"Gates up!"

A large steel barrier was lifted by a series of pulleys and gears, revealing an exit in the otherwise totally sealed commune of Appleoosa. A group of Caribou, numbering about thirty, stood in formation at the center of the town, facing the gate. While they carried blades, clubs, and shields, the ponies around them carried rifles, pointed in their direction. They seemed scrawny, and their armor was mostly makeshift, bits of scrap metal tied together with rope and tape.

"Thirty seconds!" A mare calls out.

She begins counting down as the caribou slowly march out, having the occasional piece of refuse tossed at them, while others spit at them or throw obscene gestures their way. Soon enough, the group was outside, and the gate was closed. Off in the distance, several infected mares immediately begin running in their direction, screaming and waving weapons wildly.

Several ponies keep their rifles trained upon the group of caribou, watching them from atop the barricades, firing off a warning shot any time a caribou strays too far from their view. They fight the infected as best they can, not having much trouble with single mares, but now and then a group would overwhelm one of the fighters and drag them away from the formation, eating them alive.

About an hour or so later, the caribou were let back into the gate, numbering a few less than before. Piles of bodies are outside the barricade, with a few ponies in hazmat suits going out as the caribou come in to collect and burn the bodies.

The community behind the barricade is bustling with activity. Farmers tend to the few apple trees in a field that aren't burnt or cut down. Travelling scavengers and merchants peddle their wares to townsfolk and explorers. Guards follow the caribou back to a prison building, locking them all back in small prison cells, most housing from four to eight caribou, smelling of musk and feces.

In the town itself, mares, infected and otherwise, talk to stallions like neighbors. Ponies are busy cleaning the streets, repairing or building new homes, everypony having something to contribute to the growing township. New ponies arrive almost every day, bringing new skills and stories to share.

As dusk sets in, a bonfire is raised, ponies jovially sharing stories of dodging infected hordes, fighting off caribou or equine loyalists, or simply of interesting sights they saw in their travels. Found journals and notes are passed around, everyone wanting a small piece of someone else's experiences.

Inside a small cottage, an Earth pony stallion, bespectacled and sitting at a small table, jots down a few notes onto some parchment with a ballpoint pen. He sits by his lonesome, illuminated by candlelight. Though he took part in the forum, his interest seems primarily to be in his writing. He takes a backpack off his shoulders and empties its contents onto the table, mostly small notebooks, cameras, and disks. He reads, watches, and examines each one, but as he sets down a small green notebook filled with writing, he cannot seem to bring his pen to the paper.

"Something wrong, Playwright?" A raspy voice says from the hallway. A mare strides down, clothed in a dark trench coat, combat boots, and gas mask.

"I suppose I don't have much more to write about these documents." He says, placing his pen in a small mug on the desk, filled with other pens.

"You seem like you have a shit ton. You haven't found anything new?" She speaks, her voice muffled slightly by the gas mask.

"Well, they're just... repeating themselves. My notes have information from most everything about this event, from start to finish." He says, holding his head in his hands, groaning.

"You ever thought about talking to ponies in town? There's only so much you can get from books and CDs, I guess." She says, leaning against a wall.

"Well, I suppose I never did." He says, laughing a little, standing from his chair after blowing out the candle.

"You ought to. Something tells me that you're not going to find anything written about The Forest of Lost Hope out there." She follows him as he walks, headed upstairs to a small bedroom.

"I'm sure that anyone I ask would have at least something to share. We've all done so much to survive this, I'd be shocked if I found a single person without a thing to say." Playwright turns on a small oil lantern, the dim light illuminating a small bed, and another writing desk.

"New people coming every day, they probably have some words to share, as well." She stays at the door to his room.

"Perhaps.. Well, I better get some rest. It's my turn to help tend to the crops tomorrow." Playwright uses the light of a lamp to find a few things in his room, such as a sleeping mask and earplugs.

"I'll be on the wall tomorrow. Maybe we'll see each other." She waves goodbye

Playwright waves goodbye, setting the lantern on a nearby desk before extinguishing it. He looks out of his bedroom window, watching the small shadows of ponies move in the dim light of the dying bonfire. He places his sleeping mask in front of his eyes and drifts off to sleep, resting peacefully in a dreamless, calm night.

-
The next day was hot, with most ponies visiting the town's well for a drink once every hour or two. Playwright was in the apple orchards, trimming dead branches for kindling and harvesting grown apples, placing them in small wicker baskets. He takes in the scene around him, a small forest of apple trees, some dead or burned, others green and vibrant, with succulent fruit waiting to be plucked. Around that, a large wall, made from wooden pallets, tires, and sheet metal. Guards bearing rifles walked across the top, and soon enough, he saw Misty. He gave a slight wave, but she was too distracted to notice anything he did.

The people around him, the people he grew to trust, were of all walks of life. Stallion and mare, the sick and the sanitary, this place was truly one that any form of resistance was striving to create. He remembered what it was like, when the nightmare was lifted. As the crystal heart was destroyed, and almost all of the infected had moved north, ponies emerged from their basements and shelters by the dozens in his town. Desperate, starving, and with no leader, they packed what little belongings they had and moved south, wanting to be as far from the Caribou and infected as possible. The journey was hellish, filled with betrayal, starvation, and all manner of horrors, but they had made it to Appleoosa, miraculously left alone by the bigger hordes. They got to work reestablishing the abandoned town, eventually making peace with infected sane enough to understand, and building a place where any and all could be free, except for their previous tormentors.

A Caribou military unit, weakened by constant fighting, attempted to take the town by force. With great casualties on both sides, the caribou were captured, forced to live in prison cells, resting in their own filth. Most people in the town agreed to subject them to the act of fighting the infected who wandered outside of the town's walls, slowly whittling down their group over time. Many caribou men had gone mad, willingly giving themselves to the infected outside or simply letting guards execute them. Playwright wasn't quite sure if he believed in such vile torture, but he thought it better than simply letting them free to find more of their kind. Now and then he wondered if that made them any better than the caribou they tortured.

As he finished his work, he walked to the wall, climbing a ladder so as to get a view of the land around their compound. Nearly barren desert, as far as the eye could see. Brownish-orange sand drifted in the wind, along with the occasional tumbleweed. Not far north, a cacti forest had established itself, and as far as the community was concerned, had been there as long as the caribou ruled Equestria. A small path stretched north, made by the walking of survivors and merchants. A few infected mares, too insane to be let into the village, stood still or walked in small circles, some hitting their heads with their fists or walking towards the town slowly. Now and again, one would get too close, sent plummeting to the sand with a bullet in their brain.

He took out a small journal and pen, sat down, and began to write.

"If it weren't for the corpses around the wall, I'd say this is a pretty nice sunrise. I used to wonder when this would be over and life would be back to normal, but I've settled for this being as close to normal as we're going to get. Sure, we live side by side with diseased women, but at least they're helping us build houses and pick crops instead of hammering our brains out. It seems like they just want to live and let live, which is the first good thing I've seen come out of this whole outbreak.

Nobody's stepping on anybody else, nobody's better than someone else because of their ownership, or lack, of a dick. People here are going back to a lifestyle where you judge someone by who they are as opposed to the color of a collar on their neck. Stallions don't own mares, mares don't butcher stallions without a second thought, people are just people here, and I feel like we're all happy about it.

I can't say the same for the Caribou we have, though. Seems like everyone agreed to punish them for the things their government made them do. I know what they did was horrible but making them fight the infected up close seems like a bit much. Even if it weren't for that, we feed them scraps and they're basically sleeping in each other's shit. I can't say I haven't wondered if we're even fit to give that kind of judgement, considering most of us took part in it, brainwashed or not.

In the end, I guess those of us who haven't hung ourselves haven't got much to do but accept what we did and do our best to move on.

He looked up again, tapping his pen against his chin for a moment before going back to writing.

I can't help but wonder what the future holds. Where are the Princesses? How many Caribou are left? Are the Gryphons and Zebras going to give half a fuck about Equestria now? Will they avoid us like the plague or maybe use this as a chance to take our land? Hell, for all we know, the bloodshots got in boats and maybe the whole world's fucked.

Or maybe they don't even know.

Maybe they're just living as they always have, raising kids, doing jobs, not knowing that just an ocean away, there are people that will torture and rape and eat them. There are people that took one of the biggest, most cruel regimes in the world and turned it on its head. There are people that will pin you down, vomit their own blood into your mouth, and just sit and smile as they watch you die.

I guess I shouldn't dwell on that kind of thing.

Look at the bright side; we all get a sort of second chance. We've all done some shit, all of us, but look at us now. We're working together for a brighter future. We're working towards bringing back what we lost. Most importantly, we're finding any damned caribou that are left and we're kicking them while they're down. Most people in the town think that while what we're doing is cruel, it's better than letting the caribou rebuild and let history repeat itself. That's why I'm collecting those documents. So that our kids can learn exactly what happened, and why we can't let it happen again.

I don't know why the outbreak appeared, but I do know that if the caribou's acts set it off, the last thing I want is my grandkids to live through this all over again.

A loud scream pierced his thoughts, and he looked up from his paper. In the distance, a fairly large group of infected mares had gathered on the horizon. They wore armor made from bones, their weapons being made from the same material. Any weapon or tool that wasn't scavenged was made from bone, flesh, and obviously equestrian body parts.

"Almost unoriginal." Playwright thought aloud as Misty passed him a semi-automatic rifle.

"I know. Unoriginal won't matter if they get too close with too many people, so start shooting." She says, passing out firearms to other ponies who had climbed onto the barricade to aid in its defense.

The volleys started in a few seconds, bullets whipping through the air and into the barbaric horde. Blood splattered onto the sand as the psychotic mares raged on towards the barricade, even as those around them were brought to quick ends.

It was in this moment the present, and future of Equestria was summed up. Forever more would the sane and insane war against each other, committing atrocity after atrocity. When firearms had no bullets to fire, they used magic and fired arrows. They soon went to throwing sharp spears and pouring hot oil. Ages later, the war was waged with sharp stones and blunt clubs. It raged on, keeping its way as Equestria, and the world around it, marched toward an unknowable future.

Author's Notes:

And here we are. The epilogue that I'm sure some of you have been waiting for, for one reason or another.

I'm happy to have finally finished this thing. Not that I don't love it, but I've wanted to move onto other things, mainly a more story-based spin-off. But before that comes out, I have something FAR more lighthearted in mind, mainly a playful parody of the Fall of Equestria universe, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

For now, I want to say thanks. For those that read the first chapter and left, to those that read every chapter, and stuck with me through to the epilogue after my (was it 1 or 2 years?) hiatus. I'm glad to have at least been able to experience this with you, as corny and cliche as that may sound.

I can only hope to improve my writing, share and improve my work with this community, and who knows; maybe I'll eventually write something other than FoE fanfics that don't do the universe and its creators justice.

Peace,

Senor Butter