Sunny Starscout smiled brightly, bounding along the pathway with her unicorn friend, Izzy Moonbow. She'd been preparing all last night, making sure every little thing was correct...and so it was! A special gift for Izzy, who'd never had this type of experience before...a very detailed, dramatic haunted house.
Izzy seemed a bit nervous, but was still her usual, smiling self. Sunny bumped into her playfully, assuring her. "Trust me, you'll love it! You'll be scared, but the fun way!"
As she ceased speaking, into view came into view. It was a huge mansion, lots of detail put into the exterior as well as interior. The place had a foreboding feel to it that made Izzy shiver a bit, between the dark gray paint, patches of 'blood', and cobwebs all over. She couldn't explain why, but she got a tinge of a bad feeling.
"You...sure about this?" She mumbled quietly. They soon reached the doors, which swung open themselves with ominous creaks.
Sunny hugged the bubbly unicorn tightly, nodding. "Don't worry! I'll make sure you're safe...safeword is 'stop' if you need out early."
To this Izzy smiled, and nodded. Sunny was trustworthy, so she'd be completely fine! Especially since the mare herself had created it! She nuzzled Sunny back before pulling away, hooves taking their first steps into the house. Once she was fully inside, the doors snapped shut behind her.
It was very dark inside. Very little light save for the occasional dim ones near the 'scare spots', pre-marked so Izzy could prepare herself for the next scare each time. Hardly able to see and growing more nervous as time passed, she pressed on, walking down into the hallway.
First was a simple, generic one, meant as a warm-up. A pony skeleton jumped out at her from the ceiling, grabbing her by the neck with plastic, yet hard hooves, and lifting her up. It screamed at her, making Izzy scream as well, wiggling wildly to get out of its grip. It took many seconds, but eventually the thing did drop her, Izzy panting in fright. That was the easy part...how much worse would this get?
The pacing sure got slower. For many minutes it was pure silence save for the occasional creaking of the floorboards under her hooves, a very slight tremble to them as the fright grew. Was the darkness getting...more darkness-y? It seemed like it to her, even as her eyes adjusted themselves to the lack of light. The hallway got more narrow as well, walls closing in on her. In fact...they were closing in, ever so slowly. The grinding of metal gears and creaks of their movement got louder and louder, the mechanisms near to meeting.
This freaked Izzy out. She began to run down the corridor, feeling the looming death and claustrophobia attack her senses. Her hooves clopped on the floor loudly, the mare yelling out in fear. The closing hallway didn't seem to end anytime soon...was that reality or a trick of the darkness on her eyes? There was no time for her to muddle over it though, as the concrete walls met her skin.
She began to hyperventilate, but then as soon as the touch had begun, it was over. The walls zoomed back to their normal positions, leaving Izzy to catch her terrified breath. That single event nearly made her shout out the safeword, but then again...Sunny had put so much effort into this. She couldn't just give up after the first two scares...right? Sure, she was already shaking, nearly crying...but she was afraid to make Sunny feel bad. More so than her fright, right then.
The atmosphere around her seemed to tense up. She heard a small snap, but there was no source in sight. There was a faint bloody smell in the air, assaulting her muzzle while a thick mist seemed to pour inside, smoking the area up. She could see nary a thing, and the loud whirring sound she heard up above didn't help her hearing. All of her senses were being either manipulated or cut off...and she didn't like it. Not one bit. Though, she wouldn't tell Sunny that. Not that she could think straight enough to yell out right now anyways with the bloody smell making her gag along with the smoky mist clouding her sight.
This felt less like fun scares and more like pure torture.
Things would only become worse as robotic arms reached out from the walls, flipping Izzy and grabbing all four of her legs so that she'd be facing upwards. She yelped as they dragged her slowly upwards, to something she couldn't yet see. Though judging by the sound, it was nothing very pretty or fun. It sounded...dangerous and bad.
Her judgement was right. Mere feet from her middle was a large circular saw, sharp blades spinning loudly. With every moment, she got closer to it, and with every moment she'd struggle more in the restraints, tears streaking down her face. "No...stop..." she spoke the safeword.
Unfortunately she did so far too quietly, Sunny not able to hear what she spoke clearly enough to shut the machine off. It ran its course, slowly and horrifically bringing Izzy up to the saw, stopping only a few inches from her face. A second more, and she'd have her face cut open. That thought began to make the tormented unicorn bawl, tears flowing freely as she was deposited back onto the ground, though in a different spot than where she'd started this segment.
Sunny looked at the monitor, having a little smile to her face as she sipped herself a small soda. It seemed Izzy was getting those scares in...she must be having a blast! A frightened one, but it must feel like a thrill, the earth pony imagined. She'd put so much effort into this for a month...and here it was, paying off in front of her! With her unicorn friend, to boot.
Before that unicorn even had time to think, the ground below her began to move. It was a short conveyor belt, and at the end was what seemed like a large, glowing pit full of hot flames. But before she could deal with being afraid of that, another thing would occur. Sunny hadn't considered how bad this would affect someone.
There were loud sounds, gunshots blasting off from behind her, that played, very clear and real-sounding. As she turned her head towards the sound, many small, blunt pins gave her leg a little non-wounding prick., It wouldn't have given much pain, except that her brain had been expecting a bullet in the leg from the sound, so her leg suddenly throbbed with a burning, bloody pain.
Izzy gave an incredibly loud scream, falling onto the floor and curling up, cradling her adrenaline-filled leg. She'd soon realize it was fine, but that moment was too much. She'd already been traumatized enough, but this crossed a line. Sunny had gone too far...
"STOP!" She'd screech, this time at a volume her friend could hear. Sunny yelped out, feeling bad instantly as she pressed the button to stop the conveyor belt. However, this move was too sudden, the belt jolting and flinging Izzy backwards. The wire she'd snapped - hung too low for her height plus her horn - got touched to her horn. Brimming with electrical power, it gave a painful zap of power to her horn.
The horn being a rather sensitive part of the unicorn body, this was the worst thing she'd ever felt. Izzy began to fall into sobs, standing up slowly and turning towards the exit. She was panicked, and couldn't think straight. All she wanted was out. Away from here...away from Sunny.
In her mental state, she began to dash headfirst, panting through her horrified crying. She'd burst through the door, smashing the weak wood with her horn, going right down a small hill. The bottom of this hill led to a forest, a rather large one at that. She didn't even notice that yet, nor the intense darkness surrounding herself. She'd bump into trees, but keep going, getting herself many small bruises and cuts.