Figuring out the purpose of the plywood walls that wrapped around Sugarcube Corner’s interior had been easy enough. After all, it wasn't every day that Lyra found something that existed for the sole purpose of being annoying. True, she was being overly dramatic, and the real reason they had been built was to force her to enter the storefront from the rear—for some, as yet, unknown reason. The part that was getting on her nerves, however, was how close the fake wall on her left ended up getting to the real wall on her right. The pathway had already been narrow enough that a group of ponies would have had to walk single file, but after the first corner, it shrank even further to be nearly touching her sides. Children would have probably had a slightly better time, but Lyra didn’t think it would even be possible for an adult to turn around at this point—not without having to rear up and do some weird shuffling maneuvers on their hind legs, at any rate. Although, not being able to easily chicken out was probably another reason the walls had been placed like this.

To make matters worse, the flickering lights of the firefly lanterns hanging above barely provided enough light to walk by without stumbling. At least the glass display cases that normally contained the day’s candy and baked goods were missing from the walls. Otherwise, she would probably have tripped and broken something by now. At any rate, all she could do was press on and try to stop thinking about how the walls were literally closing in around her.

Ahead, Lyra could see a pale light cast through a large break along the left side of the hallway. Knowing that anything could be waiting for her, she cautiously stepped forward and stuck her head past the opening, ready to quickly pull back if needed, and tried to assess the situation in as little time as possible. Like she had thought, she was now at the rear of the storefront, close to where the cash register would normally have been, had that area not been sectioned off by a black curtain. The next thing she noticed was that she wasn’t the only pony currently attending the buffet. She was, however, the only living pony.

Skeletons were everywhere. Silent, unmoving, pony skeletons.

They mostly sat in groups of two or three at the half dozen or so circular tables that filled the room’s center. Some were slumped forward in their seats or hanging off the backs, while others had fallen from their chairs and hadn’t remained intact after their collision with the floor.

Past the seating, along the far wall, Lyra could see where the buffet table had been set up. Three skeletons stood in line at the beginning of it. Well, actually, only one was technically standing—likely because it had its head tilted forward and stuck in a bowl full of something. The remaining two skeletons must have gotten tired of waiting for their turn and had decided to take a nap on the floor.

Stepping out a little further, Lyra looked to her left down the other side of the plywood wall and quickly took notice of the top hat-wearing, unicorn skeleton inches away from her face.

Lyra gasped and ducked back so that she had only one eye peering past the opening. She inspected the stationary skeleton for a moment. It sat on the floor and had one foreleg extended out, holding a plain, brown jacket. Next to the skeleton was a coat rack with a few other garments hanging from it. Lyra gazed into the skeleton’s empty eye sockets, then relaxed and released her nervousness in a short laugh.

She calmly trotted into the room and made her way towards the center. To the untrained eye, this scene may have looked like a ridiculously extreme case of food poisoning that had been brought about by the improper handling of buffet items. However, Lyra could tell it was all fake, with the room’s occupants being the biggest giveaway.

First of all, the skeletons’ rib cages were all wrong. Ponies were supposed to have way more than three ribs. Not to mention that the bones were so comically oversized that internal organs would have had trouble fitting into their chests.

Secondly, whoever had designed these skeletal props had neglected to check which direction a unicorn’s horn spiraled. Frankly, Lyra felt a little offended at such an obvious oversight. The pegasus wings also seemed a little off, though she wasn’t exactly certain why. Perhaps they only looked weird because of their missing feathers.

And then lastly, while biology may not have been her best subject, Lyra was still fairly certain that real bones were not made from plastic.

Now that she had exposed all the embarrassing secrets of the fake skeletons, Lyra decided it was time to check out what they had been eating. She passed from table to table, finding plates with a wilted flower salad and some sort of green, bread-like clump, as well as a few bowls that appeared to be full of dirt.

Lyra chuckled to herself. “Guess I know what not to eat if I want to live.” Her smiled faded as she caught the faint scent of dead flowers. “Er, everything, actually. Yuck.”

As she made her way out of the dining area, Lyra took note of the rest of the room. While Sugarcube Corner’s inside may not have gotten the same paint treatment as the outside, the dim lighting did help mute the normally vibrant colors. There were also several posters hanging crookedly along the walls, each advertising food products such as ‘eyes scream’ or ‘haunted hay smoothies.’ It was actually quite strange how different the room seemed without its regular baked good stands, display cases, or even the sales counter. She looked towards the curtained off area. With the rear exit towards the kitchen out of bounds, that left the front set of stairs as the only way to move further on into the haunted house.

A sign attached to the curtains caught Lyra’s attention and forced her to stop. It read, “Staff only beyond this point. All others will be flugeled.” She stared at the cryptic message for a moment. The last word sounded familiar, though she couldn’t put her hoof on where she would have heard it before. She supposed she could always open the curtains and find out what it meant. However, knowing Pinkie, it probably meant she’d get a loud, obnoxious noise blasted into her ear.

Deciding she needed to overcome her curiosity before it led to a ruptured eardrum, she took her eyes off the sign. She’d just have to ask about it later. As she turned her head towards the buffet line, she caught sight of some things hanging in the shadows above. They looked like rubber bats or spiders—possibly even both. The room wasn’t bright enough to see clearly, but she thought she could make out the half-circle smiles on each of their faces.

Lyra shook her head and continued walking. All in all, she gave the room a B+. While she had to applaud the attempt at a spooky atmosphere, the room’s decor was no scarier than the last haunted house she was in. Which, admittedly, had actually scared her quite a lot. She mentally shrugged. She had probably just been an easy-to-scare filly. Nothing at all like how she was now.

As she arrived at the buffet table, Lyra took her place in line behind the two tired skeletons. She grinned. Whatever was in that bowl ahead must have been good. After all, the skeleton with its head stuck still hadn’t moved. Silliness aside, waiting for the line to clear wasn’t an option.

“Hey, guys,” Lyra said, “I know the sign back there said no cutting, but you don’t care if I go ahead, right?”

The skeletons gave Lyra their silent consent.

“Thanks! You’re all awesome.” Grinning harder, Lyra took her place at the front of the line next to the dunked skeleton. “So, buddy, what’s in there that’s so—”

As soon as Lyra was able to see inside the bowl, her blood froze. She could feel her eyes widening and a scream building in her throat. Her labored breathing increased as she tried and failed to comprehend the terrible sight before her. Thankfully, before her sanity could fall any further into madness, the signal to flee that her brain was so desperately sending reached her legs. She flung herself away from the table and landed on her side with a thud. Even with her eyes shut, the memory of what she had seen was still fresh enough that equal parts horror and nausea washed over her, causing her stomach to roll. She didn’t trust trying to move, so instead she focused on taking deep, calming breaths. In and out. In and out. Over and over.

Lyra swallowed hard. “Of all the puddings in all the bowls in all the world,” she whispered once she was sure she wasn’t about to lose her lunch, “why did tapioca have to be in this one?”

She shuddered. Even saying the name of that ‘substance that didn’t deserve to be called a pudding’ filled her with disgust. The worst part was that Bon Bon actually ate that stuff and always made it a point to tease Lyra about it, saying how if she would only just try it, she would find that she liked it. Lyra laughed weakly as she tucked in her legs and brought herself upright. Never. Not in a million years.

She struggled briefly before somehow finding the strength to rise on her unsteady hooves. As she shuffled onward, using the table for support, she made sure to keep her head turned away from the bowl and the horrible non-food it contained. Even the wilted salad she was passing by looked more appetizing at the moment.

Lyra swallowed again and released a sigh. “Alright. What else does this awful buffet have to offer?” She glanced at the next bowl and snorted a laugh. “Scrambled brains?” she read from the label, a smile forcing its way to her lips. “More like cold spaghetti. And next to it, we have some nice, plump hearts—no, wait! Tomatoes.”

Lyra shook her head and stopped leaning against the table. The sight of familiar ‘spooky’ foods helped her feel a bit better. She hurried on to the next.

“Here we have some delicious moldy, bone-meal rolls. But watch out! If the rest of the room is anything to go by, these probably contain plastic splinters. Oh! Succulent, candied hooves. Yum. Quite a delicacy, and it’s so hard to find marshmallows that big this time of year.”

Unable to resist, Lyra switched to an exaggerated haughty voice as she continued forward. “My, my, my... what have we here? A pile of raisins, prunes, and dates that kind of don’t look anything at all like bugs? Our host truly has gone all out. Not at all like that dreadful party Lord Silky Shirt held last week. Why, he neglected to even serve mud soup, which I see we have right here. And last, but certainly not least, for dessert we have an apple pie that’s actually made from...”

Lyra blinked, then slowly shut her mouth. She leaned forward and inhaled deeply. She knew this scent. Everypony in Ponyville did.

A rich, buttery crust? Check. A sharp tartness that still managed perfectly to blend the sweet with the tangy? Check. Apples so fresh that they could only have come from the recent fall harvest at Sweet Apple Acres? Lyra licked her lips before the drool could leak out.

“It really is an apple pie,” she said, almost reverently.

The pie sat by its lonesome at the edge of the table, cruelly cast aside without even a label to call its own. She knew this amazing treat couldn’t have been part of the haunted house. Somepony from earlier must have brought it in and forgot about it. Lyra looked over one shoulder and then the other, suddenly worried that the owner might have realized their mistake and had just now returned to reclaim their meal. However, except for the skeletons—who historically didn’t even eat pie due to their lack of a digestive system—she was alone.

“Well,” Lyra said as she slid in a little closer, “the sign did say to help yourself, and I suppose just a single slice wouldn’t spoil my appetite for dinner too much.”

She looked along the table but couldn’t find any knives or plates—or at least none that she trusted to use. Lyra grinned, then lifted the pie with her magic, bringing it ever closer to its final destination. She would just have to do this the old-fashioned way. With the pie slowly inching its way forward, she opened her mouth wide and shut her eyes in anticipation. She would go slow and enjoy every moment of this. A small pang of regret came over her as she realized a single bite wouldn’t be enough. Not from a fresh Sweet Apple Acres apple pie. Bon Bon would understand. Hopefully.

With the moment of no return upon her, Lyra quickly bit down into the thick, tantalizing, flaky, lovingly crafted, harder-to-bite-through-than-expected, possibly-contains-small-rocks, might-actually-be-a-rock-itself, completely impenetrable crust.

“Ow...” Lyra winced as she pulled her mouth from the offending baked good, leaving behind a thin indentation. She ran her tongue along her teeth to make sure she hadn’t knocked any loose. “Maybe it’s not as fresh as I thought.”

She balanced the pie on one hoof and drew it in closer for inspection. It looked normal enough and weighed about what she expected. Perhaps she had just started from the wrong end? However, before she could decide on a new angle of attack, the pie began to wobble back and forth. Lyra fell back on her haunches and used both forelegs to get a better grip on the pie, which was now jerking away from her as if it were trying to flee.

Up until now, Lyra had been pretty sure about where desserts landed on the food chain: usually in her stomach. But sitting here, clutching a struggling pie to her chest, she couldn’t help but think that maybe it might actually be time to reconsider improving her diet. Eventually.

Finally, with a ferocity usually reserved for small, furry critters that sit calmly in somepony's forelegs until they decide they no longer wish to be held, the pie flew up and struck her chin, then used the brief period while she was stunned to leap free and land back upon the table.

Lyra got up, slowly wiping the crumbs from her chin, and scowled. The pie, in a show of defiance, rattled in place back at her. Thin cracks now lined its upper crust, clearly showing that Lyra had been the victor in that little scuffle. Round two would be over just as quickly.

However, as she was about to make her move, the pie’s cracks widened and spit further as the center of it suddenly bulged upward. Lyra took a step back. With the way her day was going so far, perhaps having an extended food fight wasn’t the best idea. Something sharp and orange poked up through the crust, followed by a mound of black feathers containing two beady eyes. Wings unfurled and talons emerged as the creature finished breaking free of its prison.

Then, it turned an eye the color of midnight upon her.

Lyra fixed her unblinking gaze upon the blackbird. “The nursery rhyme was true,” she barely whispered.

The bird shrieked a sharp, piercing noise that sent a chill into Lyra’s heart. It leapt from its perch and flew at her. With a startled yell and a quick duck, Lyra felt a rush of air as the bird swooped by overhead. She rose back up and looked about frantically to try to find where the blackbird had gone and see if it was coming back, but it seemed to have vanished. What hadn’t vanished, however, were the skeletons, who now all had their heads raised and were staring directly at her.

Since the situation she found herself in had changed, Lyra decided it would be best to take a moment to calmly assess the available options.

“Well,” she said, pivoting towards the stairs and then marching forward, “I’ve clearly spent long enough in this room. Don’t want to keep Pinkie waiting.”

She tried to force a laugh but it came out as more of a croak. A few of the skeletons had pushed back their chairs and were standing up, so, since the buffet was about to get busy again, a slightly quicker pace was completely understandable and not at all a sign of her attempting to flee.

Thankfully, Lyra didn’t have to travel far since the stairs were right next to the end of the table. After a pleasant trot through the candy cane-striped banisters and a quick turn ninety degrees to her right, she started her nice, steady climb up the steps. Some ponies might have called it a scramble, but Lyra found the word ‘hustle’ to be a more accurate description; besides, scrambling implied she was in a panic and there was no way a lame haunted house could have caused that.

Along either side of the stairway hung many decorations that Twilight and Pinkie had probably intended for Lyra to admire. However, since an adequate amount of admiration would require stopping, she instead chose to pay no attention whatsoever to her surroundings and to continue plowing onwards. Which was probably why she didn’t notice the pair of skeletons standing along the top of the stairs until she practically ran into them. As she turned around to begin her descent, Lyra felt her cheek twitching again.

A new plan was clearly in order, and Lyra knew exactly what she’d do. She’d start out by going back to the buffet. As long as she stayed to the edges and moved quickly, she should be able to get around the skeletons before they noticed she had returned. And if they did notice she had returned, then hopefully she was fast enough to slip past them before any of the bolder ones tried to grab her. Once back in the hallway, she would slow down to a moderate pace and catch her breath. That way, when she went back outside, she would appear calm and collected. Twilight would probably question her return, but Lyra would only say something about the weather and then walk around Sugarcube Corner so that she could enter the back door that lead to the kitchen. There, she would easily be able to access the rear set of stairs in order to bypass probably about sixty percent of the haunted house. Finding wherever Pinkie had hidden herself wouldn't be too hard after that.

She smiled. It was the perfect plan. And best of all, it wouldn’t be considered chickening out. If anything, it would be a creative exploration of alternative solutions.

Once at the bottom of the stairs, she stepped out through the banisters, lifted her head to look out into the buffet, and dropped her smile. The only phrase that came to her mind was that ‘chaos had ensued.’

The skeletons were now free from their chairs and had migrated to various parts of the room—and in the case of the pegasi, the upper half of the room. Groups of skeletons mingled about, holding conversations that consisted of no more than the clicking of teeth, while others had gone to the buffet line for second helpings. A group of unicorns had decided that pegasi flying around didn’t clutter the airspace enough, so they had added tables, chairs, plates, and utensils to the mix. Even the bats and spiders along the ceiling were moving, with the former frantically attempting to escape from the strings attached to them, and the latter taking advantage of their foes predicament to start encasing those closest in web.

Lyra watched three tomatoes float by, each beating to a rhythm much slower than that of her own heart.

“Okay, Lyra,” she said calmly to herself, though for some reason it came out too soft and high-pitched to be intelligible. “This doesn’t change anything. Stick to the plan.” She gulped and took a step forward.

Luckily, the skeletons seemed more interested in their shenanigans, so they probably weren’t going to try and devour Lyra in an attempt to gain her powers of being alive. All she had to do was keep walking, one hoof in front of the other, and she would eventually reach the exit. She also had to keep ignoring that one skeleton whose head was following her movement. But that skeleton was to the leftish, and she could easily go rightish to avoid it and still get to her destination.

Except that there was a bunch of skeletons dancing a tango that way. While it may have taken two to tango, there were clearly four skeletons involved, which had to have been some sort of dancing violation. Lyra didn’t want to be mixed up in the eventual police report, so she tried to find another way, only to have the beating of wings rush by her head. The blackbird landed on a plate and looked up at her as if it were daring her to go for the fork. However, she refused to worry about the bird, because she could always turn around and... find a skeleton without a head. But that was also okay, since there was a path to the right that looked promising. At least it did, until it dead-ended at a huge spider web. She would just have to backtrack to that floating chair and take the fork to the left of the skeleton that now had two heads. The path further on looked a little questionable since some of the bats had managed to get loose, but she could probably squeeze under the nearby, low-flying pegasus if she crouched down low enough.

And now she had somehow gotten turned around completely and wound up back at the buffet table, which had a much longer line that before. At least, the skeleton in the non-pudding was doing a good job of slowing down the buffet goers from adding to the chaos. Lyra gasped. The skeleton in the non-pudding was trying to pull free. She quickly said a prayer to whatever cosmic force was in charge of thick, creamy desserts that this skeleton would never escape its bonds—the terror-inducing levels of a skeleton with a skull full of tapioca was at least ten-fold that of an ordinary skeleton. Not wanting to stick around to find out if any passing cosmic forces had listened in, she set off again towards the exit.

The overturned chairs ahead of her were easy enough to climb over, and thankfully the conga line had yet to reach this far. She just had to keep her wits together and keep moving, but she found it hard to ignore the squeak that came from near her hooves. Lyra looked down and saw a tiny alligator staring back, but that was fine, because why wouldn’t this buffet have tiny alligators that stared at her? It certainly had everything else.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw it: a straight shot to the hallway that would lead back outside. At this point, Lyra was certain that Bon Bon would completely agree that giving up and returning home in defeat had been the only option.

Lyra scampered forward and didn’t even care that she was scampering. Sweet, glorious, freedom was in sight. Then, a plain, brown jacket was in sight. Lyra skidded to a halt as the skeleton who had a job as a coat rack stepped forward to block the opening. It held out the coat and clicked its teeth together.

“No... no, that’s, uh...” Lyra shuffled slowly to her side, hoping to find a way around. “That’s not mine.”

The skeleton clicked again and held the jacket higher.

Lyra shook her head. “Seriously, brown really isn’t my color.” It was no use. There was no way to sneak around the skeleton without actually making physical contact, and who knew what would happen if she did that? “Could you maybe scooch a bit to your left? Or my left? Either or, really.” She grinned, hopefully. The skeleton just grinned.

Something hard touched Lyra’s spine, just past her tail, and held firm. Instantly, her muscles stiffened and she could feel her mane bristling along her neck. She knew that it was a boney, plastic hoof touching her. She knew that a skeleton was behind her. She knew with her rational mind that she was fine and that she could easily dislodge the hoof by taking a step forward, or to the side, or anywhere really. However, at that point, ten thousand years’ worth of pony instincts screamed in her ear and told her rational mind to shut it.

Lyra’s body moved of its own accord, but strangely enough, the motions she went through felt completely natural. She shifted her weight forward in order to raise her hindquarters up into the air. Muscles in her legs that she never knew she had coiled tight and released, sending her rear hooves shooting out faster than she would have thought possible. While Lyra may not have had the strength or technique of those that did this for a living, the satisfying crack of her hooves striking home told her that her buck had been more than enough to get the job done.

As her rear hooves landed back on the ground, she heard the clattering, bangs, rattles, and thuds of many things impacting each other behind her. She winced. Then, once the noise had died down—except for a single plate that was slowly spinning to a halt—she twisted her head to look over her shoulder. The damage wasn’t as bad as it had sounded. She had only sent one skeleton into pieces, bowled over several others, overturned a table, scattered food everywhere, and gained the attention of every undead monstrosity in the room.

Lyra heard a click coming from in front of her. A very angry-sounding click, at least in her mind. She turned her attention back on the hat-rack skeleton, who had dropped the jacket on the floor. The skeleton clicked its teeth again.

Alone and very outnumbered, Lyra backed away from the clicking skeletons and quickly realized that there wasn’t much space left to back into. This room must have had a secret way in because there seemed to be way more skeletons than before.  It was clear that now was the time for the last-ditch display of heroic actions that those knights in the stories always did. Unfortunately, Lyra was pretty sure no knight was coming to rescue her. With one final step, she was now up against the curtain and could feel its soft fabric pressing against her backside.

Lyra’s eyes widened. Of course! She was being stupid. The way out was right behind her!

She spun around. The same sign from earlier hung before her, warning her not to trespass if she didn’t wished to be flugeled. While she still had no idea what that meant, it had to be better than being eaten by the living dead. Most things were.

Lyra gripped the curtains in her magic and gave the skeletons closing in a pitiful smirk. They had been close, but close wasn’t nearly good enough if they had actually expected to outsmart her. With a dramatic whip of her horn to the side, the curtains slid open with a flourish.

And revealing a wall of boarded up planks.

The twitch in her cheek returned and threatened to overtake half of her face. She pulled at the planks with her magic and scraped her hooves fruitlessly against the wall, but it was no use. Lyra dropped her head and hoped she would be able to summon forth the primal pony bucking technique again. But then, she saw it: a handle sticking out of one of the planks. Not wasting any time, she gripped the handle between her hooves and turned, only to find resistance. She jiggled the handle up and down, but it remained stuck in place.

“Oh come on!” Lyra yelled, jiggling the handle a few more times for emphasis. “Why would you lock the door when you already had a sign telling me not to enter? Don’t you trust me?”

She fell away from the handle and sat with her back to the wall. Since the monstrous horde would be descending upon her at any second, there was only one thing left for her to do.

Lyra lay down on the floor, then placed one foreleg across her eyes and the other over her head to cover her ears. After that horrible experience in her first haunted house, she had come up with a mantra. Since then, she had repeated the mantra many times; usually whenever somepony asked her to try another haunted house.

She spoke loudly and with purpose. “Haunted houses are stupid. Everything inside them is fake and lame. Nothing scary ever happens in one.”

She repeated the mantra to herself again and again. Slowly, a sense of tranquility came over her. The mantra was right. All this really was fake and lame. The problem was that her way too incredibly amazing brain was tricking her into thinking otherwise. Now that she was free to think on it, she knew it was absolutely silly to imagine she was in any danger. Pinkie and her friends had made everything in this room. While Pinkie may take the occasional prank too far, it was never out of mean spirit, and she most certainly never wanted to harm anypony. So that meant these skeletons couldn’t hurt Lyra; nothing in here could. Their master had commanded it. All Lyra had to do was stick to her mantra and eventually everything would work out fine.

Hopefully.

It was around the twentieth repetition that Lyra began to notice the lack of noise. She stopped talking and removed one foreleg so that she could perk her ears. She let them swivel slowly, right to left, but she couldn’t hear anything except for her own breathing. Reluctantly, Lyra removed her other leg and looked up.

Everything was back in its place. The tables and chairs were righted. The skeletons remained sitting or slumped in their seats. The bats and spiders had called a truce and retreated back to the ceiling. Even the buffet was exactly the same, with the pie completely undisturbed at the table’s end.

“What? The hay? Was that all about?” Lyra said quietly as she stood up. She looked from one end of the room to the other, but her audience remained silent. “Well?” she continued, louder. “This isn’t—I mean—gah! This type of haunted house isn’t supposed to be like this!”

Lyra paced to one end of the wall, shook her head, then turned to pace in the opposite direction. “I know what you’re all thinking.” She switched to a mocking voice. “‘But, Lyra, you’ve only been in one other haunted house before. How do you know what we’re supposed to be like?’ Well I got news for you!” She pointed a hoof menacingly at the unlucky skeleton that had chosen to sit closest to her. “I studied before I decided on that first haunted house. That’s right. Me. I spent that whole weekend learning everything there was to know about the haunted houses of Canterlot—including some supposedly real ones by accident. Seriously. I was supposed to be doing my math homework, but instead I created a detailed report of my findings. Er... and I did all this on the sheet of paper that had my math problems on it. I ended up getting a really odd grade on that assignment. But I digress!

“For starters, I found that a haunted house’s scariness and coolness levels are inversely proportional to the sum of the total time they will remain in operation during the holiday season plus six. Or something. I may have written that equation over an existing one.” She shook her head and waved a hoof. She was getting off track again. “My point is: all those haunted houses that are open all month? Those are supposed to be the cool ones! Even though they’re just as lame and unscary as all the rest. This haunted house—which will only be open for a few hours tomorrow night, I might add—is supposed to be the opposite of cool. It’s supposed to be corny and cheesy and, and... other adjectives that sound like foods. You weren’t supposed to have put effort into it!”

Lyra dragged a hoof down her face as she sighed. “Look. Just because you have two unicorns helping—with one being super good at magic—it does not give you permission to enchant every single thing in a room. Okay?”

The skeleton she had been lecturing stared back at her, or at least in her direction.

“And what are you grinning at?” she asked as she marched up to her delinquent student. “You think you’re so tough just because you were able to startle me? Well I got news for you mister: I’m real, and you’re not. Hah! You only wish you were an actual pony’s skeleton.”

Lyra swept her hoof across the room. “You all hear that? None of you are real. Tonight, I get to eat brownies. Not just any brownies, but the best ones in the world. Sound good? Want some for yourselves? Well too bad! When all this is over, you’ll get packed away in boxes and stored in somepony’s attic until next year.”

She whipped her hoof up towards the ceiling decorations. “And you’re all made of rubber!”

She grinned, breathing heavy and feeling good now that she was on a rant. These feelings continued even after she heard the squeak coming from next to her hooves. She looked down at the tiny alligator that was looking back up. “Nice try,” she said, then leaned in closer to whisper, “but I can see your stitches.”

Lyra walked away from her now quite somber audience. It had been the hard truth, but it was better that they faced it sooner rather than later. While she may have hated to verbally put down ponies—real or not—it was their own fault for scaring her.

Lyra froze, her eyes widening. Why did she just think that? Especially when there was somepony outside reading her emotions. Her hoof shot up to the fear-o-meter along her forehead. “Twilight? Can you hear me through this thing?”

No answer came, but that may have only been because the fear-o-meter operated on a one-way frequency. Lyra would just have to trust her instincts and continue.

“I want you to know something. Your haunted house isn’t scary. Okay? It’s startling. Very startling.” She looked out at the skeletons. “And just so we’re clear, the reason I’ve been talking to myself and inanimate objects is not because my nerves are so frayed that, at this point, I crave the sounds of a living, breathing pony in order to calm myself and restore my sanity. No, the reason I’m talking out loud is only because I happen to really like the sound of my voice. Seriously, my voice is amazing.”

Lyra waited for the reply. It was possible Twilight needed more convincing, so she continued in a singsong tone. “La la la! Talky talky talking! La la la! Lyra’s voice is cool!”

A few seconds went by with nothing happening other than Lyra starting to get a cramp from standing on three legs for so long. She dropped her hoof and sighed. “On second thought, I really hope you can’t hear me through this stupid thing.”

Something clicked, but not like the skeleton’s way of talking. Instead, it sounded more metallic, and it was right behind Lyra. She turned around to find the locked door slowly swinging open.

Rolling her eyes, Lyra said, “Great. Now it—”

Her voice gave out as a pure white stallion stepped forth from the other side. Not a normal white either. The stallion seemed to glow as a misty vapor around him caught the light. It was only through sheer rage that Lyra was able to get her vocal chords working again.

“You!” she shouted at the ghost. “You are the least real thing in here, and you will stop mocking me with your failed attempt at existence this instant!”

The ghost took a step back, broke eye contact, and fidgeted in place. “Er, I...” he began, then looked up to meet Lyra’s eyes. “Sorry. I, uh, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Somehow, having the ghost talk back to her had been the proverbial straw that finally broke her mind. They weren’t supposed to speak, only moan and laugh and spooky things like that.

A high-pitched noise started in the back of Lyra’s throat. It was currently outside the range of pony hearing, but she feared that once it lowered somewhat it would turn out to be a scream. Then, realization came over her.

There was something familiar about the stallion's blocky frame, lanky limbs, bow tie, and round hat. Not to mention his slightly nasally voice.

“Mr. Cake?” Lyra ventured. “Is that you?”

“Yep, sure is.” He raised a hoof across his chest, then blinked as he stared at it. “Gee, would you look at that. I knew there was a small rip, but that bag of flour really did a number on me. I must look like a ghost.” He chuckled and then started making a horribly cliché oooing noise.

“Yeah... just like a ghost,” Lyra said with a forced laugh. She hoped that humoring him might get him to stop making that sound. “Never thought Pinkie would get you in on the act.”

Mr. Cake laughed. “Oh, she tried, but Cup Cake and I have been far too busy getting prepared for tomorrow night. I don’t even think I would have heard somepony out here if the cellar stairs weren’t right on the other side of this wall. I’m surprised you’re here. I thought we weren’t opening until tomorrow. Unless, um...” He put the tip of his hoof under his bow tie and wiggled it as if he were trying to loosen it. “We didn’t somehow lose track of time and today is Nightmare Night, is it?”

“What? Oh! No, it’s... I—you see... I’m, uh, testing the haunted house. For Pinkie. And I might have gotten a little excited. And said words. Loudly. Sorry.”

Mr. Cake wiped a floury hoof across his forehead and let out a breath of air. “Whew. Scared myself for a moment. We still have plenty of time. Well, I better get these flour bags to the counter before Cup needs them.” He then noticed the small pile of flour on the floor his forehead-wiping had created. “And I better get cleaned up before I make any more of a mess. Have fun with your testing!”

“Mr. Cake! Wait!”

He turned back and raised an eyebrow—or at least raised the flour-cover area of his face that contained his eyebrow. At any rate, it sent another dusting of flour falling to the floor.

Lyra took a deep breath and forced herself to smile. “Do you need any help? With the bags, I mean. I, um...” She tapped her horn. “I could probably move that torn bag without spilling it. If you want.”

Mr. Cake smiled back. “Well, I won’t say ‘no’ to an offer of help, but aren’t you testing the haunted house?”

“Yeah, about that, I...” She sighed and started towards the kitchen. “I think I need a break.”