CHAPTER 1

Peytral Road was a road amongst other roads in the countryside region surrounding Bardingville. And like any other roads in this region, there wasn't much to say about it. Grass fields, copses, and the occasional lone tree were all that could be seen for miles along the path. It was a mundane and peaceful landscape, but also a rather empty one.

Along the road, Applejack hauled a cart of apple pies for a delivery. She wouldn't have minded the uneventful journey if it weren’t for the fact that it was such a long walk.

A long, boring walk without much to say about.

Nothing at all.

‘It's so quiet, that's almost creepy,’ Applejack thought, just before her right ear raised. ‘Wait. Am I bein’ followed?’

She turned her attention to her right, but before she could react, a pony rapidly dashed out of the high grass from that direction. Before she knew it, the unknown pony stood just next to her, weirdly close. She noted that that stranger wore a long cloak with a hood that concealed their identity.

Applejack tried to exclaim her surprise, to shout at that cloaked weirdo for them to leave her personal space. But words wouldn't come out. She noticed that her legs felt weak and her vision blurred.

‘What the—,’ she thought as she looked down at her chest, which felt numb all of a sudden.

It was red. She couldn’t see any detail, but it was clearly red. The stranger had planted some sort of tool deep into Applejack's chest, and slowly drew it out.

‘Dang nab it,’ the farm mare cursed inwardly as her Stetson fell over from her head. Then everything faded to black.

****

Applejack awoke on the dirt ground, feeling overwhelmingly light headed. ‘Did I fall asleep on the road?’ she thought as she reminisced about her weird dream. Her eyes slowly peeled open, and she was immediately stunned at the sight of her own hooves, which she had to watch for a few seconds before she started to process things.

“Woah nelly! I lost mah melanin thingy!” was the first thing Applejack could manage to say.

While it was true that she was white as a sheet and even transparent, she quickly realized that the loss of melanin couldn't possibly be the only reason. She stood and looked down at the spot on the ground where she had awoken. Effectively, she found a white chalk outline where she had been laying.

“Yep. I s'pose I'm dead now.”

It was a hard concept to think about, but she tried to push the thoughts aside for the time being. Instead, she distracted herself by looking around, and sure enough there were guards and inspectors alongside yellow barricade tape mounted on cones all around the crime scene. None of them seemed to be able to even notice Applejack, which confirmed that she must've been invisible.

“They'll find that weirdo who got me,” she told herself. “I need to find my friends…”

Applejack trotted out of the scene, past a duo of inspectors who were seemingly on their lunch break, and literally through the barricade tape. Ignoring for the time being her form not being physical anymore, she went back down Peytral Road in the direction of Ponyville, where she had come from.

****

When Applejack arrived in Ponyville, the sky was covered in a large expanse of dark gray clouds. That didn't really surprise her. Covering the sunlight was a common funeral custom in those parts of Equestria, and the same was done the day of her own parents’ burial. The streets were empty, but that was to be expected too. Applejack being a national hero, it would make sense that most ponies in town would attend the funeral.

The ghost mare went directly to Sweet Apple Acres, where she knew everypony would be. And indeed, all of Ponyville was gathered around the northernmost part of the farm where her parents’ graves were. Her close family and friends stood in the front rows.

Everypony wore dark accessories. Apple Bloom hugged Big Mac and Granny Smith as tight as she could. Rarity's makeup melted behind her ebony veil. Both Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie leaned on Rarity. Fluttershy's tears still flowed on her scarf, while Pinkie, who had a black balloon tied to her tail, maintained the bravest smile that she could through her sobs. Twilight Sparkle cried silently. Rainbow Dash was already out of tears, so she just stared down at her hooves and avoided the gazes of everypony else.

Princess Celestia herself was there, and she was the one who personally lowered Applejack's casket underground with her magic, just next to her father Bright Macintosh and mother Pear Butter's resting places. (Pear Butter's real name had been engraved underneath her alias “Buttercup” only recently.)

Applejack watched as the princess buried her casket in the earth.

Nopony noticed the presence of her ghost.

****

Applejack had been seated in front of her tombstone for hours at that point. Everypony had returned to their lives already. The pegasi in the weather team slowly rid the sky of the clouds and let a few sun rays pass through, which highlighted the grave and the flowers that covered it between the shadows. On the tombstone was marked:

“Here lies* Applejack,

an honest sister and trusting friend.

(*Applejack wasn't a liar.)”

Applejack didn't feel like doing much but remain seated there in silence as she listened to nothing but the wind in her sorrow. She probably would have stayed like that all evening… if it weren't for a specific thought that suddenly crossed her mind.

‘Maybe… I should check on my body…’

So, she walked over to the grave and went down. She phased through the bed of flowers, phased through the layers of earth, and phased her face through the casket to have a look inside. She gaped in shock.

Instead of Applejack's corpse being there, there was a heavy-looking bag full of sand. Probably enough sand to mimic her weight.

“What in tarnation!?” she exclaimed. “Where's my body?”

Applejack climbed back out of the earth.

“Something fishy's goin’ on,” she said to herself as she squinted at the tombstone with suspicion. “I ought to have a word with that morty-whatever assistant.” She paused. “Well, I dunno if I can talk to ‘em, since I'm a ghost, but I'll try to get what I can get.”

Applejack, in need of answers, cantered to the Ponyville mortuary.

****

Applejack stomped furiously as she walked through the morgue's entrance door. It wasn't like her stomps made any noise or impact anyway, so she didn't care.

She first checked the freezers where the bodies were stored, to make sure that her own corpse indeed wasn't there. It wasn't a difficult task thanks to her being intangible; she just had to peek through the doors. She didn't find her corpse in any of them. She only saw two random old ponies who she didn't even know that well before they died. The sight made Applejack's anger turn into sorrow.

“May y'all rest in peace,” Applejack muttered, holding her Stetson hat over her chest in respect. She blinked in surprise. “Huh. I didn't notice I still got my hat.” She looked over her hat's new ghostly, transparent form in wonder. “How in tarnation does THAT even work?”

The ghost mare's wonders were interrupted by the shuffle of keys. She turned her attention toward the source: a slender, dirty gray-coated unicorn stallion of apparent Saddle Arabian origins who unlocked the door to the mortuary assistant's office.

“That must be the assistant,” Applejack said out loud as she replaced her phantom hat on her head.

As expected by that point, the unicorn didn't hear the ghost mare or even notice her presence as he entered the office. Applejack followed close behind him.

In the mortuary's office, there was a desk. On the desk were a placard with the name “Sarcophagus” marked on it, a small safe with a four-digit code, and a journal of some kind, which laid open.

“I shouldn't leave that there,” the unicorn, whose name must have been Sarcophagus, muttered to himself as he looked at the desk. Before Applejack could have a look at the contents of the journal's open page, Sarcophagus closed it and levitated it into the safe with his telekinesis. He then took out a new blank journal from one of the desk's drawers and opened it at the first page. “Better.”

Applejack observed attentively what the mortuary assistant wrote. It seemed to just be notes and records on the details about Applejack's death, which all seemed to be accurate, from the place to the time to the stabbing. There was nothing incriminating or suspicious that was written down.

“Which makes ya even more suspicious,” Applejack told Sarcophagus, not caring about him not hearing her. “How could ya know all that stuff if ya ain't even have my body?”

Sarcophagus, after he jotted down his notes, put down his pen and closed the journal. “That should do the trick,” he muttered to himself. “Now I'll just go home and sleep.” He got up from the desk and walked out.

Applejack was left alone in Sarcophagus's office. She phased her face through the safe on the desk to look at the journal inside. The journal was closed, so she tried to use her hooves to open it. It didn't do anything. Her hooves simply went through both the safe and the journal itself. And if she were able to open the book, it would still be too dark in the safe to see clearly.

“Horseapples,” Applejack cursed. She exited the safe and fell back on her haunches. She sat there, frustrated.

It was obvious: she couldn't investigate her corpse's disappearance if she continued to phase through every single physical object like that. She couldn't even turn the pages of a book in that position. But she couldn't give up. That murder couldn't have been random. Her body having been stolen and replaced by a sandbag was too strange. There was a truth in the story, and Applejack was going to uncover it. She would live up to her connection to the Element of Honesty… even if she were dead.

Applejack sighed. “I'm gonna need my friends’ help for that,” she said.

Author's Note

Hi! New story. I hope you enjoy it.

For this, I wanted to write something where the protagonist is undead, vaguely like Reaping Rainbow and The Sparkle Of Unlife. (You should read those stories too.)