The Maresburg Frosting Flood Disaster

by Glen Gorewood

The Frosting Vats broke this morning

Tears and sugary grime streak the page with drops of ink misplaced by trembling hooves.

October 17 X57, 10:00am

Dunbar's worst fears, they came true diary.

Ah am still in shock, I can't stop my hoof from trembling as I try to write down what happened. I have to, because if I don't I'll be forced to look up and see it again. See them again, see the ponies screaming in the emergency shelter constructed far away from the center of this atrocity of sugar and color. Worse, I'll be driven to search again, to try to find them; my family.

It began shortly before dawn, I remember being woken by a short pop sound. It wasn't loud to my ears, but I could feel it like a dagger being shoved into mah ear canal. The pressure wave followed, then a much louder explosion rocked the tenement room where I had stayed with the Crabapples.

The sky was supposed to be dark, but as I looked out the cracked window I saw light coming from the factory. Light that revealed a massive colorful wave sweeping down from that Fools Factory on the hill. The screams from the tenements closest to the vats reached my ears then, and Sweet woke up in seconds. Rushing to the window she stared in abject horror at the looming deluge that was rushing down towards us. Sprinkles littered its surface, or at least they looked like multi colored sprinkles from the distance.

Sweet Crabapple raced to the wall, grabbing Sargent's photo and stuffing it in a worn out gypsy traveling saddlebag before racing to try to wake Toringo and the Twins. She shouts at me loudly, her voice filled with fear.

"Grab Midget Grand, grab my baby and the bag and run!"

Ah still hear her words in my ears diary, I can still her bright pink eyes starin at me with hope and sorrow. And I can still hear the screams from outside too, as the flood got ever closer. That moment I made a decision, and honestly ah don't right now if it was the right one. But I knew the look of mother begging someone to save her child. After all, I'd seen the look in my own Ma's eyes when I'd fallen and hurt my back real bad. But Sweet's eyes were more than my Ma's had been, hers were the eyes of a mare trying to desperately to save everything yet knowing she likely couldn't do it without me.

I could not deny her eyes or her wish, ah grabbed Midget in his ratty old blankets in mah mouth; holding him like a dog does a pup. Then I raced over and tossed the worn traveling gypsy style saddlebags on my back, before racing out the door.

It was unlocked, no doubt by Sweet; and I ran right into a hallway of chaos. Mares, stallions, foals and fillies swarmed everywhere. Elderly folk like my great auntie Sour Apple were being half dragged half carried from tiny rooms. It was like all of the tenement had rushed into this one hallway in a desperate attempt at escape.

The door to the stairs was blocked, and the hand cranked elevator was full. A lone stallion screamed for the panicked passengers not to release the mechanism because it was far over capacity. They ignored him, and in seconds disappeared from sight as a horrible crunching smashing noise echoed from the bowels of the elevator shaft.

I looked around me, desperate for a way out of this horrible nightmare of a building. Then I saw it, the emergency fire escape ladder peeking out over the window five doors down. My hooves rushed faster than cider into a stallions muzzle as I raced to the Celestia blessed exit. Praying to my ancestors, and I right never pray unless I have real need; I opened the already unlatched window with my hooves.

Pushing it up as far as it would go, with Midget securely in my jaws I climbed over the windowsill and onto the ledge. Below me ponies swarmed like ants away from the incoming flood of deadly color, and now I could see that the sprinkles were not a confectionary topping treat.

They were bits of metal, sections of homes, furniture, and worst of all; many of the sprinkles were ponies. Some still screaming and trying to stay above the viscous surface of sweet frosting, as it came barreling like the pale horse towards me. Towards everyone in the building and beyond. It's reach was massive, enveloping all of Coreington Hay from where it began in that damned factory of follies.

However diary, I would not realize how horrible it was till much later. For after that few seconds of observation that felt like hours, I jettisoned the fire escape and took a risk. A risk so insane that if it were not for the wave of multi colored doom rushing towards Midget and I, well I would of right turned myself into an asylum.

With no time left I did not climb down the ladder, as another pony who saw me screamed at others to do. No, I grabbed its smooth steel edges and slid down the fire escape like a fire brigade pony during a five alarm. So fast was ah going that to slow down and stop the impending impact with the ground, I had to press my hooves so hard against the edges they got imprints of the pole worn into them.

There was no time for rest, and one check on the crying Midget showed he was still safe with me in his makeshift sling. Ah had no idea where Sweet and the other little ones were, but I hoped they were safe. For now on the ground I could see how truly terrible the flood of frosting was.

The massive sweetened deluge reached higher than the tenement I had been in. Though the crest of the flood wave was falling down a bit there was no doubt it would sweep them away.

My only choice to save Midget and I was to run. To run far and fast away from the wave, and hope beyond hope that we would both survive. From that moment my memory is clouded, all I recall is thinking I had to run. I had to save us. Ah had to make it.

Ah had to do it for the Crabapples, for mah family.

For wonderful courageous loving Sweet, for Toringo, for Pacific and Oregon.
For poor Dunbar who knew this could happen, for all of them I had to run and save the precious foal in my care.

So I ran, I pelted my hooves upon old stone and raced faster than ah ever have before. The sickeningly sweet smell of heated sugar and roasting flesh inundated my nose. The screams of ponies and crashing and imploding sounds of buildings being overtaken by the Frosting Flood echoed in my ears.

But I kept running, and Midget kept crying.

Nothing mattered but the sound of that amazing little foal crying and my hooves flying over the streets. As ancient gravel gave way to cobblestone I kept running. When that gave way to carved limestone walks I still kept running.

When the sounds of terror and disaster had faded I kept running.

The only thing that stops mah running was a pair of strong hooves grabbing me and holding me tight. Refusing to let me run anymore. They belonged to a stallion, a stunning red stallion in the uniform of a guard. He held me in a grip that restrained my limbs and whispered in mah ear.

"Stop running, calm down, both of you are safe now."

I don't remember much after that, only that ah refused to let Midget go. That foal was not leaving mah sight, and he still hasn't. The poor youngin is all worn out, sleeping with tears in his eyes as his oversized hooves hold his ratty tattered blanket like a life preserver in a vat of cider.

Ah don't want to think about vats.

Both of us are safe, I'd love to explain more diary; mostly so I don't have to look up. But ah am mighty tired, ah feel like I've broken a land speed record or something.

My body is saying, "Go to sleep Grand," and ah can't resist. I'm going to curl around Midget now diary, and hold on tight to him. He needs me as much as I need him, in this field of unknown ponies we both need somethin familiar to hold onto. I've got to be his guardian in this unknown city, and he has to be my lifeline.

I just hope the Crabapple's are alright.

Granny "grand" smith Apple....

Author's Note:

The disaster began before dawn, the slums and hovels were no match for it. Most ponies and other creatures died in their beds, or crushed in the panic to escape.

The deluge of sweet death, a horrific industrial event caused by possibly unknown hooves. The death toll is not in yet, nor are the damages.

And amidst it all, one Apple mare stands guard over a single Crabapple foal entrusted to her by his mother. In a shelter filled with survivors, though none she recognizes.

Did any of the other Crabapples survive?
Does Coreington Hay still stand?

What horrors await outside the temporary relief the shelter offers, now that the sun has risen high into the sky bringing light to the disaster in Maresburg.

Glen Gorewood

Comments

[Maran]

This is an interesting idea. But I think Granny's accent is a bit overdone considering that this is a journal. Most people don't transcribe their own accents.

[Glen Gorewood]

8362243
Thank you, the concept itself is something based off of real life historical events. Equestria is in a sort of Industrial era in the show, or went through one in the past. It's impossible that such an era went off perfectly with no disasters, hence The Frosting Flood.

The accent is meant to infer how stressed Granny Smith is, the more panicked or upset the stronger the accent. Think of it as an emotional meter. Ones writing style can be similar to speech in certain situations, but particularly during times of extreme duress. Her "country" writing style though is just how she writes. It's part of why she wants to send her potential daughter or granddaughter to the city to learn how to write and speak "properly". Sort of like how my great grandmother spoke and wrote in a heavy baroque accent, then insisted my grandfather learn to write and speak in "proper English".

This also ties into the FIM storyline and Applejack being in Manehatten with the Oranges during the first sonic rain boom.

As for writing styles not mirroring speech, that depends on the person, pony, or creature in question. Also remember, Granny had an injury when she was younger according to her (in the story). I won't reveal much because it would spoil the next chapter, but it is important.

I hope you enjoy the rest of this piece of history through Granny Smith's written words.

Glen Gorewood