Thief

by conTROLLER234

Chapter 14 Mourning

Author's Note:

If you didn't get my previous message, look in the comment section.

Thief

Chapter 14

Mourning

Everypony in the group stared, jaw dropped at the scene that had just unfolded in front of their eyes as I walked away from them. Realizing what AJ had just said, Dash turned to her furiously.

“AppleJack, what the hay are you doing?! We need him, you can’t just send him away!”

AJ either didn’t have a guts to reply, or didn’t have anything to say, but whichever it was she stood still, staring at the two corpses in front of her. Memories of the two flashed through the backside of her mind, up until this very moment. She glared back up at me, and bit her tongue.

“Good riddance..” She finally pushed out, turning away and walking to her house.

“AppleJack! You can’t just walk away from this!” Twilight pitched in. Only her and Dash we’re the only to speak, as the others shielded their eyes from the gory sight in front of them, tears streaming down their faces as they turned and walked away. Just as AJ was walking past the barn, Fluttershy walked out from the doors and bumped into AJ. Fluttershy looked at AJ, seeing her face was all bloody.

“AppleJack, w-what happened??” She asked cautiously, but AJ just simply pushed past her. Fluttershy went to speak again, but turned to Twilight and Dash, who stood defeated in front of their dead friends. When Fluttershy saw the bodies, she shrieked loudly, covering her face and falling to the ground, sobbing.

“Y-You were wrong!! I-I can’t take this! I’m not strong, I can’t see my friends d-die like this!!” Fluttershy yelled through her crying, to who seemed to be no one. Twilight and Dash just stood beside each other, staring at the ground.

“...w..what are we going to do..?” Dash clenched her teeth.

- - - - -

I heard the distant cry of Fluttershy, and it only made things harder for me to leave. But no matter what, I didn’t stop walking. The last person I wanted to let down was her, but there was nothing I could do. I just kept walking, until I could barely see the barn in the distance. I let out a sigh of defeat, and walked along a dirt road that led into the familiar forest that I first showed up in.

Once again, I kept walking. I had no idea where I was going but at this point it didn’t matter. That is, until I stumbled upon something familiar. At first I almost didn’t believe my eyes, but when I walked up to it to touch it a wide grin grew on my face.

In front of me stood the large pickup truck, 6 pack of water bottles, and a backpack full of medical equipment inside. It seemed to be in the same spot where I left it, and it felt great that I randomly stumbled upon it, because I wouldn’t have to walk for god knows how long. Though the second I thought of it as an escape, I immediately felt regret. It wasn’t fair, that if I went back to help that I’d be turned away, but I couldn’t leave at the same time.

Frustrated, I pelted a small rock with my foot in front of me. It flew for a few seconds, before suddenly disappearing a few feet in front of me. When it disappeared, an invisible wall the same distance seemed to ripple, like I dropped a pebble into a lake. Confused, I picked up another rock and tossed it the same distance, and the same thing happened.

“What the hell..?” I took a step forward, and hesitantly held my hand forward. And like the rock, as I drew closer, my hand started to disappear. Moving further up my arm and up to my shoulder, until I quickly pulled it out with a shudder. “What the fuck is this thing?! Some kind of…” I froze as I stared at the slowly fading ripples from my previous action as I realized what this was.

“..portal..?”

I didn’t want to believe that this strange, invisible wall was a portal. But it seemed to make sense. It must be the portal to Equestria, separating the two realities. “Well, that’s something to think about.” I turned back to the truck. Knowing that I was back in my world, (or so I hoped) I walked towards the truck. As I opened the driver seat and sat down, closing the door beside me, I sat and stared through the windshield.

I knew that even If I could bring myself to leave the others behind, every day would be me living another day of regret and sorrow. Never knowing if the others were alive, or drop dead. And almost as if I didn’t want it to, my mind stumbled along a solution. I reached back for the pack of 6 water bottles, pulled one out, and took a sip. I lay back as I waited for nightfall.

- - - - -

Several hours passed, and everything that happened in those few measurements of time seemed to be stronger than anything that had happened in their entire life. With John gone, everypony couldn’t help but accept their inevitable demise. It would only be so long until they would be overrun, and really, there was nothing any of them could do about it. Their only hope of survival was John, and he disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Everypony was still recovering from the recent events, but still trying their best to build the wooden fence around the farm. Everypony with an emotionless darkness in their eyes, their coats and faces drained of color, and eyes dry of tears. Rarity and Twilight were inside AppleJack’s house, standing just outside of AJ’s bedroom door. Which was locked, of course, and if it weren’t for the knowledge of Twilight seeing her go in her bedroom you wouldn’t have known AJ was there.

Outside, however, working on a seperate, independant job, stood Rainbow Dash. Carrying her weight on her bloodied hooves, she held a shovel in one of them. A second later, she dropped the shovel to the ground, then hung her head. She closed her eyes, feeling the urge to cry again. She gave up a moment later, knowing there was nothing left to force out. She then looked back up at the two gravestones that stood before her. One reading, “Pinkie, may the party never die in our hearts.” and the other, “Spike, a small friend with one of the biggest smiles to ever find in this world.”

Dash sighed heavily. “With Spike, Pinkie, and John gone, that leaves us 11 more of us.” She mumbled quietly aloud to herself. She took a look around at the others, working through their mourning to protect the rest of us. When Dash glanced back at the tombstones, her face suddenly flushed with anger. At first she thought it would be because of John, but no.

It was AppleJack.

She stomped her hoof heavily as she quickly snapped her head to AJ’s house, and walked a deadly pace towards it. As she was walking, a familiar red stallion turned his head to her. Being in her path towards her house, she brushed past him quickly before he had a moment to say anything, which it looked like he was about to. She continued on her pathway to AppleJack’s house, and walked through the door.

As she made her way up the stairs, she could hear quiet mumbling coming from Twilight and Rarity, and it sounded like they were trying to gently lure her out of her bedroom. But when Dash made it up to the two of them, much like Big MacIntosh, she brushed past them before they could speak. She faced the door, then turned around with her hind legs facing, and bent forward.

“Dash, what are you-”

Dash lunged out her hind legs, and the door violently flew off it’s hinges. Taking some of the frame with it, the wooden splinters and planks from the door shot into the room, revealing the terrified AppleJack. Rarity almost seemed to yelp at Dash’s sudden arrival, and choked on any words she meant to say as Dash stormed in.

AppleJack sat up on her bed, but didn’t have much time to make any movements before Dash lunged on her and pinned down her hooves against the mattress. Dash took in a deep breath, ready to give AJ the most devastating, verbal beating of her life.

“Are you proud of yourself?! Are you?! You better damn well be, because thanks to you we’re all going to die because of your STUPID SELFISHNESS!!” Somehow, Dash mustered up enough pain in her throat to form tears in her eyes again. “We are down to twelve ponies, and that number is just going to drop more and more because you lost our only source of survival!” The entire time Dash is doing this, AJ’s determination to speak up to counter Dash became weaker and weaker, as Dash’s words dug a hole in her stomach. She realized everything Dash was saying was true, she did ever since John left. But she just didn’t know what to do about it.

“I don’t know what you plan to do about this, but you had better do something! Because if you’re going to stay in your room and cry like a baby it’ll be over MY DEAD BODY!!” A this point, all four of the ponies in the room were choking up. Dash was starting to break down in the middle of her lecture. “...I thought you were going to be the strong one in all of this. The pony everypony was going to look to for the answers through this mess… But I guess not. And thanks to you, we’re all dead.”

Dash got up off of AJ, and wiped her eyes. “So, it looks like somepony is going to have to clean up this mess, and by the looks of it, it’s not going to be you.” She jumped over to the window, and threw it open. “So I guess I will.” She flew through the window, leaving AJ no room to say anything.

Twilight and Rarity ran to the window, calling out to her to stop, but it didn’t look like Dash was going to turn around any time soon. But the three of them knew exactly who she was looking for. When they knew calling out was useless, the two turned to AJ.

Rarity walked out of the room first, quickly wanting to leave the silence of pain and remorse. Twilight just stood there for a moment longer, tears dropping from her cheeks to the floor. Her face wrinkled and her mouth was unsure of what to shape to, to say something. But she finally mumbled something out as she shook her head.

“...S-Shame on you, AppleJack..” She then left the room, leaving AJ to swim in her emotions, whatever they were.

- - - - -

I sat in the truck, barely able to see more than 10 feet from the car. It was pitch black, and the trees weren’t helping. I didn’t dare turn the ignition on, especially at this time of night. I had finished the bottle of water a while ago, and I was saving the other five, for other reasons. Though I did find a pistol in the passenger glove compartment; a Beretta 9mm to be exact. With a full 15 round magazine loaded in. I played around with it, as good ideas go. At least I had the safety on.

The silence was so strong, that I felt that the quietest twig snap would make me go deaf. And almost as if the name of the devil was spoken, I heard a branch snap outside the car, about 15 feet away.

I looked to my left through the window, from where I thought I heard the noise. Again, with the darkness I couldn’t see anything. But I did barely see some bright colors, and a silhouette of a pony, slowly moving towards the car. A part of me hoped it wasn’t a walker, as for one I didn’t want to get out of the car and deal with it, and second, there could be more of them out there and I wouldn’t even know.

I almost pressed my face up against the window, as the figure drew closer and closer, and by the time it was close enough for me to recognise who or what it was, my eyes widened.

“Dash?” I mumbled quietly to myself, and when she fully walked up to the car door, and I knew it was her, I opened the door to let her in. She was squinting at me, obviously she couldn’t see me too well, but it was enough for her to climb in. Because the door was to my immediate left, I hadn’t realized that she had to climb on my lap to cross over to the other seat. I closed the door behind her, but hesitated a bit when she stopped on my lap, and lay down. She curled up in a ball, and I felt her wheezing lightly on my lap.

At first I wondered why, but after I took a glance outside, I felt extreme remorse for her. This forest was a bit scary as it was, and make it pitch black with walkers roaming around it made it downright terrifying. I looked down at Dash, and brought my hand up gently to stroke her shaky head and mane. She didn’t reject, in fact she seemed to calm down quite a bit.

“It took a lot of guts for you to come out here alone.” I spoke quietly to her, and she mumbled a bit. She didn’t seem to be in the talking mood, so she kept mostly quiet. Now that I had someone to talk to, i think we both felt a little more comfortable. “Are you, thirsty at all?” I tried once again, but gained nothing. I sighed and gave up, resting my head against the back rest of the chair.

“Were you going to leave?”

I looked down at her, but I couldn’t tell if she looked back or not. I could barely see the outline of her body. I looked back up ahead of me.

“No, no I wasn’t going to leave.” I answered plainly, though that seemed to stop her shaking.

“Don’t… Please…” Now I saw her look up at me. “We need you… More than ever.”

I glanced down at her, and we locked eyes. I would usually feel the sensation of awkwardness, but before it had a chance to come I reached my hand up to her head and gave it a scratch again.

“I wasn’t planning on it, Dash. Believe me, I have nothing better to do. A part of me may have wanted to do the rest of this alone, but after meeting you girls, I guess there was another side that still likes the feeling of company.”

“S-Speaking of company… You would not believe how relieved I am to have found you. One more minute out there and I would’ve turned and gave up, or been eaten.” She gulped.

“Well, I’m glad you did neither.” I smiled down at her, though I doubt she saw it. "Now let’s get some sleep, we’re leaving early in the morning.”

“Huh? Where are we going?” She perked up.

“Back to the farm.”

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We need you… More than ever