"Such a nice girl," the neighbours said about her, and it was true. Pinkie Pie was very nice. She was sweet and bubbly, with a wonderful zest for life and a love for making others smile. One simply couldn't help but get caught up in her contagious enthusiasm whenever she was around. She was like a brightly coloured rocket of pure joy.

One that you couldn't escape, no matter how much or how far you ran.

Only a very lucky few ever got to catch a glimpse of the darkness that lay beneath the surface. But of course, dead ponies told no tales.

-----

"Hello, ma'am! I'm conducting a survey for the Ponyville Crime Council. As you may know, the people of our village have recently been subject to a massive increase in hideously brutal mutilations. Now, I'd just like to ask you a few questions, if you have the time." The survey conductor, a cream-coloured unicorn stallion with a waving golden mane and checkbox cutie mark, beamed as he telekinetically floated over his clipboard for the questionee to look over.

The questionee in question, a plum-coloured earth pony with a mulberry mane, stood in the doorway and swatted it away irritably before hiccupping. It was only ten in the morning, and already she stank of alcohol. Maybe her cutie mark, a bunch of grapes and a strawberry, had something to do with it. A small pink unicorn filly peeked out from behind her mother's wobbling legs. Apparently the mother was having trouble standing, instead swaying slightly in place.

"Well, I'm kinda bushy right now," the earth pony slurred, glancing affectionately down at a stray bottle on the ground by her hooves. "But thish whole mutilation thing ish pretty - hic - upshetting, sho ashk away."

"Okeedoo! So ... what do you think about murder?"

"Hmm."

Berry Punch squinted as though deep in thought, but her flushed-red face somewhat spoiled the effect. She didn't even seem to notice the way her daughter was crawling onto her back, even as Ruby Pinch kicked and scrambled to pull herself up. "Well, jusht lasht week, I found my boyfriend'sh headlesh body nailed to the wall, with hish - hic - open chesht cavity shtuffed with equine shkulls. Sho, I'd - hic - excushe me - sho I'd have to shay that it'sh ... umm ... baaaad."

"Mm-hmm!" said the surveyor, nodding eagerly as his quill scratched away across the board. "Now, what do - oh."

When he looked up, he saw that Berry Punch had passed out propped up against the door frame, booze forgotten on the floor.

-----

It was a beautiful day in autumn. The sky was clear and blue, the trees a magnificent array of orange and red and gold. The air tasted crisp and sweet, like the perfect apple.

As the surveyor unicorn approached Sugarcube Corner, the faint smokiness in the air was gradually replaced with the smell of chocolate and fresh bread. Stopping on the doorstep, he paused to take a deep breath, inhaling the delicious smell of baked goods before knocking.

The door swung open almost instantly, revealing a bouncing pink pony decked out in a ruffled white apron and covered in splotches of flour. "Oh, a guest!" she cried. "Welcome to Sugarcube Corner, how can I help you? The Cakes aren't here right now, but I bet I can totally be the bestest customer service pony ever!"

"Ah ... I'm from the Ponyville Crime Council," he replied, stammering slightly. After all, when confronted with the full force of Pinkie's energy, anypony would be a little taken aback. Remembering himself, he floated the survey towards her so that she could read it. "It's a survey on the recent wave of violent crimes. So I'd just like to -"

He was so busy fumbling to gather his thoughts that he didn't notice the gradual change coming over Pinkie as she read, eyes quickly skimming over the sheet. She looked up sharply, a hard glint in her blue eyes.

"Get in here!" she hissed, jumping forward and yanking him inside. She tossed him roughly to the ground before whipping around to lock the doors, then lunged towards him.

"Two nights ago, I was taking a walk at night, and this little bunny started following me!" Pinkie snarled. "It knew! I ran, and finally lost it and made it home, but it knew! IT KNEW!"

"What is this?!" the unicorn cried. The sudden shift in her personality was unbelievable, and he was cowering on the floor as she leered over him.

"DID THE BUNNY SEND YOU?!" she roared, and then she was on top of him, their muzzles pressed together, breathing heavily as she glared.

"No! I'm just doing a survey, honest!"

"Oh," Pinkie said, blinking. Then she released him and pulled away, her face all smiles once again. "Okie dokie lokie, then! Whaddya wanna know?"

"Umm ... " the stallion stammered, struggling to get back on all fours. Suddenly, the only thing he could think of was getting the heck out of there. From a distance Sugarcube Corner had always seemed safe, and the pink pony working there had always seemed amiable, but he'd never actually been close to either, and now neither of them seemed very welcoming anymore. "You know, this really isn't that important. I should leave! Yes! Right now! Sorry to have disturbed ... er ... bothered you!"

"Oh, no, that's okay!" Pinkie chirped. She was already untying the apron, already drawing the curtains over the windows shut, and sealing out any excess light. She skipped over to a chair pushed against the wall and settled in before looking up at him eagerly. "I need a break anyway! I was baking cupcakes - they're reeeeally popular around town. Everypony likes my cupcakes! Want some? Oh, no, I can't get you any, we have questions to do! Go ahead, ask me, ask me, ask me!"

She was practically vibrating with excitement.

"Alright, err, okay," he mumbled, glancing down at the clipboard. "So - "

"'Murder, what's with that'?" Pinkie interrupted. "I dunno ... it's kooky, isn't it? 'Do I kill ponies?' Well, why don't you go look in my basement and see how many bodies you find? Teehee! 'Pain, good?' Mmmm, nah, I don't like it very much, actually. I like tickling better, but I guess some ponies might like it. And 'have I ever been murdered?' Well, that's a silly question, thank you very much! How could you be talking to me if somepony murdered me once? You silly pony!"

His jaw dropped. Somehow, she'd memorized half the survey from the split second she'd been looking at it earlier ... but for some reason, the questions seemed a lot stupider when they were coming from her mouth in such a disdainful tone.

"Um, what are your views on this current surge of violent crimes?" he finally asked, choosing to ignore the unexpected surge of intelligence she'd just displayed and instead focus on completing the list so that he could get out of there. "And what can be done to protect the ponies?"

When he lifted his head, he saw that Pinkie had adopted a professional air and a thoughtful pose; when she spoke, it was with a curious amount of lucidity, as if the question he'd just asked was one she thought about often and took very seriously.

"The violent crimes? All perfectly natural in a society whose advances are limited to its technology. The basic behavior of the modern equine is hardly different from that of its primitive ancestors. The only noticeable changes are trends." The corners of her mouth lifted into the faintest of smirks. She was sitting in an odd way, her forelegs crossed over her chest and chin propped up with a hoof. "Whether in a suit or nothing at all, ponies are ignorant little thorns, cutting into one another. They seem incapable of advancing beyond the violent tendencies which, at one time, were necessary for survival."

Dear Celestia, please let me live through this day, the unicorn wrote on the clipboard. He tried to keep a straight face, so that Pinkie couldn't see how horribly unnerved he was by these constant mood swings; but she didn't seem to notice, too absorbed in her answer.

"As for protecting ponies, well, that's a bit of a paradox - at least from what I know. I'm sure that if you searched into the lives of some of these victims, you would find out that they themselves were the cause of their very deaths. In those cases, the so called 'victim' at some earlier time played some part in the creation of their 'killer.' I believe that the life ended was ended for the fact that it was wasted on something that never evolved beyond the childish cruelty so many never cast off."

She stopped speaking, and when the surveyor looked up from his writing, he saw her looking at him expectantly, a smug grin on a face that he'd never before known to have worn one.

"Okaay ... " he said slowly.

"Now, ask another one," Pinkie challenged almost playfully, but still with that strange seriousness that had overtaken her normally lighthearted attitude.

"Sure. Mm ... so what do you think of the idea that violence in books and other media have a negative effect on foals and other impressionable minds?"

"Ooh!" she cried, suddenly sitting upright and looking excited, as though this had been the question she'd been waiting for. "Any filly or colt so silly that they can't even tell that entertainment is just that and nothing more deserves to wind up in some dank cell somewhere forever for being so ... so silly! Books and music are just for fun, not guidebooks for making a mess of your life!" She was waving her hooves around eagerly, voice rising in determination with every word she spoke, and the surveyor found himself almost admiring the passion with which she spoke.

"These are some fantastic answers!" he cried, hurrying to catch what she'd said on the page. "I'm sorry I was so nervous before! But don't worry now, I'd be glad to go on with the questions!"

He looked down once more at his sheet; there was only one left. He chuckled.

"I've got one, but it's pretty weird," he said almost apologetically. "You might remember the mare found behind the library. Very strange; she was drained of all her blood. Police think that maybe the killer had some sort of vampirism thing - like he drank his victims' blood. What do you think?"

"I NEVER DRANK HER BLOOD!" Pinkie Pie suddenly shrieked, leaping onto the couch on her hindlegs. "NEVER! BUT I NEEDED IT!"

She turned and threw herself forward, slamming herself into the Wall.

"You see!" she hissed, rubbing her hooves over the rust-coloured wall before her. "It changes colour when it dries! It never stays! I have to keep the wall wet!"

"Wall?!"

Pinkie was still pressed up against the Wall as if trying to embrace it, and sighed heavily.

"Yes," she answered in a dreamy voice. "The Wall. Nopony else believes me, but ... it's there. The Wall keeps us safe from the things that are out there ... and if it ever breaks, then everything else will collapse, too. Because then the things will reach us. Since I'm the only one that can see it, it's up to me to keep everypony safe. I need to protect the Wall. If it breaks, then everything else will fall apart."

"What wall?!"

Pinkie Pie turned to him, her eyes filled with unspeakable sadness.

"You don't see it, either?" she asked quietly.

To the stallion, it looked as though Pinkie was miming hugging an invisible box, the way performers in the park sometimes did.

Only Pinkie could see the Wall.

Baffled, the surveyor made no response except for a string stammering, incoherent babbling that sounded suspiciously like "Bluh huh buh wuh."

"I need to keep the wall wet!" Pinkie abruptly screamed, and she lunged forward, a knife appearing out of nowhere.

Anypony outside the bakery at that point would've heard an enormous crash and the sound of shattering glass right about then as the corpse of a handsome stallion was thrown violently through the window. Luckily, nopony was there to notice except for one particular orange filly.

Scootaloo was quietly rolling along on her scooter outside when he landed in the yard, body a mangled heap of twisted, bloody limbs, his eyes wide open and frozen in horror. It looked like somepony had taken an axe, only to start randomly hacking away, tearing off entire patches of skin and baring the white of bone underneath. His stomach had been slashed open and his quill and clipboard had been shoved into his head with such force that they had somehow cracked his skull.

With a scream, Scootaloo leapt off her scooter and ran away.

Anypony who had been watching (or anypony who would have cared, at least( would have realized then and there that she was definitely going to have problems later in life. As it was, nopony else even seemed to notice the corpse, let alone the fleeing pegasus filly.

Inside the bakery, fresh blood had just been splattered all over the floor, but that wasn't all it had hit. It had also painted the Wall a brilliant scarlet - the invisible Wall that nopony else could see, that Pinkie herself didn't even know how to begin to describe, but that she was ever aware of.

The Wall.  

Life was an orchestra, ponies the instruments, her knife the conductor's wand, and once again she had played a beautiful symphony. But blood really was everywhere. It was kind of disgusting, actually, and the Cakes would be home soon, and then they'd demand an explanation for the all of the mysterious red stains that always seemed to appear whenever she was alone for more than an hour.

She didn't have any bleach left, though. She'd used it all up last time.

Oh well, Pinkie Pie thought happily. I can pick up some sugar while I'm at the market getting more, and then I can make cookies!

It was as if the surveyor had been completely forgotten.

At least, he had been, until Pinkie found herself glancing out the window only to see his corpse still in the yard.

"Ask a different question!" she shouted at him.

He didn't answer, and she frowned. She hadn't intended to kill him. She'd just needed the blood. But still, she tended to lose control sometimes.

Pinkie would have to work on that.