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A scream.

A violent piercing scream of anguish was all that had met Flora in her arrival of some unknown part of the Apple family's farmhouse, her left hind leg pulsing with inflammation and pain.

Flora had traveled awkwardly, resulting in one of her legs getting twisted, making her an easy and defenseless target for the bloodthirsty mare on the prowl for every ounce of blood pulsing throughout her entire body.

In other words, she was doomed to eternal torture in whatever Tartarus she now dwelled within. She knew it was bad to scream in her current predicament, but she couldn't help it. She'd never suffered the pain of a fractured bone, therefore that piercing agony was new to her, and as her leg continued to pulse waves of pain, all she could do was scream.

The area she'd arrived in was very compact and dimly lit, the only visible exit being off to the left side of the room, between two thick rusted pipes. The floor was nothing but old rigid straw that hurt Flora to lay upon, feeling like she were in a bed of needles.

The smell of the area was a mix between a musty cellar or attic that hadn't been entered for years, mixed with an overwhelming stench of rot, similar to walking upon a bloated corpse of an animal that had been dead for weeks in the scorching heat of summer.

Flora couldn't even smell the wreaking scent, too occupied by her injury to even notice the very evident smell. She only cried and uttered the sounds of somepony in excruciating pain, gritting her teeth as she shifted to lay against the wall of her hellish abode.

She couldn't walk or even attempt to put pressure on her leg, so she had to drag herself out of view from the only opening to the area. The movement felt like she was dragging a massive block of lead over blazing-red charcoal, but she knew she had to at least try something to keep herself safe from the serial killer on her trail.

Sitting back against the wall, she lay out her lower body and started to inspect her injury. Upon seeing it she gasped, the entirety of the lower part of her back left hoof bruised and swollen. The area was a mix of green, purple, blue, and grey, spread out from the bottom part of the leg to just above halfway up, and the entire area was swole to about the size of a half-inflated balloon.

She nearly vomited at the sight but chose not to, resorting to attempting to calm herself down. Stress and panic would only worsen the injury, so her first step to getting to a point of being mobile again wasn't causing any further unintended damage to her wound.

She took deep breaths in and out, wiping her forehead clean of sweat and eyes free of tears. It was a trick she'd learned in her sports medicine class, and with each long breath, she could feel the pain lessening and her nerves slowing their rapid dancing.

The pain was still evident but subtle enough for her to handle with no need to grunt or scream. She was relieved at it, allowing herself to just breathe naturally and regain full clarity on the situation at hoof.

She and the others were in danger, and she had no idea where they were now in this place of unspeakable horrors, she had an injury that limited her movement in the long night still to come, and there was no way to decrease her injury, and most critically, she was being hunted by a psychopathic mare that was out to kill her and her friends and make them personal slaves in this place for eternity.

How the hell was she going to survive?

Then, out of the mass of pain, doubt, and unadulterated fear clouding every one of her thoughts, some voice of reason spoke out and made her gasp in surprise.

"No, Flora! Stop thinking negatively!" she chastised to herself in her mind. "The best thing you can do right now is not panic and calm down. If you just assume the worst, you're dead meat for sure, so you need to clear your head and figure out what you can do to keep yourself safe from danger."

She took another long and heavy breath, calming herself down enough to be able to think clearly and smartly. She had never been in such a critical situation in her entire life, which was the main reason she'd reacted so negatively. Looking around and thinking hard about her situation, she knew that one thing was for sure, and that was that in order to survive, she was going to have to push herself harder than ever before.

That included putting herself through excruciating pain in order to stay out of harm's way, and that thought alone made her nauseous.

She'd seen this kind of stuff in horror movies before and never thought she'd possibly end up in a situation like what those movies portrayed, but she couldn't deny her harsh and cruel reality, and knew that she'd have to get back up and fight through her injury's constant waves of pain with every step and trot.

Staying there and crying like a foal would only end her life all the more faster, and she knew it.

"Fuck my life…

Gritting her teeth and lifting herself up from the needle-like straw stabbing at her skin, she carefully got herself back onto her hooves. Upon the slightest pressure to her wound, she nearly lost all of her balance, the waves of agony feeling as if she'd just been struck by a taser gun.

Her stomach churned at the electrifying pulses radiating from her leg at an incomprehensible speed, her vile starting to slink up her throat and the nausea increasing with every second as she attempted to breathe normally. It felt as if she were lifting a one-thousand pound lead anvil as she put one of her spasming legs forward, grunts and heavy breaths escaping her mouth through her still-gritted teeth with each movement.

"One step at a time, Flora…

With one leg forward, she started with another, feeling her wound pulse like a second heartbeat and her sight being obscured by fragments of her unfurled bangs. She still pushed forward as hard as possible, her opposite non-injured back leg following her motion, and dragging along the hard ground. It felt like forever, but Flora eventually succeeded, moving onto her next pair of legs.

Once her injured leg started to move, she nearly lost all of her progress, a muffled yelp escaping her throat and stopping behind her snow-white teeth. Tears met her eyes, leaking down her face and dripping onto the floor of rotted straw.

Moving her wounded leg was the equivalent of feeling as if somepony had stuck a heated knife through her leg and just left it there to torture her, and she could barely resist screaming in agony at the agonizing sensation. She breathed as if she'd just finished a marathon, saliva starting to fall from her mouth now.

"J-just power through it… like ripping off a bandaid…

Her self-encouragement was enough to push her past her much evident agony, closing her eyes and dragging her leg forward again. That same stabbing feeling plagued her senses and nerves yet again, but, despite her leg feeling as if it were being shredded apart through a wood chipper, she pushed through it, eventually coming to the point of where she'd successfully taken one whole step.

She wanted to smile at her accomplishment, but knew she couldn't stop now, building up the courage to take another set of steps. While it was excruciating to do it, it was the only way she'd be able to build up the ability to move throughout this maze of whatever-in-Tartarus existed in this demented farm or slaughterhouse.

"Okay…Flora," she spoke between heavy breaths. "We..go..a-again…

Present day

And I did go again, up until I could finally walk normally and the pain had become second nature. It was as if I had relived my process of learning to walk as a foal, only, instead of balance being my enemy, it was a constant pain that made the term "a thorn in my side" literal.

Unfortunately, doing that ended up fucking my leg up, seeing I'd stressed the fracture with so much pressure that it made the injury heal abnormally. To put it simply, the bone hadn't been able to heal back to full strength because of improper treatment, and even now, it continues to break over and over.

I lost count at fifty times, and due to it happening so constantly, anymore the pain is nothing more than the equivalent of the pinch of a syringe. So, I guess you can say that that means I'm the only pony to not even flinch when a bone breaks.

A grim but relieving fact about myself that I've come to accept.

However, a broken bone is mild in comparison to what followed my amateur rehabilitation. Saying that hell maze was big is an insulting understatement.

No.

The correct terminology for that place is more along the lines of gargantuan, colossal, endless, and eternal.

Not to mention what had occurred within it can only be described in a few select words, but the two that come to mind the most are malefic, sinister, and demonic.

But the one word that I can say describes it all, is the only reason I still even remember the events of that night minute for minute, detail for detail, and word for word.

That word, is traumatizing, and the traumatization only started when I found Trevor. Little did I know, it would be the last time I would ever see him again.