The trotting dead

     Twilight walked, and walked, and walked, she would not stop until those things were out of sight, and she was some where safe. Food, water, shelter, these were the thoughts alongside many questions that were crammed in the half conscious mind of Twilight Sparkle. She kept asking questions out loud to nopony in particular. "Why...how...how did this happen? How can they walk if...if there dead? There...just...no...this isn't real..." She was simply wandering, she wasn't fully conscious of where she was going, or what her goal was, her mind was in her own world while her body walked aimlessly. Perhaps in this way, it would help ease the fluctuating pain from her back, her head, her shoulder, and a number of other areas that she couldn't keep track of.

      "Where are my friends? Where is my family? Why me?" She dropped, basically crawling now. Her eyes started to cry. She had no idea where she was going, only that she was moving. She made a horrid moan, it sounded weak, full of confusion, as if it was her last cry for help before descending away from the cruel grip of reality. With her willpower fading, she decided not to ask anymore usless questions, only reassuring herself that this was a false reality.

     "I am not here, this isn't real, they aren't real, none of this is real, I am...dreaming, that has to be it." Looking up at the sky, she tried to scream, "This isn't real!" She closed her eyes, expecting for the landscape around her to change into her comfy bed. That was not the case. She didn't care any more. She dropped even further. Now her face feeling the cool ground. It felt nice. She glanced up to see her surroundings once more. She was at the edge of ponyville, she had no idea how she was able to dodge all of the zombies, but she managed. She saw a doll. She crawled over to better analyze its features and could see it was a pegasus with a brown coat and orange fur. Quite dirty, yet comforting. She hugged it, gave up and waited for death.

     She heard snarling from in front of her and looked, it was one of those things, it too was crawling like she was. It lost its legs and half of its jaw. It crawled, closer and closer. Twilight did not flinch, nor tried to get away. She simply hugged the doll and waited. She heard snarling coming up from behind aswell. So there was no escape now. She closed her eyes. She was relieved in a way, death couldn't be all that bad. No one to really bother you, no responsibilities, the world would rot , and she wouldn't have to live to see it die.

     The zombie behind her caught up first, going down to consume its meal. It took a bite of Twilight's wing, and ripped it off clean, as if it were a professional butcher. It wiggled it back and fourth and it flew into the air. The wing now off to the side, it walked over to consume the treat. Twilight felt the pain more minutely then she had first thought the pain would feel. It was nice and quick. But it did not kill her. Disappointing. The little bud that once held the wing was now bleeding all over her back, she did not mind, the pain would end eventually. She heard a rustle in the bushes beside her, Another zombie to consume her so she thought, but it was actually a little filly. It disheartend twilight to think that this filly would have to see a pony get consumed by this monster. She had wings, a gold mane and fur that would create debates on whether or not it was either pink, or red. She had a bow and arrow for her cutie mark, and her expression was that of being terrified. She stared and watched as the monster came closer and closer to Twilight. Twilight couldn't help but look back at her and smile,

     "It's....ok little filly...I'll be...fine..." She attempted to motion her to go away, but was paralyzed from the shock of her wing being detached. The filly was petrified and could not move. The zombie came closer and closer, until it was in arms reach of Twilight's head. It grabbed a hold of Twilight, right as it was about to devour her, the filly grabbed an army dagger out from her saddle bag and threw it at the zombie. It became lifeless instantly. Twilight was both sad and relieved. Sad, because her suffering didn't end, but happy that the girl did not have to watch a gruesome event. Twilight saw as the filly came over to tend to Twilight's wounds. She smiled again, then blacked out from blood loss.

     Consciously, Twilight was awake. But she did not open her eyes. She could not recall the events that led her here, but she didn't try to anyways. She felt bags, clothes, and bottles lying on top of her. She could also feel herself bumping about as if she were on a wagon. She heard heavy panting. The wagon went over a deep hole and this jolted Twilight up, making her the most awake she had ever been since waking up at the hospital. This was unfortunate for Twilight, because now she could feel all the pain that was inflicted on her. She gave out a glass shattering scream.

     "Shhhhh! You'll attract the walkers!" Twilight looked in the direction of the voice. It was the filly from before. It appeared that she showed little struggle in pulling the cart. Twilight could assume that she was stronger then herself, perhaps.

     "What are...walkers?" Twilight questioned. Half way from asking the question she already knew the answer. But she allowed the filly to continue.

     "They were the things that were trying to eat you. They were once ponies, like you and me, but then they got bit, by others like them. They die...and then come back to life, eating everything until they rot." The attitude of the filly was almost anything but innocent. The way she talked was equal to that of an extremist badass.

     Realizing that Twilight was hungry, she looked to see that the bags contained loads and loads of food. Bread, cans of food, and candy bars.

     "You can eat all the canned spinach, that stuff is disgusting," Twilight obliged and ate half the cans of spinach, and one candy bar. This girl seemed to have a lot of sweets In her wagon. "Hand me a captain cocoa, would yah?" Said the filly. Twilight obliged once more and grabbed the candy bar with her teeth and threw it at the filly. The filly looked back and caught it with her mouth. She unraveled it and squealed in delight.

     Twilight took a bottle of water and began to drink, ignoring whether or not the filly was going to allow her to drink it or not. It tasted like gold to Twilight. It felt amazing as the liquid went through her system. She consumed the entire bottle. She layed back down feeling much better then from when she got up. She looked up to see the branches overhead cover up the sunlight creating a dark yet somewhat bright path. She had so many questions. She started whispering to herself, "When did this happen? How did it happen? Is it zebrican? Equestrian? From outer space?" Twilight was clueless as to what was happening. Why they craved flesh, nor why they weren't intelligent. Like mindless robots.

     "Aw shit, now look what you've done." Said the little filly. Twilight got up to see what had stopped the cart. There were three walkers on the path. "How did those zom...I mean walkers get on the path?" Said Twilight.

     "Because of your big noisy mouth that's why! Don't you know walkers are attracted to sound? Your scream earlier tipped them off. There's probably more heading this way!" The little filly sighed. She took a bow and a quiver containing more then enough arrows to take the herd down.

     "Here, take this." She handed Twilight a small army pistol. "Use this only in an emergency. If you waste one bullet, I promise you it will not end well for you." She looked adorable yapping off the way she did, but Twilight managed to keep her thoughts inside.

     The filly went over to the herd of walkers and used a combination of her wings and her two front hooves to take the arrows out and shoot them. Twilight watched shocked at the skills the little filly was demonstrating and of the sheer concentration and passion of her shots. She was almost enjoying it. Twilight wasn't able to watch for long. A walker came out of the bush off the dirt path they were on. The scare made Twilight fumble over her gun trying to shoot the creature. She dropped it, but managed to recover and sat upright. When she looked back at the zombie it started to proceed to climb on the cart and almost tip it over. Twilight again tried to shoot it. Despite the fact that the walker was in point blank range of Twilight, Twilight having never shot a gun in her life was struggling to get a good shot. It reached out its arms trying to grab Twilight so it could sink its jaws into the live flesh of the poor alicorn. As the walker was trying to reach out to Twilight he started to shake the wagon while doing so. This made Twilight fall on her back. The walker grabbed a hold of Twilight's leg slowly pulling it towards its black teeth and crimson gums.

      "No, no no no no no go away go away," Twilight did her best to not scream, not wanting to attract anymore of those things. Twilight's leg was now in biting distance of the walker. It's brown teeth and crimson gums were snapping open and close constantly. As it was about to sink its teeth into Twilight's leg, an arrow was shot and instead of hitting it's intended target (the walker) it hit Twilight's leg. This gave Twilight another loud scream that was heard throughout the entire forest.

      "Shit," said the little filly. The zombie then tried to bite Twilight's leg once more, but then another arrow was immediately shot and finally it hit its target. An arrow was stuck right in the head of the walker.

     "You ok? You look a little beaten up," Twilight wanted to scream at the little girl, but instead just gave her an annoyed look. "We better keep that there until we get back to the cabin, it's not far from here. We'll patch you up there. We better hurry too. That scream was louder then the other one." She hoisted the saddle on her back and proceeded to pull the wagon towards the cabin.

     "Well, here we are." Upon arriving, Twilight saw a circle of land that was not engulfed by the forest. In the middle, there was a big cabin. The windows were boarded up and the there was a trench surrounding the building. There seemed to be a small planck that acted as a bridge so that anypony could walk over the trench and into the door. There was also a shack, and an out house over to the side.

     The filly parked the cart and asked Twilight, "Think you can get up on your own?" Twilight motioned to her hoof which had an arrow in it. "Oh c'mon, it's just a few meters from here, you can manage. Whether or not your coming inside will depend on whether you can get down from there." Twilight stared at her. She wasn't going to be able to get down from there without feeling an immense amount of pain. "Oh well," the filly then proceeded to walk over to the cabin.

     "No wait!" Twilight called out. The little filly was testing her, perhaps to some how make her stronger, what ever it was she was going to pass this test. But if one of those walkers came, she was going to need help. The filly returned impatiently waiting for the extremely wounded Twilight to get down off of the cart. Twilight should be extremely thankful at this point. This filly saved her life, protected her from walkers, gave her food, and apparently is giving her a place to stay, but she doesn't feel too thankful because for one, she got shot in the leg because of her. Secondly, the filly didn't really seem like the type who would really care if somone thanked her or not. In fact she probably just felt bad for Twilight, and will eventually make Twilight go off on her own after she's been patched up. Either way, Twilight was indeed some what thankful. She still had a nagging feeling that this false reality would somhow end if she just ended herself. Whether it was real, or not. She couldn't describe it to herself, but it felt as if her subconscious wasn't registering if this was a reality or not. As if she were in a lucid nightmare that would never end and she had no control of.

     Twilight proceeded to get off of the cart. She descended as slowly as possible, so that the distance between her and the ground would be reduced. This attempt failed and she fell painfully to the ground. Spikes of pain shot through her body like long thin needles bursting out of her skeletal structure. She looked at the filly again, still simply looking impatient. Twilight got up and tried to walk, but to no avail. She tried to lift the hoof that had an arrow in it so it was not to touch the ground, but the three hoofs just wouldn't be able to hold her. This now was becoming horrid, and immoral. The filly watched, as if Twilight was just being lazy, when clearly she was damaged severely and was not even supposed to be out of a bed. Eventually this led Twilight to resort to crawling on the floor in order to to get to the cabin. The filly remembered when the walker was crawling towards Twilight, and the state she was in. Eventually seeing Twilight like this became unbearable.

     "Oh my...you are as slow as a tortoise! If not slower," The filly helped Twilight up, and walked her over to the cabin.

     When they finally went inside the cabin, the room looked very messy. Furniture was sprawled everywhere, clothes were hanging off fallen bookshelves, and picture frames were crooked on the walls. She glanced over to see a black and white picture of a family of three. A father holding a big axe, a mother, and a small colt who was wearing a small cap that had a picture of a river on it.

     "This is the block room, the room that's supposed to slow the walkers down if they ever get in." It didn't seem like a good method for slowing them down Twilight thought. However she could see patterns that might make a walker trip here and there. She concluded that this wasn't originally her home. Perhaps she and her parents moved here when this whole ordeal started. Her train of thought was interupted by the little filly when she was presented with a door. Behind the door there were some some stairs.

     "Think you can manage?" Twilight shook her head. The filly sighed and proceeded to help Twilight go down the stairs. At the bottom, there seemed to be some sort of big room. It pretty much looked like a living room, combined with a kitchen. However, presumably it used to be a laundry room, for there was a washing machine tipped over in the corner, now acting as a table that had a bunch of weapons stacked on top. The room had loads upon loads of resources. From food, to supplies, to medical kits. It seems that this girl was holding out pretty well. If she was on her own or not was a nagging question she had.

     "Do you have anyone else with you?" The filly ignored her and said, "Lay down." She was pointing to an ironing table.

     "You mean this?" Twilight asked to confirm that it was indeed the ironing table.

     "If you want to lay on the floor, then I suppose you could do that, but I suggest you get your flank down somewhere if you want to get patched up." Twilight then proceeded to lay on the ironing table. She did it slowly so as to not injure herself to much.

     When's he got on the filly said," Hold your breath," Twilight did as she was told. The filly wasn't a medical doctor, but she knew some things. Pain relief was not one of them. She took the arrow out as fast as possible, this brought out a chuck of flesh out. Maybe half a tea cup full. Twilight was about to scream when the filly put a knife sheath in her mouth so she wouldn't create another ear piercing scream. Immediately, she but a bondage around it. The bleeding was intense and she lost a lot of blood. However in the end, she still survived so it wasn't all that bad. She then proceeded to inspect any other injuries Twilight might have.

     "Tell me what's broken." The filly asked.

     "I think my wing, and my front elbow." The filly went to get more medical supplies. As she tended to her wounds, the little filly decided to bring up a conversation.

     "So, were you born yesterday? Because well first of all your wearing a hospital gown, and second, it seems like you have no idea what's happening." Twilight looked down at her body. She tried to remember. It came back little by little, but she managed to piece it together and remembered the night which she made her drunken reckless mistake.

     "I think I just woke up from a coma," the filly was shocked.

     "You mean before this all started?" Twilight nodded. "Wow, you were gone out for a long time then."

     "When did this start happening? And if I could also ask, how?" The filly smirked.

     "It must have been almost a year. All I know is that a winter has gone by, it must be spring time now. As for your second question, the cause, where it came from, how it happend, how it works, nobody knows. It's just a mystery. Some say its a plague from Tartarus, others say it's the apocalypse or a punishment for not worshipping our original Greek gods from long ago, and started using our monarchy method. Whatever the cause, it just sort of happened. It was ominous, it just sort of happened. Wait, were you here when that crazy guy made that spell, that cut off all the magic?" Twilight was stunned. Ponies werent able to use there magic? It sounded like a horror movie. But then again, she was already kind of living one.

     Simply by reading the expression of Twilight's face, the little filly already knew that she would have some explaining to do. The filly sighed and began.

     "It started when a unicorn was projected on the sky for all of equestria to be seen. He talked about revolutionizing our way of living, and creating a better tomorrow. He said that he was going to cut off the connection between ponies and magic forever. This wouldn't effect earth ponies as much, but he said that unicorns can't use magic, and that the Pegasi can't control weather, nor could they climb on clouds. He tried to complete the spell, but it seemed like it failed, because there was a huge explosion afterwards, and ponies still used magic. This caused an explosion of panic for equestrian citizens. The royal guard searched everywhere for this pony, and we were all worried. Then a few weeks later, he was projected on the sky again. He attempted the spell, and it worked. However his magic still worked, because he still used his magic to project the image of himself. He laughed, and whispered, 'a new age,'."

     This explained why she wasn't able to do her magic earlier, quite an apocalypse alone having no magic, but to have this..." How did this all happen then?" Asked Twilight.

     "I....I don't know. It sort of just....did. I wasn't there when it happened here in ponyville, I was on a flight from manehatten, and then we saw it like this," said the filly in reply,

     "We?" Twilight asked. The filly ignored her and continued.

     "The plane landed and immediately we got swarmed by them. Most of us made it out alive, thanks to a sacrifice from the captain..." Her eyes were beginning to well up. She shook her head, and wiped her face.

     "Anyways, you've heard enough from me. You can come up to eat or sleep in the room next to us. I don't really care. But rest up. If your going to defend yourself, your going to need to heal a lot quicker." Twilight was feeling pretty hungry, but she wasn't going to be able to get up on her own. She looked over to the stairs and sort of cringed at what seems. Like a fantastical feat. The filly saw this and sighed once more. "Fine, I'll help you up again, god your so helpless."

    They proceeded to climb up the stairs and entered the kitchen which was beside the block room. The little filly rummaged through the cupboards and she took out a loaf of bread alongside it some beans. Twilight and the filly consumed the meal with what can be described as awkward silence. Twilight was thinking about how this living hell came to be, but decided that the information she wanted was far from available. She decided to bring up a normal conversation.

     "So uhh...I'm Twilight Sparkle, and you are." The filly glared at her.

     "What's up with the horn and the wings?" Said the filly, not responding to Twilight.

     "Oh uhm, before this all happened, I was a princess." The filly smirked.

     "I remembered how all the girls were intrested in that stuff, what an outcast I was. Oh and it's mini."

     "Pardon?" Twilight asked.

     "You deaf? My name is mini." Said the filly. Twilight was pretty sure that her name did not match up with her attitude.

     "So uhm, do you live alone? I haveng seen anypony else here." Asked Twilight. Mini began to stop eating. She looked down. Twilight couldn't see it properly, but somthing fell from her face which she presumed was a tear. However when she lifted her face it was expressionless.

     "I guess. It's been a while now, but yah." Twilight was shocked. A little filly like her, survived out here all this time, by herself? It sounded insane.

     "Wow, I can't believe that." An then another question popped into her head. "Where is your fam..." She was interupted by mini.

     "Just don't. I'm not a little filly anymore. At least that's not what I am anymore because of this living hell hole, I don't need your charity, or your sympathy, or to feel bad for me. I've seen people die. I've seen gruesome things. People that were close to me are now gone. Perhaps I don't except that entirely, but that doesn't mean I'm helpless. Got it?" Twilight was astonished, but understood what she was trying  to say. Twilight knew that this was to avoid talking about, what potentially might be the death of her family.

     They resumed eating, and then after a while somthing unexpected happend. Twilight's body stopped moving, she started to have rapid eye movements. She fell to the floor and her body started shaking. Parts of her brain were being stimulated and others repressed. Twilight could not comprehend at all what was happening, only that she felt as if ideas were being shoved into her head. Voices from all directions kept telling her, "Release yourself from here, this is a false world, end this nightmare now. It's not real, it never was..." They all seemed to be statements telling her to kill herself in essence, telling her that this tragedy is all just some weird dream. It was working. Twilight opened her eyes fully and screamed at the top of lungs. "No! This isn't true, this isn't real! Release me, release me! I don't want to be here, I don't... I don't!!!"

     She rolled around on the floor for a while panting heavily, until finally getting up to try and find somthing to end her existence. Mini tackled her to the ground, trying to keep her in place. Twilight was hitting her hard, trying to break free. But the filly continued to hold on strong. Twilight looked around frantically trying to find something to free herself. Mini continued to hold on strong, eventually she punched Twilight in the face trying to snap her out.

     "Wake up god damn it! Wake up!" Twilight was spazzing out like an animal crying, "I want to go, I want to go away, I....let me go!!"

     Mini then looked Twilight directly in the eye, she was crying. "Don't go! Don't go away! Your the only one I have seen who isn't trying to kill me, or kidnapp me, or eat me. Snap out of it, snap the buck out of it! Snap out of it and finish your god damn toast and beans!"

     Twilight stopped. Her vision went back to normal, and her brain was back to normal. She looked around, a little clueless as to what just happend. It was like somone had went inside her mind and tried to rip her apart, putting emotions and ideas into her that weren't hers. It was originally hers, however it's as if somone had amplified it, or modified it the extreme.

     Suddenly there was a loud collective moaning from outside. As Mini went to go investigate, she looked through a crack and saw that the trench outside the house, was filled to the brim, as if the trench was a cup and the walkers are water, in which case, the cup is overflowing like mad. Swarms of walkers were approaching from different directions, all targeting the same house. Twilight managed to get up and see the same. The constant screaming and the action caused the walkers to come here. Twilight realized that this was a very delicate system. One loud crack and they come swarming.

     Twilight thought that this world had to be real. Whether it was some trick, or simply a dream, or if indeed was reality. She was going to have to pick herself up if she was going live. Any ideas of a false reality were out of the way now. She had to except the fact that the world she knew, is now gone, and that this was the new world. If she was going to find her friends, her family, or possibly even protect mini, she was going to have to survive long enough.

     "I will survive, no matter the stakes." Twilight said to herself. The mob outside grew and grew until, one of the boards broke and a walker arm was bulging out. And then the door broke, and then the swarm came in, ready to devour the living that were inside.