Generation Z: The Chronicles

by Another Army Brony

Prologue PT 2: The Expedition

Chapter 2

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Prologue part 2: The Expedition

Again, all glory to Pacific Penguin for a bang-up job as an editor. This should be much more read-able now, and make more sense besides.

Zecora spends the next week preparing for the trek to the area she has dubbed “The Hole” between caring for the bystanders in yet another Mane Six Malady. Given the distance away from her home, she concludes that there is no way to make it a day trip and still accomplish all the exploration she desires. Though the area still vaguely discomforts her, Zecora is determined to explore the area and learn what she can of the strange valley. Not a day goes by that she isn’t haunted by visions of The Hole, or of the face of Fossi. She cannot help but wonder if this valley is the place that Fossi was trying to show her on that fateful day. As she remembers her old teacher, she is overcome by a wave of grief, tinted by guilt. If he had not taken her for a walk to calm her down, if she had not burdened him with her problems…perhaps she would not have lost him.

Zecora knows that no amount of “what if” questions or second guesses can bring Fossi back to her. She forces these thoughts from her mind and continues to pack. After brief consideration, Zecora brings along a rather large jug labeled “Liquid Courage.” While the contents of the jug are a secret to all but Zecora, nopony who has partaken of it could deny that it could bolster the spirits of even the meekest pony, as well as grant vigor to the weary. Night in the Everfree is a dangerous time for anypony, so Zecora packs a hammock. This way when night falls she can be up in the canopy, well out of reach of most of the dangerous animals. Along with a scroll and quill for notes, she brings a few jars and a pair of shears to collect samples of the plants in the valley. After the rations are packed, she deems herself ready for the expedition.

During her last supply run into town, she avoided the suspicious stares of the ponies as she ran her errands. She left a larger than usual batch of her potions, tonics, and salves outside of the clinic along with a note explaining that she would be gone for a few days, and that this should suffice until her return. On her way out of town, she mumbled under her breath:

“The ponies watch my approach with dread. Surely nasty rumors have begun to spread.”

Zecora was right. She had overheard some of the townsfolk whispering as she passed. The townsfolk had begun to notice the disappearance of the small animals that once roamed the forest; and a few had heard a strange tinkle in the night, accompanied by swift shadows and the squeal of terrified critters. A tinkle which was not at all dissimilar to the sound Zecora’s jewelry makes as she walks through town. Soon enough, Zecora's visits to the town had reverted back to the state they were in prior to Twilight’s arrival, with ponies scattering and seeking shelter from her presence. This suited Zecora just fine, as she knew that once The Cure was unveiled, everypony would see what she had been working for, and then they would forgive her. Then they would see…they would see. In the mean time, she just had to keep her head up. As long as she was still making progress on her experiments, there was hope.

The next morning, Zecora set a course for the Hole. As she stopped by Fossi’s grave, she said a quick prayer and continued on towards her objective. She reached the valley just after midday, and paused for lunch before descending the narrow, rocky trail. Prior to beginning her descent, Zecora remembered the rope she had brought, and tied one end to a large boulder at the brink of the precipice. After fashioning a harness out of rope, she began her descent. The trail was initially wide enough that two ponies could have walked abreast of each other without difficulty, but it soon narrowed to barely wide enough for one. As she continued to navigate the series of switchbacks, the trail got increasingly narrow. Several times, Zecora had the ground beneath her give way, the safety line she had tied earlier the only thing saving her from what would have been a severe injury. Towards the bottom of the path, it widened a bit, affording a more stable footing and faster movement. The afternoon was nearly over, and she had been delayed far more than she thought she would have been, and thus was behind schedule. Reluctant to wait another day to visit the hole, but seeing no other choice, Zecora searched for a place to make camp.

Though she had not seen any trace of wildlife in several hours, she decided to err on the side of caution and located a place to pitch camp that offered good security. She picked out a shelf in the side of the cliff she had just descended, and decided it was as good a spot as any. About four shoulders off the ground and with only a narrow shelf of rock to serve as a path, the spot was barely accessible to the nimble zebra, let alone any predatory animal. It was actually a shallow cave, not big enough to harbor anything dangerous, but deep enough to provide overhead shelter in the event of rain.

Though Zecora was not terribly fond of the idea of backtracking, she could see no other shelter as suitable to her needs. With a sigh of resignation, she clambered back up the trail. By the time she had her hammock strung up and had eaten dinner, night was beginning to fall in the valley. As the night took over and the light grew dimmer, The Hole appeared to grow, swallowing everything in the valley. This mental image was slightly disconcerting, and for a while Zecora could not find sleep. After a double shot of liquid courage, she felt her eyelids grow heavy as her anxiety left her, and she slowly drifted into sleep.

That night, Zecora experienced troubling dreams. She dreamed of Ponyville, during the day. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and the temperature was pleasant. The only thing that marred the otherwise idyllic setting was the complete lack of anypony else. The town was deserted. Though the content of her dream was not ominous or malign in any way, a faint scratching noise pervaded the night. She could not discover the source of it in her dream, though she searched all of Ponyville for it. Despite her efforts, she was woken by the dawn without having successfully located the source of the noise. Bleary eyed and slightly annoyed by her dream, she surveyed the valley in the weak morning light. She was immediately struck by the impression that something was not right. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and tried to determine what exactly had changed. The weak light of the dawn and the steep angle of the sun conspired to throw long shadows, obscuring most of the valley floor.

Perhaps the most disconcerting trick played by the light was the effect it had on the Hole. The near side had several jagged rock formations, which the extreme angle of the sun illuminated to give the impression of teeth around a gaping maw. The shadow of the rock piles was cast upon the far side of the Hole, creating a very similar effect, completing the illusion of a massive beast yawning. While certainly unusual and a little spooky, this was not the change in the valley that made her mane stand on end. Whatever was responsible for that was not visible in such weak light. Zecora tried to put it out of her mind until after breakfast, when she would be able to investigate the valley more thoroughly due to the better illumination afforded by the rising sun. Even as she was eating breakfast, she could not shake the feeling she was being watched. She ate her meal with her back to the wall of the cave, scrutinizing the valley below for movement.

Soon enough, the sun broke over the mountain and spilled its light into the valley. About an hour after the sun first crested the peak, Zecora moved to the edge of the shelf to investigate the valley floor. It immediately became clear what had changed; every single shrub in the valley had shifted towards her while she slept. The plants had only moved about 20 paces, but their path was evidenced by the trail they left in the rocky soil. In the grip of panic, Zecora blindly groped for the bottle of Liquid Courage and took a hefty swig. After a few moments, when the tonic kicked in, she was able to face the valley again, but with a more objective outlook. With her cleared mind, she marveled at the plants. She was no stranger to lore of walking plants, but this was the first time she had ever encountered any. After a brief hesitation, she traversed the trail towards the valley below and then headed straight for the nearest plant. It was singularly the most unusual plant she had ever seen, and she did not recognize it. This came as a slight shock to her, for she was no novice in these matters. For her not to recognize a plant in the Everfree was shocking, made no less shocking by the fact that this was but a days’ journey from her home.

The plant was a thorn bush, about as tall as the average mare. The trunk was about the same diameter as a carrot, and branched off into smaller limbs. The stalks were a deep burgundy color, oddly reminiscent of blood. This thought sent a small shiver of fear through her flank, one which was chased away with the warmth of Liquid Courage. The leaves were unlike any she had ever seen before. About the size of a hoof and teardrop shaped, they boasted a most unusual coloration. Starting out a deep, vibrant green at the edges, it faded to a very gray color near the veins in the leaf. It seemed like it was drawing its color from the air around it. Or drawing life from it.

Zecora quickly looked behind her, surprised by the voice that had seemingly come from nowhere. She was as alone as she had ever been. Confused and a bit scared, she applied the only solution she had handy: Liquid Courage. By now, she had exceeded the maximum dose she recommended for anypony, but that was of little consequence to her. All that mattered was investigating the Hole. Everything else fell secondary to that one goal, that one obsession. Pushing everything else from her mind, she focused on the mission at hand. Using a glass jar and the shears she brought, she snipped off a part of the plant into the jar. Perhaps the Liquid Courage was getting to her, but she could swear the plant recoiled from the snip. The site of the amputated limb was leaking a viscous red sap, looking entirely too much like blood for Zecora’s comfort. She hastily bottled her sample and headed off towards the Hole. By this point, it was just over an hour after sunrise.

By the time she approached the hole, it was nearing noon. Zecora’s initial investigation revealed that the entire chasm was flooded, the water level stopping about three shoulders below the rim of the Hole. Zecora briefly debated renaming it “The Pool,” but decided against it. The Hole it would remain. As she peered into the shimmering pool, she concluded two things. First, the water was of such exceptional clarity that if not for the occasional glimmer of a ripple, it would not be apparent that it was there at all. Second, the Hole was exceedingly deep. She could make out the side of the chasm down to almost a hundred shoulders deep, but the angle of the sun conspired to cloak the bottom in a veil of darkness. Only when the sun was almost directly overhead could she hope to see the bottom of the Hole.

To pass the time, she attempted to eat lunch despite a lack of appetite. As Zecora was polishing off an apple, a shadow passed over her. Immediately rolling to the left to dodge an aerial attack, she rolled and looked up to spot her attacker. The only thing in the wide open sky was a single cloud drifting in front of the sun. Thankful that there was no imminent aerial attack, Zecora smiled at her reaction, not feeling foalish at all. The same dodging maneuver had saved her hide half a dozen times from overhead assault, and she was proud that it had become instinct. Remembering the purpose of her expedition, she quickly re-focused and walked back to the Hole. The sun was in almost the right position for her to see the bottom, and in 15 minutes or so, she should begin to be able to make out the bottom of the Hole…if there was one. To pass the time, Zecora would occasionally pick up a pebble and toss it into the Hole, watching it drift down until it was obscured by darkness.

As she was watching a stone sink to the depths, she caught her first glimpse of the bottom. About one hundred and twenty shoulders down (give or take about thirty…depth estimation was not Zecora’s strong suit) she saw what looked like a jumble of stone. As the circle of light tracked with the sun, the jumble of stones became illuminated. As she stared at them, Zecora began to see what at first glance was an unusual pattern in the stones.

As she stared, she grasped exactly what it was that didn't seem right about the debris at the bottom of the hole; it was arrayed in a generally geometric formation. There were far too many 90-degree corners and straight sections to be coincidence, and the meaning of this discovery was confirmed as the sun illuminated the remainder of the stones.

The jumbles of stone are not merely debris, thought Zecora, they are the remainders of buildings. And the sheer number of them pointed towards the conclusion that this had once been a rather large city, though it now stood submerged and in ruin. As she was beginning to get an idea of the size and scale of the ruins, another cloud passed in front of the sun. Looking up in annoyance, Zecora saw that there was a large mass of clouds passing in front of the sun. Just as Zecora was vowing to give the pegasi an earful, a break in the clouds illuminated the area. Thoughts of a tongue lashing instantly evaporated as her attention was once again focused at the bottom of the Hole.

She could make out that it was indeed a ruined city, and one of grand scale. The maze of streets and buildings suggested that the builders were masters of stonework. As Zecora stared, she became aware of movement in the shadows. She would have just assumed it was a school of fish if not for the utter desolation and lifelessness of the surrounding area. As she strained to get a better view, the sun was obscured by clouds once more. Cursing the pegasi once more, but without lifting her gaze, Zecora promised a slew of comical hexes upon the weather squad. With a brief splash of light between clouds, she saw something that didn’t seem possible. Just as she was dismissing it as a trick of the light reflecting from the surface of the water, the clouds broke again. Though the day had been rather warm for the time of year, the golden rays of sun could no longer warm the zebra trapped beneath a glacier of icy terror. At the bottom of The Hole, staring up with a partially exposed skeleton and a mouth opened in a silent moan, there was a pony. The last thing Zecora can remember is the way its vacant sockets locked eyes with her.

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Zecora’s next conscious thought was one of profound confusion. Where am I? She wondered. As her eyes swam into focus, a familiar sight greeted her. The recognition of her surroundings drove a red-hot shard of loss into her heart, bringing forth tears she did not know she possessed. In all the time since Fossi’s death, she had not cried. She did not allow herself this comfort. Instead, she had turned her anguish inward, using it to fuel the fire of her motivation to find the Cure. Why then, upon regaining consciousness in the study of her long deceased mentor, did she surrender to weakness? It was a question she could not fathom an answer for. Biting back the few tears that had escaped, she was pierced by an extreme hunger pang. How long had she gone without eating? More importantly, how had she escaped from the Valley of the Hole? Contemplation of the answers to these questions took a backseat to the need for food.

Standing up on shaky legs, Zecora discovered that she somehow still had the bag she brought with her to the valley. She opened it up and was shocked and delighted that there was still food in it. Though the fruit was smooshed and bruised, nothing had ever tasted so good. After wolfing down the contents of her bag, her hunger was placated enough for her to think clearly. Her first thought went out to her test subjects, wondering how they had fared. She quickly gathered herself and trotted home, anxious to make sure her progress had not been lost, and to clean out those that had not responded to treatment in her absence.

Upon reaching her home however, she was greeted by a shocking sight. Her front door was ajar, and her home had clearly been ransacked. Bottles of ingredients were strewn about the floor; shattered remnants littered the entire workshop floor. Her ancient books, passed down from generation to generation, were strewn about like trash. All of her carefully amassed specimens had been smashed or thrown. An entire lifetime’s worth of work and generations’ worth of tribal knowledge had been obliterated. Zecora was shocked into silence. No matter how badly the townsfolk might have mistrusted her, she could think of none who was so cold hearted or malicious as to do such a thing. Again, her mind locked on to her lab. If her lab had been compromised, then everything she had done, all of the sacrifices she had made, were in vain. All the lives that were lost for her experiments would have been for nothing. She raced into the kitchen, where the concealed entrance to her lab lay. To her horror and misery, it stood open. Fearing the worst, but hoping against the odds that everything would be alright, she slowly entered the subterranean chamber.

As she rounded the final corner in the passage to her lab, she stopped dead in her tracks. Though the lab was indeed the scene of a devastating rampage, there seemed to be some semblance of order that yet remained. There was a series of bowls, mortars, pestles, tubes, and the small black cauldron from the broom closet scattered on the floor. The ground beneath the cauldron was blackened, as if by fire. The ash that created a film all over the room supported this theory. Interspersed randomly over the floor was a score of books and broken containers, the contents of which had been tracked throughout the lab. The green and red solution in the cauldron seemed to be the same one as was contained in the nearly half a dozen containers of various shapes and sizes nearby. Zecora could not believe her eyes. The containers all had the same hasty label on them, written in none other than Zecora’s hoofwriting. All were labeled simply, “CuRe.” Still numb with shock, she goes to check on all the subjects. All are healthy and happy. Even the ones which Zecora was sure would expire before her return seemed healthier as ever.

Zecora decided that there was only one way to test the veracity of the Cure, to confirm the seemingly miraculous solution that apparently came from nowhere. With the precision and measured surety of a practiced hand, Zecora selected a test subject and administered a lethal dose of venom. She further compounded the test by also administering a severe injury, not unlike the one that had claimed the life of Braeburn. Working quickly, mindful of the venom working its way through her subject, she administered a large dose of the Cure. Since she had no way of knowing what the proper dosage was, Zecora decided that more was better. As she administered the Cure, she held her breath. Within mere moments, a change was evident. The subjects' irregular breathing had begun to slow down and adopt a more measured pace as the effects of the venom were negated. The misshapen form of the subject ballooned out and assumed a normal shape once again, erasing all traces of the injury that only moments ago surely would have been fatal.

Zecora could not believe it. Less than half a minute after receiving not only a dose of venom five times a lethal amount, but also an injury that should have been fatal, or at the very least permanently crippling, the subject was not only still alive, but walking. The subject regarded Zecora with a wary eye, but was otherwise perfectly healed. Incredulous, she looked around, trying to find the notes she must have made about the concoction. There were none. Frustration hit her like a landslide, carrying her with it into a valley of madness. As she sat fuming, a spark of inspiration hit her. Surely the recipe for this mixture was scattered somewhere in this mess. All she had to do was try to identify the ingredients on the floor and match them to the recipes scattered about, and by process of elimination she could determine what the miracle was.

After nearly half a day's work at a frantic pace, she had done it. Out of all the ingredients on the floor, there were only two she could not identify: a grey powder that could be any one of a hundred things, and an exceedingly strange red paste substance. Only one recipe of the dozens scattered on the floor contained all the ingredients she could identify. Somehow in her fugue state, she had apparently accessed some ancestral knowledge, or otherwise been struck by the inspiration to search these ancient tomes for the knowledge that eluded her. In the end, she may have never understood how she found the solution. But none of that was relevant now, because she had it. It was here. Zecora was more excited than she ever before. Very carefully, she replicated the recipe on the tattered fragment of parchment.

She hurriedly gathered all the ingredients that the recipe called for and began the task of mixing them in carefully measured increments. The cauldron was at a seething boil, and the fumes were nearly overwhelming. The steps to mix the concoction were among the most specific and demanding of any Zecora had ever seen. The minutes stretched on into hours, slowly eating away the day. By the time she had finished the potion, Zecora was exhausted. Nearly an entire day had passed, and the dawn was only a few hours away.

As she constructed the mixture from a few dozen sub-mixtures, she had gained an insight to the way it worked. The key ingredient to it was powdered essence of Parasprite. From what she could tell from her experience and tribal knowledge, the Parasprite essence was actually a living organism. By carefully manipulating this organism in the many sub-mixtures, it had been cultured to attack disease and poison within its host, as well as repair damage to the flesh. The method by which the organism could discriminate between disease and the host's body was completely unknown to Zecora, but once she made another batch, she would give a sample to Twilight Sparkle, confident that the unicorn would extract the secrets of the cure, and possibly find a way to mass produce it. That would really be something, Zecora thought.

"No longer before their time will a pony breathe their last breath. I have found a way to steal back life from death. All the lives thus far forfeit will not be in vain. With this Cure, I have vanquished sickness, injury, and pain."

Zecora was exhausted from 14 hour concocting session, and was readying her hammock for the night. As she lay down, she followed memory lane from the past to the present, stopping to fondly remember her dearest friend; her Fossi. It was in the very hammock she now lies in that she had first laid eyes on Fossi. Her mind played over all the happy moments they had together. As she was drifting off to sleep, the memory of one of the best nights of her life comes back to her.

She was a young filly again, so full of energy and curiosity. Her eyes glow with delight as if lit from within. Since meeting Fossi only a month ago, she has fully accepted him as her teacher, mentor, and more importantly, friend. Despite her young age, she is held rapt for hours at a time, walking speechless next to him as they walk through the forest. If and when she speaks up, it is to ask questions about Fossi's latest story, or to ask about a plant or animal that she doesn’t quite understand. The only time she ever comes close to back-talking her teacher is when he calls her Toto. She dislikes the name her teacher has given her ever since she found out what it meant.

"Child? Why do you call me a child? Do I not act like an adult, though my curiosity is wild? I always keep myself calm and collected. Of a child, is such behavior expected?"

To this, Fossi can do nothing but chuckle as Toto's naïveté once again takes him by surprise. His mirth rubs his pupil's coat the wrong way, eliciting an even rasher response from her.

"Just because you are old does not mean that I am so young. I think in old age your brain has filled with dung."

Zecora immediately clamps a hoof over her mouth, immediately regretting what she has said to the pony that has taught her nearly everything she knows about the forest and about survival. This pony, who has given up so much of his way of life to accommodate her, from the food on his plate to the space in his home. Though she knows all of this, she could not keep those insulting things from spilling out of her mouth. She just sits there with a hoof over her mouth, blushing brightly, and trying to keep tears from falling. She sits there for what seems to be an eternity, waiting for him to yell at her and throw her out of his house, or…or…something. Zecora can't even bring herself to look her mentor in the eye. Her shame squeezes a tear from her eye, and once it starts, she is powerless to stop it. Though it seems like hours, mere seconds pass before Fossi speaks up.

"Toto, come here my child."

Zecora finally manages to muster the courage to look her teacher in the eye, expecting to see his kind face distorted by anger. Instead, she is shocked to see a small smile on his face. She stares at him in confusion for a moment, wondering when he sat down, and why his arms are open. A look of skepticism and hurt lodges on her face. He speaks again.

"Do not fret, Toto. I am not angry. Would you favor your old teacher with a hug?"

Fossi barely finished his sentence before a black and white streak impacts him in the chest, nearly crushing him in a powerful hug. He can feel her warm tears dripping on his chest and soaking into his coat. Her small frame is wracked by sobs she refuses to give voice to. Fossi returns her embrace and gently strokes her mane, calming the distraught filly. Without a word, he carries his little Toto up to the highest balcony, and sits her next to him to watch the sunset. He slowly explains where the name comes from.

"My dear, you seem to misunderstand why I call you Toto. Yes, the word means child, this much is true. But it is not to say that you act like a silly young foal, or to imply you are weak as a child might be. When I was younger, my mother called me Toto as well, and I had the same reaction you did at the time."

At this, Zecora balks. Surely, Fossi isn't being serious? He must be joking. Though, the more she studies his face, the more she thinks otherwise. He begins again.

"Back then, I was a stubborn young colt. I was sure I knew everything, that I was the toughest, strongest, bravest pony in my whole tribe. As such, why should I be called a child? It made no sense to me. I revolted against everything that had to do with me being a child. I broke all my toys and proudly piled them up in out hut, as a statement that I no longer needed them. From that day forth, I wouldn’t permit my mother to hug me. It seemed too childish to me, and I was far too grown up for that. Oh, such a fool was I that I never stopped to see that I was breaking my mother's heart."

Zecora was speechless. She had never told anybody about this, but just before she left home to venture into the forest, her mother had tried to give her a hug. Though she tolerated the hug for a moment, she broke the embrace and gruffly brushed off her mother, saying she was too old for such foalish things. As Zecora turned to begin her journey, she thought she saw a glint of a tear in her mother's eye. She didn’t pause to find out. Just like that, she was on her own, alone in the Everfree. Fossi continues.

"My village was a poor one, isolated from the rest of Equestria it seemed. Illness was common there. I noticed one day that my mother was coughing a lot. I thought nothing of it. Still, I refused her embrace. A few days later, she came to me and said 'Toto, please. Give your mother a hug?' I scoffed and stomped away. I felt bad about it, but it needed to be done I told myself. She was going to have to learn that I was too old for such things, and get over it. The next day I didn’t see her at all, which was odd. It wasn’t until dinner that night that I found out. My father came in, tears matting his fur. This completely shook me. My father never cried. As I looked at him, all he said was,

'She's gone.'

And then it hit me. I had refused my dying mother's embrace. I was in shock for days. I barely ate, barely slept. I always cried. My father came to join me one day. He was looking at me with such pity. He called me Toto, and I lost it. I went off, poured out all the anger I had directed at myself onto him. I raged at him for calling me a child, especially when I had been so tough, so responsible. When I finally collapsed to the floor in exhaustion, he regarded me with a curious look on his face. I'll never forget what he said next."

Fossi turns to look Zecora in the eye as he tells the next part of his story. Zecora holds his gaze, unflinching.

"My father said to me;

'Son. Do you really not know why your mother called you Toto?'

To this, all I could do was shake my head stupidly. My father sighed.

'Toto. Your mother called you that because that is what her mother called her. And her mother before her. But it is not calling you a child. Not in a bad way, at least. Have you really never noticed the way your mother swelled with pride when she said that? No, of course you didn’t. But I will say this to you now, and swear on my life it is true. Every time your mother called you Toto, she said it with PRIDE. She was proud of you, Toto. I am proud of you. Every time she called you Toto, she was telling everybody about her pride in her son. As her mother did with her children, and so on.'

By this point in my father's speech, I was crying. What seemed so simple when he laid it out for me had entirely escaped me all those years."

As Fossi tells his story, his eyes mist a little. Though she doesn’t realize it, Zecora has tears flowing unchecked down her face.

"My father gave me some advice the night we buried my mother. We lowered her into the ground as the sun set. Our tradition shows us that the sun is the vessel on which our spirits ride to the next life. Sending a body into the ground releases the soul. Doing it at sunset permits the soul to be carried into the next world almost immediately. The last thing we wanted was for a loved one's soul to linger before the sun carried away. Better that their last memory before passing is of their life, and not of the sorrow their death caused. Better that they go happy. As the sun set on that day, my father took me under his arm. He said to me,

'Son, listen, and listen well. This might well seem like the blackest night of your life. It very well might be. Whenever you feel that the night is too long, that you just can't take it, think of this. The sun may set, and bring with it the darkest night, but it will always reappear in the morning, bringing with it the promise of a new day. Thus has it been for generations, thus it shall be. Remember that no matter how black the night, the day will come. You just have to hold out for day.'

At this, I couldn’t think of a reply. Turns out I didn’t need to, the lesson wasn’t over. He says to me,

'There is another reason we bury our dead at sunset. Think about your life as a day. At the beginning, it is dark, hard to see. But the sun rises and brightens our world. We see everything clearly as the sun rises. And though the clouds may hide the sun, we always know it is there. If we can wait out the storm, the sun will come back. Towards the end of our life, the sun sets. We may be sad to see it go, but we know that the light will come back. So it has always been so it shall always be.'

At this, a light comes on in my head. As long as I can hold out, this night shall pass. The sun will rise, and with each new day comes hope. The sun, to me at least, represented hope; with every sunrise, there was the possibility of a better life. For all I knew, this new dawn's light could change my life forever. While the sun represented hope, the night represented faith. I had to have faith that it would get better. The night is not eternal; the day shall come again."

Zecora stared at her mentor, really seeing him for the first time. She had never before really thought of him as a pony with feelings…he was just Fossi. She had never really thought that he had emotions or a past…how selfish of me she thinks. What had started out as a simple explanation of his pet name for her had ended up revealing so much more than she had ever thought possible. As she sits in awe of her teacher and his newfound aura of wisdom, he motions with his head towards the horizon. As Zecora looks, she is transfixed by the brilliance of the sun as it slips below the horizon. In this moment, everything is right.

---

Zecora drifts through her dream, swimming in memories. The pleasant feeling of nostalgia washes over, sweeping her from memory to memory. As she floats along on these warm pastel colored currents, something changes. The current is no longer so bright, not as warm. As does the night sky when the sun descends, the currents faded from yellow and orange to red, purple, blue and then black, taking all the warmth with it. The blissful currents began to buck Zecora like a bronco, waves lifting her up and smashing her down. The current was cold and violent, all traces of serenity forgotten. The wind picked up, carrying with it a voice that was all too familiar. Though she knew exactly what was going to happen, she was powerless to stop it or change the direction this dream was heading. The wind whispers to her.

"You let them die."

Uselessly, Zecora cannot help but defend herself against this faceless enemy:

"These lies you tell are not true. The things you say, I did not do."

"Liar. You could have helped them. You could have SAVED them. But you did NOTHING. Murderer."

At this last outburst, images flash across the sky. The ponies that have died in Ponyville before they could be treated. Faces; laughing. Zecora recognizes all of them, even if she doesn’t know their names. The faces hang in the sky for a moment, and each in turn is followed by an image of death.

A blue mare, laughing with a group of friends.
A fresh grave, bowing of all heads. Tears flow freely.

A brown colt, barely out of school. He is showing off his new cutie mark, an open book with a red cover.
A body, impaled on a branch. A flash of lightning silhouetting it, a distant scream in the air.

A tan stallion, wearing a vest and a Stetson. A faraway rumble, a distant gong.
A mass of red, sitting on his haunches. A brief shudder, a helpless whimper.

"Stop this madness! It is not fair! I could have done nothing more…what is all this torture for?!"

Zecora pleads desperately, knowing what face will come next. She wants this nightmare to be over. She tries to brace herself against the inevitable.

Fossi, walking with her. The last day he was alive.

Out of the ether, a ghostly echo of the past.

"Sometimes, death is but another beginning."

Zecora loses her mind as never before. Something snaps, deep within her. This was new…this was not her nightmare. This was a new, fresh Haydes she had fallen into. At the top of her lungs, she screams.

"To this day, I know not what you mean! Death is still the end! What else is there to be seen?!"

The sky is filled with an image of the strange plant she had seen in the valley of the Hole. The ghostly voice of the dead echoes again.

"You do not know what you seek. You say you wish to conquer illness and injury. To what lengths will you go to achieve this? WHAT PRICE ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY TO BEAT THE REAPER?!"

With a steel edge of conviction in her voice that she had not known she still possessed, Zecora responds with her ultimatum, feeling confident that she was in control of the nightmare for once.

"I will pay ANY COST! Nothing on Equestria is too high a price to beat the reaper! With hints of a solution, you do entice; of what knowledge are you the keeper?"

The wind suddenly calms, the current stops bucking. All is as still as the grave. Nothing moves, and there is no sound. At the edge of her senses, Zecora can feel a pressure ebbing and flowing; though she has no idea what is it. Out of the ether, the interminable void produces a dim light. The light begins to expand and clarify. It is a page of text from one of the ancient tomes in Fossi's library. On the page is the plant from the valley. Out of nothingness comes a soft voice, reading off the words on the page. The voice is feminine, and oddly familiar.

"Nightshade; plant of the walking death. This plant contains a sap unlike any other found on Equestria. The sap is a poison without equal, the mere touch of it on an open wound is fatal. This is not unique though; there are several similarly deadly venoms. What makes this venom unique is that it is not venom. It is an organism. A plague. Once infected, the victim will begin to display unusual symptoms, though each case is different. In most cases, a fever is present, usually accompanied by vomiting. In the final stages, convulsions are usually present. Two things are constant throughout all cases, however. First is death. All infected will die, sooner or later. This is inevitable. Secondly, the dead do not stay that way. They resurrect, and begin to walk again."

Zecora recognizes the voice; it is hers, though it displays none of her distinctive speech patterns. This revelation is entirely swept away under the weight of the information preceding it. There is a way to beat death! To infect a pony with this substance is to guarantee that neither illness nor injury will ever claim another life. Finally. A way to beat the reaper once and for all. Even if the pony is subjected to a fatal blow, they will reanimate to be healed!

In the back of Zecora's head, the alarm bells are ringing with unprecedented fervor, alerting her that nothing has ever been as wrong in her entire life. She almost gives in to caution before an all too familiar voice in the back of her head chimes in.

"There is nothing to be concerned about. This is the answer you sought, is it not? What risks have you already taken to come this far? Are all the lives of the test subjects still weighing on your conscience, or have you forgotten the scores of lives your hands have made forfeit? Sure, the cure works. Unless they are nearly dead. In that case, not even your 'miracle' can save them. But you have the answer in front of you. Would you be doing justice to the blood on your hands to stop just short of the ultimate goal? You have within your grasp shackles with which to bind the hooves of death. How can you resist the power?"

Zecora rouses suddenly from sleep as if hit by a cart. She knows what she has to do to finally beat the reaper. But first, a few experiments. With a grim expression and a maniacal twinkle in her eye, Zecora goes to fetch a subject for her experiment.

---

In Canterlot, at Canterlot General Hospital, a quite frazzled grey stallion is pacing the waiting lounge, as he has been for hours. Around him, the sound of a distant wail permeates the white noise of hooves on tile and shuffling papers. Overhead, the intercom belches out a garbled message before clicking off. His pacing is interrupted by the sound of a door opening behind him. He spins around so quickly he frightens the nurse that was emerging, almost causing her to drop her clipboard. She stammers a bit as she nervously squeaks out:

"Th-the doctor s-says you can come in now."

The agitated stallion barrels through the door, nearly toppling the poor nurse in the doorway before he freezes just past the threshold. All of his anxiety and stress melt away at once as he lays eyes upon the most beautiful mare in all of Equestria, holding a tiny bundle that can only be one thing. Though thoroughly disheveled, Dawn looks up at him and smiles, causing his heart to melt just like it did when they first met. Artie walks up to her and gives her a peck on the cheek as he inspects the bundle in his wife's lap. The only thing showing is a cerulean head and a tuft of deep blue mane. She whispers to him in a shaky voice,

"It's a girl. Our baby girl…our Hope."

Artie can't speak…joy has left him speechless. All he can do is nod in agreement as a tear makes its way down his snout. He finally manages to choke out,

"She is beautiful. Just like her mother."

Dawn looks at her husband and smiles broadly. They share a passionate kiss, as they both try to imagine what their life will be like raising their precious bundle of joy.

Not in their wildest nightmares could they fathom the horror that would shortly unfold, or the impact it would have on not only their family, but all of Equestria, on pony-kind itself.

---

In her subterranean chamber, Zecora is preparing for her final experiment, the experiment that will decide whether or not her personal crusade to conquer death will be a success or a failure. She has already extracted the sap of the nightshade and prepared a syringe for her test. As soon as she enters the chamber with the syringe, every single test subject reacts violently. Gnashing their teeth and running around the cages, looking for some place, any place, to hide. She makes a note of their behavior for future study. But she pushes that from her mind and concentrates on the task at hand. After much wrangling, she manages to grab the subject of her first test of the Cure. She makes a quick jab with the needle, injecting a miniscule amount. She releases the animal back into its cage to observe. The subject immediately runs to the far corner of the cage and cowers. The subject then evacuates itself of its last meal, hacking and wheezing. Each breath comes more ragged than the last. With a final sputtering wheeze that is far too reminiscent of a certain tan pony's last breath, the subject expires. Zecora anxiously awaits the resurrection. Seconds drag on into minutes, drags out to an entire hour. Using utmost care, she grabs a pair of tongs to remove the subject. Despite her hopes, the subject is gone and not coming back. She discards the remains into the furnace that serves as her crematorium. She goes upstairs and takes a hefty swig of Liquid Courage to help settle her thoughts. As she sits there, she lets her mind grow fuzzy. From the depths of her subconscious, she grasps an echo from a book.

"The nightshade organism is truly a masterpiece of death. The plague can be transmitted to any living creature, and it is fatal to all. For unknown reasons, the only creatures to reanimate are ponies. Theories abound, but the most common one has to do with the central nervous system and the way it functions."

Her stomach plummets as the meaning of this sinks in. In order to truly test the ultimate cure, she will need to do the unthinkable: use a pony. This is the closest Zecora has ever come to giving up. Success was so close, she could taste it. Unfortunately, the cost seemed too high, the price unthinkable. Again, the echoes of her dream course through her thoughts. She had vowed that she would pay any cost to realize her dream of beating death. With this grim determination, she set out on her darkest mission yet; to acquire a pony for her experiments. With a gleam of malice in her eye, she knew exactly where to strike, which pony would be the perfect subject.

---

At nightfall, she set out for Ponyville. The weather was still chilly for this time of year, so as soon as the warming rays of the sun dwindled, ponies tended to head inside. By the time she was nearing Ponyville, she could tell that the streets were deserted. So far the plan was going swimmingly. She closed in on her target; the schoolhouse. She hazarded a glance through the window and was instantly relieved. There were only two ponies in the building: Cheerilee, and Diamond Tiara. The schoolteacher was busily sorting through a large stack of papers, looking a bit frazzled, and the little filly was writing "I will not attempt to make my classmates bow to their betters." The chalkboard was nearly full, so Zecora had to act fast. Reaching under her cloak, she removed a jar and a cloth. She held the cloth in her mouth as she opened the jar. The pungent fumes wafting out made her eyes water. She dropped the lid and spit out the rag, dipping it in the fluid. She poured out the remnants into the grass and stuffed the jar and lid back into her cloak. Just in time, she finished her preparations as a commotion arose from the schoolhouse. Blending perfectly into the shadows, Zecora waited as her prey exited the schoolhouse.

As Diamond Tiara walked out, she let out an excessively loud, theatrical sigh and rolled her eyes at what her teacher said. As the door slammed shut she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. A mass of shadows with two gleaming eyes and a predatory grin was right on top of her. Even as she opened her mouth to scream, there was a rag stuffed in it. The last thought to cross Diamond Tiara's mind as she lost consciousness was how bad the rag tasted.

---

With her mission accomplished with the ease of a skilled professional, Zecora used the darkness and spirited her precious cargo away to her home in the forest. Once in the security of her underground laboratory, Zecora began to prepare for her largest undertaking yet. This experiment would be the crown jewel of her two year crusade to beat death. When everything was in place, and her subject firmly strapped down, all she had to do was wait. She wanted the subject to be awake for this, all the better to gather information from. Right on cue, Diamond begins to stir. Soon enough, she begins to mumble about the indignity and vow vengeance upon whoever did this to her. Zecora watched with a grin from the shadows, just out of her line of sight. Finally she was fully awake. The voice in the back of Zecora's head suddenly surged to the front, and began to speak for her.

"Good to see you are awake, my dear."

Zecora did not recognize her own voice. Foremost, her speech lacked her usual mannerisms and penchant for rhyming. More disturbing than that however was the tone of voice. Her voice was low and sensuous, smooth as molten caramel, yet laced with a very definite steel edge. The predatory gleam in her eye was also present in her voice. Understandably, Diamond was even more confused and disturbed by this unseen voice. She took to whimpering, and finally got up the nerve to speak.

"Do you know who I am? Who my FATHER is? You will never get away with this."

The filly's attitude had always been annoying. After all, it was that very attitude that got her chosen for the experiment in the first place. Under the circumstances though, it was alternating infuriating and pitiful. This young filly had nothing if not her power, and she knows it. She might not ever admit it, but it is written all over her. This makes the poor creature easy to pity. However, the tone which she uses despite her obvious disadvantage is maddeningly smug.

"There is nothing to get away with my dear. After this, everything will be forgiven. I will be looked upon as a hero; the pony who not only vanquished injury and illness, but DEATH itself. I'll be a demigod."

Diamond's response died on her lips as the implications of what she had just heard seeped in. There was madness in this pony's voice…and another quality she couldn’t identify, but that struck her as deeply wrong. She dropped all pretenses, and began begging like the scared filly she was.

"P-please don’t hurt me. I don’t know what I did, but I'll never do it again. I promise. Tell me what it is and I swear I'll never do it again. P-please let me go."

The sudden change of gears almost threw her off, but Zecora recovered quickly.

"Oh, how quickly the castle crumbles. Just a moment ago, I thought you said I would never get away with this. But you need not fret, Toto. This won't hurt for long. And once it is over, you will be the very first pony of the new breed; the first to scoff at death and disease as if it were nothing but a butterfly. You should be excited for the honor."

Diamond spoke without thinking first, something that had always been a problem for her.

"Did you just call me a TOAD?! And wait, what was that about being the first of a new bread? Death and butterflies?"

Zecora's first reaction was to be royally pissed at the toad remark. An instant before she retaliated verbally, she recalled that her reaction had not been so different those many years ago. She decided she would try to get the point across again.

"No, my dear. I did not call you a toad. I addressed you as Toto, a word for child. And to clarify the rest, you will be the first pony to receive the miracle cure. With this, you will never get sick or be injured ever again. You will live forever. You are the first my child."

The thought of being the first pony in all of Equestria to become a super-pony was almost more than she could handle. All her misgivings and the voice in the back of her head screaming for her to run were all pushed out of the way to make room for her superiority complex to balloon.

"Well, you obviously chose the right pony for this. We wouldn’t want one of those lesser beasts walking around as the first super-pony. It is fitting that a natural superior should be the first. Let's get started."

Zecora was surprised at how quickly the filly had changed her mind, though the reappearance of that smug tone was quite annoying. However, all the other things were pushed away as she realized that she now had a willing subject to gather feedback from.

"I warn you, this will not be pleasant. But listen closely; here is what I want you to do…"

Zecora laid out the plan, from the time of injection of nightshade, to the administration of the miracle cure, explaining how critical it was that Diamond tell her everything that she is feeling to assist with the tests. Everything being greedily agreed to by the younger pony, the experiment began.

Diamond was strapped to the gurney despite her protests, though she eventually relented. Zecora's alternate ego was still calling the shots, and she sat back and watched in her own mind as the events unfolded. First, Diamond was administered a dose of the Cure. Within moments, she reported that she was feeling fantastic, like she could do anything. Zecora grabbed an extremely sharp scalpel and set it on her worktable, by the gurney. Taking a swab of topical anesthetic, she applies it to Diamond's left shoulder. Once in full effect, Zecora reminds Diamond about what she is going to do. Though the filly is clearly nervous despite repeated assurances that she will feel nothing, she does not look away. Zecora grabs the scalpel, and makes a tiny nick in the fillies shoulder. The filly displays startling aloofness by letting out a giggle, saying that it didn’t hurt at all. Only the tiniest drop of crimson is released before the wound closes itself as if nothing ever happened. Zecora repeats the procedure, though she went significantly deeper this time. Despite eliciting a slight whimper from the filly, the wound begins to heal almost immediately. In less than a minute, the wound is fully healed. The only evidence of the experiment is a hair-thin scar that is rapidly diminishing.

Emboldened by this success, Zecora moves on to the next test. A small vial of venom is placed near Diamond. Though she eyes the vial of amber liquid with skepticism, she does not object. She voices her opinion that it looks like apple juice. Zecora draws out a miniscule amount, and injects it into the left foreleg. Immediately, Diamond's eyes get wide and she begins to whimper that it hurts, that it burns. She begins to tear up and sniffle for a moment, and then begins to visibly relax. According to the filly it made its way about halfway up her arm from the injection site before being stopped. There are blackened veins in the wake of the venom, though they fade visibly in seconds. Zecora doesn’t tell the filly that she was just injected with enough Grievous venom to fell 20 full grown stallions. Satisfied that the cure is fully in effect, she moves to Phase Two.

Zecora prepares the injection site with an alcohol swab. Wouldn’t want the soon to be immortal-esque filly to get an infection, she chuckles to herself. She picks up the syringe containing the nightshade, and marvels at it. The crimson liquid moves seemingly of its own accord, the fine particles in it reflecting light and causing it to shimmer. With all the ceremony she can muster, she administers a truly miniscule dosage. She uses her finest syringe, capable of dispensing fractions of a drop at a time. After administering the dosage, she sits back to observe. Diamond reports that the area around the site tickles and burns a bit. This feeling goes away after a moment.

After nearly 10 minutes, Zecora is contemplating administering a larger dose, when Diamond coughs. She looks a little dazed. Upon questioning, she reports that she hears a faint buzzing in her head. Shortly thereafter, she says she feels nauseous. Zecora is beginning to grow concerned, though she does her best not to show it. She readies a massive dose of the cure, just in case. Why weren't the two parts combining? According to her experiments, the cure should overwhelm the nightshade, absorbing it. Then it should be able to duplicate its resurrecting power, staving off death indefinitely. After all, the cure absorbed all the other contaminants in it. Why should nightshade be any different?

Zecora decided to do a quick test. How could she have been so stupid? She had put a sample of the cure into a dish and tried to kill it. Dumping enough venom onto it to wipe out every member of Ponyville fivefold did not phase it. Harsh chemicals, deadly mushroom extract, even window cleaner from under the sink. Nothing could defeat it. Even after all of that, she took a sample and injected into a subject, and then inflicted several crippling and potentially lethal injuries to it. Then she poisoned it, just for good measure. Despite being polluted with nearly triple its volume in poison, venom, and cleaning products, the cure worked well. In a very short time, the effects of the venom were negated, and the creature ballooned out, before returning to its original form. Entirely alive and thoroughly pissed, her subject watched her, staring claymores the entire time. The one thing she had overlooked was the CRUX of her experiment. If this failed, she knew that she had kidnapped a filly and then condemned her to death with a smile.

Nervously, Zecora poured a large amount of Cure into a bowl. To this, she brought the nightshade. Before introducing the two, she said a quick prayer. She prayed not for herself, but to the filly whose very life depended on this result. Without anything left to delay her, she squeezed a drop into the bowl of Cure. She watched in fascination as the nightshade floated on top, like oil on water. The only difference was that oil doesn’t spread out. And oil doesn’t grow tendrils that snake through the water. With mounting horror and a block of ice the size of Equestria hanging in her stomach, she watched the nightshade spread. The nightshade was using the cure. Instead of the Cure consuming the nightshade and gaining its power over death, the opposite was true. As she was falling into despair the likes of which she had never seen, there was a beacon of hope. The nightshade was being beaten back by the cure. Sure enough, the pool of crimson that had once nearly blanketed the surface had been pushed back significantly. As she watched, she could see the crimson finally fade to nothing.

She then became aware of something disconcerting. The bowl was steaming, hot to the touch. In its attempt to beat back the nightshade, the cure had produced incredible heat, likely burning the other organism away. Zecora quickly looks back at Diamond and is shocked by what she sees. The pale pink filly has seemingly gotten even paler, her coat matted by a thick sheen of perspiration. She realized that if she didn’t act soon, there wouldn’t be anything left of the filly to save. Zecora pushed the gurney over to the sink against the far wall, and hooked up a hose to the spout and turned the water on cold. Once the water was flowing, Zecora made sure she wasn't going to drown her patient, and then did the only thing she could; she waited. Occasionally there would be a small wisp of steam, but that was the only indication. There was no movement. No sound.

After about 10 minutes under the water, a moan rose from the gurney. The groan was familiar, yet heart pounding. Hoping against hope, Zecora rounded the sink. The filly was still there, struggling mechanically against her restraints. She felt her blood run cold as her heart ground to a stop. The filly's once well groomed and styled mane hung limply around her shoulders, drenched with sweat and water. Diamond's eyes were sunken and ringed by a dark circle, much like a bruise. The single most dreadful thing about the filly's eyes was their focus; or rather, lack thereof. As the eyes of the filly lock onto Zecora, it appears that she is not looking at her, but through her. Zecora's heart froze in place only to be immediately kicked into overdrive. An adrenaline surge that would have killed a lesser pony rocked her system. The second Zecora was framed by the fillies vacant gaze, Diamond emitted a sound that was simply unpony. The filly's moan seemed to be a distillate of nightmares, so full of rage, hunger, and sorrow that is seemed as if the heavens themselves were mourning.

Zecora found herself backing into a corner, unable to face the horrible reality staring her in the face. The lore of her tribe, which she long ago dismissed as old mares' tales, suddenly rocked her as the full weight of their implications bore down upon her. The stories from when she was a filly, sitting around a campfire with her friends as each tried to outdo the last with a tale of frightful content began to permeate her consciousness. She was snapped from her flashback by another moan of the filly strapped to the gurney.

Any lingering illusions Zecora still held about her current situation were dispelled. Her guilt crashed down around her ears as the pillars of delusion she had erected to hold it up crumbled under the weight of a new revelation. She had created an abomination; something that was in insult not only to the Goddesses, but to every living thing in the world. The abomination had once been a filly, and its existence was spawned by Zecora and her misguided attempts to help Ponykind. Worse yet, she had manipulated the filly into believing her, exploiting Diamond's notorious superiority complex to suit her own desires.

Zecora clamped her hooves over her ears to drown out the filly's moans in an attempt to remember more of the folklore she had dismissed so many years ago, trying to recall a cure. Her mind races through tatters and fragments of memories, fueled by desperation and an adrenaline surge that would surely take a few years off of her life.

A shard of conversation from the distant past sticks out to her. Though she does not remember anything about the place in which it was spoken, or by whom, she knows to what it refers.

"…you know this as well as I. There is no cure for this. This monster cannot be reasoned with; nothing exists of what it was before, save for the form it takes. The only way to deal with this vile thing is to separate its head from its body and burn it all, and then burn the ashes."

She knows now what she has to do, but every fiber of Zecora's being is raging against the notion. In her mind, she can see that this is the only way to end the disease and be sure it never appears again. Her heart is screaming at her that this is only a child, and a pony at that. What she is contemplating is so far outside of what is acceptable, reasonable, and right that she is frozen by long moments by indecision. As the minutes stretch out, her arms grow tired and she lowers them from her ears without thinking. Instantly, her conscious thought pattern is destroyed by a wail from the bound filly. Her heart is terrified so thoroughly by the sound that it forgets its opposition to what she plans to do. This momentary lapse is all it takes for Zecora to build the resolve to do what must be done. She approaches Diamond and whispers a quiet prayer for the filly and her family. Grasping the abomination's head, she gives it a violent, twisting jerk. Then promptly goes to the corner and loses her lunch.

With the dark task concluded, Zecora steps outside to get some air and gather her thoughts. She knows she needs to burn the body, but to do so would require a large fire. After much consideration, she concludes that here is no feasible way to do this in the seclusion of her own home, as the heat required would burn it down. And even if it didn’t, the stench of burning a body to ashes would be more than enough to make the house uninhabitable. Without further delay she began to gather materials for a pyre.

She worked quickly, wanting to have the fire burning hard enough to incinerate the body before anypony came poking around in the light of day. As the moon was reaching its apex in the night sky, she had gathered a quite sizeable pile of tinder for the fire. As her final touch she had sprinkled a concoction known as Dragon's Breath on it, to make it burn with an unholy fury and insure that there would be nothing left of the body. With her preparations concluded, she went to fetch the reason for the pyre.

Zecora had been running on very little sleep for days now, and she could feel exhaustion weighing heavily upon her as she sought to complete the task at hand. In her exhaustion she didn’t notice that the filly's mouth yet moved, even hours after having its neck broken. She wasn’t aware of this until she had unstrapped the filly from the gurney and begun to carry her up the stairs. As Zecora adjusted the burden on her back, she began to notice a snapping sound as if the wooden stairs were beginning to break. She made a note to investigate in the morning and replace the worn tread as she continued up the stairs. She suddenly felt a sharp pain in her ankle, but chocked it up to an unseen root that had nicked her as she cleared the stairs and emerged through the door. She once again shifted her burden and continued to the pyre.

As Zecora threw the guest of honor onto the pyre constructed in her honor, the moon had moved from its apex and was more than halfway to the horizon. Zecora took a moment to say one last prayer for the filly and her family, before she lit the kindling. A side effect of the powder she used as an accelerant was that the fire burned an extremely bright green, not just hotter. As she shielded her eyes from the blaze, she could swear she saw movement within the conflagration. Between the tongues of flame, she got glimpses of the form on the pyre before she was consumed by the flames. To her horror, Zecora realized that the little abomination's mouth was moving in a dark parody of speech. There was nothing to do but look on, numb with the implications of what this meant.

As she was watching the pyre burn, her thoughts drifted back to the stairs. She looked down to investigate the wound, and saw that it was bleeding far more than she would have expected. As she looked closer she began to make out the nature of the wound. There was no doubt about it; this was no cut or scrape. Clearly visible were the puncture marks and surrounding bruising showing the outline of a filly's teeth. It dawned on Zecora what the sounds in the stairs were. It was not the cracking of the treads as she had initially assumed. It was the clack of the filly's teeth as they closed around nothing but air.

In the dark of the forest, Zecora let out the cackle of a madmare. Her thoughts wrestle with the torrent of different emotions that flood her.

"Isn't it ironic that it should turn out this way. Far too late, I learned what Fossi was trying to say.

"How blind I was, my dear friend. I see now what you mean, that death is not the end."

Zecora realized that her time was running out as she headed back to her home. She had stayed by the inferno until it had burned itself into the ground, standing close enough that she received mild burns by the time it was over. She concluded as she walked away though that she was burning up. She had never felt hotter in her entire life, and she could no longer blame it on the fire. She caught herself stumbling a few times as she walked through the portal to her home, and she knew what was happening. Zecora had no more energy with which to feel pity for herself, or remorse for her actions. She had simply run out of feeling. It was in this cold and detached state that she came up with a few ideas. First, she gathered a few ingredients, among which was a large crystal ball.

With these ingredients in hoof, she proceeded to the basement and locked herself in, barricading the door with everything she could. Using the last of her strength and rushing to complete her task while she could still think mostly clearly, she drew a diagram on the floor with some archaic symbols, and placed the crystal orb in the center. She drew another diagram on the floor some distance away and stood in the middle of it, drinking a potion which shimmered like liquid metal. The purpose of the potion is to allow a non-unicorn to focus their thoughts and project themselves into a vessel, in this case a crystal sphere, and record their memories so that others can see hear and feel what they did.

As Zecora closes her eyes and focuses on the orb, the memories begin to fade away, and I slowly surfaced, a pony broken in more ways than one.

~*~*~*

---

*Author's Note:

---

I get a lot of unusual answers when I ask ponies about how they think the infection started. Everything from a top secret government program gone awry to an alien invasion attempt, I've heard it all. The one thing I have never heard though is something close to the truth. After all, who wants to believe that a frightened little filly volunteered to be the test subject, even after being kidnapped? No, everypony wants to believe something different, but nopony wants to believe that it was a simple mistake by one otherwise so innocent. It is easy to blame the ever present, omnipotent, malicious "They," but to point the hoof at a mere filly? Preposterous. Perhaps some expected for the coming of the end times to be heralded by a tremendous gong and the sound of the sky being rent asunder. What is funny, though, is that those ponies were right. Had that tower not collapsed under the weight of the shiny new bell, this entire thing might have been avoided. Perhaps it is some kind of act of fate, commenting on the pony condition. Despite the fact that the bell in the tower had been there for over 300 years, some saw it fit to replace it. True to pony nature, they couldn’t just put in a newer one and retire the old one to a museum (as Twilight Sparkle had suggested…numerous times). No, they had to "plus it." Go big or go home, right? Well, look how that turned out. Regardless of how or why it happened, it happened. You can apply whatever cliché you wish upon this situation, but in the end, all it took was a pony being pushed too far. And if you want to blame any single pony for the outbreak, I guess Zecora is the most convenient. Personally, I blame the snake. That is just me though. Draw your own conclusions.

Comments

Interesting story you have a real nack for writing.