Anniversary: Prologue
Written by Neighsmith
(With help by: his sexy friend lolcatsmanseven [not to mention users ping111 and CosmicAfro])
[Audio Entries Start]
Audio Log # 1
Is this thing on? Static is heard over the rest of the regular audio for a moment before quieting down. Yes, good, it’s recording.
This is Smith, 3rd Order of Arcane and Scientific Development, Magician’s Guild. I have found a recorder and intend on using it to chronicle these experiences.
I have just awoken in the tech wing of my lab, and it seems that I am trapped. All the exits are blocked, and the windows seemed to be reinforced. I have no idea how long I have been unconscious.I can’t find any visual hints of what time it is, as the clock is stopped and my vision out of the windows is obstructed by what seems like a dark forest. I don’t feel pained physically, and I’m not hungry so any guesses on my part would be totally arbitrary.
I am using this recorder so that if I can’t escape, someone will be able hear my last few moments. My significance is too great to be lost to the decay of time
Audio Log # 2
This is the second day of being trapped here.
I’m starting to worry; I haven’t been able to make any progress on getting out, and every exit and escape hatch has either been welded shut or is simply missing. It’s like some of them weren’t even there in the first place.
I have not seen any others, be them rescue workers or my fellow lab assistants. I fear I may starve before help arrives.
Worse yet, I fear for my work. It seems to be lost, and I do not know where it has gotten too. Who knows what could happen to it in the wrong hands?
Audio Log # 3
Day seven. I haven’t slept or eaten in the past week. I don’t know how this is possible. Unless he did it for me.
My mind is being put to the test. I am so restless. It seems I would have lost track of time if it was not for me scratching the days into the floor. Every marked second is monotonous without him.
By the Power of Sanctioned Magic, I pray that I will see him before I die. He is the culmination of decades of toil, and more than that, he is my friend. My only friend.
Audio Log # 4
Day thirty. The very word ‘time’ is losing its meaning. Seconds and days, hours and weeks, they fade together. I am becoming detached, almost removed to the point where I simply watch the ticks of my mental clock tock by maddeningly and endlessly.
I still seem to require no sleep and no food.
I have searched every cranny of this room many times. There is no way out. I am trapped. Despite my continued scraping at the fixed exits, neither my fingers, their nails, or the material of this room seems to be damaged. In fact, I am incapable of hurting anything inside of this room, myself included.
This normally would not bother me so, but with the absence of work or food, sleep or company, or anything to provoke feeling, be it pain or pleasure, I have literally resorted to counting the seconds in a day, and scratching my records into the floor.
I fear for my sanity.
Audio Log # 5
Today is the one year anniversary of my trapped existence. 365 days, roughly 52 weeks, 8760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds, and oh so many marks upon my floor. I think that the world has deserted me. Left me for dead. But the thing is, I’m not dead.
But who needs them? Not me! I have all I ever needed right here in this room. I have time, a floor, magic, and most importantly, my genius mind. Everything I’ve ever needed, except for him that is. I miss his company so. I have forgotten how miserable my life was before him.
Every waking moment is torture. “Waking”, ha. That’s funny, I haven’t slept at all. Nothing to do, nothing to do but to sit here and think.
Audio Log # 6
Two years and no one has come looking for me! Why does the hours keep rolling? The stones are turning, the stars dying, and the reaper waits over me, taunting me with his prize of death, and yet I sit here alone! I fight against the darkness and I am alone. Does anyone care about me? Does anyone care that I am alone. Not even time can stand to be around me! It keeps passing and passing, seconds fleeing my company, marks burning from me into the ground Why?
Damn you all! I don’t need you! Not him, not the days, not my fellows! Not me! No one! A sound not unlike lightning is heard, crashes and incoherent yells and intermixed profanities are mixed into the storm of noise of the crackling speaker. The sounds eventually die down, replaced by the lone sounds of smoldering fire and heartbroken sobbing.
Audio Log # 7
I’m losing it. I woke from my sadness and a fire raged around me.
I tried to kill myself.
The fire simply parted in my path, and the smoke fled from my mouth, leaving me unharmed. I tried to cut myself, hang myself, bash in in my own head, but nothing worked. I dented the table and dulled every sharp edge, snapping every cord and nothing would yield me unto death.
I am alone.
They only thing that I counted as a blessing was my sanity, and now even it becomes a burden.
The day marks add up to a total of twenty-three years. It seems that I can’t stop myself from scratching these lines. It’s subconscious.
Audio Log # 8
This is year one-hundred twenty-one of isolation. My arcane core has run out of energy. I am now left with no power supply for light. I’m trapped alone in the darkness. No one will save me. I am alone.
This must be what hell is like.
What did I do to deserve this?
Audio Log # 9 [Overwritten]
Living, if you could call it that, in this hovel is almost all I can remember. The most prominent memory being scratching at the ground consistently.
I still faintly remember the other times, bits of working in a factory, sometimes talking to other people. There was this one person, he was my friend, but it was so long ago it seems as if it was a whole eternity separate now and then. A sigh comes from the speaker.
I know for sure I was a scientist, but I think few really thought of my work as science. But I was not to be neither contained nor limited by their ignorance! I kept myself cooped up in my lab, every waking hour enveloped in my abstract machinations and endless workings. When I emerged from my lab, I beheld my creation.
Yes, I remember now!
With my human hands, I had manifested a power greater than any other single person could ever have imagined!
I created a soul; a single unconfined spirit. It was uncontrollable and chaotic for a time after its birth, but it eventually calmed down and became remarkably friendly, although still mischievous. But when it comes to the creation of a living being, there was one much more important fact:
It was sentient.
Me and him, for it was definitely a him, were the best of friends.
Few realized the true potential of what I had done. Fewer still even cared. The world I lived in was troubled by war, and a new weapon threatened all of humanity. And one day, someone, I don’t recall who, called its bluff.
The weapon was initiated and began to destroy our world. Even my powers with magic did nothing trying to stop it. I lost all hope. We were all going to die. I went to my only friend, my brightest creation. He asked me what was wrong, what had caused my depression. He often could be naive. I told him that I was going away for a long time. He said that he would not allow that, that he wanted me to be with him forever. I almost cried then, but I held back. A choked back sob escapes the narrator. I told him that it was not possible, that we should cherish our last few minutes together. He was furious. He told me that I could not leave him, that I was never going to leave anyone. There was a bright burst of sporadic, multi-chromatic light, and I was knocked unconscious.
I do not know much of what happened next, for I woke in my lab, and well, the previous entries explain what happened from then on out.
As these endless years pass me by, I haven’t grown old. For decades I have resided here, and yet I don’t look a day over twenty-five. Or at least I didn’t, I don’t really know anymore, there isn’t enough light for me to get a proper reflection. After all the thousands of years, no noticeable aging on my part has taken place.
I have achieved an apotheosis, and this used to excite me to no end. However, as the millennium stretched on, and with nowhere to go but to sit miserably in my small two hundred foot-square room, I grew lonely, and angry, at the world, at myself, and at him, but I guess I owe my life to him. I try to be thankful, but it is hard to stay so.
By the feel of the markings around the room, it is exactly my ten-thousandth anniversary of incarceration. Normally, I would make a recording, and put little thought into it. Right now, however, it seems like I should do something different. Something special. For some odd reason, I’m compelled to record it carefully and commemorate it. Maybe ten thousand years of isolation has finally made me go crazy.
What do people normally do for anniversaries? Have parties? Eat cake?
I can’t even remember the taste of cake. Or the voices of other people chatting in the background. Oh ho-
A sharp intake of breath is heard, an appalled gasp coming from a new orator.
“Aghh! What in the-!”
“You’ve can’t remember what cake tastes like?! We need to get you to Sugarcube Corner as quickly as possible! And while we're there we can throw you a party! Ten thousand years old? That’s a whole lot of candles! Where would we even get that many candles? How big would the cake have to be to fit all of those candles? It would have to be huginormous! Another gasp escapes the second speaker. This is going to be the best party ever!”
“Bluh?”
The newcomer gasps for a third time.
“I’ve never seen you before! And if I’ve never seen you before, then that means you’ve new! And if you’re new, then that means you have no friends! You must be so lonely! Even the more reason for a party!”
“But you... the door was locked... and you don’t even have hands...
“What’s a hand? Is it a sweet? Oh! No, no, don’t tell me! Is it a cookie? Oh, I give up! What is it?”
“Are you a pony? But.. ponies don’t talk... do they?”
“Well, duh ponies talk! Silly! Come on, you have a party to attend!”
“But, where?”
“Sugarcube Corner!”
“I get to get out of here?” Surprisingly, the primary contributor to these logs sounds excited for the first time.
“Sure! It’s always my job to take people to my parties!”
“I’m... I’m leaving... After all these years...” Something, or someone, makes a sound like a bag of flour falling against the ground.
“Oh no! Now is not the time for a nap silly... whatever you are... Well I guess I can just carry you then.” This speaker hums gently, with no words being able to be made out. Soft steps fade away, leaving only silence.
[Audio Entries Finished]
Author's Note
Hey! Hope you enjoyed, and I hope that it's not terrible so far. If anyone wants to offer to help editing/pre-reading that would be greatly appreciated, as would be any and all feedback. (I already have a few others that are helping me, so don't feel as if you have to.) Thanks!
Also, I am posting this first chapter, but the others are still in need of a ton of work, but this first chapter is very essential for the rest of the story, so I want feedback before I finalize everything else. Once again, thanks for giving this time.
First Impressions: Chapter 1
(Helped/Pre-Read/Edited by his friend, Cosmic Afro)
FYI: Just for a sense of reference, this is somewhere post Crystal Empire, but previous to Wonderbolt Academy (Middle of Third Season)
For a certain pony, whose namesake matched the color of her coat, it wasn’t strange for her to often be unusual, such as talking to herself, defying physics, chatting idly to invisible audiences, and generally acting unconventionally. Most ponies had learned to play along, or just to altogether ignore her extraordinary ways. But today they were playing it safe by staying out of her way, if not for any other reason than to simply avoid the bundle that only Celestia above could guess the contents of.
She stopped in the middle of the road and continued her one-sided conversation, worriedly bandying back and forth.
“I can’t take him to Sugarcube Corner now, because I haven’t invited the other guests yet. Hm... I could leave him at a friend’s house, but now the question is who? Rarity? No, she’s busy today... Fluttershy? No, silly Pinkie, she’s helping Applejack on the farm, with those rascally rabbits.” Pinkie Pie hummed thoughtfully, brows creasing.
“So who then? Dashie is doing weather stuff, and I’m busy with the party preparations! Oh no! Rose is busy with her Roses, and Daisy with her daisies! Whatever shall I do? If I can’t get the party together, then this poor guy won’t have any friends, and he’ll be all alone! And that’s no good at all!” Pinkie sat down, frowning, while the blanketed mass slid off of her and onto the ground.
Suddenly, an idea hit her, “Twilight!” she sang out, “I’m sure she knows all about his kind and can even give me a few pointers on the party! It’ll sure to be the best One-Thousandth-Anniversary-Slash-Welcome-Mysterious-Thing- From-The-Everfree-Party ever!” Content with this line of reasoning, Pinkie picked up her bundle and hummed happily on her way, continuing her route through the town with the ambiguous and large lump of something draped in a tablecloth over her back.
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Smith awoke in a bed. It was a soft bed, and the room that the bed was in was, for lack of a better word, cozy. Smith noted a door that was to his right, and a window that peaked out into the world of the outside just above him. But the fact that he was tied down made it hard to fully appreciate his surroundings.
After straining against his bonds, two cords binding his hands and feet to the frame of the bed, and finding that he was struggling for naught, he settled down.
“And of course I can’t use magic... That would make things too easy.” He muttered to himself, grumpy at how helpless he was.
Smith, after he regained his normal state of mind from the momentary panic of being trapped, continued to take in the room. It seemed... too colorful, with purples and blues, pastel colors that barely existed in the world he remembered, and certainly did not in the dark prison of his all too recent memories. From the wallpaper to floor boards, nausea inducing bright hues engulfed him.
“Something else is strange.” Smith noted. “The furniture is rather small, but then again, I have no notion of what kind of inhabitant this house was intended for.” Smith paused, searching for what was bothering him. “Maybe it is the plethora of books, I haven’t seen an actual book since the last library burned down. Such a sad day.” He frowned at the remembrance of that infamous day.
Smith pondered, brows furrowed and a scowl upon his face. He absent-mindedly looked up at the window and out into the bright summer day. Then it hit him.
He face-palmed. Or at least he tried to, failing because his hands were tied up. In reality, he just squirmed for a second before sighing.
“Back home, our sky was overcast with an industrious fog, a sickly plague of industry and pollution, but here it seems that they have yet the notion of usurpation... And I think I can even make out the sun.” Smith was enraptured, his attention caught by the bright sky, and a sun that he had never seen before.
With multiple flashes of light, and several figures running in through the door, six ponies, two princesses and one Draconequus burst in upon the marvelling prisoner.
Both of the alicorn’s magics were shining, with the respective tints of yellow and blue. The two unicorn’s as well had their magics at the ready, and three of the remaining five struck a quite aggressive stance. The two ponies who were an exception to this were a particular pink pony who had a silly grin on her face as she stood on her hind legs, hooves wavering in a spooky manner, and a demure cream-ish mare, who, it seemed, had barely enough courage to refrain from running from the room.
But most of these details were lost on Smith, who was too lost for words.
In a booming voice, seemingly magnified in the small room, Smith heard, “Why art thou here? And of what species are thou? Answer quick or our wrath shall not be contained.”
Smith started screaming, his fear of his captors renewed. His calm appreciation of the peaceful sky was forgotten as he strained against the bonds harder than before, managing to actually tear one of the rope’s holding his left hand and arm down.
At the bidding of the Draconequus, a hammer appeared out of nowhere and struck the man on the head, resonating a wince-inducing Crack!, before disappearing promptly.
The human in the bed collapsed, his previously flailing arm dropped down to hang awkwardly over the side of mattress.
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All eyes turned to Discord, who was laughing at the situation. “What? He obviously was getting out of hand!” As funny as Discord had thought his previous statement might have been, the only positive response he got was a slight giggle from the party’s party pony. “And to think I gave up chaos for the likes of you.” He huffed, crossing his arms.
“Puns aside Discord, I fear you may have actually harmed him.” Celestia’s firm voice carried the reprimand. She gestured to Fluttershy to go tend to the unconscious... thing.
“I don’t mean to be rude, yer highness, but ah don’t think that busting in on the poor critter was the best way to say ‘Howdy’.”
“Hm, yes. In hindsight, this might not have been one of my most thought out decisions, but from Twilight’s letter, I was a bit worried.”
Twilight blushed, and nervously stated, “Well, sorry for freaking out, but it’s not like there is a book on how to react to your friend bringing an unknown species out the Everfree to your house.”
Pinkie giggled, “Silly Twilight, I told you he was harmless.”
“But you don’t know that!”
“Yes I do! And I did!”
“How?”
“My Pinkie Senses told me!”
“But Pinkie! That’s nowhere near enough evidence to trust your safety with this thing! What if your senses were wrong this time? What if you got hurt? What if-”
“Enough!” Fluttershy yelled out, quieting everypony. She blushed a little at the sound of her voice, but continued, “He seems to be still alive, pulse and breathing aren’t sporadic, but that’s is about all I can tell. I’ve never seen a mammalian biped before.”
Celestia thought for a moment, and then decided, pointing a hoof at Fluttershy, “Can you stay here until he wakes up and then gently greet him?”
“M-me?!” Fluttershy squeaked, backing away from the unconscious body. “Why m-me?”
“Yes, why Fluttershy? No offense to her, but I think that we will both agree that she normally isn’t the confrontationalist. And what about researching the subject? Equestria hasn’t had an extra-equestrian visit or appearance of an unknown species since the time of Starswirl the Bearded. Only we could possibly be experienced enough to handle and document this, with perhaps the exception of Twilight, or Tartarus dammit, even Discord for the matter.” Luna asked.
“Fluttershy often deals with new species from the Everfree forest, and I’m sure that our first encounter proves that the subject doesn’t deal well with abrupt loudness and threats.” Celestia shot a glare at Luna, who shrugged.
“We thought it would be best to make sure the subject knows his place.” Luna spoke with an air of indifference at some minor misdeed, but the words did not carry to her eyes, which glinted dangerously for a moment, before all emotion became locked behind the usual mask of royalty.
Hoping to diffuse the situation, or simply failing to sense the tension in the room, Rainbow re-voiced Luna’s concern. “But what if it turns out that the prisoner is dangerous, princess? We all know Fluttershy isn’t the fighting kind.” Rainbow said, wings shuffling worriedly. “I should stay with her, just in case.”
Celestia shook her head, “No, I think that it would be better if Discord stayed in here with Fluttershy. He proved himself apt at restraining him.”
Discord bowed, and in doing so donned a guard’s outfit. He stood straight at attention, his lion paw forming a mock salute.
“Quick! Everypony out! I think he’s waking up!” Fluttershy stated nervously.
There was a mad dash for the door by everypony except the princesses, who simple teleported out, with many a, “Oof!” and, “You’re stepping on my tail!” in the process.
Eventually, only Discord and Fluttershy remained. They waited apprehensively for the mysterious creature to awaken.
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Smith woke from what he hoped was either an ended bout of madness or a strange dream. He realized that he was still bound, except for his left hand, the one which he had freed, and had a massive headache.
Praying that he still wasn’t in the brightly colored room of books surrounded by, “By ponies, of all creatures”, he opened his eyes.
To his relief, he was alone in a room, no creature of any kind in his view. “Thank the powers above, I thought that there still were going to be ponies here.” Smith relaxed into the bed, happy that at least he wasn’t actually in a land of talking ponies.
“Uhm, well, I’m sorry, but there are...” came a timid voice from an unknown speaker.
Smith strained to get a look of who was talking. “Excuse me? I’m sorry but-” he stopped short. Standing beside his prison of a bed, stood a cream yellow pony. With wings. He put his head back on the pillow and sighed.
“And I thought I wasn’t crazy.”
Author's Note
The first real chapter of my story, even though it is still highly introductory. Anyways, thanks for the feedback, and have a wonderful day!
(P.S. - I'm looking for some editors, for some of mine have been too busy to continue, so if anyone feels so inclined, drop me a message, and I'll respond with a link to all the chapters that are in need of work.)
