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Rainbow Game, Room 12
Defiance
She couldn’t.
Staring at the little pictures of the friends she’d tried so hard to keep together, Viola couldn’t vote. It wouldn’t be fair. Duffle had tried to kill Ghost, but that wasn’t his fault. Ghost had tried to abandon everyone, but it wasn’t his fault. Lolo had accused Snaggle of being a heartless murderer and liar, but that wasn’t her fault…
Snaggle had murdered Indigo, but it wasn’t her fault…
No matter which option Viola looked at, there was no way to justify it. To choose someone’s death, to betray them moments away from rescue, was impossible.
“Fwuffies, vote Wowo,” Lolo called from her spot. “If any fwuffy haf tu die hewe, shud be Wowo… Nu haf wong tu wive anyway.” Just like last vote, she was trying to sacrifice herself. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.
As a debate started, Snaggle arguing against the old mare while Duffle offered to die in her steadt, Viola couldn’t make herself join in. Her hoof, hovering aimlessly near the voting screen, dropped to the floor. “… Nu am voting.”
Nobody heard the murmur. “Viowa nu am voting,” she repeated a few times, but her voice wasn’t strong enough to stop the arguing. Viola closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders; all she could do was wait. Nothing was happening, they weren’t told to hurry up or to vote, but soon the argument started to lose steam; Ghost admitted that he had already voted before it started, and discussion shifted to who and why.
Then a hum caught Viola’s attention - not the hum of a machine or a speaker, but a voice just in front of her. She opened her eyes and instantly recoiled with a strangled squeak; her voting screen was gone! In its place, relaxed and smiling with his head in his hands, was Daddy.
“I see,” he said in his casual, almost playful voice. “So you’re not even letting me know which of your friends you would betray…”
“A… ah…” Viola at once regretted not having voted, her gaze flickering between the other contestants. None of them were reacting to anything, so none of them had Daddy on their screens. Had they all voted? No, that wasn’t it either, they were still discussing something …!
“Well, that’s fine,” Daddy spoke again, drawing Viola’s attention back to him. He chuckled. “It would have just been nice to tell them your choice as I kill you.”
What? Viola could only stare, trembling. He was going to kill her? Did that mean she’d been voted? “Bu’… but fwuffies nu make voties yet…”
Daddy chuckled and his ever-closed eyes opened just a smidge, showing an empty white color with no pupils. “It doesn’t matter, not this time. You, beloved thorn in my side, have been in this game too long.”
“W-Wuh?” What… What was he saying? Viola looked around helplessly, trying to gather her voice to call for help. The other fluffies’ discussion had fallen silent, but she didn’t know what to say. Cry out that Daddy was in her screen? That she was getting voted? What was the right way to explain this?! At a loss for words, she only managed to stumble out a weak: “But… But why Viowa?”
The smile on Daddy’s face fell away. “You were not supposed to win.”
Viola stared. “Bu’… but Daddeh said…”
“This is a game about stupid fluffies dying in stupid ways,” he cut her off and the hum returned to the voice as he playfully swayed. “That is what people want to see. Fluffies dying from those little unnecessary mistakes and weaknesses. From silly things like forgetting your ball, to taking too long to solve a puzzle, to abandoning each other to save their own skin. But then there’s you.”
He leaned closer to the screen, spite and venom bleeding through his tone until there was nothing else. “Little stupid Violet, picking up lost balls and pressing buttons others can’t reach. Acting as the little glue holding everyone together when they want to fall apart and break down. Little bitch Violet, uniting everyone for a goddamn jailbreak.” He sneered. “I thought letting White die under your watch would finally break that trust, but no.”
Violet. Violet, White… Even though they all had names, even though they were real beings with real lives, Daddy kept reducing them to just their colors. As if that was the only thing worth remembering. Viola’s breath hitched with forming tears as she cried in protest; "Nu am Viowet! Fwuffy name am Viowa!"
The poison slipped from Daddy’s face. “Viola,” he repeated casually. Hearing her name from that voice made a shiver run through Viola’s limbs, filling her with a dread that only grew worse when Daddy started to laugh. “Do you think anyone cares!?”
“Wh- mummah cawes-!”
“You’re a fluffy!” Daddy cut her off. “A toy. The only people who would ever care about you are dumb pre-teen girls, like that fucking brat sneaking around the lot. Always avoiding me or the cameras…”
Viola’s breath got caught halfway. The little human Snaggle had mentioned. Daddy knew.
For a few moments everything was silent. The discussion among the other fluffies had long stopped but Viola couldn’t tear her gaze from the screen, watching Daddy’s wicked face twist back into a smile.
“But this’ll draw her out,” he said lightly. “It’s two birds with one stone! So have fun, Viola. It’s going to be slow.” With a flicker the screen went blank, and the speakers buzzed to life with Daddy’s theatrically cheerful voice. “The voting session has ended. Violet has been voted out!”
Panic spread among the other fluffies like wildfire. They cried out that they hadn’t voted Viola or hadn’t voted at all, voices mixing together, but Daddy wasn’t listening and Viola knew why. He had lied. It didn’t matter that nobody had voted her, the vote was fake and no matter who got voted, Viola was going to be the victim. She cowered back as the claw dropped from the ceiling, already approaching her panel with its long tines spread open.
She was going to die. Viola was trapped in her voting box and she couldn’t escape. All she could do was to squeeze herself against the fence and cover her eyes, huddling together as small as she could.
Cold metal scraped across her skin, burrowing past the fur but at first struggling to grab hold. It tugged her away from the fence and then wrapped around her body, the long tines firm but not painful as they pulled up, and Viola could no longer feel the floor. Just the metal pulling her ever-higher, backed by the panicked yells of her friends… until a hot, biting pain tore through her bottom and Viola shrieked.
“Duffew!” Lolo cried somewhere below and Viola’s eyes shot open to see the fluffalo hanging from her tail, in a tug-of-war with the claw. It hurt! Her eyes filled with tears as Duffle pulled and pulled, forced onto his hind legs by the claw as it tried to rise further. But it couldn’t pull him along into the air; it tried, and Viola felt its grip slip just a little.
Then the claws dug in harder, past fur and through skin, bringing with them a stabbing agony. Viola screamed and flailed as the sharp tines pulled at her flesh, but every movement and every pull made it hurt more. “HUWT! HUWTIES! PWEASE STOP!!”
Duffle wasn’t letting go. The claws only dug deeper and deeper, blood welling from the wounds and seeping into Viola’s fluff. Somewhere the other fluffies were crying and panicking, Lolo’s voice calling for Duffle to let go, but it was hard to focus on any of it. It all hurt so much! Viola’s desperate cries grew choked by her own tears and as the pain grew worse, Indigo flashed through her mind. A horrid image of the moment Duffle had pulled her in half, trying to rescue her from a claw just like this one. Wails suffocated into sobs; she was going to tear apart…!
The claws clicked with a shudder, then split open as all strength suddenly left them. Viola was left in free-fall, a much too short moment passing before she hit the ground.
For a few moments all she could feel was her own hot, wet blood. It was clammy, spread across the floor and pooled under her belly, trickling along her skin and staining the very roots of her fur. And it hurt. Moving hurt, her tail ached, it was as if her whole body was ripped up.
The voice nearby felt all muddled, mixed in with distant yelps and calls, and it took her a few seconds to register the words: “Viowa otay?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t get any words out through the heaving sobs, even as a big head nudged her, even as a raspy tongue lapped at the holes in her body. Only when she was bundled up into aged hooves and hugged tight against dusty fur did Viola finally register that Lolo was by her side, cradling and trying to murmur assurances.
“Yu am otay,” the old mare cooed softly. “Viowa am otay. Nu am huwt tuu bad.”
Was she really? Even though it felt like she would fall apart, even though Daddy promised her a slow death, was Viola not that badly hurt? She raised her trembling head and stared up at the claw; it hung in the air above them, tines spread wide and stained with red. But it wasn’t moving, and Daddy wasn’t saying anything. No cheerful ‘Violet has been removed from the game’ or angry ‘you have broken the rules’. Nothing at all.
She couldn’t understand. Had the claw… broken? Why? But she didn’t want to ask, in case that would make it come back to life and grab her again.
Instead, to distract herself, Viola tried to focus on what was around her. Lolo was holding her close, and Ghost hovered nearby ready to lick her wounds. The shadow that fell over them had to belong to Duffle. Snaggle …
Snaggle …?
Where was Snaggle ?
Viola had to look around the whole room to see a red snout and wide eyes peering from behind a podium. Why was Snaggle so far away? Why was she talking in a voice too low to hear?
She looked like Bunny.
Finally, as the world grew a bit less numb and Lolo saw where Viola was staring, the filly found herself in Ghost’s hooves. His tongue ran across her fur, lapping at the red stains from her injuries until they slowly ran dry, backed by the sound of Lolo calling Snaggle’s name.
Followed by Snaggle’s voice rising in panic. “Nu was Snaggwe, nu voted Viowa–! Nu was Snaggwe’s fauwt!”
Oh. Was that why she was scared?
“Wowo an’ Duffew nu vote,” answered Lolo, voice stiff and terse. The hooves holding Viola were tense. “Nu think Snaggwe vote Viowa, but…”
“Ghost vote Duffew,” Ghost said a bit quietly.
“Snaggwe voted Ghost!” Snaggle defended herself with a whimper. “Nu was Snaggwe! Heawd Ghost made vote an’, and, Snaggwe thought…”
“Bu’ then what fwuffy vote Viowa?” Lolo didn’t sound accusatory, just concerned and confused. “Am some fwuffy wiaw?”
A hush came over the group, one that Viola struggled to truly parse. The answer was obvious, wasn’t it? That was why, finally, she managed to get her voice to work and tell everyone the answer. “Daddeh vote Viowa.”
All eyes were on her now. Nobody was saying anything and nobody moved, even as Viola looked between them. “Daddeh nu wike Viowa…”
Still nobody talked, every fluffy struggling to understand what Daddy had done. He’d lied to them and decided the vote all on his own. Viola didn’t know how to explain it other than that, her stomach twisting when she thought about Daddy’s hissing, sharp words, and nobody else even knew he’d said them. They all just sat there, a small group in a locked room.
And then the room stopped being locked.
The door opened and Viola could do nothing but stare at it mutely. It took a few long moments for the others to notice, murmurs and nudges as they told each other, and then she was finally released to the floor.
“Can yu move?” Lolo asked, and Viola tried to take a few steps. It didn’t work too well. The claws had dug in near her legs and it ached to walk, leaving her hobbling. She barely made it anywhere before Ghost had picked her up and placed her on his back, and as the fluffies went through the door, she was carried out of the voting room and into …
There was no hallway.
The room just lead into the big, empty place Bunny had brought them to before. The hallway stood unattached several lengths away. Viola couldn’t help but look around, holding onto Ghost tight - was the entire Rainbow Game broken now? Were they allowed to just… leave?
A distant yet familiar voice, alarmed and barely audible, rang out somewhere further away.
It took a moment to place who, or what, had spoken. But it couldn’t be someone in their group, it wasn’t Daddy, it wasn’t Viola’s own family. And after that, there weren’t many choices left. “Bunny…?”
She got no response; nobody really acknowledged she had spoken at all. But her soft question made everyone else alert, and as they started looking around they again heard that distant shout. It wasn’t just Bunny’s voice either; there were others! Lolo took the lead, chasing after the voices with everyone else in tow, until they came across a scene.
Bunny struck the ground with a pained screech. There was no doubt it was him; the distinct green fluff, the mangled, halved ears, the white fabric wrapped tight around the foreleg he’d bitten into when Viola last saw him. It was Bunny, skidding across the floor a little and then not getting up.
“Bunny!” cried the unfamiliar voice of a girl. Viola crawled forward a little to lean over Ghost’s head and see her better; she was a small one with her hair in a long braid, no older than Viola’s li’l owner’s age of 10, breezily clad with hair clips and bangles and every color there was.
And in front of her, gripping her arm so tight it looked painful, stood a tall man dressed in black.
“What the hell’s your problem!?” the girl yelled, struggling to tear herself free and go to the collapsed Bunny, anger and distress fighting in her eyes. And though Viola had never seen her before, she knew at once - this was the pre-teen Daddy had mentioned. This was who had broken the game and saved Viola’s life.
And she needed help.
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