> Zero Escape: Friendship and Betrayal > by Thecoolyest > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Rude Awakening > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/N: This is just a story that I’ve been thinking about for awhile. So I decided to finally write it down and post it. I am starting on a second chapter but I want to see how the first one does before I post the second one. This is my first story so constructive criticism would be nice. Disclaimer: I do not own ANY of this stuff. *WACK* “OOOOWWWW” I screamed as I woke up. With my head throbbing I looked around the room. “Wh-Where am I?” It looked as if I was in some kind of cabin. I was sitting on the bottom bunk in a bunk bed. In the room there were some boxes and barrels. There was a clock that looked to only have a minute hand, a desk with a piece of paper on it, a mirror, and a door with a big number 3 on it. I sat up and walked over to the desk. I picked up the paper and started reading it. “Hello there! And welcome to my kingdom! Now I bet you’re wondering why you are here? Well I’ll get to that a little later. Right now I have a game for you to play! All you have to do is find a way out of this room! Easy right! Well just to make it a little harder for you. You will have 30 minutes from the time you stepped down from the bed to escape. So I’d better get moving! Because if you don’t get out in time… well it’s not going to be good.” I looked up at the clock with the minute hand. It looked as if the hand was in-between the 6 and the 5. “28 minutes” I said to myself. I quickly looked at the door with the 3 on it. I saw that there were 3 rectangle card readers next to it. Was this the key to opening the door? If so then where are the cards? I looked around the room for a good 10 minutes before I finally found some cards in a box near the far corner of the room. I spread the cards out on the floor. All the cards were numbered 1-9 but the number 3 card was missing. I looked over at the door and back to the cards. “How am I supposed to know what cards to use?” I asked myself. I looked around the room and found some writing on the wall. “1+6+9=7” I had no idea what this meant. I know that 1+6+9=16 not 7. I pondered over the problem over and over in my head. “How could 1+6+9=7? 1+6+9=16… 1+6=7 but not 1+6+9. … wait a minute. 1+6+9=16…. 1+6=7. 1+6=7!” I finally figured it out. I looked up at the clock. The hand was on the 2. “10 minutes left.” I ran over to the door with the cards in hoof. “Now let’s see. 2+4+6=12 1+2=3!” I grabbed the 2, 4, and 6 cards and placed them on the card readers. I green light turned on. “Yes!” I yelled. Another box that was next to the door opened. It had a number 3 inside a heart. My heart dropped. “There was no number 3 card anywhere. I looked around the whole room and only found those cards.” I wanted to cry. I went over to the mirror on the wall. I looked at myself. “What do I do now?” I looked at the clock. “6 minutes.” I sighed and looked back at the mirror. My eyes were turning red, my mane was getting messed up. “Wh-what the hell?” I looked closer at the mirror. There was a necklace around my neck. It was very tight around my neck. There was no way to pull it off, and no clamp either. There was something hanging from the necklace too. It looked like a heart. The heart had a 3 on it. It was red and said “solo” under the 3. “How did I not see this before?!” I ran over to the box. “How do I take this thing off?” I pulled on the heart and pulled out with a string attached to it. I placed the heart on the box and a second green light came on and the door opened. “OH THAK YOU!” I yelled. The heart zipped strait back to the center of my necklace. I immediately ran out the door. I found myself in some kind of hallway. A very long hallway with lots of doors. I ran down the hallway checking every door along the way, but none of them would open. As I was trying all of the doors I tried to remember how I got here, who could have taken my, and why they would want to take me. Then I realized something. “I… I don’t remember anything. How I got here, who brought me here, not even where I live or what my name is!” I tried to go through my head to remember anything about my past life, but I could only find one thing. Only one memory of my past life. I was in some kind of library. I was sorting out the books and putting them back on the shelves. Maybe I was some kind of librarian. There was somepony else with me too. I couldn’t really make out what they looked like, but I knew they were there. “Oh crap I totally forgot!” The pony screamed. “I got to go!” “What did you forget?” I asked the pony. “Oh it’s this really really REALLY big thing. I’ll tell you about it later I gotta run. Later!” And with that she ran out the door. I continued placing the book on the shelves when suddenly I hear a window crash. I turned around to see a can lying on the floor. I walk up to it and it starts spraying some kind of gas in my face. I fall to the ground and start feeling really dizzy. All I see is what looks like a pony with a gasmask on staring at me. Before I could say anything I pass out. Was that the day I was kidnapped? Why was I kidnapped? Who was that other pony with me? So many questions went through my head. I was interrupted by somepony yelling from the other end of the hallway. “Hey! You there!” I turned around to see a white unicorn staring at me. She had a purple curly mane. She had a necklace too, but hers had a blue 3 on it and said “solo” “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” “I’m not sure.” I replied to the other pony. I told the unicorn about how I escaped from my room. “Well that about the same thing that I went through.” She looked around the hall. “Do you think that anypony else is here?” And as if on cue we heard a high pitched from down the hall. “Well I guess that answers your question.” The screaming got louder and louder. All we could see was a big yellow and pink blob fly past us. We looked at each other in confusion. Following that was the sound of rushing water. We looked down the hall to see a huge wave coming toward us. We both screamed and ran down the hall. At the end of the hall we saw a big double door. We struggled to open it but just managed to get it open and close it before the water reached us. Unbelievably the door held the water in the long hallway. We were both gasping for air. “I… can believe… we… made it.” I said trying to catch my breath. “Well… I guess that makes 9 then.” We both looked up to see 7 other ponies looking at us. So many questions ran through my mind. But one stood out the most. “What the hell is going on here!?” > So it Begins. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The nine of use stood in what looked to be a ball room of some kind. "Okay let me get this straight. We have all been kidnapped by some crazy psychopathy and he is forcing use to play some kind of game." The other eight nodded their heads. "And we have all lost our memories." "Look we've already gone over this!" An orange earth pony stated. "We need to stop sitting around and try to get out of here." "But we've already tried to find a way out!" Replied a yellow pegasus. "All of the doors are locked! The only doors that could possibly be opened are those weird colored doors and their locked too!" I looked over at the colored doors. There were three of them right next to each other. One was magenta, one was cyan, and one was yellow. They all have these small boxes next to them that said "LOCKED" in big red letters. "Unless we can find a way to brake down one of those doors we're going nowhere." Before she was even done speaking the orange pony was at the yellow door trying to bust it down. "It's a metal door! There is no way you're going to brake it down!" "Well I could at least try! We got nothing better to do." I was about to say something but I could see out of the corner of my eye that a TV had turned on. "How long has that been on?" The others looked at the TV. There was nothing but static on the TV. I walked closer to it and I could hear what sounded like somepony laughing. I stopped walking but the laughing kept getting louder and louder. The static faded to show a young mare, no older then 16, sitting in a pure white with her back to us laughing. After a few seconds she stopped. She stood up and turned around. She was a grey pegasus with a dark blue mane and red eyes, around her eyes were these black circles. "Welcome!" she said. "It looks like everypony is finally here!" she giggled. "Now that everypony is here we can finally start the game!" she started to jump up and down in excitement. A cyan pegasus stepped in front of the TV. "Okay! What the hell is going on here? I want answers. Now!" "Well no need to be rude." "Oh. I'M being rude! You're the one who kidnapped us and are forcing us to play in this dumb game! What is this game anyway?!" The mare on the TV just rolled her eyes. "Look I'm getting to that okay. So why don't you sit your pretty butt down why I explain okay!" The cyan pony just grumbled and the gray pony continued. "Well okay my name is Zip. And I am the Game Master of this game." A blue unicorn spoke up. "Um... what do you mean by 'Game Master'?" "Well. I'm the one who will be watching over all of you to make sure everything goes as planed and no pony tries to brake the rules." We all just looked at each other. "Okay. I think it would be easier for all of us if I start from the beginning. Well all of you are here to take part in a game called The Nonary Game!" little fireworks went off in the background when she said 'The Nonary Game'. "The Nonary Game?" a dark blue alicorn said. "Yes The Nonary Game. The goal of The Nonary Game is to open the number nine door and escape." "Number nine door?" I asked. "Where is that?" "It's right behind you." We all turned around to see a giant door with a number nine on it. "Oh... yea... that number nine door." "Well how do we open it?" the white unicorn from earlier said. "Well to open it you need to have your HP reach nine or higher." "HP? What the hell is HP?" "Okay look you all need to stop asking questions like now! I promise I'll explain everything just stop asking questions." "Okay! Now, HP also know as Heart Points is indicated by the number on your necklace. Also the necklaces indicate what color you are and if you are a pair or solo. I'll get to those things later for now I would like everypony to look on the back of their necklaces for your name assignments." We all looked at each other. "Name assignments?" We all asked. "... YES! You r name assignments! I think it would be hard for all of you to try and talk to each other without knowing each other's names since you all lost your memories. So I thought I would help you by making some names up myself. Now don't worry their not stupid or anything." We all looked down at our necklaces. It was true that on the back of each of the necklaces were names for each of us. My name was Shimmer. The white unicorn I saw earlier was named Gem. The orange earth pony was named Peach. The white alicorn was named Blaze. The blue alicorn was named Crescent. The cyan pegasus was named Rush. The blue unicorn was named Mirage. The yellow pegasus was named Coy. And the pink earth pony was named Coral. Zip smiled. "Great now that we got that out of the way we can continue. "Now how do you get more HP? By playing in the ambidex game. But you can call it the AB game. Well... we'll get to that when it's time to play the AB game. Now I bet you're wondering where do you go from here? Well you see those colored doors over there?" We all looked over at the three colored doors. "Those are called chromatic doors or CDs. You must enter one and beat the puzzle inside to move to the AB game. How do you know who goes into what door? Well that's where the colors on your necklaces come in. Only certain colors can go into certain doors. Here's how the doors work." A graph showed up on the TV. Blue + Red = Magenta Door Green + Blue = Cyan Door Red + Green = Yellow Door Blue + Blue = Yellow Door Red + Red = Cyan Door Green + Green = Magenta Door Zip appeared next to the graph. "Okay! So the words on the left here are the different colored necklace pairs there are. And the words on the right are what door each pair can go into. So does everypony get this? Good! Let's more on." The graph disappeared leaving only Zip on the TV. "Now only three ponies can enter a CD at a time. That is where the pair and solos come in. Pairs must go into a CD with a solo and solos must go with a pair. If you are a pair you must enter the same CD as your other pair. Solos can enter any door they want as long as it is with the corresponding pair. So for example let's say that a red solo wants to go into the yellow door. Well they they have to pair up with the two ponies that are the green pair to enter that door. See how simple this is!" We all looked at each other. "Ummm..." Coy said. "This isn't simple at all." "Well don't look at me I didn't make the rules to this." "Wait!" Rush screamed. "I thought you were 'Game Master' or something like that!" "Well yea I am but like I said I'm only here to make sure everything goes as planed. That does mean I made this whole thing! Trust me do you know how hard it is to memorize all of these rules! I was studying them for weeks!" "Wait! So then who made this up?" "Oh! That's Zero!" "Well then who's Zero?" She just smiled and turned around. "Oh I'm sure you've met them already today." Rush backed up from the TV. "But we haven't seen anypony else but you today." Zip turned back around. "... Are you sure about that?" I looked around at everypony. I wasn't sure what she meant by that. But then it hit me. "You don't mean that... one of us..." "DING DING DING! We have a winner!" My stomach dropped. "So one of us is the pony that brought us here. The one who made this whole game." "That's right! But don't worry. I wont spoil who it is or anything!" An alarm sounded BEEP BEEP BEEP "Chromatic Doors are opening." There was the sound of moving mettle and just like it said all three Chromatic Doors were opened. "Chromatic Doors are open. Five minutes Until Chromatic Doors close." Zip put one of her hooves on her face. "Oh my! We have seemed to have run out of time! Well before I go I'll leave you with one final warning: Don't get left outside of the CDs when they close. OKAY! Good luck everypony! Have a nice trap! HAHAHAHA!" The TV turned off. All of us just stood there, silent, staring at the TV for what seemed like hours. The silent was broken by the alarm sounding again. BEEP BEEP BEEP "One minute until Chromatic Doors close." We all looked around. "What do we do!" Mirage yelled. "Well I guess we pick to go into one of the doors." Crescent said. "But which one should each of us go into?" Peach asked. "It doesn't really matter just pick one!" Blaze screamed. I tried to block out all of the yelling and tried to think. So there are three different colored doors that we can go through. A Magenta one, a Cyan one, and a Yellow one. For me to going into the Magenta door I would need to go with the Blue Pair who were Mirage and Rush. If I wanted to go into the Cyan door I would need to go with the Red Pair who were Blaze and Peach. And if I wanted to go into the Yellow door I would need to go with the Green Pair who were Crescent and Coral. I could not go with Coy or Gem since they were the Green and Blue Solos. I took a deep breath BEEP BEEP BEEP "Thirty second until Chromatic doors close." Everypony was still trying to find out what to do. I knew that if it kept going like this we would never get in one of those doors. I knew I had to be the one to pick. "Okay I'll pick who will go in what door okay!" Everypony stopped talking and looked at me. Well this was it. I looked around and everypony and made my choice. "Ok I'll go into the door with..." To Be Continued