//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Awakening // Story: The Trotting Dead // by AstraPony //------------------------------// It is currently one week since Fluttershy's last visit, but only a day after the aforementioned visit was whn all hell broke loose. The outbreak started spreading like wild fire, stopping for no reason. Ponies were lucky if they survived another second. Rainbow Dash lay peacefully in her hospital bed unknowing of the chaos brewing beyond her hospital room. Finally, Rainbow was starting to regain consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open. 'What happened?' Rainbow thought 'Where is everypony?' She looks at the lifeless monitors next to her. 'Huh? Why are these off? Did they think I wasn't gonna make it?' She sits up and swings her hind legs over the side of the bed. When she gets up on all fours, she wobbles, but doesn't fall. "Woah!" Rainbow hobbles to the room's door. When Rainbow opens the door, she expectms to see the busy hustle and bustle of a hospital corridor; but what she sees is the exact opposite: quiet, alone, eerie. "Uhh... Hello?" Rainbow calls out. "Anypony there?" She looks down the left side of the hall. 'Nothing' she thinks. When she looks to her right, she is horrified. On the wall, written in blood, it said: 'Not safe. RD run.' From there, the blood slides down the wall and creates hoofprints walking away and around the corner. "Uhh... guys. Not cool." Rainbow says slowly walking backwards. "Uggggh..." moans something from around the corner. "Ok, you got me. Cut the act." Rainbow says, starting to get scared. Suddenly, a pony shuffles from the corner. "Ugggggghhhhh...." it groans. The blue stallion looled fairly intact, except for a gaping hole in hime back that exposed his spine and pink flesh. "Nope." Rainbow says before turning around and sprinting down the hall in the oppsite drection of the pony. "Ugh..." "Uggggghh..." "Uuuuggggghhhhhh...." Rainbow Dash slowly could hear that more of them had joined the symphony of moan and groans. She was coming up on a fire escape staircase. "Bingo!" she says. She gets opens the door, slams it shut then blocks the door with a board in the handle. "Phew!" Rainbow Dash says while wiping some sweat off her forehead. "Uggghh..." somepony groaned. It didn't sound like it came from outside of the stairwell. She turned around and, suddenly, one of those... Things fell down some stairs leading to Rainbow's current floor. A sudden wave of fear ran a chill down her spine that temporarily paralyzed her. When IT got within two feet, Rainbow snapped out of her daze. She round house kicked the pony in the jaw; at least, where it would have been. She bolted toward the stairs leading to the lower floors and never looked back. She successfully made it too he ground floor and to the main enterance. Once she was outside, she saw the true terror. Ponyville was in total and utter madness. Buildings were on fire, houses were in ruins, and the ponies of the undead roamed the streets. All but one. "Applejack!" Rainbow Dash called, thinking, no, knowing she just saw her friend. No answer. Rainbow knew it was AJ because of her trademark Stension. Aj looked fine from what Rainbow could see, expect for some gashes and marks. "AJ?" Rainbow said worried as she started to slowly walk toward her friend. When Rainbow was only a few feet away, Applejack suddenly looked at Rainbow with black, lifeless eye and blood ariund her mouth from previous victims. "Rawruurrgghh!!" Applejack groaned and made a sudden movementtoward the pegasus. "Ahhh!" Rainbow screamed. Out of nowhere, a gun had been fired. Applejack stopped dead in her tracks and flopped over, truely dead, with a bullet hole through her brain (or what's left of it). A pony jumped out holding said gun; and wearing a black suit that covered their entire body, mane and tail, and also wore sunglasses that hid their eye color. "Come with me if you want to live."