Wake Up, Applejack!

by Comet Burst

The Crash

"All aboard!" the conductor shouted over the roar of the steam engines. The day was bright and beautiful, a cloudless sky with the glowing sun hanging overhead. It was a good day to travel.

On the platform, an orange earth pony with a blonde mane and sparkling green eyes trotted up to the doorway to the car. Her ticket stuck out of the side of her mouth in a cute fashion as she tried to not get any spit on it. Atop her straw blonde mane sat a worn stetson, beaten with use and sunlight. The conductor, a stern looking gray earth pony, snorted a bit as he took her ticket and punched it.

"Business or pleasure, Ms..."

"Applejack," the orange mare replied confidently, "An' business, sir. Mah cousin in Appleloosa needs mah help with som' orchards."

The conductor nodded slightly, only retaining her name. "Well, welcome aboard, Ms. Applejack."

---

Applejack sighed happily as the world outside flew past her. The peaceful and idyllic forests and hills of Ponyville had long since past, becoming the rugged and dry desert Appleloosa was in. The heat was intense, but the wind kept the orange pony cool. The ground was dusty and flat, stretching on into the horizon where it met the empty blue sky. Every so often, the horizon line would be broken by a cactus or two. Applejack often wondered about those plants. They grew in the harshest environment known to ponies, outside of frozen tundras covered year round with snow. They always were bright green, suggesting that they were not only surviving, but thriving.

Applejack sighed as she felt a yawn approach. The heat always made her tired when she sat around. As she lazily watched the world fly by, Applejack felt her eyelids get heavy. She always woke before dawn every day to tend to Sweet Apple Acres with her brother, but when she wasn't working, Applejack was usually napping. Leaning a little bit out the window, Applejack tried to see if Appleloosa was in the distance. The silhouette of the frontier town was nowhere in sight and Applejack pulled her head back in the window.

"Well, might as well take a lil' nap," she mumbled to herself as she nestled into the seat. Her tail was difficult to position comfortably, but eventually she managed to find a comfortable way to sit. Applejack yawned again and rubbed her right eye with a hoof. "My, I must be really tuckered out," she mused.

Resting her head against the back of the seat, Applejack reached up and pulled her stetson over her eyes. "Jus' a lil' nap," she murmured again before closing her eyes.

It didn't take her long to drift off to sleep.

---

"ALL PASSENGERS, HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!" Came an abnormally loud shout from across the car.

Applejack woke with a start and sat upright, pulling her stetson back from off her eyes. As soon as the shout ended, a harsh screeching came from outside. The sound of metal grinding on metal told Applejack something bad was about to happen. Spinning her head to see what was happening, time seemed to slow as a loud collision echoed from the front of the train. As she spun her head, Applejack noticed a mother screaming and trying to grab a little foal while a stallion tried to run to the back of the car. The orange mare blinked once and turned to face the front of the car as yet another collision echoed back, this one louder than the last.

She barely had time to react as the front of the car buckled. The steel walls of the train car crumpled like tin foil as the car bucked upwards, forcing Applejack into her seat. Applejack tried to scream as she felt herself leave the ground and try to fly. Trains weren't supposed to go airborne.

The vertigo was the next thing she registered. The weightless sensation of hanging in the air terrified her as she felt herself hover away from the seat. The only thing she knew was she was still going forward, and so was the car. The mother was still screaming as she collided with the seat in front of her, clutching the foal with all her might. Windows around the car began to shatter and glass floated with the ponies. Then, as quickly as it came, the vertigo left and they fell.

The fall was by far more terrifying than the launch. Applejack let loose a wordless scream as she saw herself near the crumpled end of the car. It was all so slow, like time had broken. Applejack could see everything as she flailed about in the air, but her movements were just as slow as the world around her. She feebly tried to grab something, but she was almost to the roof of the car where it was smooth and flat. At the corner of Applejack's vision, she saw the outside world.

The flat ground was rushing up to meet the roof of the car.

Applejack saw the roof crumple like the front of the car before the world went dark.

---

Braeburn fidgeted with his hooves as he waited. There was a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach as he stood there, hoping the worst hadn't happened. He had nearly passed out when he saw the wreck and now was suppressing an urge to throw up. The train, if that's what the remains could be called, were scattered about the desert and along the rock formation known as Shady's Cliff. Apparently, a rock at the top of the cliff had fallen from the top as the train approached.

It was hard for Braeburn to believe this was real. He had heard about train wrecks, but this was his first time seeing one. The engine was literally gone. All that was left of it was a pile of smashed metal against a red rock split in half. There was no word if the engineer had gotten out in time, but the lack of anything relating to him gave a chilling 'No'.

Passengers aboard the train were being removed with the greatest care as they were carefully removed from the destroyed cars. Thankfully, all those recovered so far were alive but had serious injuries. Braeburn was told it wasn't uncommon for ponies to be missing limbs or losing gratuitous amounts of blood after a crash like this, but that only served to expand his worrying. His dear cousin Applejack was on board this train.

Without knowing which passenger was in which car, Braeburn had to wait patiently for the rescue workers to find her. Every second that ticked by felt like an hour, and each minute that passed was a lifetime. He chastised himself for asking her to come to Appleloosa. He wanted her help with something he should've handled by himself and now he wasn't sure if she could even return to Ponyville. So what if his orchard had a bark disease? It wasn't worth his cousin's life.

As he bit back tears, a loud shout echoed around the wreckage. Ponies of all sorts not immediately aiding other survivors turned and ran to a car a little farther off from the main crash site. The car was upside down and looked like a tin can that got stepped on, utterly smashed as flat as it could go. Braeburn watched the other ponies run and heard a shout.

"It looks like an apple!" a random pony called.

Without even registering what it could mean, Braeburn broke away and started running to the car. As he ran, several shouts rose up behind him, telling him to get back, but he kept running.

'It looks like an apple!' kept running through his head. Despite knowing what it might mean, Braeburn approached the car as ponies crowded around the wrecked car. Without saying a word, Braeburn began pushing past other ponies up to the car. There was a large tear in the side of the car, made by the unicorns who were in the process of rescuing the survivors, and the crowd's gaze was focused there. Giving a grunt and a final push, Braeburn forced himself to the hole and gazed inside, preparing for the worst.

Inside, the car was even worse than outside. Seats hung by single screws from the roof, walls had jutted inwards like large knives and there was shattered glass everywhere.

Everywhere except one place.

Several ponies were laying on the broken metal and two were awake, one nursing his left rear leg and the other clutching a bundle of blankets with a broken foreleg. Rescue ponies were tending to them, but even they were amazed at where they were. Despite the ruined train car around them, the ponies were in a space that seemed to bend around them. The jagged edges of the car walls were flattened and smooth, like they had impacted something far harder. The seats above the survivors were pushed to the sides and the floor was perfectly flat, like it had been steamrolled. As Braeburn looked at it, he found the ponies were right. It was in the shape of an apple.

As the rescue worker moved the pony clutching the bundle of blankets, Braeburn heard the bundle begin to cry. His stomach churned as he realized a newborn foal was on board. He, along with the the other ponies, moved aside wordlessly as the mare was helped out by the rescue ponies. When Braeburn looked back, he saw a mass of orange and straw colored hair.

"Applejack!" he shouted.

Comments

[Blagdaross]

First pass: Damn, brony, that was intense. You got me hooked already.

Second pass: no errors, poor style choices or recommended changes. I say you're ready to publish.

[wzium]

I keep coming back to this chapter. So many feels T.T Poor AJ