You scream in shock! This does little to reassure your allies, but you couldn’t help yourself.

Yelling out at the shadow to stop, that it might hurt somepony, does little to slow its approach. It either doesn’t understand, or you’re just mirroring its intention.

Fight or flight instincts kick in something fierce and you rush ahead, gauntlet raised, shouting out an old and tired meme. You nearly tumble forward when your weapon is wretched from your grasp and attached harmlessly to the shadow’s chest. Your vision flashes again and before you can recover, everything becomes unbearably loud and you feel a horrible shocking pain followed by a powerful blow across your head. Before you can even move you feel yourself lifted off the ground and slammed into a wall. Something presses strongly against your throat and you force your eyes open. Everything is blurry, but you can see the monster’s electrical eyes through your own tears. The shadow has you pinned against the wall with one hoof and the electricity surging through you is so painful it’s paralyzing. You’re rapidly losing consciousness… and something else. Something feels loose in your chest, and you can almost feel it leaking through your skin.

Just when you think you can’t hold on anymore, you’re jerked violently to the right and feel yourself drop to the ground gasping for air. The noise has subsided into a ringing and the electrical pain into a strong tingling feeling on your right side. Through blurred eyes, you could swear you saw something seep back into your chest. Somepony helps you to your feet and pushes you away from the noise and the tingling.

You lose the next few seconds. The next thing you know, Princess is holding your face up to hers with her forehooves and screaming at you to run. That it’s after you, not them.

You’re still in a lot of pain, your breathing is labored, and the edges of your vision are still blurry.