The Equestrian Apocalypse

— Devan —

Muffled voices filled my ears as I slowly regained feeling in my body. I winced as an uncomfortable pang returned through my leg. Despite the pain, my nose started picking up whiffs of sweetness. It was a smell I could not familiarize myself with for some reason, but it was sweet. Very sweet. I slowly opened my eyelids to see a blurry pink ceiling above me. Underneath me, I felt the cold, hard feeling of a tiled floor. My head was the only thing resting on something soft. I then turned my head to the right to see Cloud sitting against a wall beside me. She was focused on a different part of the room until I got forced into a coughing fit.

“Devan!” she exclaimed, now hanging over me. “Are you alright?”

It took me a few seconds to get over it and respond. “I … think so.” I slowly raised my head. There was a long aisle in front of me, and on the shelves on either side, there were various creative displays of what looked like candies. Lots of candies. The vibrant-colored sweets matched the bright pink and white tiled floor, making it evident we were in some kind of jolly candy shop. Down the aisle was another aisle, then what looked like a counter against the opposite wall.

I looked to my left. A few more aisles were lined up beside the ones in front of me. Behind the last one stood a wall with windows starting at knee height and rising all the way to the tall ceiling. Celestia’s sun shined through them, illuminating the already colorful shop. The base of the wall underneath the windows was a purple color, and in front of it sat Flutters and Spark. When they overheard Cloud and me, they quit conversing and turned to us. Flutters stood up and trotted up to my side.

“devan, thank goodness,” she said, “how are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling okay …”

She looked down and observed my leg. I followed her eyes and gasped at the sight. Part of me forgot my leg was chopped off before I passed out. The stump of my left thigh was now wrapped in a tightly wound ball of gauze. There was still a hint of blood peeking through the bottom part of the gauze, but it was not pouring out as I had remembered before. The belt from my pants had been taken off and wrapped around my thigh, but it hung loosely at the moment. I closed my eyes and laid my head back, trying to overcome a new sense of shock.

“just relax,” Flutters said, “i was able to fold some of your skin over it and wrap it up tight. it looks bad, but its much better now, i promise.”

I opened my eyes again and looked at her. “Thank you.”

She smiled and dug into a new saddlebag lying beside me. My backpack, with my baseball bat still in its mesh, sat beside it. After pulling out a thermometer, she set it in my mouth and waited. Once it beeped, she pulled it out and looked at it. Her smile quickly turned to a frown.

“What? Is it bad?” I asked.

“you’re burning up. we need to get you medicine,” she answered.

“W- what about the antibiotics in his bag?” Cloud asked her.

She looked up and bit her lip. “we used the last ones when you lost yours,” Flutters gestured to Cloud’s still-bandaged hoof. “i’m sorry …”

Cloud cursed and closed her eyes.

“It can just go away on its own, can’t it?” I asked.

“devan … this thermometer works fine. it's reading you at nearly 103°F.”

“How … how bad is that?”

“dangerously bad. let me check again though. you don’t look as bad as it says,” she mentioned.

She stuck the thermometer back in my mouth and repeated the process. Her expression stayed the same. “dang it.” She defeatedly put the thermometer back. Down the aisles ahead of me, I saw Dash and the unicorn appear in front of the counter. They noticed us as well and came trotting up to see.

“How is he?” Dash asked Flutters.

“he’s burning up. he needs medicine.”

“Crap.”

Everybody turned their attention to the pink unicorn. She shifted her eyes between us before responding, “I don’t have anything, I’m sorry.”

“Do you know if any place around here does?” Dash asked her.

“Well, there’s a clinic a few blocks away from here ...”

“Take me there,” Cloud spoke, standing up beside her.

“It- It’s locked up, last I checked. I don’t know if we can even get to the medicine inside.”

Spark stood up when she noticed the group coming together and trotted up to us, standing beside Flutters. She overheard most of the conversation and pointed her tan hoof at Cloud. “Even if we can, you still need to rest. I can go with her.”

Cloud got ready to retaliate when I sat up on my elbows and interrupted all of them. “Where the hell are we? This doesn’t look like that other building.”

Everypony’s eyes turned to me, including the unicorn’s bright blue ones. I noticed her cutie mark, which was two overlapping candy canes shaped together to form a heart, with a bowtie candy on top of where they crossed on the bottom. She also had that same colorful axe from before strapped on her back.

“We’re in my candy shop,” she said, “That other place got overrun. We had to move you here after you passed out.”

She looked down at my stump regretfully.

“Overrun?”

“Yes.”

“H … how?”

She sighed. “I told your friends already, but … Canterlot is not what you think it is.”

“W- what?”

“Canterlot fell apart yesterday. Anything that was still left of it fell overnight and this morning. There are still some of us here, but I think anypony still alive is holed up in their own places. I don’t know how long that can last …”

“But- but the princesses! The letter!”

“I know, I know, your friends told me everything. But it’s too late. The castle is overrun.”

My eyes lit up with fear. “They’re dead??”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“H- how would that even-”

“devan,” Flutters interrupted, “we need to get you medicine now. we will figure everything else out later.”

My vision shook briefly. Despite just waking up, I still felt drowsiness washing over me. She was right. My head felt like it was burning. As I took some deep breaths, Flutters looked over at the unicorn.

“can you take me to the clinic?”

“I can …”

Spark raised her hoof in protest, but Flutters held her own in front of her. “you need to stay here with them … in case anything happens … please.”

Spark lowered her hoof and reluctantly nodded.

"Hold on," Dash spoke up, "Spark can stay here, yeah, but I think you should too."

"but ..."

Dash rose her front hoof now. "Candy knows where it is and I can assist her. Both of us can go in and out, quick. If you just tell us what to get, we can get it ... maybe not 10 seconds flat ... but we can get it quick. Is that alright with you?"

Fluttershy took a second to ponder before nodding as well. We then said our goodbyes as the unicorn left with Dash, disappearing behind the shelves. The soft surface beneath my head turned out to be a pillow, so I laid my head back down on it and stared at the ceiling, trying to calm my racing thoughts. The princesses … dead? What could that possibly mean? How was Celestia’s sun still up if she was dead? What would happen when it went down? What would happen to me? I had so many new, burning questions swirling around my mind, but they paused when Cloud hung her head over me again.

“Please get some rest, Devan. We’ll wake you up when the others get back with your medicine.”

I looked up at her worryingly. “I don’t know if I can now.”

“You can, just try.”

I closed my eyes briefly before opening them again. “So the unicorn's name is Candy?”

“Haha, yeah, fitting enough. Her name's Candy Sweet.”

I added her name to my jumbled memory as I closed my eyes, trying hard to rest. The pain soaring through my leg, combined with the added anxiety of learning the whole plan was screwed, made it very difficult. It was not until Cloud started rubbing my shoulder that I could relax enough to think about sleeping. After a few minutes, her shoulder rubbing outweighed the pain in my leg and helped me doze off again.

The sound of glass breaking ripped me from my sleep, and I opened my eyes to the pink ceiling again. My heart started beating quickly from shock as I rose my head from the pillow. The room was even brighter now, as Celestia’s sun was beaming through the windows. I blinked my eyes to adjust to the blinding light. I glanced around me, but nopony was there. Near the end of the aisles in front of me, I saw Cloud round the corner and leave my sight.

“Cloud!” I yelled, sitting all the way up. My leg continued its relentless pain spreading as I scooted up against the pillow. My backpack, with baseball bat attached, sat up against the wall beside me, but the saddlebag Flutters used was still gone. “Cloud!” I yelled again. Fear was growing as I wondered if they were leaving me. I then heard a commotion in the front of the shop that I could not see. I heard footsteps a few aisles to my left until the glass windows to my left shattered. The familiar groan of the mobs I had seen grew, and I realized I was in trouble.

As I tried to fight the pain and scoot away from the windows, a pony came around the shelves next to it. Fear zapped through me for a moment until I realized it was Cloud. Behind her, Spark came rushing around the corner.

“Devan! We gotta get you upstairs!” Cloud hollered.

Before I could question her, she bit into my shirt’s collar and dragged me away from the windows. Behind us, Spark bit into the top handle of my backpack and followed us. As we passed between the wall and the candy-filled aisles, another pony came around the corner behind Spark. It took a moment for me to notice their blood-stained face and crooked, hanging jaw. I started to yell out to her, but a sharp pain cut through my leg as I was dragged, taking my breath away. It didn’t matter anyway, because the country mare set her front hooves firmly on the tiled floor before blasting the pony with her hind legs. The zombie mare was sent flying to the ground behind her, and even as we approached the corner of the shop, she laid still. That had to be one of the most powerful bucks I had ever seen, coming toe to toe with AJ.

I helplessly slid on the tiled floor below as Cloud rounded the corner. Right after we did, I felt her rounding another one. As we passed an archway, the bright light of the shop was replaced by a darker room. I was able to crane my head to see over my shoulder, realizing we were in a stairwell. After turning one more time, Cloud started climbing the stairs, but our movement stopped quickly as she struggled to drag my weight up. When Spark rounded the corner and noticed this, the mare dropped my backpack and bit into my good leg as she had before.

The dark stairwell brightened as we approached the top, and I noticed another pony enter it below. As we closed in on what should have been the top steps, I felt Cloud’s teeth bear down on my shoulder as she tripped. Before I knew it, her pulling sensation disappeared. Despite Spark attempting to catch me, gravity overcame me, and I started tumbling down. My pain only worsened as I bounced down the stairs, taking Spark with me. Both of our bodies crashed into the pony.

I struggled to stand up when I realized it was Dash who we collided with. She shook her head and hissed, helping Spark stand up before biting into my shirt’s collar as Cloud had done. The faint groaning from outside was growing, and I could hear lots of steps across the shop. As Spark bit into my leg again, Flutters came into view through the archway. Despite already carrying her new saddlebags over her back, she leaned down and grabbed my backpack with her teeth and quickly followed us up. I felt another set of teeth over my other shoulder halfway up, and below, another mare and stallion came through the archway.

Just before we reached the top, I noticed more ponies enter the stairwell. The groans grew quickly, indicating they were zombie ponies. The others finally dragged me around another corner and through the upstairs archway. After pulling me to a corner a few pony-lengths away from the archway, the two mares dropped me and rushed towards it.

This room was similar to the first floor. Aisles of colorful candy-filled shelves lined it, and the color patterns were the same. To my left, Celestia’s sun beamed through the upstairs windows and down the aisles to us. I turned back to the archway and saw Candy bolt through it, followed by a living, armored red-coat stallion.

Within a few short seconds, Candy led the mares and stallion to a candy-filled shelf in front of the archway. As Spark, Dash, and the new stallion grabbed the corners of the shelf, she grabbed a large bag of colorful candies off of it and used her teeth to tear it open. She then hucked the bag through the archway, and I could hear dozens of tiny candies scattering out of sight. The growing groans were also accompanied by new bangs and thuds as the improvised grenade sent candies bouncing down the stairwell. This gave her enough time to help the others lug the heavy shelf to the archway. They dropped it at an angle to block it and, just seconds later, the groans returned and the zombie ponies started banging against it from the other side. The new stallion held the shelf in place as the others grabbed another shelf and dropped it against the first, ensuring we had a little more protection. The shelves still shook from the growing mob pushing against it.

“It's not going to hold forever, we gotta go!” Candy exclaimed.

"WHERE?!" Spark cried.

Candy turned to Dash and the stallion, "You two watch the shelf! You-" She pointed back at Spark, "-come with me!”

The two mares left Dash and the stallion to watch it while they disappeared behind the aisles. Cloud quickly followed them, leaving just Flutters in front of me. She spat out my backpack and tossed off her saddlebags beside me.

“devan, reach out your hand.”

I reached out my hand as she pulled out a pill bottle, unscrewed the cap, and carefully emptied two pills into it.

“take them now.”

I hesitantly cupped the pills into my mouth as she reached into my bag and grabbed out a water bottle. After swinging the pills down with it, I took a deep breath and stared into her comforting blue eyes for a moment to calm down. We then heard glass break to our left. Above the corner down the last aisle from us, I noticed glass shards from the window sprinkling the floor. Part of Spark’s tan body was visible past the shelf, setting her back hooves down again. Shortly after the window broke, she rounded the corner and galloped down the aisle toward us. She was followed by Cloud, and the two mares galloped up to my side.

“Are you good to move?” Cloud asked me.

“Y- yes …”

“We need to stand you up.”

Oh boy.

Cloud and Spark both guided me to a slow stand. I pushed down harder than I would have liked on the mares’ shoulders, struggling to overcome the instability. Eventually, I was stable enough to hop on my leg, using just Cloud, on my left, as support. My words from the train tracks echoed in my head as I realized that I was a damn burden now. As I tried to shake them away, Cloud led me down the aisle.

When we reached the broken window, I saw Candy using her horn to clear any remaining glass shards. The window was only one section of a long, room-spanning window overlooking Canterlot rooftops. Spark had busted the section nearest to the wall to my left. Outside it, a section of roof spanned out just underneath it. There was just enough room to fit a few ponies before it stopped and turned into a gutter, giving us just enough space to jump out onto it.

“Where are we going?!” I asked Candy.

“Out!” she shouted.

Candy yelled for the others to come, and they all nervously lined up behind us. The roof outside was only a foot below the windowsill, but I still worried if I could make it out safely with one leg. Spark passed us and climbed out first. Candy climbed out next, and they both backed away to allow for space.

“Get Devan out!” Candy said, “We can help him.”

I nervously looked out the window at them. "Are y'all sure?"

"Yes, just come on out, there's no time," Spark replied.

Cloud nudged me. “I can help you too, just be careful.”

I bit my lip nervously as I limped up to the window. Spark walked up to the left edge of it and reached a hoof in. Candy was straight ahead, ready to grab ahold of me when I came out. With my left hand, I grabbed Spark’s hoof. I used the other to carefully press on the windowsill as I slowly eased my stump over it. With Cloud’s help, I moved my good leg over next. Candy grabbed ahold of my right hand and they pulled me all the way out of the window.

I balanced myself on my one foot until I felt a shingle below me move, causing me to slip, which sent me tumbling below the window. The roof was relatively flat, but it was slanted enough that I started sliding. Spark and Candy desperately pulled back, but as they did, Spark lost her back hoofhold when another shingle slid out of place underneath her. I felt my leg roll over the gutter as Cloud grabbed hold of Spark’s hind leg through the window. Both Spark and Candy clenched my hands tightly as my chest rolled over the gutter, leaving me hanging over the edge by my armpits.

I looked down over my shoulder to see a few groups of pale zombie ponies in the streets below, now anxiously flailing their hooves up to grab my leg. I bent my knee and pulled it up to prevent them from doing so as I looked back at the others. Candy was holding onto my right hand with both of her front hooves now, struggling to keep herself up with her hind legs. Spark was holding on as well but was having trouble standing back up under my weight. I tried kicking my way up, but with one leg, I didn’t have the strength to get over the ledge myself.

Dash came into view above Spark, trotting out on the roof and getting beside Candy. She grabbed ahold of her waist and started pulling as well. My chest painfully rubbed against the edge of the roof as they all pulled me up. However, their pulls were unbalanced, meaning I pulled back a lot harder on Spark’s hoof. As my chest came over, the pull was enough to make Cloud lose her grip on Spark, causing her to fall down on the roof to my left. I watched helplessly as she tumbled off the edge, and her hoof was ripped from my grasp as she fell to the growing mob below.

Her fall pulled me down, dragging my chest back over the edge and causing me to struggle once more as I grabbed onto the ledge. I could hear the mob’s groans below grow as Cloud rushed out of the window and grabbed my other hand. The stallion came out as well, pulling on her. All of them together pulled me up and away from the ledge.

“Spark!” I cried.

The others held me back from going back to the ledge to see. There were no screams, no cries for help, just groans from the mob below.

“Fucking shit,” Candy cursed, still catching her breath as she glanced back at the window. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”

Flutters was the last one out with my backpack clenched in her teeth. After the others pulled me up to a flatter part of the roof, she warily hoofed it to me and helped me put it back on. Cloud then helped me to a shaky stand again. She and I locked sorrowful eyes as we followed Candy along the rooftops.