Chapters The Maresburg Frosting Flood Disaster
October 16, X57
Dear Ma and Pa,
I've been on the road for a few days and practicing my city language writing. I figured that the city folk would not take a country mare like me seriously at the negotiating table otherwise. Sadly I've got a few inflections that I can't seem to shake off, I swear if I ever have a daughter or granddaughter that girl will get some good city learning. Preferably when she's young, and still able to quickly pick on them little terms and tics we country folk can't. Of course for that to happen I've got to find me a stallion, maybe a lovely one from Maresburg who is willin to come out to the homestead with me. I know what ya'll are thinking, but I've never been one for those traditional type country stallions.
Hopefully when I get back from visiting the Crabapples I'll have a stud on my hoof and a deal in my saddlebags. You raised me right Ma and Pa, I'll be using that journal you got me in town to record everything that happens.
I promise to not hug no rotten apple,
October 16, X57 9:00pm
Well hello there diary, it's mighty fine to meet you. This is my first entry, so I hope you'll take to my penmanship kindly. My name is Granny "Grand" Smith Apple, and I've spent most of the day with my Maresburg relatives the Crabapples. I sent a letter explaining some thoughts off earlier to my Ma and Pa on the farm. So instead of repeating myself I'll tell you what I experienced with mah relatives today.
I was shocked to find out the Crabapples don't own their own farm. Instead they participate in something they call share cropping and "seasonal labor", where they work a small portion of a field for a well off pony family in exchange for crops and bits. I ain't quite sure why any self respecting Apple family member would ever do such a thing, but I suppose that considering the limited amount of farming land in Maresburg it makes some sense.
They also live in a tiny little space they call a tenement apartment in the Coreington Hay area. It's got leaks in the roof and cracks in the window panes. No sound proofing or insulation means a single wind sounds like a bellows on forge day. And the fights from next door sound like they are taking place in their home instead. The place doesn't smell right either, like something died and was left to rot. They keep their food in a pantry but ain't got no ice box, and their furniture is really just repurposed crates and an old worn rickety table in the center of the room.
I know ahm not supposed to judge but the worst is thier sleeping arrangements. It's not a bed nor a sleeping pad, but a pile of ratty mold rotten blankets that seem to have little black dots moving on em. I think they might be fleas or some kind of bed bugs infesting the nest, because I can't rightly call it anything else. It's no place fit for a pony to live, let alone an Apple or relative of ours. Now diary my family ain't rich by any means, but we have always had decent living conditions and a good clean bed to sleep on after a hard days work. The sight of what the Crabapples live in is enough to bring tears to a misers face.
That ain't even the worst part though, ah lied about that. Their cooking space is right terrifying. The open top fire pit is barely enclosed by ancient stone, and there ain't no proper stove. They just prepare everything on them crates they seem to use for just about everything. It scares me cause that wood in the crates they use is tinder dry. All it would take is one false move and the place would go up in flames,
The family as a whole sure doesn't resemble us that much, not physically at least.
Dunbar Crabapple is the patriarch of the clan, he's got a muddy orange red coat with a green mane and dull brown eyes. He's very lean, not much muscle on his wirey frame. Apparently he's the night watchman and temporary acting night manager of the Mare and Friends Confectionary Factory. When I showed up he was right ready to explode with happiness over his temporary position. Apparently if he performed well he was finally looking at a real promotion. Though it kind of disturbs me that he looks like a stallion twice his age, I'm happy for him. His cutie mark is an old wizened crabapple with a green leaf on its stem.
Sweet Crabapple is the matriarch and doting mother of the family, her cutie mark is a white crabapple blossom. She's far too thin, with a tired look in her otherwise lovely candy pink eyes. She's got more age lines than she should, according to her it's a combination of working extra jobs and making do without food in lean times. She has sacrificed everything she can for her younguns. Her mane is a yellow green on the most beautiful pink coat I have ever seen. She looks like a flower in bloom as she walks to and fro in the kitchen preparing the supper for us all. Her jobs are something she chats about with me as she works, a grace in her movements I can't ever hope to match.
Apparently she works as a washer mare, a maid at a nearby tavern, and of all things a foal sitter. She says she'd much rather be working with foals than in the Frosting factory all day. Or as she calls it, the Fragrant Fool. Apparently there have been multiple accidents in the factory over the years, including her mother being crushed to death under a vat of pink frosting. According to Sweet, only fools and the desperate work at the factory on the floor.
Sadly it seems she married a right fool, when I mentioned that she snorted saying that her Dunbar ain't no fool. When I asked why Sweet just told me that her husband has never worked on the floor, and never will. As foreman he's more an overseer of the production line and construction of new vats. According to her if it weren't for the factory owners taking a good percentage of his pay for an imaginary pension fund, they wouldn't be living in this run down hovel that costs far more than it's worth. When I asked where she thinks the money goes, she laughed and just made a comment about it lining already silver pockets with gold.
Eventually Sweet had to focus on dinner, and though I like her; I know when a mother and a mare needs to be left alone to work. Thankfully I got to meet her little ones as a result. They are the sweetest little things I've ever seen, if a bit on the thin side, but I know Sweet does what she can for em.
The oldest is about fourteen and works as a gutter cleaner and news colt. He says he had an older brother, but he got hit by a carriage and taken off to the hospice where poor ponies don't come back from. The poor colts name is Toringo Crabapple, and he says his dream is to be in the guard. When I asked why, the adorable teen said it's because he wants to make sure that all ponies are kept safe; not just the rich and powerful who already have private guards. He's a honorable little colt, with his dark leaf green mane and tail, deep green eyes, and yellow green coat. He almost looks more like a lime than an apple, but that Apple family spirit shines through in the lad. His mark shows that his dream might come true, you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it yourself. It's a guards helmet from the side with a crabapple that matches his mane on it.
His younger siblings number about three, two fillies and one baby foal. The fillies are apparently twins, named Oregon and Pacific Crabapple. They are two of a kind with pale pink bodies and yellow, red, and yellow green striped manes and tails. Matching bright yellow eyes always look about for new things in the dingy tenement. Their cutie marks are a red crabapple on a branch, and a yellow crabapple in a blossom. Both of them are about eight years old and already working. Oregon helps the neighbors with cleaning food for extra bits, and Pacific sings on the street for bits. No she isn't a "working mare or filly", she literally just sings. On Oregon's off days she joins in with a dance or jig, those two are just a right adorable pair.
When I ask them what they wanted to do when they grow up, they both agree they want to be explorers. To go places and collect specimens for museums and the like, these two have great dreams they do. It's sad that without schooling such things are unlikely, maybe the Oranges could help. It's worth a shot to ask next time I see them.
The little foal colt is named Yunnan Crabapple, though the family just calls him Midget. He's got the largest hooves I've ever seen on a foal, and looks like he'll be an unusually large draft earthpony when he gets older. He's got the most unusual coat pattern though, it's red with light white dappling all over his body. His mane and tail are a light pink, almost white color. So far all he does is crawl around the nest he is in, which is incredible progress for a five month old foal. There is a brilliance in his eyes diary, I hope Dunbar gets to keep his promotion. Because Midget is a colt that will need to go to university one day, I just know in my bones he's something special.
Last of the Crabapples is Sargent, the eldest who would be nineteen by now. Apparently he had a solid white coat and golden hazel mane. His eyes were a stunning light pink, almost white. He wasn't an albino either, the photo on the wall they have set in a frame made of wood from the rubbish bins shows that he was a stunner. Apparently he got hit by a carriage when he was ten years old and Toringo was five.
He'd been chasing after a can he and his brother had been playing with when it rolled into Stallsworth street. He'd gone after it with no sign of danger till a large travel carriage had come barreling around the corner. According to Toringo, Sargent was blind sided and flew into the gutter. His head was apparently swelling mighty bad, and he had cuts all over him from debris knocked up by the wheels.
The streets had been filled with ponies, and one called a nurse down from the Poor Mares Clinic. The poor girl had only had to glance at poor Sargent lying there before she asked the carriage driver to take him to a hospice at an address Toringo didn't recognize. He said it sounded like the "Dreamers Salvation" hospice, but apparently it didn't really exist. The nurse had hauled his older brother into the carriage, before shaking hands with a well to do couple within who made room for him.
They never heard of or saw Sargent again after that carriage took off down Stallsworth street. The nurse who'd sent him to the hospice disappeared too shortly afterwards. The Crabapples couldn't find him no matter how hard they tried, eventually they had to give up and hope he was alive somewhere.
Toringo said that his brother didn't have his cutie mark yet, so finding him was impossible. I feel sad for the young colt, and all the Crabapples. I suppose I'll just have to hope that Sargent survived his injury and they find him one day.
Anyway, the dinner was sparse but delicious. Crabapple chutney on hay and oats with home made fresh squeezed crabapple juice. It's a might tarter than our Apples, but the fruits taste delicious all the same. That's how I knew they were really family, only an Apple relative can make fruit grow that tastes that good.
After dinner Dunbar had to head out to work. He gave me some papers, said if anything happened to give them to a Writ Proof. I'm not sure why he'd do such a thing, but a Sweet said it's for protection. In case the worst happens in the factory.
Apparently Dunbar is really worried due to some new storage vats, they are called SuperSweets. The things are gargantuan and can hold hundreds of thousands of gallons of frosting a piece. They've been drawing a lot of attention, with multiple well off folks coming to visit and gawk at them. But Dunbar, he's worried about their structural integrity. He says the size increases the risk of catastrophic failure, and that the papers are his notes and research into issues him and others in the factory have found.
The vats apparently have been blamed for odd noises, like hissing and creaking but louder. Some claim they have seen bits of frosting on the floor by the vats, and signs if hastily patched leaks and cracks. I can see why the stallion would be worried, but he went to work all the same.
I spent the rest of the night with Sweet and the kids, reading stories and sharing family histories. It's amazing how like us they are once you get to know them diary. Sweet even asked if I could take Midget with me when I head home, I told her I'd ask my ma and pa after negotiations with the Market Street Coalition. The mare seemed oddly relieved, and smiled saying she was happy somepony could give her beloved son the chance he deserved.
I'm guessing she saw what I saw, though I can't make no promises I agree with Sweet. Yunnan "Midget" Crabapple stands a better chance of getting proper teaching with the main family of Apples than if he stays in this tenement hovel. I drew some pictures of everything I've seen here in the back of you diary, and though I'd love to continue writing I'm right tired. It's been a long day, and Sweet has the loveliest singing voice. She's apparently where Oregon and Pacific got their talents from, I'll try to write her song down before I pass out.
"Oh lovely blossoms, apples of my eye, Close your lovely eyes, while I sing my lullaby. Hold to your wishes, hooves on your dreams, We can rise above, the poverty we see. Oh my lovely blossoms, apples of my eye; Don't fear your tears, Crabapples can cry. Hold onto memories, happiness and pain, Mommy will always be here, to make it better again."
It's so beautiful diary, such a wonderful song. Sweet has the voice of an angel diary, ain't never heard anything like it. It's like a audible gentle hand carrying me off to dreamland. I think I'll just rest here on this spot I've chosen to write to you diary. Midget' cradle is right by me. I'll be his guardian angel tonight...
Granny "Grand" Smith Apple..
Author's Note
Alright so the story begins off slow with an introduction and some hints to what is to come. If you really want spoilers, look at the date in this journal entry then look up the London Beer Flood.
Now for some characters I introduced.
The Crabapples are a side branch of the Apple family who are not nearly as well off as their kin. Maresburg has a horrible economic disparity problem, and those who are not well off live in the slums or tenements. Though the Crabapples used to be a major family generations ago they have long since fallen to abject poverty.
As of now they live right off Trottenham Street, in a factory slums area about three hours from the share cropping fields. If you have problems visualizing this don't worry, those pictures I mentioned ed are real. I'm making them a thing for the final chapter.
They live in horrid conditions, but despite that they have hope that things will get better. Yes even the children work, in that area of Maresburg all children older than four work somehow to help the family out.
In order, the Crabapples are:
Dunbar Crabapple, patriarch of the family. Foreman of the Mare and Friends Confectionary Factory; temporary Night manager.
Sweet Crabapple, matriarch and mother of five, she works three jobs and raises the little ones while maintaining the home. Dunbar helps out when he can, so don't think she's a mere house mare.
Toronto Crabapple, oldest living son at fourteen. He works as a newscolt ( paperboy and news shouter on street corners), and gutter cleaner. He dreams of being a guard.
Oregon and Pacific crabapple, eight year old twins. One works cleaning fruit and the other sings on a corner for bits. Sometimes they both sing and dance. They want to be explorers when they grow up.
Yunnan "Midget" Crabapple, adorable foal of five months old and brilliant as the brightest Apple on earth. His mother Sweet knows this and wants Granny to take him home with her, so he can get a proper education that the Crabapples can't afford.
Sargent Crabapple, eldest son presumed dead, hoped to be alive and would be nineteen. He went missing at age ten before he got his cutie mark after a carriage accident. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and his brother was motivated by this to dream of becoming a guard.
Granny "Grand" Smith Apple, younger in this time by far than the Granny most of us know. She's fresh into her adulthood and off negotiating with the Market Street Coalition to possibly get Apple Family apples into Maresburg.
Writ Truth, a mystery so far but seems to be a trusted friend of the family.
I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, however remember this is a tragedy not a fairy tale.
Please note any typos I missed in my editing.
Glen Gorewood
The Maresburg Frosting Flood Disaster
The Frosting Vats broke this morning
Tears and sugary grime streak the page with drops of ink misplaced by trembling hooves.
October 17 X57, 10:00am
Dunbar's worst fears, they came true diary.
Ah am still in shock, I can't stop my hoof from trembling as I try to write down what happened. I have to, because if I don't I'll be forced to look up and see it again. See them again, see the ponies screaming in the emergency shelter constructed far away from the center of this atrocity of sugar and color. Worse, I'll be driven to search again, to try to find them; my family.
It began shortly before dawn, I remember being woken by a short pop sound. It wasn't loud to my ears, but I could feel it like a dagger being shoved into mah ear canal. The pressure wave followed, then a much louder explosion rocked the tenement room where I had stayed with the Crabapples.
The sky was supposed to be dark, but as I looked out the cracked window I saw light coming from the factory. Light that revealed a massive colorful wave sweeping down from that Fools Factory on the hill. The screams from the tenements closest to the vats reached my ears then, and Sweet woke up in seconds. Rushing to the window she stared in abject horror at the looming deluge that was rushing down towards us. Sprinkles littered its surface, or at least they looked like multi colored sprinkles from the distance.
Sweet Crabapple raced to the wall, grabbing Sargent's photo and stuffing it in a worn out gypsy traveling saddlebag before racing to try to wake Toringo and the Twins. She shouts at me loudly, her voice filled with fear.
"Grab Midget Grand, grab my baby and the bag and run!"
Ah still hear her words in my ears diary, I can still her bright pink eyes starin at me with hope and sorrow. And I can still hear the screams from outside too, as the flood got ever closer. That moment I made a decision, and honestly ah don't right now if it was the right one. But I knew the look of mother begging someone to save her child. After all, I'd seen the look in my own Ma's eyes when I'd fallen and hurt my back real bad. But Sweet's eyes were more than my Ma's had been, hers were the eyes of a mare trying to desperately to save everything yet knowing she likely couldn't do it without me.
I could not deny her eyes or her wish, ah grabbed Midget in his ratty old blankets in mah mouth; holding him like a dog does a pup. Then I raced over and tossed the worn traveling gypsy style saddlebags on my back, before racing out the door.
It was unlocked, no doubt by Sweet; and I ran right into a hallway of chaos. Mares, stallions, foals and fillies swarmed everywhere. Elderly folk like my great auntie Sour Apple were being half dragged half carried from tiny rooms. It was like all of the tenement had rushed into this one hallway in a desperate attempt at escape.
The door to the stairs was blocked, and the hand cranked elevator was full. A lone stallion screamed for the panicked passengers not to release the mechanism because it was far over capacity. They ignored him, and in seconds disappeared from sight as a horrible crunching smashing noise echoed from the bowels of the elevator shaft.
I looked around me, desperate for a way out of this horrible nightmare of a building. Then I saw it, the emergency fire escape ladder peeking out over the window five doors down. My hooves rushed faster than cider into a stallions muzzle as I raced to the Celestia blessed exit. Praying to my ancestors, and I right never pray unless I have real need; I opened the already unlatched window with my hooves.
Pushing it up as far as it would go, with Midget securely in my jaws I climbed over the windowsill and onto the ledge. Below me ponies swarmed like ants away from the incoming flood of deadly color, and now I could see that the sprinkles were not a confectionary topping treat.
They were bits of metal, sections of homes, furniture, and worst of all; many of the sprinkles were ponies. Some still screaming and trying to stay above the viscous surface of sweet frosting, as it came barreling like the pale horse towards me. Towards everyone in the building and beyond. It's reach was massive, enveloping all of Coreington Hay from where it began in that damned factory of follies.
However diary, I would not realize how horrible it was till much later. For after that few seconds of observation that felt like hours, I jettisoned the fire escape and took a risk. A risk so insane that if it were not for the wave of multi colored doom rushing towards Midget and I, well I would of right turned myself into an asylum.
With no time left I did not climb down the ladder, as another pony who saw me screamed at others to do. No, I grabbed its smooth steel edges and slid down the fire escape like a fire brigade pony during a five alarm. So fast was ah going that to slow down and stop the impending impact with the ground, I had to press my hooves so hard against the edges they got imprints of the pole worn into them.
There was no time for rest, and one check on the crying Midget showed he was still safe with me in his makeshift sling. Ah had no idea where Sweet and the other little ones were, but I hoped they were safe. For now on the ground I could see how truly terrible the flood of frosting was.
The massive sweetened deluge reached higher than the tenement I had been in. Though the crest of the flood wave was falling down a bit there was no doubt it would sweep them away.
My only choice to save Midget and I was to run. To run far and fast away from the wave, and hope beyond hope that we would both survive. From that moment my memory is clouded, all I recall is thinking I had to run. I had to save us. Ah had to make it.
Ah had to do it for the Crabapples, for mah family.
For wonderful courageous loving Sweet, for Toringo, for Pacific and Oregon.
So I ran, I pelted my hooves upon old stone and raced faster than ah ever have before. The sickeningly sweet smell of heated sugar and roasting flesh inundated my nose. The screams of ponies and crashing and imploding sounds of buildings being overtaken by the Frosting Flood echoed in my ears.
But I kept running, and Midget kept crying.
Nothing mattered but the sound of that amazing little foal crying and my hooves flying over the streets. As ancient gravel gave way to cobblestone I kept running. When that gave way to carved limestone walks I still kept running.
When the sounds of terror and disaster had faded I kept running.
The only thing that stops mah running was a pair of strong hooves grabbing me and holding me tight. Refusing to let me run anymore. They belonged to a stallion, a stunning red stallion in the uniform of a guard. He held me in a grip that restrained my limbs and whispered in mah ear.
"Stop running, calm down, both of you are safe now."
I don't remember much after that, only that ah refused to let Midget go. That foal was not leaving mah sight, and he still hasn't. The poor youngin is all worn out, sleeping with tears in his eyes as his oversized hooves hold his ratty tattered blanket like a life preserver in a vat of cider.
Ah don't want to think about vats.
Both of us are safe, I'd love to explain more diary; mostly so I don't have to look up. But ah am mighty tired, ah feel like I've broken a land speed record or something.
My body is saying, "Go to sleep Grand," and ah can't resist. I'm going to curl around Midget now diary, and hold on tight to him. He needs me as much as I need him, in this field of unknown ponies we both need somethin familiar to hold onto. I've got to be his guardian in this unknown city, and he has to be my lifeline.
I just hope the Crabapple's are alright.
Granny "grand" smith Apple....
Author's Note
The disaster began before dawn, the slums and hovels were no match for it. Most ponies and other creatures died in their beds, or crushed in the panic to escape.
The deluge of sweet death, a horrific industrial event caused by possibly unknown hooves. The death toll is not in yet, nor are the damages.
And amidst it all, one Apple mare stands guard over a single Crabapple foal entrusted to her by his mother. In a shelter filled with survivors, though none she recognizes.
Did any of the other Crabapples survive?
What horrors await outside the temporary relief the shelter offers, now that the sun has risen high into the sky bringing light to the disaster in Maresburg.
Glen Gorewood
The Maresburg Frosting Flood Disaster
October 17, X57 2PM
Dear Diary, it's much worse than I could have imagined in my darkest nightmares. What I saw this afternoon after waking to Midget crying and calming the poor colt down, it's impossible to imagine what it looks like unless you saw it yourself. He woke me around noon with sobbing cries for his ma, sisters, and pa. I wasn't sure what to tell him, Apples are not liars; it goes against our nature as truly honest folk. But truth is at the time I didn't know where they were, or if the other Crabapples survived that horror that is still visible upon the streets. So I did the only thing I could, and told him what I hoped was the truth with all my heart.
With my front hooves I pulled the little colt close to me, holding him against the crook of my neck as he sobbed and cried for ponies that we both hoped were still alive. The last time I had seen Sweet, Toringo, and the twins Oregon and Pacific they had been trying to get out of that tenement room. Dunbar was likely..
No I ain't going to think like that, little Yunnan "Midget" Crabapple's father might still be alive. The chance was infinitely slim, but ah was going to take hold of it until the rescue crew found a body. They hadn't walked up to us like they had others, many other ponies had been informed of their loved ones fates. Some had run off in joyous tears to the medical relief tent. However far more had broken down into sobs that broke my heart to witness. Those aching wailing ponies far outnumbered the joyful ones. I could only imagine what that felt like at the time.
Midget had stopped sobbing, his eyes still wet with tears, he only tried to nuzzle deeper into my neck. Failing that the colt looks up into my eyes, and asks the question I had been dreading to ask myself; in the way only a little foal can.
"Ma Pa Where? Where ma?" He whimpers to me, formerly tear filled eyes beginning to well up again with liquid sorrow.
I sigh, and use my hoof to wipe off his eyes with the corner of that ratty old blanket that had saved his life. Setting it down, or really giving it back to Midget; I told him the only truth I could at the time. Back then it was a truth, oh how I wish it had stayed so.
With a warm hopeful smile on my dirty face, I pat his head ruffling his mane while saying words that still ring in my ears now.
I pause, glancing at the doors not too far away as an idea forms in my mind. Oh diary, I wish I hadn't let that idea form and had snuffed it out like a candle flame then and there. But I didn't, and as that colt continued to gaze at me with drying eyes filled with hope, I made my decision.
"Midget," I say in a voice filled with renewed hope, "would you like to go look for em?"
The little colt claps his oversized hooves together with glee.
I smiled diary, the smile of an ignorant fool unaware of the reality awaiting us outside those doors. In my naïveté I picked up that ratty blanket and made a baby sling for Midget. Putting him in the makeshift sling, I checked to ensure he was snug before looking at the doors once more. Oblivious to the sorrow filled, frosting and dirt coated ponies around us; or perhaps I was trying to block out the horrible obvious truth of reality. I got up from the spot where we had been resting, and looked at the paths I could take to my goal.
I stood there for a moment before glancing at the foal nestled in the cloth nest tied to my shoulders.
That crowd that smelt of blood and sweat, with a disturbing undertone of sweet sugar. Those ponies who were a combination of exhausted, traumatized, and wounded yet still alive. The former inhabitants of Coreington Hay who had made it out somehow, like Midget and I had. Yet for those few minutes, they didn't exist. The doctors would later tell me my reaction was shock, they would reassure me that it was alright. But looking back on it only a few hours later, I know ah wasn't in my right mind then.
If only that brilliant red stallion had been there to stop me, as he had before when I was running at breakneck speed from that torrent of frosted destruction. Or if only I had slept a bit longer. So many possible alternatives to what I had done. Yet I had already made my decision as I maneuvered through the, for the moment, faceless crowd.
My target was at hoof in a few minutes, and as I reached a hoof to open the door with a smile on mah face a voice shouted from somewhere. I don't right remember what specifically it said, but I believe it was along the lines of; "Don't open the door, please have mercy on yeself, don't open those doors!"
I ignored that nameless, faceless voice and with one powerful shove of my right hoof the door opened.
I stepped out onto the raised steps of what looked like a very fancy and ornate building, great pillars supporting the arched overhang above me. My hooves echo as I walked forward, that grin still on my face oblivious to the shouting from behind me. Nothing matters but getting a better view of the city, so ah move over to the right more so that I might see something besides upper class infrastructure and markets. My hooves make a distinct click clack noise across the high grade granite, lines of ancient creatures visible in the masterfully crafted stairway below me.
Then, as I finally reached a spot without buildings blocking my view; I froze.
Before my eyes was something that initially I hoped was a nightmare, a dark dream from which I could awaken. I slap myself with mah left hoof, and it was still there. That scene of horrors made real. Everything that had happened cemented itself into my reality.
I could not run from the truth anymore.
My body began to shake as my eyes took in everything before me. What had been Coreington Hay, a massive district of poor and working class ponies trying to make a living. Row after row of business both legitimate and illicit. Tenement square apartments that were so rotten and rickety, yet filled with hundreds of thousands of lives both pony and otherwise. That fools factory on the hill, where frosting was made and lives lost making it. Where Dunbar had been last night, working a new better job and shift and hoping for a promotion.
Those streets so dangerous yet filled with life, that most precious of treasures. The tenement where the Crabapples had lived, played, loved, and welcomed me into their humble home. Everything that I had known and now never would know of Coreington Hay, and most likely Midget and my family.
They were gone. It was gone. The entire district was now a mangled mess of old wood sections and stone fragments, appliances and ladders alongside destroyed carriages. At least, what Ah could see was a horrendously horrible nightmare made real. From where I stood on that marble patio, I could see bright colored dots in shapes no pony or otherwise should ever be. Those dots, those shapes and the entirety of the district that wasn't visible; were trapped under the morass that was slowly becoming more rigid. The entirety of every one of the factory's frosting vat contents had coated the district in a disturbing multi colored sea of sugary goop.
From my location I could see it was multiple levels thick, and looked more like the remains of a volcanic eruption than a pony made disaster. It had completely inundated Coreington Hay after exploding outwards from the factory on the hill. Said factory now had a gaping hole in it's side, hardened frosting making it look like a gaping wound gushing multicolored blood down to the streets below. It stretched somewhat into other districts, but that sugary doom I had outrun early this morning had annihilated that part of the city entirely.
Dots raced across the edge of the mass of frosting, pulling objects from the edge. Some others moved over the top in a coordinated manner, occasionally stopping to pull something out of that sweet death trap. Other times they would pause for a few moments, a crunching sound making its way to mah ears, before they again pulled an object out.
Many of those objects, those multi colored lives that had been swept away in the wave; they left where they were.
My heart broke, and as if sensing the dire horror of the situation; Midget began to cry and wail. My broken voice soon joined him as I fell onto my rump, the sight before my eyes quenching almost any hope I had that our family could have survived. The street where the Crabapples had lived had no structures still standing. No hint there had ever been lives living in an overpriced hovel of a tenement complex that was still a home.
All there was in that spot, was a massive hardened mound of red and green frosting.
Our wails merged together into a united chorus of sorrow. We stayed there, crying and screaming our pain to the world for what felt like hours. Finally as we both began to collapse, a pair of hooves grabbed my shoulders in a comforting hug. That nameless faceless voice from earlier whispered in my ear.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't want ye to see it. I wanted to spare you this pain, the same pain I felt when I saw the horror earlier this morning. At some level I knew ye didn't hear my shout earlier, but I'd hoped... I'm so sorry, so very sorry."
I leaned into the body of that soft feminine voice behind me, and cried into her dark blue fur until my tears were spent. The mare then guided me back inside, and over to the area where she and her family had set up a sort of camp. With soft feathers she guided me to a pile of salvaged linens and blankets, and motioned for me to lay down and rest. With Midget still safe in his sling, I laid down and cried myself to the realm of dreams.
That was an hour ago or so.
I'm still tired diary, but I had to write this down. Because somehow I feel that if I do, the nightmares haunting my sleep will weaken or stop. The last one was what woke me from my most recent slumber.
It was about me running from the deadly frosting wave, behind me I could hear Sweet and the youngins screaming. And I looked back behind me to see them on the crest of the wave. Their flesh being seared off by the heat from the scalding sweet flood. Their eyes were terrified, and they were screaming for me to save them, but I couldn't. I couldn't save them because if ah stopped, Midget and I would die. So I kept running, their screams echoing in my ears till I ran into something and woke up.
I'm going to try to go to sleep again diary. Midget is sleeping soundly, his chest moving healthily in and out as his eyelids flutter rapidly in his dreams.
Perhaps writing this down will help, I pray to Celestia and the great trees it does. Because if I can't get rest in before they come, like ah know they will; I don't think my mind and heart will be able to handle that truth diary.
Rest well.
Author's Note
The frosting flood's effect was complete devastation to Coreington Hay. Granny "Grand" Smith Apple and Yunnan "Midget" Crabapple are the only two members of her family and extended family known to survive at this point.
Rescue workers are attempting to save ponies from the hardening frosting mass, but for many it is too late. Many died already as a result of exposure, injuries, or the hardening frosting compressing their bodies to the point of no return. As to whether or not the rest of the Crabapples are among the living or the dead, that will be revealed in the next chapter.
The dark blue mare who shouted the warning at Granny, and later comforted her before bringing her to a safe place to rest. She plays an important role in the following chapters, and as you may have guessed she too lost family in the flood.
My apologies for the late update, and a typo or three in the prior chapters. Life happened quite fast two days ago, and I could not write this chapter till this evening as a result. I am going through the other chapters to check for typos, but I may miss a few. If you spot any, please tell me.
Glen Gorewood
