What We've Lost

My bedroom felt eerily cold tonight for some reason. My window wasn't open at all, and I had plenty of blankets, but I swear I can see my breath. Walking over to my dresser to look for a sweater or another blanket, I heard a loud thud down stairs.

"Mum?" I yelled from my spot in my room. "Is everything okay down there?"

At first I thought she just didn't hear me. As I was about to call down to her again I heard screaming. Immediately my blood ran cold. Rushing out of my room I ran down the hall towards the stairs, the sound of pure fear and agony filling my ears all the while. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, the yelling had stopped completely. The dead silence filling me with more dread than the actual screaming had. No lights were on at this point and I had no idea where the screams had come from. I was about to head towards my mums room when a smashing of glass from the kitchen ripped my attention away.

I ran as fast as my hooves would let me towards the kitchen door. The light was on inside, but I couldn't hear a sound inside the room. "Mum... Is everything okay in there?" Edging up to the door, I slowly eased it open. The sudden rush of light caused me to flinch away for a moment. When I finally turned back to the kitchen...

I sat up and screamed. Cold sweat rushing down my face as I panted heavily. Placing a hoof to my chest to steady my racing heartbeat. A sudden presence to my left caused me to scream once again and try and retreat.

"Whoa whoa whoa, it's okay. It's just me. You're safe here." As my eyes adjust to the dim candle light in the room I realize it's the little dragon from earlier. I must have fallen asleep when we got up here. "What's wrong?"

I look down at my hooves for a moment, remembering my dream, or memory, rather. "I just had a bad dream... I-I'm okay..." I say to him, my voice just barely above a whisper.

"Are you sure? You look a little shaken up..." The little dragon says as he takes a seat next to me, a warm smile on his face. I can tell he's just putting on a brave face for me though, I can see the fear in his eyes.

"I was... I was back in my house. It as everything that happened yesterday before I ran here...  I heard my mum screaming from the kitchen then suddenly stop... By the time that... That I got there, she was gone. The kitchen was covered in blood and I just... I'm so scared and I just want my mum!"

The last bit of my explanation came out in inaudible sobs as I broke down into the dragons shoulder. All the while he just sat there in silence, gently running his little purple claw through my mane. Softly cooing me and comforting me.

"It's okay, It'll be okay." He said as he continued to run his claw down my mane.

As my sobs slowly settled down and I regained composure I looked up at the little dragon beside me. He was staring of into the distance, rubbing my mane as if on auto-pilot.

"Uh... Sir? Are... Are you okay?" I said while gently shaking his purple shoulder.

"Hm? Oh... Yeah, I'm fine, just... Scared I guess. I mean... Yesterday started so normal..."

Before he could continue, my stomach growled rather loudly and abruptly. I looked to my stomach then back up to him with a blush on my face. He just smiled and stood up, waving me towards the door. I was hesitant at first, but his reassuring smile was enough for me to slowly follow him back down the stairs towards what I assumed was the kitchen.

"I'm Spike by the way, what's your name?" Spike said as he turned on the lights in the kitchen and opened up a fridge.

"Um... Molly. Nice to meet you." I said as I took in the new room.

It was a rather small room with cupboards lining the top half of most of the walls. A fridge and an oven stood side by side on the far wall and a round table took residence in the center of the room with a low hanging light above the center of the table.

"Here," Spike said as he placed a plate on the table with a sandwich on it for me and then took a seat himself as he munched on an apple. I nodded in thanks as I took a seat and slowly ate my sandwich.

"So as I was saying," Spike said between bites of his apple. "It just seemed like such a normal day. Twilight and I were walking back from one of Pinkie's little get togethers over at sugar cube corner when we just heard screaming. We didn't know where it came from at first but then we saw this mare running down the road being chased by this stallion when he jumped on her!"

"Twilight and I were completely dumbstruck at first, but before Twilight had a chance to help her, the stallion took a bite out of her neck! Can you believe it? That was when we started hearing more screaming and saw more ponies running in terror. Twilight ran back here as fast as she could and before I could protest, she dropped me in here and said she's be back soon... She put a spell on the treebrary so that only I could open up the door and then she said she was going back to Sugarcube Corner to try and find the others..."

Spike just stared at his half eaten apple for a bit. I could see the beginning of tears forming at the corners of his eyes. He looked lost.

"Do you know where she is now?" I asked and immediately regretted it as he shut his eyes tight and turned away from me. We sat there in silence for a few minutes before growling from outside made me freeze in fright as Spike sat up straight and looked around. He turned back to me and help a purple claw to his lips letting me know to stay silent as he motioned me towards the stairs once again.

once we made it back into the room upstairs he told me to sit back down as he walked up to the window and looked outside.

"Okay so the good news is there aren't many of those things outside. The bad news is they're right outside the library and it looks like they want in..." He turned back to me with a grim expression on his face. "We need to find a safer place. Somewhere with food. Twilight took what we bought at the market with... Her..." Spike trailed off and looked at the floor, a lone tear rolling down his cheek before he took a deep breath to compose himself.

"Maybe the town hall? That place should be safe." I pitched in to try and redirect Spikes thoughts back on track.

"Hey yeah! And there should be tons of ponies there too!" He said, shaken out of his dark thoughts as he ran to a chest in the corner of the room and fished out a large scroll. "I have a map of Ponyville here, we can plan out a route there."

Spike unrolled the map on the floor and we both began looking over the different routes we could take to get to the town hall. We wanted to find the easiest and fasted way to get there to eliminate as much time out in the open as possible. We spent twenty minutes exchanging ideas before we lapsed into silent thought.

"Okay!" Spike all but yelled, causing me to shriek a the sudden noise. "Oops... Sorry." He said sheepishly as I gave him a little glare. "Any ways, so here's what we're going to do..."