Hacksaw

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Asylum
Chapter 2: The Hacksaw Killer
Chapter 3: Suspicion
Chapter 4: A Survivor's Tale

Chapter 1: The Asylum

Darkness.

The glow of light floated gently atop the surface of the water, moving surely but slowly, like an abandoned boat being pushed away by the gentle waves of an ocean. The light lingered lazily on the unclean water, the azure glow offering a consolation to the gloomy ambiance. Everything stood still. Movement was nonexistent.

A sudden burst of bubbles emanated from the tub as a unicorn jolted awake underneath the water. Dazed and confused, he screamed in alarm, but only created more bubbles. His wide-open mouth gave the water an opportunity to infiltrate it, sending a wave of cold, dirty water down his throat. His mouth clamped shut. He instinctively flailed his legs, striking something aside, but he did not wince in pain. Nothing could be seen from his perspective. He was desperate. Panicked. Fearful.

The stallion thrust up his torso, breaking the barrier of the water and the air above it with a dramatic splash. His head cleared through and wildly spit out the water that had nearly penetrated his lungs. His entire body was dripping with fluid. Shaking crazily as if he was being electrocuted, he lunged up, using his hooves as support as he frenziedly raised his body into a sitting position. The stallion coughed until the rancid taste of contaminated water had been banished from his taste buds.

The blue light that provided the only peace in the dismal room faded away as the water swiftly carried it down the drain of the tub.

He raised his hooves defensively. His right hoof made contact with the wall beside him. Using the wall as support, the stallion, with difficulty, raised his position so that he no longer sat in the tub he had been unconscious in for the past hour. He leaned on the wall, which he could tell was severely dilapidated and covered with grime by just using his sense of touch. He threw his other hoof over the left side of the tub, grabbing onto the edge. The water that drenched his vulnerable body caused him to slip once, but he managed to grasp onto it firmly on the second try. Without warning, his hooves collapsed, causing him to tumble over the side of the tub and onto the floor with a sickening crunch.

Still gasping in both confusion and realization of almost being drowned, the stallion brought himself up to his hooves. He stumbled forward a few steps, but he luckily used his hoof to prevent him from colliding into the wall in front of him. He heard a tinkling of chains, almost like the jingling of Christmas bells, taunting him in this situation. He felt furious. Enraged. Where the hell was he? How did he get here? What was going on? Questions rushed to his mind rapidly, but he had no answers to satiate them. The cold, metallic feeling of a steel fetter on his horn seized his attention. With a forehoof, he tried to pull the binding off of his horn. He pulled hard. He pulled with all of his might, grunting like an animal, choking back the sobs of pain with each pull. The chain jingled merrily. It didn’t budge. A few more futile tries later, he threw the confine down on the floor, giving up. But a sudden thought lit up in his mind. He could use his magic to free himself! Concentrating on the chain, he shut his eyes and willed his magic to the padlock that kept the chain in place. He started to sweat with the extreme concentration he put into the confine.

Nothing happened.

He gasped, opening his eyes. His magic didn’t work! The chain must have some magical property that renders a unicorn's horn useless!

“Help! Help!”

The stallion called out desperately, hoping that anypony nearby could rescue him. He banged both soaking-wet hooves on the wall. It felt like rust - or even moss - had formed on it. He couldn’t see anything; he was blinded by the eternal darkness of the malicious room.

“Help! Somepony help me!”

He stopped slamming his hooves on the wall, realizing that his attempts of calling for help was pointless. Every sound seemed to be augmented a hundred times: every droplet of water sounded like an emotionless waterfall; the hum of the radiator sounded like the ominous buzzing of a hornet’s nest. The stallion felt depressingly paranoid. After all, he had nearly drowned and was now confined and fettered in a dank, disgusting room. He began to sob shamelessly. He was bound to die in this room, cold and alone where nopony could find him. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he gently placed a hoof to his face and his other forehoof on the wall to prevent him from toppling over.

"I must be dead, I must be dead..."

"You're not dead."

The sudden, intrusive voice startled the stallion. His head jolted up immediately. His ears perked up as he hoped that his chances of survival was greater than it was a few minutes ago. But he still wondered who the unknown stallion - as he deduced from his gruff, surly voice - was.

"What? Who... who is it?"

Silence. That disgusting, damned silence.

"I said, who is it?!"

"You don't need to know that right now," the voice answered coolly.

"What the hell are you doing to me?"

"I'm not doing anything."

"What the hell's happening?"

"I don't know. For all I know, I'm in the same situation as you. I woke up about fifteen minutes ago in a bathtub full of water, and I called for help. There's no use in trying that."

The stallion's heart sunk back to its cavernous depths of hell. His chance of survival waned back to its original state. He knew it. He knew he was fated to die all alone without anypony noticing. The pony in charge of all this was probably doing him a favor for canceling his subscription to life early.

No. His mind burned with a single question: Who was doing this to him? A psychopath? A serial killer? Ideas flashed to his mind, each one being as plausible as one other. He was sure that the perpetrator of this wasn’t very mentally sane. The lack of light disturbed him greatly. He couldn’t think properly when everything was so melancholic and dark.

"I can't see anything."

"Neither can I. Let me look for a light switch." A few minutes elapsed, which seemed like hours to the stallion as the stranger rummaged around his side of the room. The stallion heard the soft, jeering clink of steel from the other side of the room, and presumed that the stranger was chained to the wall as well. "Ah, I've found something. Wait-"

Click.

Light blared through the unicorn’s corneas without warning. He reared back, squinting and shielding his eyes with a hoof. He groaned in pain; the light stung, having been in the darkness. The stallion cringed as the light penetrated his eyes even though he kept them shut. For several seconds, even with his eyes shut tightly, he could see nothing but white light. He opened his eyes slowly and cautiously. He could see nothing except for amorphous smudges of color. Blinking barely helped. No definite shape of anything existed in his peripheral vision. Shying away from the excessively irradiant light, he continued to manually blink his eyes. Moments later, his sight adjusted and his vision became crystal clear.

The room was extremely dirty, as he had predicted. The walls, for the most part, were covered in grime; the steel pipes were caked with vomit-like rust; the room looked as if it had been abandoned decades ago. There were four beds lain out, two on each side of the room. The windowless walls looked as if they were about to collapse and crumble apart. Several dirty, slightly-ripped posters hung crookedly on the walls. On one of them was a colorful illustration of a jovial pony galloping in the meadows. It had a superimposed caption on it, written in capital letters: WE HOPE YOU GET BETTER! The juxtaposition of such an innocent entity in such a disheveled room sent chills down his spine.

He was in an abandoned insane asylum.

On the other side of the room sat an earth pony, his hooves raised as if he was being held hostage. His mane was dark brown, and his coat was a light tan. His cutie mark was, curiously, an hourglass. His body was bruised badly and stained with dirt; the unicorn assumed that he looked the same way as well. He had chains around his leg, rendering him trapped in the room also. Numerous questions came to his mouth, but he couldn’t say anything. The tan stallion looked around, his vision also slowly adjusting. The unicorn cautiously trudged toward the earth pony, his light-brown hooves clopping softly on the floor until the chain kept him from moving any further.

Both stallions suddenly gasped in surprise and horror. The light-brown stallion’s eyes opened wide, his face contorted in utmost revulsion. The tan stallion lowered his raised hoof slowly, his face full of terror. He leaned forward as to take a closer look.

In the center of the room hung a dead unicorn, his saturated-blue fur incredibly paled. He was facing to the side, so both ponies could only see half of his pallid, cadaverous face. A taut noose hanging from the ceiling kept the unicorn levitated a few hooves above the ground. A fallen stool lay on the ground next to the corpse, presumably used by the pony to hang himself. The body swayed from side to side like a pendulum slowed down a thousand times. In the hoof that was visible to the light-brown stallion, he held a tape recorder, rigor mortis keeping its firm grasp on it.

“Oh, Celestia...” whispered the light-brown pony, distraught by the sight of the lifeless cadaver. He felt deadly sick. He twisted around, retching, vomit splaying over the floor. After a few minutes, he wiped his mouth, looked around frantically, and began to scream. The tan pony just stared, trying to calculate what was going on.

“Calm down, calm down."

“How the hell can I calm down? There’s a dead pony right there!”

“Just, please, calm down. Tell me your name.”

After a brief hesitation, the light-brown pony answered brusquely. “Pony Joe. But my friends call me Joe. What’s yours?”

Another hesitation. “Call me Doctor Whooves." He spoke in an accent that was unexpected from his formal-sounding title.

“A doctor? What are you, a medical doctor?”

"Not technically, but I have studied the medical sciences for some time.”

Deciding not to investigate further, the pony named Joe sat on the ground and tugged on the chain again. “Shit! How do you think we’ll get out of these chains? I can’t use my magic with them on!”

“We should first think about how we got here,” Doctor Whooves said coolly. Joe thought for a moment, directing his thoughts away from the binds. “What’s the last thing that you remember?”

“I... I don’t know,” said Joe, straining his face in consternation. He was telling the truth. He didn’t remember anything up until the night before. He had gone to his house to retire for the night, and...

Nothing. He remembered nothing else. He strained to think about what happened to him last night that had landed him in this situation. He remembered that he worked all day and night in the doughnut shop. He remembered grumbling to himself about how much he hated his work. He remembered switching the “Open” sign in front of the shop to “Closed.” He remembered walked toward his house in the middle of Canterlot. Then nothing. He didn’t remember anything else. He had no idea how he got here.

“I don’t either.” Joe looked up. Doctor Whooves shook his head and gently placed a hoof on a wall. “All I remember is coming home from work, then nothing after that.”

“That’s exactly what I remember!” said Joe, leaping to his hooves. “Do you think something happened to us while we were coming back?”

Doctor Whooves said nothing. He looked down at the ground, pondering with great difficulty. Joe looked at him expectantly as if he was a savior who had been sent by Celestia herself to save him.

"I think that we were most likely taken here by force," Doctor Whooves said. "Seeing as how we don't remember anything for the past few hours, the kidnapper must have used chloroform to render us unconscious before dragging us here." He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly.

"Do you have any clues on where we are?"

Doctor Whooves looked around, inspecting the barren room. It was foal's play to determine that they were in an abandoned asylum. "I suspect that we are underground, seeing as how there aren't any abandoned mental institutes in Ponyville."

"Ponyville? I'm from Canterlot." Joe said proudly as if residents of Canterlot were hegemonic to the residents of Ponyville.

Doctor Whooves cocked an eyebrow in sudden interest. "Canterlot? What is your occupation, may I ask?"

Joe's face reddened, immediately regretting his smug disposition. "Oh, I'm just an ordinary pony who works at a doughnut shop."

"Nopony is ordinary. There is something inside us that makes us different from one another."

Momentarily taken aback at the sagacious words, Joe examined him in awe.

"We need to find a way to escape from here."

“What makes you so sure that we’ll even be able to escape?” Joe asked questioningly.

Without a moment of uncertainty, the knowledgeable pony answered. “If a pony truly wanted to kill us, why didn’t he kill us before? Why put us in the same room? Why put us in a tub of water, where we could easily prevent ourselves from drowning? I think that whoever is doing this is proffering us the chance to escape, but we'll have to make use of every resource that we’re given.

“Also, look at that clock.” Joe looked above his head as Doctor Whooves pointed. “That clock is brand new.” The shiny clock ticked as every second passed. Its insidious face gazed toward the wall on the other side. It was 8:37, but neither of them could tell for certain whether it was in the morning or in the afternoon. Joe's instincts told him that it was morning.

“So?”

“Everything else is ruined and dilapidated in this room. The pony - or ponies - who did this to us must have wanted us to keep track of the current time.”

Pausing a moment, Joe replied, “Well, the only thing that we’re given is the tape recorder in that dead pony’s hoof.”

“Can you reach out and grab it?”

Joe stared at Doctor Whooves, utterly stunned by the suggestion. “Hell no! I’m not getting close to that... thing!” he finished as he gesticulated wildly with his hooves.

“If you want to escape, we need to use all of our resources. I don't think you even need to get close to him. Now please stop being stubborn and try to grab the tape.” Doctor Whooves said sternly and persuasively.

Joe looked at the hanged pony and then down at the floor and stamped a hoof. “No. There must be another way to get out of here!”

“Well, from what I can see, there isn’t. So I suggest that you listen to me and try to grab that tape recorder,” Doctor Whooves said, slightly annoyed by Joe’s stubbornness.

Joe sighed in surrender. “Okay, fine. But how would I get it if I can’t reach the dead pony?”

“As I said, use your resources. Use anything around you.”

As Joe looked around, Doctor Whooves did as well. Beside him was an old, rotting wooden cabinet. He trotted over to it and opened it slowly, fearing that insects or pests would crawl out of it as soon as he did. He had an unnatural phobia of insects; he simply thought that little creepy-crawlers were disgusting, useless creations of the Princesses. Just as he feared, a large, hairy spider six inches in diameter clambered out of the cabinet.

“Holy shit!” Doctor Whooves yelled in fright as he jumped away from the monstrosity, but promptly fell down due to the chain restricting him. The spider moved swiftly toward the fallen pony, who attempted to scramble away using his chained legs. Grabbing a nearby severed floor tile, he raised it high and swung it down on the spider, crushing it. He lifted it back up, and smashed it down again, splattering torrents of blood from the target. Although it was quite clear that the spider had died, he took no notice and continued. Lift. Smash.

Every time the tile collided with the carcass of the spider, ichor leapt from it like water touching electricity. It was like the stages of life of a living organism reversed; something had been living before had deteriorated into something pitifully primitive. The spider was reduced to nothing more than mashed pieces of hair drenched in blood, with a small puddle of crimson liquid seeping from under the gory mess. Joe witnessed this entire spectacle; his mouth was wide open, stunned, as the normally calm, intelligent pony suddenly transmogrified into a violent, paranoid pony. Tossing the tile away, Doctor Whooves crawled toward the cabinet, carefully avoiding the carcass of the spider.

Inside the cabinet was an envelope with the words “Doctor Whooves” written on it. He ripped it open eagerly and tipped it, spilling its contents onto his hoof. The envelope only contained a single tape. Cheering in the inside, Doctor Whooves turned around, lifting the tape up high above his head as if it was an Olympic trophy.

“Well... what is it?” queried Joe.

“It’s a cassette; you play it in a tape recorder. We don’t use it very often anymore. The pony who did this to us must have recorded us a message.”

Joe, also finding a cabinet on his side of the room, rushed toward it. He pulled it open and reached in, and lifted an envelope with a single name written on it in fine print: “Pony Joe.” In it was also a tape, which bore striking resemblance to the one Doctor Whooves held in his hoof.

“Okay, we just need that tape recorder to play the tape. Did you find anything that you could use to get it from the corpse?”

“The cabinet is the only thing I can find.”

“Well, disassemble the cabinet, then!”

The rotting wood of the accessory made it quite easy for Joe to dismantle it. With a swift buck of his back hooves, the cabinet immediately collapsed into a heap of wood. He picked up the plank with the knob stuck on the center of it. The decayed wood proved to be weak as he pulled out the knob with a quick and forceful tug. Cheering on the inside, he grinned as he showed Doctor Whooves the knob.

"I could hit the tape recorder out of the pony's hooves using this! The force of it could just be enough to strike the recorder out of that thing's hoof and onto the floor, where you can easily get using the bedsheets on the beds. I won't even have to get near it. Even if I miss, you can reach over, get it, and toss it back to me."

Doctor Whooves contemplated this suggestion for a moment, but after realizing that there wasn't any other method of obtaining the recorder, he nodded in affirm.

Joe held the knob in one hoof and aimed carefully. It was difficult to avert his focus from the cadaver’s indifferent face. He brushed the chain on his horn aside, littering the room with the din of clanging steel.

“Careful, careful...”

“Will you please shut up so that I can concentrate?” Joe articulated slowly as if he was being hypnotized by a psychic.

Joe stared at his target: the tape recorder. He had to aim precisely. The lifeless tape recorder challenged him to a duel as it stared directly back at the light-brown stallion.

The doughnut pony squinted his eyes in determination. He reared back, swinging his hoof back in a circular arc, and catapulted the handle into the air.

Joe missed his target on the first try. Doctor Whooves collected the knob and tossed it back at Joe, who readied himself for a second try. His second attempt also missed as well, but it came closer than he had on the first try.

Sweating with the utmost concentration he could muster, he swung his forehoof back for a third try, and propelled the knob airborne.

The projectile struck the tape recorder in the hoof of the corpse, unbelievably knocking it out with ease and onto the porcelain floor. It slid over to where Doctor Whooves stood. He quickly picked it up, opened the cartridge, and inserted the microcassette he had found in his envelope. He pushed the cartridge back in, and hovered his hoof over the play button.

“What are you waiting for? Go on, press it!” coaxed Joe, anxious to listen to the truth the recording held in its safe.

He nodded and depressed the button. He held the recorder up to his ears, tilting his head toward it. Joe only stood from the other side, watching.

Crepitation leaked from the player, obfuscating the message at first, but cleared a few seconds later. From the recorder seeped a deep, scratchy, and grating voice:

“Hello, Doctor.

“You might call yourself a simple and reserved pony, who tends to loiter in the background rather than be in the center of attention. You might believe that you have done nothing to deserve this, that you have merely been framed for a greater act of injustice.

“I think differently.

“It is that reticent quality, that quality in which you prefer to not socialize with other ponies that has made you a perfect candidate for my experimentation. Your inability to converse with other civilians and your preference to remain quiet has caused you to be trapped in here, Doctor. Even if you are married, from my perspective, you look like a loner. A sociopath. The only ponies you talk to are your wife and your stepdaughter.

“With that, allow me to explain your mission. What you must do is to kill the pony in the room with you by 7 PM. I’m sure you have already befriended him, haven’t you? In times of desperation, ponies usually strive for any means to survive, even if it goes against their natural instincts.

"But I digress.

"You must kill the one pony that you have managed to communicate with. If you do not, this room shall become your tomb, and your wife and daughter will die. Can you prove that you are deserving of life?

“Let the games begin.”

The cassette clicked to a stop as the recording ended. Both stallions stared at the recorder in silence. Doctor Whooves rapidly epitomized his mission in his mind: Kill Joe by seven o’clock. But he couldn’t. That was wrong. It wasn’t right to kill anypony. What kind of sick sadist would force two ponies to kill each other?

A game. The voice had called this situation a game. This was no game! The thought of this torture being considered as a game show to anypony who savored schadenfreude sent chills down Joe's spine once more.

“Toss me the recorder.”

Doctor Whooves’ head jerked up. He looked at Joe with a sad look that nopony but himself could view.

“I said, toss me the recorder.”

“No, you throw me the tape," he countered. "The recorder might break if I throw it to you.”

Briefly considering the thought, Joe hurled his tape to him. The dark-maned stallion caught it, took his own cassette out, jammed Joe’s tape inside the player, and pressed play.

“Hello, Joe.”

That same voice; that same, sick, twisted, sadistic, perverted voice.

“You don’t seem to have any flaws in your life, as anypony except for yourself and I would say. You’re simply a sanguine stallion who works at a doughnut shop. You’re friendly, amiable, and likable on the outside. But are you really that way on the inside?

“You’ve been a junkie for most of your life. Since when did you start the habit? When you emerged from colthood? Your cheerfulness is artificial. You knew that you had to escape from faking your enthusiasm and seek drug counseling.

“But you didn’t. You still use drugs in order to calm yourself. Have you not learned? Every night is a sleepless night; every second seems like a minute; every day is a hell for you. Medication is taking over your life. In my eyes, you don’t deserve the life that you have been granted. You deserve no clemency.

“Your mission is to escape this room. You must escape from that torture that you put yourself through every day. I challenge you to disprove me. Are you truly deserving of life?

“Let the games begin.”

Another click, and the tape grew silent. Joe's heart stopped beating; how had this mysterious pony possibly known this? His grim secret of drug abuse, something that he undisclosed to himself. Nopony ever knew about that! Had somepony been stalking him? If everypony knew about this, he would be kicked out into the streets without a job! He would be a pariah, a social outcast!

“Wait...” Doctor Whooves remarked as if he had just discovered a clue to a murder mystery. He rewinded Joe’s tape, then played it again. He pressed his ears close to the recorder. Joe perked up his ears curiously, trying to detect what had caught his attention.

“...disprove me. Are you truly deserving of life?”

Replay.

“...you truly deserving of life?”

Then Joe heard it. So did Doctor Whooves. Right after the word “life,” a barely audible voice, a voice with a message that held enough power to deter the magic of an alicorn, whispered:

“Follow your heart.”

Chapter 2: The Hacksaw Killer

"Follow my heart?" inquired Joe in bewilderment. Equally puzzled, Doctor Whooves looked around the decrepit room. What had the voice meant to "follow his heart"? Had he meant it figuratively? A feeling of extreme anathema stabbed his heart furiously. He despised the sadist for providing them with such obscure clues that invited countless solutions. He knew that the perpetrator was grimly feasting on their fears. He shook himself out of such thoughts. Craning his head, he began to the scan the four walls of the room.

A glimpse of a heart-shaped figure caught his eye.

"There!" Doctor Whooves exclaimed as he pointed an outstretched hoof toward a poster on Joe's side of the room. Joe turned around and looked at the poster. On a corner of the poster was a white heart; the other corners each bore an image of a different shape. The poster featured a majestic-looking Princess Celestia without an accompanied caption.

Joe walked over to the poster and inspected it carefully.

He reached out and grabbed the poster with both forehooves, chain still jangling on his horn. With a forceful pull, he ripped the paper off of the wall, the adherent still stuck to the poster. He tossed it away into the tub. It floated down to its base, where it silently imbibed the remaining water that had not already been drained from the tub.

Celestia's eyes welled up with dirty, contaminated tears.

Behind the poster was a cavity in the wall large enough for a hoof to pass through. Joe extended a hoof inside it and immediately felt something sharp prick his flesh. He pulled back and gasped. A trickle of crimson fluid flowed down his hoof from his injury. He wiped it on the already-stained wall, leaving a visible maroon smear. With greater caution, he reached into the orifice and grabbed something by its wooden handle. He pulled it out of the hole, light falling on it for the first time.

It was a hacksaw.

Its condition was fairly good. The steel had not rusted. The wood had not decayed. It was moderately sturdy, and most important of all, it was usable. He marveled at the hacksaw as if it was the portal to the outside world.

A loud cough teleported Joe back into reality.

"Hello?" Doctor Whooves said in a slightly annoyed voice. "Is there one for me?"

Joe examined the crevasse and reached in. There was another hacksaw, its condition equally good. He pulled it out of its dark habitation and showed it to Doctor Whooves, who sighed in relief.

"Good. Now toss it to me," he ordered, stretching out a hoof in his direction.

As Joe readied himself to throw one of the saws, he hesitated. His mind suddenly flashed back to what the voice had told Doctor Whooves.

"What you must do is to kill the pony in the room with you by 7 PM."

"Hello?" repeated Doctor Whooves almost pleadingly. Joe glanced at the hacksaw he was about to throw and contemplated. Should he give him the saw and put his life in jeopardy? Or should he simply refuse to hand over the saw, ensuring his safety, but being partly responsible for the deaths of his companion's family?

He clenched the saw in his hoof and tossed it at his companion, the saw barely sidestepping the hanged cadaver. It landed several hooves away from him, but he walked over and picked it up. He gave Joe a faint smile, but the doughnut pony withdrew his attention to the chain. He quickly raised the hacksaw to his horn and placed the saw on the chain. Gritting his teeth, he began to saw the steel fetter.

His forehoof moved back and forth, steadily at first, the clashing noise of the sawing eerily reminiscent of the sound of a sharp object scraping a chalkboard. When he saw that he was not making progress, he sawed faster. Back and forth. The sawing was a rhapsody of discordant screeches, its rhythm erratic and irregular.

Doctor Whooves did the same. He sat down, placed the tool on the manacle, and began sawing the chain on his leg. The room was filled with nothing but the grating noise of steel grinding with steel, but neither of the ponies regarded the cacophony they were producing.

Beads of sweat forming on his forehead, Joe pressed down on his saw as hard as he could as he continued to move his hoof back and forth rapidly.

His hacksaw snapped in half.

The metal had been sliced into two pieces. One of the fragments fell out of the saw, clanging loudly on the linoleum floor. Joe lifted the broken, irreplaceable portal to freedom, tears forming in his eyes.

"Shit! Celestia-dammit!" Joe shouted as he slammed the fragmented tool on the wall, completely rupturing the saw, separating the entire metal section from its wooden handle. He hurled the hacksaw away, spinning on a horizontal axis wildly, and finally striking a side wall with such a force that the gong-like sound the collision produced resounded around the room for several hours. A piece of the ceiling fell off and plummeted to the ground.

Panting in exhaustion, Joe collapsed on his rump, sobbing openly. Doctor Whooves stopped sawing and looked at him. He raised the hacksaw to his face, inspecting it carefully as if it was a rare and fragile artifact.

A hacksaw.

"We can't saw through these chains. The saws are too weak to do that," Doctor Whooves said, setting the hacksaw on the floor, his heart beat faster as if it was injected with an overdose of adrenaline. "We have to saw through our hooves - or horn, in your case."

The temperature of the room dropped to absolute zero. Joe's bloodstream froze, but his heart throbbed with elemental force. Neither of them said anything. Even though Joe was sobbing, Doctor Whooves couldn't hear him over the pounding noise of his own heart: a steady, calming rhythm which paradoxically indicated and increased his anxiety.

"I think I know who may have done this to us," he said, breaking the silence.

The sobbing stallion looked up, tears flowing down his cheeks. "What... what did you say?"

"I mean, I don't know him personally, but I know he had done something like this before."

"Well, who?" A brief pause. "Who is it?!"

A pink earth pony was lying on her back, a forehoof across her stomach and the other sprawled on the floor. She was lying silently on the floor of the damp room. Her golden-yellow mane glistened in the dark. A quaint five-petaled flower pinned to her mane fluttered in the windless room forebodingly, its deathly white petals dipping and rising steadily.

The dampness of the room jolted the supine mare awake. Her eyes snapped open. Not recognizing where she was, she buttressed her body using her hooves, positioning herself in a sitting position. She looked around, inspecting her surroundings. She had been lying in a cramped room. The condition of it was absolutely horrid; the walls, floor and ceiling looked archaic, and the entire room looked like a dungeon. The stench of the room was almost as egregious as well. The mare's eyes began to tear at the sight of the dilapidated room. Her nose wrinkled up as she attempted to defend her nostrils from the invading, unpleasant odor.

She screamed.

The mare's shrill shrieks proved to be ineffectual. The walls were soundproof. They encased the calls for help in a chamber of their own, the remnants of the scream diminishing into silence as it reflected helplessly inside its confine.

Realizing that her attempt to contact others was futile, she managed to tranquilize herself. She took a deep breath. She released the intake of air. Inhale. Exhale. Her sobbing stopped, but she sniffled intermittently. Her facial expression was the paragon of extreme terror. She was in a darkened room; the only light in the room originated from the ceiling.

Where was she? How did she get here? An overwhelming deluge of questions flooded her mind. Questions that she would never be able to answer.

Still sniffling, she shakily scanned the floor using her hooves while retaining her sitting position. She moved a forehoof aimlessly in a circular arc.

A cold, metallic box made contact with her hoof. It sent a sudden chill down her hoof and into her body, freezing her already-cold body, halting her sniffling instantly. She looked at the object, which was accompanied by a sharp, miniscule knife. She picked the box up. Slowly. Carefully.

The box had numerous buttons on it. She recognized a symbol next to one of the buttons: a triangle with its vertex facing toward the right. She grasped the box firmly in one hoof and slowly raised a violently shaking hoof over the button. Her pink hoof vacillated over the button, pondering whether to push it or not.

With a deep breath, she lowered her hoof onto the button and depressed it.

The crackling and screeching sound of static spurted out of the device, startling the mare and causing her to choke momentarily. The sounds vanished and was replaced by a strident, raucous susurration that dropped the temperature of the room several degrees.

"Hello, Lily."

Lily froze. Who was this? How had he known her name?

"You're probably asking yourself, 'Where am I?' Well, that's a question that's soon to be answered.

"You are what most people would call a coward. A chicken. Is the only thing you are capable of doing fainting whenever a riotous event occurs? The stampede of bunnies was enough to send you spiraling down into unconsciousness for several hours. Your cowardice will not go unpunished.

"Let's put your bravery into test. I want to play a game.

"You are currently in a room covered with petroleum.

"As you may know, petroleum is a highly inflammable substance. If a single match was to be dropped on the floor, the entire room would be aflame in seconds. Imagine what would happen to a pony in that room. She'd be an overcooked pony barbecue in minutes!"

The recording was interrupted by a soft but grating laugh. A sadist's snicker. Lily cringed at the thought of a pony being cooked to death. She tasted bile. She felt the food she had eaten before rise up her esophagus. Twisting her body around, she retched on the floor, the mixture of churned food and stomach acid decorating the monochromatic floor. The vomit blended with the clear gasoline on the floor, producing an even more disgusting vichyssoise of digested food.

"Look closely, Lily. You'll see that there is a 'glimmer of hope' above you."

Lily glanced up and froze in horror. Several hooves above her hung a single match tied to the ceiling, barely out of her reach. Its flame licked its lips in search for anything to immolate. She waved her hooves wildly, hoping to catch a breeze that would extinguish the flare, but the attempt was insufficient.

"What you must do is prove your bravery to me. You are given a scalpel; you should have found it already.

"In sixty seconds, the string of the match will be cleft and the match will fall on the room. Unless, of course, you retrieve the key that has been tightly sewn onto your body and insert it into the timer. The door to your freedom will then open. Otherwise, this room will forever be the residence of your soul."

Lily looked down at her abdomen and gasped in terror. A golden key was stuck onto her chest. She could still see the fresh sewing mark once more. The key briefly reflected a scintilla of light from the faint match hanging precariously above her, sending it corralling toward her eyes. Then, it grew dull once more, retracting its offer of freedom.

"Are you courageous enough to sever the key from your body? Can you excise something that is now 'part of yourself,' something that you have not done with your pusillanimity?

"Live or die; make your choice."

A sudden beep caught the mare's attention. A digital clock had flickered to life on one of the walls. 01:00, it read. Suddenly, with a beep every second, the number began to decrease.

Beep. 00:59.

The numbers denoted the amount of seconds she had left! She couldn't waste any more valuable time. Searching the ground frantically for the scalpel she had found earlier, she swept the floor several times with a hoof. A sudden prick told her that she had found her target.

She grasped the knife with her hoof, disregarding the puncture she had made in her skin. Raising it to the key on her chest, she gritted her teeth in determination as rivulets of tears streamed down her cheeks.

Her hoof trembled as it neared the golden key. It was now only a few inches away...

She couldn't do it. Tossing her hooves up in fright and exasperation, the mare stumbled around purposelessly, difficultly choking back tears.

00:46.

The beep of the timer brought back the mare's attention to the key. Shaking uncontrollably, she raised the scalpel just a few inches away from the key. She brought the knife closer. Closer. The cold and silver knife now touched her chest as she tried to poise it under the key like a lever.

Sweating furiously, she pushed forward on the knife. It slid through the string that held the key and dug itself in the flesh of the pony.

Lily flinched at the pain and screamed. Instinctively, she pulled the knife out and looked at her chest. The scalpel had punctured a fissure in her skin, and crimson blood, like molten lava, slowly leaked out and seeped out onto her body.

00:32.

She clenched the scalpel harder in her hoof. Again, she shakily brought the knife down to her chest and began to peel off the bit of flesh that held the key to life to her body. With every push, more blood began to flow from the injury.

Working herself near the original puncture, she cautiously shifted the position of the knife, slicing more surgical string from her flesh, spilling more blood onto her body. Lily grimaced at the grisly sight and feeling of her own blood covering her body. With a sudden jerk, she swiftly tore the scalpel from the key. Half of the key had been ripped off, the gory underside of the key exposed, leaving the key dangling off of a piece of flesh. Her lower body was florid with scarlet fluid.

00:13.

Tears still streaming down her cheeks, Lily raised a blood-soaked hoof to the key again. She clenched her teeth tightly. She grasped the key in her hoof gently, but even the gentlest of grasps could not prevent her from feeling pain. She shut her eyes. She twisted her head away.

She readied herself to rip the key away from her flesh.

Inhale. Exhale. She could do this.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She grit her teeth.

Her eyes flashed in determination.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Lily threw up her hooves in capitulation. She couldn't do this. It hurt too much. She admitted it; she was a coward. The voice had been right. She did not deserve to live. The dam that had attempted to withhold the tears suddenly ruptured. The tears running down her face was a tsunami that briefly cleansed her body of her own blood. She sobbed loudly. She was going to die. There was nothing she could do about it. She felt her sanity slip away from her.

She screamed.

00:04.

She looked at the scalpel in her hoof. She could barely see her reflection on the small knife.

00:03.

She looked down at her injury. At the half-severed key still stuck to her flesh.

00:02.

She looked down at her blood-covered fur. Her once-pink fur was now half pink and half red. Although she hated to admit it, it did look pretty.

00:01.

She looked up at the match dangling above her, its body preparing itself to skydive onto the ground.

00:00.

As the timer struck zero, the string holding the match above Lily was split, and for a moment, the match was left suspended in the air.

Then, it precipitated toward the gasoline-covered floor.

As if in a climactic scene in an action film, time decelerated.

Lily dove headfirst for the match, stretching out a forehoof desperately.

Her hoof clamped over the lit match, dousing the flame. She landed on the ground, slipping slightly. She lifted her hoof in triumph. Had she managed to win, even if she had not followed the rules?

A pungent odor penetrated Lily's nostrils. She sniffed. She sniffed again. The strange smell seemed to come from... her legs.

Her legs smelled like petroleum.

Her heart was pulverized into powder. Petroleum. She was covered in petroleum as well.

The lifeless match in her hoof suddenly burst to life, its ravenous flame readying itself for a feast.

The conflagration devoured the mare as she screamed, a scream that nopony would ever hear.

"She was one of the victims of a serial killer who the press called the 'Hacksaw Killer.' But the name is somewhat of a misnomer. He was called that because one of his first victims had to escape using a hacksaw, but most of his traps don't even involve a hacksaw. Technically, he isn't even a killer. He finds ways for the victims to kill themselves."

Joe pondered for a moment. "Wait a second. How do you know all this?" he questioned suspiciously.

Doctor Whooves looked down at the carcass of the spider grimly. "Because I was a suspect in those murders."

A white unicorn knelt by the corpse of the burnt pony. Next to her stood a purple dragon, a parchment in one claw and a quill in another, scribbling furiously.

The room was replete with the stench of ashes. Everything in the room had been charred from the fire, which had been extinguished not too long ago. The lily in the unrecognizable pony's mane lay on the ground a few inches away from its dead owner, its previously-white petals now black as charcoal. It was a miracle that it had not been fully burnt to ashes, yet it was so brittle that even the slightest of touch would cause it to crumble apart.

The only door to the room, the only possible egress to the trap, had been knocked down. It was locked from the outside, and the heat of the room had presumably melted the steel bars, sealing the pony in. Had she retrieved the key in time, the locks would have swung open, leaving the passageway to freedom clear and open.

"Name: Lily. Residence: Ponyville..." Spike muttered to himself as he wrote.

"She's another Hacksaw victim."

Spike looked up from his writing. Rarity looked behind her, redirecting her attention to the indigo unicorn.

"And why didn't you tell me that before, darling?" asked Rarity, slightly annoyed.

"Because I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, thought you might want to see it for yourself!" the unicorn replied, the word "Trixie" very strongly accentuated, with an evident smirk of vainglory.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie has also found this near the victim's body. Behold!" She magically levitated a plastic bag with a silver tape recorder inside of it. She played the recording as the three stood silently.

When the recording stopped, Trixie stepped forward toward a wall. "My superior self has also discovered this," she said proudly as she stood next to the wall, which forever bore the ominous inscription: 00:00. The dragon and the other unicorn scrutinized the wall curiously. On the burnt wall was a tiny peephole, just barely large enough to see through.

"Looks like our friend likes to book himself front-row seats to his 'games,'" the baby dragon deigned assertively, shaking his head.

"Behind this wall, the Great and Powerful Trixie has, again, found something of immense importance!" The indigo unicorn procured another plastic bag with her magic, but it was not a tape recorder that was inside of it.

The bag held a single object. Rarity inspected the entity. Her eyes opened wide, and she floated it to Spike.

"Send that to the Princess, darling."

"Roger that."

A blast of green flame, and the bag disappeared.

Chapter 3: Suspicion

"Trixie... That name sounds familiar. Wasn't she a performer?" Joe questioned, placing a hoof on a wall.

Doctor Whooves nodded, his mane undulating like the verdent leaves of a tree on a breezy day. "Yes. She was ostracized by Ponyville for her excessively bloated ego."

"Did she come back?"

He nodded again. "She did."

"Come on, Rainbow! Give me back my book!"

"Ha, ha! No way! You have to catch me first, egghead!"

Though the sky was cloudless and the sun was clearly the star of the day, two of the audience members were acting especially rowdy. They chased each other, laughing and yelling, occasionally taunting one another.

With a prismatic trail, Rainbow Dash sped through the air, a hardcover novel in her forehooves, her wings flapping steadily and majestically. Twilight followed close behind. She knew she couldn't keep up with the fastest pony in Equestria by hoof.

Her horn began to glow a diaphanous hue of purple, and the book began to glow as well. With a forceful tug, the book was wrenched out of Rainbow's hooves, and was sent spiraling toward the ground. Just before it touched down, the book was grasped by an invisible force, and began to levitate toward the purple unicorn.

With a triumphant grin, Twilight strode toward the cyan pegasus, who was flying in place several hooves above the ground, book floating behind her.

But Rainbow wasn't looking at her. She was looking at the horizon, her face contorted in surprise.

"Rainbow? What are you looking at?" Twilight asked, her smug smile quickly changing into a frown of discomfort.

She followed Rainbow's gaze and immediately spotted what the pegasus was looking at.

On the walkway was an indigo mare, her haggard and contused body sprawled on the ground.

"Trixie?!" they yelled in synchronization.

They sped toward the bruised mare and skidded to a halt when they neared the body. Sure enough, the mare's cutie mark was a moon and an oblique wand, but its splendor had been extenuated by the grime and dirt that covered it. She looked pitifully squalid. Noticeably, her conspicuous hat was missing. She was unconscious, not reacting to the jabs to her side and calls of her name.

Her eyes were shut, and her lips were a downward-facing parabola. Rainbow looked down at her pitiful face, but then, a hollow voice infiltrated her mind-

"When Trixie is through, the only thing they'll call you is *loser.*"

The rainbow above her was bent and contorted, and the cyan pegasus was wrapped in its multicolored rays. She was sent spinning, her sense of direction completely lost...

The jeers and laughs of the crowd humiliating her, the electricity of the storm cloud stinging her...

"Serves her right! She was a total jerk, anyway!" Rainbow suddenly exclaimed, narrowing her eyes in memory of her own defeat that day. "Come on, Twilight. Let's leave her here." She spat on the unconscious mare's body, leaving a trail of transparent - but full of hate and abhorrence - saliva that dribbled down her side. With that, Rainbow turned around and began to strut away.

Disgusted, Twilight raised her voice. "No!" she condemned in a stern and castigative tone, which held enough force to halt her friend. "She doesn't deserve this. We can't just leave her here. She needs our help! If one of your friends was like this, would you have simply walked away?"

"She's not our friend."

The violet unicorn shook her head. "No, she's not. But she can be our friend. Anypony can change their character."

"Except for her. Remember how she acted when everypony in Ponyville found out that 'The Great and Powerful Trixie' wasn't as 'great and powerful' as she said she was? She fled. She didn't even apologize. She fled, Twilight," Rainbow emphasized, her voice still replete with hostility. She turned and looked at her companion.

Twilight's eyes narrowed as well. "And you call yourself the bearer of the Element of Loyalty? You're supposed to be the paragon of the virtue of loyalty, not to mention friendship overall! How can you propose abandoning a pony here where she could die?"

"Twilight, you don't actually believe that Trixie could actually change, do you?" Rainbow asked, incredulous.

"Yes, I do." Twilight stomped a hoof in exasperation.

They looked into each other's eyes for what seemed like hours. Time slowed to a crawl. The purple eyes peered into the pink eyes. The pink eyes peered into the purple eyes. It was a staring contest that would eventually decide whether to spare the damaged pony or not. They both knew that care for Trixie was exigent.

Rainbow hated losing. Everypony in Ponyville knew that. When she lost to Trixie, she felt a strong feeling of aversion build up inside of her. And humiliating her in front of the entire village? That was crossing the line way too far.

'But was Trixie so cruel that she deserved to be abandoned?' she pondered deeply, her good and bad sides fiercely battling against each other.

'No! She was already excluded by the village. Why torment her even more by letting her waste away outside?'

'But Trixie is unconscious. She wouldn't feel a thing. Besides, she shamed you! She tarnished your reputation as the most awesome mare in Ponyville. You were defeated by a showmare!'

'Is winning really so important that you would rather place victory in front of the life of another pony? You're just stooping down to her level!'

'Dammit, no! Don't compare me with her!'

After a few minutes passed, the multichromatic mare sighed in defeat. She reluctantly walked toward the limp mare. "All right, let's take her to the Ponyville Emergency Care."

"A few weeks later, Trixie - or as she still calls herself, The Great and Powerful Trixie - woke up from her comatose state. She didn't remember how she got there, or why she was found lying on the border of Ponyville. Of course, she wasn't too pleased with the demands to be less egotistical, but she reluctantly agreed lest she be exiled from Ponyville once more.

"Of course, everypony wondered why Trixie was found unconscious and laying on the street, Trixie herself in particular. She accused Twilight, one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony-"

"Twilight? I know her! She visited my doughnut shop frequently when she was younger," interrupted Joe, earning a slight glare from Doctor Whooves.

"-of looting her, knocking her unconscious, erasing her memory, then feigning innocence. But that was ridiculous, and nopony took that claim seriously.

"Over the months, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony indoctrinated her in being less contemptuous, but their attempts proved to only affect Trixie only a bit. She had not outgrown her habit of referring to herself as 'The Great and Powerful Trixie,' but she had garnered more friends than she ever had. She is now helping to track down the Hacksaw Killer as well.

"Even though I did not know her personally, I was told that she was much nicer than she had been in her first visit to Ponyville."

Nodding his head, Joe motioned a forehoof in a circle as a tacit way of telling him to continue.

"Anyway, I was casually walking on the streets of Ponyville..."

The village of Ponyville was unusually sunny that day. The solar rays of the sun scattered through the village, clearly the victor of a game of hide-and-seek with the gloomy shadows. As usual, the town was bustling with ponies, who preferred to travel places without the usage of modern technology. The clip-clopping of hooves riddled the town square, blended in with the numerous indistinguishable voices of various ponies. In all, it was a crowded day in Ponyville, and the cheery sounds of happiness and friendliness dominated the infrequent sighs of despair.

A certain stallion was nonchalantly walking on the pavements of Ponyville. His dark-brown mane quivered in the soft and gentle spring breeze. As he took each step, the melodic sound his hoof made when it came into contact with the ground was an orchestral piece, resonating in only his ears. He was heading home; he had to take a break from work, after all. Because he was not really the sociable type, he only glanced nods at the ponies who greeted him warmly. He thought of his wife and his beautiful daughter. He thought of home, and the redolent smell of muffins. He smiled, and walked on.

"Excuse me, Doctor?"

His head whipped around. A mare and a small dragon, both wearing formal attire, strode forward, approaching him. He looked at them curiously. Not many ponies knew him, much less talked to him.

"Yes?" Doctor Whooves asked inquisitively.

"Hello! My name is Detective Rarity. We've heard a lot about you," said the gorgeous, white-furred mare sweetly, her accented voice profusely dripping with flattery.

"Why... thank you," he responded, slightly stunned.

"And I'm Detective Spike. We'd like to have a few words with you. In private, if possible. In fact, why don't we go down to the police station and talk it out there?" the dragon next to her suggested.

Doctor Whooves arched an eyebrow suspectingly. What did they want? Why did they want him to go down to the police station? Had he done something wrong? He felt as if he was invisible; the residents of Ponyville rushed by him, everypony a blur of nondescript colors.

Deciding to take everything facetiously, he gave a small chuckle. "I'm sorry, why is it that you want to ask me questions?"

The mare and the dragon looked at each other. Nodding her head, her horn began to glow. A bag was magicked out of nowhere and was left suspended between the heads of Doctor Whooves and the mare.

"Can you tell me to whom this belongs to, Doctor?"

Doctor Whooves studied the plastic bag and what was in it. His eyes opened wide. His mouth fell agape. He was silenced by utter shock.

A bowtie. Dark red, and about three inches in length. The tie gleamed inside the bag, vainly boasting its deep, majestic maroon shade.

"Y-yes," he gulped, "it's mine, but-" He could feel his saliva running down his suddenly-dehydrated esophagus, its muscles contracting and expanding, forcing down the aqueous substance down to his stomach. He felt extreme thirst, as if he had not drunk in several days.

"I think it's best if we sorted this out at the station," said the dragon.

After some hesitation, the dark-maned pony nodded.

"I don't know how that got there... but somehow, they had found the bow tie I had lost a few days prior in the scene of Lily's death."

Joe looked on in silence, stunned by his tale. He beckoned him to continue.

"They brought me to the station, and they began to ask me questions..."

"You had lost this bow tie a few days ago."

"Yes, I realize that," Doctor Whooves said with a tinge of sarcasm.

"And you have no idea how it was found in the Hacksaw murder scene," the lawyer pony in front of him said.

"Of course not," he assured, not an insulted look on his face, but more of a worried one. He had no idea about this. He didn't even know that a resident of Ponyville had been killed yesterday night!

"Do you have any suggestions on how this may have been found there?" she pestered.

"Well... Couldn't a unicorn have teleported it there?" he suggested.

"Doctor, you seem to overestimate unicorn magic," she responded rapidly, as if her words were a script for a play that she had memorized beforehand. She looked up and stared into his blue eyes. "An ordinary unicorn cannot simply teleport an object somewhere else unless they know of its original whereabouts. A unicorn couldn't magically teleport a lost object back to herself!"

"Then I don't know!" he threw his hooves up in the air, frustrated. "I don't know! I was asked to come to the police station because my bow tie was somehow found in the scene of a murder, and now, I'm being asked questions that I don't know the answers of!" he said, gesticulating wildly.

"Then what exactly were you doing last night?" the lawyer pony questioned, putting a free hoof on her chin, emulating a detective.

"I was-" he faltered. He looked out the window of the room, his morose reflection looking back at him. He sighed. "I was out somewhere."

"Where?" The lawyer persisted, lifting an eyebrow in curiosity. No, in suspicion. A sense of hatred boiled in him. How dare she! This mare in front of him was suspecting him of being the killer! Doctor Whooves kept his mouth shut, ruminating over whether to tell the truth or not. After several seconds of silence elapsed, the mare tapped her pen to her chin.

"Well, if you can't tell the truth-"

"I was at a bar." It was true. But he didn't provide any details.

The lawyer, again, raised and eyebrow, dipped her quill into a bottle of ink, and began scribbling on her parchment again. Vexed by the irritable scratchings of the pen on paper, he spoke out.

"What should I do?"

The mare stopped writing and looked up. She stared directly into his face, as if trying to peer into his mind, trying to pry the exact, detailed truth.

"What the hell should I do?!" Doctor Whooves rose from his seat, his face full of concern and desperation. His forehooves were planted on the desk almost aggressively, his legs visibly shedding beads of perspiration.

Setting down the piece of parchment, she replied in a matter-of-fact manner, "Well, as your lawyer, I'd suggest that you tell them your alibi right now. Trust me. It'll be for the better."

"Several days later, they called me back to the station, that exact same room."

The augmented tick of the clock bickered quietly in the background.

"What did they say?" queried Joe, also with a look of anxiety.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"They told me..."

"Okay, the results are in," the dragon stated, stepping into the room as he flipped through the stack of parchments he held in his claws. Doctor Whooves looked anxious as he tapped a hoof on the floor impulsively. He had been waiting for this moment. He knew that he was innocent, but the consequences of him being wrongly accused would be devastating. Hell, his frequent thoughts about this situation sometimes convinced that he was the murderer himself!

The public was informed about Lily's death a few days ago, two days after the actual murder. The village was devastated. Cries of mourning filled the streets, and as Doctor Whooves walked toward the station, he could hear the sobs and prayers to Celestia everywhere. But they knew that the murders would continue. The perpetrator had never been caught, even after many, many victims had their lives forcibly torn away from their bodies.

As he trudged toward the station, he saw two familiar ponies: Daisy and Rose. If he remembered correctly, Daisy was the pink one, and Rose was the other. As with everypony else, they were crying. But they were crying waterfalls of tears, forming a trail as they walked by. They received condolences from the residents of the village, nopony daring to cry harder than they were. They were the closest friends of Lily, and he commiserated with them of her tragic fate. But he did not understand. Was losing a close friend really this tear-jerking? As he did not have many friends, he was not sure if the sorrow for another individual was really this melodramatic.

"Good. What do they say?" he asked nervously, his hoof still rhythmically tapping on the floor, emitting soft clops that resounded throughout the room.

"They match that of your alibi."

Sighing a breath of relief, Doctor Whooves' visage loosened, his expression of uneasiness and tenseness metamorphosing into an expression of satisfaction and felicity. The tension of the past several days vanished, dissipating into an invisible cloud of dust. His hoof stopped jabbing the floor and the room grew silent once more.

"But we would appreciate it if you would stay for the testimony of one of Hacksaw's survivors," the dragon suggested, hopping onto a chair that was several times taller than his stature.

"Oh, I have to get home. My family will be waiting-"

"Please. We would very much appreciate it," Spike said, his firm voice somehow coaxing him to stay.

Through the glass window next to him, Doctor Whooves saw a mare stumble into an adjacent room and sit in a chair. Her glossy, sweat-matted mulberry mane stood out from the glum atmosphere of the interrogation room. Her face bore an emotionless appearance like a children's puppet. The beautiful white mare he had seen before stepped into the room and sat in a chair next to her.

"Okay. Fine," Doctor Whooves agreed. Part of his mind wished for him to go home, to be with his loving wife and daughter, but another part incited a curiosity that forced him to stay and listen.

Spike gave a faint smile and turned to the interrogation. Doctor Whooves assumed that the pony inside of the adjacent room was unable to see either him or the dragon.

"Berry Punch," Rarity caressed with her soothing voice softly, but audible enough for him to hear. "Can you tell me what you remember, darling?"

The mulberry-colored mare looked down at the table in front of her, her expressionless face like that of a ghost. For several moments, the mare did not respond to the interrogator's request.

"Berry." That same assuaging voice, but slightly louder and sterner.

Slowly, the reticent pony's mouth began to move.

"What I remember," she began, "was that when I woke up, the only thing I tasted was blood."

Chapter 4: A Survivor's Tale

A haze of green light permeated the room, mystifying and obscuring it. Its luster gave everything in the room a mysterious and somber verdant glow. The room was humid and damp, and as a result, the room looked slightly foggy.

Berry Punch woke up.

Her eyes shot up, and she moved her eyes around madly. Immediately, she felt a cold, hard surface on her forehead. Her vision was blurred, and she could only see hazy splotches of similar colors meshed together. Most of the colors were green, but she could not distinguish an object from another object. Part of her vision was covered by something, but she could not tell what it was from her perspective.

She groaned in excruciating pain. Her head throbbed. The pain in her head pulsated every second. Blood rushed up to her head, then rushed back down. Was this the result of another hangover? How much had she drunk last night? The pain usually wasn't this bad... She didn't even remember going back to her room...

She gasped in terror and sudden realization.

She wasn't in her house. She had awoken sitting upright in a room that she did not recognize. Where was she? Had she been kidnapped? What was this metallic thing covering her face? She raised her legs upward and grabbed onto the helmet-like thing on her head. It felt bitterly cold and hostile. She tugged. It did not move. She tugged harder, twisting her head around as if she could maneuver the helmet off of her.

The helmet did not budge. It grasped steadfast onto her head, not surrendering. Although her vision had adjusted long before, this thing on her head was still covering part of her vision.

She waved her head around frantically, trying to remove the bothersome accessory off of her head. What was happening? Who was doing this? Why was she here? What was this thing? Questions without answers cascaded into her mind, causing her head to pound faster, her headache growing more painful every second.

The pain. She could not endure the unbearable pain any longer. She let out a piercing scream, which was slightly muffled by the helmet, her cry rebounding around the room until they were quickly absorbed by the objects in the room.

Sobbing profusely, she clenched the metallic object on her head again and struggled to pull it off.

A sudden, abrupt sound of buzzing static interrupted her futile attempt.

Berry twisted her head toward the origin of the static. A very old television set had lit up. It was as small as a hardcover book, yet its arcane power it held was great. Constantly moving black and white lines concealed the image behind it. She looked at it in fear, fearing what secrets the screen held.

The streaks of static disappeared, and what appeared before her was much more frightening than she had expected.

The chilling image of a demented, psychopathic leather doll replaced the static, appearing in the eerily low-resolution screen. Its face was as pale as a freshly-preserved corpse; it was presumably covered with a coat of paint. Its stitched lips were etched into a menacing grin. Its button eyes were painted with a deep shade of crimson, the visible cross on it still clearly viewable. Its hair was several thick, messy, completely black curls.

The Smarty Pants doll.

The doll that everypony had briefly adored in their momentary trance. The one that everypony had brawled against each other ferociously in order to keep it for themselves, including herself. Though her memory of that incident was nebulous, she remembered that the ponies in Ponyville had jumped on top of each other, battling each other frenziedly and maniacally. Then Princess Celestia had appeared, and the doll was never seen again.

It was right here. Right out of her reach, through the television screen. But its appearance was totally different. The intimidating color palette had somehow transformed the idle doll into a demonic one. Her teary eyes looked at the doll, and the image on the television screen looked back. Its emotionless visage provided no condolence. Several seconds passed without any movement from the screen.

"Hello, Berry."

Two words completely shattered the stillness of the room. The voice was raspy and scratchy. The voice was not of a pony. It couldn't be. There was nopony whose voice was that low. The doll did not move, yet the voice seemed to come from the doll, giving it an illusion that it was speaking.

"I have been watching you closely. For many years, you have been fueled by only one thing: alcohol. You spend most of your time drinking. Everypony in Ponyville knows of you as Ponyville's biggest alcoholic, yet you are still drinking more than ever. You are almost always inebriated, and it's a miracle how you always manage to get back home every night. Until tonight, that is."

The town drunk? Is that what ponies thought of her as? Her sober mind registered this thought, but she denied it quickly. No. They couldn't! She wasn't always drunk... wasn't she?

"You have yet to realize that your drinking doesn't just affect yourself, but other ponies as well. Look at your friends. They've grown a lot distant from you ever since alcohol has pulled you in its unforgivable grasp."

Her friends? She immediately thought of Colgate, Carrot Top, and various others. When was the last time she had seen-

Her face fell. She remembered a several months ago that she had shouted a stream of insults in her drunken stupor as she was dragged away by some other individual she could not recall. But they were still her friends, right? They must have forgiven her! They must have!

"I want to play a game.

"On your head is a device. A device that will crush your head."

What?!

"The device will clamp down on your head, severing your alcohol-possessed mind from its undeserving body. Here, I've provided a demonstration of that happenstance."

The camera angle of the screen shifted and focused on a device that she assumed was the same as the one she had on. The device was strapped onto a wooden block instead of a head. For several seconds, nothing happened. But she did hear a quiet ticking in the background. It was the ticking of a clock, but much more menacing. Then, without warning, the gears sprung to life.

It was not clear what had happened. One moment, the wooden block was intact. Then in another moment, the block was completely disintegrated. It was shattered. Splinters as sharp as daggers were catapulted away from the device. The block was torn to shreds, pieces of wood and dust raining down seconds later. The block was completely obliterated.

She looked at the screen in horror. Her eyes widened. If that device was on her head, then...

She felt sick to her stomach. Her breathing became more rapid. She could hear every heartbeat, every breath, every movement in her veins and arteries. What kind of convoluted pony would do this to her?

"The key to unlock this device is in a friend's heart."

In a friend's heart?

The camera shifted again and focused on the ugly doll.

"You have sixty seconds. Look around, Berry.

"Live or die; make your choice."

The television showed a final shot of Smarty Pants before flashing back to static.

Sixty seconds. She was given sixty seconds.

Panicked and infuriated, Berry rose from her seat, something that she regretted seconds after. She heard an ominous click, then the sound of ticking. The ticking of a clock. A timer.

The game had started.

Shit!

She automatically raised her hooves and pulled at the stubborn helmet. She frantically waved her body around, desperately attempting to get the clinging device off of her head.

"...in a friend's heart."

What the hell did the voice mean by "a friend's heart?" She looked around the room wildly, her eyes darting around the cell.

There.

On a wall.

An orange pony was strapped to a wall, her eyes closed. Taut leather straps tied the limbs of the unconscious mare to the wall. She looked extremely pitiful, her expressionless visage conveying no emotion. A large question mark was drawn across her chest.

Berry stepped toward her cautiously, the weight of the bulky device slowing her down. Was she another victim? Was she supposed to save her?

Next to the mare was a knife. It was slightly blunt, but it was sharp enough to cut through flesh. The metal part of the knife was burnished beforehand. It reflected the dull green light, coloring it green.

Berry suddenly understood what she must do. Her entire body trembling, she carefully grasped the tool with both hooves. Without thinking, she raised the knife slowly. She poised the knife so that the point faced the mare. She held it above her head.

She stopped. She lowered the weapon.

The mare began to open her eyelids, revealing two startlingly bright green eyes.

Berry's ears went deaf. Her vision doubled. She couldn't hear the pounding of her own heart. She couldn't hear the whimpers of the confused mare. She couldn't hear anything. She couldn't see anything. Her vision was scrambled.

Carrot Top.

"...in a friend's heart."

One of her closest friends. How did she not recognize her before?

Carrot Top mumbled something that Berry did not comprehend.

Tears flowing down her cheeks, Berry swung the knife up high. She had to. She had no choice.

Carrot Top's eyes widened. Her mouth opened, attempting to form a scream, but the only sound that came out was a mumble that Berry never heard. The powerless mare choked out her friend's name.

"Berry...?"

The knife came down forcefully.

The feeble, helpless mare struggled weakly on the straps as the blade came down, nearing her chest as every millisecond passed, staring at the face of her own doom...

A weak yet audible grunt.

A splatter of viscous liquid.

The knife rose again, this time in a hoof covered in red.

Down.

Another grunt.

Another splatter of liquid.

A tear from Berry's eyes dropped onto the floor, where it mixed with the blood.

Up.

Down.

Grunt.

Splatter.

She stabbed her friend until she grew quiet. Until she stopped grunting. Until she stopped making that hideous noise.

There was no time to lose. She tossed away the knife behind her, which bounced twice before hiding in a darkened corner, spraying blood over the floor as it went. She hovered a hoof over the puncture overflowing with blood. She hesitated, but she jabbed her hoof into the incision.

She wriggled her hoof inside, searching for the solid object. A deluge of disgusting liquid poured out every time her hoof moved. She wanted to vomit. The pressure inside of her was too much. But she couldn't. She only had seconds left before her head would be crushed to smithereens.

Her hoof only touched slippery, slimy organs that she could not discern. She shut her eyes, not wanting to look at the vivid gore and blood. Her hoof twisted around, digging through her friend's body.

At last, her hoof found its target through the mess: a small, metallic object, curiously shaped. She grasped onto it firmly, and with a jerk, liquid being propelled everywhere, she pulled the key out of her dead friend's chest. Blood dripping from it, she held the scarlet key as if it was her most prized possession.

Quickly, her hooves snapped back behind her head. Blood sprayed into her mouth, but she did not care. She wanted the device off. That was all she wanted. She stabbed the helmet with the key desperately, trying to force it into any opening in the device.

The incessant ticking grew louder.

The key was suddenly taken by the helmet. It fit. It was the right one!

Clenching her teeth, she twisted her hoof clockwise. She heard a click. She shut her eyes and braced for impact.

The only impact she felt was the resounding clatter of the device hitting the floor.

The mechanism bounced and came to a rest. A few seconds later, with a spastic jerk, it suddenly snapped shut.

She had beaten the timer! She was alive! Even though she felt overly ecstatic, she did not smile. She could not smile. She began to sob. She covered her face with her blood-drenched hooves, traumatized by the event and the loss of her friend.

She killed her friend. She killed Carrot Top with her own hooves.

She let out a loud sniffle. She petulantly jerked her head back and screamed.

"Berry," Rarity said. The other mare was sobbing hysterically, her face buried in her hooves. "You do know that you were an alcoholic, don't you?" Berry nodded, still looking down. "What do you think of this experience?"

The mulberry mare slowly looked up at her interrogator. Her face was red, and her eyes were puffed up from crying. Somehow, her feelings about her experience were mixed. She despised the unknown pony for making her kill her friend. But somewhere in her heart, she felt grateful. Grateful for curing her of the disease of alcoholism. Had it not been for the experience, she would never have been able to escape from drinking.

"I'm no longer an alcoholic," she said. She briefly choked before impassively finishing, "He helped me."

"She had to stab her friend to death?" Joe asked, appalled at the thought. His skin had grown cold. His complexion was paler than he was before. Doctor Whooves nodded grimly. "And yet she believed that he helped her?" He nodded again.

Neither of the stallions said anything. The only sound in the room was the inimical ticking of the sinister clock.

"What do you think, Rarity?" Spike asked as soon as Doctor Whooves was out of earshot. He watched as the dark-maned stallion stepped out of the room.

"I think that the pony that just exited is the one. I'll bet he's lying," Rarity said, levitating sheets of parchment in front of her as she perused them.

"I think so, too. We should keep an eye on him. Want me to write to Princess Celestia?" Spike offered, pulling out a quill and parchment.

"No, no, she's too busy with other things, darling," Rarity denied politely, still not looking back at the dragon, "but please, call the others. We need to discuss this."

"But today's their breaks! They won't be too happy about this."

"Spike, darling, Princess Celestia appointed us for this. It's our duty to take down this psychopath once and for all," Rarity assured, finally looking away from the bios of the victims. She turned and looked at Spike in the eyes. Suddenly entranced by the beauty of the gorgeous mare, he decided not to argue.

"I guess so... All right, I'll be right back," he said, running out the door of the station.

Sighing deeply, Rarity turned back and looked at the newspaper clippings of the Hacksaw murders. "Who are you?" she muttered rhetorically, staring at a photo of the killer's doll in one of the clippings.

The doll stared back wordlessly, its psychotic grin deriding her frustration.