• Published 15th Mar 2017
  • 854 Views, 22 Comments

Spiritus ex Machina - wonderkid125



After experiencing so much stress in such a short amount of time, Twilight and her friends, both old and new, need a break. However, as they take an all expense paid trip to a water park, they soon learn that not everything is as easy as it seems.

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Chapter 12: What Lurks Beneath?

-A few minutes earlier-

Applejack, Rarity, and Silver Bell made their way through the forgotten hallways of the sub-basement. Their dust ridden surroundings and the pervasive darkness around them combined to create a rather unpleasant and eerie atmosphere. However much they didn’t want to go forward, it was the only path open to them. With the possessed animatronic guarding the stairs long behind them, they had to find another way to get back to their friends.

Rarity, in particular, seemed to be averse to progressing in this horrid mess of a place. Aside from how stale and thick the air felt, which would have been a nightmare for her mane in its own right, everywhere she looked was either covered in dust or some form of disgusting ancient cobweb that had accumulated dust and grime until it became what one could loosely describe as “icky”.

“Eww…” Rarity shuddered slightly as she accidentally brushed against a low hanging cobweb. After frantically brushing it out of her hair, she was mortified as she realized that it was now stuck to her hoof.

Applejack looked back as one of the only sources of light in the area paused and started moving around in an odd, erratic fashion. She was greeted with the sight of her friend trying to desperately fling something off of her hoof to no avail. “You… ok there, Rarity?” She asked with an unsure raise of the eyebrow as she and the cream mare beside her stopped to look at the unicorn, who had finally managed to rid her hoof of the foreign substance plaguing it.

“No, Applejack. If you must know, I am far from ok here. This place is going to make me sick if I stay any longer! Are you sure we can’t just turn around and head back upstairs?” Rarity asked with a pleading expression while softening her voice up a bit.

“And risk runnin’ into Chica again? Sorry Rar, but I’m not doing that. We were lucky she didn’t follow us down here the first time. I’m not gonna tempt fate by danglin’ myself in front of a five-foot-tall haunted hunk’a metal.” Applejack shook her head in refusal to the unicorn’s ludicrous suggestion.

Rarity sighed as she saw the reasoning behind the orange mare’s refusal. “Ugh… fine, but I don’t have to like it if we’re staying in this dreadful place. We better find a way back up soon or I am convinced that the filth on the walls is going to evolve and try to eat us.” She stated while walking between the two ponies watching her with her nose turned up. Applejack and Silver Bell couldn’t help but crack a smile and hide a snort as the unicorn walked into yet another cobweb.

After another short walk, the trio came out into an intersection of sorts. Judging from their surroundings, they recognized the place. Earlier they had found a fork in the hall just before an opened up area and another corridor. The first hallway must have looped around and led them back to the opening they saw.

Taking a look to the open area at the end of the hall, the ponies laid eyes on a large bookshelf that was sitting beside another corridor in the center of the wall. Something had seemingly pushed the shelf aside judging from its odd angle.

“There’s that bookshelf again. We must’a gone in a circle.” Applejack shrugged at the lack of progress she and her friends were making.

“But we’ve searched everywhere else, and there wasn’t a staircase or anything.” Silver Bell chimed in with an audibly disappointed tone in her voice.

Rarity looked to the hallway next to the bookshelf curiously. “Why don’t we just go down that hallway?” She suggested, pointing to the hall with her hoof.

Silver Bell seemed discomforted by the mere mention of going down the new corridor. “I don’t know guys… Berry said that nobody should go down there. Her father told her that the floor is unstable.” Silver said in a concerned tone while offering her companions a hesitant expression.

“Well… we’ve been everywhere else.” Applejack said with a shrug. She walked up to the dark hallway and sized it up, contemplating whether or not to press forward. Rarity and Silver Bell stayed behind the orange mare as she waited at the opening. Suddenly, Applejack took a few cautious steps forward.

“Wait! You can’t just walk in there… what if the floor caves in?!” Silver Bell asked nervously while reaching out to the orange mare.

Applejack glanced back to the two mares with steely resolve in her eyes. “If you have any better ideas, we’re open for suggestions. You two can stay out here if you want, but I’m goin’ ahead.” She said in a confident tone while walking ahead at a slow pace to be on the safe side. She made it a few steps into the hallway before realizing that her bubble of light had run out.

The orange mare looked back and saw that the two unicorns were staying firmly cemented in place. She looked back to the inky black void in front of her before realizing that she wasn’t doing anything without her friends with her, at least not if she wanted to see where she was going. “Ok… maybe I should rephrase that. Could you two please come with me?” Applejack sighed in a dejected manner as she realized that she couldn’t very well do things on her own.

The white unicorn contemplated things for a moment before realizing that she would be better off following the orange mare. “Alright, we’ll come with you… right Silver?” Rarity said while looking to Silver Bell with a pleading expression. The cream pony seemed hesitant to agree, but she didn’t exactly want to stay by herself either.

“*Sigh*… ok, ok.” Silver finally admitted defeat and started following her two companions.

“Just stay apart and watch your footin’. We should be fine.” Applejack said in a reassuring manner.

The three mares slowly made their way down the hallway. Every step they took, they hesitated slightly to see if the floor could support their weight. They also had to worry about where they were actually going. The dark void in front of them seemed never-ending, but they could only wonder as to how much longer they could keep wandering.

After a few more minutes of walking through the same hallway and finding nothing noteworthy in the surrounding rooms, an opening appeared up ahead that led into a bigger area. The first thing that caught the trio's attention was what looked like a decrepit version of bonnie lying on the floor a little to the left of the opening to the hallway.

“Yikes…” Applejack muttered in a surprised tone while looking at the motionless animatronic.

“This must be that old animatronic that Tom mentioned.” Rarity said while thinking back to when the human healed Sweetie Belle up in their room. He mentioned that he had fought with an animatronic down in the sub-basement, and it was easy to see now why he looked so disheveled.

Bonnie’s entire body looked withered and broken down, but there was some damage that looked like it had been inflicted by a person rather than the ravages of time. The animatronic’s face, in particular, looked like it had been caved in by some blunt force trauma, leaving much of the interior machinery damaged beyond recognition.

Applejack slowly walked up to the motionless rabbit and hesitantly poked its leg with her hoof. She reeled back defensively and waited for the animatronic to move.

“Is it… alive?” Silver Bell asked while peering past her two companions and staring at bonnie warily. She was out of her element when it came to dealing with ghosts, so she had no idea if the animatronic was possessed or not.

Applejack cautiously poked the animatronic a few more times before hanging back and observing it. After a few more moments of the rabbit remaining motionless, she turned to her friends. “I don't think so. Tom apparently already beat the hay out of it when he came down here.” She said with a hopeful expression. Still, she made a mental note to keep a close eye on the robotic animal.

Now that they were at least somewhat sure that they were safe, the three mares turned their attention to the second thing they noticed upon stepping into the enlarged area. There was another large opening set into the middle of the wall ahead of them, though this opening didn't lead into another room or a hallway.

What appeared to be another set of double wide stairs leading down sat before them. There wasn’t really a stairwell or even a door to speak of. It was just a large opening with a lengthy set of carpeted steps leading down to a landing before doubling back. If it weren’t for the faded carpet and the odd smell accompanying it, the area would have looked somewhat fancy.

“Looks like these go further down… is there even a further down? Where do these go?” Applejack asked while looking down the steps with a pensive expression of confusion on her face.

“According to Berry’s father, there should be a cave in down there that blocks off the area just off the stairs.” Silver Bell chimed in while looking down the steps curiously.

“I don’t know about that…” Rarity said. “If there was a cave in down there, shouldn’t there be at least some sign of it up here? I mean, the floors aren’t even unstable.” She noted while shifting her weight onto one spot to test the ground beneath her. Although it looked like the years hadn’t been kind to this area of the resort, the floor wasn’t exactly crumbling.

“Well… we’ve come this far. We might as well see what’s down there.” Applejack suggested in a resolute tone. The two unicorns looked at each other for a moment before shrugging and coming to the same conclusion as their orange companion. There was nowhere else to go but down.

Deciding to take the lead, Rarity hesitantly started walking down the steps. The stairs creaked slightly beneath her, eliciting a mild feeling of concern as she continued toward the first landing. With her small band of troops following closely behind, she stepped around the landing and started to walk down the next flight. As she looked up from her feet to see what she was actually walking towards, she paused suddenly and stared ahead with an astonished expression.

The white mare had expected to maybe find another hallway at the bottom of the steps. It was a safe assumption, as the cramped stairway leading into the floor above opened into a hallway. At the very broadest end of her expectations, she thought that maybe she would find a small room blocked off with rubble and some ghosts waiting to yell boo at her. However, what she actually found was enough to stun her and her friends into silence.

The walls to the sides of the three mares opened up into a vast room with a relatively high up ceiling. The air was much colder, almost to the point where it felt like a totally different place than upstairs. The stale and dusty feel to the air was replaced with something a bit mustier. There was mostly darkness waiting in front of the group, but they could see a red tinted carpet on the floor with what appeared to be a faded spiral pattern.

As the ponies looked around to marvel at the sheer size of the opening, they realized why the staircase was so long given that it only had two flights. They took a solid moment to stop gawking in surprise before one of them decided to take the first step into the room.

“Good heavens… this place is massive. It looks like the entrance to an entire building.” Rarity stated while slowly walking forward and gazing up at the raised ceiling. The room wasn’t really any bigger than a room in the resort upstairs, but when compared to the cramped rooms that littered the sub-basement, it might as well have been made for giants.

While Silver Bell remained close to Applejack, perhaps from feeling vulnerable in her strange new surroundings, Rarity decided to walk forward. There were many dark silhouettes outside of her light’s reach, and she wanted to get a better understanding of where she was.

There were a few couches and chairs nestled into the corner off to the right that had a thick layer of dust on them, and there was a table in the center that had what seemed to be an old hard hat and a tipped over coffee mug on top of it.

Up ahead toward the back of the room, there was a large desk that enclosed an area for someone to stand behind. There was also a door behind the desk that looked like it led into another small room. All in all, it looked a lot like the front desk to a hotel or resort, not unlike the one upstairs.

“What is this place?” Rarity muttered out loud in a stunned tone of amazement. Everywhere she looked led her to believe that she was standing in the lobby of a hotel, but she was deep underground by this point.

“Looks like Berry’s granddad wanted to move the resort down here… or at least make an extension to it. Check this out.” Applejack said while pointing out a small frame on the wall behind the desk. She moved around the desk to an opening toward the back and walked up to the frame.

Inside of the frame was what appeared to be a map of sorts, although it was hard to tell. There was a thick layer of dust accumulated on the surface of the laminated paper. Applejack reached up and wiped away most of the dust before brushing it off of herself. The map was much larger than they expected this area to be, with numerous hallways and blocks of what must have been at least a dozen hotel suites and other rooms.

“Hmm… we’re obviously in the lobby. That must put us… here.” Rarity said while pointing out a small ‘you are here’ marker in a more open looking room. She and the others briefly scanned their eyes around the map and wondered as to how all of this stuff was built.

“Wait… look at this.” Silver Bell stated eagerly while pointing to a spot on the bottom left corner of the map. Rarity and Applejack noticed some text toward the end of one of the hallways that seemed to go nowhere. The words ‘service entrance’ were posted with a small arrow pointing to the end of the hall.

“Service entrance…?” Applejack muttered while raising her eyebrow curiously.

“Of course… it wouldn’t make sense for there to only be one small entrance to this place down a flight of steps. They must have made a route leading to the surface to transport the heavier equipment and materials they would need when constructing this place.” Rarity exclaimed in revelation while letting an excited smile creep across her face.

“So that means there is a way out? We can get back to the others?” Silver Bell asked with careful optimism.

Applejack nodded with an eager smirk. “It’s our best bet for now.” She said confidently. Now that they had a plan, the three mares returned to studying the map to find a way to the service entrance from where they were.

“Ok… it looks like there’s a hallway that goes past a few party rooms for kids. If there aren’t any obstructions, it should take us right to the entrance.” Rarity traced a path on the map in her mind that seemed to be the shortest route possible. The last thing she wanted was to spend a long time in this place.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s hurry up and get out of here.” Applejack stated eagerly while motioning for the others to follow her. The new development on their situation had certainly lifted their spirits, so they understood why the orange mare was so excited about getting out of the basement.

With a clear goal to push them forward, the trio headed toward one of the openings that led out of the room. The doorway revealed a hallway that seemed almost claustrophobic in comparison to the wide open lobby. There was a fork in the hall that left three options for the ponies to choose from, with a path going straight and another hallway cutting through to form an intersection. Since the service entrance was a fair distance away, the group headed down the straight path.

The carpet in the hallways was much thinner than anywhere else they had come across. The three mares barely had any padding to prevent their footsteps from ringing out and echoing slightly around them. The eerie silence only served to further remind the ponies of where they were. No living creature had been in this place for many years, and it looked and felt like it. The group felt hesitant about stepping any further, but they had to if they were going to escape and help their friends.

After a few more intersections passed by, Rarity turned down what she remembered to be the right hallway. If the map back in the lobby was accurate, then the service entrance should have been further down the hall to the left. As she and her two companions rounded the corner, however, they paused suddenly as they noticed something ahead of them.

The three mares had stumbled upon yet another animatronic. This one resembled a deer and was quadrupedal. However, it was in terrible shape. It was lying on its side a few feet away, but even from where they were standing the ponies could see a lot of structural damage. The brown and white exterior shell of the animal was scratched up and yellowed, with several holes exposing the endoskeleton underneath. One of its hooves was missing, with the endoskeleton foot underneath missing as well. One of its ears was snapped at the base, and its tail had the tip broken off, removing any illusion that it was furry or soft.

“Oh, my…” Rarity muttered in a disquieted tone while looking at the motionless animatronic. Judging from the lack of antlers and the pink eyes and cheeks, she could estimate that the deer was a female, but it certainly didn’t look cute or innocent.

“Another animatronic? I didn’t think Berry’s grandfather made any more than Bonnie and the others.” Silver Bell said while examining the animatronic from afar with a confused expression.

“Well, apparently he did…” Applejack shrugged before taking a moment to eye the withered doe suspiciously. “What if it’s alive?” She asked uneasily.

“W-what?” Silver Bell stammered slightly in a nervous tone while turning to look at the orange mare and her friend. The question was simple and obvious enough, but now that they were thinking about it, the three ponies suddenly felt very uneasy from where they were standing.

“I’m not sure if we should just jump to such hasty conclusions Applejack.” Rarity said in what she hoped to be a confident tone. Despite her best attempts to wave off the orange mare’s concerns, she couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge of unease as she stared at the robotic animal ahead.

“Think about it for a minute, guys. Tom and the others said that they were havin’ trouble findin’ the ghosts upstairs. What if all of the ghosts were hidin’ down here or something? This is where they were supposed to come from.” Applejack reasoned while making sure to keep the animatronic in her peripheral vision at all times while leveling with her two companions.

“But… there weren’t any signs of a cave in like there was supposed to be. This place looks perfectly fine aside from the neglect… why would the ghosts come from here in the first place?” Silver asked in an audibly unsettled tone. It was clear to see that she was starting to freak out about the possibility that not only was there another possibly possessed animatronic in front of her, but there was also a strong possibility that there were more ghosts and more animatronics for her to worry about.

“I don’t know, but there are obviously ghosts here. If these things can just hop into those critters and wake them up at any time, then we might be lookin’ at a real problem here girls.” Applejack explained while trying to prevent herself from freaking out. If they were going to survive, they had to be smart and not let their fear rule over their decisions.

“You’re right… we can’t risk going near those things. We barely got away from Chica upstairs.” Rarity said while shrugging uneasily. She looked around for a brief moment while trying to ascertain how they were going to reach the service entrance now. Their new friend was currently lying in the center of the hallway they needed to take in order to reach the supposed exit to this place.

“Hey… maybe we could cut through there to get around that animatronic?” Silver Bell piped up while pointing to a doorway set into the wall to their side. Applejack and Rarity both looked to where their cream friend was pointing, only to find an opening into another room just to their side.

The opening lacked a doorway, but it had colorful moldings on the door and a few streamers and decorations in view that were just barely hanging down from the inside. Taking another look around, they noticed around three more similar open doorways on either side of the hall, along with what looked like an actual door a few feet past the dormant animatronic.

“Hmm… wait, that might actually work.” Rarity said. “I think I remember seeing this area on the map, and I’m pretty certain that these are the party rooms for kids. Most of them looked like dead ends, but one of them was larger and led into a kitchen. If that door down there is the kitchen, then maybe we can sneak past that thing through here?” She suggested in a hopeful tone while motioning toward the opening on the right. The other two mares smiled softly as they both agreed to their new plan of action.

“Sounds good to me.” Applejack nodded while walking over to the doorway and stepping through. “Stick close guys… It’s dark as hay down here.” She stated while noting the absence of light around her. The two unicorns made sure to stay right on their friend’s tail as she entered the party room.

Taking their first few steps inside, the ponies looked around the room and tried to make out their surroundings despite the hazy shadows and pitch blackness outside of their bubble of light. The party room certainly lived up to its name. There were long tables covered in patterned cloths that had rows of colorful party hats set up near the chairs. The walls had a border of green and blue checkers running along the lower section of them, with the upper section plastered liberally with a confetti pattern. However, the amount of time the room had sat for was also showing through. The checkered tile flooring had a lot of dirt strewn along it, and a few of the streamers had unclipped from the ceiling at one end, leaving them dangling down on their respective wall. There were also a few black stains on the wall that looked puzzling, yet also utterly disgusting.

Silver Bell looked around with an astonished expression. “Whoa… I thought this place was unfurnished? It looks like they had it ready for parties before they stopped working on the place.”

“Hmm…” Rarity muttered to herself in an intrigued tone while looking at one of the streamers on the far wall. “Happy birthday Tropical Swirl?” She raised an eyebrow while reading the faded letters on the streamer. Once they heard mention of Berry’s father, Applejack and Silver Bell turned to see what the white mare was looking at.

Sure enough, there was a streamer along the ceiling that was made up of letters that spelled out a birthday greeting to Tropical Swirl. There were also a few deflated balloons lying on the floor near the banner.

“Now that I think about it… Berry’s grandfather abandoned this place around the time of her dad’s birthday. Maybe he was planning on throwing a party for him down here?” Silver Bell suggested curiously.

“Possibly… it would certainly explain why this place looks like it was ready for guests.” Rarity nodded in agreement with the cream unicorn before trailing off in her own thoughts. “Now then, where is that kitchen?” She asked nobody in particular while scanning her eyes around. She could see that the second opening that was on this side of the hallway led into this room as well, but she couldn’t see the kitchen.

To their rear was just a wall with more streamers and stains on it. Taking a few steps forward and letting her light reach more of the room, Rarity noticed another wall, but this one was more promising. There was the silhouette of a door off to the right, and there was a large opening into what looked like a kitchen area, most likely how the food was brought out to the customers.

“Aha! There it is!” Rarity exclaimed cheerfully. Applejack and Silver Bell looked ahead to see their friend pointing at what she had found with a triumphant smirk. The sight of the kitchen and the thought of getting closer to returning to the surface made them smile in excitement.

“Good job Rarity. We can find a way around through there.” Applejack said in a pleased tone. The white unicorn couldn’t help but revel in her discovery. But before the trio could even start to approach the kitchen, something made them pause.

“Does anyone else hear that?” Silver Bell asked while tilting her head slightly and trying to focus. Rarity and Applejack perked their ears up and listened intently, and they soon realized what their cream friend was referring to.

There was a low sound making its presence known above the eerie silence in the room. From listening to it for a few moments and straining their hearing to make it out, the ponies surmised the sound to be some sort of radio static. The sound was getting slightly louder as if it was moving, but it wasn’t getting any noticeably easier to pinpoint its location. Still, it sounded like something was coming through the static and being garbled into a distorted mess, like a signal being lost due to interference.

The three ponies listened to the odd sound and looked around with mild feelings of apprehension as they tried to find where the noise was coming from. The implication of why a foreign noise was being created down in an abandoned building was troubling enough, but the faint sounds of some kind of voice and other disturbing noises being jumbled up in the static made the hair on the back of their necks stand on end.

“What in the world…?” Rarity muttered with a confused expression while trying to find out what could have possibly been making the noise she was hearing and where it was.

“Sounds like it’s… over here? No… now it’s over there.” Applejack walked around and tried pinpointing the noise, but every time she thought she had it narrowed down it seemed to move slightly. Wherever it was, it sounded a little bit like it was above them.

Before their curiosity or nervousness could reach a peak, the noise faded and vanished completely. The sudden return of silence to the room and their unanswered questions hung in the air and troubled them to no end.

“What was that?” Silver Bell asked hesitantly. Judging from her expression and how close she was hovering near her two companions, the odd sound must have freaked the cream mare out a considerable amount, and her new friends couldn’t blame her.

“I don’t know…” Rarity said while looking down in thought. When she looked up, she realized that her brief statement hadn’t exactly comforted the timid unicorn. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now, Silver. Come on, let’s get out of here.” She added in a more reassuring tone while gently taking hold of the cream mare’s foreleg. While the two unicorns slowly made their way toward the doorway leading into the kitchen, Applejack followed close behind and kept her eyes and ears peeled just in case the strange noise returned.

The walk across the room was much shorter than the three mares would have liked, and before long they were standing in front of the door. After hearing the static come out of nowhere and disappear just as fast, they were incredibly tense as they peered into the window and checked over the counter to their left. Even though they could see where they were going, the kitchen somehow felt a lot eerier than it once did. Despite their apprehensions, the ponies opened the door and stepped inside.

As the door swung closed behind them, the trio took a quick look around at their new surroundings. The kitchen was fairly small, especially considering that it had to serve such a large area. Despite its size, it looked standard as far as kitchens went.

There was a central area that had numerous rusted pans and skillets hanging down from the ceiling. Some of the pots had fallen down over the years and now lay scattered along the floor waiting to trip someone who wasn’t paying attention. Beneath the many pans and along the walls were several stovetops and various other cooking amenities. Toward the back of the room, there was even an oven that looked like it was designed for pizzas. Cupboard doors were left hanging open in some places, revealing even more miscellaneous culinary items that had been forgotten. The entire place smelled foul as if some food had been stored somewhere nearby and left to rot. Judging from the horrid stains and stomach churning liquids that adorned some of the sinks and containers, the three mares didn’t want to go searching for any particular cause to the smells now flooding their nostrils.

“Ulgh... I think I’m going to be sick.” Rarity groaned while covering her mouth with her hoof and trying not to look at some brownish liquid congealing at the bottom of one of the sinks.

“Ok… I think I’ll agree with you on this one Rarity. We should get out of here before we pass out.” Applejack said in a strained tone. Although she wasn’t covering her mouth like her two companions, she was having a hard time adjusting to the musty air around her.

With their stomachs reminding them to hurry things up, the three ponies searched around for a door. It didn’t take them long to converge eyes on a single door at the back of the room that looked like it would lead them back out into the hallway. Without even hesitating or confirming with each other, everyone made a cautious break for the door, slowing down their pace enough to avoid touching anything unsavory, which amounted to every single item in the room. Rarity grabbed the door handle with her magic and swung it open. She rushed out into the hallway and took a big breath of relatively fresh air. The stale and sickening air out in the halls was far from clean or appealing, but compared to the thick fog bank of filth and horror that she just walked out of, the white mare felt like she was in the great outdoors breathing in air straight from the source.

Once she was done hyperventilating and trying to get the horrible smell out of her nose, the white unicorn turned and closed the door before looking to her friends. As she remembered what she was doing, her thoughts immediately turned to the service entrance, and then the hallway in front of her. Taking a brief glance behind them to make sure the deer animatronic was still where it was supposed to be, the ponies marched onward toward freedom.

As they kept walking, the trio noticed that the floor seemed to be sloping upwards slightly. Wherever they were going, they must have been getting close to the service entrance. All they wondered was where they would come out once they reached the surface.

“So, Silver… where do you think this entrance will take us?” Applejack asked curiously while turning to the cream mare.

Silver thought for a moment before answering. “Well… There are some buildings left on the property from around the time Berry’s grandfather first built the resort. Most of them are rundown, and we typically left them alone. It’s possible that this place leads up into one of them. Some part of this place must reach the surface… just look at those vents.” She explained while pointing up to the ceiling. The other two mares looked up and to the sides of the hallway and suddenly noticed that they were passing by air vents. Every once in a while they would pass by a symmetrical pair of vents with coverings on either side of the hallway. Strangely enough, though, some of the vent coverings had fallen off.

“It would make sense. I’m sure that this place was supposed to have more than a few ways up to the surface after everything was built. If they added the stairway up into the resort upstairs later in the project, it would explain why those hallways weren’t as finished as the ones down here are.” Rarity reasoned while taking note of the many decorations passing by. Although they were decayed and sometimes even strewn along the floor, there were several paintings and potted plants dotted around the place. There even seemed to be a few signs for directing people around, though most of these were not so conveniently too hard to read.

Suddenly, a familiar sound started cutting through the air in the distance. Once their ears picked up on the noise, the three mares immediately recognized it to be the same radio static from before. They all froze and darted their eyes around nervously while trying to find the source of the sound.

“There’s that noise again.” Applejack said uneasily while perking her ears up and looking around.

The static sound crackled and the myriad of noises within sent shivers down the three ponies spines. Oddly enough, the sound seemed to be moving like before. In fact, it seemed to be getting louder and closer.

“W-what is that?” Silver Bell asked while backing closer to her two companions. The three mares looked down the hallway, then back where they came from, and then to the few closed doors dotted around them. No matter where they looked they couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Still, the noise got louder and louder, seemingly homing in on their location and getting closer. Soon enough, the noise grew so loud that it snuffed out any other sound.

“What could possibly be making that terrible racket?!” Rarity exclaimed anxiously while cringing and holding her ears. Her companions barely heard her over the unending static, not that she could even clearly make out her own words.

Although the sound was grating and plenty disturbing, it wasn’t quite loud enough to hurt their ears. They could even start to hear another noise over the static, albeit faintly. What sounded like hollow thuds started sounding out near them, but they couldn’t tell where or what was causing it. As the thuds got closer, the ponies realized that they sounded slightly metallic, and that thought sent them into a panic.

Suddenly, the thuds stopped and the static quieted down slightly. Despite the light reprieve on their ears, the ponies still couldn’t find where the static was coming from. It sounded like it was right on top of them, but there was nothing in sight.

Rarity backed up a few steps while looking down the hallway where she and her friends came from. Applejack and Silver Bell were still looking down that way as well, trying to find something to explain the terrible noise. The white mare stopped as she noticed she was getting a bit far away from the other two mares. Deciding to search the front area again, she turned around. What she saw next would probably haunt her nightmares for the next several years.

All at once, a flash of white and pink appeared in front of her as something dangled down from the ceiling above. It took her a solid second to process what was happening amid the initial jolt to her system, and as she stared in front of her with wide eyes, Rarity could make out a nose, glowing white eyes, and metallic teeth.

“AAAAHHHHH!!” Rarity screamed at the top of her lungs while catapulting backwards as fast as she could. She fell on her back and crawled away while still staring at the thing in front of her. Applejack and Silver Bell spun around in alarm as their friend cried out. They immediately noticed the white mare crawling towards them while staring ahead fearfully, and they immediately saw what had terrified her.

Hanging on the ceiling, there was some amalgamation of a cutesy animatronic fox and a little kid’s fever induced nightmares. The animatronic was tangled up in a mess of its own limbs and endoskeleton parts. The only parts that had the brightly colored animal shell on them were its face and a single hand and foot. The face was that of a white fox with a pink snout that had red lipstick haphazardly dotted in the center of it, but the rest of it was simply chaos. Its endoskeleton appeared bent and rearranged, with its limbs hanging at odd angles and several wires dangling down everywhere. Its endoskeleton head was separated from the fox mask, with one eye still on the small gray lump of a head and a set of stock teeth in its mouth. The fox mask had a more vicious looking set of teeth, and its jaw appeared broken and unhinged to boot. The single eye that was sitting in the fox mask was squarely looking at the three ponies, and the static in the air shifted to a more garbled sound that resembled some kind of messed up screech. The three mares could hardly comprehend how the animatronic was even moving, let alone hanging off the ceiling. The only word they could even come up with to describe the terrifying beast was a mangled monster.

“Sweet Celestia!” Applejack exclaimed in shock while jumping back slightly. She looked down to the white unicorn still on the ground and darted her attention back to the animatronic. The orange mare knew that there was only one course of action they had to take. They had to run for their lives.

The thing on the ceiling opened its mouth incredibly wide and swung its neck closer to the three ponies while letting out another garbled screech. Much to their horror, the animatronic started using its mismatched limbs and some of the other parts of its body to locomote forward along the ceiling in a jerky and uncoordinated manner. All three mares started screaming while scrambling to flee. Once Applejack managed to pick Rarity up from the floor, she and the two unicorns bolted back down the hallway as fast as they could.

None of them wanted to look back, but the clatter of metallic noises and the static sound growing louder made their spines tingle. Finally, Rarity found the courage to take a look behind her. Much to her shock, the animatronic fox was somehow keeping up with them despite its handicapped appearance. It was frantically unhooking its limbs from the ceiling or walls and using them to push itself forward so fast that it almost looked like it was effortlessly gliding along the ceiling toward them. All the while, a mighty racket of metallic thuds and clanks followed the fox as it raced to catch the fleeing ponies.

Before long, the trio could see the intersection they reached before coming up, and the inactive deer animatronic in the middle of the hallway. They didn’t even care whether or not the deer started coming to life because they were certain that the mangle of parts behind them was the greater of the evils between the two animatronics.

In their haste to jump over the fallen deer, Silver Bell tripped slightly on her way over. She didn’t even linger on the floor for an instant. With her heart pumping and her fear fueling her, she got back up and kept running without even missing a beat.

“Go left!” Rarity exclaimed while turning to look back at the animatronic. Applejack and Silver Bell looked back to see the white mare charging up her horn. Once she gathered enough energy, she fired off a bolt of energy toward the ceiling just in front of the animatronic.

Although the energy blast didn’t do much damage to the animatronic or even the ceiling, it exploded in front of the robotic animal and made it fall to the floor. The fox landed roughly, having barely had time to reorient itself to lighten the impact. Spotting a chance to get ahead of their pursuer, the three mares bolted around the left corner of the intersection.

Applejack and Silver Bell briefly wondered why the white mare had instructed them to go left, but they quickly found out. Just up ahead was another fork in the hallway leading to the right. If they could break line of sight with the animatronic for long enough, maybe they could duck into a room and hide.

With the sound of the animatronic stomping after them already in their ears, they used every ounce of energy they had to pick up the pace and round the next corner. The trio quickly spotted a series of rooms and ran up to the second door on the right.

Applejack was the first to reach the door. She grabbed the handle and silently prayed that it wasn’t locked or stuck. Thankfully, the handle turned in her shaky hooves and she threw the door open as quietly and quickly as equinely possible. Once her two friends had made it into the room with her, which just so happened to be a small supply closet, she closed the door and held it shut.

The sound of static and the metallic clanging of the animatronic’s movements grew closer and closer. Although the ponies expected the robotic beast to follow them, hearing it drawing nearer to them still sent them into a panic.

“Ssshh, put out your light!” Rarity whispered frantically while letting her horn blink out. Silver Bell felt terrified by now, but she did as instructed and let her horn die out. The small space they were in was pitch black now. They couldn’t even see each other or their own hooves in front of their faces. Still, the three mares huddled together to make sure that they didn’t feel alone and explode into a panic attack.

While Applejack held the door shut, the trio listened nervously as the sound of metal and static entered the hallway outside. Silver Bell had to clasp her hoof over her mouth just to prevent herself from making noise. The ponies could feel themselves shaking as they desperately hoped that the beast outside wouldn’t find them.

The footsteps slowed down as the animatronic neared their door. It was seemingly looking around for them, but it could have also been readying itself to barge into the door and eat them alive. Everyone held their breaths, fearful that the mechanical monster could hear them if they didn’t remain absolutely silent.

Entire seconds went by without any movement from the animatronic outside. Only the soft sounds of it shifting its contorted body around and the mind-numbing radio static remained in the air. The ponies tucked away in the small room felt like they were never going to leave the supply closet alive, but somehow they managed to contain their fear enough to remain deathly silent.

Finally, the sound of the creature presumably latching onto the ceiling sounded out. After a few moments, the animatronic started moving away back down the hallway from whence it came. The static grew less intense, and finally, it started to fade. Before long the three mares were left in utter silence.

Applejack and Silver Bell shielded their eyes slightly as Rarity returned light to the dark room. She was keeping the light relatively dim, but even then she felt hesitant about having it on. Still, she couldn’t bear the darkness anymore.

“Great job Rarity. We would be that thing’s chew toys if you didn’t distract it and help us lose it.” Applejack said in a relieved tone, still keeping her voice low as a precaution.

“What the hay was that thing? That was horrible!” Silver Bell stated while trying to calm her racing heart.

“I don’t know… but whatever it was I never want to see it again.” Rarity replied while also trying to catch her breath and calm down.

After waiting a few more moments to make sure that the animatronic monstrosity wasn’t going to come back and partially to gather up courage, Applejack slowly opened the door a crack. Rarity and Silver Bell tried to maneuver their heads to see out into the hallway, but the small opening wasn’t exactly big enough for all three of them. Finally, with a shared expression of anxiousness and hesitation, the three ponies opened the door and ventured out a few careful steps from their safe haven.

Nothing jumped out and tried to eat their faces off within the first few seconds, but all the same, they felt frightened and exposed now that they knew what was wandering the halls with them. Still, they had to move forward if they were going to escape. And now escaping was even more important. Now they weren’t just trying to get upstairs to warn their friends, now they were trying to survive.

“Come on girls… we need to get to that entrance before that weird creepy-crawly thing comes back.” Applejack whispered in an urgent tone. The two unicorns nodded in agreement before following the orange mare as she cautiously walked down the hallway toward the direction of the service entrance.

Just before they made it to the end of the hall, Applejack paused and held her hoof out to indicate for the others to stop. After a brief moment of confusion, Rarity and Silver Bell realized what had spooked their orange friend. The soft sound of static was moving into earshot and quickly getting closer to them. Once the sound got close enough to warrant the ponies to assume that it was coming their way, they panicked.

Applejack turned tail and frantically flailed her foreleg to get the message across that they had to run, but it wasn’t exactly necessary. The others were having a mini panic attack themselves, so they got the gist that they had to run very quickly in the general direction of away from where they currently were. The three mares quietly rushed toward the other end of the hallway with a violent chill going up their spines. They wanted to outright bolt down the hallway, but they were afraid that they would never lose the animatronic fox again if it heard them and started giving chase. Their only hope was to make it around the next corner before the robotic creature saw them.

Once they reached it, the trio practically dove around the corner and put their backs against the wall. Rarity cut off her horn’s light before silently motioning for Silver Bell to do the same. After a second of hesitation, the cream mare gulped nervously and killed her light as well. The unwelcome return of the absolute darkness around them made them incredibly nervous, but they didn’t have any choice but to remain hidden and hope that whatever ghost inhabited the robotic fox couldn’t see in the dark.

Even though she couldn’t see anything, Rarity could feel the corner of the wall right next to her. She felt more small and vulnerable now than she ever had felt in her life, yet she still felt a morbidly curious desire to peek around the corner despite the fact that she wouldn’t be able to see anything.

The static sound grew slightly louder and the faint sounds of metallic clangs reached their ears. The ponies had to prevent themselves from whining fearfully due to the sheer stress of the situation. After a few tense moments of waiting, the static left again without even getting close enough to distinguish the rest of the creature’s unnatural noises.

All three mares let out the breath they were holding in unison as a wave of relief washed over them. Rarity dimly lit up her horn again before looking around the corner to be sure that the robotic fox wasn’t somehow sneaking up on them by turning off its static.

“That thing is still around here… is it looking for us?” Rarity asked while turning to her two companions with an uneasy expression.

“I don’t like this… I want to get out of here.” Silver Bell whined softly while trying to stem the amount of fear in her voice. Applejack and Rarity felt bad for their companion. The cream pony was desperately trying to remain composed, but she was far too fragile to be unaffected by such terrifying situations. She almost reminded them of Fluttershy. The sudden thought of their yellow pegasus friend made the two mares think about how she was faring upstairs.

“Don’t you worry none, sugarcube. We’re gettin’ out of here for sure. We just need to find a way to get to the service entrance without that ugly hunk’a junk findin’ us.” Applejack said in a reassuring manner. Silver Bell seemed to be comforted a little by the orange mare’s statement and the confident expression she was giving her.

“Still… that is quite the problem. For all we know, that thing could be guarding the entrance… like some messed up dragon guarding a castle.” Rarity added while shuddering slightly as she tried to avoid thinking about the white fox.

“I don’t know much about dragons, but I don’t think any dragon alive is that weird or scary.” Applejack replied uneasily. “I know it’s all broken and everythin’, but does it really need to crawl on the ceilin’ like that?” She shuddered while shaking the disturbing thoughts from her head.

“Ok, enough dawdling. We need to find a way past that thing.” Rarity paused and concentrated while trying to picture the floor map in her head. “Umm… I think there are a couple of other hallways that lead around the area where the service entrance is. If we can use one of them, maybe we can bypass that mangled up mess entirely.” She said in a hopeful tone.

“And what if it finds us again?” Silver Bell asked nervously. The sudden question immediately killed the triumphant mood that was just starting to fill the air and replaced it with the familiar unease and uncertainty that the trio had felt since arriving in this underground cornucopia of terror.

“Well Silver… I guess we’ll just run away again.” Rarity said earnestly while offering the cream mare a reassuring hoof on the shoulder. The uncertain expression on the white unicorn’s face wasn’t exactly as comforting as she wanted her statement to be.

With that, the two ponies hesitantly followed their white frontrunner as she led them forward through the hallways back toward the lobby. They hoped that her memory of the map was accurate and that she could get them to the service entrance with little issue. Somehow, though, they knew that they hadn’t seen the last of the terrifying metallic fox and that it wasn’t the last horrible thing they would find lurking in the abandoned corridors around them.