These fleabags were everywhere. “We take position at the traffic light! We can use the cars as cover!” Fish shouted towards his men that were all dashing down the street, trying to escape from around ten of the shadows. They had gotten the commander at the last crossway, so now he was the highest ranking officer, the one in charge, and his goal was clear: catch up to the convoy and reach the stadium. Beta Company had struck a camp there last week and replaced every light bulb with UV lights so that these things couldn’t get inside. Mac, despite his heavy weapon, was the first to reach said location, sliding over the bonnet of a Mercedes and mounting his weapon on its roof.

“Suppressing fire!” he shouted, and everyone dove into cover. The M214 emptied its magazine into the approaching shadows, piercing holes into them until they looked like mouldy, black cheese.

“That should keep them busy for a while. Staging!” Fish ordered, and the small troop gathered behind the cars. “Alf, get the map. We need to pin down our position and check our ammunition. Pill, how is Bill doing?” The soldier had been touched by one of the creatures and seemed to be mentally absent since, along with suffering a fever.

“Not good. Usually, a touch is deadly. I gave him just about everything, but without the right equipment, I can’t do anything more.” Fish nodded.

“Lee, take care of your brother. If we make it to the stadium, we can request a chopper and get him out of here.” Leroy nodded and picked up his brother again. He had been carrying him for a few blocks now as he could no longer do so on his own. “Mac, how much ammo do you have left?” He opened his gun and looked at the belt.

“Around one hundred fifty,” Alfred reported before Mac could say anything.

“I’ve got our position. We are around twelve clicks away from the stadium. That’s around thirty minutes through downtown or an hour if we go around. I have three mags for the G36 and around twenty for the M9 in my backpack.” Fish quickly did the math in his head. Every man had around two magazines with them and a full pistol, so they had around five hundred bullets.

“Lee, take your brother’s gun and ammunition. I don’t think he’ll need it tonight. Mac, only shoot if you’ve got the M214 set up - we will need your suppressing fire. Use your pistol if you need a short range defence.”

“Fish, these things are almost done recovered!” Mac, who had stayed at his gun the entire time, shouted.

“Okay, Alf, we go through the town. We’ll have more cover there, and we can get Bill faster out of here. I know that these things can walk through walls, but let’s hope they can’t see through them as well. Ready? Go!”

The group got moving again. As they ran between the skyscrapers, Fish thought about the words of his recruitment officer the entire time. “Like a holiday in Europe. Bah!” he mumbled under his three-day-old-beard.

I still stood in my apartment and looked at the empty space where the dust that had morphed into my old human body and introduced himself as Changer had just came from. In my head, I again went through what he had revealed to me. I didn’t like most of it although I had come to terms with some of the thing he mentioned a while ago. The whole thing was both our fault, and now we, or rather I, had to face the music. But that was something I had to deal with on my own, and that would take time. For now, it was only important to locate where my family was so that I could help them during my next visit. The few scraps of information that were scattered here indicated that the humans had no weapons against the nightmares, and I didn’t know how magic could help, but it would surely be better than bullets. Twilight or Celestia could surely find a spell to get rid of those things.

A clank came from downstairs, and by habit, I looked out of the window to see who came through our garden door. However, it had gotten dark outside already, and I couldn’t see anything, the glass in the window reflecting too much.

I looked back at my rune and saw that I didn’t have much time left - only around thirty minutes remained, and I would need around ten to get back to my arrival point. I grabbed the photo from the table with my mouth and was annoyed for not having pants. A pocket would have really been handy here.

Quickly, I went down the hallway and down the stairs, but I didn’t get much further. A large shadow blocked the way to the front door and slowly levitated around. As I realized after a few seconds what exactly was there in front of me, I slowly went back up the stairs so that it couldn’t see me even if it were to turn around. But since I was unable to feel anything, I didn’t notice that I had reached the top of the stairs, and so I slipped, eliciting a thud from the wood as I landed on it.

Immediately, the nightmare came around the corner and looked up at me. Its appearance had now changed. Two long, thin arms with three claws at each end came out of something that seemed to be a torso. It looked closely related to an insect and reminded me of a praying mantis. Further down, I saw two equally thin legs which ended in claws, just like the arms, but they reminded me more of a raptor. Its face was the snout of a wolf, and the eyes were without pupils, only a glowing red. A loud roar came out of its mouth, and as it opened it, I could see black teeth surrounded by a white fluid. The whole body of the creature was black, but it was not fur or skin. Instead, it just seemed to be fog that had taken a form, almost like a piece from the universe since it had something like stars shining in it. Somehow, it reminded me a bit of the shimmering mane Luna had when she had been Nightmare Moon, only much darker.

The nightmare was building up before me and wanted to strike down on me with one of its claws, but I reacted first and slid underneath him by stiffening my body, a trick I had learned a while ago when I used to slide down the stairs in a sleeping bag. What else could you do while being sick at home? My coat was working quite similar to the material of the sleeping bag, and I quickly got behind it. Swiftly, I got back on my hooves and dashed towards the front door.

I leaned against the handle and opened the door, only to immediately close it again. Another of the creatures was standing on the other side. I took a step back, and that saved me. Not a second later, the claw of the creature came through the door and grabbed for me before it put its head through as well.

The thing on the staircase had now realized as well what had happened and hung vertically at the wall, slowly crawling towards me. A bit of magic would have been really helpful now, but without my body, and the horn connected to it, that was not an option. The other nightmare had fully stepped through the door by now, ready to jump at me as soon as I made to move.

An idea shot through my mind, and I slowly took a few steps backwards and pressed my flank against the door to the dog room. That room had a balcony. It wasn’t very high, and if the table was still standing there, I could jump down into the garden and escape into the forest. My hoof searched for the handle as I couldn’t leave the two out of the eyesight. Finally, the door behind me gave way.

I slid through the opening and immediately shut the door behind me. I didn’t even wait to see what the two nightmares would do as I opened the door to the balcony and looked around. The large, white wooden table was still at its usual spot, meaning that it was a bit too far away from the handrail to jump.

I rushed outside and began to move it with all my strength, even though I didn’t really much right now. Slowly, it began to move, and with the sound of wood that met metal, it finally stood in the right position. Quickly, I climbed on one of the plastic chairs and then on the table, but a roar kept me from jumping. My two friends had just crawled through the wall and seemed to be angry that their prey wanted to get away. I wasn’t waiting for them and jumped over the handrail onto one of the trash bins that stood below it. From there, I scrambled to the ground and was off into the forest. I had to admit I was lucky that the trash bins stood there. Without them, my landing wouldn’t have been so soft.

“Nothing here either!” Pill shouted as he stood up from a motionless body. It was nothing unusual to walk past dead bodies these days, but something made Fish let the group look for signs of life. Of course they couldn’t stop, but with the wounded, they were slow enough so that Alf and Pill could look for life signs while the rest of the group gave them cover. Unfortunately, they had no success so far, rather the complete opposite. Alf had thrown up after walking past the body of a little girl to check the vital signs of her mother that still held her in her arms.

The deceitful hope came from the bodies not showing any external wounds, no blood or anything. If he didn’t know better, he would have said they weren’t dead, only sleeping. Only when they began to decay was it clear.

“Got a soldier over here! German!” Alf shouted as he went through a pile of bodies on the pavement.

“Take the dog tags and move on. We have no time to worry about the dead.” Alf nodded at Fish and rummaged around in the jacket of the dead. With a quiet click, he ripped the chain of the soldier’s neck and put the tag in his pocket.

"Per istam sanctam unctionem et suam misericordiam adiuvet te Dominus divites in virtute adsistit dabit Spiritum Sanctum Dominum liberat a peccato nisi te direxit te in misericordia." Just as Alf had finished the anointment, Mac came over to him and pulled him back up. Mac was religious as well, but he knew very well that this wasn’t the right time, especially if he wanted to do it to every dead soldier they would find. “Markus Schmidt…”

“Come again, Alf?” Mac asked.

“The guy’s name was Markus Schmidt.” Mac just nodded and let go of Alf, who managed to move on by himself.

“Alf, I know this is your first mission, but we don’t have time for that! Come on.” Fish jabbed him in the ribs with his G36 so that he would step it up a notch. He had to hand it to the Germans; they knew how to make weapons. The G36 was light and handy, perfect to beat someone round the head with.

They passed some larger stores like ‘Karstadt’ or ‘Galeria’, and behind one of the large glass doors, Fish could see some people lying. The doors were not working, and the power was reduced to a minimum so that the street lanterns gave the only light. The flashlights on their weapons had to stay off. The first soldiers who attacked the creatures at night had to learn it the hard way that light would only lure the nightmares towards them. Those things were dark as the night and lived in the darkness, so light only meant potential prey for them.

“Die Apokalypse ist da, die Rache Gottes, Alien Invasion…” As Fish heard screams out of the darkness, he motioned his men to take position. Everyone reacted immediately, even if Mac had to pull Alf behind a car. With their weapons ready, they all stared into the alley from where the voice seemed to come and waited for whoever might come from there. The shouting of the stranger continued, and after a short while, he stepped out of the dark alley. It was man of middle age, without pants but a thick jacket which was so dirty that it seemed he had been sleeping in his own shit and hadn’t shaved for weeks.

“Hey, shut up!” Fish hissed through the night and tried to stop the screams of the man, but he didn’t seem to notice them. Fish gave Mac the signal to go over to him while the rest of the group kept their guard up.

“Hey Mister, calm down! We’ll bring you to the stadium. You will be safe there.” Mac put a hand on his shoulder, but the man just kept on dancing and ignored the soldiers. Mac just shook his head.

“Okay, men, onwards!” Fish ordered, and everyone but Pill went back on their tracks.

“Fish, we can’t just leave him like that. He will die.” He was probably right. Fish knew that very well.

“Not our problem. Our orders are to bring the convoy to the stadium…”

“And help every civilian we find on the way,” Pill ended the sentence.

“I don’t see what we can do for this guy. He doesn’t want to come with us. His problem, not ours. Now move. I don’t wanna wait here until his screaming attracts the first shadow.” Pill gave up. He turned around one more time, just to see the man disappearing in another alley. Just as he was about to turn around again, the man screamed again, and in the next second, he saw multiple shadows coming out of the exact some alley. They had gotten him.

“Targets!” Pill shouted to his group ahead and quickly caught up to them. Fish turned around and saw multiple shadows gliding over the ground behind Pill.

“Lee, take cover! Alf, suppressing fire!” he shouted while they took position behind some benches that stood around. Lee did as he was told and hid together with his brother behind some cars that stood a bit off the side. Mac had meanwhile mounted his gun on the bench and emptied half of the belt that still was in it.

Fish had switched his weapon to semi-automatic and shot a few precise salvos into direction of the approaching shadows. Alf meanwhile searched his bag for the remaining belt for Mac’s weapon while Pill ran over to Lee and defended himself with his M9.

“Above you!” Fish noticed a shadow that hung from a tall building above Pill, Lee, and Bill and landed onto a car behind them. “Light, we need some light!” He turned on his flashlight and immediately wished he hadn’t. In front of him stood eight more of the things, and his magazine was half empty already. “Well, shit…”

I pulled myself together and dashed through our garden. I didn’t need to look around to know that the two nightmares were still behind me, for I could hear their white saliva dripping on the ground. Besides that and their occasional roars, they made no noise, otherwise I would have heard it with my improved hearing. Being able to turn your ears in any direction usually came in handy, but not this time.

Past the apple tree in the garden and the pool, I jumped over the low fence that separated our property from the forest. I was glad that we never got around renewing it, otherwise my travel would have ended there. Much to my dismay, the nightmares were not slowed down by any obstacles. They simply ran through them.

The forest was dark, and now with the moon covered behind some clouds, I almost slipped over a root that stuck out of the ground. I almost ran against a tree a few times since my eyes needed some time to adjust to the darkness.

I risked a quick glance behind me, thanks to my flexible neck, and saw that they were still behind me. However, I had gained a lot of ground on them. I couldn’t see much in the darkness, but I saw their eyes growing further behind, and I could no longer see their saliva dripping down.

I had troubles orienting myself in the darkness. Usually I used the tree to find the way, but now I couldn’t even recognize them even though I had lived by this forest for my whole life. A light spell was exactly what I needed now, but that would hardly work without a horn. However, right now it was worth a try.

Concentrating on my magic while galloping was hard, and just as expected, I found none since a unicorn’s magic was stored in its body. But what I found instead was that blue ball and the orange one that Changer had left me with. They both were floating through the darkness of my subconscious and slowly got closer to each other.

I used my familiar blue source and directed the power that I filtered through the runes in my head on the first leaf I found on the ground. A blue light came from my non-existing horn, and the leaf began to glow like a flashlight.

I stopped to take it into my mouth, next to the photo, and continued running with a bit better sight into the direction where I thought my arrival point was. I really should have remembered the way better. It didn’t take long for me to notice that it had been a very bad idea to make some light.

“Lee, let go! It’s no use!” Bill had been touched by the creatures a second time, and his vital signs had stopped immediately this time. “You can no longer help him.” Pill pulled at Lee as strong as he could, but he didn’t want to let go of his brother. The shadow, which had just jumped from a building a few seconds ago, was lying on the ground a few meters ahead of them and slowly regenerated the holes that Pill’s M9 had ripped through his body.

“I’m running dry!” Mac shouted, immediately followed by multiple clicking sounds. He let go of his M214, which was useless now without ammunition, and changed to his M9 as well. “Fish, where to?” Fish was busy keeping the shadows away from him and cursed constantly.

“We won’t make it to the stadium! We have to hide somewhere and wait until tomorrow. Alf, you know the town a bit. Any ideas?” Alf had just handed Mac a new magazine for his pistol.

“No, these things walk through walls like it was paper. No place nearby is safe from them.” Fish emptied his second to last clip of his G36 and looked around. Shadows were hanging off the walls of some buildings, but there was one special sign that caught all his attention. He thanked God that he had been listening to his wife once in a while when she had been talking about things she wanted to buy.

“Everyone in the building to our left, second floor! Move!” He fired a few shots at the shadows that jumped through the air to reach him. “Pill, get Lee even if you have to drag him!” Pill seemed to have a better idea and gave the stubborn soldier, who was still leaning against a car and held his brother, a firm slap on his face which released him out of his trance.

“Thanks,” he just mumbled, picked up his G36 from the ground and began to fire around him. Mac and Alf had meanwhile reached the entrance of the building and began to give cover fire. Lee took the dog tag off his brother and ran, together with Pill, to the rest of the group out on the middle of the road.

As he passed Fish, he tapped him on the shoulder to signal that they could go. Fish didn’t need to be told twice as he released his rifle, which only contained two more shots at that point, and sprinted together with Lee and Alf to the others. The only ones left with their rifles now were Pill and Lee. Fish opened the glass door with the back of his pistol, and they carefully went through. They found themselves in a small shopping mall which had been plundered weeks ago.

“Mac, Lee, down in the basement and turn on the generator. These buildings usually have a small one. Pill, come with me into the second floor, and we’ll prepare everything.” The three nodded and quickly went their way. With the flashlight on his M9, Fish made himself some light and quickly went upstairs with Pill, and they actually found what he had been hoping for: a tanning salon.

“Help me set up these things in a circle,” he ordered Pill, and they both began pushing around the solariums. After the last one was in position and Pill began opening the covers, a crackling sound appeared, and the lights at the ceiling began to flicker before they eventually brightened.

Steps sounded from the staircase, and they both saw Lee and Mac, followed by some shadows, coming into the salon. Fish began switching on one solarium after the other by throwing some coins into them. The money had been taken from the register, one of the few things that had been left untouched. The UV tubes began to buzz and lightened up after a few seconds. Lee and Mac jumped through a hole in the circle of solariums, and their pursuers vanished into thin air behind them. “Here, have something for your eyes.” Fish gave each of them a pair of sunglasses.

“And I thought Iraq was warm,” Mac noted and laughed while lying down on the floor, using his backpack as a pillow.

The light only seemed to attract the nightmares, and I slowly began to doubt the advantages the light brought to me. The only thing that held me back from letting go of it was that if I did, I would also lose the photo, one of the reasons I had come here in the first place.

I galloped on into the direction which my intuition said was the correct one. Usually I doubted it as it had often failed me before, but this time it seemed to be correct since I saw in the corners of my eyes the light of the leaf reflecting somewhere, and as I went closer, I saw that it was the slide of the playground. It was not far away from my arrival point, so I was on the right way, which was about time as the rune was only showing me around two more minutes.

Quickly, I followed the path and found what I had been looking for. The circle on the ground was glowing bright in the night already. I just wanted to step inside, but then another nightmare shot out of the ground in front of me and left behind a gaping hole in the ground, out of which a faint purple light was shimmering.

I was forced to turn on my heels and head back to the playground. I saw a few more nightmares here and there between the trees as they quickly came closer. Never before had I been so frightened in my life. Adrenalin, yes, from roller coasters, my first drive with my car, or my first accident, but there had been no time to be afraid. However, now I was basically seeing death running towards me, and I was sure that, if I would survive that, I would be plagued with nightmares like the one time when I watched Alien as a child.

I looked down at the rune - around one minute left. However, I had to get away from here, now. I rushed past one of the creatures, back into direction of the circle again, but my path was blocked again. So I did the only thing that I could. I wiped the rune off my leg. Immediately I was caught by the blue light, and it began to send me off somewhere. At that point, I didn’t care where as long as it wasn’t here!

Author's Notes:

Thanks to Gron for translating this chapter.
Special thanks to JBL for proofreading and editing.

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