//------------------------------// // Ponies Come In Pairs // Story: Pretty In Pink, Bloody in Red // by Loyal Defender //------------------------------// The first thing I felt when I came to was massive amounts of pain in my forehead. Groaning, I sat up and forced my eyes open, everything around me appearing blurry at first, until my vision focused. I felt my forehead, only to see a small streak of blood smear onto my palm. I recalled someone whacking me with a pan and knocking me out, but I couldn’t remember who it was. I remembered all before that, though. Looking around, I could see dark, discolored walls, stacks of boxes, some with an odd symbol on it, big and small, strewn about, and puddles of dried blood all over. “What in the….where AM I?” Getting up, I wandered through the dark room, only to notice that what looked like a dark hallway was actually a discolored door. I opened it, hoping to see if there was anything to help me. Shortly after, I noticed a strange smell coming from a this room that looked like a kitchen and heard somepony whistling a song. An unfamiliar one. I went in, taking a deep breath. I had to keep my cool. “Hello?” I called out. “Is anyone in here?” The kitchen looked normal besides the same stack of boxes with symbols on it. The whistling stopped and a familiar song began playing. “All you gotta do is take a cup of flour and throw it in to the mix!” I stepped forward and a small dining table with chairs came into view, but not the source of where the strange smell was coming from. “Now just take a little something sweet, not sour! A bit of salt, just a pinch!” ‘Wait,’ I thought, ‘I know this song..’ ‘...Oh, no.’ Loyal can hear the pan sizzling and the strange smell is starting to get stronger. “ Baking these treats is such a cinch! Add a teaspoon of vanilla--” Please tell me that wasn’t who I thought it was.. “Add a little more, and you count to four, And you never get your fill of...” the sizzling stopped and so did the singing. “Take a seat Loyal - I’ll be with you in a minute with your breakfast.” ‘Breakfast?’ For a moment, I pondered this, realizing it was still a Saturday morning. Nonetheless, I sat down uneasily. What was happening? A very familiar pink pony walked into view with a normal smile and set down a plate of my favorite breakfast, although I wasn’t sure how she knew what it was. "Well good morning sleepyhead, I just thought I’d help out and make some breakfast just for you." She wiped the sweat from her forehead. "Don’t mind me, Loyal, being near the stove made the room feel like it was on fire." I couldn’t believe it. How and why was I in the same room as Pinkie Pie? And...why was she acting like I wasn’t just somewhat kidnapped? Looking down at the food, I felt nervous. An omelet. A food that was perfect for deception. “What’s...what’s in it?” Pinkie Pie giggled, making me even MORE nervous. She would have understood how unsettled I felt. "Just taste it, silly! It’s not like it's not normal or anything." Well...here went nothing. Taking a piece of the omelet, I took a gentle deep breath, and took a bite. Please no gross ingredients, please no gross ingredients, PLEASE no gross ingredients.. “Well what do you think?” Pinkie pie says with her mouth full. I tasted the food, noticing it seemed to have a bit of spice and something else that hasn’t been known for a taste before. Part of the kitchen flickered behind her for a bit as she asked. “It has a bit of a zing to it...what did you put in here?” I KNEW I had a reason not to chew this! Thank goodness I didn’t, because she did tell me only to taste it. Placing something into your mouth counts for that, considering your tongue does all the work without doing anything. I wasn’t about to stupidly chew this without knowing what was in it. “Use the fork and find out! :)” I carefully cut the omelet in half, and pushed both halves apart to see what was in it. “It’s just a normal omelet with strawberries and cream inside.” Said Pinkie as she headed back over to the sink where there was a bit of tiny droplets of blood inside the sink itself, though to Loyal, they were out of view. “Hm.” Finally I swallowed, thankful it wasn’t anything…..indigestible, let’s put it at that. “Well, at least it wasn’t mushrooms...can’t tell you how many times my sis and I fought because I claim I dislike mushrooms but she claims I do like them because I eat them in foods I don’t know they’re in. Makes sense, right? That it doesn’t mean you like an ingredient in food if you don’t know it’s inside?” "Of course it’s better to know what’s inside the food at all times,” said Pinkie as she was trotting away from the table and went back to the sink to finish what she was doing at that time. Loyal hadn’t realized at that point that as sweet as she was sounding, she was plotting something more sinister just for him and his pals. “….you’re not agreeing with HER, right? Cuz’ I know I’m right.” “Of course you are right, Loyal!” Part of the kitchen was flickering a bit more, and Pinkie’s tail was lightly twitching back and forth as she was working on something inside of the sink itself. She was still humming the same creepy tune that Loyal was still hearing as of today. “Thank you, someone who understands me!” I couldn’t tell if she ACTUALLY felt how I felt, she was known to be random and such. My satisfaction quickly dispersed when a question came to mind regarding Pinkie. “Say, uh, Pinkie...I have a bit of a funny question. Why exactly did you knock me out and….take me to God knows wherever this is?” Pinkie was grabbing a knife and a cutting board and placed whatever it was in the sink onto the cutting board and was cutting away. “Say, Loyal do you have your phone with you? I’m sure a few of your friends won’t mind coming over. Also, you must have had some nightmare. I didn’t do any such thing to you.” “I would gladly agree, but….I’m all too positive I was awake when it happened. My dreams are never that specific..” “Some dreams and nightmares will seem all too real.” She replied. I was about to comment on that, when I heard the familiar ringtone of my phone going off in the other room. “You may want to get that, Loyal.” Pinkie said. I got up and followed the sound of the ringtone, eventually finding my phone on top of a crate in a smaller room. Picking it up, I answered the phone, unsure who would be calling me in a place like this. “Hello?” “Things are not what they seem to be..” Came a strange voice. The lights were flickering on and off. I turned around and saw the same boxes and symbols in the room. The kitchen itself was changed to blood splatters on the wall. A little unsettled, I asked, “Um….who is this, exactly?” Loyal heard breathing at the end of the other phone line and heard the phone hung up. “Ugh….damn prank callers...I thought I changed my phone number to avoid any more random callers.” The lights were flickering on and off at a slow pace as the same boxes with symbols was showing everywhere in the room. “Um...okay, what is happening…?” I moved forward slightly in the room, unsure why boxes were appearing. The lights in the kitchen was glowing brighter, as large blood stains was appearing on the wall near the door to the kitchen. “Pinkie…?” I uneasily called out, approaching the kitchen. “If you’re playing with the fuse box, it’s not funny anymore..” A slight giggle was heard coming from the kitchen as I approached it, also heard a knife chopping away on the cutting board. “Um...Pinkie..?” I approached the cabinet, slowly about to round the corner. “Everything alright in here..?” “Ooh everything is just peachy!!...” said Pinkie Pie as she was continuing to chop something on the cutting board. The blood from the object that was being cut open was splattered onto the sink, cabinets, and was dripping onto the floor. “Um, what are you--” “….oh, my God.” Pinkie immediately stopped what she was doing with the knife and was turning around to face me. As she was doing that, I was able to see that she was just cutting an overgrown tomato on the cutting board. “What in Heaven’s name have you been DOING in here?! The room’s a mess!” “Well silly, tomatoes this size can get a little messy around the kitchen!” As she was saying that, part of the tomato she was cutting splattered onto my shirt. “Oops...well, that was bound to happen sooner or later.” She was grinning as her body was starting to twitch a bit from standing on her hind legs for too long. “Damn it, that was my good shirt….well, you just turned it into a blood moon.” The lights was starting to flicker on and off like in the other room Loyal was just in. For a split second, he was able to see the tomato was replaced instead by his friend Terry’s bloodied head. The tomato splatter on his shirt was also replaced by blood, indeed making it look like a red blood moon. “Aww...here let me make it up to you, just give me your shirt and we can wipe that tomato sauce off of it..” Pinkie Pie’s body flickered for a moment as well, in her place was Pinkamena with a wide grin on her face. I could not believe what I just saw. I backed away in a mix of shock, horror, and terror. I felt lightheaded. The room slightly began to blur. Had I….No, it wasn’t possible! I couldn’t have just seen Terry’s own head lying there! “You…..you killed him..” “Aww, looks like you figured it out already! Let’s give him a round of applause folks!” She was starting to laugh like in the cupcakes party game. She was laughing with an echo as the room started to fade away. There were so many mixed feelings rushing around. I found myself collapsing from shock, fright, and….something else, though I was unsure what. I was getting a REALLY bad feeling about Pinkie, though….and that laugh...it could only mean one thing: I was inside the very game I wanted to play earlier.