The fiction of H P Hoofcraft
The events surrounding the unfortunate disappearance of my best friend, Night Gift, are very mysterious. I know I may be under heavy doubt for I was the last living soul known to have been in contact with him. If you are indeed wishing to listen to my account of these events, I can only ask you put aside what you think is true about our reality. Sure, we have many strange creatures and the use of magic but even putting that aside, those events were something I would only expect to come out of the mind of a fantasy author.
We had been travelling through the Everfree forest for roughly two hours. We had set out for the forest because we had heard tales of an ancient tomb found by a stallion acquaintance of Night Gift who had died of what I know to be tetanus a mere few days after he told us. He was also in quite a state as well. If I had not known better, I would have sworn that he was trying to warn us about something the forest had shewn him. His cause of death had always been something I had thought of quite regularly since his departure. This was because he was in perfect physical health when he had alerted us to his discovery. Something else that made me question his story was his motivation to go into the forest in the first place.
Regardless, Night Gift and I decided to investigate. We had found the tomb betwixt two large oak trees. The reason I mention this small fact was because they were the only great oaks around for many miles. The tomb itself was made of granite. Vegetation had grown betwixt small cracks over many years and even some vines descended from above. Something peculiar about the scene before us was the door. The lock was still intact and the lock was obviously older than even my great grandparents. This made me wonder if the stallion whom alerted myself to this tomb had even gone inside.
Putting this aside, we attempted to open the door, the final barrier between us and the inside of that accursed tomb. I am an earth pony and my friend was a pegasus. As I was the stronger of the two I lined myself up with the lock and chains barring our entry, raising my hind legs to shatter the lock.
After my success, my legs were filled with the slightest sensation of pain, but my wonder spurred me onwards and allowed me relief. The inside of the tomb was silent. I would have expected at least some sound from outside to come to the inside. We sat on the floor for a few moments to eat our commons we had brought with us. It was then I realised this place of death was not even home to small insects. We were the only things to have breathed inside that accursed tomb for what seemed to be centuries, despite my other ally's claim to have discovered the innards of this structure. I told my companion this fact and he too shewed something akin to dread as something terrible must have happened here if even the insects feared to tread these grounds.
That was when it started. It was a very strange phenomenon indeed. Breaking the century old silence of the tomb was violin music. I could only assume it was violin music as I was not one too well versed in music but even I knew the basic sounds of a violin. What was strange, however, is that my companion instead of hearing the soft tune of a violin, heard the booming tone of a drum. I wish he were still here to allow me to gather my thoughts on the matter correctly as a later event, which I am going to describe later, left my memories of most events after this point as unreliable as the events I had witnessed from then were... otherworldly.
We followed the sound of the music for roughly a quarter of an hour, that is what my internal clock was telling me anyways. We went through various corridors and we realised quite quickly that this was a mausoleum that went very deep into the earth. After this time, we came into a rather large open area, coffins all around the outside. This is when my sight seemed to decieve me. Torches around the outside of the room were lit and in the centre of the room was complete darkness. The light from the torches should have reached that far, but it just stopped. What was even stranger, the darkness was moving. Not just moving, but moving towards us.
We made our retreat as quickly as possible, but my companion... he stumbled, fell on the floor. In my adrenaline-fueled state, I did not notice this and I only realised as I looked back and saw him vanish into the darkness. Once this darkness had moved away, only his hat remained on the floor, and it looked like it had faced the decay of the innumerable years that this tomb had gone through.
I cannot remember anything beyond that point before waking up in my bed the following day, waking in a cold sweat. I would have thought this event to be only a dream, and I so wish it to be nothing but a dream, however, there is one thing that shews me that this was not a dream. Nopony had seen Night Gift since we had left. And they had also lost the body of the discoverer of that tomb. In fact, nopony even remembers his name. There are merely two possibilities for both of these events to have taken place. The first; everything happened as I have stated in this account. The other? I dare not think this of my own volition but I have been persuaded by others that perhaps I have lost my wit, and made up that stallion who told me of that tomb and that my friend had simply got lost in the woods and I had imagined all of that disaster in that temple. I cannot believe that the latter is true, and as such I shall have to act as if my first hypothesis is correct, and make sure that that temple never shews it's secrets to another soul.
If you are reading this, know that the events that day were real, for I have not returned to remove this closing message. Do not go looking for that granite tomb in the Everfree betwixt the two grand oaks for if you do, you may end as my friend has, or even how I have. I am returning to that damned location today and closing it for good. If you are reading this, I am a dead stallion and I leave to you the warning of what can happen if you delve to deep into the mysteries of the past.
