Chapter 1: The End of Days
“Clousdale... crumble...”
Normal.
The day the world ended started off as just another normal day. Or, as normal as Equestria in wartime allowed. As I stated before, I worked as a simple mailmare before the war. That didn't change much during the war itself; I didn't want anything to do with the fighting if I could help it. Instead, I started up my own delivery company, appropriately named 'Ditzy Doo Deliveries'. It was hectic work, given the nature of the world at that time. However; it did have the merit of being simple, honest labour.
That said, it would have been naive of me to think I could escape the war. It consumed the entire world, and nopony had the luxury of falling outside its reach. The vast majority of my business during the later years of the war came from the Ministries of Princess Luna's government. Even prior to the formation of the Ministries I did a lot of courier work for the military.
My presence in the city of Cloudsdale on the day the megaspells destroyed Equestria was actually a bit of a fluke. The day before the apocalypse I received a message from the Ministry of Peace hub located in the cloud capital. They had large shipments of medical supplies that needed to be delivered, but all of their regular couriers were otherwise occupied. As a result, they contacted any other pegasus based delivery service they could reach.
I arrived in Cloudsdale in the early hours of the morning. The sun was just barely above the horizon when I touched down with my wagon in the Ministry of Peace hub loading bay. A number of other pegasi were there as well, having been called in much the same manner me. I smiled and waved at a few of them, although most seemed more intent on getting the job done. If they were anything like me, they had their hooves full of work as it was, and the added load was not entirely welcome. I wasn't about to complain about it though, as MoP always worked for the good of everypony. Up until the very end, they tried to help as many ponies as they could.
I entered the MoP facility through the rear entrance off the loading bay. From there, I followed a few other pegasi down a narrow hallway leading to a reception area. We waited there as the secretary behind the counter called out to us by the names of our various delivery companies. I ended up waiting there for about an hour before I was called up. I was equal parts worried about the need for all of those supplies, and glad to be a part of their delivery. I walked up to the counter, another pegasus called at the same time accompanying me. I don't remember her very well, but I remember that she smiled at me. She too seemed glad to be of what help she could.
I smiled back before directing my attention to the secretary and the invoice she placed in front of me. It listed the items that I would be delivering, and where I would be delivering them to. Curiously, I glanced over at the invoice given to the other pegasus mare. The list of items on it was nearly identical to mine. Two crates of RadAway potions, two crates of regular healing potions, one case of extra strength restoration potions and one case of Med-X brand painkiller. Her shipment was headed towards Hoofington.
My invoice had all of the items that were listed on hers, but it also had one that was not. It was simply labelled as 'Private Footlocker'. I glanced at the location I was delivering the goods to: Canterlot. Specifically, the Canterlot MoP hub on Ministry Walk. After double checking the invoice, I picked up a pencil in my teeth and signed the paper with my name and trademark. That mark was seven bubbles floating upwards, identical to the cutie mark that adorned my flank.
After signing the invoice, I returned to the loading bay and found a pair of pegasus bucks loading the crates and cases into my wagon. Both were grumbling about the extra work, but I didn't begrudge them for it. I saw the same pegasus I had been at the counter with walk past me to a wagon of her own. Waiting for MoP bucks to finish loading my wagon, I watched as she expertly strapped herself into the wagon's harness and took off. Had I known what would soon come to pass, I might have asked her name.
After the two stallions finished loading the larger crates, a unicorn mare wearing a Ministry of Peace nurse's dress walked over to my wagon. A soft glow enveloped her hooves, enchanting them to grant her the ability to walk on clouds, a trait normally exclusive to pegasus ponies. Her horn was alight with magic, and a field of levitation surrounded a footlocker that floated alongside her. It too bore the colours of the Ministry of Peace. The unicorn stepped into my wagon and secured the footlocker at the back, directly beneath a small safe that I kept records and invoices in. I also had a sample bottle of Sparkle~Cola RAD in there at the time, but that's not really important.
With the footlocker secured, the unicorn stepped out of my wagon and turned to leave. Before she did so, she shot me a look that suggested the contents of that locker were worth more than my small delivery business in its entirety. She departed, leaving me feeling a little sheepish. I closed and latched the back of my wagon shut. After confirming that it was secure, I flew around to the harness at the front of my wagon. I hovered in place as I took the straps in my teeth and latched myself to the harness.
Once I made sure I was strapped in nice and tight, I gave a firm flap of my wings and began to pull out of the loading bay.
***
My departure from Cloudsdale was uneventful. I was able to pass the security checkpoint out of the city fairly quickly by informing them that I was making a delivery for one of the Ministries. The fact that it was heading for Canterlot notwithstanding, everypony tried to minimize friction as much as they could when the Ministries were involved. I was relieved, as the increased security was often responsible for shipments arriving late, both for and from me. As well, had I been held up any longer, I might not even be here right now writing about it.
Although the Ministry of Peace shipment would have normally taken priority, I had a small package that needed to be delivered to the Ironshod Firearms factory in the community of Hope. It was in the opposite direction to Canterlot, but a fair deal closer to Cloudsdale than the Equestrian capital. I headed westward out of the cloudy city, hoping I could drop off the package quickly and then reach Canterlot before midday.
I was flying over a long valley surrounded on either side by mountains, Cloudsdale not that far behind me. A large billboard depicted Fluttershy holding up a bottle of Sparkle~Cola sticking out from the mountainside. She seemed particularly happy to be holding the cola bottle, although I had never been a big soda drinker myself. I smiled while looking at it, reminded ever so briefly of a time when a new type of sparkling carrot beverage was the biggest thing in the news.
As I looked at the billboard, my right eye drifted of its own accord, settling on another billboard half a mile down the valley on the opposite side. This one was the typical military banner showing pegasus soldiers laying waste to wickedly drawn zebras. 'Better Wiped than Striped'. I had seen this billboard before, and I still hated it. I was briefly acquainted with a rather nice zebra who lived near Ponyville, and didn't like the idea of her being lumped in with other, less reputable examples of their kind.
Put off by the second billboard, I began to move down the valley again, intending to put it behind me as soon as I could. In that same instant, the end of days was upon me. Everything I had ever known would be gone forever.
Even though I was facing away from the city at the time, and despite my lazy eye impaired vision, the megaspell explosion that destroyed the city of Cloudsdale was plainly visible to me. A great flash of putrid green light flared up behind me, reflected on the surfaces of the mountains stretching out along the valley before me. On instinct, I turned on the spot to see what it was. I was momentarily blinded by the intensity of the sickly green flames with their spectral sheen and had to look away.
In the moment that I had looked back, I had seen the silhouettes of a few other pegasus drawn carts and wagons standing out against the flash. Moments later, I felt a rush of heat that I knew must be coming from the massive explosion. The intensity of the heat spiked rapidly and I began to spiral downwards, the heat sapping my strength. I flapped my wings as hard as I could in an attempt to level out, but it was no use.
Less than twenty seconds after it all started, I was struck by a wave of pressure caused by the explosive force of the megaspell detonation. I thought I could hear screams sounding out from somewhere behind me, carried by the echo of the mountain lined valley. It didn't last, as the pressure wave blew out my ears in a deafening crash. The last thing I remember was the ground rapidly coming up to greet me, then darkness.
***
I awoke to the sensation of rain falling on my face. Although that was the first thing to come back to me, it was immediately swallowed by intense pain. My head was pounding unbearably, I could not move either of my forelegs, and my stomach was doing cartwheels. Before doing anything else, I vomited. The taste of bile only added to my symptoms, and I'm fairly certain the act of vomiting alone caused me to do so a second time seconds later. I was not the most well versed in magical radiation, but I knew enough to understand I was in trouble.
With what had been my breakfast now spilled over the charred grass underneath me, I took a moment to look myself over. My head was still throbbing, but my stomach had settled down a touch. I could see that I was still strapped to the harness of my wagon. I had crashed into the ground hard, and both of my forelegs were broken and bleeding out of numerous small gashes. I looked back and saw that my wings, mercifully, were still intact.
I bit at the release to the straps of my harness, freeing myself from its mangled frame. As soon as I was loose, I flapped my wings and got as high into the air as I could without sending my stomach and head reeling. It was just barely high enough to keep the weight off my broken forelegs. Trying not to think about my legs, I instead focused what concentration I could muster on my wagon. It was a sturdy thing, and had survived the crash largely intact. It had sunk into the ground slightly and the roof had caved in over one corner, but it was otherwise fine. The impact had thrown the door open, spilling a number of crates out the back.
I made my way around to the back of the wagon, trying to keep myself from passing out again. One of the broken crates contained the shipment of RadAway potions. Some of the packets had burst, spilling the amber coloured liquid over the blackened, ash coated grass. I stretched out my neck, not wanting to touch down to pick up a packet, and grasped one in my teeth. I hoisted it up and turned my head upwards. I bit into the bag, allowing the contents to spill down my throat. A lot of it went down my face and muzzle as well, but the rain washed it off. Had I known what would become of me, I might have saved that packet for somepony who actually needed it.
I repeated the process of consuming RadAway potions three times. I didn't know if it was enough, but I had regained some of my lucidity. With my concentration improved, I tried to get my bearings. I didn't know how long I had been out, nor exactly what had happened. I looked up in the sky, hoping to see the sun for a measure of how long I had been out. All I saw was an endless sheet of grey clouds. The sensation of rain continued, making me feel a little foalish. Another thing I could no longer see was Cloudsdale, even though it would normally be visible from this distance.
In a flash of realization, I remembered the scream I had heard right before I crashed. I looked down the valley and saw the wreck of another sky wagon, a little less than a mile behind my own crash site. I grabbed another packet of RadAway in my teeth and flew towards it. I arrived there a lot more quickly than I figured I should have, and moved to check the pegasus still strapped to the harness. She was dead, the rear half of her body scorched black and most of her hair burnt off.
It was too much. I let out a scream, dropping the potion packet as I did so. My head swam as the scent of her burnt corpse reached my nose. My insides lurched and I vomited again, thankfully not on the recently deceased mare. I found myself crying, tears blurring my vision. I cried for the mare, who had died so horribly. I cried for myself, my insides feeling so many different kinds of wrong. Lastly, I cried for Cloudsdale, as the realization struck me that the explosion I had seen had come from the city, which assuredly was no more.
***
I awoke a few minutes later, not realizing until then that I had blacked out once more. I was still in a truly dreadful amount of pain, but it had ebbed slightly. This was not good, as I knew full well the severity of my injuries. The fact that I was laying on my broken forelegs, but could not feel them at all, stirred something within me. I glanced back at the dead pegasus mare and, despite being light headed, knew that I did not want to end up like her. I wanted to survive; I wanted to find out what had happened, and above all else I wanted to make sure that the rest of Equestria was alright.
I struggled to make my wings work, my lifeless forelegs dragging against the ground as I skittered back towards my own wagon. I nudged the bent door on the back out of my way, eyeing the inside. Everything had toppled over, most of the crates cracking and breaking open. Several healing potion bottles lay shattered on the floor. Thankfully, a hoofful were still intact. I grabbed one in my teeth and downed it greedily. I knew that it was risky, given that my legs were broken, but I would rather be alive and crippled than continue bleeding to death.
The gashes on my legs mended by the time I finished drinking a second healing potion, although I was still unable to make them move. Satisfied, though not thrilled, I grabbed a pair of saddlebags with my cutie mark emblazoned on them from amidst the wreckage. I turned them over, dumping the contents onto the already messy wagon floor. Once empty, I filled one of the pouches with the bottles of healing potion that hadn't broken. Only one of them was a super restoration potion, the other jars of which had shattered. I filled the other pack with as much RadAway as I could cram in from the crate outside.
Despite my burst of survival driven adrenaline, I was still on the verge of blacking out. Although I had mended the gashes in my legs, I had still lost a lot of blood, and the pain of the broken bones beneath was like thousands of tiny daggers. The only thing keeping me from losing consciousness again was a small, insistent voice in my head. For some reason I figured it was my will to survive, and it was telling me that if I let myself black out for a third time, I would not be waking up again. The image of the other pegasus, burned to death and lying motionless in her harness, flashed through my mind again.
Ignoring the cries of protest from my ailing body, I forced my wings to move. They flapped slowly but surely, lifting me a few inches above the ground. I wanted to tuck my forelegs under me to keep them from hitting the ground, but of course they wouldn't move the way I wanted them to, mangled as they were. Undeterred, I began to move again. I headed towards the end of the valley, as that direction seemed to be the least taxing on me. As well, heading up the valley would only take me back to Cloudsdale, which was no longer there.
I'm not sure how long I flew, although I know I wasn't moving very quickly. Without a clear view of the sun and no watch or other timepiece, I had no idea how much time had passed. I did know that by the time I exited the valley, the light filtering through the cloud ceiling was beginning to wane, marking the onset of evening. At least the rain had stopped, for now.
I was unfamiliar with the area I was now in, normally flying over the area with little heed for ground based landmarks. The terrain was relatively flat, and I could see a farmhouse and silo off in the distance. Hoping to find somepony there, I began heading towards them. The throbbing in my head was back and my focus was slipping. My forelegs had gone completely numb, and my insides felt like they were liquifying.
I drew closer to the farm, and almost thought I could hear somepony shouting. A flash of light shot up into the air from the fields around the farm, almost like a distress flare. In the dying daylight I couldn't see very far, but the flare illuminated a figure galloping towards me from the farmhouse. There was a soft glow atop her head, suggesting she had been responsible for the flare. Considering I was still a quarter mile away, she must have had very good eyesight.
Inspired by the seemingly friendly presence, I was able to push myself to hover towards the farm a little faster. The other pony ran towards me, meeting me halfway to the farmhouse. When she stopped in front of me, I was able to see that she was a unicorn. Her coat was a pale green colour and her mane was auburn streaked with orange. I wanted to raise a hoof in greeting, or say something friendly. What I did was black out for the third and final time.
Footnote: Ditzy’s S.P.E.C.I.A.L:
Strength - 5
Perception - 4
Endurance - 6
Charisma - 6
Intelligence - 5
Agility - 6
Luck - 8
Current Status: Initial stage ghoulification