ZOHMYWHAT2

by cloudedguardian

Jump

“You know what I hate, more than anything else?”

Fluttershy looked up at Rainbow Dash with a hint of curiosity at her unusual question.

“Platforming. And what do they have me doing?” Rainbow continued, glaring daggers at the screen all the while. “Platforming. In a horror game!”

Pinkie suppressed a giggle at the disgust in Dash’s voice. Rainbow rocked in her seat as she copied her characters movements slightly as she bid him up the scaffolding that the game had decided to send them up.

“It’s ridiculous. Absolutely retarded.” She grumbled further, backing their character up for a running jump over the balcony railing. She had already messed up this transition three times, and was getting noticeably frustrated with it.

There was a minute of silence as she made her way up the rest of the boards, before finally, victoriously, landing on the topmost balcony and entered the apartments.

A cut scene welcomed them in, the camera slowly rolling back to show the hallway before them, illuminated by broken lights that flickered ominously, before focusing on their character from the place where he stood.

This place doesn’t feel right.

“Well of course it doesn’t.” Rainbow muttered, the controls returning to her once again.

She stepped forward into the hallway, with a hint of trepidation. The lights continued to flicker, casting strange shadows around her as she slowed to a stop. There was a strange and loud hum echoing out from the speakers, and although it did little to help her, her ears instinctually swiveled about as she puzzled over its source. Then, the phone buzzed.

Fourth Floor!!

“Why didn’t you just say that the first time you called me?” Rainbow muttered, as she glared at the phone. “And who is this person that she has my cell number anyway?”

“What did you say to Pinkie earlier about this just being a game, Rainbow Darling?” Rarity teased, earning a grumbled “yeah yeah” in return.

“A random interesting fact I picked up the other day,” Twilight began, her face a perfect picture of hopeful excitement, “In oriental cultures, the number four is considered synonymous with death. As a result, oriental hospitals never have a fourth floor!”

“Never?” Pinkie asked quizzically.

“Well, even on the rare occasions that they do, they are never labelled as such. They just skip right into five and up!”

“You know, Twilight, as interesting as that all is, you’re not helping.” Rainbow muttered darkly, slowly walking forward to peek around the next corner to check for death-inducing monsters.

When the hallway proved empty, she turned back to the glowing piece of paper on the floor before her. She had scooped it up without a second thought, figuring it a clue for the surrounding area… So when its words truly began to log, their effect was doubled, causing the fur along her back to bristle as a chill shot down her spine.

My secret note #1

3 little kiddies playing in the park

Said the first kiddie, let’s go home before it gets dark,

The first two went on their merry way home,

The third stayed playing, all alone.

Come here little child, come to me!

The bushes whispered softly…

They say curiosity killed the cat.

The note was archived with a crinkling noise that only seemed to magnify the clinging silence that had taken over the room. Nopony spoke as worried and spooked looks were traded, everypony quite creeped out. This went on for a good two minutes before finally being broken by Applejack clearing her throat in a somewhat awkward cough.

“Can we, uh, just move on and… Um, not think ‘bout that last one to-too much?” She asked a little shakily, doing her best to clear the unwanted thoughts from her head.

“I vote yes on that.” Twilight said quickly, shooting a quick glance at Rainbow Dash who was sitting rather stiffly in the computer chair.

“S-sure AJ. C-course we can. It is, after all, j-just a game.”

The laugh that followed sounded more nervous than genuine, much as how the final statement had sounded more like the latter line of a mantra rather than a simple statement.

A door only a few feet ahead was unlocked, and so a slight detour was taken in exploring the apartment behind it. A save-point was found inside the rather dirty kitchen, which was quickly made use of. Even Rainbow Dash found herself hoping just a little bit that it had been placed there so that one could avoid redoing the irritating platforming behind them, and not a respawn point that would be needed due to a monster that would happily kill them in the next room.

Guess which one it was.

“GAH!”

The computer chair rocked back a good six inches as Rainbow’s wings flared open in startled reflex. Twilight hastily caught the chair in her magic, stopping it from rocking back any further and falling over on top of somepony.

Their character had shot back in a similar movement, leaving him up against the front door as the girls stared at the monster ahead of them in shock. A child’s strangely warped head was perched upon what looked like a garbage bag tied up with tape and bloodied twine. Doll limbs, similarly bound, served as its hands and feet. Two long and rusty knives hung from its grasp, each of it’s breaths coming out as a metallic rattle that sounded like a twisted mixture of a snake’s hiss and the sound a pot makes when you drop it.

For a long minute, the two stared off, neither moving. Then, the monster decided it had waited quite long enough, and promptly charged them. Rainbow moved swiftly out of the way and swiped at it on the way by. Blood sprayed up in declaration of a successful hit, and the monster’s call grew even more disturbing in an angry hiss.

Rainbow Dash gulped slightly as she eyed it from where she stood. She knew she had to take it down, but there was something about this particular monster that made her feel like running away instead… Or maybe even just turning the game off altogether.

The thought was cast aside as the monster turned around to charge her again, and she responded by darting forward in a series of dodges that allowed her to land the last two blows that finally felled it.

Silence followed its defeat. The chair rocking forward to land with all four legs on the floor once more was the only sound aside from the gentle pattering of rain on the windows. The silence lasted for so long this time, in fact, that when it was finally broken, half the girls jumped.

“Screw it, I’m just going straight to the next area.” Rainbow Dash said loudly, wheeling their character around to leave.

So of course the front door was locked.

“Okay fine. To the balcony then.” She snapped, and their character span around once more to march out to the balcony and down the shoddily built bridge to the neighbour’s below.

She roughly pushed the black glass door open, and stormed up to the many strais to reach the fourth floor. Dash meant to yank the next door open and proceed with much contempt, but the door wouldn’t budge. Neither would the third floor door below it. She actually had to go down a level from her original position to progress at all.

All the doors in this level were locked, jammed, busted, or blocked… Except one.

Now, everypony knew, the minute this door opened, that it would be nothing but trouble. One does not railroad one’s players to this extent unless they were keen on forcing them straight into something horrid. They just didn’t know what that was yet. Which, really, made it even worse.

This apartment was much cleaner than the last, and if it weren’t for the extremely ominous air, or the chokingly strong sense of foreboding, Fluttershy might have even called it cozy.

“Their choice in wall colour is simply abysmal,” Rarity muttered, glaring at the mixture of discoloured yellow wallpaper and disgusting pink paint that covered the rooms. “Almost makes you wonder what they were trying to hide with it…”

Rainbow Dash slammed to a stop as a glowing piece of paper underfoot caught her eye. ‘My Secret Note #2’ it read.

“Is it safe to say that we have a unanimous agreement just to completely ignore that this even exists?”

“Yes.”

“Just checking.”

The door beside it was not as easily avoided however, and it was pulled open with more than a little caution. The room inside was covered in photographs, most of them of gruesome murder scenes. One in particular had far more detailed than anypony would have liked, with the words “Slowest death yet” scrawled across the top.

“C-can we move on..?” Fluttershy squeaked, “P-please?”

“Y-yeah, sure Flutters.” Rainbow said shakily, somehow finding it hard to tear her eyes away from the photo. “Just let me grab this key he-”

With a loud fizzle and the shattering of glass, all light in the room went out in a shower of sparks. Fluttershy and Rarity did a spectacular scream in response, Fluttershy diving to cower behind Applejack, and Rarity to hide under the azure blanket behind Twilight.

Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, was just desperately repeating the word “Run” in increasingly loud and panicked tempo. Rainbow Dash was all too willing to comply, except the door out now appeared to be locked… And by the sounds of it, its owner was coming back to get them.

Rainbow swore loudly as she desperately ruffled through her inventory, trying to grab the key and use it on the door to flee like a timberwolf from a forest fire, but her panic and pounding heart was making her hooves shake so bad that the simple series of keystrokes was becoming nigh impossible.

The door finally swung open, allowing her to dart out of the horrid room- And right into a den of monsters. About ten or twelve of the dolls that she hated so surrounded her, staring at her with empty white eyes from where they stood on the tables, couch, window sills and floor. A somewhat strangled noise escaped her as her mind wheeled at what lay before her… And then the room flashed white with a crash of thunder- Leaving the scene before her bare of monsters and silent once more.

“I-it was just an illusion?” Rainbow gasped, for some reason now very out of breath.

Relief wanted to flood in, but was held back by the knowledge that she was not quite yet safe. I can rest once I’m outta this Celestia blasted apartme- OH FAUST WHAT THE HADES IS THAT?!?!

“GAH! NO! NO NO NO!” Rainbow yelped, Twilight’s magic quickly flaring up to catch the chair again as it rocked perilously back underneath the force of Dash’s spectacular jump.

A… Thing stood in between them and the door out. It had the naked and mutilated body of a child, bent over and wizened, its spine and joints clearly visible. The head was all wrong however, it was far too large for the body, and was warped as if it had been stretched, or perhaps grossly inflated. It charged towards her before she had so much of the chance as to regain her composure again.

She swiped at it in little more than a panicked gesture, but what happened next was completely unexpected. Its head popped.

Rainbow froze completely as it fell, their character taking damage as it hit the floor. Very slowly, their character looked down at the corpse. Deep cuts and old scars crossed the shoulders and back of it, but that wasn’t what caught one’s attention. A large two foot spike, black as night, protruded from the neck of the creature. This, clearly, was what had caused the damage to their character… But that wasn’t what was on Rainbow Dash’s mind.

In fact, there was very little on Rainbow Dash’s mind at this particular moment. The singular thing left on it was that she had to get to the bathroom. Fast.

Twilight and Rarity exchanged a worried look as Rainbow shot off the computer chair, causing it to rock even in the clutch of her magic, and into the bathroom- The door slamming behind her a second later. A glint of magenta magic lit the keyboard for a second as Twilight paused the game, leaning forward slightly to look down the hall after her pegasus friend.

Fluttershy slunk out from behind Applejack to check on Dash. Alarm could be seen on her face a second before the toilet could be heard getting flushed. The door swung open with a bang, and Rainbow stormed out, a look of determination clear on her face.

“Rainbow, are you alright? I-it sounded like you threw up.”

“I’m fine.”

“You know Rainbow, we can just call it quits,” Twilight began, but was cut off by Rainbow’s hoof shooting up.

“Nuh uh. No way,” She snapped, glaring first at Twilight before gesturing roughly at the computer screen. “I am not losing to a stupid video game. No it’s just personal now.”

A rather devilish smile darted across her face. “Or as Rarity would say;

“It. Is. ON.”

Comments

[ChainReaction]

"Platforming. In a horror game!"...Half-Life mods. Gotta love 'em. Loved this chap. Great job, Cloud.

[Shumiry]

Yay! Creepy stuff. The imagery is really well done, not too much detail, but enough that we clearly see it in our minds. Keep em coming!

Please keep writing, I'll keep reading!

[Roseninapie]

Oh, I will so regret reading this to tonight when I am trying to sleep..... But until then.... MOAR!!!

[artofwar77]

This is really entertaining when read in tandem with a Let's Play video. (Markiplier, if you like)

I watch a short segment of the video, jumping in fright when appropriate, and then I pause the video and come back here to see how the Mane Six react.

[cloudedguardian]

2452281
...
The ironic thing is, whenever my game crashed and stopped working (Or I just got exceptionally frustrated)- I would use Mark's LPs to continue writing this.
So- For the majority of the chapters, you are seeing the exact same game footage they are.

[artofwar77]

2452473

What a delightful coincidence!

Do you think we'll be lucky enough to have the Mane Six play through the entire game?
Whether yay or neigh, thank you for sharing this entertaining story.

[Tianis]

I have to say, I really enjoyed this little read. I hope to see some more of these

Just wondering, am I among the only ones who doesn't get freaked out by these games? The only thing(s) that will get me are the really obvious jump scares..or if they happen to play on my one phobia (spiders). All this other stuff..and watching Lets Plays of some of these games, almost make me laugh at the reactions I see people get. Am I just that (not) jumpy here or..what?

[cloudedguardian]

2842053
I don't think many get scared by watching LPs, we all watch to laugh at the players reactions!
it's soooo much worse when you're actually playing though XD But some horror games are just goofy. So I know what you mean :3

[Tianis]

2843654

Most horror games dont get to me. I mean a huge spider in Resident Evil: Code Veronica freaked me out..and in BioShock Infinite I had one jump scare that just made me all but twitch in my chair..

But yeah..in the LP's..their reactions are so heavily acted out it just..meh!