In my time alone in this world, I've learned the truth: Wherever you go, there will be some-pony who would love you. May it be a family member who loves you because you share the same thick, crimson blood running through your veins, or a friend who loves you because you share those deep, dark secrets that you would never share with any-pony else, or a stranger who loves you for the brain matter that spills out of your busted skull after it gets whacked hard enough, like that carnival game with the hammer and the bell.......

I do love you Rarity.

A dense, heavy, white fog floated about the crumbling buildings, covering them from sight like a predator hidden in the shadows. The gravel road crunched ominously under Sweetie Belle's slow-moving hooves as she journeyed onward, with no real goal in mind but to see her home again.

Knowing just how deadly this fog was, the unicorn mare wore a large gas mask with a special filter fitted over the breathing tube to keep the parasite out of her body. It made it harder to breathe, but that was for sure much better than losing her mind by far. To become a Host that needed to feed to keep the parasite in check: Sweetie couldn't even think of a worse way to live. To have your mind taken, but still be sentient throughout the experience as if it was her own thoughts. Only to fail and to see what your guts looked like when turned to blackened glass. What a way to die from what she'd seen of it, if she couldn't find any living creature, pony or not, her slimy innards and her increasingly appetizing flesh would be slowly devoured from the inside out, until nothing was left as the parasite multiplied to search for another body to use.

The predatory buildings suddenly loomed above, and looked more threatening closer up. Sweetie Belle had to stop for a moment before she could make herself to take another step. Apprehension held her back in its bony hands. How long had it been since she had last seen these buildings? When did she leave? What did it matter, she most likely hadn't been missed much from the looks of the emptiness of the land. She would've used a spell to make sure there wasn't anything around that would do her harm, but any unicorn inside the fog couldn't use magic at all. No pony has really taken the precious time to figure out the answer as to why that happened, since survival is a little more important than the sharing of unneeded knowledge.

For this, she carried a wooden, ring-handled pistol that would go around her hoof and could be fired with just a thought for it to do so. It had the charred initials W.L. branded into its maple surface and held a chilling reminder for Sweetie that this weapon probably hadn't been able to save its last owner, so she would only want to use it in dire situations. She had found it while salvaging in this one junk filled building building, and she had seen that it was good. Ponies had rarely used them in times before the plague. So rare in fact that Sweetie first saw one in Applejack's room under the mare's bed when the CMC was snooping around. She had only touched and held this one.

Keeping on edge, and using her eyes as a personal forward radar, she scanned her surroundings as she walked down the empty street that would either lead to her temporary safety or her eternal loss.Once again, no pony would miss her: in fact, she probably wouldn't miss herself either, if she wasn't in this body. The Celestial Body sounded mighty nice right now. To just end it all. The mask felt uncomfortable, strapped tightly to her face, and that added assurance that kept her mind awake.

It wasn't until Sweetie had reached the center of town did she have a more detailed look at the twisted remains of her childhood's home. They looked even more threatening with the crudely boarded up doors and windows with pieces of worn plywood and rusty nails, and the uncared for planks on the wood-paneled walls were slowly falling apart to reveal the the rotten, bug eaten internal skeleton underneath the once detailed architecture. In the very middle, surrounded by the faded past, was the twisted remains of a once tall and proud clock tower and town hall, now a crumbled heap that stood barely higher than the buildings around it. The bronze clock, probably one of the oldest things in Ponyville, was now rusted, fallen and broken in half with springs and wires all around it. It was such a depressing sight to see for Sweetie Belle, as she rubbed her hoof over the time worn metal and felt its chipped roughness.

The mare walked on further, ever vigilant with her eyes and her ears pointed towards the fog. The sun behind the clouds was high in the sky as always, but it still felt cool and damp in the fog, as if the fog was trying to trick her into thinking that it was normal. It didn't help that Ponyville was nowhere near a coast line.

Across where the town hall was, the dead tree branches of the Golden Oaks Library were bare of the green leaves that once flourished on the hollowed tree. Seeing it, Sweetie couldn't help but smile with the corners of her mouth just barely moving up at the memory of learning her first magic spell there and the happiness it had brought her... and the life saving strategies it gave her.

She realized that she had once lived on this street as could just make out her old home in the distance. Slowly moving forward, she began to approach the building's features. The peeling blue paint still gave a vibrant look to the walls-much better than the rest of the still standing buildings- and the large glass windows were shattered, open with jagged teeth ready for her. Even though it was still just as rotten as the other buildings, it still held somewhat of a homely feeling. Guess Rarity had known what she was doing when she, according to her parents, designed the building, but Sweetie was too young to remember this.

She heard the distant crunch of the gravel road from behind her, but years of honing her skills in stealth and lying had made her a mare of almost stone, so she didn't flinch her limbs and muscles or instinctively twitch her ears to hear the sound better. It sounded slow, almost like her own movements were being recorded and played back. They had a stealthy quality to them. If Sweetie hadn't been listening to the silence around her, she would've missed them. Whoever this was, was no fool...possibly not one of them, but you could never really be sure until their yellowed teeth were ripping into your soft flesh and slurping your blood like a milkshake. You would never know until the parasite's hunger began to take its toll on it's host's body.

They were coming at an angle, almost like the owner was slowly circling around her. Were they playing with her or were they testing to see what she would do. Out of the corner of her eye, Sweetie saw turquoise.

The mare's breathing uncomfortably stopped in her throat like a plug, and a small bead of sweat tickled along her brow as it trickled down her forehead. She knew who this was, back when she lived in Ponyville... Yeah, the one who would rave about the mythical creatures known as humans, or something like that.

"Lyra?" Sweetie spoke softly, half fearing that some pony she knew was one of them. Her voice pushed up the plug in her throat; it felt dry.

"I thought you were a Host....Was going to take you out with this stake to your heart....but I see you're not." Sweetie saw the weapon. But how would've Lyra been able to use it without magic in the fog? "But I do suggest you get yourself some shelter soon, the fog is about to get much worse."

The warning didn't seem right to Sweetie. No heart, just words. Other than hygiene, from the looks of the uncut, tangled hair and mane that almost completely covered her eyes, Lyra wasn't acting like a pony. More on edge than ever, Sweetie kept her eyes on the mare who stood there, looking back at her before she gave giving a single "hmm" and just walked back into the fog. Sweetie watched her go until her eyes couldn't make out the mare's figure past the sheet, but she didn't move until the gravel hoof steps could be heard no more.

While the mare was being suspiciously creepy and dramatic, she was right....She needed to get to shelter underground fast. She turned back to the Carousel Boutique.