//------------------------------//
// Day 1: Back from the Grave 
// Story: NaPoWriMo 2014: A Compilation of Pony Tales 
// by Fluttercheer 
//------------------------------//

The time was running out.
Twilight galloped down the dark hallway, with Apple Bloom close behind her. Undead ponies snatched at them from both sides and they had problems to avoid getting bitten in the narrow hallway.
There was almost no time anymore. If Twilight couldn't fix the mess she created, Ponyville, no, the whole of Equestria would never be the same.
After completing Starswirl's spell she took a fancy in creating spells on her own. But Starswirl's spell was at least half completed. She wanted to make an own spell, from scratch. A spell to communicate with dead ponies, that's what it should have been.
It worked. Somewhat.
That the dead ponies were not resting in their graves on the Ponyville Cemetery anymore made it definitely easier to talk to them face to face. Except that these zombies were not very talkative. They had to be stopped.
And now they had almost no time anymore.
They were in the library when it happened. Twilight cast the spell, with Apple Bloom eagerly standing in front of her. She had to test the spell somehow and she knew that Apple Bloom was missing her parents, so she invited her for the evening to be her test subject.
The plan was to use the spell and to open up a connection between this world and wherever the souls of ponies went after they died, so that Apple Bloom could talk with her mom and dad.
But it didn't work. They waited a few minutes, but nothing happened. Apple Bloom was disappointed, but Twilight managed it to cheer her up and then she began to adjust the spell in hope to fix what was wrong with it.
About an hour later, the sun had already sunk under the horizon and it was getting dark, they heard screams from outside. Twilight couldn't believe it as Apple Bloom told her that zombies were on the streets, killing other ponies and eating them. Only a look out of the window convinced her of how serious the situation was. She had to realize that her spell did work, although not in the way she hoped it would. Instead of making her able to speak to dead ponies, it let them rise from their graves; brought back to a new artificial life!
Apple Bloom and the mistaken wizard barricaded the library from the inside so that she could work on a counterspell. She managed to write one, but as she was almost finished, the zombies managed it to break through the barricades at the door and windows. Twilight immediately stopped writing and rolled in the scroll on which she was writing the spell, ignoring the head of the zombie in front of her, who broke through the window her desk was standing at. She called Apple Bloom at her side and made herself ready to teleport her and the filly out of the library to a safe place, but then the zombie bit in her hoof before she could perform the spell. It ripped out a big piece of flesh, making the bone visible, and worst of all, not only a part of her hoof was swallowed by the undead pony, but also the scroll that she was still holding with it. In shock, she teleported herself and Apple Bloom out of the library and they fled from the place.
They got to the town hall and locked themselves up in a storage room at the back of the building. Together, they created a plan to get the scroll back there and now they were out of the room again, on their way back to the library, but they ran out of time. There was barely half an hour for them to stop the zombie invasion. At midnight, everything could be over.
From past researches, Twilight knew about a similar accident. A pony using a spell to bring back the dead; in ancient times, long before she was born. The only difference was that this pony was evil and had planned to conquer Equestria with an army of undead ponies; believing this would make it easier, because zombies couldn't be killed in battle anymore. But the plan backfired as the evil conqueror found out that ponies who got bitten by members of his army turned into zombies too. He knew he couldn't sacrifice the population of Equestria, otherwise there would be nopony to rule over anymore, and so he wrote a counterspell, as Twilight did today, but it didn't work and the zombies remained zombies. He rewrote the spell a few times and tried it again and again, but it was useless.
It then turned out that the spell could only be reversed three hours after casting it and that he didn't got it ready soon enough. The ponies in the town he lived in managed it to bring the situation under control after he confessed his evil plans to Celestia and asked for her help. They stopped the zombies and he was imprisoned for a long time for his evil plans.
And now the situation was the same. Twilight didn't knew for sure if the spell she used was the exact same spell that the evil conqueror created back then. During the whole time until they came into the storage room, she never saw a pony getting turned after being bitten. The victims stayed dead. This could mean that the spell was of a slightly different nature and the reversal not time limited, but the possibility was still there and she couldn't take the risk.
They hadn't much time to make a plan for getting the scroll back out of the zombies' stomach and to finish it and Twilight knew that it wouldn't be easy. Since she was bitten by the zombie, she felt weak. And her condition just became worse over time. She was sweating, her breath was going heavy, her hoof hurt stronger the more time passed and she had problems to channel her magic. Twilight wasn't sure if she could perform the counterspell once she completed it, but even if, she would need all her energy and concentration for this spell. She could not afford to cast another spell. She would definitely need Apple Bloom's help to distract the other zombies, while she was busy with the one who swallowed the scroll. Fighting against more than one zombie was impossible with her condition.
Twilight and Apple Bloom had almost reached the door at the end of the hallway that led to the lobby of the town hall as Twilight suddenly heard a thump behind her and then a loud scream. She stopped and turned around quickly. Apple Bloom lied on the floor, a zombie firmly holding her leg and slowly approaching her, ready to bite.
Twilight rushed at the side of the whimpering filly and, unable to use magic, used her horn to attack the zombie. She rammed it into his throat and a fountain of blood shot out of the wound, covering both her and Apple Bloom, who whimpered even more as the blood hit her.
Twilight knew it wouldn't kill him, but the force of the impact she created with her horn was enough to make him stumble back a few inches and he let go of Apple Bloom's leg. Twilight lifted the sobbing filly up and placed her on her back and then proceeded towards the door. She quickened her pace as she had broke through the door and entered the lobby and after a few seconds they were already outside again.
Twilight stood still for a moment, her mouth wide open. The Ponyville Plaza was almost not recognizeable anymore. Several houses were on fire and the light of it was enough to lit up the whole plaza; showing Twilight and Apple Bloom countless bodies of ponies, cluttered with bite marks and terrible wounds, that were scattered around the place. The air smelled rotten.
Just a few hours were enough to throw the whole town in chaos. Apple Bloom let out a loud cry when she saw what happened to her hometown and buried her muzzle into Twilight's neck.
“Do ya think Applejack is alright?”, she asked in a muffled voice.
“I don't know, Apple Bloom.” Twilight clenched her teeth. “I hope she is.”
“But what if not? We must go lookin' for her!” Apple Bloom jumped off of Twilight's back, facing her friend.
“We can't”, Twilight answered. “We must reverse the spell first and we have not even half an hour left!”
“But what if she..... she.....” Apple Bloom couldn't end her sentence. She sat down and began to cry, the worry over the safety of her big sister becoming too much for her.
“Listen, Apple Bloom.” Twilight leaned down to her, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “We don't know what happened to Applejack and it's too early to jump to assumptions.”
Apple Bloom opened her eyes and looked up to Twilight, her face wet from the tears that streamed out of her eyes.
“For all we know she was at Sweet Apple Acres when everything started and that's far away from Ponyville. I'm sure she is safe.”
Apple Bloom sobbed a little. “But.....”
“And I need your help now!” Twilight interrupted her. “I can't use my magic to fight against the zombies and to get the scroll back, so I need you to distract them. I won't make it without you and if we don't stop this madness now, then we can't save Applejack!”
That stroke a chord in Apple Bloom. She dried her tears with one hoof and then jumped on all fours. “Then let's go! Ah can't let mah big sister die! And the rest of mah family.....”
Twilight nodded. “Let's hurry now, we don't have much time left.”
She turned in the direction of the library and began to run, moving through the alleys and streets as fast as her condition allowed, with Apple Bloom at her side. They came across even more bodies of dead ponies on their way. None of them were moving and Twilight's hope that the spell she created wasn't the same like the one she read about grew bigger. Luckily, also none of the dead ponies looked like their friends. When they reached the square in front of the library they stopped.
Apple Bloom and Twilight cowered themselves into the entrance of one of the houses around them and observed the zombies lurking around there. It took Twilight a few seconds to find the zombie who had eaten the scroll, because she could only see it's head when it attacked her, but then she saw it. The undead pony was a little bit left from the entrance of the library and almost didn't move. Maybe he was still satisfied with his little snack.
Twilight grinned nervously. She looked down at her hoof, seeing the white of her bone where once was flesh, skin and fur. It probably wouldn't heal by itself and stay like this, but maybe she could fix it with some advanced healing spell.
But this had to wait until later. If she didn't get the scroll with the spell back, it wouldn't matter if she could heal that terrible wound or not. Twilight turned round and looked up to the clocktower that surmounted over the buildings. It was only a few minutes until midnight. It was time to act.
“Do you still know what to do, Apple Bloom?”, she asked her little companion.
Apple Bloom nodded. “Mhm. Ah run up to the other zombies to distract them and then ah lure them through the street over there.” Apple Bloom pointed with her hoof at one of the streets that ended at the square.
“Right. And don't forget to jump on the roof of the well once you reached it! You're not strong enough to fight against them.”
“Don't worry, Twilight, ah know what to do!”
“Good, then let's start. We have only three minutes left!”
Apple Bloom gave Twilight a quick nod and then approached the zombies in fast gallop. After she had their attention she ran into the street she just pointed at. The horde of zombies followed her slowly. Twilight waited a few seconds to make sure the other zombies were far away enough before she approached the zombie who had what she needed. As soon as he saw Twilight, he snapped out of his trance and moved towards her.
“Are you still hungry?”, Twilight asked him, a snarky tone in her voice.
The time was almost over but luckily Twilight already made a plan how she could bring him down to reach his stomach and get the scroll out. She waited until the zombie almost reached her and then jumped on his back. Before he could react, she stabbed her horn through his head. His body collapsed to the ground and Twilight let herself roll of his back. She didn't even check if he was really dead and rolled him on the side.
Now came the hardest part. Letting out a deep breath, she used her horn again and sliced open his stomach. A lot of blood flowed out of the wound and a foul stench emerged from it. Twilight pressed back a retch and stuck her hoof into the stomach of the zombie. Everything felt wet and sticky inside of it. While searching for the scroll, she had to continue with holding back the urge to vomit all over the zombies' undead body. Suddenly, she could feel parchment under her hoof. She grabbed it and pulled out the scroll quickly.
“Only one minute left”, she thought frantic while unrolling the scroll. It was already a bit pitted on the outside by the gastric acid, but the inside was still fine and Twilight recognized her hoof-writing in perfect condition. She took out the quill that stuck behind her right ear the whole time since she and Apple Bloom left the library and wrote down the last words to finish the spell.
The body of the pony in front of her suddenly began to move again.
As she was finished she let the quill fall, lit up her horn and began to concentrate her magic.
The zombie in front of her slowly rose to his feet and moved around to bite her.
Twilight read the incantation out loud and a bright light emerged from her horn, engulfing the zombie in front of her.
She could hear a thud and then the light vanished. The undead pony was lying in front of her, all four hooves stretched away, his eyes closed.
It was over. The counterspell had worked.
Twilight let the scroll sink and sat down on her haunches. She sighed relieved.
That was in the last nick of time. One moment more and Equestria probably would have had to face to become overrun by undead ponies.
Her hoof was hurting much more now. She was able to switch out the pain most of the time, because she was concentrated on her mission. But now that everything was over and Equestria saved she could fell all the pain and realized how strong it really was. She took a look at it to examine the wound properly for the first time since she was bitten and noticed that it seemed bigger. She was sure that more flesh was missing now than at the moment she was bitten. The flesh also had taken on a black shade of color where it was bitten off. Probably some more bits of it fell off because the bite loosened them and from what she could see, the wound became inflamed. She had to take care of it quickly.
But currently, she was more worried about Apple Bloom. Was she safe?
She ignored the pain again, stood up and slowly moved into the direction Apple Bloom went. She had to limp while heading into the street, so strong had the pain become.....

Apple Bloom turned around to the zombies behind her, making sure that they still followed her. Suddenly, they were surrounded by a bright light. When it was gone, they all lied on the floor, motionless and quiet. Apple Bloom knew what this meant. It was over. Twilight was successful.
She stopped and turned around. The filly was about to gallop back to Twilight as she could hear a voice behind her.
“Apple Bloom!”
She turned around again and looked into Applejack's eyes. “Applejack!” She smiled and jumped at her big sister's neck, clutching her hooves tightly around her. “Ahm so glad you're safe! Ah was worried ya could already be.....”
“Like one of them?” Applejack completed her sentence.
“Yeah”, Apple Bloom answered.
“Don't worry, Sugarcube. An Apple doesn't let itself become eaten by some crazy undead monsters so easily!”
“Were ya the whole time on the farm?”, Apple Bloom asked her.
“Yup! But ah came lookin' for ya as ya still weren't at home again and then ah saw all of this! How could this happen?”
“Twilight was using that spell ah told ya about, but somethin' went wrong and everywhere were zombies suddenly!” She buried her face into the neck of her big sister, happy that she was alright.
“You don't say.” Applejack chuckled a little. She knew Twilight all too well and wasn't surprised that she caused the desaster. “But ah guess ah can ask her about the details by myself. Look.” She pointed forward with one hoof.
Apple Bloom turned around and saw Twilight slowly limping down the street towards them. She jumped down of Applejack's neck and went to meet her at the side of her big sister.
“Seems like ya caused some mighty ol' trouble again with a spell”, Applejack said as they reached her.
Twilight didn't answer. She replied her look and her face showed a strange expression. Her eyes looked swollen and were red and wet, occasionally dropping a tear out of them. She stumbled up to Applejack, reached out to her and placed her hooves around her, head resting on her neck. Applejack could feel that her body was trembling.
“Now, now Sugarcube! It's fine. Ah ain't mad at you. We all make mistakes sometimes. And you fixed the situation and everything is fine again. There's no need to cry!” Applejack asserted her words by putting her hooves around her too and pulled her friend closer to her. “It's all okay now“, she said to her.
Twilight was tightening the clutch around her.
Then she rammed her teeth into Applejack's neck. Realizing what happened, Applejack tried to pull away, but it was too late. Twilight's grip was too strong.
Ripping out a big piece of Applejack's arteria and the surrounding flesh, she enjoyed her first meal as the undead creature she was now.