March 10, 2019. My Nineteenth birthday. I didn't think much of it. Just another day of the year. Plus, I hadn't celebrated it with anyone for a long time, so I felt a little uncomfortable celebrating it. I didn't tell anyone, not even Twilight or Thorax about it for those reasons, though I knew that Pinkie would find out somehow. I just had to hope that she wouldn't figure out.

I woke up in the castle, as I had been living there. After my suicide attempt, they made me stay there with them so they could keep an eye on me. Even if they didn't say it, I knew. I woke up, and took a shower. After that, I then went down stairs to the kitchen, with my music, to make breakfast. Starlight, Spike, and Twilight were eating when I walked in. “Morning!” I said.

“Morning!” They all replied in unison.
I went into the kitchen, put on an apron, put on some music, and started making pancakes.

“What are you making?” Starlight asked.

“Pancakes.” I answered.

“How come? Is there something going on today? You usually only make them on special days.” I poured the batter into the pan. “I haven't had them for a bit, so I figured, 'Why not?'.”

As I was making them, I heard a whistling noise. “Do you guys hear-” Before I could finish, something burst through the kitchen window. It was Pinkie Pie, and she was holding a plate with a cupcake with a candle in it. I turned into my pony form and said, “Mr. Soaps isn't here currently.”

“You!” She growled. I felt like I sank.

“Listen, I don't have a death wish. I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry.”

She walked towards me, and I backed up against the wall

“How dare you not tell me that today's your birthday?” She questioned.

“Today's your birthday, Johnny?” Twilight asked in the dining room.

“Y-yeah.” I asked, still worried that I was a dead horse walking. They walked in, and looked at the both of us. “Could you possibly... back away a few steps?” I asked Pinkie.

She did that, and Twilight asked, “How come you didn't tell us?”

“I- Pinkie, you might want to close your ears for this one.” I said.

“I want to know, too.” She grumbled.

“Alright... honestly, I didn't want to celebrate it.” They all gasped, and Pinkie's mane deflated. “Don't be upset. Please.” I pleaded.

“Why wouldn't you want to celebrate your birthday?” She asked. It hurt me to see her like this.

“It's just that since no one lives in the town that my house is at, I haven't celebrated my birthday in fourteen years with anyone. I just got used to it, and it just made me uncomfortable for some reason. That's why I didn't even tell you girls, and guy, my birthday.”

“But it only comes one day a year. Plus, it's your birth day!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“I know, but the way I see it, it's just another day closer to my death.” The room went silent, and Pinkie was lying on the ground, depressed. I sighed. It really hurt me to see her like this.

“Pinkie, if I let you throw me a party, will you promise to invite people only in our friend group?” Her mane poofed, and she was hopping again.

“I Pinkie Promise! Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye! I'll see you all later!” She hopped back out the window, and pranced away.

“That was seriously dangerous of her. Now my pancakes are ruined!” I exclaimed.

“That was really nice of you.” Twilight said.

“Well, I can't stand to see Pinkie like that. It physically pains me. You can bet if anyone were to make her upset, and turn her into that, they would get a face full of my butter sock. I'm going to get breakfast somewhere else. See ya!” I exclaimed, then teleported to IHOP.

I got some pancakes, and when I finished, I felt a presence with me. “Hello?” I called out. No response. “Listen, I have a sock full of batteries, so if you don't show yourself, and I find you, I will beat you up.” I got up, and snuck towards the kitchen, but got tackled. Someone was giving me a hug, and that someone was Thorax.

“Happy birthday!” He cheered.

“Thanks. Pinkie told you?” I guessed.

“Yeah. You want to hang out?”

I nodded.

“So, since it's your birthday, I'll let you choose what we do today.”

“Um, Discord and I need to practice, and then maybe we can explore some of the houses around town. Maybe we can also let you in on a sneak peek on what we'll play at the concert, as long as you don't tell anyone.”

“I promise.”

“Alright. Discord!” I yelled.

“Yeah?” He asked from behind us.

“Is it okay if he watches us play?” He looked at me with confusion.

“Didn't you say you didn't want anyone hearing us?”

“If we play a few songs, it can't be that bad. Plus, he promised he wouldn't tell anyone.”

He looked at Thorax, then back at me, then back at Thorax. “Okay. But, only a few.”

“Got it.”

We went to the recording room, and played “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams”, “Coming Clean”, “King For A Day”, “Adam's Song”, and “All The Small Things”. After that, I ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut, and then we went to the garage at my house to watch videos from “HARDSTOP LUCAS”. As we entered the garage, a scroll appeared in front of Discord.

"Give us a second. I need to talk to Thorax." They stepped outside, and I put on a video. Discord opened the door, and said, "Actually, how about we do something else? I don't think Thorax would get this, and I don't think he would like the curse words, even if they aren't that bad."

"Um, sure. Ooh! I know a factory we can explore!"

I brought them to an abandoned factory near the town. It was in the woods, so it was pretty creepy by itself, but you also have the fact that the town is abandoned. We walked up to an opening, and Thorax stammered, "I don't know if we should do this. This looks pretty spooky."

"Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to us. Plus, no one's here."

A bang came from inside the factory, adding a bit of doubt to the group. We stood there for a few seconds, frightened. "You still want to do this?" Thorax questioned.

"Yeah. Like I said, I won't let anything happen to us. Mainly you two." I walked in, and they reluctantly followed. "Let's check the bottom floor first, then we'll make our way up."

We looked in one room, and went to look in another. As I peered my head in one, we heard a bang come from the other side of the factory.

"Hello?" I called out. We heard a bang come from a few rooms down. "Alright, let's get out of here." I said. We booked it out of there, through the forest, and went to the Dairy Queen by my house. We caught our breath, and I remembered the pizza. "I'll be back." I said, pulling out a Gersh Device. I went and got the box, and came back.

I placed the box on the table. "Do you want any?" I asked Thorax.

"No, I'm fine." He said.

"Are you sure? It makes me feel bad that you just have to sit here and watch us eat." Another scroll popped up in front of Discord, and he opened it and read it.

"Maybe he won't have to." He chuckled.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Come with me." He said.

We followed him to Sugar Cube Corner, and when we walked in, ponies popped out from every hiding spot and shouted, "SURPRISE!!" Pinkie stuck to her word. The only ponies here were ponies I knew were here: Celestia, Luna, the Mane Six, Starlight, Spike, Lyra and Bon Bon. There were different activities, and different foods on a few tables, and a few presents and cards on one table. There were even some streamers, balloons, and they were all wearing party hats.

"Oh, my. All of this is for me?" I asked.

"Yep!" Pinkie replied.

"Thank you all so much! Honestly, this is really amazing!"

Pinkie hopped over to me. "I hope that this is good with you. I know that you said that you weren't too comfortable with a party."

"No, it's... It's really amazing. All of you are truly the best friends anyone could have." I tried to hold back tears. "Let's start, shall we?" I said.

The party had ended a bit ago, and I was going back to the factory. I wanted to explore it a bit more, and just to make it even creepier, it was past midnight. I brought a camera with me to document what I would find.

I turned on the camera, and said, "Hello there, to whoever will watch this. So, earlier today, my friend, Discord, and my boyfriend, Thorax, explored a little bit of this abandoned factory. I'm going to be exploring it more, and see what I can find." I faced the camera at the factory, and said, "This is the factory. I have no idea why it’s here, or what it did, but I'm exploring it. I have a few flashlights, some batteries, and another battery for the camera. Let's do this."

I turned on the flashlight on the camera, pointed it at my watch, and said, "It is currently 12:05. The start of a new day. We'll start on the first floor, and make our way to the second floor." I walked up to a door, and opened it. I looked in the room, but nothing was here. I checked in a few more, and on the sixth room, I saw a can of beans that was opened, and a pot.

"Alright, as you can see, there’s a cooking pot, and a can of beans, that is o-"

BANG! A door slammed shut on the other side of the factory. I jumped at the sound.

"Let's c-continue." I stuttered. BANG! I jumped again.

"Alright... we're going to see what that noise is."

I walked out of the room, and into the open area. As I was walking to where I thought I heard the slam, I stopped about twenty feet away from a room. I noticed something below my feet, and nearly dropped my camera.

"Jeez Louise Papa Cheese. Guys, th-there's a..." I was shocked. It was a star on the ground, painted in something red, that was made for a ritual. There was then a slam from up above.

"Alright. Ain't no one surviving now."

I pulled out my Butter Sock, and made my way to the stairs that went to the second floor. As I stepped on the last step to get onto the second floor, I heard something like crying.

"Do you hear that?" I whispered to the camera. I followed the crying, and opened a door.

First thing I saw was a mattress. I was terrified at this point. I stepped into the room, and shined the flashlight around. Then, in the corner, someone was crouched down, and the crying was coming from them. I almost called out to ask if something was wrong, but 1.) That would have been stupid, as they could have been dangerous, and to support that, 2.) There was a crowbar next to them. As I stepped back to get out of there, they turned around. They had a mask on, so I couldn't see their face. They let out a scream, and I ran as fast as I could. As I ran, I heard a few doors slam, and a few pairs of footsteps.

I ran all the way to my house, and locked everything. I went into my room, grabbed my gun, and locked myself in my closet. There were knocking sounds, and the sound of a window breaking. Then, there were some screams, and then silence. After a few seconds, I heard Discord call out, "Johnny?"

I didn't reply, still fearing that something bad was going to happen.

"Hey, it's me, Discord. I'm not going to hurt you, or anything. Where are you?"

After a few seconds, I called, "In here."

He came into my room, and said, "Marco."

"Polo." I said back. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He snapped, and the doors opened.

He hugged me, and asked, "Are you alright?"

"Somewhat." I replied. "A-are they g-gone?"

"Yes, I got rid of them."

"Th-thank you." I started crying, and he soothed me.

After a few minutes, we heard someone running, and Discord let go, and got ready to battle whoever it was. Thorax appeared in the hall, and he ran over to me.

"Johnny, are you alright?" Thorax asked.

"Kind of." I said, in between sniffles.

"What happened?" He asked.

"I went back to explore the factory, and there were people there." I started crying again.

He hugged me and said, "Shh, shh, shh. It'll be alright. How about we watch a movie?"

"S-sure."

We all went downstairs, which was somewhat of a mess. There were glass shards on the ground. Discord got rid of them, I put in the movie, and we watched "Awesome As F**k!" As we watched it, I started to calm down. When the movie was over, they were still surprised that I was up.

"How come you went back to the factory?" Discord asked.

"I wanted to explore it some more. Just to see what was there."

"Why were they after you?" Thorax asked.

"I don't know. I found one of them in a room, and then I ran, and they came after me. I even got it on video. Let me go get the camera real quick."

I got the camera, put the footage onto my laptop, and let them watch it. At the end, they looked horrified.

"D-did they hurt you?" Thorax asked.

"No. I came here, locked myself in my closet, and Discord got rid of them." I answered.

He looked at Discord, and gave him a hug.

"Thank you." He said.

"It's no problem, they shouldn't have been after him." Discord replied.

"If you need something to do, you can go. I'll stay with Johnny tonight."

"No, no, no. I'll stay with both of you to stand guard."

"You would do something like that for us?"

"Of course! Especially after what happened."

"Thank you."

"No problem. You too go get some sleep at the hive, and I'll watch over the house." Thorax teleported us to his room in the hive, and we got in bed.

"How come you came to my house?" I asked him.

"I just had a feeling that something bad was going on."

"Well, thanks for coming."

"No problem. I'm just glad that you're okay." He hugged me tighter.

"I want to thank you for being here and there for me when I need it. I honestly don't know how I deserved you."

"I can think of a few ways. You saved me from the animatronics, from Chrysalis, and you use music to convey your love for me. I'm grateful to have you as a coltfriend."

"And I'm grateful to have you as a boyfriend. Good night."

We kissed, and he said, "Good night." We then drifted off to sleep.

Author's Note

The title for this chapter might not stay how it is. This was the best I could think of, so if I come up with a better title, I'll change it.