They found a back way out of the room half buried beneath a mountain of Pinkie Pie shaped plush dolls. After clearing them away, they entered a long, narrow passage that was only just larger than a crawl space. The walls and floor were made of solid concrete, and their hoofsteps echoed for some distance, giving the feeling that they were walking through a cavern.

When they first left the room with all the Pinkie Pie memorabilia, Fluttershy had insisted on walking by herself, despite grimacing and making an audibly pained grunt with every step she took. Every few feet she would collapse to the ground, and whimper for a moment. At first, Twilight and Dr. Layne tried to help her, but she scowled at them and defiantly got up and continued walking.

Fluttershy eventually consented to letting Dr. Layne carry her again after she had collapsed for a fifth time and was in tears, but she still met all attempts at conversation with a glower or snarl. Twilight couldn’t blame her.

Pinkamena dawdled just behind Twilight, her eyes downcast. She hadn’t said a word since they vacated the room dedicated to her. Twilight almost couldn’t stand it; there was something eerie about a sad Pinkie Pie. Twilight tried to talk to her, to cheer her up, but her words fell on deaf ears.

They reached a small, wooden door that was covered with deep gashes and had splintered in places. Dr. Layne pushed it open and they entered into small, dark room that was slightly smaller than the closet they had previously taken refuge in. Dr. Layne felt around for a light switch, but instead he found a button that caused the far wall to slide open, blinding Twilight with a bright light that flooded into the room.

When her vision adjusted, Twilight had to rub them to make sure they weren’t deceiving her. The wall had opened up to a room filled with bushes and shrubs and flowers. Flowers! After so long in a nightmarish prison of steel and concrete; Twilight could hardly contain her joy at seeing something as naturally beautiful as flowers. She rubbed her eyes once more, just to make sure that she wasn’t a mistake. But then the aroma of vegetation hit her, and Twilight knew that there could be no mistake.

“The botany lab,” said Dr. Layne as he entered the room, “one of Sleipnir’s more vanilla research facilities. We mostly just studied the effect a zero gravity environment had on lilies, and other equally exciting things.”

“Think we should stock up on food?” Twilight suggested, her mouth watering at the thought of lilies.

Dr. Layne shrugged. “Why not? It could be a while before we find another vending machine. Just be careful, we don’t know who’s lurking around.”

Twilight entered the room as quickly as her bad leg would allow her. Her mind wondered at the flora that surrounded her. Everywhere she looked there were plants growing in beautifully organized shapes, and flowers of every imaginable color. Twilight breathed deeply, savoring the floral scents.

As Twilight browsed the aisles of plants, she noticed that Pinkamena had sat down by the door, and placed her head in her hooves. Deciding that she should cheer her friend up, Twilight selected some daffodils, which she remembered that the Pinkie Pie in her world used to enjoy, and brought them over to her. Pinkamena sniffed the flowers and smiled, but then quickly set them aside.

“Not hungry,” Pinkamena mumbled. Twilight noticed a glazed look in her eyes, and decided that it might be best to give her friend some space for a little bit. She went back into the lab to get some flowers for Fluttershy, but when she tried to give them to her, Fluttershy just scowled and looked away.

Twilight sighed. Normally friends fighting like this was a simple fix; a little communication, maybe some singing, and the whole problem would go away in about twenty two minutes or so. But this was not a normal friendship problem, and Twilight didn’t know how to solve it. She doubted any pony had ever had such a strange and grotesque friendship problem in all of history, no matter what world they were in.

When Twilight was done filling her satchel with a choice selection of flowers, grasses, and berries, they all got ready to move on. Dr. Layne opened a door and the far end of the lab, and a large mass of a black, tar like substance seeped into the room.

“What the?” Dr. Layna said as he looked down at the mess.

“I think it’s slime,” Pinkamena said in a half hearted voice. “I used to use the stuff in kids’ parties. It was, slimy.” Pinkamena looked down at her hind hooves and mumbled something to herself.

Dr. Layne sniffed, and then sighed, “Well it doesn’t smell too bad, might as well keep moving forward.”

Both the walls and floor of the hallway were coated with tar. It had dried in some places, giving the room a crusty appearance. Twilight couldn’t help but think that some giant monster, maybe a dragon, had sneezed in the hallway. The thought both amused Twilight, and made her want to vomit.

After they had walked some distance, small wood-like objects began to crunch underneath their hooves. Twilight couldn’t make out their exact shape, as they were covered in the same black tar that coated near everything in the hallway, though she noticed that many of them were as thick as apple tree saplings, while others were as small as acorns. Twilight shuddered to think of what the objects might be, and forced herself not to think about them.

This became harder and harder to do as they went on. Soon they were stepping on the objects more frequently until they were practically walking on the things. Twilight tried to look at everything but the objects, but she soon found that the black tar had plastered them to the walls. Forcing herself to look forward, and not at the tar covered objects, Twilight began to hum the song she and her friend’s used to sing every winter wrap up, anything to get her mind off of the objects.

Her bad leg slipped on one of the larger objects, and Twilight fell to the floor as an explosion of pain erupted from her wound and spread throughout her body. She fell onto a pile of the objects, their sharp edges digging into side. When Twilight’s mind cleared enough to register anything but pain, she let out a cry and grasped for her leg.

When her vision cleared, Twilight found herself staring eye to eye with the tar covered skull of a gryphon. Twilight screamed and tried to scramble away, headless of the searing pain that radiated from her leg. The pain quickly overpowered her desire to flee, and she collapsed some distance down the hall.

As Twilight lay there, waiting for the pain to ebb, she was vaguely aware that some pony was approaching her, snapping bones as they came along.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” Dr. Layne in a calm, reassuring voice.

Twilight nodded as the pain in her leg returned to its normal dull throb. “I’m fine, it’s just that-” She looked around at the black tar that coated the hall, and the objects that were embedded in it.

They were bones. Countless bones, from ponies, gryphons, diamond dogs, and creatures that Twilight didn’t recognize. Twilight had seen corpses in Sleipnir before, but this was different. Twilight couldn’t quite tell what, but something about the bones lying in the tar unsettled her in ways that mere corpses hadn’t.

“Who were these people?” Twilight asked.

Dr. Layne shrugged, “Does it matter? There’s no help for them now.”

“Maybe they used to be Pinkie’s friends?” Fluttershy suggested in cold, harsh voice. Twilight quickly looked to where Pinkamena was to check that she wasn’t about have one of her episodes. Fortunately, it didn’t seem that she had heard Fluttershy’s remark.

“That,” Dr. Layne scowled, “was uncalled for.”

Fluttershy shifted her position on Dr. Layne’s back so that she was facing away from them.

“Tell that to Rainbow Dash,” Twilight heard her mutter.

Dr. Layne shook his head, and then bent down to help Twilight up. Twilight covered in the tar like substance, and she couldn’t shake it off. Dr. Layne helped brush away some of the cracked bones, but it seemed that Twilight was going to have to resign herself to being covered in the sticky substance.

Twilight looked back at her now irreparably filthy body and sighed. She’d already gone the better part of a month without a shower, but now-

Her heart skipped a beat as her mind registered a horror far greater than the bones. She whipped her head wildly, searching for where it might’ve fallen. She found it lying by a broken ribcage; it must’ve fallen off while she was panicking. Twilight raced over to where her satchel lay, and to her horror found if covered in the black tar. She opened with as much speed as she could, and looked in to check on her books.

To her relief, she found that neither the photo album, nor the book of Newt had any tar on them.

Author's Notes:

A short chapter to break the hiatus.