Outline

by Smashology

Abrupt Ending

Judgin’ by the position of the moon it was midnight when all mah friends arrived to the hill and woke me up. Ah had a relief ‘cause none of what happened was real but they looked concerned.

“What are ya doin’ here?” Ah asked questionin’ their presence, then Ah complained to Pinkie. “Pinkie Ah told ya to not brin’ anypony here!”

“Don’t get mad with her!” Rainbow Dash defended her. “We came here just to find you.”

“But it was supposed to be a night just for me and Rarity!”

“Applejack” said Pinkie Pie, she was about to cry. “Rarity’s not coming.”

“What do ya mean?” Ah chuckled nervously, Ah thought they were jokin’ on me. Twilight delivered me a present I knew: the batch of cupcakes I left on her door. I opened it, the cupcakes were intact, attached to the top cover was a label. Ah unfolded it and began to read it out loud.

“To the best friend ever in the whole wide world,
Ah hope you have a really, really nice birthday today, and many other days to come!
Ah hope you like these, Ah picked them out for you! Strawberry and Chocolate. Yer favorites! Sorry if Ah got them wrong!
Ah’ll see you soon, okay?
Have a nice day!”

This was the letter Ah wrote to her yesterday. At the end was a message written by her. Ah recognized her font and it was addressed to me.

Sorry I won’t be able to come. I’m sick. My time is running out and soon I’ll leave you. Remember to always smile no matter the circumstances. You’ll be my friend... more than a friend to me forever and ever. I’ll tell your parents that you love them.
Love you for real, Rarity.
9:38 p.m.

“None of us knew about this until tonight at the hospital” Fluttershy was sobbin’ and wiped her tears. “Her parents exposed the notice a few hours ago. We were looking for you because you needed to know the most. You should have seen Sweetie Belle and Spike, they were so devastated that they run away from the truth. We were there the whole day, expecting you to appear but you didn’t.”

“I didn’t want to tell them where you were because I Pinkie promised to you but they pushed me to my limit and I had no choice but to confess. Can you forgive me Applejack?”

Ah couldn’t believe it. Ah was blind this whole time, of all mah friends she was the best... yet Ah was so excited that Ah didn’t even realize what was happenin’ to her. But what intrigued me the most was that she never told me... she never told any of us. If Ah could turn back time just to see her face so happy again.

“We know how close you were. And we give you our condolences” Twilight put her hoof on mah shoulder, to clarify Ah was not alone. She raised mah head to look at her. “Tomorrow is her parting. Be prepared.”

“May Ah ask ya a favor?”

“Sure, whatever you want.”

Ah paused. “Ah want to give the speech, everypony needs to know what she meant to me. Go ahead for now, Ah want to be alone.”

Twilight nodded silently, then she and the rest of the girls left. Ah turned around, kneel on the grass and saw the horizon at the foot of the hill, there was an open field. No silo with a pointy top and wings, no Dan, Fluffle Puff or Cameron, no passengers from another times, no Chrysalis. Just an open field. Lookin’ up to the sky Ah lay on the grass with tears on mah eyes and holdin’ her note on mah hooves. Above the sky were the stars, formin’ a figure: a diamond with an apple stem. Ah smiled.

Author's Note:

Miyazawa facts

-This was originally a zombie apocalypse story starring Applejack only.
-This was also a perfect excuse to use characters who are not very common in fanfics and, honestly, kind of forgettable. I chose them based on how many images they have in Derpibooru at the moment this story was published (less than 1000 was the criteria). Finally I only considered characters with at least one year of existence.
-For those of you who are interested Aleksandr is a gorgonopsid and Cameron is an orthocone. I refused to use dinosaurs or other creatures to prevent this to be more predictable.
-The timeline of Chrysalis: Ordovician mass extinction, Silurian mass extinction, Permian mass extinction, Cretaceous mass extinction, Toba's eruption, Jesus' crucifixion, fall of Tenochtitlan, Great Fire of London, French revolution, the year without summer, Russian revolution, Hiroshima bomb, 9/11, World War III, human extinction, first Hearth's Warming Eve, Discord's defeat and Nightmare Moon banishment. Based on this.
-Following the Kirby formula, the first letter of each station spell out the final destination: CORONA, which not only reveal who's the mind behind this but also its the outline of the sun.

Comments

[Atlantis Productions]

This seems familiar. Is "Night on the Galactic Railroad" a Doctor Who episode?

[HF Fury]

7417633
If I'm not mistaken it's an anime. A depressing anime if memory serves me right staring anthro cats and more.

[Atlantis Productions]

7417941 Sounds strange.

[Tide Hunter]

Finally I only considered characters with at least one year of existence.

Svengallop has less than a year of existence.

[Smashology]

7420604 Corrected.

7420656 With 120 images he still counts, as a comparison Rara has 1512 images divided in "Coloratura" and "Rara" and Ember, who is relatively new, has 1267. For me the most surprising was Junebug: a character that has existed since 2011, has 190.

[Tide Hunter]

7420739 Who's Junebug?

[Smashology]

7420748 Her. She appeared only in "Secret of my Excess."