The Little Bakery of Horrors

"Oh dear, I slept in."

Fluttershy had just woken up when she looked over at the clock on the wall. It was already 10:00, four hours after the time when Angel would normally come and wake her up. She knew immediately that there was no time to waste; by now all of her animal friends must be starving. Normally she would have fed them at seven AM sharp, so she knew they were going to be angry at her and think she had forgotten them. She hurried out of bed and flew downstairs into the kitchen. As she suspected, there was a crowd of fuzzy faces with sad eyes looking up at her, as if to ask why she had forgotten them. She flew up to the cupboard and took out several bags of food, even taking an extra bag of food as an apology for her tardiness.

"Here you go, friends. I'm so sorry I made you wait; I feel just terrible about myself. I don't know how this happened; normally Angel would have woken me up." When she said this last sentence, she suddenly realized that Angel's food bowl was full. "Has anybody seen Angel this morning?" she asked, but all of the animals simply shook their heads.

"Oh dear, without Angel, I've got to work extra fast if I want to help clean up all your homes today." It was Tuesday, the day when Fluttershy would normally help her friends clean out their houses. Normally she would have all day to finish this task, but today she had promised to meet Pinkie Pie at Sugarcube Corner at 3:00, so she had been hoping that Angel would be able to take over for her while she was gone. Since Angel wasn't around, Fluttershy knew she was going to need to clean all the animals' houses herself before three.

The work wasn't easy, but Fluttershy managed to finish cleaning her friends' houses at 2:50. There wasn't much time left; she had to be at Sugarcube Corner in ten minutes. She was already panting from all the work, so she was worried she wouldn't make it in time. When she took off to fly to Sugarcube Corner, a pair of birds flew up in front of her. Each one of them was holding a piece of string in its mouth, and the strings were coming together and wrapping around a glass of lemonade. As Fluttershy took the glass and drank it, she looked at the birds and said "thank you so much; I was in such a hurry I didn't even realize how thirsty I was." She then turned around to see all her friends gathered in her yard waving at her. "Bye, little friends, I promise I'll be back in time to tuck you all in tonight" she said as she waved goodbye to the crowd of animals.

Fluttershy reached Sugarcube Corner at 3:05, not without the fear that Pinkie Pie was going to be mad at her for being late. She timidly peeked through the door and squeaked "um, Pinkie, I'm here. I'm so sorry I made you wait so long."

Out of nowhere a pair of pink hooves grabbed Fluttershy and pulled her into the room. Fluttershy was scared at first, but then she realized that it was just Pinkie, who had pulled her into the room and wrapped her in a big bear hug. "Oh, it wasn't long at all, you silly filly! What's five minutes between friends?" Pinkie sang out as she released Fluttershy from her grip.

Fluttershy needed to catch her breath; that hug was like a vice. She knew Pinkie was easily excitable, but was surprised to get such a big reception just for showing up to a scheduled meeting. "Um, Pinkie, you still haven't told me what you wanted to see me for" she timidly mentioned after she was done panting.

"Oh, I just wanted you to help me make some cupcakes" Pinkie responded with a grin.

"Cupcakes?" Fluttershy asked.

"Cupcakes!" Pinkie repeated.

"But, I've never tried baking before," Fluttershy said "I usually only make food for my animal friends; I'm not used to making food for ponies."

"That's okay; I only need you to help with the ingredients," Pinkie assured her with a little chuckle "I'll be doing most of the real work."

"Oh, well, if that's the case," Fluttershy looked at the ground while considering the suggestion "I'll be happy to help."

Pinkie noticed the sad tone in Fluttershy's voice, even sadder than usual. "What's wrong, Fluttershy?" she asked with a confused look on her face.

Fluttershy sighed and explained "well, this morning Angel didn't wake me up like she normally would. My other animal friends said they haven't seen him all morning. I'm just worried about him."

Pinkie laughed and patted Fluttershy on the shoulder "oh, don't worry about Angel, Fluttershy. He's the smartest bunny of all; he couldn't have gotten lost or anything bad like that!"

Fluttershy sighed again and replied "yeah, you're right. Sometimes it seems like I need Angel more than he needs me."

"That's the spirit!" Pinkie sang out as she hopped over to the counter. She grabbed a plate with a cupcake on it and hopped back over to Fluttershy. "Here you go; this should make you feel better. I made it especially for you."

Fluttershy wasn't sure at first; she was too worried about Angel to think about her hunger, but she didn't want to make Pinkie feel bad, so she ate the cupcake anyway. It was the best cupcake she'd ever tasted; it genuinely made her feel a bit better. However, a moment later she started to feel light headed. She didn't know what was wrong, but figured it was probably because she was still hungry. "Wow, Pinkie, this is delicious. What's in it?"

"Oh, just a dash of rainbow!" Pinkie sang as Fluttershy started wobbling back and forth.

"What does that mean?" Fluttershy asked, now trying as hard as she could to keep her eyes open.

Pinkie just giggled and told her "don't worry; you'll understand when you wake up!"

"What do you mean," Fluttershy asked "I'm not asleeee." Her sentence was cut off when she collapsed on the floor.

Fluttershy awoke when she heard a strange sound. It sounded like someone or something was whimpering somewhere behind her. She tried to turn her head, but realized that it wouldn't budge; a strap had been tightly wrapped around her forehead and was holding her head against a large metal table. When she tried to move her hooves so she could untie her head, she realized that all four of her hooves were strapped down just as tightly. The only things she was able to move were her wings, which were sticking through a pair of small holes in the table.

She began to panic. Her eyes darting around the room, she stuttered "wh-where am I. W-wh-why is it so dark? Why am I t-tied up?"

"You're not tied up; you're strapped to a table, silly!" a high voice said with a giggle from somewhere in front of her.

"Pinkie, is that you?" Fluttershy asked, still trying to move her hooves.

"Oh course," the voice giggled "who else would it be?"

"But why am I strapped to this table?" Fluttershy asked in a half-scared and half-worried voice.

"So it'll be easier for me to make the cupcakes, of course!" Pinkie said.

"How is this going to help make cupcakes?"

"It'll make it much easier for me to get my special ingredient this way!"

"What special ingredient?" Fluttershy asked in an increasingly scared tone.

"You, of course!" Pinkie giggled.

Before Fluttershy could say anything else, she found herself bathed in a powerful white light. The sudden burst of light blinded her for a few seconds, and as her vision came back Fluttershy became petrified by what she saw. The room she was in was littered with the entrails of other ponies. The ceiling was lined with streamers that had been made from intestines; brightly painted skulls with party hats made from their own skin were placed on counter-tops and hung on the walls; hearts, lungs, and stomachs floated up to the ceiling like balloons, tied up at the bottom with strings made out of veins; a banner made from hides was hanging from the ceiling, complete with the phrase "Life is a party!" written in dripping red letters; there was a table in the middle of the room which had been crafted out of hides and bones that had been crudely stitched together, surrounded by chairs made in the same manner. All of these sights were terrifying in their own right, but what scared Fluttershy the most was what was sitting at a chair at the end of the table: the stuffed body of a cyan-colored Pegasus pony with rainbow-colored hair.

"Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy screamed as she realized just what she was looking at.

Suddenly a door opened, and Pinkie Pie entered the room with a large cart covered by a cloth. "Yeah," she said "wasn't it nice of Dashie to take time off from her busy schedule to come and join us?"

When Pinkie stopped talking, she moved around the side of the cart and looked up at Fluttershy. Fluttershy's shock was renewed when she saw Pinkie's choice of attire: she was draped in a cloak which was made from the sewn-together cutie marks of dozens of different ponies; along her back were six differently-colored Pegasus wings; around her neck she wore a necklace covered in the horns of unicorns. When she saw the necklace, Fluttershy's heart skipped a beat. "Oh no," she squeaked "please don't tell me that's…"

Her sentence was cut off when Pinkie jumped up and said "that's right, it is! I've always wanted one of these, ever since I was a teeny little Twinkie Pinkie! You know, some ponies say these are good luck" she said as she held her new rabbit's foot up to Fluttershy's face.

"But, where did it come from?" Fluttershy asked, but before she could get an answer she started hearing the same whimpering that had woken her up in the first place.

"Of course," Pinkie laughed "how could I have forgotten?" She grabbed the edge of the table and started rotating it until it was facing the other end of the room. Fluttershy screamed when she saw what was on the other side of the room.

In the far right corner of the room, Angel was laying on the floor crying as blood squirted out of the spot where his left foot used to be. "How could you?" Fluttershy asked in a desperately failed attempt to hold back her tears.

"What do you mean?" Pinkie asked "you're the one who said you needed Angel more than Angel needed you. If that's the case, I thought you'd be happy spending your last moments with him." She thought for a moment, then came up with an idea "say, since we're such good friends, how would you like your own lucky rabbit's foot?"

Fluttershy quickly shouted "no, please don't! Not my little Angel!" but Pinkie had already taken a large pair of scissors out of a pocket in her cloak and started walking over to where the rabbit was lying. She picked up the bottom of Angel's right foot and slid the scissors around it, getting ready to slice it, but when she looked back at Fluttershy she saw that her eyes were closed hard and pouring tears.

"Aw, Fluttershy," Pinkie sighed as she took the scissors off the bunny's leg "it's no fun doing party tricks if my audience has its eyes closed. Let me help you with that."

Suddenly Fluttershy felt her left eye being pulled open and saw Pinkie holding her scissors up to her face. "What are you doing, Pinkie?" she cried.

"Oh, you're the Stare Master, remember," Pinkie chuckled "you don't need eyelids anyway." As she said this, Pinkie pulled the top half of Fluttershy's left eyelid forward and opened the scissors a little bit to avoid cutting anything else. Fluttershy's eye was twitching back and forth and she was screaming for Pinkie to stop, but Pinkie gingerly eased the front of the scissors around part of the eyelid and took a snip. Blood started dripping into Fluttershy's eye as Pinkie took another snip. One bit at a time she cut away eyelid until only a small piece of skin held it in place. She then grabbed it and yanked it off with one big pull. Fluttershy cried as Pinkie pulled on the lower half of the eyelid and repeated the process.

Once she had removed Fluttershy's left eyelid, Pinkie noticed just how much blood was pouring over it. "Oh, that's no good," she sighed "now you still won't be able to see." She hopped behind the table and Fluttershy heard her pull the tarp off of the tray she had brought in earlier. Soon the pink pony was back and holding up a small box. She opened it and pulled out what looked like a small transparent disc. She placed it over Fluttershy's bloody eye and Fluttershy realized it was a contact lens. She then took out another one and placed it in Fluttershy's good eye and giggled "much better." Now Pinkie took her scissors back out and held them up to Fluttershy's right eye. Fluttershy knew what was coming, so she tried to brace herself for the pain, but still ended up shrieking when her remaining eyelid was removed.

With her audience now unable to look away or close her eyes, the pink party pony but the scissors in her mouth and hopped back to Angel. Once again she lifted the terrified bunny's foot and slid the scissors around the ankle. With tears filling her eyes, Fluttershy screamed "No! Please don't! Leave him alone!"

Pinkie stopped and pulled back the scissors. She looked up at Fluttershy and said "okie dokie lokie! If you care that much, I won't lay one more hoof on Angel."

Despite her terror, Fluttershy now actually found tears of joy coming to her eyes as she stuttered "ththth-thank you" but her relief was short lived.

After she left Angel's side, Pinkie threw the scissors to the other side of the room and hopped over to a tiny door on the wall. She knocked on the door and sang out "Gummy, dinner's ready."

After realizing what she had just heard, Fluttershy screamed again, her tears of joy replaced by ones of fear and sorrow. "No, please don't! Not Angel! He never did anything to you! Please spare him!"

"And let Gummy starve?" Pinkie asked. "For someone who loves animals so much, I'm shocked you're so insensitive to the troubles of starving animals."

"But why Angel?" Fluttershy whimpered.

"Duh," Pinkie responded "because Gummy's a carnivore. He's fine with my sweets, but he can't survive without meat in his diet." As Pinkie said this, the tiny door swung open and the tiny toothless reptile came crawling out. Gummy immediately started walking over to Angel, but he stopped when Pinkie calmly said "wait, you forgot something." She reached back through the tiny door and pulled out a little metal box. She opened it up and pulled out a set of jagged, metal dentures. Gummy opened his mouth wide, and Pinkie gently slipped the denchers into his mouth, making sure they fit into place.

Gummy crawled over to Angel and opened his mouth wide, salivating profusely while licking his metal teeth. He put his mouth around Angel's right foot and snapped, cutting the appendage off like a hot knife through butter. Fluttershy screamed as she watched, but Pinkie simply stood to the side with a bucket of popcorn. Gummy then wrapped his jaws around Angel's head and started to squeeze. Angel and Fluttershy shrieked in unison as blood began oozing out from the spots where the metal teeth were digging into the rabbit's skull. After what seemed like an eternity, Fluttershy felt her heart sink as she heard a loud cracking sound. Suddenly, Angel's head was crushed like an egg. Gummy gulped down the chunks of brain that were in his mouth, and then turned his head to pick up what had fallen out. Finally he grabbed Angel's lifeless body in his jaws and gulped it down.

Pinkie hopped over to her little companion and giggled "did you enjoy your little snack?" Gummy looked at her with his usual absent-minded smile, and opened his mouth so Pinkie could take the dentures back. Once the dentures were back in the box, Pinky pushed the tiny door back open and let the alligator leave the room. She then turned back at Fluttershy, who was crying so much that her tears had cleared the blood from her eyes. She hopped over to the corner where Angel had spent her last hours and shook her head in disappointment. "I really need to teach that alligator to clean up after himself" she said as she looked up at the pool of blood and bits of flesh that remained. She hopped back to the other side of the room, and then came back with a bucket and a funnel. She set down the bucket and funnel, and then pulled a sponge out of the bucket.

She used the sponge to clean up the blood from the floor, and then wrung it out into the bucket. Finally she picked up the pieced of leftover flesh and put them into the bucket as well, except for the ears. She held up the ears and giggled "maybe I can use these as part of my outfit now. Don't they look great on me?" she asked as she held the ears up to her own and waved them around. She then picked back up the bucket and the funnel and walked over to Fluttershy. "I know you must be starving," she said, "after all you didn't finish your cupcake earlier. I hope Gummy doesn't mind me sharing his leftovers with you."

"No, please don't," Fluttershy pleaded "anything but that!"

Pinkie just laughed and said "oh, it's fine. Haven't you ever had rabbit stew before?" She put the funnel in Fluttershy's mouth and began to pour the contents of the bucket into the top. Fluttershy gagged and whimpered as the remains of her beloved little bunny rabbit were forced down her throat by her best friend. She wanted to wake up more than anything, but she knew in her heart that this wasn't a dream. Once the bucket was empty, Pinkie put it down and pulled the funnel back out of Fluttershy's mouth. As soon as the funnel was gone, Fluttershy opened her mouth and vomited. The rabbit blood now stained her pelt, and Pinkie looked at her in disappointment. "Aw, Fluttershy," she sighed "if you weren't hungry you should have said so. Now you've gone and ruined your beautiful pelt. When I was done I was hoping to stuff you like Dashie, but now I'm going to need to do so much extra work just to clean your fur so that it still looks nice." She grabbed the side of the table and rotated it around until Fluttershy was once again staring at the table with the taxidermy Pegasus staring back at her.

Fluttershy cried and asked "why? Why are you doing this? Aren't you my friend?"

Pinkie looked back at her with a sad look on her face "oh, Fluttershy, of course we're friends."

"Then why are you doing this to me?"

"Because your number came up. I was so excited when your number came up; never in my wildest dreams had I imagined I'd get to make cupcakes with two of my friends in a row!" Pinkie laughed. She then turned back to her tray and started digging for something. "Aha!" she proclaimed "there it is! I've been waiting to use this one for so long, but nopony had the right kind of cutie mark.

"What do you mean the right cutie mark?" asked the trembling Pegasus. Pinkie pulled her hoof back out of the tray, holding a butterfly-shaped cookie cutter. She then walked up to Fluttershy's right flank and pressed the cookie cutter against one of the butterflies that made up Fluttershy's cutie mark. "Wait, no, stop!" Fluttershy pleaded as Pinkie squealed with joy.

"It's perfect. It's just the right size!" she announced as she started skipping around in a circle around the table. When she got back to Fluttershy, Pinkie once again placed the cookie cutter on Fluttershy's cutie mark, but this time she started pushing it down hard. Fluttershy screamed and tried to wriggle away, but this only managed to make the cookie cutter dig deeper into her flesh and scratch up the muscles under her skin. "Fluttershy," Pinkie said "are you trying to make this more painful than it has to be? Please stop struggling or I won't be able to get a clean cut." Fluttershy realized Pinkie wasn't going to stop, so she tried to stay still, but her flank felt like it was on fire all the same. All of a sudden, Pinkie ripped the pink butterfly mark off of Fluttershy's flank and swung it over to the table. When she saw her cutie mark lying on the table like a napkin, Fluttershy started crying again, but Pinkie hushed her "oh, come on. That was just one butterfly; you've still got five more to go."

"B-but Pinkie, you said you wanted to stuff me," she stuttered "won't you need to put them back to do that?"

Pinkie sighed "I know it's hard work, but don't worry about me. The best meat to use in the cupcakes is the meat right behind the cutie marks, so I just have to take off the cutie marks if I want to get it." Once she finished giving her explanation, she proceeded to press the cookie cutter against another one of the butterfly marks on Fluttershy's flank. One by one, she carved away all five of the remaining butterflies, leaving Fluttershy with six bloody, butterfly shaped scars carved into her flanks.

When the last mark was removed, Fluttershy burst into tears. She had been holding in all her tears so she could make the process as painless as possible, but now that it was over she released all of her pain and sadness in one big torrent of tears. Pinkie walked up to her and used one of the butterfly marks to wipe away the tears, but the sight of her beautiful cutie marks being used in such a way only made Fluttershy break down even more. She was crying and screaming as loud as she could. She had always been very quiet, but now her screaming was so loud that Pinkie was afraid that someone might actually hear it through the soundproofed walls. Thinking quickly, Pinkie stuffed the butterfly into Fluttershy's mouth to gag her. Fluttershy quickly spat it back out onto the table, but it was clear that it had done what Pinkie wanted. Fluttershy had been hysterical, so this sudden attack had snapped her out of it and, although she was still crying, Fluttershy was starting to try and catch her breath.

"This will never do," the pink pony said "if you keep screaming like that, someone might find us and we won't be able to have any more fun together. We need to find a way to stop you from getting so loud. Where's your normal quiet voice when I need it?" As if on cue, a whistle came from the room Pinkie had originally entered from. "Ooh," Pinkie rejoiced "I almost forgot." She hopped out of the room and came back in with a teapot. "I had figured you might be too sensitive for this, so I decided to prepare some tea to calm your nerves." She walked back up to Fluttershy and stood up in front of her, holding the teapot up to Fluttershy's mouth. Fluttershy closed her mouth as tightly as she could, but it was no use. Pinkie simply walked back behind the table and came back with the same funnel which she had used to force feed Fluttershy the remains of Angel earlier. She popped the tip of the funnel through Fluttershy's lips and pushed it in as far as she could with Fluttershy resisting, and then she reached for the side of the table and tilted it backwards so the tea would be easier to swallow. Finally she clenched the base of the funnel and poured the scalding hot tea down Fluttershy's throat.

Fluttershy felt as if her throat was on fire, but she found that she couldn't scream. Even after the tea stopped flowing and the funnel was removed, Fluttershy realized that her throat had been so badly burned that anything she tried to say caused her incredible pain.

"There we go," Pinkie laughed "and now we can move on to the wings."

Despite her burning throat, Fluttershy croaked "wings?"

"Yes," Pinkie assured her "I always do the wings after the cutie marks, but this is the first time I had to do anything between them. You're so lucky to be the first one to see me change my routine." As she spoke, Pinkie was digging through the stuff in the tray, and then pulled out a large, rusty pair of hedge clippers. "Normally I use a knife or a hack saw to cut off the wings, but I know how much you want to be a tree, so I decided to give you an idea of just what being a tree feels like." Fluttershy braced for the pain, but she lost her composure the instant she felt the rusty blades sliding up the base of her right wing. "When I cut off Dashie's wings she kept struggling and I accidentally missed and cut a lot more than just her wings off, so I decided to fill in the hole in the back of the table and replace it with two small ones, so now I won't need to worry so much about my aim." As she said these last words, Pinkie began to squeeze the handle of the clippers. The rusty bladed slowly cut through the skin, but Fluttershy still couldn't scream, only utter a small yelp of terror. A few seconds later, the blades struck the bone. They were too dull to cut clean through the bone, so Pinkie stopped for a moment. "Don't worry, Fluttershy, I promise I'll be able to do it with the clippers. You'll know what it's like to be a tree if it kills you." Realizing the irony of her last sentence, Pinkie started giggling as she proceeded to push the handles of the clippers together with all her might.

There was an ear-splitting crunch as the bladed broke through the bone and Fluttershy's wing fell to the ground. The pain was so unbearable that Fluttershy forgot about her burnt throat and screamed as loud as possible before passing out. Soon, she woke back up to the sight of Pinkie glaring at her while holding a now empty needle of adrenaline in her mouth. "I'm really disappointed in you, Fluttershy," Pinkie protested "I thought you'd be courteous enough not to fall asleep in the middle of your friend's work. Dashie wasn't nearly as considerate as you, so I could understand her letting me down by passing out on me, but I had expected better of you. Now I'm going to have to punish you; your other wing can wait." She stormed out of the room and came back in with a bucket of red hot coals. On top of the pile were several white hot nails and four horseshoes.

Pinkie tilted the table so that Fluttershy was now lying flat on her back. She used a pair of tongs to remove one of the horseshoes and four of the nails out of the bucket and set them next to Fluttershy's left rear hoof. She then picked up a hammer from her tray and held it in her mouth. Using the tongs, she set one of the nails into a hole on the horseshoe. Then she used the tongs to pick up the horseshoe and hold it up to the bottom of Fluttershy's hoof. Fluttershy couldn't see what was happening, but once she felt the burning tip of the nail touch the bottom of her hoof, she knew exactly what was about to happen. "No, please don't" she started, but she was cut off when Pinkie slammed the hammer into the bottom of the nail, causing it to drive its way into the bottom of her hoof. Pinkie continued hitting the nail until the horseshoe was in place, and then used the tongs to pick up another nail and drove it into another one of the holes in the horseshoe. Every hit was excruciating, but Fluttershy wasn't able to do anything about it. Soon Pinkie had driven the last nail into the horseshoe, so she grabbed another horseshoe and four more nails out o the bucket. She continued this process until every one of Fluttershy's hooves had been branded with its own searing hot horseshoe.

All four of her hooves burned like fire, and Fluttershy now felt the table being tilted back upright. "Now," Pinkie said, while picking the bloody hedge clippers back up off the table, "where were we?" Without waiting for a response, she hurried around behind Fluttershy and gripped the base of the left wing in the jaws of the clippers. Without hesitation, she squeezed the handle with all her might until the bone was crushed like the first one had. Beside herself, Fluttershy screamed in agony and lost control of her bowels before passing out again. Once again, she was awoken by Pinkie using another shot of adrenaline. "What did I tell you about falling asleep while I work? Pinky demanded.

"D-don't do it" Fluttershy squeaked.

"That's right," Pinky announced "so now you'd better not fall asleep on me any more."

With tears streaming down her face, Fluttershy said "o-o-okay" in a tone so weak it was almost a whisper.

"Okie dokie lokie," Pinkie proclaimed, suddenly back to her usual tone of voice "now I just need you to hang on a little longer." Suddenly she jammed a needle into Fluttershy's chest. "There, that should help get rid of the pain," she giggled as she took the needle back out "now you shouldn't feel anything else from your chest down, so you can stop being so fussy."

"R-really?" Fluttershy weakly asked after she heard this claim.

"Yeah," Pinky laughed "you want to see?" Without another word, she grabbed the end of Fluttershy's tail and pulled with all her might. The entire tail was suddenly torn from Fluttershy's rear, and Pinkie wrapped it around her neck. "You know, Fluttershy," Pinkie said while snuggling her new scarf "I've always been jealous of just how soft and cozy your hair and tail are than mine. It's just so soft and warm" she said while burying her face in a particularly soft clump of hair.

Suddenly Pinkie jumped back to her tray and pulled out a scalpel. She held it up to Fluttershy's chest and made a cut in the skin just below where she had given the shot, and then she cut downward to just above Fluttershy's groin. She turned it to the side and slid it sideways to make the incision wider. Then she pushed it in the other direction, turning the cut into an upside-down "t" shape. Finally she took the scalpel out and moved it back to the top of the incision, where she repeated her last step until the cut was in the shape of a massive "I." She grabbed the edges of the cut and pulled them open, snapping a few bits of skin that the scalpel had missed. Fluttershy couldn't feel anything, but she could hear it perfectly. She knew it was no use, but she just couldn't help but start whimpering and saying "help. Somepony…anypony….help me."

Pinkie looked up at her and giggled "Oh Fluttershy, if nopony could hear you when you were screaming at the top of your lungs, why do you think anypony can hear you when you're talking so quietly? Besides," she said as she walked across the table "Dashie and I have been waiting for you to join the party for the longest time, haven't we Dashie?" She reached her hoof behind Rainbow's back and suddenly Rainbow's lips started moving. At that time, Fluttershy realized that what remained of Rainbow Dash was not a simple piece of taxidermy; it was a ventriloquist dummy.

In a crude attempt at mimicking Rainbow's voice, the dummy responded "yes, it's been so lonely here without my friends. With you here at my side, it'll be 20% cooler and neither of us will ever feel lonely again!"

Having concluded her puppet show, Pinkie returned to Fluttershy. She reached into the gaping hole in Fluttershy's chest and began to pull out the organs one at a time, all the while making up little puns to go along with them "come on, liver let die! Oh look, it's Billy the Kid-ney." And so on. By this time the blood loss was really getting to Fluttershy. She could barely see of hear anything, although the smell of her own innards was persistently assaulting her nostrils. Pinkie noticed that Fluttershy wasn't paying attention to her anymore, so she angrily asked "why doesn't anybody like my jokes? Rainbow didn't laugh; you didn't laugh; I don't know why I even try anymore." With that she reached into Fluttershy's chest cavity and proclaimed "hey, I thought if anypony would have a real heart of gold it would be you." She tore Fluttershy's heart right out of her chest, and even though she knew Fluttershy was gone now she continued to scold "you're always the nice one, so I would have thought that you'd really have a heart of gold. Not only is this just flesh; it's no bigger than any other heart I've seen before." With that being said, she angrily threw the heart on the ground and stomped on it, splattering it like a grape. "Sorry to break your heart, Fluttershy," she told the cadaver of her friend "but it's just part of the job."

Epilogue:

All of Fluttershy's friends were eagerly awaiting her return. After she had worked so hard that morning to help them clean their houses, they had cleaned her house so that it was perfectly spotless. They had even made her bed and prepared a meal for her and set it on the table for when she got back. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Frank the beaver crawled over to the door and turned the knob to see who it was. Standing in the doorway was Ponyville's own resident party planner, but she had a sad look on her face and was holding a strange package. She set down the package and read the note on top of it:

To all my little friends,

I am so sorry, but I am returning to Cloudsdale. My mother is very sick, so she needs me by her side. I don't know if she'll ever get better, but I'm not coming back as long as she needs me here.

Love,

Fluttershy

When Pinkie finished reading the note, she saw that all the animals were crying. "Don't worry your furry little heads; she'll definitely be back some day." When she saw that they were still sad, Pinkie noticed that they were huddled around a box covered in wrapping paper. She walked up to it and saw that it had a tag on it:

To Fluttershy, our loving friend.

Pinkie picked up the box and told the animals that she'd be sure to deliver it to Fluttershy for them. They nodded and looked over at the package Pinkie had come in with. Pinkie told them "Oh, that's just something Fluttershy said she wanted me to give you as an apology for not telling you she was leaving." She then opened the door and trotted out into the yard. When she was back at Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie tore off the wrapping paper and opened the box. Inside of it was a crudely-made but still recognizable doll that looked just like Fluttershy. "Aww, how sweet of them," she said "they loved her so much they made this for her." She placed the doll on her shelf and threw away the box.

Meanwhile, the animals had finally decided to see just what it was that Fluttershy had given them. They pulled off the wrapping paper and opened the box, revealing a delicious-looking cupcake with yellow frosting and pink sprinkles.