The trotting dead

     Twilight had struggles sleeping the night, but she at least managed to get some hours in there. She looked beside her to find that Mini had already woken up. She shielded her eyes from the sunlight that was shining through the thin fibers of the tent. She got up. She had realized that she had finally taken off that dreaded hospital gown the night before. She had forgotten where she put it, but she was glad that it was gone. She had smelt a fire coming from outside. Mini presumably. She wanted to get back down and rest some more, but she knew that she wasn't going to be able to do that. The world was a place where at any given moment your flesh could be ripped apart by savage animals after all, and she would have to get ready for when that happened. She put on her saddle bag and went outside to find mini roasting some marshmallows.

     "For breakfast?" Asked Twilight.

     "Yeah, of course. I have it almost every morning." She looked over to see that she was making some s'mores. Everyday? For breakfast? That couldn't be healthy at all.

     "That's a terrible breakfast! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You should be eating more healthy grains and dairy products for breakfast." Mini laughed as if Twilight had told a terrible pun that was funny not because it was actually funny, but because the joke was so unhumorous that the fact it's so terrible, makes it funny.

     "Alright then. Why don't you go grab some milk from the fridge, or some eggs so we can make a nice omelet. Yah, we could have our self a nice delicious cheese and maybe some onion omelet." Mini laughed again.

     Twilight smirked and chuckled a little too. "Alright, alright, but at least try to be more healthy? Eating like that isn't going to make you stronger. It may taste good but it wastes your energy." She went over to the saddle bags and grabbed a bunch of cans that were pretty healthy. "I mean look at all this good stuff! Canned celery, canned broccoli, dandy stems, oh my goodness, your missing out on so much! Look at all these untouched goodies. I mean, half of all our food is sugar, you need to make better eating habits." Mini looked back in disgust as she listed the food items.

     "Blehh, I ain't eating that stuff, that's gross. I'm sticking to s'mores thank you very much." Twilight shrugged.

     "More for me then." Twilight always did have a strict meal plan. But, that was sort of compromised. The least she could do was eat healthy so that she could continue going. Twilight had noticed that her wounds got a lot better over night. She was able to almost walk properly now. She still couldn't feel her wing, and she still had troubles dealing with the pain. But she could manage herself now. The two mares dove into there meals. Twilight having some fruits and vegetables with some bread while Mini had s'mores and bread.

       She dove into the bag to get a random can. When she pulled it out she recognized the can. It was canned apples, from the farm of sweet apple acres. She stared at it remembering the night when they had there last drink together, and how much of an idiot she was. She sighed, opening the can and started to eat the contents inside.

      After they finished there meals, Twilight had asked, "What now? Do we just stay here?"

     "I came to this cabin by following a road, then the road led to a pathway. I think we should go and follow the road, maybe later today, when we get more supplies. Hopefully we can find somewhere safe. I've heard there was a camp up there, probably not anymore, but that's the best we can do right now." Said Mini.

     "How do we get supplies?" Asked Twilight.

     "I dunno, I'll figure it out when the time comes." Replied Mini.

     "Maybe we could go back to the cabin? Wait, no that's insane..." Mini's ear peeked up in interest.

     "Quite a bold idea, it's overrun, but we do have the ammunition, we could go in and..." Twilight interupted her.

     "No. Forget what I said, were not going to risk our lives again." Ever since she left the cabin, she had always started to take precautions, no matter how small the risk. She was almost starting to develop her anxiety again. After becoming an alicorn, most of her personal mental problems went away. But all her fears, problems, and complexes were starting to come back now that she was put in an extremely stressful situation, you know, with flesh eating monsters hanging around and all, those problems were coming back.

     "Well I don't care what you do, but it seems to me that were going to have a long day ahead of us, and we need those supplies if we are to survive it." Said Mini.

     "Why bother? We already have plenty of food, weapons and what not. Why bother getting any more? We should be fine, nothing worth risking yourself over." Mini smirked.

     "Like I said, whether your coming or not doesn't really matter, I'm going and that's that.." Twilight sighed.

     "At least wait it out, it's probably crowded with walkers. Maybe we should go tomorrow, or later today, but from what I'm guessing, it'll be a while."

     "Tsk, fine." Answered Mini. To keep things entertaining they had a conversation about what life was like before, the walkers invaded.

     "So yah, before this all started, I heard something about a Princess, getting in some incident. It was pretty big, I reckon that was you?" Asked Mini.

     "Yah, probably, it's still a little fuzzy but, it was late at night and me and my friends were out drinking, and..." Silence followed for a while. "I...I...we just got so wasted that night, and I was angry, and bored, and I felt I had to prove to myself that I was...I don't really even know. I guess that I wanted to prove my right to be a princess or something stupid like that." It hit Twilight hard when she realized that she might not be able to have another drink with her friends. Never be able to go to any of pinkie pie's parties while drinking Applejack's cider. Then after go have a flight lesson from Rainbow, then have a picnic with Fluttershy and Rarity. She did her best not to cry as these thoughts ran through her head, but just the thought of it was torturing. Never again, was all she could think.

     "Well anyways, I guess you can make out the rest, boring old princess doing princess stuff. How about you? I noticed that your good with the bow." Said Twilight trying to switch the conversation around.

     "Oh yah, everyday after school my...uhm..father would take me out to the shooting range and I would practice my skills. I was also in the Boy Scouts, which I guess wasn't only for boys, they just called it that. And I guess you could imagine, I kind of got bullied for it at school. I was always into 'guy' things. Like guns, action heroes, and all that stuff. Then this happened, and I guess, in the end it was my interests that saved me."

     "I'm sorry for changing the subject so suddenly, but, if I could ask, why didn't you help me when the walker attacked me the other day?" The silence that followed was almost deadly. Mini stared straight at Twilight eyes slightly welling up, but she did not change her expression nor did she really cry. She wiped her face and explained her story. Twilight wasn't expecting a huge stroy, but that's what she got.

     "When this all happened, I was in a large group with my dad. My mother had already passed away even before this all began. Anyways, we had stayed with that group for a long time, we had good times, we danced, and really, it felt like that walkers weren't even there. Nobody was hurt or even got bitten except for one causality, others then that it was fine. But then, at our camp, there was some sort of outbreak. One of them had got bitten and didn't tell anypony and, almost everyone got infected. Me and my dad left safely. We traveled for quite awhile. Then we joined another group that we found and, one of them turned crazy and killed almost all of us. My dad went on a supply trip when she snapped. She killed everyone but me and told me... That I would be the one to watch the world crumble or something like that, and then she...she...she slit her own throat and smiled a smile so...it was terrible. Me and my dad were the only ones left. We were just fine on our own for a long time. But then...then..." Mini started to cry now. It wasn't a full out outburst of depression, but it was something.

     "The same way you...that you...that it..."

     "It's alright, I understand." Said Twilight. Mini wiped the tears off her face, and looked at Twilight and smiled.

     "He was a strong pony, never gave up. Every challenge was like a game to him. A pretty irresponsible father, but he always made me smile. When the world grew dark, he became my light. But then it took him, and I was left alone. Nothing made me smile anymore. I joined another group, they were all just a bunch of fools. They all died in the end, and again I was all that was left. I wandered for quite a while after that. Found that cabin and then, found you."  Said Mini,

     "Huh, well as far as my relationship goes with the walker incident, I just woke up, almost died, then got saved and lived." Said Twilight. Mini chuckled a bit at the simplicity of her situation. The mood got normal again and Mini went back to being her normal self.

     "And about last night, after the incident, just forget about it. Think nothing of it." Said Mini.

     "You mean when the walker attacked me?"

     "No...I mean...when you know...we went back to the camp and I hugged you..." Twilight remembered.

     "Oh yah, you hugged me for like half the night." Mini blushed and turned her face.

     "Just forget that ok..." Twilight chuckled and nodded.

     Afterwards the conversation took them into the after noon where they ate lunch. Mini then felt that it was time to go and clear the house.

     "I think it's time we go." Said Mini.

     "Should we leave our stuff here? It could get, you know...stolen." Said Twilight.

     "Listen. If you do the math, the likelihood of survivors, that just so happens to walk in the same forest, and just so happen to walk upon our camp, is very unlikely. Trust me, I've left stuff hanging around for days, and nobody has come to take it." Said Mini.

     "Alright, if you say so." Said Twilight. She still brought some important stuff just in case.

     It was getting cloudy, looked like it was about to rain. They trudged through the way they came, following the dead corpses that Mini had killed while running the other way with Twilight. After a while, they had almost reached the cabin, when they then heard voices.

     "Shhhh," demanded Mini. They walked slowly until they were at the clearing. They looked out to the cabin to find that there were some colts inside having a conversation and laughing. They sounded as if they were drunk. Mini was looking around to see if there were any walkers, only a few, but none that were so close as to pose an imminent threat.

     "What should we do? Should we go back?" Asked Twilight.

     "Shhhh, I'm thinking!" Replied Mini while doing the best she could to whisper. However, before she could finish her thoughts the environment of the cabin grew wild.

     "Oh shit Johnny! Behind you!" Yelled one of them.

     "Wha, AHHHHHHHH! Shit! Get it off! GAHHHH!" The yelling and screaming was horrifying. The sounds of the screaming had built a gruesome image in Twilight's mind of the flesh and blood that was everywhere, and the pain and the sorrows of the men inside. Walkers then started to  approach the cabin. One of them had walked across the bridge and went inside. Twilight almost got up and tried to help, but Mini pulled her down and told her to wait.

     "No! Johnny! Why would....GAHHHHHH!" It seemed like the second one had got bit as well from the one the had gotten in. It was foolish of them to have left the door open. There was gun fire from what seemed to be like a third party.

     "Oh crap I missed! And I ran out..." He then proceeded to run outside only to find that the other side of the walkway was filled with walkers. Twilight now, saw what he looked like and saw the event unfold. He tried to stagger back but then tripped an fell into the deep trench where fallen walkers awaited him.

     "Nooooo! No! Whyyy! Ahhhhh!! Son of a blgegrgh..." His voice started to sound like choked up blood as it would have seemed that one of the walkers had pulled out his vocal cord, or bit out his throat. Twilight, trying to cover her ears just couldn't bring herself to do it. She didn't want to hear the colts suffering, but on the other hoof wanted  to know what had happened to the colt. She simply stared at where the colt had walked before but then fell to his demise. Stared in complete shock at scene.

     "C'mon, we will come back later, when it clears up a bit more, maybe tomorrow." Said Mini as she started to walk back. Twilight looked at the cabin once more, thinking and processing what had just happened. She had never seen anything like it, the walkers hunting down a pony and actually killing one of them. She then started to trot back. She didn't look back another time. Just kept going and tried to forget the whole thing as if it had never happened.