I wake up to Tavi shaking me awake. It's early in the morning, that much I can tell. I can feel the saturation in the sheets around me, I had sweated a lot. To go along with that I feel dehydrated. My nightmare had made certain that I have nothing feeling just perfect. I look to Tavi and see worry everywhere in those eyes. I look to the side to look in a mirror. I looked like an absolute mess, with bloodshot eyes and sweat covering my face and neck, along with greasy-looking hair. "What's wrong? What could your dream have been about to make you so scared you were screaming but couldn't wake up?" croaked Tavi.

"There is only one part I can remember clearly, and it involves us." She continues to look worried. "The part I can remember is me shouting out your name, asking you to come back, but all I hear are voices saying that it is too late, we are separated forever, and I will always be alone." Tavi begins to hold me to her body, I can hear the comforting sound of her heart beat. It lulls me into a sense of calm and I can actually feel my body relax physically into her as she holds me.

"Is this the nightmare that Vinyl told me about?"

"Vinyl told you about my nightmares?"

"Yes, she told me that you would get them in times of stress, though she doesn't know what they were about."

"Well, to answer your question no, I used to have nightmares of going back to being that little, obedient mess I was during my last relationship." Octavia tightens her grip on me at the mention of this. "It was as if I was trapped, watching myself make some of the stupidest decisions of my life. This though, I have never had a nightmare either so vivid, or so terrifying. The worst part was that it seemed so real. If that was really what I fear the most, then that only means that you are just that important to me. So in a way, it actually makes me a little happy."

"I don't like though is that I am now causing you pain." She looks downtrodden at this, I must stop this one by nipping it in the bud.

"Tavi, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are the most important individual to me in this world and any world. This pain is a link to my past that I need to overcome. This may have something to do with my thoughts of how fast we are moving. Heck, I may have gotten you pregnant, but this will pass. As long as I can wake up, knowing that you are there for me, whether physically or not, I will be fine. You are not the source of my pain, you are my cure." I say this all the while smiling more and more. I love Tavi, I really do, and talking to her about that always brings up this calm, happy feeling.

She also begins to smile a bit. "So long as you can get comfortable. Don't worry about me being pregnant, we will cross that bridge should we come to it, I will get some tests and check in a few days. Oh, I know, why don't we go play something on our instruments? That always seems to help calm you down."

"I would like that." We play for an hour after that, just enjoying each other's presence and each other's music. When that's over we decide to go for a walk. It was still a few days until we begin group practice for our next performance, and tonight we decide to do something we didn't normally do: hang out with Vinyl and Neon at a club. Specifically, Club Luna. On nice clear nights they use magic to make the ceiling translucent so that you can see the night sky. Plenty of pegasi have flown up to bang their heads on the ceiling. It's always great to hear their excuse for being so drunk. Recently Vinyl and Neon have started making plans to open up their own club, Tavi and I are considering helping with the loan, though we still don't know how much to lend her. Tavi believes about 300,000 bits is plenty, while I believe 350,000 bits would be a better number. Once we decide on this we will lend it to them, free of any restrictions.

We settle down early and get some more sleep in order to better keep up with the DJ and lighting expert. As we approach the club the line was getting longer, one of today's most popular DJs was getting followed up by another very popular DJ; Fishie Mcnizzle, a human DJ that had gained decent acclaim for his works since coming to Equestria a year ago.

We approach the bouncer and he asks for our names; we give them and quickly go through. It seems that Vinyl is on the last song of her set; we arrived a little early, but quickly run into Neon. He looks happy to see us. "Sup Sam and Octy, what's going on my friends?"

"Well we thought it would be nice to come hang out with you guys after her set is done since, if I remember correctly, the next DJ brought their own lights specialist?" Tavi responded.

"You remember correctly Octy. Come on, I'll take you to the VIP lounge to wait for Vinyl to be done, we can hear her music from there pretty well."

"Lead the way Neon." I say, but as we move to the lounge Vinyl begins to speak.

"Alright everypony, one more song before DJ-Pon3 checks out for the night. Get ready, it's a special mix I made with my special somepony Neon!" As she says this she points in our general direction while also looking that way. She must have seen us standing there with her Neon as we had yet to make any real headway through the club. The club became ecstatic upon the announcement, preparing for the next hit to come from their beloved DJ Pon-3. Looking back up to the stage, Vinyl seems to smile knowing that we were here to also hear the debut of her song. She pulls out a vinyl record and quickly starts up her latest song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0h2u87JwyA

As the song finishes our little group has just finished ordering our drinks. "Alright all you crazies, DJ-Pon3 is calling it, I'M OUT!" Vinyl yells as she disappears back stage. The other DJ quickly takes her place and immediately starts up his set, taking the time to speak before the lyrics start. It is obvious he has it all planned out.

"He is going to crash and burn before too long." I say as Vinyl gets into view.

"Yeah, if he plans everything out like that he certainly will collapse before long. This is not the kind of thing you do by planning, it's all done by the seat of your pants!" As we all enjoy the night we slowly forget about the presence of the other DJ playing his set. Almost being the key word. Inevitably, he done fucked up thirty minutes into his set.

"Okay all you creatures of the night, here is a little something new I made; listen and let your minds get blown!" As it plays, there was one thing agreed and those of us in the VIP seethe with rage, this would be his last song here for a long time if we was going to make that sort of claim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTx3G6h2xyA

As the song ends and he prepares his next set he notices that the crowd had stopped enjoying the music. "What, you don't know good music when you hear it? Fine then, let's keep playing the crap you like." As the next song was supposed to start, nothing comes out of the speakers. For the first time on a packed night, the music stops. "What the fuck, what kind of shitty equipment is this that can't handle my awesomeness?"

"Because, equipment like this would kill itself if this is your talent as a DJ." Looking to his right he sees something that he probably didn't expect; DJ-Pon3 had not yet left the house. "Rule one of being a DJ: give credit where credit is due. You stole one of my mixes and tried to pull it off as one of your own. So what you got to say for yourself before you get the boot, loser?"

"I don't know what you are talking about, that was my music, my song. Bitch if you want to ride my status that bad why don't you just suck me off instead of making absurd claims to get my attention little slut." At that instant two figures blur pass Vinyl landing punches on the foul-mouthed DJ before another set of insults can be thrown about the room.

"If you are going to insult my girl while stealing her music, I'll just take pleasure in beating your ass." Neon says, his nostrils flaring with his rage.

"Oi, save it Neon. There are a lot of individuals here who also get to take a shot at him, myself included. And you, little punk, don't insult my friend that way and get away with it." I calmly say. The disgruntled DJ gets up, his nose oozing blood.

"You fucks are crazy, and you." He says as he points to me. "You are a disgrace for siding with these fucking animals." At that Neon charges, but the DJ is a step faster. He dodges out of the way and heads for the back exit. He screams about how we would 'pay for it', but big words from a thief mean nothing in this world. Right now we can live without much worry so long as he does nothing stupid.

We step on down to thunderous applause. The Club decides that they will shut down early for the night, so we finish our drinks and head on out. Vinyl stops us a moment and speaks with us, "He guys, thanks for defending me up there. It was cool, but aren't you two worried about what may happen?"

Neon and I exchange glances. Returning to Vinyl, Neon simply say, "Nah, not likely. Cowards who steal music are very unlikely to actually do anything; if they had the guts, they wouldn't need to steal music."

Vinyl chuckles lightly at this. "Guess you're right, we better head home though just to be safe."

We agree and head our separate ways, Vinyl and Neon head to her place while Tavi and I go to ours. As we approach the final street to our home, a voice calls out. "Hey, shit face."

I turn around and hear a sound. Specifically, the sound of a gunshot. My instincts say to run, but my body doesn't respond. Then I taste it, iron. Finally, the world turns black, all I hear is Tavi screaming followed by another gunshot. Then, the real nightmare begins.

Author's Notes:

Next chapter is going to be a quite dark when compared to the rest of this story, if you feel you wish to skip it do so, there will be a summary in the following chapter for anyone that feels they wish to skip the darker parts of the story.