//------------------------------//
// Patient Zero 
// Story: Generation Z: The Chronicles 
// by Another Army Brony 
//------------------------------//


First Contact





Again, I must extend a heartfelt 'Thank You' to Pacific Penguin for his tireless devotion to proper grammar, spelling, and generally coherent sentence structure. *Brohoof* Much obliged, good sir.


Celestia raised the sun on another beautiful day in Equestria. As the sun came up, ponies began to rouse and begin their daily tasks. Some, however, were up before the sun and already hard at work by dawns first light, bucking apple trees and plowing fields while the rest of Equestria was still fast asleep.  For the most part though, the ponies rise with the sun. Just as the sun had full peaked over the horizon, the market square in Ponyville was a bustling hub of activity, with ponies rushing to and fro. The market is and always has been a lively place full of the friendly banter between ponies, and the sound of laughter is often present as well.  

As the first rays of sunlight peeked into her window, Scootaloo woke from a pleasant and blessedly dream-free slumber. Her friendship with Rainbow Dash had blossomed in the few weeks since the nightmare, and she was looking forward to seeing the pegasus again today. Scoots wanted to do something special for her friend, so she set off to the market early in the morning to get some apples from Applebloom. Turns out she wasn’t half bad at baking, and she had learned an easy recipe from Applejack that she taught to Scootaloo. Scoot's plan this morning was to make the only thing she knew how to bake and share it with RD when she showed up later.

As Scoots entered the marketplace, everything was business as usual; ponies laughing, and conversations taking place in a light tone all around her. As she was walking up to the apple family stand, a singular sound echoed through the plaza that made every pony stop mid-sentence and gaze towards its origin. The entire market was deathly silent; nopony so much as moved a muscle as their eyes sought the source of the disturbance. Echoing from a nightmare, the sound came again. The moan that had occasionally been heard echoing from the Everfree forest was now coming from the area just outside of the plaza. 

All heads turned as one and locked on the source of the sound. A ripple of recognition swept through the crowd, and several mothers grabbed their foals and hightailed out of there while others simply screamed. The cause of the disturbance was none other than Zecora, though in such a shape that it would have taken a moment to recognize her if there had there ever been another zebra in Ponyville.  She was simply skeletal, with several large gashes on her flanks that were not bleeding, but rather oozing a brownish black ichor, and her eyes were sunken and ringed by a dark purple-green bruise. Her gait was a stuttering shamble, and she lurched unevenly with each step.

Though most ponies were slowly retreating from the shambling visitor, one of the more hot-headed ponies confronted Zecora about Diamond's disappearance, accusing her of terrible things. The only response was that Zecora began to shamble towards the accuser and emit another moan that seemed to be a distillate of nightmares. This silenced the accuser swiftly, and it was clear that he was rethinking his decision to confront this shambling nightmare in the first place. As the creature drew near the pony that had only moments ago had been shouting at it, the clack of its teeth as they closed around emptiness was clearly audible, and caused the pony to back up as the creature advanced. As the ghoul began to shamble closer to the accuser, he finally turned tail and ran, narrowly avoiding the jaws of the accused as they closed around the space his face had occupied mere moments before. As its target departed, and the creature began to circle back and focus its attention on the remaining ponies in the square, pandemonium broke loose. 

Scootaloo could only stand rooted to the spot as this creature of nightmares slowly shambled in her direction, snapping at anything that crossed its path. A mere pace away from Scoots, the shambling horror was tackled and pinned to the ground by a pink blur. 

"OhmygoshZecorawherehaveyoubeen!Youknowwhatthiscallsfor? A PAR-TAY!"

Even as the warning was leaving Scootaloo's lips, the creature bent its head forward and latched its teeth onto the pink party pony. Pinkie cried out in pain and shock.

"YEEOOOUUCH! That really hurts a lot, Zecora! Why are you being such a meanie-pants and biting ponies?"

The creature continued to chew on pinkie, causing her to yank her arm away, aggravating the injury, which was now bleeding profusely. The sight of the blood snapped Scootaloo out of her reverie, and she rushed over to Pinkie Pie. 

"Ohmygosh Pinkie, are you okay? We need to get you to nurse Redheart!  That looks really bad…"

Pinkie's hair had gone flat and she had started crying silent tears, as she cradled her injured arm in her hoof. She merely nodded in agreement as they headed off to the clinic. As they neared the clinic, Pinkie began to ask if she could have a glass of water, because she was very hot. As they entered the clinic, nurse Redheart appeared seemingly from nowhere and began to assess Pinkie's injuries. 

"Oh, dear. How did you get such a wound? No matter, we will have you right as rain in a jiffy. Oh my, you are burning up. Let's get you to a bed and get started on your treatment."

Without another word, nurse Redheart lead Pinkie to a gurney and swiftly out of sight. As Scootaloo tried to follow her friend, she found her path blocked by guards. When she tried to go around them, they told her that the area beyond was a restricted area, and she could not pass for sanitary purposes. As she looked down at her hooves, she saw they were splattered with Pinkie's blood from when she helped the party pony get to the clinic. The sight of another pony's blood on her made Scootaloo want to gag. She hurried to the bathroom and began to scrub vigorously.

Scootaloo's hooves were red and tender from the hot water and furious scrubbing, but she couldn’t seem to get clean, no matter how hard she scrubbed.  That was when she heard the first scream. She forgot about cleanliness entirely, and rushed out to the waiting room to see what was causing the commotion. The first thing she noticed was that the doors Pinkie had disappeared through earlier were still swinging in the wake of the two guard ponies that had rushed through them only moments ago. Her crusader instincts kicking in, she rushed through the doors to investigate the source of the scream. 

Her thoughts of what an investigator cutie mark would look like were interrupted by another ear piercing shriek and yelling. The sounds appeared to be coming from the other side of the window at the end of the hall, and Scootaloo hurried towards it to see what was happening. She drew up to the window to the operating room, and stood on her hind legs to see over the sill. What she saw was worse than any nightmare she had ever dreamt. Pinkie was strapped to the gurney by her forearms, her hair fallen flat and her jaws snapping at anything and everything. The gurney was covered in blood, and there were several nurses holding bandages to their forelegs and trying to stop the bleeding. 

The two guard ponies were attempting to subdue Pinkie's thrashing and strap her to the gurney, but were being met with what seemed like an impossible amount of resistance from the pink pony. Pinkie was straining against her restraints with an incredible amount of force. With one violent lurch, there was a loud snap, and Pinkie's right arm developed a new joint. Both of the guards stopped in shock, and one of the nurses gasped, though Pinkie didn't seem to notice. Scootaloo watched, frozen in horror as the pink pony kept wrenching her leg in an attempt to escape. With a sickening ripping, popping sound, pinkie had freed herself from the restraints…except for the fact that her foreleg was still in the restraints.

Scootaloo dropped to the ground in shock, horror, and revulsion at what she had just seen. Somewhere in the background she registered the sound of a door slamming open and hooves clopping down the hall. She was struggling not to be sick as she felt a hoof on her shoulder. She looked up in terror, only to see nurse Redheart standing over her, looking deeply concerned. Without a word, the good nurse began to lead the filly into a playroom that was unoccupied at the moment. Scoots could remember coming here when she was younger and had to get shots or a checkup. The brightly painted walls and cheerful decorations seemed to be mocking the happiness she had once felt, a happiness she thought she might never feel again. Scootaloo backed herself into a corner and tucked her knees up to her chin and wrapped her legs around them.  She sat in silence until nurse Redheart broke it.

"Scootaloo, I know this has to be very difficult for you. I wish you hadn't seen what you've seen, but it is too late for that now. What I need of you right now is for you to be a brave little pony and tell me just what happened to Pinkie Pie before you brought her here. I need to know what we are dealing with."

Scootaloo was numb, and it took a moment for the question to sink in. Once it did, she had to force the scene she just witnessed out of her mind long enough to think back to what had taken place before it. After getting out of bed, she decided she wanted to do something nice for RD, so she went to the market to buy apples, when that creepy Zecora zebra showed up and then Pinkie showed up and…and…Scootaloo broke down and sobbed. Between sobs, she tried to get her story out.

"W-when I got to the m-market this morning…t-there was a weird p-pony walking u-up. I-it was Z-Zecora. But s-she didn’t l-look normal. She w-was bony, and b-bleeding black a-all over. S-somepony tried t-to yell at h-her, but she just m-moaned. She t-tried to bite him, b-but he ran away. And then, P-Pinkie tackled her into a h-hug, and Zecora b-bit her."

As Scootaloo finished her halting story, she looked at nurse Redheart to see the caretaker's gaze fall down to her own hoof as her face went pale. As Scootaloo followed her gaze, it landed upon the bandage on her forehoof.  Scootaloo was in shock, and when she looked back up at the nurse, she could see the nurse was sweating really hard, and shaking badly. Nurse Redheart started to get up and mumbled something about the filly needing to go home right away, but she collapsed on the floor and began to spasm. 

Scootaloo could do nothing but look on in horror as the nurse stopped twitching, and the even rise and fall of her chest stopped. This was the last bit of tragedy that broke the filly from her trance. She knew she needed to get out of there, and fast, needed to find Rainbow Dash and then everything would be alright. The young pegasus gathered herself off the floor and walked along the wall as far away from the mare in the middle of the floor as possible. As she turned the handle on the door, she discovered it was locked. Then she remembered it always was locked, to keep the adventurous foals from running amok in the clinic. She looked back to the nurse on the floor and saw that she had the key in her extended hoof. 

As Scootaloo drew nearer and was about to pick up the key, Nurse Redheart's eyes snapped open. The pegasus recoiled in horror as the creature that had once been the friendly nurse began to try to stand on legs that seemed to be made of wet noodles. The filly knew that she had to get out now or she never would. She lunged forward to grab the key, narrowly avoiding the nurse's bite as she scooped it up. She fumbled with the key as she heard the slow, steady clop of the nurse approaching. She finally managed to open the door and burst out into the hall, almost knocking over one of the guards in the process. With tears in her eyes she looked up to warn the guard, but her gaze was met only by a half of one, as the guard was missing one of his eyes. She pushed away from the guard and narrowly escaped yet another bite, and she began to dash for the exit with everything she had. She burst out of the clinic into the fresh air and dazzling sunlight, but didn’t stop running. She ran until she ran out of breath, ran out of tears, and ran out of road. By this point, she was dizzy from exhaustion, her eyes swimming and unable to focus. She collapsed by the side of the road, and promptly passed out. As her vision faded to black, the last thing she saw was a shadow, blocking out the sun.