FoE: Out with the Old: Those Who Stayed Behind

The sound of hundreds of hooves beating against asphalt resonated throughout the city of Baltimare. The noise echoed down a cluttered street, partially blocked by old concrete barricades, and the occasional pile of smoldering bodies, the stench of their burnt flesh still strong in the air. A single mare sprinted out of an alleyway onto the road, her red collar and backpack clattering as she did. She turned tail and began sprinting down the road, doing her best to hurdle over obstacles or going around them when she can.

A moment later, dozens of mares emerged from the same alleyway, blood flecked underneath their eyes. Some in the group trip over each other, leaving some trampled on the road. As soon as they catch wind of their prey, they pick up their pace, though they seem to be losing ground on the dark blue mare.

She seemed rather capable, or at least experienced, at running. Even as the chase began to prolong, she only seemed to outpace the mares that were chasing her. Even for a red collar, a mare once taught to only sit and obey, her body showed signs of growing muscle as she sprinted down the once empty street.

As she ran, infected mares began to emerge from the empty buildings around her, sluggish and tired. They took to the chase, only adding to the growing swarm pursuing her, which had now seemed to flow over the street like a flood as opposed to a crowd of mares. The horde lept over cars, sometimes simply pushing them out of the way if they were too tall.

The dark-colored mare didn't look back for a second, her eyes constantly forward as she sprinted towards nowhere. She had simply been searching for food or a master earlier, and now a crowd of what must've been over a hundred mares was now chasing her at full speed. She had seen what had happened to other slaves, the ones who 'went Bloodshot' and betrayed their master. All it took was a single touch and you were a monster.

She hated the thought of this, how this sickness made so many slaves betray their owners. She hated the thought of becoming like them, a killer of masters and a traitor to her way of life. She would find a master and keep from becoming like those other mares if it would kill her.

None of those thoughts mattered, now. All she could think about was running. Even as her lungs felt hot and her legs began to burn, she knew she had to keep running. That's what had kept her sane so far, right? She kept moving, she stayed the way she was. She knew that if she even slowed down a bit, it'd be all over. Other mares that had escaped from the Baltimare Brothel with her had all suffered the same fate, only because they stopped running.

"Hey!"

A muffled noise broke her concentration and she looked in the direction of it. A stallion!

A stallion on the roof of a nearby apartment building waved at her, pointing towards the door of the building. He took out a rifle and began firing at the crowd, killing only a few mares. It was enough to distract them for a brief second, and they soon started running at him, some going in the alleyway near the apartment complex and clawing at the brickwork of the building, a few smart enough to grab a drainpipe and clamber their way up it.

The mare wasted not a split second. She mustered what energy she had left in her and ran for the doors of the building. She bashed her way through the unlocked doors, not even looking at the interior of the building, except for the large set of stairs. Her legs felt like they would burst into flames, but she kept trying, tugging at the railing slightly to ease the strain on her legs.

A few mares had run into the building, quickly seeing the dark blue mare scrambling up the staircase, and began to chase her again. As the sane mare ascended the staircase, she began to wheeze as she ran, but kept her pace as best as she could, hearing thundering hoofsteps from the stairs below her. She closed her eyes and kept sprinting, tapped a wall at the top, turned and ran again.

As she neared the top, she struggled to keep a straight line and her vision began to fade. Her sweat made her look like she had been sprayed with a fire hose, but she fought as hard as she could, dragging herself in a desperate bid to keep from being touched by the sick mares, who were closing in.

She heard even louder footsteps from above, but her blurred vision could only make out a vaguely pony-like shape. Was it the stallion?

She exhaled a plea as her eyes closed.

"Save..."

Everything went black.

Andromeda was her name. She had a dark blue coat, with maroon eyes. Her hair was long, but as well kept as she could afford, it seemed. It was magenta in coloration, though her previous master most likely had it dyed that way, as opposed to it being natural, one could see tiny patches where the hair just didn't seem like the proper color, but it was hard to tell what it truly was.

Now she was unconscious on a stairway as diseased mares drew close.

• When she woke up, she was leaning against something firm. Her eyes slowly peeled open, and at first glance, all she saw was the night sky. She turned her head slightly, and saw some crates, and some dirty pillows in her peripheral. Her legs ached badly, almost too sore to move. She used her arms to push herself up into a sitting position, and quickly shielded her eyes from the light of a campfire.

The pony she saw earlier was sitting there, hunched over like a homeless man, watching a small pot of water boil over the campfire, held up by an assembly of sticks.

"Sir?" She asked meekly. As her senses caught up to her, she coughed, parched. She remembered that she hadn't drank much for at least half a day.

"Don't call me that." The pony said back.

She blushed and giggled. She loved when they reprimanded her, even just a harsh tone.

"I'm sorry, master." She cooed.

The pony turned and drew a sawn-off shotgun on her.

"Don't call me that either."

Andromeda looked close at the stallion.

Is that a mare?

Is that blood!?

She immediately tensed, but couldn't muster a scream.

"Calm down. I'm not gonna touch you." The heavily-clothed mare sat down again, holstering her shotgun.

"You're a mare?" Andomeda asked, still tense.

"B-but, you saved my life, you touched me and-"

The other mare stopped her with a wave of her gloved hand.

"Gloves. If I can't touch you, I can't turn you, right?"

Andromeda nodded slowly, her instincts screaming for her to run away from her, but her and her legs were far too tired to do so.

"Why did you save me?" She asked.

"Do I really need a reason?" The armed woman chuckled.

"You're not crazy. Well, not as crazy as the women who want to turn you into one of them."

Andromeda simply accepted the answer at first, but pondered on it for a brief moment.

"Wait, why were you shooting them? Don't you want to help them?" She asked, shifting in her makeshift bed.

"Used to. Then there were no more guys for them to kill, so they just turned on any women that weren't as mad as them." She shrugged, watching the campfire before throwing a few toy letter blocks onto it.

The contents of the unmarked can above the fire began to steam, and the infected mare took them off with a pair of metal tongs, setting them on the concrete. Andromeda hadn't smelled anything like that in a long time. She didn't even know a name for it. All she knew is that when she was well behaved, her master used to give it to her as a treat.

"You hungry for peaches?" The infected mare spoke up, emptying some of the aforementioned fruit into a plastic bowl and pushing it over to Andromeda, along with a plastic spoon. She immediately backed away from it, as much as her strength would allow.

"This will make me sick like you!" She cried out.

"No. It won't. Did I spit in it? Did I take my glove off and stick my finger in it? Eat the damn fruit." The mare hissed at her, causing her to shield herself, as if expecting a blow to the head.

"I'm not gonna hit you." She said simply, eating the rest of the peaches straight from the can.

Andromeda waited for a moment, then sighed.

"I'll take some water too, if that's alright."

After eating, Andromeda fell into a dreamless rest.

As daylight shone against Andromeda's eyes, she woke to a cloudy sky. Slowly, her eyes scanned her surroundings. The campfire set last night had burned to mostly ashes, a few coals still barely holding the fire they once burned within. The other mare was already wide awake, lifting some long piece of metal from behind the crates Andromeda was sleeping near.

"You're awake?" The mare spoke.

Andromeda nodded weakly.

"Good. I'll grab something for you to eat from my pack in a minute." The mare set the metal sheet down, but Andromeda could not see where.

"What was that?" She asked as she brought herself up, now having the strength to get herself up, at least after popping a few bones.

"Oh, the metal thing? I use that to get places without walking on the streets." She tossed a can with a pull-tab over to the waking mare.

"You walk across the buildings? Why?" Andromeda said as she struggled with the can's pull tab.

"Easy, really. You stay off the streets, it's harder for them to see you. If I get chased out, I just get out, walk back, and pull the metal away." She explained, showing how she had already formed a perilous-seeming bridge between the apartment complex and the next building. Below, a few burnt corpses lied in the alleyway. The drainpipe had been pulled from the building, bent and crashed upon the concrete.

"How did you get those mares to go away?" Andromeda spoke up, backing away from the edge of the building after taking a look at the alleyway below.

"They may be crazy, but they're not too stupid. Throw a few bottles full of flaming gasoline at them and most of them will back off. The rest? Target practice. I'm surprised the gunshots didn't wake you up." She chuckled as she strung her rifle across her back.

"I had been running a lot.." Andromeda said, finally opening the pull tab of the can and eating the contents inside; pear halves in syrup.

The infected mare had already gotten up onto the metal, stretching out both of her arms to gain balance. Before walking across, she looked back at Andromeda.

"You're Andromeda, right?"

Andromeda looked at her curiously.

"How did you know?"

"You mumble in your sleep. Anyways, you can call me Archer." She turned her head forward, walking across.

"Stay put. I'll be back in a few minutes. If you need my help, just call out." Archer eventually reached the other side, and disappeared into a trap door, walking down a set of stairs.

Andromeda walked over to where she had been sleeping, sitting back down. The cloth left there was still warm, so she wrapped herself up in the dirty cloth, like a child cocooning themselves with a favorite blanket before bed. She watched the grey sky, a great mass of clouds drifting high above her, almost a mesmerizing sight. As a slave, she was rarely allowed outside of her brothel, and rarely got to see the sky, aside from what she could get out of a window. Now, ever since she had fled, she found comfort in the fact that at least until she found a new master, she could see the sky in its entirety. Vibrant blues, the stars at night, tiny clouds like islands floating on a great sea.

Just as her eyes began to shut, she heard somepony trying to push open the barricaded door to the rooftop.