//------------------------------// // They said // Story: The Applejack Zone // by TrollestiaSubject //------------------------------// They Said By TrollestiaSubject Part of The Applejack Zone Auto conclusive chapter Involves a weird illness, and some...child abuse I guess, it’s hard to said, read it yourself ------------------------------------------------ That afternoon was the first one with martial law since Celestia-knows-when in Equestria. It’s a disease that affects only on the afternoon, they said. And only to little fillies and foals. We earth ponies were sure it’s not the food, and then they asked to the pegasi race; maybe weather had something to do with all of this, but even the best magicians all around Equestria were the same confused than them. The best doctors didn’t know why either. They had their symposium, but the illness continued to spread even between their offspring. We all at Sweet Apple Acres were worried about little Apple Bloom. “Why can’t I go outside?” My lil’ sister used to ask. We didn’t want to answer that. Until that afternoon one day. “Because we don’t want anypony to see you” Ah said once, and I kept regretting that day. She used to see us all with her big crystal eyes, and we tried not to show her our fear, but it was so difficult to hide. “Why can’t I go outside and play?” She used to ask, with her little jaw going down and up inside her little woodened muzzle. It was amazing to watch. She really looked like a wooden doll. Even her joints were separating with an empty line, allowing movement but not falling apart. And her coat was hardening with each passing evening; I never had the nerve to touch it, not even if Rainbow Dash herself had come inside daring me to touch it. But Granny Smith did. And Mac too, once by mistake! He was so scared when he realized, didn’t seem to be so big aside of little wooden Apple Bloom that day. Ah asked to Twilight of course, and Zecora, even Celestia myself, but that new disease was too new, too complex, they said. Nopony had idea how it was originated. We even proposed to stop the sun or the moon, since the ailment only progressed during the linger light of dusk. But then the plants would die, they said. That year had been a poor season for everypony’s harvests. We could stand a night, or a day, but if we wait longer, the crops would wither, and that would have been devastating for all the farms. I would have liked still, a chance to try, if even for half day more with my little sister; but I couldn’t say to anypony. We had to give Apple Bloom to the guards, any infected pony, they said. But they were always little ones. “It´s not so bad” we agreed the day it happened to her, and we kept Apple Bloom hidden. None of her friends came looking for her. In the beginning, I was so sad, you know; it`s like an apple too near, but you can never reach it. I was like that but much more, like longing for a whole season of them, or all the food in the world; and it just got worse on time. The whole world was withering in front of mah eyes inside Apple Bloom, and there was nothing I could do about that. And after each nightfall her ailment was worsening. One night she became completely hard. All made of wood; I had watched the full thing happen, she had reached the window to watch the sunset, and when I was feeling her turn around, maybe to ask if she could go outside, with her big and weird rhinestone eyes, and a hanging plank of wood has jaw; She just had stood there, watching the night. “It`s not so bad” We said, we can keep her as our own little doll, mah own little sister doll, I could have painted on her any Cutie Mark she would want. If only she could speak. We sited her in a coach and I use to poof up her ribbon every single day. We used to talk with her a lot, we didn’t know if she could hear us, but it helped us all to felt a little better. Until the day we noticed Apple Bloom's transformation hadn’t stopped yet. Her wood was drying, and later more crystal eyes started to pop up between the cracks all along her coat to her flank. At the end her body was lengthening, like the one of a centipede, and cracks of dry wood that seemed to be falling apart of her body, were really becoming slender bug legs; even then we didn’t want to give her up, until the day we noticed that every division of her body was puffing out different color hair, these like legs started to move a bit by their own, and something like dragonfly wings were growing behind each pair of eyes. When we were at the guard post to hoof down Apple Bloom, we covered her with a blanket for nopony to see her current state, and the guards took her away into a building with a great chimney smoking a high cloud of darkness. They weren’t opened for this, but they were proving to be useful yet. When we were going out, we noticed everypony else had their little ones just like us, covered with a dark thick mantle, motionless, and crying aloud. At the end the guard’s stations with incinerators were taken down, and musical instrument’s shops were saved from bankruptcy. We saved our harvests from wither, and the ponykind with it, they said. But we lost all of our little ones. We all still unsure if it had something to do with burning down the parasprites, some weird curse about a bad season, or how it all began; but I think Ah know how it was spread… But now it’s all a thing from the past, new foals and fillies will come in time, and they will grow up happy and healthy, or so they said. The End. ------------------------------------------------ A.N: this was a bit of "Babycakes" by Neil Gaiman and “HELL O' DOLLIES” by Junji Ito, and it was pretty short because these histories are shorts indeed, probably mine is longer actually. I don’t have a lot to say about this, I wanted to write this since Branches chapter back in “A Pony In Hay”. Next one will be better. Again: I’m not English talker, so any suggestion you can make will be well appreciated, thx.