[FROM THE MIND OF STARNOTE]

The book flopped down onto the expensive bedspread, bouncing back up slightly and flipping over just enough to reveal an entry on the back... Stricken with even more fear, I picked it up and read it.

All the unicorns are gone. All of the pegasi are gone. But it was worth it... It was been completed. It has also escaped... And as a result, I must too. Guards who may be reading this: if there are any survivors of the earthquake that are questioning what happened, tell them that it was natural and I am dead.

I was in more shock than I ever thought I could be. The pegasi and unicorns... Dead. I couldn't understand why I didn't notice it before... I hadn't seen any in days.

I pondered on that for a while... What escaped? Was that why Celestia and Luna left? Was she actually the causer of the earthquake?

I flipped through the empty pages of the book in hope of finding more answers. The pages seemed to be blank, but then something fell out of it... It was silvery on one side and colorful on the other. A photograph. It started fluttering down, but I caught it with a hoof before it could reach the ground. I brought the photograph up to my face, realizing that it was two photos stuck to each other. The top photo was a picture of a purple alicorn. Not Luna, though... I looked closer. It had a mangled and bloody face and body, like it had been badly injured before and just returned the favor. I wouldn't doubt it if that was the case. I looked even closer to find that the background was a pure metal room smeared with blood with no windows or furnishings. Well, there was one... A small operating table in the background.

I tried to get the other photograph off of it, only to find to my surprise that they were glued together with blood. After several seconds of prying them apart, I found that the other picture revealed the mysterious alicorn's face up close and personal with the camera, as if attacking the cameraman.

I turned the photo around and cringed at what it said: Test Subject 451: Successful! Status: Alive. Mood: Enraged/depressed (bi-polar). Former name: Violet Rose.

Violet Rose... I knew that name... My friend. An earth pony. She wasn't even bi-polar, but she told me a few days that he was going on vacation. She didn't say where though... That was unlike her. What did Celestia do to her?

I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to do. This was personal now. Those two bitches were going to pay.

I had no time to dwell on the thought, because the door to the room suddenly reopened, revealing two other earth ponies behind it, both unknown to me.

Both of them were male and enraged. One of them spoke to me.

"Where the hell did that gunfire come from?" I had no time to respond to his question before he looked down on the ground to find the dead guard, who was now in a pool of his own blood.

"It's not what it looks like! He killed himself! I swear!" I hastily responded.

"Yeah right. Tell us... What were you after?"

"Truth! That was it! Here, look at this!" I threw him the photographs, expecting him to look at them and understand. I was shocked and frightened when he swatted them down with a hoof out of midair and started slowly walking towards me with a fiery look of determination on his face.

"You. Little. Bastard. What have you done? You just killed the last pony here that could have told us the truth! And here you are telling me that you were after the truth?"

"I ALREADY FOUND THE TRUTH!" I screamed at him.

He continued forward. I had several thoughts racing through my head, but one of them took over me completely. I can't exactly describe to you what that thought was, but I can describe to you what it did. It made me panic. I turned around and bolted away, barely noticing where to. The opposite end of the room held a large window, which I could only trust would lead to my survival.

I heard a faint "AFTER HIM!" behind me as I continued accelerating towards the window. Even though I was tripping over cluttered books and clothes, I could still hear that the other pony was following me closely.

I jumped. It felt clumsy as my hooves left the ground, but it had to do. And do it did: It was just enough height to send me smashing through the glass, sending countless pieces of crystal shrapnel to embed inside my skin as I soared outside. The pain struck my body immediately, sending me tumbling and screaming into the ground.

As you could see, I was terribly unprepared for a landing at the time. I smacked back-down into the grassy hillside, sending me sliding down the slope several meters and driving several shards of glass through my back. I howled out in pain as I skidded to a stop.

Landing and getting impaled by thousands of glass shards seemed like a piece of cake once I realized what was coming next. I looked back up at the side of the castle just in time to see the other earth pony leap through the window, landing a split second later next to me.

I quickly got back up on my hooves and tried to prepare myself for a fight. The other pony regained his balance and charged at me, teeth gnashing and everything. I reflexively charged back at him, not sure what would happen. Before either one of us knew it, we collided in a fury of flying hooves and teeth. Literally. I think I knocked out one of his teeth on impact.

I couldn't tell what was actually happening at the time, so I really could only perceive what happened afterwards. I took a massive strike to the shoulder, sending me flying backwards and into the grass, further cutting me up. I guess he must have had more speed coming down... That gave me an idea.

I clamored back up again, breathing heavy, but this time with a plan. I charged again at him, but this time, when he started charging at me and we were about to collide for a second time, I quickly sidestepped, catching him off guard and tumbling down before he received several rug burns and skidded to a stop. I continued running up the hill and stopped just before where I originally landed, waiting for him to return.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, he stood up again and continued to run towards me. I crouched down, waiting for a strike.

Although I can say that I tried my best, that still won't hide the fact that I wasn't expecting what came next at all. Instead of directly attacking me, he lunged and dove over me, grabbing me by my back legs on the way down and swinging me over him, letting me land in the glass once again.

I had done all I could. I wanted to give up, not because of the impossible-to-attack opponent I was facing or the excruciating pain I was going through, but both. I crashed down on the grassy hillside in pure defeat. He approached me with an intimidating gaze, but that gave me one last ray of hope. Just when he was above me and ready to deliver me one final, crushing blow, I outstretched a hoof to the ground, dug up the first glass piece that I could find, swung it up, and rammed it through his throat at the last second.

His blood flowed down the glass shard and down my arm, tickling my fur as the thought of murder swept through my head like wildfire. I had never killed anypony before...

A wall-eyed stare was given to me as he fought for his last few moments of life. I let go of the piece of glass as his eyes glazed over and he fell over on the ground, now dead.

I tried to stand up, but the shock that had overcome me was already physically affecting me. My legs completely stiffened, giving me no balance whatsoever and causing me to stumble under my own weight and collapse to the ground.

I slid down the mountainside several meters before receiving several rug burns and coming to a stop on my back, just then coming to a realization of what I had actually done. I had murdered another. Not just seen a life come to a close, but to end one myself...

I was a murderer. Fuck. I didn't even know the guy!

I continued to lie there for the next few minutes, trying to plan out what to do next, but only able to think about killing him and nothing else.

I suddenly felt the surge of adrenalin wear away, revealing the intense pain that it was masking. Screaming with pain, I rolled onto my belly and flailed my hooves across my back in a desperate attempt to remove the glass that was piercing my flesh, managing to remove most of it but only increasing the pain. This time, it had cut up my front legs too.

I tried to suppress the pain and stand up, taking in an account of where I actually was. I was faced downhill while the castle was still to my left, which had a low balcony a little ways down the slope from where I was. I figured that I could get back into the castle from there and continue looking for clues to what happened to Violet Rose. I slid down the grassy slope a while until I reached the two concrete posts holding the platform up, the shortest of which was around two meters tall. I could climb this...

I scaled the post rather easily and heaved myself onto the railing to see what I could do to get in. There was a large set of double doors that appeared to be unlocked, so I figured that it was definitely the best way to go. It was only then that I realized what I didn't use in the fight I just had: my gun. I pulled it out again and admired the cold, black steel, noticing that it had a name written on the bottom of the clip.

White Forest. Didn't sound familiar, but I figured that name would come in handy later. I loaded the gun to find that it had fifteen bullets left, all of which could presumably kill a pony. I had to use them wisely.

I got up on my back legs and aimed. It wasn't too hard to do because I was an earth pony, but sustaining the pose might take some focus. Holding the gun in front of me, I shakily pushed open the door in front of me to find that I was in a rather interesting place: a dining room. But wait... 'Dining room? Food might be near...' I thought to myself.

I was at the far end of the vast, fancy, vacant rectangular room. In the middle was a long wooden table with nothing on it, but several poofy chairs around it. I had no interest in the dining room itself, so I just went straight to looking for the kitchen itself. I needed food badly now.

Gun still aimed hastily in front of me, I searched the three archways on the other walls of the room, still looking for food, starting with the arch on the wall to my left. Just a hallway. I slowly walked towards the arch on the far side of the room. Just the ballroom. My heart pounded even more with tension as I reached the final archway.

Anxious to see what was inside, I peeked my head in to find a long, silvery hallway lined with ovens, pantries, pots, pans, and toasters. I had found it. I put down my gun and walked up to the nearest cabinet in search of something edible.

My hoof pulled open the metal cabinet slowly, allowing an unwanted screech of metal grinding to echo throughout the building.

I heard another voice in the distance. "You guys hear that? I'll bet that creep found his way back in here!"

That was followed by the quick stepping of several hooves stampeding through the hall. Hastily, I pulled out my gun again and aimed it towards the end of the silvery hallway in hopes of a target appearing. Rather than one, I was soon greeted by several.

"Well, well, well. It's you again. What happened to my friend? Wanna say anything on that?" The one that I saw before spoke up to me again.

"He's dead." I replied.

"Oh really?"

"Yah really. Go see for yourself." I nudged my head in the direction of the double doors at the back of the dining room. He ordered a couple of his minions to the door as he said 'he wanted a word with me'. That didn't stop me from putting down my gun, though.

"So. Found a gun, huh?"

"You'd better believe it."