Celestia watch her ex-student sink to the floor. She couldn't blame her. Celestia felt like she might as well, but she had luckily (Or maybe not) seen many things in her long life that prepared her for things like this. Although none so horrific as this...

She wrapped her wings around hem both and vanished in a quick flash that brought the grinning faces into sharp focus, faces that would stay in her memories eternally...

UNKNOWN

Pinkie had woken up, but saw nothing. She could only tell she was awake by the pain that suddenly started making her body ache as it hadn't in the dream, and by the murmuring voices she heard. She couldn't move, and there was something stopping her mouth up. She felt metal behind her back and something tying her to it. She just waited, having no other choice.

Whatever was over her eyes was letting light through suddenly, then stopped again. Pinkie wondered what it had been. She could feel movement, then a sudden stop. The thing over her eyes was lifted and she blinked in the light. She couldn't see for a moment, then focused on something in front of her that was green. As it came into focus, she saw a oily looking fake plant. She stared and wondered what in Equestria was happening. An armoured member of the Royal guard walked in front of her and avoided looking at her face as it walked to a door and knocked, then entered. There was a brief, unheard discussion behind the door. Then a grey unicorn stallion trotted out along with the guard. The stallion said "Do you know why you are here, Miss Pinkamena?" Pinkie stared at him, mute. "Oh yes, remove the gag please, Phalanx." The guard came forwards and hit her in the mouth rather hard with his front hoof, knocking out whatever it was as it clattered to the side. "Phalanx! Please do not be rough. She is a patient here. We must be kind to her." Phalanx stared at Pinkie, then spat at her and walked to the side. The grey stallion sighed. Pinkie wondered what he meant by "Patient". Whatever it was he meant didn't sound good at all. "Please take her to her room, Phalanx. Leave her restrained."
"What..." Pinkie rasped, then coughed. "What's happening? Where is this place? Who are you?"
"Your doctor, Pinkie. Doctor Bright. Nice to meet you. You are being restrained for, um, impairing the rights of others" taking out a note from the coat he was wearing "Namely those about being allowed to not be horribly tortured, torn to bits then have taxidermy practised on them." He was strangely light-hearted, and Pinkie would never have expected such an attitude from any living being. She had expected the guard, Phalanx's response however. She wasn't sure if this was something planned by this Doctor Bright, if this behaviour was just an act. If it was, it's a very good one she thought.
"What do you want with me?" she asked.
"To cure you from whatever's wrong with you, my dear." Pinkie stared at him, shocked. He reminded Pinkie of the Madame when he said "My dear". She wondered where the ghosts were. Doctor Bright moved nervously as she stared at him anxiously. Where were the ghosts? She couldn't see them anywhere. "Anyway, I heard about what had happened. I've seen this before. There's a lot of this stuff in the Zebra lands, of course. Bit sad this was Celestia's first time seeing stuff on this scale of it. I used to work with the Zebras you know, dear." he was chatting aimlessly as they went through weaving corridors, with whatever she was tied to being pushed by Phalanx. "Nice people, but doing magic without horns tends to mess up your mind. All those weird fumes from those strange mushrooms, what some of it does to your head and of course having no horn to channel the magic through scrambles your brains quite a bit sometimes. Some of the least affected are allowed to leave for Equestria or somewhere else. I've only seen one Zebra here however, an old patient of mine. Couldn't stop her rhyming all the time, but at least she got over the worst. Used to do sort of the same stuff as you and got caught trying it on some filly who went into the Everfree Forest. There's more of this stuff around then most people think."

Zecora. And Pinkie never knew. Doctor Bright seemed sincere, and maybe those stories had some truth in them...

They had stopped. There was a heavily reinforced door she was facing, the same as many along the corridor.
"Phalanx, be so good as to push her in and untie her. Miss Pinkamena, please don't try anything silly." he said as he nudged open the door. Pinkie was pushed in and untied, then ungraciously thrown onto the ground by Phalanx. She spun around a gave him a hit in the face, then turned around again to deliver and kick to his legs, then screamed as she felt what was like liquid pain run up her spine. Her legs fell from under her as she fell to the floor and screamed again.
"Miss Pinkamena, I warned you. This was so predictable, you know. That's why I always carry this." He turned over her immobile body and showed her some needles on string. It was attached to his horn. All of them were glowing. "A nice little invention we cooked up. Perfect for keeping our inmates under control. Magical, which is why we like to have unicorn doctors on the violent ones. Well, I'll see you later, Miss Pinkamena." He and Phalanx left the twitching Pinkie on the ground and shut the door behind them with a resolute clang.

Pinkie fumed, and vowed to slit that doctor's neck from ear to ear. Then she looked at this thought and began to cry at what she had become since that awful day.

Twilight was at a funeral. A mass funeral, for everyone who could be recognised and many who were thought to be dead. There were pictures of many ponies, and coffins and urns for the pieces of those who could and couldn't be recognised. Twilight looked at her friend's coffins. She had had to see each grinning corpse in turn, then Fluttershy's terrified, frozen grimace. She had thrown up, again, earlier as had a number of other ponies. The grins ripped through their cheeks and made enormous, grimaces that were the sort of thing you normally saw in nightmares. She wondered for a moment why Pinkie would have done such a thing, then turned her mind back to the biggest fact in hand. Her friends were dead. It was a crushing truth. She stared, not even crying anymore at the coffins. She could still see the demonic grins, even through the thick wood. They grinned at her in her grief.