The Trialsby cccvvvtttChaptersPrologueChapter 1: The Deadly GamesChapter 2: The Visions.Chapter 3: Steve The Babysitter.PrologueThe events take place between the third and fourth season Basic Recap Equestria is a world filled with fascinating creatures of many mythical creatures inhabiting it. There are fire breathing Dragons, magical talking ponies, and there's even a human that lives there. However, that human wasn't born in Equestria. He was born in a different world that was filled with his own kind. However, he was neglected and abused by his parents. One day, he took a walk into the woods near his neighborhood. He was never seen again. His father, realizing the mistakes he made, grieved over his son's disappearance. Even though he gave up looking, he still believes that his son is out there somewhere. At least in a better place without him and he was right. Most ponies don't know how he got into Equestria, some believe that Celestia and Luna brought him here, while others believe it's some sort of time rift happened between their worlds, which allowed Zachary to travel to Equestria. No one is really sure though. What everyone knows's though is that Zachary became the son of Twilight Sparkle, who was an Alicorn and lived at The Golden Oaks Library. She had five other friends, plus an assistant who would often help Twilight look after him and whatnot, even though he was mostly well behaved. Unfortunately, due to his past experiences with his father, he has nightmares of him somehow returning and taking him back to the human world. He even sometimes saw a dark figure that he could swear was his dad. However, it would just always be an allusion. Usually, Twilight or one of her other friends would calm him down from these visons. He started seeing them less and less. Soon, Zachary got comfortable living among ponies, though he was still afraid that he would somehow run into his father again. Twilight would always reassure him that it wouldn't happen, which made him feel safer. He was glad to finally have someone like Twilight and her friends in his life. Some people, or in this case ponies, to care about him. He was happy. The Begining It was a warm afternoon in the town of Ponyville and everypony was going on with their daily routines. The school day was over and all the colts and fillies were either going back to their homes or going to play with friends. However, one child wasn't a colt or filly. He was the only human that lived in Equestria, Zachary. He had dark blue eyes, with dirty blonde hair and no matter the weather, he would always wear a black jacket and a pair of his many jeans, both in witch Rarity made for him He had just left the school building and was going to walk home along with his friend/ adoptive brother Spike. Normally, he would have his friends, the CMC's (Cutie Mark Crusaders) to walk with him, but on days like this, they would be out trying to gain their cutie marks. Zachary, not being a pony, didn't really understand the whole Cutie Marks thing yet. Though, he was still new to this world so he still had a lot to learn. As they walked down the town, Spike and Zachary started up a conversation. "So... how was school today?" Spike asked. “It was alright,” Zachary replied. “As usual.” He let out a sigh. “Is there anything wrong?” Spike asked with concern. “No… Just tired…” He replied though Spike wasn’t so sure whether or not he was lying. “Did you have a nightmare?” Zachary quickly shook his head in response. “No, I didn’t… Though I guess I’m more annoyed than tired.” Spike could guess that this was because of Diamond Tiara, a bully at the school Zachary attends. She had been trying to pick on Zachary for the past few days, but he either didn’t pay any mind to her, or he would come up with a much more clever insult then she could, which usually made her stop. “Well, maybe a few books back at the library will make you feel better,” Spike suggested. “Or we could always do something else.” Zachary nodded as they got onto a bridge, which was fragile. getting closer to the library. Spike noticed the water below them was moving at a quick pace, which didn’t normally happen. “That’s odd…” Spike thought in his head. “Why is it moving so fast?” “Yeah, reading sounds nice,” Zachary said, cutting off Spike's thoughts. “We could read a Daring Do book since the next one comes out this month and-” “Well, look at that, the freak is here.” The familiar voice of a certain filly interrupted Zachary. Both him and Spike turned around and saw her. She had pink fur, her mane being mostly iris, a variation of purple, with some white mixed in and to top it all off, she had a Diamond Tiara placed on the top of her head. Alongside her was her friend, Silver Spoon, with gray fur. Her mane was silver and braided and she wore glasses. Zachary let out a sigh, irritated that they interrupted his conversation. “What do you want now?” He asked while crossing his arms “I think you know what we want,” Diamond respond with spite. “We want to know how you can just ignore us, or how you just don’t care about anything we say to you?!” Zachary let out a slight chuckle. “Simple, because the things you and your friend like to say about me aren’t true.” He replied. “You don’t actually know me, you just like to pick on me because I’m different. You want to see me respond in some way, well I’m not going to give you that!” Diamond was getting furious. “I will break you!” She said, all a sudden getting up into his face. “I rule the school and I will make sure you get that through your thick skull!” She pounded her front hoof down, which made a soft cracking sound that Spike only seemed to notice. “Um, guys…” He said but was soon drowned out by the filly. “I will find a way if it’s the last thing I do!” She stomped her hooves again. This time, the sounds of wood breaking were lounder and large cracks appeared under the spot Zachary was standing on. “What the-” He said, as he cut himself off once he realized what was happening. “Diamond, chill out-” “No, not until you admit that I’ve been hurting your pathetic feelings!” She shouted, cutting him off. “Why is it so important that you hurt my feelings anyway?!” He replied, getting more tense about the fragile spot he was standing on. He tried to move, but neither Diamond or Silver spoon would let him. “Girls, let him go!” Spike tried to interfere, but Silver kept him shoved back so he couldn’t move or leave to go get help. “Why?!” Diamond shouted, somehow managing to sound even angrier than before. “Because ever since you came to school, people stopped fearing me! If I make you afraid, then they’ll become afraid. It’s simple!” Zachary gave her a look of disgust. “Forget it!” He shouted. “I’m not afraid of you and I will never be!” Diamond felt her anger explode. She stomped her hooves one last time in frustration. The sound of wood breaking apart could be heard as the spot under Zachary gave out. “Ahhh!” Zachary screamed as he fell. He quickly grabbed onto the bridge. Spike finally broke free of Silver’s grip after breathing fire, which nearly burned off some of her manes as he rushed to grab Zachary’s hand. He couldn’t hold his grip on the bridge, however, as Zachary plummeted into the river. “Zachary!” Spike screamed as Zachary disappeared under the rushing water. His head popped back above the surface, as he screamed for help. Spike looked over at Diamond Tiara with anger. “What did you do!?” Diamond was too shocked to reply. She just lost control of herself, and now Zachary was being carried away by the river. What had she done? Spike knew that with the speed of the river, he couldn’t follow Zachary on foot and diving into the river at this speed was too dangerous. The only thing he could really think of doing was going to get help. “Stay here! I’m going to go get help!” Spike said to the two fillies, as he ran off towards the library. As Zachary struggled to keep his head above the water, he never gave up the hope that someone would come to save him. However, something felt like it was trying to drag him under the water. Something around his leg. He started panicking, then he started to lose consciousness. Everything around him was getting darker and darker Then, everything went black... Chapter 1: The Deadly GamesTwilight Sparkle was in her room, reading the book that she finally had time to get into. The last few days have been busy for her, she needed to get used to her new wings, which bugged her. She also needed to learn how to use them, so she started getting flying lessons from Dash. She also had to worry about taking care of Zachary, and above all else, she had a few royal duties to attend to, since she was the new Princess. None of those royal events were that huge, but she still had to look her finest for them, which would usually take some work. Today, however, she finally had time to relax. She let out a soft sigh and levitated her cup of tea towards her. Everything was perfectly calm. Soon, Spike and Zachary would come back home and she would have to think about dinner since she didn’t have a plan for it this time around. Oh well, she could just come up with something for Spike to make, since he was better at cooking. She turned the page and let out a sigh, as she happily read on. Her peace was interrupted, however, when she heard the front door slam open, and the sounds of somepony running up the stairs. Spike came rushing into her room, a look of terror on his face as he entered. Twilight put her book down and looked at Spike with concern. “Spike? What’s wrong?” She asked, noticing Zachary was missing. “Um… Where’s Zachary…?” Twilight could tell that something was wrong, Spike was sweaty, he looked like he’d seen something terrifying and he was shaking. “It’s Zachary!” He shouted with panic. “Diamond Tiara made him fall into the river! It's moving faster than usual so the water took him away! He’s in trouble!” “What?!” Twilight replied, with shock. “We have to save him!” Spike replied, still terrified about what happened. Twilight got up, and they both ran over to the river. Darkness… That’s all Zachary could see. He was in a dark place, and he couldn’t feel anything, hear anything, or do anything. Suddenly, he felt his body again, as his vision came back to him. He coughed up some water and sat up, looking around at his surroundings. It was very dark, there were dead trees, along with some scattered debris. “Where am I?” Zachary wondered as he stood up. He looked down and only became more confused. He was taller. “How did this happen?” He shivered. It was very cold outside and his clothes were wet. Along with that, his jacket was gone. “Why are my clothes wet and where’s my jacket?” He asked himself, but he couldn’t remember, no matter how much he tried. “What’s going on here-” His thoughts were suddenly cut off by a blood-curdling scream in the distance. He turned to the direction, and could only see the red outline of something, which seemed to be floating just above the ground. “Someone could be in danger, I should go help them!” Zachary said to himself. He gulped and went in the direction of the scream. He hoped that the person was alright at the very least. SNAP Zachary fell to the ground and let out a scream of his own as he felt an intense pain around his ankle. He looked down, and his heart dropped. He had stepped into a bear trap, its rusty metal blades digging into his skin as blood trickled out of the flesh wound. “W-why would s-someone leave a bear tr-rap…?” Zachary asked himself, as he tried to struggle free from its jaws. He had no luck, which caused his terror to rise and rise. Suddenly, from behind the tree, emerged a man. He was white, with black, somewhat shaven hair. He wore glasses, along with a collar neck shirt, with a black-tie that had red stripes. He also wore brown slacks and black shoes. “Are… Are you alright…?” He asked. Zachary could tell that this man was just as scared as he was. “N-no… Can you please help me…?” Zachary asked. The man walked up to him and released the bear trap from his ankle. Zachary let out a little gasp as the pain got even worse, but the man held a finger up to his mouth, telling him to be quiet. He tried to silence the pain as much as possible, whilst following the man behind the tree. “I’m Dwight Fairfield.” He said. “Zachary Baker,” Zachary replied. Dwight nodded and grabbed a medkit off the ground. “Here, let me patch you up,” He replied. He opened the small red box and pulled out materials. First, Dwight cleaned up the wound. The bear trap tore through the skin fairly good, which caused even more pain when cleaning it. Then, Dwight covered it with a dirty looking bandage. “Sorry, that’s the best I can do right now.” He said. “No problem, thanks for helping me,” Zachary replied. “Where are we? More importantly, why are there bear traps here?!” “Oh, you’re new...” Dwight replied. “To be honest, I’m not sure where we are, all I know is that we need to survive. There are killers here, Their goals are to sacrifice us on those meathooks. The one we’re facing now is called The Trapper. I think you already know what he does.” Zachary nodded, looking down at his leg. “So, how do we survive?” He asked. “And if you’ve been surviving, how come you aren’t as far away from here as possible?” “We survive by repairing five generators to power the exit gates, which will allow us to escape for the moment until we’re chosen again,” Dwight replied. Zachary shook his head with confusion. “Chosen again?! You mean there’s no actual escape?!” He whispered harshly. Dwight let out a heavy sigh. It was terrible what had happened to all of them. They were in an endless loop, playing a game, but never truly escape the hell that they've somehow managed to get into. “I’ll explain it some more once we get back to the campfire,” He said, pulling out an old, somewhat torn piece of paper. “Here’s how you repair the generators. I’ve only heard one of them pop so far, so we need four more to go.” Zachary looked around and managed to spot one of the generators. “Okay, and what are you going to do?” He asked. “I need to go save Meg, she’s still on the hook,” Dwight replied, before pointing towards the nearest generator. “Go and try to repair that gen, if you hear or feel your heartbeat, hide. That means the killer is close to you.” He put his hand on Zachary’s shoulder. “Good luck,” He said, before running the other way. Zachary wasn’t sure about whether he could trust Dwight or not, as this was just moving way too fast for him, but Dwight did save him after all. Plus, he didn’t know what else to do, so he went over to the generator, making sure there weren’t any more bear traps he could step in. When he finally reached it, he started to read the directions he was given and began to repair the generator to the best of his ability. The town of Ponyville was in a panic after what had happened at the bridge. Search parties were out, trying to find Zachary. Twilight was also apart of the search team, desperately trying to find him or anything that could lead to his location. Her friends were also helping in the search. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were looking through the sky, while the Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie had to look on the ground. Some of Celestia’s Guards, (Along with the sun princess herself) came down to also aid Twilight with the search. Meanwhile, Diamond Tiara, Spike, and Silver Spoon were being interrogated by one of the head guards, named Cloudy Arrow. They were scared, due to the way they were shaking and the looks on their faces. “I need you all of you to tell me what exactly happened…” Cloudy started. Diamond didn’t want to tell him the truth, as she didn’t want to get in any more trouble than she’s gotten herself into. Plus, the fact that she lost control of herself like that scared her. Diamond was about to come up with something, but before she could, Spike chimed in. “Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon caused the bridge to break, which is why Zachary fell into the river!” He shouted. “I mean, Twilight knows, didn’t she tell you guys?!” Cloudy nodded. “Yes, she did,” He said. “But we need to get all sides of the story to know whether that’s true or false.” He turned his attention over to the two fillies. “Silver did you and Diamond cause Zachary to fall into the river?” SIlver froze. Not exactly sure what she should say. Diamond looked at her, her expression was filled with uncertainty. “I...I…” Silver stuttered, before letting it out. “It was our fault! I was holding down Spike and Diamond got so angry and stomped the bridge so hard that the part where Zachary was standing on collapsed!” She looked over at Spike. “He’d even tried to stop us and burned off some of my mane, but by then, it was too late!” At this point, Silver was in tears, feeling actual remorse for her actions. Cloudy just nodded, before looking over at Diamond. “Is this true?” He asked. “I-uh….. Yes….” She replied. “That’s what happened… I don’t know what came over me, but I just got so angry,” She stopped for a moment, breathing out heavily. “I was originally just going to make fun of him like I always do, honest! But, on the way to the bridge, I kept thinking about how much I was trying and how little he cared. It made me so mad that he wasn’t afraid of me. By the time we made it to the bridge… I couldn’t control myself… I didn’t mean to go that far…” Diamond also started to let out some tears, finally fully realizing what she’s done and how bad the situation was. All Cloudy could do was let out a heavy sigh. “You better hope we find him, there will be serious consequences for your actions.” He said spitefully, before turning away to help the search parties, leaving Diamond and Silver just sitting there. Repairing the generator was taking Zachary a long time. He managed to follow the instructions fairly easily. There was one thing that didn’t exactly make sense to him, however, and that was moving a few parts. Some of them were stuck and took a lot of force to move them to where he wanted, but he shouldn’t have been able to move them at all, with his strength. He was six after all, not exactly the best when it comes to moving heavy things, so why was he able to move those parts? Come to think of it, Zachary didn’t act like a six-year-old at all. He’d recently been picking up on the behavior of children his age and they all act, well childish. It made sense, they were kids. So why wasn’t Zachary like the others? He didn’t have time to think about it right now, as he had to get this done. There was a loud sound as soon as the generator was completed. Zachary backed away from it and tried to look around for the next one. Suddenly, he heard something. It sounded like a soft, faint heartbeat and he could also somewhat feel it inside his chest. Remembering what Dwight had told him, he went and hid behind a small wall, as the sound of the heartbeat got louder and louder, whilst the feeling of it got more intense. “Where is he…?” Zachary wondered, peeking his head over the small wall, and that’s when he saw him. A man that was larger than Dwight was standing near the generator. He appeared to be wearing some sort of mask, though the darkness made it hard to distinguish. He seemed to be wearing overalls that could have possibly be made out of some sort of rubber. It also looked like he had some sort of hooks digging into his skin, which made Zachary cringe. In one of his hands, he was holding a cleaver, covered with dry blood and in the other, he was holding an unset bear trap. The killer was much bigger than Zachary was, which intimidated him. The Trapper walked up to the lit-up generator and let out a grunt of anger. Zachary knew if he stayed there for too long, he could get discovered, so he started to back up. A loud, crunching sound emanated under his foot, which grabbed the killer’s attention. “Shoot!” Zachary said quietly, not liked it mattered, the killer knew where he was and started to approach the wall. “I gotta run!” Zachary thought, before bolting in the opposite direction. He turned his head around, causing his heart to drop. The killer was chasing him, moving at a faster speed than he was. Zachary tried to run faster, but his legs wouldn’t allow him. He let out a large yelp as he felt the metal blade slice into his back. He managed to move a little bit faster, but only for a moment. He gained some distance from the killer, who was cleaning the fresh blood off his cleaver, dragging the blade across his arm. Zachary tried to hide behind another wall, but his small puddles of blood, plus the fact that he couldn’t hold back his grunts of pain, made him easy to find. The killer came up behind him, raising his cleaver. Zachary turned around and before he could react, the killer slammed his weapon down and into his flesh. He screamed in pain, as he laid in a puddle of his blood. After cleaning his weapon for the second time, the trapper picked up Zachary, who tried his best to wiggle out of his grasp. The killer was going towards one of the many meathooks, and Zachary couldn’t wiggle out in time before he knew it, he was lifted and placed on the meathook, its blade penetrating through the right side of his chest, causing the most intense amount of pain he had ever felt. He let out a loud wail of agony as he felt himself lose even more blood through his new flesh wound. His tears dripped down his face, as the pain would not subside. He tried to look up, which was a challenge now, since moving any part of his body only would cause the pain to get worse. Looking around as much as possible, he saw a new person who was slowly walking towards Zachary. The man was wearing a blue button-up long-sleeved shirt, with some sort of straps around his torso, though Zachary didn’t know what they were. He had ragged brown pants, with plain-looking shoes. He had black, slick back hair, with two white spots on each side of his head. The most interesting part about him was his right hand. It looked like it was made out of some sort of metal and in that hand was a small red box. He walked up to Zachary, grabbing him. This made him panic, as he didn’t exactly trust this man. However, he felt himself being lifted up and with an excruciating amount of pain, felt himself get pulled off the meathook. As his pair of feet hit the ground, Zachary collapsed, feeling weak as his breathing got heavier. He looked up, as saw the mean reaching out his metal hand for him. “Come on kid, get up. We have work to do.” He said, grabbing Zachary’s arm and pulling him up to his feet. As soon as he was back on his feet, the man popped open the faintly red box, that was labeled, “Emergency Medkit.” He cleaned Zachary’s wounds, before bandaging them up. “You have a name kid?” He asked, after putting some of the supplies that were still usable back into the medkit. “Yeah… It’s Zachary…” He replied, as he finally felt some of the pain go away. “Zachary? I like it…” The man said, with some sort of smirk. “I’m Ash,” He made a motion for Zachary to follow him as he started walking. “So, where are you from?” This question almost made Zachary freeze in his steps. There’s no way this guy would believe that he was from a magical land filled with talking ponies, so he made up a lie. “I’m from… Texas…” He replied, and all Ash did was say “Nice”. They both continued to walk, making sure to avoid any tall grass in case of bear traps. They stopped when a tall building came into view. Two generators had already popped during Zachary’s time on the meathook, and he had the feeling that the last one was in that building. “I was halfway done with this generator before I came to save you, so this one should be the fastest to repair,” Ash said as Zachary nodded. “If that damn killer didn’t damage it anyway…” They both entered the dull building, which seemed to be made out of stone (For the walls) and wood (For the floors) They went up to the second story and luckily for both of them, it wasn’t damaged in any way. “Great, let’s finish this,” Zachary said, as they both started working on it. The cold feeling of the parts inside the generator sent a shiver up his arms, as he started moving them around, fixing everything he could. Whilst doing this, Ash decided to strike up a conversation. “So, you’re new around here?” He asked. Zachary nodded with a “Yeah”. “Yeah, the first time here always sucks,” Ash said, looking at Zachary’s injury. “So, do you know why we’re doing this or why there’s a killer here?” Zachary nodded in response. “Yeah, Dwight told me what to do, after saving me from one of those bear traps,” Just thinking about that made him shudder with fear. “Wait, he didn’t stick with you?” Ash said, looking over at him. “No, he went to go save someone named Meg, I think” He replied, as Ash just nodded. Zachary also looked at Ashe’s hand, curious about why it was metal. He seemed to take notice of his staring. “You’re probably wondering why I have a mechanical hand right?” Ask asked, making Zachary nod. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you, but it got possessed, so I had to cut it off.” He looked down at his hand, with a smirk. “Years after that happened, my friend, Pablo made this for me, so now I basically have two hands again.” Zachary was shocked. His hand was possessed? He did see how that would be hard to believe, but he realized something. Ash had something to tell that, to many people, would be unbelievable. Just like him. The only difference is that Ash could somewhat prove that this happened and Zachary couldn’t prove he lived in a colorful world with magical talking ponies. “That’s cool,” Was all he could say in response. The generator lit up as they finished it. Zachary saw two bright lights in what appeared to be in the shape of boxes pop up, which confused him. “Those are the auras of the exit gates we need to open,” Ash said, already knowing why Zachary seemed so confused. He nodded, as both of them made their way to one of the gates. It didn’t take too long to reach the large metal wall, with a switch to pull next to it. “Wanna do the honors since it’s your first time?” Ash said, making him nod. “Alright, it’s fairly simple, with this gate to open, all you have to do is hold down the switch until the gate opens.” “Alright,” Zachary said, and with a grunt, he pulled down the leaver, some sparkles coming out of the box, before long, one of the light bulbs on top of it turned red. Suddenly, they heard footsteps behind them. Zachary turned his head and saw a woman, who he assumed was meg. She was wearing a pink, sleeveless shirt, with dirty jeans, along with a hat. She also seemed to have brown hair. “Hey, guys…” She said, painting as if she ran across the entire area and then over here. “ Who’s the new guy?” She asked. “His name is Zachary,” Ash replied. Meg looked over at him, who now got the second red lightbulb to light up. “Nice to meet you, Zachary I’m Meg.” She said, turning and looking as if looking for something. “Um… Where’s Dwight?” There was a soft heartbeat coming from Zachary’s chest. The killer was close and he almost got the gate opened. “Guys!” The cries of Dwight could be heard. Everyone turned their attention over to him and saw The Trapper right on his trail. “Get the gate opened!” There were large beeping sounds, coming from the box. As the killer caught up with Dwight, he went passed him. WHACK Pain shot through Zachary’s back, as a cleaver was once again torn through his skin. Luckily, the gate was opened, the ground under them somewhat changing. There seemed to be yellow and orange cracks in the ground. All four of them tried to run out, but The Trapper wanted to get one sacrifice, so he targeted Zachary. Even though Ash tried to take a hit for him, the killer just shoved him out of the way. Another brutal attack from the killer caused Zachary to fall to the ground in pain. He started shedding tears again. “No… Please no…” He thought. The Trapper made one fatal mistake, however. He failed to notice the Flashlight in Meg’s hand when he picked up Zachary. She shinned the bright light in his face, blinding him. He tried to cover his eyes, forcing him to drop Zachary. He tried to get up, but Ash and Dwight had to help get him onto his feet. They carried him by arms and when the killer tried to bring his cleaver down on Zachary, Meg jumped in the way. He cringed at the sound of her being in pain, but they all managed to get through in time. They had all escaped. “That was a close one…” Ash said, letting go of Zachary, who surprisingly felt better as if he didn’t get attacked. “We won, that means all the damage the killer did to us is gone.” He explained to Zach, who nodded in response. Suddenly, they were all at a campfire. Zachary gasped in confusion of how they got there in the blink of an eye. “Make yourself comfortable,” Dwight said. “Yeah, we probably won’t be chosen again for a while,” Meg chimed in. “Alright then,” Zachary replied, before taking a seat next to the campfire, leaning his back against the wall, as the others seemed to be doing other things He wondered what other horrors would await him in this world. Twilight, along with her friends, were all desperately searching near the river, trying to find any sign of Zachary. As the day went on on on, they still found nothing, and Twilight was getting more and more worried. “Don’t ya’ll worry none,” Applejack said. “We’ll find him eventually, it’s just gonna take some time,” Twilight looked over at her friend, with a soft smile. “Thank you Applejack,” She said, with a smile. Her other friends were further ahead, while she and Applejack were double-checking to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Twilight was about to say something but stopped when she heard the voices of her other friends. “We found something!” The sound of Rainbow could be heard. Twilight and Applejack started to run up ahead, hoping they’d find something valuable, or maybe even him, but she knew that was unlikely. When they finally caught back up, Twilight gasped. Rarity was levitating a jacket, Zachary’s jacket, which was torn up and covered in blood. “No…” Twilight said, her eyes widening, as tears started to form. “No.. this can’t be true… I-it can’t!” There was so much blood on that jacket that if it was all Zachary’s, he would be dead. “I-it’s not his blood i-it’s not-” “Twilight…” Rarity said, also with some tears. “I- I don’t think he would’ve survived this…” She shook her head in denial. “No no no no no! He’s still alive, he has to be!” Twilight collapsed to the ground as she started to sob uncontrollably. All of her friends went up to her and together, they all went into a group hug. “It’s okay Twilight…” Pinkie said, without her usual energetic tone. “It’s going to be okay…” They all cried together, realizing Zachary could very much be gone. “W-we have to find him,” Twilight said, pulling herself away from her friends. “We have to find him… Even… even if he isn’t alive…..” She could still feel the tears roll down her face. Her friends all nodded with agreement, as they continued their search, hoping to find anything leading to Zachary, or his body…. They just had to keep looking... Author's Note Here's the second chapter. (Hopefully Better Written) Enjoy! Chapter 2: The Visions.A few hours later… Twilight was once again sitting in her room alone, but this time she wasn’t reading a book whilst drinking a cup of tea. This time, she was shedding tears of sorrow into her pillow. She had known Zachary for a few months up to that point and yet he had already gone missing, possibly even dead and they still haven’t found him. She got up, still with tears in her eyes and made her way to the bathroom to wash off her face. “I got to get ahold of myself….” She said quietly. “I can’t give up hope. We’ll find him, alive! Hopefully, that blood on the jacket wasn’t his…” She shuddered, thinking about what could have possibly happened that caused there to be so much blood on it. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t give up the hope that her son was still out there. Twilight looked at her reflection in the mirror, seeing her own bloodshot eyes and face wet from the tears and the water she used to wash them away. She was a mess. “What am I going to do…?” She said, letting out a sigh, looking down at her faucet, turning it back on, continuing to clean her face. Suddenly, she heard some sort of weird noise from above her. It sounded like a soft breeze, even though there were no windows in the bathroom or anywhere else where it could get in. She looked back up, but instead of looking back at herself through the reflection, she saw something else. She saw a bright campfire, flicking in the darkness around it. It appeared to be located in some sort of forest, but that’s not what most interested Twilight. That would be the person sitting at the campfire, who she recognized as, “Zachary?!” She said out loud in shock, though something was different about him. He seemed to be… older, like he was in his teens. He was holding his hands out towards the fire as if to keep them warm. It didn’t appear that anyone else was around him, that was until three figures came out of the darkness and sat next to him, as they all started talking, though Twilight couldn’t hear what they were saying, however, she could tell by their movements that's what they were doing. “How is this possible…?” Twilight said to herself, as she looked at the mirror, along with the people she was seeing inside of it. “Twilight?” The loud voice of Spike got her attention, forcing her to take her eyes off of the mirror. “Yeah, Spike?” She called back, as she heard little footsteps approach the door. “Are you alright?” He asked behind the door, his voice filled with concern. “Yeah, I’m fine, just washing my face off…” She replied, sounding better than the last time Spike attempted to check up on her. “Okay, I just wanted to see if you were doing any better,” Spike said. “Do you want me to do anything for you? Like go down to SugarCube Corner and get you a cupcake?” Twilight smiled, even though her little assistant couldn’t see it. “That would be wonderful Spike, thank you.” She replied. “Alright, I’ll be right back.” He said, before running off. When Twilight heard the door slam shut behind him, she finally looked back at the mirror, which now only showed her reflection. “Wait, no!” Twilight gasped, as she ran up to it, inspecting it closely to see if there was any sign, any proof of what she saw. When she found that there wasn’t any, she let out a heavy sigh. “I must be seeing things…” She said quietly to herself, before exiting the bathroom. “Where are you, Zachary? I miss you…” Twilight thought, before returning to her soft, warm bed. Zachary shivered, as he looked around at the campfire and the dark woods he’s found himself in. The fire flickered in the dark, its brightness was consuming the darkness around it. The strange thing about it was that the fire didn’t get bigger or smaller. It just stayed the same, as if it wasn’t even burning the wood at all. He sighed, as he held his hands out in front of the calm flames. It didn’t exactly help him though, due to his clothes still being wet. Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around swiftly and saw his newly found friends, Ash, Dwight, and Meg as they all sat around the campfire with him. “Glad you didn’t get sacrificed on your first trial.” Meg started. “That’s what happened to me and Dwight since it was our first time and whatnot, we didn’t know what we were doing.” She gazed into the campfire, with an expression of pain. “Ever since that day, we’ve grown smarter and learned how this new world works..” “Was it just you and Dwight on your first try?” Zachary asked and before Meg got the chance to answer, Dwight did it for her. “No actually, there were also two others, Claudette and Jake,” He said, as the flames of the fire were finally chasing away the cold. “Where are they?” Zachary asked, with a curious look on his face. “They’re probably at another campfire that’s like this one, or in a trial…” Ash chimed in. “There’s a lot of people trapped her and unfortunately, I don’t think that we have any way to get out of here.” Zachary grew a worried expression onto his face, as he looked at the others. “How long have you’ve all been here…?” He asked, still wondering the truth about the situation they were in. “We’ve all lost count…” Meg said. “I wish I could go back to my normal life and see my mother again… if she’s even still alive.” The atmosphere changed from just being creepy, to also having a mix of sorrow. “Yeah, I would do anything to go back and kick some deadites asses or something,” Ash said, earning a confused look from Zachary. “What are deadites…?” He asked. Ash was about to explain, but Dwight started talking before he could, annoying Ash enough to make him just lean back. “You know, I didn’t have any friends when I was living my normal life.” He said. “I’m pretty sure the reason I’m here is because of my co-workers…” Dwight sighed, as he stared into the campfire, reminding him of his burning hatred for those people. “All I remember about how I got here was the morning I went on a morning jog.” Meg started. “I don’t remember what caused me to come here…” Ash suddenly sat up, ready to tell his tale. “Want to hear my story?” He asked, with a smirk. “I was fighting this demon right? Then, after I threaten to kill her if she didn’t take me back to my friends, a fuckin whirlpool of a bunch of nasty shit opened up under me and sucked me in. Next thing I know, I woke up here, in this world…” He leaned back once again. “Stupid demons…” He muttered. Zachary wondered why Ash was cursing all a sudden when he felt something pounding in his head. “Argh…” He said, placing both of his hands on the side of his head, going to his knees as he started to remember what happened to him. He remembers a bridge, then something happened. He fell in, no, he was pushed in by someone into a fast running lake. Then he tried to escape but failed, then he woke up in this place. He remembered now. “Hey… Are you alright…?” Dwight asked, as he got up and went towards Zachary. “Yeah, I’m fine… I just remembered how I got here…” Zachary said, which peaked all of their interests. “I was walking home with my friend… I went onto a bridge, then these bullies came up to me. One of them pushed me into the river below. Then, I woke up here.” The group was silent for a moment before Meg broke it. “Sorry to hear that, high school can be a real pain, especially when it comes to other classmates,” Meg said softly. “Wait, what do you mean high school?” Zachary replied quickly, earning some confused expressions from the others. “Well, you look like you should be in high school,” Dwight said. “Unless you’ve already graduated or if you’re still in middle school somehow.” Zachary just stood there, in shock. There was no way. “Do you have a mirror or something so I can see my reflection?” He asked. Ash pointed his thumb backward. “Yeah, there’s a small puddle somewhere over there,” He replied. “We sometimes use it to drink or to wash off the dirt on our faces, it’s somehow always there too.” Zachary nodded, before rushing over to where Ash had directed him. It didn’t take long before the puddle came into sight. Zachary ran up to it and gasped. In the small reflection, he saw that he was older. Ever since he appeared in this world, he felt different and he even noticed that his voice changed. Now, however, he could confirm that he was indeed older. He had long hair, was taller, and he even had a mustache and different clothes, which luckily fitted him. “What the…? How did this happen to me?!” Zachary said in shock, he could barely believe that this was happening to him. Suddenly, someone else’s reflection appeared in the water. It was Dwight. Zachary swiftly turned around, startled by his unexpected appearance. “Are you doing alright? You’ve kinda been acting strange, even someone who isn’t a people person like me can tell...” Zachary let out a quiet sigh, before nodding. “Yeah, I’m fine. Today’s just been confusing… Don’t other people act like this when they get here?” Zachary asked. “Almost everyone that comes here is confused at first, but not usually when someone mentions that they might be in high school,” Dwight replied, with a smile, almost as if he took Zachary’s question as a joke. “Come on, we should get back to the campfire, another one of us is probably about to be chosen for the next trial.” As Zachary got up and was about to follow Dwight back to the campfire, he suddenly felt dizzy. “Ugh…” He mumbled to himself, as he started to lose his balance. Dwight noticed this and just stared, not moving a single muscle. Zachary then blacked out again, Spike was sitting silently on the floor in the middle of the library. After he got Twilight her cupcake, she left to go search for Zachary but wanted him to stay here in case he came back. A deep sorrow filled Spike’s body, knowing that he couldn’t save Zachary and now because of that, he could be dead somewhere. Though Spike would never give up the hope that he was still out there, he just wishes that he could have done more to save him. One thing that kept coming back to his head was how it all even happened. How was Silver Spoon able to hold him long enough for Diamond to cause Zachary’s fall. Furthermore, why did Diamond get as angry as she did? It didn’t make sense, like sure she did get angry a lot and sometimes even yelled at others, but this one was on a new level that Spike had never seen before. It was odd, to say the least. “Sigh I wish I had at least somewhat if an idea of where you ended up,” Spike said to himself, as he looked around at the all too familiar library. “Guess I should try and read something to take my mind off of all this,” He got up from his resting place, walking over to one of the bookshelves to try and find something that would catch his interest. Eventually, after looking through the ample books, finding one he hadn’t read yet. This one didn’t have anything interesting for its cover, it was just plain dark and brown, though, since he’d read everything else. He flipped to the first page, then confusion replaced his sorrow once he saw what was on the page. It was just a picture of a human, looking around at his surroundings with no words telling the ready pf what was happening. “Wait a minute… Is that…?” Spike suddenly recognized the teenager. He was Zachary, though he looked a lot older, Spike still recognized him. “What the heck…?” He mumbled with confusion. He flipped to the next page. This one showed Zachary crouched next to something, with another person, who was in all blue and wore a white hat of sorts. On the next page, Zachary was on his feet and was backing up. He had a look of terror on his face, worrying Spike as to what would happen next. When Spike turned the page, he saw a man stab Zachary. This one looked like he was wearing some sort of white mask, with some sort of black clothing, though Spike was more concerned about the fact that a man just stabbed Zachary with a sharp-looking knife. “Wh-what’s going on…?” He muttered with confusion. The next page showed the man picking up Zachary and holding him on his shoulder. Then, the other one in blue ran up to him, and threw an object next to them down, forcing him to drop Zachary. On the last page, it showed both Zachary and the man in blue running away from the one wearing that mask. The rest of the pages were just blank. “What just happened…? Why did the book show me those things…?” Spike wondered in confusion. Suddenly, the front door opened, as Twilight walked in. “Hey, Spike… We didn’t find him…” She said, with a tired, yet sad expression stuck to her face. “I’m sorry…” She said, but as she was about to walk away, Spike stopped her. “Twilight, you’ve gotta see what’s inside here! I think it’s hinting at what happened to Zachary!” He said, instantly getting Twilight’s attention. “What?” She asked, looking at the plain book in Spikes claws. When he opened it to show her, however, the pages were blank. “But, but they were here!” He shouted, flipping through the pages, each one was just blank. “H-how…?” Twilight put her hoof onto his shoulder, making him look up at her. “I believe you,” She said, shocking Spike. “I need you to tell me exactly what you saw,” “Why do you believe me?” Spike asked, and Twilight sighed. “Because I also saw something earlier.” She said. “I think you’re telling the truth.” "Ugh..." Zachary said, as he finally had woken up after fainting, though now it seemed that he was once again in a different place. "Where am I now?" He muttered, looking around the area. He appeared to be in some sort of cornfield, it felt like there was an ugly yellow filter over everything, almost made him want to throw up. He heard a crack as if someone was stepping on a large, yet fragile branch. He turned to the source of the sound and saw some of the corn shuffling around. He felt the tension rise inside him, but then he remembered that if it was anyone dangerous, he would feel and hear his heartbeat. Eventually, Zachary could see what was causing the shuffling. He looked like a teen from the '80s, he had brown eyes and was white. He was wearing a blue notch collar t-shirt with some white stripes. He wore an ascot around it, he also had blue shorts, along with a hat that said "Ahoy" on it. "Hey, are you new here?" He asked, with a rushed tone. "Uh, yeah... This is my second time being in one of these things," Zachary replied. The other man nodded, before pointing back. "Okay, I need your help to fix this gen," He replied, whilst gesturing him to follow. "My name is Steve Harrington by the way and you are?" Zachary and Steve finally got to the generator, before Zachary replied with. "I'm Zachary Baker," Steve nodded, as they both started working on the generator. Suddenly, he felt something cold that wasn't the generator parts. It was like a chill shivering up his spine. He felt like he needed to get out of here, and Steve noticed the sudden change in behavior. "You okay?" He asked as Zachary started backing up until he was near a pallet. Suddenly, he felt extremely weak and heard a loud noise that he couldn't describe. Then came the pain in his back, which knocked him to the ground instantly. He managed to look up and saw his attacker. He was wearing a black and grey tactical jacket, with some small drapes floating around him, all attached to his jacket. He wore a hood and a white mask, which had an abnormally large black mouth, almost as if he was screaming, with two eyes that were so dark that he couldn't see the person behind the mask. "Oh shit!" Steve said, once he realized what had happened, the terror radius finally kicking in after the man attacked. His fatal flaw, however, was picking up Zachary near a pallet. Once he was on the man's shoulders, Steve rushed in and threw the pallet down, forcing him to drop Zachary. "Ahhh..." The man seemed to sigh with frustration, as Steve and Zachary began to run away. "Thank you for saving me!" Zachary said, as they finally got away from the killer. "No problem," Steve said, out of breath somewhat. "I'm kind of a babysitter back where I'm from." Zachary just nodded, as they both spotted a generator that hasn't been worked on yet. "Come on, we have work to do." Steve said as they both started working on the gen. Author's Note This is a short chapter, wanted to add more, but my schedule is screwy, so this was the best I could do before the deadline. Sorry... Chapter 3: Steve The Babysitter.The night was cold and quiet for Steve and Zachary. The only sounds that could be heard were the generator that they’ve barely started working on, along with Zachary’s heavy breathing and grunts of pain. Steve had forgotten about his injury due to the shock and the adrenaline from the situation earlier. “Oh crap! I’m sorry, I completely forgot that you were injured!” He said, feeling stupid for forgetting like that. “Here, let me heal you…” He and Zachary got off the gen, and Steve did the best he could to heal the wound without any medkit. After he was done, the pain was still present, but at least Steve covered it with a piece of cloth he "apparently" found somewhere to stop the bleeding. Zachary wasn’t sure if he believed that, but he went along with it anyways. “Thank you,” Zachary said. “I hope we can make it out of here… I didn’t even hear my heartbeat, even though he was like right there…” He sighed with confusion, as he started working on the gen again. “Yeah, that killer is what we call Ghostface,” Steve started to explain. “When he stalks us, we can’t hear our heartbeat, and if he stalks us long enough, we become weaker, so he can hit us with one stab and we go down instantly.” Zachary shuddered at the thought, as he looked over at Steve and his weird choice of clothing. “Why are you wearing that…?” He questioned, and Steve let out a chuckle. “Well, I used to work at an Ice Cream Parlor, called Scoops Ahoy and this was the work uniform they made me wear,” He replied. “I didn’t come here wearing this though, because, for some reason, whatever the thing that brought us here lets us choose what we want to wear…” Zachary could tell, taking a closer look at his outfit, he has an ice cream scooper on his belt, and on his short sleeves was an image of an ice cream cone. “Rarity would love to choose her fashion if she was here…” He accidentally let that slip out and quickly tried to cover his mouth, as if it would erase what he said. “Whose Rarity?” Steve asked with interest. “I also never heard of anyone named like that…” Zachary wasn’t sure if he could tell Steve, he’d probably make fun of him or something since he would be telling him that he lived with magical talking ponies. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you…” Zachary said, which made Steve frown a little. “Believe me when I say that I’m open to believing anything at this point,” He replied with a grunt, as he finally pushed a part in place. “I had to fight a monster from another dimension, and another giant one destroyed the place where I worked, so I think what you say, I’ll be able to believe.” Zachary let out a sigh, something he seemed to do too often before decided to tell Steve the truth. “Well, I live in a world with magical talking ponies…” Zachary replied, causing Steve to stop working and look over at Zachary with confusion. “Wait, what?” He questioned as Zachary continued. “Yeah, I used to live in a world with humans, but then one day, I was just brought to another world, that has cartoony like ponies that are magical.” Steve just stood there in silence, unsure of what to think. “Well… Since we were all put into a different world against our will, I guess I could believe that…” Steve replied, as the generator finally popped, indicating that it was finally done. “Okay, let’s go and work on another one.” Zachary nodded, as they both started to wander the area, looking for the other survivors, whilst trying to find another gen as well. Another generator popped, and as that happened, a loud yelp of pain could be heard, followed by a terrifying scream of pain. Steve knew what had happened, and started going in the direction of the scream. “I gotta go save Nea,” Steve looked back and told Zachary. “I’ll try to be quick, please find another gen to work on or something.” He didn’t argue with Steve, as he ran off. Zachary looked around and did what Steve told him. He found the next generator before long and began to repair it. As he was doing this, he heard footsteps approach him. He felt his tension rise as he wasn’t sure if it was the killer using his power, or Steve returning, even though it didn’t look like Nea was unhooked yet, or it could have been someone else. Suddenly, he heard parts from another side of the generator is fixed. He looked over and saw another man, leaning down and repairing the broken parts. He had brown eyes, with moderately short hair. He wore a Harrington jacket, its sleeves going above his elbows. He had straight keks, and he seemed to be pretty buffed. "Um... Who are you...?" Zachary asked awkwardly. The man finally paid some attention to him, turning his focus to Zachary for the moment instead of the generator. "You can call me David," He replied, with a heavy English accent. "What about you mate?" The sounds of another generator could be heard going off, as Zachary replied. "I'm Zachary... I'm kinda new..." He replied as the generator was closer to being completed. "I can tell, haven't seen ya here before," He replied, as the sound of the generator popping rang through the air. "Aight, that's four down, we just need one more-" He silenced himself once he heard someone walking near them. They were in a small maze of walls, so they couldn't tell where or who was making those footsteps. David went closer to the noise, looking as if he was ready for a fight, but before he could do anything, Steve popped into view, which made both of them jump a little. "Jesus Steve, ya scared the hell outta me!" David said as they both started calming down. "Sorry, but hey, I see that you've met the new guy," Steve replied, and David nodded. "Ya, we did the generator here, where's Nea?" He asked, wanting to make sure everyone was going to make it out of there alive. "Oh, after I unhooked her, she said she'd prefer to heal herself with a medkit, then she went to go finish the gen she was working on," Steve said as David chuckled. "Ah Steve, ya always got away with the ladies," He replied. "But hey, at least she's-" He suddenly cut himself off, as he started to groan. He put his hand over his forehead, and both Steve and Zachary knew what this meant. "Watch out!" Zachary shouted, but by then it was too late. Ghostface vaulted a window, running right at David, plunging his knife into his chest, causing a scream of agonizing pain. He took the knife out, as David feel to the floor in a puddle of his blood. "Run!" Steve shouted, and Zachary didn't even think twice. He blindly ran the other direction, not paying any sort of attention to where he was going. All he knew at that moment was that he had to get away. Rainbow Dash sighed, as she sat in her room. She was trying to read a Daring Do novel, but she couldn't take her mind off of Zachary. SHe couldn't stop thinking about whether he was even still alive or not. That jacket they found had so much blood on it, but there was no way it could be his, right? Sigh "Hopefully we can find him... but what if we don't...?" She said to herself. Rainbow wasn't the type of pony to act like this. Normally, she'd be energetic, hopeful, and most important, optimistic. Now, however, she just kinda felt empty. "C'mon Rainbow, get ahold of yourself. This isn't you... You're the one who never gives up, who's loyal. You can't just sit here like this!" She got up from her cloud bed, with a newfound determination. "Heh, didn't take me that long to get out of my little depression," She quickly flew out of her house and went to the last place Zachary had been seen. The bridge. It didn't take her that long to arrive, and once she did, she saw that a few construction ponies were rebuilding the part that broke off. Rainbow landed softly onto the ground, as she looked around. She didn't see any new clues, nor did she notice anything different from the last time they investigated there. "Hmmm, there has to be something-" She cut herself, as she felt a sudden pain in her head. "Argghhhh....." She groaned, her vision going black. What's going on...? She couldn't help but wonder, as her vision returned to her slowly. However, she wasn't in the same place as before. This time, she appeared to be at some sort of farm, with a large cornfield. "Where am I..." She wondered as the loud sounds of footsteps were coming in her direction. She turned to the source of it and saw a man in blue running. "Hey, what's going-" She cut herself off, as the man seemed to run right through her as if she wasn't even there. The man ran behind some hay, trying to catch his breath. "Dammit, I got to save David..." Rainbow approached him, with a confused expression. "Excuse me... can you see me... or hear me...?" The man didn't reply, but he said something that instantly got her attention. "I hope Zachary got away... I need to find him as well..." He got up and ran into the cornfield. "Wait, do you know anything about Zachary?!" Rainbow called out but got no response. "Hey!" She started to go after the guy, but before she could catch up, her vision started going dark again. "No no no no no no!" Before long, she once again couldn't see anything, but she did hear a familiar voice. "Rai....ow...." It said as she groaned. Her sight returned, and she saw that there were ponies all around her, including Twilight and Spike. "Ms, are you alright?" One of the construction workers asked. Rainbow just groaned in response, as she tried to get up. "What happened...?" She asked, rubbing the side of her head. "You were hit in the head with a rock..." Another one replied. "We don't know how it happened though..." Twilight came up to Rainbow. "Are you alright?" She repeated the question. Rainbow was finally on her hooves, as she finally found some balance. "Yeah," The pain in her head was finally fading. "I think I saw something when I was knocked out though." Twilight and Spike looked at each other, as everypony else left, or went back to work on the bridge. "Was it of Zachary?" Twilight asked, and Rainbow shook her head. "No, it was of some guy in blue, but he did say something about finding Zachary as well." Twilight started thinking about all of their visions and how they could all possibly be connected. "Is there anything else you saw?" Rainbow shook her head. "No," She replied. "The only weird thing was another human and the place they were at. It doesn't even look like it belongs in our world... It's really hard to explain..." "I saw something too," Twilight said, which surprised Rainbow. "Wait, seriously?!" Twilight nodded. "Yeah, I saw Zachary, but he looked a lot older. Not only that, but he was at some sort of campfire in the woods with other humans, but that also didn't look like it was apart of our world." "Yeah," Spike chimed in. "When I tried reading a book earlier, it showed me images of Zachary, and he was getting attacked by, I think it was a human, but he didn't look like a normal one. He hurt Zachary, but another one that was also wearing blue saved him." He stopped for a moment, before continuing. "Even though what I saw was on paper, I could still tell that where they were at was different from our world. That one looked a lot scarier, and it definitely looks a lot more deadly. " They were all at a loss of words, not sure what to think about their current situation. "Let's go see if any of our other friends have had weird visions," Twilight suggested. With no better ideas, they all nodded in agreement. The one closest to their position was Pinkie Pie, so they decided to go to her first. Hopefully, they would get more information. Zachary had finally stopped his long-running, as he was desperately gasping for breath. He was starting to lose his composure after seeing what he saw. This can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening! His mind was racing, as he panicked more and more. As he was holding his hands on the side of his head, crouched down. He suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder. He shot his head up, as he faced a girl. "Hey, we aren't going against The Doctor, what are you doing?" She asked. She had a somewhat Sweedish accent, she was wearing a grey beanie. She had blue eyes, was white, wore a green sleeveless shirt, with skinny jeans. "I-I'm sorry..." Nea sighed, holding out her hand. "It's fine, I'm guessing this is your new?" She asked, and Zachary nodded. "Yeah, some of the stuff you see here can be... terrifying..." He grabbed her hand, as she helped him up to his feet. "I'm Nea, by the way," "Zachary," Nea nodded, pointing towards another direction. "There's a generator over there, let's go finish it real quick." Zachary agreed as they both started heading towards the gen. As they got closer, the generator finally came into sight. It was in a little wall maze and hadn't been worked on yet, so they didn't waste any time and started immediately. They both got to work on the halfway done generator and since Nea had a toolbox with a brand new part, along with some other tools, the process went by faster. As soon as it was about to pop, however, she stopped and looked over at something. Zachary noticed this and tried to look in her direction, and gasped. Ghostface was hiding behind a wall, just staring at them, but Nea was staring back. Suddenly, a Ghostface turned white for a second, then his red stain appeared, and the loud sound of his terror radius came in. He got up from his position and bolted towards Nea, as she ran away. He didn't notice Zachary, due to how the generator was positioned and the side of it he was working on. Feeling like he had no other choice, he continued his work on the gen, as the last cylinder on it finally started moving. POP It was finally done and the exit gates were finally powered. Zachary sighed with relief, but he took a sudden sharp breath when he heard Nea cry out in pain. Oh no, I have to save her! He thought to himself, as he heard Nea once again scream as she was placed onto a meathook. There was a boom, and in the distance, he could see what looked like giant bug-like or spider-like legs going up into the air. Even though Zachary didn't see it happen, he could tell that she was gone. He felt a heavyweight on his chest as he felt like he could have done something to save her. He couldn't think about that now, he had to get the exit gates. As he turned around, he saw Steve running towards him, along with David. "Zachary, there you are!" He said, finally catching up. "Where's Nea?" Zachary just stayed silent, not sure what to say, but he didn't need to say anything for them to understand. "C'mon, let's go get the exit gates opened..." His tone was sadder, as he felt that he failed to save his friend. They all started heading towards the nearest exit gate when suddenly the sound and the feeling of a faint heartbeat. The killer was coming. "Shit!" They had to hurry. Zachary was the first one to reach the gate, as he started opening it. Steve and David were looking out for Ghostface, and it didn't take that long for him to show up. "Get the gate open, I'll distract him!" David said, before going off to distract the killer. The first red light shined on the box when David went down. "Wait, what?!" It was at that moment Steve realized that David had been injured and he once again forgot to heal his teammate. "Oh shit!" He ran up to the killer (Which David didn't manage to get him that far) Steve tried to stop Ghostface, but he shoved him away, as he got atop of David. He raised his knife and brought it down, stabbing into Steve's back. He did this two more times, before pulling out a camera, lifting his head, and taking a picture. "Wait, what?! I thought the killer had to hook survivors to kill them!" Zachary said as the last light of the power box came on, indicating that the gate was almost opened. Ghostface took the knife out of the cold corpse, as he rushed towards Zachary, raising his knife and bringing it down. SSSTTTTTT The loud sound of a knife piercing through the could be heard, as Zachary had his eyes closed, but he felt no pain. He turned around, and saw Steve behind him, with a knife in his chest, and Ghostface in front of him. The gate was finally opened, and Steve, with all the strength he had left, pushed the killer away, and grabbed Zachary's arm as they both made a run to escape. Ghostface tried to stab Steve again, but thanks to the interference of Zachary, he took the hit instead. Sure, it was painful, but it ensured that both he and Steve would survive the trial. As they both finally escaped and were running towards the campfire, Steve looked over at Zachary. "Thanks for the save," He said, and Zachary nodded. "No problem, after all, you did the same for me," It didn't take long for both of them to reach the campfire, offering them a temporary solace from all the chaos. "So... you're saying that Zachary might have gone to a different world?" Pinkie asked as she laid in her bed, not in her usually bouncy mood. Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike all went over to Sugarcube Corner to try and see if Pinkie had any visions of Zachary, but she didn't. "Yeah, we believe that he might have been taken back to the human world," Twilight said. "But the only things we could connect about them are that the place Zachary might be in now is a lot scarier, has other humans, and possibly some sort of monster." Pinkie raised her head. "What do you mean by monster?" Twilight just shrugged with a sigh in response. "He's like this, really tall humanoid figure, with an abnormal face..." "You mean like this?" Pinkie cut her off, as she held up a mask. "Yes, exactly like that!" Spike said as he was the only one who saw the "Monster". "Wait, where did you get that?" "They were selling this mask, along with a black robe one year for nightmare night, so I picked it up. Pinkie said, inspecting the mask. "I think the costume is called Ghostface or something like that." "How did you know that was the one I was talking about?!" Spike asked, making Pinkie sigh. "Well, I was looking through my closet this morning, and just found it under a pile of other stuff. When I picked it up, I saw something like a human wearing it, and he had some sort of knife as well..." "Wait, so you did have a vision?!" Twilight asked, and Pinkie just nodded a little. "Yeah, but it was only of this, not Zachary..." Twilight started thinking about this, wondering what was going on. "Zachary must have been captured by something, something possibly wearing that mask?" She suggested, and everyone seemed to agree with that. "Well, how do we get him back?" Rainbow asked, but Twilight didn't have an answer for that yet. "I'm not sure... But there could be more humans in a similar situation. I mean, we've all seen them in our visions..." She started thinking about it and came up with the most logical solution she could think of. "Come on everypony, let's go do some research." Zachary was once again sitting at the campfire, trying to get warmed up with its heat. He heard Steve walking behind him, and when he looked up at him, he was in normal clothes instead of his work uniform. "Feels good to be in normal clothes again," He sighed placing his foot on a log instead of sitting down. "Shouldn't there be two more people here?" Steve nodded, rubbing his nose. "Yeah, they'll show up eventually." Zachary nodded in response, as the sounds of footsteps could be heard in the forest. Suddenly, a figure came out of the woods. It was a black woman, who had brown eyes, wore glasses, had black hair. She wore a leather jacket, with a plain brown shirt, and blue skinny jeans. "Who's this?" She asked as she joined them at the campfire. "Claudette, this is Zachary, Zachary, this is Claudette." Steve introduced them. Zachary nodded and reached out a hand. "Nice to meet you," He said, as he shook her hand. She smiled, before beginning to walk-off. "I'm going to go get ready for the next trial since it's not the end of the day yet..." Zachary looked over at Steve. "How can we tell when it's the end of the day?" He questioned. "When everyone is at the same campfire, then we can all sleep, or chat until we begin the same thing all over again." Steve sighed, wishing they could all just get out of there. Zachary looked around, wondering where the fourth survivor was. "I wonder where the fourth one is..." Suddenly, they heard a voice coming from the woods. "Hey, is anyone out there?!" They shouted. The voice seemed familiar to Zachary, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Steve looked over at the direction of the cries. "Hey! We're over here!" He shouted. It didn't seem to take long for the person to come and find them. Someone came running out of the woods, the light of the campfire shining on their faces. Zachary let out a large gasp, as he recognized the person that stood before them. "Dad...?" Author's Note Boom. I hope this one satisfied all of you.
PrologueThe events take place between the third and fourth season Basic Recap Equestria is a world filled with fascinating creatures of many mythical creatures inhabiting it. There are fire breathing Dragons, magical talking ponies, and there's even a human that lives there. However, that human wasn't born in Equestria. He was born in a different world that was filled with his own kind. However, he was neglected and abused by his parents. One day, he took a walk into the woods near his neighborhood. He was never seen again. His father, realizing the mistakes he made, grieved over his son's disappearance. Even though he gave up looking, he still believes that his son is out there somewhere. At least in a better place without him and he was right. Most ponies don't know how he got into Equestria, some believe that Celestia and Luna brought him here, while others believe it's some sort of time rift happened between their worlds, which allowed Zachary to travel to Equestria. No one is really sure though. What everyone knows's though is that Zachary became the son of Twilight Sparkle, who was an Alicorn and lived at The Golden Oaks Library. She had five other friends, plus an assistant who would often help Twilight look after him and whatnot, even though he was mostly well behaved. Unfortunately, due to his past experiences with his father, he has nightmares of him somehow returning and taking him back to the human world. He even sometimes saw a dark figure that he could swear was his dad. However, it would just always be an allusion. Usually, Twilight or one of her other friends would calm him down from these visons. He started seeing them less and less. Soon, Zachary got comfortable living among ponies, though he was still afraid that he would somehow run into his father again. Twilight would always reassure him that it wouldn't happen, which made him feel safer. He was glad to finally have someone like Twilight and her friends in his life. Some people, or in this case ponies, to care about him. He was happy. The Begining It was a warm afternoon in the town of Ponyville and everypony was going on with their daily routines. The school day was over and all the colts and fillies were either going back to their homes or going to play with friends. However, one child wasn't a colt or filly. He was the only human that lived in Equestria, Zachary. He had dark blue eyes, with dirty blonde hair and no matter the weather, he would always wear a black jacket and a pair of his many jeans, both in witch Rarity made for him He had just left the school building and was going to walk home along with his friend/ adoptive brother Spike. Normally, he would have his friends, the CMC's (Cutie Mark Crusaders) to walk with him, but on days like this, they would be out trying to gain their cutie marks. Zachary, not being a pony, didn't really understand the whole Cutie Marks thing yet. Though, he was still new to this world so he still had a lot to learn. As they walked down the town, Spike and Zachary started up a conversation. "So... how was school today?" Spike asked. “It was alright,” Zachary replied. “As usual.” He let out a sigh. “Is there anything wrong?” Spike asked with concern. “No… Just tired…” He replied though Spike wasn’t so sure whether or not he was lying. “Did you have a nightmare?” Zachary quickly shook his head in response. “No, I didn’t… Though I guess I’m more annoyed than tired.” Spike could guess that this was because of Diamond Tiara, a bully at the school Zachary attends. She had been trying to pick on Zachary for the past few days, but he either didn’t pay any mind to her, or he would come up with a much more clever insult then she could, which usually made her stop. “Well, maybe a few books back at the library will make you feel better,” Spike suggested. “Or we could always do something else.” Zachary nodded as they got onto a bridge, which was fragile. getting closer to the library. Spike noticed the water below them was moving at a quick pace, which didn’t normally happen. “That’s odd…” Spike thought in his head. “Why is it moving so fast?” “Yeah, reading sounds nice,” Zachary said, cutting off Spike's thoughts. “We could read a Daring Do book since the next one comes out this month and-” “Well, look at that, the freak is here.” The familiar voice of a certain filly interrupted Zachary. Both him and Spike turned around and saw her. She had pink fur, her mane being mostly iris, a variation of purple, with some white mixed in and to top it all off, she had a Diamond Tiara placed on the top of her head. Alongside her was her friend, Silver Spoon, with gray fur. Her mane was silver and braided and she wore glasses. Zachary let out a sigh, irritated that they interrupted his conversation. “What do you want now?” He asked while crossing his arms “I think you know what we want,” Diamond respond with spite. “We want to know how you can just ignore us, or how you just don’t care about anything we say to you?!” Zachary let out a slight chuckle. “Simple, because the things you and your friend like to say about me aren’t true.” He replied. “You don’t actually know me, you just like to pick on me because I’m different. You want to see me respond in some way, well I’m not going to give you that!” Diamond was getting furious. “I will break you!” She said, all a sudden getting up into his face. “I rule the school and I will make sure you get that through your thick skull!” She pounded her front hoof down, which made a soft cracking sound that Spike only seemed to notice. “Um, guys…” He said but was soon drowned out by the filly. “I will find a way if it’s the last thing I do!” She stomped her hooves again. This time, the sounds of wood breaking were lounder and large cracks appeared under the spot Zachary was standing on. “What the-” He said, as he cut himself off once he realized what was happening. “Diamond, chill out-” “No, not until you admit that I’ve been hurting your pathetic feelings!” She shouted, cutting him off. “Why is it so important that you hurt my feelings anyway?!” He replied, getting more tense about the fragile spot he was standing on. He tried to move, but neither Diamond or Silver spoon would let him. “Girls, let him go!” Spike tried to interfere, but Silver kept him shoved back so he couldn’t move or leave to go get help. “Why?!” Diamond shouted, somehow managing to sound even angrier than before. “Because ever since you came to school, people stopped fearing me! If I make you afraid, then they’ll become afraid. It’s simple!” Zachary gave her a look of disgust. “Forget it!” He shouted. “I’m not afraid of you and I will never be!” Diamond felt her anger explode. She stomped her hooves one last time in frustration. The sound of wood breaking apart could be heard as the spot under Zachary gave out. “Ahhh!” Zachary screamed as he fell. He quickly grabbed onto the bridge. Spike finally broke free of Silver’s grip after breathing fire, which nearly burned off some of her manes as he rushed to grab Zachary’s hand. He couldn’t hold his grip on the bridge, however, as Zachary plummeted into the river. “Zachary!” Spike screamed as Zachary disappeared under the rushing water. His head popped back above the surface, as he screamed for help. Spike looked over at Diamond Tiara with anger. “What did you do!?” Diamond was too shocked to reply. She just lost control of herself, and now Zachary was being carried away by the river. What had she done? Spike knew that with the speed of the river, he couldn’t follow Zachary on foot and diving into the river at this speed was too dangerous. The only thing he could really think of doing was going to get help. “Stay here! I’m going to go get help!” Spike said to the two fillies, as he ran off towards the library. As Zachary struggled to keep his head above the water, he never gave up the hope that someone would come to save him. However, something felt like it was trying to drag him under the water. Something around his leg. He started panicking, then he started to lose consciousness. Everything around him was getting darker and darker Then, everything went black...
Chapter 1: The Deadly GamesTwilight Sparkle was in her room, reading the book that she finally had time to get into. The last few days have been busy for her, she needed to get used to her new wings, which bugged her. She also needed to learn how to use them, so she started getting flying lessons from Dash. She also had to worry about taking care of Zachary, and above all else, she had a few royal duties to attend to, since she was the new Princess. None of those royal events were that huge, but she still had to look her finest for them, which would usually take some work. Today, however, she finally had time to relax. She let out a soft sigh and levitated her cup of tea towards her. Everything was perfectly calm. Soon, Spike and Zachary would come back home and she would have to think about dinner since she didn’t have a plan for it this time around. Oh well, she could just come up with something for Spike to make, since he was better at cooking. She turned the page and let out a sigh, as she happily read on. Her peace was interrupted, however, when she heard the front door slam open, and the sounds of somepony running up the stairs. Spike came rushing into her room, a look of terror on his face as he entered. Twilight put her book down and looked at Spike with concern. “Spike? What’s wrong?” She asked, noticing Zachary was missing. “Um… Where’s Zachary…?” Twilight could tell that something was wrong, Spike was sweaty, he looked like he’d seen something terrifying and he was shaking. “It’s Zachary!” He shouted with panic. “Diamond Tiara made him fall into the river! It's moving faster than usual so the water took him away! He’s in trouble!” “What?!” Twilight replied, with shock. “We have to save him!” Spike replied, still terrified about what happened. Twilight got up, and they both ran over to the river. Darkness… That’s all Zachary could see. He was in a dark place, and he couldn’t feel anything, hear anything, or do anything. Suddenly, he felt his body again, as his vision came back to him. He coughed up some water and sat up, looking around at his surroundings. It was very dark, there were dead trees, along with some scattered debris. “Where am I?” Zachary wondered as he stood up. He looked down and only became more confused. He was taller. “How did this happen?” He shivered. It was very cold outside and his clothes were wet. Along with that, his jacket was gone. “Why are my clothes wet and where’s my jacket?” He asked himself, but he couldn’t remember, no matter how much he tried. “What’s going on here-” His thoughts were suddenly cut off by a blood-curdling scream in the distance. He turned to the direction, and could only see the red outline of something, which seemed to be floating just above the ground. “Someone could be in danger, I should go help them!” Zachary said to himself. He gulped and went in the direction of the scream. He hoped that the person was alright at the very least. SNAP Zachary fell to the ground and let out a scream of his own as he felt an intense pain around his ankle. He looked down, and his heart dropped. He had stepped into a bear trap, its rusty metal blades digging into his skin as blood trickled out of the flesh wound. “W-why would s-someone leave a bear tr-rap…?” Zachary asked himself, as he tried to struggle free from its jaws. He had no luck, which caused his terror to rise and rise. Suddenly, from behind the tree, emerged a man. He was white, with black, somewhat shaven hair. He wore glasses, along with a collar neck shirt, with a black-tie that had red stripes. He also wore brown slacks and black shoes. “Are… Are you alright…?” He asked. Zachary could tell that this man was just as scared as he was. “N-no… Can you please help me…?” Zachary asked. The man walked up to him and released the bear trap from his ankle. Zachary let out a little gasp as the pain got even worse, but the man held a finger up to his mouth, telling him to be quiet. He tried to silence the pain as much as possible, whilst following the man behind the tree. “I’m Dwight Fairfield.” He said. “Zachary Baker,” Zachary replied. Dwight nodded and grabbed a medkit off the ground. “Here, let me patch you up,” He replied. He opened the small red box and pulled out materials. First, Dwight cleaned up the wound. The bear trap tore through the skin fairly good, which caused even more pain when cleaning it. Then, Dwight covered it with a dirty looking bandage. “Sorry, that’s the best I can do right now.” He said. “No problem, thanks for helping me,” Zachary replied. “Where are we? More importantly, why are there bear traps here?!” “Oh, you’re new...” Dwight replied. “To be honest, I’m not sure where we are, all I know is that we need to survive. There are killers here, Their goals are to sacrifice us on those meathooks. The one we’re facing now is called The Trapper. I think you already know what he does.” Zachary nodded, looking down at his leg. “So, how do we survive?” He asked. “And if you’ve been surviving, how come you aren’t as far away from here as possible?” “We survive by repairing five generators to power the exit gates, which will allow us to escape for the moment until we’re chosen again,” Dwight replied. Zachary shook his head with confusion. “Chosen again?! You mean there’s no actual escape?!” He whispered harshly. Dwight let out a heavy sigh. It was terrible what had happened to all of them. They were in an endless loop, playing a game, but never truly escape the hell that they've somehow managed to get into. “I’ll explain it some more once we get back to the campfire,” He said, pulling out an old, somewhat torn piece of paper. “Here’s how you repair the generators. I’ve only heard one of them pop so far, so we need four more to go.” Zachary looked around and managed to spot one of the generators. “Okay, and what are you going to do?” He asked. “I need to go save Meg, she’s still on the hook,” Dwight replied, before pointing towards the nearest generator. “Go and try to repair that gen, if you hear or feel your heartbeat, hide. That means the killer is close to you.” He put his hand on Zachary’s shoulder. “Good luck,” He said, before running the other way. Zachary wasn’t sure about whether he could trust Dwight or not, as this was just moving way too fast for him, but Dwight did save him after all. Plus, he didn’t know what else to do, so he went over to the generator, making sure there weren’t any more bear traps he could step in. When he finally reached it, he started to read the directions he was given and began to repair the generator to the best of his ability. The town of Ponyville was in a panic after what had happened at the bridge. Search parties were out, trying to find Zachary. Twilight was also apart of the search team, desperately trying to find him or anything that could lead to his location. Her friends were also helping in the search. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were looking through the sky, while the Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie had to look on the ground. Some of Celestia’s Guards, (Along with the sun princess herself) came down to also aid Twilight with the search. Meanwhile, Diamond Tiara, Spike, and Silver Spoon were being interrogated by one of the head guards, named Cloudy Arrow. They were scared, due to the way they were shaking and the looks on their faces. “I need you all of you to tell me what exactly happened…” Cloudy started. Diamond didn’t want to tell him the truth, as she didn’t want to get in any more trouble than she’s gotten herself into. Plus, the fact that she lost control of herself like that scared her. Diamond was about to come up with something, but before she could, Spike chimed in. “Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon caused the bridge to break, which is why Zachary fell into the river!” He shouted. “I mean, Twilight knows, didn’t she tell you guys?!” Cloudy nodded. “Yes, she did,” He said. “But we need to get all sides of the story to know whether that’s true or false.” He turned his attention over to the two fillies. “Silver did you and Diamond cause Zachary to fall into the river?” SIlver froze. Not exactly sure what she should say. Diamond looked at her, her expression was filled with uncertainty. “I...I…” Silver stuttered, before letting it out. “It was our fault! I was holding down Spike and Diamond got so angry and stomped the bridge so hard that the part where Zachary was standing on collapsed!” She looked over at Spike. “He’d even tried to stop us and burned off some of my mane, but by then, it was too late!” At this point, Silver was in tears, feeling actual remorse for her actions. Cloudy just nodded, before looking over at Diamond. “Is this true?” He asked. “I-uh….. Yes….” She replied. “That’s what happened… I don’t know what came over me, but I just got so angry,” She stopped for a moment, breathing out heavily. “I was originally just going to make fun of him like I always do, honest! But, on the way to the bridge, I kept thinking about how much I was trying and how little he cared. It made me so mad that he wasn’t afraid of me. By the time we made it to the bridge… I couldn’t control myself… I didn’t mean to go that far…” Diamond also started to let out some tears, finally fully realizing what she’s done and how bad the situation was. All Cloudy could do was let out a heavy sigh. “You better hope we find him, there will be serious consequences for your actions.” He said spitefully, before turning away to help the search parties, leaving Diamond and Silver just sitting there. Repairing the generator was taking Zachary a long time. He managed to follow the instructions fairly easily. There was one thing that didn’t exactly make sense to him, however, and that was moving a few parts. Some of them were stuck and took a lot of force to move them to where he wanted, but he shouldn’t have been able to move them at all, with his strength. He was six after all, not exactly the best when it comes to moving heavy things, so why was he able to move those parts? Come to think of it, Zachary didn’t act like a six-year-old at all. He’d recently been picking up on the behavior of children his age and they all act, well childish. It made sense, they were kids. So why wasn’t Zachary like the others? He didn’t have time to think about it right now, as he had to get this done. There was a loud sound as soon as the generator was completed. Zachary backed away from it and tried to look around for the next one. Suddenly, he heard something. It sounded like a soft, faint heartbeat and he could also somewhat feel it inside his chest. Remembering what Dwight had told him, he went and hid behind a small wall, as the sound of the heartbeat got louder and louder, whilst the feeling of it got more intense. “Where is he…?” Zachary wondered, peeking his head over the small wall, and that’s when he saw him. A man that was larger than Dwight was standing near the generator. He appeared to be wearing some sort of mask, though the darkness made it hard to distinguish. He seemed to be wearing overalls that could have possibly be made out of some sort of rubber. It also looked like he had some sort of hooks digging into his skin, which made Zachary cringe. In one of his hands, he was holding a cleaver, covered with dry blood and in the other, he was holding an unset bear trap. The killer was much bigger than Zachary was, which intimidated him. The Trapper walked up to the lit-up generator and let out a grunt of anger. Zachary knew if he stayed there for too long, he could get discovered, so he started to back up. A loud, crunching sound emanated under his foot, which grabbed the killer’s attention. “Shoot!” Zachary said quietly, not liked it mattered, the killer knew where he was and started to approach the wall. “I gotta run!” Zachary thought, before bolting in the opposite direction. He turned his head around, causing his heart to drop. The killer was chasing him, moving at a faster speed than he was. Zachary tried to run faster, but his legs wouldn’t allow him. He let out a large yelp as he felt the metal blade slice into his back. He managed to move a little bit faster, but only for a moment. He gained some distance from the killer, who was cleaning the fresh blood off his cleaver, dragging the blade across his arm. Zachary tried to hide behind another wall, but his small puddles of blood, plus the fact that he couldn’t hold back his grunts of pain, made him easy to find. The killer came up behind him, raising his cleaver. Zachary turned around and before he could react, the killer slammed his weapon down and into his flesh. He screamed in pain, as he laid in a puddle of his blood. After cleaning his weapon for the second time, the trapper picked up Zachary, who tried his best to wiggle out of his grasp. The killer was going towards one of the many meathooks, and Zachary couldn’t wiggle out in time before he knew it, he was lifted and placed on the meathook, its blade penetrating through the right side of his chest, causing the most intense amount of pain he had ever felt. He let out a loud wail of agony as he felt himself lose even more blood through his new flesh wound. His tears dripped down his face, as the pain would not subside. He tried to look up, which was a challenge now, since moving any part of his body only would cause the pain to get worse. Looking around as much as possible, he saw a new person who was slowly walking towards Zachary. The man was wearing a blue button-up long-sleeved shirt, with some sort of straps around his torso, though Zachary didn’t know what they were. He had ragged brown pants, with plain-looking shoes. He had black, slick back hair, with two white spots on each side of his head. The most interesting part about him was his right hand. It looked like it was made out of some sort of metal and in that hand was a small red box. He walked up to Zachary, grabbing him. This made him panic, as he didn’t exactly trust this man. However, he felt himself being lifted up and with an excruciating amount of pain, felt himself get pulled off the meathook. As his pair of feet hit the ground, Zachary collapsed, feeling weak as his breathing got heavier. He looked up, as saw the mean reaching out his metal hand for him. “Come on kid, get up. We have work to do.” He said, grabbing Zachary’s arm and pulling him up to his feet. As soon as he was back on his feet, the man popped open the faintly red box, that was labeled, “Emergency Medkit.” He cleaned Zachary’s wounds, before bandaging them up. “You have a name kid?” He asked, after putting some of the supplies that were still usable back into the medkit. “Yeah… It’s Zachary…” He replied, as he finally felt some of the pain go away. “Zachary? I like it…” The man said, with some sort of smirk. “I’m Ash,” He made a motion for Zachary to follow him as he started walking. “So, where are you from?” This question almost made Zachary freeze in his steps. There’s no way this guy would believe that he was from a magical land filled with talking ponies, so he made up a lie. “I’m from… Texas…” He replied, and all Ash did was say “Nice”. They both continued to walk, making sure to avoid any tall grass in case of bear traps. They stopped when a tall building came into view. Two generators had already popped during Zachary’s time on the meathook, and he had the feeling that the last one was in that building. “I was halfway done with this generator before I came to save you, so this one should be the fastest to repair,” Ash said as Zachary nodded. “If that damn killer didn’t damage it anyway…” They both entered the dull building, which seemed to be made out of stone (For the walls) and wood (For the floors) They went up to the second story and luckily for both of them, it wasn’t damaged in any way. “Great, let’s finish this,” Zachary said, as they both started working on it. The cold feeling of the parts inside the generator sent a shiver up his arms, as he started moving them around, fixing everything he could. Whilst doing this, Ash decided to strike up a conversation. “So, you’re new around here?” He asked. Zachary nodded with a “Yeah”. “Yeah, the first time here always sucks,” Ash said, looking at Zachary’s injury. “So, do you know why we’re doing this or why there’s a killer here?” Zachary nodded in response. “Yeah, Dwight told me what to do, after saving me from one of those bear traps,” Just thinking about that made him shudder with fear. “Wait, he didn’t stick with you?” Ash said, looking over at him. “No, he went to go save someone named Meg, I think” He replied, as Ash just nodded. Zachary also looked at Ashe’s hand, curious about why it was metal. He seemed to take notice of his staring. “You’re probably wondering why I have a mechanical hand right?” Ask asked, making Zachary nod. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you, but it got possessed, so I had to cut it off.” He looked down at his hand, with a smirk. “Years after that happened, my friend, Pablo made this for me, so now I basically have two hands again.” Zachary was shocked. His hand was possessed? He did see how that would be hard to believe, but he realized something. Ash had something to tell that, to many people, would be unbelievable. Just like him. The only difference is that Ash could somewhat prove that this happened and Zachary couldn’t prove he lived in a colorful world with magical talking ponies. “That’s cool,” Was all he could say in response. The generator lit up as they finished it. Zachary saw two bright lights in what appeared to be in the shape of boxes pop up, which confused him. “Those are the auras of the exit gates we need to open,” Ash said, already knowing why Zachary seemed so confused. He nodded, as both of them made their way to one of the gates. It didn’t take too long to reach the large metal wall, with a switch to pull next to it. “Wanna do the honors since it’s your first time?” Ash said, making him nod. “Alright, it’s fairly simple, with this gate to open, all you have to do is hold down the switch until the gate opens.” “Alright,” Zachary said, and with a grunt, he pulled down the leaver, some sparkles coming out of the box, before long, one of the light bulbs on top of it turned red. Suddenly, they heard footsteps behind them. Zachary turned his head and saw a woman, who he assumed was meg. She was wearing a pink, sleeveless shirt, with dirty jeans, along with a hat. She also seemed to have brown hair. “Hey, guys…” She said, painting as if she ran across the entire area and then over here. “ Who’s the new guy?” She asked. “His name is Zachary,” Ash replied. Meg looked over at him, who now got the second red lightbulb to light up. “Nice to meet you, Zachary I’m Meg.” She said, turning and looking as if looking for something. “Um… Where’s Dwight?” There was a soft heartbeat coming from Zachary’s chest. The killer was close and he almost got the gate opened. “Guys!” The cries of Dwight could be heard. Everyone turned their attention over to him and saw The Trapper right on his trail. “Get the gate opened!” There were large beeping sounds, coming from the box. As the killer caught up with Dwight, he went passed him. WHACK Pain shot through Zachary’s back, as a cleaver was once again torn through his skin. Luckily, the gate was opened, the ground under them somewhat changing. There seemed to be yellow and orange cracks in the ground. All four of them tried to run out, but The Trapper wanted to get one sacrifice, so he targeted Zachary. Even though Ash tried to take a hit for him, the killer just shoved him out of the way. Another brutal attack from the killer caused Zachary to fall to the ground in pain. He started shedding tears again. “No… Please no…” He thought. The Trapper made one fatal mistake, however. He failed to notice the Flashlight in Meg’s hand when he picked up Zachary. She shinned the bright light in his face, blinding him. He tried to cover his eyes, forcing him to drop Zachary. He tried to get up, but Ash and Dwight had to help get him onto his feet. They carried him by arms and when the killer tried to bring his cleaver down on Zachary, Meg jumped in the way. He cringed at the sound of her being in pain, but they all managed to get through in time. They had all escaped. “That was a close one…” Ash said, letting go of Zachary, who surprisingly felt better as if he didn’t get attacked. “We won, that means all the damage the killer did to us is gone.” He explained to Zach, who nodded in response. Suddenly, they were all at a campfire. Zachary gasped in confusion of how they got there in the blink of an eye. “Make yourself comfortable,” Dwight said. “Yeah, we probably won’t be chosen again for a while,” Meg chimed in. “Alright then,” Zachary replied, before taking a seat next to the campfire, leaning his back against the wall, as the others seemed to be doing other things He wondered what other horrors would await him in this world. Twilight, along with her friends, were all desperately searching near the river, trying to find any sign of Zachary. As the day went on on on, they still found nothing, and Twilight was getting more and more worried. “Don’t ya’ll worry none,” Applejack said. “We’ll find him eventually, it’s just gonna take some time,” Twilight looked over at her friend, with a soft smile. “Thank you Applejack,” She said, with a smile. Her other friends were further ahead, while she and Applejack were double-checking to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Twilight was about to say something but stopped when she heard the voices of her other friends. “We found something!” The sound of Rainbow could be heard. Twilight and Applejack started to run up ahead, hoping they’d find something valuable, or maybe even him, but she knew that was unlikely. When they finally caught back up, Twilight gasped. Rarity was levitating a jacket, Zachary’s jacket, which was torn up and covered in blood. “No…” Twilight said, her eyes widening, as tears started to form. “No.. this can’t be true… I-it can’t!” There was so much blood on that jacket that if it was all Zachary’s, he would be dead. “I-it’s not his blood i-it’s not-” “Twilight…” Rarity said, also with some tears. “I- I don’t think he would’ve survived this…” She shook her head in denial. “No no no no no! He’s still alive, he has to be!” Twilight collapsed to the ground as she started to sob uncontrollably. All of her friends went up to her and together, they all went into a group hug. “It’s okay Twilight…” Pinkie said, without her usual energetic tone. “It’s going to be okay…” They all cried together, realizing Zachary could very much be gone. “W-we have to find him,” Twilight said, pulling herself away from her friends. “We have to find him… Even… even if he isn’t alive…..” She could still feel the tears roll down her face. Her friends all nodded with agreement, as they continued their search, hoping to find anything leading to Zachary, or his body…. They just had to keep looking... Author's Note Here's the second chapter. (Hopefully Better Written) Enjoy!
Chapter 2: The Visions.A few hours later… Twilight was once again sitting in her room alone, but this time she wasn’t reading a book whilst drinking a cup of tea. This time, she was shedding tears of sorrow into her pillow. She had known Zachary for a few months up to that point and yet he had already gone missing, possibly even dead and they still haven’t found him. She got up, still with tears in her eyes and made her way to the bathroom to wash off her face. “I got to get ahold of myself….” She said quietly. “I can’t give up hope. We’ll find him, alive! Hopefully, that blood on the jacket wasn’t his…” She shuddered, thinking about what could have possibly happened that caused there to be so much blood on it. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t give up the hope that her son was still out there. Twilight looked at her reflection in the mirror, seeing her own bloodshot eyes and face wet from the tears and the water she used to wash them away. She was a mess. “What am I going to do…?” She said, letting out a sigh, looking down at her faucet, turning it back on, continuing to clean her face. Suddenly, she heard some sort of weird noise from above her. It sounded like a soft breeze, even though there were no windows in the bathroom or anywhere else where it could get in. She looked back up, but instead of looking back at herself through the reflection, she saw something else. She saw a bright campfire, flicking in the darkness around it. It appeared to be located in some sort of forest, but that’s not what most interested Twilight. That would be the person sitting at the campfire, who she recognized as, “Zachary?!” She said out loud in shock, though something was different about him. He seemed to be… older, like he was in his teens. He was holding his hands out towards the fire as if to keep them warm. It didn’t appear that anyone else was around him, that was until three figures came out of the darkness and sat next to him, as they all started talking, though Twilight couldn’t hear what they were saying, however, she could tell by their movements that's what they were doing. “How is this possible…?” Twilight said to herself, as she looked at the mirror, along with the people she was seeing inside of it. “Twilight?” The loud voice of Spike got her attention, forcing her to take her eyes off of the mirror. “Yeah, Spike?” She called back, as she heard little footsteps approach the door. “Are you alright?” He asked behind the door, his voice filled with concern. “Yeah, I’m fine, just washing my face off…” She replied, sounding better than the last time Spike attempted to check up on her. “Okay, I just wanted to see if you were doing any better,” Spike said. “Do you want me to do anything for you? Like go down to SugarCube Corner and get you a cupcake?” Twilight smiled, even though her little assistant couldn’t see it. “That would be wonderful Spike, thank you.” She replied. “Alright, I’ll be right back.” He said, before running off. When Twilight heard the door slam shut behind him, she finally looked back at the mirror, which now only showed her reflection. “Wait, no!” Twilight gasped, as she ran up to it, inspecting it closely to see if there was any sign, any proof of what she saw. When she found that there wasn’t any, she let out a heavy sigh. “I must be seeing things…” She said quietly to herself, before exiting the bathroom. “Where are you, Zachary? I miss you…” Twilight thought, before returning to her soft, warm bed. Zachary shivered, as he looked around at the campfire and the dark woods he’s found himself in. The fire flickered in the dark, its brightness was consuming the darkness around it. The strange thing about it was that the fire didn’t get bigger or smaller. It just stayed the same, as if it wasn’t even burning the wood at all. He sighed, as he held his hands out in front of the calm flames. It didn’t exactly help him though, due to his clothes still being wet. Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around swiftly and saw his newly found friends, Ash, Dwight, and Meg as they all sat around the campfire with him. “Glad you didn’t get sacrificed on your first trial.” Meg started. “That’s what happened to me and Dwight since it was our first time and whatnot, we didn’t know what we were doing.” She gazed into the campfire, with an expression of pain. “Ever since that day, we’ve grown smarter and learned how this new world works..” “Was it just you and Dwight on your first try?” Zachary asked and before Meg got the chance to answer, Dwight did it for her. “No actually, there were also two others, Claudette and Jake,” He said, as the flames of the fire were finally chasing away the cold. “Where are they?” Zachary asked, with a curious look on his face. “They’re probably at another campfire that’s like this one, or in a trial…” Ash chimed in. “There’s a lot of people trapped her and unfortunately, I don’t think that we have any way to get out of here.” Zachary grew a worried expression onto his face, as he looked at the others. “How long have you’ve all been here…?” He asked, still wondering the truth about the situation they were in. “We’ve all lost count…” Meg said. “I wish I could go back to my normal life and see my mother again… if she’s even still alive.” The atmosphere changed from just being creepy, to also having a mix of sorrow. “Yeah, I would do anything to go back and kick some deadites asses or something,” Ash said, earning a confused look from Zachary. “What are deadites…?” He asked. Ash was about to explain, but Dwight started talking before he could, annoying Ash enough to make him just lean back. “You know, I didn’t have any friends when I was living my normal life.” He said. “I’m pretty sure the reason I’m here is because of my co-workers…” Dwight sighed, as he stared into the campfire, reminding him of his burning hatred for those people. “All I remember about how I got here was the morning I went on a morning jog.” Meg started. “I don’t remember what caused me to come here…” Ash suddenly sat up, ready to tell his tale. “Want to hear my story?” He asked, with a smirk. “I was fighting this demon right? Then, after I threaten to kill her if she didn’t take me back to my friends, a fuckin whirlpool of a bunch of nasty shit opened up under me and sucked me in. Next thing I know, I woke up here, in this world…” He leaned back once again. “Stupid demons…” He muttered. Zachary wondered why Ash was cursing all a sudden when he felt something pounding in his head. “Argh…” He said, placing both of his hands on the side of his head, going to his knees as he started to remember what happened to him. He remembers a bridge, then something happened. He fell in, no, he was pushed in by someone into a fast running lake. Then he tried to escape but failed, then he woke up in this place. He remembered now. “Hey… Are you alright…?” Dwight asked, as he got up and went towards Zachary. “Yeah, I’m fine… I just remembered how I got here…” Zachary said, which peaked all of their interests. “I was walking home with my friend… I went onto a bridge, then these bullies came up to me. One of them pushed me into the river below. Then, I woke up here.” The group was silent for a moment before Meg broke it. “Sorry to hear that, high school can be a real pain, especially when it comes to other classmates,” Meg said softly. “Wait, what do you mean high school?” Zachary replied quickly, earning some confused expressions from the others. “Well, you look like you should be in high school,” Dwight said. “Unless you’ve already graduated or if you’re still in middle school somehow.” Zachary just stood there, in shock. There was no way. “Do you have a mirror or something so I can see my reflection?” He asked. Ash pointed his thumb backward. “Yeah, there’s a small puddle somewhere over there,” He replied. “We sometimes use it to drink or to wash off the dirt on our faces, it’s somehow always there too.” Zachary nodded, before rushing over to where Ash had directed him. It didn’t take long before the puddle came into sight. Zachary ran up to it and gasped. In the small reflection, he saw that he was older. Ever since he appeared in this world, he felt different and he even noticed that his voice changed. Now, however, he could confirm that he was indeed older. He had long hair, was taller, and he even had a mustache and different clothes, which luckily fitted him. “What the…? How did this happen to me?!” Zachary said in shock, he could barely believe that this was happening to him. Suddenly, someone else’s reflection appeared in the water. It was Dwight. Zachary swiftly turned around, startled by his unexpected appearance. “Are you doing alright? You’ve kinda been acting strange, even someone who isn’t a people person like me can tell...” Zachary let out a quiet sigh, before nodding. “Yeah, I’m fine. Today’s just been confusing… Don’t other people act like this when they get here?” Zachary asked. “Almost everyone that comes here is confused at first, but not usually when someone mentions that they might be in high school,” Dwight replied, with a smile, almost as if he took Zachary’s question as a joke. “Come on, we should get back to the campfire, another one of us is probably about to be chosen for the next trial.” As Zachary got up and was about to follow Dwight back to the campfire, he suddenly felt dizzy. “Ugh…” He mumbled to himself, as he started to lose his balance. Dwight noticed this and just stared, not moving a single muscle. Zachary then blacked out again, Spike was sitting silently on the floor in the middle of the library. After he got Twilight her cupcake, she left to go search for Zachary but wanted him to stay here in case he came back. A deep sorrow filled Spike’s body, knowing that he couldn’t save Zachary and now because of that, he could be dead somewhere. Though Spike would never give up the hope that he was still out there, he just wishes that he could have done more to save him. One thing that kept coming back to his head was how it all even happened. How was Silver Spoon able to hold him long enough for Diamond to cause Zachary’s fall. Furthermore, why did Diamond get as angry as she did? It didn’t make sense, like sure she did get angry a lot and sometimes even yelled at others, but this one was on a new level that Spike had never seen before. It was odd, to say the least. “Sigh I wish I had at least somewhat if an idea of where you ended up,” Spike said to himself, as he looked around at the all too familiar library. “Guess I should try and read something to take my mind off of all this,” He got up from his resting place, walking over to one of the bookshelves to try and find something that would catch his interest. Eventually, after looking through the ample books, finding one he hadn’t read yet. This one didn’t have anything interesting for its cover, it was just plain dark and brown, though, since he’d read everything else. He flipped to the first page, then confusion replaced his sorrow once he saw what was on the page. It was just a picture of a human, looking around at his surroundings with no words telling the ready pf what was happening. “Wait a minute… Is that…?” Spike suddenly recognized the teenager. He was Zachary, though he looked a lot older, Spike still recognized him. “What the heck…?” He mumbled with confusion. He flipped to the next page. This one showed Zachary crouched next to something, with another person, who was in all blue and wore a white hat of sorts. On the next page, Zachary was on his feet and was backing up. He had a look of terror on his face, worrying Spike as to what would happen next. When Spike turned the page, he saw a man stab Zachary. This one looked like he was wearing some sort of white mask, with some sort of black clothing, though Spike was more concerned about the fact that a man just stabbed Zachary with a sharp-looking knife. “Wh-what’s going on…?” He muttered with confusion. The next page showed the man picking up Zachary and holding him on his shoulder. Then, the other one in blue ran up to him, and threw an object next to them down, forcing him to drop Zachary. On the last page, it showed both Zachary and the man in blue running away from the one wearing that mask. The rest of the pages were just blank. “What just happened…? Why did the book show me those things…?” Spike wondered in confusion. Suddenly, the front door opened, as Twilight walked in. “Hey, Spike… We didn’t find him…” She said, with a tired, yet sad expression stuck to her face. “I’m sorry…” She said, but as she was about to walk away, Spike stopped her. “Twilight, you’ve gotta see what’s inside here! I think it’s hinting at what happened to Zachary!” He said, instantly getting Twilight’s attention. “What?” She asked, looking at the plain book in Spikes claws. When he opened it to show her, however, the pages were blank. “But, but they were here!” He shouted, flipping through the pages, each one was just blank. “H-how…?” Twilight put her hoof onto his shoulder, making him look up at her. “I believe you,” She said, shocking Spike. “I need you to tell me exactly what you saw,” “Why do you believe me?” Spike asked, and Twilight sighed. “Because I also saw something earlier.” She said. “I think you’re telling the truth.” "Ugh..." Zachary said, as he finally had woken up after fainting, though now it seemed that he was once again in a different place. "Where am I now?" He muttered, looking around the area. He appeared to be in some sort of cornfield, it felt like there was an ugly yellow filter over everything, almost made him want to throw up. He heard a crack as if someone was stepping on a large, yet fragile branch. He turned to the source of the sound and saw some of the corn shuffling around. He felt the tension rise inside him, but then he remembered that if it was anyone dangerous, he would feel and hear his heartbeat. Eventually, Zachary could see what was causing the shuffling. He looked like a teen from the '80s, he had brown eyes and was white. He was wearing a blue notch collar t-shirt with some white stripes. He wore an ascot around it, he also had blue shorts, along with a hat that said "Ahoy" on it. "Hey, are you new here?" He asked, with a rushed tone. "Uh, yeah... This is my second time being in one of these things," Zachary replied. The other man nodded, before pointing back. "Okay, I need your help to fix this gen," He replied, whilst gesturing him to follow. "My name is Steve Harrington by the way and you are?" Zachary and Steve finally got to the generator, before Zachary replied with. "I'm Zachary Baker," Steve nodded, as they both started working on the generator. Suddenly, he felt something cold that wasn't the generator parts. It was like a chill shivering up his spine. He felt like he needed to get out of here, and Steve noticed the sudden change in behavior. "You okay?" He asked as Zachary started backing up until he was near a pallet. Suddenly, he felt extremely weak and heard a loud noise that he couldn't describe. Then came the pain in his back, which knocked him to the ground instantly. He managed to look up and saw his attacker. He was wearing a black and grey tactical jacket, with some small drapes floating around him, all attached to his jacket. He wore a hood and a white mask, which had an abnormally large black mouth, almost as if he was screaming, with two eyes that were so dark that he couldn't see the person behind the mask. "Oh shit!" Steve said, once he realized what had happened, the terror radius finally kicking in after the man attacked. His fatal flaw, however, was picking up Zachary near a pallet. Once he was on the man's shoulders, Steve rushed in and threw the pallet down, forcing him to drop Zachary. "Ahhh..." The man seemed to sigh with frustration, as Steve and Zachary began to run away. "Thank you for saving me!" Zachary said, as they finally got away from the killer. "No problem," Steve said, out of breath somewhat. "I'm kind of a babysitter back where I'm from." Zachary just nodded, as they both spotted a generator that hasn't been worked on yet. "Come on, we have work to do." Steve said as they both started working on the gen. Author's Note This is a short chapter, wanted to add more, but my schedule is screwy, so this was the best I could do before the deadline. Sorry...
Chapter 3: Steve The Babysitter.The night was cold and quiet for Steve and Zachary. The only sounds that could be heard were the generator that they’ve barely started working on, along with Zachary’s heavy breathing and grunts of pain. Steve had forgotten about his injury due to the shock and the adrenaline from the situation earlier. “Oh crap! I’m sorry, I completely forgot that you were injured!” He said, feeling stupid for forgetting like that. “Here, let me heal you…” He and Zachary got off the gen, and Steve did the best he could to heal the wound without any medkit. After he was done, the pain was still present, but at least Steve covered it with a piece of cloth he "apparently" found somewhere to stop the bleeding. Zachary wasn’t sure if he believed that, but he went along with it anyways. “Thank you,” Zachary said. “I hope we can make it out of here… I didn’t even hear my heartbeat, even though he was like right there…” He sighed with confusion, as he started working on the gen again. “Yeah, that killer is what we call Ghostface,” Steve started to explain. “When he stalks us, we can’t hear our heartbeat, and if he stalks us long enough, we become weaker, so he can hit us with one stab and we go down instantly.” Zachary shuddered at the thought, as he looked over at Steve and his weird choice of clothing. “Why are you wearing that…?” He questioned, and Steve let out a chuckle. “Well, I used to work at an Ice Cream Parlor, called Scoops Ahoy and this was the work uniform they made me wear,” He replied. “I didn’t come here wearing this though, because, for some reason, whatever the thing that brought us here lets us choose what we want to wear…” Zachary could tell, taking a closer look at his outfit, he has an ice cream scooper on his belt, and on his short sleeves was an image of an ice cream cone. “Rarity would love to choose her fashion if she was here…” He accidentally let that slip out and quickly tried to cover his mouth, as if it would erase what he said. “Whose Rarity?” Steve asked with interest. “I also never heard of anyone named like that…” Zachary wasn’t sure if he could tell Steve, he’d probably make fun of him or something since he would be telling him that he lived with magical talking ponies. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you…” Zachary said, which made Steve frown a little. “Believe me when I say that I’m open to believing anything at this point,” He replied with a grunt, as he finally pushed a part in place. “I had to fight a monster from another dimension, and another giant one destroyed the place where I worked, so I think what you say, I’ll be able to believe.” Zachary let out a sigh, something he seemed to do too often before decided to tell Steve the truth. “Well, I live in a world with magical talking ponies…” Zachary replied, causing Steve to stop working and look over at Zachary with confusion. “Wait, what?” He questioned as Zachary continued. “Yeah, I used to live in a world with humans, but then one day, I was just brought to another world, that has cartoony like ponies that are magical.” Steve just stood there in silence, unsure of what to think. “Well… Since we were all put into a different world against our will, I guess I could believe that…” Steve replied, as the generator finally popped, indicating that it was finally done. “Okay, let’s go and work on another one.” Zachary nodded, as they both started to wander the area, looking for the other survivors, whilst trying to find another gen as well. Another generator popped, and as that happened, a loud yelp of pain could be heard, followed by a terrifying scream of pain. Steve knew what had happened, and started going in the direction of the scream. “I gotta go save Nea,” Steve looked back and told Zachary. “I’ll try to be quick, please find another gen to work on or something.” He didn’t argue with Steve, as he ran off. Zachary looked around and did what Steve told him. He found the next generator before long and began to repair it. As he was doing this, he heard footsteps approach him. He felt his tension rise as he wasn’t sure if it was the killer using his power, or Steve returning, even though it didn’t look like Nea was unhooked yet, or it could have been someone else. Suddenly, he heard parts from another side of the generator is fixed. He looked over and saw another man, leaning down and repairing the broken parts. He had brown eyes, with moderately short hair. He wore a Harrington jacket, its sleeves going above his elbows. He had straight keks, and he seemed to be pretty buffed. "Um... Who are you...?" Zachary asked awkwardly. The man finally paid some attention to him, turning his focus to Zachary for the moment instead of the generator. "You can call me David," He replied, with a heavy English accent. "What about you mate?" The sounds of another generator could be heard going off, as Zachary replied. "I'm Zachary... I'm kinda new..." He replied as the generator was closer to being completed. "I can tell, haven't seen ya here before," He replied, as the sound of the generator popping rang through the air. "Aight, that's four down, we just need one more-" He silenced himself once he heard someone walking near them. They were in a small maze of walls, so they couldn't tell where or who was making those footsteps. David went closer to the noise, looking as if he was ready for a fight, but before he could do anything, Steve popped into view, which made both of them jump a little. "Jesus Steve, ya scared the hell outta me!" David said as they both started calming down. "Sorry, but hey, I see that you've met the new guy," Steve replied, and David nodded. "Ya, we did the generator here, where's Nea?" He asked, wanting to make sure everyone was going to make it out of there alive. "Oh, after I unhooked her, she said she'd prefer to heal herself with a medkit, then she went to go finish the gen she was working on," Steve said as David chuckled. "Ah Steve, ya always got away with the ladies," He replied. "But hey, at least she's-" He suddenly cut himself off, as he started to groan. He put his hand over his forehead, and both Steve and Zachary knew what this meant. "Watch out!" Zachary shouted, but by then it was too late. Ghostface vaulted a window, running right at David, plunging his knife into his chest, causing a scream of agonizing pain. He took the knife out, as David feel to the floor in a puddle of his blood. "Run!" Steve shouted, and Zachary didn't even think twice. He blindly ran the other direction, not paying any sort of attention to where he was going. All he knew at that moment was that he had to get away. Rainbow Dash sighed, as she sat in her room. She was trying to read a Daring Do novel, but she couldn't take her mind off of Zachary. SHe couldn't stop thinking about whether he was even still alive or not. That jacket they found had so much blood on it, but there was no way it could be his, right? Sigh "Hopefully we can find him... but what if we don't...?" She said to herself. Rainbow wasn't the type of pony to act like this. Normally, she'd be energetic, hopeful, and most important, optimistic. Now, however, she just kinda felt empty. "C'mon Rainbow, get ahold of yourself. This isn't you... You're the one who never gives up, who's loyal. You can't just sit here like this!" She got up from her cloud bed, with a newfound determination. "Heh, didn't take me that long to get out of my little depression," She quickly flew out of her house and went to the last place Zachary had been seen. The bridge. It didn't take her that long to arrive, and once she did, she saw that a few construction ponies were rebuilding the part that broke off. Rainbow landed softly onto the ground, as she looked around. She didn't see any new clues, nor did she notice anything different from the last time they investigated there. "Hmmm, there has to be something-" She cut herself, as she felt a sudden pain in her head. "Argghhhh....." She groaned, her vision going black. What's going on...? She couldn't help but wonder, as her vision returned to her slowly. However, she wasn't in the same place as before. This time, she appeared to be at some sort of farm, with a large cornfield. "Where am I..." She wondered as the loud sounds of footsteps were coming in her direction. She turned to the source of it and saw a man in blue running. "Hey, what's going-" She cut herself off, as the man seemed to run right through her as if she wasn't even there. The man ran behind some hay, trying to catch his breath. "Dammit, I got to save David..." Rainbow approached him, with a confused expression. "Excuse me... can you see me... or hear me...?" The man didn't reply, but he said something that instantly got her attention. "I hope Zachary got away... I need to find him as well..." He got up and ran into the cornfield. "Wait, do you know anything about Zachary?!" Rainbow called out but got no response. "Hey!" She started to go after the guy, but before she could catch up, her vision started going dark again. "No no no no no no!" Before long, she once again couldn't see anything, but she did hear a familiar voice. "Rai....ow...." It said as she groaned. Her sight returned, and she saw that there were ponies all around her, including Twilight and Spike. "Ms, are you alright?" One of the construction workers asked. Rainbow just groaned in response, as she tried to get up. "What happened...?" She asked, rubbing the side of her head. "You were hit in the head with a rock..." Another one replied. "We don't know how it happened though..." Twilight came up to Rainbow. "Are you alright?" She repeated the question. Rainbow was finally on her hooves, as she finally found some balance. "Yeah," The pain in her head was finally fading. "I think I saw something when I was knocked out though." Twilight and Spike looked at each other, as everypony else left, or went back to work on the bridge. "Was it of Zachary?" Twilight asked, and Rainbow shook her head. "No, it was of some guy in blue, but he did say something about finding Zachary as well." Twilight started thinking about all of their visions and how they could all possibly be connected. "Is there anything else you saw?" Rainbow shook her head. "No," She replied. "The only weird thing was another human and the place they were at. It doesn't even look like it belongs in our world... It's really hard to explain..." "I saw something too," Twilight said, which surprised Rainbow. "Wait, seriously?!" Twilight nodded. "Yeah, I saw Zachary, but he looked a lot older. Not only that, but he was at some sort of campfire in the woods with other humans, but that also didn't look like it was apart of our world." "Yeah," Spike chimed in. "When I tried reading a book earlier, it showed me images of Zachary, and he was getting attacked by, I think it was a human, but he didn't look like a normal one. He hurt Zachary, but another one that was also wearing blue saved him." He stopped for a moment, before continuing. "Even though what I saw was on paper, I could still tell that where they were at was different from our world. That one looked a lot scarier, and it definitely looks a lot more deadly. " They were all at a loss of words, not sure what to think about their current situation. "Let's go see if any of our other friends have had weird visions," Twilight suggested. With no better ideas, they all nodded in agreement. The one closest to their position was Pinkie Pie, so they decided to go to her first. Hopefully, they would get more information. Zachary had finally stopped his long-running, as he was desperately gasping for breath. He was starting to lose his composure after seeing what he saw. This can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening! His mind was racing, as he panicked more and more. As he was holding his hands on the side of his head, crouched down. He suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder. He shot his head up, as he faced a girl. "Hey, we aren't going against The Doctor, what are you doing?" She asked. She had a somewhat Sweedish accent, she was wearing a grey beanie. She had blue eyes, was white, wore a green sleeveless shirt, with skinny jeans. "I-I'm sorry..." Nea sighed, holding out her hand. "It's fine, I'm guessing this is your new?" She asked, and Zachary nodded. "Yeah, some of the stuff you see here can be... terrifying..." He grabbed her hand, as she helped him up to his feet. "I'm Nea, by the way," "Zachary," Nea nodded, pointing towards another direction. "There's a generator over there, let's go finish it real quick." Zachary agreed as they both started heading towards the gen. As they got closer, the generator finally came into sight. It was in a little wall maze and hadn't been worked on yet, so they didn't waste any time and started immediately. They both got to work on the halfway done generator and since Nea had a toolbox with a brand new part, along with some other tools, the process went by faster. As soon as it was about to pop, however, she stopped and looked over at something. Zachary noticed this and tried to look in her direction, and gasped. Ghostface was hiding behind a wall, just staring at them, but Nea was staring back. Suddenly, a Ghostface turned white for a second, then his red stain appeared, and the loud sound of his terror radius came in. He got up from his position and bolted towards Nea, as she ran away. He didn't notice Zachary, due to how the generator was positioned and the side of it he was working on. Feeling like he had no other choice, he continued his work on the gen, as the last cylinder on it finally started moving. POP It was finally done and the exit gates were finally powered. Zachary sighed with relief, but he took a sudden sharp breath when he heard Nea cry out in pain. Oh no, I have to save her! He thought to himself, as he heard Nea once again scream as she was placed onto a meathook. There was a boom, and in the distance, he could see what looked like giant bug-like or spider-like legs going up into the air. Even though Zachary didn't see it happen, he could tell that she was gone. He felt a heavyweight on his chest as he felt like he could have done something to save her. He couldn't think about that now, he had to get the exit gates. As he turned around, he saw Steve running towards him, along with David. "Zachary, there you are!" He said, finally catching up. "Where's Nea?" Zachary just stayed silent, not sure what to say, but he didn't need to say anything for them to understand. "C'mon, let's go get the exit gates opened..." His tone was sadder, as he felt that he failed to save his friend. They all started heading towards the nearest exit gate when suddenly the sound and the feeling of a faint heartbeat. The killer was coming. "Shit!" They had to hurry. Zachary was the first one to reach the gate, as he started opening it. Steve and David were looking out for Ghostface, and it didn't take that long for him to show up. "Get the gate open, I'll distract him!" David said, before going off to distract the killer. The first red light shined on the box when David went down. "Wait, what?!" It was at that moment Steve realized that David had been injured and he once again forgot to heal his teammate. "Oh shit!" He ran up to the killer (Which David didn't manage to get him that far) Steve tried to stop Ghostface, but he shoved him away, as he got atop of David. He raised his knife and brought it down, stabbing into Steve's back. He did this two more times, before pulling out a camera, lifting his head, and taking a picture. "Wait, what?! I thought the killer had to hook survivors to kill them!" Zachary said as the last light of the power box came on, indicating that the gate was almost opened. Ghostface took the knife out of the cold corpse, as he rushed towards Zachary, raising his knife and bringing it down. SSSTTTTTT The loud sound of a knife piercing through the could be heard, as Zachary had his eyes closed, but he felt no pain. He turned around, and saw Steve behind him, with a knife in his chest, and Ghostface in front of him. The gate was finally opened, and Steve, with all the strength he had left, pushed the killer away, and grabbed Zachary's arm as they both made a run to escape. Ghostface tried to stab Steve again, but thanks to the interference of Zachary, he took the hit instead. Sure, it was painful, but it ensured that both he and Steve would survive the trial. As they both finally escaped and were running towards the campfire, Steve looked over at Zachary. "Thanks for the save," He said, and Zachary nodded. "No problem, after all, you did the same for me," It didn't take long for both of them to reach the campfire, offering them a temporary solace from all the chaos. "So... you're saying that Zachary might have gone to a different world?" Pinkie asked as she laid in her bed, not in her usually bouncy mood. Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike all went over to Sugarcube Corner to try and see if Pinkie had any visions of Zachary, but she didn't. "Yeah, we believe that he might have been taken back to the human world," Twilight said. "But the only things we could connect about them are that the place Zachary might be in now is a lot scarier, has other humans, and possibly some sort of monster." Pinkie raised her head. "What do you mean by monster?" Twilight just shrugged with a sigh in response. "He's like this, really tall humanoid figure, with an abnormal face..." "You mean like this?" Pinkie cut her off, as she held up a mask. "Yes, exactly like that!" Spike said as he was the only one who saw the "Monster". "Wait, where did you get that?" "They were selling this mask, along with a black robe one year for nightmare night, so I picked it up. Pinkie said, inspecting the mask. "I think the costume is called Ghostface or something like that." "How did you know that was the one I was talking about?!" Spike asked, making Pinkie sigh. "Well, I was looking through my closet this morning, and just found it under a pile of other stuff. When I picked it up, I saw something like a human wearing it, and he had some sort of knife as well..." "Wait, so you did have a vision?!" Twilight asked, and Pinkie just nodded a little. "Yeah, but it was only of this, not Zachary..." Twilight started thinking about this, wondering what was going on. "Zachary must have been captured by something, something possibly wearing that mask?" She suggested, and everyone seemed to agree with that. "Well, how do we get him back?" Rainbow asked, but Twilight didn't have an answer for that yet. "I'm not sure... But there could be more humans in a similar situation. I mean, we've all seen them in our visions..." She started thinking about it and came up with the most logical solution she could think of. "Come on everypony, let's go do some research." Zachary was once again sitting at the campfire, trying to get warmed up with its heat. He heard Steve walking behind him, and when he looked up at him, he was in normal clothes instead of his work uniform. "Feels good to be in normal clothes again," He sighed placing his foot on a log instead of sitting down. "Shouldn't there be two more people here?" Steve nodded, rubbing his nose. "Yeah, they'll show up eventually." Zachary nodded in response, as the sounds of footsteps could be heard in the forest. Suddenly, a figure came out of the woods. It was a black woman, who had brown eyes, wore glasses, had black hair. She wore a leather jacket, with a plain brown shirt, and blue skinny jeans. "Who's this?" She asked as she joined them at the campfire. "Claudette, this is Zachary, Zachary, this is Claudette." Steve introduced them. Zachary nodded and reached out a hand. "Nice to meet you," He said, as he shook her hand. She smiled, before beginning to walk-off. "I'm going to go get ready for the next trial since it's not the end of the day yet..." Zachary looked over at Steve. "How can we tell when it's the end of the day?" He questioned. "When everyone is at the same campfire, then we can all sleep, or chat until we begin the same thing all over again." Steve sighed, wishing they could all just get out of there. Zachary looked around, wondering where the fourth survivor was. "I wonder where the fourth one is..." Suddenly, they heard a voice coming from the woods. "Hey, is anyone out there?!" They shouted. The voice seemed familiar to Zachary, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Steve looked over at the direction of the cries. "Hey! We're over here!" He shouted. It didn't seem to take long for the person to come and find them. Someone came running out of the woods, the light of the campfire shining on their faces. Zachary let out a large gasp, as he recognized the person that stood before them. "Dad...?" Author's Note Boom. I hope this one satisfied all of you.
