My Little Doubt

by Knackerman

Final Room

Applejack was right where Twilight had left her, not that she had really expected her to be anywhere else. The same straps that had been used on Twilight before now secured the orange mare firmly to the lone metal chair in the middle of the room. The farm pony's verdant eyes almost seemed to glow in the gloom as she glared at the pair entering the clinic. The bags under Applejack's eyes said that if she had gotten any sleep, it had been fitful at best. Twilight swallowed hard, unable to meet the earth pony's intense stare as she said, "We have a few questions for you. There's no use lying to us now. If we starve to death down here you'll die too." The alicorn princess stole a glance at her captive to see the impact of her words. Applejack's glare had only intensified. "I'm going to take the strap off your mouth now, okay?"

Applejack wet her dry lips as the strap was drawn away. For a moment, she didn't speak, her eyes still steely beneath her hat. "Well go on, ask what ya came ta ask," she whispered, not taking her eyes off Twilight.

"We just want to know how to get out of here," said Pinkie Pie tremulously. "It won't do you any good not to tell us. You're caught now. So just tell us what we need to know to leave...please?"

The farm pony sighed, some of the steel going out of her glare as she closed and opened her eyes. "Ah wish Ah could Pinkie, Ah truly do, but Ah ain't no changeling and Ah sure as shootin' ain't no killer!"

"That's enough lies Applejack, if you really are her!" shouted Twilight. "You were the only pony who the crystals didn't show when Rainbow Dash was killed! By simple process of elimination, you, and only you could possibly be the culprit!"

"Is that so, Twi?" asked the farm pony as her voice grew hard and gravely. "And Ah reckon ya could see Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Dashie all at the same time then?"

"Well...no, the crystals shift through different perspectives. But you didn't show up on any of them while the killer...w-while the killer was hacking Dash to p-p-pieces," stuttered Twilight with less confidence.

"An that's yer whole reason for ya knocking me senseless and trussin' me up like a calf at the rodeo. Well then Princess, Ah got a question for ya," said Applejack, tipping her head towards the scrying crystals in the observation room, "Where's Rarity now?"

Twilight and Pinkie Pie watched as the crystals glowed and shifted through a full cycle, but the fashionable unicorn was no where to be seen. It was as if she'd completely vanished. "What did you do to her?" asked Pinkie Pie.

"Well not a whole heck of a lot given Ah've been strapped up in here all night!" shouted the earth pony huffily. "Though Ah'll tell ya this much fer free, Ah've had nothin' but these crystals for company and though Ah've seen the pair of ya going to and fro, Ah ain't seen hide nor hair of the pony that was accusin' the pair of ya of being killers. Now then 'through a simple process of elimination' that tells me one of two things. Either y'all done killed her and are gettin' some sick pleasure out of torturing me by pretending ya ain't gonna do me in too, or..."

"Or the killer was Rarity all along," finished Twilight. "But how could that be. I know I saw her on the crystals. She couldn't have been in two places at once."

"Not unless she tampered with the spells on the crystals," offered Applejack. "Ah already thought of that. Rarity might not be as good with magic in general as you are Twi, but when it comes to gems, jewels, and other precious stones, that's where her talents shine. Ah ain't sayin' that Rarity is the killer for sure, but it's mighty suspicious that neither of us have bumped into her since before the lights went out and Dash was done in."

"I guess it does kind of make sense. I mean she did stab me and...Twilight you said after they tied you up that she went off on her own," said Pinkie clutching her wounded shoulder, clearly growing more and more nervous by the moment.

"She was making some pretty wild accusations before," mumbled Twilight uncertainly, before shaking her head and continuing in a louder voice. "Just because we can;t see her right now, that doesn't mean she's the killer! I'm still sure she was there before when you weren't. For all we know you're just making up this story about her so we'll let you go. I'm sorry but I just can't trust you right now."

"Well Twi, Ah ain't gonna ask ya ta trust me if ya don't want to," said Applejack, bowing her head so that her eyes were hidden behind the brim of her hat. A single tear trickled down her muzzle, but she didn't betray any emotion as she said, "Ah just think it might be wise for ya to check up on the friend ya don't suspect of killin' everypony off one by one."
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"Rarity, are you in there?" Twilight tried knocking on the crystal door again, but she wasn't sure the dull thudding she was making would really carry all that well through the stone. She and Pinkie Pie had left Applejack in the clinic and had gone to search for Rarity. After checking all the rooms that weren't locked, they had finally arrived at the upstairs room where Twilight last remembered seeing Rarity on the crystals. That it was also the room that they had started out in made her anxious. It didn't help that the door was sealed shut, and since Rarity had been the one to unseal the door in the first place, she was the only one that could open it. At least, so Twilight thought.

"Maybe she's just sleeping and can't hear us?" asked Pinkie Pie hopefully. "It's kind of smart for her to lock herself behind the door that she has the key for. None of the rest of us would be able to get to her then."

"None of us except for the killer," said Twilight in frustration. " You forget that Rainbow Dash was locked up in a room that none of us had any way of opening. For all we know Rarity could be dead on the other side of this door. I'm pretty sure that whenever we find the killer, that ponies sigil will be able to unlock all of these doors. It's the only explanation that makes sense."

The pink pony looked as if she were about to start crying. Pinkie suddenly grabbed Twilight's shoulder, "Did you hear that?" There was an unmistakable sound from below. A door was being unsealed.

"Rarity?" called Twilight. Could it be true? Was Rarity really the killer all along? Could she really have had the ability to open any door she wanted all along, and just been pretending otherwise? As Twilight and Pinkie Pie carefully picked their way down the stairs, the alicorn princesses' mind raced. Why would Rarity do something like this? For that matter why would Applejack? One being the killer made about as much sense as the other, but that was only because either being the killer didn't really make any real sense at all. Nothing made sense in this awful place.

Twilight froze mid-stride as she realized which door had been unsealed. The final door. The only door in the cavern that hadn't been unlocked so far was open just a crack, just wide enough to allow light to spill into the hall from within. "It's the last room. If Rarity was able to open this door, then that means she definitely is the killer..." whispered Twilight as she moved to push the door the rest of the way open. "And that she's just on the other side."

"Be careful Twilight," Pinkie Pie whispered back. The earth pony backed away from the door, perceptibly shivering in apprehension. Slowly, carefully, Twilight pushed aside the stone door.

It was like opening a door into a waking nightmare. A thick, horrible miasma wafted from the room, causing the ponies to physically gag. All the smells of a slaughter house; blood, sweat, fear, and a myriad of other stenches, assaulted Twilight's nose and brought tears to her eyes. And the faces! There dozens of them! Racks upon racks of faces glared eyelessly from the walls. It took a moment for all those 'faces' to register as masks. Set in recesses within the cavern walls, hanging from the ceiling, rabbit masks stared in silent judgement. Nooses hung in perfusion from the ceiling like some macabre moss, while chains and straps littered the floor. A box filled with rusted and stained tools sat just beside the door, its contents partially strewn about the room. The very axe that the killer had used on Rainbow Dash, still sticky with blood, leaned against the wall in one corner. That was the source of the stench; blood, both old and fresh, was splattered all over the room.

As Twilight stepped tentatively within the room she could see that many of the tools scattered around were crusted with gore, fragments of skin and hair matted in black filth. Small white objects, teeth, littered the ground by a pair of pliers. Hooks jammed into the cavern walls glinted and gleamed. It was from these that most of the masks hung slack, button eyes vacant, scraps of brightly color fabric making each mask somewhat unique. Something about those bunny hoods struck Twilight as strange, but before she could analyze them further she found her eyes, at last, drawn to the source of light that illuminated the room.

Really, she should've known. Of course there would be another door. Just because all the doors they had found had been opened, that didn't mean that there wouldn't be one, or a dozen more. However, the spells layered on this door were intricate and numerous enough that the writhing, slithering mass of spell work filled the room with its light. If this wasn't the door that led outside, there had to at least be something on the other side that somepony didn't want them to find. Where the spells on the other doors might have been dispelled with enough time and effort, it would take longer than Twilight feared she had to live just to start unwinding one of the spells placed on this door. The key, as before, was readily apparent. Carved into the door was a sigil not unlike the ones that had been inscribed on the body's of her friends. A sigil stained with fresh blood. Did that mean that Rarity had already gone through this door? Had she left them to starve to death? Then why lock herself in with them to begin with? Twilight couldn't say.

Behind her, she could hear a steady, ragged breathing. As Twilight turned she caught a glimpse of Pinkie Pie wide eyed and breathing heavily just behind her. The party pony seemed utterly entranced by one of the masks hanging from the wall. She reached out a single shaking hoof to touch it, perhaps to pick it up. "Pinkie, are you okay?" the strange grin, or was it a grimace, faded from the pink ponies face so suddenly Twilight couldn't be sure that it had ever been there to begin with. Pinkie Pie's large blue eyes just stared at her for a moment as if she wasn't sure where she was.

"Oh, yeah Twilight, I'm fine." said Pinkie Pie. "I must have zoned out for a moment. This room sure is creepy, huh?"

"Well you shouldn't mess with these masks," admonished Twilight. "They might be rigged like that one Derpy was wearing. Don't handle them carelessly."

Pinkie's hoof hovered for a second. The party pony looked at it as if she hadn't even realized it was there. It fell back to the cavern floor under her gaze. "R...right, of course." Pinkie still seemed a little dazed, but she turned to follow after Twilight.

The alicorn let her eyes roam over the rooms contents before she continued, "This room is beyond creepy. I don't even want to think about what half this stuff is for." Nudging a sack of what appeared to be sharpened stakes aside, Twilight discovered a cardboard box filled with papers. "Are these more files like the ones we found in the other room?" She opened one binder and started to flip through it, turning the pages faster and faster. Twilight picked up another book with her magic and did the same, not pausing on any single page. File after file was levitated, examined, and discarded as she looked through each. "It's all been blacked out. Every page. What could have been in these files before, and why go to the trouble of keeping them if they've all been blacked out like this?"

Twilight kept going, until at last she came to a file that hadn't been completely obliterated. "Is this...Derpy Hooves?" The picture looked a lot like the grey pegasus, though in what appeared to be much happier times. She smiled obliviously, a half-eaten muffin in one hoof. All the other pictures and information on the page had been blacked out. All except for her. "Why is it just her? Who were all these other ponies? Are these all...from another 'game'?" A clattering behind Twilight pulled her attention away from the binder. Pinkie Pie lay sprawled on the floor, her hair splayed out around her head in a nimbus of curls. She seemed to be struggling to catch her breath. Twilight touched her forehead with one hoof. "Are you alright Pinkie?" Twilight asked, concern flooding her voice.

Her friend was soaked with sweat and her head was burning up. Pinkie wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't, open her eyes. "Sorry...I just got a little dizzy," moaned the pink pony as she tried to roll into a sitting position. She winced as her shoulder brushed the ground, adding a fresh a spurt of stinking blood to the cavern floor. Pinkie froze in pain and shock before curling into a tight ball on her side. The makeshift bandage Twilight had wrapped around the wound from Rarity's attack was soaked through, almost black with blood. Despite the heat coming off of her head, Pinkie shivered as if she were freezing.

"Oh Pinkie, have you been suffering in silence all this time? Why didn't you say something!?" cried Twilight, a mixture of irritation and desperation creeping into her voice. Had Pinkie lost too much blood? Was she sick? Twilight Sparkle hopped from hoof to hoof trying desperately to think of what to do. If her first aid hadn't been enough, what could she do to help her friend? If only there was some kind of...clinic! Twilight hoisted her friend on her back as carefully as she could manage, ignoring the sticky blood that dripped down her side as she did, and left the twisted room as quickly as she could.

If only she hadn't been distracted from the masks...

Comments

[Ecstatic]

Oh great, the masks.

Magically cursed, infused with the suffering of the individual ponies that have died, looking to expand their collective consciousness with souls of more dead ponies?

Pinkie Pie seems an odd mixture of weakened and absolutely normal, considering her injury and the blood loss.

Why is the blood freshly leaking out from the make-shift bandage black? Black is the color of dead blood cells.

[PaulAsaran]

Whelp, not much to add here. I give it 50/50 odds that Rarity's dead already, and 30/70 they'll find Applejack dead or missing when they get back to the clinic.