//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: One Day, Twenty Years Later // Story: The Last of Us: Survivor Tales // by KalaAWild //------------------------------// Chapter 1: One Day, Twenty Years Later One day, twenty years later, I woke up like any other morning since the Corydcep incident in Ponyville. I felt relieved that I somehow managed to stay alive for another day in this hell. I remembered I have to fear that there will come a day that I will die and most likely to the Cordycep zombies outside the city walls. If I played my cards right, I might never have to leave the city walls again. The government watches over us survivors but I feel like even they I should avoid at all costs like the zombies. I got up from my uncomfortable mattress and trotted off to the kitchen where I brewed up my morning tea and breakfast. While I waited for my water to boil, I turned on the television to find out what kind of news was happening. "Food rations have run to a bare minimum standard and there's barely enough to go around," said a news reporter on the television. "Be advised that you may not receive any food for this week." "Yeah," I said to myself. "It's a good thing I managed to snag some extra food from the bank while I was out yesterday." I knew that one day Buckston would run out of food for the winter. I bought some extra food the day before so I could survive the winter by myself. The bank teller wasn't all too pleased about my withdrawal for extra food but some bribing changed his mind otherwise. I poured my water into a mug and made my tea. I carried my daisy and wheat sandwhich and tea to my coffee table and continued to watch the news. "In other news, Cloudsdale still refuses to make it possible for resident Pegasi to return home as to make sure the infection doesn't come to their citizens. Despite Princess Celestia's plea for help, Cloudsdale and other Pegasi cities refuse to help their fellow ponies down on the ground. More development will be reported later on, as we come to know of it." Cloudsdale was the first of many flying cities to close off their cities to the outside world after the outbreak started. Apparently, the mayors of each town wanted to exclude everypony, even Pegasi, from their cities to stop the infection from reaching them. When I tried to get inside Cloudsdale, I was immediately rejected by patrolling Wonderbolts. Even Spitfire, my Wonderbolt idol who was left to help the government contain the ponies on the ground, said to me it was impossible to get inside the floating cities. Before I could listen to more news about recent events like another Firefly demonstration, I heard knocking at my front door. I turned off the television and looked for my gun. I never trusted anypony who came to my door, whether it was a friend or the police. Because of the outbreak, I've had a lot of trust issues with other ponies. I stopped giving the benefit of the doubt to others because of stray ponies who were actually bandits that stole food from me a couple years back. As I loaded my six-shooter with bullets, I looked through the eye hole of my door to see who it was. I saw Applejack and Big Mac behind it. I felt bad that I almost pulled a gun on them and I put my gun away, under my seat cushion. I opened the door and greeted them kindly. "Hey Applejack and Big Mac!" I greeted. "What's up?" "I was just wondering if you could do a small favor for us," Applejack asked. "Eeyup." Big Mac followed up. "What do you need help with?" I asked. I closed the front door behind them and asked if they wanted to have some water. Big Mac didn't want any but Applejack accepted my offer. "You remember those gangsters that I've been telling you about don't you?" Applejack said. "Yeah, what about them?" I said to her back. I gave her a glass of water to drink. "Well, last night, they stole some apples from us and you know how valuable apples are nowadays," Applejack explained. "Yeah I do know how valuable they are," I replied back. They were extremely valuable. The Cordycep, being fungus and all, also infected major pony food sources. A lot of water was tainted with the fungus and a lot of apple trees became fungi infested. Luckily, Applejack managed to find a way to grow apples that were immune to the Cordycep fungus and began to grow these apples inside Buckston. Growing apples is illegal, enforced by Celestia's new administrative government, but Applejack made some fancy connections with Celestia to grow them. She only made herself an easy target for bandits to steal from her. "What do you need me to do? Beat-them up and hope that they give back your apples?" "Eeyup," Big Mac said first before Applejack. "Yeah, that's exactly what we want you're help on. Could you go with Big Mac to the bandits' hideout, and I don't know, steal back our apples?" Applejack requested. "What's in it for me? If I remember correctly, I almost died going on one of these missions going outside the wall. Your cousin left me behind with at least ten Cordyceps behind me the last time I went out," I said to her with a stern look. "This time will be different. You can get to their hideout directly through checkpoints to the West District and you can get back through the same way. Its easy-peasy. When you get back, I can make you ten barrels of my special apple cider. What do you say?" Applejack's famous family cider was to die for. Survivors from all over the quarantine zones came to Buckston for Applejack's annual sale of apple cider. Even though I always get stuck waiting in line for my cider, the long waits were always worth it. Getting paid ten barrels didn't sound like a bad; it sounded amazing. "You're the fastest flyer I know which will make this job easy and fast for us. We need those apples back and we need you're help with this," Applejack pleaded one more time. "Alright, you've convinced me," I said. I finished my tea before I proceeded to talk. "When do we go?"