//------------------------------//
// Day Five 
// Story: Five nights at Sombra's 
// by Fossil-Dragon-Messiah 
//------------------------------//

	Fluttershy screamed as she felt the crystal structure restraining her creep along her spine. She tried to look away from the five robots in the room, but the crystals forced her to meet the eyes of the golden endoskeleton that had butchered Thunderlane's corpse. She could hear Scootaloo, Apple bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Dinky struggling to escape the grips of there mechanical captors.
"Let us go! You stupid robots!" Scootaloo screamed.
The golden machine turned to the orange filly. "Quite a mouth on this one..."
"You... You can talk?" Fluttershy asked.
The endoskeleton returned his gaze to the restrained mare. "Of course. What kind of king would I be if I couldn't speak?"
"Can the other ones talk?" Fluttershy heard Apple bloom ask.
"Unfortunately, no. They are just puppets with no sense of sentience." The golden automaton explained. "This body, on the other hoof, is a vessel for my spirit for the time being. At least until my body can regenerate"
"So you're the Sombra we've heard about." Sweetie said.
Fluttershy could hear Scootaloo grow more and more agitated with each passing moment. "You can't come after us yourself? Huh? Have to use these dumb machines?" She yelled in defiance.
"M-Mommy, Save us!" Dinky yelled.
Fluttershy's eyes widened as the voices began once more. But now, instead of just Thunderlane and Red June, all four of the fillies voices joined them. "Save us... Save us.... Save us... Please... Save us..."
"How does it feel, miss Fluttershy, knowing that no matter what you do, none of you are going to be leaving this room alive. You can't save them. Hehehe" Sombra chastised.
Fluttershy heard Scootaloo spit in the direction of Sombra's vessel. "That's what you think! Our friends are going to get us out of here! And when they do, you'll have to deal with a very angry Rainbow Dash!"
Sombra turned once more to the pegasus filly. He placed of golden hoof on her chest. "I grow tired of your bravado. Dispose of her machine!"
Fluttershy could see Fáfinr nod as Scootaloo began screaming. A loud crack was heard followed by a thud as the dragon robot dropped Scootaloo's lifeless body. Her neck broken.
"SCOOTALOO!" The four remaining ponies screamed as Sombra grinned.
Sweetie Belle began kicking frantically to escape Freddy's grasp. "Scootaloo! Please no!"
"Cease your struggling you little filly", Sombra commanded. "Unless you want to join her right now..."
"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Apple bloom shouted. Venom dripping in her voice as she tried to worm her way out of Busby's vice.
Fluttershy raged against her crystalline restraints, all while little Dinky screamed and sobbed. The crystal holding her back began to branch off, preventing the yellow pegasus from doing much more than blink and scream.
Sombra stepped towards Dinky with a sadistic mile on his mechanical face."This one is special to you, is she not?" He asked menacingly.
To his right, a black pillar of crystal erupted from the floor. It morphed and twisted until it looked like a buzz saw blade. "No! Don't hurt her!" Fluttershy screamed in an act of desperation. "Don't hurt my little Dinky! Please!"
The crystal blade turned toward Dinky as she screamed and begged for mercy. The saw-like blade began to buzz as it slowly inched to ward the terrified unicorn's head. The blade made contact almost exactly where Dinky's jawbone met the rest of her skull. Blood splattered as the saw cut through the helpless filly mercilessly.
Fluttershy screamed in horror as the top portion of Dinky's head fell to the ground. Sombra stepped back and laughed manically at Fluttershy's misery. The other two fillies went completely silent. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle couldn't comprehend how anypony could be so merciless and cruel. The fact that he was the same species as them sent a chill down their spines.
Sombra looked at Sweetie Belle eagerly. His laugh echoing as he raised a mechanical hoof to her horn. "You... You, I have plans for... But the earth pony is dead weight..."
Fluttershy closed her eyes as she heard Sweetie Belle scream, followed by Apple Bloom. The buttery pegasus, opened her eyes and screamed once again. Sombra had ripped Sweetie Belle's horn off and impaled Apple Bloom with it. Sweetie was alive, but unconscious. Apple Bloom gasped for air as she felt her life flash before her eyes, before letting out one final gurgle of pain. 
Fluttetshy tried to close her eyes again, but her crystal restraints once again branched. This time crawling under her eyelids and forcing them open. "Now what are we going to do with you, miss Fluttershy?" Sombra asked.
A crystal spike materialized just above Fluttershy's head. The point only a hair's breadth from her eye. "NO! PLEASE!" She pleaded. 
The spike fell down into the mare's eye as she screamed horrifically. It slowly began twisting and digging deeper as it drilled into Fluttershy's optical nerve. Every second was a thousand years in Tartarus for the poor mare. She could feel the crystal spike getting closer and closer to her skull as her eye became an almost soup-like liquid.
Sombra rested the tip of the instrument against Fluttershy's skull. He leaned into the mare's ear and whispered softly, "All this can be avoided, my dear. All you have to do is let her in..."
Fluttershy's eyes popped open. Sombra was gone and so were all the animatronics. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Dinky were all alive. Dinky was asleep in Fluttershy's fetlocks while the rest huddled in the corner of the office, seemingly terrified of something. The door was still intact. No trace of what had happened remained.
Was it a dream? Fluttershy asked her self. No... It couldn't have been... Dreams don't... Hurt.
Fluttershy looked to the huddle mass of fillies in the corner of room. They all seemed to be chanting something along the lines of "Zombies aren't real" over and over again. The yellow mare turned to the window and nearly fell down again.
"Please? Won't you let me in?"
Red June was staring into the room, knocking on the door in a way that would have been endearing had she not been missing a good chunk of her brain.
"No! It can't be! You're supposed to be dead!" Fluttershy screamed, not disturbing Dinky's slumber in the least.
The undead filly stared at the mare through the window. "Mister Thunderlane said you were supposed to be nice... Please let me in..."
Fluttershy's eyes widened in horror. "You... You can't be real... You're just one of Sombra's illusions! Yes! That's it! Just an illusion!" She said, trying justify the horrific image to herself.
"Let... me... IN!" Red June yelled. Her coat began to turn black. Red bands appeared around her legs and her face, including the gaping hole, was covered by a white mask with purple streaks running from the eyes, like tears.
"LET ME IN! LET ME IN! LET ME IN OR SO HELP ME, EVERYPONY IS THIS BUILDING WILL DIE STARING AT THEIR OWN LUNGS AS I RIP THEM FROM THEIR CHESTS!"
Fluttershy backed away clutching Dinky close to her chest, praying to Celestia that the poor filly wouldn't wake up and have to see this.
The transformed Red June began screaming like a banshee. As scary as she was, she seemed to follow the same limitations as the animatronics. She did nothing but wail loudly and scream. After about two minutes of screaming, Red June left with a frustrated screech. Unbeknownst to the inhabitants of the room, a cryptic message appeared on the other side of the door. It read "20/20/20/20".
"Um... Fluttershy..." Sweetie Belle said.
Fluttershy turned to the filly, "Hmm?"
"Your nose... It's bleeding..." Sweetie explained.
The buttery pegasus pressed a hoof to her nose. Sure enough, a pool of crimson was found when she pulled the hoof back. Fluttershy gasped and went for the box of tissues on the desk. She took out a pair, wadded them up and pressed them into her nostrils.
Fluttershy felt Dinky stir in her grasp. The little filly let out a cute yawn and stared at the yellow mare. "Mommy..." Her eyes began to water and she let out a soft whimper.
"Dinky?" Fluttershy said tentatively, "What's wrong?"
"I... I saw daddy..." The little filly explained. "I... I-I miss him..."
The filly's adopted second mother asked, "...Dinky... Do you want to talk about it?"
Dinky nodded. "We were on a train playing that game we used to play where we stare at each other and wait to see who blinks first. I heard a loud boom, everything went all wibbly and wobbly and then Daddy disappeared." The filly was controlling her emotions relatively well. She did nothing more than let a few tears and whimpers out as Fluttershy clutched her tightly. "I-I didn't want him to go..."
"I'm sure he didn't want to go either, Dinky. I can't imagine what it was like for you, but the only thing we can do is remember your daddy and all the good times we had", Fluttershy said as she comforted the sniveling filly.
Fluttershy could feel the bleeding stop as she pulled out the tissues from her nose and toss them into a garbage bin in the corner of the room.
Suddenly, Twilight's voice came through the room, sounding extremely enthusiastic. "Sweetie Belle! Sweetie Belle! Are you there?"
"Twilight, what's up?" Scootaloo asked.
"Oh thank Celestia you five are still alright! Listen. We think we should be able to get you guys out of there by tomorrow morning!" The alicorn screamed.
The tension in the room lifted a little bit. Everypony in the room thought the same thing. They were so close to being free, all they had to do was survive one more night in this messed up Tartarus-pit. Even if it was twenty four hours more than what they would have preferred, they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Yeehaw! Thanks Twilight!" Apple Bloom yelled.
"Um... Twilight... If it's not to much trouble... could you get Discord? I want to talk to him..." Fluttershy asked nervously.
"Um... Sure, I guess... Give me a second." 
The room went silent before a familiar voice filled the room. "Draconequus household. Discord Speaking."
"Discord... I wanted to ask you something..." Fluttershy began.
The draconequus chuckled mischievously, but in a light hearted and joking way. "Oh Fluttershy. Is now really the time to be confessing your affection towards me?"
Fluttershy's ears twitched in annoyance. "Listen, Discord. You're really powerful, right?"
"I should hope so, considering I'm the embodiment of chaos and disharmony."
"And you can do a lot of things right?" Fluttershy asked.
"... Fluttershy... I don''t like where you're going with this..." Discord said. His joking tone gone.
"Just... Please. Answer the question..."
Discord sighed. "Yes. I am a draconequus of many talents".
"Would one of those happen to be... bringing back dead ponies?"
"Fluttershy, we're it any other pony asking me this, I would have only selfish reasons to say no. Celestia would tan my hide for using necromancy and everypony in Equestria would be chasing me down begging me to bring back some loved one. But you Fluttershy... You should know that if I brought back anypony, only their body would come back. They would retain as much personality as a corpse, with no memory of who they once were. I create chaos, not life,"  Discord explained solemnly.
Fluttershy nodded as she fought back tears. He's gone forever... Thunderlane... She thought to herself. "Thank you anyway, Discord".
The draconequus merely grunted apologetically before leaving the five ponies in eerie silence.
Hours passed. Nopony felt the need to check the camera during the day anymore. It would just raise anxiety, and nopony wanted to be the one to discover another casualty.
Fluttershy felt her mind wander before it stopped at one topic that had been nagging her since last night. "Dinky?" She asked quietly. "Why haven't you been eating?"
"Not hungry..." Dinky answered bluntly.
Understandable. After all they had been through, Fluttershy didn't have much of an appetite herself, but they still needed to eat. "Dinky, could you eat some gummy bears? Please? For mommy?"
Dinky looked at her food pot then back to Fluttershy. She sighed and said, "Okay mommy...." She reached into her pot and ate a good portion of the contents before stopping. Fluttershy scooped up the little filly and nuzzled her gently with her chin.
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle had been relatively quiet. Fluttershy was amazed that they could sit still for so long. They weren't playing their games or reading the manga. They just sat in silence, practically unmoving.
Eventually Scootaloo broke the silence. "Sweetie Belle... About what happened last night..."
Sweetie Belle turned to her friend with an understanding smile on her face. "I know. I know. It was just a 'Heat-of-the-moment' thing. No harm done", She said.
"Um... Actually.." Scootaloo began. "I wanted to say that... In a couple years, when I know who I am a bit better, and if this thing between you and Button doesn't work... You know where to find me..."
Thee alabaster unicorn blushed. "You... You mean it?" She asked nervously.
Scootaloo nodded. "I can't make any gaurentees but I'd be willing to give it a try, Sweetie".
The tender moment was brought to a halt as Fluttershy screamed in agony. She nearly dropped Dinky on her head as she stumbled backwards, clutching her eye. Blood dripped from the mare's nose as she writhed in pain.
"Mommy!" Dinky screamed.
Fluttershy tried to steady herself as she felt the rushes of pain come over and over again. "Make it stop!" She screamed through the pain. Blood pooled from her nose as Fluttershy reached for the tissue box.
"Fluttershy! What's wrong?" Apple Bloom asked frantically.
"It... It h-hurts..."
Dinky clutched the writhing mare tightly as she tried to stop her from screaming. "Please mommy! It's okay! You don't need to scream!"
Fluttershy felt the pain begin to subside as she placed the tissues in her nose to stop the bleeding. She fell to her hooves and began gasping for air as she trembled.
"What was that?" Scootaloo screamed as Fluttershy continued heaving.
The mare looked upwards to find Dinky pressing up against her. "It... It felt like somepony was sticking hot metal into my eye..."
"Sombra!" Sweetie shouted. "He's messing with us, just like with Red June. He's trying to confuse us."
Everypony stared at the ground, a feeling of dread spread through the room as the ponies thought on just how powerful Sombra is.
"Ugh! We shouldn't just be sitting here with our hooves up our noses! We should be outside, living our lives as normal!" Scootaloo yelled. "But here we are. Trapped like starving timberwolves!"
"At least starving timberwolves die free..." Apple Bloom said under her breath.
Fluttershy clutched Dinky as she tried to keep the little filly calm, uttering kind words in her ear. The Cutie Mark Crusaders began reading their manga and playing their games once again as the tension died down.
Time passed until the dreaded midnight hour arrived.


End of Day Five