"Follow my heart?" inquired Joe in bewilderment. Equally puzzled, Doctor Whooves looked around the decrepit room. What had the voice meant to "follow his heart"? Had he meant it figuratively? A feeling of extreme anathema stabbed his heart furiously. He despised the sadist for providing them with such obscure clues that invited countless solutions. He knew that the perpetrator was grimly feasting on their fears. He shook himself out of such thoughts. Craning his head, he began to the scan the four walls of the room.

A glimpse of a heart-shaped figure caught his eye.

"There!" Doctor Whooves exclaimed as he pointed an outstretched hoof toward a poster on Joe's side of the room. Joe turned around and looked at the poster. On a corner of the poster was a white heart; the other corners each bore an image of a different shape. The poster featured a majestic-looking Princess Celestia without an accompanied caption.

Joe walked over to the poster and inspected it carefully.

He reached out and grabbed the poster with both forehooves, chain still jangling on his horn. With a forceful pull, he ripped the paper off of the wall, the adherent still stuck to the poster. He tossed it away into the tub. It floated down to its base, where it silently imbibed the remaining water that had not already been drained from the tub.

Celestia's eyes welled up with dirty, contaminated tears.

Behind the poster was a cavity in the wall large enough for a hoof to pass through. Joe extended a hoof inside it and immediately felt something sharp prick his flesh. He pulled back and gasped. A trickle of crimson fluid flowed down his hoof from his injury. He wiped it on the already-stained wall, leaving a visible maroon smear. With greater caution, he reached into the orifice and grabbed something by its wooden handle. He pulled it out of the hole, light falling on it for the first time.

It was a hacksaw.

Its condition was fairly good. The steel had not rusted. The wood had not decayed. It was moderately sturdy, and most important of all, it was usable. He marveled at the hacksaw as if it was the portal to the outside world.

A loud cough teleported Joe back into reality.

"Hello?" Doctor Whooves said in a slightly annoyed voice. "Is there one for me?"

Joe examined the crevasse and reached in. There was another hacksaw, its condition equally good. He pulled it out of its dark habitation and showed it to Doctor Whooves, who sighed in relief.

"Good. Now toss it to me," he ordered, stretching out a hoof in his direction.

As Joe readied himself to throw one of the saws, he hesitated. His mind suddenly flashed back to what the voice had told Doctor Whooves.

"What you must do is to kill the pony in the room with you by 7 PM."

"Hello?" repeated Doctor Whooves almost pleadingly. Joe glanced at the hacksaw he was about to throw and contemplated. Should he give him the saw and put his life in jeopardy? Or should he simply refuse to hand over the saw, ensuring his safety, but being partly responsible for the deaths of his companion's family?

He clenched the saw in his hoof and tossed it at his companion, the saw barely sidestepping the hanged cadaver. It landed several hooves away from him, but he walked over and picked it up. He gave Joe a faint smile, but the doughnut pony withdrew his attention to the chain. He quickly raised the hacksaw to his horn and placed the saw on the chain. Gritting his teeth, he began to saw the steel fetter.

His forehoof moved back and forth, steadily at first, the clashing noise of the sawing eerily reminiscent of the sound of a sharp object scraping a chalkboard. When he saw that he was not making progress, he sawed faster. Back and forth. The sawing was a rhapsody of discordant screeches, its rhythm erratic and irregular.

Doctor Whooves did the same. He sat down, placed the tool on the manacle, and began sawing the chain on his leg. The room was filled with nothing but the grating noise of steel grinding with steel, but neither of the ponies regarded the cacophony they were producing.

Beads of sweat forming on his forehead, Joe pressed down on his saw as hard as he could as he continued to move his hoof back and forth rapidly.

His hacksaw snapped in half.

The metal had been sliced into two pieces. One of the fragments fell out of the saw, clanging loudly on the linoleum floor. Joe lifted the broken, irreplaceable portal to freedom, tears forming in his eyes.

"Shit! Celestia-dammit!" Joe shouted as he slammed the fragmented tool on the wall, completely rupturing the saw, separating the entire metal section from its wooden handle. He hurled the hacksaw away, spinning on a horizontal axis wildly, and finally striking a side wall with such a force that the gong-like sound the collision produced resounded around the room for several hours. A piece of the ceiling fell off and plummeted to the ground.

Panting in exhaustion, Joe collapsed on his rump, sobbing openly. Doctor Whooves stopped sawing and looked at him. He raised the hacksaw to his face, inspecting it carefully as if it was a rare and fragile artifact.

A hacksaw.

"We can't saw through these chains. The saws are too weak to do that," Doctor Whooves said, setting the hacksaw on the floor, his heart beat faster as if it was injected with an overdose of adrenaline. "We have to saw through our hooves - or horn, in your case."

The temperature of the room dropped to absolute zero. Joe's bloodstream froze, but his heart throbbed with elemental force. Neither of them said anything. Even though Joe was sobbing, Doctor Whooves couldn't hear him over the pounding noise of his own heart: a steady, calming rhythm which paradoxically indicated and increased his anxiety.

"I think I know who may have done this to us," he said, breaking the silence.

The sobbing stallion looked up, tears flowing down his cheeks. "What... what did you say?"

"I mean, I don't know him personally, but I know he had done something like this before."

"Well, who?" A brief pause. "Who is it?!"

A pink earth pony was lying on her back, a forehoof across her stomach and the other sprawled on the floor. She was lying silently on the floor of the damp room. Her golden-yellow mane glistened in the dark. A quaint five-petaled flower pinned to her mane fluttered in the windless room forebodingly, its deathly white petals dipping and rising steadily.

The dampness of the room jolted the supine mare awake. Her eyes snapped open. Not recognizing where she was, she buttressed her body using her hooves, positioning herself in a sitting position. She looked around, inspecting her surroundings. She had been lying in a cramped room.  The condition of it was absolutely horrid; the walls, floor and ceiling looked archaic, and the entire room looked like a dungeon. The stench of the room was almost as egregious as well. The mare's eyes began to tear at the sight of the dilapidated room. Her nose wrinkled up as she attempted to defend her nostrils from the invading, unpleasant odor.

She screamed.

The mare's shrill shrieks proved to be ineffectual. The walls were soundproof. They encased the calls for help in a chamber of their own, the remnants of the scream diminishing into silence as it reflected helplessly inside its confine.

Realizing that her attempt to contact others was futile, she managed to tranquilize herself. She took a deep breath. She released the intake of air. Inhale. Exhale. Her sobbing stopped, but she sniffled intermittently. Her facial expression was the paragon of extreme terror. She was in a darkened room; the only light in the room originated from the ceiling.

Where was she? How did she get here? An overwhelming deluge of questions flooded her mind. Questions that she would never be able to answer.

Still sniffling, she shakily scanned the floor using her hooves while retaining her sitting position. She moved a forehoof aimlessly in a circular arc.

A cold, metallic box made contact with her hoof. It sent a sudden chill down her hoof and into her body, freezing her already-cold body, halting her sniffling instantly. She looked at the object, which was accompanied by a sharp, miniscule knife. She picked the box up. Slowly. Carefully.

The box had numerous buttons on it. She recognized a symbol next to one of the buttons: a triangle with its vertex facing toward the right. She grasped the box firmly in one hoof and slowly raised a violently shaking hoof over the button. Her pink hoof vacillated over the button, pondering whether to push it or not.

With a deep breath, she lowered her hoof onto the button and depressed it.

The crackling and screeching sound of static spurted out of the device, startling the mare and causing her to choke momentarily. The sounds vanished and was replaced by a strident, raucous susurration that dropped the temperature of the room several degrees.

"Hello, Lily."

Lily froze. Who was this? How had he known her name?

"You're probably asking yourself, 'Where am I?' Well, that's a question that's soon to be answered.

"You are what most people would call a coward. A chicken. Is the only thing you are capable of doing fainting whenever a riotous event occurs? The stampede of bunnies was enough to send you spiraling down into unconsciousness for several hours. Your cowardice will not go unpunished.

"Let's put your bravery into test. I want to play a game.

"You are currently in a room covered with petroleum.

"As you may know, petroleum is a highly inflammable substance. If a single match was to be dropped on the floor, the entire room would be aflame in seconds. Imagine what would happen to a pony in that room. She'd be an overcooked pony barbecue in minutes!"

The recording was interrupted by a soft but grating laugh. A sadist's snicker. Lily cringed at the thought of a pony being cooked to death. She tasted bile. She felt the food she had eaten before rise up her esophagus. Twisting her body around, she retched on the floor, the mixture of churned food and stomach acid decorating the monochromatic floor. The vomit blended with the clear gasoline on the floor, producing an even more disgusting vichyssoise of digested food.

"Look closely, Lily. You'll see that there is a 'glimmer of hope' above you."

Lily glanced up and froze in horror. Several hooves above her hung a single match tied to the ceiling, barely out of her reach. Its flame licked its lips in search for anything to immolate. She waved her hooves wildly, hoping to catch a breeze that would extinguish the flare, but the attempt was insufficient.

"What you must do is prove your bravery to me. You are given a scalpel; you should have found it already.

"In sixty seconds, the string of the match will be cleft and the match will fall on the room. Unless, of course, you retrieve the key that has been tightly sewn onto your body and insert it into the timer. The door to your freedom will then open. Otherwise, this room will forever be the residence of your soul."

Lily looked down at her abdomen and gasped in terror. A golden key was stuck onto her chest. She could still see the fresh sewing mark once more. The key briefly reflected a scintilla of light from the faint match hanging precariously above her, sending it corralling toward her eyes. Then, it grew dull once more, retracting its offer of freedom.

"Are you courageous enough to sever the key from your body? Can you excise something that is now 'part of yourself,' something that you have not done with your pusillanimity?

"Live or die; make your choice."

A sudden beep caught the mare's attention. A digital clock had flickered to life on one of the walls. 01:00, it read. Suddenly, with a beep every second, the number began to decrease.

Beep. 00:59.

The numbers denoted the amount of seconds she had left! She couldn't waste any more valuable time. Searching the ground frantically for the scalpel she had found earlier, she swept the floor several times with a hoof. A sudden prick told her that she had found her target.

She grasped the knife with her hoof, disregarding the puncture she had made in her skin. Raising it to the key on her chest, she gritted her teeth in determination as rivulets of tears streamed down her cheeks.

Her hoof trembled as it neared the golden key. It was now only a few inches away...

She couldn't do it. Tossing her hooves up in fright and exasperation, the mare stumbled around purposelessly, difficultly choking back tears.

00:46.

The beep of the timer brought back the mare's attention to the key. Shaking uncontrollably, she raised the scalpel just a few inches away from the key. She brought the knife closer. Closer. The cold and silver knife now touched her chest as she tried to poise it under the key like a lever.

Sweating furiously, she pushed forward on the knife. It slid through the string that held the key and dug itself in the flesh of the pony.

Lily flinched at the pain and screamed. Instinctively, she pulled the knife out and looked at her chest. The scalpel had punctured a fissure in her skin, and crimson blood, like molten lava, slowly leaked out and seeped out onto her body.

00:32.

She clenched the scalpel harder in her hoof. Again, she shakily brought the knife down to her chest and began to peel off the bit of flesh that held the key to life to her body. With every push, more blood began to flow from the injury.

Working herself near the original puncture, she cautiously shifted the position of the knife, slicing more surgical string from her flesh, spilling more blood onto her body. Lily grimaced at the grisly sight and feeling of her own blood covering her body. With a sudden jerk, she swiftly tore the scalpel from the key. Half of the key had been ripped off, the gory underside of the key exposed, leaving the key dangling off of a piece of flesh. Her lower body was florid with scarlet fluid.

00:13.

Tears still streaming down her cheeks, Lily raised a blood-soaked hoof to the key again. She clenched her teeth tightly. She grasped the key in her hoof gently, but even the gentlest of grasps could not prevent her from feeling pain. She shut her eyes. She twisted her head away.

She readied herself to rip the key away from her flesh.

Inhale. Exhale. She could do this.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She grit her teeth.

Her eyes flashed in determination.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Lily threw up her hooves in capitulation. She couldn't do this. It hurt too much. She admitted it; she was a coward. The voice had been right. She did not deserve to live. The dam that had attempted to withhold the tears suddenly ruptured. The tears running down her face was a tsunami that briefly cleansed her body of her own blood. She sobbed loudly. She was going to die. There was nothing she could do about it. She felt her sanity slip away from her.

She screamed.

00:04.

She looked at the scalpel in her hoof. She could barely see her reflection on the small knife.

00:03.

She looked down at her injury. At the half-severed key still stuck to her flesh.

00:02.

She looked down at her blood-covered fur. Her once-pink fur was now half pink and half red. Although she hated to admit it, it did look pretty.

00:01.

She looked up at the match dangling above her, its body preparing itself to skydive onto the ground.

00:00.

As the timer struck zero, the string holding the match above Lily was split, and for a moment, the match was left suspended in the air.

Then, it precipitated toward the gasoline-covered floor.

As if in a climactic scene in an action film, time decelerated.

Lily dove headfirst for the match, stretching out a forehoof desperately.

Her hoof clamped over the lit match, dousing the flame. She landed on the ground, slipping slightly. She lifted her hoof in triumph. Had she managed to win, even if she had not followed the rules?

A pungent odor penetrated Lily's nostrils. She sniffed. She sniffed again. The strange smell seemed to come from... her legs.

Her legs smelled like petroleum.

Her heart was pulverized into powder. Petroleum. She was covered in petroleum as well.

The lifeless match in her hoof suddenly burst to life, its ravenous flame readying itself for a feast.

The conflagration devoured the mare as she screamed, a scream that nopony would ever hear.

"She was one of the victims of a serial killer who the press called the 'Hacksaw Killer.' But the name is somewhat of a misnomer. He was called that because one of his first victims had to escape using a hacksaw, but most of his traps don't even involve a hacksaw. Technically, he isn't even a killer. He finds ways for the victims to kill themselves."

Joe pondered for a moment. "Wait a second. How do you know all this?" he questioned suspiciously.

Doctor Whooves looked down at the carcass of the spider grimly. "Because I was a suspect in those murders."

A white unicorn knelt by the corpse of the burnt pony. Next to her stood a purple dragon, a parchment in one claw and a quill in another, scribbling furiously.

The room was replete with the stench of ashes. Everything in the room had been charred from the fire, which had been extinguished not too long ago. The lily in the unrecognizable pony's mane lay on the ground a few inches away from its dead owner, its previously-white petals now black as charcoal. It was a miracle that it had not been fully burnt to ashes, yet it was so brittle that even the slightest of touch would cause it to crumble apart.

The only door to the room, the only possible egress to the trap, had been knocked down. It was locked from the outside, and the heat of the room had presumably melted the steel bars, sealing the pony in. Had she retrieved the key in time, the locks would have swung open, leaving the passageway to freedom clear and open.

"Name: Lily. Residence: Ponyville..." Spike muttered to himself as he wrote.

"She's another Hacksaw victim."

Spike looked up from his writing. Rarity looked behind her, redirecting her attention to the indigo unicorn.

"And why didn't you tell me that before, darling?" asked Rarity, slightly annoyed.

"Because I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, thought you might want to see it for yourself!" the unicorn replied, the word "Trixie" very strongly accentuated, with an evident smirk of vainglory.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie has also found this near the victim's body. Behold!" She magically levitated a plastic bag with a silver tape recorder inside of it. She played the recording as the three stood silently.

When the recording stopped, Trixie stepped forward toward a wall. "My superior self has also discovered this," she said proudly as she stood next to the wall, which forever bore the ominous inscription: 00:00. The dragon and the other unicorn scrutinized the wall curiously. On the burnt wall was a tiny peephole, just barely large enough to see through.

"Looks like our friend likes to book himself front-row seats to his 'games,'" the baby dragon deigned assertively, shaking his head.

"Behind this wall, the Great and Powerful Trixie has, again, found something of immense importance!" The indigo unicorn procured another plastic bag with her magic, but it was not a tape recorder that was inside of it.

The bag held a single object. Rarity inspected the entity. Her eyes opened wide, and she floated it to Spike.

"Send that to the Princess, darling."

"Roger that."

A blast of green flame, and the bag disappeared. Next Chapter: Chapter 3: Suspicion Estimated time remaining: 23 Minutes