Image Credits:

Walking Pony: https://community.tulpa.info/thread-pony-legs

Dancing Ponies: https://wingedwolf94.deviantart.com/art/Pony-Dance-Sketch-512478640

Distorted pony drawing: https://www.derpibooru.org/1286096?q=semi-grimdark

Running Deer: https://berk-shire.deviantart.com/art/Deer-Run-Cycle-375571054

Flying dove: http://anitagaughan.tumblr.com/

Growing Plants: https://medium.com/personal-growth/stop-taking-pictures-and-start-drawing-b1642aded2b6

10 Second Breathing image: https://www.doyouyoga.com/10-awesome-gifs-for-calm-breathing-59450/

"Special" drawing: anonpencil

Cracking screen 1: https://ohioconcreterestoration.com/img/cracking-concrete-joints.png

Cracking screen 2: https://journeyofgalaxy.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/brush_crack_png_by_fabianaavenger-d60xuii.png

Burned Page: https://officialpsds.com/imageview/rj/zl/rjzl04_large.png?1521316556

Special Thanks:

To Flutterpriest, for editing the hell out of this thing. He made sure that some spelling errors were there on purpose, while finding the ones that weren't. He did playthrough after playthrough of this story, and helped me adjust the tone and language to better fit this purpose. He also helped with suggestions for the various formatting changes, and even helped do the night text itself. This would not exist and would not work without him. I love you.

To my husband, who put up with me staying up late to finish this in time, and for letting me rant about it while I was creating it. He probably won't actually read through this thing himself, but I'm pretty sure he knows every detail of it anyway, from my own mouth. Love you, assface. <3

To the Barcast, who promoted this story, spread it around, gave it all the love in the world as I pushed it to go live. You're all terrible people and I love your stupid beautiful faces. I wish you nothing but delicious suffering and booze.

To 8th, who let me put off all manner of things in order to get this done with. It's done now, thank goodness, and I will have more time again to do fun little projects, as promised. Sincerely thank you for being patient with my little obsession here, and I hope you enjoyed it once it went live. Love you.

To you, the reader. This wouldn't be fun unless you read it and played with it, and it wouldn't be worth a damn without you giving it a shot. Thank you for making it this far, whether you loved it or hated it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

"Game" hints:

-Some text might not be easily seen while it's day out, and are better viewed at night.
-She tries to show you what she looks like twice, and succeeds the second time, even if she hides it.
-Her thoughts can't all be contained here. Some of them spill out onto extra pages, and you just have to find a link between the two.
-Not all spelling and grammar errors are really errors.
-Think of this like a treasure hunt. It's about finding things that are hidden, no matter how or where they're hidden.
-Some things she hides span multiple pages, not just one.
-Just because you've found the location of one secret, doesn't mean there's nothing to find in that secret too.

Total "secrets" that can be discovered: 29

Most difficult secret to find: "****'s Lullaby"

Reading Questions:

Things for you to ponder about the story if you're bored, nothing more. Ignore them if you like, this isn't school, after all, and I'm not so self centered to ask you to answer these. They're just here if you want something more to interact with, just in your own head, not in writing, not in the comments, etc. Just thinking points.

1. Day and night play as major themes throughout the story. What does this say about our main character, and how she views the world? Why was this done?

2. When did our main character live? What was the world like when she was in Equestria? How long is that before Twilight Sparkle and her friends began their adventures?

3. All the different "stories" our main character tells seem to relate to her real life somehow. What do those stories tell us about things she has experienced?

4. What was our main character's name?

5. When she learned magic words, there was no power behind them at the time. What was the power she needed, in order to make it work? What did she initially think the power was?

6. What two ponies "helped" her try to get enough power to prevent a great calamity from every happening again? How did they help?

7. How did she feel about you, the reader, by the end of the story? Why do you suppose she began to feel that way about you?

8. Was she really evil, or was just misguided? Or not misguided at all? Were her motives justified? Was her punishment justified? What would you have done, given her situation?

Analysis of Word Choice in Page 17:

You chose a word in that little story, or you just clicked next, right? Well, I figure it might be fun to do a little personality analysis based on what you chose! No real psychological profile here, just for laughs. Enjoy, and don't take everything too seriously. ;)

Night:
You have an ability to appreciate beauty in the world around you. Whether it's people, places, animals, nature, you have a taste for things you find deeply visually pleasing. You probably enjoy art that fits your particular aesthetic, and you might even have tried your hand at being an artist yourself! You tend to like things that entertain you personally, whether or not they have some sort of deeper, more intimate meaning. As long as it's fun and pleasing to your senses, you're all for it and you'll go for it! That isn't to say you don't feel down sometimes. You've felt depressed before, and you are prone to feelings of loneliness or melancholy, especially when things don't go exactly your way. Your greatest strength is that, when you find something you enjoy, you know how to completely throw yourself into it and enjoy it to its fullest. However, you may also find it difficult to relate that enjoyment to others, and find yourself isolated by your hobbies more than you'd really like.

Afraid:
You are not someone to be trifled with. You've been known to have an angry streak and a temper, even though you're not proud of that, and at times you may be known for getting a little defensive. Of course, that doesn't keep you from being very articulate. You have a gift for words, putting together ideas, arguments, and feelings... at least in your own head. Sometimes execution doesn't go so well. Even then, your emotions run deep, and they show easily. You are not hesitant to feel anger, sadness, happiness, depression, joy, and pain. Pain is something you've felt a lot, but you don't let it win, and don't let it get you down. You're a fighter. You can do this. You probably tell yourself that pretty often. However, you can sometimes get caught up in your own emotions, to the point where you don't see those in others, or don't realize how you're coming across. You care, you care deeply for others, but it's easy for you to get wrapped up in your own head and heart. Your strength is just that, you are a strong person, even if you sometimes tell yourself you are weak. The issue is that sometimes this strength exhausts you, to the point where you have nothing left to give when others want to lean on you. Doesn't stop you from trying, though.

Stained:
You don't always like talking about what's on your mind. You're very good at getting lost in thought and being imaginative, going over what if scenarios several times throughout the day. This can make you very creative, but at the same time, it can make you seem like the quiet type, and can cause you to push others away. There's something in your upbringing or past that still haunts you, even now, and while you try not to let it bother you, it still bleeds through into your words and actions. You try not to let it keep you from being social, but it happens anyway, and you dislike that about yourself. That being said, you are a deeply caring person. You are viciously loyal when it comes to those you care about, and you are not afraid to stand between danger and people you love. You are also meticulous, and love a personal challenge. Hell, you've probably already found most of the "secrets" in here at this point! Your strength is that you are a compassionate, creative, and thoughtful individual. Now, if only you could find a way for everyone else around you to see that.

No Word Chosen:
You are a no-nonsense kind of person who doesn't like to put up with things that do not interest them. You know your goals in life, or at least your immediate goals, and like to pursue them directly rather than waiting around for them to just happen to you. You have the ability to get pretty lazy or bogged down sometimes, and you find yourself distracted by new projects that come your way, but you dislike feeling useless. You want to feel like what you do matters. You want to have purpose in your life, and you want to surround yourself with people that appreciate you for all your efforts. Your biggest strength is that you tell it like it is, and don't beat around the bush with things, but at the same time you can also sometimes come across as callous or unfeeling. Remember to slow down sometimes, take things slow, don't rush. But keep driving for whatever it is you're passionate about, even if you take a day or two off to rest and goof off at times. Everyone needs a little down time.

~*~

A Word From Anonpencil:

Well, you made it! Thank you for sticking it out all the way to the end. I wanted to take a little time here to talk about what I was doing with this story, or at least trying to do, and why.
The fact of the matter is that I've always been fascinated with books, games, and art that plays with our perception of reality, that blends that line between simple fiction and real interaction with things that are not real. I've always wanted to do so myself and, while very difficult, I'm hardly afraid of a challenge.

Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. I did this because of Doki Doki Literature Club, right? Well... not exactly. It is one of the things that inspired me, but not even the main one. Instead, my inspirations for this include: House of Leaves, The King In Yellow, Gravity Falls, Notpron, Ready Player One, a random post I saw on Facebook about a book that falls in love with you, FSWIYP, and Doki Doki too. If you liked this, I really REALLY recommend you look into these too.

There may be other pieces of fiction, here and there, and some passages are taken from my own experience as well. But just wanted to be clear, I did take some inspiration from DDLC, but this was never meant to copy it at all, and that was only a portion of it.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure I succeeded in what I set out to do. I found there were... limitations given to me by fimfic as a platform, that maybe someone more game oriented might have gotten around. Maybe this would have been better off as its own website, I'm not sure. But either way, I wanted to play with certain mechanics of this website, and how stories are done here. I wanted to have fun. And in the end, I can confidently say I did have fun.

I grew very attached to our main character here. She's actually based on a G2 pony, of which I had several growing up, but personalitywise? She was kind of concocted out of the ether. Little bits and particles from everywhere. I find I enjoyed getting inside her head to write this, even if it was difficult. She kinda had a mind of her own at times, as to what she wanted to say and do. So if nothing else, I tried to make sure I did her justice throughout this. I do feel I did that well enough.

As for what I wanted from you guys? Honestly, I just wanted to entertain you, to give you something interactive to try to pick apart. Some riddles I wanted to be absurdly easy, just things you could pick out with a simple sweep. Others, I wanted you to really have to look, to really have to try. I wanted you to think outside the box. But I also wanted this to be a complete story, without all the picking and prodding and prying. Even if you didn't try to find out every little weird thing I did, I still wanted you to get to know this character, understand her and what happened to her, and understand what she wanted to do once free.

Whether or not you sympathized with her and connected with her or found her just obsessive and creepy? Well, that's up to you.

I love horror, and while this isn't directly horror in the way of ghosts and zombies, I did want this to be creepy. I wanted to give you the sense, from beginning to end, that something is wrong here. Something is off. And I wanted you to not trust what you were being told or what you were seeing. I dunno if that makes this lite horror, psychological horror, or what. But I do hope you found parts of it, at the very least, uneasy.

In the end, I can only thank you for giving this a shot. You read it all the way through, even read this silly, rambling, self-indulgent note. I know this isn't what you're used to from me, so maybe I surprised you in that. And you, know, maybe this wasn't your cup of tea, or you didn't like it, or thought it was dumb. But overall I hope you had fun. Even if this wasn't life changing or provoking etc, I do hope you at least had fun with the ride, reading, and playing along.

I know she had fun. And I know I had fun too.

Take care.

Love,
anonpencil