> What Happened? > by Turbodrawn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Things weren’t supposed to be like this.  Everything was barren.  Everything…. was gone. The wind howled with an empty echo around the arid plains, taking gusts of what was once fertile soil with it.  The remaining trees that still stood, sat dried and dead. Only their stiff branches blew in the wind for there were no leaves that clung to their branches.  Everything used to be so plentiful. The gusts of air whipped at his mane and tail, making them sway in the wind the same as the tree branches did. A particular gust caught his bandana, ripping it from its loosely tied knot and away from his neck, sending it to ride in the wind.  Applefry watched the cloth whip in the air, still in a daze. Blinking and coming to the realization that his bandana was escaping, he rushed after it. The dust from the scorched dirt kicked up around his fetlocked hooves as he ran and sweat began to bead in his coat. The sky may have been full of odd sickly grey-green clouds, but it was hot. He chased the bandana to a small ditch, it landing neatly in it. But, as he stood from the rim of the ditch he saw just what it had landed on. In the there- with his bandana- was a body, fetid and rotting. The pungent smell worked its way into his nostrils and clung in the back of his throat, making him gag and gasp for cleaner air.  But he valued that bandana. Sliding down into the short ditch he gagged once again as the smell lodged itself deeper into his airways. The body was even worse up close.  It was that of a griffin, which was odd for griffins never came to this part of Equestria. The flesh of the body seemed to be melting off its bones- some of them peeking through the skin. Blood and other fluids- that he’d rather not try to guess- oozed from it and seeped into the dirt. Each time a gust of wind made its way into the shallow trench the remaining feathers on the corpse trembled. The wind gusts pressed further on his bandana that lay on the corpse, its red hue slowly turning a wet shade of brown as the putrid juices soaked into it.  Getting it back was going to be… unpleasant.  Shuffling up to the body- still trying to stifle his gag reflex- Applefry bent his head down to one of the areas of the bandana that was not covered in the foulness of the body and went to grab it. Lips bared- in an attempt to minimize the contact he would have with the bandana- he bit a “clean” part of it and pulled. A sick, squelching noise came with the cloth being removed from the body- most definitely taking a few pieces of rotting flesh with it.  His eyes focused on the area in which he removed his bandana from. Small, white, bean-shaped things began to swell up from the holes that were left from the skin that was removed, spilling out onto the top layer of flesh and writhing around. Maggots. He was going to be sick. ~~~~~~ He returned to the dilapidated country house from whence he came with a dirty bandana in between his teeth and an empty stomach; the pretty little house that it once was, was gone.  The roof was half caved in, the other half stood bare, only the framework remained. Paint was peeling from the walls inside and out, its color barely resembling what it once was. Parts of the walls were hollowed with rot- similar to that body- but it was a far kinder, less putrid, kind of rot. He took notice of all this as he walked towards the home and onto its porch. The stairs that lead up to it creaked in protest of his weight.  Pushing open the front door, he walked into the opening room- one filled with part of the fallen roof. He followed a yellowing corridor to his left that lead to the kitchen that was in the same state as the rest of the house. He flung the bandana into the sink with a calculated swing as to not hit himself with the fluids that it had picked up and turned the- thankfully- well-sourced faucet.  The water began to fill the basin, it wasn’t the cleanest but it was far more desirable than the grime that was on the bandana. He sloshed the cloth around a bit with an extended foreleg, still attempting to minimize the amount of contact he had with the debris that stuck to it. It could be contaminated for all he knew and he would like to at least reduce the possibility of something of the sort. But that did call to question- why was the corpse like that? Why was it so rotted and putrid to the point of almost melting off the bone?  Applefry had seen a body decay a few times in his life- it’s the natural cycle of things- but never like that.  And why was everything so decrepit? The land that used to be so fertile was now dead and howling with a hollow wind. He couldn’t pinpoint the change. He could only recollect a vague warning that had been broadcast over Equestria, be it by word of mouth, sirens, or radio- his method of hearing it being the latter for he lived far on the outskirts of Ponyville.  Everypony had been instructed to get as deep underground as possible, he having to settle for the cellar that sat under the house for the use of storage and natural disaster protection. He remembered entering the cellar, only for one of the loudest noises he had ever heard in his life to permeate what seemed like the whole map a minute later. Everything went black after that. In the state of such deep pondering, Applefry had stopped swirling around the bandana and had failed to notice the ever-rising water of the sink until it overflowed onto the floor. The loud thwacks of the stream on the wood floor finally awoke him from his daze with a start and then he hastily turned off the faucet. He stood there in the decrepit kitchen, a few water droplets still hitting the floor as they fell from the full sink, staring out the window. Wondering.  What was he to do now? Who was left?