Saturday came, my mother, annoyed to have to get up so early on the weekend, dropped me off at Ponyville Middle School at eight in the morning. I went in and found my way to the detention room. Dusky Force was already there, along with two other ponies, a jock named Risky Fortress, and a shy filly named Shy Smooch.
I sat in a seat next to a Wonder Bolts poster that I have no idea why it was there. Nopony spoke a word. The only sound in the room was the creepy sound of the clock ticking again, and again, and again. I got bored after a few minutes and spun around in my chair, facing Dusky.
"Do you know who's running detention today?" I asked him.
"The lunch mare I think," he answered.
"The lunch mare?" I repeated, but Dusky didn't need to confirm it. The all too familiar stench of her breath filled my nostrils. I slowly turned back around, and in walked the lunch mare, with a huge pile of worksheets in her hoof.
"Now you bitches listen! I don't want to be here right now, so you are gonna complete these worksheets and not make a peep! Understand?" Everypony nodded. "Good, now the second something goes wrong, you all will be Mondays lunch, got it?" Then, she passed out the worksheets and almost immediately left the room after that. The stench of her breath followed her and I was finally able to breath clean air.
We all sat silently in the room for about a half hour, filling out or worksheets. The lunch mare still has not once come to check on us; we then took the risk of quietly chatting.
"That lunch mare is the ugliest living thing I've ever seen!" Dusky chuckled. "She hasn't once come to check on us!"
"I bet she just went home after she left the room," I added.
"C'mon, I bet we might be able to escape," Risky added.
We stood up from our desks only to hear the sound of grinding metal and hissing come from somewhere in the building.
"What the fuck is that?" Dusky asked.
"That's the sound of the ovens in the cafeteria starting up," I replied.
"Who would start up the ovens?" Dusky asked again.
"The lunch mare," Risky added, "Maybe she got hungry."
"She's probably getting the ovens ready to cook one of us up," I replied, playing along. But in reality, I was scared as hell. Why would she start up the ovens right about now; she could've just packed a lunch.
We tried to go back to working on our worksheets, but with that unnerving sound of the ovens made it impossible to concentrate, even for Shy Smooch. We agreed that we should send somepony to go out in the halls and check what the hells going on. Risky tore off a page of his worksheet and cut it into four small pieces; he then wrote one of our names on each.
He then faced Dusky and said, "Pick one."
Dusky took one of the upside down pieces from Risky's desk and read out loud, "Shy Smooch."
Her face turned into a pale color and shook her head.
"Oh come on guys! Don't make her do it!" I said.
"Then you go!" Dusky replied.
"What? No way!" I replied, "It was your idea you should go!"
"Fuck this!" Risky interrupted, "I'll go!"
He then left the room and disappeared down the hallway. I tried to stop him but Dusky wouldn't let me. We were about to assume that the lunch mare got him and cooked him up when he reappeared down the hallway. He motioned us to come to him. Dusky quietly shut the door and we slowly approached him.
"I circled the entire building but the cafeteria, the front, and back entrances and she's nowhere in sight," he said once we got close enough, "I think we might be able to make a run for the front door."
"Let's do it!" Dusky replied.
"What have we got to lose?" I added.
"Our lives," Dusky replied. Risky took the lead and we followed. We slowly made our way to the front entrance, staying close to the walls and listening for approaching hoofsteps. The noise of the kitchen equipment was still filling the halls as we got closer to the front doors. We finally reached the front doors.
"Let's get out of here!" Dusky cheered. He pulled the door handle, but something was stopping it from opening. "What the hell?"
"It's chained." Shy Smooch whispered.
"Let me try." Risky stepped up and grabbed the door handle. Then started yanking on the door back and forth violently. The noise filled the entire building.
"You idiot!" I grabbed him and pulled him away from the door, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"
We went silent, down the hall we could faintly hear hoofsteps coming our way.
"Run!" I cried.
We ran in different directions. Dusky and I went left while Shy and Risky went right. As we turned around the corner, we could hear Shy's spine-tingling scream and the lunch mare shout "Gotcha!"
We didn't bother to look back. We found an empty classroom and hid in it. Dusky dove behind the teacher's desk while I took my chances inside the cupboard. After a few minutes pass by, I thought I heard something crash into the window without shattering. I peeked out of the cupboard and it turned out to just me Derpy trying to fly through the window. She eventually gave up and flew towards another window. For another few minutes, nothing happened. Then we could hear faint hoofsteps coming down the hall.
"Dusky? Narrator? Where are you guys?" we could hear Risky shout out. Dusky and towards the door and opened it for Risky.
"Risky! Get in here!" After he got in we all dove behind the teacher's desk.
"Guys, you won't believe it!" Risky whispered, "the lunch mare got Shy. She tried to run, but then, the lunch mare hit her in the head with a metal pipe. There was blood everywhere. I could barely get out without throwing up!"
"What?" I asked.
"The lunch mare either knocked out Shy or killed her. I don't know. I just saw her dragging her body down the hall and towards the cafeteria."
"You telling me, that a staff member hit an innocent little filly really hard with a metal pipe?" I asked.
"Yes!" Risky answered, "we need to get out of here, now!"
"We need to get to a room with windows!" I said.
"Fuck that!" Dusky replied, "I've seen enough movies to know that unless one of you has a sledgehammer right here right now, we'll just look stupid trying to break these windows."
"Then there's only one way left out of this school," Risky added, "the back doors."
"But that's-"
"Next to the cafeteria," I said, completing Dusky's sentence.
"It's the only chance we've got," said Risky.
We opened the door. And looked down the hallway. The lunch mare was nowhere in sight.
"Let's go! Follow me." Dusky whispered.
We crept down the hall and looked all around us for the lunch mare. We made our way towards the cafeteria. We were about a quarter of the way there when the lunch mare's voice came through the loudspeakers around the building.
"Hello there bitches," she said in her fake accent, "I see you all have left your room! That's unfortunate. However, I promise that there will be no consequences if you simply return to the detention room. Shy is waiting for you there."
"Shy? We have to help her! Celestia knows what's happened to her!" Risky said while rushing towards the detention room."
"Risky don't! It's a trap!" I yelled out at him.
"No, let him go!" Dusky grabbed me and stopped me from going after Risky, "He's not worth it."
I finally listened to Dusky and went with him to the back doors. Within a minute, we heard Risky give out a spine-tingling scream, then suddenly go silent.
"Hurry!" Dusky shouted, "We're almost there!"
He was right, we were just a few feet away from the back door. I felt like I was about to throw up, but Dusky kept telling me to not stop running. The hallway started spinning in front of me, I was becoming weaker. I wanted to throw up with each step I took. We finally reached the back entrance after passing the cafeteria. Dusky practically ran into the doors while I collapsed to the floor and tried not to throw up. Dusky pulled on the door handles.
"Oh no, no no no!" he cried out. "No! Celestia please!"
The doors were chained, we were trapped, nowhere to go, nopony to help, trapped. Meanwhile, I laid on the cold floor, about to hurl. Looking down the hallway, I could see some pale hooves enter my vision. It was the lunch mare, wielding her bloody metal pipe. Dusky, who was now wildly throwing himself at the doors, saw her too. She slowly approached us, step by step. I closed my eyes, as the lunch mare passed over me and made her way to Dusky. She brought down her pipe on Dusky's head. Blood flew everywhere, on the walls and the floor. She didn't stop, she just kept hitting him until he stopped moving. Then she looked at me, and at the same time, I threw up. Then everything went dark.
I opened my eyes, the brightness of the fluorescent lights made it hard to see at first. After a few minutes, my eyes adjusted and I saw that I was in the middle of the cafeteria. I looked down, I was tied to a chair. I squirmed for a few minutes but the rope was incredibly tight; it wouldn't let me move.
I examined my surroundings, no pony else was in the cafeteria with me. The chairs and tables were set up in their usual fashion during the week. The kitchen equipment was still running in the back.
"Awake eh?" a voice called out. I bent my head back and saw the lunch mare preparing a meal of some sort.
"Give me another minute, lunch is almost ready." I squirmed around a little more, but it was no use. The rope wouldn't give out. I then sat still, waiting for something to happen.
After a minute or two, the lunch mare came out of the kitchen with a plate covered with a napkin in her hoove.
"Did you have a nice nap?" I remained silent. She set the plate on a nearby table. "You know, I could've killed you too, but something in my head told me to spare you. So I did. On top of that, I even cooked you a delicious lunch." I stayed silent.
"So what? No thank you? Is that how I'm treated for feeding you every day? Is this how I'm repaid for sweating away in a hot dirty kitchen all day, five days a week?" she paused, "you know, I've worked this job for nine years and you bitches are all the same, you come in line, you take your food, you walk away, and never say thank you. You say 'ew, she's smelly and weird, forget that she cooks us food every day.' Well, that is over now, no more!" I didn't know what to say at that point.
The lunch mare came behind me and pushed my chair to the table with the plate. I didn't want to know what was on the plate in front of me. She unbound my arms so that I could only move them up to my elbow. Then, she set a fork on the table, next to the plate.
"I have made you a nice meal. You will eat now." She pulled off the napkin and I gagged. I had to turn my head away. Sitting in the middle of the plate, as a big sausage surrounded by cooked ears, eyeballs, and organs.
"You will eat now," she repeated.
"No. I can't do it!" I was growing sick again.
"You will eat, or I will hit!" I looked up and saw that she had her pipe raised over her head.
"I, I can't do it!" she brought the pipe right down upon my head. I could feel my blood flowing down my head. I screamed.
"Eat!" She brought it down again. I picked up the fork and cut off a part of the sausage. I put the bite in my mouth and ate it.
"Good! Finish it all!" I shook my head. She brought down her pipe on my head again. I cried out in pain, but I knew screaming was no use, there was no pony else in the building.
"Eat!" she raised her pipe over her head, getting ready to bring it down. I was blinded by my tears and I knew I would not survive one last hit. I finally took another bite, and another, and another, and another. It took all my strength to hold it down in my stomach.
When I finally took the last bite, she took the plate.
"Very good. I'm glad you enjoyed it." She put the plate in the sink, then came back, still wielding her bloody pipe. "Now that you have had your lunch, I will have mine." I looked upward as she raised her pipe in the air, one last time. I closed my eyes.
