The rotted timbers of the ancient, decrepit mansion creaked and shuddered ominously, showering the small group forging a path below in splinters and dust. The members of the intrepid group wheezed and spluttered, hacking coughs bursting from them as they attempted to clear their throats of the invading dust.

“Twiiilight!” A rainbow maned mare rasped, pushing herself to her hooves before giving her friend a hoof up, “Are you trying to lead us through the dustiest path you can find? I could’ve just flown you to the top and saved us the trouble of suffocating along the way!”

“Oh be quiet, Rainbow Dash!” Snapped a lavender mare, her eyes looking to the ceiling either for salvation, or anything interesting to study, “The reason I decided to walk through is because simply flying to the top level would make me miss so much, who knows what amazing artifacts are just lying around this old building!” Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration at something she was investigating, before she squealed in excitement, rushing off to look at Celestia knows what, finally hunching over a small dark mound. Engrossed in egghead things, Twilight turned slightly, and yelled over to her friends “Go on ahead, I’m going to stay here and study this!”

Rainbow Dash shrugged, whatever Twilight was studying, it was undoubtedly something totally boring that only a complete egghead would be interested in. She ambled off after Pinkie into one of the many hallways. Somepony had to keep an eye on that mare!

After another two hallways, a dead end, three corners, and a near death scenario involving gravity, two heavy wooden beams, and a lot of frantic sprinting, they had arrived at a fork. Of course there was a fork! How many other houses were so big that they had forking hallways?! Glancing back from the way she had come, Rainbow suddenly realized that they were very lost. Turning around once more, she drew breath to suggest to Pinkie that they head back and find Twilight. Finding a distinct lack of Pinkie Pie in front of her, she raced ahead, looking down both hallways before sighing exasperatedly at the sight of a bubblegum pink tail bouncing jovially down the left hallway.

“C’mon Dashie! Isn’t it fun to explore this old building?! I mean, Twilight was like ‘There’s this old haunted house!” and I was like ‘*Gasp!* I love haunted houses!’ and so we came here to explore it only AJ, Rarity, and Fluttershy left, but that’s ok because you and Twilight are still here and that means-“ Rainbow thrust her hoof into Pinkie’s mouth, temporarily halting the ceaseless barrage of sound.

“Pinkie Pie, you’re being 20% more random than normal.” Rainbow deadpanned. Of course Pinkie was being Pinkie, nothing could make that mare depressed, other than thinking her friends had abandoned her of course, but then, what pony in their right mind wouldn’t?

“Aww, c’mon Dashie! You know that deeep down inside you’re having tons of fun! Especially if Twilight finds something cool and shows it to the princess! Then we can have a party to celebrate! *Gasp* I should start preparing!” She laughed excitedly, bouncing down the halls once more. Sighing, Rainbow trudged off after her.

After another fifteen minutes of mind numbing boredom, Rainbow huffed in annoyance. She and her friends were off on yet another adventure, and it had come days before a Wonderbolts tryout. Hah! Imagine that! Rainbow Dash was off frolicking in some haunted house, when she should’ve been training!

She grumbled, looking around for anything interesting to occupy her time with. Finding her search was in vain, she sighed melodramatically.

In an effort to stave off boredom induced suicide, she tried to recall the circumstances leading to this latest misguided adventure. Setting her jaw in a perplexed frown and glaring at the floor as if it withheld answers for her.

Twilight had found this house in a book of local lore, in the library of course. Naturally, when she mentioned it, the townsponies reacted predictably, barring their doors and refusing to speak of the place. A habit they had quickly acquired after their experiences with Twilight’s mad escapades, mixed with a little small town superstition. This had obviously piqued Twilight’s interest, being the egghead she was, she just couldn’t leave any ruin unexplored and uncategorized for Princess Celestia. So off they went, running around some old building that had been a ruin since before living memory. Rainbow was especially miffed about the “running” part.

Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack had already taken their leave of the place, the former two with the excuses of taking care of her animals, and the need for sleep, respectively. Applejack had defended herself by stating that “She had work to do in the morning, and I can’t leave Big Mac to do it all by himself!”, which would’ve been a perfectly plausible excuse, if Rainbow hadn’t seen her wiping her brow in relief, apparently Applejack was afraid of haunted houses.

Rainbow was rudely jolted from her musings when she kicked a rock that had somehow embedded itself in the pitted flooring, sending her stumbling rather ungracefully. She flared her wings desperately, trying to save herself from the indignity of a spectacular faceplant. Managing to right herself, Rainbow glanced around, noting Pinkie’s antics with a roll of her eyes. She winced as Pinkie came crashing down from a particularly high bounce with a resounding impact, shattering the support beams underneath her, sending herself and Pinkie tumbling through the rotten floorboards. “Pinkie! What did you do!?” Rainbow shrieked as she plummeted through the hole where there had formerly been a floor.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t an athlete for nothing, she flared her wings, tucking and rolling to avoid breaking her neck, which would have been way uncool. As she rose to her hooves, Rainbow couldn’t help but notice the vastly different décor in this part of the house. Whereas the other rooms and hallways had possessed a rather austere design, scarlet curtains embroidered in flowing gold, fleur-des-lis and greek styled marble floorboards and banisters, as if the entire building had been intended as a grand hall to show off the great splendor within; this small segment seemed devoted more to the worship of some dark, ancient deity. Walls as black as the night sky, interspersed only by silver inlay along the floorboards, and great, ornate platinum framed portraits depicting many distinguished and rather crafty looking ponies, all of whom bore a strong resemblance to one another. They all seemed as though they had been modeled in the likeness of a single stallion, sharing in the strong jaw, midnight blue coat that seemed to shimmer with a dark iridescence, the piercing gaze of those crimson eyes seemed to stalk her throughout the entire hallway, as if they were sizing her up, judging whether she was worth their time.  

Rainbow marveled at how easily this knowledge seemed to flow through her, normally she would’ve scoffed at the idea, denouncing it for ponies like Rarity, but the cold, harsh beauty of the place dispelled those thoughts like so many pesky gnats on a warm summer afternoon.

As she trotted along the hallway, Rainbow felt herself drawn to one portrait in particular; approaching it apprehensively, she turned to look, but stopped. She felt a sudden, unrelenting urge to flee, flee and never return, Twilight and Pinkie could get themselves out of here! What was she doing in this old building?! Rainbow collapsed like a ragdoll, fearfully stumbling to her hooves, pelting down the hallway like a mare possessed, pupils dilated in terror. As she neared the small hole in the ceiling she coiled her wings, ready to spring into the air, and leave this place forever.

But then, she faltered, her wings losing their cohesiveness, and she tripped over a hoof that had lagged behind the others. Making up for the faceplant she had narrowly avoided only minutes earlier. Rainbow silently cursed to herself, damning that moment of hesitant courage, or something, that had prevented her from taking flight. Her rambling was cut short by the barest of whispers, so quiet Rainbow thought it was simply her mind playing tricks on her. But then the whisper spoke again, with the exact same diminutive volume, but this time it seemed more authoritive, somehow perfectly clear despite the softness of its tone.

Rainbow picked herself up, resigned to the fact that she probably wouldn’t be leaving this place anytime soon, thanks to her own personal Daring Do, or whatever it was in her head that had made her stay. Ambling down the hall once more, kept her eyes focused on the portrait that had instilled the sudden bout of terror just before. Nearing it, she turned to look at the portrait once more, and, finding a lack of inexplicable mind warping fear, kept on turning, finally locking her gaze on the portrait.

It was of a rather lean framed unicorn mare, sporting the same features as every other pony the hallway held, but this one seemed subtly different, she somehow exuded and aura of calm, assured, in control and graceful, whereas in all the other paintings the ponies seemed to be going for intimidating, or smarter-than-thou, this one was simply confident serenity, a small smile even graced her lips, but she shared the same piercing glare as the others.

Her breath catching in her throat, Rainbow extended her hoof, tracing the outline of the frame, dancing along the elegant runes and engravings. Her eyes fluttered, and she swayed back and forth, her hoof still tracing runes with a mind of its own.

One rune in particular caught her attention, and she swiveled her focus, gaze riveted on the symbol before her. It was a peculiar thing, more of a pictogram than an old letter of some alphabet that nopony cared about. It seemed almost as if a great cloud of darkness was imprisoned by four walls, even though there was plenty of wiggle room between them. Looking at it, she couldn’t resist the notion that those walls were more magical and symbolic, rather than a true physical barrier. Almost like they had been intended to simply immobilize the cloud, rather than seal it, as if maybe it was too powerful to seclude from this world altogether.

Rainbow leisurely continued her examination of the picture frame, one pictogram wasn’t enough to keep her occupied for long. As her hoof passed over another set of pictograms, arrows pointing in seemingly random directions, her eyes started to glaze over. She shook her head to clear out any cobwebs that might have formed, rolling her eyes and contemptuously blew a lock of mane out of her face. As she did so, something in the corner of her vision caught her eye. Turning to face the unlit stretch of hallway, she caught a glimpse of… something fluttering in the shadows. Tentatively, she crept forward, always watchful for anything out of the ordinary that might leap out.

As she neared the spot where she had seen movement, Rainbow paused, a malignant aura had permeated the atmosphere. Whirling around to face the hallway from which she had come, she was met with nothing but blackness and portraits illuminated by the soft sheen of Princess Luna’s moon.

By some trick of the light, it almost appeared as if the portraits were smiling, their eyes twinkling in some melancholy amusement. Slowly, one by one, the light was snuffed out by a passing cloud, leaving but the last hoof-full with their not-smiles on display.

Rainbow swore under her breath, those clouds were probably from the Everfree, she needed to find Twilight and Pinkie, and get the weather team together. She grimaced at the thought of the lecture she would receive from Cloudsdale if she didn’t catch that storm in time.

Shadows and portraits forgotten, she bolted through the hallway in the direction of the front entrance. Galloping through the persistent shadow in the hallway, she eeped in surprise when she smashed her hoof into something hard and unrelenting. Tumbling to the floor in a very un-cool fashion, she performed her second face-plant that night, an electric shock running through her body. She glimpsed something dark and indistinct streaking away in the confusion.

Rolling to her hooves, she hissed in pain as her weight settled on her front right hoof- the one she had stubbed. It tore at her nerves like a hot spike straight from the smelter had been driven up the center, right into the bone. Gasping with each step, she limped on, bemoaning the fact that the walls were too narrow to fly through.

As she hurried past yet more corridors and grand hallways, Rainbow seethed through her teeth as the burn climbed up her leg. Slowly and languidly it slithered its way up to her right eye, encircling it and clamping down like some demented vise. She clutched the eye in a furious grip and fell heavily to the floor, writhing in agony. The ring expanded almost imperceptibly, eating into her flesh and scouring an invisible scar into her skin.

Suddenly, the ring tightened even more, if that was possible, going ice-cold, and she felt as though she were falling into the pits of Tartarus itself. She sobbed in quiet suffering as the source of her anguish bore down all the harder, herself responding with such a furious grasp that she could almost feel her eye distorting under the stress, ready to burst like a gruesome water balloon.

Then, with a rush of cool air and petrichor the pain eased off slowly, like a gymnast unwinding from a long routine. Rainbow flopped over onto her back, gasping for air, a fish out of water. For the longest time, she focused on naught but breathing; breathing- and savoring the blessed damp air that had driven off the nightmarish affliction. She didn’t know how long she had lain there until, far in the distance, she heard a timberwolf howl its mournful tune to the wind and trees.

Scrambling to her hooves, Rainbow fearfully glanced outside, searching for the position of the moon among the stars. Catching sight of a moon that was way too far to the west, she sprinted off, muttering several curses in a near feral hiss, “Buck me, I knew I should have run straight to Twilight the moment I could, this place is a deathtrap, and a time suck!” She ran on heedless of any other danger, before screeching to a dead halt, a sudden realization, or two, wide in her eyes.

She could stand! It was nothing out of the ordinary, but to her still recovering brain, this news was the sweetest ambrosia and nectar her mind had ever received. This would have been cause for celebration, were it not for the fact that she had no idea where Twilight was, or indeed, just how enraged the unicorn would be at her- Rainbow rolled her eyes melodramatically- tardiness! Nonetheless, Twilight Sparkle in the middle of one of her OCD rants was something nopony, not even the most awesome Pegasus in Equestria, anticipated the prospect of with any joy.

As she frantically scoured the building for any sign of Twilight, in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but ruminate on the attack on her eye earlier. The pain had vanished, leaving an almost pleasant tingle behind, almost like when the blood returned to a sleeping limb, and sensation and life returned to that part of her body- so too was her eye reinvigorated.

She soon fell into a dull, humdrum routine: Buck open door, shout for Twilight and Pinkie in the coolest and least desperate voice she could muster, run to the next one, lather, rinse, and repeat. She finally came to a room with the door slightly ajar; perplexed, as the other doors had been meticulously closed and locked, she barged in.

The sight that greeted her eyes made her cry out in shock and revulsion. Splayed out like some ironic macabre horror-fest, her eyes wide and staring, stricken with the utmost terror Rainbow Dash had ever been forced to witness, was the broken body of Pinkie Pie.

Rainbow dashed from the room, her brain refusing to acknowledge the grim truth her eyes were insisting.

Pinkie Pie was dead.

As she ran, the urge, no- need, to return to the body of her friend became overpowering, lying in there, battered and twisted, was the deceased corpse of one of her dearest friends. She slowed to a canter, then a trot, and morosely dragged herself back to the new object of her nightmares. As she neared the now dreaded room, her mind raced with thoughts of what could have happened, she had been attacked by some shadowy eye-vise, did this have any relation to Pinkie’s death? Was Twilight okay?

Her eyes flashed open with a start, Twilight! Was she ok?! Had she been attacked as well?! Rainbow flew down the corridors, a faint prismatic hue lingering behind her as she raced into the room housing Pinkie’s body.

She jolted to a stop, once more taken aback by Pinkie’s corpse. Death was something unavoidable unless you were a princess, but murder or death from anything but natural causes was such a rarity, that the ponies of Equestria almost believed the princesses somehow prevented any such happenings. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and the door slammed shut behind her as the air caught back up.

Walking dismally over to the body, she observed with horror that Pinkie still had her trademark manic grin plastered to her face, frozen forever in the final moments of her demise. Rainbow tried in vain to pry Pinkie off the fractured and splintering bookshelves she had landed on, only to find that rigor mortis had set in so vigorously that Pinkie seemed set in stone.

It was then that Rainbow broke, sinking to her knees as she sobbed over the body of her friend, pleading with her to come back, just spring up and start bouncing all over the place again. She would help her plan parties, bake cakes, play pranks, anything! As long as it meant Pinkie Pie wasn’t gone….

She was gone…. Rainbow pounded the floor in mourning, her teeth were gritted and her eyes bleary with yet unshed tears. Slowly, robotically, Rainbow rose to her hooves, her gaze hard as wrought skysteel, she would find Twilight, she would keep her safe, she would prevent anything like this from ever happening again.

Pinkie Promise.

Monotonously making her way to the door, Rainbow spared one more backward glance for Pinkie Pie, the dead mare’s unseeing gaze seeming to bind Rainbow to her oath all the stronger. Grasping the handle of the door, she pulled it agape; only to be punched in the snout barely a second later. Twilight Sparkle shook her hoof as if ridding it of a few clinging water droplets.

“Good, that’s what happens when you wander off with Pinkie for four hours, where were you?!” the unicorn’s voice rising an octave or two as she yelled at Rainbow.

“Twilight! Are you ok! Answer me Twilight!” Rainbow pleaded desperately, she needed to know that at least one of her friends was ok.

But Twilight had eyes only for what lay beyond the polychromatic mare in front of her, her shocked gaze taking in all, missing not a single detail. She gasped in a voice just above a strangled whisper, her eyes wide and horrified, “Rainbow, what have you done?!”