Her laughter...that’s all I could hear in my mind. Her terrifying, spine-chilling laughter. The way she had looked at me all this time was just unsettling, but the fact she gave me a choice on how to get away from her made it even scarier.
This would all make sense if I started from the beginning. Well, it’s not too big a time to rewind.It was a typical Saturday morning, and since I had nothing else to do, what better than to terrify myself with scary games? I was sitting in my chair, bag of cookies and bucket of popcorn chicken on one side of my laptop, half-full bottle of orange soda on the other. I had been in an .exe horror game mood, but somehow my curiosity led me to another game – Pinkie Pie’s Cupcake Party. We all knew our favorite pink positive pony pal rather well. Cheerful, happy, prideful spirit, and above all else, incredible baking skill. But that’s not what this story is about. This story is about how they say some games suck you right in. Well….unfortunately for me, they meant it literally.
I opened up the PPCP.exe file, letting it load. The screen at first showed the typical Sweet Shoppe in Ponyville, with the Smile Song’s instrumental playing in the background. I clicked ‘Play’, and the message in the game came up, basically inviting Twilight to a ‘cupcake party’. My first thought was, ‘Who the hell has only cupcakes at a party? Shouldn’t it be cake themed since it has ‘cake’ in cupcake? Ah, well, Pinkie will be Pinkie.’ Now, I’d played this game before a short time ago, but...well, I’d gotten rather angry at the developer. Not for how he made the game, but the fact he had seemingly become inactive, leaving a difficult version of the game in his place.
After waiting for the message to finish loading, I clicked ‘Proceed’, and the game took me into a fairly well-designed Sweet Shoppe. The ponies, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow, and of course, Pinkie, were all in the room, but with smiles as big as the ones in Cutie Map. ‘Eesh...picture day was long ago,’ I thought, as I went straight to Pinkie, clicking on her. The clicking mechanic was kind of weird..you could pick items up from a few feet away. Which also made the game slightly unsettling. She let out a cheerful giggle (too cheerful, honestly), taking out a cupcake. This was where the game took a creepier turn. After clicking on the cupcake, the game intentionally froze (in the game, not the .exe file itself), and the background and foreground glitched out, flickering every so often. I opened up the bag of macadamia cookies and was about to pull one out to nonchalantly watch the game load, but….something stopped me. Something new was happening.
The screen began fading to white, at a slow rate, the screen getting brighter. This had NEVER happened before. This wasn’t like the ‘not responding’ issue some games had, this game was actually making my screen sunshine white. I carefully put the bag back, and leaned in closely. This was not normal…
I tried pressing all kinds of keys, but nothing worked. I tried unplugging the computer, but the screen stayed on. “What the hell?!” I exclaimed, trying to get up. But I was too afraid, to the point of being unable to stand up. I tried to close the computer, but the lid strangely wouldn’t shut. As I leaned back, I noticed something beginning to emerge from the screen. It was like reliving the slideshow scene from 2017’s ‘It’ by Stephen King, and I hadn’t even seen the movie. I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t move. I could only watch in horror. As the being got closer, I managed to tip the chair over, bolted out of the room and into the nearby bathroom, locking the door. Panting heavily, I realized I’d left my phone in my room. But I couldn’t go back for it now. Not with that hellish thing in the room. I hid in the bathtub in the corner and the curtain pulled back so I could see anyone trying to get in and not take me by surprised. Ten minutes passed and I didn’t hear anything. I would have to face my fears and go in there.
I slowly approached the hook, shakily clicking the lock and turning the knob, and opening the door a tiny bit. I then quickly threw it open, shouting out to try to surprise whoever was there. Thankfully, no one was there. Or...not thankfully. It didn’t feel good knowing someone might be in here with me. I peeked into my room, seeing no one. Slowly walking in, I peeked under the bed. Only a toy flying disc under there and some dry cloths. I opened the closet to see if anyone was in there. Thankfully, no one. I turned to my desk, and saw my phone on the dresser next to it.
“I gotta call somebody..” I said, approaching the phone, and picking it up. “Now…..who WOULD I call for a possible demonic being in my house..?” The scariest thing about this question had to have been the fact that I actually got an answer almost instantly. And NOT from myself.
“Why don’t you call a baker...he will know what to do..” Hearing a voice, Loyal started to look around but all he saw was an empty room. The voice started to talk again and Loyal felt as if he wasn’t alone anymore. “He does need the dough for the job..” The room started to suddenly feel a bit cold.
I got a huge chill up my spine hearing that response. Someone HAD to be messing with me. Probably one of my friends. “T-Taylor, I swear if this is another one of your pranks, it is NOT funny!”
“I’m sorry, but Taylor is a little...hung up at the moment!”The voice taunted. I looked again at the phone, hearing another suggestion.
“Why don’t you try calling one of your other friends..?”
I switched to the phone application, and browsed through the list – Taylor, Terrison, Damian, Sabrina, and Vincent. I scrolled back up and selected Taylor’s contact. The phone began to let out that familiar tone when you’re waiting for someone to pick up. “If I hear her phone, she’s definitely gotta be in here..”
The phone rang for a third time and just went straight to voicemail. “Oops! Looks like she’s busy as well..”
“Um...” I nervously chose another contact, one belonging to my friend Terrison. “C’mon, Terry, please pick up..” If I knew Terry, he ALWAYS answered the phone, no matter the situation. There was no way he wouldn't this time.
The phone rang, and shortly after, I heard someone pick up “Hey Loyal, this is Terrison! What’s up, buddy?”
“Oh, thank God. Terry, I’m serious when I say this, but I think someone’s in the house. I don’t know if it’s one of our friends pulling a prank on me, but it is NOT funny to me! Have you heard anything from Taylor or Damian?”
“Not that I know of. You know some of them would stay up late at night and not wake up the next day until midafternoon.” I still felt the shiver creep up my spine.
“Has the voice mention about calling a chef?”
“Uh….close. A baker. ...why?”
“No reason dude.. you know how one of our friends likes to prank us with being a chef and all.” As he spoke, the room continued to get slightly colder.
“I'm not sure HOW you knew it asked about a chef without me saying, but Sabrina’s too nice to pull a prank and Vincent’s out in Florida visiting his grandparents. If it’s none of you, then who the hell is in my house?! I need you to get here as soon as you can!”
“Okay, chill, Loyal... it’s not like whoever it is hasn’t hurt you yet has it?”
“No, but the doors and windows are locked, so I don’t know how they got in!”
“Ghosts can do whatever they want to; no physical objects can stand in their way. Hang on tight, I’ll be there in 10 (the voice changes a bit) minutes! Don’t go anywhere!”
“Alright. Please hurry.” I hung up the phone, and looked out the window, hoping he’d get here in time. Seeing as how no one else could have been pranking me, I sat in my chair, and hoped no one would come for me.
“Sorry to say, but your friend Terry won’t be coming after all.”
“W-What?”
“You heard me - he isn’t coming. Have you called your other friends yet?”
There was only one other person to call – Vincent. Selecting his contact, I waited for the phone to pick up.
My phone switched to a message, ‘Sorry the number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up or try again or dial 0 for an operator.’
“Wait, what?! But I called him YESTERDAY!”
“You may need to drop your phone...” As soon as the voice said that, the phone started to quickly warm up, with smoke pouring out.
Panicking, I threw the phone across the room. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?”
“What do I want? Oh, nothing just yet...” The phone suddenly turned on and a demonic voice spoke clearly out loud, ‘JUST YOU!’
Why was all of this happening?! It couldn’t have been because I’d played the Cupcake Party, could it? Looking at my screen, it was back to normal. The game loaded normally, no signs of wear or tear on my laptop….but something was wrong. While the screen wasn’t ruined, the option to close out the game….it was missing. The small red ‘X’ was completely gone.
“What in the….why won’t it close!?” I tried Task Manager. No luck closing it on that, either. I tried again to shut the computer off. The screen remained on. I tried clicking the restart computer shortcut to turn it off. It did nothing.
As I tried frantically to turn the computer off, I didn’t notice or hear a figure slowly creeping up behind me. That was….until I noticed something in the reflection of the darker parts of the screen. Tilting my head in confusion, I moved the character around in the game. The reflection remained the same. “What in the--” I turned around to see if anything was behind me, but I wish I hadn’t.
“It’s time for you to take a nap with the baker!” Said the figure, as she quickly whacked him in the face long enough to knock him out. She let out an eerie laughter. “Hehehehe...guess you should’ve called a chef, because this pony’s job is on fire!”
She grabbed Loyal’s collar and his computer, and dragged it and his unconscious body out of the room, grinning maliciously. She had successfully caught another victim.