Despite Lyra’s best efforts, her trudging pace was getting her closer to Sugarcube Corner. She sighed around the spoon in her mouth and hung her head to watch the cobblestones pass by underhoof. It was unbelievable. She had gone from one end of Ponyville to the other, trying every shop along the way—including that fruit stand that sometimes sold those kinda-sweet health bars—but there just wasn’t any unsold candy left anywhere.

The shopkeepers hadn’t been much help; they had either pointed her to places she had already been or outright laughed in her face. One store had even barricaded their front door and had somepony inside shouting, “We don’t got no more candy, so leave us alone!” Pointing out how the double negative meant that they did have candy only got her a cry of, “Get her, Fifi!” and a guard poodle leaping from the window.

Regrettably, it seemed the only place left to try was Sugarcube Corner.

It wasn’t exactly that Lyra hated haunted houses and the lies that they perpetuated. Really, it was more that every time she saw one of them, she couldn’t help but remember her bad experience. Then she’d end up getting defensive and start making up lame excuses as to why she didn’t want to go inside. However, this time she actually had a good, non-lame excuse: this haunted house had been made by Pinkie and her friends. Not that Lyra had anything against Pinkie; that pony could throw a party like no other and always treated everypony as a friend. The problem was that Pinkie always got a little stranger than normal around this time of year.

Now, Lyra liked Nightmare Night as much as the next pony. Admittedly, she probably liked it a whole lot more than the next pony, but Pinkie Pie, well, Pinkie Pie loved Nightmare Night with a capital ‘L.’ Maybe even a capital ‘O’ too. Every year was an attempt for her to outdo, outscare, and outlaugh the previous. After the visit from Princess Luna last year and the resulting panic Pinkie had caused, the town knew that whatever she did next would have to be big. Real big. As in right past the ‘Don’t you think this might be a little too much?’ big and straight into the ‘No, seriously, this is too much. I’m making sure the fire department is on standby’ big.

How Pinkie had managed to talk the Cakes into converting their home and business into the main attraction for tomorrow night, Lyra would never know.

Black paint covered just about every inch of Sugarcube Corner. Not even fresh-looking paint. It was all faded and peeling, making the building appear decades older than it really was. Gnarled wooden beams replaced the candy cane-shaped ones, and the normal, gingerbread-like roof was now covered in loose shingles with thick tar oozing out from several bare patches. The haphazardly boarded-up windows had an eerie, red glow behind them, with the shadow of somepony—or something—passing by every so often. Curiously enough, another room had been added to the second floor, jutting off of it like some sort of abnormal growth. The new room was held in place by rickety-looking stilts underneath, which couldn’t possibly have been enough to support something of that size, and yet, somehow, they did. The building’s spooky transformation was topped off, quite literally, by a billowing, dark cloud that rumbled ominously with a storm that never broke.

Basically, Pinkie and her friends had put the rest of the town’s decorations to shame.

Perhaps the scariest thing about this haunted house was that Lyra had to admit that it kinda, sorta, maybe looked amazingly cool. Not that she was going to get suckered into going inside, or anything. Just that, she could see why everypony on the street kept gawking at it or talking about what sort of crazy, spooky fun they thought it contained.

After one final sigh for good measure, Lyra took the spoon out of her mouth. The chocolate had long since been licked away, and, unfortunately, the wood hadn’t absorbed any of the flavor. Continuing to suck on the spoon was only going to wear it down more, so she tucked it into her pouch of bits and then picked up her pace.

On the front steps of Sugarcube Corner sat three fillies, each wearing what was likely their Nightmare Night costume. As Lyra got closer, she recognized them as Applejack’s sister, who wore green, scaled-patterned fabric from head to tail, fake fangs, and a long, forked tongue; Rarity’s sister, who looked like she had fallen into a laundry basket this morning and put on every outfit in an attempt to escape; and a purple-maned, orange-coated pegasus filly, who wore button-covered, silvery, box-like objects on her head, torso, and limbs.

Even with how often Lyra saw these three running around town, she couldn’t remember ever hearing their names. She would just have to improvise descriptors.

Rarity’s sister pointed at Lyra, and soon all three of the fillies were on their hooves. They formed a line across the doorway, their bodies crouched low as if they were ready to pounce. The smirks on their faces told Lyra they were probably hoping for a reason to do the pouncing, too.

“Hey, um, you three,” Lyra said with a friendly wave, which relaxed all of them except for the pegasus filly, who frowned instead. “Nice costumes. I especially like the fangs on yours.”

“Fanks,” Applejack’s sister somehow managed to say with her mouth full of plastic.

Lyra smirked inwardly. The plight of too-large plastic fangs was something nearly every pony went through at some stage of their life. She couldn’t resist making a comment. “Yeah. Fangs. Like I said, they’re cool.”

“No.” Applejack’s sister shook her head. “Ah sed fanks! Ah gah fengs cuz Ah’ma smake.”

“You got legs by mistake?” Lyra asked, trying her hardest to keep a straight face.

“Ah sed smnak!”

“You’re fed cake?”

“Snmake!”

“Ohhh!” Lyra nodded in understanding. “A cupcake.”

Applejack’s sister took a deep breath, but before she could shout anything more, the other two fillies burst into a fit of giggles. The snake-filly shut her mouth the best she could around the fangs and glared down at Lyra. Biting her lower lip, Lyra tried—and then failed—not to laugh along with the fillies.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Lyra waved a hoof back and forth. “But seriously though, I really like your anaconda costume.”

With a huff, Applejack’s sister spat her fangs into an upturned hoof. “I ain’t one of those! I toldja I’ma snake!”

“Er...” Lyra slowly stopped smiling. “Right, sorry.”

The apology at least got Applejack’s sister to put her teeth back in and stop her glaring, but it did nothing to halt the awkward silence that followed. Lyra shuffled uncomfortably. In such a short span of time she had gotten one filly upset at being teased, one filly upset that she didn’t get to attack, and one filly still smiling pleasantly but probably waiting for a reason to become upset.

With how often being around children went bad for Lyra, she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this was why she never bothered learning any of their names.

“So, a-anyway,” Lyra said once she could no longer stand the silence, “can you three step aside? I’d like to see if the Cakes are in.”

Lyra started walking forward but stopped when the pegasus filly hopped down a step, flared her wings, and puffed up her chest—or at least shifted her boxes around. Honestly, Lyra couldn’t tell if the filly was trying to be intimidating or just had to use the bathroom.

“Halt. Intruder,” the pegasus filly announced in a nasally voice. “Threat. Detected. Engage. Tackle. Defense.”

Before Lyra could raise a hoof or voice a protest, the three fillies had leapt from the steps and raced towards her. Two of them pushed against her chest while the third had gotten behind her to start tugging on her tail. Had the fillies been older or stronger they might have been able to do something other than mildly amuse Lyra. Since it didn’t appear they would stop their assault until their foe was vanquished, Lyra sat down and let them slowly roll her over onto her back.

She waited patiently as the fillies held her down with their forehooves. They chattered on about guard ponies, cutie marks, and other things Lyra really wasn’t paying much attention to. Once she had figured she had given the fillies enough of a celebration, she said, “Alright, you’ve got me. I’ve been tackled. Can I get up now?”

Rarity’s sister’s upside down head appeared before Lyra’s face. “Pinkie said to make sure that nopony at all goes through the front door until she says it’s okay.”

“Right... and did Pinkie also say it was okay for you three to knock over anypony that got close?”

“Yes,” the three fillies answered simultaneously.

Lyra blinked. As much as she would love to stage a mock war and go on a counteroffensive, she was running low on time. She began to get up, easily pushing past the hooves of her three captors, who by now must have realized that she had only been pretending to be defeated.

“Okay, I won’t go in the front door,” Lyra said once she righted herself, quieting the fillies’ complaints. She brushed herself off and made sure her bag of bits hadn’t spilled. “Now, did Pinkie say anything about the back door being off limits?”

The fillies looked between themselves, each likely hoping one of the others knew the answer. When it became apparent that none of them did, they resorted to the young ponies’ version of diplomatic problem solving: nodding towards each other while saying things like, “You go ask,” and, “No, you do it.”

“Alrigh, fahn,” Applejack’s sister finally said as she trotted away from the group. “Ah’ll asfk her.”

Actions taken and crisis averted, the two remaining fillies walked back to the steps and resumed their diligent guard duty by talking quietly to one another. Lyra watched Applejack’s sister disappear around the building’s corner and hoped that the filly would at least remove her fake teeth before attempting to explain the situation.

With nothing left to do but wait, Lyra’s choice lay between potentially upsetting the fillies by talking to them or standing there in silent boredom.

“So...” Lyra said, cautiously inching closer to the fillies. With their attention gained, step one of starting a conversation was complete. Step two—introducing a topic—proved difficult as Lyra had no idea what she could talk about that didn’t risk either provoking another attack or making them cry. She had to say something, though, and soon, because standing there with a nervous grin on her face was probably making her seem creepy. She would just have to let her brain say the first thing it came up with.

“Why are you two wearing your costumes? Did you forget that Nightmare Night isn’t until tomorrow? I remember the time I forgot to—” Using every fiber of her being, Lyra shut her mouth and willed herself to stop speaking.

The pegasus filly sighed irritably. “No... we’re trying to convince Pinkie to let us help with the haunted house,” she grumbled. “It’s not working.”

“We even made our costumes extra, extra good this year,” Rarity’s sister added.

‘Extra good’ wasn’t the phrase Lyra would have used to describe Rarity’s sister’s costume. The filly wore both a tiara and a yellow sweatband on her head. Wrapped around her neck was a thick scarf in a red and black checkered pattern. Her light-purple dress matched her quite well, except for how the lower half was tucked into a pair of blue jeans. Each of her hoofs were stuffed in a different style slipper: white bunny, pink pig, yellow duck, and blue whale. Finally, tied to the tip of her tail was a large, red bow.

Extra something, for sure. What that something could be was anypony’s guess.

“Okay,” Lyra said, “snake and robot I get, but what are you supposed to be?”

Rarity’s sister’s face lit up. “I’m a fashion disaster! Rarity said my costume was the most terrifying thing she’s ever laid eyes on.”

Lyra had to smile at the filly’s excitement. “Yeah. I’ll admit it is pretty scary to see somepony dressed up like that.”

Beaming widely, Rarity’s sister looked at her friend with what could only be described as an ‘I told you so’ expression. The pegasus filly countered by rolling her eyes and stating, “She’s just saying that to be nice.”

Thankfully, before the impending ‘nuh uhs’ and ‘ya huhs’ could start, a voice shouted, “Hi, Lyra!”

Everpony turned to see Pinkie waving to them as she finished rounding the side of Sugarcube Corner. Shortly after, Applejack’s sister appeared, followed by Twilight, who—judging by how close she came to walking into the wall—was paying more attention to sorting the notepads and clipboards sticking out of her saddlebags than anything else.

“Apple Bloom was saying that you wanted formaldehyde to sweeten your crepes?” Pinkie said as she got close. She smiled as if that was the most normal request in the world and not a potentially fatal mistake. Although, if anypony knew some secret way to change a toxic, foul-smelling gas into a delicious artificial sweetener, it would have to be Pinkie.

Apple Bloom—Lyra would have to remember that name—went wide-eyed and quickly looked up at Pinkie. She sputtered as she tried to say something, then growled and spat her fake teeth on the ground. “No! I said she wanted to go inside to speak with the Cakes.” She shook her head as she walked back to sit with her friends and muttered, “I shoulda listened to Granny and gone as a lion.”

“Ohhh.” Pinkie closed her eyes and nodded sagely. “That makes a whole lot more sense.”

“Yeah, so, anyway,” Lyra said. “Since you’re here, Pinkie, maybe you can help me. Does Sugarcube Corner—and I know this is last minute, should have thought about this sooner, what are you crazy, cutting it close, ha ha ha, but... does Sugarcube Corner have any candy left for sale? And I do mean any candy. I’ll even settle for those corn things nopony likes.”

Pinkie giggled. “You must’ve been asking this a lot lately. Sorry. We fought a long, hard battle, but even we sold out yesterday.”

“Seriously?” Lyra threw her head back and groaned. “Great. At the rate I’m going, either I’ll never find candy or I’m going to be late getting back. Or both! Bon Bon is going to give me another one of her lectures for sure.”

The lecture would probably be about ‘asking permission first’ or ‘developing listening skills’ or ‘proper eating habits.’ Bon Bon might even find a way to combine all three topics into one super lecture. Lyra shuddered at that thought. Still, the day wasn’t over yet. It seemed like the only option left was to go door-to-door and hope somepony would be willing to part with their candy for a price that didn’t cost her a horn and a leg.

“Buuuut...”

Lyra dropped her head to look at Pinkie.

“I would be willing to part with some of my emergency candy supply, if you agree to do a teensy, little something of a favor for me.”

“Really?” Lyra couldn’t believe her luck. Finally, a shining, pink beacon of hope had appeared before her. “That’s great! What do you need? A special order of Bon Bon’s signature Bon Bons? Private music lessons? I suppose I cou—” Her excitement faded as she remembered she was talking to Pinkie. “What kind of something?”

“Oh, It’s really, really simple. Shouldn’t take you long at all,” Pinkie said, waving a hoof nonchalantly. “You see, there exists a place in Equestria where ponies do not go. A spooky place so full of dreadfulness, hopelessness, and evilness-ess that only the bravest or most foolish of ponies would even think about thinking about it. A place of terror. A place of horrors. A place of inadequate lighting. Do you know of this place? Have you seen the shadows of it in your nightmares?”

Lyra had a feeling she knew what Pinkie was asking. She gulped. “Y-you mean—”

“Yes!” Pinkie shouted as she reared up on her hind-legs and threw her front hooves in the air. “Steel your courage, Lyra, for the task I set before you is to enter my haunted house!” She remained standing with her eyes closed and a grin on her face. After a few seconds, her grin faltered slightly. She opened one eye and looked up at the storm cloud. “Oh yeah.” She dropped back down to all fours. “It only booms thunder when Rainbow Dash is here to control it. Whoopsie.”

Even though the cloud had missed its dramatic cue, Lyra still felt like she had been struck by lightning. “Let me get this straight,” she said slowly, dreading to say the words out loud. “You want me... to en—”

“Enter the haunted house?” Twilight said as she looked up from a clipboard. A smile quickly spread across her face. “Yes. Enter the haunted house! Pinkie, that’s perfect. With the second-floor decorations done ahead of schedule, we can move up the preliminary systems testing. Let me get out my fear-o-meter.”

“Your what?” Lyra asked. Everything was suddenly happening way too fast for her.

“Fear-o-meter. It’s a device to measure fear,” Twilight said matter-of-factly, then glanced over her shoulder and started levitating various papers and books out of her bags. “I know I put it in here somewhere...”

Lyra grimaced. When she had told Bon Bon that she’d face her traumatic experience today, she’d meant it as a sarcastic joke. She wouldn’t panic. Not yet, at least. She just had to remain calm, stall for time, and try to cut a different deal because she really didn’t want to do this.

“Pinkie,” Lyra said as calmly as she could, “are you sure there’s n—”

“I’ll do it!” Apple-something-flower-related shouted and dashed next to Pinkie. Her two friends were quick behind her.

“No. Pick me!”

“I want to be a test pony!”

“You don’t even need to give me candy!”

Lyra’s mouth dropped. The options to remain calm and stall for time had just flown out the window. These pint-sized, wannabe haunted house helpers were about to ruin her chance at free candy before she could even decide if she wanted to take that chance. “Now hold on. Don’t you—”

“Sorry, girls,” Pinkie said with a raised hoof, halting all complaints. “I can’t let any of you inside until we’re absolutely, positively sure that the fear levels are safe. Why, the first room alone is rated a solid four on the ‘Pinkie Pie Scale-O-Scariness.’”

“A four? That’s all?” the pegasus filly said, standing in her ‘I might have to go to the bathroom’ pose. “I can handle that by myself.”

Pinkie blinked and cocked her head to the side. “Really? Don’t you know that the Scale-O-Scariness only goes up to a three?”

Slowly, the pegasus filly’s wings folded back down to her box. “Oh,” she said and looked to her friends, who were doing their best not to make eye contact. Apparently, if the pegasus filly wanted to go off to her uncertain doom alone, that was her choice.

Pinkie held a hoof to her chin and twisted her lips in thought. “Hmm... I suppose I could let an unsupervised filly wander around an untested haunted house filled with horrors beyond all reason.”

The pegasus filly’s ears drooped further and she appeared to be subconsciously trying to withdraw into her boxes. Then, in a true display of the power of friendship—and probably a little bit of the power of feeling guilty—Snake Filly and Fashion Disaster faced each other, nodded once, then moved to stand closer to their pale pegasus pal.

Upon seeing such a touching gesture, Lyra knew what she had to do. As much as it pained her to have to agree to this, she couldn’t let a haunted house potentially ruin Nightmare Night for one so young and full of life. She stepped forward, met Pinkie’s eyes, took a deep breath, and then didn’t say anything because Pinkie winked at her.

“Gee,” Pinkie said with a frown as she dragged a hoof along the street. “And here I was really hoping I could get all three of you to go on a secret mission for me.”

“I’ll go!” the pegasus filly shouted. She seemed to realize how much that outburst had dropped her bravado level and quickly glanced to her smirking friends. “I-I mean... I suppose I could go. If you really need me.”

Pinkie nodded, then twisted her neck so she could root around in her own mane. She mumbled softly to herself as she searched for whatever it was she was keeping in there. After a few seconds, she gave an “Aha,” and pulled out a pink card with a picture of a blue balloon on it. She craned her head back and held the card high for all to see. The late afternoon sun shone upon it, reflecting back the light in a way that made the card itself seem to glow. A hush came over everypony present, as the card was gently lowered towards the pegasus filly. At first eager, the filly reached out with her mouth, but then hesitated as if she had sensed the weight of responsibility her action would entail—or, more likely, because she didn’t want to put something that had come from Pinkie’s mane in her mouth. Regardless of whatever was going through the young pony’s mind, she decided to bite onto the card, thus accepting the mission.

With the sacred relic safely passed from mare to filly, Pinkie spoke in a hushed voice: friendly, yet commanding. “Take this to Carousel Boutique and find Rarity. Tell her it’s a Code Three. She’ll know what to do. Be brave, be swift, and remember, above all else...” She leaned in even closer to the fillies. “Be sneaky. You can’t let anypony know you’re secretly helping with the haunted house or they might try to use you to get in early.”

The effect of Pinkie’s words slowly washed over the trio. First came the grins, playing across their faces as they looked between each other with their eyes growing wider. Then came the giddiness, bubbling up in a fit of giggles and whispered excitement. Next, the three attempted to shush each other since they were being loud enough to let everypony in earshot know something was up. Finally, once they had quieted down and resumed normal breathing patterns, more excited giggles erupted.

With a chorused shout of, “Thanks, Pinkie!” the secret agents darted away. They eventually remembered the stealth aspect of their mission and proceeded to halt in the middle of the street, drop to their bellies, and crawl to the nearest building. Once there, they pressed themselves up against the wall and shuffled slowly along it.

Practically everypony walking down the street noticed the all-too-obvious fillies and watched them with expressions ranging from amusement to confusion. Still, it was doubtful any of the other ponies realized the fillies actually were on a secret mission, so in a way, they were succeeding by failing.

“Aww,” Pinkie cooed, drawing Lyra’s attention back to her. “They’re so excited they get to help out. Even if it is only getting some more black paint.” She suddenly frowned. “Wait... was paint a Code Three or a Code Four?” She shrugged and went back to smiling. “Hmm. Either I’ll get a pail of paint or a box of kazoos, but either way, the night will be fun!”

“Yeah, fun.” Lyra dropped her gaze to the cobblestones and scuffed a hoof against them. Now that she was back to being the only choice, the decision to enter or not seemed much heavier. There was only one thing she could think of to say that might get Pinkie to accept some other favor. It was a long-shot, but she had to try. “Listen, Pinkie. Do you think—”

“Found it!” came the muffled voice of Twilight.

Lyra groaned and looked past Pinkie to the neatly sorted piles of clipboards, papers, pens, and inks that circled both Twilight and her completely empty saddle-bag. Twilight had just pulled her head out of one of the pouches and held before her with her magic some sort of circular, purple, cloth band that must have been her terror-ma-thingy. All the neat piles glowed with magic and rapidly repacked themselves into her bag, which then levitated to land upon her back.

“Here you go,” Twilight said as she presented the band to Lyra. “One fear-o-meter. I don’t know why I thought packing it first was a good idea.” She nodded towards Lyra and moved the questionable object closer. “Go ahead. Just place it around your forehead.”

The glow around the fear-o-meter changed from magenta to gold as Lyra gripped it with her magic. While she was normally hesitant to put anything with the word ‘fear’ in its description on her head, it looked like there really was going to be no getting out of this. She stretched out the cloth and easily slipped it on, positioning it to wrap around her head just under her horn and ears. She released her magic and felt the fabric fit snugly, but not tightly, against her skin. The only problem was that the front came down far enough to be annoyingly close to her eyes.

“So, it’s some sort of headband?” Lyra asked as she attempted to adjust it upwards with her hoof.

Twilight’s jaw dropped. She fumbled for words, likely in an attempt to explain how Lyra had just reduced what was probably a marvel of magical engineering down to a common piece of clothing. She squeaked one more word, then deflated with a sigh.

“Yes,” she admitted. “Yes. It’s a headband. But it’s been enchanted with an empathic-link that will let me know the general location of the wearer as well as the current fear or fear-like emotion they may be experiencing.” Her horn glowed as she closed her eyes and pointed a hoof at Lyra. “Move somewhere. I’ll show you.”

Lyra did as she was told and started off by trotting around randomly. When this proved easy for Twilight’s hoof to follow, Lyra decided to mix it up by circling around Pinkie, stepping lightly to not make noise, walking backwards, and even stomping loudly in place while slowly getting quieter so it seemed like she was leaving. Through it all, Twilight kept her hoof pointed directly at Lyra.

Honestly, having somepony so easily able to track her every movement like that was kind of creepy.

“Oh!” Twilight opened her eyes. “I’m sensing that you’re feeling slightly creeped-out... and now that feeling is getting stronger. Am I right?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Great!” Twilight stopped channeling her spell and clapped her front hooves together. “Oh, before I forget...” She levitated out a clipboard whose metal clip must have been strained nearly to the point of breaking from the ridiculous amount of papers it held. “I took the liberty of compiling a list of all the common, uncommon, and theoretically possible ailments—physical and psychological—that may result from both short and prolonged exposures to fear. They’re sorted by likeliness and severity. You probably don’t have to worry about anything past the first five pages, but you may want to look everything over, just in case you begin to experience any of the more serious symptoms.”

After reluctantly accepting the list, Lyra grinned weakly at Twilight, then stared blankly at the document. It was filled with words. Many words. Probably more words than the last book she had read. However, a few of the words were underlined, and that gave Lyra hope. She called to mind the ancient proverb that had helped her so much in school: when in doubt, skim the parts that look important.

“Chattering teeth, sweaty fetlocks, twitchy cheeks...” Lyra read quietly. Seeing nothing but common, boring things, she flipped forward a couple pages. “...jelly spine, wilted tail, sideways knees, unexpected loss of bladder control. Ew.” She got a hoof under a good portion of the stack and pried it back to take a peek at some of the latter entries. “Irrational phobia of pea soup, spinning moral compass, prolonged wilted tail... randomized parted-mane syndrome?” She dropped the pages and stared flatly at Twilight, who must have been playing some kind of weird, smart-pony joke on her. “Is that even a real thing?”

Twilight nodded firmly. “Oh, yes. There have been more than a dozen reported cases of ponies whose manes would randomly change which side they were parted on several times daily. I’ve read that it makes wearing hair accessories quite problematic.”

Lyra rolled her eyes and passed the clipboard back to Twilight. “No offense, but I don’t think anything in your haunted house could be scary enough to cause that to happen.”

“Maybe not.” Twilight shrugged and returned her notes to her bag. “But it never hurts to be prepared. Thanks again for agreeing to help us, though. The data I get from this will be invaluable.”

Lyra hadn’t agreed to help, but she didn’t bother trying to correct Twilight. So far, she’d been interrupted every time she had tried to get a word in edgewise. It seemed that fate had decreed that Lyra would enter a haunted house today whether she wanted to or not.

Fate was a jerk sometimes.

“Now, hold on just an itsy, bitsy minute, Twilight,” Pinkie said. She smiled and trotted up next to Twilight. “Lyra hasn’t actually accepted my offer, yet.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “Oh my gosh!” She took a quick step forward, then hesitated and stepped back while shaking her head. “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to be pushy. You don’t have to help if you don’t want to. We can find somepony else. Although...” A smile slowly tugged at the corners of her frown. “If you do want to help, that’s great too. But, only if you really want to.”

Lyra shot a friendly smile to Twilight, letting her know all was forgiven. Now that she actually had a choice, she was going to take the time to make sure it was the right one. Letting her gaze wash over the chipped and peeling paint of Sugarcube Corner’s front door, Lyra thought.

To go inside, or not to go inside. It seemed a simple problem, but there was much to consider. On the one hoof, she could accept Pinkie’s offer and enter the second haunted house of her life. She’d be guaranteed free candy, but at what cost? Already, memories of that day so long ago were replaying in her mind; memories of having terrified fun one minute and then crying her eyes out the next. That first haunted house had almost ruined Nightmare Night for her forever. A second exposure might be enough to turn her into a grump. She’d spend tomorrow night sitting on the front porch, passing out dental floss instead of candy. That thought was horrible enough to make her shiver.

On the other hoof, she could always try her luck someplace else. The party was still about an hour away. It was possible that she could find enough ponies willing to sell portions of their candy. It was also possible a bag full of most delicious sweets in the world could fall off the back of a pegasus delivery cart and land in front of her. Lyra sighed. Just because something was possible, didn’t mean it was going to happen. She still checked the sky, just in case.

It really was a simple choice then, once she boiled it down to the end results. Did she for sure get the candy here, thereby saving the day and making Bon Bon happy? Or did she go somewhere else, likely fail, and return home in shame to an upset Bon Bon?

Lyra nodded to herself. “I accept. I’ll help you test o—” She then found herself being squeezed to the point of being unable to breathe.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Lyra!” Pinkie squealed. “I’ll go get my costume. I can’t wait to see you at the end! I’ll have a ginormous bowl of candy waiting for you. You’ll have to tell me about each and every single scary thing you see! And each and every single scary thing you don’t see! And...”

Pinkie kept rapidly spouting out other things, but Lyra found herself paying more attention to all the twinkling stars that had come out to play. Besides, all the noise from that pesky, roaring ocean made it too difficult to understand anything. Which was odd, since Ponyville didn’t even have an ocean.

Then, suddenly, the constriction stopped.

As Lyra greedily sucked in lungfuls of sweet, life-giving air, the pinkish blur mumbled something that sounded like an apology, then vanished. Shortly after, the front door of Sugarcube Corner creaked opened and slammed shut. Lyra held a hoof to her head as her vision slowly returned to its normal, non-spinning state.

“Sorry,” Twilight said. “Pinkie has put a lot of effort into this, and I think she got a little too excited about finally getting to show it off.”

“I’ll say.” Lyra felt across her chest but stopped when she realized she had no idea how to check for broken ribs. Nothing hurt too badly, so she would probably survive. “So, all I need to do is reach the end?”

“Yes, the rooms flow from one to the next, and there are signs up just in case. Take your time, and try to look at everything in each room before you move on, though. That will provide the data I need to adjust the surprises to be the exact level of scariness that’s still considered fun.”

Lyra groaned. She had hoped she could get away with charging through each room as fast as her hooves could carry her. Also as fast as the internal layout allowed. And the furniture. Actually, now that she thought about it, it probably wasn’t a very smart plan to run around blindly in a poorly lit building that was filled to the brim with who-knows-what type of scary obstacles. It looked like she’d have to do this the normal way.

The first few steps towards Sugarcube Corner’s front door were easy enough. The next few made Lyra wonder if she had somehow put on a set of lead horseshoes. She couldn’t give up though. She had given her word and was determined to see it through. She would to do this. For herself. For Bon Bon. For candy.

Through sheer willpower and the physics of forward momentum, Lyra finally reached the steps leading up to the doorway. She lifted a hoof, then paused. The steps appeared warped and cracked enough that she was sure any added weight would cause them to crumble into mulch. However, the fillies from before had been sitting here. Unless they were as light as feathers—and Lyra had hoofprints on her chest that proved that they weren’t—the aged effect of the wood had to either be an illusion or a well-crafted facsimile. She lowered her hoof and was instantly disappointed. Sure, the step may have looked old, but it didn’t even squeak. She’d have to include this oversight in her report to Pinkie.

With a smile, Lyra hurried up the last step and stood before the door. She had made it. This was going be easy, and maybe even a tiny, almost-zero-but-still-a-positive-number amount of fun. She was about to turn the handle with her magic when a loud click sounded from it. Lyra then knew why the steps had been so quiet; the door had already consumed their noise.

The groan coming from the door’s hinges was a primal thing. Deep, reverberating, ancient. It spoke of the folly that would be committed by any who dared to trespass upon these hallowed grounds. Lyra could swear she felt her back teeth vibrating. There was no way anything natural could make this noise. It had to be a spell. A quick glance towards Twilight revealed that while her horn may have been lit up, her attention was on the notepad she was feverishly writing on. She also had one hoof pointed directly at Lyra.

Stupid fear-o-meter.

As the door slowly swung inwards, it seemed to sink into a pitch-black pool. Lyra stared into the curtain of darkness hanging from the doorway and kept telling herself it was only a spell to block light and that there wasn't anything on the other side staring back.

With the gateway into the void fully opened, the groan didn’t end so much as it simply ceased to exist. The silence it left behind seemed unreal, like the sound had always been a part of life and just now was the first time in the history of everything that it had stopped. Lyra panted heavily, feeling as exhausted as the few times she had joined Bon Bon at the gym. She gazed wearily out at the marketplace. Some ponies still stood stunned, while others peaked out from their hiding places. Then, the cheering started.

Lyra shook her head and faced the darkness on the other side of the door. She wasn’t about to let some magical, show-offy illusions unnerve her. She had candy to collect. All she had to do was get her dumb legs to listen to her and walk forward.

A breath of frigid air drifted out of the inky void, washing over Lyra’s head and sending a chill down her spine. She was certain she had just heard something on the other side whisper her name.

The trot down the steps and back towards Twilight was calm, peaceful, and in no way terror-inducing. Exactly how Lyra normally liked to spend her day.

Twilight looked up from her notes as Lyra approached. “Something the matter?”

A few ponies were still looking her way, so Lyra tried to come up with something that sounded like a plausible reason for her coming back that didn’t make her sound like a big chicken. “No, no... everything's fine. I just wanted you to... um...” Her brain failed at coming up with a non-lame excuse. “Hold onto my bag of bits for me?”

“Of course.” Twilight set down her notes and smiled. “You know, we were actually planning to offer to hold onto bags of candy tomorrow night. Just in case of accidental spillage.”

Lyra halted with her bag half-way off. “What? Nooo...” She shook her head and smirked as she finished slipping the drawstring over her head. “I’m not asking you to hold onto it because I think I’m going to get so scared I’ll starting running around willy-nilly, crashing into things and spilling my bits everywhere, which I’ll then ignore since, in my head, I’ll be fleeing for my life from imagined horrors beyond anything an ordinary mind might conceive.” She chuckled at such a ridiculous notion. Somehow, she didn’t think Twilight was buying it, so she cleared her throat and tried to put on what she hoped was a stern expression. “The reason I’m asking you to hold onto it is because I’ve been carrying it for a long time and my neck is getting sore. That, and I’m worried the extra weight of the headband combined with my bag would be enough to give me a muscle cramp.” When Twilight only stared at her, Lyra passed over the bag and added, “Safety first.”

Twilight blinked as if just realizing where she was. “R-right. Yeah. Safety first.” She took hold of the bag, stared at the wooden handle coming out of it, then glanced back up at Lyra.

“It’s a long story. Actually... no, it’s a short story. It’s a spoon I stole from Bon Bon, it was covered in chocolate, I licked it clean, and I needed somewhere to store it.”

Since she had finished completely embarrassing herself and Twilight was at a loss for words, Lyra trotted back to the door, keeping her head down the whole way. At least most of the onlookers had left to carry on with their business. She edged up to the wall of darkness, still unable to see anything beyond it. With a final gulp, she closed her eyes and crossed the threshold.

She waited, expecting to feel a rush of icy air that would freeze her bones, or for the floor to give way and drop her into a never-ending pit, or for something to grab her and slowly sink its fangs into her neck. Instead, walking through this doorway had been about as exciting as walking through any other doorway. She opened one eye.

Before her was a black-painted, plywood wall that featured a red arrow pointing to the right and a sign that read, “Welcome to the buffet. Please, help yourself. No cutting in line!” She opened her other eye. This was not what she was expecting to see. In fact, she was surprised she could see at all. Sure, the few firefly-lanterns hanging along the walls didn’t provided as much light as she’d like, but it wasn’t anything like the pitch blackness she had been staring into moments ago. She chuckled to herself. It really had been yet another magic trick. She turned around and waved at Twilight, who wouldn’t even be able to see her through the illusion.

Twilight waved back. “Goodbye, Lyra.”

The door slammed shut with an echoing boom.

As the noise died away, Lyra remained staring straight ahead, her foreleg still hanging in mid-wave. She knew that she wasn’t trapped. She knew that what Twilight had said had only been an attempt to frighten her. She knew that she could easily turn the handle, open the door, and step back out into the light. She knew all this for a fact. What she didn’t know was why, despite there being absolutely nothing to be afraid of, one of her cheeks had begun to twitch.

She forced her hoof to the floor and took deep breaths while attempting to will her tension away. She wasn’t scared. The stress of the day must have finally gotten to her. That was all.

When her heart rate subsided, Lyra backed away from the door. She then shook her head and set off down the makeshift hallway. Standing here wasn’t getting her any closer to her goal. She apparently had a buffet to visit.