It was their fault. Twilight was perfectly aware of that. There were rules, and there were individuals who liked to push those rules, to see how far one could get. They'd gone too far.
It wasn't out of a lack of experience. That was what got most. Those who simply didn't understand what they were doing, who didn't understand why the rules were there, and ended up getting hurt.
It had been different for them. They knew exactly what they were doing. At least, she was convinced that that was the case. Simply, that time they'd gone a little too far.
It was a rather funny experience, being stuck there, with nothing to do but wait. Or at least, it would have been, had it not hurt like that.
How long would it take for someone to find them?
Twilight looked at the large panel of glass in front of her, the clock hand's shadow barely visible from the other side.
Two days at least before they realised they'd gone missing. One to search their houses and find out where they'd gone. One more to verify that they were nowhere to be found in the city, and another one to figure out they were possibly inside the clock tower. They'd covered their tracks well, after all. Five days was the bare minimum, a week and a half would have been a more likely estimate.
Was it enough? No. Not a chance any of them would be still alive by then. They had one or two days at most, maybe three for Rainbow and Applejack. But they were in a pretty bad spot, so it was unlikely they'd hold on that long.
What if someone found them sooner? Unless it was someone really good at magic, like Starlight or Celestia, it was unlikely they'd be of any help. Unless Sunset popped up out of nowhere, no valuable help would come.
Twilight considered it was for the best. Even if help had gotten there on time, even if they'd been saved, their lives would have been ruined. It was one thing to partake in that sort of thing. Ponies would have found much to say against it, but they would know to keep their mouths shut.
But to break the rules like that? To go that far?
Being sent to Tartarus would have probably been the best outcome.
Somewhere below her, Twilight's lungs took a particularly long inhale, and had her body still been in one piece it would have probably looked like a sigh. Instead, it just looked like a pair of lungs getting a little bigger than usual, then taking a bit longer to let go of the air.
From the polished metal surface of the cogs and gears to her right, Twilight could almost make out the image of her spine, attached to her head, suspended in mid-air. It would have helped if there hadn't been a large bloodstain on them, courtesy of Pinkie's heart when it had blown up.
Pinkie was probably the most affected by the incident, and would probably be the first to die. Her heart had rolled to the side after Twilight had lost control, and it had gotten caught between two cogwheels, where it had exploded due to the pressure. Her knees had suffered a similar fate, getting shattered by four sets of large twin cogwheels, which had then shredded the lower portions of her limbs.
To be fair, the cogwheels were supposed to be there, they just weren't supposed to move that much. Again, their fault for wanting to push things too far.
Pinkie's eye getting gauged out by a shard of glass hadn't been part of the plan though. Neither had her body being ripped in half. Twilight looked down to the pink pony, still barely breathing.
Fluttershy wasn't faring particularly well either. Twilight couldn't see her, since she was behind her, she could only see the conspicuous trail of blood flowing beneath her.
Not that there would have been much to see, had Twilight had the ability to turn around. The straps around the pegasus' body had tightened way past the intended point, and were now drenched completely in her blood. Nothing of the yellow pony was visible, only the outline of a corpse compressed in a space by no means sufficient to house it, bound by now reddened straps that hung from the ceiling and kept it suspended in mid-air.
Rarity was relatively okay when compared to all the others. Not a particularly comforting notion, all things considered. She still had, after all, a rather large metal cone sticking out of her mouth, the base attached to the ground below her large enough that she had to spread all her legs to accommodate for it. Normally, while it was true that most of her internal organs were either pierced or crushed by the thing, her situation would have been an easily solvable one, even if it definitely was breaking the rules. But with Twilight stuck as she was? Not a chance the white unicorn would get out of that.
Rainbow Dash's body was still in one piece. She was, unfortunately, completely unable to move, the large number of chains around her holding her still. That, and the fact that many of the chains' links were piercing through her skin, her flesh, and occasionally her bones, some of them closed around her ribs or the bones in her legs. She couldn't see anything, her eyelids sewn together, and couldn't speak either, seeing as the same was true for her lips. Thankfully, the machine had stopped turning and pulling on the chains, so no part of her body would be ripped off in the near future.
Applejack was in a corner, outside of Twilight's sight. Mouth opened, head thrown back, a nail through her palate affixed her to the cross behind her, like those on her hooves. The wounds on her body were still bleeding, the skin ripped and the flesh torn. A lock pierced her tongue, and knives were planted in her legs.
Somewhere below her, Twilight felt a small jolt of electricity going through her right hind hoof. It was a shame that she hadn't gotten much enjoyment out of that pocket lightning generator, really, it could have been fun to experiment with in the future.
The gears in the room turned, the hands of the clock outside moved, and the bell somewhere above them tolled.
