Lightning Aurora had been working at the Rainbow Factory for two months now, completely unaware of what was going on in the upper floors of the building. Her job was fairly simple; she had to write ads for the paper according to what Lance Steel, her boss, told her. Usually the ads stated some technological advancements or something like that… She never paid attention to the ads; she just wrote what she was told to. She usually just fantasized about getting a promotion and moving to a higher floor while writing them.
Well, for now she would just do the best she could at the job that she has. This specific ad that she had to write read: "New beta weather control software. Beta subjects needed." She had no clue why they needed new weather controlling software when the software that they have now works perfectly! There was an update just a week ago.
Come to think of it, the subjects that go upstairs never come back down... All the more reason to get up there and figure out these mysteries! She heard the beep from her watch telling her that it was 8:00 pm. Time to go home to her large, yet lonely apartment.
She went out the doors and quickly flew up to peek through the glass windows into the second floor. There she saw Charming Crowndropper, whom she secretly liked. She just had to get promoted to the second floor! That's why she was working extra hard. That's the reason she so badly wants a promotion. Well… That and the money…
She started her journey home, to the Gohdahshleep Inn, and knowing it was time, she thought through how she would ask for a promotion.
"Yes? What do you want?" Lance asked.
"I want a promotion! I work hard, I work fast, and I've never gotten a complaint!" She pleaded.
"Yes… These things are true… Okay."
"Really? Cool!"
She imagined herself flying home, and going to bed. "Too Cheesy," She thought to herself. She drifted off to sleep and her dream was… unsettling, to say the least. She was in a large body of water that seemed to go on forever, and the sun was bigger than ever, but it was as dark as night. She could hear Lance talking, saying things like, "They must never know," And, "They'll do. Chain them up." The water started draining and she got sucked into the drain into a chair behind a desk. She tried to wake herself up when she realized it wasn't a dream. She had actually gotten a promotion. The details were all blurry though. She had no idea how she had ended up where she was, and something weird was definitely going on.
She was interrupted from her thoughts by Charming Crowndropper, "Hi!" Said Charming, "Our cubicles are right next to each other and I thought I'd say hello! I figured since we're going to be seeing a lot of each other we should get to know each other!"
Lightning sat at her desk, speechless.
"Well… Okay then! Bye!" Charming then turned and walked back to his cubicle.
She snapped out of her trance and decided to try to figure out what was going on by looking at the second floor computers and the files in them. She started looking into files of death cases. "Deaths?! What does that mean?!" She looked at one file labeled "2012 Death cases", but the file date was "11-4-2013", as if it had been tampered with. Confused, she decided to look to see if she could figure out what's going on. She walked passed all her co-workers into an empty hallway and turned to her immediate left to see a door that read: "Authorized Personnel Only."
She put her ear up to the door to hear what she could. She could faintly hear what sounded almost like screams coming from the other side of the door. "But that's not right… There shouldn't be screaming!" She thought to herself. She had to find out more. She snuck farther down the hallway and peeked around the corner to see two tall ponies with white lab coats on, using a keycard to open a sealed door, and she quickly ran and kept the door open just a little, not enough for the ponies on the other side to notice, then when she couldn't hear their hoofsteps anymore she opened the door and went in.
She stared in horror at earth ponies and unicorns being killed right before her eyes. They were chained to a conveyer belt leading into a large machine with long glass tubes coming out of the bottom. The ponies screamed all the way into the machine. Right after they entered the machine their screams got louder but muffled out by the loud grinding sound followed by a short moment of silence then colorful liquid dripping through the glass tubes though obviously not blood… at least, it wasn't blood colored…
Lightning backed up slowly until something blocked her path. Too terrified to turn around, she stood there and waited for-
"Stop! What are you doing back here?!"
Lightning turned around slowly only to be greeted by Lance Steel's snarling face in hers, "I… Uh…" She couldn't get any words out.
"I'll let you off with a warning… Don't tell anyone what you've seen, or else. Just forget you ever saw this."
She was escorted out of the room by two large ponies that dragged her out and threw her at the ground. She ran as fast as she could back to her cubicle watching back for the guards not looking where she was going. She ran into Charming and started talking through each gasping breath.
"Oh my gosh! Charming! You have to listen to me! They're taking ponies into a room with a big machine and-"
"Not one more word out of you miss Aurora!" Interrupted Lance from across the room.
But the words were already on her tongue, "And killing them then-"
"Seize that pony!" Lance yelled to his guards.
They did as they were told and, though she was fast, Lighting wasn't fast enough to outrun them. They caught up to her and injected something from a syringe into her neck. Moments later she passed out.
She woke up in a hospital on the ground, not in Cloudsdale, with no Charming, no map telling her where she was, no people in the town, and no wings. They… they had taken her wings…
