Apple Bloom sat at her photography desk, clutching her camera. Her confrontation with Applejack when she came home was less bombastic than she feared. She didn't throw her hat on the ground or swear. She was too worn out from the train ride and Big Mac prefaced his news by letting her know he'd already adequately yelled at and berated the filly.

Her older siblings, though fed up with her behavior, still appreciated that she'd found something in school that she loved and it seemed counterproductive to take it away from her. They tentatively agreed to let her stay in the photography class if she began bringing up her grades and apologized to them and Miss Cheerilee for ditching school. The other provision was that Apple Bloom no longer had free use of the camera. She had to ask permission every time she wanted to use it, almost like a library book. The hope was to better keep her on task and out of trouble.

"These are really great," smiled Lens in summation, pointing at the presentation board where Rumble and Apple Bloom's portraits were mounted. "Enticing venue and the poses and compositions are all unique and surprising. Stellar combination. You've got some very photographic brains."

Apple Bloom's heart did a somersault at hearing his commendations. She and Rumble looked at each other excitedly and hoofbumped in victory. Suddenly Rumble began to glow and the whole room gasped. Wide-eyed, he turned his head to look back at his own flank to see a shimmer and then a shape materialize. As the light dispersed, he recognized the image of a sideways camera, undoubtedly indicative of excellence in portrait photography.

Everypony smiled and clapped their hooves.

"Ya got yer cutie mark," exclaimed Apple Bloom, wrapping her forelegs around his neck.

"This is so exciting," gushed Lens.

Miss Cheerilee patted Rumble on the back. "Congratulations, Rumble!"

After everyone settled down and they finally made it through the rest of the project critique, Apple Bloom developed three rolls of film at once in a single canister. Using her allowance, she bought almost twice as much film than the amount doled out to her by the class. Now that everyone, including Cheerilee, knew how to develop film and print photos, they didn't have to wait for Friday labs to do it which made production much more accessible.

Apple Bloom looked through her fresh batch of negatives, basking in the high they gave. They were all so beautiful. She glanced quickly at the ones of Cheerilee and her brother in the barn before hiding them in her saddle bag. Scanning slowly over the rest, her eyes stopped on a frame that sent shivers down her spine. It was the photograph she'd taken on her bed when Winona had her barking fit. There in the corner of the room was the indisputable form of a pony short in stature like a foal. It was out of focus and unidentifiable but definitely a pony. Its' eyes had the same glowing pupils as the uncanny figure in the found film and they were looking right at the camera. Behind the pony on the wall was its own dark shadow created by the flashbulb. Then she realized that was what she saw with the naked eye that night, just the shadow. This was what made it and what Winona apparently saw. What is it, she wondered. A ghost? Is the house haunted?

Apple Bloom pulled out the other negative and placed the two strips next to one another on the light table, running the magnifier over them. Both images had doors in them which was an easy height gauge. In the found negative, the pony was arguably similar but the size of a full grown pony while the one in her room was maybe her size.

Apple Bloom frowned. "Should Ah tell Applejack 'bout this?" she muttered to herself. She continued looking through the new negatives until another anomaly stopped her cold. The weird pony was there again in one of the photos she took in her ditch day. It was outside of the abandoned depot where she remembered there were no other ponies in sight. The specter was accidentally captured in the distance almost off of the frame. It was looking at the camera while walking to the right, still out of focus with nebulous features.

Was this the same one, she wondered. It was out of the house. Did it just… follow her around? Was it here now? She looked surreptitiously out of the corners of her eyes as if maybe she could catch it hovering just within the bounds of her peripheral vision even though she'd only seen it with the aid of a camera. How long had it been around her? The revelation was unsettling but there was some comfort in knowing it hadn't done anything bad to her in all that time, she didn't think.

Apple Bloom came up behind Rumble and became immediately lost in smelling his mane. She thought she heard Scootaloo say he habitually stole his brother's cologne. She just kept sniffing until he turned around to look at her.

"Uh, hey, didya find anythin' in yer portrait pictures that's weird?" she asked.

"Weird?" He scratched his head. "Not really. Well a couple of them were ruined by weird blurs."

"Weird blurs? Can Ah see 'em?"

Rumble brought out the rest of his negatives and squinted at them. "I think it's these ones."

Apple Bloom examined the strip. The odd blur manifested in two negatives taken in two different places in the sanitorium. It looked like something out of focus in the very near foreground and partially off of the frame. She couldn't confirm if it was the same specter but there was no other explanation she could think of for the phenomenon.

"So what's up?" asked Rumble, looking over her shoulder.

"'Member the weird thing in the film Ah found? It showed up in two a mah pictures."

His eyebrows shot up. "Woah… lemme see."

She brought him to the light table and pointed out the images.

"That's so freaky," he mumbled, looking through the magnifier.

"Ah think maybe it follows me around," she posed.

Rumble did the same thing that Apple Bloom had done when the thought first crossed her mind, scanning the environment warily.

"So could it be here right now?

"Could be but Ah don't think it's dangerous."

She replayed her own words in her head, wanting to just believe them but also wanting to be sure. It hadn’t physically attacked her. That was true. She wasn’t even sure that it could if it wanted to. It had been hanging around her or at least the house for years apparently and done nothing. She wouldn’t even know it was there at all without photographs so did it matter?

Rumble and Apple Bloom rounded up the Cutie Mark Crusaders after class and conspired to go to Sugar Cube Corner to celebrate Rumble's brand new cutie mark. Scootaloo in front of a pristine milkshake, frowning with forelegs crossed.

"You don't look very happy, Scoots," sad Rumble, licking whipped cream off of his hoof.

"I am happy… for you," she grumbled. "I'm just angry that I wasn't there. That's all."

Sweetie Belle clutched her head in her hooves as her brain freeze slowly subsided. "It's not like anyone has control over it," she shrugged. "It happens when it happens. Or in our case… it doesn't."

"Yeah," mumbled Apple Bloom. "Speakin' of, why didn't Ah get mine? We were in the same project. Our photos were both the best and Lens Flare praised all of 'em the same."

"That would have really pissed me off," muttered Scootaloo darkly under her breath. Just thinking about them getting their cutie marks together and the unbreakable bond they'd have, made her stomach churn. It was already bad enough that Apple Bloom was his catalyst.

"I actually liked yours better," he admitted. "And some of my ideas were even partially from you. You're really good at photography and if that doesn't get you your cutie mark, whatever does, you must be a prodigy at it."

Apple Bloom laughed at his logic. "Ah hope yer right about that."

Scootaloo seethed with jealousy as she finally began drinking her shake.

"Uh, are you happy with it?" asked Sweetie Belle, trying to redirect the conversation away from him and Apple Bloom.

"Yeah," he nodded. "You know I never really bought into all the hype and I said I didn't care but I'm glad I got what I did."

Apple Bloom departed from the group needing to hurry home. She was already stretching things staying after school for photography class every other day and now on top of that she'd stayed longer to celebrate Rumble. It was imperative that she at least appeared serious about her chores and schoolwork. She had yet to be grounded and couldn't afford to push her luck.

Apple Bloom burst hastily into the living room just in time to see her sister hide a liquor bottle from sight behind her recliner.

"Yer home kinda late," she grunted.

"Y-yeah, sorry," panted the filly. "Just, Rumble got his cutie mark in class fer photography an' we wanted ta celebrate with him."

Applejack's expression softened and her eyebrows went up. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, an' it was 'cuz he did real good on our project."

"So ya helped him get it. Tha maygz it egsdra special."

Apple Bloom smiled weakly, suddenly noticing her sister's slurred speech. "Uh… there's somethin' else Ah needed ta tell ya too. Uh…" Her eyes began to dart around the room as if searching for something to spark her memory. "It was about photography… Ah think." She furrowed her brow as a fog seemed to roll into her mind. "What was it?" she muttered frustratedly. It was something strange and really important, at least she thought it was. So why couldn't she recall?

"Ssokay, I'm sure you'll remember before bedtime. Jess remember ta-"

"Chores?"

"Chores 'n' homework," nodded Applejack. "And the camera-"

"Goes in the display case," she replied deflatedly. She pulled her camera out of her bag and gave it to Applejack who set it on the side table. The key under her hat opened the oak display case in the corner where she locked the camera away when it was off limits. Locked because Apple Bloom could no longer be trusted to be responsible. Locked because she'd abused her family's faith in her one too many times.

"C'mere," beckoned Applejack, patting her legs.

Apple Bloom climbed carefully up onto her sister. With a sorrowful expression, Applejack lightly brushed a hoof through her mane and then wrapped her forelegs around her. For a long time they just sat there, close enough to smell the whiskey on her breath. Close enough to feel the tears begin to flow from her eyes.

Applejack sniffed and began to sob. "Ah'm screwin' everythin' up."

Apple Bloom could hardly move within her sister's overwrought embrace. She simply froze up and dissociated from the moment as more tears soaked into her coat.

Chickens swarmed around Apple Bloom as she spread feed in the dirt for them. Then she took her basket and entered the vacant coop.

She wasn't allowed to take her camera out during chores anymore and she felt uncomfortable without it. Since her eyes were opened by Lens Flare, she now viewed the entire world in terms of taking photographs. Everything she saw was divided into realized beauty and unrealized beauty that she just hadn’t figured out yet. Every moment she didn’t have the camera, she was passing by a thousand beautifully hideous things.

After her chores, Apple Bloom would often retreat to her room alone and look through her negatives and thirtysome photo prints which she kept in a little shoebox. She sat on her bed and ritualistically cycled through the images spread across her quilt one at a time to fully appreciate each of them before moving on to the next. She paused for a long time on the negatives of Big Mac and Cheerilee, her insides trembling at the prospect of covertly making prints next class.

She lined up the three different prints she'd made of the mysterious specter and looked back and forth between them. A dim and ambiguous idea sputtered in her brain. It was something about the camera and the specter and her worsening confusion. It was something vaguely ominous. She tried to concentrate but nothing conclusive was coalescing and it was somewhat disconcerting. It was as if there were pieces of an important puzzle sitting in her lap but she couldn't get any of them to fit.

Here's the story soundtrack playlist I keep forgetting to post.

The Essential Ten

The Perfect Drug by Nine Inch Nails

Change (In the House of Flies) by Deftones

Vermilion, Pt. 2 by Slipknot

Cradles by Sub Urban

Up Jumped the Devil by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

The Nobodies by Marilyn Manson

Zero by The Smashing Pumpkins

The End by The Doors

Come to Daddy by Aphex Twins

Imagine by A Perfect Circle