Shadows

As Gilda left the party, an odd fog that Dash had been previously unaware of lifted from her. It was not really a cloaking fog, but rather a numbing one, one that made her accept a slew of false memories into her mind that she would never have dared accept otherwise. As she watched, the confusion spread throughout the room, all asking the same question with their minds. What had they been doing? The many colored pegasus honestly couldn't say. Her last real memory had been of receiving a letter from an acquaintance of hers from back in school. Honestly, it described her as being an old friend when she certainly hadn't been. After that, it all seemed to blur together. As she tried to piece together the parts, the puzzled party members began to leave the party. She walked over to the unicorn mare that she had recently killed herself over.

"Uh, Sparkle?" She asked, despite the fact that Twilight hadn't moved from her position of staring out the window. "What are we doing here?"

Twilight turned to look at her, and for one brief moment Dash could've sworn that her eyes were completely taken up by her corneas. It was really freaky, for sure. "I'm not really sure. Something about a party?" Twilight motioned towards the evidence; a few stomped party hats, a few glasses filled with punch and a few broken glasses. A banner half fallen in front of the door. Twilight's face had a dull look to it, like the numbing fog had not quite left her and she still suffered from whatever it was.

"Yeah..." Death's debtor replied, looking around. She walked over to the window, blinking as the color began to fade from the sky. It started from far out in the horizon, the color eaten away by the wave of grey. Eventually, the sun lost it's color as the ponies still in the party froze, cold and dark. Dash became the only speck of color. Dash looked around before finding her self being calmed with the all invading silence. Dash tried to slip out of the phase, but found herself locked into it.

"I have to wait?" She asked. And as if that thought had summoned the cause, the door flew open. It wasn't death as she expected. It was a brown stallion with an hour glass for a cutie mark. She barely recognized him as Whooves, the owner of the clock shop. After a moment of staring at each other, Whooves leaned forward and waved a hoof in front of her face.

"Oh goody. I'll have to wipe you after this." He looked not the least bothered by this. He pulled out an odd wrench looking device.

Dash moved. "So... why are you moving?" She asked him, walking around his. His eyes were practically one color. "And why are your eyes like that?"

The pony looked at her. "I am the present incarnation of time. Being able to dwell in areas of stopped time is a perk of the job. Another perk is the ability to permanently erase outliers. Like yourself for instance." He pointed the wrench at her. It just floated there, unlike if a unicorn had grabbed it or anything.

The rainbow pony gulped. "Uh... Death wouldn't like that?" She tried.

Whooves's eyes widened. "That's why there was a breach around here? Good thing I caught you in time, young lady. This party almost triggered a domino effect that could've wiped the plans of fate."

Dash wasn't entirely sure what that meant but it sounded bad. "Uh... sounds like a bad thing?"

He nodded. "Right... You stay here until Death decides to show his gloomy head. I have a fabric of space time to knit." As if it was always there, another wrench appeared.

She blinked. "How are you creating those?" She pointed at the wrenches.

He shook his head. "I'm not actually creating those. A long time ago, and I MEAN A LOOOOOOONG time ago, I paid off Space to scatter wrenches all through out space. I'm actually localizing time to a previous point where there was a wrench and using them to pull off this hatch."

She nodded like she understood. "Hatch." She stated.

He pointed at a floating black square. Her eyes slid off of it when she tried to stare directly at it. Looking at it from the corner of her eyes, she noted that it was just a floating black square. With wrenches spinning against it.

"Oh. Hatch." She shrugged.

Whooves grinned. "You know, I've never actually had company while I'm doing this. It's rather refreshing." The black square slid off and hit the ground with an agonizingly loud crunch. She jumped at the noise. "Sorry. I guess I should've warned you."

She glared at him. "Well DUH." She walked over to him.

"Hey, you want to see the fabric of space time? I've got to warn you, it's very disorienting."

Dash made a face. "Uh... I'll just... stay here..." Where the black square was was a simple hole in existence. That's the best way to explain it. Dash circled the distortion. It was two dimensional; unless you were viewing it straight on from either side, it was not viewable.

Whooves prodded the square and a soft green light gently poured from it. He jerked the wrench at her. "Come take a look. This place is messed up."

She found herself dragged over to it. Wherever there was a non static object where the portal obscured, there was a knot of green threads around the objects. A half spilled glass of punch was the most vibrant object in the room, the green thread turning red around it.

However, where there were ponies there was a complex network mesh of the threads and there were more colors. Around twilight was a blue thread that shot through the wall and far into the distance. Whooves himself was connected to nothing, unlike every other pony. Applejack was connected directly to her cup cake, Pinkie was connected to a large cake faintly.

Fluttershy, unlike everypony was tied to the hole by a faint pink thread. She had a mesh surrounding yet another mesh. "What's wrong with Fluttershy?" She frowned.

He looked into the hole. "That's bad. That is VERY bad. Right right. When you find Death, repeat after me. The Sys admins have reached us and the server is corrupt. Understand? It's very important that he understands that. They are coming after him, after all." He looked at her.

"What about Fluttershy?" She asked again.

"That's a behavior modification matrix. Would she normally go to a party with you?" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I have to fix this mess. If anybody does anything out of the norm for them, don't go with them. Please. In fact, they probably wanted you here for something. Get out."

She furrowed her brow in confusion. "Huh?"

"GET OUT." He repeated.

She blinked and found herself more than a hundred yards away up in a cloud. A note was taped to her chest. She pulled it off and read it. "You were going to argue. Go find Death and tell him."

She turned around and found herself at the threshhold of Death's door.