Sore

That's how shadow felt as he slowly woke up. His eyes opened slightly to stare at the wooden ceiling above him. He could hear a faint beeping nearby. Shadow suddenly sits up and frantically looks around the room. It seems to be some sort of basement with a single light in the center of the room lighting everything. There are all types of machines for medical use such as heart monitors and even what looked like an x-ray machine in the corner of the room. Shadow looked around the bed he was now sitting up in. There was an IV leading from his arm to what looked like a blood bag which was half empty. He looked at the other beds around him to find them all empty. He takes the IV out of his arm and stands up. Shadow groans as pain shoots out of his chest. He looks down to find his entire torso bandaged heavily. As Shadow checks the bandages he hears a creak from above him. He crouches down and begins searching frantically around the room. Shadow finds a scalpel on a table near a metal gurney with dried blood on it. He slowly creeps up the stairs quietly until he reaches the top. He slowly cracks open the door and peeks out into the room beyond. At first he doesn't see anyone but some movement in a chair by the fireplace catches his attention. He opens the door and walks out into the room silently, his hand clenching the scalpel. He stands straight up when he reaches the chair. Shadow raises his hand to strike but he freezes when he hears the click of a revolver behind him.

"Drop it before this get ugly partner." He hears the girl say with a southern accent.

Shadow drops the scalpel and raises his hands in defeat as a the man in the chair stands straight up. He has tanned skin and orange hair. he is dressed in a pair of work boots, jeans, and a red checkered shirt. Shadow growls as he turns to him in surprise making the man back up into he wall.

"Slowly turn around or I'll put some lead in you." The voice orders.

Shadow does as she says and turns to face a girl with a brown cowboy hat, work boots like the man behind him, a leather vest with some type of padding on the shoulders and stomach, and jeans. He growls angrily at her but she simply cocks the weapon in her hand. He felt his courage waver and she pointed the gun at his head.

"Where is she?" Shadow asks.

"Who?" She asks not lowering the gun.

"I was with a girl before I came here! Where is she?!" He yells

"She's fine." She says lowering the gun.

"Show me. Now!" He says angrily

"Fine....but listen here. Your not our prisoner. You're our guest, and if you don't behave I won't hesitate to put you down....got it?" She scans his movements

He nods and she lowers the gun and holsters it. She walks to the wall and picks something up. She hands him a crutch." Use that for now." She says.

He nods and try's to take some of his weight off of his injuries, which by now he was becoming aware of as the morphine was wearing off. The girl tunes and walks out of the front door, through which he follows after her. He covers his eyes as he steps outside. The sun shone brightly over fields of trees and several other structures nearby including a barn and a chicken coop. Cows happily grazed in the fields while chickens pecked away at the ground searching for edibles like grass seeds. Off in the distance Shadow thought he saw fields of grain and bales of hay stacked high in the air ready to be taken into the barn. He smiled widely at how beautiful this place was and how untouched from the world outside it seemed. The girl spotted his smile out of the corner of her eyes and chuckled.

"Am I still in equestria?" He turns and looks at her.

"Yeah...unfortunately, but things aren't as bad here. We have a lot more fences and people guarding the place. Nobody wants this place to go down because of how big of a resource it is. We provide fresh crops, apples, and a lot of clothing which we sell to the passing caravans for a tidy profit. Everyone gets their fair share around this place as long as they can pull their own weight." She says smiling

"Well its a nice place you have here.....I wish I could stay." He says suddenly remembering why he was out here in the first place.

"What's stopping you? We have plenty of room and we can give you a tent to sleep in with the rest of the workers." She says looking at him as they continue walking further into the orchard.

"It's a long story....but the short version is I'm trying to track down.....someone." He says

"Someone? Is this someone important to you?" She asks.

"Yeah...." He frowns as they walks by a large group of tents with campfires lit outside of them.

"Family?" She asks resting her hand on her knife.

"No....." He frowns.

"Well if you ain't ready to tell I won't push you."she says smiling at him.

They continue walks until they come to a clearing. Nearby was a small tool shed and outside of the shed was several small tents and a crackling campfire. A single person say outside of the tents tending to the campfire. As they walks closer to the camp, Shadow recognizes Quantun as he placed a log on the fire and pushed it around allowing it to catch, raising the flames to cook whatever was in the pot above the fire. He notices him limping on his crutch and sits down.

"Still walking huh?" He smiles slightly as the sun rises higher throwing morning shadows across the swaying grass around them. He pats a log next to him."take a seat I guess.....the girls will be up in a few minutes....let's relax until they start talking your ear off." He smiles at the three tents.

Both the girl and Shadow sit on cut stumps of what must have once been apple trees. The girl turns to Shadow." Your friends and I are already all acquainted." She holds out her hand." I'm Applejack." She smiles. Shadow shakes her hand and sighs.

"You alright?" Quantun asks as he stirs the pot."you look tired. Didn't you sleep?"

"I thought i did but....I don't know.....I feel drained." He leans forward." And hungry."

"Well I'm almost done cooking so you won't be fore long." He says putting another log on the fire.

A rooster crows in the distance and following the call, the farm became full of noise from the animals spread across the land. The tents next to them rustle and Sonata and Night Shade crawl out with their hair disheveled. Shadow looks at the third tent expectantly but it stays still.

"Where's Wintergreen?" He asks looking at quantum.

"She sleeping off the fact that she was shot by a large caliber weapon at point blank range......oh and she thinks your dead so that's two reasons why she should be allowed to sleep in." Quantun squints at Shadow.

He sighs." Yeah I guess so." He sits down

"Why don't you out these on an get outta that funny looking dress?" Applejack holds out a bundle of clothes."they're some of my brothers older clothes." She smiles and he nods and takes it.

"Need help?" Night Shade asks yawning and smiling at him.

"I think I can still get dressed by myself Night, I'm wounded not paralyzed." He stands and limps farther from camp and starts changing. In the bundle was a red plaid T-shirt, blue jeans and some boots.

"She really expects me to wear this?!" He looks down at himself." Might as well make the best of it." He rolls the sleeves of the shirt up to his elbows and let's the jeans hide most of the boots. He sighs and is headed back for camp when her hears a scream from not that far off.

"What the hell?" He turns and starts to limp in the direction of the scream. After winding his way through a particularly thick patch of apple trees and bushes he comes to a clearing. He could clearly see an apple tree with a tree house in it. The windows were boarded up tight and there were six infected trying to slam their way into it. He hears the scream again. It sounded like it was coming from a young woman and it emanated from within the tree house.

"Hold on! I'm coming to help!" Shadow searches the ground and finds a large dead branch.he lifts it up easily and slowly limps toward the tree house. He slams the branch into a tree as he passes getting the attention of three of the six. The slowly walked down the ramp toward the noise completely ignoring shadow. He stepped forward and swung the branch striking on in the head, denting its skull. It stumbled back before falling to the ground dead. The other two had walked past him and he limped forward, lifting the branch over his head, he brought it down hard on a females head splattering her Brains all over his new clothes. The last one turned to him and shambled forward, it's arms outstretched. Shadow responded and tripping it and standing over it. He dropped the branch and reaches above its head for a large Rock which he used to bash its face in peppering his face with brain matter and blood. He stood and picked up the branch. He walked up the ramp and used the end of the branch he was holding to impale one of the infected men against the wall. He could hear the girl whimper as he was sure she saw the bloody end of the branch come through the wall and start dropping blood through the hole. Shadow ran forward and pushed another over the railing of the balcony. It flailed before slamming into the ground and spurting dark blood from its mouth. He turned as the lasts infected man grabbed him and bit down on his shoulder, tearing his shirt. Shadow pushes him back and grabs his head. He repeatedly slams his face into the wall until nothing was left of his face but the mangled mess of bone and flesh. He slamed it one more Time into the wall and let it slowly slide down leaving a bloody streak. Shadow pants and holds his wounds in pain.

"Hey it's okay. I killed them all. Open the door." He says standing up and limping to the door. He hears a lock click and the door slowly opens to reveal and young girl with cream colored skin. She wore jeans, a yellow T-shirt, and she had a large pink bow in her hair. She looks at him with terrified eyes, from the gore on his face to the blood soaked shirt he was wearing.. She aprehensivly walks out.

"You okay?" He asks stepping aside and facing her.

"Yes."she says in a small, terrified voice.

"Let's get you back to camp.." He pats her shoulder and she follows him down the platform. As they reach the bottom the infected woman shadow threw off the edge of the tree house lunges forward with a fierce growl aiming to take flesh from the girl. She screams but shadow throws his arms forward and allows it to bite down hard on his arm. He winces before yanking his arm away and grabbing the woman head. He drags her to a nearby tree. He then slams her face into the bark splattering her head all over. He growls and kicks her body over. He turns to walk back to the girl but finds her pointing a small handgun at him. Her arms were quivering but it would be a challenge to miss him from this far away.

"Whoa whoa! Take it easy girl!" He raises his hands." Put the gun down." He says taking a slow step forward.

"Don't move!" She screams pulling back the hammer.

Her scream attracts Applejack along with quantum, sonata, night shade, Noi, rose bud, close cut, and red June.

"Applebloom! What do ha think your doin?!" Applejack says looking from the girl to shadow in his bloody state.

"Leave my brother alone!" Rose steps forward but red June grabs her.

"What the hell is she doing?!" Noi asks in her zebra accent.

"Shut up!" Applebloom yells." He's bitten!"

Everyone freezes. Applejack spots the bite on his arm. It was currently gushing blood and shadows face was becoming pale. Applejack steps forward and reaches for her revolver. After that slight movement the clearing was in chaos, all of shadows friends drew their weapons and pointed them at applejack, Applebloom, Noi and rose bud who were at first aiming at him but now turned their guns on the others. Shadow winced at the volume they were speaking. With his hands still raised his voice boomed over thier's

"EVEYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!" He yells. They all stop." Put your fucking guns away! All of you!" He puts his hands down and takes a step forward. Apple looms gun goes off and a bullet tears through shadows chest right where his heart was. He watches as everyone turns to him expecting him to drop. He quickly walks forward and swipes applebloom's gun away. She backs away and Shadow looks over at applejack as he falls to the ground wheezing. He coughs up a large amount of dark blood before passing out.

Author's Note

I realize that I haven't updated in a while but I'm trying hard to get some stories finished. I'll update in a few days.