The Trotting Dead

A beep sounds within a cold room, a pony breathing upon a bed.

Another beep sounds, amongst the yelling and terror outside.

Another beep sounds, before no more sound is heard.

Raven wakes up suddenly one day, some time after the evacuation of Ponyville, hearing nothing but static, seeing nothing but sparks and relative darkness. He blinks a few times, to adjust to his consciousness, confused as to his current location.

“Hello? Is anypony around?” He inquires, the realization that he’s in a hospital sinking in. He ponders to himself the reasoning behind such, yet his memory is quite fuzzy, likely some amnesia.

Speaking of not remembering why I’m here..I don’t remember much of anything. He thinks to himself, sitting upright in the bed. He stops his thinking for a moment to take in his surroundings. To his right, is a small table, with some belongings, to which he assumes are his, alongside a gift box. On his left, is some medicinal supplies, and a letter. In front of him, is a standard-issue hospital door, meant to keep anything harmful inside the room of the patient inside. He decides to read the letter first, to see if there’s anything useful written in it.

Dear Raven,

If you’re reading this, and myself nor hospital staff are beside your bed, then my fear has been realized. You were put into a comatose-esque state, by a means we’re not sure of. We thought it was just a small heart attack, but then you never woke up.

Listen, you need to get out of there, post-haste. These creatures, we’ve been calling them Trotters, have started to take over Equestria. We heard that a sickness began in Equestria some time ago, a couple days after you went under, but we had no idea the magnitude of it at the time. These ponies, they’re no longer ponies, I need you to know this now, instead of later. The sickness has changed them, made them more violent, and seemingly brain-dead. As I’m writing this, the town is being defended. I doubt, though, that the defenses will stand for long, which brings me to this letter.

Me and some of the townsfolk are planning to travel to the town of -Illegible-, hoping to seek refuge there. There might be ponies and supplies there, though we’re not certain. Come try to find us there. If we’re not there, hopefully I’ll have something there to guide your new path.

I left you a small gift as well, use it wisely.

Take care, my friend.

After reading, Raven thinks the letter over. He establishes the fact that his name is Raven, and that a friend of his evacuated the town, to a better location, the name not able to be discerned. He also learns that some sickness has plagued the land of Equestria, apparently turning ponies into monsters.

Deciding to think more on it later, in a safer location, he folds the letter up, and looks over to the right, looking at the items. First grabbing the gift box, he looks to find the tag blank, and then proceeds to open it. Inside is a Standard-Issue Hoofgun, alongside about 30 additional bullets, with a note stating ‘I always thought you’d need one eventually.’. He smiles at that, holding it with his magic, adjusting to the weight and feel of it, and loading the magazine.

Once he was done with that, he grabbed the travel bag, putting the additional bullets and letter in there, and looked at the supplies: A Knife, A Journal, A map of the paths from and to Ponyville, and books regarding a variety of topics, few relevant to the current situation. Once he looks at all of it, he gets out of bed, and trots around, getting back used to his legs. He once more looks around, and notices that there’s very limited power still circulating in the hospital, and that there was damage done outside, leading to the darkness and the sparks from the lights.

Going over to the nearby window, he braces himself for what he might see outside, shaking a bit. Swallowing, and gagging slightly from the dryness of his throat, he opens the curtains, seeing the horrors of outside blast in his face. Buildings are now just rubble, remaining structures up in flames. One house, he sees, is in a similar state, though it seems enough is still there to scavenge for resources. He doesn’t see any creatures, pony or otherwise, moving about, but he knows that there must be some stragglers still around. He decides to not worry about it, until he escapes the hospital proper.

After he finishes his preliminary evaluation of the situation, he makes sure he has everything on, and proceeds outside of the hospital room. The first thing he notices is blood caked on the floor and walls, yet a surprising lack of anypony, making him a bit suspicious. He takes out his knife, and proceeds down the hallway, until he comes across a reception desk.

“Hello, is anypony there?” He inquires in vain, hearing the expected response of absolutely nothing. He goes behind the counter, and tries to turn on one of the computers, to see if there’s any information on them, but there isn’t any power to go to them. During the process, he starts to hear a groan, which alerts him. He turns around, and starts to say “Hey, are you alr-”, before the Trotter finished standing up, and gets on top of him. He first attempts to grab the knife on his left, but he can’t focus his horn, and can’t reach it. He then gets the gun from the right, and shoots the Trotter in the head, creating a lot of noise, and leading to a dead Trotter on top of him. Pushing the Trotter off, he hears movement and groaning from different parts of the hospital, so he quickly gets to his hooves, gets everything back situated, and gallops down a random hallway.

Reaching the end of the hallway, a horde of Trotters appear. Looking behind him, the same situation is present. Looking up and down the hallway, he sees an open elevator door, with an empty shaft. After a quick examination, he finds that there’s a ladder that he should be able to climb down with, which should lead him to the exit. Seeing no other option, and the Trotters coming closer to him, he gets some distance, gallops and leaps to the ladder.

“Gah!” He yells, as he bangs his bottom-left leg on the sides of the shaft, slightly bruising it. Thankfully, the rest of him landed fine upon the ladder, so there was nothing further harmed. The Trotters stopped short of falling, and though out of reach, attempted to swat at him regardless. He proceeded down the ladder, with some difficulty, eventually reaching his destination, the floor below.

Looking around, he notices that there’s not any Trotters currently on the floor, likely all still above. Taking that as his opportunity, he hobbles towards the door, pushing it open as quickly as he can. When he does so, the smell of outside rushes in, making him gag from the putrid smell. Shaking his head, he steps out of the hospital, arming himself with the pistol, held in his magic. Looking around, he begins to head towards his house.

Walking down the path, he looks around, trying to see if there’s anypony still alive, but seeing only dead, rotting equines instead. He doesn’t recognize any of them by name, though some familiarities are there in regards to looks.

All of this death..how did this start? he thinks to himself, trying to think of anything he might’ve heard of prior to him being put under, but coming up empty. While thinking, he trips over a dead body, accidentally shooting his Hoofgun in the process. Hearing similar noises from in the hospital, he starts hobbling faster towards the house, arriving there in about a minute.

Knowing the limited time, he goes inside the area not collapsed and on fire, and looks around. He notices some study documents, signed by him, still in-tact, and sees that there are a few cans of beans still below his desk. He decides to take all of that, and puts it in his travel bag. Looking towards the flames and rubble to his right, he sighs, reflecting on the memories of the house.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he starts to exit the building. Upon open the door, a Trotter ends up landing on him, knocking the Hoofgun away. Due to the struggling, he can’t focus his magic, and can’t manage to get any of his other weapons. Not being able to push the Trotter off, and starting to lose strength, he starts to resign.

Well, I suppose this is it then. he thinks, before starting to let the Trotter overtake him. Before the Trotter can, however..

“Trotter~ Over here~” An unknown voice calls, before causing a boom of sorts. The Trotter looks up and turns to the voice, before getting shot in-between the eyes by the owner of that voice, causing it to fall right on Raven.

“Gross,” Raven says, pushing it off and standing up, brushing himself off, before grabbing his gear, and looking towards the direction of that voice. Seeing the pony coming towards him, he sighs in relief to see another live pony.

“Good day, gent. Appreciations for saving me just a moment ago,” Raven begins, showing respect.

“No reason for that stuff,” The pony replies, laughing, twirling his gun. “Name’s Redsopine Prism, what about yours?” he asks, a grin on his face that slightly unnerves Raven.

“You can call me Raven, a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Raven replies.

“Raven? That’s a strange name for a pony, you don’t usually hear a name like that around here,” Redsopine says in response, confused.

“I suppose so, but that’s what I’m apparently called, so I can only assume that,” Raven states.

“So you don’t remember what happened?” Redsopine inquires.

“I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t remember much of anything prior to this. I was also put under before the situation, which probably helped cause that,” Raven responds.

“Well, that sucks. To bring you up to speed, these walking shits have sprung up everywhere. They don’t appear to actually be alive, as you can probably tell by the decaying flesh, but they’re active and violent regardless. In other words, they’re undead. Nobody knows the true reason why, but popular theory was some sickness was filtered in through another kingdom, probably those stupid griffons,” Redsopine explains, relaying relatively what Raven already knew.

“I take it you don’t like griffons too much?” Raven asks, causing Redsopine to glare.

“Not in the slightest, let’s move on from this topic,” Redsopine states in finality, before his look lightens up again. “So, given the circumstances, what would you say to us banding together for a bit? Maybe to find another group? Two ponies are better than one, I say,” He continues, a cocky grin on his face.

Raven, knowing that such is true, nods in agreement, saying: “I suppose you’re right. With your Gunmanship, and my strategization skills, I think we could make a good duo. I’m actually on the hunt for a friend of mine. He wrote this letter, do you recognize the hoofwriting?”, then proceeding to hoof him the note in question. After looking at it for a bit, one could easily see the blank expression on Redsopine’s face.

“Yeah..I can’t read too well. However, I remember somepony with a weird recording device talk about writing a letter, so I can only assume that maybe that was to you?” Redsopine states questioningly, shrugging.

“I guess so, perhaps we sh-” Raven begins, before hearing a loud, collective sound of trotters, remembering now why he was rushing as he was. Redsopine notices this as well, and starts aiming his gun.

“We need to go, there’s too many, and we need to conserve ammunition. There’s a pathway, according to a map, that should lead us to a farm by the name of Sweet Apple Acres. We should be able to get them off our backs, at the very least,” Raven suggests, to a shaking head.

“No matter where we go, they’ll follow. They follow sound, and continue after their target. We need to throw them off, and I know how we can do so. You start heading towards that path, I’ll fire a bullet from another direction, and gather the attention of the horde. Once they’re headed towards that noise, I’ll go roundabout and meet you there. Just be ready to go once I’m there,” Redsopine replies. Before Raven can say anything to the contrary, Redsopine is already galloping away, so Raven starts doing so as well, as best he can, given the hurt leg, which isn’t too quick, as he’s doing so, he sees something shiny on the side of the path, and decides to check it out. It looks like a small black box, with a microphone, likely a form of recording device. Putting it in the bag, he starts going again, the horde closer to him than prior. He turns into a spot in-between two houses, as Redsopine fires his gun, then precedes to do so again after a few seconds. The trotters then stop, and start heading towards the sound.

After ensuring that he’s no longer a target, Raven finishes his travel to the path, panting. He takes out the black box, and notices it’s relatively damaged. After hearing static for most of the recordings, he presses play on the last one, and hears they’re escaping to somewhere starting with Apple. Before he can think too much, Redsopine appears, and Raven packs up the box again, and heads with him to Sweet Apple Acres.

“So they’re off our trail?” Raven inquires.

“Sure are, good thing for sound. Also, are you alright?” Redsopine asks, noticing Raven’s limp.

“I’m fine, I ended up spraining it by jumping onto an elevator shaft ladder. We have more to worry about anyway,” Raven states dismissively.

“If you say so. Hey look, a barn’s up ahead, and it’s still standing!” Redsopine exclaims with glee. In a few short moments they’re both at the barn, getting their breath once more.

“Alright, we don’t know what’s going to be behind these doors, so it’s probably a good idea to have a weapon at the ready,” Raven explains, looking in his bag, and finding a knife.

“True. I’m not too good with melee weaponry, so I’ll stick to a gun,” Redsopine replies. Raven nods in agreement, and they both go to one side of the door.

“Ready?” Raven asks.

“Let’s do it,” Redsopine states in response, and they both open the door at the same time. They look inside, and see nothing.

“Well, that was anti-climatic,” Redsopine says, sounding disappointed.

“Indeed, but it’s better than us being swarmed again,” Raven replies. He takes out the box again, and lays it on a table inside.

“I suppose s-, hey, what’s that?” Redsopine asks, intrigued.

“It appears to be a recording device, likely the one that you were referring to earlier,” Raven explains, getting it to the last tape again.

“Listen to this,” Raven continues, pressing the play button, and having Redsopine hear it.

“Apple? He may be referring to Appleloosa, it’s a town a little ways from here. It’ll take about a day or so to travel by hoof, but that’s probably our best bet,” Redsopine states. Raven takes out the map from his bag, and looks at the paths stemming from Ponyville.

“Alright. Since we still have some light left in the sky, we might as well start the journey now. If we leave from the east of here, we can come across the same path that leads from Ponyville, without having to go back into the town. Once we’re there, we can travel along it for a bit, and make camp somewhere in the forest nearby,” Raven says, thinking it all over. Redsopine looks at the map himself, and nods in agreement.

“We won’t get too far in the daylight, but we can at least get on the path and get the camp put up,” Redsopine says after a bit. Both of them go ahead and eat some of the canned beans that Raven found prior, and checked their weapons. Once everything checks out, they leave the barn, not bothering with scavenging it at this time. Navigating using the map, they find themselves on the path relatively quick, with a sign saying that Appleloosa is 7 miles away from their present location. The only noise they hear as they walk are some birds cawing, and insects chirping. After a while of no conversation, Redsopine pipes up.

“So what happens if we get there and it’s destroyed? What then?” He inquires, concern present on his face.

“My friend wrote a letter to me when I was in the hospital, he said he’d have something there to guide me wherever they went next, if they weren’t there whenever I arrived there. Hopefully that’s still the case,” Raven replies.

“And if not?” Redsopine asks.

“Than we will see where to go from there,” Raven reasons. He looks towards the sky, and notices the sun close to setting, leading to him sighing.

“Alright, we need to find some supplies to make a camp. It’s not going to be anything special, but we need to at least have a covered area. I’ll find the wood, you collect leaves, preferably big ones,” Raven explains, bringing them to a halt. He knows it’s not going to be that defensive of a place, but it’s better than being completely exposed to the trotters. Thankfully, Redsopine appears to agree with that, nodding his head and going into the forest to do his task. After a moment, Raven does the same.

After collecting some materials, Raven suddenly hears a scream, coming from Redsopine. Going as fast as he can towards the source, he starts hearing both Redsopine and seemingly another live pony. Attempting to sneak up on the two, Raven trips over a small log, generating a lot of noise in the process, gaining the attention of Redsopine and the other.

“I know y-you’re there, c-come on out!” The unknown voice shouted. Raven, after a moment of hesitation, decided to go ahead and do so. Concealing a weapon behind him, he reveals himself. Upon doing so, he notices that Redsopine has a blade right below his throat, with a zebra holding it.

“Good evening, we mean no harm to you. My name’s Raven, what about you?” Raven asks the zebra, trying to keep calm and civil.

“My n-name is Zerov, I l-live in the forest, and have for m-many moons. Why are you two invading my t-territory?” Zerov asks with a glare.

“Our intention is to find safety this night, and nothing more. As you know, our world has turned, and nowhere appears safe. Once this night concludes, we will no longer be within this forest, I swear to you,” Raven replies. Once he says as such, Zerov looks to be thinking that over.

“I h-have a place for you t-two to sleep, but you better make sure you’re gone by daybreak, or I won’t hesitate to shoot or st-stab you,” Zerov says after a bit, releasing the hold on Redsopine, pushing him forward. He motions for Raven and Redsopine to follow, and starts heading towards the resting place. After a few minutes of walking, they arrive at a small camp, with two tents and a fire pit, though nothing in it.

“It gets a bit cold at night, but we can’t put up a fire, as it would attract the trotters. There’s a cot in both tents, so go to bed,” He explains, turning away and walking.

“Wait!” Raven quickly shouts, catching up to Zerov. “We’re going to be heading to Appleloosa once the night concludes, would you be willing to come with us? We could use another member of the group,” He continues. Zerov ponders this for a moment, before looking at Raven once more.

“I will think it over during the night, but do be warned, that the more you bring on, the more pain you shall encounter,” Zerov says mysteriously, turning away once more, and leaving the area. Raven returns to the two tents, and stretches, noticing Redsopine has already lied down. Raven travels to his own bed, and quickly falls asleep himself.