The grave remained.

A rectangular mound of freshly disturbed soil; a jarring brown gash along the grassy forest floor. At the head of the gash stood two wooden rods arranged in an ‘X’ shape, tied together by metallic twine. Affixed to this twine was a flat diamond-shaped gemstone, a memoir of more than just a lost life.

There was no pony to watch over the grave.

There had not been for some time.

Snow crunched under the mare's hooves as she dragged herself across the frozen wastes. No pony - not even one with as poofy a mane as hers - should have been out in this chilling weather, but as far as she was concerned she didn't have much of a choice. She'd done her best to wrap herself in her mane and tail, giving her the appearance of a very pink sheep, but that had done nothing for her legs.

They were still exposed. The strange star-shaped wounds all of them had frozen over, something that definitely wasn't healthy. Not that she was a doctor, she just knew a thing or two about being injured. This fact was clear to everypony who ever saw her these days - the blindfold was easily apparent.

Not that there was anypony with her now. Just the snow, wind, and ice.

She wasn't shivering. Any mare out in this weather should have been shivering. Just another reminder as to how unnatural she was.

"Pinkie!"

"Don't worry, everything's going to be fi-"

She winced as she remembered. With a shake of her head, she pushed it all as far away as she could. The memory went away, but the feeling didn't.

The feeling that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. She had no idea what it was. How could she?

"This isn't how things are supposed to be," she breathed, the cloud of her breath trailing off toward the sun that was doing a very poor job of melting the snow. She looked at the sky, finding two of the world's moons flanking the sun: the red one and the gray one. What were they called? ...If she'd been told, she didn't remember.

She continued on through the wastes, dragging her hooves along the frigid ground.

How she longed to bounce. How she wished she had the energy...

A tremor pulsed through the area, one of many earthquakes that had greeted the mare on her journey. She paid it no mind, which meant she did nothing to prepare for what was coming.

The ice beneath her split in two, opening into a gaping maw that invited her into the depths. She hit the side of the ice hard but kept her wits about her. Using her momentum, she pressed her hooves to the ice wall, skating down it rather than falling down. The world above vanished, replaced with a dark icy fissure.

Not that she could see the lighting. She was just as effective down here as on the surface.

She soon found herself sliding down a gentle slope rather than a sheer drop, cascading through a slippery tunnel that brought her to a gentle stop on an underground cavern of ice. The floor was perfectly smooth, too smooth even for a calm, frozen lake. It couldn't have been natural.

Beneath the ice lay a field of roses, all with their flowers pointed ever so slightly toward the center, where a stone pedestal rose from the perfect ground. The walls of the cavern were lined not with ice or stone, but a dark metal upon which many screens were mounted. Most of the screens were broken or displayed nothing more than mindless static, but one showed a bed with... something on it.

Something undefined.

While the mare couldn't see, she still knew what was in this room. And that undefined something bothered her.

The feeling that something was very wrong came back in full force.

She asked for more details, pressed, focused... but got nothing. There was a bed. There was a something. She couldn't even get more information about the bed. The image she had in her mind was of her bed back home, which no doubt was wrong since very few ponies decorated their beds with so much pink.

She turned her focus onto something more tangible - the pillar in the center of the room. Despite her many cuts, scrapes, and bruises she was able to skate right to it for a closer inspection.

Her jaw dropped to the floor.

"Hello, Pinkie."

Suddenly, every screen in the room that wasn't broken lit up with a bright pink sparkle. Another tremor shook the frozen wastes as a pillar of pink light shot into the sky.

"It's time to wake up..."

Pinkie knew she wasn't being addressed this time.

"Hey! It's time to wake up!"

"´suø∏sǝ®," 3¡N said.

"Ǝ¨⁄¬ ɟØ ∆uƎ. Ǝ¨⁄¬ ɟØ ∆uƎ. Ǝ͝¨⁄¬͠ ɟ͠Ǿ ̡∆uƎ̕.̨ Ǝ͙͕́̊̒͘¨ͬ̎ͧ͒̈⁄̪̝̭̜̅¬̞̝̣̆̈͗ͬ̽̄ ̱̖̱̠͙͐̿̽̿̆̈́̽͢ͅɟ͇̫̻̱͎͂Ø̛͕͔͈͍̓ͅ ̖̣̝̺͕͉̝́∆̵̪̎ͯ̾̽ͧuƎͧ͆.̘̍͌̓ͨͅ

Okay, no. This isn't working.

This world can't go on like this. It's missing too much.

...But I suppose that's the point, isn't it? It's got so much thrown in, and yet so little of what it NEEDS. Barely more than a skeleton to look upon, ready for the rest of the bodily systems to be added to the pony.

Or is it even a pony? I have my doubts, admittedly. I have some idea of what's in those heads of yours - though I am not a mind reader. Most often, anyway.

This world is yours now - all of you, collectively. Every comment you leave will have untold effects on what happens next, for you will fill in the holes of the world. If I understand correctly, most often this will be done in the form of answering a question.

For instance, the question at the bottom of this chapter: "Who is the Protagonist?" An excellent question, especially for a story literally titled The Protagonist. You collectively are going to build the focus of this story. Will they be the hero this world needs? The villain? Something outside the standard story roles? I know not. That is up to you.

Everything about them is up to you. Male or female? What is their history, their age, their race? And I don't just mean earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn. There's nothing stopping the Protagonist from being a dragon, a griffon... a human. Or even something more exotic. Why not make them an inkling? A troll? A Klingon? Something even more bizarre? And of course... their name. The most important aspect or the least, depending on who you ask.

I cannot tell you what to do. Be creative, bend the rules. But you must do it together. Work as a team. Hammer out ideas in the comments. Find a way to agree. If you don't... Well, I'm not sure what will happen. Compromises might be made in the story.

I can be sure that your actions will have consequences. With every answer you give, the world becomes more defined.

A whole universe in your hands... and it all starts with this Protagonist.

I have faith that you'll do this world proud. That you'll give GM the answers that lead this world to a glorious future.

Don't prove me wrong.

Author's Notes:

Who is the Protagonist?