As much as Lyra wanted to hurry onwards, she knew she had to stop and take in her surroundings. After all, it wasn’t every day that somepony found themselves inside of a thunderstorm.

That is, unless that somepony happened to be a pegasus who was part of a weather patrol. In that case, this was probably a fairly normal occurrence and more than a little boring.

Nevertheless, being an earthbound pony, Lyra decided the smart thing to do would be to stay calm and plan out her actions. That way, she wouldn’t end up freaking out, fleeing in circles, and swirling the clouds into a hurricane that threatened to destroy half of Ponyville.

She started off by taking note of the obvious things; such as how the slightly chilly mist clung to her coat, the way the wind whipped her mane as it gusted down one corridor and onto the next, and especially the way the static electricity made all her hair stand on end.

However, with the clouds all formed into wall-like structures, something about the room tickled at her memories. For one thing, the open area she and Fluttershy stood in looked like it had been purposely shaped in a corridor. For another, a quick glance in either direction revealed that one of their potential pathways curved deeper into the storm while the other split into a fork.

Then, Lyra realized where she had seen a pattern like this before. She would have to travel further to be certain, but for now, she had a strong suspicion of exactly what this room was: a maze.

She let out her breath as a chuckle escaped her lips. When she had first seen the storm clouds, she had expected the room to be filled with cheap scares that all involved being zapped repeatedly by lightning. Which, in all likelihood, was still going to happen. However, if everything was laid out in a maze-like format, then it would be much more manageable. After all, Lyra knew the rules of mazes, and, as she glanced over her shoulder, she also knew that sometimes those rules needed to be broken.

Fluttershy’s face had gone a few shades paler, and her body shivered almost constantly. Lyra would have liked to place the blame on the cold mist, but that was probably only a minor inconvenience compared to what must have been running through Fluttershy’s mind. It would only be a matter of time before she shut down and curled up into a whimpering ball. At least she was still biting onto Lyra’s tail with a vice-like grip, so she probably wouldn’t end up getting lost. Still, they needed to move quickly before something bad happened, and that meant they’d have to cheat.

Lyra remembered seeing this room from the outside. She recalled that one end had started by the second-floor balcony and from there it had wrapped around Sugarcube Corner clockwise. It seemed then that traveling to the right would be a good direction to start. With each step forward, ominous creaks came from below, bringing to mind how flimsy the room on stilts had looked from the outside. Already, visions of the floor collapsing into an endless void filled her mind.

Lyra gulped and shut her eyes. She wished she hadn’t skimmed Twilight’s checklist so fast; developing a fear of falling was probably on it somewhere. She shook her head to try and clear it. If a phobia had gotten into her brain, then she would just have to spend a day jumping off of high places until she frustrated it into giving up on her. For now, she would have to ignore the feathery feeling in her stomach and trust that Pinkie hadn’t settled on using cheap lumber.

A couple more shuffling steps forward, and Lyra stood safely next to a wall. Or, at least, safe in the sense that nothing had broken, splintered, or exploded yet. Still, now that she had made it this far, she had a test to perform. As she reached out with a hoof, she hoped her guess was correct.

Pressing forward, Lyra’s hoof met with the cloud wall and passed through with no resistance. She smiled as she waved her foreleg, gently pushing aside the clouds. However, her disturbances didn’t last long as the hole she had made quickly resealed itself once her hoof was no longer in the way.

The anti-destructible nature of the walls didn’t matter though, because Lyra had confirmed her suspicion. She now knew that only the exterior of the room was made from wood, and that the entire interior of the maze was made out of nothing more than easily walk-throughable clouds.

Lyra had to snort a laugh at such an oversight. Apparently, this maze operated on the honor system. That, or her mighty brain was just way too awesome to be misled.

Now that she had an easy path to the exit, Lyra marched forward and plunged into the cloud. She felt a thin ring of colder air slide down her body as she passed through the wall, but other than that, she had no indication that anything had stood in her way at all.

With the simple obstacle overcome, she found herself in another part of the maze: a dead-end, by the look of it. But that wouldn’t be a problem. She smirked, feeling proud of herself. Not only was she shaving precious minutes off of her quest to save Fluttershy and collect candy, but she was also going to set a new world record for solving this maze. With any luck, nopony else would figure out the shortcut tomorrow night and she’d be champion for life.

The next wall loomed close, and Lyra would have gone through it as well, had a pain not suddenly shot up her spine. She gritted her teeth in an attempt to bite back a yelp. It felt like the end of her tail had just been yanked off.

Blinking away her tears, she looked behind herself and saw that her tail was miraculously still attached. It was, however, sticking straight out into the clouds. Fluttershy had stopped walking for some reason and had likely just taken off a chunk of Lyra’s tail hairs in the process.

Lyra couldn’t get too mad—or so she tried to tell herself—after all, a sudden temperature change may have been a startling experience while blindfolded. All she needed to do was apply a little more pressure, and soon her companion would get the clue to keep moving.

After she felt the third strand of hair getting pulled out, Lyra stopped with the pressure-applying before her tail ended up with a bald spot. She groaned. Everything had been going so smoothly. Of course something had to go wrong. Now she had to find a way to reverse back through the clouds without bumping into Fluttershy.

It took a little shuffling, but Lyra managed to maneuver herself back into the hallway without a collision. She looked at Fluttershy, who was still facing the wall and rubbing the tip of her nose. There were several things Lyra wanted to ask, but one burly question beat its way past all the others to arrive at the forefront of her mind first: when did Fluttershy get so tall?

Then the realization hit Lyra. She didn’t know whether she wanted to groan, cry, scream, or laugh. Fluttershy wasn’t taller. Fluttershy was standing on the clouds.

Lyra never felt stupider, and had to resist the urge to whack her forehead. Of course, everypony knew that pegasi could walk on clouds. However, for those ponies that spent the majority of their time on the ground, clouds were things that were ‘up there’ and not really a part of daily life unless the town had scheduled a rain. Still, an ordinary cloud shouldn’t have been completely solid for a pegasus. Just solider. A pegasus could still push their way through if they wanted too. That meant that these were no ordinary clouds.

Remembering how the walls could seal up, Lyra had a feeling she knew what was going on. She tested her suspicions by kicking at the cloudy floor, then nodded. Not even a scratch. With how well the clouds held their shape, they were likely some sort of building material that went into the construction of pegasus sky structures. It was still probably possible for a pegasus to force their way through this stuff with enough effort, but it would require speed or strength, and something told Lyra that Fluttershy didn’t have enough of either at the moment.

Lyra lifted the fear-o-meter off one of Fluttershy’s ears. “Sorry about that,” she shouted above the wind. “Are you okay?”

Fluttershy gave the barest of nods.

“That’s good. We ran into a little snag. Uh, literally in your case. It looks like we’ll have to take the long way around. I’ll hurry as fast as I can.”

Fluttershy made a squeaking noise that Lyra hoped was an agreement.

With a heavy sigh, Lyra racked her brain as she tried to formulate a new plan. The maze was not designed how she thought it would be. For one thing, unicorns and earth ponies could easily skip most of it, if they figured out the trick. Rainbow Dash wouldn’t have wanted anypony to cheat their way through the room. Which left the question of why even use clouds at all?

Lyra’s thoughts were interrupted as a screeching caw sounded from behind. She cried out and barely had time to duck before a dark shape swooped by overhead. That blackbird had it in for her! She dropped to her belly and hoped the clouds along the floor would provide some cover. That still left the problem of Fluttershy being an unassuming target, but with any luck, the blackbird would consider all other winged-creatures an ally.

After a few pounding heart-beats passed with no further attacks, Lyra lifted her head slightly and scanned the air. While she didn’t see the bird anywhere, she did discover something about the maze that filled her with a sense of dread: the clouds covering the ceiling had holes in it. More specifically, holes large enough for a pegasus to easily pass in and out.

Everything came together then. Come tomorrow night, Rainbow Dash would prowl the area above the maze. She would be watching, waiting in anticipation, orchestrating the scares to come at just the right moments. She wouldn’t care if somepony tried to cheat. In fact, she probably looked forward being able to drop down and terrify anypony who thought they were being clever. This room wasn’t just a maze; it was Rainbow Dash’s Nightmare Night playground.

Lyra shivered as she stood up. She was fairly certain that only Pinkie and Twilight were running the haunted house at the moment, so the odds of having to deal with pegasus pranks on top of everything else weren’t too high. With the blackbird no longer harassing her, Lyra decided it would be best to finish the maze quickly before Rainbow Dash learned of what she was missing out on. If cheating wasn’t an option, then Lyra would have to start walking the maze normally.

After two steps of normal maze-walking, Lyra blundered into a hidden dip in the floor and found her front legs submerged up to her fetlocks in a pool of icy water. With chattering teeth, she climbed out of the trap and tried not to think about how lucky pegasi got to cross the pit on nice, fluffy clouds.

Once she had shaken most of the water off her hooves, Lyra set her neck straight and marched forward. Even with the tricks, a maze was still a maze, and she knew mazes. After all, she had once solved a whole activity book of them during a particularly boring family trip to the Great Salt Flats.

She knew that the first and easiest rule to solving a maze was known as the right hooves rule. Simply put, all one had to do was follow the wall closest to their right hooves. They may go down a few dead-ends and loop back on themselves, but eventually, following the wall would lead to the exit.

Of course, there were mazes specifically designed to trip-up somepony that was following that rule, but those required complex designs and likely wouldn’t fit in a room this size. Lyra slowed down. However, Rainbow Dash did have access to Twilight. That meant it was entirely possible that Lyra and Fluttershy had wandered through some sort of shrinking spell and were now inside a relatively miles long maze. On top of that, Twilight could probably design a maze that made the ones in those old activity books seem like straight lines by comparison. If that was the case, then Lyra and Fluttershy were doomed to walk these hallways for the rest of their lives.

Or until Twilight realized something was amiss and used her link to the fear-o-meter to track them down. Whichever came first.

At any rate, the current plan was to not panic, stick to the wall, and hope the maze was actually solvable.

Lyra shook her head. Her heart was beating too fast. She knew what it was, though; she was letting her overactive imagination get the better of her again. While she loved how creative her mind could get sometimes, this was not the appropriate time or place to realize that nopony had ever disproved the existence of cloud monsters.

Lyra came to a halt and squeezed her eyes shut. “Stupid brain,” she muttered. “Didn’t you learn anything from the last room? You’re doing a much better job getting yourself worked up than this dumb haunted house is doing trying to scare you.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I got this. No, we got this. Lyra and Fluttershy: champion maze solvers.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Isn’t that ri—”

Her voice gave out as she spotted the blackbird perched atop Fluttershy’s head. The bird stared at Lyra with dark, soulless eyes, then flared its wings and screeched its hate-filled cry. Try as she might, Lyra couldn’t get her legs to listen to her, so she could only watch helplessly as the bird took to the air and exploded into a cloud of mist that vanished on the wind. Lyra felt her eye begin twitching.

“That didn’t just happen. Right, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy remained standing still and made no indication one way or the other that a murderous death bird may have been using her head like a branch.

Lyra turned back to the path and walked forward. “That’s what I thought. Glad we came to an agreement.”

The first right-hoof fork turned out to be a dead-end, so Lyra gently spun Fluttershy around and continued to follow the wall back the way they had come. She tried to keep her mind blank and only focus on the menial task at hoof, but every creak of a floorboard or particularly loud gust of wind filled her with a sense of apprehension. Every so often, she could swear she could make out the form of another pony hidden in the mists. However, the pony would fade away whenever Lyra focused on it.

“S-so, Fluttershy…” Lyra said as she led them around another corner. “I know you can’t hear me, and therefore have no idea that I’m talking. And that, even if you could hear me, you couldn’t respond without spitting out my tail. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a conversation, right”

Without waiting for an answer, Lyra continued, “All I’m saying is that it doesn't count as talking to myself if I’m directing the comments at somepony else. So, now that we have established that I’m not so unnerved that I need to hold an imaginary conversation just to keep my mind functional, we can talk about boring, everyday items to pass the time.”

Lyra took another right. She strongly suspected this part of the maze was spiraling into another dead-end, but she would stick to the rule.

“I’ll get the discussion started. Let’s see… uh…” Lyra tried to think of a boring, everyday item to talk about, but the only topics her brain could come up with were about clouds, mazes, and the horrible, red, glowing eyes that kept appearing and then vanishing from the edge of her vision.

“Let’s talk about mazes,” Lyra decided. “I bet you’re wondering if we’ll ever see the light of day again. Or dark of night, I guess, since it’s getting late. But there’s no need to worry. This maze isn’t that original. I mean, right turns? Left turns? Who hasn’t seen those a million times in their life? Trust me when I say that I’ve been in plenty of mazes before and nothing bad has ever happened in any of them.”

Just like she thought, the spiral looped in on itself and she had to turn around.

“Well… when I say nothing bad, I’m of course excluding the maze where I found out that ghosts were made up creatures. That realization hit me hard and led to me eventually questioning the existence of other holiday figures, thereby ruining just a little bit more of the magic of childhood. But that was only one bad time. The next maze was so, so much better. I bet you’ve heard of it. The Royal Hedge Maze of Canterlot? That was a fun school trip. Or… well, it was until I got distracted and lost the group. But the royal guards found me curled up under a bench a few hours later, so it all worked out in the end. Even though my school never did include the hedge maze in our field trips ever again.”

Lyra had difficulty swallowing with how dry her mouth had become.

“Alright, so, two bad experiences out of two may seem like a hundred percent so far, but the next maze… no. That was the one where—but the one after… or, well… oh! The Hedge Maze Center, where I took that assertiveness seminar! I admit it may have been a tad easy since it had a bunch of signs up to guide the way, but nothing bad happened in that maze!” Lyra triumphantly held her head high, but then she began remembering further about that day. “Afterwards… well, let’s just say that Bon Bon has forbidden me from ever rhyming in the house again.”

Coming to a halt at a crossroads, Lyra slumped her shoulders and shut her eyes. Nothing good had ever come from any maze she had ever been in. In fact, several of the worse experiences in her life had come as a direct result from entering a maze.

But that didn’t mean she could give up. Bon Bon was counting on her. So was Fluttershy. Lyra stood up straight and turned towards the right path. She had made promises, and she intended to keep them.

Even if it meant having to face the phantom pony with the glowing, red eyes forming out of the mists ahead of her.

Lyra’s ears drooped. She turned around and took the left path.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Lyra whispered through gritted teeth. “It’s not a ghost. They aren’t real. You need to turn around this instant. It’s called the right hooves rule for a reason.”

Lyra’s legs refused to listen to her. If anything, they started walking faster once she heard the creaking hoofsteps of the phantom pony following them.

“Alright, so, left hooves rule it is. Good to switch things up a bit. Am I right, Fluttershy?”

As her pace outmatched Fluttershy’s, Lyra’s tail hairs pulled taut, limiting her movement to a slow trot. However, the sudden increase of speed had caused Fluttershy to begin resisting, slowing them even further. This wasn’t good as the phantom pony’s hoofsteps sounding like they were getting closer.

“I bet you’re wondering why we’ve picked up speed, right?” Lyra called out, now choosing paths at random. “Well, it’s not because a ghost is slowly chasing us, delighting in our futile attempt to escape. There’s plenty of other things that pony could be. Like… like one of those monsters from the comics that wait for their victims to turn around and witness their unspeakable, mind-shattering horror before they grab them with their tentacles and drag them away into the realm of despair, never to be heard from again.”

Lyra attempted to laugh lightly but failed to keep the hysterics from it. “Jokes on it, then. We’ll just never turn around again for the rest of our—”

A wall blocked the path: a dead-end.

“...lives,” Lyra finished weakly as she stopped. Fluttershy came up beside her and pressed her trembling shoulder against Lyra’s side for support. Slowly, Lyra turned them around to face their fate.

The phantom stood a short distance away. It had no need to hurry, it had them right where it wanted them. With it so close, Lyra could make out its features. Its head was a pale imitation of a living pony’s, having only small indentations where its mouth and nostrils should have been. Its skin was a sickly white with a slight transparency to it. But most of all, Lyra couldn’t stop staring at its hollow eyes with pinpricks of fire burning inside.

Lyra’s mind could no longer deny it; this creature standing before her was unmistakably a ghost. Thinking quick, Lyra came up with two plans for getting out of this mess. She could either A: dive through the dead-end behind her, suffer the loss of a good portion of her tail hair, and leave Fluttershy alone to fight off the ghost. Or B: stand her ground, show the ghost that she wasn’t afraid of it, and likely have her soul devoured when she discovered that maybe some ghosts actually were real.

Lyra gulped, braced herself, and tried to steady her nerves for what was to come. The correct choice was obvious. Even at the cost of her delicious soul, Lyra wasn’t going to abandon Fluttershy, because friends don’t let friends down.

Although, truth be told, she and Fluttershy didn’t often hang out together much. Or at all, really. If anything, their relationship was probably more along the lines of being friendly acquaintances rather than actually being friends. But that didn’t matter, because there was probably also a saying somewhere that friendly acquaintances don’t let other friendly acquaintances get eaten by ghosts.

Lyra squared her shoulders, snorted out some air, and scraped a hoof menacingly against the floor. “Alright, ghost,” she said, letting her voice be low and rumbly. “You think you’re so tough? Then come on! Come get a piece of me!”

The ghost stepped forward, indicating that it, indeed, wanted to get a piece of her.

Lyra flinched and backed away. “Ah! Okay. I was just kidding.” She raised a foreleg in a futile attempt to shield her face. “How about we make a deal? You let us go, and I’ll give you two pieces of the candy I’m going to collect. Deal? No? A third of the candy? A forth? Wait, that’s less.”

Risking a glance over her foreleg, Lyra could see that the ghost was nearly on top of her. Suddenly, memories forced their way back and she was once again a terrified, little filly. The big, spooky ghost had finally caught her. Except, this time, it wasn’t going to sneeze.

Lyra squeezed her eyes shut. What was wrong with her? This was just another illusion. Ghosts aren’t real; they’re just silly things that were invented for a holiday. Haunted houses were stupid. Everything inside them was fake and lame. Nothing scary ever happen in one. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t—

“Alright! I admit it!” Lyra took a deep breath and shouted, “I’m scared!”

Lyra wiped her eyes with the back of her hoof and then forced them to open. She could feel the lump in her throat getting tighter with every breath.

“There. Are you happy? Pinkie? Twilight? You got me. I’m scared!”

Lyra rubbed her eyes again and sniffed her nose. The ghost had stopped moving. It was waiting for her, silently judging her.

“I’ve been trying to act tough, but I’ve been on edge ever since I set hoof in here. Everything has been popping out at me, or being weird, or making noises, and it frightens me. Okay? It frightens me. I just want to go home. I just want to get my candy and go home.”

With the last of her energy spent, Lyra hung her head and closed her eyes. There. It was all out in the open. After all these years nothing had changed. She was still the same scared filly she had always been.

Lyra’s voice choked, but she managed once more to whisper, “I’m scared.”

Then, everything stopped.

Lyra’s head jerked up as she felt a jolt of energy surge through her body. She scarcely breathed. She scarcely moved. All around her, the world appeared to have faded into a muted shade of gray—or rather, a slightly more grayish shade of gray since she was still standing amongst storm clouds. Time seemed to have stopped for everything except her, but she really didn’t have time to think about that because, right now, her brain was going at a million miles per hour.

“I’m scared,” Lyra repeated, though this time, her words came out strong and unwavering.

With the realization upon her, the world slowly began to brighten up and return to normal speeds. She looked up at the ghost and stepped forward. “You’re a ghost, and... and I’m scared of you.”

A smile tugged at her lips as her heart beat faster. She glanced at the ghost, Fluttershy, the maze, the haunted house. All the while her breathing increased as the excitement swelled in her chest. She felt the chill of sweat on her coat.

But most of all, she felt a word building in her throat. A word that she longed to—no, needed to shout out. A word the perfectly summarized exactly how she felt at this very moment.

“Yes!”

If it wasn’t for Fluttershy still holding on to her tail, Lyra would have been spinning and dancing so that her body could experience the same joy that was currently coursing through her heart. Instead, she’d have to settle for giddily bouncing up and down on her hooves. She landed in front of the ghost and looked deep into its nightmarish eyes.

“Isn’t it great? I’m no longer not afraid of ghosts anymore!”

Lyra gasped hard, held a hoof to her chest, and whispered, “I can sit around the campfire tomorrow night and listen to everypony telling ghost stories without feeling the need to roll my eyes.”

And that was only a single change to how her Nightmare Night would play out. Dozens of new possibilities had just opened up for her. Tomorrow’s Nightmare Night was going to be just as good as her first. No, better!

However, she couldn’t celebrate yet. After all, there was still one thing standing in her way.

“You’re scary,” Lyra said calmly. She raised a hoof into the air, then quickly swiped it across the ghost. Like the blackbird, the ghost’s body exploded into mist and faded away. “But you’re nothing compared to the disappointment that awaits me at home if I fail to get that candy.”

With one problem completely solved, Lyra turned her attention on the next. She pressed against Fluttershy, letting her companion know that she had the support she sought and wasn’t facing this ordeal alone. Fluttershy’s trembling slowed until she willingly separated herself from Lyra and took a few steps back. Lyra smiled and started back along the path towards the fork that she had taken the wrong turn down.

“I can’t believe it,” Lyra said, feeling for the first time in so many hours like she was in control. “I actually did overcome my childhood trauma today. Huh, guess Bon Bon was right.”

She watched as a miniature lightning storm erupted around them. While the booming of thunder and sparks of electricity were impressive, none of the bolts got close enough to Lyra for her to tell if they were real or not. She laughed as she enjoyed the light show.

“You’re missing out of this, Fluttershy. I wonder how many tricks and traps are in this room. Oh! And what will Rainbow Dash do when she’s here. Do you think she’ll—ya!”

Lyra jumped as a clawed arm suddenly swept out of the wall and across their path. She held a hoof to her beating heart and giggled.

“I so have to come back tomorrow when I have more time to enjoy this. Hey! I’m enjoying this!” Lyra blinked. “Wow. I guess haunted houses can be fun and aren’t stupid wastes of time. Guess I won’t be needing my mantra anymore. But yeah, I definitely need to come back. Oh! And I’ll have to talk Bon Bon into joining me. She hates getting scared. I bet she won’t stop screaming for a minute.”

Before she knew it, the maze had ended, and Lyra saw an illuminated sign before her with the word ‘exit’ written on it in red letters. Just below the sign, a ramp led up to a rectangular hole in the clouds. Lyra approached carefully, making sure Fluttershy’s steps lined up so that she wouldn’t bump into anything. Once through the opening, they stepped down another ramp and found themselves back in the hallway. Lyra looked back at the window they had come through. She could see the storm, but couldn’t hear it. There must have been a noise-blocking spell across the hole.

Lyra turned towards Fluttershy. “Well, that was fun. Guess I should free your ears so you can drop my tail.”

She used her magic to gently pull the sides of the band away from Fluttershy’s head. However, Fluttershy’s ears remained limp. Lyra then noticed the dampness around Fluttershy’s cheeks and knew that it probably hadn’t come from the mist.

“Hey… hey, Fluttershy,” Lyra said softly. “It’s okay. We’re out now. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Lyra took her time, using gentle words and a soothing voice. After a few minutes, Fluttershy’s ears had risen enough for Lyra to let go of the band.

Fluttershy dropped Lyra’s tail and sat down. She delicately spat out a few stray strand of hair before whispering, “S-sorry.”

“No need to be sorry.” Lyra continued to speak in the same soft voice. “If anything, I should be the one apologizing. That wasn’t a very good plan. If anything, it was probably scarier not knowing what was going on. You were very brave for sticking it out so long. Forgive me?”

Fluttershy nodded. Some of the color seemed to have returned to her face.

“Well, the bad news is that Pinkie wasn’t in that room,” Lyra said. “But the good news is that there’s a sign pointing up some stairs. Can’t be much further, right?”

“Pinkie’s bedroom is up there.”

Lyra took a few steps and looked up the stairs. Darkness began about halfway up, blocking sight of what lay beyond. “I guess that has to be the final room. Sugarcube Corner doesn’t go much higher. I wonder how we get down afterwards?” She shrugged and turned away from the stairs. “Anyway, if you’re feeling out of it, I think I see the stairway that leads down towards the kitchen. We can exit the haunted house that way if you want.”

Fluttershy remain silent for a while, then stood up and shook her head. “No, I—… I think I’d like to talk with Pinkie for a bit and calm myself down.”

“That sounds like a good idea. If anypony knows how to cheer somepony up, it’s Pinkie. You may want to keep the fe—headband on over your eyes. For now, at least. Pinkie doesn’t know you’re here and may have a surprise waiting for us. Take it slowly, and I’ll guide you up... the... stairs?”

Lyra slowly blinked. When she re-opened her eyes, a cupcake still sat on one of the steps leading upwards. She leaned in close to better observe the baked good. The cupcake appeared to be made from a soft-rubber material. Its fluffy white frosting contained many comically oversized, pink sprinkles. The one thing that struck Lyra as odd about this cupcake—besides it being made from rubber, appearing out of nowhere, and sitting on some stairs in the middle of a haunted house—were the red bull-horns poking out its top. Looking up, Lyra spied many more similar cupcakes lining the path up the stairs. She turned back towards Fluttershy to comment only to find the hallway was now filled with the cupcakes.

“That’s… kinda creepy,” Lyra said.

“C-creepy?” Fluttershy said as she took a step back. Her rear hoof landed on one up the cupcakes, which emitted a loud squeak. Fluttershy sprang forward and landed in a crouch, her wings flaring open. “What was that?” Her voice sounded in a near panic.

Lyra instantly realized that, despite her companion attempting to put on a brave face, Fluttershy’s stress levels must has just reached the danger zone, and her body had entered into a fight or flight state. Lyra racked her brain. She had only seconds to respond before she would have to deal with a panicked pegasus flying blind in a hallway.

“It’s nothing! I-it was a… a…” Lyra tried to think of other small, rubber items that squeaked. “A dog toy!” she shouted.

Fluttershy remained crouched, but her wings lowered slightly. “A dog toy?” she asked. “But neither Pinkie nor the Cakes own a dog.”

“I know!” Lyra flailed for answers. “It’s, um… th-that’s why… I said it was creepy? Not that it’s the scary type of creepy. Just that, I, uh, I didn’t expect to see so many in one place.” She laughed weakly, then cleared her throat.

Thankfully, Fluttershy tucked her wings back against her sides and came out of her crouch. “Oh. I guess that would be a little weird. Sorry. I got startled.”

Lyra wiped a hoof against her forehead. The crisis was averted, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet. There was still one more room standing in the way of her candy.