A Journey Into The Unknown
CROWPEAK HALL
A Journey Into The Unknown
PONYVILLE HOSPITAL/DEATH CERTIFICATE
NAME: [Name retracted]
ADRESS: 15 Crowpeak Hall, Ponyville 25746
DELIVERED TREATMENT: None
DATE OF DEATH: October 24
CAUSE OF DEATH: Old age
IDENTIFIED BY: [Name retracted]
RELATIVES: None
NEXT OF KIN: None
BODY TO BE RETURNED TO: City of Canterlot
What you are about to read is not a work of fiction. It has been put together by the author through scraps and pages from diaries and journals, as well as medical documents and interviews with ponies related to the subject. Some parts have been edited for dramatic effect. Some names have been changed on request. The author wishes to remain anonymous.
In these pages, you will find a complete recount of what is now known to the public as the Crowpeak Incident, as told through the journals of the last known owner of the manor. This is not meant to cause any potential harm on the families involved in the manor’s and it’s owner’s history. It is a study of the unknown, and an attempt to understand the events leading up to today.
What really happened in Crowpeak Hall? What happened to the ponies living in it, and what caused them to meet such untimely fates? These are a few of the questions we hope to answer through this publication.
Could it be the mansion’s gloomy history that made itself known yet again? Did the remote location affect the minds of the ponies within it? Different instances of the state known as “cabin fever”? Or was it the work of something far more nefarious by nature?
Something supernatural?
Ponyville Gazette, October 25
A mare was found unconscious in her home yesterday night. Ambulance and police arrived at the location shortly after the discovery, which was done by a nearby neighbour. Upon arriving, paramedics declared the mare dead at 01:25, estimating the time of death about an hour prior. Ponyville police remains reluctant to releasing any details about the case.
More on page 15
Built three hundred years ago by lord Charles Crowpeak, the manor has seen its share of bloodshed and tragedy over the years. Documents tell of a maid who committed suicide while in the service of the lord by throwing herself of the highest balcony of the residence, some four floors above ground. The body of a new-born foal was found next to her in the morning, and despite many claims that it was the illegitimate child of Charles Crowpeak himself, it has never been proven.
Lord Charles himself passed away quietly in his sleep at the age of seventy-six. He was mourned deeply by his wife, who later took her own life in their bedroom. The couple didn’t have any foals, and as a result, the mansion was put out for sale shortly thereafter. It would take twenty years before the once proud building had ponies within its walls again.
Yet since the death of the Crowpeak couple, the mansion fell into a deeper state of decay each passing year, and nopony lived in it for any longer periods of time. Said to be haunted by the ghosts of the many ponies that called it home, it stood empty deep in the woods at the outskirts of Ponyville for years, dark and silent as nature took control of it.
StateRise with DJ PON-3, interview with M. Colt of Ponyville Hospital, October 30
P3: Good morning everypony! It’s six-thirty and you’re listening to StateRise with your usual host, Vinyl Scratch. You know, in case you had no idea why there’s somepony talking through that radio of yours, in which case you should probably see a doctor. Lucky for you, I have one in the studio with me this morning – Doctor Colt, thanks for coming.
DC: Not a problem Vinyl – can I call you Vinyl?
P3: Sure you can, Colt. So, you’re here today to talk about the incident last week, right?
DC: The whole business up at Crowpeak Hall, yes. Quite the scene, I’ll say.
P3: I’m sure it was, doc, and for the ponies out there that hasn’t heard about it, could you give a rough idea of what happened?
DC: Well, I was called down to the pathologist - who’s a very good friend of mine, I might add – to take a look at a body that had just arrived. Said it was something I had to look at, and it sounded pretty urgent. So I quickly rushed down there, and I’m greeted by not one but five of my colleagues, and they’re all running around like headless chickens, doing tests, going through blood samples and all that usual stuff. Anyway, I’m taken to the side by my friend who tells me that something isn’t right about the deceased pony.
P3: This deceased pony being the one they found in the manor?
DC: Yes, that’s right. I went to examine the patient, and let me tell you; there really was something about her that was all kinds of wrong. You see, when a pony gets old, their body withers away, of course. This we all know, and this patient had all the signs of someone that had passed due to old age. Her organs showed signs of decease and the body itself was wrinkled, grey mane etcetera. All the things you’d expect to find in a senior pony, really.
P3: That doesn’t sound strange to me, doc. She must’ve passed in her sleep or something.
DC: So you might think, but here’s the odd part; when we looked up her files, we found that she was no more than thirty-three! Yet her entire body looked like it had aged fifty years beyond that, at least.
P3: Maybe somepony misread the files? Thought they saw threes instead of eights or something?
DC: I read them myself several times, and they were all correct and unaltered. Her files said that she came from Canterlot originally, so I looked through some papers and found her old doctor, a Miss Emerald, if I’m not mistaken. She assured me that the patient was at full health the last time she saw her, just a few months ago. She had no problems with staying healthy, and Miss Emerald even said that she looked younger than thirty-tree! So this was a young, healthy mare, recently moved from Manehattan, in her thirties, now deceased from old age.
P3: But that’s not possible, doc. You can’t just become fifty years older in just a few weeks.
DC: No, you can’t. Unfortunately, the body was incinerated before we could conduct further research into it, so I guess we’ll never know.
P3: Oh, that’s a shame. And it’s a shame too that we are out of time. So thank you for coming here, doctor Colt, and thank you for telling us your story. I’m sure it’ll spark the minds of all you conspiracy-nuts out there. ‘The truth is out there’, as they say.
Then, almost two hundred years after it was built, it suddenly buzzed with life. Old documents had been found in the county archives, detailing the riches of lord Crowpeak, said to be hidden within the mansion grounds. Ponies seeking wealth flocked to the building, digging the soil that once held roses, tulips and geraniums. They tore down walls in search of hidden rooms, burned the ancient furniture to make room for tents and sleeping bags.
Naturally, with all this greed it didn’t take long until accident hit. The first documented death tells of a stallion that died after being hit in the head by a falling sculpture, but it didn’t take long for more sinister behaviour to fill the halls of the manor. Murder became a norm, but soon the deaths couldn’t be explained through simple foul play.
Here follows a draft from a journal found by one of the victims of this strange house;
February 14, day 65
“I’m getting the hell out of here before it’s too late. I can’t stand it anymore, these damned walls and the eyes everywhere, always watching ever step I take. I’ve already got my things packed, and at the break of dawn I’m out of here, no matter what the others say. This place is cursed, I can feel it. Just the other day they found Boulder dead in the library, frozen stiff with a face of pure terror, as if he’d been scared to death. Some ponies say they’ve seen something floating outside the windows, said they’ve been hearing whispers in the dead of night.
Even now as I’m writing this, I can feel the fur on my body stand on end. And I’m sure I saw something move in the shadows outside of my lantern. And something else, why do I keep hearing children crying? Nopony here has brought their foals with them.
This place is just fucked. I have to leave. I can’t take this crap anymore.”
The pony that wrote this was found in the morning, clutching his lantern close. His eyes seemed to have been fixed on a spot next to the open fireplace, which long since lay cold and dark. His teeth had somehow shattered, and it was speculated that he clamped them shut so hard they broke. The lantern he held had singed his fur and burnt into his flesh, which is was caused his friends to find him.
He was already as cold as stone when they checked after a pulse. Clearly, something wasn’t right with the mansion, and the ponies that came there looking for riches and gold quickly left, leaving behing only a dozen or so of the stallions and mares that didn’t fear any force, malevolent or not.
None of them was ever found.
Once again, Crowpeak Hall stood empty, until an up-and-coming young mare from Canterlot bought the deeds to the land. Her name has been left out of this publication to avoid any possible complications with her remaining family. She spent a lot of money on a crew of around one hundred workers, and six months later they had restored the manor to its former glory. Things had begun to look up for Crowpeak, and the residents of Ponyville hoped that this new mare would stay in the house for many years. When we asked around town about her, we got nothing but positive comments, and it was clear that she was very much liked by the townsponies.
Merely two months after moving in, the mare was found dead in her new home at the age of thirty-three. From her personal documents, family members found that she wanted to be buried in the garden of her beloved new home, and she now rests in the soil behind the manor, overlooking the old statues of prancing stallions and merponies blowing water into the fountain located in the middle of the garden.
After a long wait, we were granted access to her personal documents and files. Nothing really stood out to us, until we came upon some writing in what looked to be a diary she’d just started. One part seemed off to our team, and we decided on adding it to this publication. You’ll find it right below here. What does it all mean? We can’t be sure, and to this day, this remains subject so speculation.
Saturday,
Everywhere I look, I see it. I can’t get away from me; it follows me around the house all day, and stands by my bed at night. When I close my eyes it is all I see, and it appears in my dreams. It’s driving me insane with its constant dripping, and no matter how much time passes, it never runs out. Dear Celestia, make it go away, make it stop!
The sand is everywhere.
In Japonese culture we can find the yūrei, the soul of a pony that failed to pass on to the afterlife due to certain hinders, usually strong emotions such as hatred or sorrow. These specters in white will haunt their place of death until their purpose has been fulfilled, but sometime they will stay after that as well, inflicting fear and misery on any pony nearby.
Within Scandineighvian folklore we have the Draugr. They are said to be the restless spirits of drowned sea stallions, arisen from their watery tombs to seek vengeance upon the living by dragging them off into the sea to drown. Some ponies claimed to have met one of these rotting ghouls, and they all say the same about them; hideous zombie-like creatures with eyes burning as bright as embers.
The one thing these ghosts, as well as countless others across the globe, have in common is the burning desire for revenge, often violent. They seek to destroy the living, one could say, and will never pass over or rest, damned to walk the earth for all eternity.
What does this have to do with Crowpeak Hall?
While there are angered spirits, there exists something far more terrifying, whose only wish is to see all of ponykind burn. In Equestria we call them demons. Vile beings consisting of nothing but hatred and anger. They often entice ponies into their claws with promises of riches, love or whatever somepony may want for. These creatures have no remorse, no sympathy, are unable to feel joy or love; all they know is hate, and the desire to damn our souls into oblivion.
Lurking deep within the walls of Crowpeak Hall, hidden from plain sight in the very corner of existence, we found something. Something insidious, something nefarious, something nameless.
Something much worse than mere demons.
