The world had used to be such a peaceful place, a time where conflict among ponies seemed extremely unlikely in society, and that any dispute or disagreement could be solved by the end of the day with both ponies left happier by the end of it, even making friendships stronger while doing so, with no-one being killed, maimed or left with loved ones taken from them in the process.
For Spike, that world seemed like a distant memory to him now, as so much has changed in so little time, that it wouldn’t have felt like it had only been 3 months since he had lived in that world, when he was happy, with the main priority of the day to have fun with his friends, not to protect them from either being eaten alive by walkers, or killed by bandits.
That is, if they don’t already do it themselves.
The world that Spike and everyone he cared about, had cherished, was taken away from them overnight, as on no significant night, for reasons that even now not even Twilight has figured out, ponies that had passed away were coming back to life, with only one extinct - to feed.
It was then when things turned ugly, as the ones who weren't killed in their beds had to endure seeing their loved ones being killed, only for them to come back and be one of those things, not being the pony they had known all their lives anymore, but a murderous zombie, or a walker, as we had soon come to call them.
He could still remember the night it all started, to be fair, it would be pretty hard for him to ever forget it, seeing friends he had just spoken to earlier that week getting swarmed by them, while trying to escape their home with Twilight erging him to run, that there was nothing we could have done for them, and that we should find the others before it was too late.
He had never seen someone die before, and he never would have expected it to be so graphic, so fast, remembering ponies insides gushing out on the street, seeing the life leave their eyes, only for the pony to rise up again as one of them after only a short time, one of the only differences being that the life doesn't come back in their eyes.
It was only there where he learned his first lesson in surviving - Aim for the head.
That was the only way to keep them dead, a lesson he knew would save his life one day, and he knew that it had to happen to him when his time came, for he sure as hell wasn’t going to become one of them.
They were lucky to escape the carnage, but not without experiencing losses of their own while getting out of the now burning town, filled with looters gathering as much supplies as they could, scared ponies not knowing where to run, and the most noticeable, the walkers now plaguing the streets, killing and ripping apart the ponies who weren't fast enough, some of which that still made Spike feel sick thinking about was the children separated from their parents.
He could still remember the ones he saw die that first night, examples being certain friends of his like Lyra, Bon Bon, Roseluck, and even the Cake family didn’t make it, but even though that bothered Spike deeply seeing them die, he stilled considered it awful not knowing who lived that night, if some of his friends were still out there, and if he would ever see them again.
The first night he still thought of it as the longest one of his life, spending all of it fleeing, praying that he could find his remaining friends alive and while so doing all he can to make sure he didn’t separate with the friends he did find along the way, namely being Twilight, whom he made sure she didn't stay out of his sight that whole night.
He had lost so many friends that night, he sure as hell wasn’t going to lose his sister.
He had seen how tensions were rising in the little camp they had formed in what once was Sweet Apple Acres, which they had now called home ever since Equestria went to hell, and he couldn’t tell anymore if the arguments between his closest friends were due to hunger, or as a way of handling their grief, for the friends or family they had lost.
His guess was that was probably a combination of both, as even he was feeling pretty moody the last couple of days, it would be impossible for the current situation not to get to you after a while.
One shining example of these “incidents” as described by Twilight would be what happened between Rainbow Dash and Applejack a couple of days ago, he wasn’t there for the whole argument as it was his turn for lookout, but when he came down to see what all the yelling was about, that was when things really picked up.
By the time it took Twilight and Applebloom to pry them off each other, Rainbow had managed to give Applejack a black eye, all while showing a few bruises of her one, making it hard to see who really won in this fight, not that he had any time to check in detail, as the two had quickly parted from each other, and from the crowd they had formed in the commotion, not seeing them again for a couple of hours, when their hunger finally made them swallow their pride and made them join the rest of us for food.
When Spike had asked Sweetie Belle what the fight was all about later that same day, she said she wasn’t sure, but she had heard that it could had been something to do with Rainbow accusing Applejack of trying to steal her belongings for some unknown reason, making it hard to believe it was actually true, but seeing as Applejack had just lost Granny Smith to the horde when it all began, it was pretty obvious she was in a vulnerable state at the moment, and it didn’t help having a paranoid and hungry Rainbow Dash accusing her of something she didn’t do, so it must had taken that to put her over the edge, leading to both not exactly better off in the end.
Applejack even said later on that it wasn’t even worth the black eye.
To be fair, it was understandable that Rainbow Dash was on edge as well, she was more worried than the rest of us about the ponies that still could be out there and whether they were still alive or not, and it was possible she had to do something to handle her stress.
We were all worried about who could still be out there, good or bad, as even though on that first night Spike and Twilight managed to find a number of their friends including Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, the now disbanded Cutie Mark Crusaders, now that had higher priorities to deal with than gaining Cutie Marks, as well as a few others, there wasn’t a lot of us left anymore, and they never found Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy the first night, and even though none of us would say it, we now had to assume they had died that night, no matter how hard that was to accept, especially from Rainbow, we had to move on and create a fortified camp instead of looking for them, otherwise we wouldn’t had made it.
Thus creating a settlement from the ruins of Sweet Apple Acres, away from the havoc and what our remaining friends could call home, where they could stick together, at a time where they needed to more than ever, continually making it stronger, building metal walls and fences to keep out not just the walkers, but the bandits that followed shortly after the apocalypse started, looking for supplies with no sense of morality anymore.
Spike wouldn’t even put it past them to think that they would kill their best friend for a can of beans.
Now after three months, the world he once lived in was long gone, now only living in a harsh and brutal environment with only more difficulties he knew he had to face, like where the next meal would come and what he could use to defend all what he had left in his life.
He could only take solace in the fact that he, unlike others, had a place to call sanctuary in the end of the world, and that he managed to have some of his family come with him to this new world.