The Journal

by TropicalWings

05 : The First Entries

Merely opening the book gave me chills down my spine. The small, neat, hoof-written words were completely contradicting the book's rather tattered state. Apparently,my friends said the reason why it was in such state was because it was with me out in the desert.

After examining the book, I went on to read the first few entries.

---

March 4 2012, Sunday
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7:00 PM

Leave it to Applejack to convince all of us to accompany her to Appleoosa, again. She claims her cousin Braeburn needs another one of her “precious” apple trees, again. This has been the FIFTH time Applejack had to give him one of her beloved apple trees. And guess what, Braeburn’s reason was that half of his town’s supplies is constantly being ransacked by a bunch of things called “death-eaters”. Seriously, what is up with that colt?

Seriously, it took FOREVER for Applejack to convince us to come with her again. I still remember her begging on her knees, trying to convince Rainbow Dash to come with her. That mare and her entire family’s driving everypony here nuts.

On the bright side, everyone HAS been kinda stressed out lately, Rarity spent the whole week designing dresses for another random superstar, Pinkie Pie's been foal-sitting the Cakes for the whole week, Applejack's been doing all the Applebucking again because of her brother’s injuries (again), Fluttershy’s been training her animals for some party Mayor Mare asked her to handle. And don't let me get started on what Rainbow Dash has been doing. I figured everyone needed a time off, and what better way than to go to some western pony settlement in the middle of nowhere, right? ...Right.

It's a sad thing Spike can't go, Celestia's been sending me too many letters again for some reason & Spike needed to go to the hospital because of all that letter-belching.

Anyway, the train departs tomorrow morning, and I gotta get back to packing my luggage, we’re going to stay in Appleloosa for a while so I better pack a lot of things to keep me busy.

March 5 2012, Monday,
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7:00 AM

I just woke up, we’ll be boarding the train in a few hours. I still have time to go check up on Spike at the hospital.

10:00 AM

The train just left the station and we're now settling down on our cabins. Did you know we were supposed to leave the station at 9:00? Well, thank Rarity and her enormous amount of luggage for that. I mean, seriously, she brings everything except her kitchen sink, and half of her luggage is purely make-up and clothes, one fourth of which she never actually uses. Something's wrong with that mare. Speaking of which, Applejack just went to the caboose with the tree again. She's probably going to read a story to it again. It was funny the first time she did that, but now, it's just plain creepy.

...Now that I think about it, I'm starting to wonder why I became friends with them in the first place... remind me to ask Princess Celestia about that when we get back.

4:30 PM

We just made a stopover at Dodge Junction, that other desert pony settlement Cherry Jubilee’s farm’s located at.

Well, it’s a good thing we stopped; I just can’t stand being crammed into a small, moving metal box for more than twelve hours. Especially, with an extremely hyperactive party pony like Pinkie Pie.

Just so you know, we stopped by here so the train can restock and refuel. It was just half a day and the train’s sugar supply already ran out.

I’m going to have to tell Pinkie to lay off on the sugar, but that’s like telling a big brick wall to do a backflip.

Applejack on the other hand, REFUSES to set a single hoof on the town. Obviously she still has bad memories about that rodeo fiasco that happened last year.

7:00 PM

Well, we just left Dodge Junction, no more stopovers left. Appleoosa’s still one day away though. I better hope the train crew locked up their stash of sugar this time or else I’m gonna have to deal with Pinkie in a sugar rush for the rest of the trip, and let me just say that’s the worse kind of Pinkie to be stuck with.

9:30 PM

It’s already dark and we just had dinner. Most of us are resting in our cabins, but it’s really obvious most of us can barely sleep, mainly because of Pinkie’s really, really, REALLY loud snoring. Currently, judging by the moonlit horizon, our train’s almost done passing through the forest. Some cacti are starting to dot the landscape indicating that we are nearing the desert. I could hear some faint buzzing. I guess those would be the insects of the night, coming out on their nocturnal feeding sessions. The faint howling of the desert coyotes also start to fill the land. Maybe I ought to start getting some sleep. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, and I swear, I’ll give Applejack a piece of my mind if something screwy goes wrong in Appleoosa like the first time we went there.

---

Wanting to read more, my hoof moved to flip the page, but apparently my eyes refused to and slowly started drooping down. I began to yawn and I had no choice but to just read the rest tomorrow.

After placing the book at a nearby table, I slowly closed my eyes and began to fall asleep.

...
...
...

---

...
...
...
I woke up with a jolt after hearing what appears to be a loud clanging noise

Looking around the room, I checked my surroundings for any intruders. After finding nothing, I lay my head again on the soft pillow on the bed.

...
...

A few minutes passed and apparently, despite my obvious sleep-deprived state, I couldn’t get myself to fall back to sleep. After trying tossing and turning a few times, I settled with sitting by the window staring out at the dark, lonely, moonlit streets of Appleoosa.

I scratched my sleepy eyes, fully waking myself up. I took a look out of the window, admiring the tranquility of the scene.
I saw nothing outside, not a bird nor a wolf nor anypony. The moon and the stars hover above me, giving some light to the small desert town.

On the other side of the window, I could see Braeburn’s apple orchard, apple trees of varying cultivars trailing off as far as the eye can see.

Nothing lay within the orchard, and the orchard look peaceful, nothing disturbing the quiet nighttime ambience... or at least, until I caught a glimpse of a four-legged figure dashing in the middle of the trees.

I had the urge to go out and chase after it, so I did. I quickly grabbed and lit a lantern sitting on a table and ran out the house’s back door and galloped into the field, as I ran I heard high pitch hissing sounds nearby.

Hisses? What kind of four-legged creature makes that kind of noise?

I kept on running, constantly coming across the figure fleeing as quickly as I had reached it. All that was in my mind was to find out what that... thing was doing here.

Soon after, I exhausted myself. I realized I couldn’t catch the beast. I couldn’t catch up with it, no matter how hard I pushed myself. Immediately, I gave up the chase and decided to just trot back to my cabin. But when I turned back, something bright and shiny that was sparkling under the moonlight caught my eye.

I quickly trotted towards it curiously. As I went nearer I realized it was a small key. I picked it up with my hooves and observed it. It was made of steel and it had a complicated looking set of teeth. It looked a bit rusted under the moonlight, although it didn’t look worn out that much.

Suddenly, the world around me darkened. Panicking, I turned around, looking for what was causing the sudden darkness. I could hear my heart pounding at a constant beat... or at least, I thought it was my heart beating. My vision started fogging up.

My ears were suddenly filled with a shrill buzzing. I kept on turning around, looking for whoever was doing it. Then I saw it.

It was the beast.

The beast was a tall, slender, shadowy stallion. I looked up to it’s face and all I saw were bright red eyes. Emptiness filled the space where the mouth of a normal pony would be found.

The being loomed over me. My vision kept on getting blurrier, the noise in my ears getting louder, my head began to hurt.

You are much closer than you seem, my dear pawn, hissed a voice, coming from the tall, faceless figure in front of me.

Much closer indeed. It said while it’s blank lower face split in half to reveal an enormous mouth filled with a set of jagged teeth.

And with that, I screamed.

Comments

[Someonepic]

Hmmm, for a minute I was thinking it was a slendermane thing, but then it turned into some other creepy thing. Anyway, awesome story, I love it, it has great premise and writing, I can't wait for the next update.

[khatre]

At first i thought changelings then slenderpony showed up (even though it could still be changelings in disguise ).

[TropicalWings]

1865728 Or could it be...

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