It was a damp and musty day when Button Flare and her family moved into the middle apartment of The Pink Palace. The walls and floors were stripped bare and the large garden was rotting away, day by day. There was an old colt who lived upstairs from Button, he said his father used to live in his apartment, training a mouse circus. He would babble on about it to her parents endlessly, it was safe to say the old colt was a strange one. Downstairs, however, lived a young unicorn librarian who wanted nothing more to be alone. She would often hit the top of her roof with an old battered broom in the upstairs was being to loud. The unicorn mare was a large collector of dolls. You could see them peering out the door windows, with the faintest smile on their face, button eyes staring blankly back. They sent a shiver down Button's spine when she first saw them. Button dumped her bags on the kitchen table and turned to look around at the old house with a long drawn out sigh. "Button," her mother groaned. "Don't just stand there, you have unpacking to do."
"I didn't want to leave our old house, it was nice there," Button huffed, taking her bag again. Her mother just rolled her eyes and sent her upstairs. She peered into her room with disgust, seeing the rotting wood floorboards and dirty yellow wallpaper that infested the walls. Button placed her blanket on the old bed, her plush toys on the shelves, her battered scarf in a box along with her thick books. She nodded with satisfaction, knowing the place looked a bit more presentable than before. She decided to go back downstairs just to find where everything was. The apartment was big, after all. The young unicorn crept past the kitchen where her mother was working and into the small drawing room. It was crammed with unwanted boxes, piling as high as the eye could see. Button was careful not to knock anything over, for that could disturb her parents greatly in their in-depth work. Button slightly laughed at that thought, moving through the boxes swiftly. There was quite a small one leaning against the wall, beckoning to be moved from its uncomfortable position. Button couldn't hold the urge, so nudged the box away from the wall carefully. Behind it was a small, cream door, with a keyhole and a brass door knob that was going rusty. She tilted her head and tried to open it. No such luck. Button went out the nearest exit and approached her mother. "Mum, there's a little door in the drawing room," she reported, bobbing on her hooves a little.
"Yep, I saw that," her mother said, not turning from her paperwork.
"Do you know where the key is? It's locked."
"The pony downstairs said she had a key that belonged to us. Who knows, it's probably for that door. You should go down and see her," her mother suggested, her voice becoming bored.
"Fine," Button sighed and went for the front door.
