When she came to she was in a dimly lit room, lying on a table of some description. She felt a nasty bump on her head throb painfully to the rhythm of her heartbeat, but when she tried to touch it with one of her hooves, she realised her front legs were tied above her head with rope, while her hind legs were bound on the other side.
The ropes were keeping her stretched out as much as possible, and it was more than a little uncomfortable. It also felt as if the table had a large hole in it, right underneath the middle of her back, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out why.
Her first thought was that she had probably hit her head harder than she'd thought, and that this was all hallucination, or some sort of dream. But if it was, it was a mighty convincing one at that...
She tried looking around the room, but as their was only one single, weak lamp right above her, she couldn't see much.
Suddenly she imagined seeing something move in the shadows, a shape that broke the monotony of immobile shadows with a deeper kind of darkness. "I...is somepony t-there?" the filly said shakily. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had told her more than a few scary stories during their camping trips, and an unnerving amount of them started off just like this...
She sighed in relief as Cheerilee stepped into the little circle of light. "Oh, teach! I hit my head and I don't know where we are, so could you please?" she begged, nodding her head towards the ropes.
Her white skin grew even paler than usual when she realised Cheerilee was carrying a hammer in her mouth. She didn't know why that freaked her out all of a sudden, but there was something in Cheerilee's eyes... "Euh, Miss?" she squeaked weakly. Cheer's only response was to lift up one of her hooves, revealing her to be wearing another one of those special workpony shoes, not unlike the one she'd used to hold the chisel. This one had a far smaller hole though, and the circle wasn't completely closed off. It was designed to hold nails, while still being able to slip the shoe off the nail (through the opening) once the job was almost done.
"What are you-" Sweetie Belle began, but she cut herself off with a scream as Cheerilee let her actions speak for her, hammering a nail diagonally into the filly's right hoof and through her heel until it got stuck in the wooden table below her.
She felt a trickle of warm blood coat the nail and bit her lip as she struggled to keep calm, for she knew simply attempting to pull her hoof away now would cause even more damage, and more importantly, pain. Not that the ropes currently offered her much freedom of movement, but she didn't want to take any risks.
With tears in her eyes she tried pleading with Cheerilee again, completely bewildered by this recent chain of events, her mind racing to figure out what was going on, how she could wake up from this nightmare...
"Ple... please... stop... What have I-?" the filly whimpered. Cheerilee just smiled sweetly as best she could with a hammer between her teeth as she prepared another nail, this time putting it in place against the filly's other hind hoof. The mare looked Sweetie Belle in the eyes intently for a moment, making sure she knew exactly what was coming for her.
Sweetie Belle whimpered and swallowed back a new birst of tears, before crying out: "No! Help! SIS! RARITY! ANYPONY!"
But nopony replied, let alone came to her rescue, as Cheerilee hammered down for the second time driving the nail through the filly's left hoof and into the table with just a few well aimed blows. Sweetie Belle squeaked in pain as she tried her best to keep still, the necessity of remaining still weighing down upon her as heavily as the pain itself. She kinda understood the concept behind "walking it off" a lot better now, as she'd have given anything to be able to do just that.
