It was unclear who, exactly, assigned the rooms in the Watcher facility. Rarity had originally expected that it would be Darknight, but now knowing that he did not really have much in the way of actual mental capacity, she began to doubt that. Whoever had chosen her room had almost seemed to have an eerie sense of what she liked.

Not that it was especially pleasant, of course. The décor was Spartan indeed, with no attention whatsoever done to decorating it. Still, despite being nearly empty, the room had an excellent shape. The walls were curved- -Rarity tended not to like flat, boxy walls- -and the ceiling was highly angled in one direction, making one side of the room feel tight and cozy while the other felt enormous. To Rarity, it was actually quite striking.

As she stepped in, Rarity saw that somepony had also taken the time to deliver her personal effects. Her bag sat in the center of a small and plain bed on the far side of the room, and her armor hung in the open closet. It had been laundered and polished. This of course seemed somewhat odd, as Rarity had seen no employees this deep in the faculty, save for Grassiehill and the nurses who had been repairing Darknight.

Examining the room, though, she saw that she had been given a few other items. Apart from a bed, she also had a small writing desk on which sat a sheet of paper, a quill, and an inkwell. Over it sat the source of the room’s illumination, a gas lamp of a relatively simple design similar to those that illuminated most of the Centre complex.

To Rarity’s immense surprise, she also found a telephone. It was the first time she had ever seen one in real life, although she had read about them. They had only been invented less than five years earlier, and it was a luxury that even the most insanely wealthy or wealthy of insanity of Discordalot often did not have access too. Unfortunately, though, as Rarity thought about it, that meant that she would be unable to call anypony at all- -especially not a town as poor and rural as Ponyville.

Rarity sat down on her new bed and looked around.

“Well,” she said. “There’s no windows. And it could use some curtains…but that would require windows…” She sighed, and paused for a long moment. “It’s certainly better than the barracks,” she said, recalling the gem mines but trying not to think about the unpleasant specifics about that dark time in her life. It had been quite sweaty.

With her magic, Rarity reached into her bag. There was not much in it, as she owned very little, but there was something that she had been sure to bring. It was a small photograph in a wooden picture frame. It showed a much younger Rarity standing with a small, youthful white filly, her sister, Sweetie Belle. Rarity held out the picture for a moment, staring at it and remembering how bright it had been that day and how happy she had been. She could not help but wonder where Sweetie Belle was, or if she would ever even know what her sister was trying to do for her.

Gently, Rarity set down the picture on the simple nightstand next to her bed. As she did, she noticed that something had already been set there. As she put down the picture, she picked up the object and found that it was a black holster. On it was a note which by the hoofwriting seemed to have been written by a foal. It read: “You need this. From Darknight.”

Rarity opened the holster and found a long, light revolver inside. It was pleasant in shape, but like the room around her it was exorbitantly plain. It was also surprisingly heavy, but not as heavy as the weapons that Darknight carried.

The notion was touching, but the result was an unpleasant feeling that washed over Rarity. It was a reminder that she had come her to murder and kill, and that there was no way to get out of it. This only reminded her of what it had felt like to blow the brains out of another pony: like nothing. There had been no emotional response. It was no different from ripping a seam, apart from the fact that it was far easier.

These thought were unpleasant, and Rarity forced them to the back of her mind. Instead, she preferred to focus on the fact that Darknight had given her a gift and to think kind thoughts about her beloved sister. This continued as she tucked herself into bed, wincing from the pain of her damaged and exhausted body. She had barely reached to turn out the gas lamp when she drifted completely to sleep.

The dream began. It was fuzzy at first, as though it had started long before but Rarity was only recently becoming aware of it. She blinked, trying to remember where she was. All around her was a hospital room: white, clean, sterile, and empty, save for her. She was sitting alone in the bed in the center, dressed in a terrible gown. She hardly cared, though. She was so tired and in so much pain, but somehow she felt so happy.

Rarity looked down, and remembered why. Sleeping in her arms was a foal. Her foal. A white unicorn who looked so much like her. This was why Rarity was so tired, and why she felt so wonderful. This foal was her daughter.

With tears in her eyes, Rarity held the foal close- -but the dream shifted. She felt nothing warm or soft in her hooves, and she cried out in surprise, wondering where her baby had gone. Except there was no baby. Though she stood in the same hospital room, she was now dressed in mithril armor. The metal seemed to shimmer under the lights, and almost seemed to melt as silver and red-streaked fluid dripped from it onto the floor. The happiness was now gone. Rarity seemed to feel nothing at all except pain.

It was at this point that she noticed something odd. Sitting in the door of the hospital room was a thread. This in itself was not strange, as Rarity quite often dreamt of thread. What was odd was how it looked. It was silver and almost luminescent, and somehow seemed to be flowing or wriggling slowly despite the fact that there was no breeze in the room.

Confused, Rarity stepped out of the room. The hallways were long, empty, and barely lit. In fact, the hallway seemed to grow dimmer as it extended outward. The only thing lighting that darkness was the glow of the silver thread.

This dream had occurred before, but this had never happened. Usually Rarity would wake up before she left the hospital room, or if she did take a step out she knew not to go beyond. It was not supposed to be part of the dream. This time, though, she found herself following the strange thread.

The scenery changed. Generic, repetitive hospital rooms gave way to white cinderblock walls with no distinguishing doors. The lights became more sparsely placed, and the shadows they produced became heavier and sharper.

Something began to feel wrong. Rarity could not understand why it was so cold here, or what the strange scent was that seemed to flood the air. Something told her to turn back- -but she did not. The thread beckoned onwards.

Then she came to a door. It was not like the hospital doors before, but seemed so much larger. The thread protruded from beneath it, but Rarity paused. She looked in both directions, and realized that she could not see the place where she had come from. The hallways were now entirely dark, save for weak flickering lights that did nothing but suggest to her that those were directions that she no longer had the option to go.

She opened the door and stepped in. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she found herself in the center of a large industrial looking room. All around her, she saw large glass containers. They roughly resembled the kinds of ornaments that would be hung on a Hearthswarming tree, save for the fact that they were clear and much larger.

Each one was connected at its top to a number of machines: cables, tubes, and conduits- -and each one contained the same thing. Every one of the containers contained a pony. They were all the same in physical appearance, but not in age. Every single one of them was dark blue, with long flowing blue mains that seemed to drift in the amniotic fluid of the containers. They were in different stages of development, though. Some were no more than fetuses, and many were barely colts. A few looked like juveniles, and there were of course adults- -all linked to the machines by the implants in their bellies. They were noncans, all waiting to be born.

Rarity stared up at them in awe, digest, and fear. No pony was meant to see another in those states, not like that. No pony was meant to be born that way- -or to look so similar. Each and every one was different, but they all looked the same. Not one of them had a cutie mark.

It then occurred to Rarity that the factory was not silent. In the distance, she heard the sound of soft sobbing. Rarity turned to the dark center of the factory, and suddenly found herself standing before a pony sprawled on the floor. At first, Rarity thought it was one of the noncans. She was the same color, with the same type of blue hair. As Rarity approached, though, she realized that this mare was not like the countless hundreds and thousands of others. She was a unicorn like them- -but she also bore a pair of wings.

The silver thread was hers. It originated from her horn as some strange type of spell. Rarity stared at the strand in awe, still not understanding exactly what it was, and then gave it a strong poke. The thread immediately shattered as though it were made of glass, and the alicorn mare gasped. She looked up in absolute terror.

“Who- -who are you?” she said, trying futilely wipe the tears from her turquoise eyes.

“My…my name is Rarity.”

“You’re- -you’re not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be alone. Always alone!”

“Slow down, I don’t understand!”

“It hurts,” said the mare. She was shaking, and as Rarity took a step forward she backed away suddenly. “It hurts so much!”

“What hurts? Who are you? How- -hold on! I can help you!”

“NO!” said the mare, backing away. “It’s my fault, it’s all my fault! I deserve to be hated! I have to be alone! ALWAYS ALONE!” She suddenly froze, and her eyes grew distant. Then she slowly turned toward Rarity, and Rarity felt a sudden surge of fear. “Except…I’m never alone, am I?”

Suddenly something materialized from the darkness behind her. A single luminescent white eye appeared, glowing from the jet black. The alicorn girl then suddenly screamed as whoever was the owner of the single white eye reached out and pulled her into the blackness.

“NO!” cried Rarity, taking a step forward- -only to find that the room had suddenly grown dark. In a panic, she looked up. The glass containers were still there, but they no longer looked the same. They had fallen into disrepair, and their insides were covered in horrible black stains of an unknown material. In the darkness, the bodies of the ponies within were strangely difficult to see- -apart from their eyes. Before, they had been asleep, but now every one of them was staring at Rarity. Thousands of turquoise eyes all stared back at her from their rotting prisons, each one containing a terrifying vertical slit for a pupil. Those thousands of pure-black ponies watched her, and Rarity suddenly felt so very afraid.

Then she awoke, sweating and soaked in her own urine. er th�J��f$