Just a Game

As they made their way through a maze of dark hallways and cramped spaces, the two ponies had time to talk about their unfortunate position.

“Twilight, where are we?” Pinkie looked towards her with a tired face.

“I….I’ve been meaning to tell you something. Before I was assigned to PonyVille to learn about the wonders of friendship, I was ordered to work at an Asylum for the mentally ill. I had a…Particular duty.”

Twilight didn’t really know why she hadn’t told this information to her friends before.

“I was working as a counselor for specific patients. They all were different in their own ways. Some with suicidal tendencies, some were just deranged. A few that I was assigned to actually had conversations with me. I would visit them daily, and help with most of their problems.”

“But why did you quit? It sounds like you were fine there.” Pinkie was curious as to why she had been discharged from her former job.

“One day, when I was in the cafeteria with one of my patients, a fight broke out. Security guards rushed over to see what they were fighting about. When they arrived, they found that a spoon had been used to dig out one of the stallion’s eyes. There was a lot of blood. By the time the guards got the pony to the medical bay, the other had pulled out a knife. Apparently a visitor hid it under his bed. They had to evacuate the staff and the patients.” Twilight explained.

Twilight stopped walking. She noticed a tape in the room besides them.

“Stay here; I will go check it out.”

Twilight moved over the tape, and played it. Jigsaw’s voice could be heard echoing off the walls.

“You think it's the living that will have the ultimate judgment over you, because the dead will have no claim over your soul. You may be mistaken.”

That is all he had to say.

Twilight walked back over to Pinkie, who was already shaking from severe anxiety.

“We have to go. We shouldn’t be wasting time like this. Our friends need us.”

Twilight and Pinkie moved on to the next room, and they both prayed for the safety of their friends.

The room was larger than the others she had seen, but it was incredibly dark. The only light was coming from a TV above two separate doors. Nail bombs hang from the ceiling, seeming as though they could go off at the drop of a nail. Jigsaw had greeted them once more on the Television.

“Before you are two doors. Each will test your faith. Will you continue blindly, or will you face a greater challenge with your sight intact? Make your choice quickly. When the timer reaches zero, the bombs located all around you will detonate.”

The screen cut to black, and the two ponies had to make a choice. The timer had started, and they had three minutes to get to the other side.

“What should we do? I don’t trust this place well enough to walk around in the dark. What if there are monsters in there?”

Pinkie was incredibly fearful, and it all came down to Twilight’s choice.

“We should take the blinded path.” Twilight decided.

“What!? But we won’t be able to see!” Pinkie did not want to walk blindly through a maze that could kill her.

“Just trust me Pinkie. I know what I am doing.”

Pinkie was hesitant about Twilight’s odd choice, but she decided to trust her.

As they opened the door, and walked into the darkness, Twilight decided to test her magic in this maze. Surprisingly, her horn illuminated, releasing a purple orb of light to assist with the maze. As she lit the tight corners and dark hallways in front of her, she noticed flammable red barrels. Jigsaw’s voice came in over a speaker.

“Caution, Princess. These barrels aren’t for show, and WILL explode.”

Twilight moved through the dark hallways with extreme caution, being careful not to be too close to the barrels around her. She found that she could only see a couple feet in front of her, which made it increasingly hard to traverse through the maze. Twilight had a thought, and immediately ceased the glowing of the orb. The two ponies were surrounded in complete darkness.

“What are you doing Twilight?! We need that light!” Pinkie was extremely fearful for her life.

“Just…Trust me…” Twilight assured her with determination in her voice.

They moved through the pitch black hallways, and Pinkie was surprised that Twilight knew where she was going.

When they finally reached the door, they scrambled through with no hesitation, and the timer stopped.

Pinkie was breathing heavily, her eyes wide. Twilight noticed a mug full of water. She used her magic to levitate the mug over to Pinkie.

“Here, Drink this.”

Pinkie was hesitant.

“Don’t you need it?” Pinkie asked.

“I think you need it more than I do. Take your time.”

Pinkie took the mug, and gulped down all the liquid in one go. Twilight could tell she was thirsty. Jigsaw greeted them once again.

“I see you two are alive. Twilight, I am impressed by your behavior. You could have easily made it through the maze with a light, giving you your sense of direction. But you chose against this, and traversed blindly to the other side with ease. I think you will do well in this game.”

It was silent, and the two ponies knew they had to move on to the next test. They arrived at what seemed like the next test. They were standing in another observation closet, with another door parallel to where they just came in. The Television had turned on, and Jigsaw was about to reveal his next game.

“Hello. You have probably had your share of muggings and fights at your so called home, correct? Remember how you used to witness such events? The bloodshed, the angry shouts of other ponies pleading sompony from the crowd to step in. But no one did. You just stood there and watched it all happen. You thought of yourselves as just bystanders. You told yourselves there was nothing you could have possibly done to stop it from all happening. But you could have stopped it. Everypony has the power to change things. Some might not know it, but inside, you are powerful enough to change the world to your liking. You just choose not to.”

The room in front of them lit up, and they found a mare in confusion, running all around the room, trying to figure out how she could escape.

“Do you remember this mare, Pinkie? Do you remember what has brought you here?”

Pinkie tried her hardest to look away, but she knew she couldn’t avoid this conversation forever.

“I want to show you what happens when you make wrong choices in life. I want to show you the wake of your obsession.”

The TV shut off, and they were left to watch the unfortunate mare struggle with her own game.

______________________________________________________________

“Where am I? Somebody help me!!” The mare was sure nopony could hear her, but she still insisted on crying out for help.

She found an audio tape, and she had no other choice than to play it.

“Hello, CareTaker, I want to play a game. It's similar to the game you play as a drug dealer, the game of giving hope to the desperate. I think we can agree that your situation is desperate, so I'm going to offer you hope. By entering this room, you have started a timer on the door in front of you. When the timer runs out the door will be locked forever, locking away your chance of escape with it. If you want to find the key, you will have to crawl through the same squalor that your customers have. I'll give you one hint where to find it.”

CareTaker moves a bed frame besides her, revealing a pit of hypodermic syringes beneath.

“It will be like finding a needle in a haystack.” The audio tape ended.

CareTaker was in shock. She started to hyperventilate, and she paced around the room, hoping there would be another way.

There wasn’t.

She turned to the timer. She only had two minutes.

CareTaker broke down in front of the pit, screaming for sompony to help her. She was wasting valuable time.

She finally built up the courage to attempt to find he key. She looked down into the pit. It was a long drop. CareTaker dropped down into the pit, but was greeted by an intense flash of pain. She cried out in agony. When she tried to stand up, she found several syringes sticking out of her forearms. She tried to remove them, but it only proved useless, seeing as she would have to dig through the needles in order to find the key.

It took CareTaker a whole minute of searching through infected syringes, and she could feel her whole body tensing up. She finally found the key, but there was no way up. She felt an intense burning all over her shaking body, and she was going into shock. Her face began to seem pale, and she had cold sweats all over her body. She began to slow down; her breathing became increasingly weak. She eventually doubled over and wouldn’t stop shaking. The hypodermic syringes were taking their toll.

The timer reached zero, and the door was locked shut forever.

There was nothing the mare could do now.

______________________________________________________________

“Do you now know what happens when you do not act? Has my message sunk in yet? It hurts ponies, when you just watch. They need your help, desperately, yet you choose to ignore the cries for help, the pleading. This is what you have caused for others, Princess. Have you noticed yet that no matter how long you try to ignore it, no matter what you do, it will still haunt you? Their screams of pain will still echo in the back of your mind for as long as you live. And yet, you still cannot do anything to help them.”

The room went silent. All that Twilight could do was cry. Cry for everything that has happened, and everything she has done to hurt others.