It was the pattering of rain which finally awoke her from darkness.
Her ears twitch, beginning to pay heed to the sound of a casual downpour of rain bouncing off wood and sand, a hypnotic noise which maintained her state torpor. For a moment the drumming was all she heard, a gentle patter providing the soothing melody of nature, which threatened to lull her into sleep and dreaming once more.
Then a steady rumble finally caused her to force open her eyes… it was the rumble of thunder, of nebulous clouds, rich with rain and charged with potency. Suddenly the world became fuller, more diverse and richer in sounds and motions. She could hear more than just rain… waves… the lapping waves of the ocean which rolled and rumbled as they hit the sand, sending an almost unnoticeable tremor through the ground around her. The buffeting of turbulent winds, whipping through openings and causing the sand to gently hiss as it spread in from the ocean, the whisper of tattered cloth upon its breath.
Slowly and hesitantly she opened her eyes, squinting in the remaining daylight of a darkened morning, rich with untended storm clouds and thick with moisture. Her mind was still groggy, dulled and muddled from her sudden wakefulness, and she observed the world around her in a dazed, almost unconcerned way.
Suddenly a sharp touch ruffled the fur on her face, the icy caress of the air, rich sea air with all the smells that the ocean brought with it, of salt, of life… of death. This sharp sensory data brought order to her cognition of the world and she finally began to bring order and reason to why she was here…
But where there should have been memories… there was only darkness… A horrifying black spot where those things, ought to, no, needed to be! She bolted up on her hooves, stumbling from her quick assent and almost toppling over at a sudden rush of dizziness. She reached out a forehoof and steadied herself against something solid, strong, but also wet and soft.
Wood.
As she became aware of more and more of her surroundings, she realised was nestled in the shadows of the bow of a huge wrecked ship. It was an ocean going vessel of a very ancient design, a sleeping titan, ploughed up from the bottom of the deep ocean and thrown like a rotten carcass onto the beach… crippled without its aft, where only rotten fragmented wood remained, dulled and blunted by destructive forces of nature. Attached to those blunted splinters of wood hung old tarp, torn and ragged, which flailed and warped impotently in the growing breeze.
The lack of memories and the sudden awakening to a place she did not know frightened the mare… a million questions rampaged through her mind, all clamouring, roaring and demanding answers which she could not give. She whipped her head from side to side, her eyes bulging as she looked about intensely for anything which might bring those memories back, taking in the unknown landscape of an unfamiliar world as the wind whipped her mane and stung her muzzle with its bitter touch.
Where am I?
Who am I?
How did I get here?
Nothing answered these questions, no memory comforted her fears, no friend brought her security, nor did any object suddenly bring awareness to her situation. Above her the sky rumbled again, and suddenly a strike of lightning coursed through the sky and lit up the shade of the great ruined vessel she was in.
In that flash the ground lit up for a moment and she gasped at what she saw.
Symbols…
Thousands upon thousands of symbols.
They circled with ominous intent around her, painted and carved with great care, although expressing the crudeness of the primordial patterns of unknown origin… their purpose and nature as unfathomable and as esoteric as the storm which rumbled and roared above her.
They unnerved her. There was something malign about them, a wrongness which was but unexplainable and repulsive.
She did not want to be in this circle… there was something very horrible about it. Memories did not supply reason or logic for this deep set revulsion, but she knew that she must leave.
Now.
Stumbling chaotically forward on unsteady hooves, she made her way through the rings of malign stones, forging her way quickly into the light of day whilst panting in short, frenzied, panicked gasps. She did not understand why those rings of engraved stones had caused such fears to rise, but she knew deep within herself that this knowledge was both terrible and dangerous.
Blinking in the increased light she finally gained a better understanding of where she was, only hindered slightly by the downpour of rain.
She was standing on the shore of a great windswept beach, stretching for what must have been several miles in each direction, only halted by soaring, brooding, cloud haunted mountains on each side. Their towering presence surrounded the land on all sides, closing her in, all but behind her where the sea thundered, growing wilder with the coming of the storm.
Up ahead stood a quaint old fishing town—or village—she couldn’t really tell. The ground grew steeper up from the beach, coated in course, thick sea grass and the occasional sickly tree which obstructed her in getting a clear view of it, hiding it from sight. Higher than the village stood a tower of sorts; the mare had to squint to make it out, but she finally decided that it must have been some form or ruined lighthouse, the lamp long since destroyed, leaving only a tattered scorched spire of broken masonry.
A path gently twisted like a cobblestone sea serpent down the beach, breaking off in a tumble of rounded stones where the lime mortar had since been eroded by the weathering of time.
The deep set chill of her surroundings suddenly hit her as she had emerged from the protection of the maimed vessel, ruffling her fur and causing her to shiver slightly. The weather was steadily worsening, and the only logical course of action was to make her way to the village and seek accommodation. With this in mind, she made a hasty trot to the nearby road, climbing from the sand embankment and onto the smoothly worn stones of the path, with only a little difficulty from her shaky hooves. The stormy conditions buffeted her as she made her way across the way, and she hunched her neck into her shoulders, trying desperately to conserve warmth.
She glanced occasionally from side to side, hoping to spot something or someone which might supply shelter for the night, but there was nothing nearby, only the beach. As she looked however, she grew aware of several huge monolithic stones which surrounded the pathway, as if this route had once been part of an important Neolithic site. After passing a few, she noticed on some that they contained some sort of crude pictograms or bass reliefs upon their cyclopean forms. Despite the cold winds buffeting her, her natural curiosity over such things temporarily overwhelmed her prime focus of shelter.
Pausing for a moment, she inspected one of the closer specimens quickly, attempting to discern what exactly they were. They seemed to show ponies in various activities of daily life, cooking, fishing, building houses and making boats… but there was something more to them.
On the one where she had paused to look at, she clearly saw that part of the stone had been chipped away intentionally with pony tools. It took up part of the lower regions of the stone engravings and the shapes and pictures above it seemed to suggest that it was part of the sea, above it on artistic spiralling waves, stood a fishing vessel with ponies on it. The queerest thing about it seemed to be that the ponies seemed to be standing on their hind legs, with their forehooves raised high in the air in adulation as if expecting something to emerge from below.
The thought made her shiver, and a small part of her was glad that the bottom of the bass relief was erased. A greater part of her grumbled at the destruction of the picture, a keen sense of irritation at the destruction of knowledge which it might have given her, no matter how mysterious or esoteric. Still, she couldn’t stop for long, turning her head back towards the sea, she saw the storm rolling in, bringing with it a heavy mist which even from a distance was discernible as a great influx of rain.
Something seemed a little different in the sight of the beach, and she struggled to figure out what it was.
Then she noticed it.
Where she had been previously at the hull of the wrecked vessel, there stood a dark, shapeless figure.
Her eyes bulged, a jolt of fright coursing through her system, but suddenly sands whipped up from the beach distorted her vision, forcing her to blink repeatedly and rub them with her hooves.
When the dust had passed, the figure was gone.
Had she simply imagined it? It didn’t seem likely, but how else could it have disappeared so quickly?
Feelings of confusion and not a small portion of fear filled her mind with all sorts of fanciful ideas. There was something deeply unsettling about that figure…. It shouldn’t have been there… it couldn’t have been there…The beach had been barren only minutes before!
“What is going on here…?”
The mare jumped at her voice, surprised by the first words she had decided to speak. Her voice was smooth, nice on the ears and somewhat… sophisticated. With the realisation of her ability of speech, she decided to begin to hum different tones, both high and low, exploring the new medium available to her. She continued humming as she climbed back onto the path, forcing her way through the rough grasses to its stony assuredness. The thoughts about the figure still clouded her mind, and she frowned.
Perhaps she had merely hallucinated that thing?
Was she simply imagining things? She could guess the shock of waking up in such a place with no memories might cause some temporary distortions of vision? Fear causing her to confuse shapes far away from her as real living beings?
But…
What if the thing did exist? What then? What was it doing standing out there where she had just been…?
Why had it been staring at her?
A chill not caused by any sea wind ran through her bones; perhaps it was better to put it out of mind. She started to trot faster on the road, now more and more concerned about making her way to the only apparent form of civilisation in the nearby vicinity.
“I hope they have someplace warm I can stay… I really don’t want to be out in this weather, it’s getting worse…” She muttered to herself randomly, her voice the only real clarified means of assurance that this wasn’t some horribly strange dream cooked up in the depths of her subconscious.
The rain began to pelt down harder than before, and the mare hunched her shoulders in response, her teeth beginning to chatter. Up ahead the rolling grassland gave way to easier terrain, and finally the full view of what she now knew to be a town was in plain sight.
A huddle of what were perhaps a hundred of so wooden cottages stood outlined in the dim light, the occasional flash of lightning brightening them momentarily. The rain suddenly picked up in its ferocity, increasing in a torrential deluge. With no other plan in mind, the mare decided to hurtle herself towards the nearest of the cottages, being blasted forcefully by the freezing downpour.
A sudden close lightning strike blasted the ground beside her and she reared and whinnied in fear and charging with total abandon, she finally reached the cottage and positively slammed her hooves on the door.
There was no answer.
“Hey! Is anyone here? Please let me in, I need shelter from the storm!” she pleaded, bashing the wooden door with increased desperation.
“Hello!?”
“Hello!?”
“Please! Can I come in?”
Nothing.
With no other options on hoof, she tried the latch.
Surprisingly the door opened, and the mare tumbled through, almost bowling over in her attempt to get away from the storm. Around her paper and dust flew into the air until she slammed the door closed with all her strength and bolted it from within.
With the storm muted to howling outside, she finally got a better look at the place she had entered.
By all accounts it was a relatively normal looking fisherponies cottage. A mixture of wooden and metal cooking implements lined the walls, a large pile of heavy netting lay in the corner and a central hearth took up most of the middle of the one room building. Woodcut table and chairs stood sparsely about the place on each side of the building, holding various knives, cutlery and even the occasional oily scrap of cloth. On front wall there was a large homespun tapestry of sorts depicting fishing life, and to the right there laid a well worn sleeping hammock, which suggested the last occupant had been accustomed to sleeping on a ship.
Overall however, the place was filled the appearance of a long period of time without occupation. Dust and ash hung heavy in the air and upon all the furniture of the building, only blasted away by the sudden turbulence of the storm near the door. Obviously this place had been abandoned for some considerable time. The only thing which looked out of place was the large pile of very ancient books with bits of paper and lists sticking out the sides. Curious, she quickly shook her wet fur to get rid of the worst of the damp, and trotted towards them.
As she did so, she noticed a fresh sheet of paper which had been laid out just next to the books.
It was a letter.
A casual glance revealed a beautiful script of calligraphy, refined and flourishing, yet there appeared to be a tense edge to it. It was as if the writer had been writing it under considerable duress, a slight tremor here and there sullied the almost perfect work, as if some deep fear had come to express itself manipulatively from the writer’s subconscious…. The writing…. It seemed… familiar to her.
The mare paused at the paper, staring down at it in curiosity, she began to read.
To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle…
Sparkle!
Twilight Sparkle! That seemed familiar… Could it be? Could it be… her name?
“Twi -Light…. Spar-Kle,” she laughed, it sounded nice, familiar… maybe it was her name! It seemed so familiar to her, something that she had heard every day.
Something stirred within her subconscious memory… Yes… It must have been her name!
“Twilight Sparkle.” She nodded decisively, sure of it now, and broke out into a wide smile.
She said it a few more times, stressing different parts of the word in order to familiarise herself once again with it. Growing satisfied with what seemed to be the correct pronunciation of the name, she turned her attention back to the letter.
“February 4th, the Nine hundredth and ninety ninth year of My Reign.
To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.
I am so glad to hear back from you in your investigations in the North of Equestria, alive and well, but I am also saddened by the news that you brought me recently.
The Seabreeze and its crew seemed like a fine vessel and I am aggrieved to hear of its loss to the ocean storms shortly before its arrival in Waveport. Still, the one dearest to me is safe and my pain is eased by the joy of your escape from the clutches of the ocean.
I will send proper compensation to the widows of the crewmembers- although I doubt it will ease the pain in their hearts- and send out a search party in case of other survivors, although the chances do seem slim. In any case we shall honour them in the hall of the valiant for their duties in the defence of Equestria when you return with the thing which we both seek. I will also resolve to reward Waveport for their compassionate assistance of my beloved student and for rescuing her from the ocean; may the ponies there benefit from our mutual success.
I must apologise again my dear student for hiding that book from you for so long, perhaps I knew you would find it eventually. Perhaps I had wished myself into a state of willful ignorance… I know you have forgiven me but I cannot let it out of my mind. I have searched the better part of a thousand years for the right collection of ponies, or a form of magic, or even someone powerful enough to face The Darkness That Is Coming. It has all come to naught, and so in desperation I have fallen upon our final plan…
May heaven forgive us for we are about to do.
We both agreed this was the only thing which we had the option putting into motion now, and with the consultation of my inner council of mages, it is the only possible way we can stave off the Nightmare which is to come, without the right ponies embodying the Elements of Harmony.
I know you agreed to follow through with it Twilight, I saw the determination in your eyes when you boarded the ship. You would do anything to save my kingdom from the Darkness, but I want you to know I do not blame you if your resolve has faltered. What I have asked from you is… an abomination to all that I have worked for, but I believe sacrifices must be made in the face of the coming Nightmare.
The means and methods should be available in the books that I have given you, but what we are dealing with is a fickle thing, mysterious and esoteric as the sea itself. I would know. I ensured it would remain that way. The town of Waveport is probably the last place were the old ways still hold true, they also have the knowledge necessary for this in more pristine condition than I, or any book or specialist in Canterlot.
It is also “Its” place here and holds the best conditions for reaching it.
I must stress this Twilight, if you are not ready to follow through with this to the exact specifications, then the results will be catastrophic. You must be absolutely certain about this before you begin, I have faith that you will not fail me, but now I fear for all of us… I cannot help it.
You have my blessing Twilight, and my trust.
Please do not fail us.
Your loving teacher, Princess Celestia.”
Princess Celestia! She knew that name well. She was the ruler of… Equestria! Yes. That was right, Princess Celestia, divine ruler of Equestria… her teacher.
Twilight paused, chewing her lip upon the new revelations opened by this letter.
Why had the Princess sent her here? What was The Darkness That Is Coming? What was “It” or the Elements of Harmony? What had happened here?
What had happened to her?
She looked up from the page and stared out of the window just above it; the panels were splattered with obscuring rain which made the images distort and almost melt before her eyes.
Something she saw sent a chill down her haunches and for her eyes to bulge…
Something which shouldn’t have been there…
She saw black figures on the beach.
Twilight frowned at the book she was reading.
Or at least, was attempting to read.
None of the script really made any sense to her, despite being written in Equestrian characters. It most assuredly wasn’t that she was illiterate, that much she had been certain of when Equestrian came both naturally and legibly to her in Celestia’s letter, but still these texts had managed to baffle her. Perhaps her past self had understood this mysterious code, but the comprehension of such a written language must not have been deeply ingrained into her consciousness to be retained after her apparent amnesia.
It did not seem that this was any naturally formed language; here and there she caught fragments of Old and New Equestrian, and occasionally smatterings of another language she seemed somewhat familiar with, connected vaguely with worlds of oriental myth. Her mind cooked up fantasies of secret faiths or consortiums of mages, who in the dark and chaotic past had used such coded tomes as their source of power. Still no daydreaming about mystery cults would ever change illegibility of the primary body of the book, and much to her chagrin she was reliant on images to understand even the basic elements.
From what she was able to discern from the diagrams, they seemed to be related to the creation and function of several mysterious machines of varying levels of complexity in design. These machines seemed somewhat associated with the practice and amplification of a very old and nebulous form of magic, unlike that of which was known to come naturally to all ponies. The central machine seemed to be a large device roughly the size of a fully grown stallion, boasting a large tubal construct over a series of levers, gauges, dials and nodes, each of which was connected with a vast maze of wiring which extended to a series of orbs nestled above the device.
Each orb contained a symbol, and Twilight recognised at least some of them from the ring of stones down upon the beach. This device seemed related to the concentration of magical energies, but what purpose such energies were utilised for, she did not know. This only created more questions than answers, what mysterious activities had her past self been involved in? What magic had she unleashed with these otherworldly machines?
Twilight harrumphed, this clearly was leading nowhere in her comprehension of what had occurred to her. Rising from her cosy position by the hearth which she had lit earlier, she deposited the books back on the table where she had found them, the candles she had set up flickering as she passed.
With the arrival of the howling storm, which had battered at her door like an enraged animal, there had been little to do but read. The rain had also obscured her vision through the window panes, and when the storm abated, the figures had vanished again, this time devoured by a fast moving sea fog brought in by the tempest.
She still wondered if they really existed at all.
The things never seemed to move when she looked at them, or perhaps they were too far away for her to distinguish movement. Whenever she saw them she was filled with a dread that had no logical basis… what connection did her past self have with them? If indeed they were an element of her past… or something else.
What forces had she tampered with?
That was the burning question.
From what she had seen there had been no other life in the village with her, she had seen no movement outside all day, and certainly nobody about to wonder why there where lit candles in an abandoned house. None of the houses seemed to have fallen into decay however, so the abandonment must have happened relatively recently.
Craning her neck, she peered out of one of the small windows for what had seemed the thousandth time. The thick fog brought by the storm had come inland and over the beach and onto the rising, and with it was brought the lingering smell of salt which permeated the air. Peering through, she could barely make out six feet in front of her; the rest was an amorphous mass of moisture and darkness.
With nothing keeping her, she turned back, heading back towards her warm seat by the fireplace, but as turned back she heard something scrape underhoof.
She looked down.
A piece of paper lay crumpled on the floor, attached to her hoof.
It must have fallen when she had been searching through the pile earlier. The edges were splattered with ink, and the left side torn, as if it had once been part of a journal and had been violently ripped from its place.
Her horn lit up as she floated the piece up to her face and smoothed it out before her. The characters were written in capitals, as if to express the importance of the message. There was no sign of it being written by hoof; instead the sterile design of a typewriters font was imprinted on the page, with its suggestions of cold, emotionless, mechanized order.
“10/4/999
“THE FIRST CRUCIBLE HAS BEEN COMPLETED.
THE EXPERIMENTS MAY COMMENCE.
FOR THE GREATER GOOD.”
A cold shiver ran down her spine after reading the last line…
“What in Equestria is this Crucible? Is it one of the machines in the books? It can’t refer to metal production… Questions upon questions, I just want some answers!” Twilight snorted, stamping her hoof on the ground in frustration. Slowly she closed her eyes and counted to ten, attempting to repress the frustration and confusion which clouded her mind.
She breathed in once, and let the air come out slowly. Opening her eyes, she decided to return to warmth of the hearth, flipping open a book and searching for more images regarding her previous self’s activities.
There must be something in here.
There had to be.
Twilights eyes flickered open groggily and she let out a half hearted groan of complaint.
I must have fallen asleep going through those damned books.
In a blurry haze she saw that all the candles had melted to stubs, their glow long since ceased by a lack of fuel. Nearby, the warm glow of the hearth expressed itself weakly with a few dark red glowing embers remaining, the only light in the house now. The rest was shrouded in darkness, hidden from sight.
She lay there, slowly blinking in what must have looked like a state of semi-catatonia for what felt like hours. She did not really feel the need to move, and purely expected that this drowsy awakening would simply crumble before the desire of sleep. But in the meantime she continued to languidly look around, blinking slowly, uncomprehendingly, until almost dropping off again, her vision blurred by the kiss of slumber.
A cold chill suddenly rushed across her haunches, and she half wondered if there a draft in the walls of the house.
Twilight shivered a little, now she had an objective, to put more fuel on the fire.
She tried to rise from her position, but…
But she couldn’t move!
Her limbs were refusing to respond.
Suddenly Twilight became consciously aware of her condition.
Sleep paralysis!
A mixture of utter horror and overwhelming adrenaline fuelled terror suddenly rushed through her system.
She tried again.
Her limbs again refused to move.
She couldn’t even move her neck.
Now she became aware of the complete abnormality of her situation, something was off about the house, something distinctively unnatural.
Then she realised that the only sound she could hear was her own frenzied breathing.
The world around her had been muted; no sounds of the sea, no howling of the storm, not even the creak of old timbers disrupted the eternal silence.
It was as quiet as death.
She kept pushing, demanding her limbs to respond, a clammy sweat beginning to cover her coat and making her shiver even more violently in the suddenly freezing conditions of the house. But no matter how her eyes pleaded with her forehooves, they utterly refused to budge.
By this point in time Twilight could barely stand it, her mind was screaming from within, demanding a response, any sort of response from her body.
But even her lips refused to respond.
I can’t even scream for help…
She was trapped in her own body, howling into her own mind, and no one and nothing could help her now.
Celestia, please… let me move… I want to move, please! Please! I have to move, let me move! Why can’t I move! Oh goddess above!
A creaking from in front of her suddenly caught her attention, and her eyes darted into the dark, searching for its cause.
The door.
The lock… the bolt lock was moving.
No…
But that couldn’t be! That shouldn’t be!
She had locked it from the inside; nothing could reach through and push it open…. Yet it was moving!
Her heart thundered in her chest and she desperately tried to move again. No response. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she turned her eyes once more to the door, as the bolt lock slowly but surely, with an agonising screech of metal, unlocked itself.
No, no, no, no, no…
The only thought that was running through her head now was to run, run as fast as she could away and hide in the darkest most hidden corner of the universe, cower in the shadows and hope that what was coming would not find her. Tears rolled down her eyes as she panicked, blurring her vision, and warping the world into a chilling dreamscape.
The bolt suddenly reached its furthest point of recess and let out a dull, ominous, clink.
No!
The door did not open suddenly as expected; no force of the storm pushed it forward, as by all rights it should. Instead, it lay silent for a moment, a moment that might have been centuries or seconds to Twilight.
Eventually however, with a horrifying, agonising creak, the door slowly, painstakingly, opened.
No… please… no…
Twilight was breathing erratically, hyperventilating as she stared unblinkingly at the nightmare that was unfolding before her, the only sound being that of the door, and her own irregular rasping breath.
Make it stop! Make it stop!
But it would never stop, it could not stop, the door swung open and her heart skipped a beat at the vision shown in the dull light of the dying fire.
A dark figure stood in the doorway.
Twilight froze.
She wanted to close her eyes, she wanted to move, she wanted to escape… but the figure had turned her into a statue. In the recesses of her mind she could hear a voice screaming at her to move, to run and hide… to escape from this…
But that voice was nothing but a dying whisper now.
As she stared uncontrollably she saw something black spread out from the doorway, a liquid like ichorous tar which rolled unstoppably over the floor in an even circle, devouring everything in its path.
It spread towards her, halted only by the slight decline of the hearth, and flooded into the burning embers… and slowly, horribly, the last light of the house died in its filth.
Lights out.
Goddess help me.
The black wave stopped before her, almost touching her eye as she lay there paralysed. Twilight doubted she could move now even if she wanted to, her tears coursing down face and forming a puddle on the smooth floorboards, mixing with the foul ichor before her.
Then it moved.
The black figure moved!
It strode towards her on grotesquely warped legs, but it was not the natural sounds of hoofsteps which echoed in this hellish place, but that of grinding gears, of twisting, tearing metal, the lapping of waves and the wet slap of dead meat… and a dull murmur which froze her blood into burning ice. The only distinct feature she could make out with her blurred vision was a white, expressionless head… with dark holes where eyes should be.
It glided towards her, the agonising screech rending her ears and causing her to scream internally. Despite its mangled limbs, it almost… levitated towards her, like a graceful dancer, a twisted mockery of ponykind which had been mimicked by an abominable beast of the pit… and always… the horrible murmuring of those illegible words!
Twilight simply stared as it drew closer and closer to her. Her mind went blank, the world of the present arising nightmare consuming her higher consciousness.
She wanted to scream.
It stopped, motionless over the dead fireplace and turned its head… or whatever that thing was… to stare at her. She could not see it clearly, but she could not stop looking back at that dark featureless face, which even in her blurred vision looked unnaturally mutilated and twisted. A foul reek spread from it, a pustulant stench of rot filling her lungs and choking her, the reek of necrotic corpses and sun baked carcasses causing her gag and almost vomit at its very presence.
Her mind was assaulted with a daze of confusion and nausea; it was as if the thing was…
No…
No, it couldn’t… It was reaching into her mind… She could feel it in her mind! Oh Goddess no!
No!
The abomination reached out a hideous limb towards her, and finally her terror focused on a singular motive.
RUN.
The world blurred as her primal senses kicked into play. She vaguely felt the touch of the doorway as she careened into it, and splinters digging into her skin and making it feel like it had burst into flames. She felt the cold moist rush of air as she charged into the night, uncaring of wherever she went, so long as she could escape that… abomination!
But it was following her, she could hear its dark whispering even now as she fled, it was in every shadow, every building, every pool of water, it followed her everywhere! Everything seemed to hide it, every way she went she was followed by it, it chased her eternally.
Never stopping.
Never changing.
Inescapable.
Was there only one? Or one thousand of them? She could no longer tell, they all blended into one another in a surreal nightmarish existence.
She was so confused; the treacherous mist clouded her senses and hid them everywhere!
She could not escape!
No, no, no, no, no, no, NO, NO!
She ran and ran, but the demons continued on their unstoppable march towards her, closing in for the kill.
She could hear them inside her head!
No, no, no, no!
She must have reached a town square of sorts, for she felt the touch of orderly cobblestones, and in her limited vision she was aware they extended in all directions.
She flung her head around, eyes wide and searching for those gibbering horrors of the dark, those beasts of white faced horror.
Nothing.
The square was empty of all other life; the only things that existed was her, the dark, and the mist of the sea storm.
She almost sighed with relief; blessing her good luck.
She had escaped.
But as she trotted forwards her nose caught on to a smell… A smell which was not the salt of sea air…
Slowly…
Torturously…
She turned and looked behind her.
There were black figures in the mist.
They were all around her.
Hundreds of them.
They looked at her silently for a moment, a long torturous moment which stretched on for eternity… then she heard it… the murmur of those terrible voices, those unnatural, horrible voices which tore at her very soul.
She turned back around to run, to escape into the mist and flee these… these nightmares!
Only to fall into the hooves of one that had moved just behind her.
With her eyes wide and clear, there could be no mistake about their faces, she saw them with the clarity of which no dream could convey, a mangled face of terrors which would make even a celestial guard go mad.
Its slack, twisted jaw opened wide and uttered a horrifying word, a word which she had heard since the beginning of this nightmare, a word which she could not escape and could never understand.
“InN-SæVaRgAnGr…”
It reached out which its maimed limbs, consuming her in its tattered mantle of black flesh and decay and Twilights lips opened and uttered a last, despairing scream.
She blinked.
The figures were gone.
It was daylight.
The world was still consumed by noise but she realised that it was only her own hollow cracked screaming, not the murmur of those things… those beings which should not exist.
Before she could stop, her breath finally petered out, a hollow almost noiseless gasp issuing from her as she sucked in the fresh air, not tainted with the foul smell of those horrible entities.
Were they real? Was it all just a horrible night fantasy? A waking dream which had, inspired by her moment of sleep paralysis, launched her into the night in a flurry of desperate screaming?
There was no sign of them… The land around her was empty, the bright light of the blessed sun showing it barren of any evidence of those aberrations ever existing… Was she going mad? What were those things? Memories? Visions? Dreams?
Twilight shivered in the wind; despite the warmth of the breeze, she felt as cold as ice.
What if they were real?
She shivered… No… She couldn’t admit that… Nothing could form like that… The disjointed flesh, the torn and crippled body… No living thing could live, or form naturally like that! The only blessings those monstrosities had given her were the shadows which had engulfed them, but nothing could hide those soulless white faces…
Who were they?
What where they?
Why did they want her?
Why had they looked… bloated, their flesh worried away like a corpse washed in from the sea?
Where were their Celestia damned eyes!?
She must be going mad; this was not possible, this couldn’t be happening!
Yet it was!
Twilight must have stood there in the empty square for an hour, breathing through clenched teeth, her eyes twitching… and thinking in circles…
What was real and what was not? Was this the real world or was it merely an escape from the nightmares of reality? What dark god or demon would play with her like that? Which reality was the real one! What if she was simply insane, incarcerated into a mad house, her delusions and night terrors running wild as she thrashed, gibbered and frothed in a dank padded cell?
She almost broke down, the stress of her amnesia, an unknown location and now the horror of these visions overwhelming her. Hot tears coursed down her face and she blubbered incoherently, sniffing and sobbing into her hooves.
“I just want to go home!” she screamed into the wind, which stole her tears and flung them into the air.
But where was home? Equestria… But where was Equestria?
“Why can’t I go home?”
The wind did not reply… it only sighed.
She was lost in a strange world, the only clue being her apparent duty referenced in the letter… but she had lost that letter when she fled into the night, and she did not know where the house she had been was now. However, she couldn’t let it overwhelm her, she had to stay strong to escape this place, and there must be a way out.
Slowly but surely she began to pick herself back together, she had to get a hold of herself and get a fix on her priorities.
Twilight wiped the tears from her eyes, silently cursing herself for getting so weak. She was not going to let this place overcome her, no matter the cost!
“Damn this place to the foulest depths of Tartarus.” She muttered, rubbing her aching, puffy eyes so that she could finally see clearly. She felt something sticky matting the fur below her ears, she moved a hoof to rub it away, but as she brought it down to the ground again, she paused as she saw something smeared on it…
Dried blood.
She moved the other hoof to the other patch of stickiness on her head… it came away with the blackened dried mass too.
She had been bleeding from her ears.
“What on earth is going on?” she asked fearfully, staring at her blood encrusted hooves with a mixture of disgust and incredulity.
Twilight began to wipe more off, her actions becoming faster and faster until she was almost ripped parts of her fur off in the desperation to be free it. Cold utter abhorrence clouded her mind, shutting off all forms of rationality. She muttered under her breath, wiping the encrusted filth on the ground and off her hooves.
She finally got the last of the filth off her and began to calm down. Looking around, she realised that even in dream, her analysis of where she was had not been far off. She had been on part of the square earlier, but now was a small distance from it, still on a cobblestone path, leading up to an immensely decorative black iron fence surrounding the largest building she had seen yet in Waveport.
It was a mansion, and had been built perhaps a couple of years previously judging by the fresh stonework, but it had not seen the best treatment since. From outside, it looked like the entire building had been gutted, windows were smashed or cracked, ornaments overturned and broken and the main doors hanging off their hinges, revealing a cavernous black maw of darkness within. Around it squatted leaning rotten trees, their blackened fruit giving further air of desolation to the place.
Twilight felt drawn to this building… She… recognised it. Yes, she had stayed here… She could sense it.
Moving cautiously, she continued up the cobblestone road, and pushed through two immense gold and black gates, which creaked rustily upon their hinges. She could see that the fence had also not been spared in the decay of this once grand manor house. Parts of the fence looked like they had been crudely sawn off or torn from their positions by considerable force. She wondered whether this had been the activity of the native folk of Waveport after the last master or mistress of the house had perished, but she could not be sure.
Before her, a broken stone stairway led up to the unhinged and splintered doors which hung uselessly before her, beckoning slowly in the breeze, to draw her in. Upon two great pedestals sat two proud lions, although these, upon inspection must have been considerably older than the building itself.
They must have been moved here… Their condition was that of considerable decay, the stone warped by the age of centuries, their faces so contorted that it almost looked like the lions were weeping.
Twilight slowly, cautiously, walked up the steps, occasionally glancing around in fear whenever she heard a sudden noise.
She did not want to see those figures again.
She was so caught up in looking everywhere else but ahead that she almost tripped over an object right in front of her. Righting herself again, she looked down at what had almost caused her to fall.
It looked like a small, elaborately engraved, square music box.
Curious, she levitated the box before her. She could not see a key anywhere for winding it up, but there was a hole in the side.
With no other choice, and with the prospects of entering the jaws of the mansion looming before her, she attempted to turn the internal portion of the device by the rudimentary use of her magic.
Almost immediately she felt something go wrong, something twisted and unsprung inside, and a garbled noise issued forth. What surprised her however was that she could hear the muffled and distorted sound of voices coming from the small machine rather than music.
“…Testing rec… device… I have set up… analysis… Runic inscript… unknown origin….machines hold the ans…. required…. Lost in Seabreeze cargo…Work must commen…. time is running out… I must begin…. Celestia… Darkness… greater good…”
She could tell that despite the warped nature of the message that it was clearly in her voice, it was most assuredly her accent on the end of the receiver… but how long ago had that been? This machine, before it broke, must have been a recording device which she had used during her activities in Waveport.
How it had come to rest on the stonework before the doorway to the house was a mystery too her.
Had it been placed here?
Twilight looked back at the town behind her. The clouds had cleared somewhat and bright light was shining down and warming her fur with its gentle touch. If it had not been for that terrible vision, she might have felt uplifted by the fine weather, but clouds of questions and the midnight terrors still haunted her mind.
She saw no figures down upon beach for once, nor anywhere in the sun blessed town.
Around the square stood congeries of more wooden buildings, similar to the house she had occupied when the storm came. These, however, seemed to be mostly two story buildings, perhaps functioning as shops as well as residences for the lost ponies of Waveport.
With nothing else keeping her, she turned back to the yawning darkness of the mansion doorway. She steadied herself against the ever present fear and marched into the darkness.
Twilight had been right, the mansion had been gutted.
In the bright light of the doorway, she saw bits of ragged paper flutter over broken and decayed furniture, which lay disused on the filthy cracked and chipped chequered flooring. The air was filled earthy smell of damp and mould, and large brown and greenish stains tainted the roof of the entrance.
Two corridors branched out from either side of the anteroom, closed off by rusted padlocks upon two great warped double doors, which despite their lack of maintenance still looked relatively strong. Two unsteady mahogany stairwells led up to a balcony where a worn, but intricately carved doorway loomed slightly ajar. Stacks of books lay scattered over the floor, or in tottering piles like twisted trees, rotting and illegible due to the continuous work of persistent moisture.
The place felt eerie and unsettlingly quiet, and had the atmosphere of a mausoleum. There was something hideous about this desolate house, something that lingered on the tips of her memory and murmured the most horrible suggestions… She did not like it, it felt wrong and almost foul, but she knew no other means of finding out the activities of her past self. Steeling her resolve, she decided to continue her investigations.
With the two doors nearest locked and bolted, the only logical choice was to search the one above.
So slowly she made her way up the staircase, pausing occasionally as the great edifice creaked and groaned beneath her. Soon the intricate doorway came to stand before her, a cryptic carving covering the majority of the woodwork.
The design was a circle, much like the one down on the beach in the shadow of the ship carcass. She wondered if the previous master had been practitioner of the occult, and had invested himself in research into the local beliefs of the sailor ponies and their queer runic language before his death. Perhaps this is why it seemed so familiar; her past self might have been interested in such things in her own research and visited this place.
Cautiously she tilted her head around the door and peered into the shuttered darkness of the room. The wooden blinds had been drawn, and now appeared stuck together with thick grime, casting dull yellow light across the interior. Still, she could just about make out the exact nature of the shadowy interior, as her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lighting.
It was a study, or what was left of a study. The desolation which had devoured the front of the house had also dug its talons in here. Several collapsed shelves had caused mouldering books to fall in heaps of ruin, and some of the floorboards were either missing or upturned in giant sword-like splinters. Below her hooves a tattered silk carpet covered what remained of the flooring, a suggestion of lost grandeur in a world that was slowly losing to time. At the far end of the study, Twilight saw between two shuttered windows, a writing desk, which even from here looked considerably cleaner than its surroundings. Sensing the possibility of further clues, and with nowhere else to go, she decided to venture in.
Twilight worked her way through the papery debris and creaking woodwork, struggling over a landslide of books, dangerously loose floorboards, and the perpetual grime, she eventually made her way to the more stable far side of the room.
After some final struggles, she reached the writing desk, tripping over a pile of Griffonic mythology as she did so and almost smacking her chin upon the piece of furniture.
Once she had regained her footing she managed to get a clearer idea of what lay upon the writing desk.
The entirety of the desk was covered in plans and design sketches for vast, incomprehensible machines, which looked damningly familiar to the designs she had seen in the esoteric lore. Most of it seemed to be related to the function and arrangement of the devices, the required setup of various cogs, gears and levers, as well as gauges and what seemed to be devices for sensing magical output, as well as others components that were powered by primitive lightning engines.
It was all written in the runic text she had seen on the beach, and just now, upon the doorway leading into the room. It still inspired an unsettling feeling to crawl in the inner reaches of her stomach just by looking at it, despite it being nothing more than meaningless gibberish.
The only other item which was of any interest was a tattered journal. Who’s only distinguishing feature, was a single symbol in faded, cracked golden paint upon the front:
Twilight’s horn lit up, and she carefully opened the book, curious to know of its contents. The journal was a mess, coated with ink, splashes of water and other somewhat corrosive or discolouring liquids; it looked like it had been dipped in an alchemical vat. The pages near the beginning still appeared relatively undamaged and fresh, and the writing there was steady and sure of itself, but as the book progressed the writing became shakier, the text more disjointed and the stains and irregularities more frequent. Eventually, from what appeared to be either halfway or a third of the way through the journal, the context had been ripped from the binding, leaving a tattered mess in its wake. The occasional word remained where these pages had been, but it wasn’t anything that was particularly enlightening.
Flipping to the front of the book again, she opened the first entry of the journal, which managed to maintain some semblance of order in comparison to newer entries. Pausing for a moment, she mentally prepared herself for the appearance of new questions, and then dived into the text.
February the 10th, Year 999
“It has been a week since I first arrived in this place, a week since the storm, a week since the wrecking of the Seabreeze, a week since they all died and I was the only one to come out of it alive. I guess I am partly writing this journal in order to assist me with my studies… but perhaps it may serve another purpose of alleviating my anxiety and stress after that awful encounter.
“I find that I cannot stop thinking about the frailties of life after I saw captain Salt Mane claimed by the ocean. The primal forces of nature seem totally alien to us ponies, we who have grown soft and fat in our isolated civilisation. We are used to the regularity of the weather as guided by the pegasi, the cultivation of civilised life and society, the joy of the mundane, the everyday and the orderly, but not the forces which are most natural to the world. We cling to our towns, cities and farmsteads with an unshakable need, for without it we might be taken by the vicious cycle of life and cast into doubt and despair. So we hate the natural, we shun the wildness and the untameable, and hide from it like frightened foals, only trespassing upon its domain In the most dire of circumstances.
“I remember the ship going down, the crunch and splintering of planks, the rush of the storm and the muted screams of those dragged away by the ocean, never to see daylight again. We rocked and spun and twisted, until the ship was slowly dragged into the sea, with everything and everyone on board going down with it.
“No magic could assist me there, no teleportation spell could cast me as far as the beach, no power or incantation could be made before I was seized by the waves, the cold touch of death already caressing me in its gentle grip.
“It was beautiful in a way; the ship sank like some surreal picture, going downwards into the abyss where no life could be, lit in a mesmerising blue aura of the moon.
“I did not sink into the deep; instead I was swept away upon the fickle currents of the ocean. The last sight I saw was First mate Hemp Rope struggling wide eyed in the deep as part the rigging dragged him down with the ship and the sea stole the breath from his lungs.
“By chance I was cast upon this beach, and by chance the locals found me, alive enough to make a recovery, but still those desperate eyes of Hemp Rope will not leave me. I have started to have dreams, nightmares really, the dark night… the black waters which come and grab me in their icy grip… the dead who stare at me… demanding that I save them, those poor ponies…
“Still… I must not dwell too long on such things, from what I have read it seems such activities are unhealthy for the mind; instead I shall direct myself towards my studies… I can only hope these night terrors recede.
“The texts that the Princess has sent me are proving invaluable, although much of the cargo and materials have been lost in the Storm. With several nights to myself I managed to crack the formula for comprehending the text and they promise to open up new vistas of magic which have been unheard of since the dawning of Her Majesty’s reign. Understanding of the Old Runes still eludes me however, and this is frustrating considering they are a vital part to both It’s discovery and utilising It’s power.
“The locals have been able to assist me somewhat in this regard, although they still remain secretive and unwilling to reveal their deeper understanding. My reliance upon such ponies is most unsatisfactory, preferably I would have consulted a book on the translations of the runes, if not that during the fifth century, all texts relating to the old language had been burned in a mass purge regarding It’s existence. Indeed some remains of this purge can be seen on the standing stones where the bottom has been chiselled roughly away, upon the demands of celestial authority.
“Thus the past has come to haunt the present, although it does seem that the repression of It was vital to maintaining royal authority back then. There are some cryptic suggestions in the earlier histories that It had considerable power amongst equinekind, causing insurrections and war amongst the darker and more isolated provinces of the young nation.
“Eventually however, I will find a way, through force or persuasion, in furthering my discoveries. The machine and its systems must be constructed, and the first part shall be the Crucible, although I will need to find It before the device can become fully operational.
“For the moment I shall continue my investigations into the runic inscriptions and perhaps gather whatever the townsfolk feel they can share with me. My current residence is one of the houses which had once belonged to a fisherpony, but which had become vacant as of late. I have eyes on the mansion however, for despite the damage that it has endured since the last masters death, I understand the boiler and most of the piping is still intact and will only need some adjustments and repairs to get back into functioning order. It also has a library regarding the local runic inscriptions and folk religion. Although it has long since fallen into disrepair, it might still contain some unsullied tomes.
“I hope this will be enough to stem the tide of what is to come.”
