My Little Jigsaw

The chamber is dark, old, and dusty. Against one wall, a stove sits, burners forever extinguished from lack of fuel. A microwave sits on the counter. A fridge, now silent and leaking freon, sits in a corner. Its a kitchen from ages past.

In the center, an island counter sits. A blue Earth Pony lay on this counter, held in place by tight leather straps.

Above her, amid fluorescent lights that currently are off, three circular saws hang, two above each leg, one directly above her chest.

A square box is mounted on the wall, smooth, black around the edges but gray and crackling with flakes of static in the middle. It provides the only light and sound in the kitchen at this point.

"Uhhhh"

The blue pony awakes with a groan. She looks left, then right, then down at her restraints. A slight wiggle is all she obtains for herself after a brief struggle. Then, the screaming begins.

"Carrot? Pinkie? Somepony help!!!"

The picture on the screen changes. The blue pony can't really look away; she can scarcely do more than move her head. Once a garbled mess of no signal, the television now displays a face.

Its not large, but it fills the screen. The shape is off, with the nose scrunched into the center, and the ears hidden by the jet black mane's bowl shape. The sides of its powder white face are adorned with red swirls. Almost as red as the piercing irises that seemed to stare into her very soul. I know your sins, the face silently says.

"What is this?" she says, hyperventilating.

As if thus were the cue to do so, as if the pair were conversing, the face begins to speak, its mouth sharply jabbing up and down with each word.

"Hello, Mrs. Cake. I want to play a game. Marriage has often fascinated me,
how two people are so eager to trust one another, to make a lifetime promise, throwing away all doubt about the morals of their partner. It fascinates me, this feeling of absolute trust. However, when one breaks that trust, it is sickening. For many years, you have engaged in multiple affairs. Your husband never suspected you, until of course Pound and Pumpkin were born, each being a totally different tribe than either of you. Despite the constant promises of faithfulness, you still threaten to tear apart your family with infidelity. Tonight, we will find out if you are willing to tear yourself apart in order to survive."

Overhead, the lights kick on, illuminating the saws. Mrs. Cake looks upon them with dread, breathing speeding up even further. The face doesn't cease speaking for her to look, however.

"The saw above you will soon descend. In sixty seconds, it will cut into your sternum. In eighty seconds, it will slice your heart in two. There is, however, a way to avoid this. There are buttons on the table, just within reach. Pressing each will cause the other saws to descend instead. If both are activated before the minute is over, you will survive, but at the cost of two limbs. Live or die, make your choice"

The screen reverts to static for but a second before being replaced with a timer. One minute. Fifty-nine seconds...

The blades whir to life, drowning out the scream of the imperiled pony as the saw begins to lower. Every few seconds, the blade lowers a fraction of an inch. Its not much in reality, but it seems to be a mile when the distance between the spinning steel and soft flesh and bone is as short as it is.

"Ok...ok. I can do this!" Mrs. Cake tells herself. She feels at the counter's sides with what little movement is available and discovers that indeed a button sits on each side. She notices a tightness in her thighs, just above the knees and realizes she has a tourniquet on each. The intent is truly for her to slice off her legs, she realizes. She can't do this after all. It's too much. Maybe somepony will hear her, she thinks.

Then, she looks at the clock. Forty-five seconds are left. The blade is now much closer. It almost seems to be moving faster. Faced with this realization, she takes a breath, closes her eyes, and hits a button.

The right blade suddenly shoots downward, dropping like a stone in stark contrast to the slowness of the blade above her chest. It bites into her leg, through sinew, muscle, skin, and bone, shrieking a high pitched shriek as it carves through the last of those.

All Mrs. Cake can do is scream as her right leg is brutally amputated, spraying blood all over the counter, the floor, the straps, her skin, the saw...even the oven, microwave, and fridge. Finally, the blade jerks back up and stops. Mrs. Cake's leg falls to the floor with a thump.

I really did it, she thinks, as shock begins to set in. She doesn't notice that the clock is down to twenty-five seconds. She just stares blankly at the screen, unable to register the digits as they change.

Ten seconds tick by before she exits the haze and realizes that she is indeed still trapped. She recalls the words of the face, that if she can just hit the second button, the blades will stop. She wills herself to do it, but after that pain, she just can't.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

She hits the button, but its too late. The left and right blades cease spinning while the final blade plunges into her sternum. She screams one final, long scream, only stopping when blood cuts off the flow of air as it spurts from her gaping mouth. Her head lolls to one side just in time to see my eye, staring at the scene from a peephole I drilled through the wall.

Then she dies.

I walk into the old kitchen, pull my trusty scalpel from my robes, and slice out a puzzle piece shaped chunk of skin from her neck. The blades shut off as I exit the kitchen, flipping the light switch off. As I stand in the doorway, I turn and say two fateful words.

"Game Over!"