It took me a second to register that I had even been transported out of the Realm of Chaos and to another Equestria, and I was left a bit disoriented from the sudden shift in surroundings.

Discord's method of transportation happens a little too instantaneously for my liking.

Nevertheless, I gathered my wits after a moment and looked around warily, promising myself I'd do a bit better this time around.

Then I immediately got distracted by the fact that I wasn't wearing glasses, and could see just fine. This, compounded by the fact that it was nighttime was enough to completely derail my thoughts in favor of simply simply taking everything in in a sort of stunned silence.

Thankfully I caught myself quickly and cursed inwardly for being a dumbass and most definitely not doing a bit better this time around.

With a more cautious mindset I took another look around, and could immediately tell that I was in Ponyville. The cottages and the giant tree with a door, windows, and a balcony that I saw when I turned around were basically dead giveaways.

The streets were completely empty... and almost painfully silent. I wanted to chalk it up to it just being late, but somehow I highly doubted that.

Aside from the eerie silence and utter barrenness of the town, everything looked normal. The sky wasn't red and nothing was on fire. which was a good start in my opinion.

"Yep," I muttered to myself with a nod, "completely normal."

I didn't like this.

This was a grimdark world where everything was completely normal looking, and I'd be less on edge if it weren't for the three things that I did not want to exist in a grimdark world.

Silence.

Isolation.

Darkness.

Those three things together usually meant one of two things. Either everyone was dead or spirited away to some horrible fate, and you were next... or people were hiding out from some kind of horror, and since you were late to the party and didn't get the memo... you were fair game.

Or everything could be completely normal and I'm just overthinking things because it's way too quiet and empty and dark and what the fuck was that noise just now?

I could've sworn I heard something, but I couldn't quite place what the sound had been. I froze, trying to strain my ears for any sound whatsoever, but I didn't hear anything.

That's when the dread began to set in.

It was a familiar dread. It was a dread I had never felt in real life, but a dread I had felt plenty of times in some of my worst nightmares.

It was a dread that spoke of some kind of horrible something just around the corner, waiting to pop out at me and scare the living shit out of me before I suddenly woke up.

It even had that same dreamlike quality where I felt both separated from, and completely part of it. I was so caught off guard by the sensation that I didn't even realize I was shaking and my heart had leapt into my throat.

Right.

I whipped around and made my way over to the entrance of the Golden Oaks Library intending to see a purple pony librarian about letting me in for the night.

I never even thought about whether that was a good idea or not given the circumstances, but right now I didn't care. I needed to get away from this rapidly growing sense of dread as soon as humanly possible.

Not even hesitating I went for the doorknob.

It was locked.

Of course the door was locked, and now I felt like an idiot on top of being completely unnerved. I went to knock on the door, but bit back my increasing fear and stopped myself.

If there was something out there, it probably would've heard me for sure if I just idly knocked away on the door. I didn't really have much of a choice at this point—or at least, that's what it felt like.

Something was telling me I wasn't gonna live much longer if I stayed out here in the open, so I risked it. I took a quick nervous glance over my shoulder before quietly, but urgently knocking on the door a few times.

There was, of course, no answer.

I grimaced and went to knock again, this time more insistently. I was once again met with silence. Again a noise sounded out from somewhere and again, I fail to pick up on just what kind of noise it was.

I whipped my head around and scanned the area, thankful for my vastly improved vision. Unfortunately it didn't help me spot anything out of the ordinary.

Still, the dread only continued to increase.

"Come on, come on," I half whispered, half grumbled as I knocked more urgently, "open the damn door, purplesmart... I know you're in th—"

"Mommy?"

I started with a sharp intake of breath before whipping around to face whatever had just spoken. The fact that there wasn't anything there at all didn't do much to slow my now rapidly beating heart, which only seemed to beat faster.

I did not imagine that voice.

It was soft, quiet, childlike... and somewhat familiar. All in all, it wouldn't have sounded out of place normally, but there was the fact that it was disembodied and out of place in this freaky atmosphere.

I forwent the question of why it was asking for 'mommy' and started banging on the door. my rising panic enough to override my caution.

"Twilight?" I asked aloud, my voice as urgent as my knocking, "if you're in there, open the goddamn door please!"

I didn't care that I was using her name when she probably had no idea who I was. At that point I just wanted to get inside.

Another noise made me stop and turn... and I gasped sharply before slamming my back against the door. All I could do was just stand there and stare in mute horror at the thing that had made the odd noise.

Skittering.

That's what the noise had been, and the thing that had made it had found me. It was crouched low and skittered about on four long, thin purple spindly legs that ended in tiny little clawed feet—the claws looking fiendishly sharp despite their size.

The almost insect-like legs somehow held the weight of its grotesquely rotund purple body and dark green spines ran down its back towards its whip-like tail.

As the thing skittered closer I could just make out its head, which was just as grotesque as the rest of it. It was like the head wanted to be that of a dragon, but decided halfway through to be a spider instead.

It had a wide mouth full of gleaming white fangs, with two on either side jutting out to resemble mandibles. It had a frankly ridiculous amount of eyes that looked as though they had been arranged haphazardly on its face.

The slitted jade colored eyes constantly rolled about in their sockets save for the two largest orbs. Those were locked on me and because of its monstrous features, I couldn't tell what it intended to do—though I could take a guess.

This... thing wasn't all that big all things considered. If I had to guess, it probably reached up to about my knees, but it was... well... it was scary looking—like seeing a giant spider on your ceiling, except infinitely worse.

I know that was a lame way to describe it, but when it came right down to it, that's what it was. I just stood there as it clicked its mandible fangs and slowly inched forward.

It made a chittering noise and I heard it again.

"M... Mommy?"

I didn't know what to do at this point. Something about this tiny little terror was freaking me out, and I got the odd feeling it wasn't just from its appearance.

No, there was something else off about this thing—the way it asked for mommy like some lost little child, the eerily familiar color scheme of the thing, the way it wasn't there a moment ago.

The fact that I blinked and five more of the little fuckers appeared in that span of time.

I think I was hyperventilating at that point, but I couldn't really tell because my mind had kind of checked out at that point. I blinked again before I could stop myself and even more appeared.

I really needed to stop blinking.

There were now at least a dozen of them, and they had all opted to surround me—though they didn't make any sudden moves. In fact, if I was in a less panicked state of mind, I would say they looked... curious.

They continued to inch closer, chittering and giving occasional cries of 'mommy'. And then there was me, poor Salvatore freaking the fuck out with his back pressed against the door of the library that housed his favorite pony.

I blinked again.

If Twilight didn't answer the door, there was no way I was going to get out of this unscathed... or probably alive at all.

There were now a few dozen of these things surrounding me, and I found myself idly wondering what these things had done to the rest of the town.

One of them screeched.

They all charged.

I screamed.

With my eyes completely clenched shut out of reflex and the angry screeching, I didn't see the bright magenta flash or hear the sudden pop... but I certainly noticed the deafening silence that came afterwords.

The sudden lack of screeching made me shut up and snap my eyes open. I blinked a few times before frantically scanning my surroundings.

I took a moment to bring my fear and panic back down to manageable levels, which thankfully didn't take too long. It especially helped that the odd sense of dread no longer affected me like it did outside.

Okay... let's see... bookshelves, unicorn head bust... thing, practically everything being made of wood, more bookshelves... yep, this is most definitely the inside of the Golden Oaks Library all right.

I let out a heavy sigh of relief, then turned to where the front door was with a frown. I couldn't hear a thing from inside, and the freaky dragon spider things weren't bashing down the door to get to me.

Thinking back on it, the only logical conclusion I could come to in this situation was that I had been teleported to safety, which meant—

The sound of a wooden door creaking open from somewhere above me made me look in that direction. I had turned to face the spiral staircase just in time to catch the door above open, though no one came out to greet me.

It just kind of... seemed to open on its own.

My frown deepened.

I really really didn't like where this was headed, and as 'warm' as the invite was, I had the distinct feeling I wouldn't like what I found if I went up there.

Well... I'd probably find Twilight at any rate.

I carefully made my way to the bottom of the staircase and stopped. Now that I had calmed down a bit, a few thoughts crossed my mind as I stood there.

I had my suspicions about what the things outside were—or rather, what they had been. I also had a theory building in my mind that involved pain, loss, obsession, madness, and a certain lavender mare.

Despite this however, there were still several questions that needed to be answered, and I wasn't going to get them standing around out here. I hoped my theory was wrong, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be too far off the mark.

And so, with a shaky breath and regret that was already setting in, I made my way up the steps.

I'd say things are off to a good start so far.