A poisoned apple.

Rotten! Every single Apple in the orchid was Rotten! Applejack ran and galloped from bushel to bushel of the bucked apples; desperately trying to find one batch just one, that wasn't wrinkled, foul smelling, or sour and rotten. The eyes of Big Mac, Granny and harshest of all little Apple Bloom on her. With mixed gestures of shame, disappointment, and sadness.

"Young missy! I really expected better of you!" Granny harshly snapped at her granddaughter in an almost un-Granny like manner. "The livelihood of the Apple family gone to hades in a handbasket and it's all yer fault!" She snapped as Applejack desperately inspected a bushel of red delicious that had melted into desiccated, moldy husks of their former selves. All Black and wrinkled up the little juice left as sour as the lovechild of cry foals and WAR MUZZLES candies.

"Why'd you let us down sis?" Applebloom asked giving her big sad eyes that could turn even the coldest hearts warm. the little filly held one of the rotten apples in her hoof and threw it away in disgust as her stomach rumbled in hunger "Why?"

"Now hold on everypony, I...I didn't mean for this to happen, I...I tried."

"That's not gonna do us any good when all of Ponyville starves this winter AJ." Big Mac; the gentle giant of few words, solemnly said with a shameful shake of his head. he bucked a particularly bad batch of golden delicious ones over and from their skins;  a bunch of ugly white slimy worms broke through the skins and crawled across the dirt toward the frightened Applejack.

"No, NO! git away from me ya parasites!" She screamed at the top of her voices as she backed into a tree, it shook as from its bark much like with the apple worms, swarms of ugly bluish grey wood beetles poked their heads from the trees; their pincers snapping and biting as the trees came tumbling down, eaten clean of everything they could ever provide. The once proud and fruitful Acres of Sweet Apple Acres; reduced to a desolate field of decay! Applejack buried her muzzle in her hooves, as swirling darkness and bleak emptiness surrounded her, as it did she could almost hear a distant almost other worldly voice in her ear.

"You lose! now the fear takes you!" it called in her ears as there was a rushing sensation like sickness; then a falling one, She screamed....

She was still screaming as the sun finally broke through her window. With a start and fright; Applejack bolted to her window almost on a reflex and threw it open, gasping and breathing hard and heavily as she looked out at her orchid, Fresh. Every apple was ripe; fresh, and safe. No wood beetles eating the bark of her trees dry, or worms infesting them and rotting them to the core. Applejack was greatly relevied if only still shook up. "It was just a bad dream." She said to herself.

"Mornin AJ!" Her brother called from bellow outside; a happy smile on his face, as he hauled a cart of plump juicy red, green and golden apples to the silo. His hoof waving at her happily as he hauled. "Hey AJ? you ok sis?" he called up to her from the ground "y'all aint looking too good this mornin." he said up to her trotting off.

Applejack trotted into her bathroom and looked into her mirror; that nightmare did a number on her. Her mane was bedraggled and frizzy; sticking her tongue out revealed it to be dry and her breath was quite unpleasant as it fogged up the mirror, Applejack's eyes where puffy a bit, and red with unsightly bags formed just under them. "Uhhhh Celestia I'm a mess!" She grumbled to herself and began rummaging for something to hopefully get rid of her "unsightly condition." In her rush; she didn't notice that on her left cutie mark, the apples had tiny pinpricks in the fur that made them up, and this pin pricks slowly leaked small streams of blood from the tiny cuts, blood that didn't seem to want to dry up and from wounds that didn't seem to want to close up.