//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: The Haunted Dressing Room // by JesterOfDestiny //------------------------------// “Hey, Bon Bon!” Lyra shook me up from my sleep. “You said you wanted to show me something.” Lyra was right. I was the one who told her to get up early. It took me a bit of time to wake up; I didn’t sleep well that night. What Starlight told her kept echoing in my head. I dragged myself out of bed and we went back to the concert hall. The guards were asleep. “Uh, what are we doing here?” She asked, as I walked up to the entrance. “Just follow me.” I picked the lock on the entrance. The guards probably put it there before going to sleep. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Lyra stopped in front of the entrance. “Shh, you’ll wake them up!” I whispered. I looked around, then I beckoned her over. I lead her to the dressing room. The officer was sleeping right in front of the door, which made my job marginally more difficult. I opened the door, carefully put the padlock down and then gestured Lyra to follow me in. We stepped over the sleeping officer and I shut the door quietly once we were in. “Okay, I know I like to drag you into some weird stuff,” Lyra said, “but I never made you break into places.” “You said that the answers are in this room,” I hurried her, “this is your last chance to find it.” She was worried, but was also glad that she could now finally take a look around. But she didn’t know what to look for. She looked at Hendrix’s broken guitar, mourning it silently. Looked at the broken mirrors and wondered how many years of bad luck that equalled. She then inspected the ashen remains that used to be a box of fireworks. She picked up the fire orb and took a very good look at it. She then groaned in frustration. “I don’t know what I’m looking for!” She whispered loudly. “Just keep looking somewhere around there. I’m sure you’ll find it.” She sat down by the wall, just about to give up. “I’m starting to believe this was indeed a ghost.” “Seriously? Is this why I-“ I tried to scold her for giving up, but she shushed me. I could see her ear perk up. She looked at the wall as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Or hearing. “Do you hear that?” She asked me. We stood there for a few seconds in complete silence. I could indeed hear that. There was a very faint sound of snoring and it wasn’t the officer at the door. Lyra put her ear up against the wall and then looked at me. “I think somepony is snoring behind this wall.” “Could it be Hendrix?” “There is only way to find out. We have to tear down that wall.” She turned to me. “We need a sledgehammer.” “No, we need to be quicker.” “Quicker? How? Another box of fireworks?” “You went to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, didn’t you?” “Yeah, I dropped out in the final year!” “You had to somehow get to that final year! Come on, I’m sure you can do something.” Lyra took a deep breath. “Okay... I’m sure I can remember some offensive spells.” She took a few steps back. I could see her horn start glowing more and more intensely. Lyra’s face seared with concentration as her horn glowed brighter and brighter. She lowered her head and pointed her horn towards the wall, a waterfall of sweat pouring from her forehead. Then suddenly, her horn spew a few sparks and just stopped. Lyra tried to say something, but the belated laser beam shot out of her horn and she was thrown to the ground by its force. When the dust settled and she got up, we saw that there was a big gaping hole in the wall and the snoring was now very loud. She looked through the hole and let out a very loud gasp. I looked as well and she had all the reason to be shocked. There was small dark room that must have formed after the explosion and Hendrix was inside it, asleep and snoring very loudly. That is when the officer barged in through the door. “What is the meaning of this?” He yelled. “Are you the one who sneaked in last night?” “We’ve found Hendrix!” Lyra shouted not wasting any time. “What? You’re not fooling anypony!” “Shut up and help me pull him out!” The officer stopped yelling when he saw, that Lyra was indeed trying to pull something out of the wall. He ran up to the hole and saw the dark “room” and the sleeping Hendrix inside. He pushed Lyra to the side, turned around and kicked the wall with his hind legs. The hole grew larger and now a whole pony could fit through. We pulled Hendrix out, who was still snoring. “Is this where he was the whole time?” The officer was in disbelief at his mistake. “And how is he still sleeping?” I asked, also in disbelief. Lyra thought for a bit. “He must be under some sort of sleeping curse.” “Can you lift it?” I hurried her. “I don’t think so.” “I’ll get Starlight Glimmer,” the officer exclaimed, “she must be a powerful enough unicorn to do that.” He then ran off. But I wouldn’t let Lyra just leave it like that. “Come on, you blew a hole in the wall, you can remove a curse as well!” “I can try!” She said and then breathed in deep. “Okay, what do I remember about curse removal...? Absolutely nothing, I wasn’t paying attention.” She then looked at Hendrix, who was still snoring very loudly. “Okay, I can do this.” She boosted herself. She closed her eyes, lighted her horn up, I could see drops of sweat appear on her forehead, as her eyebrows lowered in concentration. Moments later, a small glittery smoke emerged from Hendrix’s mouth. He stopped snoring and grimaced as he tried to sniff his nose. He groaned quietly as he finally opened his eyes very slowly. “You did it, Lyra!” I was excited to finally see her do some more advanced magic. However she was panicking. “Quickly give me a bottle or a box, anything!” She ran in place nervously as she levitated the curse cloud in front of her. “What? Why?” I asked. “I need to put this somewhere; you can’t just destroy a spell!” “What is happening?” Hendrix muttered as he slowly woke up. Suddenly, a laser beam shot into the curse cloud, dissolving it completely. It was fired by Starlight as the officer finally returned with her. And they brought Trixie along. “Alright, step away from the donkey.” Said the officer. Hendrix finally got up, with some difficulty though, because he was asleep for the duration of almost an entire day. “Does anypony have any tissues?” He asked. “The dust completely clogged my nose.” “Well, I’ll be,” said Trixie, “what happened?” Hendrix looked at her and his face flared up. “What do you mean, what happened? You blew me up!” “What?” “Everypony was telling me not to trust you. I should have listened to them.” “Hey, Trixie has nothing to do with this!” Starlight stepped in front of him. “That is true, sir,” the officer chimed in, “you were attacked by a ghost!” “A ghost?” He exclaimed, then sneezed a big one. “It wasn’t Trixie who blew you up; it was a fire orb.” I said. “Do you remember putting it in the box?” “I don’t really remember anything, to be honest.” He answered. “The last thing I remember is the pink pony asking if I’m alright, but I guess the explosion knocked me out very bad.” “Wait, you don’t remember being put into the wall?” The officer asked. “Being what in the what?” “We were looking for you the whole time. These two young mares have just found you inside the wall under a sleeping curse.” He looked at us in utter confusion. “How long have I been sleeping?” “About fifteen hours.” I answered. He couldn’t believe what I just said. “Fifteen hours?!” He exclaimed in disbelief. But there was something else he was more concerned about. “The show, what happened to the show?” “It was cancelled.” Trixie said in a disappointed tone. “Aw man!” He groaned. “Seriously, Trixie?” “Me? I had nothing to do with this!” Starlight got in front of him again. “Do you really think she’d put you under a sleeping spell and put you behind a wall?” “Yeah, Trixie doesn’t even know how to do that!” Trixie added. “Why would Trixie even go through the trouble?” Lyra finally shook off the dumbfounded expression she took on upon seeing her idol up close. She looked around the room and started thinking. After finally connecting the dots she interrupted the wave of accusations and declared: “I think I know exactly what happened.” All eyes were on her.