Chapter 1: Reality Falls Apart
I can see it in her eyes, the frantic desperation. She knows that she can’t win. And still she’s going on about the fate of Equestria, about friendship, and trying to convince me- me of all ponies -that I can restart my life. Her words pierce through me, but still I continue tearing along the parchment of Starswirl’s time travelling magic. The future Twilight showed me as a result of that one thing I changed? How can I believe that? Why according to her and her darn friendship-spewing mouth say that all the places she visited were worse than the future I live in right now?
Through parted tears, I continue to rip along the paper with my magic and Twilight Sparkle’s voice urges me to stop.
“Starlight! It doesn’t have to be like this you can make new friends it’s not about cutie marks or anything like that. You’re the most important pony right now, you can change the future, and you can rewrite history. But please, please, you need to stop!”
I shook my head; I could feel my tears stream down my cheeks. Could I really condemn the future with this decision? Does Twilight have no hope that any change right now would make the future better? A world where things are different for her and her friends?
“Starlight you mus-“ her voice cut out.
My future is gone, it was gone a long time ago, I only wanted her to suffer. I wanted to show Twilight just how easily her life could be shattered from one tiny insignificant effect. One stupid little effect that can completely ruin everything. I wanted to tell her that I did try to rebuild my life. That village where her and her friends had ruined with their tiny little visit. To undo all that work and to see my past… how could she possibly show empathy to me? How can she know me? She doesn’t know me! I wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that this was her fault, and that she should pay for her unjustified happiness.
But all I did was scream and shout at her as my eyes were closed from my sadness and her damn words of a worse future.
Then I stopped. The only thing I could hear was my sobs, my pathetic sobs and tears hitting the floor beneath me. I tried to tear the time scroll, but no sound came from it.
That is when I opened my eyes and saw the mess that I was in.
What a confusing mess this was indeed. Not expecting any of this I could only let out a muffled, "What?" as my tears subsided.
Grey. Everything was grey. I looked at Twilight. The color was completely washed off her, her face static with a look of pleading panic as if trying to finish a word. I look around me this time. Cloudsdale was completely silent, the bystanders that watched us were unmoving and like statues, the clouds below and above us remained still. The wind had stopped. How along ago this was I’m not too sure. I tried my hardest to digest this in.
“What… happened?” I said quietly to myself.
My words echoed with surprising volume that made me jump. My heart was beating faster. I dared to look at my hoof to see if I had too suffered the colour saturation as the rest of these color-malnourished ponies have.
“Oh good. Okay that’s good,” I sighed with relief seeing that it was the same color as usual. “Okay this is a little crazy, calm down Starlight. It’s not like whatever this ugh... place is?" The amount of grey was unsettling. "If I can even call it that? At least it is not like I am one of these ponies right now. That’s the good thing.”
In fact that's better than good. I can move around and they can't! I thought to myself with a pretentious smirk.
I was even so bold to run up to my worst enemy, the still and statuesque Twilight Sparkle, give her a once over- after all I had to know for certain she was unmoving -and tap a hoof on her forehead. Sure enough a hollow tap emerged as the only reaction; Twilight's head was empty.
“Ha, guess that takes care of that. Please Miss Princess Twilight Sparkle as if you could have bested me and my talent. Now all I need to do is just need to take the scroll and,” I stopped myself right there. “Right the scroll… the…” a horrible chill crept up my spine and down all four hooves. “It is right… it’s rig- right over there…”
All the joy of my victory over Twilight was gone. I had completely forgotten that I let go of the scroll when I first saw the situation I was in. There it was, just floating there and surrounded in a pale magic aura that could only have been mine. It was right where I left it. Exactly as I left it.
Time had stopped somehow; I realize that now.
I start to walk over to it, my hooves held me back as the gravity of the situation slowly overtakes me. My mind was assaulted by thought after thought of what was even going on. Did the scroll get ripped entirely? No, I can see it from here; it’s just hanging on by a piece. If not that then what happened? My hooves were echoing on the floor and distracting me ever more. I couldn’t focus my mind was all over. I could only shake my head and continue my walk in rapid breaths with hesitating hoofsteps.
One more echoing tap on the floor set me off, “Clouds do not echo!” For this whole time I’ve been walking on a cloud: a silently still static cloud that would feel like a sponge but make noises as if I was walking on metal or concrete; it was also a cloud nonetheless. Clouds don't do that. Clouds. Do not. Do that!
After seeming like an eternity, I made it to the scroll and sure enough it was still as intact as when I was briefly ripping it apart mere moments ago. With a gulp the magic from my horn brought it down towards me and I dropped it in my open hoof. The scroll and all its magical properties were lifeless, just as lifeless as everything around me seemed in this grey world. Sure, the sun was still there where it should be emanating its pale translucent light. But all these unnatural shades of these colorless ponies and Cloudsdale, I couldn’t help but feel that I had stumbled onto a place where I didn’t belong.
“I still don’t know why I’m here,” I said to myself. I tried to reactivate the stupid time scroll to send me back to before I ended up in their weird place. But again and again, try after try, I just couldn’t do it. There was nothing left. There's no magic at all. Everything is as it was, but it’s all just simply nothing. It was all static.
This amount of nothing creeped up on me. Through rapid breaths, I could feel the overbearing nervousness that I felt cave into my insides and constrict me from within. My hooves began to shake and my scroll fell from my grasp. It lands on the cloud and resonates as the only sound other than my panicked breaths. Boom. I quickly bend over and pick it up with beads of sweat dripping from my forehead; my hoof stuffs it somewhere on me so I won’t lose it again. I look up to see my world has changed once more.
Everything is gone. Twilight Sparkle is gone. The bystander ponies were gone. Cloudsdale. Rainbow Dash and the other racers. The sun. The cloud I was standing on, now replaced as a solid white floor that stretched endlessly below a single shaded grey color sky. There was virtually nothing.
Whatever panic that was in me before was set in firm stone inside my being. This was very wrong. This is the worst kind of wrong. There’s nothing at all.
“Where did everyone go?’ my voice stammered in nervous shock.
I could feel my mouth going dry. I tried coughing, but my throat felt constrained. My swimming barrage of thoughts were still swarming in my head with even more overwhelming force. I tried to walk but what was there to walk to? My hooves kept resonating with the ground and echo after echo of hoofsteps sounded from behind me. I move faster. I don’t even know if I just ran a circle or if it was a straight line.
“No no no no this shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong here I don’t!” I began shouting into the void as I ran further and further not knowing which direction I was going in. There was nothing. Nothing.
“I don’t belong here! I don’t belong here!” I shout over and over and over again. My echoes rang out calling back to me to the point where I didn’t know if even my thoughts were echoing back at me.
“I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE. I DON’T BELONG HERE.”
I keep running as tears blinded me. Soon I trip and fall to the ground over my hooves. The overwhelming thoughts caught up to me at last and I laid there on the ground slamming my hoof against the lifeless flat floor while sobbing in my confusion. My head was pounding as hard as my heart.
Why am I here? Where am I, did I even go anywhere when I ran? What did happen? How did this happen? When did I come here? How long have I been here? Is this the future Twilight warned me about? Damn you Twilight. Damn you damn you!
When Twilight mentioned about the two of us fighting for an eternity, I just wanted her to shut up and let my plan work. I wanted to win. I did not think any of that would lead to this. I just wanted to win. I wanted to be better than her. This isn't how this is supposed to go.
After almost an eternity which felt like crying on the floor, I half-heartedly managed to right myself up and wipe away the tears from my face with a soaked hoof. I looked in front of me and saw that nothing had changed.
“So I guess-“
With a frightened jump I turn around behind me to the new voice. I couldn’t have screamed louder in terror from what stood before me. A mare stood before me and the only thing I noticed where her eyes. There weren’t any. They were hollow.
“You really-“
My vision starts shaking. She gave me a bright smile.
“Don’t-“
I can see the mare tear away for a moment like a graphical glitch on a monitor.
I could feel the world around me falling apart. Static noises cracked around me. What was left of reality was crumbling before my eyes. The grey began to slide and drip from the sky leaving a black void that grew larger and larger. It felt like the world was ending and I was right in the middle of it. I turn my attention back to the mare and her horribly dark eyes; her smile had grown into a twisted expression as the background void melded in tune to the pony's eyes.
“BELONG HERE, HUH?”
She laughed wickedly with a disproportioned voice as she instantly disappeared before my eyes while the world turned pitch black. I fell down from dizziness and could feel myself falling forever. What happened next I don't know, but that is when I woke up. I didn’t even realize I had blacked out there.
“Hey. Are you alright? Hey, please wake up.”
Sure enough, my head was killing me after all that hysteria. I could even barely hear the voice let alone bother to acknowledge it until it repeated itself exactly the same way.
In a grumpy manner I said out loud, “Yeah! I’m fine." My hoof rubbed against my head. "Can you stop nagging me so that I can focus on this awful headache?” I practically spat the words out as I waited for the pain to dull. The voice didn’t reply back, that was when I somehow despite the weakness I felt in my body I got up and looked around. “Hey you? Hello? Is anyone out there or is it just me now?” But nobody came.
I could feel my insides tightening again. I guess what I also realized with painful regret is that I wasn’t waking up from this. I winced as this was in fact not a bad dream.
The world around me remained grey; however, the interesting thing was that before I got up I was lying on a grassy field next to a beach. I could see from here that the coastline would recede under the water as the waves came in; I swear I could also smell the salty air that came from such costal lines. Tried walking around a little to loosen up my hooves and was pleasantly surprised to notice that my hoofsteps did not cause the ground to echo abnormally. Letting out a breath, I could feel the change as I stepped off the greyed grass and onto the smooth sand of the beach. Lost in all this wonder after previous events I stepped a bit too far and my hooves were splashed by the incoming wave.
This all felt as it should be, but in my mind I knew it was wrong. The only comfort I could take in is that this place is at least different to what happened back with Twilight Sparkle. At least there’s motion. If only everything wasn’t grey. I could see the water in front of me and can imagine it being blue like the sea or a pond and I was kidding myself as it was only grey. This grey world can be a little underwhelming at times, I thought to myself.
This time I looked in the water to see my reflection. The strange thing was that everything was grey here. Absolutely everything was one shade or multiple shades of grey but they were always in between black and white. Meanwhile here I am looking at every speck of color that makes me completely different from this place as if I were a trespassing outsider.
“Eugh, reminds me of my old village but if I was the outsider instead.” My thoughts shift and I remember about Twilight Sparkle and her friends who ruined that same village. My teeth tense together and my eyes narrow. Something angry drew up inside of me.
I look up and see that now the wide open sea that stretched before me had receded into a size of a puddle where only my vision size noticed from before. Instinctively, I look back in to see if I changed too. Nope, same hairstyle, same color, same everything at least. I sigh with what relief I have and look back down to see someone approaching me from the side. I recoiled as I see that all too familiar face I just met earlier before. I turned to my side and sure enough there was that empty eyed pony once more. It took all of my hardest to stop from bursting out in terror and running away from her.
“Hi. I really hope you’re alright now. You had a pretty rough fall,” she said with concern; I wasn't sure if it was genuine or not. Though I was still skeptical about her and kept my mouth shut (mostly from trying not to peer into her totally dark as night eye sockets and fainting) this was another encounter with this stranger. At least this gave me a time to study her a bit more closely.
Sure enough like everything else, she was grey. She was two shades for her mane and body, but seriously they were of the same grey. The interesting thing however was that her long light mane seemed to flow. It was a gentle breeze in the world of absent wind. As if it were like one of the solar princesses manes, I thought to myself. She was a pegasus, and yet she could see me grimace when I saw that her left wing was gone from her body as if it were sliced off. I tried not to shudder. As if the whole lack of eyes weren’t bad enough.
After that small pause she continued, “I know it’s never easy to be whisked away violently from where you’re standing. It just sort of happens unexpectedly and without notice or reason." She spread her hoofs out apart. "Especially here."
“Where is- here? –exactly?” With growing annoyance I question her more, “Where did you send me to from that place before?”
She put a hoof to her mouth and tried to supress a laugh; her voice is becoming annoying. “Why nowhere in particular, of course!” she said with a suppressed smirk. I rolled my eyes at that and slapped a hoof on my forehead. I could feel my headache coming back.
“Okay then would you, kind and creepy no-eyed pony explain to me, Starlight Glimmer-“ this is when I picked the perfect time to let loose my vocal cords, “Where in the blazes of Equestria are we and so help me if you don’t give me a decent answer I’ll make you wish you ripped me apart along with whatever crab-apple reality that was, you demented mare!”
I could see at the end of that outburst of mind that her mane was a bit swept back from the sudden rush of angry air escaping from my lungs. She molded it back to its normal flowing self with a gentle hoof.
“Wow right to the point, huh? I should warn you though." She winked at me. "You may- or may not -like the answer I’m going to give you. I’m sure you sort of know where you are by-“
“Just tell me already, I don’t have time for this nonsense!” I interrupted her with growing spite.
She tried hard not to laugh again, “Ah time, what a woeful asset. Okay my dear Starlight, I shall tell you. I’m really trying hard not to make you get your headache again… oh who am I kidding it’ll happen regardless.” Seeing my scowling face she coughed, “So this is awkward. You are. . ." her voice trailed off. "Um, no hang on. You are not, no nonono that doesn’t sound right either. Gosh this is embarrassing. Usually I’m better than this when introducing new visitors.”
“Wait there’s more ponies here in this grey world!?” I shouted at her in shock. The pegasus readjusted her mane and could see the trend between us taking place.
“Stop rushing yourself, Miss Starlight. We’ll get to that. Oh so much- just so much things -take some time to ca- calm down and... okay.” And with a deep breath she began for real this time, “You are here. In this place- hey "Grey World" sounds like a great name for this place! Seriously Starlight, you are very unlucky. Very very unlucky to have ended up where you are. This is not Equestria. This is also Equestria in a twisted way. This place is everything and nothing." Her voice turned cold when she stated, "The only reason that you are here right now is that it is your fault, and you have gotten very unlucky today.”
I stared at her in disbelief, “What are you talking about, this makes no sense?” She walked, no, glided towards me closer. What in Equestria? I didn’t even realize her hooves were just barely scrapping the surface of the sand this whole time. She wasn't even flapping her wings or anything she was just- floating.
“My Starlight, you should have realized by now that meddling in time has its consequences.”
“What are you saying?” I could feel my words begin to waver.
“Time is the most valuable asset. Everyone runs out of it eventually. Time is meaningless without space. Distorting one distorts the other. I hope that may explain your situation just a little bit better. My condolences by the way, no one really deserves to be inside this plane outside time. Not most beings at least.”
I messed with time and as a result I got sent to this place? This doesn’t make sense. Twilight may have been going through those alternate timelines and I included when she returns, but that shouldn’t have meant I end up getting trapped in this weird place.
“I can see the confusion on your face,” she started, I still trying to figure out how she can see me in the first place. “When one meddles in time, they take a chance. Usually they succeed and wherever they wanted to go they get there with no problem. Sometimes the timelines can get unstable, that is where a skip, hop, or a jump in the timeline can happen and when unfortunate travelers wind up in a place outside the timeline.”
I thought about it for a moment, everything she’s saying adds up. After all that fighting with Twilight and hopping between timelines and alternate universes with no issues and leading up to the point where I would have sealed the future forever with the destruction of Starswirl’s scroll.
How.
What a horrible mess.
Immediately, I barraged her with questions. Where are we exactly in this place? There are others? Where? If time doesn’t exist here then why did the waves come in on the coast? Why does everything keep changing around us spontaneously? What’s with the grey? Why am I not grey? Why are you grey? Can I go home? I want to go home, why are you laughing? What’s wrong with you?
All of this seemed rather amusing to the hollow-eyed pegasus. It was if this was one of the funniest things she heard in a long time. She even "fell" from her laughter, by that all she did was float on her back while she cried out tears of laughter. Despite how annoyed and still confused I was at this point, I thought it better to contain myself until she stopped. After all she was my only clue on finding a way out of this place and helping me back to my proper time if all she said was true. I still find myself doubting her just as much as I doubted Twilight’s fate of the future pleading from before. Fortunately, this wasn't the future. I'll win points where I can.
The pony kept laughing still. It was starting to get a bit old.
The pony quieted down soon enough followed by a bunch of apologies that were hollow to me in between her giggles. It wasn't like her voice was obnoxious or anything, it was fine but her demeanor had something to it that I just couldn't stomach. She had more answers and darn it, I needed them!
“Oh no. Please my dear creepy pony. Take all the time you need. Like you said, time doesn’t matter! I insist,” I said with as much passive-aggressive sarcasm as I could muster in my spiteful tone.
“I’m sorry,” she wiped away a tear while still chuckling to herself. “You just have so many questions. So many questions, dear Starlight.” She laughed harder.
“Seriously just tell me something, anything I can use to help get me back to where I should be at!” I shouted at her this time.
“Hey do- do you think that –maybe wi-with all these questions you have. Maybe,” she barely could keep herself together. “You maybe have a lot of answers too?”
This is when I rolled my eyes a final time and turn away from her incessant snickers with a grunt of disgust. Of course, now there was a forest in front of me; it was full of the not-so-color-elusive grey pine trees. Shaking my head from the amount of nonsense, I head towards the pines.
“Hang on hang on there Starlight!" She caught up to me, but I kept moving. "I’ll help you sorta," she stopped in front of me.
I turn to her say angrily, "Then do it, I don't have the time for this." Not even caring that there was no time to begin with here.
"I can tell you where to go- oh wait a moment we haven’t even properly introduced each other yet!” she slapped her wing against her head in realization. “Okay so you’re Starlight Glimmer! The pony who asks a lot of questions! And I’m! I’m… oh dear. I think I forgot my name?”
From nowhere I burst out, “And my name for you shall be Hollow Eyes, the creepy pony who forgets her own name and doesn’t make things clear for anyone!” I’ll admit though, in that moment I didn’t really feel anything bad for calling her such a demeaning name. Still I wondered why she didn’t remember what her name was. That was a brief moment, however I was too busy being peeved at her weird antics.
“Oh wow that’s so perfect Starlight!” she exclaimed from genuine excitement despite the insult. “I guess that’s too long though. I mean your name is long but it fits well. Okay, Hollow it is! What a fantastic adventure we’ll have Miss Starlight Glimmer! Now tell me what disturbs you the most about me?”
That question was so sudden a shift that I stammered. It’s not like she said it without changing that stupid cheery tone of hers or anything cold like that. I turned back to her to see her awaiting my answer with her a curious head tilt a foal would do.
“Well, it’s not because you’re missing a wing. It’s not because you can glide without making a sound. Or you’re completely grey like everyone else I’ve seen. Or that I trust you in the slightest. Or even the fact that you have no freaking eyes,” saying that in such a way as if to sink in. I was glaring at her. Hopefully, I was leading her to somewhere with this, and also hopefully that she was paying attention and not silently laughing. “So it must be because you so far have not given any tangible way of helping me escape from this blasted space and returning myself home!”
All she did was smile at me. That damn smile. At least it wasn’t teethed. Oh no, there she goes. Yep, that’s creepy. Now it’s back to a smirk at least. Oh great, she's opening her mouth agai-
“Well, thanks for being honest with me. Just for that Starlight, I shall tell you to the one person that may be actually able to help you! You still got that piece of paper?”
“Paper what pa- hang on," my eyes shifted. "How do you know I still have that scroll?”
“No reason. You just told me,” she shrugged. “But maybe you can get the pony who made it to help you, hmm?”
“Pony what pony? The only pony who made this was Starswirl the Bearded. Why would he be… here?” I hesitated. My words nearly cut off at the end of my breath, "No."
“Because he meddled in time,” Hollow replied. “I’m sure it was a terrible accident when it happened. I soon found him after, or rather, he found me.”
“That’s impossible. Do you understand, Hollow? He never would have allowed himself to have made a mistake as large as that! He was too great of a unicorn to have let that happen.”
“Well then why did you, Starlight?" Her words cut right through me. "See? It’s not just you who had an unfair experience. Why I’m certain the other ponies of Equestria were surprised to see him disappear unexpectedly one day." She put a hoof to her chin, "Well, they wouldn't really see him right? He usually does his experiments by himself. I guess those ponies would just not be able to find him at all, huh? What had they have done? Haven’t you ever wondered that yourself? I’ll bet that if you dig up his- ahem “grave” –there would be noth-"
“Stop, please! You don’t need to continue with that trail of thought!” I said with rushed panic. For if that’s what did happen then that would all make sense on why no one was able to explain his disappearance.
“I’m sorry. I forget sometimes my stories aren’t for the faint of heart. Nothing in this world really is. We all have had terrible accidents. Myself. Even you,” Hollow said trying to fill her words with remorse. I wasn't buying any of it.
“I am not like you, Hollow!” I shouted at her with violent fury that made her glide back a little. “So long as there’s a way out of here, I’m not giving up! We’ll go find Starswirl here and correct everything that’s wrong!” I waved my front hoof all around me, “Because this, Hollow. This is all wrong, you fool!”
Hollow squeed with joy, “Now that’s the spirit, Starlight!" She leapt at me and gave me a big unwarranted hug. "Did you hear that Starswirl?" she said out loud to the trees. "We’ll find you, Starlight will go home, and everything will be fantastic!” At this point I was too stunned to know if she completely lost it. She once again saw my confused glaring face and let go. “Oh the timelines here are pretty unstable. Starswirl and all his own meddling made himself really unstable. So we’ll need to really look for him and I’m sure he’s able to hear us wherever.
“He’s always listening.” She turned her head slightly as if looking behind me at someone else, “I didn’t mean to talk behind your back sir.”
I turn my head around and see nothing.
I turn back around to Hollow. She’s gone. There was nothing in front of me. The pines were absent. Absolutely nothing, but a coastline that reappeared which has stretched as far as my eyes could see.
In this world of nothing, there was something. Something that was very real.
I looked back again to see if Hollow had crept up on me somehow. If anything she made me more paranoid. There was nothing, but also not nothing?
That’s when I realized I was not truly alone. But that I was being watched.
