The Equestrian Apocalypse

— Trixie Lulamoon —

With her saddlebags packed with notes and supplies, Trixie fastened the last strap over her shoulder to keep them snug. She took one last sip of her morning coffee before heading out of her room. The hotel she was staying at was surprisingly upper-class, situated in the heart of Manehatten. She had arrived here about a week ago, planning to spend another week continuing her magic acts and studying. Over the past few months, she had been perfecting her magic day and night, hoping to excel at her new acts and grow a bigger name for herself.

Her beloved grandfather, who passed away just a few weeks into her studies, served as inspiration for her to further her magic abilities. She and her family had known for a few months beforehand that he was getting ready to kick the bucket, but his heart disease took him faster than anypony had expected. Trixie was deeply saddened by his loss, so she used her study time to distract herself from it. As a result of doing this, she gained a renewed interest in studying magic, which helped her grow her knowledge significantly.

This morning, however, she canceled her morning study routine to visit the Manehatten hospital down the road. About a week ago, a new illness was detected raging throughout Manehatten. It did not take long for news to spread throughout the city, and many ponies were worried about a possible pandemic. While the symptoms of the illness were not found to be particularly menacing – most of the time being just a dry cough and occasional numbing sensations – it was highly contagious. Most ponies who went in for testing tested positive for it, including many who showed no symptoms at all. The reasoning behind it was unknown, causing science and doctor ponies throughout Equestria to work day and night trying to figure it out.

Trixie was particularly concerned about this new illness, and she could not figure out why. She assumed it might be from her grandfather’s recent death and the small bout of anxiety that had come along with it. Whatever the case was, her gut feeling told her this new illness would not turn out pretty. Over the past few nights, she had nightmares of mass death, seeing dead ponies laying throughout the streets of Manehatten. She would always wake up in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat, and immediately run to the window to check the city. Looking down from the hotel’s fifth-story window would always yield the same result: city streetlights glowing on the few ponies walking about in the nighttime.

She wanted to visit the hospital because she believed she might have something that could help with the illness. While she had little to no experience in medical science, she had grown new confidence in what she had learned, realizing just how powerful magic could be. While she was tossing and turning in bed last night, she recalled two spells she had recently learned. She realized that combining them may result in a sort-of medicinal effect that might help or even cure the sick ponies. It was very far-fetched that this would do anything, but she felt the need to do something to calm her mind. Even if she could just visit the sick ponies and make sense of their illness, that alone might put her mind at ease.

She sighed as she arrived at the hospital and entered the double doors. To her surprise, the check-in desk had no line, but the waiting room was still packed with dozens of ponies. She walked up to the desk and waited as the receptionist fumbled around with a growing mess of paperwork. With a quiet glow in her horn, Trixie used a silent magic spell to peer into the papers laid out on the desk. She observed a few names that had recently checked in before moving on to another paper. After a few seconds, she found a pony’s name with one checkmark beside it: Sugar Sweetstack. She had also seen a few names with two checkmarks, so she assumed one meant they were processed and put into a room, and two meant they had already been discharged.

“Excuse me …” she said.

The tired receptionist paused what she was doing and looked up at Trixie.

“How can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m here to visit Sugar Sweetstack please.”

“Sorry, we aren’t allowing visitors at this time.”

“No … it’s … hold on.”

Trixie had already prepared for this, knowing that it might not be easy to get inside with tensions about the illness so high. The receptionist watched as Trixie pulled a beige folder out of her saddlebag, as well as some kind of id card attached to a lanyard. Trixie opened the folder and laid it out on the top part of the desk, holding up the id card next to her face.

“Twinkle Lab, official science pony. I was sent on behalf of my organization on private matters. It is in regards to the new illness.”

The receptionist looked unamused, glancing back and forth between her and the documents. Trixie had worked hard last night to make the fake paperwork and id card look valid.

“I would think a science institution would have given us a heads-up …”

Trixie swallowed nervously.

“My apologies. Perhaps there was an issue with the letter they sent.”

“I’m sorry, but I need to see stronger proof.”

Bitch.

It took Trixie’s brain-to-mouth filter extra work not to blurt out at the receptionist. Trixie leaned in closer, putting her head over the desk. “Listen-” she whispered, “-this is a time-sensitive matter. I need to get in there. This sickness is dangerous and this visit is very important.”

“I understand, but I can’t allow that. You need to contact them or something. I'm sorry.”

The receptionist slid Trixie’s fake folder away and got back to shuffling her papers. Trixie leaned over the desk again.

“You don't understand,” she said quietly, “I need you to let me in now.”

An increasingly angry receptionist looked back up at her. “No. Please leave.”

Trixie bit her tongue and realized her plan had no chance of working now. She thought about trying her spell on a willing sick pony in the lobby, but without a proper diagnosis from the hospital, she realized it could be dangerous. Even on the right pony, it was probably dangerous, but Trixie was only willing to take so much of a chance. She also did not feel like risking a trip to jail if things went south in front of so many ponies.

"Okay... look," she whispered softly, "I'm not with some company. I am just somepony with an idea. Ponies have suffered from this already and I might know a way to stop it."

"Might?"

"...Y-yes ... it is not set in stone, but I believe it could work."

The receptionist looked at her funny. "Now I really can't let you in. I get you want to help but leave it to the professionals, please."

Before Trixie could retaliate, the receptionist ushered a waiting pony that had gotten in line behind her. Trixie huffed, fighting off her growing anger and defeatedly walked back toward the front doors. A few ponies in the crowded waiting area had overheard their argument and were now looking on in curiosity. She ignored them, continuing her walk of shame. She was confident that her disguise would have worked, but she had not expected to deal with such a stubborn receptionist. She wondered if there was a better method she could have used to get inside.

Diverting from the double doors, she decided to stop by the restrooms. All the stalls were occupied so she sat up next to the wall and waited. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, taking some breaths to calm herself down after getting worked up like that. When she opened them, she was staring at a large air conditioning vent in the ceiling. She noticed the eggcrate grate opening was wide enough to fit a pony. Devious and stubborn as she was, she began to ponder.

After a minute of thought, she decided she would sneak her way in using the vents. Thankfully for her, the grate was near the sinks and out of sight of the ponies occupying the stalls. With a quick look around, she warmed up her horn and shot the grate with the most basic of movement spells. The grate remained still. Thinking quickly, she warmed up a more advanced spell to loosen the screws that must have been holding it in place. Using these two together worked, pushing the grate up into the air duct.

Now came the hard part. The bathroom was small but the grate was still on the ceiling. With a trotting start, she jumped up, recoiled off the sink, and landed her forelegs in the duct. She shimmied her bottom half inside and set down the grate again just as a toilet flushed. After making sure the duct was clear and she was secure, she cautiously looked through the edge of the grate's square holes, watching as a bewildered pony walked up to the sink and looked around for whatever made the noise. Trixie sighed in relief as she watched the pony washed her hooves and leave. She then started to slowly edge her way through the narrow duct, careful not to scratch her saddlebags too much against its walls. She figured the duct support may not be rated for the weight of a pony, so she listened for any creak or noise that may alert her of a break incoming.

A few minutes of slow crawling later, she approached another grate and looked through it to see one of the hospital rooms. The room was dark and there was nopony in the messed-up bed. She jumped as the door swung open and a janitor pony turned the lights on. She watched as he quickly began tidying up the room. Shortly after, a nurse pony came flying in, quickly grabbing the old sheets and leaving.

How fast can they get the room ready? she wondered.

She decided to move on a minute later. Even if a sick pony showed up in the room, they would likely be accompanied by nurses and/or doctors for a while. The next room she spied on looked promising, hosting a lone stallion tossing around in his bed. As she thought about how to introduce herself, the room’s bathroom door opened and a mare came walking out. Trixie grew furious as the mare sat by his bedside and held his hoof.

No visitors, huh? Bitch.

The next room was occupied by a couple of nurses doing some kind of procedure on the patient, so she moved on to the next room. Inside it, there was a mare sleeping in her bed with the room semi-darkened and no visitors. Trixie waited a minute and listened to hear if anypony was in the bathroom, but there were no sounds in return. This was the one. She hoped that no doctor or nurse ponies were on the way to see this mare. She also hoped this mare was sick with the right illness. Otherwise, this encounter could become even more awkward than it already would be.

She used her magic to quietly unscrew the grate and carefully lowered it to the floor below. She jumped down as quietly as she could, standing still to listen and make sure nopony heard. The mare didn’t move. Trixie nervously approached her, realizing how odd this conversation was about to become. She approached her bedside nonetheless.

“Excuse me,” she said softly.

No response. Trixie shook her gently.

“Excuse me, miss.”

She looked on at the mare’s face and noticed something. There really was no response; the mare was not breathing. Trixie’s heart sunk to the floor, skipping many beats as it fell. She looked up at the heart rate monitor, noticing the flatline. There was also a bell icon in the lower corner that was crossed out, likely meaning the machine had been silenced.

As Trixie looked on in horror at the dead pony, she heard a rumble outside the door as if somepony was about to run in. Adrenaline started rushing through her veins as she darted towards the air duct before realizing the rumbling was getting quieter. While she listened for it again, there was a scream in the distance. Trixie looked back at the dead pony, unsure of what to do. There was clearly something going on outside. She also did not want to get caught up in some kind of police investigation claiming she murdered the pony.

She ran back to the mare's bedside and leaned her head against the mare’s chest, listening for a heartbeat despite what the monitor was saying. As she listened, she heard the mare take a slow, deep breath in as her chest grew. A shallow heartbeat started to beat against Trixie’s ear. Partially relieved, Trixie turned her attention back to the mare’s face when she realized how pale it had become.

“Miss … are … are you alright?” she asked.

The mare’s eyes slowly opened as she began to groan. Trixie noticed her eyes appeared very glazed over, with a suspicious white tint to them. Before she could make any more observations, the mare’s eyes lit up as she saw her. The pony groaned loudly before snapping her teeth and raising her head. As the mare started to dig her way out of the hospital bed, Trixie fell backward.

“No! Stop!”

Trixie warmed up a spell to knock her back as the mare slid out of the bed and started coming after her. Realizing there was no time left to act, she released it before it could charge completely. The spell halted the attacking pony but did not push her back nearly at all. Trixie got up quickly and galloped toward the room's door. She yanked it open just to find a similarly pale stallion in the hallway in front of her. The stallion noticed her immediately and groaned, lunging at the doorway.

Trixie slammed the door, but his body got in the way, causing blood to splatter out of his crushed leg. Realizing the mare was almost on top of her now, she ducked beneath her snapping jaw and made a break for the air duct. On the way, she pushed the rolling hospital food tray below the grate so she could reach. She jumped up on top of the sturdy tray before leaping up halfway into the grate. Her saddlebags weighed her down partially, but there was no time to take them off. She started to shimmy her way up, but before she could fully crawl in, one of them grabbed her right hind leg and started to pull. Trixie flailed to get inside the duct but started slipping, losing her grip on its metal floors.

Despite her rushing adrenaline, she focused intently on a newly learned water-based spell as she slipped further and further down. Her horn glowed as she began gathering nearby water sources, pulling water from the nearby bathroom’s bath spout and sink faucet. When the pony finally dragged her all the way out, she blasted the spell as she fell to the ground. Gallons of water rushed from around her and slammed into both the attackers, causing them to tumble back to the corner of the room. Trixie quickly shook the water from her hooves as she clumsily jumped up and into the duct, nearly slipping on the water she had just summoned. While probably not the best spell she could have come up with, the intensity of the situation had fogged her thinking. She took a second once she was secure again to ask herself:

What in Equestria is this? Were those zombies?? You have got to be joking! This has to be another nightmare.

She was going to need some more time to figure this out, but it did not seem time was on her side. The mare who grabbed her leg was now climbing into the duct after her. She looked back dumbfounded for a second before quickly scooting forwards. When she got close to one of the grates looking down on the previous hospital rooms, the lights in the hospital went out, causing the duct to become nearly pitch-black. Only a spoonful of light cast up through some of the grates laid out ahead of her. After she crossed a few of them, she realized she was quickly getting lost. The mare was now chasing her through the duct, so there was no time to stop and adjust her eyes to see into the dark rooms below.

She passed a few more grates before slamming her head on a duct wall. Her head started pounding just moments later, but there was no time for her to react. She shook it off swiftly and felt her way into the left turn the duct made before speeding up again. A few seconds later, she heard the mare make the same mistake. While Trixie might have been able to warm up a quick spell to help her here, she was too lost in panic to think straight. Her body was now in fight or flight mode, and being chased in these dark duct tunnels only enhanced this response.

While she scurried along the duct, a grate lit brighter than the others sat ahead. She started warming up the spell to unscrew it as she approached, speeding up in a frenzy of hope. But before she could get to it, the metal beneath her groaned for a split second before the floor of the duct burst open.

Trixie tumbled to the room below and smashed into a folding table with some kind of glass bottles on it. The table instantly snapped under her weight, sending her to the floor as its middle section caved in. Liquids from the bottles splashed all over her as their glass cracked all around her. Some of the liquids began burning her coat, but some of them were so cold that they gave parts of her body intense chills. Her horn was covered in a mixture of the hot and cold liquids, and she temporarily had no access to her magic.

She struggled to get out of the table’s debris as broken glass, bottles, and beakers slid down to her sides and surrounded her. Before she could get out of the way, the mare fell through the hole and landed on on top of her. She frantically pushed her off to her side before realizing the mare had stopped moving. After taking a few much-needed seconds to catch her breath, she looked over the pony to see her face had landed square on a broken glass bottle, with shards of glass penetrating her eye socket.

This sight combined with the unusual sensations she was starting to feel from the mystery liquids caused her to vomit on her other side. She started feeling a light-headed sensation overwhelm her as she slowly edged away from the puke traveling down the slanted table toward her. After a few seconds, her vision faded to black as she passed out.

Trixie blinked her eyes opened. The putrid smell of death filled her nostrils. Next to her was the corpse of the pony from before. It hadn't been a dream. She avoided looking at her as she took some deep breaths, trying to snap back to reality. There were no sounds coming from the duct above her. She wondered how long she was out, but the sight of marks on her foreleg from resting too long on the table was not a good sign. She looked around at the broken glass bottles and beakers surrounding her, remembering the liquid that had spilled all over her. She felt normal now, despite one of her forelegs being slightly wet. She looked normal too, so she hoped whatever had spilled on her did not have any effects on her.

As her senses returned to a relatively normal state, she realized how bad of a situation she was in. A zombie apocalypse? seemed to be breaking out now, and she was in the middle of a hospital full of sick ponies … in the busiest city in Equestria. She also wasn't aware of how bad it may be outside, as she was unaware of how long she was passed out. Regardless, she knew it was not safe to stay here. She wondered if the two zombie ponies she witnessed earlier were isolated incidents, but the power going out and the screams she heard were not a good sign. Thankfully, there was a single emergency light above this room's door which vaguely illuminated her surroundings.

She hesitantly stood up and tip-toed over the floor of glass, inevitably getting a few small cuts by the shards. It looked like she had fallen into some sort of science lab, as tables with glass beakers and science equipment were laid out around the rest of the room. Luckily, the table she fell on was what looked like a makeshift folding table as opposed to some of the sturdy marble countertops. Unluckily, she had become some kind of unplanned science experiment. The liquids from the broken bottles were soaked into her now, and despite her feeling normal, she still worried about what her body absorbed.

She eased her way around the room and ran to the door, putting her ear against it and listening to what was on the other side. She happened to see a fire escape map next to it that showed the nearest fire escape, which was conveniently right down the hall from the room she was in. She heard nothing through the door for a few seconds, so she slowly opened it. The hallway was dimly lit by emergency lights dotted throughout the ceiling. There was nothing but various hospital carts and wheelchairs lining it, and it sounded surprisingly empty. She made her way down the hall, toward the glowing red exit sign. The door opened to a stairwell that went up from her current ground floor, as well as another exit door that led outside. Her instincts took over when she saw the door, and she busted through it to escape the horrors she had seen.

The bright morning sun beat on her as she went through the doorway, and it took her vision a few seconds to adapt to the blinding rays. Outside, there was a small concrete clearing with paved lines. To her left, the hospital wall held a very wide, painted door with an awning, indicating a place that paramedic ponies dropped off ill patients. On the painted yellow lines in front of it, she noticed ... covered up bodies. Lined against the wall was around a dozen of these bodies, which were covered up with white sheets. Blood stains were speckled on the sheets as they laid eerily still.

Trixie was lost in the gruesome sight until she realized there were two upright, sick ponies trotting toward her from the alley, drawn in by the sound of the door flying open. She turned to run down the other alley until she saw another one rounding its corner and blocking her in. She frustratingly went back inside the fire exit door and slammed it shut.

The door started banging violently from the ponies outside. Luckily for her, it was a push door that swung outward, and the zombie ponies did not seem smart enough to pull on the handle outside. There was still the chance that a stray hoof could yank it open, so Trixie held it while she thought of a plan. As she did, loud steps came rushing down the stairwell above her. She started warming up a goo spell to trap the attacker as they came down the stairs, but she hesitated as the pony came into view. Vinyl Scratch’s bright white body came rushing around before stopping halfway at the sight of Trixie. She let out an audible sigh of relief when she realized Trixie wasn’t a zombie. Trixie gestured to the door.

“They might get in!”

“Hold on!” Vinyl yelled before turning and booking it back up the stairs.

“Hey!” Trixie shouted after her, “Vinyl!”

Trixie hesitated for a few seconds before abandoning the door and dashing up the stairs after her. She glanced back as she did to see the door start swinging in and out awkwardly before one of them managed to push their foreleg in. She lost sight as she turned the corner and ran up the rest of the first-floor stairs. When she got up and started turning to climb the next flight, she noticed Vinyl through the second-floor doorway and came to a stop. Vinyl was looking out of an opened window as her horn started to glow. She stopped when she noticed Trixie out of the corner of her eye.

“What are you doing?! The door!” Vinyl yelled.

“It’s too late, they’re coming up!”

“Okay! Follow!” Vinyl replied, turning and running back through the doorway. Trixie followed as they ran through a hallway with windows. She took a peek outside as they ran to find only a couple of zombie ponies making their way toward the building. They made a turn down a darker hallway and kept going. The hallway grew too dark for Trixie to see Vinyl stop, and she ended up running into the back of her and knocking them both down.

“Shit! Sorry!”

Trixie helped her up, looking back nervously for zombies. After she was up, Vinyl swung open a door to a patient room and ran in. She gestured for Trixie to do the same. Light from the window cast the room in a bright glow, unlike the other rooms. This room must have faced east, Trixie thought, because the rising sun was beaming through the curtains. The room was like the other patient rooms she had seen. There was a hospital bed on the right wall with medical equipment above it, a few chairs by the bedside, a food tray, and a small bathroom in the rear left corner. As Trixie looked around, Vinyl closed the door quietly.

“We need to secure it,” Vinyl said between breaths.

Trixie looked over the hospital bed as she caught her breath too.

“Let’s push the bed against the door,” she suggested.

The mares circled the bed and grabbed onto its side. Trixie kicked the foot lever below it that was holding it in place.

“Count of 3,” Vinyl said, “1 … 2 … 3!”

The bed rolled slowly across the room as the mares shoved it against the door. They were careful not to make a loud banging noise when doing so. The faint moan of a group of zombies started to leak through the door. After relocking the wheels, the mares backed up and started to regain the energy they lost during their gallop.

“How did you know this room was safe?” Trixie asked.

Vinyl paused for a second.

“… it was mine …”

Trixie looked up at her nervously. She returned a worried glance back. On the bed they had just rolled against the door, Trixie saw an abandoned hospital gown poking out from under the sheets. She sighed.

“Do you have it?”

Vinyl nodded defeatedly. Trixie thought about this, realizing they had already been in close contact with each other. She remembered that the ponies studying the new illness deemed it highly contagious. If Vinyl had it, she probably spread it to her already. If not, the zombie mare who grabbed her before had.

"I'm sorry," Vinyl told her.

"It's ... it's alright."

"So, what do we do now? Does it even matter? Are we just going to turn into one of them?"

"I don't know," Trixie replied, "but whatever happens, I'm not dying in this damn hospital."