The night before graduation, Sunset Shimmer sat in her basement recording studio at 2:30am, passed out over a box of half-eaten takeout.
She was up late putting the final touches on Cabin Fever, the final studio album of the Rainbooms. It was due to be released digitally the next day. Originally called Graduation, the album's release day was to coincide with their graduation from Canterlot High.
Cabin Fever was the only Rainbooms album recorded entirely remotely, due to an ongoing virus pandemic that was the worst in at least a hundred years. All schools and non-essential business had been closed for several months now. Everyone was placed under lockdown at home, and not allowed to leave unless absolutely necessary.
Sunset had agreed to do the remastering for the album because she happened to have the mixing equipment required to do it. Although she wished she hadn’t.
Pinkie recorded her drums first, then two days later, Fluttershy recorded her tambourine on top of that track. Six days after that, Rainbow Dash and Applejack recorded their respective guitar parts separately while listening to the beat. The day after that, Rarity recorded the keytar part at home, and finally a week after that, Sunset and Twilight recorded their singing parts separately. Which was altogether a nightmare to mix.
There was one line that Sunset had been struggling to edit before she fell asleep. It was in the bridge, near the final chorus, where Rarity and Applejack sang in a (virtual) duet:
Our friendship beats the odds, we’ll always stick toge—
No, wait. Something out of sync. Sunset played it again through her headphones.
Our friendship beats th—
Wait. The reverb is just off.
Our friendship beats the odds, we—
No, no, no, that’s even worse. Eventually Sunset lost track of how many times she had listened to that line, and fell asleep over her mixing console.
Sunset was woken up by a telephone call. “Hey Pinkie.” She checked the time. “What’re you doing up?”
“Eh, I kinda had a sense that you’d be up late remastering ‘Graduation Song.’”
Sunset stared blankly at her mixing board. “Wait, how did you know I was working on that?”
“Oh, it’s nothin’ special.” She giggled. “I just have a…‘Sense’for these things.”
“And I’m supposed to be the one with mind-reading powers,” Sunset said sarcastically. They both laughed.
“Sooo…what’s eatin’ ya?” Pinkie asked.
Sunset salvaged a few pieces of noodles from the take-out box. Thank Celestia her favorite restaurant was still doing carry-out after the lockdown—she couldn’t live without Mr. Wong’s famous vegetarian char kway teow.
“Well, it’s…” Sunset began.
“Or…are you eatin’ something?” Pinkie interjected.
Sunset sat dumbstruck for a few moments at Pinkie’s “Sense.” She stopped picking at the noodles, as if they spooked her out.
She tried to ignore it. “Well, I, erm…I’ve been spending all night remastering ‘Graduation Song.’ I just can’t get Fluttershy’s tambourine to match with the rest of the beat…and the balance on Rainbow Dash’s guitar is all weird, but she’s sick now and I don’t wanna bother her…”
“Don’t worry, Sunset. It’ll be fine. You should get your sleepytime. Don’t wanna be tired for graduation tomorrow!”
Sunset didn’t seem to be listening to Pinkie Pie. “I’ve tried a million different things but it still just sounds like crap, and I don’t know what to do, ‘cause we can’t do another retake since graduation’s tomorrow, and we said we were gonna release it on SoundCloud so that all the CHS students could hear it on graduation day, but I don’t think I get this done, and—”
“SUNSET!” Pinkie screamed over the phone.
Finally Sunset stopped talking. She took a few deep breaths, trying to get rid of the ringing in her left ear.
“Sunset! You’re not having FUN!” She was sad. She was actually sad. Sunset could hear Pinkie’s voice breaking.
She sighed. “You’re right, Pinkie. And what’s the point if…”
“…you’re not having fun!?” Pinkie finished Sunset’s sentence.
Sunset chuckled to herself. “There you go again.”
This time, Pinkie’s sense failed her. “…there I go again what?”
Sunset walked over to the basement window, and tiptoed so she could look through. It was completely dark. “I…it’s just been so hard to see our friends get sick. And that we can only watch them suffer from afar.”
Pinkie suddenly turned serious. “Y’know Sunset, what’s the point of pushing to get the album released by tomorrow if you’re not even having fun doing it? Remember why we made the Rainbooms?”
“Because we’re friends, and…”
“Right.”
“But face it, Pinkie. Now we can’t even see each other. We’re locked in our homes. We can’t go to school. The principal’s fighting for her life, and now Rainbow Dash and AJ’s sister are sick. It’s just…”
“…we’re not friends anymore?” Pinkie said.
“Well, that’s not right—”
“I know. I just thought hearing someone else say it you would make you realize how stupid that is.”
Sunset chuckled. When it came to the crunch, the bubbly woman-child was surprisingly wise.
“Pinkie, listen. This quarantine has been going on for months now, and…in case we don’t ever see each other again, I just wanted to tell you that…”
“D’awww Sunset,” Pinkie interjected. “Of course, we’ll see each other again. Actually, we never un-saw each other to begin with! We’re talking to each other right now!”
Sunset could practically hear Pinkie’s infectious grin over the telephone. “Right. Well, in that case…I won’t say.”
“Okey dokey lokey.”
“G’nite, Pinkie.”
“G’nite.”
At 4:00am, Twilight was staying up too late reading her news feed.
She stopped doing her homework hours ago. The homework was pretty similar, except all the lectures and assignments were online. It didn’t seem worth doing. Just like it didn’t seem worth it for her to change out of her pajamas in the morning, or comb her hair, or brush her teeth. She felt she had regressed to her days as a reclusive researcher at Crystal Prep: eating dry cereal for dinner and wearing her labcoat as a bathrobe.
She had transferred to Canterlot High to learn about friendship, and to be with her friends. Now that was gone…she didn’t even feel like she was in school anymore.
By early evening, she had regressed to reading news articles on the latest update on the pandemic. Twilight always preferred reading nonfiction over fiction, and this was turning out to be a weakness for her. Every headline was scarier than the next, and pulled her in to read more: “Cases now top 50000 with 210 deaths”; “Canterlot High School Principal in critical condition after diagnosis”; “Vaccine at least five to ten years away from deployment, says health board”; “‘I felt like my chest was being crushed by a 10-ton truck,’ survivor says”; “Mr. Wong’s Market in downtown connected to a cluster of at least 25 cases.”
“Mr. Wong’s Market…that’s near where Sunset Shimmer lives—I better warn her!” She picked up the phone and dialed. Twilight was hyperventilating as the phone rang—she wasn’t sure if she was worried for Sunset or for herself. Downtown was only five miles away from her house, after all.
Sunset didn’t answer, it went to voicemail. Twilight decided not to redial. She wiped down her phone, and put it under the UV lamp that it had been sitting under.
She found herself looking at the back of her hands everytime she heard a scary news headline. Perhaps she was wondering if this was all real. Perhaps she was wondering if she had remembered to wash her hands (She really didn’t need to wash her hands, because she picked up all objects with her telekinesis as a precaution. You can bet that turned a few heads in aisle 7. “Mommy, look! The toilet paper’s flying!”).
Perhaps Twilight was wondering how soon it would be before she would be the one with a 10-ton truck crushing her chest. She wanted to be prepared. It was like with death. Like a dark blob stuck in the corner of her eye, drifting closer and closer into her vision with each passing day, with each new confirmed case.
Thankfully perhaps, Twilight knew at least one person who had been infected.
Twilight video-called Rainbow Dash almost compulsively, keeping a Word document recording how Rainbow Dash’s temperature, blood pressure, and respiratory symptoms varied each day (and sometimes each hour, until Rainbow Dash just flat out said one night at 4:33am, “I think you’re the one’s who sick,” and hung up on her.)
Twilight rubbed her eyes, which had been starting at the screen all day, from online classes in the morning to homework in the afternoon to news feed surfing just before bed. She took off her glasses, and she could barely her hand in front of her face. After showering, she changed into pajamas, brushed her teeth, crawled into bed, and turned off the light.
She had visions of her news feed when she closed her eyes.
It was 10:30am, well after sunrise, and Rarity finally started fixing her hair.
Her room was a mess. Dresses that she normally wore to school were stashed away in her closet with the door shut. It was hardly worth it, even when going out—when she had to go grocery shopping, she shielded her entire body using her translucent magical shield. (You can bet that turned a few heads in the freezer aisle—especially when some kid tried to “open” Rarity’s shield to grab a bag of frozen pizza rolls.)
Rarity stumbled downstairs in her pajamas, forgetting to brush her teeth for the fifth day in a row. She happened to glance at herself in the mirror on the way down, and she didn’t even have any reaction.
The long days of isolation on taken a toll on her self-image. She had long given up on her low-carb, no-salt, dairy-free diet, and mercilessly gnawed through a poppy seed bagel with smoked salmon and crème fraiche. The beautiful young lady once regarded as the most attractive person in Canterlot High was now slouched over the breakfast table, wearing undersized pajamas from when she was twelve because she hadn’t done her laundry for two weeks, and with straw-dry bits of purple hair dropping onto her bagel.
Heaven forbid she take a bite.
Rarity went back upstairs to do her homework online. After about two hours (during which she may or may not have been browsing on Pinterest), a text message chimed on her phone. Seeing who it was, she dropped everything and quickly replied.
Rarity remembered to brush her teeth. Looking at herself in the sink mirror, she was suddenly revolted by how awful she looked. She quickly changed into a simple yellow cotton dress hanging on the far left of her casual dress rack. She bought it at a department store in March before the lockdown. She thought the plain design to be rather unimpressive, but Applejack once told her, “If I ever had to wear one of yer frou-frou dresses, I’d pick that one.”
As she secured the waist, she regretted having eaten that bagel for breakfast. She combed her hair into her signature sweep, adding the curls with her curling iron and adding a spritz of hairspray. She sat in front of her vanity mirror, applying her primer, foundation, eyeliner, eyeshadow, lipstick, and earrings.
After she had finished all this (seventy minutes later), she went and sat down at her desk. She rubbed off a piece of caked-on sugar that was covering her phone camera lens. (“I’m going to get you for this, Sweetie Belle!” she thought to herself).
She opened her video call app on her phone.
“Hey sugarcube,” the voice on the other side of the call said.
“Hi, Applejack.”
It was 12:45pm, and Rarity finally started to smile.
Applejack refused to step into Apple Bloom’s room.
The younger teenager was confirmed to have the virus just yesterday, due to the massive backlog of tests at the hospital. Apple Bloom had been sick for almost two weeks now.
It was 1:00pm, and it was Applejack’s turn to bring lunch to Apple Bloom.
She first washed her hands in the kitchen for twenty-five seconds. She got mad at Big Mac for touching her shoulder without washing her hands—she told him to wash his hands for twenty seconds, and Applejack boiled the soup again to kill off any pathogens. Big Mac didn’t say anything. He just glared at Applejack as he washed his hands.
Applejack scooped up the soup, and carried the bowl down the hall while wearing purple nitrile gloves and a green N95 face mask. She put the soup down by Apple Bloom’s doorstep, tapped on the door, then began to walk away from the closed door.
Granny Smith was in the hallway. “Well, ain’t you at least gon’ say hi to yer sister?” she asked, examining Applejack’s alien-like attire with curiosity.
“I’m practicing social distancing and personal protection,” Applejack said through her mask.
“Not like yer sister can help gettin’ sick. How d’you think she feels, the way yer treatin’ her like that?”
It was Applejack’s graduation day, and she felt more like a grown up with her own opinions. “Look Granny, I don’t love mah sister any less,” she said, crossing her arms. “Ah’m just doin’ what’s morally right to prevent the spread of the disease.”
“By shunning yer own sister?” Granny Smith asked.
“Well if ya put it that way, it sounds bad. But that’s how social distancing works, doesn’t it?”
Big Mac yanked the mask off of Applejack's face, threw it onto the floor, and stomped on it. “Social distancing my ass,” Big Mac finally snapped. He almost never talked. But this time, he was angry. “What in tarnation has gotten into you, sister!? You’ve been like this for weeks! Apple Bloom gets sick, and all a sudden you treat her like she’s some alien! How d’you think that makes Apple Bloom feel ‘bout herself!?”
“Times have changed, Big Mac, and I think Apple Bloom understands that. If more of us get sick, that only increases the number of people that will get infected by us. We gotta do what’s right for society.”
“You’re acting like you’re doing society a favor—truth is, you’re just scared of gettin’ sick yourself.”
Applejack didn’t say anything. She covered herself with her arms and look down at the crushed face mask on the floor. Big Mac was right. She was scared. She didn't think she'd be so scared, not until it hit her so close to home.
Big Mac opened the bedroom door. Applejack gasped and covered her mouth with her sleeve, out of reflex, but she calmed down when she saw her sister’s face for the first time in weeks. She couldn’t deny the warmth she was feeling in her heart.
Apple Bloom’s face lit up at the sight of her two siblings. According to Big Mac, the color had returned to her cheeks for the first time in days. She coughed before speaking. “Oh gee, izzit lunch time already?”
“Maybe times have changed, Applejack, but they haven’t changed as much as you’d like to think,” Big Mac said.
Rainbow Dash woke up from a nap at 3:20pm, and felt like she was being smothered by a pillow.
The Advil she took in the morning had worn off, and she was shivering from fever. She put on a sweater and a bathrobe. She staggered down to the kitchen and made herself a hot drink.
Before school got cancelled and Canterlot went into lockdown, Rainbow Dash was the one who bet that she’d never get the virus. “I pretty much never get sick,” Rainbow Dash bragged to everyone. “And look at me—I’m super fit, always in shape. That virus better make a run for it before it thinks twice ‘bout infecting me.”
Rainbow Dash was still wondering when the karma was going to “hit” her.
“Knowing my luck, this can’t be the worst of it,” she thought out loud. Not like anyone was gonna hear her now.
Her super speed was totally shot. Even the single flight of stairs back up to her bedroom was enough to make her go all light-headed. She was bored—most of her days were spent self-isolated in her bedroom, lying down because she had little energy to do anything else. She stubbornly even tried to stick to her workout regimen the first few days she was sick—a massive coughing fit quickly put that to a halt.
She couldn’t sing, she couldn’t work out, she couldn’t play soccer, she couldn’t play guitar—as she listened to herself wheeze, she just didn’t feel herself. She felt like someone had taken all the things that made her her—and left the feverish, wheezing shell behind.
It was the utter fear that shortened her breath even more—what if she had to be hooked to a ventilator? What if her lungs sustained permanent damage, and she couldn’t play soccer or sing for the rest of her life? She remembered the last song she had sung before she got sick—she was recording her verse of “Graduation Song” from home.
As we set out into the world; big adventures await
We may be far apart, but we’ve beat the odds before;
No way to chase big adventures with small, weak lungs.
Early on, she was able to hide hear fear behind a façade of braggadocious pride. “Y’know, I’m feeling all right you know, no serious symptoms; I’m strong, you know. I’m gonna power through this illness,” she boasted to Fluttershy over the phone.
But now, after so many days, the façade had worn off. And Rainbow revealed her true colors to Fluttershy. Even to the point that Fluttershy said once, “Don’t be scared, Dashie.”
Fluttershy was surprisingly not scared about the pandemic. She caught the Ebola virus two summers ago while volunteering at an animal sanctuary in a faraway land, and after two weeks in the hospital, four more weeks of physical therapy, and beating a 50-50 chance of death, she was never afraid of getting sick anymore.
But still, being told not to be scared by Fluttershy…that was pretty humiliating for Rainbow Dash.
Fluttershy even said she was continuing her job at the animal shelter, which was deemed an essential service during the lockdown. Although it was quite busy at the shelter due to reduced staff, she always made time in her day to call and check on Rainbow Dash. She usually called around 3:30pm.
Rainbow Dash checked the time on her phone. 3:25pm. Rainbow Dash took a sip of her hot drink, and lay back down on her bed. She drifted in and out of sleep, her mind barely processing what she was doing nor what was going on in front of her. The rest of the afternoon was a blur.
She started daydreaming. She imagined herself dribbling a soccer ball on the field.
She navigates around the opponents. She’s got a sightline to the goal. She sprints. She sprints faster. Even faster. She’s gotta get to the goal.
She’s closer.
Just push a little.
A little more.
“UGGGG!” Rainbow Dash gagged. She began to go into a panic. Her lungs felt like they were about collapse like paper balloons. She closed her eyes and thought to herself, this is it? Is this when I die? Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck.
She heard an angel’s voice.
“Rainbow Dash?”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes shot open. She saw the ceiling of her room, with the Wondercolts mascot stenciled on there in dark blue.
“Dashie, are you still there?”
“Erm…yeah, Fluttershy.” She took her off speaker phone.
“Is something wrong, Rainbow Dash?”
“I’m okay now.” She smiled as she heard Fluttershy’s voice beside her. “I’m okay now.” Her breathing began to slow down.
To be perfectly honest, Rainbow Dash was just glad it wasn’t Twilight calling again to “play doctor.”
The evening of what was to be their graduation day, all Canterlot High School students received a virtual diploma by email, and a symbolic graduation cap was mailed to every student’s home.
Seven graduated seniors talked together in a video call.
“Hello!”
“Howdy!”
“Hi everyone!”
“Hiya!”
“Are we all here?”
“Yep.”
“Alright. It’s almost 7:58pm,” Twilight said, checking her watch.
“Y’all see it?” Applejack asked, standing in her backyard with her family—including Apple Bloom.
“Sure I do,” Rainbow Dash said, wrapping herself up in a blanket and sits by her west-facing bedroom window. Her breathing was improving a little. She was finally on the mend.
The seven of them looked to the west. At 7:58pm, the sky erupted in a fiery red light.
“Why, the sunset is simply gorgeous, darlings.”
“I know. I know.” Applejack knew that Rarity knew that she knew that she knew. It was beautiful. Applejack started tearing up as the warm rays beat against her face.
The same warm rays beat against Rarity’s face (but slathered in sunscreen, of course).
“Hey guys,” Sunset says, “I’ve finished a rough edit of our album. It’s definitely not perfect, but…it’s something. Do you want me to send it to you all so we can listen?”
“Maybe later, Sunset,” Pinkie says. “I wanna throw my cap NOW!”
“Yeah, me too!”
Sunset giggles. “All right then. Everyone ready?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s keep it simple. Here’s…to graduation.”
“To graduation!”
They threw their graduation caps into the sky, seven identical silhouettes against the same backdrop of the setting sun.
Author's Note
Disclaimers:
1. I'm not a songwriter. Neither am I a lyricist, for that matter.
2. I'm not a medical professional. This is a work of fiction and not intended to be medical advice.
3. I'm craving myself some char kway teow right about now. 
Click here for my favorite char kway teow recipe.
