The bells from beyond realityby KuronekoChaptersThe impossible cityThe horror manifest itselfCosmic danceThe fear that come from truthThe impossible cityI can’t take it anymore, it feels like a poison is slowly burning my mind, I can’t shake off the fear that took hold of me on that fateful day. When I talk about what I saw people think I’m crazy, oh how I wish they were right, everyday I pray the spirit of chaos to finally drive me insane, if I was mad then maybe everything would finally make sense to me but I still have my sanity and the sunny days of Equestria are only suffering to me and its beautiful nights are filled with terrifying nightmares. I’m writing down the story of what happened to me in the hope that it will let me see something new, an element I could have missed the first time and which would makes sense out of all this so I could finally find peace. It all began when that monster invaded Equestria, just another one you might think but this one was different, no one had ever heard about this Grogar. He came out from nowhere one day, bringing his accursed city with him and unleashed a torrent of horrors on our lands spreading death and darkness in his wake. The equestrian army was quickly deployed in order to put a stop to their advance and I, Bright Armlet, as a royal guard was among them. What we faced, no training could have ever prepared us for it, his army was exclusively composed of reanimated corpses. I will spare you our fight against them as there were nothing too abnormal about it although some of these soldiers were strange, it was more than their obvious disgusting condition, something uncanny, like if they were ponies but not exactly ponies at the same time. I think what disturbed us, even more than the undead soldiers was the lack of a perceptible will behind his actions, it was a weird feeling, like what we felt when Discord was released from his seal but more sinister and inhuman. Grogar wasn’t interested in ruling our world nor did he wanted power or revenge or was trying to feed on us, the only think we knew was that he was slowly turning our world into a lifeless black void. For what reason? We didn’t know and it only made the situation more horrifying. After fighting for months, we managed to push back the army of invader to the doors of their monstrous city that was now standing were the Crystal Empire once was. Celestia ordered us to stay outside to keep the enemy at bay while she and her sister went inside to fight their master. Now that I think about it, maybe she knew what was lying ahead and wanted to spare us, simple soldiers, from the horrors of what was hiding behind these tall walls but some kind of cruel god seems to have decided otherwise as I and five of my fellow soldiers succeeded in breaking through the enemy lines and taking advantage of the doors opening to let more abominations out to sneak in, we plunged into the depths of this city of nightmare, pursuing the foolish hope to assist our princesses in their fight. From the outside we couldn’t see the city being hidden by its cyclopean walls but what we were seeing now was beyond whatever we could have imagined, it felt as if by going through this gate we accidently entered another world. The city that laid before us was composed of strangely shaped solids pierced with numerous opening that we supposed were houses although they looked more like tombstones in a cemetery. Cubes, cones, domes and pyramids as far as the eye could see and arranged with no apparent sense of order or symmetry. Among them, like mushrooms in the grass, stood extremely big towers that had no door, window or any kind of opening other than one at the very top which was similar to the space that hold the bell in a steeple. It might be my imagination but each time we were close to one of these tower, I thought I heard the faint, nearly inaudible ring of a bell. All of these buildings were made of a strange shining black stone that looked like that dark glass found in Dragon lands but was also harder than steel, the weirdest thing about them was that they were not made of stacked stones but seemed to be built of a single block. The architecture of the place was strange and alien but the worst was the light or rather the lack of it, when we were fighting outside it was noon but now the skies were as dark as a moonless night. We would have been completely blind if not for strange crystals hanging from the sides of the houses that shed a cold phosphorescent light. Looking at this supernatural scenery we were overcome with a strange feeling, a sense of dread that seemed to come from the ancient times, our instinct was shouting at us to run away, to flee this abnormal place and to return to our world where things are good and natural but, driven by our wish to help our dear leaders, we ignored it and pushed on. Navigating through the city proved to be harder than expected, its streets were so narrow that it was impossible for two ponies to walk side by side and we were forced to move in single line. Their organisation was confusing and we often ended up in a dead end, sometime we found ourselves back at our starting point even though we were sure to have walked forward. At some point our path was blocked by a collapsed tower, we had to move around it to continue our way but to do so we had to walk past its base which was now a hole in the ground. If we had been in any other place it would have posed no problem at all, but here, here in this city of darkness, this hole looked like Abaddon’s gaping mouth, ready to swallow us all if we dared to approach. We pulled ourselves together an moved along the small ledge formed by the space between the tower and the adjacent houses trying not to look into the gates of Tartarus lying wide open at our feet. We were completely silent and at that moment, if someone had made even the slightest noise, I think the six of us would have dropped dead on the spot. Once on the other side we went away as fast as we could without looking back. After a while we reached what looked like a square, all the streets converged to that point and at its centre was standing a tower surrounded by black crystals that looked even more ominous than the ones we had seen until now. It was shorter than the other and was made of the same phosphorescent crystals that lighted the dark streets of the city. We decided to take advantage of the open space and the source of light to rest for a while before resuming our search for the two princesses. Each one of us was relieving some stress in his own way. On my left was standing Amber Bolt, I had never seen a pegasus brimming with so much self confidence as her, she would have walked through the gates of Tartarus if needed… and maybe she did, with the rest of us. She was rather short, even for a pegasus but she made up for her lack of size with an athletic body and an indomitable will. Her coat was orange leaning on brown, which made her dark-blue mane look like a fly trapped in resin. Truly she deserved her name as she looked like a tiny gem but had so much energy inside her that she could have subdued an hydra all by herself. She was chatting with Amethyst Grape, at first glance, you could never have guessed that such a delicate unicorn, with her beautiful pale blonde mane tied in a curious fashion that, according to her, enhanced the circulation of magic in her body, her sweet voice like wine mixed with honey, her beautiful navy blue eyes and her soft pink fur was such a fierce soldier. She graduated from Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns with the honours and then enlisted in a battalion of battle mages. It was impressive to see her on the battlefield, how she protected her comrades or shot down the enemy by the dozen using her magic. But nothing was more impressive than laying your eyes on Mountain Leaf who was currently scouting our surroundings. Earth ponies had always been the most bulky of all ponies due to their strong bond with nature, but he looked like he was not born from a father and a mother and instead had been grown from earth itself. His legs were four mighty trunks, firmly rooted in the ground, his short fur was like an armor of thorns, preventing anyone from laying a hand on him and his hair was like thick vines flowing down from the canopy. Friendly and easy going despite his appearance, when he laughed, letting his booming voice ring out, he looked like the mighty Gilganeihs of the legend. Far away, nearly out of sight Golden Vellum was examining one of these blind cylinders that looked like towers. He was a peculiar pony, his thin build, pale complexion and blonde mane made him look like a ghostly candle. He was animated by an unbound curiosity and had a vast knowledge on a lot of things. Although he was a good fighter, at heart he was more a scholar than a soldier and to him this city, despite the horror it inspired in him, was a big mystery he was eager to uncover. As for myself, I was siting near the circle of black crystals, thinking about everything that happened up until now when I heard a voice asking if he could sit next to me, I looked up and saw Buried Star standing next to me. I was so surprised that it took me a few seconds before telling him he was welcome to come. He never was very talkative and was rarely seen interacting with other ponies which explain my disbelief, in fact you could say his very existence was an extraordinary occurrence, as he was one of the few bat ponies who left their underground homes to live on the surface, and even among them he was a special case as he did not became one of princess Luna’s personal guard but instead choose to enlist in the army as a simple soldier. He came to see me because he wanted to share his thoughts on the city we were exploring. He told me that his sonar was sending back a signal that didn’t match what he could see with his eyes which confused him, like if there were something more to these stones than what we could see with the naked eye. I replied that I had a similar feeling when looking at the tall buildings, like if their true shape was blurred and I could only see a part of it but no matter how hard I squinted my eyes I could never see it in its entirety. While we were talking, I took the opportunity to get a look at him, most people think bat ponies are scary, there is all these old legends that say they were once pegasus who were driven out of their homes in the skies and were forced to hide underground and to feed on blood in these dark lands devoid of vegetation, or how they kidnap children during nightmare night to offer them in sacrifice to Nightmare Moon. Lies and foolish superstitions, all of it, these kind of story probably originated from the fact the bat ponies always lived on the fringes of our society, answering to no one except for princess Luna, who was the only pony that has ever got their trust. I, on the contrary, found them fascinating, they were always surrounded by an aura of mystery, like if after living in the night for so long, they had absorbed it’s secrets into their very being. Our friend Buried Star was a fine specimen of his kind, he was of an average size, smaller than an unicorn but taller than a pegasus. His two golden eyes looked like sunlight coming through the cloudy sky of his cinder coat. His fur was short, with the exception of the base of his neck, which looked like those fancy scarves that the nobles of Canterlot love to wear. Each time he opened his mouth to talk, I could see shining with the light of the crystal tower, two strong and sharp canines that made me glad he was a vegetarian. His calm and low voice was mixed with a faint rattling like a cricket. At some point, he shifted the position in which he sat and stretched his wings, very different from a pegasus ones they had no feathers, instead, they were made of a very thin flesh membrane, the elongated bones making it’s frame were visible and, illuminated by the light of the huge phosphorescent crystal beside us, I could see a scarlet maze of tiny veins coursing through these wings that looked like the decaying claws of a corpse. Buried star then told me how everything here reminded him of timeless bat ponies stories about uncanny landscapes found underground, of faint unnatural voices echoing through the caves and coming from deep below, or how those who tried to settle too far in the bowels of the earth were never seen again. I couldn’t put my hoof on it, but these stories felt similar, too similar, to our current situation and thinking they may be related sent shivers down my spine. When he saw the effect it had on me, he quickly dismissed it as old fairy tales and told me that I shouldn’t pay too much attention to it. Trying to change the subject, I said that bat ponies were a rare sight and asked him why he decided to move to the surface and join the army. He seemed to be taken off-guard by my sudden question, he hesitated for a while, not sure if he should answer then, looking straight at me, he started to speak. He said that when Tirek broke free from Tartarus, the bat ponies didn’t act and remained hidden as usual, but even from their cave, he could hear Tirek’s thunderous voice echoing through the air, he felt the ground quake under the centaur’s mighty hooves and the mountains shaken to their core by his fight with the princess of friendship. This is when he realised that the world outside was vast and that the thousands of ponies living there were suffering and fighting for their lives while he was cowering in his hole. He told me how he felt helpless, useless and swore that day that he will never stand aside when someone was in danger again. I wanted to know him better, I was going to ask him more questions when we heard something that paralysed us. It was the bone chilling scream of pure terror of someone who reached the depths of despair. The horror manifest itselfWe quickly regrouped, and saw that Golden Vellum was missing, we rushed to where he had been seen last and found him at the foot of one of these strange stone cylinder, curled up on the ground shaking, with mad eyes and abrasions all over his body, like if he had struggled with something that tried to grab him. When we asked him what happened he told us with a broken voice that he went inside the tower by going through one of it’s angles, that there was nothing inside and that he was attacked by nothing It was the last coherents words he ever said, now limiting himself to a maniacal laugher. It’s not uncommon for soldiers to break under the pressure, so at the time we thought the stress finally got to him and that he wounded himself by crawling on the ground. My first reaction was to immediately go back to our camp so he could receive medical assistance but then I realised that doing so would require getting past that dark pit in the ground again and none of us would have accepted, not even for all the bits in the world, to walk again along the edge of the abyss with this rambling madman, so I remained silent. We were thinking about what to do with our poor friend when we realised that we weren't the only one to hear his scream. It’s Amber Bolt, thanks to her pegasus eyes, who first noticed that the shadows surrounding us behaved strangely, almost like if they were moving, then we saw it, the materialised horror of this otherworldly city, advancing in the light. It wasn't like any creature we saw until now, even the fearsome beasts of the Everfree forest weren't comparable to this creature. It had no form or shape, it was only a cloud of black smoke which contracted and stretched itself like a giant ebony worm crawling in the sky. In what looked like its head, we could see shining a fiery red orb, only distinguishable feature on it’s pitch black body. Just looking at it was already frightening but it was only the beginning, it stopped at some distance and seemed to look at us, maybe, it was hard to say as it had no face ; then it started to go through an horrible mutation: it’s body became denser and it slowly grew four hooved legs, a tail that looked like a black cloud, and a strong neck topped by a head with a long muzzle, two ears and an ebony mane. The creature’s red eye, which was moving freely in its body, traveled to its newly formed head and settled on its forehead where it took the form of a horn. The thing was now the perfect replica of a pony, or at least it, tried to be. As if it was unable to maintain a complex form, it’s face and other body features were constantly melting, fading into nonexistence before reforming again. This shuffling nightmare reminded me of the tales of the faceless beast that some ponies from the north swore they saw thousands of years ago. We were terrified but still confident in our chances of defeating the creature we outnumbered six to one. This hope was soon crushed when from the nearby streets came more of these living shadows, first one, then two, three, five, ten, twenty! Each one of them going through the same transformation as the first one. We were completely outnumbered and, in the horror of the moment, I thought I recognised in this multitude of shifting faces, the likeness of the tyrant of the crystal empire that I saw on a painting when I was sent to work with the crystal guard years ago. Our morale was low, we were preparing ourselves to escape with the hope we could lose our opponents in the maze of streets when we heard something coming behind us, fearing a back attack, we turned around to face the newcomer and our souls nearly left us when we saw what stood in front of us. This time it was no faded painting or ghostly doppelganger, it was him, the scourge of the frozen north, like summoned her by my thought, king Sombra was standing here looking at us menacingly. We thought we were done for but to our great surprise he ignored us and walked straight to the shadow monsters. What he did then, I shudder just to think about it, those crystal ponies that say Sombra was a monster in a pony disguise may be closer from the truth than one should be allowed to be, OH BY THE SUN AND MOON HE SPOKE TO THEM! He talked to these nightmarish creatures. Although «talked» may not the right word as the sounds that came out of his mouth were not part of any known language and should have never been heard in a pony’s mouth or the one of any creature from a world where everything is good and normal. Whatever he said to them, they didn't like it as they immediately attacked him. The fight that followed, if we can even call it a fight, was very short. The way Sombra fought was strange and terrible, he was ruthlessly strong, unleashing his dark powers in a fit of rage and mercilessly crushing all the creatures who stood against him, despite the armor he was wearing, his movements were swift and nimble as if his body had no weight and sometime it seemed to bend in impossible ways, but the worst was the fear he exuded that reduced us to a bunch of foals cowering from the monster under their bed at night, we couldn't move, not to run away, not even to avoid an attack, we were completely paralyzed and could only watch as he crushed these living shadows one by one. Once the last shadow monsters had been defeated or had ran away deeper in the city the silence fell once again, only to be troubled by Golden Velum mad mumbles. King Sombra, still not paying attention to us was standing motionless, staring into the void seemingly thinking about something and we didn't dare to make a move, still in shock from what just happened. It’s Mountain Leaf who eventually decided to act . Oh you poor fool, going to talk to that monster like it was one of your friend, we thought he was going to die when the king lifted him from the ground, strangling him with his magic. Finally acknowledging our presence, his burning gaze brushed across our little group, piercing our souls as it passed upon us. His words to us were cold and without any compassion, he said that he may have made a deal with Celestia, but he had no obligations toward lowly creatures like us, and that we should not forget where is our place. He then released the half dead Mountain Leaf, throwing him on the floor without care, we rushed to his side and were relieved to see he was still alive, to which the king replied mockingly that it would have been better for him if he died instead of what was awaiting us. Sombra was then about to leave when Amethyst Grape asked him with a feeble voice, if we could go with him, nearly fainting as the words escaped her mouth. Sombra looked at us with a face distorted by anger and disgust, I honestly thought that our last hour had come and that he was going to execute us, but nothing worked normally in this distorted place. Indeed, slowly he calmed down and without a word, without a look he turned around and started to walk. Dumbfounded, we stared at each others for a few second then went after him. You might wonder what were we thinking to do such a thing, afterall, we all knew how cruel king Sombra was, even though the crystal war happened a thousand years ago everyone have heard about the slaves forced to work night and day in the mines, the brainwashed soldiers forced to battle against their will, and the magical abominations that were once normal ponies that even the bravest warriors are afraid to talk about, so what madness could’ve made us follow such monster? The reason is that in this mad world where things don't obey logic and is inhabited by being beyond our comprehension he was the only thing that tied us to our world, to our beloved Equestria, and despite how horrible he may have been, we followed him as closely as if he was Celestia herself, fearing that if we had lost sight of him, we would have been swallowed by the darkness of this phantomatic city. As for his reasons for letting us accompany him despite stating how worthless we were to him, I can only guess, maybe he was impressed by our courage to ask him that just after he threatened us, I highly doubt it was the deal with Celestia he stated that held him back, if he killed us there, nobody would have ever found our bodies, maybe he too feared this city and what it contained and unconsciously wanted companions, or maybe deep down he knew what was going to happen to him and wanted to do one good act before meeting his end. King Sombra had no trouble to move among the streets of the labyrinthic city, as if he had lived here all his life, he walked fast, and for us who already had trouble moving by ourselves it became a real challenge to keep up with him, but despite our tiredness we did our best to keep him in sight. Along the way we could feel the eyes of shadowy figures watching us, they didn't dare to approach and followed us from the edge of our area of sight until the very end, as if they were waiting for something. We walked for hours without seeing nothing but the same tight ranks of strangely shaped houses and we started to think this city had no end when suddenly we saw something that left us in shock. It was something we didn’t saw for what seemed to be eons, nothing out of the ordinary compared to the horrors we saw until now but it had so many implications that we felt a mixture of relief and apprehension. What we all saw at that moment was simply the rays of the sun, shining among the darkness of the sky. King Sombra immediately identified what was the source of the light and instantly rushed in its direction leaving us behind, in our turn we followed the light and went in the same direction as him. What we saw upon arriving was beyond everything we could've imagined, it was indescriptible, beautiful beyond words yet terrifying at the same time. I think I heard Buried Star whispers something about the spirit of order and chaos standing among the stars yet to be born, bringing our universe to existence through their fights. Truly, a fitting description, as it was something of cosmic magnitude, something that had never been witnessed by any mortal eyes. Cosmic danceUp above us, or was it down bellow? It was hard to tell, standing on a strangely shaped stone structure we saw the source of the light in which we barely recognized princess Celestia. She had nothing in common with the gentle ruler we all knew and loved, her mane that was usually like the dancing lights of the northern sky had turned into a blazing inferno, each strand of hair looking like a burning torch but it was no ordinary fire, it had something ethereal, eldritch, like it could've devoured the entire world if it ever left her body. Her normally snow white body was shining brightly under her own light and looked like it was made out of gold. Her hooves were now glittering rubies and each times they touched the ground it instantly melted leaving shining footprints behind her. Standing not too far from her was princess Luna who underwent the same metamorphosis as her sister, and the sweet night guardian who protect ponies during their most vulnerable moments left her place to a fearsome night creature. Her beautiful mane usually shining like the night sky flowed like it was made of water or more exactly of liquid silver, as it had the color of the pale metal and shone brightly under her sister’s light. Her sapphire body was almost transparent and studded with thousands of tiny specks of light that moved and shifted places with each of her movement, like a living milky way. Everytime she came into contact with the ground, streams of water as pure as crystal sprung out of it, bringing life to the desolated earth of this lifeless city. On the opposed side, clad in darkness, king Sombra was trying to stay as far as possible of the light coming from Celestia. He somehow was even more terrifying than the last time we saw him, his face horribly distorted by rage, it was made even worse by the eerie scarlet light of his horn. His whole body was shrouded in shadows as black as a starless sky and could not be seen. It seemed like he had made his the darkness of this place and now looked like a storm cloud, as black as the empty void of space. The three of them were constantly moving but kept the same distance from each other like three little planets orbiting around a bigger heavenly body, a black star of monstrous proportions, waiting for any lapse in their concentration to pull them in and devour them all. We finally saw our enemy, the cause of all our torments, yes it was him, the fear that radiated from him, even worse than king Sombra’s, that feeling of otherworldly strangeness, it could only be him, Grogar. He was a tall creature with curled horns like a ram but that’s where the similarity ended, as he was clearly not like any being of our world. His eyes were red like these animals that live deep underground and never see the light of the day but unlike them who flee the sun, he was not bothered by the living star in front of him. His fur was of a bluish color like these fearsome mushrooms that feed on corpses. But worst of all was the bell he carried around his neck, even more than the rest of his city it’s shape was so strange and so unnatural that we felt sick just by looking at it. He was standing in the middle of the Sun, moon and empty dark sky, completely unmoving despite the attacks raining on him. This is when we finally realised how foolish we were to come to this accursed place, all we wanted was to assist our princesses in their fight but now we could see how futile it was. What was happening here was beyond the competence and understanding of mere soldiers like us, trying to step in this fight would have been like trying to stop the course of a planet with your bare hands, we would have been crushed, utterly destroyed and reduced to star dust without any of the fighters noticing we were even here. Unable to act, we could only watch silently the cosmic dance that unfolded before us. We were too far to understand what they were saying but sometime the wind brought to our ears some hints on what was happening, sometime it was some encouraging words from princess Celestia or a threat from princess Luna, another time it was a bone chilling warcry from king Sombra that made us glad he was not fighting against us, but sometime it was something much worse, a fragment of word or some musical notes from Grogar, so disgusting in their nature that it could have driven insane anyone who would not have experienced the horrors we did beforehand. I don't know how long we stayed like that, hypnotized by the movements of these stars, we felt like we were dreaming and it’s the deep and eerie sound of a bell that woken us from our daydreaming. Immediately after the first sound the bell made, the air became heavy, almost solid and it became hard to breath, purple lightning bolts could be seen in the sky. We thought it was another of Grogar’s schemes but to our surprise he looked furious to hear that sound. We then felt an extremely cold wind coming down from the sky, as the bell continued it’s sinister melody, light started to pierce the shadows and the strangely shaped black tower became translucent, letting us see through them the vague shape of the shining houses of the crystal empire. Our world was coming back, or more exactly, it was this alien world that was sent back to where it belonged. I later learned that it was princess Twilight Sparkle who rung a bell that was buried deep under the crystal empire, the very same bell that brought Grogar out of his exile between the worlds and which was now sending him back from where he came. But Grogar wasn't planning to go away that easily, he clung to our plane like dragon lord brimstone clung to the mountain containing his greatest treasure to the point he became one with it. As he tried to prevent the inevitable, an awful transformation occurred in him, as if all life was sucked out of his body as the same time his city was sucked out of this dimension, his body started to deteriorate quickly, releasing an abominable smell that poisoned the air. At this moment the bells rang furiously as if they were trying to cover the sound of the other one, this is when we heard his voice, not in a whisper carried by the wind like before but loud and clear, in all its horrifying glory, prophesying about his inevitable return and the terrible days to come. And then, the final horror happened, this terrible event that plunged me into the depths of despair for the rest of my life. The fear that come from truthPrincess Celestia often come to visit me, she try to convince me that everything is alright, telling me it was all just my imagination, an illusion, a trick of the light, that such things can’t happen in our world, but I know by looking at her face that she too, have seen the same thing as me. Oh how far have I fallen that even the smile of our dear princess can’t light my heart anymore. I wish Golden Velum would speak, it’s clear that we saw something similar in nature and maybe he could help me understand what I saw but the only thing he do now is muttering some incoherent sounds. Sometime his sanity seems to come back for a few seconds during which some words escape his lips before sinking back into madness, words about solids bigger on the inside, the universe in a grain of sand, the eyes in the void and other things, so weird and frightening that the nurses at the hospital try to avoid his room as much as possible. As I was saying, it’s when Grogar uttered his last words that I came into contact with true horror, it was not really what he said and more from where it came, as the words were not pronounced by Grogar’s quickly decaying mouth but came from the city itself, echoing through each stone, each street, each impossibly bent step of stair. My companions noticed this phenomenon too but put it on the account of some weird echo caused by the abnormal geometry of the city and I would have believed it too if only for a second detail I was the only one to see. When we heard the voice all my friend, like guided by some sort of self preservation instinct closed their eyes, I did not and what I saw will haunt me until the end of my days. I saw the tall towers stretching to the sky and moving like the hands of a swimmer who desperately try to grab the air in order to pull themselves out of water before being mercilessly dragged in the abyss. I saw the narrow streets pulsating like veins, trying to bring more blood from the heart that was this accursed crystal tower. Having witnessed this last bit of eldritch truth, my mind finally gave in and granted me the sweet relief of unconsciousness. Just who or what was that thing that called itself Grogar, that could manipulate corpses like if they were puppets and traveled from world to world bringing death and destruction for no apparent reason? Well, it doesn’t matter now, it’s gone, but the scars it left on my mind will never go away. When I woke up I was lying in an hospital bed, I even wondered for a moment if everything was not a nightmare but when I looked around me and saw my friends I knew it was all real as their faces bore the marks of our adventure. Amber Bolt had lost all her spirit and determination, she was deeply depressed as if the mere act of being alive was still too much for her to bear. Amethyst Grape looked as if she had aged prematurely, her beautiful mane had turned white and her blue eyes had lost their light, her face usually so cheerful was now only reflecting apathy and tiredness. The mighty tree that was Mountain Leaf had been struck by lightning, his head was hanging low and his voice was barely audible, he looked like a dwarf now. As for Buried Star, as mysterious as ever, he was deeply lost in thoughts like if he was trying to figure out an unsolvable problem and all his mind was focused on this task to the point he didn’t paid attention to the rest of the world anymore. On a bed next to me I could hear the laughing ghoul that was once the pony named Golden Vellum. In the back of the room the two princesses where peacefully sleeping, they were once again those benevolent ponies we all knew and not these fearsome primal elementals I saw in my nightmare. Seeing how everyone was here I almost expected king Sombra to show up, but I knew it was impossible, I saw him fall to his doom when the city started to vanish. What caused his fall, I couldn’t say, maybe he tripped on the geometrically incorrect surface he was standing on, maybe it was one last attack from Grogar that made him lose his balance or maybe it was the princesses who pushed him over the edge, what I’m sure of is that I saw an endless stream of shadow monsters rise from the depths of the streets like an ebony snake with fiery eyes all over its body, grab the king in shadows and drag him with them as they disappeared from our world. This was the last time we ever heard about Sombra, may he rot in Tartarus or whatever hellish dimension he’s in now. As I was starting to move and make noises, the ponies at my sides finally realized I was awake and looked relieved, their faces lighting up a bit except for Celestia who came close to me with sorowful eyes and said something that nearly broke me, it was nothing out of the ordinary, no foreign language or eldritch tongue from beyond the stars but there was so much pain in her voice, so much sincere compassion that it almost brought me to tears, what she said to me were those simple four words : "I’m so sorry". Then everyone told me what happened after I collapsed, they said that when they opened their eyes they found themselves in the streets of the crystal empire, still unsure if everything until now was real. This is when Celestia and Luna finally noticed our presence and upon seeing an insane Golden Velum, me passed out on the ground and the four other in a deap state of shock, they immediately understood the situation and, without even taking the time to revert to their normal form they grabbed us, Celestaia holding me in her burning hooves, Luna carrying Golden Velum, and teleported everyone to the Canterlot hospital where I slept for a week. During this conversation I did my best to act as normal as possible, I even laughed with the other when Amber Bolt joked about how the people at the hospital were terrorized when they saw the living embodiment of the sun and moon walk through the door and ask for a nurse. "They must thought it was the end of the world" she said to the dismay of the two alicorns who couldn’t hide their embarrassment. We all laughed but my laugh was fake and hollow, because from the moment I opened my eyes, all the events from before came back to my mind and with them a fear that hadn’t left me to this day. If only I could sleep then maybe I could persuade myself that it was all just a bad dream but I will never be able to sleep well again, they won’t let me. OH LUNA SAVE ME FROM THIS NIGHTMARE! EVERYTIME I CLOSE MY EYES I HEAR THEM, RINGING OUT OF SIGHT, MOCKING ME ACROSS SPACE AND TIME! THE BELLS ATOP BLACK STONE TOWERS! THE BELLS OUTSIDE OF REALITY! THE BELL THAT SHOULDN'T BE!
The impossible cityI can’t take it anymore, it feels like a poison is slowly burning my mind, I can’t shake off the fear that took hold of me on that fateful day. When I talk about what I saw people think I’m crazy, oh how I wish they were right, everyday I pray the spirit of chaos to finally drive me insane, if I was mad then maybe everything would finally make sense to me but I still have my sanity and the sunny days of Equestria are only suffering to me and its beautiful nights are filled with terrifying nightmares. I’m writing down the story of what happened to me in the hope that it will let me see something new, an element I could have missed the first time and which would makes sense out of all this so I could finally find peace. It all began when that monster invaded Equestria, just another one you might think but this one was different, no one had ever heard about this Grogar. He came out from nowhere one day, bringing his accursed city with him and unleashed a torrent of horrors on our lands spreading death and darkness in his wake. The equestrian army was quickly deployed in order to put a stop to their advance and I, Bright Armlet, as a royal guard was among them. What we faced, no training could have ever prepared us for it, his army was exclusively composed of reanimated corpses. I will spare you our fight against them as there were nothing too abnormal about it although some of these soldiers were strange, it was more than their obvious disgusting condition, something uncanny, like if they were ponies but not exactly ponies at the same time. I think what disturbed us, even more than the undead soldiers was the lack of a perceptible will behind his actions, it was a weird feeling, like what we felt when Discord was released from his seal but more sinister and inhuman. Grogar wasn’t interested in ruling our world nor did he wanted power or revenge or was trying to feed on us, the only think we knew was that he was slowly turning our world into a lifeless black void. For what reason? We didn’t know and it only made the situation more horrifying. After fighting for months, we managed to push back the army of invader to the doors of their monstrous city that was now standing were the Crystal Empire once was. Celestia ordered us to stay outside to keep the enemy at bay while she and her sister went inside to fight their master. Now that I think about it, maybe she knew what was lying ahead and wanted to spare us, simple soldiers, from the horrors of what was hiding behind these tall walls but some kind of cruel god seems to have decided otherwise as I and five of my fellow soldiers succeeded in breaking through the enemy lines and taking advantage of the doors opening to let more abominations out to sneak in, we plunged into the depths of this city of nightmare, pursuing the foolish hope to assist our princesses in their fight. From the outside we couldn’t see the city being hidden by its cyclopean walls but what we were seeing now was beyond whatever we could have imagined, it felt as if by going through this gate we accidently entered another world. The city that laid before us was composed of strangely shaped solids pierced with numerous opening that we supposed were houses although they looked more like tombstones in a cemetery. Cubes, cones, domes and pyramids as far as the eye could see and arranged with no apparent sense of order or symmetry. Among them, like mushrooms in the grass, stood extremely big towers that had no door, window or any kind of opening other than one at the very top which was similar to the space that hold the bell in a steeple. It might be my imagination but each time we were close to one of these tower, I thought I heard the faint, nearly inaudible ring of a bell. All of these buildings were made of a strange shining black stone that looked like that dark glass found in Dragon lands but was also harder than steel, the weirdest thing about them was that they were not made of stacked stones but seemed to be built of a single block. The architecture of the place was strange and alien but the worst was the light or rather the lack of it, when we were fighting outside it was noon but now the skies were as dark as a moonless night. We would have been completely blind if not for strange crystals hanging from the sides of the houses that shed a cold phosphorescent light. Looking at this supernatural scenery we were overcome with a strange feeling, a sense of dread that seemed to come from the ancient times, our instinct was shouting at us to run away, to flee this abnormal place and to return to our world where things are good and natural but, driven by our wish to help our dear leaders, we ignored it and pushed on. Navigating through the city proved to be harder than expected, its streets were so narrow that it was impossible for two ponies to walk side by side and we were forced to move in single line. Their organisation was confusing and we often ended up in a dead end, sometime we found ourselves back at our starting point even though we were sure to have walked forward. At some point our path was blocked by a collapsed tower, we had to move around it to continue our way but to do so we had to walk past its base which was now a hole in the ground. If we had been in any other place it would have posed no problem at all, but here, here in this city of darkness, this hole looked like Abaddon’s gaping mouth, ready to swallow us all if we dared to approach. We pulled ourselves together an moved along the small ledge formed by the space between the tower and the adjacent houses trying not to look into the gates of Tartarus lying wide open at our feet. We were completely silent and at that moment, if someone had made even the slightest noise, I think the six of us would have dropped dead on the spot. Once on the other side we went away as fast as we could without looking back. After a while we reached what looked like a square, all the streets converged to that point and at its centre was standing a tower surrounded by black crystals that looked even more ominous than the ones we had seen until now. It was shorter than the other and was made of the same phosphorescent crystals that lighted the dark streets of the city. We decided to take advantage of the open space and the source of light to rest for a while before resuming our search for the two princesses. Each one of us was relieving some stress in his own way. On my left was standing Amber Bolt, I had never seen a pegasus brimming with so much self confidence as her, she would have walked through the gates of Tartarus if needed… and maybe she did, with the rest of us. She was rather short, even for a pegasus but she made up for her lack of size with an athletic body and an indomitable will. Her coat was orange leaning on brown, which made her dark-blue mane look like a fly trapped in resin. Truly she deserved her name as she looked like a tiny gem but had so much energy inside her that she could have subdued an hydra all by herself. She was chatting with Amethyst Grape, at first glance, you could never have guessed that such a delicate unicorn, with her beautiful pale blonde mane tied in a curious fashion that, according to her, enhanced the circulation of magic in her body, her sweet voice like wine mixed with honey, her beautiful navy blue eyes and her soft pink fur was such a fierce soldier. She graduated from Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns with the honours and then enlisted in a battalion of battle mages. It was impressive to see her on the battlefield, how she protected her comrades or shot down the enemy by the dozen using her magic. But nothing was more impressive than laying your eyes on Mountain Leaf who was currently scouting our surroundings. Earth ponies had always been the most bulky of all ponies due to their strong bond with nature, but he looked like he was not born from a father and a mother and instead had been grown from earth itself. His legs were four mighty trunks, firmly rooted in the ground, his short fur was like an armor of thorns, preventing anyone from laying a hand on him and his hair was like thick vines flowing down from the canopy. Friendly and easy going despite his appearance, when he laughed, letting his booming voice ring out, he looked like the mighty Gilganeihs of the legend. Far away, nearly out of sight Golden Vellum was examining one of these blind cylinders that looked like towers. He was a peculiar pony, his thin build, pale complexion and blonde mane made him look like a ghostly candle. He was animated by an unbound curiosity and had a vast knowledge on a lot of things. Although he was a good fighter, at heart he was more a scholar than a soldier and to him this city, despite the horror it inspired in him, was a big mystery he was eager to uncover. As for myself, I was siting near the circle of black crystals, thinking about everything that happened up until now when I heard a voice asking if he could sit next to me, I looked up and saw Buried Star standing next to me. I was so surprised that it took me a few seconds before telling him he was welcome to come. He never was very talkative and was rarely seen interacting with other ponies which explain my disbelief, in fact you could say his very existence was an extraordinary occurrence, as he was one of the few bat ponies who left their underground homes to live on the surface, and even among them he was a special case as he did not became one of princess Luna’s personal guard but instead choose to enlist in the army as a simple soldier. He came to see me because he wanted to share his thoughts on the city we were exploring. He told me that his sonar was sending back a signal that didn’t match what he could see with his eyes which confused him, like if there were something more to these stones than what we could see with the naked eye. I replied that I had a similar feeling when looking at the tall buildings, like if their true shape was blurred and I could only see a part of it but no matter how hard I squinted my eyes I could never see it in its entirety. While we were talking, I took the opportunity to get a look at him, most people think bat ponies are scary, there is all these old legends that say they were once pegasus who were driven out of their homes in the skies and were forced to hide underground and to feed on blood in these dark lands devoid of vegetation, or how they kidnap children during nightmare night to offer them in sacrifice to Nightmare Moon. Lies and foolish superstitions, all of it, these kind of story probably originated from the fact the bat ponies always lived on the fringes of our society, answering to no one except for princess Luna, who was the only pony that has ever got their trust. I, on the contrary, found them fascinating, they were always surrounded by an aura of mystery, like if after living in the night for so long, they had absorbed it’s secrets into their very being. Our friend Buried Star was a fine specimen of his kind, he was of an average size, smaller than an unicorn but taller than a pegasus. His two golden eyes looked like sunlight coming through the cloudy sky of his cinder coat. His fur was short, with the exception of the base of his neck, which looked like those fancy scarves that the nobles of Canterlot love to wear. Each time he opened his mouth to talk, I could see shining with the light of the crystal tower, two strong and sharp canines that made me glad he was a vegetarian. His calm and low voice was mixed with a faint rattling like a cricket. At some point, he shifted the position in which he sat and stretched his wings, very different from a pegasus ones they had no feathers, instead, they were made of a very thin flesh membrane, the elongated bones making it’s frame were visible and, illuminated by the light of the huge phosphorescent crystal beside us, I could see a scarlet maze of tiny veins coursing through these wings that looked like the decaying claws of a corpse. Buried star then told me how everything here reminded him of timeless bat ponies stories about uncanny landscapes found underground, of faint unnatural voices echoing through the caves and coming from deep below, or how those who tried to settle too far in the bowels of the earth were never seen again. I couldn’t put my hoof on it, but these stories felt similar, too similar, to our current situation and thinking they may be related sent shivers down my spine. When he saw the effect it had on me, he quickly dismissed it as old fairy tales and told me that I shouldn’t pay too much attention to it. Trying to change the subject, I said that bat ponies were a rare sight and asked him why he decided to move to the surface and join the army. He seemed to be taken off-guard by my sudden question, he hesitated for a while, not sure if he should answer then, looking straight at me, he started to speak. He said that when Tirek broke free from Tartarus, the bat ponies didn’t act and remained hidden as usual, but even from their cave, he could hear Tirek’s thunderous voice echoing through the air, he felt the ground quake under the centaur’s mighty hooves and the mountains shaken to their core by his fight with the princess of friendship. This is when he realised that the world outside was vast and that the thousands of ponies living there were suffering and fighting for their lives while he was cowering in his hole. He told me how he felt helpless, useless and swore that day that he will never stand aside when someone was in danger again. I wanted to know him better, I was going to ask him more questions when we heard something that paralysed us. It was the bone chilling scream of pure terror of someone who reached the depths of despair.
The horror manifest itselfWe quickly regrouped, and saw that Golden Vellum was missing, we rushed to where he had been seen last and found him at the foot of one of these strange stone cylinder, curled up on the ground shaking, with mad eyes and abrasions all over his body, like if he had struggled with something that tried to grab him. When we asked him what happened he told us with a broken voice that he went inside the tower by going through one of it’s angles, that there was nothing inside and that he was attacked by nothing It was the last coherents words he ever said, now limiting himself to a maniacal laugher. It’s not uncommon for soldiers to break under the pressure, so at the time we thought the stress finally got to him and that he wounded himself by crawling on the ground. My first reaction was to immediately go back to our camp so he could receive medical assistance but then I realised that doing so would require getting past that dark pit in the ground again and none of us would have accepted, not even for all the bits in the world, to walk again along the edge of the abyss with this rambling madman, so I remained silent. We were thinking about what to do with our poor friend when we realised that we weren't the only one to hear his scream. It’s Amber Bolt, thanks to her pegasus eyes, who first noticed that the shadows surrounding us behaved strangely, almost like if they were moving, then we saw it, the materialised horror of this otherworldly city, advancing in the light. It wasn't like any creature we saw until now, even the fearsome beasts of the Everfree forest weren't comparable to this creature. It had no form or shape, it was only a cloud of black smoke which contracted and stretched itself like a giant ebony worm crawling in the sky. In what looked like its head, we could see shining a fiery red orb, only distinguishable feature on it’s pitch black body. Just looking at it was already frightening but it was only the beginning, it stopped at some distance and seemed to look at us, maybe, it was hard to say as it had no face ; then it started to go through an horrible mutation: it’s body became denser and it slowly grew four hooved legs, a tail that looked like a black cloud, and a strong neck topped by a head with a long muzzle, two ears and an ebony mane. The creature’s red eye, which was moving freely in its body, traveled to its newly formed head and settled on its forehead where it took the form of a horn. The thing was now the perfect replica of a pony, or at least it, tried to be. As if it was unable to maintain a complex form, it’s face and other body features were constantly melting, fading into nonexistence before reforming again. This shuffling nightmare reminded me of the tales of the faceless beast that some ponies from the north swore they saw thousands of years ago. We were terrified but still confident in our chances of defeating the creature we outnumbered six to one. This hope was soon crushed when from the nearby streets came more of these living shadows, first one, then two, three, five, ten, twenty! Each one of them going through the same transformation as the first one. We were completely outnumbered and, in the horror of the moment, I thought I recognised in this multitude of shifting faces, the likeness of the tyrant of the crystal empire that I saw on a painting when I was sent to work with the crystal guard years ago. Our morale was low, we were preparing ourselves to escape with the hope we could lose our opponents in the maze of streets when we heard something coming behind us, fearing a back attack, we turned around to face the newcomer and our souls nearly left us when we saw what stood in front of us. This time it was no faded painting or ghostly doppelganger, it was him, the scourge of the frozen north, like summoned her by my thought, king Sombra was standing here looking at us menacingly. We thought we were done for but to our great surprise he ignored us and walked straight to the shadow monsters. What he did then, I shudder just to think about it, those crystal ponies that say Sombra was a monster in a pony disguise may be closer from the truth than one should be allowed to be, OH BY THE SUN AND MOON HE SPOKE TO THEM! He talked to these nightmarish creatures. Although «talked» may not the right word as the sounds that came out of his mouth were not part of any known language and should have never been heard in a pony’s mouth or the one of any creature from a world where everything is good and normal. Whatever he said to them, they didn't like it as they immediately attacked him. The fight that followed, if we can even call it a fight, was very short. The way Sombra fought was strange and terrible, he was ruthlessly strong, unleashing his dark powers in a fit of rage and mercilessly crushing all the creatures who stood against him, despite the armor he was wearing, his movements were swift and nimble as if his body had no weight and sometime it seemed to bend in impossible ways, but the worst was the fear he exuded that reduced us to a bunch of foals cowering from the monster under their bed at night, we couldn't move, not to run away, not even to avoid an attack, we were completely paralyzed and could only watch as he crushed these living shadows one by one. Once the last shadow monsters had been defeated or had ran away deeper in the city the silence fell once again, only to be troubled by Golden Velum mad mumbles. King Sombra, still not paying attention to us was standing motionless, staring into the void seemingly thinking about something and we didn't dare to make a move, still in shock from what just happened. It’s Mountain Leaf who eventually decided to act . Oh you poor fool, going to talk to that monster like it was one of your friend, we thought he was going to die when the king lifted him from the ground, strangling him with his magic. Finally acknowledging our presence, his burning gaze brushed across our little group, piercing our souls as it passed upon us. His words to us were cold and without any compassion, he said that he may have made a deal with Celestia, but he had no obligations toward lowly creatures like us, and that we should not forget where is our place. He then released the half dead Mountain Leaf, throwing him on the floor without care, we rushed to his side and were relieved to see he was still alive, to which the king replied mockingly that it would have been better for him if he died instead of what was awaiting us. Sombra was then about to leave when Amethyst Grape asked him with a feeble voice, if we could go with him, nearly fainting as the words escaped her mouth. Sombra looked at us with a face distorted by anger and disgust, I honestly thought that our last hour had come and that he was going to execute us, but nothing worked normally in this distorted place. Indeed, slowly he calmed down and without a word, without a look he turned around and started to walk. Dumbfounded, we stared at each others for a few second then went after him. You might wonder what were we thinking to do such a thing, afterall, we all knew how cruel king Sombra was, even though the crystal war happened a thousand years ago everyone have heard about the slaves forced to work night and day in the mines, the brainwashed soldiers forced to battle against their will, and the magical abominations that were once normal ponies that even the bravest warriors are afraid to talk about, so what madness could’ve made us follow such monster? The reason is that in this mad world where things don't obey logic and is inhabited by being beyond our comprehension he was the only thing that tied us to our world, to our beloved Equestria, and despite how horrible he may have been, we followed him as closely as if he was Celestia herself, fearing that if we had lost sight of him, we would have been swallowed by the darkness of this phantomatic city. As for his reasons for letting us accompany him despite stating how worthless we were to him, I can only guess, maybe he was impressed by our courage to ask him that just after he threatened us, I highly doubt it was the deal with Celestia he stated that held him back, if he killed us there, nobody would have ever found our bodies, maybe he too feared this city and what it contained and unconsciously wanted companions, or maybe deep down he knew what was going to happen to him and wanted to do one good act before meeting his end. King Sombra had no trouble to move among the streets of the labyrinthic city, as if he had lived here all his life, he walked fast, and for us who already had trouble moving by ourselves it became a real challenge to keep up with him, but despite our tiredness we did our best to keep him in sight. Along the way we could feel the eyes of shadowy figures watching us, they didn't dare to approach and followed us from the edge of our area of sight until the very end, as if they were waiting for something. We walked for hours without seeing nothing but the same tight ranks of strangely shaped houses and we started to think this city had no end when suddenly we saw something that left us in shock. It was something we didn’t saw for what seemed to be eons, nothing out of the ordinary compared to the horrors we saw until now but it had so many implications that we felt a mixture of relief and apprehension. What we all saw at that moment was simply the rays of the sun, shining among the darkness of the sky. King Sombra immediately identified what was the source of the light and instantly rushed in its direction leaving us behind, in our turn we followed the light and went in the same direction as him. What we saw upon arriving was beyond everything we could've imagined, it was indescriptible, beautiful beyond words yet terrifying at the same time. I think I heard Buried Star whispers something about the spirit of order and chaos standing among the stars yet to be born, bringing our universe to existence through their fights. Truly, a fitting description, as it was something of cosmic magnitude, something that had never been witnessed by any mortal eyes.
Cosmic danceUp above us, or was it down bellow? It was hard to tell, standing on a strangely shaped stone structure we saw the source of the light in which we barely recognized princess Celestia. She had nothing in common with the gentle ruler we all knew and loved, her mane that was usually like the dancing lights of the northern sky had turned into a blazing inferno, each strand of hair looking like a burning torch but it was no ordinary fire, it had something ethereal, eldritch, like it could've devoured the entire world if it ever left her body. Her normally snow white body was shining brightly under her own light and looked like it was made out of gold. Her hooves were now glittering rubies and each times they touched the ground it instantly melted leaving shining footprints behind her. Standing not too far from her was princess Luna who underwent the same metamorphosis as her sister, and the sweet night guardian who protect ponies during their most vulnerable moments left her place to a fearsome night creature. Her beautiful mane usually shining like the night sky flowed like it was made of water or more exactly of liquid silver, as it had the color of the pale metal and shone brightly under her sister’s light. Her sapphire body was almost transparent and studded with thousands of tiny specks of light that moved and shifted places with each of her movement, like a living milky way. Everytime she came into contact with the ground, streams of water as pure as crystal sprung out of it, bringing life to the desolated earth of this lifeless city. On the opposed side, clad in darkness, king Sombra was trying to stay as far as possible of the light coming from Celestia. He somehow was even more terrifying than the last time we saw him, his face horribly distorted by rage, it was made even worse by the eerie scarlet light of his horn. His whole body was shrouded in shadows as black as a starless sky and could not be seen. It seemed like he had made his the darkness of this place and now looked like a storm cloud, as black as the empty void of space. The three of them were constantly moving but kept the same distance from each other like three little planets orbiting around a bigger heavenly body, a black star of monstrous proportions, waiting for any lapse in their concentration to pull them in and devour them all. We finally saw our enemy, the cause of all our torments, yes it was him, the fear that radiated from him, even worse than king Sombra’s, that feeling of otherworldly strangeness, it could only be him, Grogar. He was a tall creature with curled horns like a ram but that’s where the similarity ended, as he was clearly not like any being of our world. His eyes were red like these animals that live deep underground and never see the light of the day but unlike them who flee the sun, he was not bothered by the living star in front of him. His fur was of a bluish color like these fearsome mushrooms that feed on corpses. But worst of all was the bell he carried around his neck, even more than the rest of his city it’s shape was so strange and so unnatural that we felt sick just by looking at it. He was standing in the middle of the Sun, moon and empty dark sky, completely unmoving despite the attacks raining on him. This is when we finally realised how foolish we were to come to this accursed place, all we wanted was to assist our princesses in their fight but now we could see how futile it was. What was happening here was beyond the competence and understanding of mere soldiers like us, trying to step in this fight would have been like trying to stop the course of a planet with your bare hands, we would have been crushed, utterly destroyed and reduced to star dust without any of the fighters noticing we were even here. Unable to act, we could only watch silently the cosmic dance that unfolded before us. We were too far to understand what they were saying but sometime the wind brought to our ears some hints on what was happening, sometime it was some encouraging words from princess Celestia or a threat from princess Luna, another time it was a bone chilling warcry from king Sombra that made us glad he was not fighting against us, but sometime it was something much worse, a fragment of word or some musical notes from Grogar, so disgusting in their nature that it could have driven insane anyone who would not have experienced the horrors we did beforehand. I don't know how long we stayed like that, hypnotized by the movements of these stars, we felt like we were dreaming and it’s the deep and eerie sound of a bell that woken us from our daydreaming. Immediately after the first sound the bell made, the air became heavy, almost solid and it became hard to breath, purple lightning bolts could be seen in the sky. We thought it was another of Grogar’s schemes but to our surprise he looked furious to hear that sound. We then felt an extremely cold wind coming down from the sky, as the bell continued it’s sinister melody, light started to pierce the shadows and the strangely shaped black tower became translucent, letting us see through them the vague shape of the shining houses of the crystal empire. Our world was coming back, or more exactly, it was this alien world that was sent back to where it belonged. I later learned that it was princess Twilight Sparkle who rung a bell that was buried deep under the crystal empire, the very same bell that brought Grogar out of his exile between the worlds and which was now sending him back from where he came. But Grogar wasn't planning to go away that easily, he clung to our plane like dragon lord brimstone clung to the mountain containing his greatest treasure to the point he became one with it. As he tried to prevent the inevitable, an awful transformation occurred in him, as if all life was sucked out of his body as the same time his city was sucked out of this dimension, his body started to deteriorate quickly, releasing an abominable smell that poisoned the air. At this moment the bells rang furiously as if they were trying to cover the sound of the other one, this is when we heard his voice, not in a whisper carried by the wind like before but loud and clear, in all its horrifying glory, prophesying about his inevitable return and the terrible days to come. And then, the final horror happened, this terrible event that plunged me into the depths of despair for the rest of my life.
The fear that come from truthPrincess Celestia often come to visit me, she try to convince me that everything is alright, telling me it was all just my imagination, an illusion, a trick of the light, that such things can’t happen in our world, but I know by looking at her face that she too, have seen the same thing as me. Oh how far have I fallen that even the smile of our dear princess can’t light my heart anymore. I wish Golden Velum would speak, it’s clear that we saw something similar in nature and maybe he could help me understand what I saw but the only thing he do now is muttering some incoherent sounds. Sometime his sanity seems to come back for a few seconds during which some words escape his lips before sinking back into madness, words about solids bigger on the inside, the universe in a grain of sand, the eyes in the void and other things, so weird and frightening that the nurses at the hospital try to avoid his room as much as possible. As I was saying, it’s when Grogar uttered his last words that I came into contact with true horror, it was not really what he said and more from where it came, as the words were not pronounced by Grogar’s quickly decaying mouth but came from the city itself, echoing through each stone, each street, each impossibly bent step of stair. My companions noticed this phenomenon too but put it on the account of some weird echo caused by the abnormal geometry of the city and I would have believed it too if only for a second detail I was the only one to see. When we heard the voice all my friend, like guided by some sort of self preservation instinct closed their eyes, I did not and what I saw will haunt me until the end of my days. I saw the tall towers stretching to the sky and moving like the hands of a swimmer who desperately try to grab the air in order to pull themselves out of water before being mercilessly dragged in the abyss. I saw the narrow streets pulsating like veins, trying to bring more blood from the heart that was this accursed crystal tower. Having witnessed this last bit of eldritch truth, my mind finally gave in and granted me the sweet relief of unconsciousness. Just who or what was that thing that called itself Grogar, that could manipulate corpses like if they were puppets and traveled from world to world bringing death and destruction for no apparent reason? Well, it doesn’t matter now, it’s gone, but the scars it left on my mind will never go away. When I woke up I was lying in an hospital bed, I even wondered for a moment if everything was not a nightmare but when I looked around me and saw my friends I knew it was all real as their faces bore the marks of our adventure. Amber Bolt had lost all her spirit and determination, she was deeply depressed as if the mere act of being alive was still too much for her to bear. Amethyst Grape looked as if she had aged prematurely, her beautiful mane had turned white and her blue eyes had lost their light, her face usually so cheerful was now only reflecting apathy and tiredness. The mighty tree that was Mountain Leaf had been struck by lightning, his head was hanging low and his voice was barely audible, he looked like a dwarf now. As for Buried Star, as mysterious as ever, he was deeply lost in thoughts like if he was trying to figure out an unsolvable problem and all his mind was focused on this task to the point he didn’t paid attention to the rest of the world anymore. On a bed next to me I could hear the laughing ghoul that was once the pony named Golden Vellum. In the back of the room the two princesses where peacefully sleeping, they were once again those benevolent ponies we all knew and not these fearsome primal elementals I saw in my nightmare. Seeing how everyone was here I almost expected king Sombra to show up, but I knew it was impossible, I saw him fall to his doom when the city started to vanish. What caused his fall, I couldn’t say, maybe he tripped on the geometrically incorrect surface he was standing on, maybe it was one last attack from Grogar that made him lose his balance or maybe it was the princesses who pushed him over the edge, what I’m sure of is that I saw an endless stream of shadow monsters rise from the depths of the streets like an ebony snake with fiery eyes all over its body, grab the king in shadows and drag him with them as they disappeared from our world. This was the last time we ever heard about Sombra, may he rot in Tartarus or whatever hellish dimension he’s in now. As I was starting to move and make noises, the ponies at my sides finally realized I was awake and looked relieved, their faces lighting up a bit except for Celestia who came close to me with sorowful eyes and said something that nearly broke me, it was nothing out of the ordinary, no foreign language or eldritch tongue from beyond the stars but there was so much pain in her voice, so much sincere compassion that it almost brought me to tears, what she said to me were those simple four words : "I’m so sorry". Then everyone told me what happened after I collapsed, they said that when they opened their eyes they found themselves in the streets of the crystal empire, still unsure if everything until now was real. This is when Celestia and Luna finally noticed our presence and upon seeing an insane Golden Velum, me passed out on the ground and the four other in a deap state of shock, they immediately understood the situation and, without even taking the time to revert to their normal form they grabbed us, Celestaia holding me in her burning hooves, Luna carrying Golden Velum, and teleported everyone to the Canterlot hospital where I slept for a week. During this conversation I did my best to act as normal as possible, I even laughed with the other when Amber Bolt joked about how the people at the hospital were terrorized when they saw the living embodiment of the sun and moon walk through the door and ask for a nurse. "They must thought it was the end of the world" she said to the dismay of the two alicorns who couldn’t hide their embarrassment. We all laughed but my laugh was fake and hollow, because from the moment I opened my eyes, all the events from before came back to my mind and with them a fear that hadn’t left me to this day. If only I could sleep then maybe I could persuade myself that it was all just a bad dream but I will never be able to sleep well again, they won’t let me. OH LUNA SAVE ME FROM THIS NIGHTMARE! EVERYTIME I CLOSE MY EYES I HEAR THEM, RINGING OUT OF SIGHT, MOCKING ME ACROSS SPACE AND TIME! THE BELLS ATOP BLACK STONE TOWERS! THE BELLS OUTSIDE OF REALITY! THE BELL THAT SHOULDN'T BE!
