Twilight stood next to one of the large windows in the study of the Castle of Friendship.

Her gaze had drifted towards the night sky—the moon and stars above shining just outside. For the last half hour or so, she had just stood there, staring out the window with a blank look in her sunken, baggy red eyes.

Spike watched worriedly from the desk, his own tired gaze full of concern and unease. He had long since given up on trying to talk to the mare, as she had remained less than responsive at his prodding.

Twilight, for her part, hadn't said a word in some time, too lost in her thoughts to pay the little drake any attention. She had barely gotten any sleep at all in the week following the nightmare she had been subjected to, and it showed.

Every time she closed her eyes to go to bed for the night, she'd see it, as if the images had set up a permanent residence beneath her eyelids. Then she'd snap her eyes open a moment later.

Even when she did manage to get some sleep, she'd just wake up gasping, screaming, crying, or some combination of the three a few minutes later.

Despite Spike's insistence that she tell the others about her nightmares, Twilight tried to hide her fear and anxiety, not wanting to worry the Princess and her friends, hoping it would all just... go away eventually... but it didn't.

It was only the day before that Twilight had found out Spike had contacted Princess Celestia without her knowledge. At Twilight's continued silence on the matter, the baby dragon had decided to take matters into his own claws.

At first, Twilight was angry—something that was extremely rare for the alicorn to experience—but after the resulting argument had devolved into shouting, she relented and decided that it was for the best.

Twilight had been getting more and more irritable from the lack of sleep, and it showed in her now constant grimaces, her frazzled mane and tail, and the way she occasionally snapped at her own friends, only to apologize profusely a moment later.

The rest of the girls naturally took notice that something was wrong, and had urged her to tell them everything... so she did. It was painful, but Twilight told them every detail she could remember... aside from the very end.

There was no way in Tartarus she'd let her friends carry the weight of that image. No, she bore that little bit of horror on her own. In any case, her friends were of course, supportive as always, and she had been grateful for their words.

But then Twilight noticed something.

While her friends were indeed worried for her well-being, it seemed like they were trying to shrug off Twilight's recurring nightmare as though it was nothing to worry about in the long run.

As though it would all just... blow over and nothing would come of it despite the obvious distress the nightmare was causing her.

Twilight found this extremely strange, which itself was also strange, because she had felt the same way up until that point... or so she led herself to believe.

In reality however, she had never felt that way.

She had been lying to herself from the beginning, and deep down she knew there had to be something more to this. The reason it felt so strange to hear the same words from her friends was because she knew what they were saying was something they really believed.

It... kind of hurt in a way—like they weren't taking her seriously, like they were her collective parents telling her it was all just a bad dream and that things would be better in the morning.

But things weren't better.

Spike had sent the letter, and the response had come from not her former mentor, but from Princess Luna instead. At first, Twilight was completely baffled at the response, but quickly realized that this made much more sense.

Luna was the sentinel of the Dream Realm after all, so it made sense that she'd be the one to help with the problem. Unfortunately the Princess of the Night hadn't given any sort of detailed response—merely requesting to meet with Twilight at her castle that night.

Twilight would've been fine with this arrangement—and would've been happy to see Luna and finally find out what all this was about and why the dark blue alicorn hadn't done anything to stop the nightmares—but then she had actually managed to get a few hours of sleep the night before.

And she dreamed again—the nightmare just as vivid and permanent as the last... and far worse than it had been before.

There was no bipedal creature this time—at least, not the one she had seen in her last nightmare. She may not have gotten a good look at the creature, but somehow she was certain he wasn't there.

Instead, she and her friends had gotten lost in an unfamiliar town before soon being captured by slavers of all things. That was when things had taken a turn for the worst, the dreams showing her and telling her things she thought she'd never hear or see... and never wanted to.

Spike had died.

He had been slaughtered in an alleyway while he tried to protect Rarity from one of the slavers. Even worse was the fact that the white unicorn mare had been indirectly responsible for his death in the first place.

If it had stopped there, Twilight would have been beside herself, completely torn up about what happened to her number one assistant... but it didn't stop there.

In a desperate attempt to escape, Applejack and Rainbow Dash had tried to struggle against the slavers and cause a distraction so that the rest of the girls could escape.

It had cost them everything.

Twilight and the rest of her friends had to watch as the life drained out of Applejack and Rainbow Dash's eyes—their bodies riddled with holes that spilled blood onto the ground.

Twilight had given up then.

They all had... except for Rarity.

She tried to bargain, do whatever they wanted in exchange for the others freedom. They had taken her away somewhere else, and Twilight had lost track of her after that... not that she was all that sad to see her go in that moment.

Looking back on it now, the thought sickened her.

Nevertheless, Twilight and the others had been taken anyway. They had been shoved aboard a boat and thrown into cells to be sold off as slaves in some far off town.

Aside from the harsh words, occasional beatings to keep the girls and the rest of the would-be slaves in line, the snapping of Twilight's horn, and the clipping of both Twilight's and Fluttershy's wings, nothing else major happened aboard the ship... but nothing else needed to at that point.

The emotions that Twilight had been made to feel during that trip still made her shudder. The pain, despair, hopelessness, rage... all these negative feelings were completely alien to her for the most part.

What was worse was that the feelings still lingered, even after the nightmare.

Things had taken yet another turn for the worst when a sudden deafening screech filled the air and the ship began violently lurching about.

During the commotion, Twilight and the girls had managed to escape their cells and wound up on deck to find a monstrous whirlpool churning in the distance.

The other girls screamed in terror, but all Twilight could do was laugh at the futility of it all—the complete hopelessness of the situation sapping her of any kind of positive emotion she had left.

Even after Luna and Discord had suddenly showed up and saved them all as well as the slaves, Twilight couldn't muster up any sort of relief or hope. She felt hollow... and when she first saw Rarity, all she felt was more rage.

Rarity tried to apologize, but Twilight didn't listen. She tried to plead and beg for forgiveness, but Twilight didn't listen. The only thing the Princess of Friendship did was nearly beat her best friend into unconsciousness.

She would have too if it hadn't been for the interference of Discord, Luna, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.

It was the next part of the dream as well as something Luna had said that gave Twilight pause and what she was dwelling on now.

When Pinkie had asked why Luna hadn't located us through her dreams, she told everypony that there had been some kind of interference... but that she was able to gain more insight thanks to a 'strange creature unlike any she had ever seen before'.

When Twilight asked for more detail, she had said it was a strange bipedal creature wearing odd clothes and glasses. In the dream, Twilight hadn't cared, blinded by her own despair as she was.

But here in reality, something clicked in Twilight's head. Her mind had immediately gone back to the silhouette of the creature she had seen in the Everfree Forest.

It had been hard to tell, but she could swear the creature was also wearing some kind of outfit as well, and now she wondered if those two were one and the same.

But why would that be the case? How would that be the case?

Maybe her desperation for answers just had her grasping at straws.

In any case, Rarity seemed especially worried about the creature, and had gone back down into the ship to find it, and both Pinkie and Fluttershy made to follow, but Discord had opted to send the remaining Elements and the rest of the slaves away.

Luna had promised to bring Rarity back before it was too late and the ship sank. Discord had teleported Twilight all back to the nearest landmass far away from the monstrous whirlpool.

It had been a small island where the girls waited for Luna and Rarity to arrive. After several minutes had passed, the group had begun to worry that they hadn't made it... but then they suddenly appeared in a flash of dark blue magic.

Almost immediately after that, the world exploded in a brilliant flash of white light, bringing nothing but searing agony for the briefest of moments.

And then... there was nothing.

Twilight had woken up screaming once again, and once again, Spike and Starlight were there wondering what was wrong. Twilight had pulled Spike into one of the most bone crushing hugs he had ever experienced and sobbed her eyes out for a good ten minutes.

Despite the intensity of the situation, Twilight hadn't said a word about what she had dreamt of. She simply locked herself in her room and didn't come out for the rest of the day.

It was only once night had fallen again and Spike had reminded her of Luna's visit that Twilight had finally decided to leave the room. Both Spike and Starlight worried about what was going through Twilight's head, but ultimately decided to let Luna take care of whatever was plaguing the lavender Princess.

Twilight herself had hundreds, if not thousands of questions running through her mind right now, and she found that the same two question kept rising to the surface time and time again.

Why was this happening to her, and were those two creatures really the same? Twilight didn't know, but she'd definitely find out on way or another. Maybe together with Luna, they could find the answer to these strange vivid nightmares, and hopefully put a stop to them.

There had only been two so far, and already, Twilight doubted she could take anymore.

To be continued in the next chapter I suppose. Wanted to write more, but I don't have the time for another full length chapter sadly...