One year earlier
It was 18:15 PM, 28th of August. Rarity and Fluttershy were helping to clean Pinkie's Fun Palace after the birthday party of Applejack's little sister, Applebloom. Fluttershy had already finished putting away the plates in the Kitchen's cabinet, and Rarity was just finishing storing away all the cutlery, when she noticed she was short of one knife. "Uh... Fluttershy, darling, do you see if there's a knife in the dishwasher?"
"Umm, no Rarity...", said Fluttershy, checking the dishwasher, only to see it empty, "There's no more knives here."
"Huh. That's strange...", Rarity said, somewhat perplexed, "I'll go check outside to see if it's in one of the tables.". She exited the Kitchen, going to the Main Party Room, when suddenly, she heard someone calling out to her.
"Hey Rarity!"
It was Pinkie Pie. She walked towards Rarity with a smile on her face. "Oh hi, Pinkie.", she said back, "Say darling, have you seen a knife laying around here somewhere? I was putting them away when i realized we were one short."
"Uhhh... Nope! I haven't seen any knife around here, haha...". Rarity could tell something wasn't right, Pinkie seemed strangely nervous. But before Rarity could ask if something was wrong, she spoke. "Say Rarity, thanks for making that Pink tie for me, it was perfect!"
"R-really? Well thank you darling..." Rarity said, flustered by the compliment. "No problem! And because you did such a good job, i'm going to let you see how my project is going!"
"Oh really? Well that's quite kind of you, darling." She replied. "I have to say, i'm quite curious to see what you did with the fabrics i gave you.". As they were talking, Fluttershy exited the Kitchen. "Hey, Rarity? Did you find the knife you were looking for?"
"Oh! Fluttershy!", Rarity replied, "I was talking with Pinkie, and she said I could see the project she's working on! Say, would you want to come with us?". Fluttershy was somewhat taken aback by this offer. "Oh... umm... that sounds cool, but, I don't know if Pinkie would want me to-"
"Oh no, no, no!", Pinkie interrupted, ""You can come too! Come on! Let's go, girls, follow me!", she said, as she opened the door to the Staff Only Hallway, to the left of the Kitchen Doors. They then arrived to a door on their left, which led to the Storage Room. "I-it's right here! Come on, let's go in!" . "Okay, but can we please not take too long? I still have to feed the animals, and Discord's coming over for a sleepover...". "Oh, don't worry darling!", Rarity said, "This will probably only take five minutes! You'll have plenty of time!"
Rarity entered the room first, then Fluttershy, and then Pinkie, who closed the door behind her.
"What Foolish creatures.", the mysterious voice said, watching them enter the Storage Room, "I'd rather have to deal with them one at a time, but i can work with two..."
There was screaming, followed by crying, and then... silence, which was followed by more sobbing.
"Three down. Two more to go."
In the present
September 2nd, 12:08 PM
Guarding Grape was awoken from his nap by his alarm clock. He had gone to sleep after arriving home from his shift the previous night, not even taking off his uniform. Getting out of his bed, he made his way to the kitchen, and made himself a cup of coffee, and a Lettuce and Tomato sandwich. As he sipped from his cup, a thouht came to his mind. "What a strange dream i had..., he said to himself, "I can't seem to remember what it was about though... All i remember was that i was being... watched..."
He paused, trying to remember anything else from his dream, but he when couldn't remember anything, he decided to think about something else. He thought about how he'd proceed with his investigation, as last night's attempt hadn't gone exactly to plan. "Alright, time to review my notes.", he said, taking a piece of paper from his uniform's pocket, "Let's see... I was attacked by two Animatronics that were, according to Pinkie, based on her friends, and i found a note that said the place was haunted... So overall, i don't have much..."
As Grape thought about the note, however, he then thought about how the Animatronics were acting strangely, and how the one based on Fluttershy called him a "Murderer", "Wait... could it...?", he said to himself, "...No! Of course not! Ghosts aren't real, remember? There must be a rational explanation for this...". As he thought about it, he went to his bathroom to take a shower, and then went about his day, but as night came, he stopped thinking about possible answers to that, and instead, focused on getting ready for his next shift.
11:55 PM
As Grape arrived at Pinkie's Fun Palace, he saw Pinkie Pie standing in front of the doors of the Entrance, waiting for him. "Hi Grape! Ready for your next shift?", she said in an excited tone.
"Hey Pinkie.", Grape said, when he noticed Pinkie looked exhausted. "Say, you look kinda tired. Did something happen?"
"Oh don't worry, about me.", she replied "It's just that i had to file a lot of paperwork, so i'm feeling a bit tired... Being a Manager is hard you know.
"Ah, i see.", Grape said. "Oh and before i forget, i left another message for you on the phone!", she said, a bit more enthusiastic this time. "Give it a listen when you have time."
As Pinkie left, Grape went to the Security Office. He turned on the monitor, grabbed the flashlight, placing it on the table, then, finally, he grabbed the telephone to listen to the message. "You have: 1 new message. *Beeeeeeeeep*"
"Hi Grape! It's me, Pinkie! I'm leaving this message here to inform you of something. You know the Maintenance Room? The room to the side of the big stage? There's an Animatronic in there. You see, Rarity- I mean, the Animatronic based on her, has been acting up recently. It won't stop, uh... bugging out, unless a certain song is playing.", Grape raised an eyebrow. Why in Celestia's name would a machine bug out if there was no music playing? And why was it so specific? "You're probably asking yourself, "Why though?"", she said, trying to do an impression of Grape's voice, "And honestly... i have no idea. So because of that, i hooked up a Music Player to a spare speaker that was laying around so there's always music playing. If it stops, for whatever reason, just press the play button again. You can do it either remotely through the TV's remote, or manually, but that would mean you'd have to walk AAAAALL the way to the Maintenance Room, and then back to the office, so i'd reccomend doing it remotely.", as she said that, Grape noticed a second remote near the TV's remote, presumably for the Music Player. "And yeah, that's all for today's message! See ya!"*Beeeeep*
Pinkie's message was a lot shorter than the previous one, but Grape got the message, "keep the music playing". He switched the camera to the Maintenance Room, inside there were a bunch of Animatronic parts, as well as spare speakers, stagelights and a door that seemingly led to the stage, there was also a few wires on the ground, and a pair of light purple curtains. A song was playing. Grape had a music box that played that song when he was a foal, so he recognized the melody.
"So this is the Maintenance Room...", Grape said to himself, as he said that however, the clock struck 12 AM.
He quickly switched back to the Party Room camera, watching as the Applejack and Fluttershy Animatronics left the stage, first Applejack, then Fluttershy. Grape was ready to use the audio, when he saw a red warning sign with an exclamation point in the camera's HUD. "What the hay?", he asked to himself switching over to the Maintenance Room camera. The song that was playing had stopped, and instead he could hear... somepony crying? What? Grape was taken aback by this, and wanted to check it out, but he was afraid of the Animatronics attacking him like the previous night, so he had no choice but to sit there. Then he noticed something about the crying, it sounded... "Staticky". As in, with a static similar to a radio. Something here wasn't right. Grape then remembered something. The music! Quickly, he pressed the "play" button on the second remote, and the music started again. As it did, the crying slowly stopped.
"Was this what Pinkie meant by "Bugging out"? That sounded a lot more like... crying...", before he could continue to think about it, the door that led from the Main Party Room to the Maintenance Room opened.
"Rarity... is everythin'... okay?", it was the Applejack Animatronic. It seems it had heard the crying too.
"No, Applejack... It never is... Not since we've been turned into these... things...", the Rarity Animatronic said, poking it's head from behind the curtains, "Tell me... darling... Did he come back today...?
"I believe so...", the Applejack Animatronic responded, then, it did something Grape didn't expect. It looked at the camera, it's piercing green eyes digging a hole through him. "In fact... I think he's lookin' at us... right now..."
Grape felt chills going down his spine. Quickly, he switched to the Main Party Room Camera, and pressed the audio button, then switched back, to the Maintenance Room.
"Was that... Pinkie Pie?", the Rarity Animatronic asked to the Applejack Animatronic. "It might have been... I'll go check it out...", it replied, leaving the room to check on the noise. "Hopefully she hasn't suffered the same fate... as us..."
"W-w-what in... What?!", Grape couldn't comprehend what happened. The robot had looked at the camera. It adressed him. It knew he was there. But how? Was it alive? Was this put in it's programming as some form of prank? Or was it truly... Possessed? No, it couldn't be... but what if? Suddenly, Grape thought of the note, how it said the Animatronics were possessed, but that couldn't be right, ghosts aren't real... right? Usually Grape would say that yes, ghosts aren't real, but now, he was starting to question that idea.
As he thought about this, however, he heard heavy metallic footsteps approaching the office. Quickly changing cameras, he saw the Fluttershy Animatronic approaching. "Oh shoot!", Grape blurted out. He quickly used the audio to lure it away, before it could reach the office. "Pinkie...? Is that you...? Oh, please... you have to help us...!", it said, as it went to the Main Party Room. That was close. Very close. He needed to be more careful. If they saw him, and if they caught him, whoknows what they would do...
The rest of the night went about in a similar way as the last one, just with the addition of the Rarity Animatronic and the Music Player. As the clock struck 6 AM, Grape let out a sigh of relief. He made his way to the entrance, and was once again greeted by Pinkie Pie, who somehow looked even more tired than she did when he last saw her...
"Uhhh... Hey Pinkie... A-are you ok?", Grape asked, concerned.
"Oh no it's fine!", Pinkie said, struggling to stay awake, "It's just that i... *Yawn*... couldn't sleep very well last night..."
Grape was a bit worried about Pinkie's wellbeing, she seemed like she'd fall asleep on the spot at any moment. "Well uhhh... shouldn't you like, take the day off or something?"
"Oh no, no, no! I can't take the day off...", she said, again, half-asleep, "I'm the only one running this business, and my boyfriend's out of town, so he can't fill in for me..."
"Oh, i see. Well uh... Bye Pinkie, see you later, i guess..."
As Grape left, he began to wonder just what was going on. Were the Animatronics truly possessed? If so... could that mean...? No, it couldn't be... He tried to shake off that thought, but he couldn't. So he decided to hold on to it... for now. It was just a theory, but one that rocked him to his core...
What if the five missing ponies he was searching for weeks now, were right under his snout? What if... he found them already?