Paracuddle Activity
“Aaaaaaaaand… there.”
Anon takes a step back to admire his work. Resting inconspicuously on a vanity across from his bed is an unassuming camera, the lens carefully pointed at both the bed itself and a small portion of the room on either side of it. In hindsight, he probably should have done this a long time ago.
It all started a few months back. He woke up one morning to his room being a bit chilly. Nothing seemed particularly wrong or out of place, so he made nothing of it. However, when the next morning came around, it happened again. He called up a mechanic to check on his AC, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Since the problem didn’t seem to linger into the day, he ultimately brushed it off as the house being a bit old.
Then, a few days later, something new happened.
He woke up as usual, but he could have sworn that his bed was warm. Granted, this is a typical occurrence, but something about it seemed… off. The space next to him in his large, queen-sized bed felt as though a body had been lying there for some time. Obviously, this couldn’t have been the case. He’s too annoying to have a bedmate.
Still, one strange thing going on in the morning is a fluke. Two is a coincidence. He shrugged it off, even as it kept happening. It wasn’t until he woke up one morning with the covers completely removed from his body that he finally knew something was wrong.
Anon is a deep sleeper. A VERY deep sleeper. If somepony wanted to kill him in his sleep, they could very easily get away with it. However, as a result of this, he also sleeps like a log. No turning, no discomfort, no fuss. He lies down and he’s out like a light until morning. That’s how he’s always been.
So, for the covers to have mysteriously ended up on the other side of the bed, something had to have happened. Something unnatural.
Something supernatural.
Unfortunately, Anon isn’t very bright. He lined his door with pepper in an effort to keep ghosts at bay and prepared for a good night’s rest. However, he found himself plagued with strange dreams. He could have sworn he heard occasional hushed voices or saw strange shadowy figures approaching him in the night. Whether these were dreams, hallucinations, or something much more sinister, Anon did not know. What he DID know was that something had to change.
Something had to be done about these specters. He tried telling local dweeb Twilight Sparkle about it, but she just said something about an “unscientific explanation.” Whatever, nerd.
Feeling bold, he took the problem into his own hands. He went out, spent a bit too much money on a nice night-vision camera, and got to work. Equestria doesn’t have livestreaming yet (in fact, their technology seems to be all over the place), so he’d have to look over the recording himself. Unfortunately, the camera he bought from those shady twins has to be used up completely before the footage can actually be viewed, so he’s got about a week of filming to do before he can confirm his suspicions.
One way or another, he’s gonna get to the bottom of all of this. Either those ghosts are gonna let him sleep in peace, or he’s gonna make a killing off of the footage. Maybe he can make a movie out of it or something
Either way, he won’t know until he survives the week.
The first night comes and goes. Anon eagerly awakens as sunlight pours through his window. Sure enough, it’s chilly in his room again. He feels the space next to him. Warm. He glances down at the covers. Moved.
Very ghosty. Very haunting.
He narrows his eyes at the vanity. The camera is still there and the light is still on. Whatever happened last night, he’ll definitely see it live. He just has to be patient.
The second night passes, and Anon awakens to something strange. The circumstances are the same as yesterday, complete with chilly air, a warm spot, and moved covers. However, there’s a strange scent in the air as well. It’s sweet, almost flower-like. He sniffs at the air, and he can’t help but feel like that scent is familiar.
It’s probably some spooky phantom rubbing its ghost butt all over his face while he sleeps.
He hopes that it’s at least a sexy ghost butt.
With the third night comes something else that is different. The scent is gone, but in its place is a SECOND warm spot. As he feels around the bed, he realizes that there is a warm spot on either side of him instead of just one. And, as usual, the chilly air and disturbed covers are present as well.
The ghosts are reproducing!
With a huff, Anon rolls out of bed and stumbles into the kitchen. If he’s gonna keep these darn ghosts out, he’s gonna need more pepper.
…You use a line of pepper to keep ghosts out, right?
The fourth night concludes, and yet again, something is different. Only one warm spot again, but the other two disturbances didn’t seem to happen. It isn’t chilly, nor are his covers all that messed up.
However, there is a scent in the air. This one is different and very unlike the floral scent from a few days prior. It’s also a sweet scent, but it’s less flowery and more sickly sweet, like a dessert with way too much sugar.
Are those darn ghosts eating sweets in his bed?!
He frantically throws the covers away and starts searching for ghost crumbs. To his relief, it appears as though no ghost desserts were consumed last night. At least, not in his bed.
Dang, now he’s hungry.
He awakens for the fifth time since setting up his still-recording camera. At first, he seems to be back at square one. Chilly air, a warm spot, disturbed covers, yadda yadda yadda. Yet, there is something else off about this morning. Something he can’t quite put his finger on.
…Oh well. He’s feeling pretty relaxed today, so he may as well–
Wait. He doesn’t know how to relax. He’s a bundle of stress every hour of the day. He narrows his eyes at nothing in particular as another conclusion forms in his mind.
Those darn ghosts put ectoplasm in his dessert last night that made him relax! Or… or something. That makes sense, right?
Well, whatever it is, it was definitely the ghosts’ fault!
A pair of voices rouse even deep-sleeper Anon from his slumber on the sixth night. Immediately recognizing that something is wrong, he shoots upright and begins to look around. However, much to his chagrin, the voices seem to stop as soon as he starts listening for them.
A shame, too. He could have sworn they were arguing. If he was able to interrupt the ghost argument, he might have been able to make it worse, turning it into a real ghost fight. Maybe then he’d have one less ghost to worry about.
Well, at least it isn’t chilly this time, nor have his covers been messed with, nor is there a warm spot. Perhaps the ghosts are finally getting sick of him.
It’s warm. It’s very warm.
Anon awakens on the seventh and final day feeling much warmer than he usually does. The warm spot next to him is even warmer than usual, and if he’s not mistaken, it’s a bit larger than normal, too. The chill in the air is still present, but with how warm his body is, it takes him a moment to notice it or the messed up covers.
He sighs as he crawls out of bed. Slowly, a cocky smile creeps across his face. Whatever it was that happened this week, he’s got it all on video. With a spring in his step and justice on his mind, he happily grabs the camera and makes his way towards the living room, ready for the film to finally run out and allow him to play it back.
Anon leans forward as he watches the video play out in front of him. Said video is greatly sped up as he zooms through the first night, carefully watching for a change of any kind. Any flick of a light, any ruffling of his covers, any small movement that could give him a clue as to what sort of ghost is messing with his room.
Then, at about 1:00 in the morning, he sees it.
The window to his room is enveloped in purple magic. Slowly, it creaks open about halfway. Anon squints as he sees a figure enter the frame, but gasps as he watches it crawl through the window completely, awkwardly landing on the floor with a thud. The figure looks at his sleeping body with fear before breathing a sigh of relief, and a few seconds later, it creeps towards the bed.
The covers are magically pulled back as the figure, clearly a pony, climbs into the bed and lays itself down right next to Anon. Magic tugs on his sleeping arms until his unconscious form is cuddling the mare, completely unaware of what’s going on.
Anon tilts his head as he watches the footage, his mouth slightly agape. That’s… definitely not a ghost. That’s a unicorn. That’s a unicorn he knows.
That’s local librarian, Twilight Sparkle, cuddling him in his sleep.
“...Uh-huh.”
Well, that’s strange. Anon watches as she drifts off to sleep in his silent embrace. The two sleep like that for several hours, and Anon fast-forwards the video until he sees movement again. Sure enough, just minutes before he woke up, Twilight opened her eyes, crawled out of bed, and snuck out through the still-open window.
Well, that explains why his room was chilly. And why his covers were moved. And why there was a warm spot.
B-but that doesn’t explain the other odd occurrences! Surely it wasn’t Twilight every night, right? Surely there were ghosts haunting him as well, right?!
Hesitantly, he fast-forwards to the second night. Sure enough, the same events seem to play out, with the window opening and a figure creeping in. There’s no way Twilight left that floral scent behind, so something else had to have happened the second night, right?
As the figure crawls into bed, the moonlight pouring in through the open window hits her just right, revealing not Twilight Sparkle, but Rarity, his posh and somewhat annoying friend. He feels his eye twitch as he watches her snuggle up against him without a care in the world.
Last he checked, she called him a “brute,” an “ape,” a “specimen so incapable of critical thought that genuine conversation was simply too unbearable to even consider partaking in for long periods of time.” Yet she wants to sleep in the same bed with him?!
He’ll never understand ponies.
Moving on to the third night, he sees not one, but TWO ponies crawling through his window. It takes him a bit longer to identify them even with the moonlight illuminating them at certain points, but those two mares are undoubtedly Lyra and Bon Bon, his two neighbors. Just like Twilight and Rarity, they nonchalantly crawl into bed with him, each getting snuggled in on either side of him and snoozing away before retreating in the morning.
Anon sighs as he moves on to the fourth night. That was the night with no chill and no disturbed covers, so something else must have happened, right? Going through the footage, this seems to be the case, as the window never opens and a pony never pulls the covers back. So… no one came, right? Why was there still a warm spot?
He blinks. When his eyes open after a quarter of a second of being shut, he sees a pony in the bed with him. That poofy mane could belong to no one but Pinkie Pie. She just… appeared there, already wrapped in his arms.
That’s actually pretty normal for her now that he thinks about it.
With a shrug, he starts watching the fifth night, the night he was relaxed. The window opens yet again, but the long, silky tail attached to the back of the intruding mare gives her identity away immediately.
Fluttershy.
He doesn’t even bother watching her leave, choosing instead to watch the sixth night, the night he was woken up early. Lo and behold, the whole thing was captured on the camera. Whatever actually occurred was out of the camera’s view, but he recognizes the two voices arguing from right outside his window.
“No, Rainbow Dash! This is a terrible idea!”
“What’s wrong, AJ? Chicken?”
“No, I just don’t feel good about breakin’ and enterin’! We’ll be in so much trouble if we’re caught!”
“So? Are you forgetting that this is Anon we’re talking about?”
Applejack sighs.
“It’s just not very honest.”
“And? Everypony else already got a turn, and they didn’t have any problems with it!”
“Well, maybe I’d like to hold myself to a higher standard. And maybe you should consider doin’ the same.”
“Uggggggggh. Fine. But you owe me a solid.”
“What for?!”
“For making me stay up this late for no reason!”
“I didn’t ‘make’ you do anythin’ you lyin’ little–”
The voices get quieter as the pair apparently begins to walk away. It’s only as their voices are nearly gone that Anon wakes up in the footage. Apparently, he’s a deep sleeper unless the disturbance is really small and quiet. Go figure.
Anon feels his patience running thin. Ready to get this over with, he moves on to the seventh and final night.
Ah, the window is being magically opened again. What a surprise.
…She, uh, looks like she’s having trouble squeezing through.
A lot of trouble. For a moment, it looks as if this mare is going to get stuck, but with a flash of her horn, she appears in the room safe and sound before cuddling up with Anon. He can’t help but notice how large she is compared to all of the prior intruders. She also has a really long, wavy mane that doesn’t seem to sit still. Whoever she is, she made the bed really, really warm.
And as the moonlight hits the mare in just the right way, he gets a clear picture of Princess Celestia herself happily spooning his sleeping body.
“Alright, that’s it!” Anon stands from his seat and immediately rips his pants off of his body. It’s a waste of a perfectly good pair of pants, really. “If those ponies want to sleep in MY bed, they’re gonna have to deal with things they might not want to see! We’re going commando tonight!”
Ghosts or no ghosts, he’s relieved to have finally gotten to the bottom of things.
…Though he would have liked to see some sexy ghost butts on that tape.
At 3:00 in the morning, a semi-transparent mare stares through an open bedroom door at the sleeping Anon. Her dark, droopy mane covers her eyes, though if said eyes were visible, it would be easy to tell that they’re wide open.
Her target is not sleeping alone. In fact, he appears to be covered in about a dozen mares. How in the world his bed is supporting all of that, she doesn’t know. She’d love to get in there and start doing some spooky ghost stuff to scare them all away, but unfortunately…
“Pepper,” she whispers, all ghost-like and specter-ish. “How did they know my one weakness?”
With a huff, the ghost turns from the bedroom.
“Guess I’ll just have to haunt someone else.”