There is a house unlike most. It sits a fair distance away from town, not too far as if impossible to travel by hoof, but that perfect distance away that makes those that visit it question just why they’re going there in the first place. It is an old house, made of brick and cement and wood and nails. What went into the construction of the house is of the completely ordinary variety. What lives in the house is something altogether different. But perhaps the term “lives” in not the correct term at all.
I occupy that old house. I am that old house, actually.
Most of my time is spent asleep, my senses unresponsive to the area surrounding me. When I wake, I effortlessly feel every inch of my being: the shattered windows that like slamming shut unexpectedly when a visitor leaves their hoof on the windowsill for too long; the creaky doors that bang shut at all hours of the night; the faded paintings that constantly tilt to one side no matter how many times they’ve been realigned.
I can feel the thick layers of dust on the hardwood floors; the discarded kites and balls ponies accidentally toss upon my roof, only to be left behind once they realize just what house they’ve been trapped on. I can also feel the dry and shattered bones of a young colt that tried to show just how brave he was to all of his friends oh, so, many years ago—bones still waiting to be found amongst a pile of rubble in the house’s deep and dark basement.
And now, for the first time in ages, I feel the cautious steps of tiny hooves upon my porch.
“This place doesn’t seem all that safe,” says the one that enters the house first.
By her voice, I can tell she is young, just a filly. Perhaps the same age as I was when I first entered this horrid place. Her soft voice carries an accented flair.
“But I’m sure if Applejack and Big Mac made a weekend project outta it, they’d have this place gussied up in no time.” She pauses to take in the wide living room: the blood red couch in front of the fireplace; the half-rotten rug below it. “Don’t step on that bug there, Sweetie Belle.”
“Ekk!” shouts the one named Sweetie Belle, her hooves jumping onto the entryway carpet.
If I wanted to, I could rip that very fabric from underneath her, toppling her to the ground. I could inch the disgusting couch and the scratched and chipped end tables in her direction, levitating them in the air and causing both of those small ponies to scurry away from my house as fast as their little legs could carry them.
But that is not what I want today. I want them to come inside and I want them to stay. It is lonely here in this mostly forgotten place and company is hard to come by.
“Thanks, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle says, daintily wiping her hooves on the carpet.
A third pony enters the house and immediately goes to a framed painting tacked to the wall. I cannot see this particular painting, but I remember looking at it once upon a time. It is of a small lake with a tiny boat at its center, the sun rising over the mountaintops far into the distance.
It was of this painting that I thought about all those years ago, right before I opened the door to the house’s basement and tumbled away into darkness. It was of this small boat that came to mind—so peaceful and unmoving—as I bled out on the concrete basement floor with a broken leg and a shattered, jagged rib stabbing a hole through one of my lungs.
How odd, it is. That in the tight grasp of death, I do not think about my parents or my only sister. Instead, I think about some painting I had only seen just seconds prior. Such a simple painting, too.
I can no longer remember the pain of my death; it had been so long ago.
I am thankful of this, although I wish I could forget more about what it was like to be alive. Sadly, I still know I had parents and a sister once upon a time—their appearances blank to me. My feelings for them have disappeared long ago, but not their memories. I still understand what it is like to live and love and be loved in turn. That is my largest weakness. Should I wish for my soul to finally leave this place, I must destroy all knowledge of what it felt like to be alive.
“That picture sure is creepy, huh, Scootaloo?”
The one named Sweetie Belle joins her friend close to the wall. Together they travel from picture to picture, until coming to a stop by the living room’s tall brick fireplace. It may look old and in dire repair to those that enter this house, but with a mere thought, I could give it life again—red and yellow flames hungrily licking at the blackened bricks surrounding it.
Scootaloo sidles up next to her friend and whispers to her, “How long do we have to stay here again? I mean, it’s not that I think it’s scary or anything, this place is just so dull.”
“Just until we show Diamond Tiara we’re not afraid of this place or until she gives up and goes home.” Sweetie Belle thinks for a moment. “I’d give her ten minutes tops.”
And just like that, I find reason to listen again, to watch again, to feel hope again.
Apple Bloom.
Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo.
Diamond Tiara.
Four ponies. Four small fillies within my grasp. Four souls so close to me—connected to me now.
There had been four of us when I died in this place—a tiny adventure after school between my friends and I. I can still recall how we laughed and jumped up and down on the house’s dusty furniture, shouting at the spirits of the place to come out and try to frighten us. Obviously, no spirit appeared to turn our manes completely white and give us reason to scamper away.
It took me a long time to understand how spirits were supposed to behave. Longer still—the subtle art of curses and their ever stringent rules.
Eighty-one years ago, four tiny colts entered this house. Three ran away in search of their friend, while the fourth bled out on the basement floor, a half-dozen broken bones left sticking out through his skin. I died, and in turn I inherited this place. Not by choice, mind you. All I did was take over the job of the house’s previous spirit that had chosen me to die specifically. Would they have apologized if they could’ve? I doubt it. They were willing to kill in order to release their soul from this place. I must be able to do the same. Or remain trapped here forever.
Every time I wake, I wonder if I’ve lost enough humanity to finally perform the deed.
Today we will see.
When I took ownership of this place, I also absorbed its long and dark history like a sponge.
One hundred and six years ago, a young filly had been decapitated when a heavy window unexpectedly clamped down on her neck while she tried shouting for her dad on the lawn.
One hundred and forty-four years ago, a colt scampered away from his friends, searching the upper rooms by himself. When exploring a closet in one of the empty rooms, its heavy door closed behind him and locked itself with no key whatsoever. His cries for help should’ve reached his friends most easily—only a piece of wood between them. If only spirits didn’t have the oddest of abilities in twisting things towards their own gain. Starvation claimed the colt days later. Following that, he inherited this place without pause.
Two hundred and twelve years ago, the builder and owner of this house found his daughter facedown in the upstairs bathtub; the shelf above the tub had become dislodged from the wall and fell on her head. The very shelf the owner had nailed together with his own hooves.
Eighty-one years ago, four souls entered this house while one soul remained behind. One hundred and six years ago, four souls entered this house while one soul remained behind. One hundred and forty-four years ago, four souls entered this house while one soul remained behind. Two hundred and twelve years ago, four souls entered this house while one soul remained behind.
If I wanted out, I needed exactly four souls within my walls.
If I wanted out, one needed to enter and never come out again.
***
The one named Diamond Tiara enters last, clutching the doorframe before finally stepping inside. The entryway door is well within my control—the ability to slam it shut to propel her inside tickles my fancy—but the art of fear is never one that should be rushed. I can’t have them all trying to escape at once. Careful planning is needed. Did the headless filly that occupied this house before me give that much thought to my death?
“You little babies crying yet?” Diamond Tiara asks from the safety of the doorway, a faint quiver in her voice. She tries to sound more important than she is and for the most part succeeds. But I have heard many a conversations between the truly scared and the stubbornly brave. I have learned the subtle differences between the two—the small inflections of the voice that most cannot hear or even understand.
Apple Bloom is halfway up the stairs by the time Diamond Tiara enters. She turns to her. “It was your idea to come here in the first place, Diamond Tiara. You said we wouldn’t make it even a minute inside here and look how long it’s been already.”
She takes a few more steps up the stairs and I ponder prying loose the deep nails that hold the boards together underneath her hooves. As silent as a whisper, I could remove each and every hammered nail in the house. I could weaken the boards near the second floor landing, causing it to break under the little filly’s weight and sending the bottom of her legs through—scrapes and bruises and blood and all.
I could. I really could. But I do not get my joys from causing others pain. Could I give someone a painless death? I’ve always wondered, but have yet to try.
Not all deaths need to be as drawn out as my own.
“Well,” Diamond Tiara says snidely, “you three have only been inside for a little while, anyways. I give you sissies five more minutes before you’re all running out of here with your tails tucked between your legs.”
Apple Bloom reaches the top of the stairs and calls down, choosing to ignore her. “Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, you wanna check out the second floor with me? I think there’s some weird painting of a clown down the hall.”
“Just a sec!” Scootaloo yells to her, trotting to the other end of the living room. “Let me see what’s in this room first.”
“Don’t take too long!”
Upstairs, Apple Bloom walks down the dirt-covered hallway. There is little I can control up here, besides a half-dozen doors that I can open and close—a hundred different floor boards I can make creak and groan, crack and split.
Back in the living room, Scootaloo nears the door to the basement; the same basement where my bones still have yet to be discovered.
If she were to open the door in front of her, she would find no stairs leading down. There is nothing but darkness there and a twenty foot drop onto solid stone.
The door to the basement has always been tricky to open and requires a hard shove to push through. That was the only reason I died so easily to begin with—one hard shove and then one quick fall into darkness, followed by an eternity of watching and waiting and hoping and praying for someone new to come visit me.
Scootaloo puts her hoof to the door’s brass knob and I finally ponder what to do. I could always make it swing inwards without her assistance—allowing her to open it easily and glimpse inside and avoid her fate. Or I could set it up the same way it had been set up for me: let her shove it open with all of her might before letting her plummet to the solid, cold ground below.
“This door won’t budge!” Scootaloo says, twisting the knob with both hooves.
Without much thought, I lock the door to the basement. This one is not the one I want to inherit my curse. No. Not her. But maybe…
“This place is just lame!” trumpets Diamond Tiara, kicking the couch sat before the fireplace. I can feel each and every one of her little kicks, the legs of the couch scratching against the floor. My decision becomes much clearer than before.
Soon Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle join their friend in the second floor hallway and go from room to room in search of something interesting to lay claim to. They will not find much up there besides a few ruined beds and a writing desk that sometimes sounds as if it’s laughing in the middle of the night.
Diamond Tiara, left alone downstairs, walks the small area between the entrance and the living room in a continuous loop. It is a hurried walk. One I have felt before. As much as she may want to leave my dark and gloomy embrace, she also does not want to be the first to leave. No. That would never do. Not for someone like her.
It was her idea to come here, was it not? So it only makes sense that it should be her that inherits my burden and sets me free from this place.
The filly known as Diamond Tiara moves to the couch and sits along its edge, careful to brush away as much caked on dust as she can. She crosses her hooves over her chest and huffs angrily to herself. Upstairs, the other three laugh as they open a closet to find an old pink unicorn doll. Someone had left it up there many years ago. I have no power in removing it.
If I could smile, I would. I had forgotten it was there at all until this moment.
I may be the age of a very old pony, but I died very much still a child.
“I wish they’d just hurry up already,” Diamond Tiara says, before huffing out again.
I feel little remorse as I remove a series of nails from the rafters high above her. Rusted and bent, it does not take me long before the small bit of wood in the ceiling comes loose and descends to the room below. On the side of her head it strikes her and she drops forward, coming to rest on the edge of the long red carpet on the floor.
Her breath is warm against me. A steady breath. The hit only knocked her unconscious. I have to remind myself that death can always be painless.
I think about a roaring fire and it roars to life in the blackened fireplace, giving warmth to the dusty room that hasn’t been felt in years. Soon, I turn the fireplace into the image of a mouth made of flames, its tongue becoming the blood red carpet where the filly collapsed to.
I drag my carpet-tongue towards my makeshift mouth, dragging her towards the fireplace’s hungry flames. One pull. Two. Only when she becomes inches away from the flames do I stop and hesitate. An image flashes in what’s left of my thoughts. Another filly. With the image comes an odd feeling. But of what? Remembrance? I remember I had a sister once. Had that image been one of her? I’m sure my sister must’ve been sad when I died. Would this filly’s parents be sad if she never returned to them? Would her siblings be sad, if she had any?
I don’t like this unexpected feeling.
With another thought, I extinguish the fire and shove the filly away. A moment later, she stirs and stands, twirling on the spot. Then she runs from my house as fast as her small hooves can carry her.
And just like that, four becomes three and now any chance of passing along my curse has come to an end. I am almost sad from the news. Perhaps numb is the more correct term.
Maybe in another hundred years, I may finally perform the wretched deed. I only need to wait until what’s left of my humanity is stripped away from me—no more memories or feelings to weaken me. Time has the ability to weather most everything eventually.
Until then, I will wait and I will listen.
Until four more souls come enter this old house of mine.
This old house that is me.
Author's Note
So I actually wrote a bulk of this story like 8 months ago, but never finished it. I took a look at it today and thought, "It's not the worst thing I've done."
I've been meaning to write a ghost story for a while and thought about telling one from the POV of the ghost. Also, I had an interest in curses and passing them on. Also, I had an interest in killing Diamond Tiara.
2/3, I guess. 
Thanks for reading!
