“DANGNABBIT!”
Applejack quickly shot out of bed, despite her dreadful grogginess. Without even realizing it, she had slept in a good 15 minutes past her wake-up time. For the average pony, this wasn’t so big of a deal, but Applejack had always prided herself on being reliable, and being reliable meant being as punctual as possible. To be fair, she’d be the first to admit to being late to the odd event every now and again, but rare were the days where she was late to rise.
Never the less, she sped through her morning routine as quickly as she could, and upon realizing it was Big Mac’s turn make breakfast, she simply made herself some toast. Gobbling it quick, she put on her hat and stepped outside.
A dense, misty day greeted her, with fog thick enough that she could barely see two paces in front of her. Still, chores had to be done. With a practiced gait, she cantered over to the stump of discontent, ready to finally be rid of its presence, only to find something strange. Or, rather, found the lack of something strange. The stump in question was missing, and the hole it would have made was already filled. The rope that was supposed to be there for it was missing as well. Her look was puzzled as she tried to rationalize the disappearance, even looking for hoofprints in the mud to see if there were some clue to the phantom assistant. When nothing came of it, she gave a small shrug and decided not to bother dwelling on the issue.
Instead she headed back to the porch, realizing she forgot to check the paper. Luckily, it hadn’t been taken inside just yet, allowing her to get a good glance at the weather report. As it was scheduled in yesterday’s line-up, it was due to remain foggy all day long across the entire town until it cleared up for the night, leaving a sunny day tomorrow. In her gut, she figured that would be the case. Apple-bucking would have to wait a day, especially with such low visibility. Still, there were other things to do, such as tree checking, animal feeding, or any general cleanup that needs to be done. One thing that wasn’t overlooked was a strange name that caught her attention in the corner of her eyes as she flipped absentmindedly through the paper. Turning back to the page of interest, she realized her name did indeed pop up, but in the strangest of sections: the obituaries.
Confused was a word that couldn’t even begin to describe the hearty and healthy feeling earth pony farmer that gawked at her own name. Something about it chilled her, however, as she swiftly closed the offending paper, refusing to indulge her curiosity in such a morbid section any further. With that said, she rolled up the paper and set it off to the side.
The Element of Honesty honestly couldn’t believe somepony could make such a blunder about her, especially since she was just in town a few moons ago, haggling prices and selling off apples in the local marketplace. It had to be rectified, before anypony else could make a stink about it.
So, with that said, she raced out of Sweet Apple Acres and headed into the fog shrouded town, hoping to get there before anyone else could wake up and pick up their own papers. Lucky for her, upon entering the town limits, she soon realized that it wouldn’t be a problem, as not a single soul was wandering the streets. To be fair, she expected as much, considering how early it was, but she couldn’t help feel that something was amiss. The whole town seemed quieter than normal. Almost to a creepy degree. It kinda felt like that one time they decided to prank Rainbow Dash in revenge for all of the tricks she pulled on everyone. The difference between that and now, she figured, was that this felt eerie and creepy as all get out.
Regardless, she marched on and made her way to the newspaper stand, hoping to find somepony up and at-em, if only to get an explanation. Much to her chagrin, the stand was empty, save for the stack of papers, ready to be passed out to the masses. Hazarding a chance of curiosity, she snatched a paper from the top of the stack, and flipped over to the offending section, hoping that maybe her own paper back at the farm was a misprint or in her imagination. Lo and behold, she saw her name, exactly where she saw it last time. She closed it with a worried sigh, placing it back from whence it came, and looked around the stand, hoping to find someone, anyone, present and able to help her through this.
With the absence of the news-stand pony, Applejack resigned to considering a plan “B”. She considered heading to the actual printing press facility, but she had no real idea where that might be in town, nor was she willing to waste time looking around for it. No, she figured it would probably be a better idea to head to the Town Hall. At least there, she could get someone to help her out. Having nothing else left to consider, she headed for Town Hall, seated in the center of Ponyville.
It didn’t take her very long to find the large, three story building. She absolutely despised bureaucracy and how redundant and backwards it could be, but knew that she would most definitely find what she needs by asking the correct ponies. Besides, Mayor Mare owed her a favor.
However, upon entering the large government building, she soon found out that it was just as empty and quiet as the town was. True, it was relatively early in the morning still, but a fair few politicians and civil servants tended to be around in the wee hours of the morning for one reason or another. The familiar hustle and bustle of frantic busy work and officials trying to keep things regulated was well beyond the realm of scarce, replaced with the daunting, cold silence the rest of town featured. Something was most definitely wrong. With that warning in her head, she tentatively wandered to the Mayor’s office, hoping to at least find her, as there was no way she’d be able to find anything else in this, albeit currently very still, madhouse. Reaching the door, she gave it a hesitant knock.
“Uh, Mayor Mare, are you in there?” Applejack asked, before the door creaked open from her knocking. Applejack took a step back, only for a moment, before she pushed the door all the way open herself. Inside was the rather lived-in office; comfy, yet scattered with various papers and files on the front desk. The chair, though, was empty.
Applejack took a step back and closed the office door, giving a disappointed sigh before she made the choice to at least attempt to look for it herself, within reason.
Before she could, a soft, low, pained moan could be heard down the hall. Drawn to the only sound she had ever encountered, she moved down the hall and noticed a pony just standing and facing away from her. The coat and mane color seemed somewhat unfamiliar to her, and she couldn’t quite make out the cutie-mark, but Applejack figured the mystery pony might be a new resident or something.
“Hello?” the farm-pony asked. No response came from the pony, but the Element of Honesty decided to push forward the conversation. “Mah name’s Applejack. Didja need any assistance... or, erm, maybe you could help me out?”
Silence was the only response she got, until the mystery pony began to turn around. It was then Applejack wished that never would have happened.
Gazing back at Applejack were a pair of glowing, yellow, dead eyes. The owner of said eyes opened its mouth, which was dripping with thick black ichor, and let out a long, low moan of anguish as it slowly stumbled towards Applejack. Applejack, in turn, began taking frightened steps back from the strange pony that would give the bogeymare ideas in scares. It started moving faster towards her, causing Applejack to full-on turn tail and flee the strange encounter, heading right through the doors.
Back outside of the Town Hall, she began to hear distant and low wails that sounded eerily like the one from the strange pony she just fled from. Swiveling her ears, she could guess that the owners of such sounds were peppered all about the town, and some of them were getting ready to surround the Hall itself.
Not wishing to get caught by whatever those things were, she high tailed it out of there, deciding it would be prudent to try and get Twilight’s help in the matter. She raced from the Hall towards Twilight’s Castle of Friendship, hoping to find someone there to help her. Despite her speed on hoof, and her evasive skills in dodging the random zombie-like beings that tried to make a grab for her, she made it to the castle only to find the front door wasn’t budging. It made sense, since Twilight was a relatively light sleeper and she probably didn’t want just anypony barging in, but this was an emergency and this locked door was being FAR more than inconvenient right now. She pounded on the surface, hoping to make as much noise as possible, hoping to wake Twilight up. Or Starlight. Or Spike. Or anyone, really.
“Twahlight! Spike! Is anypony in there?!” she shouted, still banging on the door, as the sounds of moans and growls could be heard getting closer and closer to her current location. “Please, open the door!”
As the strange, ominous noises got louder as the strange pony bodies shuffled closer, Applejack soon abandoned the Castle and decided to head for the only other place of importance.
-o-v-o-v-o-v-o-v-o-
Having returned to Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack raced up the roadway to the front of her home, barged inside as swiftly as possible, closed the door, and gazed about to look for anything she could use to barricade the front door. It didn’t take her long to figure out what she needed to use, and soon ended up pushing the heaviest bookshelf she could find in front of it, before pushing the fine dishware cabinet in front of that. She then did the same with the back door, pushing the ice box in front of that entrance, hoping to later use it as an escape route if need be. She then closed all the curtains she could find on the ground floor, just before she realized that she didn’t see a single soul anywhere around the house. Further more, it seemed like the kitchen was left exactly how she left it this morning: empty, without a hint of any cooking having been done.
Heart racing and pounding against her chest, she began to worry about her family, and soon raced up stairs to see if they were still there, hoping against all hopes that they were and they all just slept in. First was Big Mac’s room, which was empty. Entirely. No yoke, no bed, no dresser, nothing. A completely bare room. She then moved to Apple Bloom’s room, and the same thing met her gaze, making her feel nauseous and scared. Hazarding the glance, wishing to be proven wrong, she looked to Granny Smith’s room.
“Where... where is everypony?!” she muttered, now terrified. What in all of Equestria was going on? Why did it seem as if the home was completely abandoned? “Granny... Apple Bloom... Macintosh... where are ya?” she said with a sob. She then heard a heavy thump against the front door, causing her to jump slightly. Listening closely, she could hear the moans and growls of those... things outside, smacking against the door, trying to force it open. Nothing was making any sense to her, and she couldn’t even rationalize it with a prank or a villain she faced. Something was decidedly wrong, and it scared her beyond all reason.
She ran to her own bedroom, finding it was exactly as she left it: still furnished, still lived in, still hers. She gave a hollow sigh, wishing she could be relieved at the sight, but the emptiness of the house, combined with the banging on the front door, made it next to impossible. What made it worse was when she heard the sound of wood cracking and glass shattering, as the unearthly moaning sounds got much louder. There were then several loud thumps following suit, putting Applejack in a panic. She gazed about her room, trying to figure out what to do. She turns to the closet, and realized what a bad idea that would be. She glanced over to her bed, and figured that wouldn’t be much good either. Then her eyes fixated at the window. With a bit of strength and nimble movement, it might prove to be the best option she had. With that in mind, she approached her window, opened it as wide as she could, and slowly began to climb out, reaching up to try to grab the edge of the roof.
The sound of heavy, clumsy hooffalls were heard spreading through the house, before the creaking stairs announced their presence moving to the second floor. Applejack cussed under her breath as she struggled getting out and climbing up to the roof. Her heart quickened as she heard those things reach her room and howl before making a bee-line for her. With one final pull, she managed to climb to the roof, and just barely catch glimpse of one of those things shoot out of her window and fall to its doom below, hitting the ground head first with a sickening crunch.
She scrambled up to the very top of her home, and realized that her house was entirely surrounded by their bodies and the fog itself. She had no where else to go, and from as far as she could see, no one was coming to rescue her. She gazed up at the sky, hoping that somepony happened to be flying by. But the clouds were as thick as the fog below, perhaps thicker.
She stifled a sob, wishing this was just a bad dream, and that she could just wake up, forget it all happened, and go back to work in the orchards. Just to go back and have her life back, instead of being the star of this horrible horror show.
Her hoof then suddenly slipped out from under Applejack, causing her to trip and slide off the roof, falling and screaming towards the open, black ichor-oozing maws below.