol same ol. I’m trying to do this stunt but it just keeps throwing me off.”
“I'm sorry to hear that but i’m sure you'll pull it off. I’m glad I ran into you I wanted to ask if you felt like coming on a picnic with me tomorrow that is... if you want to.”
“Sure it would be nice to relax after five straight days of weather control. Is anyone else coming?”
“N-no it would just be us. Twilight is going to be busy shelving books, Rarity got a larger order of dresses to prepare, Pinkiepie is babysitting, and Applejack is going to Appleosa to help her cousin.”
“Okay. Well, just you and me then.”
A small smile formed on her face.
“Is noon okay with you?”
“Yeah noon is good.”
“Okay. Oh! I almost forgot Twilight wanted me to give this to you”
I watched her pull a thick green book out of her saddle bag with a familiar title on the cover.
“SWEET! I’ve been waiting for the new Daring Doo book for months. Thanks Fluttershy!”
I looked back and saw her looking towards the Ever Free with a blank expression now occupying her face. I’ve been around Fluttershy long enough to know that something is troubling her.
“Hey Fluttershy”
“Yes Rainbow?”
“Are you doing alright?”
“Oh um..y-yes why do you ask?”
“It just seems like something Is bothering you.”
“Oh no its nothing, i’ve just been having some weird dreams lately.”
“Weird dreams huh? Want to talk about it?”
“Oh its fine Rainbow its nothing serious just weird.”
“Weird how?”
“I'll talk to you about it tomorrow it’s getting pretty late.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you at your place tomorrow a little before noon then?”
“Yeah see you then. Night Rainbow.”
“Night Fluttershy.”
================================================================================
Home sweet home hopefully tonight will be different. I give up trying to understand that weird dream. None of it makes sense so why am I still thinking about it? Am I missing something from it? No. stop it Fluttershy the more you think about it the harder it will be to forget.
I laid down in my bed and slowly sunk into both the cotton mattress and pillow. It is so comforting that it takes almost no time at all for me to get sleepy. My eyelids are starting to feel heavy, like they are made of lead and slowly creep shut. Tonight will be different. At least.... I hope it will.
================================================================================
“Wh-what is this place?”
I look around only to see that i’m in a small empty room with only a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling by a wire; the floor, walls, and ceiling are made of concrete, the texture and color were the same as the structure from the other dream. The only thing that immediately stood out to me in the entire room is a single cherry wood colored door on one of the walls. I walk towards it and slowly put my hoof on the golden yellow handle to open it; then, I hear screaming on the other side. I freeze in place until the screaming goes away, the room is completely silent. My ears pulsate to my heart beats and I start to breath heavily. I slowly pushed the handle down and creaked the door open a few inches so I could see what’s on the other side. Its a long hallway with the floor, walls, and ceiling also made of concrete and about four feet higher than me. The only thing I see are florescent lights spaced out among the ceiling and constantly flickering on and off. I take in a deep chest full of air, slowly open the door further, and begin to make my way down the hall. Half way down a loud explosion echoed off the walls. My legs freeze in place and then I hear yelling along with screams of pain.
“H-he-hello...”
I can’t make out what they are saying. It sounds like a different language. Suddenly multiple sounds of brief yet violent sounding explosions pierce my ears. I keep pushing myself to move until finally my legs give into my will and I start running down the remainder of the gray colored hallway until I come across a large circular room. Looking around, I see a red door straight in front of me, to the left is another hallway with black fog spitting out of it and slowly making its way throughout the large circular room I am now in. To the right there is another hallway with brief, sudden, flashes of light and explosion sounds coming from it. I start running as quickly as I can across the large room to the red door, the screams get louder as I get closer to it. Mere inches away from the door something clenched my left rear hoof and I fall to the ground. I look back and see a pitch black mass with neon orange eyes wearing some kind of dark gray metal helmet staring directly into my eyes.
“NO! LET GO OF ME!! GET OFF!!! P-PLEASE!”
I keep trying to break free and crawl to the door but it continues pulling me away from it. My hoofs are scraping against the concrete as I try to find something to grab and I feel my energy slowly being drained from me. Its five claws kept digging further into my skin like needles.
“H...HELP!!!”
“Anyone”
“P...please help me!!!”
Out of the corner of my eye I see a shadowy figure come out of the black fog from the left hallway. It is the same figure from the forest! The figure quickly runs towards me and cut the claw of the black mass off my leg and kicks it, with great force, away from me. I slowly bring my head up to see the figure holding out its odd looking dull claws, which somewhat resembled spike's, towards me and gently grabbed my front hoof. I looked up further, towards its head, and only see two pitch white circles come from it and a shadowy outline of an odd looking winter hat with something attached to it, but its too blurry to make out what it is. It lifts me onto its back and I put my front legs around its neck, like a piggyback ride, and the figure starts carrying me to the red door. It kicks the door open and gently put me inside. Looking back up at the figure, I examine it further. It is transparent and light gray, kind of like a ghost. The figure is walking back out towards the large circular room it took me from. I notice eight bright neon orange eyes in the distance.
“W-wait! Please don't go out there. What’s your name? Who are you? What is this place?”
I, with great effort, get on my hooves and start making my way towards the figure that helped me. It turned back to me and pointed up with one of its dull claws. I see it’s white eyes start to become engulfed by the same pitch black claws that took me to the floor.
“HURRY GET BACK IN HERE!”
Before I could get close to the figure it quickly shut the door and I hear it lock. I keep banging my hoof on the door as hard as I can.
“Please -clank- please come back.”
Its dead silent and dark. I can’t even see my own hoof in front of my face.
-BOOM!!!-
The loud explosion sound, from the other side of the door, breaks the silence and pierce my ears. A high pitch ringing is now occupying my hearing. I try to cover them in hopes that it will go away but to no avail. Suddenly a bright light illuminates the small gray room and the ringing in my ears stop. I look behind me and see a black metal ladder leading up to a open, rusty, square, hatch that the bright light is shining from. I slowly make my way up the ladder. As I get near the top my vision is slowly going white before I see what is beyond the hatch opening.
I slowly open my eyes and see Angle cleaning the water from them.
“A-Angle? OH THANK GOODNESS ANGEL!”
I can’t help but give him the biggest hug I can. I feel my heart slowly start to calm and notice a pile of wet tissues on the side of my bed.
“That place angel.... it is the most horrible thing I have ever seen.”
I try to keep myself from crying but it is useless. I feel streams of warm water seep from my eyes and slowly creep down my face.
-BANG!-
“EEP!”
I look out of my window and see rain pouring down heavily with dark gray clouds consuming the sky. The thunder and lightning remind me of the dream. No, not a dream a nightmare! I need to see Twilight. I can’t go another night like this.
================================================================================
-knock, knock-
“FLUTTERSHY!!”
-knock, knock, knock-
“FLUTTERSHY ITS ME RAINBOW ARE YOU IN THERE?”
I hear a muffled voice on the other side
“Coming Rainbow”
It’s really cold today with the sudden thunderstorm and rain. Weather control said there is going to be snow the next few days which is a bummer. I thought we were finally done with winter season three weeks ago.
“H-hi Rainbow come in.”
I walk in and sit at Fluttershy's kitchen table.
“Here rainbow dry up” she hands me a white towel.
“Thanks Fluttershy. Whoa, Fluttershy what happened?”
I see her eyes bloodshot and smudged tear stains on her cheeks.
“N..nothing just a bad dream is all” She says while putting a false small smile on her face.
“Flutters-”
“Want some tea?” she asks cutting me off
“Umm.. sure. But what abo-”
“And some cookies to?” she asks cutting me off again
“Okay but Fluttersh-”
“How about some-”
“FLUTTERSHY!”
“Eep.. oh, sorry Rainbow but I just can’t stand to think about it. Last night you would not believe the horrible things I saw in the dream.”
“I know you don’t want to think about it but sometimes it helps to get things off your chest. Clearly this is upsetting you and I want to help out. Plus, we won’t be able to go anywhere anyhow its pouring out there and they say it will be snowing the next few days.”
“Are... are you sure? I mean..-”
“Shh.. Fluttershy its okay that's what friends are for.”
I put my hoof on her shoulder and give her a comforting, reassuring smile. She returned with a smile of her own.
“Okay”
I get off of the kitchen chair and start to walk over to her living room area. I fluff the pink cotton pillow on the long velvet red sofa and hold my hoof out towards it, indicating for her to lay down. Once she lays on the couch I take a seat on the velvet red single cushion couch in front of her.
“Oh! I forgot the tea” She said while starting to get up
“Wait. I'll get the tea just lay down and try to relax”
“O..okay, thanks Rainbow”
I bring the two cups of tea over, set it on the small light brown table between us, and again, take my seat in front of her while she takes a few sips from the cup and lays back down.
“Okay so lets take it from the top.”
================================================================================
“And when I start making my way up the ladder my vision goes completely white and I wake up just like in the forest dream”
“Wow. That's.... interesting. What kind of books have you been reading Fluttershy?”
“None. That's the same thing Twilight asked me too. These dreams just came out of nowhere and have been going on for two weeks now. I have been thinking about it constantly and none of it makes sense. I've never been to such a place and I have never seen those figures before.”
“Calm down Fluttershy well get to the bottom of this. But that seethru figure, are you sure it was the same one from the forest?”
“The outline of it looked exactly the same. But one thing I don't understand is why it saved me. I mean, when it saw me on the ground with that black mass dragging me it didn't even hesitate it just ran towards me and saved me.”
I see Rainbow bring her hoof up to her face and glare at the ceiling, looking for an explanation.
“To tell you the truth Fluttershy, I have no idea. ”
I look out the window and see that the rain died down a little bit.
“Hey you said Twilight helped you with this kind of thing last time right?”
“Yes”
“Want to start heading over there before it starts to rain hard again? Maybe she found something that can help you.”
“Sure.”
We stand up and walk towards the door. I grab two light red umbrellas on the side of the coat rack and hand one to Rainbow. I follow Rainbow out the door opening the umbrella hearing the faint sounds of raindrops tapping above me while I lock the front door of my house. Turning around, I see all of Ponyville dimly lit due to the dark grey clouds. It is kind of peaceful, minus the thunder and lightning
“You ready Fluttershy?”
“Yeah”
We start making our way towards Twilight's place. I notice Rainbow hovering a little over a foot to the right of me as I walk.
“Hey Rainbow can I ask you something?”
“Shoot”
“Do you think such a place exists?”
“The place from your dreams?”
“Yeah”
“I highly doubt it I mean if something like that existed i’m sure every pony would know about it.” she said calmly
I start to look to my left towards the Ever Free in the distance. My mind keeps clustering my head with the possibility of that place in there, somewhere concealed within the forest's numerous wet trees.
“So.... how’s Angle doing?”
“He is doing well”
I turn my sight away from the Ever Free and focus on the dirt path ahead of us.
“Rainbow?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks for listening”
“Hey that's what friends do remember?” she said with a joyful tone and a smile.
I give her a warm smile back. I can tell that she knows the dream is still bothering me by the concern on her face. At least we’re near Twilight's place now. Just in time too, the rain is starting to come down hard again.
-knock, knock, knock-
“Hey egghead its us!”
The door opened revealing Spike on the other side.
“Hey Rainbow, Hey Fluttershy, come in. Twi will be down in a minute. Shes rearranging a few things upstairs”
Rainbow and I make our way to the round light red couch, that surrounds a small oak table, in the middle of the living room and sit down.
“You two want anything to drink”
“Do you have any cider?” Rainbow says curiously
“I think so what about you Fluttershy?”
“Can I have some water?”
“Sure”
While he places our drinks on the table I couldn't get over thinking how cute he is.
“Thank squirt”
“...yeah” he says with a sarcastic and agitated expression occupying his face.
“Thanks Spike”
“No problem Fluttershy”
I see Twilight start coming down the stairs levitating a rolled up paper in the air with her magic.
“Hi girls”
“Hi Twi” both me and Rainbow said simultaneously.
As soon as she sets the rolled up paper on the table she sits down and her left wing suddenly extends out.
“Aghh... sorry about that i’m still trying to get that under control” she says blushing
“BWAH HA HA HA HA”
I can't help but chuckle along with Rainbows laughter at the sudden incident. Its a relief i’m able to actually laugh and forget about the nightmare for once but as the laughter stops the memory creeps back into my thoughts again.
“So what brings you two here during the storm?”
”Well Fluttershy had another one of those dreams again.”
“Was it the same dream Fluttershy?”
I looked at Twilight and then slowly turned my sight towards the upper window looking out towards the grey clouds. I took a deep breath knowing that I would have to explain what I experienced in the nightmare again.
“No. This time it was far worse.”
“How so?”
As I am thinking back about last night flashes of it started blinding my thoughts. When I was grabbed, when I was walking down the hallway, when the figure carried me to that red door, and then..... the explosion on the other side. My vision goes dark and I see the horrid concrete grey hallway in the distance, with that black mass in the center of it, coming closer to me.”N..no, get away from me. GET AWAY FROM ME! I’M NOT GOING BACK!!!!”
Wait, I hear something faintly in the distance what is it?
“Flu--...”
It sounds familiar i’ve heard that voice before.
“Flutt--...”
I feel my body shaking rapidly. What’s going on?
“FLUTTERSHY!!!!”
The hallway disintegrates and familiar colors start returning to my vision. I vaguely see Twilight in front of me and hear Rainbow shouting my name from behind me.
“Twi shes snapped out of it!”
“Thank Celestia! Fluttershy can you hear me?!”
“Y..yes” I managed to force the answer out of my mouth. Tears started spewing threw my eyes and streamed down my cheeks. My chest is pounding profusely do to my heart and slowly starts to simmer. I rub my eyes in hopes that I can regain focus and to my relief they do.
“Pl... please, I don't want to go back. Please don’t let them take me back.”
“Shh.. Fluttershy its okay nobody is taking you anywhere”
I look up slightly and see a relieved smile on Rainbows face, wet with tears, above me. I turn my head slowly to the right and notice that my head is resting on her lap.
“They will have to get threw me to get to you” Rainbow says reassuringly
I begin to raise my head from Rainbows lap. I feel Twilight grab my right hoof and Rainbow push my back to help me up. They both hug me tightly until I reassure them that i'm alright. The room is still a little dizzy; both Twilight and Rainbow are on each side of me, to keep me from falling over, while they help me back to the couch that I last remember being on.
