Darkness Fell. . . (REMASTERED)

"COME ON, FASTER!" Flash called out to the four following behind him. He spared a quick glance behind him, ensuring that his friends weren't being left behind as they ran, barely outrunning the disfigured remnants of their classmates following closely behind them. He looked back ahead, searching for someplace they could hide. The group was tiring quickly from so much running, and if they didn't shake their pursuers soon they'd be done for.

"Look! Over there!" He heard Bon Bon yell, he looked behind himself again to see her pointing a finger towards a towering office building quickly coming into view. Strangely enough, it was relatively free of the black, glitch-like substance that had started this nightmare that the group found themselves in, but that made it all the more appealing as an escape route.

Using up the last of his energy, Flash managed to force his burning legs to move quicker in order to get there first. The quicker he got there, the quicker he could hold the door open for his friends and close it before those things followed them inside.

Flash made it to the door, throwing it open and getting himself inside before risking a look back at his fellow survivors. Trixie made it inside first, followed quickly by Wallflower and Bon Bon. Sweet Leaf brought up the rear after them, just barely keeping pace enough to avoid being grabbed by the corrupted visage of Cherilee.

Flash slammed the door shut as soon as they had all made it inside, throwing himself against the door as their disfigured classmates attempted to follow them in. The door bent inward under the pressure, threatening to give way at any moment.

"Little help here?!" Flash called as he struggled with the door.

"Here!" Wallflower said from behind him, running up with a chair. She bent down under Flash, propping the chair under the doorknob as a makeshift barricade. The two stepped back, watching cautiously as the door held, but just barely.

Their relief was short-lived, however, as only a moment later the sound of glass shattering echoed throughout the room, followed by a malformed, corruption-covered limb forcing its way in through a window.

"Quick! Upstairs!" Trixie yelled from behind them. Flash looked back to see where she was referring to. They were currently in the reception area of the building, chairs and paintings dotted all along the walls with a receptionist's desk at the very back center of the room. At either end of the reception desk the room faded into two long hallways, with signs posted beside each one indicating where they lead. Flash noticed the word Stairs on the sign for the left hallway, and without wasting another moment, took off in that direction, his friends following close behind.

The sound of more glass shattering pierced the air, followed by the horrifying sound of one of the things climbing inside, the crunch of broken glass under malformed hands and feet echoing throughout the room. Trixie turned back around, reaching into the right pocket of her jeans and pulling something out. She raised her hand high in the air, before throwing the object down, resulting in a large cloud of smoke appearing to cover their escape.

They made it to the door leading to the stairwell, getting inside and closing the door behind them. As Flash was locking the door behind them, he saw Silver Spoon emerge from Trixie's smoke screen through the window. Like everyone else who had been corrupted, her eyes no longer had pupils, now just blank white voids. She was crawling around on all fours, making inhuman noises all the while the corruption dripped off of her everywhere possible, like she'd just gotten caught in a rainstorm without an umbrella. She noticed Flash, lunging at the door like a cat trying to catch a mouse, crashing into it and falling backwards. Flash took this as his que to leave, taking off back up the stairs behind his friends.

The group made it up a few flights of stairs, entering the first door they found once they thought they'd gotten far enough away. They now found themselves in the middle of a long hallway, on either side various doors leading to sections filled with office cubicles, breakrooms, etc, slumped up against either side trying to catch their breaths. None of them spoke for a while, their bodies utterly spent after the near-constant running they'd been doing since this all began.

The corruption, as they had come to call it, appeared seemingly out of nowhere, taking Canterlot City completely by surprise. Most hadn't had time to react in the slightest before it claimed them, stripping them of any individuality they might have had and reducing them to little more than mindless, glitchy versions of their former selves, hellbent on further spreading it as much as possible. In mere hours, the city had become utterly devoid of life, filled only with those abominations, and leaving what few survivors there were stranded with no way of escaping. This was the situation that Flash, Wallflower, Trixie, Sweet Leaf, and Bon Bon found themselves in, trapped inside a towering office building with no way out, the streets below swarming with their former classmates and teachers.

Flash heard something across the hall. Raising his head, he spotted Sweet Leaf, crying with her head between her legs, Bon Bon trying to nonverbally comfort her by stroking her hair.

"I- I don't get it." Sweet Leaf said between sobs. "W-what's going on?"

"I don't know." Wallflower said. "I don't think any of us do."

The remaining members of the group shook their heads solemnly.

Flash took a deep breath before standing back up. "We don't have time to waste sitting around doing nothing. We need to start brainstorming if we want to keep surviving." He said, feigning confidence. In truth, he was just as terrified as the rest of them, but for the sake of survival, he wanted to be strong. Too many times now he'd see Sunset and her friends taking down magical threats without issue, the entire school viewing them almost as superheroes. Well, they were superheroes, technically, but that was besides the point. He'd always wanted to be able to take part in their adventures and experience that feeling of being looked up to, but never had the chance. That is, until now.

His facade, to his surprise, worked, the others slowly but surely picking themselves up as well.

"Flash is right." Bon Bon stated. "We've got to think of some kind of gameplan if we're to make ot out of this alive."

"But how?" Wallflower asked, walking towards the left end of the hallway and looking out of a wall-sized window. "We've got to be like, five or six stories high, and those things are still down there on the lower floors." She paused for a second. "We're trapped."

"Does anyone have a phone? Maybe we can call for help." Flash said.

"Call who?" replied Trixie with a sharp tone.

"I dunno! The cops? Sunset and her friends?"

Trixie joined Wallflower at the window, gazing solemly at the ruins of Canterlot city, the buildings covered in corruption, flaming wreckages of cars and buildings scattered about the landscape, and groups of the affected stalking the streets below.

"I don't think even they can save the day this time." Trixie finally said in a dejected tone.

"Well we have to try. Does anyone have a working phone?" Flash asked the group.

"Nope." Trixie said.

"Yeah but it's dead." said Wallflower.

"Mine too." Bon Bon replied.

"Same." Sweet Leaf followed.'

"I don't have one either." Flash said. "We need to find a way to charge a phone. I know calling for help is a long shot, but it's the only way we have at getting out of here safely."

"I agree with Flash." Bon Bon said. "We need to get this place powered up. What if one of those things somehow manages to sneak inside? We won't be able to see it until it's too late if none of the lights are on."

Flash's eyes opened wide at the realization that she was right. All they had for a light source was the full moon in the sky, and that was limited to rooms with windows that faced it. If one of them got in, they'd have no way of seeing it.

"Bon Bon makes a good point, we need to get the power back on."

"But how?" Trixie asked. "The power for the whole city is out!"

"There has to be a backup generator of some kind somewhere, it's our only chance."

"But how are we supposed to find one? We don't even know if this building has one, and if it does, this place is massive, it would take ages to search everywhere! Plus, if it's on the lower floors..." She trailed off.

Before anyone could respond, a scream cut through the air, coming from Sweet Leaf. "Trixie! Your jacket!"

Trixie was caught off guard for a second, before looking down and spotting a dark splotch of corruption on her jacket, glitching and misfiring against the dark blue of her jacket. She screamed too, before ripping the jacket off as quickly as she could. The jacket came to rest on the floor between the feet of the four survivors, Trixie now leaned up against a wall hyperventilating.

"Trixie! Are you okay?!" Flash asked in a panic. Trixie shot him a quick glance, before moving her gaze down to her body, quickly scanning her front half before pushing herself off the wall and spinning around to give everyone a chance to look her over. Thankfully, none of it had gotten on her.

"Holy shit." Wallflower said after a few seconds of silence. "That was close."

"Well, now we know that whatever that stuff is can only hurt you if it gets on your skin." Bon Bon said. "We shouldn't underestimate how important what just happened was."

The groups eyes went back down to Trixie's jacket laying on the floor. As if on que, something started moving under it, and a few seconds later the blob of corruption made its way out, coming to a stop a few inches onto the floor. It continued glitching and pixelating for a few seconds, then simply fading out of existence into the flooe below.

"I think your jacket should be good now Trixie." Wallflower said uneasily amidst the dumbfounded gazes of everyone at what had just happened.

Trixie made a small "Uh huh" noise while staring slack jawed at the floor.

Flash cleared his throat. "We need to stay focused on getting the power on."

"And how do you suppose we do that without it taking the entire night?" Bon Bon questioned.

"We split up."

"Split up? Are you insane?" Trixie replied in a harsh whisper.

"Well how else can we search this place without it taking the whole night? The quicker we get this power situation over with the better, and..." He drifted off. "Besides, even as a group, I don't think we'd stand a chance against one of those things in a fight. If we split up, and one group gets attacked, it would give the other a chance to get away."

"...Wow." Trixie replied again.

Instead of verbally replying, Sweet Leaf and Bon Bon shot Flash the worst "are you serious?" look he'd ever seen.

"As much as I hate to admit it, he's right." Wallflower said breaking the tension. "We aren't the Rainbooms, we don't have super-strength, super-speed, telekinesis or diamond shields to protect us if one of those things catches us, if we stay as one big group it'd just mean we all die at once, instead of what he's proposing giving at least some of us a chance if worst comes to worst. You all know that deep down, you just don't want to admit it."

Bon Bon sighed. "Fine, how do you want to split up?" She said, still giving Flash a dirty look.

"Found anything yet?" Trixie asked in a low whisper, just loud enough to be heard by Bon Bon on the other side of the large room of office cubbicles they were searching.

"Hang on..." came Bon Bon's reply. "Bingo!" She said, in a much louder voice.

"Shush!" Trixie whispered back in a rush.

"Sorry! I found a pair of Flashlight's!"

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, meet me in the center of the room!"

Trixie turned away from the large set of office cabinets she was searching in one of the cubicles up against the wall, grabbing her jacket which was hanging from it while doing so. She was still hesitant about putting it back on, but at the same time, without it all she had as "protection" from that stuff if it got on her was her undershirt, which only covered her midsection and not her arms.

In the end, they had decided to split into one group of three and one group of two, Trixie and Bon Bon being the latter, assigned to the upper floors of the building, while the other three had gone down to the more dangerous lower floors. The full moon fortunately lit most of the rooms they searched, but the inner hallways and breakrooms remained too dark and inaccessible for the two. Until now, that is.

Trixie met Bon Bon in the middle of the room, next to the massive window that spanned the entire outer wall, the moonlight shining in casting long shadows of the two reaching into the darkness beyond. Lo and behold, Bon Bon had in fact found flashlights, one for each of them. They each took one, before using their new tools to go deeper into the floor they were in.

Bon Bon gasped. "Look!" she said, grabbing Trixie's shoulder and moving her to look in the direction she was facing. There, at the other end of the hallway they had just turned onto, lay a door with a sign that said Electrical plastered on the wall next to it. Bon Bon's flashlight focused on the sign. Without another word, the two ran over to it, eagerly grabbing the door handle and turning it-

but nothing happened.

"What are you waiting for? Open the door already!" Trixie whispered from behind Bon Bon, the former standing guard while the latter tried and failed at the door.

"I can't! It's locked!"

"What do you mean it's locked?!"

"I mean we need a key!" Bon Bon said, focusing her flashlight on the doorknob, where a distinct keyhole could be made out.

"You gotta be kidding me." Trixie said upon turning around and seeing said keyhole.

"W-whatever, just help me find the key!" said Bon Bon, tunring away from the door and starting to head down another hallway.

"Wait!" Trixie said abruptly. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Shh! Just be quiet for a second!"

Bon Bon listened, and the two remained quiet for a moment.

"You don't think..." Bon Bon said in a terrified tone.

Screams, very distinct now in the dead silence that had taken over while neither of them were speaking, echoing up from the lower floors, exactly where Flash, Wallflower and Sweet Leaf had gone.

"What do we do!" Trixie whispered in a panic.

"We have to go help them!" Bon Bon replied, turning and starting to run in the direction of the stairwell.

"What?! No!" Trixie said, grabbing Bon Bon by the shoulder and pulling her back. Bon Bon whirled back around angrily to face Trixie.

"Are you seriously suggesting that we leave our friends to die?"

"Are you seriously suggesting that we charge into one of those things without a weapon? Didn't you hear Flash? This is exactly why we split up!"

"Do you really care that little about our classmates?!"

"You know it's not like that!"

Bon Bon glared back at Trixie, before turning once again to go help their friends, whose screams could still be faintly heard above their arguing.

"Wait!" Trixie said, grabbing Bon Bon by the back of her shirt this time. "Please don't leave me! You're only going to get yourself killed, and then I'll be here all alone!"

Bon Bon tore her shirt away from Trixie with an angry scowl, stomping off while feeling nothing but contempt for her classmate who was all too willing to abandon her fellow survivors, and who only wanted Bon Bon around for her own security. Before she could get even a few steps away, however, Bon Bon was once again held back by Trixie, who now had a vice-grip around the wrist of her right arm.

"Wha- Trixie! Let go!!!" Bon Bon yelled in frustration.

Before either of them could do anything else, a loud CRASH could be heard from the floor below them, followed by the familiar static nonsense that emanated from those affected by the corruption.

The tension that had filled the air around the two survivors vanished in an instant, replaced once again with dread as they realized their fighting had alerted whatever one of those things had just gotten the other three.

"What do we do?!?!" Trixie whisper-shouted.

"Uh-" Bon Bon started. "Upstairs!" she said, looking up and realizing there were more floors above them. Without another word, to keep their noise level at a minimum, they quickly yet quietly made their way to the stairwell and then up one flight, the carpets running up the centers of each hallway aiding their escape by muffling the sound of their footsteps.

"Where are we now?" Trixie whispered, switching her flashlight back on and moving it around the hallways they were in while Bon Bon quietly shut and locked the stairway door behind them. She then turned her flashlight on and read the sign posted to the right side of the door.

"This is the break room floor." She responded.

"Okay, now what?" Trixie asked.

"We need to find some kind of weapon."

"What kind of weapons are we going to find in an office building?"

"Well, unless you have any better ideas, I'd suggest we start searching." Bon Bon finished, turning and starting to head down the right hallway. Trixie stood still for a monent, mouth agape as she tried and failed to form a rebuttal to Bon Bon's statement, before finally following her.

Like every other floor, the break room floor was nearly pitch-black anywhere that didn't have a window facing the moon, the duo still reliant on their flashlights to even see each other in the oppressing darkness. They stayed close, only splitting up to search rooms on either side of whatever hallway they were on, staying as quiet as possible while also listening intently for any signs of the corrupted.

This process of searching continued for what felt like an eternity, before the silence was broken by a small scream from Trixie. Bon Bon rushed across the hallway to her companion, her flashlight nearly instantly lighting up what had made Trixie scream.

A body. Upon first glance, it was glaring obvious that the person they were looking at was dead, but for how long they couldn't tell. They were dressed in a security guard uniform, a blood splatter going up the wall where they lay slumped against the wall. Bon Bon recognized the man but couldn’t remember his name. She felt a surge of guilt at this. Likely countless times she had passed this individual in various parts of the city, but she had never bothered to learn his name. And now here that same person was, almost certainly struck down by one of the unknown number of corrupted that stalked the building. It was hard to imagine for either of the two, that he had once been an individual, with hopes, dreams, loved ones, and now here he was, no more than another nameless victim claimed by the darkness that had taken over Canterlot City.

Although still shocked at the distressing sight, Bon Bon realized soon after that this guy had exactly what they had been looking for: Weapons. Two, in fact, a handgun on one side of his holster, and a can of mace and a taser on the other. On top of that, there was also a set of keys brightly reflecting the light from their flashlights.

"The electrical room..." Bon Bon thought to herself. Without wasting another moment, she rushed over to him and starting working the items that would be helping in their own escape and survival out of his belt and holsters.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Trixie exclaimed in a loud whisper.

"Look!" Bon Bon replied, shinning her light on the items she was obtaining. "Weapons! And the keys to the electrical room!"

Trixie didn't respond, instead looking on in a mixture of shock and horror until Bon Bon tossed her the taser and mace, which she only caught by reflex, fumbling with them for a moment. Bon Bon kept the handgun and keys for herself, making her way out of the room and back towards the stairwell. Trixie followed soon after getting over the shock of what had just happened.

"Where are we going now?!" She asked.

"We're going to Electrical to finally get the power on, after that, we're getting the hell out of here. We've got everything we need to make an escape, and I don't plan on missing out on it." Bon Bon said with renewed determination in her voice, followed by her switching the safety off on the handgun.

"You don't plan on actually using that, right?" Trixie asked again with apprehension.

"Trixie, this is probably the only thing in the world that could ever bring down one of those things, of course I'm going to use it."

"But it doesn't have a silencer! What do you think's gonna happen when that thing goes off! It'll-" She said, but was cut off.

The two stopped in their tracks at the sound of disembodied laugher eminating from behind them. The two spun on a dime, shining the light of their flashlights in the direction it had come from.

"H͇̋e̼͠ll̪̚o, ̦̕s-̗͑s̬̕-̜́s-ś̳t̨̉u̝͋d̮̐e̜͑nt̙̑s!" Cherilee said.