Nightmares Are My Specialty

by The Ancestor

ADDENDUM ■■■■/5

Approximately a week after the item was first discovered, a letter fell out of the journal's pages. The exact method of its delivery is still unknown.

---

Dear Princess Celestia,

First of all I must congratulate you on Luna's recovery, it felt like tearing my i
own heart out, watching her suffer yet being unable to help in any way.

Still, I believe I've failed to assist you once again. Even the most apt of my children were unable to locate your missing doctor, although they did find something quite unsettling.

One evening, they returned to the throne room weary and drained from their task, much more than was normal. They told me they investigated his room that day, and felt overwhelmed the moment they passed the chamber door.

I took it upon myself to observe their memories, and I must say, that room reeked of despair. And not the sort one would expect in cases like his, I've witnessed enough suicides over the years, believe me.

No, whatever left that emotional stain was old, much, much older than all of the alicorns combined. And whatever that thing was, it wasn't there for long, the 'stain' remaining quite localized.

I don't have an explanation for what happened, and I'm afraid I never will. But what I do have, is a folks tale of my people, one mother told me when I was but a hatchling, a tradition among us Queens.

Before time itself took form, the world was dark and empty, a complete and utter void as far as one could imagine. This void had nothing to do, for she had no concept of time and nothing to apply it to. Lonely she hungered for experience, hungered for memories and sensations, wanted to feel, to hear, to smell, to see.

But she couldn't. And thus, she did the only thing she could do. Resentment and avarice stewed within this consciousness, cruelly formed before she could experience anything at all, before she could learn and grow. She became nothing more than a creature of instinct, an animal ready to pounce on her prey as soon as she noticed it.

And then something happened.

Creation, divine intervention, call it what you want - planets were formed and stars were lit, existence had finally begun. But that creature couldn't comprehend the world around her, still stuck in her little world of hate and jealousy. The only way she could understand the world around her, was through these same emotions.

Thus she began to seek, and after a millennia of fruitless searches, she happened upon a blue rock floating in the vast cosmos.

And she sensed something. Fear and pain, hate and anguish, wars and tyrants, the perfect feeding ground for the creature. At first she did just that, yet slowly but surely, she gained strength. Ponies and all sorts of creatures started vanishing off the face of Gaia, never to be seen again.

Places of great tragedy were akin to a lure to this thing as she trapped creatures in her little world of pain and misery, drawing on their emotions until they were left nothing but a husk.

Times have changed, war and anguish are but a distant memory in the modern world. But my people are still wary of old battlefields and ancient ruins, for you can never be sure whether or not she's watching.

I'm afraid you'll never see this doctor of yours again, and you should be thankful for it. For wherever he is, it's a one way ticket.

Best regards,

Queen Chrysalis of the United Hives.

---

Note: "This letter all but confirms it, this journal is not from our world. Not only is it referring to Celestia, whose condition needs no further explanation, but the letter's author 'Queen Chrysalis' is all too cordial in her writing, something 'our' iteration would never do, at least according to members of our 'Trojan Horse' initiative. This raises concern in regards to the 'she' Chryssalis referred to in the document. An Entity of such magnitude might be a danger not only to their iteration, but to our own as well. I'll get people to look further into it, but I'm afraid we're already spread quite thin between our rebuilding efforts and the resonance. Let's just pray that 'she' will leave us for the time being." - Director Miller.