The C̸̞̙̭̽̌̀̈́̽̕̕ȗ̵̧̨̢̻̩̞̘͙̉̋̊͂͘ŕ̷͖̦̍͝s̵̫̪̋̍͂̆̆͆̄é̶̡̧̺͖d̸͎͒̒̿̈̀ Apocalypse

There was no reason to run through now. In front of us was zombified Pinkie and Zecora. Zecora hadn't made it, and I couldn't be too surprised. I felt guilty, knowing I might have been the one who got her bit, leading Pinkie right toward her and running off as I did.

"Should we just keep going?" Dash suggested, "We could find out a potion or something in her hut."

"It's not worth it. We don't know anything about potions. Besides, it's 2 v 1 ... I choose one." I looked back to find not one, but three zombie ponies behind us now. "Damn."

With no more time to speak without getting eaten, we both gunned it toward Pinkie and Zecora. I got out my knife in case things got ugly. The gun was too loud, and would echo through the dark woods. When we got closer, I started to nudge Dash to the side, away from them. I knew that it didn't matter if I got bit again. I had to look out for Dash and make sure she didn't.

Seeming to hold our breaths, we bolted past them. Or ... almost did. I messed up badly and got Dash tripped. We both fell to the ground and I was stalled trying to get her up with Pinkie and Zecora lunging at us. It didn't take long for her to get up though.

I kicked Zecora back before she got the chance to bite and was forced to slice Pinkie's cheek with the knife before she got hers. We sprinted away from them quickly, but heard their hooves beating the ground behind us. We didn't stop running until we were at Zecora's hut.

The door to it had already been burst in, and there were bloodstains around the hut. It was horrible to the point where we could see which spots she was attacked at. Broken glass was scattered around the floor, and some shelves were laying on the ground. Dash and I both slammed the door shut and I instructed her to drag Zecora's heavy pot in front. She managed to get it over and we pushed it against the shaking door.

"I don't know how well I'm gonna be able to handle this." Dash drooped, looking around at Zecora's hut.

"I don't know how well I can do either, but we have to make it through. I'm here if you ever need somebody to talk to."

"Thanks. Now let's just get through these books."

"Anything in that one?" she asked.

I threw the book aside. "No. Any luck with you?"

"Nope."

We kept looking book through book, spell by spell. There had to be something about zombies, right? Even if it was a myth book, we could still get some kind of insight. But as the books thinned out, our hope to find something diminished. A few minutes later, a harsh bang shook the pot, startling us from the spells.

"That won't hold for long," I said.

"What do you mean? It's not like they're gonna get through it, are they? If they were, they would have done it by now," she insisted.

"We can't be certain. There's only two small books left. Search through them quickly while I get the window open enough to get through."

I hustled to the bedroom, jumped up on the bed and started to work the window. Using the strength I could muster, I managed to bend the thick branch enough to where Dash could fit through. When I ran back, the door was torn up and the pot was trembling.

"Any luck?" I asked.

"No, let's just get outta here."

She ran for the bedroom and jumped on the bed, starting to ease her way through the window. Somehow, I hadn't made a wide enough space for her to get through, and her wings got caught on the sides.

"Devan, help! Push me or som-!"

"Shh!" I glanced back at the door.

Oh no.

The door wasn't trembling anymore, and they'd heard Dash's cries for help.

"Damn it! Dash, wiggle towards the inside, hurry!" I raced back to the door and used all the strength I could muster to shove the heavy pot out of my way. Quickly, I threw the door open and started running around the outside of the hut. I hesitantly pulled out my knife and sliced through Zecora's neck, holding her back when it jammed halfway through.

Pinkie had heard the ruckus between Zecora and I, but she kept going for Dash, who was now using her hooves to fend herself and keep away from the bite. My emotions had to be pulled out of me for one second to aim the m9 at Pinkie and pull the trigger. She had almost made ripped into Dash's hooves, but the bullet stopped her immediately. She fell to the ground, bullet pierced through the back of her head as I fired off another round into Zecora, splattering her blood over my face. Dash looked back at me with wide eyes.

"Oh my god ... No wonder you grabbed that out of my hoof when you did."

She continued to wiggle until she was eventually free as I pulled the knife out of Zecora's throat, watching in sorrow as she collapsed next to Pinkie.

Blood was spilled under our feet. They looked awful now. Even worse than when they were zombies. I glimpsed at Pinkie, and all my hope shattered into a million pieces on the bloody grass.

"This is all my fault."

"No it's not. Devan, don't say that. We have bigger problems to face right now."

I frowned, looking up at the dark clouds above us. I had known Pinkie for nearly my whole stay in Equestria. Memories of her and I together flashed through my head. The picnics with her sister, the sleepovers, the rock climbing ... it all came back as I angrily tried to wipe them away.

"What do we do with them?" Dash asked.

" I ... I don't know. Let's just ..." I thought, "drag them inside."

After grossly pulling them inside the hut, we looked through the cracked door one last time before making our way back to the others. The other three zombie ponies that'd followed us were nowhere to be found, but we kept a look out just in case. We both were depressed, but at the same time ready to fight off anything that got in our way. I checked the Beretta and the magazine to make sure it was loaded.

"So," Dash broke the silence, "What do you call that thing?"

"This, specifically, is an m9 Beretta, but in general, it's a gun. It's a type of pistol," I explained.

"So ... an m9 Beretta pistol gun?"

"Ha, I guess you could call it that. I'll just call it an m9."

"Okay." We kept walking a little ways. "Can I hold it?" she grinned.

Not knowing how to answer that, I just handed her the gun. Her hoof wouldn't be able to pull the trigger anywa-

"Bang!" she actually managed to let off a shot that shook up the dirt next to our legs, making her drop the gun.

"Oh crap, sorry. I didn't know it was so sensitive," she picked up the gun and hoofed it back to me.

"How did you even pull the trigger?" I asked.

"I don't know," she shrugged.

"Well, at least you got to feel what it's like to fire a gun, but now we need to get outta here, before them zombie ponies from before find us. No doubt they heard that."

"Right."

It was getting dark by the time we reached the houses and when we did, it wasn't as pretty a sight as it was before we had left. It seemed even more abandoned, and some of the boards on the doors were broken into. There were two zombie ponies wandering the path in front of us.

"What do we do?" Dash asked.

"Um ..." I stared down at my m9.

No, that would be stupid. It would attract attention, and whatever happened in the short time that we were gone looked like it hit horribly fast. I scanned the edge of the town until I found a pinkish pony with light green hair lying against a banged up house. I'm not good on names, but I believe hers was Daisy.

"Let's see if she's okay, then we can make our way through the town." I began sneaking towards her, Dash behind me, keeping our eyes on the zombies.

Before I got too close, I noticed something that made me come to a fast halt. My heart skipped a beat.

Daisy was shot in the face, blood spattered out on the other side of her. There was no way she could have survived that. It also brought my already swirling thoughts into a thundercloud of confusion. I had the only gun in Equestria ... didn't I? I tried hard to hold back the vomit building up in my system.

"What's the matter?" Dash leaned over to look at Daisy, but I stopped her and got in the way of her view.

"Dash, remember when I had to shoot Pinkie?"

"Yeah ... it was only minutes ago. Why?"

"Daisy's shot in the head too, but she wasn't a zombie."

Her eyes widened just as mine did when I saw her.

"There's too much blood, and I don't want you getting nauseous on me now," I explained.

"B- but, who shot her? I thought you were the only one with a gun!"

"That's what I thought too."

My brain couldn't take much more. I had already seen three dead ponies ... and I had a feeling there was going to be many more coming, but I tried to wash that thought away.

"Look, we need to get to that castle pronto. Let's gun it past those zombies." I observed them again.

"Sure," she quickly agreed.

We creeped out slowly before jolting on the path. The two zombies noticed us immediately, but we were quick enough to juke and confuse them by running through an open house. We continued our path to the castle, finding that the condition of the town got worse the closer to the castle we got.

What really got me was the house we passed that was actually in flames. It almost made me stop, but I realized that we weren't too far off from some more zombie ponies. Once again, their speed worried me. It was also probably preferable to get to that castle immediately.

We eventually passed another house on fire, and before we got sight of the castle, we saw a big cloud of smoke coloring the sky. I recognized in horror where the looming cloud of smoke was coming from.