When all hope seems lost, give up on the battle
Once you are there, they make sure you lose all hope
When Sweetie and the masked stallions entered through the door, they had to go down a massive staircase. One that kept on going down for eternity in her mind. It was until they came by a secondary door near the end of the staircase that she figured out what would happen. The stallions remained standing there, holding her firm in their hold. The door in front of them was opened and the grim situation would turn a whole lot bleaker for her. For when the door opened, she stared into nothing else but the eternal darkness of the void.
A couple lights went on and the view became clear for her. The young mare saw that she was in some sort of prison as hundreds of jail cells could be seen. Sweetie tried to break out of the stallions hold, but their magical grip was just too strong. She couldn't escape from their grasp.
She noticed something about their aura she hadn’t thought about before. It was reddish, almost as read as the blood that coursed through her veins. While the masked stallions dragged her to a cell, she could hear numerous ponies cry. They were calling their parents but she also saw some curled up and just sobbing. Sweetie looked at it all and just couldn't believe what she saw. What could be so heartless to do such a thing? To unicorns filled with potential?
Eventually was she thrown in a cell which housed one other, young mare. The masked stallions closed the door and released her from their grasp before they went away. They went back to the door leading to the staircase, in order to disappear out of sight once more. Sweetie shook her head and looked at the curled, blueberry mare. That coat she knew all too well.
“T-T-Twinkle? Is that, you?” was all Sweetie could say to her. Yet the ears of the other mare perked a little at the familiar sounds.
“Yes Sweetie, it is me... I failed, I tried my best, but I was too nervous, I failed everything, I disappointed my sister, my mother, my father, my brother... I disappointed my whole family...” replied the young mare through her sobbing.
“I had the same, Twinkle, I was too nervous as well,” replied Sweetie before she sat next to Twinkle. The white coated mare then began to sob in herself and curled up around Twinkle, trying to comfort her.
---
Time came and went as the same two masked stallions returned. They dropped new ponies in cells and took older ones away. Nopony knew to where they would be brought. They were all afraid they would be next one picked up. Yet for those who stayed longer than a day, there was good food and drinks. Much to the surprise of the them all.
Sweetie and Twinkle didn't know for how long they stayed there, days, weeks maybe, but it felt as years. “Sweetie, do you think we will ever leave this place? We have been here longer than anypony else,” asked Twinkle her at one point in time.
“I truly have no idea... I wish I knew though, oh Rarity, where are you? Don’t you miss me?” said Sweetie in a terrified tone. Both of them curled up against each other and sobbed in their misery. For it was all they could do. It was all that they wanted to do.
---
After a couple hours since their sobbing began did the masked stallions came in again. Yet that time did they went over to Sweetie and Twinkle. “You two, come with us. It is time for you,” one of them said in a deep voice. Both of the young mares looked up in utter surprise at hearing the words. They uncurled themselves in order to get a better view.
The masked stallions used their blood red magic to tie the mares up and dragged them to the staircase. The door opened once more and they went into the hall behind it. The doors were shut behind them and they made a turn to the left. Much to their own surprise, they encountered a second staircase that reached who knew how high.
Yet on that second staircase hung a scent they couldn’t place. But the both of them agreed in their minds that it was the scent of death. The both of them took a deep sniff and they immediately wanted to throw up their stomach content. Yet they just couldn't do it for some reason.
They were dragged all the way over to the top of the staircase. At the top, they went through yet another set of doors. But instead of the arena, they saw just a plain stretching out before them. A dead and demolished plain, to be exact. Before Sweetie nor Twinkle could do anything they got blindfolded. They waited for perhaps a minute before they were shoved into a chariot. One that brought them to Celestia knew where.
All they knew about the journey was that it was long. A very long trip but not a single word was spoken during it. Only soft sobbing and sniffing was to be heard. It was only after a long time Sweetie broke the silence. “Rarity, where are you, have you forgotten about your little sister!? Rarity, please wake me up from this nightmare!” she screamed out in pain. But all of it, all of it wasn't a dream. It was the stone cold reality of the situation.
“Twilight! Shining Armor, mother, father, have you forgotten me as well!?” brought Twinkle out through the tears.
“They must have been looking for us right? I mean, we were gone for weeks,” said Sweetie in a softer voice. It was all an attempt to calm herself. But when she spoke those words the chariot slowed down and eventually stopped.
The driver got the two young mares out of it and took off their blindfolds. It was deep in the night when they could see once again and blinked a couple times to adjust to the darkness of the night. Sweetie looked to the driver who was again, a masked stallion. Then she looked at the building where Twinkle was already looked at with an open mouth. Her mouth fell open as well.
“Where are we?” Twinkle asked.
“I have no idea,” was all Sweetie could say.
---
In front of them was a building. An enormous and scary looking building. Screams could be heard, pistons jammed, gears cranked, steam left the many ports on the sides of the building and on top there was one big chimney which every once and awhile shot a bolt. A bolt filled with something.
The smell was just as unbearable as it was on the staircase. When Sweetie and Twinkle took a sniff and the scent rushed into their noses they nearly had to puke. The smell of flesh being burned had managed to drill itself straight into their nostrils.
Under a loud roll of thunder had another bolt of something shot in the sky. There it separated itself and each of the smaller bolts went their own way. The mares wondered in their minds what it could be and where it would go to. But their thoughts got disturbed by bolt of lightning that came crushing down, revealing the size of the dark building, it was bigger than they thought.
It was black, white and blood red. Then the mares knew that their hope was all lost. They looked to the ground and saw they were standing on a cloud. A massive black cloud to be precise. Yet the building was of solid metal. It didn’t represent Cloudsdale’s architecture where the houses are made of clouds as well at all. The strange case had become a whole lot stranger for them.
The driver held them with his blood red magic and brought them inside, through a set of heavy metal door. Down a long hallway which appeared to go through the whole building. Sweetie and Twinkle looked through some the windows that were placed in it. Yet the sights they saw, they rather forgot sooner than later. Dead unicorns, locked up unicorns, everything was there to behold. They reached a magic powered elevator which would have brought them to their own cells.