//------------------------------// // 2: The First Entry // Story: It Was A Thursday // by Captain Scrappie //------------------------------// First entry in John's journal: I remember the day. I remember the day when the world went to hell in some puff of rainbow coloured smoke. It was a Thursday. One of those Thursdays that seem to slog on forever for no real reason only to be long and tedious. I was looking at the clock on the wall over the water-cooler while swivelling on my chair. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.... The sound was maddening. I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout. But I knew if I did, Heather in Human Resources would put another mark on the Workplace Disturbances whiteboard. God I hated that whiteboard. How many of those marks were my doing? Like... two? I dunno. The last workplace party was a bit of a blur. Only thing I was able to remember was something about the boss and me talking and me consuming large amounts of Jackie Dees and Coke. Worst part is that she colour codes it based off of who does the disturbances. As far I know, I'm red. 4:58 PM it read on the clock. The boss was anal about people leaving early, even if it was like a minute before. Just two more minutes and my long needed three day weekend can begin. One where I can play vidya, play some poker with old college friends and finally be able to finish off that pony fic I was writing. "Ah, mister Seymour." I flinched at the mention of my last name. It was the boss. "Sir, I wasn't clock watching at all, sir." Way to be beta, asshole. "Ah, it's okay there, John. It's only natural on a fine day like this." Odd. Normally he was one to stay indoors and barely even glance out the window. And he doesn't normally leave his office. What's got him so chipper? "You know what? You can leave early for today." Okay, is he dying or something? Cause he's not he one to be nice either. "Uh, thank you sir." I grabbed my backpack and placed my laptop within it. When I got to the door he smiled a beaming smile and waved me goodbye. I only did an awkward wave and a half assed smile in return. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "-the 401 is moving slow on the south bound lane towards downtown Toronto due to an accident caused by a delivery van rolling onto it's side. Crews are getting that cleaned up as of this moment." God, another traffic jam. There is a couple of things that Toronto can export. Dense rush hour traffic is one of them. I think it's up there with deadmau5 and Rob Ford's Mayoral Shenanigans. "Traffic news is brought to you by Appleoosa brand Sparkling Hard Cider. Get your bottles, two for one at the Beer Store and other licensed alcohol retailers." Waitwaitwait. Did she say Appleoosa? Christ, did Hasbro get a shite load of money or something? You'd think that they would be going for the non-alcoholic version but there ya go. Never the less, what the DJ said next unnerved me to no end. "Coming up next on 102.1 The Edge.. Wait, seriously? Uhm... P-pinkie Pie's Smile Song? What the hell?" My name is Pinkie Pie, And I am here to- I nope'd the hell out when I heard that. I thought Hasbro was one of those companies that have a stranglehold on almost all of their properties. Why the hell are they broadcasting THAT shit? I pulled out my USB stick and plugged it into the stereo, putting on some good old alternative rock. I'll leave that autistic shit for at home, thank you very much. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "And they all lived happily ever after. Except for Twist. No one likes Twist." Saved and put into the cloud. I'll upload it to Fimfiction tomorrow. It was getting late. I went downstairs to turn off the TV that I forgot about after dinner. What I saw freaked me the fuck out. "Michelle Walker here with CTV news where an explosion in a Lakeshore warehouse has-" The female reporter started to cough and gag as rainbow coloured smoke leaked out of the building in the background. The reporters face became featureless before she collapsed to the ground. Her body was violently convulsing as her body... changed. The way I saw it was her becoming a writhing blob of flesh. But the blob started to take form again. The ex-reporters limbs were forming into hooves. It's head was now beginning to form again but it was in the shape of an Horses... No, pony's head. It's mane reformed. It was blue with a thin streak of dark purple going down it's bang. Large dark blue eyes were looking into the camera now. The blue pony stretched it's newly formed pegasus wings and beamed a big smile "This has been Clear Skies with City Television News, The Crystal Empires number one TV station!" The image cut out to a test pattern. "Oh shit." I was sure what I saw was real. I flipped to the other channels to see if there were anything similar. Almost all of the news stations were covering it reporters are in the streets and most of the shots are of people running away from the mobs of galloping ponies, turning into them as they got hugged. The late night hosts are all in a panic as well. "If you are anywhere NEAR these things you turn into them. Get out of the cities! Whatever you do, just get... Oh god." The hosts face drained of all colour. "What's got ya down, there?" A voice came from behind the camera. The host tried to book it off screen but tripped on a wire. "It looks like someone needs a huuug!" A unicorn was trotting over to him despite his protests. The screen then changed to the CBC technical difficulties signage just as he was receiving the hug and started changing. "OH SHIT!" I had to get out of here. There was no way in hell I was gonna be one of those... things! I jumped out of my seat and ran upstairs and grabbed a hiking backpack and started stuffing whatever I could into it. Water purification tabs, first aide, whatever the fuck that could be even remotely useful. I grabbed my hiking boots as well as some winter clothes for the long haul of it. I knew exactly where to go and it was north. My family had a hunting cabin three hours north by car. But knowing the events of any apocalypse, the highways are gonna be clogged in like an hour of the TVs going dead and all of the back roads will be filled with the infected. I had to get out of here. FAST. I couldn't take my car. The thing was on it's last legs and the engine needed to get fixed. I glanced out the window to the street. I could steal a ride from the other houses. But who's home and who's not? I'm not gonna deny people their chance at getting the hell out. I'm not THAT much of a dick. I poked my head out of my door to see is there were any other suitable vehicles that I could nick. Now I may not be much of a /o/ fanatic but I need something that could carry a far distance fast and can carry shit. Unless I had a souped up pickup-truck... Wait... /o/... I looked to down the street to see my salvation. And what I saw was a beauty. I always pass this guys house on the way down to work. Not sure where he is now. Seeing how he owned a mechanic shop near Lakeshore... Well I just answered my own question, didn't I? And he is... was always working on it. I booked it to the vehicle in question. He mentioned him working on it for a street race near Oakville at a barbeque. Well, I'm gonna put it to use anyway.  When looking at it, I felt bad for me going to steal it. It was a nice car. It was modified to the brim and it looked like there was a lot of time and effort put into it. And here I was, breaking down a door to his house to steal it's key. I'll take it back, I am a huge dickhole. But then again, the dude did have cops at his house every other week over stolen parts or some shit like that. "Hey, there he is now!" I heard down the street at my house. I peeked and saw two ponies, a brown unicorn and a dark red earth pony casually trotting down. "Oh god..." My kicking sped up as I was trying to break the thing off of its hinges. My neighbourhood was an old one and these doorframes were looking pretty old. Two more kicks did it in. While the house alarm was blaring, I ran upstairs to the bedroom and grabbed a bowl filled with keys. I also did a quick check and found a fully loaded shotgun and a high powered pistol with three clips. I knew the dude had troubles with the cops but, Jesus. I came down the stairs to see that the two ponies were walking up the driveway. "Hello? Anypony in there?" The unicorn asked. I raised the shotgun to my shoulder and aimed down the sights as I walked out. I wasn't a /k/omrade but I've had my fair share of hunting trips with my brother. "Get the fuck back!" I yelled. I was lining up a shot with the unicorn. He's the bigger threat right now. "Whoa now, let's not get hasty!" The red one said. "I said get the fuck back!" I can't let them get close. "I'm gonna get into that car and leave, alright? I don't want to shoot you, but if you don't fucking get back, I will blow your fucking brains all over the pavement, got it!?" "Don't you even want to think about becoming-" I aimed at his hooves and fired. The pony took two steps back before he started to bolt down the street. I then aimed at the other. "If you have any sense, I think you'd better fucking run." I ejected the spent shell and looked down the sights again. It did the same and galloped after him. After they were both out of earshot I looked at the broken bowl on the ground. There were a lot of keys to go through. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I was on the oncoming lanes heading out north of the city I glanced to the sides of the road to see the chaos around me. The hugboxing ponies were latching onto the fleeing humans and transforming them into more ponies. All of them had these beaming smiles that unnerved me to no end. I quickly turned to avoid a person trying to jump over a railing to a drainage ditch. Her efforts were in vain as she got hugged from behind by a pink unicorn. I saw some OG wannabe running while firing a Mac-10 or some shit into a crowd but having a purple pony latch onto him from above and a store owner getting glomped on all sides after trying to jump out his stores window. I kicked it into a higher gear and started onto the highway north. I needed to see if my family is safe, and if they are, get the hell out of here. I have to say that my neighbour made sure this thing was fast. I was clocking like 60 kilometres over the speed limit. Not like my driving records gonna matter. I just need to find my family and get my ass to the hunting cabin my brother and I fixed up a couple of years back. It's remote, self sufficient with all those solar panels and no one could know where it is. As I pulled onto the highway I noticed a torn up gay pride flag on one of the cars. I guess the person was here for the pride festival. At the time it didn’t make sense, why was it torn up and why was it on the car if it was three weeks ago? As soon as I looked into the rear-view, a streak of rainbow went up alongside my car. I looked over to see a pegasus. One that any avid MLP watcher would know. "Hey there! The name's Rainbow Dash. Wanna race?" She said through the window as we sped along. I hit the gas again and tried to lose her. Why the hell was SHE here!? I am sure as hell not gonna lose my humanity to RainbowCunt McDashfuck. And besides, I thought people were just turning into OC's. Who did she use to be? She caught up to me again. I'm doing near fucking 165 km/h, there is no way she could keep up! "C'mon, being a pony isn't so bad! You might get sweet wings like mine! Although, you might not. I'm one in a billion!" She laughed as she looked like she was lying on her back in the air. That smarmy ass-wipe. I looked to the dashboard and saw there was a button labelled "nitrous." "Fuck me, I hope he filled this." I said aloud and punched it. The car revved as the nitrus-oxide was put into the chamber. The speedometer display was clocking in at 205km/h, and yet there she was, barely keeping pace. "Okay, no cheatsie-doodling!" She shouted over the engine. She fell behind a little as her wings struggled to keep up. "C'mon, it's not fair!" "So is killing the human race, you ASSHOLE!" I yelled as I opened the car door on her face. The impact sent her off course a little. "Hey, what was that for!?" Two more hits with the door gave a satisfying crunch. She veered off course and started rolling on the pavement. I braked and looked behind me to see that the blue pegasus was still rolling. By the time she stopped, she was still breathing. "Oh, buck... My wing! I-I think I broke my wing..." I would have walked over to her and put a round in her head, but common sense compelled me not to. She could be faking it, I mean she's survived drops from what? Five, plus, stories? She's not gonna glomp me. It was too easy. I started to drive. My first stop was Bolton. I needed to grab my sister and my mom. My brother is in Barrie, so that's stop two. Don't know what's to be said about my dad though. He was overseas in China. Wherever he is, I hoped he's alright and not one of them. I saw the exit and took it. I'm going to be on the run now, wasn't I?