Prologue
Twilight Sparkle, world: Equestria
Twilight was baffled. Just a moment ago, she had been tucking Spike into bed, and the next thing she knew, she was in a dim lit room standing next to a group of other ponies. But that was not the thing that baffled her. She was an expert at magic and very well suspected that some kind of it was involved in her sudden appearance. The thing that baffled her was that the other ponies, some were complete duplicates of each other, and they were all of her friends and herself.
She looked around at all the other ponies. There were about twelve of them in the room, and that was counting her. Strangely, there wasn't a single pony who looked like Rarity in the room. And although that was strange, another happening was that she felt an unfamiliar buzzing sensation in her head. She waved it off, though, as just an aftermath from the apparent spell that had been cast to get her there.
Most of the ponies looked confused, and some quite afraid, but for some reason she didn't feel that way. She felt electrified, so awake that she could bounce around the room like Pinkie Pie. Twilight turned to the pony next to her, Rainbow Dash-or more like A Rainbow Dash, and tried to start up a conversation with her. Maybe she knew more than Twilight did.
"Hey, Rainbow, do you know what's up with this place? It's kind of off putting, right?" She asked the rainbow haired mare.
"Yea, something is definitely off..." She replied, not even looking at Twilight.
"Er, well, do you know what it might be...?" Twilight asked.
"No," Rainbow replied, still not looking at her, but instead squinting her eyes at something. "But, that thing might." Twilight looked at what her friend had been looking at before. She hadn't noticed it before, but there was a shadow on the far wall, a shadow of a pony. A shadow of a pony where there was no pony anywhere around it, just empty space. Wow, Twilight thought, What is that?
"I don't know, Twilight, what do you think I am?" A deep voice slowly asked. She looked around, looking for the source of the voice. The only ponies around her were Rainbow Dash and an Applejack, and neither of them were acting like they had heard anything. Applejack wandered past her and Rainbow was still squinting her eyes at the shadow as the voice spoke up again. "Well, Twilight Sparkle, what, or who, do you think I am?"
"Uh, maybe a ghost?" Twilight guessed, before she realized that she had in fact just answered out loud. Rainbow turned to her and gave her a look like she was crazy, before shaking her head and looking back to the wall. "Good guess, but no, I am not a ghost. Don't think your crazy for hearing me, though, it's just something I can do. Don't question my powers, I don't even know their full extent. Anyway, I guess I'll make myself known. This should be fun."
"Hello, my little ponies," it started. Every pony started to look around for the strange voice, to no avail. It soon continued his speech. "You are all here, from separate worlds, to play a game," the disembodied voice echoed through the minds of the twelve ponies in the room.
"A game? I love games, when can we start!" A Pinkie Pie in the corner started to bounce up and down in excitement.
"Oh," the voice continued, but this is not a mere silly game, Pinkie, this is a game of life and death. And one of you will not make it through the night." Twilight didn't like the sound of that, and by the look of it, neither did the other ponies who were in the room.
"All that you have to do is play each game, one every day, and try not to screw up. Because in this game, screwing up could mean the difference between life and death! The game is simple; Figure out how one of your fellow ponies died and at the end of the day say who you think the murderer, me, is, and how I killed her. The ones who are the most incorrect will get a note, and might be the next to die."
"Your crazy!" An Applejack in the back of the small room exclaimed. "Buck you!"
"I would watch what you say, my dearest Applejack," it said. The temperature in the room suddenly dropped quickly and every pony in the room could somehow feel the voice smile a sinister smile, making that Applejack gulp nervously. "Also, you will be staying in my mansion until the game ends. There is a courtyard, a swimming pool, everything you might want in a vacation. Don't try to escape though, this mansion is in the place between your worlds. If you so much as step one hoof out of the courtyard doors, you will die instantly, so i wouldn't recommend doing that. Well, I guess I'm done explaining, so let's let the games begin!"
Twilight was about to start trying to get an explanation when she, and every other pony in the room noticed a door on the wall behind them, right where the shadow had been. Every pony galloped out of the door into the most magnificent mansion they all had ever seen. No wonder he didn't pick Rarity as any one of us to come here, Twilight thought to herself excitedly. She would have died of excitement!
A shrill scream quickly shook her out of her thoughts. She had been standing at the door as every pony filed out, but the scream seemed close by. She started running towards the scream as fast as she could, noting that it sounded like Rainbow Dash. "Somepony, come quick!" The voice echoed throughout the mansion.
As Twilight reached the door she paused, eyes wide and bile seeping up her throat. In front of her was Rainbow Dash, and she was crying her eyes out. Looking past her, you could see something terrible.
Applejack, the one who had spoken out against the voice, was now on the floor. Blood stained the carpet, and around the blood was blue chunks of what the pony had once been.
She was dead.
Author's Note
The chapters after this one will be longer, I promise. This was just the prologue. Please, also, if you didn't like it tell me what I can do to make it better! If you did like it, thanks!