>>Syeekoh
I know exactly what you mean.

I too like to read my stories to others until (round) parts of them decide they've had enough and leave :P

Until the "Why?" I felt this was a really tense and interesting scene. I mean, good obedient citizen #4284383 being confronted with the big bad ghost? How cool is that? And even though he knows he should run and call the government, there's a person in front of him. He can't help but wonder why any person would choose to be so evil, so he asks: "Why?"

And the huge, intimidating ghost puts on a smile and pulls out his flip chart. "Boy am I glad you asked."
At least that's what it felt like to me.

Beyond what everybody else mentioned, I've got problems with both Celestia's and Harshwhinny's motivation (or lack thereof,) that make this story unbelievable to me.
I'd need at least some pointers to what reason Harshwhinny could have for being so angry at the princesses, as well as to why Celestia could possibly focus so much on Harshwhinny. Have the two even met in the Equestria games episode? I don't remember. And if Celestia simply dislikes her for being a 'pompous, vacuous snit', then why single that mare out when she's got a city full of nobles surrounding her?

To me this story reads like the result of a writing process similar to mine during the last writeoff:
Being struck by an idea for a scene (Harshwhinny excluding the Princesses from the games / Celestia's bitching about it) and then writing that down without spending enough time thinking about what happened that led up to the scene.

I'm missing a lot of emotion here.
After Megan's death I'd expect something like 'gone-forever-sadness' or 'peaceful-passing-relief' from the characters, but Sophie doesn't seem to react at all, and I don't get to see the rest of her family. Twilight offers a token sad look, but she doesn't even seem upset about losing the one person able to save their world from 'the evil'.
Luckily (for Equestria) that problem is fixed immediately: Sophie gets her granny's power and goes dimension hopping.

Sadly (for me) that resolution felt unsatisfying. There's so much untapped potential in that conflict. For example, if Sophie had a reason for going to Equestria other than "the amulet just spark'd me, might as well save your world now", then she could have an adventure on which she earns the amulet's power. If she went to Equestria without its power available, then the villain might even have a chance.

All in all I'd say this piece reads like the introduction to a 'human fights evil in Equestria' story. It has a whole lot of potential, but doesn't manage to catch my interest by itself.

Thank you all very much for your feedback. I may have failed hard with this story, but your comments gave me some specific things to look into and work on. So that's a win in my book.

Why did this go wrong then?

Basically Scramblers and Shadows summed it up perfectly: I was trying to write a novel-sized tale in the space of a short story, and started without knowing exactly where I was going. Not having a grasp on story structure, grammar, and formatting didn't help either.

I mostly just went with what seemed like the obvious thing for my characters to do, then changed and added parts in an effort to make it make sense, but in the end I failed to communicate central points like what I had imagined the setting to be like, or that Emily was masking as both the League and Madame Morrow, for the excitement, the fame, and the money that'd come with the boost to her husband's career.

Still, what surprised me most about all this, was discovering that I don't have an idea what a short story is. I can't say in what way other than length one would differ from a regular book - so that's another thing I'll look into before I chime in on a short story round again.

What I liked: how you showed the two knowing each other in and out by having them think in similar ways and sometimes even continue each other's thoughts.

What I didn't like: I'm too confused about their background and their situation to really get what these things they talk about mean to them. I get that they've got some human sacrifice thingy going on, but why? Where does their conviction come from? It could all just be superstition - and that'd be fine - but lines like "whatever passes for dawn in this place" make it seem like there's a lot more going on. Like there's stuff going on that's really important to the two, and that I have absolutely no clue on.

I love the atmosphere you've got going on here. It felt like just the right blend of spiritual, slightly somber, and peaceful to me.
Getting a look into your characters' emotional states was super interesting as well. Both the man's mix of resignation and acceptance, and Father Paul just continuing as he always has before coming to realize there's something more going on felt very genuine and satisfying to read about.

The mystery about the man's identity I'm split on. Initially he seemed like some mythical power, now, with the whole picture, I think he's an engineer who helped develop a doomsday weapon (something atom bomb 2.0 like.) Overall, it mostly added a bit of uncertainty, and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing. It helps with the air of mystery I think you were going for, but what I liked most about your story was how steadfast the characters felt, the calm and certainty with which they faced their end.

So I think this story would've been even stronger without the whole mystery stuff - even more so cause of the "you have about 20 seconds" line. That seemed like it was supposed to fuel this air of mystery, but to me felt like something a teenager trying to sound cool would say.

I just read this blog about the manhattan project and now I'm sure enough about it to say I finally got the picture you had in mind when writing this:

"Men had been told that the scientists thought there was a small chance for the bomb to set off a chain reaction that would ignite the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, killing all life on Earth. As the bomb was primed they sat in the site chapel, crying."

Before, I hadn't made the connection to scheduled tests, which made that 20 sec line really extra weird to me, and had assumed this to play in our present. If there's any clues towards time and place I still don't get them..
But with that context I think I like your story even better now.

I very much liked sitting in that fast food worker's head and looking out through the foggy windows that are their eyes.
It had some atmosphere. Most of it felt distant rather than hellish, but I believe that's what you were going for.

Also where'd you come across the "risible idea" idea? I've never ever seen that word before.

I read this out aloud without having gone over it before, and the one time I stumbled over the words was because I read over a syllable in the last verse. The rhythm's great.