//------------------------------//
// Chapter III - Nightmare. 
// Story: The Legend Starts 
// by 654_nosneb 
//------------------------------//

To say that nobody knows where COVID came from, would be a lie. At this point, everyone knows that it came from a sea food market at Wuhan, China.

At first, no one thought that it would become so relevant. I even thought to myself that it would not get out of China. I was SO wrong.

"William, why are we not going to school today?" Celestia asked with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Well because..." I tried to say, but I wasn't finding the appropriate words. "There is a dangerous disease spreading through the world."

"And?" She replied.

"Well, we can't go to school because we could catch, or spread it."

"Oh, I see." she exclaimed. "Does it kill people?"

"Yes," I responded. "And a lot."

"How many; 3, 4...or 10," she said the last number with a worried voice tone.

"Well... actually more like hundreds, if not thousands of people."

"THOUSANDS!!!" She shouted. "Th-th-th-thousands! I-I-I... bwaaaa!"

She then started to cry on my shoulders, and almost nothing that I did could calm her down. One or two days later, Luna find out as well and also collapsed on her cry.

The TV wasn't helping too much with our situation, the images of coughing people, facemasks, etc. were slowly terrifying the fillies; well, not just the fillies, the human part of the family was also really depressed, scared and unsure of how this was going to end. Dad was not good either. Due to the already high insanity in the prison, the COVID was running wild free in there.

But we eventually had to go into online classes, and all I have to say is that the stress that was in the house due to the presence of just one computer, one cellphone, and four persons that needed them for their classes, yeah, you can guess how CHAOTIC is this.

We were starting to normalize the situation, when something happened. Clarissa got infected.

She was not old, so we didn't thought that she'll face too much trouble. But then... but then... Her sister called us to say that... she died.

"No!" Luna shouted when mom explained why she couldn't call Clarissa to say hello. "She can't be dead! She's too young for that!"

"Luna," mom spoke softly. "The doctors did everything they could, but there was nothing they could do to save her since she also had complications with her diabetes, she would have survived but... she got infected."

"But, if she died, does that means that if you get infected as well... you could... you could... die?"

"Well, it's a possibility, but I promise you that..."

"No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no; NO!" she shouted as she galloped to our bedroom. "Bwaaaaa!"

That night, it was pretty silent during dinner. Everyone ate their food quietly, and Luna and mom even had tears on her eyes.

But then, it was time to go to bed, and also, time for dreaming. I had a relatively normal one, just me buying toilet paper; yeah, toilet paper. Anyways, I wouldn't have noticed that it was a dream if it wasn't for the fact that the same rip from the last time appeared in the sky.

"Oh, Luna, what's happening to you now?"

With my imagination, I went through the rip, and immediately searched for Luna's dream. The dreams that were around me caught my attention. They weren't dreams like the last time I was here. Yeah, sure, some of them still were normal, but a great amount of them were pandemic related. I saw people flying away from giant COVIDS, people crying on top of dead people, and even one in which a girl couldn't take off her facemask no mattering how much she tried.

Finally, I reached Luna's dream. I was a bit unsure if I should go in, but finally made my way through.

I was scared to death when the first thing I saw was my dead body on the floor. I contained a scream, and started to search out for Luna. The dream was taking place on home apparently, and I found the dead bodies of mom, Melissa and even dad, but no signal of the alicorn. I headed to our room hoping to find her there, and even though I did found her, she was also hugging her pony sister with fear, she was corresponding the hug as well, as the fillies cried very loudly.

"Luna!" I exclaimed as I walked in. "I'm here, don't..." I stopped talking as I stumbled with the lifeless body of... Tia?

"Wait, if you are there, then who is..."

"She-she died in this dr-dream." Luna exclaimed through tears. "As well as everybody else!"

"I-I'm the real Tia." the white filly hugging her sister stated. "I came here when Luna called me for the consolation of my sister, but I found... this." she stated.

"I..." my mouth tried to exclaim.

"William, please tell me that this isn't going to happen in the real world, please tell me that this isn't gonna happen to you, please tell me that this isn't gonna happen to Tia!"

At first, I didn't have anything to say that could improve the situation. But then, it occurred to me:

"You know, this can't happen to you or Tia."

"What?" they gasped.

What I mean is: the virus only attacks humans, so... both of you are immune!"

"Really!" the dark blue pony asked. "But you aren't. The rest of our family can die as well as Clarissa." she then paused a moment before continuing. "She was really special to us. Thanks to her, we were able to go to school, live here, and get out of that horrible place. And now, she's gone, just like that."

I thought my words very well before speaking them: "I can't promise that no one here isn't going to die, but I do promise you that we'll do everything in our power to keep safe both of you."

"You promise it?" now Celestia asked.

"I promise."





"Did you slept well last night?" mom asked while toasting bread for the alicorn's breakfast.

"More or less," Celestia replied.

We started to ate our breakfast, as well as discussing with mom so we could borrow her phone for the classes. We decided that the fillies will use the computer (since they were at the same grade) I'll use my phone, and Melissa will use mom's for her first class and the return it to her owner.

RING! RING! RING! my phone's alarm started to sound loudly.

"I guess it's time for physics," I spoke. "See you later!"





Meanwhile at the Researchinc labs:

"You know what Gregory?" the director spoke to his assistant. "For once, it seems that we took the right decision. How's the development for the vaccine?"

"Since we were the first ones that started, it seems that we'll be the firsts that founds one."

"And considering all the donations we are receiving, I think that this company will not go anywhere soon."

While they were speaking, the news were portraying: Researchinc, the company that changed for the good.