The next day at school was a strange one; there were a lot of drawings of Slender Stallion all over the classroom with morbid captions like "no no no no no no no no" and "wants to hug you from behind." There were no students in the classroom, but there was evidence that it was populated beforehand. For example, there was a message on the wall that read "leave while you still can." It was written in red stuff. Applebloom didn't think Cheerilee would approve of this, because she had a strict "no writing on walls with any color except black" policy. After a few minutes of sitting at her desk and waiting for Cheerilee's lesson to begin, Applebloom realized that none of her friends were there. Those ponies want to fail school, don't they? she thought. It was at that moment when Applebloom caught sight of what was at the front of the classroom: Slender Stallion was standing in front of the chalkboard. He was writing something on it.
"Today we will be learning about Applebloom," said Slender Stallion. "I know a lot about her and her friends, because I watch them all the time."
Applebloom woke up from her dream. "Whoa," she said aloud, "that dream was almost as bad as the one where I go to school and it turns out I have clothes on!"
That day at school was a normal one. Cheerilee gave a normal lesson about normal history. Applebloom and her friends were paying attention as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon talked with eachother and looked at their hooves. How interesting could your own hoof be? After school, the Cutie Mark Crusaders met up in front of the playground. "Hey, maybe we should check out that abandoned hospital now," suggested Scootaloo. "You know, so we can know what it's like before we hunt the ghosts there."
"That's a great idea! Sweetie Belle, you should get the vacuum just in case of a daytime ghost attack," said Applebloom.
"Okay," said Sweetie Belle. She left to get the vacuum. Luckily Rarity was still out that day, so Sweetie Belle would be able to take the vacuum without any holdup. Since the abandoned hospital wasn't too far away from the newer hospital, the three fillies had decided to meet up there. After Sweetie Belle arrived with the vacuum, they headed in the direction that the abandoned hospital was said to be in. They started to see a building up ahead, but it looked nothing like a hospital, and it most certainly was not abandoned; there were ponies coming and going from the building. The Cutie Mark Crusaders saw a big sign above the main entryway.
"Museum of Ponyville History," Applebloom read the sign aloud. "We have a museum?"
"I guess. I've never heard of it before," said Sweetie Belle.
"Neither have I," concurred Scootaloo. "But this is exactly where the hospital should be. Let's go inside and check it out!"
The friends went inside of the museum. It was just a regular museum about the history of Ponyville. It had old artifacts, store signs, and even ponies who were dressed up like they were living back then. There was also a model of how Ponyville used to look. Scootaloo walked up to one of the employees. "Excuse me, do you know if there is an abandoned hospital around here?"
"Hm? Oh, this building used to be a hospital, but after a fire rendered the hospital unusable, it was abandoned for some time. It was recently refurbished and made into this museum," said the employee.
"Thanks." The Cutie Mark Crusaders huddled up. "Did you hear that!? This museum is the hospital, which means that there could still be ghosts here!"
"Yeah!" said Applebloom. "But how are we gonna hunt ghosts at night here? They'd probably lock this museum up!"
"We can just try to hunt ghosts now," said Sweetie Belle. "There are so many ponies here, and any one of them could be a ghost! They could be among us and nopony knows it!"
"Hey there! Do you little fillies want a tour of the museum?"
"Ah! A ghost!" yelled Sweetie Belle before turning the vacuum on and trying to suck the pony into it. "It isn't working!"
"What are you doing?" asked the pony.
Sweetie Belle turned off the vacuum and bashed the pony over the head with the vacuum.
"Ow! What do you think you're doing!?"
"Wait, are you a ghost?" asked Scootaloo.
"What!? A ghost!? Of course I'm not a ghost! That really hurt! And it still hurts!"
"Sorry," said Sweetie Belle.
"You're lucky I'm not kicking you out of this museum!"
The Cutie Mark Crusaders walked away from the pony. "Okay, so that pony happened to not be a ghost, but that doesn't mean that any of these other ponies aren't ghosts!" said Applebloom. "Let's split up and see what we can find! And could I have the vacuum Sweetie Belle?"
"Of course," said Sweetie Belle. She gave the vacuum to Applebloom. The three friends split up.
The first pony Scootaloo laid her eyes on was very old-looking. There's no way a pony that old can walk around as much as that, she thought. Scootaloo decided to get closer to the old pony to see if she did anything weird. She got close enough to overhear what the old mare was saying.
"When I was your age, I was drinking river water instead of punch."
There's no way a pony can be that old, thought Scootaloo, forgetting that Granny Smith existed. She walked up to the old mare and stared at her.
"Do you want somethin', you little filly?"
"Uh, yeah, are you a ghost?"
"No."
"Darn!" Scootaloo hoped that her two friends were having better luck than her.
On the other side of the room, Applebloom was looking around for suspicious activity. She turned a corner and came face-to-face with a white stallion in a suit. "Aaah! Slender stallion!!!" screamed Applebloom. She began to beat the pony with the vacuum. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo ran over to Applebloom, having heard her screams.
"Applebloom, what's wrong!?" asked Sweetie Belle.
"Slender Stallion!"
"Ow! Why are you hitting me with a vacuum!?"
"Because you're Slender Stallion!"
"Excuse me? What did you just call me? A slender stallion!? Anorexia runs in my family, thank you very much!"
"What?" asked Applebloom.
"Oh, and now you play dumb? 'Oh, that pony is different from everypony! Let's beat him with a vacuum!' How can anypony be so blind!?"
"Let's get outta here, girls!" said Scootaloo. The Cutie Mark Crusaders ran out of the museum. They could hear the pony yelling at them.
"Where do you think you're going!?"
The Cutie Mark Crusaders ran all the way to Sweet Apple Acres. "Come on, Applebloom, we all know that Slender stallion isn't real," said Scootaloo. Nopony saw Slender Stallion watching them from behind the barn with a tear rolling down his faceless face.
"Yeah. Well, I don't think that pony we hit will find us here," said Applebloom.
"Y'all don't think who'll find ya here?" asked Applejack, who had just walked down the path to the three fillies.
"Oh, uh... Nopony," said Applebloom.
"Just tell me, Applebloom."
"Alright. We were at the museum, and we hit two ponies with a vacuum," said Applebloom, looking down at the ground.
"What!? Now you three go right back to those ponies and apologize!"
"Okay," said Applebloom. "Come on, girls." The Cutie Mark Crusaders left Sweet Apple Acres and began to head back to the museum.
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Author's Notes
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! A big thank you to Cobalt Winter for becoming my partner in crime and helping me out with the idea for this chapter and the one to follow. Also, a shout-out to my friend who reads my stories; just to make him feel special even though nobody else here would know who he is. I guess that's all for this entry of Author's Notes. See you all in the next chapter!