The Great Equestrian Virus

Princess Celestia had been lead to a rather large looking building where she was told she would find the Manehatten survivors. There were six inside. Well eight but two refused to speak with her. So that left six who were happy, or at least comfortable with telling their stories to the Princess. The sun goddess began with the first she had seen and asked for an interview, well, a back story of the war down there. Thus far. The stallion had a brown coat and yellowish-orange hair, his wings were pretty small, under the average size for a pony his age. There was a cutie mark on his plot as usual and one of his eyes seemed slightly more closed than the other, and was twitching slightly.

He began.

  The day started pretty normally, the same day as normal. I was on my way to work, the Manehatten branch of the weather factory and I noticed rather a lot of armed ponies walking around, not just guards either, it looked as if ponies had just gone home, picked up a saddle and gathered arms. I wasn't sure why, no pony had mentioned anything to me that morning or even the day before, so I ignored it not wanting to question anything, I am sure it was something they were doing and obviously didn't want me, or the other unarmed ponies to get involved. Crime isn't rare in Manehatten, no fault of your Princess, it just is. And crime gang wars aren't uncommon so I suppose I just thought it was another gang fight, so I sped up a bit, trying to get out of this possible war zone. I finally reached work about ten minutes after and just as I enter the doors I get knocked back by three ponies. They had run out of the door, from. Well, from something, I didn't quite know what, still don't really. I again ignored this, now getting annoyed and just wanting to get to work by as iI get through the double doors I see the most shocking scene I have ever witnessed. My boss is leaning over the table to the receptionists, eating her. I don't mean the innuendo kind of bucking at work kind, I physically eating her. Her body was twitching, but she was either dead already or too shocked, but either way. She didn't scream. Blood was dripping down the table and onto the marble floor. The only thing that kept me from vomiting was the fact if I did I would have alerted this now psychopathic creature my boss had become. At this point I think I deserved a raise of some kind. I decided it was best to just go outside and alert a guard or something. So as I crept backwards I hear this groan, it is coming from the receptionist, I never learnt her name so sorry on that regard. I stopped moving again and my boss stops eating her. The receptionist just slowly stands up, her eyes are grey, rather than their usual green, and obviously blood and gore are dripping down her wounds, she doesn't seem to react to the wounds and just groans a few more times, staring at me. The bit marks are pretty big and if I looked hard enough I could see where the ribcage had been broken and her heart was bleeding out down her stomach. The heart wasn't beating. At this point my boss turned around, he has fresh blood dripping down his neck and dried blood around his eye, or eye socket anyway, as his left eye is completely missing, a red, bloody skull and some tissue is all that remains. He now growls at me. Now considering he was locked in his office all day yesterday and refused to see anypony I think it is safe to say he turned some time that night, or even the day before. I have yet to understand where his eye went or how he got infected.

'You say the receptionist also turned? And your boss, ex boss should I say just, stopped eating her?' Celestia asked.

Yes.

'Interesting.'

It is?

'Yes. What you are saying is if they turn, they seem to be on the same, team as it were. They don't attack each other is what I mean. Maybe there is something there.'

You mean, the dead only eat the living, not the dead? Fresh meat as it were.

'Yes exactly.'

Well in that case then it is probably instinct.

'Hmm?'

What I mean is, you wouldn't want to eat meat that isn't fresh, and you certainly wouldn't want to eat, say another pony?

'No of course not.'

Well that's instinct. I don't think these undead ponies actually have control over their actions, they don't see anything as, well, anything, just anything that breaths, makes a noise or lives. Is food. These ponies, I think the only part left to them is knowing how to eat.

'Hmm.' Celestia muttered. There was pause for a moment whilst the brown pony sat thinking of how to continue his story and Celestia thinking on these corrupt ponies. On the notepad the Cloudsdale guards had given her she wrote two phrases and drew circles round them. 'Instinct equals only living?' and 'Work as a team, or just friendly to dead?'. Celestia thought on that matter and decided to look into it later. Then nodded for the pony to continue his story.

Well these two, certainly dead ponies were now walking toward me, well, my boss has had a lame leg for nearly two years now and that had apparently followed him into the after life, or whatever state he was in now. Thus, he limped. The receptionist actually stopped walking when she got near and I swear I heard her sniff the air. She looked around after making that sniff sound and then locked her eyes on me before groaning again and lunging at me. At this point I think it is a good time to run. So I do, straight out of the doors and onto the street. Where I close the big doors behind me and hope they will hold. As i run down the stairs back onto the street I get tackled down to the ground by somepony. At first I panic and then realise it is a, very-much-alive guard. I look to him in confusion, as you do when you get taken down after fleeing a building where you just watched your boss eat the mare in reception and then reanimate in front of you. This guard kept shouting the same thing at me, over and over again. I was too shocked to answer and I couldn't find what to say before he knocked me out. Then I remember being outside of Manehatten, dumped on some hill somewhere and listening to the screams of the city. Then I made my way here.

'What did he keep asking?- The guard, I mean.' Celestia asked. Taking notes from his story again, things like 'infected straight off or variables?' and 'reanimation' kept popping into the Princesses mind so she unlined them.

I believe he kept saying "Are you bitten? Are you bitten?" But I can't be sure. I was in so much shock. I must have vomited around four or five times before I even tried to make my way here. Being a Pegasus, it only took a day or too. When I did get here I warned the guards, they put the city on lock down and the civilians left. I was fed, watered and brought here. Around a day later, these seven arrived. Together.

The brown pony gestured toward the other ponies, who had been silent and just watched the entire time this pony told his story, everypony in this room were Pegasi, meaning there were only a handful of non Pegasi survivors. Which isn't bad, but it isn't good either. Celestia thanked the brown stallion and walked off to speak to another.

"May I hear you story sir?" Celestia asked. The pony paused, then pointed to a tall Pegasus with a bright blue coat and short white hair, the mare was the tallest, and biggest of the bunch. He had a few scars but they weren't exactly war scars, most likely that of bar fights or some sort of gang war, whether he was involved or just a bystander.

"Talk to him. He is the one who got us out of the city. My story is basically the same as his." The pony replied, looking to the brown pony.

"Okay. Well thank you anyway." Celestia replied. Then walked forward toward the other pony.

"Princess. It's an honour." He said, his voice deep and menacing.

"Why thank you kind sir. May I hear how you got out of Manehatten?" Celestia asked.

"Yes. I suppose I ought to tell somepony." The pony replied. Then began.

  It started when the Weather Factory was taken, as your friend over there has already mentioned the boss was presumably the first to turn. I don't know how, I only saw this stallion, covered in blood. Lunging toward ponies slowly followed by another mare. No pony knew what to do at first, many were bitten and turned. Soon after the first few fell. Everypony panicked and ran. Others, those who had been carrying weapons around all day, began to fight. Going for the head they killed the corrupt undead. But kept they kept on. The dead never weary. More and more ponies were bitten, raising their numbers, and lowering ours.

'Ours?' Celestia asked.

Well, we are all in this war together. Every race of Equestria, not just ponies. I wasn't fighting, didn't know how. But we are all in this war now princess. Fighting the same foe

'Which is?'

No offense princess, but after all this, you still ask me that question?

'We have to have multiple theories in this don't we. What do you think we are facing, doesn't the idea of undead, seem a bit. Wrong, out of place? Unnatural? There must be something different, they can't just simply be, undead. That's impossible.'

That's what I thought at first. Until that boss pony came at me. Now I am not a pony to be scared, but when the air smells of blood and death, ponies are screaming out in pain one minute, then groaning hungry for fresh pony meat the next. Then when one of these things comes at you. That takes a piece out of a stallion. But moving on, yes, I didn't believe they could be undead. I didn't know what they were. But when this creature came at me and I pushed it, hard. Onto a dropped spear and the tip slashed through its stomach and poked out the other end. Well, those spears are deadly, that would have most certainly killed him. But no, it stood up, ignoring the blood and flesh dripping down from it's stomach. And on it came. Still wanting to attack me. So I ran. I ran and didn't look back, the screams fading away and the city falling behind me. On my exit I found these five and we flew here together. They think me a saviour, I didn't save anypony that day. Just left them to die back there.

'But you saved those five.'

Five? Five are nothing, those undead will kill us without mercy, they don't know any kind of emotion anymore. Just food.

'Yes, but now we have five, seven more than we would have done because of all your acts. Yes many lives could have been saved, but that is what I plan to do in my travels, find a way to defeat this plague.'

There isn't a cure, or a winning team. Either they bit the last mare or stallion on Equestria, or we fight back and lose thousands more.

'Or. We could find their weaknesses, a way to hid ourselves. Bring in Total War.'

Fine. Try what you want princess. I saved five ponies and the deaths of those I left will be on my shoulders forever.

Princess Celestia looked the the pony, his head sunk down and his hooves twitching. The princess decided to thank them all and go to the others with what she had found out. There were still questions unanswered, but she wouldn't get much else from these ponies. As the princess left and walked down the street, that stallion was already tying a rope around his neck. The other six just watched. A few joining him with their own rope. This was Equestria's darkest hour. And it had only just begun.