September
The Following Events Take Place in Ponyville, Equestria on September 19th, 20—
11:45 AM:
*click*
*Tick. Tick. Tick.*
Screams of various ponies was the only sound audible over the ticking. They were running every which way, desperately attempting to reach a safe distance from the source of the sound. Some might have made it as far as the outskirts of town, but it was of no matter; their fates would be the same.
*Tick. Tick. Tick.*
The last sound most ponies heard was a crackling laughter, mocking their futile attempts to escape.
*Tick…*
Boom.
…
5:06 PM:
Ahgg…shit…
Despite every protest from your body, you start to get up. You had been conscious for a few minutes, but you had spent the time lying where you were, for moving even the slightest caused a terrible pain to shoot through your body. On your 3rd attempt, you finally succeed, letting out a grunt for every millimeter you moved your body. You finally dare to open your eyes. To your surprise, it didn’t hurt as much as you expected. Most, if not all, pain came from the rush of light into your pupils, signaling it had been a while since you last saw sunlight. When all traces of darkness finally faded from your view, you got your first glance of the world around you.
The first thing you noted was the sky. You could tell it was a clear day, for there was no evidence of clouds in the sky. However, the sky was a color you have not seen from a clear day; it was very dull gray, almost even a shade of green. The sun hung lazily in the air, but its effect was less potent then on normal afternoons
....or is it evening?
You look around. The air around you is hazy, limiting your vision but not eliminating it. Without much effort, you make out the shapes of buildings in the distance, yet they seem different. There seemed to be a fine dust coating each building, giving them a beige hue. Also, many of the buildings seemed run down, some even caved in completely. Your breathing increases ever so slightly, anxiety taking its grip around your chest.
Wha….What happened?
You slowly make your way towards the seemingly abandoned buildings, your curiosity fighting back the pain now making its way throughout your body. You don’t make it long until you trip over something on the ground. What should have been a minor stumble was made into a shattering plunge by your current state.
OWWW! SHHIT that hurt!! What was…
You stopped mid-question, for what you saw caused all movement of your body to cease. What you had tripped over was the hind leg of a pony, severed from its owner’s flank. It was ripped clean off, all the way up to the stifle. A small trickle of blood yet to be dried up was making its way from the leg, leading your eyes to a small dried-up trail of blood. For a while, you could do nothing but stare in horror, your breathing turned into small gasps, and your eyes wide in shock. During your time in Ponyville, you had never seen anything close to death, or even violence altogether.
This wasn’t supposed to happen in Ponyville; not here; in the kingdom of Equestria, everything was peaceful and beautiful, right? Right?!
You soon felt tears rolling down your cheeks, for you noticed something about the leg: its dark-grey coat. To many ponies, it would have been an insignificant detail compared to the whole scale of what they were witnessing, but you couldn’t help but notice it, for it is a detail you’ve noticed your many times while in Ponyville.
You recognized the coat.
You managed to speak though the tears, “Gl-Gloomy..?”
You almost didn’t have the courage to look to your left, to follow the small path the blood made in the grass. As you half-expected, there lay a dark-grey stallion in the grass, the trail of blood leading directly to a bloody gap where his right hind leg should have been. A look of extreme apprehension filled his face, eyes still wide open in death. You shot back in horror, not prepared for the sight you knew would be waiting for you. Tears continued to flow as you made your way over to the body of your foalhood friend.
No…no Gloomy…why…why?! He had been the only one…The only one who understood...
Tears fell from your cheek onto his. The sides of your mouth slowly curled into a smile between sobs.
No, no it can’t be real…yes…Gloomy, you just need help…YES! You’re injured and need my help, that’s all. I need to find somepony to help you, quick! Be right back, buddy.
Tears still flowing, yet your smile still present, you ran in the opposite direction of the corpse, careful not to trip over the leg that you knew couldn’t possibly be there: not in Ponyville. You were running to nowhere specifically, just to find somepony to help your friend. Rounding a few corners, you soon came to another pony’s corpse, this one was a mare and much more mangled than Gloomy, her neck thrown into an unnatural position, as if she was looking directly at her hip. Burn marks covered the body where her coat should be. Tears started coming at a faster rate, yet your smile grew bigger. You chuckled to yourself.
My, many injured ponies out today…don’t worry, I’ll find…I’ll find help for you too!
This pattern continued a couple more times; you would run, leaving a trail of tears in your wake, until you found another body. Each one was either mangled or burnt; their faces (if recognizable) all had looks of terror painted on them. With each new body, you cried harder and your smile grew wider, promising the body that you would find somepony to help them too. After your third encounter, you started laughing uncontrollably between sobs and have yet to stop. After running away from your fifth body, you slow down to a trot, and slow your trot to a walk, then stop altogether. Still laughing, you make your way towards the ground, laying with your face facing the dark sky. The full force of what you have witnessed hits you all at once; your laughter stops, and your smile slowly fades into a look of despair. Crying harder than ever, you feel all hope leaving your body, leaving nothing but emptiness in you. You sit up and manage to speak for the first time since your quests began, an echo lingering in the air after every word.
“Wha-what happened? What happened?! Where is everypony..?"
“WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYPONY?!”
…
7:52 PM:
You had spent about fifteen minutes on the ground until you decided to get up again, mostly due to being unable to cry anymore. Walking around aimlessly, you came to accept the truth: most, if not all, of Ponyville was dead. During your walk, seeing a decapitated pony body or a scorched corpse became almost a natural as breathing, each corpse desensitizing you more and more and sucking the innocence out of you. You stopped counting bodies after thirty.
Upon expecting your own body, you noted that you had a small burn on your front left leg and a painful lump on the back your head, which you concluded is why you can’t remember any of the day before you woke up. Hell, trying to remember anything at all left you with nothing but a terrible headache.
It had been a miracle I had remembered Gloomy.
You shed a tear at the thought of Gloomy being gone. You can remember not being friends with many ponies, but ponies like Gloomy had helped keep the loneliness away; a loneliness that was slowly making its way around you as you walked the barren streets. You shook away the thought and continued on with your current goal: find out what happened that caused all of this.
You come to a realization; the more you traveled towards the center of the town, the more damaged the pony’s remains were and the more destruction there was to the surrounding buildings. When you finally made your way to the center of Ponyville, you were greeted with black ash, maneuvered together in a circle fashion. The bodies of ponies here were almost nonexistent, being nothing but charred piles of flesh surround the area. All around, the buildings were tilted away from the circle of ash, as if some force had pushed them away…as if this was the epicenter of an… explosion.
Explosion? How? There was nothing in Ponyville that could cause an explosion bigger than a baking malfunction. And how would something make an explosion of this magnitude, enough to make all of Ponyville its victim? Unless, unless somepony was able to construct a…
No, no. Something like that would be impossible in Equestria: the land of peace and beauty. And who would want to do something like that to Ponyville, where all the ponies are, or were, I should say, known all around for their joyous smiles?
At that moment, the second you thought that last word, your head started throbbing. You feel your face contort into an expression of extreme pain as you struggle to remain standing. Suddenly, you start to see a vision. You witness the vision from a bird’s eyeview, as you witness the events unfolding.
…
11:41 AM:
You are looking down on a group of various ponies gathered around a building in the center of the town, many looks of confusion and curiosity on their faces. Inside the building, you notice the shadowed figure of a pony standing in the back of the room, but you can’t seem to make out the mysterious figure. From the voice, you assume it’s a stallion. You can just barely make out his wide-eyed expression, and a malicious grin upon his face.
“Hehe…finally…finally, it’s done...hehehe…IT’S FINALLY DONE! HahaHaHA!” he managed to get out between chuckles of laughter. He sounded like a pony gone completely mad.
“Stop him! He’s trying to kill us all! Stop him!” came a voice from the crowd.
Kill them? Does this have to do with the current Ponyville?
“NO! No, I’m going to save you..I’m going to save you all! DON’T YOU TRY TO STOP ME!”
…
8:13 PM:
Your struggle back into reality is a harsh one. As you come back into your own body, you feel your head throb one last time before the pain subsides.
What did I just see? Was that…was that a memory?
You concentrate as hard as you can, the vision playing again and again in your mind. You do not recall yourself being in a crowd such as that one. You wonder where you were when this happened, or if it happened at all.
And who was that one pony? What was ‘done..?’
Right as you think that last word, your head throbs, disconnecting you from your thoughts. You look up again at the ruined city.
Except this time, a certain building in the corner of your vision catches your eye. The building was destroyed beyond recognition, still barely standing by a few studs. The concentration of fine dust was highest surrounding this one building. You didn’t know why, but you were somehow…drawn to it. Something was telling you to get closer to the building: to explore and excavate its remains, almost instinct-like in nature.
Common sense argued against it. The building was precariously held up by only a few remaining pillars of wood which by some miracle endured the catastrophe. If one were to give up its strength and fall, the remains of the building would crumble with it. For a small fraction of time, you considered not venturing near, to ignore your thoughts and be on your way. But you decide to do it; it’s not like you have anywhere to be anytime soon.
And at this point, death may be a blessing.
You take your first cautious steps towards the building. Right before crossing the threshold, you again reconsider your decision. Ignoring the nagging in the back of your mind, you step in. Not much could be said about the building: piles of black ash littered the floor, anything that was still recognizable as typical household wares, such as two couches, tables, and even a clock, were all scorched and tattered. The entire second floor of the building had seemed to have been ripped completely off, leaving holes in the top of the room, showing the dreary cloudless sky over your head.
You make your rounds across the one room still standing. You see nothing worth noting; everything in here appeared just as any of the post-apocalyptic houses did. Just as you were making your way towards the door, you slipped on something, causing you to slightly stumble.
Oh Celestia, please don’t be a leg.
It was not. Instead, where you expected to see a detached appendage, laid a book, which, doing what the ponies could not accomplish, miraculously survived. Normally, you would have disregarded it, giving it a soft kick aside to pay it back for nearly causing your fall. But for some reason, you kept your eyes locked on the book, with a keen interest in its content, not unlike your connection with the house.
Without thinking, you turned over the cover page, which was charred over, to reveal the pages inside. The words were not print; someone had written them in. You thought perhaps this was somepony's journal, or perhaps a diary. You flip to the last page with writing on it. While a majority of the page was smeared or burned off, you could still make out some key words.
Completed…Research….Kill… Revenge…
With the last word, your head throbbed uncontrollably, causing you to stagger. Another vision followed.
….
11:42 AM:
The crowd had grown in numbers, as the figure of the pony was still giving his speech, the same malevolent grin on his face, eyes overflowing with senselessness as he stared relentlessly at the crowd of fearful ponies.
“Finally…this is your redemption day, everypony! GO AWAY FROM ME!..STAY AWAY FROM ME! GO AWAY haHaHA!” He barely got his last word out before cackling laughter escaped his lips. Some in the crowd disregarded his warnings and made their way into the house, set on restraining the stallion. Next to the pony was a device that was foreign to the ponies in the crowd. They took a step back in caution as the pony went for the machine.
“You can’t touch me now! Hehe…you see this button?!... I’M GONNA PRESS IT!!!”
Right then, in the corner of the room, a clock stuck 11:45 AM.
…
8:20 PM:
You remember.
Your eyes grow wide, your heart racing. You feel a bead of sweat forming on your forehead, your mouth open in a silent scream.
During that vision, right before it ended, the shroud of darkness around the pony lifted, revealing him. You recognized the stallion.
He was…you.
You look around, you know this place.
This is your home.
This is your journal.
I-I killed everypony…
You remember moving to Ponyville many years ago, with promises of smiling faces and happy times, and finding only sour ponies who put on a false façade of cheer. You knew…you knew they were talking behind backs, you could sense it. It didn’t take long before some dropped the façade altogether, bullying you relentlessly and without remorse. But, you would think, this is Ponyville, land of…smiles…right? No, it was lies, ALL LIES!! Nopony treated you with the smallest amount of respect or kindness, only a resentment that made you so heartbroken and sick to your stomach. And, the funny thing is, you endured it. You actually endured their horrific mistreatment for the longest time! It wasn’t until a couple months ago, when your so-called “friend” Gloomy, the only one who actually showed any act of kindness toward you in this Celestia-forsaken town, betrayed you right under your nose that something snapped in you.
"This town needs to be punished. This whole town, and everyone in it! It needed to be…cleansed. Yes… this town is a lie, lying is a sin… what needs to happen to sins...? They get abolished. And I…I will be the one…who will take up the job of cleansing the world of this sin! But how…how will I purify this sin in an appropriate manner...to show them all the suffering they put me through… ALL THE YEARS OF PAIN!! It needs to be big, it needs to be quick…I got it. I know something that will wipe this entire town off the face of Equestria. It’ll make them disappear, make them realize what they did, all the pain they caused me, caused the world! I’ll make…I’ll create…"
A bomb.
And you had succeeded.
You felt the sides of your mouth start to curl. Slow at first, but then they accelerated until you produced the widest grin you could your mouth could achieve. You felt your eyebrows cock down, giving your face the same appearance it had earlier that day when the town was surrounding your house, bent on stopping your crusade.
I-I did it.
I killed everypony…
“Hehe…hehehe…hahaha….hahaha…HahahaHAhahHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
“I DID IT!!! I KILLED THEM! I KILLED THEM ALL!!”
“And…I survived…I FUCKING SURVIVED!! HahahaHAHAHA!”
You fell to the ground, unable to keep your balance as your laughter continued.
After a few minutes of joy, you made your way out of the ruins, a smirk on your face, admiring the fruits of your success as you went. You make it to the end of town. Looking back once with a grin to admire your work one last time, you went off into the sunset, for the first time in your time here at Ponyville, feeling….happy.
