I slept like the dead. I felt great.

Last night was the best night I’d ever had. I didn’t feel like getting up at all. I just wanted to stay there, lying next to my darling Cadence.    

I shifted around to see her. She was still sleeping. She looked so beautiful when she slept… even her bedhead was attractive. If I could just stay in this moment for all eternity, I would be a happy stallion…

...then reality brought me back down. I remembered Jet took the night shift last night.    

Oh… Faust…

I planted a soft kiss on Cadence’s forehead and got out of bed, showering and brushing my teeth at a rapid pace. I ran out the door and trotted the few blocks to the Party Palace. I walked in and saw Fluttershy at the stage.

“Fluttershy!” I yelled. She turned to me, pushing her pink bangs out of her face.    

“Shining!” She greeted. “What’s up?”    

“I’m looking for Jet, have you seen him?”    

“No. He did call me... he said he’s going to be home a bit late.”    

“Where does he live? I need to talk to him.”

"1060 West Addison Street. What do you need to talk to him about?”    

I didn’t answer her. I hauled flank and ran for West Addison.

1060 West Addison seemed to be a nice little place. It wasn’t a mansion, but it wasn’t a small little shack either. It looked like a comfortable, middle-class home. I walked up to the door, rapping on it with a hoof.

It took a moment for Jet to answer, but when he did... he looked just fine. I shouldn’t be surprised. Spending a year dealing with killer animatronics would make anypony jaded to danger, but damn... I still sensed something was wrong…  

“What’s wrong, man?” I asked.    

There was a pause. “I’m so sorry.” He said.    

“For what?”

“You knew him well, didn’t you?” He asked, patting my back. “And that’s why he had plans to make her.”

What the buck?    

“Dude? What the hay are you talking about?” I asked.    

“Your sister. She was murdered, wasn’t she?”    

My eyes went wide and my blood pressure rose. “How do you know about her?” I asked.    

“I found a little something… you might want to take a look...” Jet held up a file. The tab read ‘Flash Sentry.’ “You never found her murderer, did you? Don’t you want to see what’s inside?”    

I grabbed the file with telekinesis and opened it. I read it over… my heart broke. The tears started to flow along with anger and sorrow. I dropped the folder in shock, spilling its contents onto the street below. I stumbled back and fell flat on my flank. The sobs began in earnest. Jet grabbed a hoof and pulled me up, into a hug.  

“I’m sorry, man.” He said.    

“That… that…. that monster.” I said, fighting my tears and anger.    

“They used to call me the Pinkie’s Party Slasher... some still do.” Jet said, still holding me. I stared at the ground, a thousand-yard stare on my face. “But I’m not the first. And I’m truly sorry.”  

Jet released me, and I looked at him. To say I was sorely pissed was an understatement.

“Where is he!?” I demanded. “He’ll make a hay of a conversation piece when he’s STUFFED and hanging over my BUCKING PING-PONG TABLE!”  

“First, it would be impossible to find a taxidermist who wouldn’t ask questions or alert the authorities.” Jet started. “Second, I wouldn’t worry about Flash. He held the night guard position previously. He told me everything I needed to know for surviving in the old location, and he’s dead now. They got him.”  

I looked down at the ground, the fury still flowing through my veins.  

“He killed her… the bastard killed my baby sister… You have no idea what that feels like!”

I looked up at Jet, the tears still flowing. He put a hoof on my shoulder.  

“You’re right about that. I’m an only child.” He said. “But I do know what it feels like to lose somepony close to me… like an older brother… a mentor...” He looked down, wiped his eyes and tried to keep his composure.

“His name was Silver Screen, he was the founder of Pinkie’s Party Palace… though at the time, it was called Silver’s Ponyplex Theater.”    

Silver Screen? Now there was a class act in a tacky Hawaiian shirt and glasses. He helped me out a lot: when I was a kid, I lost my mom in Cloud’s Cove. He comforted me and helped me find her. I never forgot him.

He was a good stallion.

He always had a smile and was always quick with a joke. He was crazy with his knowledge of movies, able to name off writers, directors, actors, and even composers at the drop of a hat. He never had children, but he always looked after the kids and treated them as his own flesh and blood. He kept a supply of movies to play for the kids on a giant television set while they ate pizza and played games. He’d play games, then pass his tickets onto the kids. He had promised that he would add something special to the place...

...and then he died. To me, a flame of hope and joy in the world had been extinguished. The funeral had a very large turnout. Silver would have been ecstatic to learn just how much he had meant to ponies everywhere.

“He was my best friend, my mentor… he was like the older brother I never had. I was fifteen, he was in his thirties. He got me my first job here… he always listened to my problems and tried to help where he could… he always played horror movies for the staff at Halloween… he lent a hoof when I tried to impress Flutters.” He said, chuckling a little.    

I was only half-listening. I was still reeling.  

I sat down on the stoop and started thinking… thinking about how excited I was when I saw my little sister after she was born in the hospital. When she saw me for the first time, she smiled and gave me a hoof bump. My heart melted.

I remember how excited I was when she came home… Her name was Midnight Glow… She was a purple unico-    

Wait…

My head shot up. I stared at Jet in utter shock..    

“I guess it took you longer than I expected to remember Twilight.” He said.    

I was pissed. “Why is my sister an animatronic?” I asked. “WHY!?”    

“After we finished the first animatronic, Fluttershy and I suggested making another animatronic, but this one would be your sister, forever immortalized to make children happy.” He said. “But after Silver died we just decided to scrap the idea. We put her in a closet in the kitchen.”    

“What? What are you talking about?”    

“We may not have put an endoskeleton in her, but she still wanders around sometimes. You never really know when she’s going to come on out to play.”    

At this point, Jet seemed to just be talking to himself.    

“Sometimes, when I was the night guard, I would wonder if she would kill me that night… Sometimes I would find myself half-hoping she would… but she didn’t. I’m still here.”    

“Jet?” I said. “You’re kind of rambling.”    

Jet snapped back to reality. “Right.” He said, shaking his head. “Sorry…. So, uh, come on in.”    

I got up and trotted inside. Jet had a pretty okay looking home. There was a nice couch at the far side of the door and a loveseat, a coffee table in front of it, in front of the TV, probably for his and Fluttershy’s movie nights. There were framed pictures all over the walls: him alone, Fluttershy alone, Applebloom alone, or all of them together.

I noticed that many were of Fluttershy, mostly pictures of them together on what I guessed would be their dates through the time they’ve been together. I saw him, a smile on his face. He looked so happy in these pictures, his foreleg around Fluttershy, the both of them smiling. I wondered what could have happened between them.    

I turned to see Jet was sitting on the loveseat, pouring Applejack Daniels into two glasses set on the coffee table. I sat down on the other side and he slid one of the glasses to me.    

“Tell me Shining, did you ever have any enemies?” Jet asked.    

“Yeah.” I said.    

“Whatever happened to them?”    

“We just grew up, we matured, we went on with our lives. Why?”

“I had an enemy once.” He said.  

“So… what happened to him?” I asked.    

“I was in this job a year when I found him... He was the one who forced me to kill the five children, you know.”

He took a drink from his glass and filled it back up. “But that’s not the fun part. The fun part’s what happened next.”

I had to ask. “What happened next?”  

“Guess.” He said.

“The police found him?”    

“Close. I found him. It wasn’t what you would call any… public service of turning in criminals either.”

“What would you call it?”    

“Revenge.” He said, his voice shaking a bit. “You see, I tracked him during my off hours. I found him in a bar.”    

“And you confronted him alone?” I asked.  

“No. I took my desire for revenge with me.” He said. “And when I found him, I decided to give him a job… as the new night guard.” He took a drink from the glass and filled it back up. “Shining, guess what happened next.”    

“Should you be telling me this, Jet?” I asked, noticing his face blink between anger, frustration, impatience, sadness, and fury.    

“Close.” He said. “I let the animatronics get him.”    

I decided that it was time to haul flank before he snapped. “That's all real exciting and everything but… I have to go see Cadence or she’ll be wondering where I’ve been-”    

“They shoved him into one of the suits.” He said, cutting me off. “They hid the body… right underneath the old location.”    

“Now, look, Jet... I don’t want to be rude or anything… but other than just kinda wanting to confess to being an accessory in a murder, is there a point to this story?”

“Shining…..” He said, looking lost. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.”    

“Okay!” I said, getting up. “Um... I have to get back to Cadence, or else she’ll freak out and wonder where I am. You might want to get back to Fluttershy, or else she’ll freak out too.”    

“I know Shining…. I know.” He said, taking another drink. Next Chapter: Night 6: Everything's Falling Together Estimated time remaining: 34 Minutes