Twilight found herself in a large, desolate void. Her limbs unable to move, like being held in place by invisible binds. In the darkness around her she could hear screams and other noises far beyond the horrors of Tartarus.

Out from the darkness stepped a familiar shape, it was the specimen, with it's three red eyes glaring seemingly into her soul. Twilight tried to scream, but her mouth emitted no noise. The creature then sprouted tendrils and reached out towards Twilight. She closed her eyes and prepared for the end, until she heard a loud blaring noise.

Twilight jolted up in her bed, yanking her out of her nightmares. She looked for the noise, and saw her alarm clock, it read 7:00am. This was the usual wake up time, and she heard the rest of the crew beginning to wake up and scramble into the halls.

Twilight slowly got out of the bed and started to get ready. Brushing her hair, her teeth, getting dressed. Then Shining entered Twilight's room.

"Good morning Twily, did you sleep well?" Shining asked. Twilight faked a smile and tried to act normal.

"I slept like a newborn foal. Looking forward to the further research today." Twilight said in a happy tone that didn't match the exhausted look on her face.

"Okay, well, we're having a meeting at breakfast, so I'll see you there." Shining said as he left the room.

Twilight and the others got dressed and went to the mess room for breakfast, they all chatted and enjoyed the meal before Shining spoke up.

"Okay, here's the plan for this morning, Twilight and Dr. Whooves, I need you guys to head back out to the shed and make some more observations on the specimen, and if it's thawed yet, then you can perform an autopsy, and bring Dr. Stables with you." Shining explained. The Biologists and the doctor all got up and headed out.

"Vinyl, Rarity, Soarin, I need you three to focus on fixing the damn radio." Shining said to the engineers and the radio technician, making them groan as they went to try once again to fix it.

"The rest of you, go back to your posts and await further orders." Shining said before heading back to his own office.

As the biologists and the physician headed toward the shed, Whooves noticed that Twilight was slightly "out of it", like she was sleep deprived.

"Are you sure you're okay to work today Twilight? You don't look so well." Dr. Whooves said concerned.

"It's fine Whooves, I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, that's all." Twilight said as she walked ahead of the other two to get to the shed first.

Twilight opened the door and entered the shed, the other two heard her gasp and rushed inside.

When they left the specimen last night, the block was leaned up against the back wall, but now it was laying on the floor in the center of the room, and there was a large hole in the block. They stepped closer and saw something inside of the now tub shaped block.

Inside was some sort of corpse. It looked like the bodies of two ponies, but their bodies were joined from the head all the way down to their flanks. Dr. Whooves gagged upon seeing it, and Twilight covered her snout and inspected it further. The body was charred, like it had been burned.

"I think we should report this." Dr. Stables said before heading back to tell Shining about the specimen.

Dr. Whooves held his own snout and walked up beside Twilight. "So, what now?" Turner asked.

Twilight looked over, "We take it into the lab, and perform an autopsy, because this is impossible, this isn't what I saw frozen in the block." Twilight explained as some of the other crew were heard heading toward the shed.

The crew managed to wrap the charred specimen in a tarp and carried it back into the base and into the biology lab, where Twilight and Dr. Whooves prepared for the autopsy. The rest of the crew was there observing. Twilight then began cutting into the body and began to pull out organs.

"I think I'm gonna be sick." Vinyl said as she watched the autopsy.

"You and me both." Rainbow Dash said as she rushed out of the room to vomit.

After gathering several organs, Twilight turned to the others and explained her findings.

"Well, what we've got here seems to be a normal set of internal organs, Heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines, it's normal." Twilight explained.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes after re-entering the room, "Yeah Twilight, that thing is normal." She said sarcastically.

Shining then spoke up. "Okay, put the carcass into the cooler and collect data from the organs." Shining ordered, "Document your findings and report to me if you find anything abnormal, because finding a charred, fused body of 2 ponies is far from the ordinary." Shining said.

Then one of Fluttershy's dogs walked into the room and rubbed against Soarin's leg, making him jump.

"uh, Fluttershy! get your dog back in the kennel!" Soarin said, now annoyed.

"Okay, sorry about that Soarin, I must've not closed the kennel tight enough." Fluttershy said before turning to the dog,

"Come on Clark, lets get you back to the kennel." Fluttershy said, leading the dog out of the room and down the hall.

Everypony except Whooves and Twilight left the room, then Whooves spoke, "What exactly do you think this is?" he asked as he looked back at the body. Twilight thought for a moment.

"I don't have a fucking clue, but this couldn't have been the specimen that was frozen." Twilight pointed out, remembering the shape that was frozen in the block. Dr. Whooves' eyes widened, "Maybe the specimen escaped and left this behind?" Dr. Whooves asked, visibly scared now.

"Maybe." Twilight with a worried tone.

Author's Note

Okay! So I had some free time this morning to finish chapter 3, and I hope you're all excited for chapter 4, because that is when shit hits the fan.