Lyra tried her best to ignore the corpses strewn across the market as she marched on to her destination. She knew what she was here for, and nothing was going to stop her from reaching it. Her coat was already soaked with the blood of ponies she had know all her life, but their deaths were the price to be paid for her own survival. She had to get what she needed, and she was willing to do whatever it took to make sure she walked away with her prize.

Like fog dissipating against the shore of an endless river, the memories of the Equestria that was were an ephemeral dream. She tried to remember the world of friendship and harmony in which she once lived, but those were the before times. The long, long ago. Society had collapsed, ponies were left to fend for themselves, and now survival was all that mattered. Trying to remember her life before the end was a pointless endeavor. It wouldn't get her any closer to what she needed.

Her mind was wrenched back to the present by the crunch of hoofsteps nearby. She turned to see two stallions trying to creep up on her. Already, they were too close. She cursed herself for letting her mind wander.

"Stay away!" she shouted.

"Fat chance bitch," one hollered back, "we're all after the same thing, and we certainly ain't letting you beat us to it. Get out of here now and we promise we'll let you live."

His words were empty, Lyra knew. How could she live if she left now, without getting what she was here for. What all these ponies were here for, the living and the already dead. Two against one weren't great odds, but she had survived tougher in the weeks since the collapse. As the stallion who had spoken to her stepped forward, she grasped her knife in her aura and lunged for him. he jumped back, but not fast enough. Blood splashed against Lyra's fur as the knife bit into his neck. She didn't wait to watch him die, turning her focus to his partner. But when she looked to where he had been just a moment ago, he was gone. Where had he gone?

"You bitch!" he shouted as he tackled her to the ground. Her telekinesis failed as her body hit the ground, and she struggled to right herself. He was on her in an instant, raining heavy blows to her face and body. Lyra felt her nose break as his hoof struck her face. Another hoof punched her in the gut, forcing the air out of her and leaving her gasping in pain. The stallion didn't let up, hitting her again and again. She raised her hoofs across her face in a futile attempt to ward off his strikes, but he was stronger than her and lost in a fit of rage and fury. Lyra knew she had only one chance of turning the tide of this fight.

She kicked her hind leg with as much force as she could muster, driving it into the stallions crotch. He doubled over in pain, all his anger and adrenaline failing him as he writhed in pain from the blow. Lyra rolled over and stood up, still too dizzy to focus her magic. Instead she gripped the hilt of her blade between her teeth, and stabbed her assailant in the gut. The knife punctured his stomach, drawing another cry of pain from him. Lyra had no mercy left for him though, she had shed such weaknesses long ago. Everyone who was still alive had no time to spare pitying others. She bit the handle harder in her mouth and drew the blade upward, slashing his torso open from stomach to chest, stopping only when the blade hit the stallion's sternum. His innards splashed out, dragging against Lyra's face as she drew the blade up and out of him. He was still alive as she turned to walk away, but he was not longer her concern. She ran a hoof across her face, wiping his and her own blood off as best she could, and moved on. Always moving toward the one thing that would let her survive another day of this mad world.

Time passed as she continued on. More ponies, more killing. It all became a blur to her as she pressed on. Once the thought of hurting another pony would have seemed terrifying to her. Now she had lost count of how many she had maimed and killed just in the past week. There was no helping it though, no pony could ever go back to the way things were before. Any pony who had managed to make it this long had too much blood on their hooves to even dream about going back to the old ways. There was no time for dreams when all around you was a nightmare.

"Lyra? Is that you?" a mare asked.

Another voice, another pony. This one, to her horror, Lyra recognized. Minuette was her name, a friend of Lyra's in times past. Now, she was only more competition.

"Do we have to do this, Lye?" Minuette asked, tears welling in her eyes. Next to her hovered a wooden club, nails protruding at random angles all along the head. Lyra could see fresh blood dripping off those spikes; obviously her friend had run into other survivors as well on her way here.

"You know there's only one left, Minuette. I wish we could both share it, but who knows when more will be available." Lyra answered her friend. It was a cruel fate indeed that the two of them had to meet here like this, but they both understood that only one was going to be moving on. Lyra readied her blade. "I'm sorry."

"So am I," Minuette responded.

With that, the two mares lunged at one another. Lyra was at a disadvantage of reach, and Minuette knew it, taking advantage of her longer weapon. She slugged Lyra in the side with the club, nails tearing into her skin and ripping out chunks of flesh. Lyra screamed and pulled away, narrowly avioding another strike. As the club whizzed past her face, Lyra could see her own tattered hide hanging off those barbs. Minuette had over extended herself though, and now Lyra pushed her own pain and disfigurement aside as she took advantage of her once friend's mistake. Her knife found entrance into her friend's skull through her eye, its razor edge the last thing Minuette would ever see before it pierced her brain. Lyra twisted once before withdrawing the blade. She watched the body fall to the ground before her, a look of shock and horror frozen on the corpse's face. Lyra allowed herself a single moment to mourn the loss of one of her oldest and best friends, then steeled herself and moved forward. She couldn't afford to dwell on feelings of remorse for long, she knew more horrors awaited her in the future and if she thought too long about any of them then she would loose herself. She couldn't be weak. She had to survive. No matter what.

Lyra knew she had to be close now. She was almost there, soon it would be hers and everything would be okay again. At least, for a little while. She had no illusions that this would be the last time she had to brave the hell that was the market in search of more, but at least for a little while, if she was lucky, she could hole up and hide. She would be safe. She could rest. For a little while.

She limped weakly along, her amateur attempt at bandaging herself doing little to curb the flow of blood streaming down her side. The pain of her wounds was so intense that all she wanted to do was curl up and cry as the life drained out of her. Broken nose, cracked ribs, a punctured lung, and chunks of torn out flesh added up to a very bad day for the poor mare.

How many had she killed today? How many had tried to kill her? Somewhere along the way she had lost her knife, but she couldn't remember when it had happened. There were ponies she had stabbed, and there were ponies that she had beaten to death bare hooved, but her mind made little effort to differentiate the two. All that mattered was her goal.

But she was here now. She could see it, the thing she had suffered and killed for. Soon it would be hers. However, she realized she wasn't alone. Another mare had made it this far as well, one final obstacle between her and survival. Lyra had to keep herself from sobbing as she looked on in horror at the mare she knew in front of her.

"Oh Celestia please, no. Not you. Any pony else, but please not you!" Lyra cried as her wife's terrified face looked back at her. A hundred questions flared in the mare's mind, trying to cope with the terrible reality of her situation. Why did Bon Bon have to come here today? Why couldn't there have been two rolls? Why did she have to kill the love of her life? Was this even worth it anymore?

"Lyra, my love, please don't cry," Bon Bon consoled her, wanting nothing more than to wrap her arms around her wife and comfort her, but knowing such wants meant nothing in the face of cold reality.

"I don't want to do this, Bonny," Lyra sobbed, "It's not worth it. I don't want to live in a world without you. I can't!"

"You must!" Bon Bon shouted, startling even herself with the force of her voice, "You have to promise me Lyra. No matter which of us makes it out of here, we have to promise to live. In memory of our love, of better times shared together."

"I lost my knife a while ago," Lyra admitted.

"You always had a habit of misplacing things, dear. But that's okay, I don't have a weapon anymore either," Bon Bon smiled sadly. "I guess it's fitting this way. Feels more intimate, anyway."

"You know I always loved being intimate with you," Lyra joked, before readying herself for what was to come.
"Love you, Bonny," she spoke morosely.

"Love you too, Lye," Bon Bon replied.

The two lovers shared a melancholy smile.

Then they were on each other. Hooves fell heavy on them as the two mares struggled for dominance. Lyra rolled on top of her wife, legs straddling Bon Bon's hips as Lyra attempted to crush her wife's neck in her hooves. Bon Bon struggled to breath as she connected her won hoof to Lyra's face over and over again. Finally the blows were effective in loosening Lyra's grip on her throat, allowing Bon Bon to toss the mare off her. Bon Bon screamed as she reared back over the prone unicorn, hooves in the air over Lyra's face, preparing to drive them down and crush her love's skull. As she fell though, Lyra ducked under her legs and lunged upward, the weight of Bon Bon's body driving down onto Lyra's horn. Blood poured out of Bon Bon's chest and down Lyra's face, mixing with her tears and pooling on the ground.

Lyra had no idea how long she sat crying like that, hugging Bon Bon's corpse and sobbing as her fur was stained crimson with her lover's blood. How fitting, she wondered, that she would kill her love by stabbing her in the heart. Fate wasn't just cruel, it was a right cunt.

At long last, Lyra roused herself from her stupor and remembered her promise to Bon Bon. She had to live. And so she would, or at least she would try her best to. She was here now, no pony else was left to fight her for her prize, and so her struggle, for now at least, was over. She forward moved to claim her prize, sitting by itself on an otherwise empty shelf in the furthest reaches of the market. It was hers now. Her hooves trembled slightly as they reached to grab for it, the weight of all she had done and been through nearly crushing the poor mare. But now, at last, it was finished. It was in her hooves. It was hers. She could finally go home now, victorious.

Lyra threw the roll of toilet paper in her cart and went to check out. She just hoped they'd have more in stock the next time she came shopping.

Author's Note

Sorry, I'll be back to writing porn shortly. I came up with this story at work this morning and had to get it down. Gotta love working at a grocery store.

Hope everyone's quarantine is going well. At least we all got to watch the finale of FiM before the world ended, so that's nice.