Collect and Preserve

She walked. And walked. And walked. It was a long, barely lit hallway that would soon lead into a corpse-filled morgue in an unknown hospital. The woman wore her own doctor's coat and had glasses that reflected the dull lights that were along with the hallway. She opened the two doors and heard deep breathing, but she wasn’t fazed by their breathing. After the doors closed silently, she stood completely still in front of four iron beds that lay four bodies of each. The bodies began to shake and quiver and the female doctor looked at the bodies with a cold stare. Then, a whimper rang out. The bodies began to whimper at what sounds like pain. The woman was still unfazed by their lively movements and their dog-like whimpers. Only two bodies did not whimper, however, as they instead growled in pain. The woman still looked at the bodies with a dead stare. Soon, the woman spoke.

“You are all here. Good...At least you fell for it…”, she spoke with a dead tone.

The bodies tried to move freely but were stopped by a sharp needle that caused their backs to arc upwards to prevent the needle from plunging into their backs but, in a long amount of time, their backs were already starting to tire and their backs were almost close to the sharp needle that contained a mysterious liquid in it.

The doctor soon gave a cold smile, “Now, that you are my subjects, we shall begin.”

The whimpering continued and the angry, painful growls echoed throughout the morgue, knowing their impending doom.

She soon chuckled and looked at all of the bodies who lay on their metal beds, “Like caught in a mousetrap, my little lab rats…

She giggled ever so cruelly and the bodies already knew…

Their mystery will come to a closing end of pure death.

A couple of hours earlier

A groan echoed through the room and a shy pegasus, Fluttershy, began to awake from her slumber. She stood and shook her head to get rid of the urge to sleep once more. Fluttershy flapped her wings and opened her eyes slowly so that her vision could catch up to her. She sat down and rubbed her eyes with her hoofs to get rid of the blur in her eyes. She blinked and looked around the room to catch a glimpse on where she was at. The room that she was in seemed to be a doctors office except that it was all empty without any furniture nor any windows. Fluttershy stood up and quickly looked around before suddenly seeing Rainbow Dash, who was on the floor sleeping. Fluttershy quickly began to try and wake her up.

“Rainbow Dash! Wake up!”, she shouted and Rainbow Dash groaned.

Suddenly, Fluttershy heard groaning from the other side of the room and it sounded...male. She turned around and gasped, just as Rainbow Dash was starting to wake up.

“H-Huh? Fluttershy, what are you-Huh!?”, Rainbow Dash also saw the same thing that Fluttershy was looking at.

Both were male but they weren’t ponies. They had two legs and two arms with two hands and they had no features of any pony in Equestria. Both wore different clothing: one wore a cowboy/futuristic clothing while the other wore bartender clothing. The cowboy groaned, looked at the mares and was soon surprised to see two pegasi in front of him.

“Wha-? I never seen a horse with wings on it before…”, he said in a western accent.

“Actually...we’re ponies.”, Rainbow Dash said uncomfortably and the cowboy sat on the cold floor, unfazed by the temperature.

“What the-? Who…?”, the cowboy looked at the bartender who was getting up as his spiky, blond hair covered his right eye.

“Say, bartender. Mind if you explain what’s goin’ on?”, the cowboy asked and the bartender looked at him under his blue sunglasses.

“Uhh, actually, mind if you two tell us what are you two supposed to be?”, Rainbow Dash interrupted and the two men looked at her.

Both fell silent and the bartender had the same expression as the cowboy except that he was more confused rather than being surprised.

“Well, we’re humans...And what are you two supposed to be?”, the bartender asked with a deep yet young voice that indicates that he is around in his 20’s.

“Humans?”

“Both me and Rainbow Dash are pegasi. We’re ponies but with wings...It’s hard to explain…”, Fluttershy answered shyly and Rainbow Dash nodded.

“So, you’re pegasi? Huh, never seen one before. Guess this is the first time I ever seen a pegasus before.”, the cowboy said.

“Yeah. Me too.”, the bartender answered as he sat and his hair showed his right eye.

“Well, I’m Fluttershy.”, Fluttershy introduced herself.

“And I’m Rainbow Dash, the coolest pony in Equestria.”, Rainbow Dash said with a cool voice.

“Equestria? Well, the name’s McCree. That’s all you need to know.”, McCree answered.

McCree then looked at the bartender, “What’s your name, bartender?”

“It’s...Shizuo.”

“Shizuo? Err, no offense, but what type of name is that?”, Rainbow Dash asked, slightly tilting her head.

“It’s Japanese.”, he answered.

“Huh, sorta like Genji’s, right?”, McCree stated.

Shizuo didn’t know who was Genji and he gave a simple reply, “Yeah.”

McCree slightly nodded and he stood up, “Welp, guess it’s about time to know where we are.”

“I think we’re in a hospital.”, Fluttershy answered.

“A hospital?”, both Shizuo and McCree stated.

“Yeah. Maybe we were brought here by accident...or maybe Twilight brought us here to solve a friendship problem.”

“Oh, come on, Fluttershy. I don’t think Twi brought us here.”, Rainbow Dash replied.

“Then, who the hell brought us here?”, Shizuo asked and Rainbow Dash gave a simple shrug.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to get out of this room in order to find out who brought us here.”, Rainbow Dash began to walk around the room, trying to find the exit.

Rainbow Dash soon found the exit and found it was slightly open.

“Through here.”, she opened the door and the others approached Rainbow Dash, they saw a hallway, filled with doors and lit lamps that reached until there was another hallway intersecting with the other.

The group walked outside the room and they all felt an unknown presence, it was not human nor pony but more like a paranormal presence. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy gulped and they knew it was untrusting for a presence to settle in a dark mood. Both McCree and Shizuo had their suspicions raised by a gallon and McCree was ready to serve justice if the presence was to become physical and become unkind to the group.

“Best if you stay on your toes. I don’t trust this hospital-like setting that’s it bringing to me.”, McCree warned seriously and Shizuo’s brows furrowed in suspicion.

“Yeah. Let’s be extremely careful about this.”, Shizuo said with a serious tone.

“I don’t like this...M-Maybe we should head back.”, Fluttershy’s ears folded down in anxiety.

“No...We should find a way out of this place. We’ll have to keep our hoofs together, you know?”, Rainbow Dash was confident that they would all escape out of this uneasy place called a hospital.

Fluttershy nodded, “I know but...What if there’s...there’s-?”

“Ghosts? Come on, Fluttershy. You know that they can’t be real, right?”

“I’m pretty sure that they are real, Rainbow Dash.”, McCree added.

Rainbow Dash sighed, “Well, whatever. Let’s just move and try and find the exit, for Celestia's sake.”

The group walked down the hallway as they passed hospital doors and lamps that glowed an uneasy blueish color. Their steps and clops echoed throughout the hallway into other hallways and the only extra sound that also echoed were the spuds that clinked and clacked into an echoing matter. Fluttershy still felt anxious around this so-called presence. It was as if she could feel something watching her every move, listening for any signs of fear. They continued on despite the presence looming over them like a pack of black wasps buzzing over them to create the tension but it was no use, only suspicions and anxiety were the main emotions now. They stopped in an intersection which in front, lead to an empty wall and both left and right lead to a hallway; either way, they felt that it was right to go to the right. Echos filled throughout the right hallway, sealing the silence that would greater influence their suspicions and anxiety. The right hallway just had lamps, no doors were present as if they had been covered up by the walls. Rainbow Dash slowly looked around and without warning, she heard voices in the back of her head. She quickly turned around, stopping in her tracks but it also caused both men to stop as well and look down into the hallway

“Hey, Rainbow Dash. Are you alright?”, Shizuo asked.

“Uh, yeah. Just something made me turn around and...it’s hard to explain.”, Fluttershy continued on without the group and when she too heard voices, she looked down at the stairs that were unusually in the hallway and they seem to lead down into a bottom floor.

The voice spoke and Fluttershy called out, “H-Hello?”

The others looked at Fluttershy and she approached the stairs but her hoof did not lay on the first step.

“Is...anypony there?”, she called out once again and Rainbow Dash silently gulped, knowing something bad might happen.

Without knowing, Fluttershy took one step and when her left hoof touched the first step, she suddenly froze up and her eyes widened.

Silence rained down upon them like a hard rock and Rainbow Dash broke the silence, “Fl-Fluttershy? Are you alright?”

Shizuo, who knew something wasn’t right, approached Fluttershy. When he approached her, he stood and looked down at Fluttershy, who seemed to be frozen up in fear.

Is she supposed to do that?

McCree thought about it that a pony wouldn’t freeze up like that. From his point of view, he sees it as if she had paralyzed in fear.

Shizuo noticed this too as she didn’t move a muscle, not even breathing nor blinking. It was as if she had been turned into a statue.

“Fluttershy.”, Shizuo called out but she still froze.

“Fluttershy!”, he called out again yet this time his voice was louder and Fluttershy snapped out of her frozen trance.

In a reflex, she jumped back and looked at the stairs with widened eyes and was afraid to walk down those stairs.

“L-Let’s not take the stairs...We should find a way around.”, she stuttered and Shizuo looked at the stairs with a suspicious tone.

“Is it cursed or somethin’?”, McCree asked.

“I-I-I don’t know. L-Let me check.”, Fluttershy approached the stairs again and place her hoof on the first step. Nothing happened.

“That’s strange...I thought it would do it again.”

Shizuo sighed, “I guess we have to take the stairs, even if it’s cursed.”

Fluttershy walked down the stairs and the rest followed. Fluttershy didn’t know who had made her freeze up a few seconds ago but she was afraid that something might be out to get her. Fluttershy reached the end of the stairs and saw another hallway, which indicated that she was on the second floor, as it was painted on the right wall. She then heard a strange sound and suddenly saw a black figure, which flashed in front of her and she slightly froze before it disappeared.

“Guys, I think I saw something.”, Fluttershy reported and Shizuo looked, seeing nothing.

“Then, what the hell was it?”

“I-I don’t know.”, she answered.

McCree, who was the last one to walk down the stairs, heard the sound of glass breaking and looked up to notice that the lamps own light was being shattered by an unknown force of darkness.

“Uh, it’s about time we start to get a move on.”, McCree said and the group quickly reached to the second floor, avoiding the darkness that barely reached to the end of the stairs.

“Oh dear, I just have a really bad feeling about all of this.”, Fluttershy said in a worried state.

“Don’t worry, Fluttershy. We’ll definitely get out here before we something bad happens to us.”, Rainbow Dash said, giving a boost of confidence for Fluttershy.

The others walked through the hallway once again and suddenly, both Shizuo and McCree heard a woman singing but they ignored it as they do not want to worry about the danger it imposes, even if there were to be something nightmarish coming to life.