Twilight 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!