Author's Note

Well, well, this is the new chapter, I hope you enjoy reading it, I'm sorry that I posted this so late. I had a rough day over here.

Next chapter will come out on Valentines Day. I hope to see you all there. Also don't forget to comment, any words helps greatly.

Chapter 1: Thorn's POV 1: Coffee and Debris

A strange crawling brushed against the back of my neck. My head jumped up from my desk and knocked the lamp to the side. “Ouch.” I grabbed my head, scratching it lightly. “What happened?”

“You fell asleep again, Thorn?” a voice to the left of me tore through the blurriness clouding my eyes.

I turned my head left and right and rubbed my eyes until the blurriness went away. My eyes slowly wandered over the room. It had a circle shape to it, covered in black and gray machinery with green lights. There were two doors on opposite ends of the walls; each door far from the spot I was sitting. In the center of the room were four chairs surrounding a dark blue, maybe navy, table. Above it was screens of some sort; I couldn’t quite figure out what they were, only that I seemed to know how to work them.

“Hey, are you done messing over there? We have work to do.” My eyes traced over to a green stallion of medium build in clean white clothes. “Did you hear me?” he spoke again, this time with a bit more grizzle in his voice, almost like he was chewing something. He bobbed his head gently, the short locks of his blond mane dancing across his forehead.

“Yeah, I heard you…” I stopped for a moment. His name didn’t come to me right away. This was strange. He wasn’t a stranger to me, was he? Suddenly, I felt the crawling again. My hand raised and rubbed at my neck. My pupils widened for a short moment before shrinking back. “Oh, sorry, Sunstone. I’ll get up and turn them on.”

My legs got up on their own and before I knew it, I had moved over to the machines on the left wall and started pulling levers. My body was purely moving on instinct, yet I didn’t know why. Maybe I was still too tired, maybe my mind was playing tricks on me.

My hand raised up and I wiped some sweat off of my head, though I didn’t feel hot. I kept pulling the levers until I heard a loud sound. Instantly, I reacted by grabbing my head and falling to my knees.

“Are you okay, Thorn? It’s just the TV.”

My ears pitched up at the sound. I felt no pain, yet why was I even afraid at that moment? I put my hands back down and took in a deep breath. Feeling the cool, calming air move through my body, I stood back up. “Sorry, I think the lack of sleep is getting to me.”

“Don’t be like that. You can't really take a day off like Dark and Swindle.”

My eyes narrowed, the names didn’t come to me right away. “Wait, Dark? Swindle?”

He stopped himself that time, gulping his remark back down. He looked at me strangely, taking the longest time before answering back. “Yeah, Dark and Swindle. Those two were so tired from last night shift that they had to take today off, remember?”

My hand raised up to my neck again. There wasn’t an itch this time, at least I didn’t feel one, yet I could feel my eyes widening again on their own. “Right, right. Now I remember.” It was too strange. Why was I forgetting stuff so easily? I decided to stretch, maybe that would wake me up. As I stretched, I noticed the noise of the TV had dulled. I turned my eyes to the TVs above the table and a picture was coming in very clear.

I walked back over, deciding to ignore the confusion swimming through my head. It would go away eventually. “Looks like they will wake up on their own soon.”

“Yeah, looks like it. Hey, maybe we should do one more blood test.” Sunstone's voice seemed off at first, but it quickly adjusted itself.

“What would be the point? We already took two blood samples from all when we put them in there.”

“Well, can’t be too sure.” He stopped for the moment as his eyes wandered left and right. He reached over to a board covered in buttons with letters on them. He went to typing before finishing, “The boss always wants to know if the ponies are in peak condition.”

“Right?” I sat down and went to typing as well.

On the screen in front of me, I could see six ponies lying about in a square room. The sight left an uneasy feeling at the back of my head. It wasn’t really the ponies themselves, but the room in its square form. I squinted my eyes, watching as six wire-like tentacles with needles on the end rose up from the floor. Each needle stabbed one pony in the arm at an exact spot and sucked out some blood. Once finished, the needles pulled out, retracted back in and the wires again descended into the floor.

The sight of those needles made my skin crawl. I didn’t know why. My hand raised to my head and rubbed it. “I-I think I need some coffee.” I tried to stop typing, but for some reason, my fingers felt heavy and refused to move from their spots. Eventually, though, it stopped and I lifted my hands away from the buttons rather forcibly.

My hand wandered over to a cup nearby as I got up. Gripping it rather too tightly, I walked over to another table by a blank wall. I pulled out the coffee pot and poured myself a cup. “Hey, Sunstone, do you want me to leave you some coffee?”

“Yeah, don't worry, I'll get some later,” he said without even looking at me. I looked to his cup and noticed it was still full, yet it was no longer hot.

“Okay.” I thought it was strange, but when I went to drink my own cup, I pulled back in disgust. “Ew, this is too cold.”

“Of course, it’s always cold.” He picked up his coffee and drunk it down with little to almost no resistance. Was he used to it? Was I used to it too?

I waved my head back and forth before stopping to take another sip. It started to taste better. Hopefully it would wake me up better too; this day just felt too weird. I walked back over to my chair and sat back down. “So, are they awake already?”

“Yeah, just about. The green one just jolted his arm.”

My eyes drifted onto the screen and over to the green unicorn stallion with blue hair. “What does the file say on his name?”

“Hmm, Rynax. That’s a strange pony name...” I could hear Sunstone's voice stop before finishing, followed by the buttons in front of him beating back and forth upon the touch of his fingers. “Let’s see... another criminal on death row. This one was a rapist.”

“Rape, huh? I would never have considered that from the look of him.” I took a sip of my drink and leaned back in my chair.

“Hey, don’t go falling back asleep on me. You have to check the traps too.”

“Ye-ah,” I nearly spat out my drink, “you’re right. I'll get to that.” I put down the cup and before I even realized, my other hand was already typing. The hand that had been holding the cup quickly joined the other hand. My screen flipped to a different picture and I could feel my stomach sink for some reason. The new image was a map with several green squares. “Let’s see… all the rooms seem to be in working order.”

“All of them clean of debris?”

“Hold on.” I pressed a new button and my screen flipped through several images. Each image was of another square room. All of them were the same shape, yet each one had their own color to it. “Hmm, I don’t see any debris yet.” Nearly all the rooms were spotless: not even a speck of dust. However, I stopped, pressing the button on one room as my eyes went wide. The room seemed almost clean, aside from a single spot. Written… in what looked like blood was…

‘MAKE THE NOISE STOP!!’

I was totally shocked by this. I didn’t know what it meant at all. What was this noise that would make somepony write this? And why was I so afraid to know what it was myself?

“Do you see any debris?” Sunstone questioned. I turned toward him and didn't say a single word; I just stood there with my mouth ajar. He looked at me strangely. “Are you okay? You look like you have seen a ghost. Thorn?”

“It's nothing.” Hearing my name made me answer even faster than I wanted to. I turned back to my screen, almost purely to hide my face. I took in a deep breath as my eyes slowly wandered back to the monitor. My breath stopped midway. The message was completely gone, not a single trace of it remaining. Was it even there?

I rubbed my eyes and grabbed my coffee again; I really needed to wake up. This was getting almost annoying. I finished my cup without even realizing it at first and went back to work. I would probably get another cup later. I certainly needed it.

I pressed the button again and again, only found clean rooms over and over. There was nothing wrong as far as I saw. Debris? What was he talking about? These rooms were so clean that they barely had any dust in them, let alone any debris.

Finally, I came to the final room; it wasn’t noticeable at first, but each room had a number of the images. The number arrangement made no sense to me, they didn’t seem to be in any particular order anyway. The only reason I even knew it was the final room was that the word ‘final’ was written at the bottom. Another thing was the color of this room; pale pink. All the other rooms were random in their color choices, never one exactly the same; some even close to pale pink, but not exactly. But this one was pure pink. I didn’t know why. But what was even stranger was the reason why. All the other rooms were different, why not this one? Why was the fact it was this version of pink that bugged me so much?

I decided to press the button one final time; this time it took me back to the room the six ponies were in. They were all awake now. Some of them even seemed just as annoyed or confused as I was.

“They look angry, don’t they?” Sunstone nearly snarked as he grabbed his coffee and sipped it.

“Yeah, it’s no surprise. They have no idea what is waiting for them out there.” My words jumped ahead of me again. They didn’t know what was out there, but in truth neither did I; or at least I couldn’t seem to possibly remember.

Maybe I was still a little tired. I decided to get up and grab some more coffee. It was very clearly going to be a long day.

******