Need a title.

Alexandra finds a what looks like an old diary and begins flipping through it. Along with William, Monica, and Val went to an empty city though a sparsely populated country. Following train routes for maximum probability of encounters, they found themselves in Philly.

I’m so happy. Evidence has been found. But it seems a considerable earlier time, twentieth century almost certainly. An old modest house with wooden fences about it and minimal security was found, and no one seemed anywhere near it, even when many of the ones around it clearly had people in them. None objected when we asked to enter it, but they told us not to remove anything from the house and leave everything where it was.

The good investigator took the book away from the prior host and shines a light onto it. “Sherman’d like to paint these. This paints vivid images any artist would want to convey in visuals.”

He looked into the book and read of a young man from the early twentieth century born and raised in Philadelphia to a wealthy couple deliriously happy. He studied in London for much of his youth, and came back in the Summers.

One particularly notable episode in his life happened during his eighteenth birthday, or about it, for circumstances including but not limited to the market crashing left his rich parents destitute. He became engaged to a young woman he barely spoke with, and met several times in the past. Her family remains tremendously rich, and he and his need this marriage. This was pragmatism, no passion whatever to it. And he was alright with it.

The young man boarded a boat that’d set sail for Manhattan, and made friends with two others who got on board. He traveled alone many times, but this is the first he “clicked” with anyone else on a voyage. The nearer they got to Manhattan, the nearer they got to an inordinately large cluster of drifting ice. While there, the current died, the air became unnaturally still, and when the sun set, there was a new moon and a clear sky, which left the open ocean of pitch blackness pierced only by millions of stars, the only things visible with dry land and other boats beyond vanishing point. Or turned in.

When he was laying comfortably on his mattress below after watching the stars for an hour or two, a sudden deafening noise assaulted his ears and everyone else’s, piercing sound like metal being scraped by metal or stone. The horrid scratching noise lasted for a full half a minute, then ended as suddenly as it began. Everything seemed to go back to normal immediately afterwards. After half an hour many himself included began to realise something unusual was going on. The vessel was unusually steady as well as still altogether. Totally level, not rocking in the least. Still as the surrounding ocean was at the time. He told the others about it, and they were ahead of him on it. Heard awful screeching noise, but felt nothing.

The sound of classical waltz music could be heard overhead, and a PA ordered everyone within earshot to get up on top. While doing this, an several excited men seem eager to wake as many people as possible and get them up, excitable in a manner no one else seemed to be. When he and his two friend ran into a hefty woman, she offered a swig of rum from a flask she carried, and poured into a mug she had, telling them they will need it.

When on deck, a rather large woman standing at the rail ordered men, women and children to get into separate lines, two smaller lines for youngsters next to their adult counterparts. It took a few minutes to do this, as no one could hear anything at first due to the deafening noise of clinking chains, clicking machinery, and hissing exhaust, which then ended suddenly. Several rafts were pulled out and set into the water, and the passengers were ordered into them, for this boat must be abandoned at once, though no reason was ever given. Standing at the edge, she led occupants into the rafts and set them adrift. The three guys realised one of the lines shrinking faster than the other two, and one of the two likewise shrinking faster than the last.
Five men, same ones who were ushering everyone topside earlier rushed out of the stairwell and began beelining it towards one of the rafts. Their sprint was stopped when the woman at the front fired a pistol into the air as a warning shot and stopped them dead in their tracks.

One of the few direct quotes used in it was in service to shouting a man’s name. “Fleet!” A small man ran up to the uniformed lady who then whispered something into his ear. There was a sudden expression change, and she shoved an oar into Fleet’s hand and gave him an order to get onto that raft.

The five crewmen slunk away somewhere else on deck, and the heir got a gut feeling he’d better follow them. He motioned his two friends to come with him to see where they were going. They found another part of this deck that barely had anyone around, and a suspended raft had four calm looking people sitting patiently in it waiting for what may come. The five men hurried into it, not even waiting for the man in front of it to order them into it, though he did as they were hopping on. The inheritor and his two friends feeling they should board it did so. Twelve occupants were then sent into the ocean at the mercy of the coldness, darkness, and dead silence, save what noise they may make rowing.

No sooner had they hit the water did the crewmen start rowing away with great gusto. Like they knew something was up none of the passengers in it knew. They sat nearer to one another as could be done for warmth, while keeping steady as possible. The open ocean was desolate as could be. The vessel they left was the only visible thing aside from the stars on this new moon evening. The lack of waves or wind made the sole sound of the band still on deck crystal clear to their ears, only the disturbed ripples made by the oars could be heard otherwise. They were playing a jazz tune, and continued playing more jazz melodies as opposed to the waltzes they started out with. With no lights on board, the other rafts could not be seen, and theirs by the others. Eventually the boat was nothing but a beacon on the horizon, a shapeless mass of light they could not tell what it was had they not come from it, brighter than the stars.

When the lights finally went out, the boat disappeared completely and was not seen again. They were utterly alone on the open sea, waiting for daylight, or whatever ships may come to pick them up before then. The sound of the music went out about the same time leaving the place silent as it was dark and cold.

Daylight came, and they found themselves surrounded by all kinds of ice floes, bergs, and other floating ice debris. The others were nowhere to be seen.

Their raft eventually got lifted and set upon another boat deck, as it turned out after most of the others had already been brought on board. Others were too far away to see, but came onto this ship later. Disheveled and disoriented people, nearly all of them women abounded. Theirs was one of the few rafts to be occupied mostly by men, nine men, three women, all mature. They witnessed several people soaking wet, one no worse for the wear, but others struggling to keep warm, and others comatose, just alive being hauled away. When landing in Manhattan the man exchanged information with his comrades and met his fiancé. The two boarded a train bound for Philly then met their parents and wed. Their security was secured, and they were never again at risk of homelessness, but never again obscenely rich.

Nothing else in his life was eventful enough to hold the attention of the masses nor exciting unless you wanted to learn everything about this guy and his family out of sheer curiosity. Whatever happened, they obviously ended up in this modest home sooner of later. And the writer of those entries might be about for all this group knows.

Should this have been written as a standalone, or is it alright to have it be journal entries read by current ponies whatnot?

And supposing Equestrians saw this happening through an interdimensional portal that permits viewing alone. Do you think they’d be inclined to do something about it without being prompted, or would they be content to leave things alone and let events run their own natural course?
One thing I can say: I don’t think ponies would ever be in this particular scenario themselves. And the main needs a name. Can anypo-- anybody suggest anything?