Author's Note

Please note that if you ignored the outward warning then this is the chapter were it gets gruesome.

Chapter 2: The descent

Even Twilight herself didn't know what drew her to the stairs, perhaps mysterious intrigue, or idiotic bravery. In any other circumstances descending blood-stained stairs where you don't even know what awaits at the bottom is a very dumb idea, especially stairs you don't remember being there.

"I hope there isn't some beast at the bottom"

thought Twilight.

Eventually after about 15 minutes of walking down the stairs and feeling like she was getting nowhere twilight reached the bottom and screamed from the sight in front of her. Scootaloo was nailed to a beam with her chest cut open and ribcage exposed. Dried blood ran down her body and all that was in her chest cavity was her rotting heart stitched to the back of her stomach. Her eyes were dangling out of their sockets, retina torn out. She was missing her legs which had been ripped and torn from the sockets and were on the floor rotting away. Metal braces had been stabbed into the sides of her mouth and nailed to the back of her throat, making a horrible smile. If the sight hadn't gotten twilight the smell did.

Twilight's legs started shaking and she fell onto the floor and vomited in disgust, for both the corpse and the smell.

"Oh dear Celestia why!"

She cried out, still disgusted. When she finally got up off the floor she was still shaking, which is when she noticed a message written in blood on the back wall. It read

"Those who are slow the reaper knows".

Twilight wanted to run wanted to flee, but she knew she had to be brave, and find the horrid murderer behind this. As she neared the corpse she noticed a swarm of flies gather around the corpse. She tried to use a spell to deter them but nothing happened.

"What in Celestia?!"

She thought aloud, extremely confused. Something had stripped her of her magic abilities!

"This can't be happening!" she screamed as she was confused, angry, and horrified. Eventually, she stopped trying and snuck past the corpse and the flies. When she was about 10 feet away from the corpse she heads

"tw-tw-twi-twilight?" she heard a ghostly voice say.

"Scootaloo?!?!" she exclaimed being surprised and horrified. She rushed back to the body and saw that nothing had changed, she was still dead and the flys were still on her corpse. "I must have imagined it,"

Twilight thought to rationalize it. On the back wall, there was also a door, it seemed to be a bulkhead door, It was almost in perfect condition with not a single spot of rust, however large red stains covered it.

"That can't be jelly, now can it," a voice said from behind her, it sounded like the same voice she heard before. she turned around but found nothing.

"I have to get a grip!" she thought to herself, "it must be the grief". she opened the door with ease and entered the room. It turned out to be an elevator, and the only button leads down.

"I must continue, find the source, I must reactivate the machine," she thought aloud. and so she pressed the button and descended further into the labyrinth