It was long, it was bloody... And we barely won by the skin of our teeth.
It was unlike any danger we had ever faced: the Changling infiltrations, hostile buffalo tribes, even entire griffin armies were nothing compared to the Undead Menace. Ponies that had taken down hydras and Manticores scattered like roaches under a flashlight because the monsters were ponies this time. Ponies they knew: neighbors, lovers, coworkers, friends, even family. It was the smokescreen of Ignorance that let the disease got as far as it did... We barely made it back from the brink.
I suppose it does seem odd to begin a damage report with a philosophical statement. My name is Ink Blot and The Allied Nations Postwar Commission asked me to compile a report: interviewing ponies to discover death tolls, assess economic and infrastructural damage. Basically how many bits it'd take return Equestria to the way it once was.
The stories I heard varied as much as the ponies who told them: some fearful, others boasting with pride, others just happy to be alive. My employers threw it back in my face. They told me that my report wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. "We need cold hard data," the the chairgriffin told me, "not some shell-shocked bloke's life story". I tried arguing with the whole lot of them, saying that the damage done to life on this planet wasn't going to be told by the numbers of dead or the economic damage, but in the stories of those who survived. That, in order to prevent this from being labeled "just another" tragic event by future generations like the First Griffin-Pony War or for future colts and fillies to fall asleep listening to in history class. And to... hopefully prevent this from ever happening again. In my mind, we needed to take these ponies stories as part of our reports as well.
The majority of the Committee, however, did not agree with my point of view. I was laughed out of the room, mockingly told to go find a publisher. So I did; and one publisher at The Manehattan Gazette was willing to take a chance and publish what you are reading at this moment.
This is a chronicle of those dark times told by the ponies who lived them: Stories of triumph, stories of sadness and loss. Stories that many of us can relate to in one way, shape, or form.
-Ink Blot