“Our sins forever watch us, reminding us of our failings, reminding us of our fallibility, Celestia help us if they ever stop.”

I’m the last one left, I don’t know where my friends are, I don’t even know if they’re alive. I guess I’m putting this down because I don’t really know any other way to make sense of the things that are happening. It all started after the events that occurred at Sugarcube Corner, we all made it out alive, I’m not even sure the curse that started it was trying to kill us in the first place, just torment us. At first everything seemed ok, but it wasn’t, I don’t think it ever was or ever will be again. Princess Celestia was right, I am more powerful than her, but that’s not a good thing, when Rainbow and Pinkie died down in that place something happened to my mind, something terrible. In my grief I created something more or less real, I tapped a place that was left to rot on the boundaries of nightmare for a reason, and now all of Equestria may pay the price. No one pony should have that kind of power. I considered ending it all, ending the threat I pose with my own hooves, but it’s too late, it would just be a futile gesture of cowardice. No, if I’m going to honour my friends then, dead or alive, I’ve got to find a way to deal with this. I have to stop this, otherwise all will be lost. I miss you Princess, I wish you were here now to tell me what to do, but you’re not and it’s my fault, I have to get us out of this, and pray that you’re still in a place I can reach if I do.

I guess I should start at the beginning; I’ve already recorded the sequence of small events that led to this, now I have to record the Event itself. The beginning is a little fuzzy, there were tiny hints and signs, small things that anypony might brush off as being the whispers of a slightly bent mind, Celestia knows we all fit that category after what happened. I think it was more than that though, the first hint I think I saw was several days after we escaped from the curse, Fluttershy came by for tea but she seemed distracted, she brought me a journal that the Doctor in Trottingham told her to start. She said that there was something wrong with it; she opened it to a certain page covered in strange scribbles I flipped through it and found several more, this scared her, she said they hadn’t been there when she’d put the book in her saddlebags to come here. They didn’t mean anything to me though. Now I wonder if I should’ve looked closer.

Terrible things have happened here in Ponyville. It’s only by placing quill to paper now that I sustain any semblance of sanity I think. In doing this I remind myself that what happened was real, as unbelievable as it seems now, sitting here in the ruins of my one-time home. I wonder now if anypony will read this, if anypony will be left to read this, and whether or not they’ll even believe it. Hopefully not, if they’re lucky they’ll pass it off as the diseased ramblings of a broken mind. Maybe I’ll make it through this though. If I do, I think I’ll keep this someplace safe, it will be a reminder of what I’m capable of, and what I must always be vigilant for.

The next sign was the disappearances, ever since Pinkie Pie died they stopped but about ten days after we got back they began again, except the ponies didn’t stay gone, they would vanish for several hours or sometimes for a full day then reappear, disoriented and always bearing strange marks, a scar or something usually that had obviously not been there before. Always they couldn’t remember where it had come from. I first noticed it with Rarity, she seemed to be doing alright but I discovered later that she’d almost entirely stopped sleeping except for the few times when she would pass out in her living room in a drunken haze. Now I know the truth, I suppose it’s a kind of obvious in hindsight but then, isn’t everything?

Ever since the things that happened at Sugarcube Corner I’ve never really felt safe. It always felt like I was being watched, even now I feel like if I were to edge my vision to the periphery I would see a shadow standing there, watching me. It’s a side effect of the Event though; all the ponies began to feel it near the end, even those that hadn’t vanished and reappeared. I suppose in a way we were being watched, who knew a place like that even existed, I think Scootaloo said it best, ‘it’s where all the bad stuff goes’. I wish I could apologize to her; I still hold out hope that I can find her, along with all the others. Big Macintosh said he’d take care of the Crusaders, I know at least that he’s still alive, he promised me he would be, and everypony knows if there’s a pony more honest than Applejack, it’s her big brother. He wouldn’t let me down, I know he wouldn’t.

I suppose I’ve rambled long enough, it’s time for me to get down to business and start telling my story. I need to tell everypony what happened here in Ponyville, I need them to know why the Element of Laughter’s mind broke, why the Elements of Harmony grew dark in Ponyvilles most desperate hour. I need them to know what happened. One day I might be forgiven for the things I’ve done, even though I didn’t know it when I did it, it was my power that tainted the Elements, it was my magic that broke the seal, it was my madness that brought about the curse. Even though it would be easy to blame it all on Him, I can’t. It wasn’t His fault, not entirely anyway. He tricked me because it’s what He does, I’m the foalish pony who fell for it. I’m the pony who, in my pride and arrogance, tried to use the Elements for selfish and dissonant reasons.

My name is Twilight Starla Sparkle, daughter of Orion and Starlight Sparkle and unless I’m very much mistaken, everything that you’re about to read is entirely my fault.

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The beginning is always a difficult place to start even if it is the most obvious. I suppose I should begin with Ponyville itself and the horror that was visited on it.

Her name was Pinkamena Diane Pie and she was, among other things, one of my best friends. Pinkamena, or Pinkie Pie to anyone who knew her, was not only my friend but the Element of Laughter, one of the six Elements of Harmony that were used to defeat both Nightmare Moon and the ancient spirit Discord. She is now the most reviled figure in the history of Ponyville, responsible for the brutal deaths of more than thirteen ponies including another of my closest friends, the pegasus Rainbow Dash. I won’t go into detail about what she did exactly, sufficed to say she committed atrocities that even now I can’t help but shiver when I think about. I could say that it was her actions that began all this but that’s not quite fair, in truth it was me, Pinkie Pie was closer to a side effect, something I may be capable of forgiving myself for.

For the sake of simplicity I will say it was my discovering her ‘workshop’ that really set this spiral into motion. The curse that resulted from the mental trauma I suffered dragged my friends and I as well as Princess Luna into a nightmare realm where we were tortured and tormented by the shades of our own guilt and self-hatred. Miraculously we managed to escape, thanks to my friends and surprisingly, thanks to the shade of Pinkie Pie that was there with us turning on the other apparitions. Princess Celestia had forced a pathway open but I had to open the door from my end, it was the self-hatred of my friends and I that kept us locked in that hell and by finding some measure of forgiveness in our own hearts we were able to pry the door open and emerge back into Ponyville. It didn’t end there unfortunately; we had survived the shadows of guilt, now we had to recover from the wounds that had been dealt to us. This brings us to the first signs of when things started going terribly wrong, the disappearances.