The club was alive. Ponies jumped, shouted and danced—their collective acting as the club's limbs. The music pulsed through its thick walls like a heartbeat—each pulse bringing with it more life. Vinyl Scratch, the slayer of records, stood behind her booth, her lips curled into a smile while her hair bounced with each electric bob of her head. She was the brain that commanded the heart and body. This was the Vinyl that everypony saw.

This was the Vinyl she wanted them to see.

Deep down, the notes were hollow. The club was empty, and the music beating it like a dead horse. Sometimes, she wanted to yell at the ponies who worshiped the club; try and knock them out of their fanatic stupor.

But, she always held back.

As much as she hated it, each hollow note, she needed the job. She kept her smile on every night, practically whoring her tallents out to that Celestia damned place.

It was her who now sounded like a broken record. Each night, she reminded herself that this club was slowly killing her, but she never did anything about it. It was fine to complain, but to act would jeopardize all she had. She needed this job, more than anypony could possibly understand.

As the evening went on, the ponies slowly started to get tired and funnel out. Once the club was empty, the white mare trotted out from her booth and over to her boss to collect her pay; a smile remaining on her face until the second she stepped out of the door. Vinyl didn’t blame her boss for the repetitive style, nor did she even think of him a bad stallion. He treated her fair, and paid her fair. In the white mare’s eyes, she could see that, on a business level, repetition was good, as it provided stability.

On a music level, however, it lacked heart.

The mare let her hooves step onto the cold, hard street—her forced smirk fell once her hind hooves left her place of work. She trotted forward, her mind slowly letting go from her uneventful job and slowly fell upon her destination.

But, her emptiness left her as soon as the theatre came into view; her frown replaced by a soft smile. What once was a place that filled her with fear now held hope and curiosity. A place that was once believed to be the playgrounds for a malevolent spirit, but was actually a prison for a lonely one.

One she now called: friend.

Vinyl stepped up to the double doors and pushed them gently, only to have them creak open loudly. She rolled her eyes and trotted past the threshold, but before she had the chance to ignite her horn to illuminate the room beyond, an earth pony teleported in front of her and gripped her into a hug.

“You came back!” Octavia yelled happily as she embraced her new friend, only to release her a few seconds later. She nervously chuckled, then recomposed herself. “I-I-I mean… uh… good evening?” The spectre blinked, then noticed her living friend was shaking. “O-oh, I’m sorry! Did I… did I scare you again?”

Vinyl curled up and waved a shaky hoof at her. "N-n-no, it’s n-n-not that.” She pulled her hoodie in tighter as she shivered uncontrollably. “Y-you’re just s-so… cold.”

Octavia raised a hoof and inspected it. “Really?” She looked momentarily to Vinyl, who nodded. “Well, that is something I didn’t expect…”

“Just… just warn me next time you’re gonna hug me, alright?” Vinyl began, her core temperature now back up to an acceptable level. “I might have to bring an extra jacket… or two,” she mumbled.

The spirit blushed, a phenomenon which Vinyl still had yet to understand. “F-fine, then… I guess I won’t hug you anymore!”

Vinyl chuckled. “Hey, now, I never said that! I just don’t want to get hypothermia whenever you ‘greet’ me.” She then smirked at her ghostly companion. “So, were you waiting for me all day at the doors?”

Octavia scoffed. “Absolutely not! I have better things to do than stand by a door all day and wait for you to return when I had no doubts that you wouldn’t!”

“Pssh, what ‘better things to do’? Practice your ghostly wails?”

Octavia puffed out her cheeks. “S-shut up!”

Vinyl laughed and, soon after, Octavia joined in. Laughter reigned supreme over the desolate theatre, but soon faded, and silence then rolled over the ruined theatre. Neither knew what to say, but neither felt that they needed too. It wasn't an awkward silence, more of a calming one. Vinyl was still a little overwhelmed by the situation, while Octavia didn’t want to say anything to drive off her new friend.

Eventually, the white mare allowed her curious side to take over. "So, Octavia, how do you, like… physically grab things?” Vinyl asked, recalling how the spectral mare was able to hug her.

Octavia looked around, then grabbed a piece of broken glass from the ruined chandelier. “I figured it out sometime after this happened to me. If I focus hard on an object: I can touch it. If I ignore it: I’ll go right through it.” The glass fell through her hoof and landed softly on the carpeted floor.

“Woah,” Vinyl said, then poked her hoof through Octavia’s spectral body. “That’s coooooool.” She waved her hoof through her body, noting how it felt like waving through cold, slightly denser air.

After getting over the initial shock, Octavia blushed and wildly slapped Vinyl's hoof away. “S-stop that!” she screamed, then turned away and covered her stomach. “It feels... weird.”

Vinyl giggled. “Y’know, for a ghost, you’re not that, well... spooky.”

The specter harrumphs, then pointed her muzzle into the air. “I’ll have you know I can be quite scary when given the motivation!”

The white mare stifled the urge to giggle. She trotted towards the main hall with Octavia floating beside her. “So you can fly, too?”

“A little bit,” Octavia replied.

“So… you can walk through walls, disappear, and fly. You’re basically, like, an alicorn if you think about it.”

Octavia scoffed. “I would never want to have one of those flashy corkscrews on my forehead, thank you very much. I’m quite proud being an earth pony.”

“Heyyyy,” Vinyl mock-whined.

“Honestly, those things do more harm than good. Society would be better off without them.”

“Oh no, grandma’s being racist again!” She tried to hold an offended face, but only managed to burst out into giggles again.

Octavia rolled her eyes. She floated towards the stage and took her place at the base of her cello, then picked up her bow between a fetlock.

The white mare tilted her head. “Uh, do you always do this at this time?” Vinyl asked as she trotted up to the front row and waited for the impending song.

Octavia nodded. “Like clockwork, I believe. Hard to keep track of time, but I believe it to be at the same time each and every day.” She shrugged. “It’s strange, really, at almost the same time every night, I get this… this draw to my cello, and the notes to the song flood my head until I play it. I've tried on more than one occasion to just stop, but… It appears that I cannot.” And with that said, the ghost closed her eyes and focused on the instrument in front of her. Her bow soon began to glide across the strings, the same melody playing from the other night. Every note was perfect, spot on. Even with that’s small sample Vinyl could grasp this pony’s talent, easily living up to the legend.

Vinyl listened, her mind wandered as she listened to the ghost’s song. But, something was different about this time. It wasn't the song, as it sounded exactly the same. It was the… feeling, it gave off. Her mind was filled with soft static, as if trying to decode some unearthly message. As the song continued, so did the feeling, her mind continuing to sway until the song eventually came to an abrupt stop; all feelings and emotions dying with the last note.

The mare looked up from her perch on the stage, her head tilting at the strange face of her new friend. “Are you alright?” she asked her new friend, her attention shifting from her interment and back to her friend.

Vinyl shook her head. “Yeah, I'm okay. Your song just… gets to me, I guess,” she spoke with a shrug.

Octavia gently set down her cello and floated towards Vinyl. “So you really do like it?” She asked. “It’s the only song I can remember how to play.”

Vinyl nodded vigorously. “Yeah, totally! I just wish you can finish it.”

The spirit sighed sadly. “As do I, Vinyl,” she mumbled softly as she drifted back to the stage, perching on its edge.

“So you never figured out why you suddenly stop at that same point all the time?” Vinyl asked.

Octavia shook her head. “Every time I try to remember the notes, I draw a blank. Like they’ve never existed. And whenever I try to remember notes to a different piece, the same thing happens.”

Vinyl scratched her head in thought. What would be the reason why Octavia’s spirit couldn’t remember any songs? She mentally shrugged. Ghosts are strange. “Do you think that maybe why you suddenly stop,” she started, hesitating to continue. “Is… is because you, well… died at that part?”

The unicorn cringed and instantly regretted her words, expecting Octavia to take it badly. To her surprise, she merely shrugged. “Perhaps. To be honest, that has been my best hypothesis thus far. I just… I just wish I knew more about being, well–” she motions to her floating body “–this! How did I even end up like this? I always thought ghosts were just superstition, but now I am one…” she shook her head. “All of the old stories always made it seem so easy! Wandering free, but with a purpose.” She snorts, her face contorting in anger. “And here I am! Trapped inside of this stupid theatre, oblivious to whatever my ‘purpose’ is supposed to be.”

Octavia looked up as she felt a hoof try to run through her mane. She watched as Vinyl tried to comfort her, but it looked and felt more like she was just batting a hoof through a cloud. The ghost smiled; the gesture meaning more than mere touch to her. “Thank you, Vinyl. You do not know how good it feels to be.. to have… to not be alone.”

The unicorn smiled at her new friend. “Hey, don't worry about it! That’s what friends are for!”

A hesitant smile slowly spreads across the ghost’s muzzle. “You mean that we are… friends?”

“Well, I think so. How about you?”

Octavia outstretched her forelegs.

Vinyl sighed. "Go ahead…” She braced herself for the incoming blizzard.

Octavia lunged at her friend. She tried to keep the hug brief, as not to freeze her friend to death, but she was so overwhelmed with happiness that she didn’t want to let go. Eventually, though, after feeling Vinyl shaking more dramatically with each passing second, she had to let go.

Vinyl fell to the floor and curled into the tightest ball that her body will allow and wrapped her tail around her. “I r-regret d-doing th-that.”

Octavia laughed genuinely. She hadn’t felt that good in ages! After being alone for nearly eighty years, befriending Vinyl has, quite literally, lifted her spirits. She didn’t know how to feel, or what to say. All she could do is jump up and down and giggle, floating around (and through) the entirety of the main theatre room.

The white unicorn eventually recovered and clambered back onto her hooves and dusted herself off with one last shiver. She chuckled at the twirling spirit, and enjoyed the sight of the lifeless entity with so much, well, life.

Suddenly, the time finally got to Vinyl, and she frowned as she realized she has to leave soon. She watched Octavia take a few more laps before she flagged her down by waving her hooves over her head. Octavia noticed Vinyl, swooped down, and landed in front of the white mare. “Sorry about that… May have gotten a little carried away…”

Again, Octavia’s blush still confused Vinyl. She shook her head and returned her mind back on topic. “Listen, Octavia, I've gotta get going soon. It was fun hangin’ out, but like I said yesterday, my brother’s gonna freak If I’m not home when he wakes up.”

Octavia frowned. “Oh… alright, then. I understand. You will be back tomorrow… right?”

Vinyl nodded. “Definitely! See ya then, Octavia!” she called out, turning to walk out the door.

The spirit smiled and waved her off. “Bye, Vinyl!” She was about to turn back but blinked. “Wait!”

The white mare turned back around. “Yea?”

Octavia floated up to her friend, her spectral hooves twiddling nervously in front of her. “D-do you think that, maybe, you could, uh… pick some stuff up for me?”

Vinyl nodded, smiling. “Sure, whatcha need?” What would a ghost actually need anyway?

Octavia looked back towards the stage. "It’s just… well… it’s been so terribly boring here. I have nothing to do but play that single, unfinished song on my cello… and, I just wanted to ask if you could maybe… go to the library and get me some books? Oh, how I’ve missed reading…”

Vinyl chuckled and held a hoof to her mouth. “Seriously? Are you that old you still enjoy reading?”

Octavia raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that the literary arts have managed to die in these past years?”

Vinyl shrugged.  “Well, not completely, but pretty close. I don't think I've even stepped hoof in a library! How do they even work, anyhow?”

Octavia scoffed. "How could you have never been to a library?! Why, when I was a filly I would spend every moment I could at the library!  Reading was a big part of my life, apart from music.”

“I guess things were different then. When I was in school, only the nerds went to the library.”

Octavia glared at Vinyl, then sighed in defeat. “So, I guess you won’t be able to get me any books? Considering you don’t even have a library card.”

Vinyl’s face screwed up as she seemed to remember something. With a flick of magic, the unicorn picked out her wallet from a pocket in her hoodie and levitated out a card. “Is this a library card?” she asked, holding it out to Octavia.

The spirit examined the card, nodding. “Yes.” Her lips curled into an ‘o’ in surprise. “And it appears that my old library is still standing.”

“Huh…” Vinyl began, the looked over the card. “Y’know, I've always wondered what this thing was for. I swear I've lost at least a dozen of them over the years, but they always seem to find their way back…”

Octavia gave her friend a quizzical look. “Huh? ‘A dozen’? If you’ve never been to a library, how have you had, and lost, multiple library cards?!”

Vinyl shrugged again. “I don’t know. Nopony knows how they get a library card. They just appear in their wallets at some point in their lives.”

“‘Just appear in their wallets’?” Octavia asked, baffled. “That makes absolutely no logical sense!”

“Says the ghost.”

The phantom puffed out her cheeks, visibly holding back a scream. She fumbled around with her mouth, trying to figure out what to say in retort, but found that she had nothing to say against such a witty, legendary zing.

Vinyl smiled. “So, what kinda books do you want me to get?”

Octavia brightened up at the question, swaying side-to-side. “Ooooh, I do love a good mystery story! I wonder if Sherlock Hooves is still going on? Oh, what am I saying, of course it is!” She gasped. “It’s been so long, there’s probably twenty, no, thirty more books published since I last read them! Oh! And maybe a good romance novel,” she squealed. “I’m so curious as to what books are like in the modern day! Are they longer? I hope so!”

Vinyl mentally checked off the small list of books her spectral friend requested. “Sherlock Hooves and romance... got it!” She turned around, walking towards the exit. “I’ll be back same time tomorrow!”

“Bye, Vinyl!” Octavia called out. “And thank you!”

Vinyl opened the old, creaky double doors and stepped outside into the cold night air. After being so close to Octavia, the cold air felt like summer and she graced it with a warm embrace.

Next Chapter: Chapter: 4 Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 12 Minutes