Twilight Sparkle blinked slowly as the sunlight from the new day shown through her window, lighting up her room and making her aware that it was time to begin the day's tasks.
She pushed her covers away, rolled over the side of her bed and made it, then pulled her curtains, which had partially covered her window all the way to the left and right sides so as to let the light in better. She lifted the half full cup of water on her nightstand using her magic and drank the remaining water, then trotted into the restroom. When she finished her business there she slowly made her way downstairs to make breakfast for herself and- no, just for herself. Twilight paused mid-step and blinked again, this time in confusion.
Huh, that's odd. I could have sworn that someone else lived here...someone important. Twilight shrugged.
After breakfast she reorganized her library, dusted off her writing table, then packed her saddlebags and levitated them onto herself and turned her head around and opened her mouth to call _____ and tell him-
Him? Him who? I'm the only one that lives here...aren't I? Who was I about to call? Twilight frowned, getting the strong feeling that there was something very important she was forgetting. She thought and pondered and looked around her library in the hopes that something she saw would jog her memory, even going so far as to return to her bedroom and bathroom. The only thing she found that was unusual considering she lived in the Ponyville library alone was a small bed made in a woven straw basket on the other side of her own bed. As far as she knew, she didn't have a pet, and shrugging again concluded that it belonged to Fluttershy and that she'd left it in Twilight's home by mistake some time in the past.
That now out of the way and the feeling of forgetfulness fading, Twilight opened her door and stepped outside, taking in a breath of fresh air and smiling as a pair of familiar mares trotted by, one of them one of her old classmates from Canterlot.
"Good morning, Twilight!" called the mint-green mare.
"Good morning, ____!" Twilight replied. Turning her head slightly, she also greeted ___ ___, a mare with a cream colored coat and three wrapped candies on her butt for a cutie mark, then paused and blinked in confusion again. That was their names right? She mentally shook her head and rolled her eyes. Of course that was their names! She'd lived in Ponyville for nearly five months now and had taken care to write down the names of everypony that she met and then later added a picture next to the names to make sure she wouldn't actually forget. _____ had told her she was being silly but what did he know? Ponies in Canterlot normally took it as an insult if you forgot their names even if you'd only met them once, so it was better to be safe than sorry!
Nudging the familiar feeling of forgetfulness again, Twilight asked how the two were doing, and after a few minutes of friendly chit-chat the three parted ways. Checking her list of things to do Twilight noted a few oddly blank lines in between some of the things on her checklist but ignored them in favor of a blue sticky note that had somehow found its way over what would have read 'buy dish soap'. Separating it from her list and raising an eyebrow, she read the only three words written in all capitals: "SOMETHING IS WRONG." Twilight's face became puzzled and she checked the other side of the note. Blank. Flipping the note back over and rereading it several times followed by scanning it with magic for some sort of enchantment she frowned and stuffed the perfectly ordinary sticky note into one of her saddlebags.
"I'll say 'something is wrong' alright! I left myself a note on my checklist without leaving any details as to what I'm reminding myself of! Did I write it in my sleep or something? And now I'm talking to myself. I'll bet that's going over well with everypony!" Twilight looked around stopped, looking some more and regaining her puzzled expression. A few birds flew overhead and chirped, but other than that and the sound of the wind blowing there were no other sounds. No pony was out and about walking except for her. Well, me, ____, and ___ ___, of course. Did the Flu start going around again and nopony told me? Feeling slightly uneasy at the eerie near-silence Twilight again examined her list. Go buy three new quills and one bottle of ink. Nodding, Twilight started in the direction of Quills and Sofas.
She was interrupted once more however by a flicker of movement in the sky ahead and above her. Expecting it to be Rainbow Dash Twilight hit the dirt and covered her head. Instead of a crash followed by pain (hers or Rainbow's) instead four hoofs lightly touched down in front of her head. Looking up from the ground Twilight saw the smiling face of the local mail mare, Derpy.
"Hiya, Twilight! It's lucky I ran into you, cuz I got a manilla envelope for ya!" Derpy began digging in her mailbag, frowning a little as whatever she was digging for kept slipping away. Finally, annoyed, she stuck her whole head in the bag and pulled the envelope out in her teeth. "Hair ya guh!" Derpy dropped it down on top of Twilight's snout. "Oops! Sorry, Twilight!" Rolling her eyes a bit Twilight looked down at the envelope and tore a strip along the top off her with magic. Reaching inside she pulled out a folded-over scrap of paper. Turning it over and over Twilight unfolded it to discover a single sentence written all in capital letters: "THE TOWN ISN'T FINISHED!" The town isn't finished? Twilight smiled wryly, thinking of a history lesson that she'd been taught as a filly that described Canterlot in its early days being little bigger than the small town she was in now. Is a town ever really finished?
Placing the scrap of paper into her saddlebag with the first she looked up to ask Derpy who had given it to her, but found that Derpy had already left. Twilight's eyes fell onto some envelopes that had apparently fallen out of Derpy's bag while searching for Twilight's mail. Lifting the letters, Twilight smiled fondly and resolved that when her own list was finished she'd drop them off at the post office. Derpy may not have been the best mail mare that Ponyville had ever had, but she tried, and Twilight hadn't wanted the gray mare to lose her job over a few forgotten letters.
"Okay, number one, check! Number two, check! Number thre- four, check!" Twilight paused and frowned at her list. Why had she written things on one, two, and four, but not three? Had she been drinking last week when she'd prepared it? Not that she knew of, especially since Twilight didn't drink liquor. "Number five, check! Now for number si- nine?" Okay, something was wrong. Twilight could see herself skipping one or maybe (but not likely) two lines on her list if her mind was elsewhere and she was in a hurry, but three in a row? Not a chance.
Concluding that she must be getting sick, Twilight decided to go to the town's local ______ and- wait, where was she going? It has something to do with medicine...the dentist, maybe? But wasn't I just thinking that I might be getting sick? Why would I go to a dentist if I'm getting sick?
In the end the closest thing to a ______ that she could come up with was Fluttershy's house, so Twilight followed the town's main road through town to its outskirts but once again stopped when a loose page of newspaper blown in the wind slapped her in the face. Sighing and making a mental note to bring up the town's cleanliness fines being too poorly enforced she removed it and gave it a quick glance. Her eyes widened as she found another sticky note, this one jsut as crumpled as the newspaper. Pulling it from the paper and dropping the trash into a nearby waste bin she read the faded and crumpled words, again, written in all capitals: "LOOK AROUND YOU! REALLY LOOK!" Twilight arched an eyebrow but did as the note said. To her left was the waste bin and a house that seemed to have a half-completed paint job. The half the house that was painted was- wait a second...
Twilight turned her head to the right, ignoring what was right in front of her for the moment. To the right was the same as to the left. Part of the house was painted, and the same half as the other house was not. Next, Twilight looked straight down and took a step backward. The road was the same way. It was painted- no, not painted. It's colored! along the same amount of area as the houses, then became a bland gray color. Looking behind herself the town was it's normal vibrant and colorful self, albeit still creepily silent. Twilight swallowed and turned her gaze back ahead of her and froze at what she saw.
Ahead of her was, for lack of a better comparison, a nearly-blank canvas. Off in the distance she could see Fluttershy's house, and farther still she saw the edge of the Everfree Forest, but between where she stood at this moment and her friend's house there was an almost complete void of white. There was no grass, no field, no sky, no water. There was nothing at all save for a black and white road that ran on from where Twilight stood to Fluttershy's house. Confusion and mild panic flowed through her. But being a scholar first, Twilight wanted to know if this phenomena was only occurring on this side of town, or if it ran all the way around like a model town inside a snow globe. Setting her pace to a trot, Twilight spent a little over an hour making her way around the rough perimeter of Ponyville, and then to make sure she was not mistaken did it a second time. There was no doubt about it: whatever this void was, it was affecting their whole town, and something needed to be done about it!
Quickly galloping home, Twilight set her saddlebags on the floor and turned her head toward the steps to her room and called: "_____, come down here! I need you to write a letter to-" Twilight paused, a chill running down her spine as the familiar feeling of forgetfulness flowed through her, now accompanied by a feeling of desperation and mild fear. "Who are you?!" Twilight yelled at the otherwise empty house. "I keep trying to call for you, but I don't know who you are! I look over my shoulder, expecting you to be here with me, but no one lives in this house but me!" Twilight gasped for breath, her breathing heavy. No one answered her. Feeling an itch around her eyes, Twilight raised a hoof and rubbed. Moving her hoof away, she found it to be a little wet. "Tears? Why am I crying? Who's missing? How do I know someone is missing? How do I know it's a some one and not a pony?"
Her mind spinning Twilight gathered the writing utensils and cleared her throat and dictated, though it was her who wrote the letter and not- whoever she expected to be here. "Dear Princess ________,"
Twilight flinched as she realized she did not know who she was writing her letter to. She knew it was a member of royalty, and that this pony was very important to her, but she didn't know who, how, or why. Again! Twilight dropped both her quill and her piece of parchment and curled up into a furry purple ball on the floor, fear making itself comfortable in her mind and body. Twilight shivered. "Why can't I remember? Is there anything to remember? I walked around outside for hours and only saw four ponies today, including myself! Where are all the townsfolk? Today was a ______ day but I saw no foals on their way to ______, or Miss Cheerilee!" Twilight stood up, her mind close to freezing up entirely, and walked across the room, upstairs to hers, and looked down at the empty basket by her bed. Still empty, and still no reason beyond Fluttershy leaving it here that she think of for it to be here. Twilight shook her head and climbed back into bed even though the sun wasn't even close to being set yet.
On her pillow she saw one last sticky note, but this one was different. Her emotions for the moment overrun by curiosity, Twilight lifted it and looked at the sentence written on it: "THIS IS ALL JUST A BAD DREAM. WHEN YOU WAKE UP EVERYTHING WILL BE BACK TO NORMAL." Above the sentence was a small drawing of a smiley-face. Twilight read it again and slowly a feeling of peace washed over her as she forgot the reason for her worries. Smiling like the drawing but with a few of the hairs of her mane out of place, Twilight filled her cup halfway like she usually did in her bathroom and set it on her nightstand. Laying herself back down on her sheets and pillow and pulled her blanket up to her chin. Seeing the curtains were still open, she closed them mostly and then turned her body away from it to face the wall. Closing her eyes, Twilight drifted off, a thought briefly occurring to her as she dozed off that those notes' writing all closely resembled her own writing style.
...
...
...
Twilight Sparkle blinked slowly as the sunlight from the new day shown through her window, lighting up her room and making her aware that it was time to begin the day's tasks.
She pushed her covers away, rolled over the side of her bed and made it, then pulled her curtains, which had partially covered her window all the way to the left and right sides so as to let the light in better. She lifted the half full cup of water on her nightstand using her magic and drank the remaining water, then trotted into the restroom.
Author's Note
To those of you wondering how Twilight, who has no ability to affect the storyline she's been written into has altered the storyline to give herself notes essentially telling herself to wake up and smell the fiction, I had originally considered her getting more notes than that and then coming home and finding them all over her house stuffed into drawers, under cushions, and under Spike's pillow, but got lazy (and couldn't figure out how to make it relevant).
To the actual explanation, during the times in which we open a text document, infinite potential is laid out before us. We can not only carve out our fiction's future, but also change it's current events and its past. Perhaps the writer had a younger sibling that figured since their older bro/sister wasn't going to mess with it again they should instead and were going to have her find a way to 'fix' her world and then also never got back to it.
Perhaps the Raw Potential created by opening the document directly while Twilight was aware that her world was incomplete gave her the opportunity to use a bit of Time Magic to shorten the amount of time it took herself to figure out something was off. In short, she edited her own story.
You can choose whichever one you like best. I think the first one is the best, myself.
I can't give you an actual definitive answer because I don't have one. I do however, have an explanation as to why Twilight doesn't recall everything in the morning besides the excuse that 'the data was refreshed'.
If you recall, when Twilight read the last note her memories of the day's events faded away and she felt better. Sometime in the past (who can say how long exactly?) cast a spell of Amnesia on the last note because she was tired of being trapped in a cycle of repetition where the only thing that changed was herself.
I wrote this as a jab at both myself and the many fic-writers that start writing a fanfic and then just leave it. (Did you know I've actually started over a dozen fics? I just never got around for one reason or another to finishing them all.) It was motivated 70% out of guilt towards my unfinished fics, and 30% out of the semi-feeling of obligation to join in the one-shot writing that every other person seems to be doing this month.
It's not my best work, but then, I wrote it in less than two hours and I kept getting distracting chills as I wrote this (like I was treading on cursed ground. You know that feeling, right?)
Date of completion: Saturday, Oct 11, 2014
List of Blanks in order:
Spike
Lyra
Bon Bon
Spike
Lyra
Bon Bon
clinic
clinic
Celestia
school
school
