Facility 0013

Chapters

Two: Escape the Tide
Three: Finish the Swim
Four: The Medical Room
Five: Companion
Six: Friends
Seven: Second Guesses
Eight: Fool Me Once
Ten: Side Effects
Eleven: Brutal
Twelve: Searching
Thirteen: Luck of the Draw
Fourteen: Descent
Fifteen: Who Has Lost . . .
Sixteen: . . . Will Find Again
Seventeen: Trust?
Eighteen: Turning Point
Nineteen: Answers
One: The Sound of Beginning
Nine: Beverages

Two: Escape the Tide

The water is up to your ankles now. It's beyond cold, chilling your hooves to the bone and slowly working its way up your legs. You awkwardly reach around with a fore hoof and feel around your back. "Nothing," you mumble, feeling a numbness starting in your hooves. You have no way of knowing exactly how fast the freezing water is rising, but it's already up to your knees and you've lost all feeling in your hooves. You bring your forehoof around to your forehead. You feel a thin metal cage surrounding what feels like a hard, blunt spike coming out of your forehead.

"I have a horn, now what?" you ask into the darkness, the water is brushing the underside of your ribcage now. You try pulling on the cage with all your strength but it sticks tight. You are getting a headache from pulling on your horn so hard, but you don't give up. You have to get the cage off, there is no way you can break the chain without magic.

The water is halfway up your side now and your legs are numb.

Your are tugging and tugging but the metal cage won't budge. The cage is gripping on your horn too tight. You are running out of time and getting desperate. You try to use your horn, hoping the cage won't affect it. You concentrate on your horn and try to cast a spell, or more accurately, you try to do something even remotely magical; you can't remember any spells. You feel a burning shock start at the tip of of your horn and work its way down the center of your horn to your mind. The fiery, electric pain reaches your head and you fall into a unwelcome abyss.

You can't breath, you are underwater. The water is so cold you can't feel anything. You almost inhale the crystal clear water, but you manage to override the urge to breath with the urge to survive. You try one last time to take the cage off your horn. You grip it as best as you can with the numb lumps of flesh at the end of your legs. You push forward with you legs and pull back with your neck.

You are almost out of air, the edges of your vision are darkening and spots are dancing before your eyes in the dim light of the doorway. You feel your chest straining to expel the used air inside your lungs, pushing against the back of your lips. You squeeze your lips shut and give one last heave. The cage gives off a screeching sound that is painfully amplified by the water as it slowly grinds its way off your horn.

Your eyes are open but your vision is almost completely black from lack of oxygen. You lungs are screaming for a breath, just one. You blindly aim at the chain holding you down and lash out with your mind, thinking of destruction.

There is a barely visibly explosion as one of the links melts in a fiery nova. You weakly jump up towards what you hope is the surface as your eyes begin to close for the last time...

You want to breath in the water...

You need something in your lungs...

Anything...

You feel your lips parting...

The water is leaking into you mouth...

Slipping past your teeth...

Filling your mouth...

Sliding down your throat...

No! you scream in your mind, giving one last thrust upward. You break the surface of the water coughing and take in a huge gasping breath, filling your lungs with life giving air. You tread water on the slowly disappearing surface as you continue to breath heavily, your vision beginning to clear.

You look around and see no other way out besides the dimly lit doorway. You try and breath as deeply as you can in the ever shrinking air pocket. Eight inches becomes four inches becomes two inches. You take in one last breath then duck under the water and clumsily swim into the doorway just below the surface. Seconds after you leave the room, the door closes behind you, trapping you in a long square duct with the only possible way out being ahead of you.

You swim forward as best as you can with your deadened body; you haven't been able to feel the temperature of the water since you lost consciousness. You keep swimming down the tube, feeling the pressure beginning to build up in your lungs again, but you do your best to suppress it.

You suddenly come to the end of the tube. The duct branches off upwards and downwards. The light is brighter from the top path but there is a strong current flowing downward to the bottom path, which is also lit but with a dimmer, flickering light. You don't have much time to decide which direction to take. You...

Swim upwards against the current toward the brighter light.

Swim downwards with the current toward the dimmer light.

Voting is now closed while I write the next chapter.

Author's Note

Vote statistics from last chapter.
Unicorn: 14 votes
Pegasus: 1 vote
Earth Pony: 3 votes

The majority has spoken! Unicorn it is!

This will probably be the average length of the chapters. There is only so much I can write before you reach another crossroad.

Also note that from this point forward any choice has the possibility of death.
Only I know the outcome of all the options! (insert maniacal laughter)
If you die second chances will be given, but also know that dying reduces your score and lowers the chances of getting a good ending. So choose wisely.

Three: Finish the Swim

Brighter light usually means closer. Probably, you think to yourself as you begin swimming up the shaft. You swim as fast as you can against the current and slowly start to make progress. The square shaft that you are in is small enough to give you a claustrophobic feel, but not small enough to where you could just place your legs on opposite sides and walk up the shaft.

You can feel your numb body working against you as you fight with the current. It is doing its best to push you downward towards the dimmer light, but that's not where you want to be. You clench your teeth together and fight the soon to be overwhelming urge to inhale.

The completely clear water provides you with good view of the edge of the shaft not far above you. With renewed vigor, you increase your swimming pace. Your adrenaline fueled muscles push you faster and faster upwards as you begin to feel your lungs begging for air.

You reach the edge of the shaft and grab on to the rim with your hooves. You feel the hard metal dig into your skin through the complete numbness you feel. You hoist yourself out of the shaft and find yourself in a cylindrical tank made out of a shiny metal. You push off the bottom of the tank and head for a single light you can see directly above the water.

You break the surface of the water and grab onto the edge of the tank, breathing heavily. The current is still tugging at you but it is easy to resist by holding on to the tank. Before you have time to examine your surroundings all the light in the entire room sputters and goes out, plunging the room into complete darkness. Unicorns can make their horns glow, right? you think to yourself, still floating in the deep water. You close your eyes and try to imagine a bright white light on the tip of your horn. You see a little light seep through your eyelids so you open your eyes, satisfied that you have accomplished your goal.

You immediately freeze in horror. Barely three inches away from your face is the face of another pony. Except it's not really a face at all. Completely maroon eyes with black pulsing veins running across the featureless surface cry blood onto a hideously scarred white face. The pony's ears are vein covered, fleshy spikes that wiggle and throb with every passing second. The entire lower half of the pony's muzzle has been stripped of all its skin and all that remains is a bony jaw that flaps loosely with every wheezing breath that crawls its way out of the monster's throat. The stench of the beast reaches your nose a second later. It smells like an entire graveyard of dead bodies and rotting flesh.

"Welcome to the light, Brother," it hisses out through its teeth in a deep, raspy voice that sounds akin to a dog chewing on a bone.

You stay that way for what feels like hours, completely motionless, absolutely terrified. And although it feels like hours it is probably closer to seconds. You lose your concentration and the light coming from your horn quickly fades out, leaving you in complete darkness with whatever that is. You struggle to relight your horn but it is too hard to focus on a light while worrying about what that thing might do to you in the darkness.

Without warning the light above your head and many more like it come on, exposing a much larger room than you originally thought. You quickly look around, searching for whatever that thing is. There is no sign it was ever there. It might never have been there. You nervously peer over the side of the tank and see a rusty metal platform below you, and below that nothing but darkness. You decide to risk the platform being able to hold your weight and heave yourself out of the water. You fall about a pony length before landing on your numb hooves, the platform creaking dangerously underneath you. There are twenty tanks in the large room with a light above each one, ten on either side of the long, rickety platform that you are standing on.

To one side of the rectangular room is what looks like a control station for the water tanks and several ways out of the room. You head towards that end of the room after seeing the other side of the platform ending in a wall, each of your hoof steps causing the platform to groan and quake.

Fortunately, you reach solid ground without incident. You wipe the nervous sweat from your brow that has been dripping into your eyes. You carefully inspect the control station, it is the perfect height for you to reach all the buttons without moving from the middle of the large rectangle. You look at all of the unlabeled buttons, knobs, levers, and lights in confusion. I had better leave that alone, there is no telling what it could do, you think to yourself, leaving the unknown equipment alone and moving towards the exits you saw earlier. You feel you teeth start to chatter with what is probably the beginnings of hypothermia.

Upon closer inspection you realize that there are three ways to leave the room. The first is a well lit hallway that has a trail of bright, fresh blood on the floor; it is labeled with the words "Medical Room Ten". The second is a dimly lit hallway labeled with the words "Emergency Exit". The final hallway is a nondescript hallway labeled "Testing Area One".

"The Medical Room should have have what I need, but the blood is disturbing," you mutter. "A Testing Area could have all kinds of things, first aid kits included. And as for the Emergency Exit, I don't like the look of the hallway but if I could get out of here then I would be able to find other ponies to help me..." You start to shiver and another warning bell goes off in your head. "T-that can't be good," you chatter. "I b-better figure out w-w-what I'm going to do sooner than l-later."

Take the bloody hallway to the Medical Room.

Take the dimly lit hallway to the Emergency Exit.

Take the normal looking hallway to the Testing Area.

Voting is now closed while I tally the votes and begin writing.

Author's Note

I don't really have much to say here. I'm just kind of surprised this has been so well accepted.

Four: The Medical Room

The Medical Room is probably my best bet, I don't think I'll get very far without treatment, you think to yourself while walking forward on your unsteady hooves. Even though you can clearly see the blood, you still slip a little on it when you step in the hallway.

The floor isn't completely slippery but there is a thin coating of blood on the bottom of your hooves, making every shaking step a struggle to keep your balance. At the end of the short hallway is a bloody door sitting askew and hanging on by only the bottom hinge.

You pause and stare at the door for a few moments, the details unnerving. The door is several inches thick of what looks like solid steel. The only problem is that the door was mangled, beaten, dented inward, then shoved open. What could have done this? you think, stepping closer. As an experiment, you hit the door gently. You only succeed in making a clanging sound that reverberates through the air.

You inch your way in the room hesitantly, unsure if this is still a good idea. You step onto the wet, warm floor and freeze in horror.

The floor is red with blood. Blood is on the walls. The ceiling. Everywhere. There are dead bodies littered all around. Lying at your hooves is the top half of a creature barely recognizable as a pony. It is impossible to tell what color the pony was originally, all that is left of it is blood, muscle, and bones. All of his skin was forcibly ripped off and is now lying around him in tatters. You can still see the agonized howl on his muzzle; it sends a chill through your spine.

That is only one of the dozens of bodies, the others are also in similar states. Limbs scattered, skin flayed, eyes gouged, spines snapped, and blood sprayed everywhere. Worst of all is a disturbing lack of anything that could have caused this. That means it's still alive and could be nearby... you think to yourself, gingerly stepping around the numerous obstacles of flesh.

You are distracted by a feeling in your body. You stopped shivering.

You immediately begin looking around for something that might help you. You find a blood-soaked but still readable book labeled "Treatments". You find a page conveniently marked with the symptoms you posses. "Hypothermia. Treatment: a steady supply of heat or one syringe of '901' injected into the bloodstream," you read out loud.

There are no heat sources in sight unfortunately. However, you see a small, broken, plastic crate lying underneath somepony's leg. Syringes with the numbers "901" are spilled out on the floor. You quickly pick up a syringe with your magic and levitate it over to you. You hold out your foreleg and carefully slide the needle into your skin. You slowly inject the fluorescent blue liquid into—what you hope is—your vein.

Somehow you are already feeling better: the medicine seems to be working. You stand up and start looking around for records of some kind. All doctors keep records, right? A pair of relatively undamaged papers sitting on an operating table draws your attention. You pick up and read the document to try and gather any information that you can.

To the Director,
The Serum has done more harm than good. All Patients are behaving erratically. There have been more escapes then ever; the halls are no longer safe. The Patient Alpha Iota Nine is the last Patient to undergo the experiments. It will become like the others. The Serum has not been altered enough to negate the horrible side-affects. I will be turning in my resignation as soon as I can get a group of guards to escort me outside. Your "Magic Serum" is a failure.
Respectfully,
P..... B...w

You try to make out the name but a bloody smear is guarding the pony's identity. You look at the other piece of paper to see if it can shed some light on what the first document said.

Medical Log: 963.908
Date, [Classified]
Location, [Classified]
Subjects, [Classified]
Personnel on duty, [Classified]
All Patients are dead, dying, then almost unkillable. It is really quite remarkable. The Serum has done things to their cellular structure that I didn't even know was possible. Who would have thought that a pony could turn into a ten foot tall beast with razor sharp teeth and an attitude to match? Not I. The original intent of the Serum was glorious, but now I can see that we should have left that mysterious metal alone. Element [Classified] should never have been found.
Doctor [Classified], Head of Research and Development.

The second letter leaves you just as confused as the first. A classified metal? A Serum? What's going on here? Why is all of this information classified? What caused this carnage? A Patient? Who will I become like? you think while rereading the papers, trying to glean more information out of the words.

You hear a rustling noise from inside the room.

You quickly jerk yourself out of your self-imposed, unanswerable questions. You try and pinpoint the noise but it disappears as soon as you listen for it. You rip a scalpel out of a pony's skull and levitate it in front of you like a small sword.

You walk towards the back of the room, hoping that what ever made the noise was already gone but knowing that it wasn't.

You hear the noise again. It came from right behind you.

You turn around so fast you get dizzy. You raise the blade and prepare to strike.

The sight that greets you is not one you expect. It is a small, blood-covered, white foal with milky blue eyes and a purple mane.

Kill it anyways, it might have something to do with this. How else could it survive this?

Spare it, it's an innocent foal in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Voting is now closed.

Author's Note

Please tell me if I crossed the line from teen gore to mature. I want to at least try to keep it teen.

Also, would you guys like another story like this after this one is finished?
I have (partial) plans for a pegasus one and an earth pony one that I could make into actual plans, so all the races get a chance.

Five: Companion

You hold the scalpel above the foal's head, your magic grip shaking slightly with indecision. Even though it would be the logical choice to kill it, your conscious overrides your actions. You slowly lower the blade and move it away from the foal. You notice the delicate muzzle and lithe body structure. I guess this foal is a filly, you think to yourself after a few seconds of observation.

You take a step back and sit down so she doesn't feel threatened by you. "What is your name little one?" you ask gently.

She gives a noncommittal squeak and looks at you with wide, milky blue eyes that are filled with a deep set fear and covered with attempted bravery.

"Are you hurt?" you ask.

She doesn't respond in any way.

"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. You startled me. I just want to know how you are feeling. Are you hurt?" you ask.

She nods her head up and down jerkily.

"Can you tell me what's hurting you?" you ask.

She shakes her head side to side jerkily.

"Why can't you tell me?" you ask.

She hesitates for a few minutes, seeming unsure. Eventually she slowly opens her mouth and points to it with her hoof. Her tongue has been removed with surgical precision. The fleshy stump flaps weakly and her throat convulses slightly as she tries to speak. All that comes out is a small whimper.

"Who did this to you?" you ask angrily.

She just looks at you with an expression that is clearly sarcastic. She give you a quiet, little sigh of disapproval.

"Right, sorry. Do you have a name?" you ask.

She nods.

You look at the blood covered floor and have an idea. "Can you spell it out for me on the floor?" you ask.

She looks confused for a moment then nods slowly. She leans down and begins scribbling with her hoof. While she is writing you take the opportunity to look at the rest of her. You can clearly see she hasn't been treated well. She has small cuts and scars all over her body that are mostly concealed by the blood covering her. You also notice a mangled pair of wings that you had not previously seen due to the angle of how she was standing. Who could have done this to her? Was it the patients or was it the staff?

She finished and squeaks quietly to get your attention. She motions you over with a hoof then points to the floor where she had been working.

You walk over next to her and sit down. You have to lean in close to read the barely legible writing.

W...H...ips 0u...f <M...pAt...1hay#

"Whips?" you ask, not even trying to describer the last bit of scribbling.

She shakes her head and points to the words insistently.

"Wish?" you ask.

She shakes her head again.

"W-h-i-p-s..." you sound out. "Wisp?" you guess.

She nods happily.

"Hello, Wisp, my name is Patient Alpha Iota Nine; but you can call me—" you imitate one of the squeaking noises she made earlier.

She gives a cute little giggle that is interrupted by the lights going out the the room. The room is plunged into darkness.

"You better start running, Brother..." says the voice of the monster. Its deep, raspy hiss sending a chill through your spine and causing Wisp to huddle close to your side.

The harsh, white lights come back on again, but something has changed. Where did all the bodies go? you wonder. The dismembered bodies have all disappeared. The only reason that you know they were ever there in the first place is the blood littered everywhere.

You look around nervously. Nothing is in sight: not a body or the beast.

"You are coming with me," you say to Wisp. "Unless you have a better idea?" you ask.

She shakes her head.

You decide to heed the beast's warning. You aren't quite sure what happened to the bodies, and you don't want to find out.

"Let's get out of here," you say to Wisp.

She responds with a nod.

The two of you stand up and look around the room. You have three options. Towards one end of the room is a doorway labeled "Patient Storage", the door is slightly ajar and there is no light coming from the area beyond. The other option is a door opposite of the one you entered, it is labeled "Cell Block 4". Then again, you could always go back the way you came. However, there is a fresh trail of blood on the floor leading out the doorway and around the corner.

"Which way do you want to go, Wisp?" you ask. She offers no response and just shakes her head, shivering slightly.

Head to Cell Block 4

Go into Patient Storage

Return to the water tank room

Voting is now closed for this chapter.

Author's Note

Bonus points to whoever can decipher Wisp's full name. Please PM me your guesses so you don't spoil it for anyone else.

Six: Friends

"I saw an emergency exit back the way I came from," you tell Wisp. "We should head back that way; I'm sure we can escape through the door."

Wisp looks at the other doors then noncommittally squeaks.

"Lets get moving, Wisp. Do you want to walk or ride?" you ask, offering her your back.

She shies away from you and shakes her head vigorously.

"I guess walk it is," you mutter. "Come on then, Wisp, let's get going," you say, standing up. She gets to her hooves and stands next to you, close but not within easy reach.

You and Wisp walk out of the beaten doorway, your hoof steps echoing eerily. You enter the hallway that leads to the water tank room. As you continue walking, you notice that the hallway seems much longer than it did when you walked in. And instead of being well lit, the hallway is completely black. All you can see is the small rectangle of white light that leads into the water tank room.

You hear a wet sounding thump from behind you. It sounds like a wet piece of meat hitting the ground. Wisp huddles near to your foreleg, probably startled by the noise.The gooey smack is repeated four more times behind you. You hear the sound in front of you as well. The rectangle at the end of the hallway is blocked by something. You can't tell what it is, but it looks like the silhouette of a pony. Without a head.

You watch the silhouette pick up what looks like its head in its hoof and hold it a few inches above its neck. You can see shadows of sinews, bones, and muscles forming as the neck latches into the bottom of the head like a tentacled beast. The neck drags the head out of the hoof's grip and connects the two pieces of flesh. The reattachment makes a unforgettable sound. A twisting, gurgling, grinding, sucking, wet sound that chills you to the core.

You hear a ghastly giggle come from the silhouette. It sounds like the pony is well beyond sanity as it continues to crackle madly. The sound is echoed fivefold from behind you. They move closer in tandem, one from the front, five from behind.

You can hear their slithering, shifting, shamble as they begin closing in. You feel Wisp move underneath you as she tries to hide from their advance.

The touch of another pony snaps you out of your horrified trance. You are not alone, you have a foal to protect.

You hear four more wet sounding smacks from in front of you. The things get up and block out the rest of the light coming from the water tank room. They add their voices to the unholy chorus. The giggling now fills your ears. It is hard to think of a plan while listening to all the noise.

You feel Wisp nuzzle your fore leg and leave a bit of wetness. She crying and shaking. You can barely hear her sobs over the sound of the things but somehow you manage.

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. You block out the senseless laughter as you focus your mind on the spell you are thinking of. You can feel the magic growing in your horn.

The horde is almost on top of you, their slither increases in pace as they close in to mere feet.

You point your head towards the ceiling and unleash your magic. An intense white light burns with unrivaled brightness from the tip of your horn. You can feel your forehead burning with the strain as you put as much force as you dare into the simple lighting spell.

The mad giggling turns to agonized screams as the creatures look directly at the light. You cut the spell and open your eyes. Spots dance before your vision as you reach in between your legs and grab Wisp by the scruff of her neck with your teeth.

Between the darkness and the spots burned into your sight, you can't see anything. You blindly run forward, shouldering the monsters out of your way as you escape their clutches. Their bodies feel wet, slimy, and squishy as you hit them. They almost feel like wet, rotting wood.

You run past them and into the water tank room. Wisp is completely docile and hanging limply from your teeth, so you weakly levitate her onto your back and loop her forelegs around your neck. You can feel her heart pounding against your spine as you continuously blink in the attempt to clear you vision.

You hear the maddened giggling resume as the ten beasts begin shuffling toward you. You can't see them in the darkness but you can hear them moving closer nonetheless. They sound like they are moving faster than before.

You look over to where you saw the emergency exit and freeze in horror.

It's not there anymore.

There is no sign the door was ever there. The wall is completely seamless. You shake you head slowly in stupefied wonder as you stare at the wall where it used to be.

After giving up on that, you look around the room. The rest of the room is unchanged. The hallway to the Testing Area is still here. The control panel is still here. The water tanks are still here. Even the rickety metal walkway is still here. But no exit. It's just... gone.

You can hear the creatures. They are directly beyond the darkness of the hallway. They will reach you soon. You only have a few seconds to decide what to do before they enter the room.

Try to fight them.

Use the console behind you.

Run to the Testing Area.

Try to reason with them.

Voting is now closed.

Author's Note

So how are you guys liking the story so far?

Seven: Second Guesses

The giggling is getting closer and closer. Soon the things will enter the room. You're not quite sure what they want, but it can't be good.

You turn around and look at the console. The lights flicker merrily, completely unaware of the danger you face. There has got to be something useful that I can do with this, you think, regarding the panel with a new interest. You quickly take a few steps forward and reach the console. "Any ideas, Wisp?" you ask, looking once again at all the unlabeled buttons, switches, and levers.

Wisp just cheeps quietly into your ear, still shaking.

A large red button in the middle of the console attracts your attention. It is surrounded by diagonal stripes that are alternating yellow and black in color. That one has to be important. Maybe even important enough to be helpful, you think reaching for the button.

You try to press the button but there is a small, clear, plastic door covering it. Probably to keep it from getting accidentally pressed, you think, lifting up the cover. You press down on the newly uncovered button until it clicks ominously.

Immediately, thick metal doors slide down from the ceiling of each of the hallways, sealing them off for good. The giggling stops but you can hear a dull thumping as they beat relentlessly on the door. You sigh in relief as you realize that none of them made it inside.

"Emergency protocol engaged, please verify authority," says a stallions voice from the console that reminds you of the pleasant mare. It is an unnaturally smooth voice filled with no emotion.

"Verify authority?" you echo with confusion. You can feel Wisp craning her neck over to look at the door that is holding back the monsters.

"Please verify authority for lock down procedure within the allotted time frame," says the voice from the console. "Ten."

"Verify? How?" you ask.

"Nine," it responds.

You start hitting random buttons.

"Eight."

You pull a pair of small levers that make a cranking sound.

"Seven."

You push the red button again.

"Six."

"Nothing's happening!" you exclaim angrily, pushing another set of buttons.

"Five."

"Help us out here, Wisp, what do you think I should press?" you ask.

"Four."

She squeaks and points to what looks like an unlabeled number pad.

"Three."

You press four different buttons on the pad. The nine lights respond by flashing red then returning to white.

"Incorrect code. Two."

"Come on... Come on..." you say, typing in another combination. The buttons flash red once again.

"Incorrect code. One."

You press one last button combination then close your eyes and clench your teeth, preparing for the worst. Wisp squeezes your neck with as much force as she can muster, choking you.

"Zero. Time has expired," says the voice from the console. "Have a splendid day," it says, still with no emotion.

You open your eyes slowly. "Is that it?" you ask it, wheezing around Wisp's death grip.

The console is silent.

The room is silent.

Even the creatures have stopped their incessant banging.

Wisp relaxes her grip slowly. You can still feel her heart pounding against your spine.

You sigh in relief.

You hear the quiet sound of metal sliding on metal.

You hear a soft sound of something fleshy being cut.

You feel a pinch in your chest, right over your heart.

Wisp gurgles weakly.

You feel a warm, wet substance leak down the back of your neck, around your face, and off of your chin. You watch the red liquid splatter on the ground. After looking down, you realize the source of the pinch. A spike, one inch in diameter, has risen from the floor through your chest. You look over your shoulder and see the life rapidly draining from Wisp's wide eyes. The tip of the spike is protruding from her back.

The spike is covered with red. The blood of you and Wisp glisten in your fading vision.

You try to breath in again but it is a struggle, the spike has pierced your lung. Blood is filling your lung. You take in what air you can, wheezing the entire time. "So-rry... W-is...p," you choke out, blood staining your lips and splattering on the ground.

"Unauthorized access of emergency lock down procedure rectified," says the voice without a hint of malice.

Your legs can't support you anymore. They collapse and you slowly slide down the spike. You head is so heavy that you can't hold it up anymore. It slowly drops onto the floor, muzzle first. In your dim vision you see a small hole open in the floor right below your eye. You can see the spike waiting like a coiled snake, listening for an unknown signal.

The spike rockets upward through your right eye and out the back of your head, spraying brain matter everywhere.

You are dead.

Try again?

Try to fight them.

Run to the Testing Area.

Try to reason with them.

Author's Note

Oh no, your first death!
Fear not! This is not the end of the story.
This is simply one of the second chances I promised. The story won't end until an ending is reached. This is simply a mistake, not an ending.

On another note...
Yes, I finally got to write a death scene!

Eight: Fool Me Once

You turn around and look at the console. No, you think, looking away. Anything that could help me I won’t be able to find because nothing is labeled.

The giggling creatures are coming closer. You can hear them shuffling closer and sliding faster.

“Ten against one,” you mutter. “Well, one and a half,” you say, throwing a backward glance at Wisp. She has her eyes tightly closed and is whimpering softly. “One. I wouldn’t stand much of a chance fighting them even if I knew any other spells besides light and levitate. Not to mention that I don’t even know what they—”

The first of the creatures steps into the light. It looks like a pony, but it isn’t anymore. It looks more dead than alive. The creature has no skin. Its blackened, rotting muscle is exposed to the air. Thick blood slowly oozes out of every square inch of the abomination. It has no eyes—at least not in the convention sense—just large blue orbs that glow with malevolence.

The beast continues laughing as it limps closer. You can see its teeth whenever it opens its mouth. They are pointed, serrated teeth stained red with the blood that has pooled in the monster’s mouth. The blood continually leaks out of the monster’s mouth and adds itself to the rest of the slimy, red liquid dripping off of the beast.

The creature is joined by another one. And another one. And another one.

You immediately begin running toward the Testing Area. “Hang on, Wisp,” you wheeze out through the death grip she has on your neck. You feel her press her muzzle into the back of your head and nod.

Your hooves pound relentlessly at the concrete floor as you speed away from whatever those things are.

The hallway is long and well lit, completely featureless except for one door at the very end.

You look behind you and see the creatures blocking the doorway to the water tank room. Their giggling echoes behind you, the maddened cries beckoning you closer.

You continue running as fast as you can for the doorway, wheezing and gasping with every step. The combination of a flat out gallop and a small filly choking your windpipe is causing you to run out of air much faster than you would like.

You finally reach the door. You are completely out of breath at this point. Your vision is dimming from the lack of oxygen in your lungs.

The heavy steel door slowly opens toward you at the slightest touch. The mechanism cranking and groaning under the strain.

The creatures are right behind you and closing in fast, laughing the entire time. Their eyes seem to be lusting for your flesh.

The door finally opens, and you sprint inside the small room with a closed door in front of you and the open one behind you. In the dim, yellowish light, you can see a button on the wall, it says “Begin Procedure”. You press it and hope for the best.

“Warning, please stand clear of the closing door,” comes a pleasant mare’s voice from the ceiling.

You turn around and watch the door behind you as it begins to close at exactly the same pace, agonizingly slowly. The creatures see the door closing and increase their slithering limp.

The door is halfway closed but one of the creatures has broken away from the herd and is moving faster than the others. Its bloody spit flies out of its mouth as it struggles to make it through the door in time. It is only feet away but the door doesn't look like it will close in time.

The beast makes a desperate lunge at you through the closing opening. Wisp somehow grips your neck even tighter and you feel hot tears on the back of your neck.

The beast barely fits its head through the gap but the door closes enough to where its shoulders can’t fit through. It struggles and strains against the door but the unseen motor is too strong.

The door slowly shears the beast’s head off of its shoulders, inch by bloody inch. You can see the muscle and sinews tried to form but they just keep getting sliced.

The beast just keeps giggling like a madpony as it snaps its bloody teeth at you.

You watch the gap decrease in size from four inches to three inches to two inches to finally one inch.

The creature gives no indication of feeling any pain as the door seals shut and the head falls to the floor with a wet sounding splat.

The giggling finally falls silent for the first time in too long.

Wisp lets loose a long, shuddering sigh. “Could you please loosen your grip a little?” you croak.

She chirps softly and obliges, but only slightly.

You take a step closer to the severed head and inspect it closely. It is even more horrendous up close. The pocketed, rotting muscle continuously leaks blood all over the floor in spite of being dead.

Suddenly, tentacles made of decaying matter spontaneously grow out of the monster’s face and grab onto your right foreleg.

You let out a shrill scream that Wisp echoes. She immediately leaps off of your back and runs to the opposite corner of the room.

The giggling resumes with a new frenzy as the decapitated head quickly drags itself to your leg. It opens it jaws wide and sinks its teeth into the soft flesh.

You cry out in pain as you feel the serrated teeth start sawing away at your leg. You lift your left foreleg and bring it down on the head with as much force as you can muster.

The head explodes like a ripe melon, but the giggling still doesn't stop. You stomp again and again, spraying blood everywhere, but the laughing still echoes out of the broken flesh. You mash the pile of disintegrating muscle until it is more of a liquid than a solid, but still it doesn't die. You continue crushing it until your feel two semi-hard balls beneath your hoof. The glowing blue eyes crackle once when you destroy them, and the giggling finally falls silent.

“Decontamination procedure beginning,” says the pleasant mare’s voice from the ceiling, causing you to jump slightly. A fine mist of—what is probably not—water rains down from unseen jets. It washes you and Wisp completely clean of the blood coating you and sends the remains of the creature, along with the blood, down the drain in the center of the room.

“Are you feeling alright? Did you get hurt?” you ask Wisp.

She doesn't respond. She is just staring at space that the creature’s head had occupied with a shell-shocked expression.

“Hey, Wisp,” you call, raising your voice slightly. “Are you alright?” you ask, stepping closer.

She shies away from you and scrunches herself further into the corner, eeping quietly.

“Decontamination procedure finishing, please stand by,” says the emotionless voice.

The room is suddenly filled with an intense heat that almost instantly dries you and Wisp off.

“Please adhere to all safety regulations while in the Testing Area, thank you,” says the voice over the sound of the opening door. Thankfully it is the door that doesn't have blood thirsty monsters behind it. I hope.

The door open just as slowly as the first one closed, however, this time is a much calmer experience.

You limp through the open door and enter what looks like a reception area. There is a small metal desk right in front of you, centered in the exact middle of the small, unremarkable room, and three doors behind it.

Wisp cautiously slinks her way out of the decontamination room and crouches a short distance away from you.

You regard the doors with interest. All three of them are exactly the same, except for a small sign on each one. The first door says “Tools”, the second door says “Beverages”, and the last door says “Refinement”.

“Well, that’s useless,” you mutter. “What do you think, Wisp?” you ask the cute—and now clean—filly.

She points to the “Refinement” door with an unsteady hoof and shakes her head no.

“Why?”

You see her roll her eyes at you and squeak.

“Whatever,” you mutter good-naturedly. “You’re lucky you’re just too cute for me to do anything to you except keep you safe."

She gives you a small smile but doesn't step closer, still seeming slightly unnerved by the ferocity that you showed earlier.

Enter the door labeled Tools

Enter the door labeled Beverages

Enter the door labeled Refinement

Voting is now closed.

Author's Note

That was a really long chapter. For this story at least.

Ten: Side Effects

You pick up the sparkly blue liquid titled “Mixture 4”. Virtually unstoppable sounds much better than all of the other side effects. You peer at the liquid through the crystal clear glass. The sparkles float around in the liquid in a strangely consistent pattern.

You take the lid off of the small bottle and are immediately met with a light scent of roses. For some reason that sends a chill through your spine. You wonder if it has something to do with your memories.

The Gigglers, as you have now decided to call them, are banging on the door with all their might. You can hear the door creaking and groaning as the beasts continue to pummel it.

You close your eyes and tilt your head back. You pour the liquid down your throat.

It burns like fire. It feels like you just poured acid down your throat. You struggle to gag and cough, but the liquid oozes its way down your throat and into your stomach, burning the entire way down.

You clutch your forehooves to your stomach and collapse to the ground. You scream in agony as you feel the searing pain spread throughout your body.

You can’t even scream anymore, the pain has reached every part of your body, and it hurts so badly that your jaw is permanently locked shut. You are biting down on nothing hard enough that you can feel your teeth cracking.

You dimly hear the sound of the heavy, metal door falling off its hinges. You look towards the door and see the Gigglers. Their bloody, skinless bodies begin the slow, sliding limp toward you and Wisp. Their mindless giggling fills the air.

You look behind you to see Wisp backed into the corner of the room. She locks her panic-filled eyes on you and whimpers softly.

You look back to the advancing Gigglers. There are at least fifteen of them now.

I must protect Wisp, that was the whole reason I drank the Mixture in the first place, you think, trying to move your burning limbs.

You groan in pain as you place one forehoof flat on the ground. You follow it with another painful forehoof.

The Gigglers are almost upon you, their frenzied laughter increases in pace as they lessen the distance between you.

You scream through your clenched teeth as you put your back legs into position. The burning hasn’t eased in the slightest, and it is only getting worse.

You stand up.

That single motion causes you unbelievable pain. Joints crack, ligaments tear, and your teeth shatter because you bite down so hard. You start sobbing and a tortured scream echoes out of your throat.

The Gigglers are mere feet in front of you, but your vision is slightly blurry from your tears, so you can’t tell for sure.

You blindly grope around with your magic for something. You latch onto an object and yank it in front of you. There is a tearing sound, and you see—what appears to be—a pony’s dismembered leg appear in front of you.

You swing the leg like a club.

It bounces off of the lead monster and falls to the ground. The Giggler doesn’t even look in your direction.

You collapse to your knees as the Gigglers reach you. Looking up at the Gigglers, you see them flow around you like a river around a rock. You lash out at a leg and scream in pain. The fiery agony coursing through your body triples in pain.

You hear a scream. A scream that is calling out to you. A long wail filled with so much, yet unable to communicate.

You weakly turn your head around to that the Gigglers have reached Wisp. “No…” you whisper weakly.

The four closest Gigglers grab onto Wisp’s legs, one for each. Their sharpened teeth give them the grip they need as they begin to pull her apart.

Slowly they pull, ever so slowly. Her normally cute face twists into an expression of pain. She squeezes her eyes shut and screams continually. You can hear Wisp’s cries changing in pitch as the Gigglers pull harder and harder.

You begin crawling towards her. You will never make it in time, but you have to try.

You hear a horrible ripping sound as the first of her legs is torn from her shoulder. The blood flows freely out of her open wound, and you can see the muscle spasming weakly as she tries to move a limb that is no longer there.

“I coming Wisp…” you wheeze, locking your eyes on her tightly shut ones.

Two more Gigglers pull in unison, ripping off her second foreleg and one of her hind legs. She dangles from the mouth of the last Giggler like a broken toy, blood leaking off of her ruined body.

Her screaming has finally stopped, you can only guess that she fainted from the pain.

The Giggler that is holding her slowly turns its head to face you. Its featureless, blue eyes bore into your gaze. It begins limping over to you, Wisp swinging limply from its jaws.

It stops in front of you and unceremoniously drops Wisp on the ground with a wet sounding thump. Then, to your astonishment, it speaks. “Kill,” it laughs, a sticky, wet sounding laugh that shouldn’t be able to form words—yet somehow does.

“What?” you ask.

“Kill,” it repeats.

You feel the burning, immobilizing pain quickly beginning to fade. The intense fiery agony is completely gone. All that remains is a dull, throbbing pain that courses underneath your skin. Soon even that is gone, all you feel is blissful peace.

You feel a pleasant sensation wash over your skin. It almost feels like water running down your body. It starts at the tip of your horn and works its way down to the bottoms of your hooves.

You heave a relaxing sigh. You begin to stand up slowly. As you do, you hear the sound of something soft hitting the ground. Many, small somethings. Almost like a rain of whatever is falling. You look at your side and see a wall of bleeding muscle where there used to be skin. Looking down at the ground, you see where all your skin went. It has disintegrated into small thin flakes, and it now litters the floor around you.

You let out a short giggle from the absurdity of it all, blood spraying from your mouth as you do. But now you can’t stop.

You look back at the Giggler. “Kill,” it laughs. It continues quietly with its mindless laughter as you regard the body in front of you.

The small piece of flesh looks up at you. It stares into your eyes and whimpers.

You smile and feel the blood leak out of your mouth. You giggle softly as you inhale the scent of the meat.

“Kill,” you laugh.

You lunge forward and bite the piece of meat in the throat. You tear out a chunk of its windpipe and crunch it between your newly discovered pointed teeth.

You latch onto the side of its face and bite through its skull, sending bits of fractured skull everywhere. You taste the soft consistency of the eye as you chew through it. The flesh sprays its blood over your face as you take a deeper bite out of the brain matter seated behind the missing eye.

The dying meat gurgles weakly, making a sound eerily similar to the word “help”.

What have I done?

You remember no more.

You are dead.

Try again?

The swirling, translucent, black liquid titled Mixture 1

The thick, syrupy, green liquid titled Mixture 2

The bubbly, yellow liquid titled Mixture 3

Voting is now closed.

Author's Note

Really sorry about the long update. I started working on a small project that turned into a larger one that actually got featured. (Insert victorious fist pump) Then Life happened and I got busy. However, I should be back to my more normal levels of writing time. Should.

Eleven: Brutal

You grasp the small bottle titled “Mixture 2”. I like remarkable, you think, peering at the liquid. The small air bubble travels sluggishly around the bottle as you turn it upside down. As you take the cap off, the Gigglers continue their relentless assault against the door.

You tentatively take a sniff of the potion, but the liquid doesn't have any scent. Shrugging your shoulders, you tilt your head back and begin pouring the thick mixture down your throat.

The sticky mixture almost chokes you as it slides down your throat. You can barely swallow it because it is so thick. It is cold as ice and numbs your chest as it flows into your stomach.

The door groans, its hinges straining under the force of the Gigglers; the speed of the incessant pounding increases.

The chilling feeling spreads to every corner of your body, making it difficult to move. “Wisp?” you call.

She cheeps.

“Stay behind me, all right?” you tell her, looking over your shoulder at her.

She nods and backs up, tucking herself in the corner of the room farthest from the door.

You smile what you hope is a reassuring smile, then slowly turn to face the weakening door. The icy feeling is growing more and more intense with every passing second. It is chilling your very soul and making your movements slower and slower, almost freezing you in place.

The heavy metal door falls to the ground with an ominous thud; the mindless giggling of the long dead ponies fill the air.

You feel a sudden burst of heat emanate from your stomach, and you can feel it travel along the length of your bones; at the same time you discover that you can’t move, the icy chilling has completely immobilized you.

The Gigglers begin their shuffling, sliding gait into the room, their featureless blue eyes locked onto yours. There are more than a dozen of them, and their stench of death fills the air.

Every single bone of your body feels like it is exploding.

You scream as the pain rocks your body. The frozen feeling prevents you from moving, but it can’t silence your cries.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you can’t see the Gigglers, but you can dimly hear them getting closer to your helpless body.

Bone after bone explodes inside your body, sending wave after wave of pain through you.

All you can do is scream.

And scream you do.

You hear a massive cracking sound that seems to come from you, it is so loud that it drowns out the sound of your screaming for a split second.

The feeling of motionless is gone, and you crumple to the ground with a cracking thud.

Opening your eyes, you see the Gigglers are almost upon you, their frenzied laughter sending sprays out blood out of theirs mouths.

You struggle to get to your hooves, the pain rapidly draining from your body. After wasting precious seconds getting to your hooves, you look down at your forelegs. The sight that greets you is an interesting one.

Your skin is bloated and cracked. It looks hardened and almost like... chunks of smooth stone? Bending your foreleg experimentally, your skin doesn’t move. Instead of your skin moving with you, your skin stays in one place like plates of armor. It seems like the cracks are the only things that lets you move at all. You peer closer at the cracks to discover that they aren’t even cracks at all. They are exposed, bloody furrows that reach deep into the slowly throbbing muscle of your thicker than normal legs. Out of curiosity, you hit the skin of your forelegs together. A harsh clacking sound fills the air and a slight vibration travels up your legs, but nothing more happens, not even a feeling.

Movement catches your eyes, and you quickly glance upward. The lead Giggler is lunging at you, blood flying from its hyper extended jaw and serrated teeth already covered with gore.

Reacting completely on instinct, you bring your hoof straight up into the beast’s jaw, hitting it seconds before it would have bit your throat.

There is a second of seemingly stopped time as your hoof connects with the Giggler, you can almost see fear combining with the hate in the creature’s eyes.

Time speeds up with a jarring lurch. The Giggler’s head breaks free of its neck with a wet ripping sound. It flies upward and hits into the ceiling with an explosion of gore.

You watch the blood leak off of the ceiling and onto the collapsing corpse.

Cracking your neck side to side, you smile a twisted smile.

Two Gigglers use that as the signal to attack. They leap at you from slightly to the right and left of your center.

Spinning around on your forehooves, you buck out your back legs. Your hooves impact in the center of the left one’s face, sending the first quarter of your legs out the back of the monster’s head.

You quickly pull your legs out of the dead body as the next one attacks. It drags its pointed teeth across your skin, making a painful sounding scraping noise.

The numbness permeating your skin causes you to feel nothing but a vibration as the Giggler does its best to gouge your flesh.

You sweep the creature off of its hooves with a foreleg. The creature falls to the ground in a pool of blood. You stomp directly on the creatures face, destroying its life-giving eyes. It wheezes then falls silent.

You don’t have time to think anymore. The rest of the Gigglers leap at you.

You punch one on the side of the head, sending your foreleg through the creature’s head and into the next one’s neck, decapitating it. Bucking your rear legs outward, you turn a Giggler’s chest into a huge bloody cavern. You spin around and deliver a punch directly to the creature’s face, destroying its entire head.

Three Giggler’s leap at you simultaneously, knocking you off of your hooves. One is chewing on your face, filling your vision with serrated teeth, rotting flesh, and blue, featureless eyes. The grating, vibrating feeling combines with the smell of death as it slobbers its bloody saliva all over your muzzle.

As more Gigglers jump on you, you feel a sharp pain in your hind leg, reminding you that you are not invincible.

You shake your head roughly, tearing the Giggler’s head off of its neck. It’s still chewing on your face even though it’s no longer attached to the body. The decapitated body adds itself to mass of bleeding flesh beating your hardened body.

You drive your face into the ground, crushing the head in between the ground and your face. Blood and gore sprays outward and upward, covering most of your head and shoving gore up your muzzle.

Another Giggler immediately jumps on your head. It bites down on your ear and rips it off; at the same time you hear Wisp scream.

Your vision turns a deep red.

You stand up, shedding the Gigglers like they are nothing.

You stomp on the ground and forcefully blow the gore out of your nose.

The Gigglers attack again.

You cut them down like they are nothing. Right, left, right, right, left, high, low, low, high, your forelegs fly. They shred everything in your path, blood, gore, flesh, and bone erupting outward from each impact.

You break free of the horde only to see one of the Gigglers dragging Wisp out of her corner by her tail. The ground cracks under your hooves as you leap forward, forelegs extended. You smash into its shoulder, knocking Wisp free. Stomping on its head again and again, you turn its face into a soupy mess of shredded skull.

Vision still red, you turn around to see a horrifying sight.

Giggler flesh is growing, twisting, quivering, thrashing, and roping itself together. Five Gigglers build themselves from the ground up, one bloody, shattered bone at a time.

The sinews form, muscles grow, bones harden; literally entire bodies have just been born in the span of seconds.

Pushing Wisp behind you, you bare your teeth.

They just laugh at you and begin their hobbling shuffle forward.

You run forward to meet them. Crouching down at the last second, you smash through both of the lead monster’s forelegs. You quickly bring your forehooves together and up through the bottom of the creature’s chest, lifting it off the ground and ripping a hole from its lower torso to its neck.

You spin on your hooves and buck its head off its shoulders and into the wall, creating a large blood splatter. Two jagged leg bones catch your attention; you levitate them in your magic and quickly turn around.

Firing them at the two closest Gigglers, the bones impale the creature’s eyes, and they slump to the ground.

You jump up and bring your hoof down on top of the next Gigglers head, crushing it into, and cracking, the floor.

The last Giggler opens its mouth impossibly wide and aims for your face.

You lower your head and impale the creature through the roof of its mouth, your horn piercing its eye and forcing its way out of the Giggler’s skull. You tear its head from its shoulders and throw it under your forehoof.

You crush it with small effort, the skull breaking into tiny fragments under your hoof.

The sickening squelch echoes in the empty room.

Panting heavily, you listen with your one remaining ear.

Silence.

The hellish laughter has finally stopped.

You fall to your knees, the exhaustion finally catching up with you. The adrenaline flowing through your veins is slowing, but your heart is still beating faster than you could have imagined.

Even though you feel as though you couldn't get up even if you wanted to, you keep a close eye on the bloody, mutilated remains of the Gigglers.

A burning feeling comes from your missing ear and your wounded hind leg, your overstimulated body finally having time to process the pain.

Nothing is moving.

The room is silent.

You don’t know how long you stay there, gasping for air and struggling not to lose consciousness.

You hear a noise behind you so you whip your head around and focus on… Wisp. She freezes when you look at her and stares at you with scared eyes. You blink slowly then return to your watch over the rotten flesh.

Wisp’s cautious hoofsteps slowly work their way towards you. She stands right next to your head, and you can see her following your gaze out of the corner of your eye. She wraps her forelegs around your neck and nuzzles your cheek softly.

Almost afraid to touch her because of your newfound strength, you carefully, slowly, and exceedingly gently wrap your foreleg around her, offering what comfort you can.

You can hear her crying, but you can’t feel the tears on your skin; you can’t feel her at all.

“It’s all right, Wisp,” you rasp, your mouth dry, ever so gently petting her mane.

Search the bodies, take a closer look at the rest of the room.

Leave the room and head to Tools.

Leave the room and head to Refinement.

Writing in process...

Author's Note

So... how was my first true attempt at writing an action scene?

Twelve: Searching

You lay there for an inestimable amount of time, gently holding the sobbing Wisp and recovering your strength.

Breathing and heart rate slowing, you carefully stand up, cradling Wisp to your neck with your foreleg.

You hold Wisp until you can no longer hear her crying. She finally takes a deep shuddering breath; she then sighs, exhaling all of the air out of her lungs.

“Are you feeling better?” you ask, eliciting a quiet squeak from her.

You slowly set her down on the ground and gently pet her mane. “That’s good.”

She makes a soft hum and pushes against your foreleg.

“Wisp?” you ask. “Why don’t you help me by searching around the room, okay? Try and find something important-looking,” you ask her.

She nuzzles your chest then nods. She chirps and runs toward one of the many desks, banging on the metal desks quietly as she searches.

Poor thing, she doesn’t deserve to be here, you think, slowly walking over to the pile of rotting corpses. Wary of their regenerative abilities, you keep a close eye on the flesh, ready to fight or evade should the situation arise.

You slog through the stinking meat, making sure to step on anything even resembling an intact eye. The broken blue eyes crack underneath your hooves as you step on them mercilessly.

Something catches your eye in the remains of one of the bodies. Bending down, you peer closer at whatever it is.

It’s just a quivering tendon, weakly spraying blood as it struggles to connect to a nearby bone.

You stomp on it, forcefully blowing air out of your nose. “Nothing,” you mutter.

After searching through the mutilated bodies for an unknown period of time, you come up empty. “Still nothing,” you mutter. “I guess there was nothing pony left in them.”

Wisp squeaks excitedly, and you hear her tapping on the side of your body. Your skin makes a particular sound that sounds somewhat akin to stone whenever she hits it.

“What is it?” you ask, turning your head around to look at her.

She is balancing a box roughly half the size of her head on her back with the help of her damaged wings. Squeaking again, she points to it with a hoof.

You levitate the box off of her and over to you with your magic. There is a small, worn label on the solid-feeling steel cube. It reads, “Letters To Mother”.

“Where did you find this?” you ask her.

She points to a small trash bin next to one of the closer desks.

Curiosity piqued, you look for a way to open it. Nothing, the box is completely seamless. You look at it from every angle. Still nothing. “Hmmmm…” you hum, continuing to turn it over in your magic.

The box isn’t just a cube, it appears to be a perfect one. A dull, flawless grey metal cube.

Wisp squeaks again, drawing your attention. She is sitting on the floor with her fore legs in the air. She points to you then the cube, then she makes a show of bringing her hooves together with a quiet clop.

“Of course, thank you Wisp,” you say, feeling the urge to drive your hoof into your forehead. “I guess I’m still getting used to the new body.” You hold the box in front of you with your magic. Sitting down, you bring your fore legs up and smash them together like sledgehammers, crushing the cube open instantly.

Papers erupt violently, spraying everywhere. Wisp squeaks and you both jump backward slightly. The papers begin landing on the bloody floor, causing them to soak up the blood. Finally reacting, you try to catch as many as you can with your magic, and Wisp joins in seconds later, trying to catch them in her mouth.

The papers finish falling. You look at the dozens of pages on the ground to see that they are completely illegible after soaking in gore of the dead Gigglers.

You start reading the precious few that you caught.

Mom,

I’m telling you, this place is… off somehow. They have guards that are posted at the only exit supposedly “guarding us from intruders”. But the funny thing is they’re facing the wrong way. They watch the hallway, not the door. Meaning that—theoretically of course— if somepony tried to get out, they would have to get through the guards. So the question is, what are they guarding exactly?

And another thing, these formulas are simple to understand, but mathematical impossible gibberish. Nothing has enough power to do what this… “Element” can do. One square inch of this material can supposedly corrupt an entire body’s worth of cells instantly from direct exposure without losing any energy? And that’s the most tame thing I have seen.

Your son.

Mom,

There is some pretty freaky stuff going on. Foals are being led into rooms that they don’t come out of. Foals Mom, foals. Sometimes I can hear them crying in the corners of my workroom. I found some small cages, but I can’t open them. Sometimes I’ll just sit and talk with them when there’s nopony around; most times they are unconscious and continually being flashed with a painful-looking light. I know it's painful because the conscious ones cry out whenever it hits them.

Ponies walk places then are never heard from again. This place is bad news. I’m getting out when I can. Problem is, the Director has some kind of… murder switch on us. We don’t show up for work; we die. I don’t know how he does it, but one of my friends was talking about it. She said that anypony can be killed at the press of a button.

I’m scared Mom.

Hey Mom,

I know you won’t be too pleased about the location of my job, but I’ll tell you anyways. I just got my new job copying formulas today at this special facility! We’re going to make the world a better place here, I can feel it.

Your son, Note Taker.

Dear Mom,

I’m making this special case for my letters to you. The automatic censor spell I mentioned keeps censoring words and phrases in my letters. You may ask why I don’t write my letters from home. The answer: I can’t. I physically can’t write or say anything regarding my work at my apartment. And the scary thing is, I have no idea why…

Your confused son.

mom

i can haredy get this out on papeR. my hoves are shaking so mUchh and i can’t even spelll coherantly. i watchd a poNy murdered get brutally get merdered just nOw. he died in my forelegs. a pony Ran out of a room only to me followeded by something. it was huge and metel and bleeDng and huge and… a pony. It toor him apart. i went to cheack on him after it left, and he died seconds aftEr.

i’m going to die here.

Finishing the ones that you caught, you reach for the single one that Wisp managed to catch.

Mom,

If this somehow makes it to you, just know I’m sorry. You were right. You were always right.

I managed to survive the Gigglers. I thought they were bad. Now the Demon Shadows are walking. We’re all going to bucking die.

I love you Mom. Always remember that.

That last letter sends a chill through your spine as you read it. Every scattered piece of information you find seems to answers a single question but asks so many more.

The chill in your spine intensifies, you look around quickly, making sure that all the bodies are truly dead. Confirming this, you relax slightly.

You hear a soft sobbing originating from a corner of the room. Glancing over towards the sound, you see a small cage made out of steel that blends into the wall. Looking closer, you can now see that there are at least thirty cages half-imbedded in the wall from the floor to the ceiling, though most of them are already open.

Walking towards it, you wonder why you didn’t notice the cages before. I guess I had more pressing things on my mind, you think, glancing over toward the dead Gigglers.

Reaching the cages, you see a small sliding window with a rubber knob. You open the window with your magic and are immediately met with wide golden eyes staring back at you.

“C-can you h-help me? I want my mommy...” asks a small, scared voice from the pure blackness of the inside of the cage. The soft hum of electricity comes from the cage, and a flash of blindingly pure white light floods the inside of the cage, momentarily blinding you. After you blink the spots out of your eyes you look at the cage again. The eyes have disappeared from view and you can hear the pony squirming on the floor of the cage, crying softly. The inside of the cage is dark once again. “Please?” it whimpers weakly. “It hurts…”

You hear the quiet, raspy voice of the Beast from directly behind you. “What will you do? What should you do?” it whispers. “I already know the answer, but the real question is, do you?”

Quickly turning around, there’s nothing there...

Help it out of the cage.

Leave it and run away.

Dear chapter,

You are locked.

Sincerely, NightWolf289

Author's Note

Think carefully. The choice could be deadly either way...

Who knows? I might even have left a little something to help you out...

Thirteen: Luck of the Draw

I must help this foal, you think, taking a step forward. Bringing up your foreleg, you smash at a small defect that you hope is the lock.

The metal clanks dully, but nothing happens.

The sound of the next flash of light is building, and you have to work quickly to save the foal.

Aiming your hoof at the corner of the door, you use it like a hammer and pound vigorously on the metal. The metal begins to split along the seam, so you continue.

“Please hurry,” whispers the foal; it’s gender remains a mystery, but its plight does not.

“Working on it,” you grunt, smacking the metal even harder with your unfeeling hoof.

With a jarring crunch, the corner breaks off. Finally able to get some leverage, you pry your hoof in the triangular hole and pull on the edge of the door.

Muscles straining, you heave on the door; it flies off and impacts the ceiling with a dull clang. With a softer sound, it lands behind you.

Peering in the cage, you see a curiously dark foal lying on its side. It looks up at you with its golden eyes and whimpers softly.

Acting quickly, you reach in and grab the foal. You pull out the foal and cradle it to your body. Turning your back on the cage, you shield the foal from the painfully bright light as it flashes again. At least, that’s what you would do….

Except your hoof passes through the foal.

It’s almost like the foal isn’t even there.

The foal weakly crawls out of the cage while you stand there, unable to do anything. As it falls to the floor, you hold out your forelegs to try and catch it, but to no avail. It simply passes, or more accurately, flows around you. You watch in fascination as its body defies the laws of physics.

Reaching behind you, you grab the damaged door and stuff it into the hole. Crimping the edges of the cage inward with your hooves, you seal the door just as the electricity finishes building. It flashes, but you can’t see any of the light. Nodding in satisfaction, you turn your attention to the foal.

The foal is crouched underneath you; it is sitting in your shadow, softly panting and whimpering.

“Are you all right?” you ask, looking down at it.

The foal nods, but doesn’t say anything.

“How about you, Wisp?”

Wisp doesn’t say anything either, nor does she respond in any way. She just stares at the foal sitting in your shadow.

The foal places its foreleg on yours. It slides into the cracks in your rock-hard skin. You watch in fascination as the entire foal pours itself into the gaps. You can feel it sliding around, but the feeling is hard to describe. It feels similar to just barely brushing your coat up against something soft. It’s a feeling that’s there, yet somehow not. You would probably be able to feel it better if your skin wasn’t practically dead. The foal is now completely invisible to your eyes. If you couldn’t feel it, you would never know that it was there.

Now the foal is riding along your skin towards you face.

You feel it sliding its way up your leg, onto your back, and along your neck.

“What are you doing?” you ask it.

“I’m hungry,” it whimpers.

You feel it sliding around; it moves toward your face, your mouth. It sits right on the edge of your parted lips and stops.

“What do you eat?” you ask slowly.

“...You….” The foal forces your lips open wide and begins flooding your mouth.

You start gagging and bring your forelegs up to your mouth. You tug and swipe, spit and vomit, but the foal flows in unheeded. You can feel it coursing down your throat like some thick liquid. Wiping the spit from your lip, you can feel the foal nestle in your stomach.

You feel a bite.

A sharp tooth.

It drags along your insides.

Cutting, slicing.

Clenching your teeth, you sit down with a grunt and wrap your forelegs around your abdomen.

You feel a second bite.

More pain.

A third bite.

A forth.

Grunting and wincing, you fall onto your side with a heavy thud.

It’s tearing you apart.

You can feel it shredding, biting, eating.

You can feel it break through the side of your stomach.

Eating, clawing.

Pain.

Somepony is screaming, you can hear him.

You look down to see that the skin of your ribcage is slowly expanding outward.

Blood spurting, your skin erupts outward in a splash of color, coating the floor in a deep red.

You can hear the pony screaming louder.

The foal sticks its head out of your stomach. It looks unchanged. Its eyes are still gold; its coat is still completely black: it is still innocent.

Flashing bloody teeth, it grins wickedly.

Stepping out of your chest, it shakes itself off and walks up to your head, blood dripping off of it quickly.

“Thank you for saving me,” it says in its childish voice. Its voice doesn’t seem to match its bloody teeth or what it has done, but you can see it right before your eyes. “But I’m still hungry.”

Leaning forward, it places a foreleg on each side of your face. It dives into your eye, and pain floods your mind.

It explodes out the side of your neck.

You can hear your own breathing in your ear, and you can feel your heartbeat slowing.

Limply rolling over onto your back, you see Wisp and the foal out of the corner of your eye.

Wisp feebly swats at the foal, but her foreleg flows right through it.

The foal leaps into her open mouth and erupts out of her back a second later.

Her milky blue eyes meet yours, then close slowly. The shadow-foal goes back into her and bursts out of her eye sockets, splattering you in her gore.

The foal trots toward you, evidently not satisfied. Sliding in your chest, you feel its teeth begin their work anew.

“Morality is such a pesky thing,” murmurs the Beast, as the world goes dark.

You are dead.

>Leave it and run away.

Author's Note

Those are your choices (No, you don't actually have to vote, but comments are always nice. I already started working on the next chapter.)…. Just because it's a foal doesn't mean it's friendly.

I'm not going to lie, I have WAY too much fun writing these death chapters... :pinkiecrazy:

Fourteen: Descent

“I don’t like this….” you mutter, still looking at the cage. “Why is the light hurting it?”

Wisp squeaks in agreement. Maybe, or maybe not. She taps your leg to get your attention, and the dull clicking drags your gaze to her.

“I can’t do this, it feels wrong. But so does not doing anything,” you mutter, looking over at Wisp. “What?”

She cheeps and points to the cage, then to you, then mimics hitting it.

“But, Wisp, can you tell me why it’s in the cage?” you ask her.

She squeaks again and motions to the cage more insistently.

“Please, help me…” whimpers the foal from inside the cage. The golden eyes reappear, shaking in fear as the next charge comes closer and closer to its peak.

“Why are you in there?” you ask, lifting you hoof and running it over the side of the cage.

“Please help me. It hurts…” it whines, scrabbling against the inside of the cage.

Squeaking insistently, Wisp stands on her hind legs and taps the bottom of the cage with her hoof.

“Just tell me why you are in the cage, and I’ll get you out,” you ask.

“Help. Please help me,” it asks.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t take that risk,” you tell it reluctantly; you look away as a despairing murmur comes from the foal

“Please…”

Wisp chirps and hits the cage as hard as she can from the awkward angle, making a pathetic tap.

“...I’m sorry, but Wisp comes first. Come on, Wisp, we’re leaving.” Picking up Wisp in your foreleg, you start limping out of the room on three legs, head lowered.

Quickly looking down at Wisp, she cheeps and hits your foreleg, pointing at the foal repeatedly.

“No… please… don’t leave me…” it whimpers; its voice drives a knife of guilt into your chest, but something is telling you that the foal is bad news. “Please... No… No. No! Mommy! Hel—”

The flash finishes building, and you hear the foal let out a long wail. An even longer silence follows as you continue your way out of the room.

You glance down at Wisp to see her looking up at you. Tears matting her face, she gives you a look that can only mean one thing: “Why?”

“I’m sorry, Wisp, but something seemed off about that foal” Sitting down, you hold Wisp in front of you and stare into her eyes.

The tears come faster and faster, and her questions don’t stop. “Why?” she asks with her milky blue eyes. “Why. Why. Why. Why. I trust you. How could you do that? Are you any better than what we’re running from? Why?” Every question echos around inside your head, but still she asks. Tears flowing freely, Wisp openly sobs, whimpering and hiccuping repeatedly, but her eyes never leave yours. “Why? Why. How could you. Why. Why. Why. Why. You killed him. Why. He didn’t do anything to deserve that. Why. What if I was in a cage? Why? Would you have killed me too? Why? Why. Why. Why… Why...”

“Wisp…” you start, shaking your head slightly.

“Why...”

“I need you to trust me.”

“Why...”

“Everything that I’m doing, I’m doing to protect you. I will always air on the side of cauti—”

[Why.]

“Because I want to get out of here, and I want you to come with me. Nopony belongs here,” you answer. “Not you, not me, nopony. I just want to get out of here, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. I’m going to get us out of here safely. No matter what it takes. I promise, Wisp.” You slowly pull her into a hug; she doesn’t resist. And after a long moment, she hesitantly returns it, but her tears still pour down her face.

“For-foreign contaminants de-de-detected. Emergency proto-protocol Alpha Num-ara-ara Delta Omega-ga activ-ate-ate-dated-ated,” stutters a pleasant voice. “Biological flush-sh imm-imminent.”

Quickly looking up, you see a thick steel door slide closed over each of the research rooms, and you hear one more lock into place in front of you, effectively sealing you in the perfectly square room.

A creaking, groaning, moaning, sound comes from the floor as you wait for something to happen; it sounds like something heavy and metal is moving around in the floor. The sound is echoed from the ceiling, but different, more menacing.

“All person-al-al-al and patien-ts-ts in this Tes-testing A-a-area have been deem-eemed hazar-d-dous to the rest-st of-of the Facility. Please-please-please-please-pleas... e-e-e-e ...tand by for gen-genetic recycl-ing-ing and re-re-purposing. We apol-apologize for the incon...venie...n….” The voice drifts off into silence.

“What?” you ask.

A screech comes from the center of the room, and a huge hole opens up in the floor, swallowing the desk that was sitting there. It thunks dully as it disappears into the darkness below. Repeated explosion-like sounds come from the hole seconds later.

A panel above your head slides open, prompting you to look up. A huge claw, big enough to pick you up with ease, emerges out of the hole. Merely bits of bloodstained metal held together with red magic, it slowly reaches toward you, tri-fingers extended.

Right before it grabs you, you leap out of the way, still holding Wisp to your neck with your left foreleg. You hear Wisp let out a scream; you leap forward just as a claw grabs at the air where you were standing.

Holding your breath and staring up at the ceiling, you see a total of ten claws, wiggling and squirming as they systematically scour the room you and other organic material.

Wisp sniffs quietly; you wince.

Immediately, each claw focuses directly on you.

Before you have time to react, the closest claw shoots forward and roughly grabs you; you feel the fingers of the claw through your unfeeling ribcage, a testament to the claw’s strength.

The claw levitates you to over the pit. Suspended over the darkness, you can’t help looking down. You see a warm light at the bottom: a warm fiery red color. “Keep your eyes closed Wisp,” you tell her. Tucking your chin to your chest, you hold her snugly against your stomach and wrap all four of your legs around her, making an improvised cage that will hopefully protect her.

“Fffffffor-foreign bodies-ies-ies rrrrrrre—ved... comm...encing acid-acid-acid-acid-acid s...eri-lization-ti...” stutters the pleasant voice, as the other nine claws begin spraying a green mist over the entire room.

For an impossibly long second, you hang in the claw's grip.

Without warning, it lets go.

You are weightless for a split-second.

Gravity catches up with you, and you begin plummeting downwards.

Down you fall into the pit, spinning out of control. When you reach what seems like the halfway mark, you feel an immediate, unbelievable shock of pain explode from your back, and something metal-sounding shatters.

Your falling speed considerably slower, you look upwards to see what looks like a giant, slow-spinning fan that is picking up speed with every turn, except one of the blades is missing; bits of metal twinkle around you in the warm glow.

Grunting loudly, you land on your back with a agonizing thud, sending more pain through your spine. Relaxing your legs, you look down to see Wisp. “Are you all right, Wisp?” you ask, gently patting various places along her sides.

She slowly wiggles around on your chest, then nods quickly.

“That’s good to hear,” you answer, offering a smile.

She smiles—hesitantly, reluctantly, slowly, and slightly—but nonetheless returns your smile; her smile is a fragile thing that could shatter at any moment. You pull her into another hug.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” you tell her.

She hums quietly and returns the hug.

Releasing her, you look around the room from your position on the floor; you can see dozens of dead, rotting bodies piled in various places. After Wisp dizzily steps off of you, you roll to your hooves, grunting in pain as you twist your back. Standing up, you crunch small, broken pieces of metal that had once been the desk and the blade.

You look over your shoulder to see nothing but a sheet of sticky red blood with shards of metal stuck in it. From this position, you can’t tell the extent of the damage to your back, but it doesn’t look good. The whizzing fan blade and jarring landing would have killed a normal pony, but apparently the Mixture has altered you beyond that. What exactly are you? What is your purpose? You’re strong, stronger than any pony has a right to be; but even though you’re strong, you aren’t invincible, as proved by the pain coursing through you.

The room is a huge square with blacked concrete walls and a thick, grated iron floor. The red glow you had seen earlier is coming from below your hooves.

Eying the bloody rotting remains of meat warily, you take a few steps forward. “Wisp?” you call over your shoulder.

She slowly walks over to you and stops by your hoof; she squeaks softly.

“Stay close to me, okay? Let’s try and find a way out of the room.”

You walk toward the closest of the walls, stepping around piles of rotting flesh; Wisp stays close to your side, almost brushing your foreleg as you walk.

Coming around one more pile of diseased flesh, you stop and shrink back; you hold Wisp from venturing out into the open and observe your surroundings

There is an open, vaguely oval door in the wall; it is opened towards you, so you can see that it is made out of absurdly thick metal—it appears to be at least a foot and a half thick. But that’s not why you paused.

There is something standing by the door.

It’s massive.

If you were to stand next to it, you would only come up to its shoulder, and it has metal knitted into its flesh at different intervals and varying amounts. You can still see the dried blood where they tore into the pony to give him the modifications. The metal gives him a patchwork-like appearance, with his skin showing through the metal in many places; he almost has as much metal as skin.

His head turns side to side, methodically, mechanically, jerkily, endlessly.

His eyes are soulless black holes in his face.

A Guard is guarding the way out.

Run past the Guard

Attack the Guard

Look for another exit

Talk to the Guard

Chapter locked.

Author's Note

Decisions, decisions...

On a side note:
I love Wisp so much. She is one of my favorite ponies at this point, possibly even tied with Ditzy.

Fifteen: Who Has Lost . . .

“I don’t like the look of that thing, at all,” you whisper. Pulling your head behind the tall pile of rotting bodies once more, you look at Wisp. “Let’s see if we can find another exit; I don’t want to stay in this room longer than we have to.”

She squeaks, nodding.

“All right, follow me. And be quiet.” Choosing the wall opposite of the Guard, you decide that you want to be as far away from it as possible. Trying to make as little noise as possible, you start walking.

There isn’t much room between the piles of bodies; there is barely enough room for you to walk without your shoulders brushing the sides, and most are too tall to see over. So you carefully weave around the piles, and the thick stench fills your nostrils.

Gingerly picking your way around yet another pile of bodies, you step on something and roll your ankle. You hit the ground with a heavy thud and a sickening squelch. You lie there for a few seconds, regaining the breath that was knocked out of your lungs. Angling your remaining ear toward the last know location of the Guard and holding your breath, you listen carefully. Wisp tries to say something, but you quickly bring your hoof up to your lips.

Silence.

It must not have heard you.

You start breathing again. Wisp cheeps and trots over to your head. She gently pats your cheek and smiles, tilting her head to the side. She then leans down and kisses your ankle, petting it softly.

Logically speaking, the pain is still there and fading slowly of its own accord, but the warm feeling in your chest helps dull the pain that much faster.

Smiling, you grunt, “Yeah, I’m fine, Wisp, thanks.” Gathering your legs underneath you, you wince as pressure is applied to your hoof, but it quickly dissipates. As you do, you feel whatever it is you tripped over. Lighting up your horn, you pick up the object while you slowly stand up.

It’s a small gore-soaked book. You flip through the pages only to discover that each page its completely illegible. Every page but the last one, that is; its barely readable words spell out:

Trust no one.

Worthless.

Grunting, you toss the book back into the pile of bodies. It clunks dully.

You look closer at the pile. The bloody remains of horribly mutilated corpses are covering something metal-looking. Peering even closer, you can see that it appears to be a filing cabinet of some sort.

Wiping some of the remains off of the cabinet, you stretch out your magic to the top drawer of the—thankfully—upright cabinet and open it. Maybe this will finally have some answers.

A bloody mess falls out of the bottom of the drawer and rolls to your hooves; it stares up at you with soulless blue orbs streaked with veins of darker blue, and it grins with its bloody, serrated teeth.

It laughs hysterically, decaying muscle wiggling widely as it latches onto a nearby broken leg; beginning to form a body, it tries to roll over and bite your leg.

You quickly bring your hoof down with a resounding thud, crushing the life out of the Giggler’s eyes.

A giggle echos.

A laugh follows.

More laughter.

It’s coming from everywhere.

A chain reaction of mindless, screaming laughter.

It’s drowning out even your thoughts.

The damage has been done.

Ignoring Wisp’s squeaks, you clamp your teeth on the scruff of her neck and pick her up. Pain forgotten, you take massive, thudding steps towards the wall—and hopefully, the door.

A leg bursts out of the pile on your right, spraying you with gore; you veer to the left and plow through a pile of broken-looking equipment, sending test tubes shattering and delicate metal flying.

You toss Wisp up into the air and lower your head; you catch her on your neck before she falls far. “Hold tight,” you grunt; you can’t hear her reply over the laughing of the Gigglers.

A Giggler climbs out of a pile in front of you; the warm light coming from the floor makes it look ever more diseased than before. You make a quick right turn followed by a left. Two Gigglers explode out of the two pile in front of you, but they don’t have hindlegs yet. Scrabbling around wildly with your magic, you launch a broken horn into the face of the first Giggler; it slumps to the ground, and you shoulder the second out of the way. It tries to bite you, but your armor stops the teeth; it makes a grating noise as its teeth are dragged across your body.

You keep running as more and more Gigglers climb out of the presumed dead flesh. They are appearing on all sides; you can see over a dozen just by glancing left and right—and that’s not counting the ones that you can’t see. You see an opening in front of you, and you speed up.

Some sort of mutant Giggler appears out of nowhere and stands in your path. It has at least eight pairs of eyes scattered throughout its massive, bloated body, and ten legs wiggle, squirm, and reach out to you as it takes surprisingly quick steps towards you. It has five jaws panting and biting; they seem to be straining against their flesh in an effort to tear into you.

All this you absorb in half a second; in that same second, you make your decision. Lowering your head until your horn points at the Giggler, you leap into the air and extend your forelegs. Your horn hits right after your hooves make their impact in the creatures body. It’s flesh literally explodes out of the way as you fly through the center of the Giggler, covering yourself in bloody remains.

You hooves hit the ground, but you don’t look back; you don’t have to. You can hear its hellish laughter from too many mouths as it closes in on you. You just keep running, and by the time you reach the wall, you are ahead of the beasts.

Looking up, you smile in relief. You can see a door directly in front of you—an unguarded one. Skidding to a stop, you place your hoof on the circular metal handle. Muscles straining, you turn the handle until you can hear the lock click open. Quickly glancing over your shoulder, you don’t see any Gigglers, so you pull on the door, slowly opening it.

You step through the barely wide enough crack and quickly close the door behind you; it shuts with a echoing thud.

“You okay, Wisp?” you ask, panting slightly; you sit on the ground and wipe the sweat from your brow. You inspect the hallway in front of you; it’s dark, but you can’t see much else. Glancing around the small area, you see that it looks like some kind of control booth; computers and consoles are scattered throughout the room. Actually… you squint your eyes and look down the hallway again; you can make out what looks like a faintly glowing “Exit” sign! “Hey, Wisp, I think we found a way out!” you yell happily; you expect an answering cheer.

There is silence.

An icy chill grips your heart.

“Wisp?” you ask again, not daring to look over your shoulder.

Nothing.

“...Wisp?” you try one last time, slowly using your magic to feel the back of your neck.

Earth shattering silence.

Leave her. Wisp is already dead. Continue into the dark hallway towards the Exit sign.

Go back for Wisp. She could still be alive.

Chapter locked; chapter pending.

Author's Note

MissingLink, this is on you. You caused this. Your incessant posting of the word "Facility" has brought this upon you. How do you feel?

Sixteen: . . . Will Find Again

“I’m coming, Wisp!” you yell, spinning around. Fighting with the door’s handle, you grunt, muscles straining. “Come on . . . come on.” The door breaks free with a screeching lurch, and you push it inward.

The room is still filled with the sound of Gigglers, and the scent of their death permeates the air. You start backtracking your path. “Wisp? Wisp!” you whisper. Something bright lights up in your peripheral vision, and you quickly snap your head around.

There it is again. A bright white flash lights up the room, and it’s coming from the area you fled . . . meaning . . . “Wisp?” You take off, heading towards the light. Even though you can hear the Gigglers, you can’t see them.

As you get closer to the flashes, you hear meaty thwacks and dying gurgles. Slowing down, you creep up on the flashes, and it sounds like you aren’t the only one; hellish laughter is all around you and seeming to do the same. Carefully peering around the pile of decomposing flesh, your mouth drops open.

Wisp is alive.

But more importantly, the Guard is standing over her petrified, crouching form. And it’s fighting back the Gigglers with ease. It hardly seems to be expending any energy as it utterly decimates each of the beasts that comes within its reach. Every couple of seconds, it’s horn lights up and blasts one of the Gigglers into a bloody mist.

The Guard is saying something; angling your ear, you catch its deep, resonating, metallic tone. “Refrain from attempting to damage high value Patient. Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction. Refrain from . . .” it repeats dully.

Seeing no reason to intervene, you watch as it effortlessly destroys creature after creature. Even the mutant Giggler doesn’t stand a chance; the Guard simply vaporizes it.

Eventually, the sound of laughter stops. The Guard’s soulless eyes observe the battlefield. Wisp slowly looks up at the metal beast towering over her. It looks in between its legs at her and drones, “You will be returned to your cell. Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction.”

Wisp cheeps quietly; you can barely hear her from where you are standing. The Guard bends down and opens it massive jaw wide. Wisp crouches closer and closer to the floor, eyes wide, ears flat against her head.

Something rattles from the dark doorway where Guard had originally been positioned.

The Guard pauses. It slowly looks over, neck creaking slightly in the sudden, eerie silence.

Peering around the Guard’s shoulder, you see a small completely black foal trotting out of the room. Catching sight of the Guard, it slows to a stop, blue eyes wide. The Guard bends it knees and, lets loose a horrible, screeching growl.

The foal doesn’t seem to reply, but within seconds, dozens of others walk out of the doorway, seeming to glide along the ground. They take up position alongside the first foal and stare at the Guard.

The Guard takes a step forward and growls. “Refrain from attempting to damage high value Patient. You will be returned to your cell. Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction.”

The first foal cocks its head to the side. “Hyah! We’re going to crack you open like a bug and slurp up your insides,” she giggles innocently, showing pointy fangs. There must be at least thirty of them now. “And after that, I’m going to chew on your eyes ‘till they pop and spew their wonderful, gummy, juicy flavor all over my tongue!”

As if that was the signal, the room exploded. The Guard and the foals rushed at each other. The Guard began vaporizing them with its horn, but there are too many; it only manages to hit one or two. It destroys each foal with it’s hooves as they come in reach, but the foals just turn into a black mist and reform seconds later.

Snapping out of your trance, you see your opportunity: Wisp is unguarded. Leaping over the pile, you dash over to her motionless form.

Not bothering to say anything, you grab her by the scruff of her neck and hoist her into the air. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the Guard slowly tumbling to the ground, foals covering every square inch of its body. Before it even hits the ground, you hear its chest being torn open as the foals enact their promise.

You decide it’s time to leave.

Turning around, you run for the door that leads to the exit.

But before you even take a full four steps, one of the foals cries out, “Look! A new friend!” Quickly glancing over your shoulder, you see that each of the foals is looking up from the meal and facing you. Rounding a pile, you lose sight of them, but you can hear their voices calling to you.

“He wants to play!”

“We’re only going to kill you!”

“I bet his juices taste good. . . .”

“Slow down!”

Putting more force in each step, you run faster, lungs heaving, Wisp bouncing against your chest. Spying the door rapidly approaching, you speed into the room and skid to a stop. Haphazardly dropping Wisp on the ground, you spin around and pull on the door. It slowly closes and you lock it tightly by turning the handle. You breath a long sigh and sit down.

A small bit of blackness begins oozing from all around the door. More and more darkness squeezes in through the edge. You should have know it wouldn’t be that easy. Once again picking up Wisp, you sprint down the long, dark hallway towards the beckoning glow of the exit sign. You reach it, but you have a problem.

It’s a dead end.

Looking over your shoulder, you see over two dozen different colored eyes glowing in the dark. You can hear them cheering as they rapidly close the distance.

Smacking each of the walls, you discover that they are solid concrete, same as the floor—the ceiling disappears into darkness above. Lighting up your horn, you quickly scan the walls, but you can’t find anything.

Wait! You can see a small button almost imbedded in the wall. You press it with your magic.

The floor instantly collapses below your hooves, sending you into the black abyss below. Again.

But something is wrong. You’re not going down. You’re going up.

You feel some sort of gentle pressure on your legs and ribs as you silently fly upward. Looking down, you see the foals following in suit.

After flying upward for a short time, you rise to the level of a dimly lit room. Breathing heavily around Wisp, you step out of the lift and observe your surroundings. The room has misshapen, illegible words written in blood all over the walls. You can’t read anything. However, there are two hallways leading out of the room; they are at opposite ends of the room. One has “There is no way out” written in blood on the door, while the other has “He lies” written in some sort of black fluid—but not ink, that much is clear. You can hear the foals getting closer; they are right behind you.

“There is no way out” door.

“He lies” door.

Stay here and fight the foals.

Author's Note

You guys went back for Wisp! You do have a consciences! :heart:

Seventeen: Trust?

For some reason, the black fluid on the first door sends a shiver down your spine; you don’t want to go there. And the fact that the Guard was torn to pieces in seconds makes staying here sound like a very bad idea. Lighting up your horn, you run at the door with “There is no way out” written on it. Shoving the door open with your magic, you blindly run into whatever happens to on the other side.

The door swings shut with an ominous click, assumedly locking you on this side of the door. The hallway in front of you is long and dimly lit. Immediately to your right is a dead, decomposing body with missing hind legs and a trail of blood leading from the door to him. Looking down the hallway, you see another exit sign! The way out continues!

Just one problem.

The Beast is standing in between you and the door. Nonchalantly leaning against the wall and inspecting his forehoof, he rasps, “I’m impressed. Almost didn’t think you would make it.”

Gently setting Wisp in between you forelegs, you growl, “No thanks to you.”

“Look, I need an ally, not a weakling; by not helping you, I tested you, and you passed. Now quickly, come with me before the Demons break through.”

“No. You need to tell me what’s going on.”

“In due time.” He stands up completely and motions you towards him. “But we need to leave.”

“What? No! I need answers now! Who am I?”

“Well . . .” His jawbone flaps as he struggles for words.

“Who are you?”

“I’m you, Brother. You’re me. We’re all a big happy family!” He lets out a single sharp laugh, spraying dark blood from his mouth. He wipes his mouth. “Now please, hurry.”

Behind you, the foals beat on the door. Quickly glancing over your shoulder, you can’t see any shadows seeping in around the cracks: this door must be different somehow.

“What do you mean? What does any of this mean!? I haven’t gotten a straight answer since I got here!” Stomping you hoof on the floor, the hallway reverberates, giving your words added volume.

“We don’t have time—” Seeming to collapse in on himself slightly, he looks up at you and hisses—though, it’s not an intimidating hiss. “You want to know who you are? You want to know why we’re here? You want to get out?”

“Yes!” you shout. “That’s what I’ve been looking for ever since I woke up!” Wisp looks up at you, slowly blinking. She cheeps softly and looks around. “You okay?” you ask her, lowering your voice to a whisper. She nods and nuzzles your leg.

“I’ll tell you the truth: I don’t know . . . You know just as much as I do.” He pauses. “But I do know that the exits never take you outside. They all lead right back into the heart of this hellhole.”

“You can’t possibly know that.” You ears twitch as the pounding on the door changes in pitch: it sounds closer—weaker.

“Those ‘exit’ signs lead to places that would break you and your little friend—they broke me! Do you think I always looked like this?” He chuckles lowly, his voice sounding like gravel. “No. But I know the secret now. . . .” He jawbone forms into an eerie imitation of a grin. “I know where the secrets are. I know where they’re kept!”

“Where?” you ask, glancing over your shoulder at the door.

“They were hiding for so long, just out of sight, and yet always there; but I never stopped looking! And now I know where we can find out who we are, who they are, where we are, and how to get out. . . . Because . . .” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “I finally found it—them—him—everything.”

“Found what?”

“What I’ve been searching for.”

“What?”

“And I need your help.”

“Help. For. What.”

“The Director’s Office. I’m going to pay the director a visit.”

Go with the Beast.

Push past him towards the exit.

Chapter is closed. No more votes please.

Author's Note

A bit short, but necessarily so. To trust, or not to trust, that is the question, no?

And in the spirit of good sportsmanship, I feel inclined to inform you that—

Eighteen: Turning Point

“The Director?” you ask.

“Yes, hurry! Before the Demons break through!”

“Go where?” You glance around, but the only exit you see is the exit door. And unless he was lying, he isn’t going to want to go through there.

“No time!” he shouts over the sound of metal straining. The Beast’s body spasms, vibrating uncontrollably: a blur-like effect surrounds him, and you can’t see where he begins or where he ends anymore. Faster than your eye can track, the blur is suddenly next to you. Wisp is forcefully thrust into your chest, and instinctively, you wrap your forelegs around her; and not a second too soon. The Beast wraps his blurry forelegs around you and throws you into the air. Straight up. Flying the though the air, you smack the back of your head on the ceiling. Then you go through the ceiling. And then everything goes black. . . .

Except, you’re still conscious as you fall a short distance and land on your stomach. You try waving a hoof in front of your eyes, but you can’t see anything. You’re blind.

Wisp chirps quietly.

“Shhhh,” you hiss. Carefully feeling around, your hoof slides along the floor and meets the fleshy dampness of something.

“Shhh,” whispers the Beast, shifting whatever it is that you’re touching. “Keep it down.”

You quickly retract your hoof, shaking it violently to rid it of the moisture. You dimly hear the sound of the foals finally breaking through the door below you.

The voices are muffled, but still audible. “Where did he go?”

“Must’ve went into the exit,” a voice giggles.

You hear rapid scrambling as the foals run along the hallway. Reaching the end, the sound of the screaching door reverberates around the room.

And then, silence. Complete silence.

“You can light up your horn now. And breath.”

Slowly letting out the breath you hadn’t been aware you were holding, you slowly light up your horn. Your exhale turns into a sigh as the room comes into view: it was just dark. “Now what? Where are we?” you ask, looking at what little you can see. The room appears to be a small concrete box with a hallway disappearing off into the distance and a semi-transparent hole cut in the floor; through it, you can see the hallway where you used to be.

“A whole new level of this madness,” grunts the Beast. “You don’t think they planned for an outbreak? This is their fallback level.”

You tap the semi-transparency and it ripples like a puddle of water. Pressing harder, you discover that it feels like the floor.

“Force field, high velocity penetration only; if you don’t know exactly where the holes are, you’ll kill yourself hitting the wall. Hurts like hell though. You get used to it.” He quickly stands up. “Follow me.”

Wisp rubs her head and cheeps angrily. She points to the Beast and lets out a quiet huff.

“Yes, my head hurts too,” you whisper, placing her on your back with your magic. “So when are you going to start answering questions?” you ask the beast, causing him to stop.

“Like what?” he asks. “I already told you I don’t know much.” He lets out a grating cough.

“You said, ‘I’m you, you’re me.’ What does that mean?” you ask, trotting up beside him.

He gives you a sidelong glance for a long minute, then continues walking. “Merely a speculation of mine,” he says finally. “But we’ll have to check the director’s office to be sure.”

“Why won’t you tell me?” you growl.

“I’ll bet you have plenty of speculations too, but you don’t know anything for sure, do you?”

“Well . . .”

“Everything will be answered when we get to the director’s office.” He lowers his voice to barely audible levels. “It has to be . . .”

Not quite sure how to respond, you walk on silently. Well, silent apart from the sound of Wisp quietly snoring on your back. Poor thing must be tired. Then again, so are you: your eyelids are burning, your limbs are lead, and your head aches dully from repeated magic usage. Twist after twist, turn after turn, you mindlessly follow the Beast past countless hallways and presumably locked, or unimportant, doors. Within minutes, you are lost beyond hope. If the Beast left you . . .

“We’re here,” he says, cutting into your thoughts.

You look up to see a door like every other. “Are you sure this is the one?”

He nods slowly and points to a small plaque on the door

The Director

“I don’t know what’s on the other side of this door, but there have to be some answers. How do you want to go about this?”

Quietly sneak into the room.

Kick down the door.

Look for another way in.

Chapter is locked. Nothing remotely witty to say.

Author's Note

I'm so excited! You're finally going to get some answers soon.

Maybe. :raritywink:

Nineteen: Answers

“I think we should sneak in the room,” you state, placing your hoof on the handle. You give him a frown as you glance at him. “Unless you have a better idea?”

“No.” He shrugs. “After you.”

You tentatively place you hoof on the handle. It’s ice cold under your hoof, and the sound of your ragged breathing suddenly blocks out all other sounds. This is it: time for answers.

Slowly, ever so slowly, you press down on the lever until it clicks, sending a sharp crack through the halls.

Glancing over your shoulder, you find nothing out of of place; it appears you are alone with your companions.

Returning your attention to the door, you cautiously push it open. It creaks open, revealing darkness beyond.

Silently, you tip-toe into the room, holding your breath. Once inside, the Beast clicks the door shut behind you, sealing you in the room. You begin lighting up your horn, but all you see is what looks like a normal office—at least, half of an office: parts of the room disappear into darkness.

Looking around, you see an entire wall of filing cabinets on your right. Grinning, you take a few steps closer, the Beast on your heels. You reach out your hoof and reverently pull on the handle, revealing . . .

. . . nothing.

The drawer is bare.

You hear a pony clopping his hooves together from behind you. “Bravo, bravo, I’m impressed,” purrs a feminine voice, silky venom dripping from every word.

You and the Beast quickly spin around as the bright lights come on, causing you to blink and cover your eyes. When you open them, you seen an unassuming mare standing by a small control panel: demure, dainty, and delicate are words you could use to describe her. One thing is for certain, though, she is absolutely, stunningly beautiful. Her flowing golden locks spill over her amber coat, and her ocean blue eyes are half hidden by her mane, yet all the more endearing because of that. She has a horn peeking out of her mane and, curiously enough, you can see she has a pair of wings.

Flanking her on either side are weirdly familiar beasts trapped in large glass tanks. The first has a spear through it midsection—it completely skewered. And half of its head is simply a hole: you can see right through it.

The second is clearly a Giggler, but somehow . . . fresh-looking. Small bit of flesh still cling to it, and blood-soaked meat of unknown origin is dangling from its mouth.

And the third form is merely a lifeless husk, it’s chest cavity nonexistent, and you’re not even sure what’s left of its “head” even qualifies.

Other abominations line the walls. Some barely alive, most of them not. And for some, you’re not even sure. There are too many to describe. Large and small—relatively unchanged and horrendously mutated—one thing remains the same.

They all look familiar.

“Who are you?” asks the Beast, glancing at the unphased mare. She doesn’t even seem remotely surprised to see either of you. Blinking, you glance down at yourself and the Beast. Still monsters.

“Why, I’m the director of this lovely place. Have you enjoyed your stay?” she purrs sweetly, grinning up at you—even the Beast’s smile would look friendlier than hers.

You take an unconscious step backwards. Then, shaking your head, you bare your teeth. “No. We didn’t. And we want answers.”

She groans. “You always want answers. It’s starting to get old. Can’t you just . . . not?”

“What do you mean ‘always’? Explain yourself!”

Rolling her eyes, the mare sighs. “Fine. Take a seat.”

Neither you nor the Beast so much as twitch.

“All right, don’t.” She smiles, unphased. “But until you sit, I won’t say another word.

“Do you want to beat some straight answers out of her?” growls the Beast, taking a quick step forward.

“You would never hurt a pretty mare, would you?” The mare’s horn glows with a warm light as she smiles.

Red mist clouds your vision, and a scream rips its way out of your throat. Fire fills your veins, driving you to your knees. Every part of you is burning up and dying in a torrent of magma. Your throat swells, constricting your breath, and blackness slowly creeps into the red of your vision. You can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t feel anything but pain.

You’re going to die.

Just as suddenly as it came, it left. You feel fine.

You regain your senses and find yourself lying facedown on the floor. Lifting up your head, you see the Beast in a similar state of confusion.

The mare lets out a sadistic chuckle. “You thought I would leave myself defenseless? You’re even stupider than your predecessors! Now, are you ready to sit and listen?”

Staring at her the entire time, you get off your stomach and take a seat, the Beast following in suit.

“I see you are a quick learner. Good. Maybe I can use you after all.”

“Use us?”

“If you will just stop asking questions, we can get this over with. You have proven to respond well to explanations.”

The Beast opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, the Director’s horn glows; he quickly shuts his mouth.

“That’s better. Now where was I . . . ? Right. Explaining your existence. You were born here with five hundred of your brothers approximately a year ago. Yesterday, we took you and your four podmates out of cryogenic stasis for conditioning.”

“Wha . . . ? Five hundred brothers!”

“That’s not entirely accurate. Clones, actually. The original ‘you’ is long dead. He had . . . complications.” She smiles innocently.

Mind reeling, you would have fallen if you hadn’t been sitting. “Then . . who am I?”

“You’re a nopony. A nothing. A glob of DNA we restructured into the form of a pony to suit my needs. You don’t even have a soul. Neither of you.”

The breath leaves your lungs slowly. “Why?” the Beast rasps. “Why would you do this?”

“I need an army. What better way to train an army than have them learn how to survive in the harshest place I could create. You overcame each obstacle differently, depending on numerous factors. You triumphed a different pony each time, but one factor remained: you were to be feared. Each of my soldiers is a self-sustained killing machine; even without orders, you can wreak havoc. And each will serve me until the very end, till death and beyond. Their loyalty to me is absolute: I can order them to kill each other, and they will obey without hesitation. I personally saved them when their lives were all but gone. When the darkness was closing in, I was their angel; I nursed the strong back to health while the weak suffered and died.” The mare flicks her mane out of her eyes and frowns. “But something went wrong this time.”

“What?” you ask.

“A glitch in the system. He got out of his sector and into yours,” the Director points her hoof at the Beast. “And the little—” She looks around. “Where is she?”

You look over your shoulder to see that Wisp has disappeared.

“No matter. She will either die or find her way back to testing.”

Tensing your muscles, you growl, but the threat of her magic keeps you from further action.

“As I was saying, once he and whatever you call the filly reached out to you, you changed. The system is designed to be a hellhole for one pony. Once two ponies affected you, you started becoming something far different from the rest. Dare I say, you might have even gained a conscious. I can’t have that when we storm Canterlot.” A devious smile slowly spreads across her face. “So what am I going to do with soldiers I can’t trust? Do you have a suggestion?”

Neither of you respond.

“I could always use more live targets. And the added bonus of intelligence will make you a perfect fighting partner, until you start breaking. Or maybe I should kill you right here.” Her grin resembles the look the Gigglers gave you.

Attack the Director.

Gain her trust by attacking the Beast.

Play submissive, for now.

Try to stall for more time.

No more votes on this chapter, please.

Author's Note

Only a couple of chapters left. Or maybe next chapter is the end, if you guess wrong, that is.

One: The Sound of Beginning

Burning, stabbing, constricting, pain. Your ribcage feels like it has been torn open and then haphazardly slapped back together. You take in a deep gasping breath, the increased pain causing you to almost pass out again. You manage to keep yourself conscious but the pain is still as strong as it was before. You try to open your eyes but they are already open. You look around blearily, trying to get your bearings. You can't see anything at all, the room is completely black. "Hello?" you yell, your mouth dry. "Anypony there?" you ask, hoping for an answer. Your voice echos hollowly. You wait patiently and are soon rewarded with an answer.

"Good morning, Patient Alpha Iota Nine," says a pleasant sounding mare's voice from the darkness, honey dripping from every word. "Do you have a name?"

You try your best but all you can remember before waking up is hate. Hate for something unknown. "Wh-what's my name?" you ask hesitantly. "I can't remember anything," you say, keeping your feeling to yourself.

"Good," she says, seeming satisfied. "What do you remember Patient Alpha Iota Nine?"

"I already told you; I can't remember anything," you say. "What is my name? Where am I? Who are you? What is going on?"

"Your name is Patient Alpha Iota Nine, this is Facility Zero Zero One Three, who I am is not important, and you will find out soon enough," she says, the pleasantness of her voice soothing any conflicting thoughts you might have about her shady answers. "You are lying to me, Patient Alpha Iota Nine," she says suddenly, completely emotionless besides what now seemed like faked pleasantness.

"But—" you start, before being cut off.

"Goodnight, Patient Alpha Iota Nine," says the mare.

"Hello?" you ask, "Are you still there?" You question is met with silence.

Hours have passed since the mare left, you have discovered a collar around your neck attached to something below your hooves. The collar is made of a soft leather and reinforced with metal. Now that you know that it's there, you can't stop thinking about it, tugging at it. The chain is made of a cold, hard steel, and the links disappear into a small hole in the floor.

You try calling out again. "Hello? Anypony there?" Your voice is hoarse from shouting. "Can I get some water?" you ask with a burning in your throat. Thinking about your thirst make you think about the hunger gnawing at your stomach.

You are dehydrated, you are sure of it. You don't know how long it has been since you woke up. It feels like days, weeks, months. But it can't have been, that would mean you would be dead. Right?

"Good morning, Patient Alpha Iota Nine, how are you feeling today?" came the same, pleasant mare's voice.

"Thirsty, hungry. Water..." you croak, your voice rasping out through your teeth.

"Good, good," she says. "Now hold still."

You are too weak to move so you just lie there, waiting for her to do whatever it is she wants to do. You couldn't even stop her if you wanted to. You feel a sharp stabbing in your hip, right above your cutie mark. That thought makes you pause for a moment. Do you even have a cutie mark? ...On that note, what is a cutie mark? All you can remember is a vague feeling of desire whenever you think about those two words.

"Wha di you doto meee?" you ask, your voice beginning to slur.

"Goodnight, Patient Alpha Iota Nine," says the mare.

You wake up. You feel fine, amazing. But you still can't remember anything beyond the first morning.

"Good morning, Patient Alpha Iota Nine. How are you feeling today?" asks the mare.

"I feel amazing!" you shout, ecstatic.

"Very good. Now hold still," says the mare, her pleasant voice giving you no desire to disobey her.

You patiently sit still for a short while, a contented smile on your face. You really weren't lying when you said you felt amazing. You feel in peak condition, better even. Like you could run up a mountain and not be out of breath. You are distracted by the sound of something heavy whipping through the air. It smashes into your left foreleg, shattering your knee, blood spewing everywhere. You scream in agony for what seems like hours, writhing in pain.

"Goodnight, Patient Alpha Iota Nine," says the mare when you pause for a breath.

You answer her with screaming.

You wake up. You are not sure when you went to sleep, but you are now fully awake. "That was a crazy dream," you mumble, rubbing your knee that you thought was broken. If you concentrated enough you could even feel some scars.

"Good morning, Patient Alpha Iota Nine," says the same mare, but this time there was spite in her voice. "You have failed them," she spat.

"What did I do?" you ask, mystified and nervous.

"You are remembering. Remembering is forbidden and punishable by death," she continued.

"But—" you start.

"There are no excuses, no exceptions," she hissed. "No ways out," she said with a sad undertone. "Not even for me..." she says, fading off into a whisper.

"What is going to happen to me?" you ask, more than a little worried now.

"Rest in peace, Patient Alpha Iota Nine," she says, spitting out each word like a curse.

"Mare? Mare! Hello?! Mare!?" you call, hoping for an answer.

You see a small door open up high above your head on the wall. It's not really even a door, it's just a pony-sized square of dim light with water pouring out of it. Massive amounts of water are flowing into the room and it is beginning to fill with water. "Help!" you yell, struggling against the chain. You collapse in defeat after a minute off futility. You are suddenly struck with a random thought: don't ponies have different abilities depending on their species? What kind of pony are you? You don't even remember that. You carefully feel around your head and back. You feel...

A protrusion from your forehead.

Extra limbs on your back.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Voting is now closed.

No more votes for this chapter please.

Author's Note

A couple of notes...
1)This is the only group of choices that I can guarantee will not kill you. There is no wrong choice here.
2) If ANYONE says "alicorn" I cannot be held responsible for the horrors that I will commit.
3) Please choose from the listed actions, this is a choose your own adventure spin off. Not a comment driven story.
4) To vote on a course of action simply post your vote in a comment below.
5) I will not hesitate to kill you (in the story) if you make bad decisions. Keep things logical and intelligent, weigh your options carefully and you should make it out alive. Should.
6) GOOD LUCK.

Nine: Beverages

“Well, since I’m a bit thirsty, I think we should go into the Beverages room.” You go to place your injured foreleg on the ground and wince in pain.

Wisp cautiously steps closer and inspects your leg. She gives a little questioning chirp and nods her head toward your leg.

“It’s fine,” you hiss, keeping your leg bent enough that it doesn’t touch the ground.

Out of your peripheral vision, you see Wisp moving hesitantly closer. You feel her soft, fluffy white mane and fur as she presses her head against your side, trying to offer what support that she can.

“I guess you realized that I was forced to do that to protect us,” you say to her, as you begin to limp toward the doors. You feel her nod her head slightly. You don’t have the heart to tell Wisp that she is hindering your movement ability more than she is helping. You would be able to limp faster if she wasn’t standing right next to you.

The warmth of her fur presses comfortably against your side as the two of you close in on the door. The relatively calm atmosphere gives you the time to ponder something. When was the last time I have felt something as simple as the touch of another pony? The experience feels almost foreign.

You reach the nondescript metal door. You grip the handle with your magic and turn it. The door silently opens and you are presented with a completely dark room.

You limp through the door with Wisp at your side. You move slowly in the dark room, careful not to run into anything.

Out of corner of your eye, you see the door behind you silently swing shut. The harsh white lights that you have grown accustomed to bathe the room in their glow.

You immediately have the urge to vomit. You cover Wisp’s eyes with your injured foreleg. “Don’t look,” you whisper through clenched teeth, as you continue to stare in horror.

She nods slightly and you feel her press her muzzle into your side

Directly in front of you is a large metal cylinder with a glass window in the side at the perfect viewing height for you to see what the liquid-filled tank holds.

Floating in the liquid is a horror. The horror lies in the fact that the pony is still a pony. Except the pony has seventeen regular-sized legs. It has the usual four plus one where each of the eyes would be. A leg is coming out of the pony’s mouth, one out of each nostril, two out of its back, and three out of each side of the pony’s ribcage.

Each of the legs twitches repeatedly and squirms slightly as the pony turns to face you. It scrapes some of its legs against the glass as it seemingly tries to get your attention.

You shake your head to try to get the image out of your mind as you carefully sidestep the tank and walk past it. You are greeted with an even more disturbing sight. Lining the walls of the square room are dozens upon dozens of similar tanks. But that isn’t the disturbing part. The unnerving thing about the tanks is that they are all empty. Broken bits of glass litter the floor around each of the tanks and the liquid that was in the tanks is now all over the floor.

In the center of the room is a collection of metal desks with various things on them. The items include: empty bottles, bottles filled with unknown substances, papers, files, pens, and, of course, dead, bloody bodies. Their blood mixes with the unknown fluid to form a pinkish color around the bodies.

Wisp pulls away from you but you don’t stop her. If she has seen the giggling monsters then these dead bodies won’t be a problem for her. Probably, you think to yourself.

A nearby dead body, a unicorn to be exact, is clutching a red folder to his chest with a death grip. The important looking color catches your attention.

You grab the folder with your magic and tug on it. The body resists your pull but it can’t hang onto the folder. You open up the folder and read the first -and only- page.

Final Findings Report:

Not all the Patients who received Mixture 1 died. The one who didn’t should not be taken lightly. They had to be given lethal injections because we were unable to contain them. We are still not sure if we have discovered all of them. We just can’t catch them.

Mixture 2 improved on the Patient’s [Classified] but caused massive amounts of pain due to the strain of the reinforcement. It often times killed the Patient. However, when it didn’t the results were remarkable.

Mixture 3 enhanced [Classified] in unicorns but also caused forms of dementia in some Patients. The enhancement levels exceeded far beyond expectations, but the dementia proved a difficulty.

All the patients who received Mixture 4 became [Classified] but also virtually unstoppable. I mentioned them in my other reports. They are escaping virtually everyday now.

In conclusion:
The Mixtures have not been tested enough. We are giving the Patients the Mixtures too soon. The casualty rates are too high; the risks are too great. The Element can do wonderful things but the things we are doing will condemn us all.

Brimming Beaker, level three technician in the Beverages Room.

Tucked behind the piece of formal looking paper is a barely-visible small envelope. It is addressed simply to “The Director”. You open it and begin reading.

On a personal note to the Director,

The workers are beginning to question your motives, myself included. Real ponies instead of rats and mice? Your “for the advancement, prolongment, and security of Equestria” speech will only work so many times on our bloody hooves.

You have been keeping us in the dark for so long now. I am the head of my division and I don’t even know ninety-five percent of the work that happens between my four walls. Nopony knows anything. All we know is what we tell each other on our breaks. We have automatic classification spells that periodically flood the area, censoring any “problem words and phrases”, as you call them. Only you know the counterspell.

You keep saying, “It is for the good of ponykind.” But no good has come from the abominations we have created. Gigglers, Brutes, Munchers, the list goes on and on. Even Patient Alpha Iota Nine, your “holy savior” as you call him in your speech, is showing the symptoms.

Patient Alpha Iota Eight has long since fled his cell and is probably hunting for Patient Alpha Iota Nine, he expressed great interest in his “Brother”, as he calls him. I am unsure of his motives but I doubt they will be in the interest of research.

I am done. As soon as I finish my shift I will leave and never come back. I can only hope that the few Gigglers that we have left in containment don’t break out before I leave. I am not holding my breath.

By the time this reaches you, I will either be dead or free.

May Celestia have mercy on our souls.

Brimming Beaker.

“I don’t like the sound of these ‘Mixtures’, or any of this, really.” you mutter, looking up. Standing in front of you is Wisp, she is tapping her hoof against your uninjured foreleg to get your attention.

Wisp chirps awkwardly around a large piece of paper. You can tell that this is her mouthwriting because it is barely legible. There are three simple words penned onto the page, yet they manage to send a chill through your spine.

ThA r cumIn

“Who? Who is coming?” you ask.

She stomps her forehoof in frustration.

“Help me out here. Have I met them before?” you ask her.

She nods fervently.

“Is the the beast-thing who called me his brother?” you guess.

She shakes her head and stares over your shoulder at the door.

Your answer comes mere seconds later.

The giggling has returned.

It starts quietly at first, you can barely hear it. The giggling slowly builds in volume until the laughter is right outside the door.

“How did you know… never mind that, did you see another exit in this room?” you ask Wisp, figuring she wouldn’t be able to answer the first question anyway,

She shakes her head silently.

You mutter a curse word of your choice as you look around for a weapon or an escape route.

The room is completely sealed and there isn’t so much as a scalpel in sight.

You hear the giggling creatures begin to beat on the door with their fleshy stumps. The wet sounding thumps echo throughout the room.

“Nothing!” you yell in anger, realizing full well that the only thing standing between you and the laughing monstrosities is an unlocked door.

Something on one of the desks catches your eye. Small bottles, relatively two to three ounces apiece, litter this particular desk. They have small labels on them that simply say one word and a one number. The word is “Mixture” and the number ranges anywhere from one to four.

The banging is growing louder and louder as more creatures join the assault.

You look over at Wisp and see that her ears are plastered down against her head. She is crouched low and standing between you and the door. She looks at you with wide blue eyes that beg you to do something.

I am in no condition to fight and all the creatures want is my death, you think, inspecting the bottles. But maybe… You reread the report still clutched in your magic.

You look at Wisp, the Mixtures, then the door.

There is no way you can fight them as you are. Fighting one decapitated head proved difficult. Sitting here and dying is not an option, you have to protect Wisp. Running isn’t an option either, there is no exit.

The Mixtures are the only option left. You reach for...

The swirling, translucent, black liquid titled Mixture 1

The thick, syrupy, green liquid titled Mixture 2

The bubbly, yellow liquid titled Mixture 3

The sparkly, blue liquid titled Mixture 4

Time to tally the votes and write the chapter. You know the drill. No more voting.

Author's Note

Choices, choices...
Difficult, no?
The phrase "Pick your poison" comes to mind.