Play With Me

by Draconaes

Chapter 3

Play With Me

Chapter 3

You look at the water with apprehension. If that note was the be believed, you will likely end up being chased by those glowing circles to moment you enter the water. They'll then proceed to shoot you into the void below, where you won't be able to breathe. Don't worry about dying, your flank!

Okay, before you even think about entering that water, you need a plan. Your goal is to find Fluttershy and Twilight, but mostly Fluttershy. Of the two of them, she is probably the one that needs your help the most. So, if you were Fluttershy, where would you go? Assuming that you didn't freeze in terror?

You look around and spot Carousel Boutique on a pillar of rock. She could have gone there. She is good friends with Rarity, after all, and she might have felt comfortable hiding somewhere more familiar. Well, here goes nothing.

You crouch and extend you wings, preparing to dive into the water. You mentally prepare for the gravity inversion and launch yourself toward the water at top speed, angling toward the boutique.

After breaking the surface you open your eyes and spot your target below (above?) you. You twist around so that you don't feel like you're upside down anymore and keep swimming. The note may have said that you could breathe here, but you can't bring yourself to willingly suck the water into your lungs.

You are still holding your breath when you notice several cylinders of light heading toward you. You swim faster in response. Your lungs start to burn, begging for air. You realize that you have no idea where you are relative to your destination. You begin to panic and involuntarily gasp for breath. Water rushes into your lungs and you start coughing violently. The note hadn't mentioned how horrible this would feel.

You are still convulsing when one of the lights reaches you. You are aware of a sudden feeling of acceleration. You feel yourself break the surface of the water as gravity inverts once again. The next moment you feel yourself collide forcefully with... a pile of pillows? You cough the water out of your lungs. You aren't in danger of drowning, but by Celestia was that an unpleasant feeling. You don't know if you'll be able to bring yourself to enter the water again.

You extract yourself from you cushioned doom and look around, dazed. You might not have hit the hard ground, but that doesn't make the experience that much less painful. You are only spared serious injuries.

You take a moment to realize how monumentally stupid you just were. Why did you just jump into the water like that and then not breathe? You may as well have tried flying through the void. You would have been faster, at least. You didn't even bother to test if you could breathe in it, note or no note. Speaking of notes...

A note rests on the ground next to the pile of pillows. You grudgingly pick it up.

Hi Dashie! This is Pinkie Pie! Except I'm not really Pinkie Pie, I'm part of the game! I was with Twilight before, but she had to run from some monster or something. I'm pretty sure she's alright, though! Anyway, I decided to see how you were doing, since your my friend too! Or at least, I hope we can be friends, even if I'm not the real Pinkie Pie! I noticed that you were going to get hurt, so I put out some pillows to help you! I'm still not sure whether you can actually be hurt in this game, but better safe than sorry, right? Fluttershy isn't here, by the way. Still, you might as well explore the boutique while you can! I don't imagine you'd like to try swimming again so soon either way!

Huh. So either the game created a fake Pinkie Pie to mess with you, or the game is pretending to have created a fake Pinkie Pie. To mess with you. Apparently Twilight Sparkle was also running into problems. You wonder if this has something to do with the "temporally locked blahblahblah" shenanigans she was talking about in her note. Maybe it hasn't happened yet from your perspective? You suppose it doesn't really matter since you haven't found her yet anyway.

You sigh and enter the boutique. The note said that Fluttershy wasn't here, but by this point that doesn't mean anything to you.

-

You almost wish that the strange statues were still around. Only a short while ago, they disappeared while you weren't looking. Which was creepy, because you were in the middle of a crowded street at the time. Just one moment, while turning around, you noticed there were no statue-ponies behind you anymore. Turning once again revealed that those in front of you were also gone.

You aren't sure what to make of this.

"Hi there, sugarcube!"

"Eep!" You jumped several feet into the air and spin around. You see Applejack standing before you. She doesn't even have pure black eyes! "Oh, Applejack! I was so frightened! I thought I was all alone, I mean, except for the creepy statue-ponies. How did you get here?" You land again and smile at her.

"Hi there sugarcube!"

Your smile loses some of its energy. "Um... are you alright, Applejack?"

"Hi there sugarcube!"

You start shaking. "Applej-jack, you're scaring me. If this is r-really you please s-stop it!"

"I'm going to kill you, sugarcube!"

Your wings lock up and your eyes go wide. Applejack is still just standing there with a wide smile. A second later, she sinks into the ground, not-moving in the same way that Rarity-statue did. A note is left behind on the ground. Still shaking in terror, you pick it up.

I apologize for that one. Really wasn't very clever at all. I mean, friend creeps you out by repeating a greeting over and over, and then threatens you with a smile on their face? Booooooooring. You're making it hard on me though. You are so easy to scare that I almost don't want to waste my more original ideas. I mean, I'm already pulling the "faceless moving ponequins" thing, just with a bit more detail. I'm almost tempted to just go ahead and reunite you with your friends. Having to deal with their own challenges while also protecting you would make things more interesting, I think. I mean, I could probably just throw you into a normal, everyday situation and you would freak out just the same. Luckily, fear isn't everything. I can work with the other emotions, too. In fact, it's so easy, now that I think about it. I think I will just hand you over to your friends! Have fun!

The ground suddenly drops out from under you. You catch a glimpse of not-Applejack waving at you, a cleaver in her mouth, before landing on a broken, stone floor. You look up and suppress a shriek. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash both lay before you, unmoving. You walked over and gingerly nudge Rainbow. She's ice cold. You break down into tears.

-

You find yourself in front of Carousel Boutique. You still aren't sure where Pinkie Pie, fake or not, went. What concerns you more is that the boutique is fully lit. This means that there's a wisp inside. You don't want to enter, but you think that game wouldn't leave any important buildings unguarded. You notice a note tape to the front door.

That line of reasoning only works when the game isn't trying to use double, triple, and quadruple reverse psychology. The question is then: is that what the game is doing? Anyway, there's a key inside. Not a regular key, oh no. Only the sexiest of keys: a purple tetrahedron! Don't worry, this one is smaller than the one you used to start this game. It also won't do anything silly. It's just a key, on my honor. A key for what, you may ask? It's important, which should be good enough for you. Now, I know you are worried about whatever is inside, so I'll give you a hint. Don't walk on the white tiles. Good luck!

You scowl. You're really starting to hate these smug notes. How does this game even know what you would be thinking by the time you read them? You push open the door and your jaw drops. The floor is covered with white tiles, with only a few black tiles scattered about. They are much too far apart to allow you to walk on them.

That does it! The moment you get out of this game, you are going to find some way to obliterate that stupid tetrahedron! How dare this game kidnap you all and force you to play this horrifying game? How dare it present you with impossible challenges and then insist that you complete them? How dare it mock you with its smug, self-important notes! You don't even know if your friends are even in this game! For all you know, only you got sucked into this! Stupid piece of junk!

You stomp the ground in frustration and glare at the black tiles, trying to think of a solution. You're probably going to be here for a while.

Comments

[Ema Nekaf]

You have succeeded to scare and creep the crap outta me. This is a well written horror/scare fic.

[kingfish]

Try running on the white tiles. Maybe it's one of those challenges.