Surrender
A soft breeze of cool air blew through my mane.
The floor was hard, blank, dead. The stones of which it was made of felt like steel on my skin, adamant and without warmth.
As I tried to open my eyes I felt a sickening pain. Instead of the feeling of cold air on my eyes I felt the blood of my own eyelids, which were almost ripped apart by the small threads that stitched them onto my head.
I tried to yell, but I couldn’t open my mouth. Something was screwed through my upper jaw, connecting it with my lower jaw. It impaled my tongue in a very unhealthy position, causing my saliva and my blood to form a gross liquid which taste was mixed with the taste of iron.
“Awake, I see.”
The voice sounded mechanic and unreal, like from a machine.
“You might have noticed it, your eyes and mouth are kept shut.”
I tried to turn my head into the direction of the voice.
“Let me explain to you where you are. This assortment of chambers is your death. No more and no less. You can just give up or you can try to survive and die trying it. Just don’t be too confident in yourself.”
I tried to stand up and walk around, searching for doors, but my hind legs were tightened to something that felt like thick ropes.
“My my, how disrespectful of me. I haven’t even told you what to do. The machine will start to work in one minute. It will pull you into a meat grinder. Better find something to hold on, eh?”
I almost opened my eyes in shock, but the threads were fixing them on their position.
“I will start the counter now.”
The voice faded away, making place for a nervous ticking noise.
I started to search for something to hold on, but the floor was cold and even.
The rapid ticking made me nervous and hasty, causing me to stumble over my own hooves and tangle myself up in the ropes.
I tried to scream for help, but the big screw held my mouth shut and I swallowed some of the bitter liquid in my mouth, causing me to throw up and almost drown from the new mixture that had formed.
The ticking voices slowly faded away and I felt that the ropes were starting to pull me into another direction, painfully moving my body parts together. My panic turned into horrific fright.
Without a second thought about it I ripped my eyes open.
Some of the stitches ripped open, some ripped parts of my eyelids off. I tried to yell, but again the screw kept my mouth shut.
The room was small, without a door or windows, only a small hole in a wall.
Two ropes that were bound to my legs pulled me slowly towards the hole.
I tried to close my eyes as my legs were pulled into the hole, but the laps of skin couldn’t cover them completely.
I saw through the corner of my eye that my legs were pulled into the meat grinder as I noticed something. I couldn’t hear a sound, no motor or gears.
The ropes pulled me completely through the meat grinder, but nothing happened.
On the other side of the meat grinder was a brighter room with white walls.
A single light bulb was hanging from the ceiling and in the middle of the room were two chairs and a desk. On the small, wooden desk was a little recorder.
“You should have listened to me. I never said that you will die if you surrender. But this time. This time you will die when you surrender. Your task is simple. You have to describe this room to me.”
The voice faded away and once again made place for a nervous ticking noise. The walls began to move towards me, slow but with steady movement.
At first I was confused, but the hard realisation came over me a few seconds later.
I tried to open my mouth, but the screw kept it shut.
I tried to move my lower jaw out of it, but the screw got stuck on my bones.
I started to smack my head against the table, hoping that the screw would become loose.
With every impact I could hear a sickening noise.
Eventually the bones from my jaw would get loose, making it unusable, but the screw still was holding my both jaws together.
Another impact.
The sudden jerk caused me to rip a piece of my tongue out, making me able to get it free from the screw.
Another impact.
I heard a sickening crunch and a strange feeling was running down my spine. I threw up, again unable to spit the acrid liquid out of my mouth.
Seeing the walls coming closer with every second I struck my head down one last time.
Another impact, harder than the ones before.
The liquid splattered over the ground as my lower jaw got loose.
My eyes widened as I saw the jaw touching the ground, sliding a few centimeters before it touched one of the walls and came to a stop.
Slowly blood was dripping down of my jaw.
The realisation hit me like a bunch of stones.
I couldn’t talk. With my tongue ripped into two and my lower jaw gone all I could get out of my mouth were inarticulate voices.
My blood filled eyes began to water as I set down and waited for the walls to come over me.
“You give up? You surrender?”
Tears started rolling over my cheeks.
“Let me guess. You think I gave you no choice, right?”
I just stared blankly at the recorder.
“I always give multiple chances. Why does nopony ever listen to me?
I got angry and smashed the recorder.
I looked at the walls, steadily moving towards me and tried to back up till I bumped against the opposed wall, which was pushing me back into the middle of the room, in the direction of the other walls.
The opposite wall touched my front hooves, pressing them farther into my direction, but I didn’t try to fight against it. I already had given up hope.
The two walls pushed me together in between them, causing my bones to snap or slide into unhealthy directions, some poking out of my skin. The pain was lying above me, like a heavy blanket.
The steadily smaller getting room in front of my eyes started to fade away, making space for a calming darkness as I passed out.
The screen turned black as the walls touched each other and the grey coated stallion stood up from his chair, sighed and turned his recorder on.
Test subject 5, male, earth pony. Tests: Thinking under time pressure and the ability to ignore informations you got before if they are irrelevant.
Result: dead.
First riddle.
Let me explain to you where you are. This assortment of chambers is your death. No more and no less. You can just give up or you can try to survive and die trying it. Just don’t be too confident in yourself.
Two tips.
Try to survive and die.
Don’t be too confident in yourself.
Both tips got ignored and he tried to fight.
Second riddle.
This time you will die if you surrender.
The tip was ignored again and he stopped to fight after half of the time.
Another dead subject. My studies aren’t going well. The same result over and over again.
The next subject will be prepared in two minutes. Last time the subject could rip his eyes open. That should not be possible. This time I will remove their eyes.
I don’t know which day it is anymore. I forgot to count. I think that will be the first question I have if I ever come out.
End of entry 6.
He turned the recorder off and went into a little room, filled with drugged ponies of all sort.
Soon he laid a pegasus with a number, the number six, burned into his flank on a little table. He sighed one last time as he grabbed his tools and laid them down next to the brown coated stallion.
He closed the door and soon the pegasus’ cries of pain filled the caverns.
