A strange creature appears in Equestria... in Celestia's moping room private study! Words are exchanged, and... oh dear, no, no little pony! Anything but that! Creature, you're not going to just stand there and let a pony cry?!

An entry for CategoricalGrant's cuddlefic contest.

Edit: Featured on the SFW featurebox? I'm flattered and flabbergasted! I'll take it!
You heard it here first, folks...this is almost better than porn naughty ponies. And SFW! And because it was so liked, have a sequel!

(Old song, new story. Deal with it.)
An infection featured in the Ponyville newspaper indicates that there is a disease spreading (or starting to spread) across Equestria. And the terrible fate that happens to Ponyville after it is reached is darker than expected, and only can be viewed in Tombstone's memory.
But what if his memory just lied to him? What if it was just twisted and wasn't meant to be?

Well, that calls for a sequel, don't you think?

An old cave painting.

That's all it started out as.

Spread across every home. Every wall. Every life.

...

Red disease was an old disease that infected ponies in the late 1500's. It always began with, 'Just a small pain in the hooves,' or 'Just an ache in the stomach'. It would eventually grow to be much more, like the inability to move certain limbs, complete paralyzation, and at the end..

..usually death.

The most mysterious thing about this, however, is that when a pony passed away from said disease, the same, drawn character would appear near, or on the place the pony had taken her last breath.

The 'Idemoni'.