Lee Everett's New Life

  Lee's ears rang. His eyes barely opened, yet it was near impossible to make out anything because of how blurry and dark everything was. He could, however, hear the sound of several voices.

  "Ah think you hit it too hard, Rainbow." One voice said.

  "Well sorry for making sure he didn't get into Ponyville and start hurting everypony!" Another voice responded in annoyance.

  "I am pretty sure that he's not only supposed to have one arm..." Another voice said. "Seeing that stump wrapped in bandages and all."

  "What should we do with him?" A timid voice asked.

  "We could probably put him in the barn and wait until he wakes up. We can start asking him questions then." The southern voice replied. "Rainbow, you take the cleaver, and ah'll hogtie it."

  "It can talk?" A fancier sounding voice asked.

  "Accordin' to Fluttershy, it apparently can. Right, Flutters?"

  "Um... Yes."

  Lee lost the noise from the world around him. His ears started ringing as he lost focus of the world around him.

  Lee awakened yet again, however, more refreshed this time. The smell of hay filled his nose as his eyes fluttered open. He felt himself lying on a pile of hay. It brought back memories of the Greene Family Farm on the first night of the apocalypse. He sighed, remembering how much hope they had that the military would deal with everything happening. He was no longer outside, but now in the interior of a barn. He was hogtied and lying on the ground.

  "Ugh... What happened?" Lee muttered.

  "Ah see yer awake." A southern voice said from in front of him.

  Lee's eyes shot open and looked forwards. He saw an orange pony with a stetson hat on, and a blonde mane and tail. The both had pigtails.

  "Now ah got a few questions for ya." The mare walked up to Lee, who was now breathing more frantically. "First question: Why did ya threaten Fluttershy?"

  "Who?" Lee asked.

  "Fluttershy, the pegasus pony you threatened with that cleaver." The mare replied, with a blank and serious expression on her face.

  "I... Thought she was a bandit." Lee replied.

  "A bandit? Her?" The equine seemed a bit surprised. "If you knew her, you would never think that."

  "Well, where I was from, there are tons of bandits, and they aren't the only things I had to deal with before I got here..."

  "Well ah don't want to hear any of it." The mare said. "Second question: What happened to your arm? Ah'm pretty darn sure that it isn't supposed to look like that."

  Lee looked down at his severed appendage.

  "I got it cut off. I got bitten by a walker not to long ago. Probably a day or two."

  "A walker? What in tarnation is that?"

  "You never heard of a walker?" Lee asked, raising an eyebrow. "They were all over the place back where I was. They cause the whole country to fall."

  "How did they do that?"

  "They basically are dead people that come back to life and wander around, eating anyone they find that isn't one of them. If you get bitten or are killed without your brain being damaged, then you're going to turn into one of them. It only took one or two days for the entire nation to fall." Lee explained. "Once they see you, they won't stop until they find you or get killed."

  "That sounds ridiculous."

  "Then come up with another reason why I would have cut my arm off." Lee told the cowpony. She couldn't come up with anything. After a few seconds, the mare fully realized that he wasn't kidding.

  "How... Long have you been going through that?" Applejack asked, looking a bit more empathetic towards Lee now.

  "Three months or so. We've been mostly hiding out at a motel."

  The mare seemed shocked. She couldn't believe how long he'd been going through that situation.

  "But the walkers aren't the worst." Lee kept explaining what had happened over the course of three months. "A group I was in was found by these two men who wanted gas for food. We had no food and we were starving. We gave them gas and they took us to a dairy."

  "That doesn't sound bad."

  "It didn't. But then I discovered that they were taking the injured and feeding their flesh to us. I found one of our group members upstairs an hour or so after getting an arrow into his shoulder by a bandit. He was in the bathroom upstairs, legless. I got downstairs just in time to tell Clem and the others not to eat any of the food."

  The mare seemed shocked and slightly sick at what Lee said. She covered her mouth with a hoof in pure amazement at what happened to him.

  "That wasn't even the worst thing that happened to me. I'd probably spend an hour in here or so telling you every single horrible thing that happened to me and my group."

  "Ah don't wanna hear any more. I think you made yer point." The mare said. "No wonder you threatened Fluttershy like that after going through something that terrible."

  The mare came up and started untying Lee up. First his arms, then his legs were finally free. He stretched his arms and legs out.

  "Thanks." Lee said to the cowpony.

  "Don't mention it. Just don't do anything like that again, alright?" The mare said. "Ah'm Applejack."

  "You can call me Lee. Lee Everett, to be exact."

  "Well it's nice to meet ya Lee." Applejack smiled, extending a hoof to the man. She only got a confused expression from him. Applejack lowered her eyebrows, then Lee realized that she wanted to shake his hand.

  "Oh, right." Lee muttered. He grasped onto the mare's hoof. The mare suddenly shook his arm ridiculously hard and fast. Lee was surprised that he didn't lose his other arm after she stopped.

  "Ah'm going to go get the others. It'll be just a moment." Applejack said, going through a doorway.

  "Well that went better than I expected." Lee happily said to himself, brushing some hay off of his shirt.

  "HI!" A mare that jumped up out of nowhere into Lee's vision loudly said, causing Lee to scream and fall backwards and hit his head against a fence post. "Oh! That looked like that hurt!"

  Lee grunted as he rubbed his numb skull. "Where the hell did you come from?" Lee asked, looking up at the pony.

  "I came through the door over there, silly! Duh!" The pony replied.

  Lee opened his mouth to say something, but just gave up and sighed.

  "So, Lee Everett?" A voice asked. Lee saw a purple unicorn, and the pegasus from earlier.

  "Yeah. That's my name." Lee replied. "What's yours?"

  "Twilight Sparkle. Protege of Princess Celestia." The unicorn introduced herself.

  "Before this conversation goes on," Applejack interrupted, pointing a hoof at Lee. "Lee, ah think you should apologize to somepony you threatened earlier today."

  Lee turned towards the butter yellow pegasus. She grew nervous upon being seen by Lee, and visibly hid part of her face behind her long, pink mane. Lee felt really sorry for threatening her. He knelt down to eye level with the equine.

  "Sorry about earlier." Lee softly apologized. "I just thought you were a bandit."

  "Why... Why would you think that?" The timid pegasus asked.

  "Where I came from, it was hard to trust anyone you met. You didn't know whether or not they would kill you for supplies or just for fun." Lee quickly explained. He stood back up.

  "That must have been something terrible to have gone through..." Twilight told Lee.

  "It was. It was only three months or so after everything went bad before I got bitten."

  "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" Twilight asked.

  "Sure. I can answer a few questions." Lee replied. After all, it wouldn't take long.