• Published 29th Dec 2012
  • 12,586 Views, 1,189 Comments

Mother of Invention - zaponator



Awake and alone, Applejack will find a way to survive.

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Hurt

The empty saddlebags bounced against her sides as Applejack trotted through the underbrush. She wasn't going anywhere in particular, not today. Her primary goal was to gather some more firewood, though as she became more familiar with traversing the jungle Applejack strayed further and further from camp even for such simple resource gathering trips. After all, there was no telling when she might run into something of note.

So it was that Applejack kept her eyes open and her head on a swivel. Her hooves dodged around roots and tangling vines almost on instinct, now. The past two weeks of intense exploration had helped in that regard, even if more questions had been raised than answered.

A loose stone caught under her forehoof and sent her stumbling forward with a yelp. Okay, so maybe not quite an expert just yet. Applejack winced as the small cut on her forehoof flared momentarily in pain. It wasn't bad enough to be worrisome, it was just annoying.

She didn't let the momentary lapse break her stride though, and soon enough Applejack was once more trotting smilingly along. Though she was keeping a bit better eye on her footing as she did so.

Finally, Applejack spotted some viable firewood ahead. It wouldn't do to just chop branches off still-green trees. She needed wood that was dead and dry. Fortunately, she never had too much trouble finding suitable firewood. Applejack inspected a long fallen branch where it lay on the jungle floor. Probably knocked down in some storm, it had long since dried out completely. Nodding in satisfaction, Applejack snapped it into several smaller pieces and stuffed them into her saddlebags.

It certainly wasn't exciting work, gathering up supplies, but it was rewarding in its own way. Applejack was no stranger to repetitive manual labour, and on some level she relished the days that were consumed with simple work. No mysteries, no unanswered questions, just a task that needed doing.

The sun was still coming through the canopy at a low angle, indicating that it had yet to pass early morning, and already Applejack could feel a bit of sweat building as she lugged an ever-growing load of wood through the jungle. Oh yes, it was going to be a good day.

Her hoof twinged, and Applejack cursed under her breath.

A couple hours later, and she'd already dropped off two full loads of firewood back at camp. As she worked, she ventured further from camp with each run, and each load took slightly longer than the last. She was barely started on her third load, and already she was hitting a snag.

Applejack had managed to find an entire dead tree, covered in enough branches to fill her saddlebags just by itself. The only problem was that they were proving stubborn to remove. The first few small branches had snapped off with hardly any effort, but the larger ones refused to break. In the end, Applejack had been forced to draw her knife and hack away at the base of each branch to weaken it before breaking it off. To only exacerbate the problem, the ground sloped gently into a sort of bowl shape, with the dead tree near the rim of the bowl, and the tilted ground made it difficult to get any sort of leverage.

Still, while the tree may have been stubborn, Applejack was more-so. It had taken a while, and she was sweating by the end of it, but she'd managed to clear almost every branch from the damned thing. Only a couple more remained, and then she could finally head back to camp.

Applejack grunted with effort as she put all her weight into snapping one of the last few branches, but it held firm. She grumbled under her breath and drew her knife once more. It wasn't a very good tool for chopping wood, but it was better than nothing. It worked well enough to weaken them, at least.

"Come on, ya dumb waste of sap…" Applejack muttered angrily as she worked.

She stood on her hind legs, holding the branch in one forehoof to balance and gripping the knife in the crook of her other forehoof. Hack! Chop!

Each strike of the knife sent a few more woodchips into the air, dug a bit deeper, and brought her one step closer to her goal.

"Just… a few… more…"

Her injured hoof —the one anchoring her to the tree— suddenly sparked in pain.

"Gah!" Applejack lost her grip and teetered backwards. For the tiniest blink of time she balanced there, her hoof scrambled to re-attain its hold on the dead tree, but it was no use. In the next blink, she was falling backwards. Head over hooves she rolled down the hill, grunts of pain escaped her lips as she flipped and rolled towards the bottom of the bowl. Her knife, her most useful tool, was flung from her grip and launched who-knows-where. The only sound to reach her ears was the crashing of leaves as she smashed through bush after bush in her descent. She got a mouthful of dirt and the sense knocked out of her when her face bounced painfully off the forest floor. Then, finally, she slid just a little more on her back, and stopped.

Applejack tried to groan, but the wind had been knocked out of her. She stared up at the canopy and watched it spin around for a few seconds as the world came back into focus. She hadn't hit a rock or broken anything, as far as she could tell. Her head was still muddy and hazy, but there wasn't any pain.

Wait, no, there was pain. Pain, pain, pain. Applejack hissed in a sharp breath and clenched her eyes shut. Her left foreleg felt like it was on fire! That woke her mind up pretty fast. Her heart began to race as adrenaline kicked in. Her breathing became rapid and shallow as she fought off panic. She couldn't even dare to look, but dear Celestia the pain was intense. She'd had bad sprains before, and the pain she felt now outweighed them a hundred to one. If it was a broken leg…

Applejack could barely control her panic now, and the pain was only rising. It was becoming hard to think. She had to look. She wrenched her eyes open and turned to her left foreleg.

Then her brain shut down. Her eyes widened, and her heart might have stopped. Two thoughts managed to cross her inactive mind. One: It wasn't a broken leg. Two: She'd found her knife.

Applejack screamed.

The pain only got worse. She tried to tear her eyes away, but they couldn't help but stare at the knife protruding from her leg. As her thoughts gave way to panic, some part of Applejack's mind felt the need to analyse her wound. The knife had gone in fairly cleanly, stabbing straight into her leg between the knee and the shoulder. It seemed to have been stopped only when it hit the bone, and Applejack wasn't sure if that was lucky or unlucky. Blood was seeping out around the cold steel blade at a rather alarming rate, standing out starkly from the orange of her coat.

Applejack wished she could pass out. She wished for the blackness at the edge of her vision to expand and swallow her up, to render her blissfully unaware. She was not so lucky. Whether from adrenaline, or simply from the sheer pain erupting in her leg, Applejack remained horribly awake. So she screamed. She screamed every last breath out of herself until she had no more to give.

As she heaved, trying to get much-needed air back into her lungs, Applejack tried to calm herself slightly. She couldn't give up. She needed to get back to camp. She had rudimentary medical supplies. She could fix this.

When she finally got her breath back, Applejack didn't scream this time. Instead, she took one more look at her wound. It was still bleeding badly, but the pool of blood she'd imagined wasn't as bad as all that. The plants were stained with splashes of red, but they weren't drinking it up or growing wildly. She shook her head once, ensuring that she was in the real world, then took a deep breath and rolled onto her stomach.

She managed to keep her leg fairly stable during the roll, and the pain was manageable. Of course, that was the easy part. Applejack whimpered slightly as she mentally prepared herself, then counted off in her head. One, two, three.

With that, she pushed up to a standing position. Her leg burned as it was jostled by the movement. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the pain had already stolen her voice. Her chest expanding in heavy, panting breaths for several moments, as Applejack stood still to catch her bearings. Then she started moving. This was the hardest part. She had to get up to the top of the bowl. Uphill all the way, but then it was flat ground from there to her camp. She could do it.

Tears rolled down her cheeks unabated with each and every step. Her left leg dragged along the ground, only hurting more with each agonizing, searing step. Blood ran down her leg and left a path of red droplets behind her as Applejack slowly, slowly made her way up the hill. She could barely see, for tears were blurring her vision, and she could barely walk, for the pain had sapped her strength, but still Applejack pressed on. She knew that she had to be close. She lost all sense of time, her entire world became focused on the pain of her left foreleg, and the struggle of keeping her other three legs from buckling.

After what felt like years or hours or minutes, Applejack's right forehoof hit air. She came up over the rim of the bowl unexpectedly and stumbled forward with a shriek. She couldn't maintain her balance, and flopped down onto the jungle floor. Her left leg exploded in pain as she hit the ground, and Applejack barely stifled yet another scream. Her vision went black around the edges and she fought the urge to throw up for several moments.

She tried, failed, and tried again to push up to her hooves. Her legs shook from the effort, but she only ended up back on her stomach. Applejack sobbed and laid down her head, but just as quickly shot it up again. She wouldn't give up so easily. She used her good leg to wipe the tears from her eyes, and revealed the harsh and determined glare they held.

Then Applejack crawled. She dragged herself, an inch at a time. Using three legs, she shuffled along the jungle floor on her belly. She grunted with each movement, as each inch brought new levels of pain, but still she pushed on.

Finally, after years or months or days of crawling, Applejack felt she could stand again. She held her breath and pushed with all her might. Slowly, she rose from the jungle floor. Her legs wobbled, but she remained upright. Her lower left foreleg was more red than orange now. She needed to hurry.

Her gaze remained locked on the ground in front of her as Applejack stumbled through the forest. She couldn't fall again. Even if the pain didn't knock her out cold, Applejack knew that she wouldn't be able to stand up again, and there was no way she could crawl back to her camp before bleeding out.

So she pressed on. Her vision grew darker, or the sun grew dimmer. There was no way for her to tell. She hobbled as fast as possible, hoping against hope that she was still headed towards her camp. Her leg still hurt, unbearably so. Applejack thought that she was supposed to get used to it or something, but it never became any easier to bear. Tears ran down her cheeks and the only sound she made was the occasional grunt or sob.

Then light. Brightness, suddenly all around her. Applejack stumbled to a standstill, blinking rapidly to clear her vision. With some effort, she managed to lift her head and look around. She was in a clearing. No, she was in her clearing. For just a blink, Applejack forgot her pain for the joy that filled her heart at the sight.

But there was no time. Applejack took several steps towards her lean-to, and towards all the supplies she kept there. She made it about half way before collapsing. She blinked in confusion. There were no roots or vines in her campsite. What had tripped her?

Applejack looked behind her, and saw a line of red leading all the way back to the treeline. Lots of red. A deeply concerning amount of red. Her thoughts were slow and unresponsive, but Applejack was coherent enough. She dragged herself the rest of the way to the lean-to.

Upon reaching her pile of supplies, Applejack allowed herself only the smallest break to catch her breath. Then she set to rummaging through them. Fortunately for her, she'd used both the alcohol and the old blankets recently to treat the small cut on her hoof. Applejack grabbed them both, then turned to her injured leg.

Right, the knife. It was still stuck in there, blood welling up all around it. Applejack tentatively leaned her head forward and gripped the handle in her teeth. It slipped a couple times, but she eventually got ahold of it. Then she pulled.

She would have screamed yet again, but the knife in her mouth muffled it. Her vision faded to mere pinpricks for several moments, and the knife fell from her limp jaw as she only just fought the urge to pass out. Blood welled up even faster, spilling rapidly out of the wound and onto the grass.

When the pain finally faded to its usual —still excruciating— level, Applejack hazily set to work on bandaging it. She unrolled some of the blanket, tearing it with her teeth until she had a suitable piece. Setting that aside for a moment, Applejack took the bottle of alcohol and quickly uncorked it. This was no time to be squeamish. She only hesitated a second before dumping some onto the wound. She'd thought that the pain couldn't get worse, but that was quickly proven wrong. She couldn't even scream. She couldn't even breathe for almost a minute. When she finally regained the ability to see clearly, she noted that most of the blood, as well as all the dirt, had been washed away. While the blood was quick in returning, the dirt was the important part anyway.

Finally she took the makeshift bandage she'd torn and wrapped it around her leg as tight as she could. Applejack knew the importance of pressure on a bleeding wound. With that in mind, she tightened it as much as possible. A pained whimper escaped her mouth as her bandage applied pressure to her injury. Once it was tight enough, she tied it off as well as she could.

Panting heavily, Applejack let her head fall to the ground. Her vision was dimming, slowly, blackness continued to creep in from all sides. The pain wasn't getting any better, but she'd done all she could.

Only then did she allow herself to pass out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Applejack woke up. Or maybe she was dreaming. It was impossible to tell. Time was a blur of colours and lights and pain. Her surroundings were unfocused, as if glimpsed through a stained-glass window. There were moments of hot clarity, but they were washed away into the blind haze of her memory before Applejack could ever truly claim to have experienced them.

Days passed. Or weeks. Applejack's food supply was still plentiful. Or maybe it was dwindling. She didn't move much. She slept odd hours, and was awake for even odder ones. Sometimes she dreamed, sometimes she remembered.

She was just a little filly at the time. She never even fully grasped the gravity of the day until years later.

She was playing out in the fields, rolling and jumping in the soft grass. Ma hadn't been feeling well lately, and that made her moody. Applejack didn't mind though, 'cause Pa said that it only meant a new brother or sister would be arriving soon. Applejack couldn't wait. Big Macintosh was fun, but having yet another brother or sister would be even better.

She heard her Pa calling out to her. He was at the farmhouse, but his voice carried far. He didn't sound happy. For a moment, Applejack thought about pretending she hadn't heard him. She could stay out and play, and avoid his scolding for whatever chore she'd forgotten. Except he didn't sound mad. He sounded… sad, a bit. Maybe even panicked. Applejack didn't like the way he sounded, so she decided to run all the way back to the house.

The face escaped her. Applejack sighed weakly as the unwanted memory played out in her mind, powerless to stop it. For all the clarity and detail, she couldn't remember his face. The voice, she could hear as clear as if he was right there speaking to her, but Applejack couldn't recall more than a vaguely stallion-shaped blur to go along with it.

There he was, on the deck, his features indistinct, his colour either red or brown or some shade of gray. The only defining feature was a weathered brown Stetson perched atop his mane. He didn't get mad or yell or scold Applejack. He just looked down at her with sad, sad eyes. Applejack decided that she'd rather be scolded. Before she could even ask what was wrong, he'd wrapped her in a fierce hug. She could hear him sniffling, could feel his whole body shaking, but she didn't say anything about it.

He took a deep, slow breath, and then spoke softly into her ear. She couldn't remember what he'd said. She remembered one thing: A brand new baby sister had been born, but her mother hadn't made it. Death wasn't something that any pony would be familiar with at that age. Applejack knew she felt sad, but she remembered far more confusion. After that, her father told her something else. He held her by the shoulders at hoof's length. His eyes still welled with tears, but there was a sternness in them now as he met Applejack's gaze. She couldn't look away from the burning intensity held there. With one forehoof, her father slowly, deliberately reached up and plucked the hat from his head. He then placed it gently atop Applejack's own. She tried to smile as best she could. She'd always loved his hat, and she didn't want to seem ungrateful.

Then, never once breaking eye contact, her father said—

And Applejack found she couldn't recall. She blinked slowly, her eyes unfocused. She could hear the voice, but she couldn't make out the words. He told her something, maybe a motivational speech, maybe some deeply important life advice. Whatever it was, she wasn't old enough for it. The words flew in one ear and out the other as Applejack was far too busy thinking about her brand new hat.

Maybe she'd have paid better attention if she knew they were the last words he would ever speak to her.

The next few days were busy. Ponies were coming and going at a rapid pace, family and friends shuffling through the house with sad smiles and misty eyes. Then Applejack had to wear a black dress and stand in a crowd of crying ponies. It hit her around that point. That was when the realization finally, truly sunk in. She would never see her mother again. Her mother was… dead. It took several days for her little filly mind to accept that, and it even more days of tears for her to handle it.

She couldn't even remember the day her father left in any detail. That was enough to shake her from the memory, if only momentarily. She glanced around lethargically. It was nighttime. Had she been sleeping? Her leg throbbed, but her mind soon clouded over enough for the sensation to fade into the background.

As she drifted back into darkness, her mind was drawn once more into the past. She recalled as much as she could about the day he'd left. It wasn't much. There was no fanfare about it. There was no long goodbye or tearful hugs in a train station. One day, not long after the funeral, Applejack got home from school and he simply wasn't there. That was it.

With Granny Smith busy taking care of Apple Bloom most days. Applejack learned quickly to take care of herself. Even her brother, despite being older, had a much harder time adjusting. So Applejack took care of him too. She shouldered as much responsibility as she needed to, and within a few years would end up taking charge of the entire farm.

Applejack never did find out what became of her father. Whether he'd been taken before his time, same as Ma, or maybe he'd found a life somewhere else. Maybe he'd even found a way to be happy. She honestly hoped that he did.

The sun shone down against her coat, and the grass rubbed against her belly. Applejack blinked. She didn't remember the day arriving. The river flowed gently in front of her, and Applejack leaned forward to quench her dry throat. When she was done, she rolled onto her side in the soft grass. Her eyes drifted closed, and one last memory displayed itself behind them.

She sat on the hardwood floor, facing the front door to the farmhouse with wide eyes, just as she had every evening for the past several weeks. Despite everything, Applejack just couldn't hate her father. Every day she hoped that he'd come back through that door. He'd see how well she'd done in keeping up the farm, he'd tell her that he was proud, that she'd done a better job than he ever could. She'd even give him back his hat, if he asked.

It was a vain hope held by a silly filly. Applejack realized that now. He never did come back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Applejack awoke drenched in sweat. The dreams hadn't gotten any better. The whole 'life flashing before her eyes' thing that came with near-death experiences turned out to be less than pleasant when there were certain parts of her life she never wanted to be reminded of. On the plus side, she hadn't quite died.

Not yet at least.

With a groan of effort she managed to stand up to three hooves. For the first time she could remember since the accident, she was entirely coherent. As nice as it was to have her faculties back, she could've done without the sharp ache in her leg. She had to sit down to free up her good leg before she could put on her hat.

As she hobbled out into the clearing, Applejack tried to recall just how long it had been. Everything was a hazy blur. It wasn't that she remembered nothing, but most of it was a jumbled mess of reality mixed with dreams that she couldn't really make heads or tails of. There were other ways to figure out just what had transpired while she'd been recovering.

But first, breakfast. The morning sun shone brightly into her little clearing, warming her coat as she stood outside her lean-to. It was higher in the sky than she usually liked to wake up to, but considering the circumstances she could allow herself to sleep in.

The whole thing felt surreal, like she'd been away somewhere and only just returned. Just looking around the clearing filled her with an odd sense of… almost nostalgia. It was the same she'd felt when returning to Sweet Apple Acres after her stint in Manehatten.

That was when her eyes fell upon a dark patch in the grass just a few steps from her lean-to. Applejack blinked, then sniffed the air. Oddly enough, she smelled nothing. Not even a single trace of blood was present in the air that she could detect.

Tentatively, Applejack approached the stained ground. Her front left leg dragged uselessly on the ground as she walked. The stain was large. Concerningly large. Applejack felt her stomach twist in knots as she got a good look at it. It looked like somepony had spilled an entire barrel full of grape juice onto the grass. She could barely believe that all of that had come from her. Or, rather, she could hardly believe she was alive when all that had come from her. If nothing else, it certainly explained how her mind had become so clouded.

But the size of the bloodstain wasn't what concerned her most. It was the apparent age that caught her attention. It had long lost any resemblance to the colour red, turning to a shade of brown that could easily be called black. Most of the blood had soaked into the earth, with the large mark seeming dim and faded. Even the grass was green on top where it had grown fresh and new above the blood.

Applejack exhaled heavily and slumped to a sitting position. Just how much time had she lost? Clearly she hadn't been totally gone, or she would've died of thirst. She'd been awake for her recovery, but only for a slightly stretched definition of 'awake', and virtually none of it had been committed to memory.

She tapped her good forehoof against the side of her head, trying with all her might to remember how much time had passed. Then it struck her. Applejack stood up once more, and quickly trotted back in the direction of her lean-to.

During her recovery, she'd been almost sleep-walking. She'd been running on auto-pilot, going through the motions and habits she'd built since arriving on the island. Her bandages were clean and smelled slightly of alcohol, she'd been eating and drinking, and if her hunch was correct…

Applejack came to a stop in front of the large rock that dominated one side of her camp. Every morning since setting up there, she'd been marking down tally marks for the days. It only made sense that she'd continue to do so by reflex, even when her mind was fogged by blood loss.

So she counted them. She could remember what the tally count had been at on the day she'd been injured, and accounting for the fact that she probably didn't make a mark for the very next day after the accident, that added up to…

"T-twelve days?!" Her voice came out pathetically small and scratchy. It sounded like she was whispering after gargling whiskey. She'd meant to shout. That right there was about all the evidence she needed to realize that her count was correct.

A loud coughing fit followed. Applejack sat down quickly to avoid falling over as she hacked up a lung. The act made her throat burn, so she hobbled over to the river and immediately stuck her head in. She gulped down as much of the cold, clear water as she could before she had to come back up for air, and then she simply sat there on the riverbank breathing heavily.

Twelve days. Twelve days had passed in a blink while Applejack dreamed. She didn't want to believe it, but the more she thought about it the more believable it became. It just sort of… clicked. Like it was a missing puzzle piece in her faded memories. They didn't exactly become crystal clear in that instant, but when looking back with that timeframe in mind, everything seemed slightly easier to recall. The whole hazy recovery seemed to make just a little more sense.

Still, the shock of waking up after what felt like one night's sleep to find twelve night's gone by was taking some time to wear off. Applejack stared into the water at her own reflection. It always seemed just a little bit worse. Every time she managed to catch a look at herself, she liked what she saw less and less.

This time, of course, followed that pattern. She looked more gaunt than ever. Her cheekbones were prominent, and she could very nearly count each of her ribs. Even though she'd been eating over the course of her recovery, it had still managed to take a lot out of her. Even her coat looked paler, just a little less orange than it once had. Dirt and blood stained her entire front in dark and faded brown splotches.

Applejack sighed. She decided that she couldn't stand to look at herself anymore.

A quick bite of breakfast, then a cold bath in the river. The late morning sun edged up towards noon as Applejack went about her day. The whole time she could feel herself slowly waking, her mind became clearer and her memories less faded. They certainly weren't pleasant ones. The 12 days she'd spent recovering had been… hard. Both mentally and physically.

Most of what she remembered was pain. Writhing on the floor of her lean-to in agony, covered in blood and sweat. She idly realized that she'd forgotten to check her pink quilt for bloodstains, but filed that thought away for later.

It was all coming back, as Applejack scrubbed her coat back to its original colour in the flowing waters of the stream. The lines between dream and memory and hallucination were resolving themselves once more, and Applejack's mind was working away, carefully filing everything as either fantasy or reality.

She remembered spending the first day or two without getting up from the ground. Even when her lips had begun to dry and split, she'd simply dragged herself on her belly across the grass to the river to fill her canteen. The agony of her wound sliding across the ground was intense, but far less so than when she'd tried to stand.

It hadn't been until day four when she'd finally worked up the courage to stand again. It still hurt. It hurt a lot, in fact, but she had managed to hobble the short distance between her food supply and her shelter. The celebration had been short lived when Applejack had stumbled and the wound had opened wide again. The next day or two remained hazy even as Applejacks' mind cleared. She'd lost a lot of blood, that much was certain.

It was fortunate that she'd managed to keep applying alcohol to her bandages before wrapping new ones around her leg each day or two. The horrible burning that resulted… well, Applejack had nearly passed out the first time. She had passed out the second time, or at least that was the only explanation she could come up with for one particular hole in her memory.

Throughout it all, due in part to sheer stubbornness and will to live, and in part to being dazed and confused by blood loss and pain, Applejack had persevered. She'd pushed on, even when she should've given up. Any day she could have thrown herself, three-legged and weak, into the river. A few minutes of struggle and then she'd have been free from the pain, free from everything. But she hadn't done that. She'd kept going, and she'd made it. Against all odds she'd made it.

Applejack shook her head and snorted. She really was silly sometimes.

By all rights, she should've been dead. Applejack had never seen so much blood in her life. But she wasn't dead, and she had no plans of changing that any time soon. She'd gone through everything the damned island had thrown at her, and she'd come out on top. Her leg still wasn't fully healed, but it was close enough. Applejack resolved in that moment to get right back to exploring. Come the next morning, she would head out for another landmark on the map. She would get herself home, one way or another.

Applejack blinked and looked down, realizing that she'd been scrubbing her coat in the same spot for the past three minutes. Shaking her head, she climbed back onto shore and picked up her hat from where she'd left it on the riverbank while she washed.

As she sat there on the shore of the river, allowing the bright afternoon sun to soak into her coat and dry her off, Applejack's eyes wandered downwards towards her left foreleg. Just like that, she could feel her confidence wavering. For all her self-assurance and bravado, she still wasn't walking on it. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to walk properly on it again. The knife had gone into the bone, and for all she knew there could be serious, permanent damage.

Applejack's eyes ran over the improvised bandage around her leg. The old, threadbare blankets she'd recovered from the cellar had worked well enough, at least. She felt an urge to see underneath. Her wound wasn't open anymore, and it didn't even seem to be at risk of reopening. There was really no reason she needed the bandage at this point anyway.

Hesitantly, Applejack leaned down and took one end of the bandage in her teeth. She unraveled it carefully, trying to move her leg as little as possible. It came off relatively painlessly, and Applejack surveyed the damage underneath. A large, angry red scar was plainly visible against her coat. The hair all around it was stained far darker than the rest of her, running in long dark paths all the way down her leg as a grim reminder of the extent of her injury.

Applejack very, very tentatively tried flexing her left leg a bit. While it was certainly sore, and felt extremely stiff and weak from disuse, she was surprised to find it moved with little actual pain. Comparatively to what it had been, at least. There was still a sharp pain from the wound when she flexed her leg, but it didn't even hold a candle to what had been the worst pain of her entire life.

Her hope was coming back already. She set her hoof back on the ground and slowly stood up. Her left foreleg wobbled, and she had to put most of her weight on her other legs, but it didn't fold. Applejack grinned. All traces of despair left her in that instant.

Things would turn out okay after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sun finally dipped below the horizon and Applejack tossed another log on the fire to hopefully last the rest of the night. She stifled a yawn as she turned and ducked into the lean-to. Even though she'd gotten up late that morning, she was still recovering her full strength, and Applejack felt plenty ready for sleep.

She carefully set her hat down next to the still-sheathed knife and paused to stretch. Her back popped audibly, and Applejack released a contented sigh. She laid down on her belly and glanced over to the little rubber chicken leaning against the wall in exactly the same position it had been 12 days ago.

"Heh, g'night, little guy," Applejack muttered. Her voice was still a bit weak, but drinking plenty of water had helped a bit. Exercising her voice by talking to an inanimate object helped, too.

At least that's what she told herself. It certainly wasn't for the company.

Applejack lay there, surrounded by silence other than the fire popping and crackling just outside. She stared across the tiny room at the tiny rubber chicken until her eyes began to drift closed of their own accord.

Only when the last few thoughts were flitting across Applejack's tired mind did one of them note the strange absence of rustling in the bushes all day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Applejack dreamed of darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the shriek that woke her. That Celestia-forsaken, awful shriek. It wormed into her head, it tore at her brain like numerous tiny razors being shoved into her ears. It made her blood turn to ice and her heart drop all the way down to her hooves.

Applejack's head shot up in a flash. Instantly, she felt a horrible twisting wrongness in the core of her being that twisted and writhed and wrapped slimy black tentacles around her guts. It had never started out so bad before. In the past it had been a slow build, but this time it was nearly enough to make her vomit right off the bat.

And it was only getting worse. The nightmarish shriek sounded again, and Applejack's ears folded back against her head. The action, somehow, did absolutely nothing to block the sound. The sick feeling was growing worse at an alarming rate, now. Whatever it was, it was coming fast. Applejack knew that it wouldn't be content to stop at a distance this time.

It had waited. Applejack just knew it. It had waited until she was injured. She'd managed to run away on her first night, to escape it by sprinting through the jungle and taking refuge in that cave. This time, there would be no running. She could barely even walk at a normal pace.

It hadn't attacked her earlier, for some reason. It had left her alone long enough to recover, long enough for her to be fully awake and coherent, and then…

Applejack stood up to violently shaking hooves. There was no time to think about it. It was advancing. Somewhere, out in the jungle, she could feel it stronger than ever. It was making a beeline for her camp and it wasn't slowing down.

Panic was setting in. She tried to step forward, to get out of there as fast as she could. She couldn't run, but she knew the jungle like the bottom of her hoof now. Maybe she could—

Applejack's leg gave out and she fell flat on her face with a yelp. She wasted no time, quickly standing again, favouring her left leg a little more. It was no use. She couldn't get away, and it wasn't going to leave. She was dead. That was it. Tears streamed down her cheeks and a choked sob worked its way out of her throat despite her best efforts. She was going to die.

The eardrum-rending cry sounded once more, and Applejack's own cry of pain joined it. The sound shook her bones, and made the wound on her foreleg burn with a fresh fire.

She very nearly collapsed again, but managed to hold herself up. As her head bowed, her eyes fell upon something in the grass just outside. A half-full bottle of alcohol sat next to several long strips of blanket, her improvised disinfectant and bandages.

Applejack blinked, and the firelight reflected a spark in her eyes. She had an idea.

The twisting sensation in her gut intensified suddenly, and Applejack gagged, but she forced the sensation down with newfound determination and took a step forward. One step at a time, hoof after hoof, she inched towards the objects. Each movement was a battle, both physically and mentally. Her mind was telling her to stop, telling her that it was hopeless, and that she should simply give up and lay down. Lay down and accept the inevitable. There was no escape. Lay down and die—

Applejack shook her head forcefully. She bit her lip as hard as she could, and the thoughts were forced from her mind in a rush of clarity. Her legs no longer fought her every movement, so Applejack hobbled as fast as she could for the last few steps.

She stumbled at the end, fighting continued waves of nausea, and ended up tumbling onto the ground outside her shelter. It didn't matter, she'd made it where she needed to be. Applejack swiftly snatched up the bottle of rubbing alcohol and a dry bandage. She popped the cork off the bottle and stuffed the wadded-up bandage in its place.

Not trusting her injured leg to carry her, Applejack picked up the bottle in her mouth and stumbled on three legs towards her campfire. It was burning low, but there were flames left yet.

The feeling of wrongness was nigh unbearable now. Applejack could barely walk by the time she plopped down on her haunches in front of the fire. She could feel exactly where it was. No vague direction or sense of 'over there'. She knew exactly where the thing was now, and it was terrifyingly close.

At the last second, a thought struck Applejack, and she quickly turned the bottle upside down, allowing the alcohol inside to soak the cloth in the top. Whatever it was, it had nearly arrived. There was no time now. Applejack felt like her stomach had been torn out by timberwolves, only it wasn't even pain. It was just… wrong, but it was so unbearable that Applejack would've traded it for pain any day.

It was so close now that Applejack could feel it's exact position. Then it stopped. Applejack blinked, the action clearing her tear-blurred vision somewhat. It had stopped just barely outside the clearing, just past the treeline—

Applejack gasped as she remembered the dense wall of spikes she'd set up facing the jungle. Could the creature be daunted by her defence? It seemed too good to be true. It wasn't something she could stop. It was an unstoppable force, and her crude barrier stood no real chance of holding it back. She was but a small candle attempting to fight back the deepest darkness, and it was inevitable that she flicker out… or be extinguished.

She shook her head, dislodging the sudden surge of defeatist thoughts. She had to stay focused. It wasn't leaving, and was remaining perfectly still at the edge of her camp. Applejack peered across the clearing. Her eyes reflected the orange light of the fire, but she couldn't see anything more than a few feet away. Somewhere on the other side of that wall of blackness, it was waiting, watching her.

Then it moved.

The sickening feeling doubled, even as the creature moved only a single pony length into the clearing. It skulked at the edge of the clearing, not moving any closer, but not retreating either. It had passed her spike defence with apparent ease, and was now pacing back and forth somewhere in the darkness. Applejack followed it with her eyes, even though she couldn't see anything.

Her heart felt like it was attempting to break free of her ribcage. Her breaths came in short, rapid gasps. Applejack fought to hold back tears and forcibly pushed down every whimper that rose in the back of her throat.

It came closer. Slowly, inevitably, it once again began moving in a straight line towards Applejack's position. She couldn't help the pitiful whine emanating from her throat as her breathing spiraled further out of control and her vision began to blur. While one hoof still clung tightly to the bottle, her now pathetic-seeming improvised weapon, Applejack's other hoof instinctually snatched her hat from her head and clutched it to her chest.

It didn't shriek, but Applejack's ears suddenly hurt. A high-pitched ringing sound hovered just on the edge of hearing, not enough to drown out the crackle of the fire or her own panting breaths, but enough to instantly start a headache forming deep in her head.


Still she waited. As the wrongness intensified to the point that she cried freely, she waited. As her head began to throb despite her ears being folded tight against her head, she waited. Only when Applejack could feel it a mere dozen feet away, when she felt its presence brushing against her soul, Applejack finally acted.

She thrust the neck of the bottle into the embers of her campfire, and it took only a split second for the alcohol-infused cloth to light up in flame.

She tried to scream, tried to let out a vicious battle cry that would echo her fury across the entire jungle. What came out was barely more than a strangled sob. The pathetic sound was all she had in her, though, and in the very same breath that uttered it she lobbed the lit cocktail with all her might.

Her throw was weak. Applejack knew it would be. She'd been recovering for so long, there was no way she could muster much strength at all. But her aim was true, and she'd waited until there was no way she could miss. The tiny flame on the end of the bottle cut a path across the black sky as the cocktail arced through the air. It impacted exactly where she could feel the creature. The spot exploded into a burst of flames, and Applejack had to shield her eyes from the sudden brightness.

The twisting in her gut stopped growing worse, but it didn't vanish entirely. Applejack scrabbled back a few paces from the heat and squinted into the inferno. There was a spot near the center that the flames didn't quite touch. Or rather, they simply failed to illuminate it. It was an indistinct, fuzzy patch of dark in the middle of blinding light.

She didn't even blink. It simply wasn't there anymore. She had seen it for less than a second, and then it was replaced by roiling flames as if it had never been at all. She could almost believe that it had been some trick of her addled mind, that she'd imagined it.

Except that the twisting feeling in her gut had vanished along with it.

Applejack collapsed onto her side with a heavy exhale. Adrenaline coursed through her veins and her breath came in short, rapid gasps. The flames seemed to be dying out, unable to find any hold on the moist, green plant life of the jungle, probably.

As they dimmed and burned lower, Applejack laid there. Her heart raced in her chest, thundering against her ribcage as if she'd just finished an entire rodeo. She laid there shuddering and shivering uncontrollably as the adrenaline slowly worked its way out of her system.

Applejack stayed on the verge of a sob, unspent tears welling behind her eyes as her hooves shook. Every breath came out as a tiny whimper that seemed infinitely loud in the quiet aftermath.

Eventually, her shivering slowed to a stop, and finally, blissfully, mental and physical exhaustion managed to pull her into their dark embrace.

Only when she slept did the rest of her tears flow freely.

Author's Note:

Edited by Pyromitsu and Aatxe360, who are both splenderific.