Chatter Bug stirred within her sleep, twitching and mumbling, her brow furrowed in desperation. She suddenly gasped and shot straight up in bed, opening her eyes wider than they should be able to and screaming harshly, "PINKIE!!!"

She looked around wildly, trying do find the beloved party pony, only to be met with cold, off-green stone walls.

Chatter Bug blinked rapidly, confusion washing over her. Was it just a dream? Where was she? And why the hay was there a bed in a cave? She furrowed her brows, more and more questions troubling her mind. Gulping, she considered calling out to see if somepony was there, but she realized that they would have already heard her.

Chatter Bug instead decided to look around the room, and realized that the walls were covered in a thin layer of slime, tiny green veins glowing and pulsing underneath. What was more peculiar, a collection of veins seemed to have formed a symbol of some sort. Like an eight-pointed star, but with arrows. She frowned and slowly slipped out of bed, walking over to the wall. Something seemed off about this, almost... familiar. It wasn't until she heard the tell-tale buzz of insect wings slowly growing louder did she realize where she was, but she couldn't fathom how. Somehow, as if it was her nightmare's realized, she was back in her birth-home.

Chatter Bug was back in the Changeling Hive.

Chatter Bug's eyes shot open, old instincts kicking in and forcing her her to bolt out of the room, heading down the opposite hall of the buzz. She galloped as fast as she could, weaving in and out of as many corridors as she found, trying to throw off any potential tail. She eventually slowed down and panted quietly, fear ebbing from her mind as she took in her surroundings. Each hallway she looked into seemed to only lead to even more, each one virtually identical in almost every way. Even worse, there were no landmarks for her to be able to use for directions.

Chatter Bug pondered this for a second, thinking back to her training once more, before getting an idea. The Hive is built underground, and as such she needed to go up to escape. She then walked up to a wall, and lightly shaved off some of the slime, blowing air onto it and shaping it into a small orb. She then dropped it onto the ground, making note of which way it rolled.

Chatter Bug smiled as the ball rolled to the right. That means up is left. Picking up the ball and storing it in her mane, that's one trick they couldn't ever teach her, she started walking towards the left, occasionally dropping the ball every now and then to make she was still going the right way. Eventually she reached a sharp slope, leading upwards and into what seemed like outside light.

Grinning, Chatter Bug galloped up the slope, only to find that she was in a small, torch-lit room, a large, stone double-door. Blinking, she inspected the doors more closely, noticing the light that was shining through the edges of the door. She frowned, something just didn't feel right. She then felt a tugging sensation in her mane and pulled out the slime-ball.

She then noticed that the symbol from the room had appeared on it, but in blood.

Shrieking, Chatter Bug dropped the ball, only for the ball to rocket towards the door. As the ball collided into the door, it glowed brightly before melding into the door, the eight-arrowed star now prominent on the door. She screamed as she looked at the edges once more, a haunting black light poured through, accompanied by masses of writhing, slimy grey tentacles.

Chatter Bug quickly turned around only to find the door in front of her again, but thirty feet closer and open. Inside was nothing but blackness, pure blackness. Then Pinkie walked around the corner, her head having been blown up and her cutie-mark being replaced by that accursed star. Her neck splayed out like a banana peel, part of her spinal cord dangling into the open hole that was her esophagus.

And then Pinkie giggled. "Pheya shilly philly! Dont'cha know it'sh rude not tcho knock?"

Chatter Bug promptly upchucked at the sight of Pinkie, tears streaming down her face. Coughing to remove the bile from her throat, she shakily looked back up, only to find Pinkie right in her face, bouncing up and down as if nothing was wrong. "Guess what! Guess what, guess what, guess what, guess what, guess what!!!"

Before Chatter Bug could even budge her mouth open, Pinkie's cavity of a esophagus opened up, the slime-ball from earlier slowly squelching it's way out. Once it escaped Pinkie's throat with a wet plop, the star started glowing, Pinkie's body falling onto the ground with a dull thud.

Chatter Bug then heard a deep, haunting giggle. It sounded like Pinkie, but it didn't at the same time. And it came from the ball. "Oh you little silly, worrying about ol' Auntie Pinkie Pie! You should know by now that I'm tougher than a meanie-weenie cupcake!" The voice giggled again, this time coming directly from the ball. "Although, this time I'm going to need your help! I just need you to do ooooone teensy-tiny little thing for me. Ok?" The orb floated closer, the star glowing even brighter. "I just need you to touch the glowey, white friendliness-ball!"

Chatter Bug gulped and looked at the orb again, seeing all of her happiest memories with her flashing in the star. All the fun she's had, she can have again. Tears welling up in her eyes, Chatter Bug slowly started lifting her hoof, until she felt something cold and squishy on her other hoof. She looked over to her leg, only to see Pinkie's hoof touching her, covered in a red liquid. She looked at beside Pinkie's leg and gasped as she saw, clear as day, a crudely made message on the ground.

T

R

A

P

When Chatter Bug looked up, all she could see was the silhouette of a giant dragon, whose head had an antenna that lead all the way to the very orb that she was just inches from touching. She screamed and quickly backpedaled, tripping over herself as she did so.

The last thing she saw, were two glowing red eyes, on yellow scleras.

Author's Note

Certain people thought that the last chapter was a little tame on the gruesomeness factor, one of them being me. So I decided to crank it up to 11.