Twilight wandered down through the streets of Ponyville, her eyes set straight before her as she trotted forward to the best of her ability. Her vision swam before her as she tried her best to keep herself from falling over as she put hoof after hoof before her, slowly plodding down the cobblestones roads. Everything around her was either colorless or incredibly washed out, the light faded and weak as if a huge filter had been placed across the sky.

She felt like she was being gnawed away inside by a swarm of angry, starving rats, clawing and picking at her organs and chewing on her bones, always stopping just short of the skin before retreating.

She blinked, gritting her teeth and standing up straight, ruffling her wings, closing her eyes. "It's all in your head, Twilight... it's mind over matter at its most basic principal. You can overcome anything you set your mind to."

When she opened her eyes, the rats were gone. She felt her sides, and under her belly, and smiled to herself. "Well. That's that, then."

She took another step, and the rats came pouring back in through some hole to the dimension they briefly occupied in order to trick Twilight in to thinking they were gone. They filled her abdomen, but they were made of void and vacuum so she felt no weight. Just the gnawing.

As Twilight stumbled into the marketplace, she heard the distant chatter of ponies conversing with each other. All of it sounded like it was miles away—mumbled and then amplified a thousand times so Twilight could hear it across plains and mountaintops. But she could not make out any of the words, just echoing, jumbled whispers that had no place being as loud as they were.

"Howdy, Twilight!" Applejack looked as if she were standing behind a pane of fogged glass, and her voice sounded oddly distorted, distant and underwater. "Couldn't help but notice you look a bit famished, hehe. Want an apple? This one's on the house, or cart, anyway, since it's between friends an' all." Applejack held out a shiny red apple to her, which, compared to the mare it was attached to, was clearly defined and in focus. It looked as if a very large, fuzzy orange tree branch had extended to deliver her the fruit itself.

Twilight looked at the apple, the rats writing and squirming. She didn't want to eat. That would only upset them. She looked back up at Applejack, whose face was a distorted wash of green, orange, and pale blonde-yellow.

What option was there? She took the apple.

Sinking her teeth into it, the sweet, juicy taste did not come. Instead, the overwhelming unsettling sensation of gritty rock against her teeth met her, and she looked up at Applejack, who smiled back at her. At least, she thought it was a smile; there was no way to tell with her being so fuzzy and out of focus...

She looked back down at the apple, so purely defined a moment ago, the color sticking out to her as something that was so stark defined int the washed out, faded land she now occupied. The apple was now hazy and undefined, almost just a grey patch held in her hoof. She opened her mouth, and a fine trail of sand poured from her mouth. The grey blur in her hoof was the apple, finely compacted san in the shape of a fruit, sat in her hoof, strangely innocent.

"Wow, Applejack," Twilight said, biting back the urge to throw the apple to the ground ad tear away, wobbling from weakness and rats. "That was... something else."

She turned from the farm pony, clutching her stomach as the rats gnawed away.