Chapters I woke up in a strange room that I had never seen before. The only thing in the room was a light in the center, emitting weak light that is barely enough to light the room. I pushed myself up against the hard and stone surface and stood up.
I heard noise coming from behind me. Panicked, I gasped and turned around, only to find Rarity lying next to me, rubbing her head with her hooves.
“Rarity!”
I shook Rarity’s body back and forth. She opened her eyes and looked at me. She stood up and looked around just like I did.
“Sweetie Bell, where in Equestria are we?”
I shook my head. I don’t know.
We checked around the corner and found nothing. The room wad rather dark and we had no idea how we got here. The last thing we remember was walking back from the mall. Rarity had to take care of me until Mom finishes up shopping, which is an annoying decision for BOTH of us. Because I am old enough to take care of myself, and Rarity wanted to go shopping by herself as well. But Mom doesn’t let us apart.
We trotted near the edge of the forest, being a little mad at each other.
“Darnit Sweet Bell, I told you to stay home!”
“WHAT? That’s so selfish!”
I had a lot of arguments with Rarity. She was so much older than I am, but we still argue. The fact alone was strange.
Then we suddenly heard ponies talking behind the trees. We turned around but before we saw anything, it felt like something hit our head and we lot conscious.
“I think some pony attacked us from behind, and we fainted…”
Rarity stood up and looked at her hoof watch.
“It’s Saturday… about 3 am.”
Rarity had a watch that was given to her by a Canterlot pony named Fancy Pants. She loved the watch so much and she wouldn’t even let me touch it. The watch was shining and silver, and there were three thin needles inside pointing to different numbers, showing the time and date.
The room didn’t have any decoration inside. It was just gray and solid concrete. There is a door on the side, but it was iron and there was no hoofle on it. It looked like a piece of iron wall inserted into the concrete wall.
Underneath the iron door there was a thin space between the door and the floor. There were light reflecting into the room from outside. I sat down on my knees and looked outside from the little crack.
“See anything?” Rarity asked.
I shook my head.
The room wasn’t very dirty. There weren’t many dusts, and it looked like some pony had been cleaning here just now. Rarity found this fact somewhat comforting, but still it felt like we had been locked inside a dark, cold box.
There was only one other thing about the box room. In the middle there is a little ditch about two feet across. If you take the wall with the door as the front, then the ditch runs from one side to the other. There was dirty water flowing in the ditch, from left to right. The water smelled funny, and the concrete that was touching the water had turned into some weird color.
Rarity hit the door with her hoof and yelled, “Hey, any pony outside?”
No pony answered. The door is very thick. It didn’t look like it would even dent with just hooves, let alone being broken. Rarity stood back and used her magic, but it wasn’t strong enough either.
I felt sorrow. When can we leave this place? Rarity’s saddle back had been taken away as well, and she had her hoof phone in there as well. Without it, we have no way of communicating with the outside world.
Rarity bent down and placed her muzzle as close to the little crack as possible. She yelled as hard as she can, using all of her strength. This time we heard other pony’s voices from faraway. We looked at each other. There must be other ponies here as well. But the voice was too distant and we couldn’t understand. But even though the fact that there are others here with us made things a little better.
We kicked the door for a little longer but it was no use. We felt tired so we decided to take a nap on the stone floor, snuggling together.
We woke up at about eight the second morning. We looked at the door and realized that someone had put two little plates into the room through the space between the door and the floor. One of the plates had a piece of break on it, and the other had some clean water. Rarity split the break into two exact same parts, and gave one of them to me.
Water was still flowing through the ditch in the center of the room. The water smelt like dead and rotten animals, making us very uncomfortable.
“Who locked us here? Why did he lock us here? What do they want from us?”
There were no more food for the rest of the day. I complained to Rarity that I was extremely hungry, but she told me that I just have to deal with it. Felling depressed, I sat down on the other corner of the room, wondering when can I go home.
Then, when it was about 6 pm, we heard hoof steps towards this room. We both held our breath, waiting for the door to be opened and an explanation why we were trapped in here.
But it didn’t happen. The hoofsteps passed right by our door and moved to the right. Rarity jumped forward and slammed the door with her hooves.
“WAIT!”
But the pony didn’t listen. The hoofsteps became further and further.
“It looks like he doesn’t want to let us out at all.”
I said hopelessly.
“That’s insane.” Rarity said, but I could tell that she was just saying it.
It had been a whole day since we were trapped in here. We heard a lot of random noises. Sound of iron door opening, sound of loud machine running, and what sounded like ponies. There were hoofsteps as well. But because of the echo, they all sounded like a monster screaming. I felt all the air around us are vibrating, and we couldn’t hear it clearly at all.
But luckily the door to our room had not been opened. We fell asleep snuggling again.
When we woke up again, there was another dish with bread near the door, but there weren’t any water. The dish was still inside the room. Rarity guessed that we didn’t get water because we didn’t put the little dish outside.
“Such a terrible pony!” Rarity said with anger. She rose up the dish high up in the air with her magic, but she quickly calm down and didn’t smash it. If the dish broke, maybe they won’t get water ever again.
“We have to get out of here, Sweetie Bell.”
“But… how?” I answered, not sure what she wanted.
Rarity looked at me, and her vision turned to the ditch. The ditch comes out from one end of the wall into the other.
“It’s too small for me to fit in.” Rarity said, “But I think you should be able to fit through.”
Judging by the hoof watch, it should be noon outside. If I could make it outside the building, we should be able to find help. But I really didn’t want to go in that dirty hole. The smell was too strong and weird.
Rarity could understand my feelings completely. After all she was the one with the OCD.
“Please, Sweetie Bell, this could be our only chance. I promise I will make it up to you once we get out of here.”
Rarity’s got a good point. I trotted up to the ditch and held out my hoof with hesitation. The water was not deep, barely over my knees. The bottom was slippery. It felt like I was stepping on a giant frog.
The end of the ditch looked like a dark square. The hole was quite small, but I should be able to fit through. But the surface of the dirty water was right below the top of the square, meaning if I want to get through, I have to completely submerge underwater and swim through it.
Rarity had her favorite shirt and hats on, and I had some cloth on as well since we were going to a quite fancy mall. Luckily whoever kept us here didn’t take off our cloths, so we were able to make a long rope by ripping the cloth apart. Rarity was also crying when she watched her creation turned into traps of cloths, but she didn’t hesitate much. She tied one end of the rope around my waist and held the other end tightly in her hooves. That way if I got stuck in the tunnel or if I accidently drown, she would be able to pull me back into safety.
“Which way should I go?” I turned back and asked Rarity. I have two choices, upstream or downstream.
“I would choose upstream, since it might lead to a manhole downstream.”
I slowly moved to the end of the ditch and slowly bent down. I felt the dirty water rising up to my tummy, then my chest, and then my neck. It felt like there were a lot of bugs climbing up onto my body and eating my coat and skin. I shrugged at the thought.
I held my breath, shut my eyes tight and dive in. The hole was tiny. I was barely able to fit thought. The back of my head was right against the walls.
I half climbed, half swam through the dark tunnel. I have no idea where I am going. Luckily the water was not fast, so I was able to swim upstream rather easily.
I started getting worried how long this tunnel is going to be. I could hold my breath underwater for two minutes at most, and it had been fifteen seconds. If it passes a minute, I would have to go back or I would drown in here. Luckily after just another second or two, the wall pressing against my back had disappeared. The ditch seems to be leading somewhere open.
I stood up with excitement, but then I heard some pony scream right next to me.
Even though I would hate to get dirty water in my eyes, I still managed to open them and looked around. At first I thought I went back to the room I was in, the ditch was like a portal and I just got teleported to the other end.
But it was just a room that looked the same. Rarity wasn’t there, instead there was another pony. She looked a lot older than Rarity, and I have never seen her before.
“Who are you?”
She screamed as she moved backwards from me. Her coat was messy, and it looked like she had been in a lot of fright.
I explained to her that we were locked up in the room just downstream of her. I untied the rope from myself and drag it three times, a signal that says “I am safe”. Rarity pulled the rope three times as well, telling me to keep exploring. I moved upstream again and ran into two other identical rooms. That means there were three rooms upstream of us, each room with a pony inside. The first room had a young mare, the second room had a mare with long hair, and the third room had a mare with its mane dyed red.
No pony knew how they got here. All the other ponies looked older than Rarity. Maybe whoever locked us up thought that we were both too young so he put us together to count for one big grown up pony.
There were iron bars in the ditch upstream from the first room and I was not able to proceed any further. I returned to our room and told Rarity everything.
Even after my coat dried, it still smells funny. There was no water to take a shower either, so our room stinks. But Rarity didn’t seem to care.
“So we are the fourth room from the top, right?”
Rarity said, thinking about something.
There were a lot of rooms connected together by a dirty ditch, and each room had a pony inside it, or two. I found this surprising, but somewhat comforting. Knowing that there were other ponies that were in the same situation as you are making everything less frightening.
At first people were scared and puzzled by my existence, but soon they were happy about it. Looked like they had been locked up for days, and they were alone all this time. No one opened the door for them, and they had no idea what kind of situation they were in.
Every time when I was about to enter the ditch and leave, they would beg me to go back and tell them what I found out. They all wanted to know why they got locked up, or what was going to happen to them.
I started moving again, this time downstream. There was another identical room just as I expected. There was a light yellow Pegasus who looked like Rarity’s age. She was surprised when she saw me at first, but soon she got excited after I explained everything to her.
I moved further downstream. However, I was surprised at what I saw.
It was another square room, but it was a little different. The room itself was the same, but there were no pony inside that room. After being to a bunch of rooms with ponies locked up inside, it felt strange to suddenly encounter a completely empty room.
I moved further down from the empty room. There were no ropes tied around my waist, but I didn’t mind much. There must be another bunch of small rooms downstream, so I left the rope in our room and just swam here. Each tunnel was only a few feet deep, so it’s quite impossible to drown either.
I moved into the room and saw a mare who was as old as mom. She saw me standing up from the ditch, but surprisingly she didn’t seem surprised. I felt like she was kind of weird.
She looked like she had been in a lot of fright. She curled up in the corner of the room, her either body shaking. At first I thought she was about as old as mom, but when I take a closer look I realized that she was much younger than I expected. She just looked really frightened and tired.
I moved down the ditch. There were iron bars and I couldn’t go any further. Looked like I have came to the end of the downstream.
“Are you all right?” I was a little worried about her so I asked.
“Who are you?” She asked weakly. It looked like she had lost all of her energy.
She was different from every other pony. Her hair and coat were extremely messy, there were strands of hair scattered around the ground. Her face and her hooves were soaked with sweat. Her eyes were empty and dark, and she looked like a skeleton.
I told her who I was and what I was doing. I could see her eyes light up.
“You mean, there are ALIVE ponies upstream from me?”
Alive ponies? I didn’t quite understand what she meant.
“You’ve seen it too, right? Every day at some point, there would be dead body of ponies flowing down this stream…”
I was a bit frightened so I quickly said goodbye and went back to my room. I told Rarity about everything.
“So there are seven rooms in total, right?”
Rarity said, and then she said something that I couldn’t understand. So she numbered the rooms. Starting from the one at the where the water comes from. Our room is the fourth one, and the crazy mare’s room is the seventh one.
At first I was hesitating if I should tell what the mare in the 7th room said. If I told Rarity, that means I believed her and Rarity must think of me as an idiot. Just when I was hesitating, Rarity noticed.
“What’s wrong, Sweetie Bell.”
So I carefully told her word to word what the 7th mare told me. According to her, every day there would be bodies of ponies flowing down stream, from one room to another. I was confused. How could a mare’s body fit in this little ditch? And how would it fit through the small iron bars at the end of the stream?
I brought the questions to her, and the 7th mare told me that the bodies were cut into tiny pieces, small enough to fit through the iron bars. She could see bodies flowing by since she was locked there.
“Including last night?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I went back to Rarity. Could there been stuff flowing down the ditch while we were asleep? No, it can’t be. The 7th mare had a hoof watch as well, and she said every day around 6 pm there would be bodies. We checked her watch with ours and they matched. But last night we were fully awake at 6 pm. Al though we didn’t stare into the stinky water all day, I’m sure we would have noticed if anything had passed by.
“Had any other ponies saw the same thing?”
I shook my head. No other ponies had mentioned seeing small pieces of dead body. The 7th mare was the only pony. Could she be hallucinating?
I don’t think it was the case. I could never forget her face. Her face was thin and dented. She had huge dark circles around her eyes. It almost looked like she was dead. She must have experienced something unusually cruel.
“Do you believe what she said?”
I asked Rarity, but she just shook her head. She didn’t know either.
“We’ll just have to wait.”
So we wait and waited until Rarity’s watch pointed towards 6pm. We held our breath and looked at the ditch.
We heard hoof steps outside, which was quite frightening. Does the hoof steps appear every day at 6 pm? But Rarity didn’t yell at him this time. Maybe she had realized her efforts were in vain as well.
We could hear the sound of engine running from far away. But we didn’t see any body pieces flowing down stream, just a bunch of dead bugs on the surface of the dirty water.
We woke up by about 7 am. There was another slice of bread. We left the water dish outside the door last night, and today it has been pushed inside with water in it. Looks like Rarity was right about this. Maybe whoever locked us here brought a bag of bread and a big bottle with clean water when he came feed us. I imagined a stranger walking up to each door and giving out bread and water.
Rarity tore the bread into two unequal pieces, and she gave the bigger one to me.
“There is something I need you to do.” She said.
She wanted me to swim around in the ditch again and ask other ponies about their situation. I don’t want to go into the ditch again, but Rarity said if refuse then I don’t get the bigger piece of bread. Out of hunger, I had to listen to what she wanted.
“Come on Sweetie Bell, it’s not that bad. I only need you to ask two things. One is how many days had they been locked up, and second is if they had seen … anything strange flowing down the ditch. Just these two would be enough.”
I did as she said. I started with room 1, 2 and 3. Every pony looked relieved when they saw me. I asked them about the two things. At first I thought it would be hard to count the days they had been locked up since they are in a closed room with no windows, but then I realized that the meal came only once every day. They just had to count how many meals they had had.
I went downstream afterwards, but something was not right.
The fifth room was just like yesterday with the young light yellow Pegasus.
But a new mare had suddenly appeared in the sixth room, which was empty yesterday. I have never seen her before. She screamed at my appearance, crying and yelling. She thought I was some kind of monster living under the sewer. It took me a good few minutes to explain to her what I was doing.
She woke up in the room with no memory of how she got here, just like all of us.
I moved to the seventh room, but to my great surprise, the room was empty. The tired and worn out mare was gone, disappeared. What’s more strange is that it looked like the room had been cleaned. There was no dirt or anything on the walls, only a dim light bulb emitting weak light.
Was I hallucinating when I saw the mare here yesterday? Or did I miss counted the rooms? I checked downstream, but the iron bars blocked my way.
I returned to our room and told Rarity everything.
Today was the 6th day for the mare in the 1st room, 5th for the mare in the 2nd room, and 4th for the mare in the 3rd room. We were in the 4th room, and it had been our third day. I didn’t get a chance to ask the 7th mare how long she had been locked up before she disappeared.
“Where did she go? Did she escape?”
I asked Rarity, but she wasn’t even paying attention to me. She was just sitting in the corner, thinking about something.
To the second question, however, every pony’s answer was the same: No. They looked worried and unsettled when I asked them the question.
“Why do you ask?”
Every pony asked me. They thought I had gotten some information they couldn’t get. Actually they were right, since they couldn’t move around like me. So they could only imagine the other side of the wall was a cupcake shop or an amusement park, and kill time with these kinds of random thoughts.
“I’ll tell you as soon as I figure it out.”
I finished up the conversations as fast as possible.
“No, you shall not pass. Are you a spy? From whoever locked us here? You said there are other ponies in other rooms too, that’s a lie too right?”
When I was about to leave the first room, the mare who dyed her hair red blocked my way. She moved down to the ditch and blocked the entrance.
“You are not going anywhere unless you tell me EVERYTHING you know.”
I had no other choice, so I told her everything. Her face turned a little pace, and said, “Ridiculous.” But then she moved and let me go back to my own room.
I sighed and wiped my coat with the rope. I lied down on the ground with my hooves underneath me. The ground was too cold and hard to lie to sideways, so I had to improvise.
I think I should tell every pony about what I found out, since they didn’t know anything about their own situation, so they deserve to know. But then again, what I know didn’t offer exact answers either. I was confused, should I really tell them about what I found out?
Rarity was sitting in the corner, staring at something, and then she held out her hoof and picked something up.
“Look, hair.”
There was a think strand of hair on Rarity’s hooves. She looked serious.
“Yeeah? It’s hair. We both have it on our coat.”
Rarity stood up and moved closer. She held the hair right in front of my eyes and said, “Look closer.”
I finally realized that Rarity was going at. The hair was cyan, a color that neither of us had.
“So there was some other pony who were in here before us? What’s the big deal?”
Rarity’s face turned pale, she mumbled, “It must be… no, maybe… Sweetie Bell, listen. Maybe I am wrong, but you should have noticed, there was a new mare who were put into here, once every day, one after another.”
“What was the room like before any pony was locked in? Was it empty?”
“Of course… so that way, the 5th room is the 2nd day, the 6th room is the 1st day, which matches what you told me. That makes the 7th room the 0th day.”
“Zero-th day? I don’t get it.”
“It is empty isn’t it?”
“Oh, I see.”
“But if we go back to yesterday, then the 6th room would be 0, and 7th would be negative one, right? You should have learnt about negative numbers in pony school, right?”
“Yeah, but still I am confused, what does it mean to be the -1th day?”
“Don’t you get it? No pony can be locked her for -1 day. I think… I think she was killed.”
“Every day, the room that was empty would proceed downstream. If it got to room 7, then it would start over on room 1. So the pony that was about be in the empty room… is going to be killed!”
It still took me a while, but I think I understand what Rarity meant. Every day a pony is killed and tossed into the ditch, and a new mare would be put into the empty room right next to it.
Yesterday the 6th room was empty, but today there was a new pony there.
Yesterday there was a pony in the 7th room, but she was killed and tossed into the ditch.
Rarity chewed on her own hoof, mumbling something like it was a curse. Her eyes were empty and unfocused.
“That’s why only the 7th mare could see dead bodies. If we are killed in this order, only ponies downstream could see the bodies flowing down. The 7th mare was not hallucinating. She saw the bodies of the ponies from room 1 to 6.”
Then I realized something. Right now the empty room is at 7, so it’s going to start over… at one!
The mare in the 1st room is going to be killed!
I rushed over, leaving Rarity behind. I told her everything, but she didn’t believe me. She raised her neck high up in the air and said, “I don’t believe you.”
“Please, believe me. You are going to be killed today?”
“No way!” She looked upset, “What the hay is going on with these rooms?”
I had to go back to Rarity. When I swam pass room 2 and 3, the mares asked me what happened. I am not sure if I should tell them about it, so I told them I would be right back and went back to Rarity.
Rarity was sitting in the corner, hugging her knees tight. She waved at me when she saw me moving out of the ditch. She hugged me tightly despite my smell.
Her hoof watch was pointing right at 6 pm.
We saw something red flow down streams. We didn’t talk. We just stared at the water. Then something white flew down the stream. At first I couldn’t tell what it was, but it flipped around in the water, and we realized it was part of a pony’s jaw from the teeth that was still on it. Then we saw ears, skins, and small pieces of muscle and bones flowing by.
Then it was a piece of dyed hair. Actually, not only the hair, part of the scalp was connected as well.
This is the remaining of the mare who were in the 1st room. I could barely connect her with these pieces of… meat.
Rarity moaned with her hooves over her mouth. She had thrown up in the corner once already, but she didn’t really puke anything out. She didn’t respond when I talked to her either. She was just staring at the ditch, completely lost.
These dark, cold rooms separated us. It gave us a taste of horror and loneliness, and then it kills us.
“What the hay is going on with these rooms?”
The 1st mare’s voice echoed in my brain. I felt that these rooms had locked away far more than just our bodies, such as life and soul. It’s like a prison of spirits. It told us about fear and loneliness that we have never felt before, as well as that we have no hope or future. Our life had no meaning any more.
I counted. We would be killed six days after we were locked here, so it would be 6pm on Thursday.
Hours had passed by and the red had finally faded from the water. Then we started seeing bubbles and soap flowing by. Maybe some pony was cleaning the room after the murder. He must be cleaning the bloody room.
After the water returned to the usual dirtiness and hoof steps leaving, I decided to get in the ditch and moved towards the first room. The mares in room 2 and 3 asked me to explain what had just happened, but I told them that I will explain as soon as I was back.
The mare in the 1st room had disappeared. The room was washed with soap and water, and it was spotlessly clean. It was done by the same pony who killed her, I imagined. The strand of hair that Rarity found must belong to the previous pony who were locked up here. The murderer would kill one pony every day, and lock a new pony up. He, or she, seemed to enjoy watching us suffer for six days and then kill us.
None of us have seen his/her face, or heard his/her voice. But we know there is some pony out there. Every day they would come and bring us a slice of bread, water, and eventually death. He/she is like the reaper. We have been locked inside his game of death with no way of escaping.
I went back to the 2nd room and explained Rarity’s guess to her. She didn’t call me insane because just like us, she saw the dead bodies as well. I could tell that she had given up hope of getting out of here. When I finished talking, she didn’t say anything. She just sat there quietly, thinking just like Rarity.
“I’ll be back later.”
I said to her and went to the 3rd room. I told her the same thing, who is going to be killed tomorrow. Before that, she didn’t know how long she would be locked up, or what was going to happen to her. Now it’s all clear. She was destined to die tomorrow.
The 3rd mare covered her lips with her hooves. Tears flew down her beautiful cheeks as I told her the truth.
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing or not any more. I don’t know if I should or shouldn’t know if it’s my time to die. Maybe it’s better to just watch pieces of body flow down the ditch, and suddenly one day the door was opened and I was killed. Maybe it’s better than knowing exactly how much more time you actually have.
Looking at the crying mare, I remembered the 7th mare. Eventually every pony would be just like her, paranoid and scared. And hopeless.
It’s been days inside this solid concrete room. No pony could believe that this is a game anymore. Every pony knew that death would come. Even though no pony wanted to accept the fact, it’s going to happen.
The 7th mare must be in a lot of pain. She watched bodies every single day, and thought when would be her time. These thoughts drove over the edge of her sanity, and she fell into an abyss of hopelessness.
I went through all the room and told them the truth. When I reached the 7th room, I heard a scream coming from the new mare who was locked up There.
I went back to our room. Rarity was still sitting in the exactly same position. I was worried about her. I moved closer and shook her shoulders.
“Hey Rarity, you all right?”
Rarity didn’t answer. Then we heard hoof steps coming from far away. It stopped in front of our room, and we saw a slice of bread being tossed into the room from below the door, and the noise of our dish being filled with water.
Right outside that door, it’s the devil that had killed numerous ponies. Thinking about this made me want to throw up from the pressure. I could almost feel the dark and scary invisible force from him.
Suddenly, Rarity jumped up like a spring.
“WAIT!”
She pushed herself against the bottom of the door, holding her muzzle right against the floor. She tried to hold out her hoof, but there were just not enough space.
“Please, I BEG YOU! Listen to me, who are you?”
Rarity yelled and screamed, but the pony outside didn’t seem to care at all. He/she walked away as if Rarity was invisible.
The hoof steps became distant.
“Damnit… DAMNIT!”
Rarity fell back onto the wall next to the iron door. It looked like she had lost all of her strength. She tried to levitate the bread and split it in half, but her magic didn’t work.
“Rarity! Are you okay?”
“Sweetie Bell… An unicorn’s magic comes from her strength. I am just too tired and weak.”
There were no hoofle on the door, so I guessed the door could only be opened from the outside. The next time it opens would be the time for us to die.
I was about to be killed. At first I was scared because I wanted to go home, or when I got really hungry, but I haven’t gotten scared because death. Living in Pony Ville for all these years, I have no idea what death is like. Would it hurt? Of course it would. But, where do I go after I die? I am scared, but what scared me more is that Rarity is panicking more than I am. She used to be so strong and bossy, but seeing her like this making me feel like the end of the world is just steps ahead.
“Rarity…?”
Rarity raised her eyes.
“Did you tell them about the rules of the rooms?” She asked.
I didn’t understand why did she ask this. I nodded.
“You just did a very, VERY, cruel thing, do you know that?”
I tried to apologize that I didn’t know that I wasn’t suppose to tell them, but Rarity didn’t seem to be paying attention at all.
Remembering my promise, I went back to the 2nd room.
The mare smiled when I appeared.
“Ah finally, I thought you weren’t gonna show up.”
Even though her smile was weak, it was heartwarming. I haven’t seen any happy face s in these concrete rooms, so her smile was like a small ray of sunshine on my heart.
But she was going to be killed that day, why would she still smile about it? I was confused.
“You were calling your sister just now, right?”
“Yeah… you heard us?”
“Well it was all muffled and echoes, but I thought it was your voice.”
Then she started talking about her hometown, about how I looked a lot like one of her cousins. She also told me about her life before she got here, being a photographer and stuff.
”Oh, and if you get out, could you please give this to my family?”
She took off her necklace and placed it around my neck. It was a silver cross. She said she had been praying since she was locked up in here.
I spent the whole day becoming friends with her. We sat together against the concrete wall, stretching our legs like we are on a comfortable couch. Sometimes one of us would stand up and walk around as we talk. The ceiling was quite low, so a great portion of the light would be blocked, leaving a huge shadow on the wall.
I heard the water in the ditch flowing, then I remembered that I had been swimming around in the dirty water for days. I must stink. So I moved a little further away from here.
“Haha, don’t’ worry. I haven’t taken a shower in days either. My nose isn’t working at all. If I can get out of here, the first thing I do would be taking a seven hour bubble bath.”
She smiled as she talked, which amazed me.
“I am sorry, but how can you be so calm when you know you are going to be killed today?”
She thought about it for a while and said, “I’ve already accepted the fact.” She looked a bit lonely, but she was still smiling and happy. For a second, I thought she was an angel in a church.
When I had to go we held our hooves together, for a really long time.
Her hooves were gentle and warm.
I went back to my room before 6 pm. I told Rarity about the necklace. Rarity held me tight against her chest, and she sobbed a little.
The water inside the ditch slowly turned red. Then I saw eyes, lips and hair that I had just saw, flowing down the stream.
I moved closer and held out part of her hoof that I was holding no more than an hour ago. They were so warm and calm, but now they were cold and stiff.
I felt like my chest was going to burst open with pain. My brain was filled with the color of red just like the ditch. I felt the whole red turning crimson and hot. I can’t even think any more.
When I woke up I found myself lying down in Rarity’s lap, crying. Rarity was stroking my mane gently, looking down at me.
“I want to go home.” She said gently.
I nodded.
The rules of the seven rooms were unbreakable and unchangeable. Ponies die and ponies kill. At first it was only the murderer who would know about this rule, but an accident happened. Because I was tiny, I was able to move from room to room, and thus be able to figure the rule without him/her knowing about it.
However, it didn’t help much. Killer and victim, there was no way of switching roles from one to another. It was like physics, a law of the universe.
Even though, Rarity had started thinking about a way to keep living.
I moved from room to room and talked to every pony to see if they have any idea. They all looked depressed, but when I was about to leave they all looked like they wanted me to stay. Every pony was locked up in a separate room, and they were all feeling lonely, which must be hard to endure.
“You will just have to move from room to room and hide from him.”
Rarity said.
“Because he/she didn’t know that you could move from room to room, so even if I die tomorrow, you can escape to another room. If you keep doing that, you could live.”
“But I will grow up, and then I won’t fit in the tunnels any more. Besides, he knew that he locked up TWO ponies in our room. If I’m not here, he would search everywhere for me.”
“But you can still live for another day.”
Rarity insisted, and she told me to do as she said. But I felt like it was just like beating a dead pony.
I went to the 3rd room and talked with her. Her name was strange. I only know how to pronounce it. For some reason she kept her notebook with her. Whoever locked her in here didn’t take it away from her for some reason. She had a pencil as well, and the tip had been chewed off so that the tip could be sharp enough to write.
She talked about her parents and the place she lived.
“There was a river right next to my apartments. It was crystal clear, and you could see all the cobble at the bottom.”
Her words planted a beautiful image in my head. It was like dreamland. The surface of the water was reflecting sunlight, shining and shimmering. It was a bright world. The blue sky above was enormous, and it felt like gravity had no effect on me.
Right now we were locked inside a small, tiny room. The ditch smelled like rotten flesh, and the weak light bulb made the room felt even darker somehow. But we were already used to this. The outside world seemed unfamiliar and strange. But now I remembered there was actually something like wind and the sun, and the thought made me want to cry.
We sat next to each other, chatting just like I did with the 2nd mare. She started singing. I suddenly felt confused, was she really going to be killed? Then I remembered that I was going to be killed too. I thought about the reason, which was as plain as some pony loved killing, which was just stupid.
She gave me the notebook.
“If you could get out of here, please give this to my parents.”
But can I really? The 2nd mare gave me her necklace as well, but I have no idea if I could get out or not.
Then suddenly, we heard hoof steps stopping right in front of her door and the sound of metal moving.
“Oh shit!” She said, her whole body froze. The chat had been so nice that we forgot about the time. I was supposed to leave at 6pm, but she didn’t have a hoof watch so I forgot as well.
“Quick, get out of here!” She whispered as she pushed me. I nodded and jumped into the ditch. I had to go upstream because I was close to the hole towards the 1st room. I climbed through the tiny hole, and then I heard the iron door open with a loud bang.
The reaper had appeared. I don’t think I could stare at him/her in the face. They were like a symbol of death to me, and I was afraid that my soul would perish if I just look at them in the eyes.
I moved into the empty 1st room. I stood up and took a deep breathe, and then I carefully placed the notebook down on the floor.
The mare who was talking to me just now was about to be killed, right next to me. Suddenly, a crazy idea formed inside my brain. My body started shaking from the fear. I knew it’s crazy risky, but I had to do it.
If I want to escape with Rarity, I need to know more information. Of course if I enter the room, I would be killed right away. I had to watch him from inside the ditch. Even though, I was extremely nervous, to the point where I felt like I was going to faint. If I got caught, I wouldn’t even have to wait till tomorrow to get killed.
I moved to the square hole. I knelt down and pushed my knees against the slippery surface. The water was not fast, so I should be able to go backwards with caution. But there was a thin layer of some slippery thing on the concrete surface. I had to be very, very careful.
I moved forward slowly and reached the other end. I slowly poked my head through the surface and looked up. I heard extremely loud noise as soon as my ears left the dirty water. And then, I saw it.
The mare who was talking to me had turned into a pile of blood and flesh. The iron door was opened. The inside was smooth, but on the outside there was a slot for a metal bar to go through. The metal bar had been removed and placed on the side so the door could be opened. The iron door separated every pony until the moment they die.
There was another pink mare. She was standing right next to the pile of bodies, facing away from me. If she was looking my way, I would have been spotted right away.
I couldn’t see her face, but I saw her holding a chainsaw. The chain saw was running and loud. I finally realized that the noise of machine running was coming from this chainsaw. The pink mare was standing up straight, and she sounded happy.
I could hear her singing, but the sound was covered up by the noise of the chainsaw. She poked the chainsaw into the pile of bodies a few times to cut them into smaller piece. Red stuff splattered from the pile and covered everywhere. I felt my stomach turn.
She was about to turn around.
I quickly grabbed onto the slippery surface and pulled myself backwards into the hole behind me. I was lucky, she didn’t turn all the way. She didn’t saw me, but if she turned her neck a few degrees my way, I would’ve been dead.
I moved back to the first room. It’s not safe either, since she might come back and open the door and lock another new mare up in here. I lied against the wall and listened closely. When I heard her hooves steps moving out of the door, I dashed into the ditch and moved back.
The room was cleaned up again. She closed the door behind her with a loud “bang” and trotted away, maybe to transport her next victim. I caught the chance the moved downstream, back to where Rarity was.
Rarity hugged me tightly as soon as I returned to our room.
“SWEETIE BELL! Oh thank CELESTIA, I thought you were caught and… killed.”
Rarity said as tears flew down her cheeks.
I told her about what I saw. Rarity jumped at the fact that I actually went into the room WHILE the murder was going on.
“That’s too dangerous, how could you be so reckless?”
Rarity got upset, but soon she quiet down from my description of the pink mare. When she heard that the mare had smooth, long pink hair and some balloons for her cutie mark, Rarity gasped.
“It couldn’t be… Pinkie?”
Suddenly an image of Pinkie Pie jumped into my head. It was a bright sunny day at sugar cube corner. Pinkie had her hair a different, a more casual and bouncy cotton candy style. She was smiling a lot, giving out some cakes and candies for the customers. She saw me and walked over with a smile. In her hooves was a small piece of cake with white icing on the top.
“Here you go Sweetie Bell, I made this one JUST for you!”
And that Pinkie, was the one who was killing every pony.
“That’s impossible Rarity, Pinkie would never hurt any pony.”
“Actually… we haven’t seen her in days. Come to think of it, the cupcake corner had been closed for at least a week now. We thought they might have went on a vacation, but… any way, keep going.”
Rarity fell silent as I started talking about the iron doors, then soon she asked, “Are you sure there is a metal bar outside the door?”
I nodded. Rarity walked up to the door and slam her hoof against it, making a loud noise.
Rarity looked at her hoof watch. Right now it’s noon, only six more hours until the pink mare come and murder Rarity and me.
“I won’t let her have it, NEVER…” Rarity mumbled, her eyes burning with hatred and determination. Her strength had returned, and it looked like she had just made a huge decision.
She asked me about the chainsaw again. Maybe Rarity wanted to fight back? I told her about the killing machine. It was about half a pony’s length. There were sharp, spinning and fast blades on the sides. How would Rarity fight such a monster without her magic? But if we don’t want to die, the only option is to fight back.
Time flew by like water. Before we realized it, only an hour is left. Rarity told me to go talk to every other pony in the other rooms.
I jumped into the dirty ditch and had numerous pony bodies flew through. I swam through the small hole and talked to each pony. They all knew it was time for me and my sister, and they all covered their mouth with their hooves in pain, knowing that it will be their time soon as well. Some of them also tried to tell me to just swim between rooms and escape death that way.
“Here, take this.”
The 5th mare gave me her white sweater.
“It’s pretty warm here, so I don’t really need it.”
She said as she hugged me tightly.
“I really hope you guys can be the lucky ones.”
She sobbed.
The moment is coming.
Rarity and I sat as far away from the iron door as possible. We rested our hooves casually, and Rarity was hugging me.
“What do you want to do when you get out of here?”
Rarity asked. I had been thinking, dreaming about this day and night. There were so many things that I couldn’t even name them all.
“I don’t even know.”
But I really want to see dad, mom, want to take a shower, want to smell flowers, want to eat some chocolate. There were so much to do. If I could do them all, I think I would burst into tears of joy. I told Rarity about my dreams, and she had this look that says, “Chocolate and stuff, of course.”
Rarity looked at the hoof watch again. We have a few minutes left. So we just sat there looking at the light bulb.
Before we were locked here, we had a lot of fights. I even dreamed of not having a big sister at all. She was so bossy, and she never spent any time with me. If I ever tried to help her, things go wrong and Rarity got upset.
But why, why right now, just by sitting together, I could feel myself being filled with some unnamed strength? Rarity’s arm passed her warmth to me, telling me that I am not alone. At the moment when death is about to come, I felt unusually calm inside my heart, like a peaceful lake with no wind or tide at all.
“All right, you ready?” Rarity said.
I concentrated on my ears. There were light hoof steps besides the usual water flow noise. The hoof steps became louder as it got closer.
We both stood up. Rarity put her hooves on my forehead. It was a sign, a sign that says goodbye.
Rarity had concluded that we couldn’t fight with the pink mare. It was a depressing fact, but it’s the truth.
We saw shadow coming from underneath the door.
I felt my heart beating so fast, that it was about to jump out of my chest and explode. I felt everything inside rushing up to my throat. My heart was filled with sorrow and horror. I suddenly remembered every day since we were locked in here, and the smile of the ponies who had left us forever.
We heard the sound of the metal bar being removed outside the door.
Rarity back away as far from the door as possible, against a corner of the room. She bent down on her kneel and got ready. She shot me a look. Death is coming.
The door is opened, and the pink mare came in. Rarity gasped, “PINKIE! HOW COULD YOU?”
But I didn’t see her face, I only saw a blurred dark shadow of death.
Pinkie giggled, and then I heard extremely loud noise. She turned on the chain saw.
“NO, I WILL NEVER LET YOU TOUCH MY SWEETIE BELL!!!”
Rarity yelled, but her voice was soon covered by the sound of the chainsaw.
I am so scared that I wanted to scream. I imagined the pain when I was being killed, how would it feel to be cut with a thought spinning blades?
Pinkie saw my shirt behind Rarity. She laughed and moved forward.
“DON’T GET CLOSER!” Rarity held out her hooves and yelled. I couldn’t hear her, but I knew she said that. Why? Because we planned it already.
Pinkie moved closer to Rarity, and she held out the chainsaw at Rarity’s hooves.
Blood spilled into the air.
Of course I couldn’t see any of this clearly. What Pinkie looked like, the moment Rarity’s hooves were sawed, to me were extremely blurry, because I could only see this through dirty water.
I jumped out from the ditch and ran towards the opened iron door. I got out, turned around and shut it tight. I picked up the metal bar and locked the door completely.
The sound of the chain saw was muffled by the thick iron door. Right now, there were only Rarity and Pinkie inside that room.
When Rarity put her hooves on my forehead, it was a signal for goodbye. After that, I quickly dive into the ditch and hid there.
That was Rarity’s plan. She pretended to be protecting me in the corner of the room. But in fact, behind her was just a piece of my shirt. I had taken shirts from other ponies and stuffed them inside to make it looked convincing. Rarity was trying to attract Pinkie’s attention to give me enough time to run away. When Pinkie was far away enough from the door, I sprinted out and shut both of them inside.
When I locked the door, my entire body was shaking. I left Rarity inside alone. She is going to be killed. I was the only one who escaped. Rarity didn’t dodge the chainsaw because she needed more time for me to run away. She kept pretending.
The chainsaw stopped.
Some pony was hitting the door from inside with their hooves. It couldn’t be Rarity because her hooves were already gone.
Of course the think iron door was not opened.
Rarity laughed, loudly. It was so loud that I was afraid I might go deaf. Rarity was laughing towards Pinkie. We won, I escaped.
But then soon Rarity would be killed by Pinkie. Only two of them were in there, so Pinkie would kill Rarity with some especially cruel method.
But I escaped.
I looked to the side. I was in the middle of a long hall way, maybe somewhere underground. I saw the doors to the other rooms, each locked with a think, strong metal bar.
I moved over and took off the bar towards each room except the one Rarity was in. The third room was empty, but I opened it any way. There had been a lot of ponies who died inside that room, so I felt like I needed to do so.
When I opened the door, the mare inside looked and me and nodded in silence. No pony was cheering for their freedom. I had told them about the plan. The fact that I was outside, meant that Rarity was being killed by the demon. Every pony understood this.
The 5th mare cried as she saw me. She hugged me tight and I felt tears ran down my dirty neck. Then everypony gathered at the closed door.
We could still hear Rarity laughing like a maniac.
The chainsaw started running again, and we heard noise of metal being cut. Pinkie must be trying to cut open the iron door, but it was simply too thick.
No pony suggested opening the door for Rarity, because Rarity had told them not to before hoof. If the door opened, Pinkie would surely make a comeback. So she told us to run away as soon as we got out.
So we did, leaving Rarity behind with Pinkie. We ran down the hall way and found stairs towards the outside world. We climbed up, and we saw the sunshine. We finally escaped from the dark, cold, and loneliness filled prison.
I couldn’t stop it any more. Despite my lack of water, my tears were running like an opened tap. I had a necklace around my neck and a notebook on my right hoof. On the left hoof, there was Rarity’s hoof watch. The hoof watch was not water proof, and it was probably broken when I was in the ditch. The little needles inside pointed at 6 pm, and it stopped there, forever.
-The End-
