Author's Notes:

To start: GORE/DARK WARNING

This chapter is fairly dark/gore-heavy compared to what I usually write. This chapter, similar to the last, is another example of things to come in A Pony Displaced: Another Path.

All that said, Alticron threw together a picture for you gents. For the first time, we can see the designs of these characters. Go give him leg-humpings and what not, yeah?

Lastly, thank you Alticron, Word Worthy, and Omnicron25 for proofreading, editing, and brainstorming everything with me.

ADDITIONAL thanks to Alticron who came up with the idea and framework for the nightmare as well. Dude's got a dark streak in him I tell ya.

Barrier could just make out his breath in front of him as he cautiously walked through the lightless streets of the Empire, eyes glancing at the bodies littering the ground. Swallowing heavily, the stallion turned his eyes forward, not noticing how nondescript the majority of the ponies were.

They died because of you… a haunting voice teased him in the back of his mind. You should have seen it coming, seen him coming… the voice continued. “Fie me! I did not know…” Barrier argued with himself out loud, eyes shifting to the empire looming in the distance. You promised them it was safe… Barrier opened his mouth to speak again before he stumbled forward, tripping over a corpse. Too weak to save them, the voice mocked with a chilling laugh,

“Verdant…” Barrier swallowed once more, meeting the dead, icy-blue eyes of the still body; they were attached to the shattered carcass of a dark-green earth-pony, his brown mane tattered and bloody, limbs bent at random angles and partly buried under rubble. Barrier grimaced, eyes trailing down to the faded-white muzzle of the former cadet, noting how a thin trickle of dried blood clung to the pony’s jaw. You might as well have killed them yourself…

“Get thy rest, soldier…” Barrier whispered softly as he reached out with his forehoof, gently closing the pony’s eyes. “Thou ear-”

“Thou didst this!” The green stallion’s eyes suddenly shot open, his blue irises replaced with a crimson-red, the whites surrounding them darker than Barrier’s coat.

Barrier, his own eyes widening, leapt backwards just as the green pony’s hoof made to shoot out at him, instead only swinging side-to-side in a sickly fashion. “How could I have known, Verdant…?” Barrier began to backpedal, nearly tripping over another corpse as Verdant’s form dragged itself upright, bones snapping loosely into place but doing nothing for the stallion’s appearance.

“Thou saidst we would be safe!” the stallion all but roared as he moved forward slowly.

No, no, no… Barrier could feel his breaths quicken as he glanced around, picking out six more familiar ponies, all slowly picking their broken and battered forms off of the ground.

“I’ll never lay eyes upon my kin again…” the lithe white mare looked to be in better shape than the others, save for the hole in the mare’s barrel, staining her once-pristine coat red. “They’ll be all alone.” She tilted her head forward, the once lustrous blonde mane now framing her eyes.

“I was going to be a blacksmith…”

Barrier whipped around, putting the ponies on either side of him as his eyes rested on the dark blue unicorn, noting the long-sword that had been run through his barrel and out his back.

“I was going to start a family,” another corpse spoke, driving Barrier further backwards into what he now identified as a narrow alley. A purple pegasus stallion dragged himself forward, missing his hind legs and wings.

“You destroyed my clan.” A light blue unicorn mare stumbled forth, blood still gushing from a large tear in her neck.

“You sent my daughter to her death.”

Barrier’s pupils shrunk and his breath hitched completely in his throat as the last line of dialogue ran itself through his skull. Anypony but her, Faust please… Even as Barrier silently prayed to whatever deity would listen, his eyes fell on the powder-blue pegasus mare, noting the dull shades of her once-vibrant pink mane and tail. Finally, his gaze rested on the puncture wound in her throat, his mind naturally comparing it to the hole in Winter Gem’s chest.

“I did not know, Fleetfeather, thou must believest me…” Barrier began to desperately glance around the alleyway for any kind of escape, even as the ponies continued to taunt him.

That’s right, flee… the dark voice laughed again, It won’t be the first time you’ve left them to die!

“Swiftsword, Winter, Verdant…” Barrier’s gaze traveled across each pony, naming them as he went, “Iron Forge, Hat Trick...Fleet…” The stallion stopped, horn flaring slightly as he caught a door leading into one the buildings that comprised the alley, “I am sorry…I thought you would all be safe…” Barrier turned towards the doors, preparing to lunge through it, hopefully to safety and sanity. With a jerk of his magic, he received a reply from the pony he’d least hoped to hear.

“Thou thought wrong,” the voice of a filly screeched as she lunged from the door, her bloody pink mane trailing wildly behind her.

With a jolt, Barrier shot upright...and directly off of the bed as his flailing had apparently brought him to the very edge.

"Barrier, what's wrong?" Octavia asked calmly, having already been awoken by his reaction to the dream, as well as being accustomed to them happening periodically, some worse than others.

"Nothing, love," Barrier lied convincingly as he climbed back onto the bed, nestling himself against the mare with a shuddering breath as he hugged her close, "Just a bad dream…"

"Join the club," a filly’s voice called out sleepily as she nosed open the bedroom door and gave her wings a short flap, propelling her tired form onto the bed. With practiced efforts, she was soon nuzzled beneath the blankets in between both Barrier and Octavia. "Now let's go to sleep, I've got school tomorrow..." Wind Whistler yawned adorably, setting the tension that still remained within Barrier at ease as he blinked back tears and held the filly closely to his barrel.

"I told you not to eat so much of your Nightmare Night candy in one sitting, that it would give you nightmares," Octavia replied with a yawn of her own, shifting closer to Barrier as well; neither could see the smile of contentment on the filly caught in-between the two warm bodies.

“Meh, worth it,” the filly groaned before she began to snore softly, finding no difficulty in returning to sleep.

A pair of burnt-orange hooves snaked over Barrier's side as another pony drew closer to the trio, having avoided the flailing pony courtesy of her wings. "We're gonna need to get a bigger bed at this rate."