Sunday – 10:12am
Had some trouble waking up today. Even now, my limbs still feel a bit heavy and my joints are kind of stiff, so I'm a little concerned about that. Might be that I'm not as “above it all” as I thought I was, but I suppose only time will tell. I have other things to keep my mind occupied. Probably more important things.
I had another dream the night before. More of a nightmare, really—a nightmare about the sun.
Just like the first dream, most of this nightmare got lost somewhere in my subconsciousness, but I remember the important bits. I remember the absolute darkness and how it gave way to searing light. I remember how it ascended into the sky, that sun that was not a sun. I remember the terrible heat, the innumerable voices and their agonized screams.
I never saw the fire—or if I did, I don't recall—but I do remember the sound, like the crackling blaze of a funeral pyre. And then there was silence. No whispers. Just silence and the wretched, burning heat.
I woke up screaming that morning.
Looking back, I realize something. It just gets hotter and hotter every day, and yet, I never once thought to actually get a good look at the sun outside. I often forget I can do that now, being an alicorn and all. Luna and I may not have Celestia's preternatural resistance to the blistering heat of the sun, but evidently, we are impervious to its blinding glare.
So, I took a gander at that big bright star in the sky when I woke up yesterday, and you know what? It doesn't look right. No, maybe I should say it doesn't feel right. I can't put it into words. The sun looks just as it does every other day, but now when I look at the sun, I feel like there's an otherness to it. Like there's something sinister slithering around just beneath the surface.
When I look at the sun, I'm reminded of the thing I saw in my dream. That thing in the sky pretending to be the sun. I can't recall what it looks like anymore—the memory of its features had already vanished when I woke up—but now I can't bear to even cast my gaze up at the sky. I did manage to put the nightmare behind me for the most part, but not before sending a letter to Celestia.
I decided to take a more proactive approach to everything yesterday, but that didn't really end up doing me much good in the end. I was already going to send a letter to Celestia about all of this madness after I talked to Pinkie, but there were two factors that thoroughly reshuffled my priorities. The first was the nightmare. That was no normal nightmare.
If anything, it felt more like some horrifying prophetic vision. Considering the implications regarding the sun, I figured Celestia might know something. And the second factor was Spike—well, not just Spike, but that's a topic for a little later. So, I tried to wake Spike so that I could use his dragonflame to send my letter, but no matter what I did, I couldn't wake him up.
I'm no doctor, but I have dabbled in neuroscience. Unfortunately, my lab was destroyed when Tirek blew up the Golden Oaks Library. Buried the whole thing under a pile of rubble. I haven't gotten around to setting up a new lab in my castle, either, so I have no way of doing any proper scans of Spike's brain. Still, from what I can tell after some non-intrusive observations, it seems like Spike is stuck somewhere between a standard sleep cycle and a coma.
He's completely unresponsive and what's more, his scales are incredibly warm to the touch. Too warm, even for a dragon. This was alarming enough, but after what I discovered later that day, this whole mess has me all the more worried. As things stood, I couldn't use Spike to send my letter, so I had to send it off using my own magic. I don't like to do it because the distance makes the spell incredibly draining, but the alternative was to head all the way to Canterlot to deliver the letter in person.
While that was an option, I wasn't quite that desperate yet—not like I am now. I still had other options, namely getting back in touch with Pinkie Pie. I also took the opportunity to try and reach out to Discord about Fluttershy, but the draconequus never responded. There's not really an established method of getting in contact with Discord, but we all learned that the lord of chaos is always listening—or that's what he says, at any rate.
He's usually pretty good about replying to any kind of summons, usually if for no other reason than to be a nuisance to the summoner. But this time, there was no response whatsoever. And I was going to mention this a little later down the page, but now seems as good a time as any to mention that I never got a response back from Celestia either. I waited all day yesterday, but nothing. Not a peep.
At first, I thought it might be because of Spike's condition, but I know the messaging spell tied to his dragonflame would've activated regardless. Celestia knows that too, and I was half hoping her response would jolt him out of his semi-comatose state. No such luck there. In a last ditch attempt to get some kind of help, I sent another letter to Luna before I went to bed last night, but I haven't gotten a response back from her either.
Which means that unless I make the trip to Canterlot, I'm completely on my own here. My friends won't help me. They can't anymore. Rainbow, Applejack, and Rarity have all gone the way of Mr. and Mrs. Cake. Rainbow Dash locked herself away in her cloud house, babbling on and on to herself about how “Fluttershy will turn up eventually. Just hang in there, Rainbow. Be patient. She'll show up, just you wait.” in that same hauntingly slow and monotonous tone.
Rarity had closed and locked up the boutique, so I teleported myself inside. I found her holed up in her private studio sewing away like a mare possessed. Piled high around the mare were golden yellow robes of all sizes. Some were made of silk and some of natural cotton, but all the robes were incredibly simple in their design—almost insultingly so. Rarity didn't seem to care and just kept feeding thread into the sewing machine.
The unicorn looked awful—like she hadn't slept in weeks, but there was an eerie fervor in her eyes. A madness that demanded she never stop working. Not for anything or anypony. I saw this, recognized what it meant, and tried to stop her anyway. I had to give up because things had very nearly gotten violent, but I did manage to catch her attention long enough for her to ask me for a favor.
It was a simple request. All she wanted me to do was give one of the robes in the pile to Sweetie Belle. She told me she'd made it for her. She told me she'd made robes for everypony in Ponyville. She was so excited about it. Positively ecstatic. I asked her what the robes were for—why she'd made them. She turns to me with this smile full of pride and exhaustion.
“Why, they're for the big pyre, dear. Didn't you know?”
She says it like it's supposed to be obvious. Like we're talking about the Summer Sun Celebration. I heard those words and all I could think about was that nightmare. That vision. And then I left. Dropped the robe she gave me and fled, really. I raced off to Sweetie Belle's room, guided by a hunch, or some sense of foreboding, and found the filly in her bed.
She wasn't dead, mind you, just asleep. Sleeping like the dead, but not cold like the dead. No, her little body was warm. Too warm. Far too warm.
I left Carousel Boutique without another word. I just teleported away, and then I ran. I didn't look back, I didn't look up. I just ran, and I didn't stop running until I reached Sweet Apple Acres. While I was running, I very nearly ran into Big Mac. The massive stallion didn't even seem to notice. He just kept plodding along like an automaton toward the large shed next to the farmhouse, dragging an old wheelbarrow with a bit of dirt and a dirty shovel in it behind him.
I asked him where Applejack was, not really expecting an answer, but he answered me. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he mumbled out a gruff “In the house.” and then proceeded to ignore all of my follow-up questions after that. I didn't let it bother me and just left to find Applejack. I wanted to believe things were at least somewhat okay, but they weren't. Far from it.
I didn't see Granny Smith anywhere, but I did find Applejack quickly enough. She was in Apple Bloom's room, and when I found her, I discovered that my flight from the boutique was entirely pointless. I ran all that way just to find the same miserable scenario waiting for me. Applejack was there, and so was Apple Bloom, lying in her bed, dead to the world.
Just the same as Spike. Just the same as Sweetie Belle. Likely the same as the Cake twins and any other foal in Ponyville. But now Applejack was here, and even now, I don't know whether that made things worse or better. If she heard me enter the room, she didn't say anything about it. She just stood over Apple Bloom, stroking her mane and muttering reassurances the filly probably couldn't hear.
“Gonna be alright,” she kept saying, “gonna get through this. Be right as rain come the mornin', don't you worry now, sugarcube.”
I didn't even bother to grab Applejack's attention. I didn't bother to think too hard about what Big Mac was thinking or where Granny Smith went. I just left Sweet Apple Acres and made my way to Sugarcube Corner. Inside, I was surprised to find Mr. Cake standing behind the counter as if ready to greet incoming customers. The surprise didn't last long, and neither did the hope. Upon closer inspection, I saw that there was absolutely nothing behind the stallion's eyes.
I have no idea what made him go downstairs and act like a proper shopkeep, but I had a feeling it wasn't a conscious decision. I quickly deduced that I wouldn't get anywhere with Mr. Cake and headed upstairs. I went straight for Pinkie's room, then walked right past it to Mr. and Mrs. Cake's bedroom. There, I saw Mrs. Cake in bed. She was facing away from me, so I couldn't see her face. At first, I thought she might've suffered the same fate as Spike and the other foals, but that wasn't the case.
When I moved around to the other side of the bed to get a better look, I saw that the mare's eyes were open and locked on the window. More Specifically, on the sun shining through the window. Like Mr. Cake, there was nothing there to see in that tepid gaze. Nothing but the sun. In the twin's room, I saw exactly what I expected to see. The two foals were unconscious, unresponsive, and burning up.
But they were alive.
That had to count for something, right? I sure hoped so. I took a moment to just watch the two foals, letting my mind drift to a time before the world went mad. The peaceful thoughts didn't last nearly long enough before my brain told me to stop stalling and go see Pinkie. With nothing more to do here, I trudged up to Pinkie's door and gave a tentative knock, but I didn't get an answer.
In fact, I didn't hear the earth pony at all. I knocked again and called out to her, but silence was the only response. I waffled a bit, trying to decide whether to just teleport into the room or not. I'd resolved to do just that if it came down to it before, but now that I was there, I faltered. I still didn't want to go in there. After having to deal with the others, I just wanted to go home and cry.
But I didn't. Somehow, I managed to get over myself and teleported into Pinkie's room. When I looked around and saw that she was nowhere to be found, I could only laugh. Of course, she wouldn't be there. Why did I expect any less? Why, when everything else this week has gone to Tartarus, would I be given a break now? Why hope? Why not just lie down and accept that this is all pointless?
Because Fluttershy's still out there somewhere.
I'm scared. I'm so scared that it makes me physically ill. I don't know what's going on. I have nopony to turn to right now. I feel like I'm losing my mind. The only reason my writing isn't an illegible mess is that I'm using an auto-inscription spell to take all this down. I can't focus enough to do my own writing otherwise.
But despite that, and as much as I wanted to just give up and fall into my own coma just so I don't have to deal with all of this, I can't stop. Not while I haven't exhausted all my options yet. I have some suspicions about what might've happened to Fluttershy, and if they turn out to be true, I might not find her at all, but nothing is concrete yet. Pinkie is missing, but that doesn't necessarily mean she disappeared the same way Fluttershy did.
The fact that neither Celestia nor Luna nor even Discord has contacted me at all since this all started in itself might be indicative of a larger problem beyond Ponyville. I already saw that the pegasi in Cloudsdale are being affected just the same. Who's to say the same madness isn't affecting everypony in Canterlot or Manehattan? I don't know if I can handle that. If this is a widespread issue, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't want to think about it.
I'm not going to think about it.
No, I'm going to wait a bit longer to see if Celestia or Luna respond to my letters, and if not, then I'll find Pinkie. Then, whether I find the mare or not, I'll go to Canterlot myself to find out what's going on. I think that's about all I can do now. I just hope things aren't as bad in Canterlot. But with how things have gone so far, I can't help but expect the worst.