//------------------------------//
// It's just a key......right? 
// Story: Fluttershy discovers SCP-860 
// by Northguard 
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Fluttershy walked up the clear trail leading up to her cottage while humming happily to herself. She had just gotten back from the market, which was evident by her saddlebag full of different fruits, berries, etc.
Although, it was unusually quiet around her cottage. It was normally pretty quiet, but there were usually birds chirping and other animal noises, but now it was dead silence. This worried her a lot as she came to the door. When she pushed it open she immediately let out a sigh of relief as all her animals were there, alive and well. What made her more worried, however, was the fact that they were almost piled up on one side of the cottage. She walked inside and looked over to the other side of the room to find out what they were so scared of.

"A......key?" she asked confusedly, feeling slightly bamboozled.

On the table was a completely normal key. A blue one to be exact, but nothing more.

"That's weird. I don't have a key like this," she said as she picked it up.

She turned around and showed it to her animals, but they seemed to try to pull further away from it.

"Why are you so scared? It's just a normal key.......right?" she said as she turned her focus to a door in the house that had a lock on it.

She gave a look at the key again before she began making her way towards the door, but even before she could come within a two-meter radius of the door every single animal inside was piled up in front of it. Fluttershy could only look in complete confusion at her friends' actions.

"What is wrong? Could you please tell me?" Fluttershy asked softly, although all she got as an answer was a bunch of incomprehensible sounds.

"Hey, what if I just do this?" Fluttershy said as she dropped the key into her saddlebag.

The animals weren't really satisfied, but they seemed to calm down at least. Fluttershy gave a warm smile as she began moving towards the kitchen.

"Now, how's hungry?" she asked, to which a bunch of critters jumped around her in excitement. Fluttershy couldn't help but giggle.





Celestia's sun vanished over the horizon, as Luna's moon began to rise on the opposite side. Fluttershy just got done tucking in Angel when the sun had disappeared completely behind the mountains. After double-checking that all were fast asleep she began to make her way towards her bedroom, grabbing her saddlebag on the way, but when she had closed the door behind her, her hoof slipped the saddlebag and it landed on the ground with a light thud, with the addition of a resounding clinking. She looked down to see that the blue key had fallen out of the saddlebag and was lying on the floor right in front of her.

What is it with this key that has all the little critters so scared? she thought as she picked it up.

It was a completely normal-looking key. The only thing she didn't really understand about it was the number on it. For a while, she just stood there and looked at it before an idea lit up, but due to physics the light bulb landed on her head and fell on the floor with a loud crash.
She made her way downstairs to a door that she always kept locked due to it being a storage room. When she reached it she looked around to see if any of her little friends were coming to stop her and after a minute without anything happening she decided that the coast was clear. She lifted up the key and slowly moved it towards the keyhole. It reached its destination and fitted in perfectly. Fluttershy let go of the key to take a pause.

Okay, so the key fits, and nothing bad has happened so far. This isn't so bad. she thought as she took a hold of the key again.

With a small twist, the lock let out a small click, indicating that it was unlocked. With a small push the door opened, but not into a storage room as she expected. Instead, she looked into a forest and onto a path that was about 80cm wide, with a thick light blue mist looming over it.

"W-what?" Fluttershy stuttered as she very slowly and very carefully poked her head through the door.

Minutes passed as Fluttershy only stared into the forest with a mixture of shock, wonder, and most of all fear.
She mustered all her willpower and took a careful step out of the door, slowly followed by another. The ground didn't feel unnatural and the forest looked normal.
A third hoof was placed on the mixture of gravel, leaves, and dirt. Fluttershy continued to look around as she carefully came through the door. Just as her last hoof was placed on the path she was startled by the sound of the door closing behind her.
She whipped around to see that the door had closed by itself and after many (failed) attempts to open the door again she realized that she had no choice but to continue into the forest.

10 minutes passed and so far she had only been able to walk about twelve meters, but she grew less and less scared over time at least, and soon she was walking at a normal pace.

Every once in awhile the path would split into two and it turned out that one would lead to a dead-end, while the other would just keep going. At the moment Fluttershy had walked past two crossroads so far and she had only guessed wrong on the first one. Just as Fluttershy was about to finally put down her judgment on whether or not there were any animals in the forest she heard a low growl in the distance. She halted as soon as she heard the sound. Standing still and listening for a while she began to walk a little faster than normal. A distant roar sounded between the trees, which sent the already on edge mare into a panic and she went full gallop down the path. Another crossroad became visible and Fluttershy went to the right, which turned out to be a mistake as she was met with a dead end.
Turning around she came face to face with what had been chasing her.

It was at least the size of three ponies in height, it's skin looked to be made of wood, it had long sharp claws, glowing yellow eyes, it's mouth was full of long and sharp teeth, it had glowing yellow symbols all across its body, long ears, a long tail and a trail of leaves and sticks that started on the top of its head and went all the way down to its tail.

When it noticed Fluttershy it roared and ran full speed towards her. Fluttershy on the other end screamed and hid under her mane while curling up like a ball as she waited for the end to come.