1. Let the Games Begin

Red Gala woke up slowly with a slight groan. Her head was pounding and her muscles all ached. In the back of her throat she could taste dried up blood, and her entire body ached of dehydration. The room she was in was foreign to her – it smelt terrible, it was dark and damp and a rhythmic drip echoed through the room from an unseen tap. Red fumbled around in the darkness, and forced herself to her hooves. She tried to take a step forward… clunk.
"What the…" she mumbled to herself, still dazed and confused. 'Am I dreaming?' she thought. 'No, it feels too real…' She felt around and, around her back left, a heavy but short steel chain secured her in place.

"Hello?" she called, unable to suppress the fear in her voice. "Applejack? Granny Smith?... A-Applebloom?" No response. The only sounds that could be heard were the steady drip and the slight echo from her call. She rattled at her chains, but they were solid and heavy – so heavy, in fact, she highly doubted whether Big Macintosh could break it.

"Where… WHERE THE FUCK AM I?" She screamed into the empty room, abandoning all hope of being in a dream or being the victim of a prank and allowing the fear to seize hold of her. "WHO DID THIS!" Suddenly, a spotlight flickered to life directly above her. Red Gala cringed slightly and allowed her eyes to adjust to the new downpour of light. Looking up at the ceiling, she noticed that, suspended from a string, was a tape recorder. Painfully curious and in a state of thoughtless fear, she tore the tape recorder from the string and pressed play.

"Hello, Red Gala. I'd like to play a game." The deep, distorted voice played out. Red Gala did not recognize the voice – in fact, it sounded nothing like anypony she had ever met. Not that she'd met many ponyfolk outside of the Apple family. "For some time now, I've watched you. Oh yes," the voice paused to indulge in a quick snicker, "I've been watching you. I've watched as you quietly put apples from the orchard aside for yourself. I've watched as you allowed them to ferment. I've watched as you drunk gallon after gallon of apple cider, allowing your… inebriation to overwhelm you. I've watched as you turned to your little sister in a violent, drunken rage time and time again. That, Red, is not the way to live a life. It could barely be called a life. So, today, I give you… a chance. A chance at salvation. Suspended above your head is a string. If you tug that string hard enough, the tool to your rescue will fall into your hooves…" Click. The tape ended.

"Wh… WHAT THE FUCK?" Gala screeched, horrified by what she'd heard. "THIS IS A GAME? ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME?" She screamed and yelled until her throat was hoarse. Finally giving up on venting anger at an unseen enemy that was probably not present, she decided to go with her only option – following the rules and tugging the string. She grabbed the string firmly between her teeth and yanked hard, but nothing happened. She snorted in annoyance, grabbed the string harder and tugged with all of her body weight. She let go and let out a slight yelp as the roof panel gave way, crumbling around the spotlight. From the roof fell a thick, blue plastic sack. Red carefully unravelled the sack to find inside one small black wooden case and a slightly larger brown one. She opted to open the black case first, and gasped when her eyes drank in the contents – a tape, with the words 'PLAY ME NOW' carelessly scribbled onto it in black. She quickly fumbled around, removed the old tape and shoved the new one into the recorder.

"If you're hearing this, then the game is about to begin." Right on cue, every light in the room burst to life. It was small, grey and dull, and every corner was covered in mould and grime. There was no notable source of dripping – it must have been coming from outside of the room. The room appeared to resemble a bathroom, minus the taps and toilets. "In the bag this tape was in, you will find a…" Gala was too overwhelmed with shock to even gasp. She opened the brown case just as the voice said "a hacksaw. You will need to saw off your leg to escape this room in time. How much does your family mean to you? How much does your life mean to you? Will you be able to saw through your own flesh to survive? Let the games begin." Red held the hacksaw in a trembling hoof. Tears began to stream down her cheeks.

"If… if this is a j-joke… it's not f-funny… I… I can't…" she couldn't finish through the tears. She rested her head on the floor and wept. Creak. A heavy steel door that had blended into the walls was now slowly creaking open. And on the other side of the door was a very familiar face… "You…" Red Gala breathed in disbelief. The pony held a strange contraption up to their mouth, which distorted their voice to match the tapes…
"It's not a joke. It's a game. Don't you like games?" The psychopath laughed. Suddenly, a loud, attention-grabbing creak shook the tiny room violently. Gala panicked; the room had begun to shrink very slowly – the walls were closing in. She was going to be crushed!
"What… WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?"
"This is your game, Red Gala. Cut your leg off, make it over here, and you will live another day. Fail to do so, and you will die, and be trapped here… for-EVER!" Gala thrashed about wildly as the walls closed in, hoping to somehow snap the chain, or the floor… but it was useless. She was held in place firmly. She quickly darted her eyes between the chain and the hacksaw.

"Oh, do not bother. This game has been well designed. That blade cannot cut that chain. Hurry now, you're wasting time."
"Why are you… WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?"
"I've already explained why. Quickly, you're losing your game." Red Gala screamed out in a mix of fury, fear and utter anxiety. Clenching the saw roughly by its blade, she rested the sharp blade against the tender flesh of her thigh. Tears stung her eyes, and blurred her vision, but she stayed fixed on the pony in the doorway. The room had shrunk to three quarters of its original size now, and there was simply no way out…
"Fine…" Red sobbed. "FINE!" she gently pressed the blade into her thigh, and made one deep slice. A bone chilling shriek erupted from within her as blood seeped out, staining the blade as well as her pink coat. She wailed and screamed and cried in agony as she willed her way through a second, tendon-tearing slash. She slammed a hoof against the ground and screamed. "Fuck… FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!"
"Hurry up."

Red gritted her teeth and held her breath as she began to saw feverishly through her own leg. Her own tears now began to swirl and mix with the blood. The only sounds throughout the room were the horrible, sick, squelching sounds as the hacksaw dove deeper and deeper into Gala's leg. Suddenly, she whipped the blade out of her profusely bleeding leg and let it fall to the ground. Half her leg had been sliced through and the floor was stained a deep red. Her composure and determination broke and she screamed as loud as she could manage at the pony across the room.
"FUCK YOU!" She hollered. The room had now shrunk to half its original size, and a state of panic set in.
"Half way there."
"I KNOW! I… I know…" Gala had given up screaming and just fell into a sob. The pain was fading, whether due to adrenaline or shock or some other reason, Red couldn't tell, but it didn't matter. She was going to survive this horror. She would see her family once again. She picked up the blade with a strangely steady hoof and readied herself once more…

Slice. The pain was there but it was diluted heavily. Slice. Red Gala winced slightly but kept her fortitude. Slice. That one hit a major artery at last and blood sprayed out wildly. She felt squeamish, but had to keep going. The walls were still closing in. Slice. Slice. Slice, slice, slice, slice, slice. With one final, dramatic slash, the leg fell from the body and landed in the pool of blood and gore on the ground with a squelch.

"Th-there…" Red cried, the full realization of what she had done coming to light – she had just amputated herself. "I did it. I-I won. Let… let me go… please…" Despite her pleas, the insane pony simply stood there, shaking their head.
"Your game isn't over. You need to escape the room." Red didn't even bother to cry out in anger or respond. She had been broken. She just wanted it all to end. The room was a quarter of its original size now. In fact, it was only about two pony widths wide. She steadily planted all three hooves on the floor and tried to force herself to a standing position. Her legs ached and shook violently, and she collapsed into her own blood. Most of her pink coat was now blood-spattered. Resolving not to die today, she began to drag her way towards the door.

The walls creaked loudly again. They were closing in now… Red was nearing the door… she clawed and clawed her way across the floor. A black blur was creeping in from the edge of her vision… consciousness was fading… she had to move faster! But her back right seemed to have given up… she simply couldn't move it any more… she dragged herself by her front hooves… the pony in the door took two steps back to allow Red to crawl through and win the game. Her front hooves exited the shrinking room, and she dragged the front half of her body out. She planted her hooves onto the floor once again for one final haul, and… she was stuck. The walls had closed too far, and had seized hold of her rump.
"No…" she cried in desperation. The walls squeezed her rump painfully. "NO!" Panic returned in a heightened form and she wildly scraped her hooves along the floor, but to no avail. She reached out a single hoof at the pony who had done this to her.

"I cut it off, I DID WHAT YOU SAID!"
"You took too long. I'm sorry. That's the rules."
"Fuck you, FUCK YOU!" A sickening series of cracks and squishes resounded through the room as Red Gala's back half was crushed. "I'm s-sorry… A-Apple…bloom…" she gasped. Her face drained and she shuddered violently for a few seconds before her eyes shut and her face fell to the ground in the same instant the room behind her sealed completely shut. Her hoof dropped half a second later.
"So close."The killer calmly walked out of the room, leaving Red Gala to rot.

"Game over."