Decayed

by Hypnotwist

Rating: mature
Tags: Suicide / Self Harm, Princess Celestia, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Profanity, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Death, Alternate Universe, Romance, Drama
Length: 1974

While visiting princess Celestia in Canterlot, Twilight, Sunset, and Celestia are alerted by a seriously wounded guard to riots happening in the streets. They quickly learn that the rioters aren't normal, aren't natural, and certainly aren't alive.

The world's going to hell all around them. It happened so suddenly, one day the dead remained dead, the next the dead rose up and attacked anyone who was uninfected.
Now Celestia, Twilight, Sunset, and the ponies who were in the castle when the dead began to walk again are trapped on the royal palace's grounds now that Celestia's given the order to lock Canterlot down.

The survivors in Canterlot are now scrambling to secure the palace so that they have a chance of surviving until they can determine if a cure can be created or if the world truly is doomed.

This fic is a complete and utter rewrite of Decay , certain parts of the story may have been drastically altered, removed altogether, or delayed until a later chapter. Tags may change as story progresses, you have been warned.

This fic contains: Suicide, Sex (possibly pornographic in nature), Profanity, Sunlestia shipping, and possibly more, you'll see~

Published 2023-05-18 00:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-05-18 00:40:01 UTC

Journal Entry 1: Day Zero

Wednesday, June 17th, 2015

Zombies, undead, walking dead, monsters. Whatever you call them, it all came out of nowhere. I'd just come to Canterlot with Twilight Sparkle to visit the princesses when everything went to hell. We were all in the dining hall catching up when a guardstallion came rushing in, he looked panicked so I figured something major must've happened, maybe Twilight and her friends would be called into action to save Equestria again, right?

"Your majesties!" He said, breathing heavily and shaking like a leaf in his armor, it was at this point I noticed he had several large chunks of flesh missing on his left forehoof and a bitemark on his right. "There are riots in the streets, ponies are assaulting each other seemingly at random. We have deployed countermeasures but we are awaiting further orders."

Me and Twilight both turned to look at Celestia, her look of confusion and concern about the cause of the sudden riots did nothing to soothe anypony's nerves. "Do you know for certain the cause of the riots? Are you suspecting a revolt due to the armistice that was recently signed?"

My attention turned back to the guard, the stallion looked ill and his wounds were bleeding pretty severely. I took a few uneasy steps towards him, I wanted to try to get him medical attention so he wouldn't bleed out where he was standing.

He shook his head no vigorously, there was clearly something he was keeping from us for the time being. "No your majesty, the rioters appear to be rioting simply to inflict bodily harm upon others, there was no mention of any dissatisfaction that the armistice was signed."

I was maybe five feet in front of him when he notices me approaching and his shaking intensifies, he stumbles back and motions for me to halt my approach, I saw grey-ish veins slowly appear around the wounds and in my naivety I thought nothing of it due to I had yet to learn of what world ending threat I was facing. "You're hurt."

Celestia.. I thought he'd tell me that he was going to head to the infirmary right away or something, however what came out of his mouth were anything but 'I'm going to go to the infirmary, thanks'. He started seizing and jerking as if he was struggling to keep control of his own body, the gurgling and screams of sheer agony from the dying stallion caused all of us in the room with him to freeze, the other guards looked like they were five seconds away from pissing themselves as the stallion in front of me spazzed suddenly and swiftly fell still, landing on the marble floor with a sickening thud.

I could feel my mouth was hanging open in shock, I'd just watched a pony die right in front of me while I could do nothing but feel helpless and watch on in horror. "I.. You guys saw that too right? Right?"

I remember clear as day the sounds of Celestia emptying the contents of her stomach all over the floor and her gasps for air as she dry-heaved for a period after.
I stared at his corpse wondering what the fuck happened that caused him to die so suddenly. The room was silent other than the sounds of the solar goddess dry-heaving in the backround and my own shaky breathing, what came next however was.. I don't know how to describe it, he started twitching. At first it was his hindlegs, and then his whole body, soon he was standing upright and growling at me.

The stallion who I watched die right in front of my eyes was now standing in front of me with a look of pure unbridled bloodlust on his features, I couldn't believe my eyes, he'd come back from the dead!
'It was some strange miracle!' I thought as I outstretched my hoof, hoping he'd say something or even take my hoof in his to let us all know that he was okay, ugh, I really should've been more careful for what I wished for..

When he raised his hoof I thought he was going to take my hoof in his, to start talking and inform us that he was alive and would be okay. But almost immediately he instead lunged at me and pushed me over onto my back, pinning me under him.
I yelped in surprise and began to struggle under the weight of the massive guardstallion that was currently pinning me down. "What the fuck are you doing?!" I yelled, causing Twilight, Celestia and the guards who were posted in the dining hall to gallop over and try to pull the pony off of me.

"Stand down guard, immediately." Celestia bellowed, her voice booming throughout the massive room and likely the rest of the castle. In retrospect that was probably an awful mistake because it likely attracted more of the undead to where we currently were, thank ~~Celestia~~ Faust we got out of there before they showed up.

The guardstallion didn't listen, it was as if she didn't even exist as he was trying to take chunks out of my flesh with his maw. At that point I was beginning to panic, this wasn't a miracle like I originally thought, as it turned out it was the end of the motherfucking world.

The guards were trying to rip the stallion off of me, I could hear his teeth grind as he fails to sample the flesh of my neck. Celestia apparently decided that drastic measures had to be taken and the next thing I know the ~~pony~~ thing that was attempting to murder me a second ago was nothing more than a pile of ash sitting just below my marehood.
I shuddered and pushed myself up onto my haunches, taking several deep breaths to calm myself down, I was shaking from the experience and it was slowly beginning to sink in how serious the threat was. "What.. What the hell happened?"

Twilight pipes up from somewhere behind me, I recall her voice being shaky as all hell, she was just as scared as I was if not more so. "I don't know, I think it might be related to why riots are going on outside. I don't think they're normal rioters, we all saw how he came back to life right?"

"We did your majesty, we all did. If I may, it was just like out of a zombie flick."

Celestia, who was quiet for the majority of the incident walks over to the soldier who said that, she looked shaken and it was evident that she wasn't prepared for such a catastrophic event. "So you suspect that we're dealing with legitimate undead?"

"Yes your majesty."

The silence that permeated the room was overpowering, I knew that was the very moment when the severity of the situation crashed down upon everypony. We were dealing with an end of the world scenario with no idea what is causing ponies to reanimate after death and at the time we had no clue if there was a cure.

"Lock down the palace perimeter, close the main gate and raise the bridge. Bring any survivors who appear to be uninfected into the main courtyard and any guards still in and around Canterlot are to return to the palace where we will be setting up a research center in the gala hall, the dungeons are to be utilized if anypony is suspected to have been infected, and the guest rooms are to be turned into dormitory style housing units for any uninfected survivors we come across."

I'd been watching her the whole time and I never admitted this to her or anypony else in the room but I thought that it was an awful idea to take in anypony we came across, they could be infected and are hiding the bite or whatever got them infected from us very well, or they could be a psychopathic fuckup who just wants to watch the world burn.

I got up off my haunches and sighed as I walked to the main entrance of the dining hall and poked my head out into the corridor just to check for any horrifying monsters.
"We'd better hurry, get stuff locked down before the zombies get in through the main gate. Look, I know I'm not a princess or noble but could one of you guards spread Celestia's orders to any living staff you see? Time's not on our side this time so we reaaaaally need to hurry up."

"Of course, corporal Mochi and I will go spread the word, the other two will remain here as additional security."

I gingerly closed the door and turned around to get a better look at at the guards positioned at various pillars around the room, the mana gems that were socketed in their chestplate hadn't been drained just yet so the traditional white and blue or grey and white palette still applied to their pony "Good luck."

"Wait."

Everypony in the room including me turned to Twilight, wondering what she had to say.

"Wouldn't Celestia's room be more secure? There are too many entrances to this room and if the undead are already in the castle then they might catch us off guard."

"You're right. Twilight, Sunset, and my dear guards, accompany me please." Is what she said, none of us hesitated to walk up to her when it meant we'd be safe for even just a few more sweet hours. "Mochi, Leaf, please be extremely cautious, this could be the difference between life or death for countless ponies."

The guards didn't respond but I heard the clanking of their armor slowly fade away as they left the room, these first few hours were life or death and if any one of us messed up then it may mean the world is doomed.
I remember I silently prayed that their mission was a success as we made our way to her room, the day has mostly gone by in a blur and I don't remember when I started writing in this journal, I don't know or understand why I can recall parts of today with perfect clarity but then can't remember for the life of me what happened just after.
Maybe it's a trauma thing? Truthfully I don't know.

Either way, Mochi and Leaf just returned from their mission, it's just about sunset so it's been roughly three or four hours since they first set out and they claim that they've carried out Celestia's orders.
I'm going to accompany her tonight and make sure everything's done correctly.
We can't afford any mistakes right now and she says she wants to make sure everything is secure before she begins to relax, but I think she just wants to look for princess Luna.

I'll write how that goes in my next entry but right now I'm praying that everything went off without a hitch when the guards locked Canterlot down, here's hoping everything goes according to plan, nothing ambushes us, and that Luna is safe.

Good night,
Sunset Shimmer

Author's Note

Alright here we go. I know I know, I put out Decay literally yesterday but I really didn't like how it turned out so I decided to rewrite that first chapter, and then I got more and more ideas so uh yeah. Whole multichapter Decay rewrite not even two days later? Yeahhhh.. :twilightsheepish:

This time though, it's not literally 90 degrees Fahrenheit in my room and I can think straight, therefore I can write higher quality stuff because I don't feel like I'm dyin'

If you enjoyed the rewrite please tell me, knowing people enjoy/are interested in my works helps keep me motivated to write more.