• Published 30th Jul 2012
  • 1,649 Views, 18 Comments

The Dark - StreakTheFox



Twilight tries to discover the source of a malevolant entity that tortures her with nightmares

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A Diary

Twilight woke up in the middle of the night, her body shivering uncontrollably. Her eyes shot open as she lifted her upper body out of bed, clutching her hooves against herself as her teeth clattered. She gave a few gasps, noticing her breath visible in the air.

“By Celestia, it's freezing in here!” she whispered loudly to nopony in particular. She looked around, noticing the window to her room closed. She tried curling into her sheets some more, but discovered that to only make her even colder. The feel of her sheets on her coat only acted like blankets of snow falling onto her. She got out again, this time pushing the covers off of her. As she did so, she realized that she was already beginning to feel warmer.

This confused her. She stopped, thinking about the situation for a moment, before slowly sliding the covers onto her again. Just like before, an overwhelming cold surrounded her, and she quickly reacted by pushing the covers all the way off, even off of the bed. As they fell down to the floor, regular warmth returned to her body as she could also no longer see her breath in the air. She looked at her sheets off the bed, and gingerly touched her hoof against them.

“Ice cold...” She whispered to herself before pulling her hoof away. She looked around her room, trying to see if anything else was out of the ordinary. Nothing seemed to catch her eye, though. The room was still, nothing moving in the darkness of the night. She looked over to see if Spike was still in bed, and he was, just happily sleeping away in his little bad with barely audible snores. Not wanting to try her icy sheets again, she ventured out of her bed and made her way out the door.

She stepped onto the stairs and looked around, trying to see if anything was amiss. She looked about level to see Owlowiscious perched at his usual spot, his head moving left and right slowly as if he was some sort of sentry. Feeling as though the cause would not be found in her the main room, she was just turning to head back when a faint light caught her eye. She turned to the desk at ground level, noticing a soft blue glow emanating from there. Her eyes opened up a bit wider as she locked onto it, slowly descending the stairs with full intent on investigating the glow.

She made her way over to the desk, not keeping her eyes off the glow for even a second for the fear that it may disappear somehow or for some reason. As far as she knew, it was the only clue as to the strange phenomena going on in her room, and she didn't want to let it get away. But upon closer inspection, she found that the glow was coming from the cover of the mysteriously blank and enchanted tome, which apparently wasn't blank anymore. As Twilight picked it up with her hooves, she noticed then that the bluish glow spelled out two short words on the front.

“'The Dark'?” She whispered aloud. She turned it over to the back side, finding a couple lines of text glowing there as well. Again, she whispered it to herself as she read. “There is a reason the dark has been related to many things evil. But the dark itself is not what's evil.” Twilight spun the book back to the front, her mind full of questions. Just to check, she tried to use magic again to grab a hold of the book, but that once more resulted in failure. Giving a defeated sigh, she opened it up to the first page to see if anything had changed on the inside.

Her eyes widened in shock with what she found. What was previously blank pages was now completely filled with writing, and not typed up from a typewriter, real, hoof-written words that glowed in the dark. She turned the page, finding it too filled with words, along with the next one, and the next. Twilight rapidly flipped through each page, finding that they all harbored hoof-written text, and some even had illustrations drawn in. Her curiosity peaked, and her desire for sleep no longer present, she dove right into the book from the first page, eager to learn what it had to say.


“The year is two thousand and forty, June 8, at approximately 9:34 pm. I don't want the reason for this journal, or “diary” to be lost, so I'm going to make a note of it right now that I am recording my thoughts about our most recent discovery here. I don't know why I would ever forget such a thing as this, but you never know.”

“Woah,” Twilight's eyes widened as she read the first paragraph again. “A diary? I'm reading somepony's diary? But the year... that doesn't make any sense.” Twilight frowned as she analyzed the number further. No date in all of recorded history existed for any species, save for the dragons. But she doubted that dragons could write so small, unless it was a baby like Spike. But still, she continued on.

“Today was extraordinarily exiting. We discovered a meteor in our solar system mere hours away from impacting what would we estimated to be the middle of Death Valley, Nevada. A probe sent out to it a few weeks ago revealed the presence of many new and incredibly rare substances. I can't wait to get myself a sample! And perhaps the discovery of a few new materials could indeed bring about an advance in all sorts of technologies. It may even hold the key to unlocking our ability to harness nuclear fusion. Imagine all the possibilities! Such a wealth of energy... I can't begin to go on about how much it would help the world.

“But here I sit at my desk, just waiting for a chance to get my hands on those samples. I would be staying up all night to watch it, but I figure that the impact time is so close to my regular wake-up time, that I can sacrifice an hour or so of sleep if I head off to bed now and wake up early. I don't live far, either, just about fifty miles away. Perhaps I could go to the impact site myself.

“So anyways, like I said, I am going to have to go to bed soon. My wife plans on staying up a bit longer, but I've already tucked my little girl in for the night. She has school in the morning, and I do plan on driving her. She's like the world to me, and every time I do drive her I just find such comfort in knowing I have a posotive effect on my daughter.

“Well that's pretty much it. Going to wake up early, watch the meteor, go about my day, and probably write more here tomorrow. I know it would probably be simpler to record all this down on my computer, but there's something about typing that just makes this all a bit more... I dunno, authentic? Yeah, I'll call it that for now. Gerard out.”

Twilight flipped the page when the entry ended, and just started to read the first few words of the next page when the letters suddenly faded away. She blinked, wondering if she had just imagined it, before turning the page back to see that what she had just read also faded away. She turned the pages forward, flipping through them rapidly to see all the pages blank once more. She closed the book to see the cover, only to find that the title was still there, glowing just as brightly and exactly the same color.

This doesn't make any sense, She thought to herself as she eyed the tome suspiciously. At first I thought I was reading somepony's diary, and I think I still am, sort of, but... She examined the back cover, noting that it too still held the letters it once had there. The year 2040 ? What is that, the future or something? This is only the year 1002 in the Celestia calender! And what about this stuff, about a “Death Valley, Nevada”? Sounds like a place... and a really unpleasant one at that.

But what I really don't get is the talk of nuclear fusion. That only happens in the sun, and this pony – I think it's a pony – is talking about harnessing its energies! That's completely impossible, nothing can harness, let alone create that kind of power. This pony must be delusional. But still, I do wonder what he meant about....

Twilight stayed deep in thought as she absentmindedly opened the book again, acting on muscle memory as if she was seeing if anything had changed since when she last opened it.

In fact, now that I think about it, this probably sounds like it's a work of fiction or something. Probably some sort of futuristic story that Rainbow Dash might enjoy or...

Her thoughts came to an abrupt stop as she stared down at the page in front of her. Her eyes were wide, her mouth ajar and her ears perked up as she gazed at what she saw. It was just one word, five glowing letters and a punctuation in the center of the page she just happened to open the book to.

'-Hello.'

Twilight blinked a few times, wondering what just happened, or what she should do next. She couldn't tell if the book had just tried to talk to her, or if she was simply starting to see things in the darkness, or if perhaps that page just happened to contain only the word 'hello'.

She looked around her, somewhat paranoid at the possibility of somepony playing tricks on her, which would explain the freezing bedsheets earlier. When she thought about it, she never did check to see if they had been enchanted at all. She would have to make a note to do so later. But as she returned her gaze to the book, she simply decided to turn the page to see what else she could find.

To her surprise, and perhaps just a bit of fear to go along with that, the next page said the same thing, in the exact same place.

'-Hello.'

Twilight flipped the page again, only to find the same thing written on that page too. She flipped the pages more, passing through many pages that were once blank, then filled with words, then blank again, and now showing only the word hello. She turned to look at the cover, seeing it still saying 'The Dark' as it always was. She closed the book, waited five seconds, and opened it again. She looked down to the first page, noticing it said nothing once again.

“Shew, I thought for a minute I was losing it there...” Twilight trailed off as she saw a word fade into the page.

Her breathing paused while her eyes widened, her brain trying to reject what was right there as some sort of fatigue-induced hallucination. But as much as she tried to blink away the hallucination that wasn't there, the word would not disappear.

'-Hello.'

Twilight was contemplating freaking out when she suddenly had an idea, a theory perhaps, on how to handle with the situation. It was sort of crazy, okay, really crazy in Twilight's mind, but she thought that perhaps it could work.

“Um... hello?” Twilight whispered to the book, her face showing a pleading look more to express her hope that she wasn't going loony. There was a pause, and for a moment she assumed the worst, until the words again faded away, only to be replaced with four more immediately after.

'-Are you a pony?'

For the hundredth time that night, Twilight's mind was filled with both surprise and confusion. What an odd question... She thought as she tilted her head to the side. She hesitated, but reluctantly decided to answer honestly.

“Y-yes?”

The words faded, and just like before more appeared before her.

'-I need your help.'

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You do? But, you're just a book...”

'-I'm trapped inside the book.'

“But, how could I possibly be able to help?” Twilight figured that there was something odd about the book the moment she realized her magic couldn't work on it, but she never imagined it was to this extent. She briefly wondered just how deep the secrets of the book goes. “Wait, are you a pony too? Or, what are you?”

'-I stand alone in the dark.'

Twilight was about to ask more, but the words faded before she could. She waited for the book to – was it writing to her? Seemed like it – write back to her, but nothing came. She waited another minute, sitting down and wondering to herself what was going on. After a while she finally decided to flip the book over to the front, and noticed that the title had disappeared. She closed and opened the book, revealing its once again blank pages.

What should I do? She asked herself as she stared at the book with a look of concern. I'm almost positive I wasn't seeing things, but how do I help somepony trapped inside of a book? And why did it ask if I was a pony? Perhaps it's talked to other beings as well, but why did it ask pony specifically? And what the hay was this thing doing in the Canterlot Library!?

Twilight contemplated what to do next, when she just happened to glance up at the clock. It showed a time of around three O'clock in the morning. Twilight sighed, and decided that she should try to get back to bed as soon as she could. And yet, somepony needed her help. Or was it a pony? Was it her mind playing tricks on her? Well, she wasn't sure about that, but she knew something was up.

She flipped through the pages of the book again. Nothing showed up, the title was gone, and so was the backside writing. The book was blank, just as it had been when she first got it. Nothing was making much sense to her, so she decided to take matters into her own hooves... and by that, it meant writing to Princess Celestia.

However, Spike was asleep, and Celestia would also be asleep at the time. So, reluctantly, Twilight decided to wait till morning herself to send the letter, since the situation wasn't extrordinarily dire or anything. She headed back up the stairs and got into bed, levitating the sheets back onto her. Surprisingly she had forgotten about the icy feel of the sheets, and only remembered right when she had set them on herself. But what surprised her even further was the fact that the sheets were no longer cold to her. They were... well, how they should be.

Twilight snuggled into bed, hoping that she would get answers from the princess in the morning. She revisited the events that just transpired in her thoughts, but still could not come to any definite conclusions. But after minutes of thinking and several tired yawns, she eventually gave in to the remainder of a night's rest.




Down in the main room with the book, the pages flew open by themselves. Landing open in the dead center of the tome, a few more words shined vaguely on one page.

'-I'm not ready to die.'

As quickly as the words appeared they then faded away, with the book closing and all becoming still once more throughout the night.







Comments ( 5 )

At the end, I did not know whether to laugh or be scared so instead I enjoyed this chapter and went on to something else. I can not wait for more.

Keep it up! This is good stuff.

Trans-dimensional tomes, floresent disapearing ink, trapped humans. This is getting to be quite a story.

yea... twi has a sharp enough mind to tell the difference from illusion and reality she should also have been able to realize that the book needed immediate investigation if her magic was unable to affect it. also she's pulling the Celestia card a bit late as usual not to mention she should have stayed with the book to make sure that she was able to respond to any problems before they became too much for her to handle.

cheers:twilightsmile:

Me likey, likey! Too bad it was last updated 21 sep, are you not gonna continue this? :fluttercry:

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