November 7: 1

[Timestamp: November 7, 8:46 AM]

“Good morning, Equestria.” Rivet stares into the camera lens. He rotates the machine to face the other two who are settling down for breakfast. Clyde sits, making a sandwich while Swift lies in bed, chewing on something.

An awkward silence falls over the group as they each eat their meals. Eventually, Rivet breaks it with a slight chuckle.

“Hey, guys, remember that concert” He looks at the other two.

“Which one?” Clyde cocks his head for a moment, then his eyes widen and he cracks a smile. “Oh yeah! Of course I do. That’s how we all met.”

Swift smiles weakly, “That’s not entirely true. I knew both of you before the concert, you just didn’t know each other.”

“Yeah,” Rivet grins, “But you never introduced us.”

“Man, that was one weird show.” notes Clyde.

Swift chuckles, “Who just runs out on stage with an air cannon full of confetti and just blasts the crowd?”

“Oh, man,” Rivet shakes his head, “I was cleaning colourful bits of paper out of my ears for weeks.”

“The music wasn’t even all that good.” Clyde states. All of them laugh loudly.

When the laughter dies down, they all seem to be in higher spirits. They get back to eating their meal, but the silence between them seems less awkward now.

For a moment, Swift’s smile falters, and his eyes somberly look down to the floor. He nods once and looks at the other two.

“You guys are probably wondering what was happening last night.”

The other two take on the same expressions as Swift, but give no response.

“Truth is… I’m still not really sure myself. If I could play back what the camera recorded for you, I would. Not just to make myself feel better, but to let me know for sure what happened. But my camera doesn’t do playbacks, and the tapes don’t fit the other cameras… I don’t know how it looked to you guys… I don’t know…”

“It looked to us like you were about to swan dive out the window.” Rivet mutters.

“I saw something,” Swift shakes his head, “Someone jumped out that window. I was looking for them.”

“Describe them.”

“It was a mare.” Swift shrugs. “Long straight mane, hospital gown. Big blue eyes.”

“Are you sure she was even there?” Clyde cocks his head.

“I-I… I’m not…”

Rivet’s head snaps up, “Maybe you were sleepwalking? That would explain why none of us heard or saw her. You could have been having night terrors.”

“Actually, that makes sense,” Clyde nods, “That’s probably what it was.”

“This place must just be getting to me. I mean, we did find a corpse yesterday.”

“Alright. It’s settled,” Rivet decides, “Let’s put that weirdness behind us, and get on with our day.”

“Agreed.”

[Timestamp: November 7, 11:46 AM]

“-And that’s why you’re sticking with me.” Clyde gestures to himself.

“Fine…”

The scene is of another hallway in the hospital, this one on the second floor, light streaming in through the windows giving the hospital a warm glow.

“What are we even doing?”

“Not sure.” Clyde grins back at the camera. “But we’ll find out.”

“Actually,” Rivet says, “I wanted to check out that foal’s room again.”

“What for?” Swift asks, worry seeping into his words. The camera swings around Swift to see Rivet motioning backwards towards the room.

“If you were dreaming, there has to be something that triggered it. there has to be a reason your brain chose that room.”

Clyde walks into the shot. “He has been spending most of his time in there.”

“I just want to be sure.” Rivet shrugs. “Besides, there might be something that can tell us who that patient was. I’ve read a few files from that room, but I’m not one hundred percent sure which one it could be.”

“Alright. Let’s go in.” Swift mutters.

The three of them enter the room, still in the same state it was the night before. Swift nervously shifts as he enters the room, this being made apparent by the camera bobbing repeatedly from side to side. Rivet heads straight to the bed, putting his face to the floor and peering underneath.

Almost immediately after, he calls to Clyde to help him move the bed. The two ponies work together, shifting the bed slightly from the wall. Rivet shimmies in between the bed and the wall and picks something shiny up.

“Is that a knife?” Swift asks with an air of panic.

“No,” Rivet assures him, “It’s just a medical alert bracelet.”

Swift breathes out slowly.

Placing the bracelet in his saddle bag, Rivet walks over to the window to look out over where Swift saw the mare jump.

“Hey.” Clyde whispers as quietly as he can to Swift.

“What?” Swift whispers back.

[Timestamp: November 7, 11:53 AM]

The camera is aimed at Rivet, zoomed in on his torso and head as he continues to look out the window, his gaze shifting rapidly. The room is dead silent, except for the sound of the wind whistling through shards of the broken window. The wind blows Rivet’s short mane slightly, and it falls back into place as soon as the gust ceases.

Rivet lets out a sigh.

A shadow forms on the wall behind Rivet.

Rivet seems to notice something in the distance, and he squints at whatever it is.

It begins to grow, closer and closer to Rivet.

Rivet takes a pace forward, closer to the edge of the window. A crack is heard, and Rivet pulls his hoof back as he notices broken glass on the floor so close to the window. Shaking his head, he looks back out the window.

The shadow continues to grow, closer and closer to Rivet.

Suddenly, a hoof comes from off the frame and grabs Rivet, jerking him towards the window, and then dragging him back into the room. Rivet lets loose a terrified shriek as he falls to the floor, his wings flapping wildly and then snapping tightly to his sides. He is shaking and his head looks around, eyes wide.

The camera is picked up, and laughter is heard from behind the camera. Turning, the camera shows Clyde standing over the fallen Rivet, smiling broadly and laughing loudly.

Rivet continues looking terrified.

“Oh, come on!” Clyde manages between fits of laughter. “That was a prime prank! You should have seen your face!”

Rivet fights to form words, but all he manages to make are squeaking noises.

“Man, oh man!”

Swift laughs, moving over to Rivet, who soon becomes very red in the face, and manages to speak.

“You’re an ass!”

“You screamed at least twice as loud as Swift!” Clyde says.

“I thought you were gonna fly out the window for a second!” Swift adds.

“I…” Rivet shifts uneasily. “I wouldn’t...”

“Oh! That’s right!” Swift turns the camera on himself. “Rivet over here is scared of heights! Yes, ladies, the wings are just for show. This is no Wonderbolt.”

“Hey! No.” Rivet shouts.

“You’re scared of heights?” Clyde looks down at him. “Seriously?”

“All my life.” Rivet huffs.

Clyde laughs, “You’re a Pegasus!”

“So!?”

“How can you be scared of heights?”

“I was born on the ground, and I was raised on it. Mom was an earth pony, dad wasn’t home much, he was at work. He never had time to teach me to fly, alright?”

“Hey, the ground’s not so bad! That’s my turf!”

“I just wish I could have learned sooner.” Rivet looks distant for a moment.

“You still screamed like a filly.” Swift chuckles.

“You can easily be replaced.” Rivet points towards the camera.

“You were all like,” Swift squeaks up his voice, “Help me! Help me!”

Clyde laughs at the display while Rivet’s face turns to one of absolute distaste. Suddenly, he gets a coy smile on his face.

“You think that’s embarrassing?” he looks up at Clyde, “Why don’t we tell the world who your marefriend is?”

Clyde ceases his giggling. “Don’t even think about it. Don’t bring her into this.”

Rivet starts singing, “Clyde and-”

“Shut up!”

“-Sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

“At least I’m stallion enough to go up the tree.”

Swift giggles loudly, before making an ‘ooh’ing noise at Rivet, who blushes madly.

“And stallion enough to ask a mare out.”

Rivet blushes further.

Swift zooms in on his embarrassed friend’s face. “Can we get a close up of that?”

“Go away!” Rivet puts a hoof over his face.

“Aww… Is little Rivet camera shy?” Swift asks in the same squeaky voice.

“This coming from the filly who’s always hiding behind the camera.” Rivet shoots back.

“And the one who falls for every girl he sees!” Clyde adds.

“Whoa! Don’t bring me into this!”

[Camera 1]

“Hey, bro,” Clyde whispers from behind the camera, which is focused on Rivet.

“Yeah?” he whispers back.

“Thanks for being a good sport. I really wanted to get Swift’s mind off of what happened last night. A good prank was my best option.”

“What was the other option?”

“Locking you in a closet while Swift and I whisper random lines from ghost stories through the key hole.”

“Thanks for picking this one.”

“No problem.”

[Timestamp: November 7, 3:33 PM]

“Who’s hungry?” Swift mutters.

The scene shows a large hall with steel tables that have been fixed to the floor with screws. The benches where ponies would sit are either affixed to the tables, or screwed to the floor in a similar fashion. The floor itself is made of large ceramic tiles that were once polished and bright, but now remain tarnished and scratched. Fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling, and there is a counter from the far end of the room almost until the door. A sneeze guard covers buffet trays on the counter.

“I wouldn’t eat anything that came out of this hole in the ground.” Rivet shakes his head, faking a womanly refined accent.

“You sure you’re not a mare? The voice was way too convincing.” Swift chuckles.

“I am one hundred percent stallion, thank you.”

The three of them part ways in the cafeteria, each headed in his own direction to take a look around. Swift takes the camera into the kitchen, pushing through the double doors with a loud creek.

[Camera 3]

“OH MY CELESTIA!” A scream comes from out of the shot.

“Swift!?” Rivet calls back from behind the camera.

He immediately starts running towards the source of the scream, his panting into the microphone causes the audio to clip.

Bursting into the kitchen, Rivet searches shortly for Swift, who he finds standing in the middle of the room, a blank stare on his face.

“Swift!” Rivet runs to him.

“Rivet…” Swift stares at Rivet with terror in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Clyde charges into the kitchen.

“Look…” Swift looks down for a moment, and then raises a hoof.

Rivet peers at a shining piece of metal in his friend’s hoof. “What is-”

“It’s so unnatural…” Swift cracks up, while revealing what he holds in his hoof. A shiny, metal spork.

“You guys are going to destroy my heart.”

[Timestamp: November 7, 5:47 PM]

The shot opens in the waiting room, the three ponies are sitting down and eating meals out of cans. Swift is using the spork. For a few moments they say nothing, but soon, Clyde looks up.

“Riv, have you figured out which files match which ponies?”

“No,” Rivet sighs, “not yet. I really feel like I need to, though.”

“Swift, any more stories? C’mon, I hate silent meals.”

“There is this one.” Swift puts his can down. "There was another patient here. She saw a lot of things. That was her problem. She hallucinated all the time. They started out when she was young. Her parents just thought it was an imaginary friend, but when she grew older, they dropped her here. Her visions were nice when she was young, but they started to become... Disturbed…”

“Disturbed how?” Rivet cocks his head.

“They became really violent. Think of your worst fears and multiply it by a thousand. When she wasn’t passed out from fatigue, she was screaming twenty-four seven from the things in her head. She couldn’t take it any more. So, one day, started scratching at her face. By the time the doctors got into the room, she had practically clawed her eyes out. The doctors did their best, but her vision was permanently damaged.”

“What happened to her?” Clyde asks.

Swift shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“What?” Rivet asks, “no wandering ghost? No ghosts running around and stealing eyes?”

“Would that be better?”

“There’s no closure.”

“Sometimes we don’t get closure. Would you rather she ran around stealing eyes?”

“It would be scarier.”