The Trotting Dead

"Are you sure this is safe?"

Twilight Sparkle and her assistant, Spike, were sitting in Twilight's library, surrounded by books.  Twilight looked at her purple scaled baby dragon.  "Of course it is, Spike," she reassured him.  "You know I take great care to make sure each and every one of the new spells I cast is totally, utterly safe."

Spike looked at the purple unicorn, who was grinning in anticipation.  "All right," he finally mumbled.  "What are we even trying to do, anyway?"

Twilight sighed.  "For the last time, Spike, I'm trying to see if dark magic can create, not just destroy," she looked at him sternly and added, "now if you don't mind, I'd rather not have any more interruptions."

Spike took his hand and pretended to zip his mouth shut.  Then he crossed his hands and watched.

Twilight returned her attention to the experiment, and took a step towards the thing she was experimenting on.  It was her old Smartypants doll.  She hated experimenting on it, but it was still a little scratched up from the Want It, Need It spell, and Twilight was determined to make the most out of her fixing it.  She focused all of her energy to her horn.  Unlike normal magic, she gave no energy to her heart.  For the moment you cast dark magic, you have no soul or conscience.  You do not care for any individual, not even yourself.  You just shoot out your magic with no regards.

...Which is exactly what Twilight Sparkle was preparing to do.  She got into the correct position, locked her eyes with the old doll, and fired.

Two months later, the same purple unicorn opened her eyes to a stark white ceiling.  She shifted around.  Twilight was in a bed, but it clearly wasn't hers; it felt foreign and uncomfortable.  She sat up and rubbed her eyes.  Looking around the room, she could make out that she was in Ponyville's hospital.  Her room had a tall, dead lamp over to the right, and a magic nutrient dispenser to the left, hooked up to her.

Twilight took a careful glance at the dispenser.  It was made to give the patient nutrients, bypassing the need to eat.  On the front it read:

WARNING:  MAGIC NUTRIENT DISPENSER EMPTY!  REFILL IMMEDIATELY

Twilight gasped.  She couldn't believe that Ponyville's hospital would be reckless enough to not feed their own patients!  It was an outrage!

After cooling down a bit, Twilight made a mental note to bring the hospital's service up with Mayor Mare.  Meanwhile, she focused on the task at hand.  "Nurse!"  she yelled.  No response came.  "Nurse!" she yelled, a bit louder.  Still, no one answered.  She took a deep breath and screamed at the top of her lungs, "NURSE!"

Papers were swept away.  Her bed shook.  Some of the windows even shattered.  But still no nurse.

"Ugh," Twilight finally groaned, "this is useless."  She carefully unhooked herself from the empty dispenser, swung her back legs around to the side of her bed, and dropped down.  She fell.  After two months of not having any exercise, her legs felt extremely wobbly.  She put her hooves onto the dirty mattress next to her and tried to get up with the help of the bed, but could still only barely get across the room.  Only when she was in the doorway did she remember.

"Oh!" she exclaimed.  "I have a spell for this sort of thing!"  She focused her energy to her horn (this time her heart, too) and cast a spell on all four of her feet.  They suddenly were no longer wobbly and useless, but were strong and capable.  "That's better!"

Twilight confidently strode out of the doorway, only to find the hallway to be completely abandoned.  Hmm, she thought to herself, maybe it's just Sunday?  However, looking at the way desks had been overturned, the way doors were no longer in their wooden frames, she knew that was not the case.  Cutie Mark Crusaders? she desperately pondered.  No, not even they are this destructive.  The only thing she could think of was that a disaster had happened, but that was so awful she wouldn't even consider it.  Instead, Twilight pushed the whole thing out of her mind and headed towards the staircase at the very end of the corridor.  She was determined to get out of the Celestiaforsaken building she was currently in.

After reaching the staircase and climbing down it, Twilight Sparkle quickly encountered a double door that lead directly to the main lobby.  It was locked (from her side) and had huge, red words over it that read, "DO NOT OPEN"  Twilight took a look at what was keeping the door from being opened, and found that the door was being held shut by a lone makeshift wooden bar stuck through the handles of it.  Out of a strange curiosity, the unicorn put her ear to the door.  She heard numerous unintelligible sounds, most of which sounded like pained groans.  Taking her ear off of the door, she started heading back up; Twilight did not like whatever was behind that door.  She'd find another way out of the building.

That's when Twilight heard it; a scream, coming from exactly one floor above her.  The princess's student went wide-eyed, then rushed up the stairs.  She ran up not just to help whoever had made the sound, but mainly just to reassure herself that she was not alone in the hospital.  What she saw made her wish she was.  On the floor of the hospital's second story, several feet from the main staircase Twilight was on, was a green colored colt with a black mane, and three ponies sitting around him, eating him alive.  Twilight screamed.

The three cannibalistic ponies turned in Twilight's direction, looking at her with hungry eyes.  One got up from her dinner and started trotting towards Twilight, and the others soon followed.  Eventually they did reach the staircase, but Twilight wasn't there to see that.  She was already sprinting up the stairs, getting away from the evil she had just seen.  Twilight kept running until she had found the roof of the hospital, and even then she didn't stop.  She ran along the edge of the two slants that made up the rooftop, headed towards the edge of the building.  She didn't even turn to look back at the ponies, just kept on running.

However, she did stop and turn back once at the very end of the rooftop.  The ponies that were in pursuit were already to the top of the stairs, and were slowly closing in on the terrified purple unicorn.

Twilight looked down the side of the building.  It was a three story drop, and she knew if she jumped she would never make it.  However, it was either dying a quick death from jumping, or being eaten alive by the ponies in pursuit.  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and jumped off.