Chapter 1: Screwed
Applejack woke from a horrific nightmare, sweating all over. She had been having horrible dreams for the past week now, each one more terrifying and indescribably nerve wrenching than the last and each one made her wake up feeling more tired than when she fell asleep.
Though it was a hot sunny day outside, the fear that coursed through her veins shook her to the bone and Applejack found herself shivering uncontrollably, her blood as cold as ice.
She gasped and gasped like a fish out of water, as she tried to steady her nerves after enduring yet another blood curdling nightmare. She coughed loudly several times when she could gasp no more, as she felt herself choking on her own phlegm.
When the coughing finally subsided, she held her incredibly sore head in her hands and groaned painfully. She felt a loud ringing in her ears and her head was throbbing to bursting point. It was as if someone had struck her over the head with a baseball bat, hard. It really was that painful.
Her saliva was as hot as the hottest lava and she swore she could feel her throat burning, talking was difficult and she could bring herself to say nothing. "I feel absolutely awful" she thought to herself as she staggered out of bed, tears blurring her vision.
She had been away from home for nearly a week now, had she not made the fatal blunder she made in her moment of weakness a week ago at the Rodeo.
"Damn it" she sighed to herself ashamedly as she reflected on just how hard she screwed up when she failed to win the prize money, she remembered just how long she had spent preparing herself in every way she could for that rodeo. And yet all the preparation in the world it seemed had not prepared her enough not to screw up.
"I'm a failure" she managed to choke out as tears flooded from her sore eyes. "If you can hear me now friends... I don't deserve to be your friend, I screwed up and you don't need to forgive me" she sobbed gently, slapping herself in the face as hard as she could.
For the next few minutes, she continued to wallow in both self pity and pity for the friends she had failed miserably, a stream of seemingly endless tears streaming from her eyes all the while. She was the world's most useless pony, and there was no place for failures like her in this world.
Now Fluttershy, her friend, would die in hospital of that horrible illness she had been suffering from. It was sad news when the other ponies heard that Fluttershy had fallen so ill with so serious an illness. The operation would cost a lot of money, which tragically Applejack and her friends did not have. She had gone to the rodeo in the hope that she would win first place and earn enough money to give Fluttershy the money she so desperately needed.
Fluttershy's life depended on this operation being granted to her, and Applejack knew it.
But now she had no money to give, Fluttershy would get no operation and she would soon die. Fluttershy would die hating her and never again would her other friends talk to her again. She could not go home money less and expect her friends to just get over it. She had really screwed up this time, despite her best and most valiant efforts.
She never cried before, her friends even wondered if they would ever see the day she cried a single tear. Yet here she was, bawling her heart out and unable to stop herself. She was relieved her friends were not here to see this, she would be incredibly embarrassed if they did and that would only serve to make her feel even worse.
A loud bang on the door made her suppress her sobs and her heart skip a beat. The room seemed to jump several degrees in temperature and her headache only seemed to worsen tenfold as Applejack listened anxiously for any further noise that might come from downstairs.
"Are you sure this is the right house, Pinky?" came the unsure voice of Applejack's friend, Twilight. "Positive" squeaked the high pitched and excited voice that belonged to "pinky", in reply.
The banging continued, louder and louder. "Applejack?, are you in there?, open up its us" came a loud shout from a voice which Applejack recognized as Rainbow dash's voice.
Very carefully, Applejack tiptoed out of her bedroom and across the corridor. She stopped at a window and peered out through a tiny gap in the iron shutters, taking care not to be seen. A horrible sight met her eyes, a sight which filled her heart with the darkest fear, terror and despair.
The sight she saw outside only confirmed her fear, there in front of her house stood four of her friends. She watched anxiously as they prowled around the front door downstairs, clearly not pleased with her.
She wasn't sure if the looks on their faces meant they were angry with her or if they were anxious that she had not come home for so long. But either way, they were not pleased. A part of Applejack longed to sprint downstairs and welcome them all in with a hearty chuckle and an apology at not coming home sooner.
She would get a warm welcome if she did. But it would be with firearms that her friends welcomed her with, and not open arms. As she saw the furious expressions on the faces outside, she wondered how much time fluttershy had left, the doctor said that the illness did not take very long to kill its victim.
Applejack could not stand to see the furious expressions on the faces of the friends she had let down anymore, and so she quickly turned away from the window, weeping as she did.
"Open this door!" bellowed Rainbow Dash loudly, her tone dripping with impatience. "Twilight, kick the door down" ordered Rainbow Dash, clearly not wanting to waste time.
Twilight gave the door a heavy kick, but it did little. Applejack thanked fate for reminding her to barricade the door securely every time she came home. The windows were fitted with iron shutters too. The earth seemed to shake and shudder as Twilight repeatedly kicked at the door with her hooves, kicks of hatred and fury, kicks that could crack skulls with the sheer amount of force they demonstrated.
"Its no use, the door's too strong" sighed Twilight after several kicks. "Are you sure this is where Applejack is" asked Rainbow Dash uncertainly. "I'm positive" replied Pinky, "the pony that told me promised that this was exactly the place".
"Well then keep at it" yelled Rainbow Dash "I have a feeling Applejack is hiding something from us, something bad". "I agree" remarked Twilight as she began to kick at the door once more, harder than before.
"Help me Everypony" she begged and soon all four ponies were brutally slamming their hooves into the door with strength that would bring even the hulk to tears of shame. The door slowly began to give way, not even such a reinforced and hard wooden door could withstand so many kicks of frustration.
Applejack realized that it would not be long before the door gave way.
There was no other alternative, once the door came down they would be on her like an Avalanche. She could only begin to imagine all the terrible things they would do to her when they discovered how she had failed Fluttershy, and how Fluttershy was going to die because she had failed.
Applejack went back to her bedroom and opened the iron shutter. She found herself looking down at the opposite side of the house, the side that her friends were not at. It was a long way down...
She closed her eyes and stepped towards the window,desperately praying for a miracle to survive the fall she was about to experience
And Applejack "Aj" jumped, just as the door downstairs gave way with a groan and the other ponies dashed in.
