The nightmare of the sand

Twinkle Star panicked. It probably wouldn’t take long before the sun would rise and she didn’t want Aline to walk around here alone in that heat. Aline didn’t know the way and she would be lost in no time. Why would she run away like this anyway? Twinkle Star turned around and yelled: “Wake up! Wake up, everybody! Aline’s gone!” She shook her sister and her cousins until they were awake and Vesti asked what on earth was going on.
“Aline’s gone! Her bag and blanket is gone and I saw someone running away!” She said with a loud voice and Vesti and Stelline looked at her in disbelief.
“Why would she do that?” Stelline asked. T
winkle Star answered that she had no idea.
“We have to get her back. Let’s all get our stuff and go together. It’s no use if anyone else gets lost. There are more dangerous things than heat in this desert, and it’s no good if any of us encounters it alone.” Vesti said and the others agreed, while Twinkle and Stelline had no idea what Vesti meant with ‘more dangerous than heat’.

Twinkle Star was grabbing her stuff to go after Aline, when she heard someone giggle. She looked up and she saw Testi was smiling, giggling while she was packing her stuff. She was trying to hide it, but it was obvious.
 “What’s so funny!” Twinkle Star yelled.
 “Nothing.” Testi said emotionless and she went on packing, but Twinkle Star didn’t believe this.
Why would Testi be giggling at a time like this? Sure she didn’t like Aline, but was no reason to think something like this was funny, especially if you knew this desert. Apparently Vesti didn’t believe her sister either, as she asked: “Testi, what is so funny?”
Testi grinned again while her sister looked at her suspiciously. “Let’s just say I maybe made sure Aline has found out why chocolate is good for your hair…” Twinkle Star didn’t believe what she heard. It couldn’t be. Testi couldn’t have done this, right? They had been only joking…
“You bitch.” She said as she ran off, forgetting her bag and her items, and she ran in the direction Aline had left in. She heard Vesti yell her name, but she didn’t respond. She didn’t want anything to do with them anymore. All she cared about was finding Aline now.  How could Testi have done such a thing? Putting chocolate in Aline’s hair. How could anyone be so mean? No wonder Aline had ran away. Twinkle Star would have done the same thing, probably. Twinkle Star felt guilty; Aline had followed her to this place. If anything happened to her, it would be her fault.

After a while Twinkle Star noticed she couldn’t run anymore. She was still to tired from the walk through the desert and the loose sand didn’t make it easier. It was still really cold, but Twinkle Star was sweating from the running. She stopped and looked behind her. There was no trace of Testi, Vesti or Stelline. They probably hadn’t followed her. There was no one here. She didn’t want to risk anyone seeing her, but right now, finding Aline was more important. She summoned her wings and she took off in the sky. She was relieved that she could use her wings again, but there was no time for her to enjoy it now. She didn’t really know where to go but she assumed Aline didn’t took any turns. In the east she could see the red light of the sun that was about to arise. It was going to be very hot again very soon and she realised she didn’t have any water with her, and Aline didn’t have much either. Vesti and Testi were carrying the bottles. She flew on as soon as she could, yelling Aline’s name once in a while, but she ddin’t see anything except for some disturbed sand once in a while which showed here somebody had been here recently.

When she heard the voice she was happy first. She knew immediately it was Aline and she was happy she had found her. But the voice didn’t sound happy. The voice was screaming, yelling, in horrible fear. Something was horribly wrong. “Aline!” Twinkle Star yelled and she flew to the source of the sound as fast as she could. It came from behind a small hill to the north. When she saw what was going on Twinkle Star almost forgot to flap her wings. There was a huge monster there, with two very large claws as arms, a huge round head with horrible red eyes and a mouth full or razor sharp teeth. It’s body was slim and it’s hind legs were thick but long. It had a long tail that it was waving around. It looked like an horrible beast and Twinkle Star was sure she couldn’t fight it, no even with her royal powers.

Aline was standing against the hill, terrified, with indeed some brown icky stuff in her hair. The monster was about to attack her. It gave a long, high shriek and Aline screamed. She had nowhere to go and even if she had, she probably was too terrified to run away. “Hold on Aline! I’m coming!” Twinkle Star yelled and she flew towards the monster. She didn’t really know what to do, but she knew she had to save her best friend. At the moment that was al she cared about. Twinkle star tried to focus her royal powers to summon them for a fight, but it was useless. She wasn’t calm enough to concentrate, and what could her powers do? She could set up a psychical barrier to protect Aline, but this monster didn’t appear to be fighting with it’s mind, it was only using brute force. This may not be the strongest way to attack, but it could break trough Twinkle Star’s barrier in no time.

Twinkle Star didn’t really know what to do. Yes, she wanted to help Aline, but how? There was no way she could attack the monster, it was way too strong. Nor could she lift Aline out of there. Her only option was to distract the monster while Aline could run. Twinkle Star had noticed Aline hadn’t seen her yet, but the monster was about to attack Aline so she had to hurry.
Without thinking any further, Twinkle Star flew in front of the monster and yelled: “Aline! Get out of here! Run as fast as you can, I’ll distract it!”
Twinkle Star flew up and down to make sure the monster would see her. The monster had noticed Twinkle Star now, and Aline had noticed Twinkle Star as well. However, Aline didn’t move. She just stared at Twinkle Star in amazement. Twinkle Star didn’t even realise why Aline was staring at her.
“What are you doin? GO!” she yelled while she circled as fast as she could around the monster’s head, who was now only interested in Twinkle Star. Apparently this woke Aline up, as she began to run away from them. 

Unfortunately, the monster also noticed Aline was running away. It’s attention went back from Twinkle Star to Aline and it began to follow her. Twinkle Star tried to distract the monster by flying in front of it, however it was only interested in Aline. Maybe it was because of the chocolate smell, maybe because he didn’t like flying ponies, Twinkle Star didn’t know, but she knew there was no way the monster was going to pay attention to her if she just kept flying.
“Hey you! You monster, I’m here!” She yelled, trying to get it’s attention, but the monster didn’t respond. What to do, Twinkle Star thought, what to do? She decided to fly against the monster, touch it, to get it’s attention. She flew as fast as she could and bumped against the monster’s neck, which was feeling rough, sand like.

Aline was still running when the monster finally stopped and paid attention to Twinkle Star. She was relieved; the monster was finally letting Aline go, she thought, however the monster had other plans. Before Twinkle Star could do anything, it moved its front leg and slammed Twinkle Star on the ground. The hit came totally unexpected to Twinkle Star. She couldn’t use her royal powers in time to create a shield. It simply hit her in the back and she fell down in the sand.

In the fall Twinkle Star’s wings disappeared. She heard Aline vaguely scream her name somewhere far away. When she hit the ground for a moment she thought that this was it, this was where she was going to die, that the monster was going to eat her, however the monster didn’t really care for her. As soon as he had made sure Twinkle Star wouldn’t bother him anymore, he left and went after Aline again. When Aline noticed this she began to scream again and she ran away against the red light of the rising sun.  
“No…” Twinkle Star muttered as she tried to get up. She could hardly move. She didn’t think she had broken anything, but her body hurt from the fall and she was paralyzed and exhausted from flying and distracting the monster. She could see the monster going after Aline, she heard Aline scream as the monster came closer. The monster was able to catch up with her. It might have been big, but it could take large steps so it was able to move fast. Twinkle Star thought this was it for Aline, but she surprised her once again. Aline suddenly turned around and the monster was surprised for a moment, just as Twinkle Star.

Aline now ran back straight to Twinkle Star, while the monster had more trouble turning around and catching up with her due to it’s large size. “Twinkle! Twinkle, you okay?” Aline yelled when she was close to Twinkle Star, the monster still chasing her. Only now Twinkle Star noticed how dirty Aline’s hair was. There was chocolate all over her hair, and on her coat as well. No wonder the monster only went after her, it probably only smelled the chocolate. It didn’t care for Aline or Twinkle Star, it cared for the chocolate. However there was no way they were able to get it off in time now. Aline stopped running when she had reached Twinkle Star. “You okay?” She asked again.
“Yeah, yeah fine. What are you doing Aline, why don’t you keep running!” Twinkle Star said, as hard as she could. She could see the monster catching up with them quickly now. Aline had to run fast if she wanted to stay ahead of it. She had to run, the monster would leave Twinkle Star behind, after all she wasn’t interesting as long as she stayed still.

“I’m not leaving you behind Twinkle!” Aline said with tears in her eyes.
“What are you Talking about?” Twinkle Star asked surprised. “It’s you he’s after! It doesn’t care about me! Go, run!”
Aline shook her head with tears in her eyes. “I’m not leaving you!”
The monster was really close now. There was no way they could run away anymore. It would catch up with them in no time. I’m gonna die here, Twinkle Star thought. She looked at the red sky. The sun was rising. Was this going to be her last sunrise? Was it really the last thing she was going to see? It was beautiful, but Twinkle Star didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want to see the end.  The monster had stopped running fast when it noticed Aline and Twinkle weren’t going to run anymore.

The monster was standing in front of them now. It had it’s left leg raised in the air, ready to attack them, ready too crush them and eat them. All they could do was look at the monster in fear. There was nothing for them to do but wait for the inevitable. Was this really the end? Was this really what Twinkle Star had been living for? To die at the hands of a monster that was only interested in chocolate?
“Run, Aline…” Twinkle Star whispered, but she knew Aline wasn’t going to. She waited for the final blow, but for some reason, the monster didn’t attack. It just stood there, with it’s leg in the air. It didn’t move anymore. It was staring at them, angry, but no moving, none at all.
“What’s it waiting for?” Aline asked after about one minute waiting in fear. Slowly Twinkle Star got on her feet. The monster stood there, leg raised, looking at them furiously, however not moving, not attacking.
“It’s not moving at all…” Twinkle Star whispered. She looked around her. Why wouldn’t it move? This was impossible. It definitely hadn’t changed it’s mind, it simply couldn’t move. Something was stopping it from moving. This wasn’t natural.