Run

by Sense of Humor

Rating: everyone
Tags: Diamond Tiara, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Horror, Cheerilee
Length: 1223

In which Applebloom is sentenced to a fate worse than death.

One specific day at school, Applebloom is part of the last group of her class to go to the new building installed behind the school. The first group came back considerably stressed and tired, something that frightens Applebloom. What happened in that building?

Published 2016-07-17 22:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-07-17 22:30:01 UTC

*Insert Scary Music*

*Insert Scary Music*

The morning light never chilled her so.

Applebloom instantly recognized what dreaded day this was, and so the first act of her day was frowning. She swallowed as wishes of changing time danced around in her head and presented all sorts of things that her day could be in the next hour. Applebloom could have been getting ready to practice card stacking, or attempting to memorize all of her favorite books, or even trying to harvest all the apples from several trees to impress people. She briefly thought about how she could have been cooking breakfast in the next hour, but stopped herself there. This day was sad enough as it was, and her imagination would only make it worse.

The filly eventually crawled down stairs and was greeted by an all too cheerful sister of hers. The orange mare's grin battled long and hard against the depressing frown. "Hey, Little sis! How ya doin' this fine mornin'?"

"...ah'm fine…" She mumbled quietly, her large eyes staring down at her own hooves instead of the mare.

"Ye don't look lahk you're doin' fine. If it's about what I think it is, then ye really should stop stressing yerself! It ain't healthy. "

"Hmm." Was all Applebloom said, and walked past her worried sibling without another word to her. The filly prepared herself a small breakfast of cereal and fresh milk straight from the refrigerator, but hardly took notice of the crunching in her mouth or the rest of her family coming downstairs.

She felt like she was being guided into a jail cell as she took several small hoofsteps down through ponyville's streets. Applebloom barely looked up from the ground, but she could hear all the chatter as if it were directly in her ears. Everypony looked so happy and oblivious to everything around them because they didn't worry like she did. They didn't have to do what she had to do this day.

The walk, however slow she tried to make it, just wasn't slow enough to prevent her from seeing the school. Applebloom swallowed in worry; she couldn't go through with this. She could just try to run away from the school while she still had the chance and hide in the clubhouse. Yes, she could do that and save herself from the bad things to come...the awful things to come that she didn't want. Applebloom turned around to start tiptoeing away from the area when her own teacher trotted up the path and spotted her quickly.

"Oh, Applebloom!" Miss Cheerliee exclaimed brightly. Applebloom almost whimpered; any chance she had of running away now was gone forever. "I see you're running a bit late, like me. At least we won't walk to school alone hmm?"

They both more or less walked together thanks to the filly's reluctance making her lag behind and both of them entered through the doorway in single file. As usual, Miss Cheerilee's entrance didn't initially send anypony rushing to their seats and gave ample time for Applebloom locate her friends. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Diamond Tiara just so happened to be talking to each other by the time their redhaired friend walked up to them. "Howdy girls…"

"Applebloom! Er...Hi." Tiara awkwardly greeted her. It was always difficult for her greet the pony kindly thanks to her past. But they were progressing and soon it'd be like they were friends forever...if she survived what was to come.

Scootaloo could read the earth filly's facial expression pretty well. "...M-Maybe it won't be as bad as ours, Applebloom."

"Yeah!" Sweetie Belle offered helplessly, and winced soon after. "My body doesn't sting as much as it did before...that didn't help did it?"

Applebloom sighed and somehow managed a grin. "Not really, but Ah appreciate it."

"Okay, class! We all know who's who today! Line up at the door in single file and wait for me." Cheerilee smiled as if all was good in Equestria. Applebloom said a sad goodbye to her friends and joined the very few other fillies in a line. The aduilt nodded at the sight and began to lead everyone out. "Alright! Let's head on down."

After acknowledging the sorrowful waves everypony left gave, the line truekked over concrete sidewalks towards the newly installed building not too many yards behind the school building. Crows taubnted them from above fittingly; raspy caws of laughter filling the air until they fluttered away. Applebloom's heart raced as the building towered over her head like some kind of giant, crooked tree with rotting bark and an eery atmosphere. This was it; this was end for them all.

Miss Cheerilee cheerfully opened the door, and that's when Applebloom mustered up the last pints of courage she had. "Wait! Miss Cheerilee?"

"Yes?" The adult turned towards her, as well as the other frightened fillies.

"C-Can this wait till tommorow? Ah mean, today's a nice calm one after all! Maybe we could just play a few games instead?"

"...Ha! Oh Applebloom!" Cheerilee didn't notice it, but she sucked away the hope from everypony in an instant. "You're so funny! I'll have to remember that joke!"

"B-but…" Applebloom muttered tearfully and didn't say anything else about it. The line of fillies slithered into the giant room hesitantly and huddled in a corner near the door, bodies shuddering with great dread.

Cheerliee walked over to the right wall before traveling towards it middle, which was obscured in the shadows. Applebloom didn't know why the only light in this place came from the windows, but she had nothing she could do about it. "Alright, my little ponies! Line up on that red line in front of you."

All eyes turned to the thick red snake of a line lying horizontally before the huddled group, running from left to right in a straight direction. Half a minute later, everypony began to move to the line as slow as a great grandfather snail in slow motion replay and Applebloom was the very last pony to line up with her many peers. She was ironically in the middle of the lines of fillies and was just one of the many hearts that thumped too fast for it to be normal; one of the many breaths drawn in that torturous room.

"Alrighty! We're all set!" The teacher's voice was far too calm and happy for what was about to happen. It was like she didn't notice that her students were on the verge of having heart attacks like never before. She raised a hoof towards some object obscured in darkness and poked it. "Listen closely, everypony!"

At first, silence reigned the huge room, if one were to exclude the sounds of fear in the air. Nothing was heard.

Then, a horrible voice made of evil and incomprehensible terror began to speak from somewhere in the place. It's words-its blood chilling statement- made Applebloom tremble as whimpers escaped her throat and her wide eyes stared at the shadowed empty space before her...

"The Fitness Gram Pacer Test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues."

Author's Note

GOTCHA! HA HA HA! I totally made you all think it was something else, didn't I? But the test IS frightening to say the least. I hope you found this random thing funny! :rainbowlaugh: