The date is…

...um…

...March 12th? Maybe? I know it was March 11th before I got knocked out…

...okay, um...according to Coin, it’s evening on March 12th. So yeah…

Right, I should probably explain what’s going on now.

Late in the night, I was asleep at our house in Ponyville. We were preparing to head to Smooth Grove the next morning to see if there had been any trace of Arrell there yet. We knew he was still on the move while we were in Canterlot, so it was possible he had gone by there.

A sound woke me up at midnight, and I looked around with tired confusion. The room seemed normal, but it felt colder than usual.

My heart raced. If it’s colder in here...does that mean Arrell’s here?! I looked around, only for my hopes to die as soon as I saw the open window. ...oh. No, I just left the window open… Sighing, I stood up and walked over to close it.

As soon as it shut, in the reflection of the glass, I saw a pony in a cloak and a gas mask.

Spinning around to face it, I tried to scream, only for my voice to die before it could leave my throat. My vision grew dim, and I tried to move, but all I ended up achieving was falling to the floor with a loud thump.

The pony in the gas mask seemed to speak to me. Faint voices from the rest of the house came to my ears, and there was pounding on the door. All of it seemed so far away.

I felt something around my neck, and finally, I lost consciousness...

...and woke up on top of a thin, uncomfortable mattress.

I had been trained to wake up quickly over the course of working with Arrell and the Winter Solstice, so I managed to fight away any grogginess and leap up as soon as the unfamiliarity of the situation hit me.

BANG!

Only to smash my head on the low metal ceiling.

I fell to the mattress with a groan, grabbing at my head. I glared up at the ceiling as if it had offended me, then looked around to get a look at my surroundings.

I wasn’t sure how to describe the room I was in aside from ‘clean’, ‘expensive’, and ‘old-fashioned’. I hadn’t ever been in a room like it before, but it resembled rooms from pictures I had seen in books of castles back before Nightmare Moon’s banishment, and even for a short time after.

There were three-high bunk beds with mattresses too thin to even fold up and use as a pillow; an old stove that was so antique I doubted I’d even be able to figure out how to work it; a closet with a curtain rather than a door; a mirror also covered by a curtain; a sink against the wall; and a door, which I presumed lead out of the room.

I hopped off the top bunk I had been placed on and was about to rush to the door when my brain finally registered one odd detail about it.

On the door, painted seemingly in blood, was a giant number 8.

I shuddered, but tried to ignore it and walked to the handle of the door, grabbing it with my mouth. I quickly retracted, spitting to try and remove the taste of metal from my tongue. Odd as it sounds, clean metal was a new and unwanted taste to me - I had grown so used to opening doors with rusty metal handles that it had become, while not delicious by any means, tolerable to my taste buds, and now this clean metal was catching them off guard.

I tried again, now more prepared, and tried to turn the handle. It didn’t budge. I pulled and nothing happened; pushing yielded the same result. Finally, I took my mouth off the handle (using a hoof to brush my tongue for a moment), turned, and lined up to buck it as hard as I could.

While getting into position, however, my eyes took notice of something on my left foreleg.

Distracted, I stopped mid-buck and stared at my leg, causing gravity to take over and make me fall to the ground in an awkward heap. I untangled myself and sat up, going back to examining this object.

It looked like a watch, similar to the one Arrell wore. However, this one was much bulkier, and rather than showing the time, all it had on it was a big number 8, just like the one on the door. Further examination revealed that the ‘watch’ was made completely out of metal, with no noticeable strap to remove it. I tried to pull it off, but it wouldn’t budge, and I gave up after a few seconds.

I eventually decided it wasn’t worth the effort to take off just yet. I could try to find someone to cut it off when I got out of here if it became a problem. But for now, that was exactly my mission: to get out of here.

Looking around the room, I noticed a blue briefcase on the very bottom bunk of the bed I had been on. Scooting over to it without bothering to stand up, I examined it and found that it was locked by a combination of a keyhole and a combination lock.

My patience was worn thin by this point, however, so I didn’t bother looking for a key or trying to figure out a code. I grabbed the briefcase and smashed it against the bedpost, leaving a major dent in the post and literally cracking the briefcase open.

“Good old percussive maintenance...thank you for teaching me that, Arrell.” With those words said to empty air, I examined the contents of the briefcase. There were some documents that talked about digital roots; a mathematical process I was already familiar with. Underneath them all lay three blue key cards. One card had a 4 on it, one had a 5, and one had a 6.

The fact that these came with files about digital roots seemed too contrived for me to brush off. I looked around the room some more and my eyes fell on the door once again. This time, I took notice of an odd device on the wall beside it, resembling an overly complicated card reader.

Deciding to give escape a shot, I got up and ran the three key cards through the reader, only to hear a buzzing sound and for nothing to happen. I sighed, having expected it to not be that easy.

Turning around, I looked around the room again to see if there were any other briefcases or key cards. I took note of the closet, which I had yet to open, and trotted over. Pushing aside the curtain, I looked down and found a red briefcase, locked in the same manner as the blue one.

Naturally, it was also opened in the same manner as the blue one.

Inside were three key cards similar to the blue ones, but these ones were red and had 7, 8, and 9 on them respectively. Smirking, I put together the clues instantly. I looked at my ‘watch’, then the door, then the key cards. I laid all six of them on one of the beds and looked them over.

Digital roots...add numbers together, then if it’s more than one digit, add the digits together and repeat until it’s only one digit… I poked the three blue cards. Four, five, and six...that makes fifteen, which is one and five, which makes six… I looked to the red cards next. Seven, eight, nine...that’s twenty-four, which is two and four, which also makes six...so I can’t just use cards of the same colour.

I thought for a bit, looking back and forth between the cards, before I finally smiled and picked up the cards that said 4, 6, and 7.

Four plus six plus seven is seventeen, which is one and seven, which is… I turned to the door and began walking over. Eight.

I put the cards through, and this time, there was a small beep and a green light appeared on the device. Smiling wider, I grabbed the door handle and pulled the door open, revealing a narrow hallway beyond.

At the end of the hallway was a door similar to the one I had come through, but there was no key card device beside it. I galloped towards it, grabbed the handle in my mouth, and yanked it open with no effort. I dashed through to what I hoped was freedom.

Instead, I found myself literally running into another pony.

“Hey, watch it!” an annoyed male voice came, followed by a grumble.

“Sorry, I-” I stopped when I realized the situation. I was trapped before, but now I was facing another pony - who was either trapped like I was, the one who trapped me, or a sign that I was free. I quickly turned to face him. “Where am I?!”

He raised an eyebrow, and as he seemed to decide his answer, I got a good look at him. He had a dark teal coat, with eyes that were a couple shades lighter; a light golden mane and tail, with thin stripes of darker gold; and a cutie mark of a throwing ring with a small contrail of wind behind it. He had wings, indicating he was a pegasus, and like me, he had a strange ‘watch’ on his left foreleg. From what I could see, it had the number 3 on it.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “But...well, come with me. I’ll take you to the others.” He stood up, muttering something.

“What was that?” I asked as I stood up as well.

He sighed. “I said, ‘That’s nine now’. Do you really have no idea what’s going on?”

“I just woke up,” I deadpanned.

He sighed again and walked away without another word. I followed, simply due to lack of other options.

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I didn’t like it.

Author's Notes:

You get nine guesses as to which game I've been playing a lot of lately.