29th of Second Seed, 5E99
For whoever reads these first words in this diary, I must tell you to drop it right now and turn back the way you came from. I can only guess how you managed to find it, likely by my corpse hewn by the assailants that are now chopping at my door. It won't be long now, and I may yet find my peace for all the horrors I committed in the name of a Mother I came to love. As I write now my hooves are still tainted with the blood of so many innocents, even though I tried my best to wash and scrub them to the point where I tore the flesh from my legs to let my own blood cleanse the unholiness. I am struggling with the quill, and my writing may seem askew as such: my entire body refuses to do my bidding any longer. I guess it protests at its newly acquired independence from the grasp of the Void which I served for nearly half a year now; I know that my death will not be the end of me, and that what remains of my soul shall be sent to the Dread Father along with all the memories of me having existed. I will vanish, disappearing from the memory of those that hardly knew me while I have been alive. They will not notice my disappearance as they failed to see me even when I was still breathing, and my blood was inside of me.
I only hope that the door will hold long enough for me to be able to finish what I have to say. If you have any sense left in you, stranger, I beg of you: flee from this unholy ground. As any pony of reasonable upbringing I presume you are, you must know that there are things better left unspoken, truths that nopony should know. Her Majesty was wise in hiding things from its subjects, for the dark path which leads to them will destroy you. Not physically, your own body will be fairly intact when you reach the end of your journey - your mind , however, will be shattered beyond recognition. You will, as I have, find yourself in pieces and begging for someone to pick you up and rebuild your being. And as it were (and shall be if you choose to follow on my footsteps), there exists ... something that will be more than willing to reshape you into somepony you have never known. You will see your face in the mirror and you will not recognize the stranger that gazes back at you: its face will be much like one of a pony that you once knew to be your old self but instead of the feeling of familiarity with the visage you will suddenly have streams of bitter cold running down your veins as the contours of the face will give in to a endless pit of darkness. A darkness that has a voice, calling for you, bearing the name of Sit...
The rest of the page is stained with splotches of blood that had long since dried, leaving the hastily scribbled words unreadable under the flaking paper. In the faint light of a torch held in one hoof by a hooded pony, the scene unveils its dusty history: the skeleton of somepony that was nailed upside down to a wall had broken apart ages ago, its whitened bones dangling against their rusty spikes,and any other trace of flesh and decay had been covered by the thick powder of time. The cabin at the edge of the Everfree Forest was abandoned in who knows how many years, and nopony ever dared to cross its charred doorstep. It had become, over the centuries, a place of unspeakable horror as the stories of its macabre past had piled up in the folklore of the pony folk. But Umbra knew better than that: old stories do not need royal guards to keep their secrets untouched by curious hooves. The dilapidated shack beckoned her to investigate its history, and unfortunately the small dagger hanging at her waist had claimed its fair share of souls that refused to yield the painful grains of truth, including the guards that were posted down the road; her Highness will undoubtedly launch an investigation in their disappearances and the hooded pony enjoyed the perspective of being chased once more. The darkness will cover her tracks once more, as it happened all those many times before.
The book had been partially hidden by the skull of the unfortunate pony; when the rotting neck had given way to the weight of the head, it must have snapped and rolled over the now broken table. Carefully placing the book inside her saddle bag, Umbra picked up the skull with her right hoof and blew into the empty sockets where two inquisitive eyes must have resided once, a generous cloud of dust obscuring for a moment the dim light of the torch that was laid into a worn out metal ring on the left of the table. Letting out a small whistle of admiration, Umbra's left hoof caressed the crisp edges of the cut that had separated the jaw from the skull; sitting down on the soft layer of grass that grew wildly inside the shack, she was genuinely impressed by the precision of the cut: laying it against the thin edge of her own dagger, Umbra frowned a bit at the visible imperfections in her weapon, wishing for a moment that she could wield the keen edge that lopped the mandible clean off the face of what must have been a terrified pony.
"The unlucky mare must have had a hard time swallowing the next part of her ordeal", Umbra giggled at her thoughts, setting aside separately the cloven jaw and the remainder of the skull. She just then noticed how dirty her blade was, and thus proceeded to thoroughly scrape it against a piece of wood that once had been part of the table's supporting legs; the whole procedure took long enough for the moon to peek its shape above the tree tops, and Umbra squinted against the moonlight that invaded the crumbling cabin. The well-known profile of the Mare-in-the-Moon brought to the cloaked pony's attention that very much like the mare of legend, the moon was no friend of hers - she quickly grabbed the torch and rushed outside to a nearby pool of stagnant water, quenching the flames and allowing the veil of the night to once more surround her body as she delved deeper into the untamed woods.
The Umbra dagger hungered for more souls, and Umbra the pony knew that its appetite will never be satiated. Its almost soundless murmurs vibrated against her body, clamoring for the attention that it occasionally received in the full form of spilled blood against the sharp edges of its metal. The pony that was now melding with its surrounding shadows used to think at times that the very souls trapped within the dagger's confinement spoke to her sometimes, whispering thoughts and feelings to her as she slept, and perhaps this ever growing feeling that she might wake up one day trapped by the very blade that claimed her life made Umbra very reluctant to sleep in the past days. She was tired as her four legs fumbled in the winding, wild paths of the forest; she knew her way well enough and her hideout was as secluded as she could've possibly dreamed. Besides, nopony ever bothered to venture that deep in the forest, and the few that did had experienced either a quick death or a similarly close experience at the tip of her dagger. The few that escaped never returned, listening to their own voices of justified precaution.
Reaching for a well concealed entrance to a burrowed cave, Umbra pondered if the wisdom of that pony whose life ended at the hands of unknown powers had been faulty in choosing its bearings, but the thought was fleeting as she smiled, touching the cold blade beside her. There are different powers in this world, and some shared their artifacts with those audacious enough to claim them for their own benefit. As long as she fulfilled her end of the bargain, there was no living being other than that occupying the immortal throne of Equestria who could challenge her and her blade. For all that she knew, the other artifacts had been painstakingly rounded up and locked in the deep cellars of the royal castle, kept far away from anypony seeking the benevolence of the forsaken deities. Some of the gods that once manifested their will on the land had fought against the sisters' powers through their own armies of mercenaries and devout followers, to no avail. Yet Umbra knew They lingered about, crippled but not defeated, expecting the arrival of someone not unlike the writer of the book she now kept in front of her face; illuminated by a meek earthen lamp, the withered and stained first pages revealed underneath them a different sort of paper, less rough and more orderly hoof-written. Leaning against the humid wall of her cozy cavern, Umbra began reading the flowing words.
2nd of Evening Star, 5E98
I do not know for how long I will be able to keep this diary running, but I must find some way to express my pain. The others do not know, they have never bothered to look inside of me and see the suffering of my wretched self. They do not know for they do not care; they prance about each day and night, happily unaware of the darkness that has clouded my whole being for the past year. Last night I cried myself to sleep, screaming mutely at my condition from which I cannot escape. I have no strength left in me as I have ran away from my fears and against my better judgement, all this time seeking for something that will help me forget. But the past is relentless in its chase, and it never tires. I have built around myself walls and fortresses of ignorance and forgetfulness, hoping that I would never have to remember him, hoping that his very existence will someday present itself to my mind as an imagined thought, a passing whisper in a breeze. I have effectively cast aside all memories of myself and he together, all the good times spent by his side as well as the crushing moment when I was aware of the words spoken by the fancy dressed colt in front of my eyes as he addressed me the question. Of course I would be able to recognize the body of my deceased husband, but my mind blocked the meaning of the words.
The funeral itself was littered with ponies of all shapes and sizes, attempting to express their deepest condolences as a way to lift the burden from my heart. I can't remember the faces of almost all of those that attended, and whether they were unicorns, pegasi or earth ponies bears no importance to my right now. I only saw an oak casket being lowered ever so slowly into the freshly dug ditch that would serve as its eternal rest. Inside the coffin, a loving stallion that was taken away from me, somepony that was the center of my entire life from the moment I have met him. Seeing his cold body being entombed until the end of times was too much for me to handle; I dropped to the ground, sobbing and yelling out his name as some of my nameless relatives tried desperately to comfort me. I truly wished that day that I could be buried with him, that my heart had stopped the very instant his did. It is simply incredibly unfair for me to endure such suffering when the thing he gave me the most was happiness - I think I buried part of my heart with him that day, and that fragment of myself I shall never recuperate. Splintered and beaten, my heart grew darker with each day.
A month later, on some random day, I found myself being a husk of a pony. Most of my friends were too polite or too ashamed to point out that my outward appearance resembled that of a living corpse. Livid and stern, I spent that day walking around the town aimlessly, nodding as passersby recognized me and delivered their routine salutations. My mind was surprisingly blank, devoid of everything I would identify as a feeling. I did not feel the autumn chill as the winds picked up, scattering the ponies around me as they sought out for shelter in face of the incoming rain; I did not complain as the sky opened and dumped its streams of cold water against my unkempt mane and the plain cape which I had worn since the day before. I perceived everything around me with a void opinion, and everything presented itself to me sharp and well-defined: the chimes of the metal tubes dangling in the wind, the hurried clops of the ponies that ran for their homes, the outlines of the bare branches of the trees against the storm clouds. My hooves carried me to the park, where I finally let myself drop on one of the soaked benches. And there, under the whipping winds and the cold shower of the storm, I heard the voice for the first time.
It came from somewhere far away, rolling on the hills with the running winds, reflecting on each drop of rain; it enveloped me with a chilling yet welcoming embrace well before my mind had managed to comprehend its words. The nature itself battled against the voice, the elements trying furiously to drown it in the uproar of the thunderstorm but the lightnings and the thunders only sharpened the softly spoken words. By the time the storm had peaked, I was all alone in the park and nopony else could bear witness of what appeared to me as a sign of my mental collapse: in front of my eyes devoid of sentiment, the rain droplets coalesced into familiar shapes as their descent from the heavens seemed to halt at a certain distance away from me, splitting against an unseen body. The shape of an elderly mare profiled itself amidst the rain shower, slowly making its way towards me. I cannot understand now why I felt at peace back then; maybe I was accepting that this must be what the end of life looks like, the messenger of death coming for you personally to deliver your soul to the ethereal realms. When its words finally reached my limping consciousness their clarity surprised me as well as their message:
"... child, your heart full of darkness. I see you as you are, naked and afraid of the Void. I see the part of your life that you have lost, I see the hole that eats at your very being; I am here now, and I have something to show you, if your heart should ever tire of running from the darkness and ready to spread its own shadow, in the name of the Dread Father..."
The sound of a familiar voice and a firm hoof snapped me back to reality. I turned my head to see the face of my younger brother, worried to bits by my carelessness. He grabbed me and pulled me out of the park and into a carriage that waited nearby. Inside, he tried to cover me with blankets to keep me warm and dry, but I protested. I managed to extract a weak smile and show it to him, as words I had no faith in poured out of my mouth. He did not believe them any more than I did, and he went on and on about how I should get on with my life and remember that there are ponies around on which I can rely if I had anything I would like to talk about. There was nothing that I wished to share, nothing that could be explained to someone whose life had not been broken apart by the tides of fate.
The night found me sleepless. I spent a few hours in pitch black darkness, wondering how it would be like to be an unicorn. I was pretty sure that there is a spell somewhere that would help me forget. I had just began to build my walls around me, protecting my fragile mind from reality, and the illusory image of the mare in the rain appeared inside of my head. Her words rung hollow in my mind, senseless sentences conjured up by a reeling psyche. For me the apparition had been a mere projection of my deepest desire, an incarnation of my thoughts of desperation and loneliness. They meant so little and offered no comfort, although the feeling that preceded them was quite a reassuring one. It vaguely reminded me of the times when I was a filly and my mother used to pick me up and hold me close to her chest, it felt almost the same if not for a little unsettling side. My mother was always warm and I could feel her heartbeat resonating with my own. This time, my own emptiness had found an echo in the cold and intangible embrace, a touch of nothingness that found its home in my body depleted of emotions.
I slipped in the realm of dreams unaware of the transition. Once I was inside, I found myself oddly conscious of the fact that wherever I was it must have been a dream. I knew that I was asleep and in the imaginary setting I was also alone, very much like in the waking world. I was in a dark corridor, my hooves clanking against a hard, stony floor. In spite of no visible sources of light, I navigated the length of the hallway at ease, not once hitting a wall or taking a wrong turn into a dead end. I seemed to know my way around the place, and I did not find it weird. After a while I reached a large room, bathed in complete darkness except for a small cone of light, illuminating a narrow table, covered with a mint green bed sheet. I approached the table cautiously, trying to see whether there was anyone else in the room. Other than my slightly shallow breathing, the silence was completely reigning over the shadows outside the light. I looked back to see whether I could go back but the entrance had vanished from sight, obscured by the nearly tangible darkness that surrounded me from all sides. I hurried to the table and as I entered the cone of light a small object caught my attention, appearing out of thin air on the table. A small, serrated blade with a dark handle which fit perfectly in my hoof as I picked it up. Looking back at the table I saw myself under the bed sheet, staring into my own eyes with an unusual smile adorning my face. I was both outside the table and laying on it, staring at myself from both angles. My original self looked back at the blade as my new self smiled ever wider, baring my chest for the blow. I welcomed the blade as it plunged through my stern, perforating my heart. Abandoning the self on the table and back in the first body, I pressed my hoof against the streaming blood and then lifted it in the air: touching the light above my head, I imprinted a hoof on it - still dripping with blood, it became as dark as the shadows of the dream.