Chapter 1: The city of Silver
I am writing this under immense psychological strain. For to recall these events is to come face to face with the worst of my fears and nightmares unable to be uttered of. But it must be written, for I fear that I will otherwise forget the lessons that I have learned from what I've seen and what I've done.
I have always lied to everypony about my very first memory. I was always known as an eccentric little pony when I was but a foal, dancing and prancing and playing all day long with my own imagination, never having made any true friends at that age. That changed at a later point in life, but we'll get to that later.
To my parents, my first memory was going into their room and jumping on their bed shouting "MOMMY! DADDY! I'M ALIVE! I'M ALIVE!!!" They simply thought I was being eccentric little old me again and cuddled me, whispering sweet words that lulled me back to sleep.
The truth I never uttered to them, for I feared that they would not understand. For my true first experience, I will never forget.
I have never been able to remember anything about my infant stage, nor did I remember anything about anything before my third birthday. But what I do remember, are the dreams. They were small at first, little swamps with some creepy fog, lights in the distance or being stuck in a very tall tower. For years I remember dreaming and wondering about the lights in the distance.
But the night before my third birthday, I found myself wandering through that wretched swamp towards the lights. I didn't know what I was going to see when I arrived there, but I had some irresistible urge to make it to the source of the lights. For what seemed like hours I walked, past the trees of the swamp, past the tall tower I had been captured in in so many of my dreams, past more trees and even some stray rocks more beautiful than anything I could ever imagine.
At last, after what seemed like several hours of walking, my little hooves found their way to the source of the light. But what I saw was something I truly did not expect.
A city, seemingly made of silver. Not just any silver, the purest kind of silver. Houses, towers, libraries and even some buildings unbeknownst to me were all made of pure silver that shone in the full moon that never set. Among these building I walked alone, marvelling at the grandiose architecture and wondering what kind of ponies could build a place like this. It was truly magnificent!
My foal-like wonder however, didn't last.
For around the first corner of the first silver building, I saw the ponies that inhabited these streets. They were clothed in pure white robes that covered their faces and the rest of their bodies, reaching almost to the ground. I marvelled at the sight as I wandered through these ponies and tried talking to a few of them.
But they didn't understand me.
Slowly, a circle of these ponies formed around me. They walked in that same circle around me, making it impossible for me to go onward to explore the city. I wanted to see so much more! I wanted to... to... And that's when I realized something, something truly dreadful.
There were no hoofsteps besides my own.
This is when the fear gripped me, the fear of a child who didn't know what was going on. After a few moments, the creatures around me stopped moving and simply stared at me. A cold winter air blew around me, making the hairs of my coat stand on end. One of the creatures approached me, making me shrink back in fear. It stopped right in front of me, seeming to regard me with some strange interest. The kind of interest a scientist shows towards one of his subjects. The creature slowly removed its hood, even though there were no hooves to remove it.
And then I screamed.
Under the hood, pure white eyes stared at me. Whiter than the silver streets that glistened in the moonlight and whiter than bone. The rest of the creature's head was completely translucent, making it possible for me to see its razor-sharp teeth through its lips and cheeks. I was completely frozen in fear, unable to utter anything but a faint whine as tears streaked down my face.
The creature noticed this and seemed to smile, a smile that literally went from ear-to-ear. A smile that showed its teeth out of its mouth and showed that they were covered in bright red blood. It spoke to me in a language I had never heard before nor ever heard since, but I knew exactly what the creature was saying.
"Are you afraid?
I nodded frantically, hoping that if I told the creatures what they wanted to hear that they would leave me alone. How wrong I was. The creatures around me all laughed, hollow laughs that chilled me to the bone. The laughs of murderers and criminals, of psychopaths and madponies. The creature in front of me looked back into my eyes, somehow freezing me in place without even doing anything. Never have I felt this kind of fear before, even if I was so young. The creature kept smiling and spoke once again.
"You should be"
I shuddered, already unable to look away from the creature's terrifying dead eyes. It opened it's mouth and I was forced to look into it's throat, into infinity. I saw blackness darker than the darkest unlit night. Nothing had ever seemed this dark to me before, and wouldn't seem as dark ever again. I was about to be not only eaten, but completely destroyed! I didn't want to die, I didn't want to die....
"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!"
That was the instant I woke up, sweating profusely and terrified beyond belief. I looked around me and above me, I even checked under my bed. Those things were nowhere to be seen. I sighed in relief and decided that it was but a dream. I got out of bed and walked towards the door to find mommy, I was only three years old after all and that was a scary nightmare.
I opened the bedroom door and walked through, looking to the right towards mommy's door. I saw nothing but the hallway illuminated lightly by the lights out in the street. I closed my bedroom door, looked to the left, then I froze.
There it was. That same creature with it's lifeless white eyes and blood covered teeth. I couldn't move, couldn't scream, all I could do was watch as it hovered closer and closer to me. How was it here?! I was awake! It opened it's mouth once again and I once again saw the darkness so powerful that even Luna herself would be afraid of it. I closed my eyes, resolved to the fact that I would be dead soon. And then?
Then it moved backwards. It smiled a serene smile this time and spoke in that unknown language once again.
"You have learned not to fear death, remember this young one"
And then, it vanished. I couldn't believe my luck! I was alive! I stormed into my mommy's and daddy's bedroom and jumped on the bed screaming "MOMMY! DADDY! I'M ALIVE! I'M ALIVE!!!"
For years and years I lived on, trying to be the best scientist I could from a young age and specializing in the field of dreams. But I never forgot that thing, which I came to call a Specter. It taught me the most valuable lesson in my life. To not fear death when it comes, but to openly accept it when the time came.
In the darkness of my room, I sometimes still see them. Smiling their sinister smile, blood covered teeth and unending darkness in their throats. And I knew that I would never again be free of them.
Chapter 2 - The late Dewdrop
It had been several years before any of us noticed something was amiss with our friend, Dewdrop. It started innocently enough, with him staying up a little bit later to practice his new-found religion. None of us noticed the changes in him because they were miniscule, at first that is. The big, noticable changes came after his second year of practicing that new-found religion which he so fervently followed.
His coat paled and became raffled because of his infrequent visits to the outside world and his obvious non-existant grooming habits. His eyes became hollow and empty and he interacted with the world less and less. As his friend I naturally became worried at this, wondering what was going on with my once so good and healthy friend.
It has been three years since I've seen him, now I find myself walking towards a door that I scarcely remember. The door has been painted black as well as the rest of his house, why he chose this colour I have no idea, but it probably has to do with his now practiced religion. He never spoke of us of the things that he did for his new religion, which only served to worry me more.
I breathed in deeply and knocked at the door, more than a little nervous after such a long time. What was I to say? What was I to do? I waited at the door for a few seconds, waiting for an answer from the other side. Nothing came. I knocked on the door again, becoming a little nervous. I'm not sure what it was, but there seemed to be something dark around me all the time. A feeling of imminent danger came over me when there was no answer for the next minute. I resolved to knocking loudly, hoping that that would work.
I had knocked on the door a total of seven times, when it swung open.
“It wasn't locked?”
I muttered to myself, taking my first step into, what I later realized, was a bad mistake. I walked into the living room, finding it empty besides a black colored book on the table. The book was vaguely familiar, but I paid it no mind for the time being.
I walked upstairs next, hoping to find Dewdrop in his bed or study, but he was nowhere to be found. I wondered if he had perhaps gone outside. But his door was unlocked. I waited a few seconds, trying to think of other places in the house where he could be. That's when I heard it. A murmer of voices.
I felt fear grip my heart and all my senses were telling me to get the hay out of there, but I didn't run away. I needed to know if Dewdrop was safe, I just had to know. We had been such good friends in the years before he found that new religion, I didn't want to lose him now.
The murmer of voices came from the basement, so I made my way there, not knowing that I was about to make the most traumatic mistake in my life. The murmer was louder now that I'd opened the door to the basement, loud enough for me to make out words now.
“ZI – KI-YA – KAN-PA. ZI – AN-NA – KAN-PA”
I hadn't heard any of those words before, but they filled me with a powerful sense of dread. Still I continued down the stairs, the voices getting louder the closer I got to the door at the bottom. But that door was new, made of metal with only a very small opening at the very bottom of it. I knocked on the door, hoping that somebody would answer me.
“Dewdrop? It's me!” I said out loud, hoping that Dewdrop would answer me.
But the only thing that greeted me was more of the strange chanting.
“ZI – DIIN– GIR – KI-YA – KAN-PA
ZI – DIIN – GIR – AN-NA – KAN-PA”
I didn't speak again, for I had no idea what to say. That language, it sounded absolutely ancient and yet...
I seemed to recognize it.
The voices continued even through my now frantic knocking on the door
“HEAR US, OH MARDUK! COME TO US BY THE POWERS OF THE WORD DUG-GA, AND ANSWER OUR URGENT PRAYER!”
I don't know what came over me, but I tried to open the door by any means neccessary now. I tried the chair on the side of the door and smashed it against the door, it opened very slightly. But it was enough for me to smash it open now. I forced the door open to see what was inside.
And I lost my mind.
There were several beings in the room, I say being because it was obvious they were not any kind of pony. Some had heads of what was called human, some had claws where their hooves would obviously be and even some seemed like a parody on nature itself. Everyone of these creatures was clothed completely in black robes and held the same symbol on their hand or other appendages, the same symbol that was on the black book in the living room. .
But what was the worst? Is the remains I looked upon in the middle of the room. It took me a few seconds to process what I saw, but when I realized what I saw I screamed. I ran upstairs, I ran out of the door, I got as far away from that house as I could.
For what I saw on the floor, was a pile of organs, coat and blood with a single eye poking out of the top of the pile. And that eye?
That was all that was left of the late Dewdrop.
