The Equestrian Apocalypse

— Cheerilee —

The thick trees and luscious shrubbery of the Everfree forest fought against Celestia’s sunlight. This eerie forest seemed just as spooky in the day as it was in the night, and now seemed not an ideal time to be wandering through it. However, the trees swayed gently, and the bushes and vines held no undead ponies.

Cheerilee kept her head on a swivel regardless. She had finally made it here after getting held up in Ponyville. Not long after splitting from Twilight and Applejack by the schoolhouse, she had been chased into a nearby abandoned house by a small group of zombie ponies. She was forced to hole up for the night in the house’s attic after they broke in and cornered her in the upstairs hallway. After struggling to sleep through the night, she eventually awoke earlier this morning to quietness. The zombie ponies had abandoned their efforts and left the house entirely. Once the coast was clear, she made a break for the forest again.

Now here she was. She traveled solo on the path that led to Zecora’s hut. Before this mess started, she had visited Zecora a few times in the past. Learning about the creature and her differing culture intrigued Cheerilee. However, it had been a while since she last visited. She kept her faith, knowing that Zecora was always good company.

Her faith was tested when she noticed a silhouette down the path ahead of her. She stopped when she realized it was a pony, and they stumbled as they walked. She hesitantly unholstered the knife Twilight had given her, gripping the handle nervously in her mouth as the silhouette grew larger. Soon after, she could make out the pony’s shape. She noticed their puffy mane before a pale pink color started to emerge from the shadowy portion of the path they were walking on.

As they got closer, she realized who it was. Pinkie Pie. She sighed to herself, still hesitant about the knife in her mouth. Pinkie picked up her awkward walking pace to a trot as she was close enough to be seen clearly. Cheerilee understood what she had to do, but she was not willing to do it. She was not a violent type, but this event was testing her limits. She started thinking of alternatives.

While Pinkie was closing in, Cheerilee started trotting toward her, veering toward the left side of the path. Right before she got within leaping distance, Cheerilee pumped on the brakes and quickly reversed directions, galloping to the right. Pinkie also started braking, but this, combined with her already awkward trot, caused her to fall forwards. Cheerilee had almost slipped during her reversal, and she felt Pinkie’s flailing hoof graze her hind leg as she straightened out and took off.

The move worked despite her not being great athletically, so she thanked her smart thinking for preventing her from having to kill Pinkie. With a newfound energy, she galloped down the path. If she remembered correctly, she was getting close to Zecora’s hut now. On the way, she wondered what Pinkie Pie was doing out here, especially all by herself. She could not make sense of it as she approached what looked like the hut.

She only slowed down when she got close enough to notice the hut’s front door wide open. There was still candlelight glowing through it and the few front windows. She didn’t see Zecora anywhere around the outside or through the door, so she cautiously trotted up to the front steps. When she glanced inside, she saw the inside was very messy. The hut's floor was covered with laid-out pots, pans, and several various colored liquids. A few books had been knocked off the many shelves of the hut, adding to the mess. She also noticed a bit of blood staining on the door’s handle.

Zecora was nowhere to be found. Cheerilee gritted her teeth, realizing what this could mean. Something terrible had happened inside the hut, like a fight. She thought about Pinkie Pie and started to connect the dots when she heard a motion around the outside of the hut.

She backed out of the doorway and looked around the corner to see Zecora’s bright black and white body edge around. She quickly noticed her glazed-over eyes and pale-looking fur. She was forced to hurry back inside the hut before Zecora could pounce on her, but as she closed the door, Zecora managed to wedge half of her body inside. Cheerilee frantically pushed back, knowing her life depended on it, and ducked her head away from Zecora's snapping teeth.

With Zecora wedged in the doorway, she realized she could not stop her from entering. She would have to use the knife still in her mouth to stab Zecora once she backed away from the door, or make a break for it around the hut, hoping to juke her as she had with Pinkie. She struggled with the door, as Zecora’s slightly larger and stronger body fought against her. She had to make a choice quickly, as her energy was dwindling.

So she disconnected from the door. Swiftly turning toward the inside of the hut, she powered her hind legs up and bucked where she thought Zecora would be. Her back hooves connected with the edge of the door, as Zecora had fallen down through the doorway when she released it. After her hooves set back down, she bolted forward and around the cauldron in the center of the room, careful not to slip on the many spilled liquids on the floor. Zecora's body flung the door back open as she picked herself up again and continued the chase.

Cheerilee started circling the cauldron to get back to the door when Zecora switched up, circling the other way to meet her. She quickly reversed again, but Zecora also reversed. She started to side-step behind the cauldron, watching to see where the zebra would go. When Zecora finally stopped changing direction and came chasing around the left side of the pot, she galloped around the right side, just to slip on one of the books laying on the floor. She smacked the floor sideways, causing her knife to slip out of her mouth and bounce beside her. She struggled to get back up before Zecora caught up with her. As she desperately slid on the wooden floor, she felt her side rub against a weirdly cold liquid spilled out on it. Before she could rotate to a stand, Zecora pounced on her.

She reached up her foreleg just in time to forcefully kick the zebra's biting jaw away and locked her front hooves against her neck and shoulder blade to hold her back. The powerful zebra pushed back, and while they struggled, Zecora's body started tipping to her right side. She felt the zebra's grip loosening, so she charged up her muscles and forcefully pushed her off. Zecora's body was sent to her right side, where it collided with the cauldron. The force caused the heavy pot to tip backward, eventually tipping to the ground with a loud bang. She heard liquid from the pot spill out on the other side and caught a glimpse of some of it splashing beside the pot.

Zecora laid in front of the pot for a split-second before rotating to her hooves and cranking her head to look back at Cheerilee. Cheerilee rolled away to her hooves, but underneath one of her forelegs was yet another strange liquid. This one felt slippery, and in her quickened attempt to stand up, she slipped to the ground again. She noticed as Zecora jumped back on her that the cauldron was rolling on its side toward them. After rotating to her back, and with her forelegs extended out to block Zecora again, she wiggled to her left to get away from it. Eventually, the pot came to a stop beside them before slowly rolling back the other way.

She noticed the green liquid spilling out of it was puddling up and easing its way toward them. The liquid bubbled and fizzed as it took over the floor, and she could have sworn she saw a flame spit up from it. She could also hear it sizzling as it approached.

With no other options on the table, Cheerilee partly released her grip on Zecora, causing their heads to get closer. With one final burst of energy, she pushed out her legs once more, shoving Zecora to her right side, where the liquid was approaching. Zecora stumbled to the ground, and her face met the liquid, making an uncomfortable sizzling sound as if she had just touched a hot stove. The zebra flailed, picking up her pale head to reveal the liquid bubbling on the left side of her face.

Cheerilee finally had enough time to stand up. Zecora was briefly distracted by the sizzling on her face, so she held her breath and used her forelegs to push her head back down into the liquid. There were no shouts, no screams, no cries of pain. But the zebra flailed. With even more time allotted to her now, Cheerilee ran back to where she had dropped the knife and used her teeth to pick it up. She turned to see the stubborn zebra had already clumsily stood back up and was turning to face her. Now she had to act. No more avoiding confrontation.

She grimaced as she lunged for Zecora and jerked her head, jabbing the knife through her ear. She heard the sound of it squishing through the zebra's head, stopping her entirely. After jerking the knife free, she backed up as Zecora's body fell at her front hooves. She dropped the knife and took in some quick, much-needed breaths. It was finally over. Tears formed in her eyes as her adrenaline wore out, realizing what she had just done.

Her rest was short-lived when she noticed Pinkie Pie through the hut’s open door. With her adrenaline rushing back, she swiftly leaped over Zecora’s dead body and rushed to the door, slamming it shut in a new fit of rage. This new world was allowing her no time to think, and no time to rest. She was not ready to kill Pinkie, especially after being forced to kill Zecora. She needed time to recover, both physically and mentally.

She noticed one of the sticks that made up the doorway step’s railings had been shifted out of place, so she grabbed it with her foreleg and snapped the rest of it off. She then took the bendy stick and shoved it diagonally across the doorway, threading it through the horseshoe-shaped door handle. The stick was big enough to span the entire door, so she slowly shifted it to an angle with maximum resistance to provide extra stability.

Pinkie started banging against the door shortly after, causing her to back away. She watched the door and stick for a moment until she was confident enough that it would stay put. She then sat on the bottom of the front steps and looked back at Zecora. Tears fell from her eyes as she succumbed to the mental pressure. The world had changed so quickly, so ruthlessly, so horribly. Just yesterday, she started teaching fillies like any other day. But now here she was, killing ponies she knew in a twisted fight for survival.

After a few minutes of crying, Cheerilee wiped her tears and got up. She needed to find that cure book more than ever now. She scanned the room for what she remembered to be the cover. If she remembered correctly, it depicted a smiling green pony that was dressed up in zombie makeup. Little did its creators know something like this could actually happen. She started wondering if the cure would even work, as a zombie apocalypse had never came to be. She remembered that the book did have a scientific background, however, with science unicorns contributing to the potential scenario, despite its unlikeliness. It was a gamble, but it was worth the effort to find it.

She spent another few minutes picking up fallen books from the floor and checking them before tossing them in an empty corner. Slowly, the corner grew with useless books as she tossed and tossed. She eventually ran out of books on the floor and started looking through the shelves. Pulling out book after book, she continued to toss them to the pile until she was all out. She angrily punched the last shelf as she came to terms that she was wrong.

Now what?

She turned to Zecora’s body, seeing blood from her head seeping into the mysterious liquid. She had fallen halfway into the liquid, and her bottom half was steadily bubbling. Was the liquid eroding her? Cheerilee realized how grotesque it was and trotted over to pull Zecora out of it. It was the least she could do for the poor zebra.

After she pulled her out of it, she realized Zecora had fallen on top of a book. The book was opened upside down, with the cover and back facing the ceiling. She pulled Zecora off of it, noticing that. damned. smiling. pony. She had found it. It did exist! A smile grew on her face as she stepped over Zecora to get it. But when she leaned down to pick it up, she realized the green liquid bubbling on the cover’s top corner. She hesitantly picked it up and flipped it over, noticing very formally written magic language on the pages. However, there was something else.

Half of the page was bubbled over.