//------------------------------//
// The Reaper of Darkness (Prologue) 
// Story: The Sky is Gone: Acceptance 
// by Fluttercheer 
//------------------------------//

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Something has changed. Another evil has entered our world. I could feel it, could sense its impact when it hit our once innocent soil. It happened far away, there is no imminent danger for us. But something will come.
How could I feel it? Am I now connected to the evil forces that plague our world? Have I gone too far, has my research been too deep and I looked into the abyss more than sanity advises? Maybe something was passed on to me... Or... the impact of the new, unholy arrival has been strong enough that it could be felt even here, in Canterlot, the center of our power before it got taken from us. It was felt in the body and sensed in the soul...
I am frightened. I pray that the creature from the clocktower has not been released... but when did prayers ever live up to the hope they gave us? Time and space have no meaning anymore in this world, but even if it left this city, it might return.
The future looks bleak. If there is still such a thing as future... This city has almost been destroyed and I cannot stay here for much longer. Soon the walls of the dimension I have created will crumble and fall apart. The powers here are growing. I don't know what it is that they are trying to build, but it grows, becomes bigger and stronger every moment, with every stroke of quill that I leave on this parchment. They will find me soon and then there will be no safe place here anymore.
I have been looking for survivors. It was a foolish risk and I knew I would not be able to stay with them for long, but I needed to know if anyone else had been bestowed with the same luck, or misfortune, to survive the coming of darkness, to weigh my options and figure out what could be done to help our bleeding world. I was successful.
I have found two survivors, a young hippogriff from the realm of Aris and a grey pegasus colt. I only know the colt. He worked as the royal chef in Canterlot Castle before all of this began. Now they are also trapped in this hellscape that has engulfed our world. I don't know what chooses who or what survives... There has been a cave, near the tainted graveyard... When I explored it, I discovered bats, an entire colony, and they looked just like before. It is the biggest mystery, how some survive and some don't, but maybe the answer, the salvation I seek, is contained therein...
The colt worries me and deprives me of sleep. He is surrounded by an aura of death. My magic shows a black heart, my cards always reveal the reaper. Who is he? Has The Third One sent him to oversee her work? Has he come from the black depths of space to help keep the machinations of the darkness running? I don't know what role he plays, but I should warn his companion. Nothing makes me confident that he can be trusted.
Soon, something will come. The sirens blare every day now. The little ghosts become restless. They play with their mother, the lava beast from under the ground, their eternal game of death and resurrection. But something has them act different now. They look up at the sky that once was, momentarily distracted in their game, like the salvation will come from there. But do they care about salvation? Are they as lost as we are or part of the fiendish system? Are they, perhaps, the last innocence of the old world that is left?
Who are they? Who is the beast made of fire, whom they have so unbefittingly chosen as their mother? And what is the meaning of their endless play? Could there be an answer in all this? Could they be the answer? Maybe my mind is getting devoured by the madness around me...
I don't know how long I will still hold out. I desperately search for answers, for signs that something good is still left in the world... But all seems to be in vain.
The hippogriff is a lone survivor, like I am, but much less knowledged... What could she do? Her friend and companion seems to be a piece of darkness that took shape, nothing more. Just another, deadly hindrance in this world... What remains?
The purple mare in the mountain... If she is freed, there will be complete destruction. This world will cease to exist then. A part of my mind, a treacherous voice from deep within, has started to tell me this might be for the best... Because, can anything really save us? Have we not been pushed too far into oblivion that any tiny amount of hope is nothing but a torture of the soul? Empty promises broken each time the darkness manifests itself more? Maybe what we should hope for is destruction, maybe we should welcome it and seek salvation in another world and in another life... Our souls are immortal.
My heart refuses. What mind of mine decays, hollowed out by the merciless foes, is being compensated by my love for our true world. We have defeated so many enemies, saved our world countless times when it was at the brink of destruction... Should this really be the end of all things? It cannot be.
I will keep searching for our salvation. And once I die, I will lay this mission into the claws of the brave, young hippogriff.
Hope is what separates us from them. I will not let it be taken from me.



Comet Tail, Astronomer and Historian, 1038 ANM