The Ghost of Darkness (Prologue)
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The reaper of darkness has vanished. Never would I have expected that the young hippogriff holds a secret like this. But the circumstances have changed once more.
I am no longer in Canterlot. This place has fallen, has become forsaken to the darkness. I don't know what they intend to build from this mass of black matter, I cannot fathom if anything can be built from it at all or what their wicked plan is. But I had to leave, had to flee this city that I once called home.
My sanctuary is destroyed, but my writings are with me. I cannot allow that they come into their possession. And you might need them, if you ever discover the legacy that I will leave behind.
The world is cold now. Every warmth seems to have left it, when the little ghosts died. The lava beast is dead, the mother has perished alongside her children. We have nothing to hold on to. The last good that existed in this world, the last innocence, is gone. They brought the warmth to us, like the sun once did, and kept us alive. But now all the warmth is dead. And we will succumb to the cold that replaced it.
She has murdered more than them. The little ghosts, their mother... The watchful, unseeing eyes, those who could not feel happiness, wicked demons, a friend and a suffering soul... Her victims have been plentiful. But she has murdered many more.
I still don't know how many others are alive, how many doomed souls might be out there hiding from the darkness, but it matters not, she has murdered them all. For the darkness has been joined by the cold. They will freeze to death and their frozen blood will be on her claws. She pays the price for her sins, I was told. Cold no longer concerns her. But it does concern us and we pay the price, too.
I don't have much time anymore. I live in scattered houses now and try to survive with the warmth of every little fire I am able to conjure. But this warmth is fleeting, it goes out while I sleep and I awake to freezing cold once more. We are doomed and this is truly the end.
But before... I need to pass this on to someone. These writings might hold a key, an answer to end the darkness with. They contain all that I know and after I am no more, someone else has to keep searching for the answer with the help of the knowledge I provide. But they, too, will not have much time to solve this darkest of all riddles. What the darkness did not kill, will be killed by this cold. If you find this, you will need to act fast.
I can never stay in one place for long. Soon after I occupied a stray house in the dark landscapes, they find me and I have to flee once more. They are after my writings, they want to know what I know. And like fools they would feel if they discovered that I don't know nearly as much as what they believe me to know... But nonetheless, hope is what dies last. And I pray, whoever finds this, that the hope in your heart will be warm enough to find the answer and save our world.
Where does my hope come from? Why does it last, what makes it prevail, when what it faces is hopelessness itself? We are dark, we are cold. Nothing is left anymore to fight for, our world is besieged by monsters from our deepest nightmares. The innocence has fallen, the one savior who might have saved us all been reduced to a phantom of herself... then what is left? Why do I continue to feel hope, when pain is all it brings me?
I cannot hold out for much longer. The warmth has ceased to exist, in the world and in my heart. What hope I still feel, it slowly turns from hope for salvation and a return of the light, to hope for a swift death. I had friends and I had family, once, in a different world... They are gone, but I am still here. I ask myself why. Why am I left here, without them, when I fail to find answers to bring an end to this nightmare?
Maybe I will end the nightmare... for myself and in a different way than the one this foolish hope in my heart keeps talking to me about. My words shall not deter you. They must not stop you in your task. My hope might come to an end... I wish to see my family again... in the blessed world that must lie behind this one. But your hope must live, if you wish to save your world, if you choose to tread the path that I can tread no longer.
My time has come. I have chosen the moment. But where I failed, you can succeed. And if you manage to save our world, if you can return the normalcy that once was, please show these writings to everyone who wishes to see them. And let them know that Comet Tail wrote them.
I am a scholar, a historian and astronomer. I write to help those who seek knowledge and guidance. I have seen the stars once... And now, I will be with them, wherever they have gone to. I will see them once more... and I will dance in their light with those I cherish and love.
May you fare well and always keep the light and warmth in your heart.
Comet Tail, Astronomer and Historian, 1038 ANM