... So sad... So sad... This is an incredible grim masterpiece, everything is painted in such glorious detail! But that end scene... I'm interested to see where you take this, I hope it ends at least somewhat happy for all this gruesome horror that poor Fluttershy has to go through.

Awesome so far, and pretty dang terrifying. Marvelously atmospheric, too. [conjecture]What's additionally interesting is that all foreshadowing points to the mane six dying, but the words you choose leave the barest margin for the possibility that one or more are saveable. False hope, to be sure, but it's interesting to note.[/conjecture]

However, there's this one heavily tread criticism that you seem to have accepted a little too comfortably: The Royal Sisters deserve the slowest, most sarcastic applause the world has ever heard for having their ponies to face a death-worshiping dragon - short one Bearer! - while they sat around feeling guilty. The don't deserve to feel guilty; they deserve to feel accountable. I think you should make an edit or two to establish a strong reason for their lack of involvement.

Aside from that glaring flaw, there's another issue that I was prepared for that didn't actually rear up. Any plot that is constructed to involve "all" six ponies and exclude Spike by default almost always puts me in low spirits. Although that (the cast) is indeed the case here, the concept was too cool for me to ignore, and I found myself very content with how things went. The occasional nods to Twi's most dedicated companion near the beginning helped keep my optimism afloat.

I'm a-ready for the next step of Fluttershy's dark and tragic journey.

A masterpiece... But two things seem to need an explanation... Where is the dragon and where did the crystals come from?

On the topic of horror, why was Twilight covered in Crystals? And a better question: Was it really Twilight, or Fluttershy's fears manifesting into actual things because of the crystal?