Ghosts of the Past

CHAPTER 1 – From a Dream to a Nightmare

Date: unknown. Location : Near the entrance of a mausoleum, somewhere in Equestria, probably Canterlot.

A silver moon was up in the sky. Its dim light was often obscured by passing clouds and scrawny tree branches above me. Silently, an ubiquitous sea of grey fog washed over my feet in small waves.

Judging by the look of things, there was no doubt, I wasn't on Earth anymore. The real world didn’t have outlines and flat colors.

I took a few minutes to look at myself. It was almost exactly the same body I had before leaving Earth.

“Seriously, Mercury? Of all the forms you could give me, you actually give me the only one that I didn’t want… Oh, well. I guess it sucks but at least I get to retain my ability to eat meat.”

The only differences I could actually feel were either due to the change of physical rules, such as a much smoother skin or hair; or due to some healing Mercury practiced on me. For example, I saw everything correctly without needing my glasses. Even though my vision wasn’t that bad, I could tell the difference almost immediately. That was nice. I hated my glasses.

I turned back to look at the mausoleum, and, while looking at it, I noticed there were several lines of unknown symbols engraved in the marble and stone.

“Probably Equestrian. No point in bothering with this,” I thought to myself as I examined its surroundings.

“Apparently, the gate is supposed to open with a drawbridge-like mechanism, with ropes and pulleys. You can’t open it from inside… I guess it was some sort of test of my magic abilities. And I failed it.”

Since there was no point in staying there and it was night time, I thought I should search for a civilized place. Looking into the distance, I found no lights. That wasn’t a good omen. But the trees prevented me from seeing too far. I had to find a better observation point.

At least, I didn’t seem to require sleeping or eating. That journey in the mausoleum lasted forever, yet I didn’t feel any hunger or exhaustion. No point in searching for food, and no obligatory pauses.

“Time to go… But where?”

Near the mausoleum were a few tombs, and walls. The mausoleum was at the end of a wide alley, with tombs on each side and walls behind them. There was an immense and rusty gate on the other side, facing the mausoleum.

All around these walls, was an incredibly dense, grim and spooky forest. Half of the trees were dead, and their branches slowly scraped each other with cracking sounds and hisses as the nocturnal wind passed through them.

I walked towards the old gate and climbed on it, using the decorations between the iron bars as footholds. From there, I could see further, since some trees were small enough.

And what I saw wasn’t good at all. There was nothing but trees, in every single distance. One thing caught my eye, though: a quartet of partially ruined towers, standing alone in the middle of the trees. They were not too far away; about one kilometer away from me, maybe a bit more than that. However, it looked they were about as recent as this cemetery. There was moss everywhere on the towers, and only one had a seemingly intact roof. I couldn’t really tell. It was way too far to see the smallest details.

I looked down, on the ground, and saw a few stones, almost entirely covered by moss and humus. Some of them were smashed or moved, but globally, I could discern a pattern. It looked like an old path, and it was going in the castle’s direction.

“So be it. I’m going to explore this castle.”

Date: unknown. Location: Equestrian forest

I carefully descended from the tall gate, and followed the path through the forest. The moss covering the ground complicated my task, but there were enough moss-free stones to understand where to go.

After a few minutes of walking in the woods, I noticed that the trees became slightly more ordered.

They looked like they had been planted in straight lines, with more-or-less regular intervals.

“I must be near the castle now.”

Most of the trees’ lowest branches were cut a long time ago, and their higher branches entwined in an undistinguishable mess of leaves and bird nests.

Advancing into the dark vegetal tunnel, I walked at a slow pace. But, quickly, I noticed several pairs of green eyes looking at me from the shadows. “Shit. Timberwolves!”

They came closer every time a tree blocked my line of sight, and it made me run increasingly faster without really noticing.

By the end of the tunnel, I was running as fast as I could. Luckily for me, Mercury applied some kind of endurance enchantment on me, so I didn’t feel tired at all. I kept running and running, until I reached the end of the tunnel. The trees suddenly spreaded apart and formed a semicircle; and a wall with another old fence faced me.

The noise of the wolves was coming closer. Soon, all the eyes I saw previously jumped onto the stone path. I was alone, against a whole herd of timberwolves. They all looked at me with a bewildered but menacing look.

“Why, Mercury! Why!”

Trembling in terror, I quickly turned around and tried to climb the gate as fast as I could. It was just like the other one. Almost. With time, nearly all the decorations that allowed me to climb the previous gate fell on the ground. This time, there were only iron bars, and I sucked at climbing. Slipping on the iron bars, I fell on the ground.

I turned back and saw the mob of timberwolves, still hesitant as to what to do.

“Uhh… Oh! Yeah, right! Pass through. Magic. Fuck. I’m retarded,” was all I could think before near-instinctively closing my eyes, and slowly moving through the old gate, walking backwards.

When I opened my eyes, to my greatest surprise, I could see the timberwolves shrug and go back to the forest.

“Weird. They should have pursued me, at least until I reached a populated area… What is in this castle exactly?” I thought to myself, a bit scared to go to a place where timberwolves didn’t want to go.

I silently watched the wooden wolves go away, hidden behind the wall, and headed to the castle when they all disappeared.

Walking into the castle’s main yard, I examined its surroundings. Only an abyss remained around the deserted building. It was an almost perfect circle, going nearly all around the castle. There were only two non-aerial means of entry to this castle: first, behind the castle, there was the tree corridor and the gate. And secondly, in front of the castle, was an old wooden bridge with creaking planks. I didn’t trust it, but it led to the other side of the abyss. I had to walk on it at some point.

“The old walls must still be in the forest, around the trees, somewhere. Something happened to this castle. Something terrible, and probably magical.”

The moon was setting. Only a few hours to wait, and the sun would come up. “I guess I should wait in there until dawn…”

I headed to the castle itself and peeked into the main hall through a shattered window. “No sign of life. Good.”

Walking along the various corridors randomly, I found myself wandering inside one of the towers. There were no doors, shelves or anything else in the various rooms I went through; because everything that was made of wood had rotten away over time. Everything turned to dust.

Same fate for the windows… Most of them were almost completely destroyed; only tiny glass splinters remained on the edges.

This castle was really, really old.

After a while, I reached the top of the tower. Climbing all these huge stone stairs would have been a pain if I were in my previous body, but this one, although it looked similar, was definitely different. I didn’t really feel anything particular after going through all these steps.

I was in one of the towers without an entire roof. In fact, almost all the roof was gone. Only a few tiles remained, the others being smashed and scattered on the ground.

In the distance, I could see an unending forest, in most of the directions. However, this forest was growing in a land with many hills. Thanks to this, I could see a flickering light, on one of the forest’s edges. Judging by the position of the moon, I concluded it was south-east, assuming the sun and moon moved the same way here as they did on Earth.

“Very well. I’ll see if I can get there in the next few days…”

I went back to the main hall, and warily approached the largest stone corridor. It turned left, and led to a much bigger room.

There was some sort of central walkway, while marble columns on the side marked what seemed to be the previous emplacement of chairs or benches. It almost looked like a church.

Then I noticed something strange: a big circle, where the layer of dust had almost disappeared. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that there were not only circular traces, but also hoof marks.

“So, someone came here more or less recently.”

However, these traces had to be a bit old, because there still was a very thin layer of dust covering them.

As I reached the bottom of the alley, I saw some sort of pedestal. There was a horse statue’s head on one of its edges, and the skeleton of a former veranda behind it.

The alley ended there.

“Well, nothing to see here,” I thought as I went back to the main hall.

Once in the main hall, I followed another, smaller corridor, into which other hoofsteps appeared too. However, this time, they were reversed, so the ponies who made these were running towards the main hall. And, most probably, towards the room I just exited.

The winding corridor led me to the remains of a strange room. The walls were almost all destroyed, and in the middle, stood a weird edifice, somehow looking like a peculiar fountain. Its base was a thick stone disk. On top of it, was a tiny pyramid. On top of this pyramid, was another, thinner stone disk. And, on top of the second disk, was a very short but thick column with six spoon-like appendages, coming out of the column rather randomly. Above the column, was a stone ball. Everything was covered in moss and vines, and crackled in some places.

“Hey, wait a minute.”

That’s when I realized I was in the middle of the Everfree forest, walking inside the ancient castle of the Goddess Sisters.

“Yup. I won’t lie to myself like ‘oh hey I’m probably dreaming or drugged’. This is Equestria. No doubt about it.”

Date unknown, location: Celestia and Luna’s old castle. Surrounded by the Everfree forest.

The timberwolves fleeing this place, the hoofsteps, the pedestal, the markings in the dust, the fountain-pyramid-thing. Everything was clear now. The timberwolves couldn’t come in there because there must have been some sort of protection spell. The hoofsteps were those of the Mane Six, when they came here to search for the Elements of Harmony. The wide circles in the dust? Nightmare Moon’s tornado-like attacks. The pedestal is where she waited for Twilight Sparkle. And the bizarre fountain is where Twilight first found the Elements of Harmony.

“The light I saw earlier probably was from Ponyville then. Good. As soon as the sun is up, I’ll keep running through the woods. I hope I’ll be fast enough…”

To wait for the sun to come, I strolled through the castle, looking at the architecture here and there, imagining what life could have been in there. I even found an armory, with a few rusty weapons still inside.

But time was passing quickly, and the sun didn’t take a lot of it to show up.

As soon as I deemed its light powerful enough, I walked out of the castle, crossed the bridge that surprisingly didn’t break or even creak, and drifted off into the forest.

Date unknown. Location: Everfree forest.

The forest was vibrant with life. A permanent cacophony of bird songs was echoing through the forest; the sound of a river could be heard in the distance; and the trees themselves chanted with the wind blows coming through their leaves.

Most of the trees were rather tall and had too much leaves for me to see the sky. And not all of them had enough branches for me to climb at their top. That made me walk rather erratically; but once in a while, there still were trees that I could climb.

The day passed quickly, and after a while, the forest started to grow more oppressing by the second. Animals progressively stopped making noise; and very soon, I was left alone, with my footsteps sounding through the forest.

The shiny golden eyes that followed me earlier were back. And this time, I had no magical shield to protect me.

Seeing them coming closer, I ran to the nearest climbable tree. They all followed me, and were running faster than me. “Shit. Gotta think of something. Maybe if I climb high enough, I’ll be able to wait there until dawn.”

As I climbed my way through the branches, a group of around ten timberwolves was turning around the tree, sniffing everything, as if they were more curious than hungry. I looked at them silently for a while, and tried my best to remember anything about them from the show. The only encounter I remembered was that one with Spike and Applejack, where Spike says they have a really bad breath. “Useless. Offering them chewing gums won’t make them go. And I'm all out of bubble gum anyway,” I thought to myself, still shivering in fear as they turned around the tree.

After a few minutes of smelling everything, one of them decided that it was boring.

So instead of waiting, he started to bite the tree. Chunk by chunk, its trunk was slowly cut down, while several other timberwolves helped him. I stood there, paralyzed, until the tree fell on the ground.

The ancient behemoth cracked in agony during the whole fall, while I clung to its branches, feeling my internal organs trying to escape through my mouth.

Amazingly, I didn’t pass out from the fall, although I was sitting really high. No pain either, even if I was really dazed.

“I wonder what kind of magic Mercury put on me.”

The timberwolves looked at me, still dazed and sitting on the ground a few meters away, and, in a matter of seconds, they all decided it would be fun to run after me.

I sat there and didn't move, the world dancing around my eyes. They all pounced at the same time, and I closed my eyes.

About twenty seconds later, I opened them again, slowly, and didn’t feel like I was eaten alive. In fact, all the timberwolves were very close to me, but they were only sniffing randomly in the air.

“Are they blind or something?” I thought, before trying to stand up.

As soon as I moved, they all turned their heads in my direction.

“Uh… Okay, I'll stay put.”

Sniffing around again, most of them lost interest after a while. I stayed immobile, and they suddenly didn’t care about me anymore.

“Am I some sort of chameleon?”

If I actually had some kind of camouflage power, I didn’t see my body change while staying immobile.

Half an hour later, all of them were gone.

“Maybe they let me go because I was immobile against the gate, earlier at the castle…”

I waited a bit more, and resumed my walk towards the source of light I saw from the tower. Although it was dark, I now knew timberwolves couldn’t really harm me if I didn’t move.

Several times, they came around me, but every time I saw the yellow eyes glowing in the dark, I stopped walking and waited a while. Eventually, I reached the edge of the forest.

In the end, this little walk lasted a day and a half.

Date unknown. Location: Edge of the Everfree forest.

I didn’t know where to go, so I walked in a straight line for a while. Eventually, I reached a path looking like a road and followed it. The moon was my only source of light, but the path was visible enough, and rather large.

Outside of the forest, things were a lot nicer. I could see the midnight blue sky gradually turning to orange during my walk.

A few hours later, I reached my goal.

Date unknown. Location: Ponyville.

Relieved to finally be in a place where I didn’t risk dying, I strolled around the sleeping town, admiring what I always considered as fictional. Sometimes, I even dared to look through the windows, to see what kind of things were inside the cottages.

When I was done with my little tour, I went to Twilight Sparkle’s tree-house and waited for her in an alleyway nearby. This way, I was almost sure that no one would be afraid of me. I was pretty sure they had seen worse by then, considering what other creatures appeared in the fan fictions I’ve read, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

A few hours later, the first ponies I ever saw from my own eyes opened their doors, sometimes yawned, and went to do whatever they do for a living. Cloaked in the darkness of the alleyway, I looked at them all closely, moving back in the alleyway every time one of them looked too close to spotting me.

As time passed, the shadow in the alleyway became much less prone to camouflage. However, none of the ponies noticed me. Confident in my new hiding skills, I kept on waiting for Twilight at the same spot. It lasted hours, and, finally, in the afternoon, she opened her door and started walking on the village’s main alley. I quickly crept back into the darkest part of the alleyway, and waited for the trotting noises to come closer.

When she was about 10 meters away from me, I whistled a few notes that could be understood as “Hey! Over here!”

She did not appear to hear anything. Her ears didn’t even turn around… So I tried whistling louder. It didn’t work either.

Then, as she was going too far from me, I went back to the entrance of the alleyway and said “Twilight! Over here!” loud enough for anyone to hear. I was desperate, and wanted her to answer me before I had to spend another day alone in a secluded alleyway.

She suddenly turned back and looked at the alleyway with a suspicious look. Twilight walked towards me cautiously, and stepped inside the alleyway. I was at the bottom of it, hiding in the darkest corner.

“Could you please not scream if I show myself?” I asked, hopeful.

No answer came. Instead, her horn acted as a magical lamp, illuminating the whole alleyway. She squinted her bleary eyes, looked everywhere, and shrugged. “Nothing. I must be hearing voices. I really should stop reading so late,” she said, before turning back and resuming her walk.

I was mortified. “Am I completely invisible and inaudible?”

It took me a few seconds to react, but when I did, I was shaking in despair, my arms twitching by themselves. I ran to Twilight, stepped in front of her, and tried to stop her. “Wait! I’m here! Please, stop!”

She did not hear anything and kept on walking, until she walked through me.

I could see the pony’s body going through my own, as if I were nothing but air.

“What did he do to me? What have I become?”

I contemplated my hands. They didn’t pass through each other or through walls,as far as I knew; and yet, Twilight Sparkle’s body offered less resistance to my hands than a block of jelly.

I know it was stupid, but my first reaction to this news was to try to slap her. “Maybe if I was fast enough, I could gain some kind of solidity.”

One time, two times, three times, four times.

She didn’t feel anything, apart from a slight tickling in the face. A few seconds later, she sneezed.

“Great. Mercury changed me into an invisible man who can make ponies sneeze. How would he win the game with such a terrible Piece?” I wondered, abandoning any dialogue attempts with the oblivious pony.

After this unsuccessful attempt, I didn’t bother hiding anymore. It was useless anyway, since ponies couldn’t even feel me walking inside them.

Saddened by this experience, I went to the tree-house and sat against the door, wondering what to do next. A few minutes later, I thought of absolutely no one who could help me; and decided to visit Twilight’s house while she was away. I faced the door, closed my eyes, and slowly passed through it.

After looking at the books she had, I climbed up the stairs, and sat on the bed. Oddly enough, it was about as hard as stone. This was really unsettling. She couldn’t sleep on something like this…

Wondering what that bed was made of, I tried to open it; to no avail.

When I put my hand against one of the blanket’s folds, it was as hard as the rest of the bed. I couldn’t move it.

Even more disturbed by the fact I couldn’t even lift a simple blanket, I put all my strength into my arm and pulled. The result was almost unsurprising: after a while, I felt some sort of click, and my hand passed through it.

“I can’t talk to anyone, my sole power is to make people sneeze, and I go through solid objects if I try to move them. It keeps getting better.

“Mercury, I swear it, someday, I’ll make you pay for this humiliation.”

From then on, I took the habit of visiting even the insides of everypony’s house. It was much less boring than standing in an alleyway or at Twilight’s house… And it slowly became an insurmountable habit that made me feel like a pot addict.

I hated druggies. I never lowered myself to use any drugs when I was on Earth, including ethanol in the concept of “drugs”; but this was far more addictive than any chemical substance, because it was, simply put, life. I used the life of others to replaced the one I lost.

Over time, I knew more or less everyone in Ponyville, and all of their little problems. I knew everything that happened in their families, as well as what happened outside. This is how I learned what time it was.

Discord had been sealed two months ago. So we were around the middle of August.

Recapping the previous events in my head, I also concluded it meant that I stayed something like an entire week in that dark mausoleum.

Date: First Year of the Game. Location: Still Ponyville.

During the first months, I sometimes had ideas that might have helped me to become solid. I tried, among other things, talking to people in their sleep, talking to animals, passing through unicorns while they were casting a spell… None of this worked.

I also tried casting more spells, like levitation, transmutation, whatever… Nothing worked, except for the one Mercury told me about in the mausoleum: going through walls.

Thus, quickly, constantly spying on everyone’s little lives became the only activity that kept me sane, after each and every one of my failed attempts to “exist”. It was like watching an unending TV reality show. Only the Gods know how much I hated these retarded shows back on Earth… But here, there were no canned laughters, no stupid jokes, and, more importantly, no one I could talk to. So this was my only source of interaction with living things. Of course, I’ve always been some kind of hermit, and never had a lot of friends, but I still missed the basic social interactions I used to have before coming to Equestria.

After two or three months, I unconsciously started living through them and stopped trying to be more “alive”. I watched them working, sleeping, cooking, partying, loving. I watched and watched, all day, every day, every week. I learned about their culture, their way of life, their history. Sometimes, I even went to school, to learn how to write and read the Equestrian language! Even if it was hard to understand everything since I could not practise, I understood the basics…

“I bet Cheerilee will have a heart attack if I ever tell her she gave grammar lessons to an alien,” I thought, at that moment.

But, all good things have an end; and, as much as I liked doing this, my loneliness caught up on me. One day, as I was watching the Apple family go to bed after a nice meal, they reminded me of my own family. That memory triggered a chain reaction in my brain, and before they were all sleeping, I couldn’t stop brooding, thinking about how I had done nothing so far. I hated myself, I hated Mercury, and I hated this world, to which I was no more than a fancy invisible gas.

When February came by, I couldn’t stop thinking about my good old solid body. Although passing through walls became pretty fun once I mastered it, I really wanted to find a way to go back to normal, as much as a human guy in Equestria would be normal; and as much as I could be normal.

Date: 6th of February, First Year of the Game. Location: Still Ponyville.

That day, I decided to venture further into Equestria, to find out how I could fix my intangibility problem. No more Ponyville, I saw enough of it.

I climbed aboard the first train going to Canterlot, and didn’t look back.