Slowly, the sky opened its maw. Only a few slithers of sunlight managed to pierce the veil of dark clouds.

Not a sound could be heard as a bolt of lightning cut through the sky. Rain poured from the heavens above.

Naked, he ran. Not a single piece of cloth to shield his frail body from the elements, yet he felt no cold. The mossy floor of the forest was wet and damp underneath his bare feet, that he knew, but he couldn’t feel it.

Scared, helpless and completely alone, he could do nothing but run. And so he did, as quickly as he possibly could, between the fir trees that surrounded him. Thin branches reached for him, like the finger of a thousand lost souls, leaving deep cuts across his bare skin.

Someone called his name, over and over. Even though he couldn’t hear it, he could still somehow feel it with every inch of his body. Someone was beckoning him. He could feel the call pulsate through every fiber of his being.

He hardly even noticed the trees thinning out. Barely realized that he had stopped running. Once he did, he found himself in a clearing, a meadow with tall grass swaying in a non-existent breeze. Some part of his clouded mind recognized the place.

The rain covered the grass in a thin layer, glistening like moving silver.

In the middle of the sea of grass, there was something else. Something not part of the world it was in. A tiny slither of intruding colors that had no place in the damp grass.

Blue and white. A sensation he recognized. An instinct and a wish, buried just beneath the surface. He wanted to reach out to it, but found that his arms refused to obey him.

Lilly.

Lilly.

Life rushed through his body. A warm current of energy that filled his entire being.

The first thing he did was scream. Before he even opened his eyes or tried to move, he screamed from the bottom of his lungs, a cacophony of deep agony forcing its way out.

In due time, his terrified yells turned to coughing and wheezing as his dry throat started to burn, and he felt a similar itch that he couldn’t scratch, somewhere within. This caused his first thought to enter his mind; cigarettes. That’s what he needed, to get the itching away. Needed to smoke.

He was sure he was on his back, but the ground was as cold as ice. He tried to move his arms, but just like in the dream, they wouldn’t respond. He tried to push himself into a sitting position, but a heavy weight on his chest kept him down, and the constant need for a smoke made his skin itch in anxiety.

Finally, Anton forced himself to open his eyes, and it felt as painful as knives cutting into his skull. Every inch of his body felt numb and cold, yet almost burning hot.

At first, he couldn’t see much, his vision was blurry and unfocused, but after a while, it slowly became clear. Despite that, he wasn’t even sure what he was looking at, now that he could see it properly.

It looked like some sort of flat surface, but something was off with it. It had a color similar to concrete, but it looked shiny and slick, almost like it had been encased in a thin sheet of glass. Furthermore, several long, thin white strands ran across his vision like icy veins. When he breathed hard enough, the white strands moved on their own.

They weren’t part of the mirror-like surface above him.

It was hair. A mane.

Realization dawned on him, just what the heavy weight on his chest was. As much as he didn’t want to see, Anton moved his head upwards slightly, feeling his neck crack with every move he made.

He was on his back, sprawled out with his cloak between himself and the cold floor.

Lilly lay across his body. Lifeless and still. Her hooves pressed down on his left arm, and he guessed that the pressure it caused had slowed down the blood flow, which would explain the numbing. Her head rested on the side, her snout hanging of the side of his chest.

One of her ears tickled against his chin when he moved.

“… Lilly?”

His voice came out as nothing more than a whisper. His throat instantly itched even worse.

She didn’t move. Didn’t show any sign of hearing him.

Anton managed to push his free arm up towards her, pushed her shoulder.

“Lilly?”

Once moving again, he felt his body awaken, and the numbing slowly subsided. He grabbed hold of Lilly and pushed himself up from the floor into a sitting position. He held her clutched against his chest as best as he could to prevent her from falling to the floor.

That was when he noticed what had happened around him. The ceiling hadn’t been covered in glass. It was ice. Ice as clear as crystal.

It seemed to cover every inch around him. The ceiling, the walls and windows. Everything had been encased in a thin layer of ice.

Everything except him and Lilly. The ice stopped abruptly just a few inches away from them, forming an almost perfect oval shape around his body. How something like that could ever happen was far beyond him, and he wasn’t about to try to understand it. The pony in his grasp was more important.

He shook her slightly in hopes of getting a response. Nothing happened, and the only movement came from her legs that dangled lifeless as if she was a ragdoll. He loosened up his grip a bit, and he head fell to the side.

It was enough to send him into a fit of blind panic.

“Lilly! Lilly, come on, wake up! Wake up! You have to wake up, you have to-!”

With his heart threatening to burst out his chest and a throat that felt more and more dry with every panicked breath he took, he grabbed Lilly again and forced himself up on his feet. Lilly hung limply from his arms as he stumbled towards the rail he’d been looking down from earlier.

“Du är inte död, Lilly, du är inte död, inte död, inte död!”

His head started to spin as he took in the view of the entrance hall, and memories of what had transpired there came flooding back into his mind.

So much carnage and wanton death had been dealt by the hands of his brother. So many innocent lives, forever taken away. Now, the entrance was empty, with nothing but the shin sheet of ice covering every inch of the room. No bodies, no blood. Nothing that spoke of the terrible deeds of last night.

“I promised Willow and Crescent I’d keep you safe!” Anton shouted, falling to his knees on the cold ice just in front of the spiral stair case. “You can’t be dead, I-I won’t let you!”

He managed to stand up again, and took a few fumbling steps down the stairwell. The ice made it slippery, and he wanted to grab hold of the railing, but that would mean letting go of Lilly, and he couldn’t do that.

The best thing to do would’ve been to take it easy, one step at a time in a calm and careful way, but in his panicked state of mind, the thought of being careful never entered his mind. Fight or flight had taken hold of him, and all he could think about was getting out of there, as far away as possible and never return.

Anton hardly even noticed when his foot slipped to the side. He tumbled over, hit his hip against the railing and came crashing down like a ragdoll. Some small fracture of his mind made him react out of instinct, but it did little good. He rolled around, his mouth open in a silent scream of pain as his body hit sharp step after step.

Something cracked loudly, and instantly he felt a different kind of pain rush through his leg.

They hit the floor and stopped almost instantly. Anton still held Lilly close, but the pain he now felt made him unable to hold on to her anymore, and the force of the sudden stop caused her to slip out of his grasp.

Every inch of his body hurt and ached, and Anton couldn’t do anything but moan in agony. His leg had gone completely numb, and he was sure he’d sprained his shoulder. A thought told him he was lucky that it wasn’t dislocated.

As he laid there, he didn’t care about anything but his own pain. He was tired, spent and exhausted, and despite the pain being almost crippling, it allowed him to shut out the rest of the world for just a little while.

If given a choice between the terrible, uncertain world he was in, and the simple sensation of pain, he’d chosen the pain. It was easier to handle than the reality of his situation.

Then, he heard something. A low, quivering sound.

Anton turned his head.

Lilly was moving. The sound came from her.

She was clearly in agony. Her legs began to shake and tremble.

Anton forced himself up from the floor, almost tripping on the hem of his cloak in the process. Instantly, the pain in his leg rose in strength, and he found himself clamping his jaw shut together in order to avoid screaming. He took a few fumbling steps towards the writhing pony.

The pain became too much, and his legs buckled underneath his weight.

He fell to the floor mere inches away from Lilly, who had now become much more still. Anton crawled on his elbows towards her. Her back was still against him, her torn and tattered cloak sprawled out on the floor around her.

Its dark burgundy colour made him think of dried blood.

His arms started to ache as well, as the ice cold floor took its toll on his arms. He couldn’t hold any longer, and turned on his side. He felt exhausted after the fall and the pain, and couldn’t stop himself from resting the side of his head on Lilly’s back.

Anton could almost feel the warmth of life slowly fade from her.

“…. Are we dead..?”

The voice was faint, no more than a whisper. Shivering like the last sigh before the shadow came.

“Not yet…” Anton answered, his voice sounding almost the same. The moment he spoke, his throat started to itch and burn and he couldn’t hold back a few coughs.

“… Why am I alive?” Lilly whispered.

“I don’t know. I-I thought I saw you die…”

Carefully, Anton propped himself up on his elbows so that he could look at her properly. Lilly tried to move with him and get up, but the moment she did, her body froze in pain. Anton caught a glimpse of Lilly’s eyes slowly opening. They locked on to him, and a hazy fog seemed to cover them.

“What’s wrong?” Anton asked. “Where does it hurt?”

“M-my leg…” Lilly whispered. “I can’t… move it.”

Anton looked down. One of her forelegs looked a bit crooked, and he could clearly see something poking out from her side, by what he could only assume was the closest thing to a shoulder.

“I don’t think it’s broken.” Anton whispered. “Only dislocated.”

He let himself slouch down yet again, resting the back of his head against her back. With a shivering sigh, he grabbed his cloak and wrapped his arms around his chest.

“Are you hurt?” Lilly asked, quietly. “You’re... shaking.”

“It’s not too bad.” Anton said back to her, trying to stifle another coughing fit. “I’m in pain, but at least I can still walk. Sort of. I just… I need to rest for a while. I’m so tired…”

He turned is gaze up into the ceiling above, as high up as a towering cathedral, and every inch covered in the clear, glistening sheet of ice. Nine floors high, rickety stairs spiralling their way all the way to the top. It almost made his head spin, as if the open space was about to crush him. He could only imagine what this place would’ve been like back in the day.

Now it was just empty and hollow. Quiet.

Was his brother the one that conjured up the ice?

“Where is everypony…?”

Lilly’s question pulled Anton out of his thoughts.

“I don’t know. Does your leg still hurt?”

“No, only if I try to move it…” Lilly said.

Anton didn’t say anything more. He remained still, staring into the ceiling, trying to figure out what to do now. If Lilly couldn’t walk, they would have to stay here, but if they did… They couldn’t stay here, not for any longer than necessary. They didn’t belong there, two lonely souls in a place of absolute death. If they stayed, their souls would soon join the others.

But if Lilly’s leg really was dislocated, he knew all too well what had to be done. He didn’t know much at all about equine anatomy, but if what he had to do to her was anywhere near as painful as it was to humans… he dreaded the thought of causing her such pain.

They both lay there in silence, the pony and the human, as time passed them by. It could’ve been minutes, maybe even hours that they spent together on the floor, finding at least a tiny slither of comfort from each other’s warmth.

After what could’ve been an eternity on the cold floor, Anton slowly sat up. As much as he wanted to remain there in the comfort of his only friend, he knew deep down in his heart that he had to do something.

Slowly and with much grief, he pushed himself back up on his feet.

“… Are you going to leave me?” Lilly asked quietly.

“No, I’m not.” Anton answered. “I just… we have to find a way out of here. And we need to do something about your leg.”

He spun around and took a good look around the room, which he hadn’t been able to do properly before. There was nothing there, nothing besides themselves and the ice. But one thing instilled him with a bit of hope; some of the doors leading to other corridors and rooms hadn’t been fully covered in ice.

Anton took a few steps around the pony and squatted down in front of her.

“I’ll just have to take a quick look around, okay?”

“Let me come with you, I-“

Anton interrupted her mid-sentence. “No, you need to remain still, or your leg could get worse.” He reached out and carefully tucked her cloak closer around her for warmth. “I’ll just be a minute, I promise.”

He stood back up and gave Lilly a look that he hoped would be somewhat reassuring, before turning over towards one of the doors leading out of the room, this one being one he knew lead to the eastern hallways.

“Anton?”

He looked back over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“Are we going to die?”

Anton remained quiet for a few seconds before answering. “No. Not today.”

Anton took off, leaving Lilly alone to her thoughts and silence. Her body still trembled just a bit, both from the cold but also the pain in her leg, as well as the fear of being left alone. She never wanted to be alone ever again if she could help it, a decision she made some time ago, when she was all alone in the darkness.

Strangely enough, she felt more secure with Anton than she had done with anypony else, and as odd as it was, she was glad it was so. Even though she couldn’t understand why, she at least had someone to keep her company. If he hadn’t shown up when he did, she was sure she’d been dead by now, torn apart by that crazed, bleak pony in the alleyway.

Anton clearly wasn’t a fighter, but his refusal to give up made her feel safe. Even now when he was injured and exhausted, he was out there trying to solve their problems. She only wished she could’ve been of any help, and not just a helpless pile on the floor.

Maybe the fact that he wasn’t a pony also helped, she thought. That he was a human, taller and much more imposing than any pony she’d ever seen. In a way, he was watching over her, quite literally.

Whatever it was, she was happy to have him as a friend in these dark times.

Her mind wandered as she tried to remember what had happened the night before, but everything was a blur except the pain and the screaming all around her. Without wanting to think about it, her mind took her back to that other time, that fateful moment when a knife cut through flesh, and those green eyes looking at her as he died right in front of her and there was nothing she could do to stop it-

She cringed, and banged her head into the floor in a feeble attempt to shut the memories out.

Duskshine.

The knife.

Duskshine.

Blood.

Duskshine.

Eyes.

Luckily she was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard Anton call out to her.

Getting through the ice hadn’t been much of a problem, but he had to crawl on the floor to do so, since the opening was so close to the ground. Once inside, he found himself standing in an empty and silent corridor, covered in ice from top to bottom just like the entrance hall.

He hobbled forward on his aching leg as best as he could, stopping a few times to lean against a wall and rest.

A few doors stood opened into the hallway, offering entrance to rooms where ponies had lived until just recently. He couldn’t help but feel his heart sink when he peaked into the rooms, still furniture but empty of all life, as if everyone had just walked off into the night.

He hoped they had gotten out in time, and that wherever they were now, no harm had come to them.

After a few minutes, he decided to head back. He’d found nothing useful in the many rooms he passed, and every piece of furniture was frozen solid and impossible to move.

Instead of taking the same corridor back, he decided to take a left turn at the end of the one he was in, and follow another that he knew led back to the entrance hall. He rounded a few corners, but stopped dead in his tracks when he did.

The moment he saw the hallway in front of him, he knew that something was off about it. Something didn’t look like.

On the opposite side of the corridor, too far away to make out completely but close enough to notice was an irregularity in the ice. Something was lying on the floor. Cautiously, he made his way towards it. He thought he could see something red at first, and then something different, like a rainbow…

Realization dawned on him, and he couldn’t stop himself from picking up his pace until he ran towards he now saw was a certain Pegasus he knew all too well.

“Willow! Willow!” He yelled as he came closer. His speed proved too much, and he slipped on the ice and fell, skidding a bit before coming to a stop. He fumbled up, and crawled towards his friend with ever-growing worry.

And his worries were met.

He came to a stop just in front of the red pony, completely aghast and appalled by what he saw.

Willow had been encased in ice.

“Willow, what’s… what the hell’s happened to you?” He reached over and hesitantly touched the ice. Stone cold. Willow’s eyes were closed, and he looked like he was sleeping. Broken shards of glass protruded from his fur, and several thin wounds ran across his body.

Anton remembered. The night before, when his brother had shown up, the massacre. He remembered seeing Willow being hurled through a glass door into the hallway beyond. And now, here he was. Cold.

“Please, don’t be dead…” Anton whispered, his throat suddenly feeling soar once again, almost like he couldn’t breathe properly. “Not like this.”

Trembling, he placed the palm of his hand on Willow’s head, feeling nothing but cold, hard ice. Slowly, he stroked his friends head and down his neck, like he would a dog.

“Please, don’t take this away from me…” He whispered. “Don’t take him away. I can’t lose another friend…”

Anton sat down, feeling like every little ounce of hope he had left had just been sucked away from him. His heart sank deeper than he’d ever thought possible.

“Willow, you…” Anton said, his voice trembling as his hand kept on petting the creature’s head. “I haven’t known you for very long, but… You were the first I met, Willow. The very first. And you treated me like a friend even then, you... I don’t want to lose you, buddy. You might be one of the best friends I’ve ever had, just because you cared, I-“

He had to take a deep breath, as his ramblings made him forget to breathe.

“Please don’t go. I-I need you, Willow.”

Nothing happened. The Pegasus remained still.

Anton blinked away a few tears, looked up into the ceiling. He wanted to scream, wanted to shout out his anger, but nothing came out of him.

He looked down again at Willow, and when he did, something caught his eye. Something looked strange with one of his ears. Anton looked closer.

“Vad I helvete...?”

The tip of Willow’s ear had become free from the ice, seemingly in a matter of seconds. As Anton watched, the ice seemed to melt all on its own, and he couldn’t even begin to understand what he was seeing.

Quickly, he fumbled to get up, and once he got to his feet, Willow rested on the floor in front of him, wet and cold, but very much alive and breathing.

Wasting no time, he reached down and picked up the Pegasus in his arms, then hurried towards the entrance hall.

“Lilly!”

He stumbled towards her, pressing the limp pony to him.

“Lilly, look!”

Anton made his way towards her, fell to his knees next to her and carefully placed Willow on the floor next to her.

Lilly’s eyes widened in surprise. “Is he alive?” She asked.

“Yeah!” Anton answered, unable to hold back a smile. “I don’t know how, but he’s alive!”

He brushed some rainbow-colored mane from Willow’s face, before pulling off his cloak and placing it on the pony instead. Willow seemed to tremble ever so slightly, and his fur looked like he’d just been pulled out of the sea.

“Need to get him warm…” Anton said, then started rubbing across Willow’s back and neck, hoping it would build some warmth.

Suddenly, a cerise eye opened slightly.

“Willow!” Anton said. “Willow, can you hear me?”

The eye seemed to search for the owner of the voice, but couldn’t focus on anything.

“It’s Anton and Lilly, we’re both here, Willow. We’re here.”

The Pegasus opened its mouth as if to speak, but seemed too. Only a weak pant came out. Then the eye closed itself yet again.

Anton continued to try and warm his friend up, but after a while he had to give up and rest. At least Willow was still alive. Exhausted, but alive. Anton picked up his friend and did his best to wrap him tight in the cloak before putting him down again.

Tired, but filled with new hope, he sat down next to Lilly again. His leg was aching much worse now than before, but he couldn’t do anything than try to ignore it. He tried to rub his leg where most of the pain came from, hoping it would calm it down a little bit.

With a sigh, he leaned backwards and once again rested his back against Lilly.

“Fy fan, jag är så jävla trött…”

”What?” Lilly asked.

”I said I’m so fucking tried.” Anton whispered back to her. “I wish I could just go to sleep. Maybe wake up in my bed. That all of this is just a dream.”

“More like a nightmare.” Lilly said slowly.

“Maybe we’re both here because we’re dreaming the same dream.” Anton said. “Like that dream about that crystal tower and all that… perhaps we’re both still asleep.”

Anton sighed. Of course, both of them knew that it wasn’t a dream, but the idea was at least little bit comforting. But the reality of the situation always came back and reared its ugly head.

“… Lilly?” Anton asked, cautiously, worried that what he was about to say would affect her the wrong way.

“Yes?”

“We need to do something about your leg.”

Lilly didn’t say anything in response.

Anton rolled around and half-crawled over to the other side of her. Her face looked pale, almost as pale as the ice itself. Anton carefully touched her leg.

“What are you going to do?” Lilly asked.

“… When I was a kid, me and my brother used to play out in the woods. Pretend to be knights and warriors. But then one day, my brother tripped and fell and hurt his shoulder. We’d been playing on a cliff, and he stepped on a rock that came loose. Tumbled down, landed right on his shoulder. It got dislocated. Despite the pain, he kept calm and managed to tell me what to do. I need to do the same to you, but it’s going to hurt.”

He looked her in the eyes. “A lot.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Maybe…”

“Well, what else can I do? I know how to fix it, and if I don’t you won’t be able to walk, and I’m sure as hell not leaving you here.”

Lilly whimpered. “How bad will it be?”

“… Very bad. Some say that it’s one of the most painful things one can go through.”

“It would’ve helped if you said it felt like a bee sting or something…”

“I’m not a fan of lying.” Anton concluded.

Carefully, he picked her leg up by her hoof. Lilly stifled a groan of pain. He placed his other hand by what he hoped was her shoulder.

“Okay. Ready?” Anton asked. Lilly whimpered, but nodded slowly. “On the count of three.”

Lilly clamped her eyes shut hard.

“One…”

Anton braised himself.

“Two…”

And held his breath.

“Wait!” Lilly shouted. “Wait! I-I… Are you sure about this? What if it just makes it worse, then what?”

Anton loosened his grip a little. “It’s a risk we’ll have to take. We’re getting the hell out of here, even if I have to carry you.”

“B-But…”

“Lilly…” Anton said. “You’re scared, I get that, but we can’t just stay here and wait for death. It’s going to hurt, but it has to be done. Here, bite down on your cloak, alright?”

“Why would I do that?” Lilly asked.

“Because this is going to be awful.” Anton said. “Just roll it up thick enough and bite down on it, okay?”

He helped her do so, before he once again returned to holding her leg.

“Okay… Do you trust me?” He asked.

Lilly nodded.

“One… two… three!”

Anton pushed with all his might with his hands. Something cracked and came loose, and he could feel something pop into place beneath his hand.

Lilly’s scream was terrible, despite the cloak muffling her voice. Her teeth clamped down on the fabric and almost tore through it as she yelled in pure pain, and tears streamed down her face in an instant.

“I’m sorry!” Anton yelled. “I’m so sorry, but the pain will pass, I promise!”

Eventually, her scream died down, and Lilly calmed herself. Her chest heaved as she gasped for air over and over again. After a while, it too calmed down.

“How does it feel?” Anton asked once she breathed normally again. “Can you move it?”

“I-“ Lilly strained herself, and managed to move her leg slightly. “It hurts, but not as much as before.”

“Good.” Anton whispered. “Then maybe you’ll be able to stand up, eventually.”

“Yeah… Let’s hope so.”

Hope. He like that word. Yeah. Hope.

He turned back to Willow and scooped him up in his arms and then returned to Lilly, laid down, rested against her like before, and held the trembling Pegasus close in his arms to keep him warm.

If not for the dire situation, the three friends huddled together could almost have been a perfect, peaceful sight, but Anton couldn’t be more contempt than he was in that brief, fleeting moment.

Through some otherworldly miracle, his friends had survived, and were with him. All three of them had gone into the shadow of death, yet somehow returned before it covered them completely.

His friends were alive, and he couldn’t ask for anything more.

Finally, he had a bit of hope.