Everything was cold that night, as if a chilling mist had fallen on the library. I remember that I was working on an actually fully-functional levitation spell and was close to a breakthrough, but the chill in the library was intolerable. The cocoa I had drunk and the blanket Spike had placed on my shoulders worked together to bring me to sleep.

It was the abyss I saw that night. The first time I'd seen it for myself. A great expanse of nothing, a mouth full of void and nonexistence. I was becoming colder somehow, despite my blanket, despite the warmth in my belly, as if neither were enough. As I grew colder, there was something, I realized, inside the abyss with me. I gazed into the abyss, and the abyss gazed also into me. Just before I could see it for myself, my eyes snapped open as I heard a loud, nerve-wracking knock at the door.  

Lyra’s best friend Bon-Bon had shown up at the library at around three in the morning. Her face was stretched worryingly, her eyes displaying such vulnerability as I had never seen in her before. I did not yet know how much of a horror story this had yet to become.

It was beginning to rain outside as I let Bon-Bon into the library. Predictably, she did not apologize for waking me up this early (as Bon-Bon is pushy and rather unapologetic), but instead came right to her point. Lyra Heartstrings was sneaking out of their apartment every night, without telling Bon-Bon where she was going, and she wanted me to investigate.

I said, only half-awake at this point, that I would see what I could do. Bon-Bon reminded me how important this was (at least to her), and promised there’d be a reward in it for me. I’m still perplexed as to why she thought my aid could be bought; I don’t come off as THAT mercenary, do I? But I realized how important Lyra’s safety is to Bon-Bon (Since, thanks to her own abrasiveness, Lyra might actually be the only pony who accepts her unconditionally), and agreed to the job.

Either way, it wouldn’t be until two nights later that I would camp out near their apartment, waiting for Lyra to show herself. The first few nights, nothing happened. Interestingly, the dream of the abyss came again and again those nights, always ending before I could see who my mysterious neighbor was. Each night, I would fall asleep around four or five in the morning, fall into the abyss, then awaken near noon.

The morning after the third night, the abyss opened its eyes. One was greener than the other. This was the very last time I entered the abyss, and thank goodness. But that morning, I awoke cold and damp, as though I had thawed from a layer of ice. It was at this point that I considered my lucid dreaming a nuisance, and after reporting to Bon-Bon, asked if I could back out of the deal. My sleep was being affected, I told her.

Bon-Bon was relieved that Lyra was not stealing into the night, and understood the extent of my own problem. She told me that if the week went by without Lyra slipping out, she’d give me the reward and call the whole thing off, canceling the deal with a severance package.

But it never came to that, as on the fourth night, Lyra had exited her apartment through the window, her saddlebags on her back. She was dressed in dark colors, and I couldn’t help but imagine her as some kind of ninja: experienced greatly with stealth, her body moving snakelike across the moonlit streets. I was almost afraid that she’d know I was following her, turn around, then get me in the face with a shuriken.

Following her was tricky work. Despite my “invisibility” spell I’d enchanted myself with, there was still the possibility of being heard, felt, and smelled. When tailing Lyra, I always made sure there was enough distance between us to avoid any physical contact. I had made preparations earlier to make sure I carried not a scent, using only odorless soap to bathe; and as for being heard, you know I am not the kind of pony who is quick on her hooves. There were a few times in which Lyra was certain she was being followed, and every time she turned to look, I stood stock-still in order to remain invisible to her.

It’s actually a disturbing phenomenon, to be honest. It’s always creepy to feel as though one is being watched even though you cannot see if anything’s really there, but I feel it’s much creepier when others can look in your direction, look right at you, and can’t see you. I always imagine they are able to look at my soul, rather than my body, and I cannot help but shiver.

Fortunately, Lyra did not hear my shivering, and resumed her ninja business. The moon was only half-full that night, so there was not much light outside the gas lights lining some of the streets. However, in the shabby apartment complex she was heading toward, there were a few lights on, and I knew immediately that she was likely to head to one of them.

As Lyra went up the stairs to get to the second floor of the apartment complex’s catwalk, I grimaced at the noises made from the stairs. Lyra noticed them too, and muttered something about how the apartment’s owners never seem to do anything about it. She walked much more slowly and quietly, but the stairs still creaked and groaned, as if protesting her weight being put on them.

I stood there at the bottom of the stairs, wondering how I was going to cross those noisy stairs. My mind gravitated toward the idea that I should use the Levitation spell I’d been perfecting. Now was as good a chance as any, I had hoped, and began to quietly cast it on myself as Lyra made it to the second floor.

I began to float off the ground, and with my mind I could control how high I levitated. My calculations were a smidgeon off, however, and the height adjustment feature was much too sensitive. I crashed into the overhanging ceiling with an audible thud, knocking off my concentration, and I fell to the floor with a loud splat.

Lyra had heard all this, and the first thought in my mind was that I had failed the mission. She was going to head back the way she came, and if she found me, she’d throw her ninja stars or attack me somehow, a silent assassination, the gruesome end of the once-famous Twilight Sparkle.

But none of this happened, and Lyra just stood there, as if waiting for the noise to happen again. I had gotten back up at this point, my head aching from the ceiling impact, and struggling not to lose my balance. I couldn’t be certain if my Invisibility spell were still on at this point (You know how some enchantments tend to cancel each other out when cast), and in fact wondered if Invisibility and Levitation weren’t compatible enchantments after all. Layering and combining enchantments was never easy, not even for me.

I tried to look for a nearby reflective surface to check if I were still invisible, and finding none, I merely followed Lyra’s footsteps. I walked underneath the catwalk for the second floor apartments, counting the number of doors I was passing by. Near the other end of this building did she knock at a door. Muffled sounds. Door opened. A sound of two ponies greeting. Lyra entering. Door closed.

I went up the stairs as quietly as I could, the stairs under my hooves making sounds like mice shrieking. Making my way past the same number of doors I had counted on the first floor, I had made it to Lyra’s current location. I undid the lock with telekinesis. I made a mental note also to inform the apartments’ owner that not only did the stairs need fixing, but the locks needed to be made magic-proof.

Inside, I was greeted by the sight of toys—mounds and mounds of them. Some of them were probably models, the kind a teenager would blow his weekly allowance on and spend an afternoon building and painting, then leave on his shelf for decoration. The rest were children’s toys, ranging from action figures based on animated cartoons, to stuffed animals. The unusual aspect of this collection was that while some of the models were evidently cared for, the rest were strewn about haphazardly upon the floor.

The suspicious smells got to me too. There was a stale fishiness in the air, similar in fact to the same smell that was in my library’s bathroom after Spike used it sometimes. Which reminds me, I need to remember to ask Spike about this smell, as it seemed to only follow males.

The apartment itself was tiny and cramped. You could see the entire place right from the doorway, a fact which caused me great alarm since Lyra was ALSO visible right from the doorway. Luckily for me, her back was turned: placing some folders on the nearby couch and looking at a curtain which I guessed hid the bathroom.

Quickly closing the door behind me, I weaved my way through stacks of cardboard boxes and other forgotten objects, sitting down between a few of them. I heard Lyra conversing with somepony familiar. I recognized the voice as the stranger that had been heckling the town, and wondered why on your green earth she wanted to even be in the same room as him.

The sound of a toilet flush. Then a curtain being withdrawn. Somepony, likely the Stranger, sitting down on his couch. Intently, I listened, watching the shadows on the wall for context.

“So, what can you tell me about where you’re from?” asked Lyra.

Said the stranger, “Not all that much. Just that where I’m from, ponies don’t speak and do magic, and the people there are not nice or honest.”

I believe I’ve mentioned before his bizarre and inconsistent speech patterns. Here, he was speaking at a much slower pace as though he were having trouble piecing his thoughts together. Either that, or he was sounding distracted—most likely at the idea that a mare would ever want to speak to him, and multiple times at that.

At this thought, I felt more disturbed. I didn’t doubt my little ninja could defend herself against anything the stranger decided to pull, but it was a scary thought nonetheless.

He also had this strange way of saying things, mushing words together and drawing out the wrong syllables. So his above sentence was said more like:

“Noddall dat muuuch… Juss dat whir om frum, ponays dun s-speak ‘n do mashic, an’ da people dere are… not nice ‘r on-iss.”

He also carried something of an accent I recognized, similar to Applejack’s, but it was well-disguised under his speech impediment. His squeaky voice made it harder to tolerate. Lyra continued her interview.

“You claimed before that you came from a land populated with humans. Are you saying humans are generally untrustworthy? Does that mean I can’t trust you?”

I pieced it together. Good grief, he claims he’s human. He's crazy!

But at the same time, it kind of made a bizarre and scary amount of sense, clicking with reality a little too closely, as if he’d been transformed into a half-pony, half-human state. It would certainly explain his bizarre appearance.

“Noddall da hum’nz are bad. Summer g-good, ‘n fact. Like my mudder.”

“Tell me more about the human morality system. Is it similar to the one ponies follow?”

I nodded. Good question. Hilarious answer.

“Da huminz firm whir I’m f-frum all have dere own idears as to… what… dey b’leev in. As fer my mudder an’ me, we b’leev in da One True God, aaan’ we b’leev dat da people shud be good, an’ not steal, an’ not kill each udder, an’ not slander eesh udder.”

My face, I imagine, had an expression that slid about as the stranger gave his answer. Lyra’s next question asked the same ones floating in my mind.

“So, no stealing? If that’s what you believe, then why did you steal from those market stands?”

A moment’s pause. I saw his shadow fidget.

“Uh… w-well, dat wuddn’t me. Dass juss sum slander by dose dang, dirry shrolls.”

My face went flat, and I could imagine that Lyra wasn’t exactly buying his story either. If she was, she was giving him nothing better than a nickel for it. He continued.

“Fer years, dem dang, slanderous shrolls, who hide unner dere mudder’s skirts—”

“Uh-huh…”

“—an’ dey say all dese hor-horrible dings bout me. But derrong. Wrong! I AAAMMM a good person—”

“Listen, I…”

“l—a good person, who nebber—nebber did what dey said I did.”

And it went on like this, Lyra not being able to get the stranger back to her questions. It was as if just by giving him her attention, he felt he had the right to wear it out. After a few minutes, Lyra managed to calm him down and get the interview going again.

“Never mind the stealing, then. We’ll just pretend it didn’t happen.”

“On de account dat it dint.”

A moment’s pause. I could only imagine the thoughts running through Lyra’s mind at that moment, but none of what I came up with was pleasant.

“Before, you mentioned a One True God. Is he similar to our Celestia, raising the sun, governing his people, and so on?”

“He is allus watchin. An he’ll punish da trolls.”

A disturbed silence.

“So… He takes a ‘hooves-off’ approach when it comes to governance?”

“He does da watchin whennn… no-buddy et-spets it. No-buddy seems t’know or care dat he is.”

Confounded by this answer, Lyra finally lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Is he, or is he not present in your world, to govern and guide his people? Yes or no.”

“No, he is nut pres’nt, as in, in-person. Yes, he does guide da people, or at lease he tries to.”

As Lyra’s interview continued, I listened. Lyra, as I’ve said, is interested in all things related to humans, and her research has been debunked by Canterlot experts time and again. Was she truly so desperate that she thought she could depend on this stranger to give her straight answers? The only thing for certain was that he was, very likely, a human being transformed into a bizarre, pony-esque shape. If this turned out to be true, then whoever had transformed him was already in serious trouble (as polymorphy spells have been outlawed for centuries now).

Their interview continued for about an hour. I concluded that Lyra was desperate for answers regarding humans, and the stranger was desperate for company that had reason to stay for a while. I felt pity for them both, Lyra moreso than the stranger. If only there were some concrete answers to her questions! I must say that I’ve become more curious in the history of humans as a result of my eavesdropping, even today.

So eventually, Lyra ended her interview. She took all her papers and pens (which she used to record the interview; I had mistaken her silence as being stunned or angry, when she was really just writing down his answers), and she left almost as quickly and as quietly as she came.

I was lucky to have still been invisible, but Lyra had closed the door behind her too quickly and I was left there, in the beast’s lair. There wasn’t any way I could open that door and simply slip out into the night undetected, so I tried to hole myself up and wait for the stranger to fall asleep. Unluckily, he apparently had become a night owl at that point.

I have never experienced an all-nighter that didn’t involve my studies, and the fact that I was stuck in a smelly, messy dungeon was like some kind of divine punishment. After an hour of being in that filth, I began to wonder how I might force an escape. I watched the stranger play with the toys on his floor, speaking in strange voices.

When a child does it, it’s cute. When an adult does it, it’s creepy. It was disturbing, but harmlessly so. I knew he did not have any advantage at all when it came to anything he tried to do, so it wasn’t as if I didn’t feel safe. It had simply felt as though I had accidentally wandered into a surrealist horror story, but that won't really happen until much later.

After a while, his attention drifted from his toys to art. He was drawing something, hastily; and when I walked up behind him quietly (thankful for my invisibility) I saw that he was drawing a comic book.

Although I’m not much of a fan of comics, Rainbow Dash, Spike, and Pinkie Pie are. Still, even they might feel disgusted had they read his comics: childish art with sloppy and painful color schemes, flat characters with no interests outside of behavior stereotypical to their gender (Girls love to shop, right?), and a plot that seemed to just be made up as he went along.

I understand some artists simply do what they do, not to have their work judged by critics and appreciators, but simply because it’s relaxing. No one around to tell them they have no talent, no one to please but themselves. And in this sense, art can be quite fun. I assumed that was what the stranger had in mind, simply drawing for fun.

That was, however, until he had drawn a scene of two of his characters—a married couple—in bed, saying such grotesque things to each other. If my lover were to say anything like in this comic while we were in bed together, I’d have bucked him right off and forced him to sleep on the couch. I soon realized that I was still watching him draw out this scene, perhaps in morbid and obscene curiosity, and began to back away.

Unfortunately, my rump had collided with a drawer, causing a model hastily stored there to fall over. The stranger looked up at the source of the noise. Remember when I said that it can be very creepy when someone looks at you when you’re invisible? This horrendous, invading feeling was multiplied by the sight of those two eyes, the same eyes that stared at me from the abyss, one greener than the other, staring in my direction, hungry.

Hungry.

For certain he’d seen me. For certain he’d try to force himself upon me, since he had eyed my flank just the other day, as if wanting to mount me. I decided the time to act was now. I was terrified beyond rational thought, as at this point, I had it in my mind that he had seen me, when in fact, he had not. I was still invisible, but being looked at by that freakish, fish-eyed… goon made me think I had become visible again.

So I rushed him. Not like me to act without thinking, but there I was, breaking character. His art supplies flew as he was knocked into the wall, his wasteful bulk jiggling like a trash bag full of gelatin. He was sure to know I was there now, visible or not, and he got up as if ready to continue the fight.

He screamed then, a childish roar that a five-year-old would use when stomping his hoof after not getting his way. He tried to run at me, but I had put up a protective telekinetic shield, which he hit full-on, in the face. His revolting facial features warped even more for a second (A second I see every time I close my eyes now), then he rebounded back into his wall, knocking even more of his models and toys and art supplies around. He had hit his head on the wall, and slid down, unconscious.

One of the neighbors was sure to have heard the ruckus, so I quickly gathered myself together and left his apartment, grateful for the clean night air and my chance to escape.

It would be another hour before I managed to find my way home again, and the next day I told Bon-Bon all about what was going on. I took care to leave out my encounter with the stranger, as that was a horror she didn’t need to know. Bon-Bon took the news a... little hard.

She put up with Lyra’s quirky interests the same way Lyra put up with her brash attitude, and would often let Lyra’s behavior slide. But now that her interests were bringing her back to the stranger, Bon-Bon became scared for her best friend’s safety. We decided we needed to confront Lyra about this, so I went with Bon-Bon for support.

Lyra was quick to admit it, especially since we were in the confines of Bon-Bon’s and Lyra’s apartment. Nopony else could hear, and it was evident she didn’t want her conversations with the stranger to be made public. At first, Bon-Bon was predictably angry, raging that Lyra could have been hurt by that pervert, or worse. I told her, and Lyra agreed, that the stranger is in such bad health and shape that he wouldn’t be able to do much.

I was however, curious about what she had learned from the stranger. Lyra, with a frown, simply led us to her desk, pulled out a manila envelope marked “The C. Chandler Interviews” and hoofed them to us. She admitted that these interviews led nowhere important, but she kept these anyway in case anything he said turned out to be true.

I had no time to browse them that day, and asked if I could borrow it for my own interests for later. Lyra agreed, almost too quickly—as if she wanted those files out of her apartment as quickly as was possible. She apologized to Bon-Bon for making her worry, hoping to hear the end of it, but Bon-Bon made her promise to never visit the stranger again. This was a demand Lyra accepted, again too quickly.

As I left the apartment, Bon-Bon decided to give me the reward she promised. She scribbled some numbers down on a piece of note paper, and hoofed it to me. It was a phone number. When I asked her what it was for, she merely winked at me and shut the door.

My curiosity eventually got the better of me, and come evening time, I tried the phone number. I had never before felt so embarrassed: the perverted heavy breathing and moaning will ring in my ears when I try to sleep from now on. Bon-Bon’s prank was the first of many that would follow, but the next few were directed at our town’s most disliked resident.

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