I was playing with Almond in the living room when I heard a knock on the door. This was it. I had been dreading that sound for a while now, ever since I found out Dad was sick. I could see a stallion outside the window, waiting for me to answer the door. He had already seen me, and now I had to answer it. I knew what happened next. It was the same thing I had been through with Mom. They were going to take Dad somewhere to die slowly, and there was nothing I could do about it. I walked up to the door, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and opened it.
“H-hello?” I stammered. I tried my best to sound casual, but I was already starting to cry.
“It’s Maple, right?” He replied. “Is your father home?”
I didn’t recognize him, but apparently he knew me. Of course, I couldn’t see his face past his gasmask, but his voice didn’t sound familiar, and I don’t remember ever meeting anypony as huge as he was.
“Yes… he’s, uh, down in the basement…”
“Well, would you mind getting him for me?” It was sickening the way he was talking to me in such a kind voice.
“He’s not, um… that is, he hasn’t been feeling very well. I- I think.” I was starting to tremble a little at this point, and I heard Almond’s rubber suit rub up against mine as he hid behind my flank.
“Oh. Well then I guess I’ll just leave today’s rations with you two. I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”
“Wha- oh! The food!”
“Well, what did you think I was here for, Maple? I make these rounds every weekend!”
I don’t know that I had ever been shocked and relieved at the same time like that before. I wish I hadn’t, because I let my guard down and blurted out something I shouldn’t have.
“I’m sorry. I was just nervous because I thought you were here to take Dad to the shelter.”
“Oh.” His voice suddenly became extremely cold, in stark contrast to his earlier demeanor. “He’s got the plague then, has he?”
I tried to respond, but all that came out was an “Eep.”
“Buck!” he shouted back to another, equally large stallion on the road behind him, “We’ve got another one at 217. Have Ed pick him up tonight.” He turned back to us and continued, “Well, thanks for letting me know. We wouldn’t want you kids getting sick. Your dad’s got six hours to make whatever preparations he needs before they come and get him, and your house will have to be fumigated then too, with both of you in it. Until then, neither of you are allowed to remove your suits or masks for any reason, including eating or using the bathroom. Do you understand?”
“…Yes, sir…,” I answered after a long pause.
He started to walk off, but then turned around again.
“Oh, and um… don’t let your dad try anything weird, alright? I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t really see him as one to come quietly. I mean, it’s already technically treason that he didn’t report himself if he’s ill, but of course I’m going to let that slide. Just… just try to keep him from doing anything crazy, okay?”
His coworker, Buck, I guess, brought the weekly rations up to the porch, and the two of them trotted off together, past the dead grass and trees, back to their truck to finish their rounds. As I looked out at the scenery with the knowledge that I had just turned in my own father, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if we had just stayed in Mahehattan. We moved here only eight months ago, and at the time, it was the most beautiful place I’d ever laid eyes on. I remember the waterfalls, and how they used to cascade down from the city walls. The way they would glisten in the sunlight, you could see a rainbow from one angle or another at any point in the day. I remember the gorgeous trees and flowers, and how they were always perfectly trimmed. There was a hedge maze I used to wander around in, right in the middle of the park. I can remember looking up at the palace for the first time and having to squint to see it because of how bright the white marble was, but never wanting once to look away. Most of all, I remember how happy everypony looked prancing around outside. There were always ponies walking around Manehattan, of course, but everyone here was smiling, for no reason other than how wonderful all of their lives were. Canterlot was heaven. Looking back, I suppose it was far too perfect to last.
The plague hit a mere three months after we moved in. A unicorn downtown suddenly started feeling dizzy. Then he got boils. Next he got a fever, and finally, he just didn’t wake up one day. The next day, three of his friends felt dizzy. Nopony knows what caused it, but when it came, everything changed. The waterfalls were the first thing to go. At the first sign there might have been an infection in Canterlot, they shut down the falls. It made sense. The water that flows down from here creates rivers that run through just about every town in Equestria. They just had to flip a switch, and the flow of water was completely rerouted. After that, we lost the plants too. The pegasi in charge of weather control were instructed to stop the rain so it wouldn’t flow down into the rivers below the city. Pretty soon, they found out the disease was airborne, and even though it only seemed to affect unicorns, anyone could be a carrier. The smiling faces were all replaced with masks, by order of Princess Celestia. At least the palace is still standing. We saw it four days ago when the Princess announced that there were no more available medical supplies.
I finally realized I had spaced out and was still gazing out the front door. I had to tell Dad they were going to come for him, for real this time. When he told me he was sick, I had assumed he had reported himself already, but I felt terrible for letting it slip myself. If he was hiding it, I was sure he had a good reason. I walked down the stairs to his lab, with Almond still following behind me.
“Dad?”
I peeked my head in through the door and called again.
“Dad?”
There was no answer. I walked inside. His lab was a complete mess, as usual, and I couldn’t see if he was in there or not past all the samples and equipment. I must have looked around for a good two minutes before I found the note on his desk.
Maple,
I heard everything. Don’t have much time. Found cure. Need supplies. Went to Whitetail Wood to find manedrake. Take care of Almond. Love you both.
It was written so hastily I could barely read it, but when I did make it out, I still couldn’t believe it. This was exactly what I
had been warned about only a few minutes before. He was trying to do something crazy. But he was sick, and in no condition to leave the house, much less try to leave the city. He couldn’t have made it far. I had to chase after him. I opened the back door, and ran off in the direction of the woods.
I couldn’t bother to find someone to watch Almond. I knew he was still following me, and I would have liked to leave him with a neighbor, but I had to run, and I had no way of knowing who was who without stopping to talk. When everyone’s wearing a mask and a suit, you can’t even tell what race they are, never mind picking one pony out of a crowd. If I were going to find Dad, I had to be on the lookout for someone who was very sick, and in a hurry. Even if he did manage to find a cure, he shouldn’t be running around like that in his condition. I had to stop him. I ran all the way through the town without looking back once. If Almond had gotten lost, it might be a week before I found him, but somehow, miraculously, when I did stop running, he was just a few feet behind me.
“Dad!”
I found him being held by a town guard with his hooves tied behind his back, and his mask on the ground in front of him. Dad always ate by himself in his lab, so I hadn’t seen his face in a long time, but it was pale, messy, and covered in boils. It was almost too grotesque to be familiar, but it was his.
“Dad, what happened? What’s going on?”
“Don’t come any closer,” the guard barked at me. “This man is under arrest for high treason.”
Dad turned his head around as best he could, and said to the guard, “Please, officer. These are my children. Let me speak to them just once. It might be the last chance I get.”
“…Alright. You can talk. But no physical contact, and no use of magic.”
“Can I give my daughter this note, sir?” he asked, pulling a slip of paper out from the pocket of his rubber suit.
“Fine. But that’s it. You have five minutes to talk.”
The guard stepped back just enough to give us a little bit of privacy, and Dad’s horn lit up as the note made its way into the pocket of my own suit.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“It is a list of instructions. I was planning to leave for the forest myself, but as you can see, I wasn’t able to make it. I've grown a bit too old to be running around like this as it is, and I’ve developed quite a fever. It became too difficult for me to breathe, and I had to discard the protective mask. Of course, It is quite evident that I am afflicted, and as such, attempting to leave the quarantined area is considered an act of high treason. I had hoped I could save myself.”
“You’re too sick to be outside, dad! You could have just told me, and I’d have fetched it for you. Why did you have to… why did you have to come out here yourself?” I had to hold back a few tears. I didn’t want to cry yet. I wanted to talk to my father.
“I’m sorry, Maple. …I was being selfish. I just-” He lowered his voice so the guard couldn’t hear him. “I know this is the one. I tested it on the virus back at my lab. It can keep it from replicating completely after a period of two days, seven hours. But by the time I can get it mass produced and ready for distribution, I’ll already be gone. I know enough about this virus to know I’ve got a month to live at most, and even that is an optimistic estimate. But this is bigger than me. I need you to carry on my work. Don’t let them find the lab until you’ve completed the medicine. Give it to yourselves before you show it to anyone else, okay? Then come visit me if I’m still alive. I’d like to at least see your faces again before I die. I’m tired of these masks all the time.” His eyes welled up with tears as he said this. If he started crying, there was no way I could be expected to hold it in myself.
I finally managed to choke out, “I promise, Dad.” Poor Almond had no idea what was going on, but he went in to give Dad a hug around his waist, and the guard came back to stop him.
“Hey, come on. I said no contact. …It’s just my job, kid…”
“I’m sorry, officer,” Dad responded for him, “He can’t understand a word you’re saying. He’s been deaf since birth.”
“Hm. Well, anyway… let’s get moving.”
“Very well. Goodbye, children. If you go to the town hall, you can fill out the proper forms to gather supplies from the forest. Since you’re both healthy, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting through. There’s a picture of the manedrake plant in my Encyclopedia of Botany. You only need the root, okay? Goodbye. I love you both very much.”
“…Yeah… bye, Dad... you too…”
It took three full weeks for us to get permission to leave for the forest. If we had been considered locals, it wouldn’t have taken nearly as long. I have to admit, I could see why it might look suspicious. My dad had worked in pharmaceutical research for his entire life, and been pretty successful at it, but he was always considered an eccentric by everyone around him. That’s the reason we moved to Canterlot in the first place, actually. My dad had a mild obsession with plants. Growing up, he wanted to be a botanist, but things just didn’t work out that way for him. He had always put a lot of emphasis on natural remedies over anything created in a laboratory, which was practically unheard of in a place like Manehattan. He wanted to come here because it was so close to the forest, and he was planning on having a greenhouse built to store all of the different types of plants he wanted to study. Only two months after he showed up, a plague hit Canterlot that only affects unicorns, and now to top it all off, he was convicted of high treason for trying to escape the quarantine. From their point of view, it probably looked like Dad was some kind of bio-terrorist trying to kill the princess. I’m just glad they didn’t have to search our house as part of the procedure. If they had found his lab, they’d probably never let us leave.
After a lot of paperwork, expenses, and medical tests, we finally were allowed to leave Canterlot, on the condition that we were accompanied by a guide, along with our legal guardian, seeing as how we were both minors. At the time, we didn’t have any relatives left in the city who weren’t detained, so our neighbor, Ms. Hart, took us in. She was an old pegasus who had worked as a construction foreman before retirement. Her skin was completely white, even before we started wearing the suits. She was stricter than Dad was, but that was partly because she was around more often. She was nothing like Mom, and Almond never cared very much for her, but she was a nice lady. Still, I felt bad for Almond. I had started spending most of my time pouring over books next door in our old house, but he wasn’t old enough to read, and would either stay with Ms. Hart, or come with me and just sit there for a few hours. Needless to say, he didn’t enjoy either option very much. I figured this little trip would actually be pretty good for him. The Whitetail Woods were never very dangerous, so it wasn’t a big deal for him to tag along.
We each had to be decontaminated on our way out, but since the virus was airborne, we still couldn’t take off our suits. When we met up with our guide, he didn’t give us a name, or even say ‘hello.’ He just said “Let’s get goin’,” and we took off. It seemed pretty rude to me, but Almond took a quick liking to him. Somehow or another, Almond was always better than me at telling one pony apart from another, and he was quick to judge. After a few minutes, Ms. Hart spoke up.
“Where exactly is it that we’re headed, then?”
“I dunno,” the guide responded, “I know this forest like the back of my hoof, but I can’t just magically point you to wherever you needta be. Whatre ya lookin’ for, first off?”
“Excuse me, sir,” I spoke up, “but we’re trying to find some manedrake root to take back. We need to fill up this basket.” I motioned to the basket Almond had on his side. (For some reason, he wouldn’t let me carry it.) “It has a purple flower and a green stem with seven leaves. It’s extremely rare. It’s only been found in this forest, in fact, and it typically grows in moist places with little sunlight.”
“Yeah. I think I’ve heard of something like that. Uh, lemme think for a sec… uh, yeah. There’s like this big cave over toward the east side of the forest. It’s, you know, all dark and moist. ‘Cause it’s a cave. Well, anyway, there’s probably some of that in there. Come on.” And with that, we headed east toward the cave.
After about an hour’s worth of walking, we finally made it to the cave entrance. The only problem was how dark it was inside. Nopony had thought to bring a lantern, so I volunteered to take my mask off. I knew how to light the way with my horn. The guide objected.
“I don’t think you can do that. You might, you know, get the plague or something, and I think I’d be responsible if ya did.”
“We’re a long way from Canterlot. There’s no way it can reach out here. Besides, even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. If I can find enough manedrake, there won’t be a plague.”
He seemed reassured. I took off my mask, and let my long, brown hair fall to the ground. No one ever bothered to trim their manes anymore, since you couldn’t even see them.
“My, isn’t she just beautiful?” Ms. Hart suddenly let out. She must have been trying to embarrass me, because she already knew exactly what I looked like. We had been living in the same house for a few weeks now, after all, and we had eaten together more than a few times. I started to blush, and they were all three staring at me, which just made everything worse.
“Okay, um… let’s go,” I said finally, lighting up the tip of my horn.
We continued through the cave, and I had to be up front to light the way, but I could tell they were all still staring at me. I guess it was probably pretty hard not to, the way my horn was glowing. I kept tripping over my own hair, and when I did, it broke my concentration and the light went out, but overall, it was a peaceful trip through the cave. You wouldn’t have known from the entrance how big it was, but the inside was massive. After another forty minutes or so of searching, we finally found the right type of flower, and we dug it up. Then we found another, and it was growing halfway under a rock. We dug that one up too. We thought we had a third one, but it was already dead and shriveled, and by the time we found that one, we had run out of cave to travel through. Then, just as we had started on our way back, Ms. Hart stumped her toe on that same rock we had dug the plant out from under, and we looked up to see the whole cave wall next to it was made entirely out of loose rocks like that one. Our guide insisted on moving all the rocks to see what was on the other side. (It seemed a bit uncharacteristic at the time, but I’m pretty sure he was trying to impress me since he had seen my face, which was flattering but a little creepy, because he’s a bit too old for me, but I might be reading too much into it. I’m sure he wanted to save everypony back in Canterlot as much as any of us.) Luckily enough, it turned out to be of some use. There was a small opening behind some of the rocks, just small enough where I could fit through if I crawled, but the guide and Ms. Hart would have to stay behind. While we were still debating our next move, Almond had already slipped past us and gone inside.
I got down on my knees to chase after him. I had to at this point, because he was alone in the dark without me. I felt bad enough leaving the other two behind to sit in a dark cave, but I certainly wasn’t about to leave my little brother alone here. I heard him somewhere in front of me, and he came into view just quickly enough to fall out of it. When I got to where he had been, I found out the reason for this was a particularly painful mudslide.
I slipped down, bumping my hooves and flanks on the occasional jagged rocks along the way down. The mask hanging around my neck got caught on a stalagmite, making me spin around, and I couldn’t see where I was going or how high the ceiling was, and I hit my head on it more than once. My hair got caught, tangled, and ripped out the whole way down, and I was bleeding in several places by the time I landed on top of Almond.
I brushed myself off, and got up. I was in a lot of pain, and my head was throbbing, but nothing serious had happened. Almond was crying, and as soon as I got up and turned the light back on, I could see his left hind ankle was bent in a way that ankles are not meant to bend. I told him to just stay put, and I started looking around for an exit. It looked like the only way out was up, and I wasn’t good enough at magic to levitate a pony or teleport. Even if we could get back up, we’d just be at the bottom of a mudslide, with no way of climbing up further. I couldn’t see any way out of there, but the cavern we were in was just as massive as the one above it, so there had to be another way up besides that tiny crevice. That’s just the way caverns form. So far as I knew, anyway. There was another way that I had missed, and I had to find it quickly. Almond needed medical attention.
After what seemed like around four eternities, I found the way back up. Well, I wasn’t going to take the trail all the way up to the surface, of course, but there was a passage leading up, and I decided to chance it. I went back to get Almond, and I tripped on a hole that wasn’t there before. My face landed right in the basket, which was now filled to the brim with manedrake root. Apparently, we had landed right next to a pretty big patch of the stuff, and he had been digging it up in the dark with only three legs this whole time. I picked up all of the roots off the ground and put them in the basket, fastened the basket to my right side, set Almond on my back, and started walking toward the exit. I probably hiked about half a mile uphill before I came to another dead end.
At first, I felt despair come over me, and I almost broke down and quit right then and there. Then I witnessed something incredibly strange happen. The dead end opened its eyes and stared back at me.
My mind went temporarily blank at that moment, and I think I let out another “Eep,” but I’m really not sure about that one. I do remember a lot of running and a bellowing roar so incredibly loud, I could hardly hear the sounds of the rocks it was busting through to chase after me. Other than that, all I can tell you is that somehow or another, I kept ahead of it long enough to make it back to the large cavern I had just been in, and I turned the light out, and jumped for the mass of holes, leaves and flowers that Almond had left behind earlier. This worked for a while, and the creature seemed to be looking around in confusion, although it’s really hard to tell when you can’t see anything. Finally, he smashed into wall of the cave, causing the rocks to fall all around us. I heard someone above us scream in terror as the whole cave shook. Oh no. Ms. Hart was still up there, and so was the guide. I would never forgive him for bringing us into this cave.
The mass of scales that had been chasing after us a moment ago suddenly turned up toward the ceiling and leapt into the air, smashing more rocks, and heading right toward the place we had left our traveling companions. I know this because I turned the light back on as soon as I could, just in time to see a leathery tail about to take off from the ground. I ran as fast as I could toward it, and jumped on. Normally, I would never do something like that, but it seemed like the logical choice of action at the time. Going back up that mudslide, it turns out, was around six times worse than going down it. I was immediately caked in a thick layer of mud, still holding on for my life to something that was trying to kill me, Almond was about to strangle me, because he was holding on to my neck for his own life, and all this time, rocks of all shapes and sizes were flying right at my face. It was easily the least comfortable thing I’ve ever experienced.
Suddenly, sunlight burst through, somehow visible through my eyelids and the thick layer of mud over them. I heard the cave collapse below us as we ascended into the sky. I wiped the mud off my eyes as best I could by rubbing it on the monster I was attached to, as I heard the unmistakable sound of flesh being ripped apart, somewhere just in front of me. I was able to open my eyes just in time to see blood fall down onto the trees below us. There was some poor old mare down there that had been harvesting sap when we made our appearance, and she probably got drenched with the stuff. I turned my attention upward, at the enormous beast that I knew was bound to notice me soon, and I started to lose consciousness from a combination of shock, altitude, and blood loss. I was able to fight hard enough to stay awake, but not enough to keep a strong grip in a rubber suit covered in mud. I started to fall.
I remember looking up at the creature and seeing that it hadn’t spotted me yet, to which I was almost relieved, but then I saw it was headed straight for Canterlot. I remember being too tired to panic, deciding if I was going to die anyway, I might as well fall asleep first. I can also remember seeing the beast in the distance for the first time. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it couldn’t have been a dragon, because it didn’t have any legs. I thought about Almond and what would happen to him. I thought about Ms. Hart and our guide. I hadn’t even learned his name, and he had probably already been torn limb from limb because of me. I thought about the future a little. I figured I wouldn’t be in it from here on out, but maybe they could recover the basket I had with me, and if Dad’s notes and enough manedrake could keep from falling out of it, and if Dad was right about this, they’d have a chance to cure the epidemic. If I’d have kept going, I’m sure I’d have thought about Dad rotting away somewhere while the cure he created could be only days away, but I managed to fall asleep before the thought had crossed my mind.
