Chapter 1:

‘The city lay in burning ruins, flames licking over everything that wasn’t already destroyed, thick black smoke obscured the moon, or was it the sun? The only illumination came from the inferno. There was no sky, just smoke, tinged red with the lights of the fires. Only one building still stood - a small, solid stone block, slowly beginning to glow deep red from the heat. A loud cracking sound, a scream, then a large explosion rocked the remains of the city, pieces of the final building to submit to the flames rained down, showering the ruins in red and yellow glowing, shattered block of stone.

There but one thing moving in the remains of the city, a single dark figure, weaving in and out of the destroyed buildings. The figure hit the floor at the moment of the explosion, now it was darting toward the molten city gates, away from the hellish flames.

Just as the figure reached the gates, a large chunk of flaming rock smashed into it’s side, completely removing the back half of the creature with a gut-wrenching crunch.

No scream, no noise, nothing, just an eventual, slow collapse sideways as the fires claimed their final victim.’

As the morning sun was roused from it’s slumber to signal a beautiful new day in Equestria, a young filly lay in her bed, tossing and turning, never peaceful. As the sun shone through her window, the new warmth and light shattered her nightmarish prison and she opened her eyes.

“What was that all about?” She whimpered, still in partial shock at her hellish dreams. Several wet streaks on her muzzle showed where she had wept during her ordeal. Just the thought of the dream began to make her feel ill. Just noticing that she had been shaking slightly since she’d woken up, she nuzzled her quaking body, trying to calm herself down,

“It was just so....Odd....And horrible....” A shout from outside her room brought her out of her light trance,

“Come on Myst, Get up already! You said we’d go exploring today.” She shook her head, ridding herself of the dream’s memories. She opened her mouth to call back when a tiny, midnight blue pegasus filly charged through her door, crashing straight into her,

“Uh,” She groaned, extricating herself from the other filly, “I see you still can’t fly straight yet Storm”

“It was too a straight line,” The pegasus retorted, “Just I don’t really know how to stop...”

“And that’s why you’re not supposed to fly indoors.”

“I’m not that bad a flyer, at least I CAN fly, unlike some of the other pegasi at school...”

“You use solid objects as breaks.”

“...”

“Precisely, now, get off of me so I can actually get up,” Myst moaned at the pegasus, shoving her off of the bed in an effort to get up. Storm took off before she hit the floor, shooting out of a nearby window. She shouted from outside,

“Come on Myst, don’t make me wait.” At this, Myst finally kicked herself up and out of her bed, wiping her eyes to remove the sleepy dust and tear streaks. She talked to herself quietly as she began to get ready to go ‘Exploring’,

“Phew, I thought she’d notice the tears at least. Lucky she didn’t else I’d be having to explain that nasty dream to her, and then she’d be all confused as well...” Reaching toward a small basin right underneath the window, she noticed a dark blue feather next to it. She splashed several hoof fulls of water in her face to rid any remaining marks of her nightmare, then, taking the feather in her mouth, she trotted towards her door.

Stormy Skies waited expectantly on the other side of the door in the grass surrounding Myst’s house.

“Where is that filly? Seriously, it takes her way too long to get out of bed, especially on an exploring day.”

The door crashed open with the force of an explosive and over-excited kick, sending the waiting filly flying.

“Stormy? Where are you? I thought you wanted to get going?” Myst looked around, trying to see where her friend had gone. A slightly annoyed cry followed by an explosion of dry leaves left Myst watching her friend with an amused grin on her face,

“Seriously Myst! Who kicks a door open THAT hard?”

“Well, I was excited..And you’ve got a load of leaves stuck to your mane,” Myst began to laugh as the flailing pegasus tried to grab the leaves in her mouth,

“That isn’t going to work Stormy, hehe, you can’t reach behind around like that.” Storm fluttered her wings, rising up slowly and causing the leaves to start swirling around.

“Hey, Myst.” Storm called out to her giggling friend,

“Haha, yes?”

“Catch!” With that, Storm flew straight towards the laughing filly.

“Waa!”

The two fillies crashed to the floor landing in a pile of leaves.

“Storm.”

“Yeah.” The pegasus replied, spitting out a mouthful of leaves.

“You still didn’t fly in a straight line.”