Paardenvlees

The Grand Galloping Gala! It was a very upper-crust sort of event, and it was annual as well. Fancypants was one of few guests who had been invited every time since he had first reached the appropriate age. This night seemed different, however, since the late exploits with the Princess Of Friendship and her school made other countries and creatures come around more. This year, the Gala was filled to the brim with many creatures.

Fancypants had been particularly enamored in a conversation he was having, until he was practically rammed into by a thin pony. His eyes widened slightly in surprise and concern, as he noted that the pony seemed odd. Her coat seemed oily, her mane was shaggy and unkempt, and her gaunt figure seemed to be stumbling toward him, trying not to fall. "I say, are you quite alright? You ehm- you seem unwell." He took a step forward.

She chomped her muzzle around where his hoof had reached to help; how fortunate for him that he reeled away from the snippity pony just in time. He could hear some ponies around him shouting. Normally, one would panic at the sound of shouting, but after the two previous years at the Gala, shocking and appalling events were not necessarily a sign of danger. Fancypants learned just how wrong he was when the sick pony pushed on, and chomped the hoof of the pony he had been talking to, with a sickening squelchy crunch.

The other cried out, as the sick one continued chewing the hoof, the foreleg of the pony going deeper into the maw, now sopping with blood. Before he ran in his horror to find one of the Princesses or a guard, he noticed the cannibals teeth were blackened with rot.

He fortunately found Princess Celestia. "Your majesty, pardon the interruption, but something is seriously wrong that I believe may require immediate attention!" She took awhile to respond, her hair drooping unceremoniously to the floor, he noticed, when she sluggishly stood. "Ehm-- Princess?" He cocked his head to the side, confusedly. His confusion was immediately replaced by further horror, when he heard nothing but an unearthly gurgle emit from her, as she clumsily stumbled toward him, as if her body was on autopilot.

Fancypants teleported away from her, and ran around, noticing that other ponies were in a panic as well. He couldn't, for the life of himself or anypony else, find another authority figure in the area. Ponies around him were being bitten, or partially drained, giving him ample reason to believe that staying where the Gala was currently happening was not only an unwise decision, but a deadly one. Assuming this sickness was death itself.

He galloped thoughtlessly through the streets, instinctively taking a sharp turn to his home. In this situation, getting home only made sense, anyway, correct? As soon as Fancypants arrived at his large abode, he rushed himself around the mansion, up and down staircases, around and around each room, gathering sufficient living means, for wherever was safest to hide until the Elements Of Harmony could do their thing.

Once he had sufficiently packed supplies, he took pause, realizing that his servants had likely been at the gala, and a pang erupted in his heart when he acknowledged the possibility that this sickness was death, and that they could be dead, for merely attending a bland party. No time to think of this now, old stallion! Now is the time for action. Think later. Fancypants made a sweeping gaze across the area, before turning to leave. No doubt a manor with many windows and openings wasn't the safest place around mindless creatures with a taste for flesh.

The streets seemed to have more dead than living roaming around, to Fancypants appallment and disgust, before he discreetly hid himself, sneaking around as much as he could. Being noticed at this very moment, by dead OR alive could mean the end for a pony like him.

Life had a way of smiling whilst dealing a heavy dose of irony, however. As hard as he tried, he couldn't exactly ignore the sound of loud shouting, stomping, and gurgling sounds. This disease seemed infectious, and as such, he tried to ignore instinct by not rushing in to help whoever was already dead. That was, until he noticed the source of the screaming coming closer, until something fluffy barrelled into him from the side.

Now he had no choice, it seemed. Fancypants hopped to his feet, ignoring his disorientation, as he let out a few blasts of magic, making the disease-ridden ponies fly back, before taking a glance at the place of his new companion, and teleporting them both to a random distance, several feet in the direction he originally headed, before levitating the other, as he ran as fast as he could. Discreet was out of the question, at that moment.

Canterlot was the first to fall, in armageddon. The nation and nations connected were dwindling at rapid rates, and even worse, Equestria's most prominent protectors had been called away to different ends of the nation, and with the events, they were seperated, unable to get to each other through usual means.

The world was falling apart, harmony seemed to be failing and unravelling, like a bedraggled dress, at the seams. There was nothing the saviors could do any time soon, even on the off chance that they all lived on. The moon remained raised, the sun never returning from the earth's other side. Perhaps the moon never would set. The land was plunged into perpetual darkness, and disease, and perhaps life would never emerge victorious.

Nopony would have thought of the possibility that the end of the world would begin with blood, viscera, disease, and rot, in the canterlot castle ballroom, during an annual celebration of joy and prosperity. Even one normally bored by the Gala would pray every night that they'd be able to attend a Gala again, for if they never would, this would mean that the world was truly on its last legs.