My Baby Sister

Her sister giggled like a maniac, what little sanity Apple Bloom thought left in her gone. Still, she was moving towards the hospital, that was something.

Behind them the dear doctor moved up. His gait was strange, unnatural. The way he moved his legs, the way his body tried to keep balance and even just his head bobbing up and down with every new step, it all felt wrong. Looking into the fiery cascades of his eyes, Apple Bloom almost thought she could spot a hint of the pony he once was.

Of course, she knew that he was gone and nothing could be done to save him. All they could do instead was run, and that her sister tried. Apple Bloom just held onto her back, because she was too weak to go by herself. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, but maybe she would stumble and fall.

The boney head reared up and opened its jaws, bursting out a cry that hit as sharp as a whip. Apple Bloom closed her eyes at the screech-like sound, but somehow, she could also hear the desperation from it.

And more cries followed.

“They’re coming,” she heard herself say.

Applejack laughed. “More to play with.”

Apple Bloom would’ve protested, but fighting wouldn’t help them. “We need to hide quickly if we don’t want to get caught.”

Applejack nodded at her. Her eyes, green fields of grass, were filled with childlike glee. It should’ve hurt, but Apple Bloom needed to think now, because without a clear head, she couldn’t help them both.

Step by step Applejack moved on, drops of blood rolling down from her shoulder, patches of black pulsating as she nearly stumbled over her own legs. Yet she didn’t seem to notice the pain she was in. If she just thought that it was hard to walk?

Apple Bloom wondered, but clung to her sister nonetheless. Above them the endless shards of an once unbreakable sky stretched into eternity and from the corners of the village, the ones who’d watched it break came forth. Their movements were slower than Rainbow Dash’s ever were, clumsy and careful, as if they were blinded by the light of their own eyes.

Hopefully they were. Hopefully they were blind and deaf and couldn’t smell. Then Apple Bloom could truly believe that they could escape.

The doctor, however, stumbled forward quicker, an eerie smile plastered on his skull. Yet, Applejack hobbled quicker. Apple Bloom turned foward.

The hospital stood quite a bit away from the rest of the buildings. It’d been built away from the town by decree of Filthy Rich’s father, of course, because he hadn’t wanted poor ponies “dying in his hometown”. Scootaloo had told her that Silver Spoon had told her that Diamond Tiara had told her that story, so it was probably true. Douchebaggery came easy to pony with too much in their hooves.

Step by step, Applejack left a scar in the dry earth as she dragged herself onward and Apple Bloom could hear her heavy breathing. She was tired, wounded and losing her mind. Apple Bloom hugged her closely from behind.

“You can do this, sis,” she said.

And in the distance another cry appeared, another familiar voice. Apple Bloom’s eyes widened, because they were still some fifty meters away from the hospital and if Rainbow Dash was coming, they’d never make it.

She clung to her sister, because that was the only thing she could do.

“Don’t cha worry, we’ll be there in a jiffy,” Applejack said, “then ya don’t need ta worry bout yer bare tushy anymore!”

Apple Bloom opened her eyes and looked at the side of her sister’s face. Her sister had always been an average looking pony at best, but the rings under her eyes, the patches of rotten skin, they made her appear so much uglier. And her eyes were the worst, they were green and bright and happy.

Whatever world they saw, it had to be a better one than this. Because in that world, Apple Bloom had the time to worry about her continence and not about being devoured alive by the ponies she once knew and loved.

Step by step they moved forward and Apple Bloom felt the wind brush through her hair. It was a tangled mess she hadn’t managed to clean up properly in the river. Once she had held it together with a bow. She’d always worn one, too, before all of this happened.

Maybe once they were done she could wear one again. In this life or the next.

She smiled. “Ya promise?”

Nopony answered her, instead, Applejack stumbled over her legs and suddenly they were falling, both crying out in shock.

Applejack managed to use her three good legs to catch the fall and Apple Bloom had a tight grip around her sister’s neck. Nevertheless, the both of them nearly tumbled over again as a gust of wind washed over their hunched forms from behind.

The winged beast planted itself face-first in the ground and for a moment Apple Bloom really believed it to be Rainbow Dash again, because these horrible landings weren’t something anypony could pull off.

“Oh gosh,” Applejack said and those were the words that got Apple Bloom out of her shock.

She turned to her right, to the town and from there she saw Lyra, blood and ash dripping from the mouth, launching herself towards them.

“Dodge!” Apple Bloom screamed and Applejack obeyed instinctively.

She side-stepped away from the cyan unicorn, evading her bite quite easily. Yet Applejack grunted in pain as she used her wounded leg to steady herself immediately thereafter.

“Good job, sis. With you on the lookout tag is really easy,” Applejack praised.

Apple Bloom would’ve loved to scream at her, but right now more were coming at them and the hospital wasn’t that far away anymore.

“We need to run,” she said. “That’s how the game goes right. We need to run, fast as the wind. We can get everything patched up at the hospital, too. We can hide there, heal our wounds there and then get to Twilight’s place when everypony’s asleep, right?”

Applejack laughed. “If you really want to stay that long at a hospital, but I wouldn’t–”

Lyra turned towards them and with a snarl she attacked again.

“Just fucking move,” Apple Bloom screamed at the top of her lungs.

The cyan beast was rising up again. Bon Bon was coming, the mayor, Doc Hooves and even little Pipsqueak. They all came from the town and towards them. They were fire and cinder, hunger and pain itself, wishing to inflict themselves onto the last real ponies. There was no time to talk, no time to play games.

Applejack didn’t say anything, but turned her back towards the hordes and started into a gallop, past the monster that had once been Rainbow Dash, who tried to snap at them. She missed them by a mile.

Applejack ran towards the hospital at her highest speed, but Apple Bloom could see how her leg looked, how blood ran from the gash. Tears were in the elder pony’s eyes, but she seemed to fight through them.

Was it for Apple Bloom’s sake? Or for winning that made up game of tag? She didn’t know, but all that mattered was that Applejack’s quick steps lead them straight to the front doors of the hospital.

We can make it, Apple Bloom thought and then she felt something smash against her and her sister.

The impact catapulted them straight through the door and into the foyer. Apple Bloom smashed onto the ground, head first and then felt herself rolling over again and again. She hit a wall or a table, she didn’t know what exactly, but it hurt.

Her legs, her body, her head, everything hurt. She felt a warmth spreading down her legs, running onto the ground and forming a puddle. Something was spilling from her head and her jaw ached like a saw was starting to tear through it.

Apple Bloom could only elicit a faint gurgle, that was all the noise that came from her as the room came into a blurry focus again.

White walls, empty but for a broken clock. A white ceiling with the lamp flickering even after so much time had passed. A pegasus standing over her sister’s unconscious body.

She had a coat of fair gray, one that could easily mistaken for white, and her mane was in parts green and pink. An eye like a cornflower looked at Applejack, the vision clearly dulled by pain and madness.

A teardrop fell onto Applejack’s cheek as the pegasus whispered: “H-help me … Take me … T-take me h–”

The last word Apple Bloom couldn’t hear. There was a noise, something moving. She couldn’t make out what it was, as the blackness swallowed her whole and all the pain in the world left her.

The bridge was built with silver stone and golden wood, and it was built over a river that glistened in the richest of blues as the Celestia’s light cast down on it.

She felt the wind play with her mane and her bow, telling her to follow its direction. Would she do so, then she knew there would be adventures and treasures aplenty. If she went with the wind, that’s where everypony was going. It beckoned her to move past the bridge, towards the other side.

Golden grass spread out to the sides of a road built with bricks of every color and every shape, a mosaic of her own history. If only she led the wind guide her, she would see it all again play out before her eyes.

She would see it towards the happy ever after.

Yet the filly remained on the bridge and looked down at her reflection, to see a pony that was not her. A grown mare with eyes as dull as death itself, her mane covered with a rosen bonnet, mechanically sucking a rubber teat.

The wind blew through her mane again, begging her to come, praying for her to follow. She stood there, she gazed at the river and the life within.

Fish danced along and against the stream in an endless chaos that left the surface undisturbed. One wore a king’s crown and pretended to lead them in their merry way, one sang to them though her voice was swallowed by the water. Amidst them was a fish of gold and red, small and alone in the dance and it looked up to her.

It remained still just as the filly did, but then it suddenly swam up and its maw moved through the water’s surface, creating a small wave that vanished as quickly as it had come to be.

The fish ignored her in their mad dance, this one was but a little one and not at all important.

But the fish looked at her and her eyes were desperate and she was unwilling to accept her fate.

Once more she tried to breach the surface and once more she failed.

“Why do you try to get out of there? If you tried to stay with them you would be happy?” The filly asked, but she knew not the language of the fish and the fish knew not her language.

Once more she tried to breach the surface and once more she failed.

The fish with crown took note of her then and swam to her, spreading their wings and jumping up out of the water right up to the face of the filly.

“Don’t.”

And then they fell down into the water and the ripples in the water vanished as quickly as they had come to be.

The golden fish seemed to take that as encouragement and tried again and again and again and again.

She failed every time, for she had no wings. She was but one fish in a river filled with them and there was nothing special about her whatsoever. So the fish the crown showed her how the other’s danced and how they lived, but she only looked up at the filly.

The wind begged her to come, to look away, to ignore her.

Then, the golden and red fish parted from the crowned one and tried again. She swam towards the surface with all the strength she had. Her fins were torn off her body by the torrent, her scales drenched themselves in her blood, but with one final push she tried to breach the surface.

Water spilled from the river, never to return again and as the fish touched the air, drops of blood and water fell down, creating ever more ripples in the water. Where the drops hit the earth, it sank and the earth began to shake.

Yet the golden fish only looked upwards at the filly on the silver and golden bridge.

And then came a flash of light, of dark and the filly blinked. For a split second the wind became a mare of nightly blue, for a moment the fields became faces, crying in pain and for the briefest of moments she saw the fish for what it really was.

A monster unlike any she had seen before.

“Why did you do this?” The filly asked and the golden and red fish laughed.

“Because you looked down on me.”

For the briefest of moments, the world crumbled and water became fire, light became darkness and the fish became a unicorn.

Then it was over and all that remained was a filly.

She stood on a bridge. It was built with brittle stone and rotten wood, creaking under the little one’s weight. The filly leaned against the rails and looked down at the ground, where once a river had been. Bones of fish and remains of algae now lay scattered across an unending road.

There was no wind, but she needed to turn away from it anyway, towards the black rubble that lead on like a path to a land where noone was.

She stepped onto it and flinched back immediately, looking at her hooves. Blood dripped from them and onto the ground.

As it landed on the ground, it was swallowed up immediately, leaving no trace but the pain she felt. The filly looked at the road and wondered if she could do it, now that nopony was there with her, now that she knew that nopony was waiting for her.

Once more she tried to step onto the rubble, but took a step back to the bridge that shook and creaked. There, the filly sat down and looked at the wasteland before her.

A desert with a black stripe across it, a road of sorts, but that was all there was. At least on this side.

She turned around and moved towards the other side, the side she couldn’t see. How long did she walk to reach it? What did she feel when she did? There were no answers, but suddenly the bridge was gone and she stood at the foot of a hill. A path led upwards, to where she couldn’t tell.

She took the path, leaving bloody hoofprints in the sand. Step after step she walked, bravely on. A filly that pretended to be a mare, a mare that needed to be a filly.

On and on the path went, past rocks and corpses of animals she once had known. The filly walked for an eternity and then another one and yet no time had passed as the end came into sight.

She halted before a mighty tree, old and strong, with roots dug deep into the earth. Its branches led into the sky and apples as red as blood hung from them.

Before them stood four figures. A stallion, a mare, a colt and a young filly, all looking at something the stallion was holding.

“What’s her name?” the colt asked, his voice carrying an excitement that made the mare giggle.

“Should we go with one more Apple name? That’d make your granny proud,” the stallion said, grinning as if he’d just told a great joke.

“How about something floral, dear. You always wanted one of your children to have a flowery name,” the mare answered mimicking his smile.

The wind was picking up, she couldn’t hear their words.

“What’s her name?” The filly asked, but they didn’t hear her.

And with an earth shattering crash, the fish jumped out of the river and the droplets it left behind cracked open its surface. From the tip of the branches, the sky tore open, shattering into a million million shards. The apples rotted and fell, the leaves disappeared.

And the filly saw an orange pony, holding a foal close to her arms.

“I’ll protect you, even if they’re gone.”

She hugged her tightly, tears and snot fell from her face and onto the child’s swaddling. Her hooves shook, her breaths were short and stilted. The foal lifted a hoof and touched the older one’s nose.

“I’m here for you,” a filly told her older sister one night when she found her crying by the bedside.

Eyes as green as grass looked at her and from the face, wrecked by tears, there appeared a small, but happy smile as she embraced her loved one. She felt the warmth rush through her still, because that was what she was living for now.

A filly looked into the mirror and saw a mare pretending to be a foal, her eyes as dull as death itself. An orange pony was telling her how cute she looked even though blood spilled from her mouth and her limbs lay shattered on the ground.

There she was, her sister fretting over her; feeding her, changing her. She became a corpse, old and rotten and her sister still laughed with her parents at the newborn filly by the tree.

That was everything that remained and she knew it to be true.

It was dark around her now and for a moment she wondered, even hoped, that it was all just gone. Then, out of the corner of her a eye, a pink ribbon floated up before her and then away. She looked at it and then moved to follow.

As she walked through a blackness unending, the ribbon flew up to where she couldn’t reach it and her eyes followed as even it left her behind. Then the moon came into sight.

Pale white it stood in a dark sky filled with countless little stars, the figure of a pony cast unto it. She was looking at the filly, the filly looked at her, and the wind became a whispering voice.

Don’t give up.

Ever so slowly, the moon's edges began to crumble away. Smaller and smaller it became and figure on it vanished alongside the planetoid. Its pieces rained down and formed a new path, one that lead forward. The wind beckoned and this time she followed.