//------------------------------// // 5. Physics of PonyHell (Twilight) // Story: Are You Afraid of the Dark? // by trixiesshow //------------------------------// “So wait, if the place was burned down the entire time, why was only that one pony haunting her.” Lyra stopped her friend. Cheerilee wasn't slowed at all by Lyra's reasoning. “It's based on the listener, Lyra. It doesn't have a firm, hard and set reason. But I would presume that maybe she was personally responsible for him not making it out.” "I thought that he was just the embodiment of her guilt." Carrot Top chimed in. "Maybe, but I don't think it all fit its genre very well. Whatever that would be." Lyra refused to concede on this one. “It definitely had some foundational psychological thriller elements to it” Twilight volunteered. She had perked up when it was being told. Something about that type of story had engaged her to some degree. “Thank you Twilight! See Lyra, that's two against one. Everypony here loves my story.” Lyra scoffed at one of her oldest and dearest friends. She had no particular issues telling it like it was to Cheerilee. “Well Trixie seems to be the official dictator of the night, why don't you ask her.” Cheerilee hesitated, but she turned and looked to Trixie for her opinion. “Next!” Declared Trixie without missing a beat. She had, as Lyra suggested, unofficially designated herself the leader of the other four mares sitting at the campfire . It was well past dark by this point. The autumn air seemed to not pass around them, but completely through them as if they weren't even there. The leaves were dancing overhead as if it were the Grand Galloping Gala. Without all the political intrigue of course. “Anypony care for a refill?” Lyra asked the group. Everypony passed except Twilight who levitated her glass over. They both shared an joke between themselves concerning this as Twilight considered how the night had gone. She wouldn't have seen any of this happening had anypony asked her ahead of time. However she was really enjoying herself. She'd bonded with Carrot Top over Botany. She'd already developed an inside joke with Lyra. The last major development was she and Cheerilee had fought and then forgiven each other. And while she couldn't speak for Cheerilee, she did feel closer after the fight than before. Certainly an odd concept. Maybe there was a lot she didn't understand about friendship. Trixie turned to Twilight, who was secretly enjoying Trixie's bourbon, and goaded her on “Come on Sparkle, now that you've got your confidence juice, it's your turn.” “Shouldn't you go, miss queen of the campfire?” Twilight responded. It was hard to tell if this was her normal antagonistic dialogue with Trixie or if the bourbon was rebelling against its old master. “I've told you all, I'm going last. We have to end the night on a high note.” Trixie said with her normal flair, you could almost feel the phrase 'great and powerful' floating in the air. “Plus you love to lecture everypony.” “It's not lecturing, Trixie, it's a story!.. And I do not!” Twilight said with a huff, although she did love to have the floor. That much was true. Carrot Top nudged her, “Come on Sparkle, show Trixie up and tell us a great story!” Twilight didn't need any encouragement. She looked excitedly at the group, cleared her throat as though beginning a lecture, and began her lecture.. I mean story. “What happens to us after we die? We bury you and the atoms that make up your body return to the ground. But these are no more you than every other atom that has ever been through your body. You're just the random right combination of atoms, and when they're just right, you are you. Now statistics tells us this is nearly impossible for the right atoms to randomly fall in the correct order to make you. Except the universe is going to last forever. And in view of those circumstances, it doesn’t matter if something will only happen once in quadrillion trillion years. Assuming an infinite amount of time, it will not only happen once. It will, in fact, happen an infinite number of times. So in practice what this means is that one day, you will be laying on your deathbed, all of your teary-eyed grandfillies around you, and you will close your eyes for the last time. Only you will open them again, your body haven been reassembled by chance an arbitrary number of years later. But theres's the hook! A trillion years from now, every single star in the universe will have gone out. All of the galaxies will have been ripped apart by the inexorable, unstoppable expansion of the universe. The only thing that will be left will be darkness and almost absolute cold. And it is this, and only this, to which you will one day be reborn. So you'll close your eyes for what you think is the last time, only to open them up again in the middle of a sea of total darkness and absolute cold; not even so much as any air to breathe. You will feel all of your blood vessels exploding from the pressure—your lungs will collapse from the lack of air, and you will die in absolute agony. Only to open your eyes again in the middle of a sea of total darkness and absolute cold, without even so much as any air to breathe. Over and over again. ...Forever!!” Silence pervaded the group for quite a while. Nothing but the crackle of the fire and the occasional pop or snap of a jumping spark. Until, in almost some sort of collective consciousness that formed in the group in response to Sparkle's presence, everypony burst into laughter. Sparkle looked absolutely confused till Trixie mustered the strength to speak while holding her sides. “Only you would find some idea like that scary Sparkle!” “That's not just some idea, Trixie! I found that in the forbidden theoretical section during my old library hopping days.” “The forbidden section? So you knew it was so boring, they locked it away, and yet you told it anyway?” Trixie elbowed Sparkle, although clearly of the two, only Trixie was amused. Carrot Top put on an understanding face and tried to the best of her abilities to comfort her, “I thought it was pretty good, Trixie! I really liked her main, idea!” she failed. Lyra chuckled at Carrot Top's third exact response of the night. “CT, you've said that verbatim about every story tonight.” Carrot Top simply smiled at the observation, she wasn't going to put down a pony who was giving a concentrated effort! After all, it was scary to them, what more could she ask from them. “Well Sparkle took the time to think of something she really thought would scare us. Plus, it's an absolute perfect story to drink and think about.” “More drinking is the only thing that could've saved that story, Carrot Top.” Trixie sang out from across the fire. Though her words didn't carry it, her tone did. It was obvious at this point that she was giving Twilight trouble. At first Sparkle was miffed, but she thought back to their conversation earlier and smiled to herself. She really was making friends with everypony, and despite the annoyance, she was having fun. She decided to play along and defend her theory,“Don't be daft Trixie, that was much better than anypony else's story!” “Your right Sparkle, that was better than my story. I didn't get nearly this great of a reaction out of everypony.” Cheerilee threw out with the sort of support and kindness a teacher would muster for her students when they were being harassed by the class. Nobody wanted to push too many of Sparkle's buttons and they couldn't read her tone to know for certain they hadn't already. Sparkle smiled though. She had a look on her face that told she had thought of the perfect response to put everypony in their place. But to deliver it she quickly took on a solemn look, closed her eyes, and with her muzzle raised just high enough in the air to convey her attitude she stated, “I should have known that would've been over all your heads though. I bet none of you have ever studied metaphysics, if you've even heard of it at all.” “Yes, we had to study it briefly in the music program, Little Miss Know-It-All” Lyra chuckled, as she played along with Sparkle's faux arrogance. “Then you should have found that horrifying!” Sparkle joked back, though an undertone of surprise was heard in her voice. She probably had about as much respect for Lyra's profession as Trixie used to, but was certainly more tactful about it. Lyra simply smiled as she leaned over and tapped Sparkle's glass with her hoof, “Or perhaps you've had too much of Trixie's Bourbon?” The smile dropped from Trixie's face. “..You drank my Bourbon..?” Cheerilee broke the silence, “See, now that's the cornerstone of true horror.” She giggled as she swiftly reached into her bag, pulled out an extra bottle and tossed it to Trixie. “Oh calm down, Berry contributed some extra for our night. Besides Mister Bourbon can see other ponies besides you all the time, Trixie.” Trixie hugged her new bottle “You simply don't understand, Cheerilee. Monsiour Bourbon and I are strictly monogamous.”