//------------------------------//
// The Day That Never Comes 
// Story: The Lightless Night 
// by Matthias Ramsey 
//------------------------------//

Sweetie Belle looked up at the moon. "It hasn't moved..."
She looked back at the Mirror Pool cave. By her estimate, about an hour had passed since the four timberwolves had left the cave with a mangled, headless corpse in tow.
Suddenly feeling the urge to move, Sweetie Belle crept from her tree and into the clearing.
Just as suddenly as the urge to move had come, a timberwolf barreled into her, coming out of nowhere and sending her flying into a tree.
Struggling for breath, fighting the blackness swimming at the edges of her vision, Sweetie helplessly watched the timberwolf creep up on her.
"Yes, yes, yes! We have found the last one! Oh, but we must take her back to master Elm!"
Sweetie Belle could do nothing to escape as the timberwolf's jaws closed around her body, gently holding her as he began running.

A long time later, Sweetie Belle was roughly thrown into a crowd of nine other, identical Sweetie Belles.
"This is all of them?"
"Yes."
"Good. One in ten. I like those odds." The leader bared his claws. "Anyone want to own up? Or do I just have to find out the hard way?"
The mob of Sweetie Belles stayed quiet.
"Very well." He grabbed the first one's head and crushed it violently. The body released no blood, instead dissolving into magic dust.
"Tch!" The next one yielded the same results. "This is why I never was a gambler." As the odds grew in his favor, still he failed to find the real Sweetie Belle. Finally, he had reached the final Sweetie Belle.
"Ah...at last, we have found you." He drew a claw along Sweetie Belle's chin. "Any last words before I end you?"
"Wh-why? The sun should have risen by now..."
"No, child. The sun will not rise for you." He raised his clawed paw. "Never again."
Tears poured from her eyes. "A-at least...I can see them again..."
"I'm sure you will." Elm's claws descended, and her world went black.