Death Unbound: Days Gone By

Applebloom glared at the guard watching her with a burning hatred. It had only been her and that guard after Blue Field had left her. He had said that somepony was going to meet her, but it's been 20 minutes, and yet nothing.
She couldn't explain why, but ever since Twilight rescued her from the base, she wasn't afraid. Even during the fight she wasn't, it took all she had to not bring her to join the fight, and a magic bubble.
“Hey, when is that pony ‘pose to meet me? It's been darn near 20 minutes already!”
“Relax kid. He'll be here soon. Just take the time you need to relax, you don't get that many chances these days.”
Applebloom opened her mouth to argue, but yet she agreed with him. It's been far to long since she's been allowed to sleep with both eyes closed. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but nothing happened, she neither got tired, or relaxed. She couldn't shake that feeling in her gut that something had happened to Rainbow and Twilight.
After months of seeing gruesome killings, her 11 years old mind went over the worst possibilities. It hurt both physically and mentally. She laid awake, the pain taking form of tears as they gathered in her eyes.
She thought of everypony she lost, of everypony she hasn't lost yet. Her friends deaths have hit her the hardest. They were there for her when they were all so young, trying to get their cutie marks together had been an adventure of epic proportions, to her at least. Once they finally did, it was worth every moment of failures that it took to get there, every bit of embarrassment, and every bit of pain.
As tears started streaming down her face the door finally opened. The light shined through as a large red figure walked through the now open doorway.
Applebloom's face turned to one of surprise, and once more tears started coming down as she ran to the pony and embraced him in a hug”
“Applebloom.. I'm so glad yer alright!” He said as he returned it.
“Bi-Big Macintosh, is that really you?”
“Yeeup”

“So how'd ya survive? We all thought you died running blocking them from getting in.” Applebloom asked, still not believing what she saw
“As you left the house, a few of the dead started to come in through a window. I couldn't just leave the door, I was holding them back, so I opened it and ran through them. I'm surprised I wasn't bit,” His eyes narrowed and he let out a barely audible growl

“Wow,” Applebloom said, mesmerized by her brother’s story, “Wait, then how did you end up with these guys? They're killers..” Her voice drifted off as she said that last word.
“They saved me. I was alone for a while and a group of ponies managed to overpower me, they wouldn't killed me if the Pythons hadn't showed up. After that I was working for them for a bit. That was until their previous leader started to feel threatened by me, and well. Now I'm the leader,” He gave with a smile, he didn't want Applebloom to know what happened.
“So, you killed him?” She asked rather innocently.m
Big Mac was took by surprise. Of all the things she could've asked he didn't think that would be it, “Not kill… Just, took him out of the picture. So, how have Twilight and Rainbow been treatin’ ya?” He asked rather quickly, he wanted to get off the previous topic.
“They've kept me alive, they made sure I was safe, or safe as can be. They comforted me, and made sure I knew I wasn't alone. And saved me from your men.. Including the ones who nearly cut me up!” She yelled, she was now especially angry, her brother may have been alive but she couldn't believe that he allowed such sick actions.
“Listen, if I knew that it was you, I would've gone down there myself and killed the pony who did. Thankfully, Twilight handled that. Ya know, I'm surprised, last time we saw each other she was against killing. But next thing I know, I'm hearing she killed 18 ponies at the base, and two down where your camp was.”
“A lot happened in the past few days,” she said coldly.
Big Mac was surprised, the last time he saw her she was no more than a scared filly, but now she was much more. She talked of killing like it was nothing, in a way it scared him.
“Hey, you hungry? I could fix ya up something?” He tried to break the tension.
Applebloom, who was still angry, couldn't resist the possibility of a fresh meal. She pushed down her anger as much as possible and answered, as sweetly as she could, “That'd be great!”

Applebloom sat quietly, taking bites out of her apple.
“Been awhile since you've had one of those I take it?” Big Mac asked, eating his own apple as well.
“Sure has!” She exclaimed. Suddenly the memories came back to her. The times she spent playing with her sister, her friends. Working on the farm, and doing extremely ridiculous things to get her cutie mark. Tears flooded her eyes as she reminisced.
“You alright sis?” Big Mac asked
“Do you think anything will go back to normal? Or at least somewhat normal? Do you think anypony will live?”
Big Mac paused for a few moments, to be completely honest, he hadn't thought of that, “Well… I do believe that us, as a species will survive. I don't believe, however, that it'll happen anytime soon. I mean, you saw how fast ponies died. Most of us were gone soon after the bombings, I guess that's when most ponies realized they'd be safer away from cities. Unfortunately for most of them it wasn't the case.
Sometime in the future, once the infected rot away, and after a few large communities, like this one, show up, then I believe we'd truly won,” Big Mac sighed, he didn't know if any pony would survive.
“I see… I want us to live, we've been through too much to die now! Speaking of which, what's going to happen to Twilight and Rainbow Dash?”
“Well.. I truly want to meet up with them, but they did kill a lot of our men. That just can't go unnoticed,” Big Mac said, his smile fading away.

The next two mornings Applebloom woke up in a warm bed, a luxury she hadn't experienced since the outbreak began. As much as she hated the fact that Big Mac associated herself with ponies like the Pythons she couldn't stay very mad, it was her brother. She hadn't seen him in months, she wasn't gonna let a few ponies ruin that for her. As she ran out of her room to greet her brother she overheard him speaking with a few of his men from inside a room.
“Listen, I don't think Twilight and Rainbow would take lightly to me being a member, much less the leader, make sure they're “reunited” alright?”
‘What did he mean by reunited?’ She thought. She simply passed it off, it was her brother, nothing was gonna happen to Rainbow and Twilight.
Big Mac walked out, seeing Applebloom he ran up to her, “Hey sis, I was thinking you'd like to stay here? With Rainbow and Twilight?”

Applebloom was overjoyed, however something inside her head told her otherwise. She couldn't shake that pit in her stomach, something was wrong, but she didn't know what, “That'd be nice..”
“You alright sis?”
“It's just, I don't feel comfortable hanging out with ponies that nearly killed me!”
Big Mac sighed, “But we didn't know that it was you.”
“Exactly! You kill ponies without even caring! I..can't just pretend things are normal when they aren't! The only way I'll stay is if no more killings happen… Or at least the unjustified ones.”
“What you're asking is unreasonable Applebloom. We've managed to survive by showing our dominance”
“But you said that most of the population is gone anyways! It doesn't matter on showing dominance, there are more of the dead than alive, dominance isn't a thing anymore. “
“It means a lot more than you think. Anyways, you should enjoy yourself. This base is pretty large, lots to do.”
In the distance a loud boom was heard in the distance.