“Applejack,” the yellow stallion in front of Applejack speaks, “What are you doing here so early? You had to catch the train by at best seven o’clock in order to arrive here at ten o’clock.”

“I’m just off on a little search.” The mare calmly responds before making a sharp left and walking next to the tracks ahead. Braeburn quickly trots to her side with a concerned look on his face.

“Searching for what and where? You’re heading out into the untamed parts of the railways without the train.”

“I’m going to break away from the tracks a kilometre or two ahead.”

“Wait, are you saying you’re going into the dangerous untamed parts of the desert? Are you crazy?!”

“No, I can take care of myself.”

“I’ve heard many ponies say that before going where you’re going.”

“How many?”

“Very few go out there, and even fewer return…”

“Well I’ll be one of those very few.”

“What the hay are you even looking for?”

“The Ghost Pony,”

“Are you purposefully trying to get yourself killed?!”

“What, is he not real?”

“I rest assure you, he is real-”

“Have you seen him or even have any evidence he exists?”

“Well, no, but from what I’ve heard, I most certainly believe he is.”

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t fully believe you on that. I’m going out there to find him myself and putting this whole mystery to an end.”

“Applejack!” The large Earth pony runs in front of Applejack and stamps his front hooves in front of her. “You’re going to die out there in only a hoofful of hours. As your cousin, I see it best that you just return to Ponyville and put this Ghost Pony quest behind ‘ya.”

“…”

“I mean it.”

“Nope.” Slowly, the determined mare walks around Braeburn and resumes her hike forward, never looking back at her cousin.

“It’s your funeral!”

“That’s nice.”

“I’m not going to chase after you into there!”

“Okay.”

“I mean it!”

“You’ve already said that. Have a good day.”

“Gr…” Braeburn shrugs to himself and turns back towards the town, pondering about the sheer determination of Applejack despite his warnings.

“This seems like a good spot to split.” Applejack looks to her right and sees the vast and empty desert, with no sign of anything made by hooves. Her pace turns to that direction and she eventually finds herself out of sight of both the railroad and the town of Appeloosa. Time seems to slow down as the orange pony walks around aimlessly throughout the wasteland, looking in every direction for the Ghost Pony.

“Hmm…” she speaks to herself, “now what would he look like? Other than just a flaming pony skeleton I mean.” Her stomach begins to rumble before she can put much through into his appearance. Applejack stops and reaches her neck to her right. Flipping open the large bag with her nose, Applejack then sifts through her things until finding the set of ten ripe red apples near the bottom. She picks one up with her mouth and proceeds to eat it. She continues to think out loud while chewing the juicy fruit, “Maybe… maybe he wears some type of clothing to keep him hidden… but what could he wear that doesn’t burn from his body?” With one final gulp, Applejack finishes the apple and continues her stroll.

An hour passes, and the sun has nearly grown to its peak. However, the heat of the desert has grown drastically and is now taking its toll on Applejack. Beads of sweat begin to seep from under her hat and run down her face. Her lips begin to grow stiff and dry, having to be licked every once in a while just to keep the awkward feeling at bay. Her chest starts to cramp and tighten with the lack of food and water given. Her lungs feel as if they are starting to wither away. Having grown tired enough of her body’s woes, she reaches into her right saddlebag and pulls out a water bottle. After unscrewing the lid in a swift motion, the mare lifts the lip of the bottle to hers. Immediately, upon the first drops of liquid hitting her lips, a sensation pulsates through her body as moisture purges the sick dryness. The feeling was nearly euphoric for Applejack. However, she stops herself halfway done with the bottle. “I have to conserve…” She screws the lid back onto the bottle and starts to set it back into her pouch. However, just as it’s nearly set back from where it was initially packed, the clear liquid inside begins to swirl around, practically hypnotizing Applejack with its freshening appearance. “Well, maybe one bottle won’t hurt me that much.” Quickly, she yanks the plastic bottle back out, unscrews the lid once more, and gulps down the second half.

Another hour passes, as Applejack now finds herself climbing up the side of a steep hill. The loose gravel and sand shifts around her hooves as she attempts to reach the top. “A higher viewpoint, should help…” Suddenly, upon stepping on what seemed to be a large rock packed into the hill, the boulder slips and slides down the hillside. “Whoa!” Applejack falls and well, landing knees first on the rocks several metres behind her. Sharp pains spike across her body as the mare whimpers in response to the pain. “Ow, what happened?” Carefully, she stretches out her fright front hoof and nearly vomits on sight. Her knee was bruised and had several large red cuts across it, with small pebbles to be seen mixing with the blood that was about to pour from the wound. She can only imagine what her other knees looked like. “It hurts so much! But I need to continue!” Despite her pain, Applejack regains focus and continues her climb up the hill, as agonizing as it was.

Half of an hour passes between her fall and her reaching the top. Now on top of the steep hill, Applejack pulls out another fresh water bottle and pours it on each of her clotted, yet brutal scrapes and cleans them. “It’s nothing. I’ve been through worse…” Her stomach growls again, only this time being much more brutal. “Aw, for Pete’s sake! Well… I guess it’s lunch time. Might as well get my bearings straight while I’m at it,” She unloads her saddlebags onto a large flat rock and takes a moment to recover. Four apples are eaten as she examines her compass and examines her surroundings for any sign of the ghoulish spectrum. “Let’s see, if the needle is pointing East, then I must be facing East, right? I think that’s what Twilight said.” A haunting feeling soon crawls up her spine, the feeling of being lost. “What if I’m… No! I’m not lost! Whatever heebie-jeebies this desert is trying to pull on me, ain’t gonna work! I just need something to cool myself down that all,” After a quick scan of her begs, Applejack pulls out the random magazine she stuffed in back home. “I wonder what I brought anyways…” One quick glimpse of the cover was all she needed. “Oh, one of Rarity’s fashion brochures…” She then stuffs the paper book back into the bag and pulls out the puzzle block. However, after looking at it for a minute, Applejack immediately gets frustrated, “Where the hay do I even start with this darn thing? I need something that’ll clam me down, not rile me up.” Retuning the block to its proper place, Applejack then blindly grabs the mirror and brush at the same time. Upon pulling them out, a seemingly disgusting thought enters her mind. She glances into the saddlebags to find Rarity’s magazine crinkled near the bottom of one of the pockets. “Well, I’m alone. Might as well…”

Another half-hour passes upon the hill top. Applejack, now fully entranced in the mirror and one of the pages of the magazine, brushes her mane to fit the curled style of the model on the page, not noticing the amount of time that has passed. “Hm, doesn’t feel that bad. I might actually like this time. I wonder what Rarity would think of it.” A queasy feeling starts to build in her stomach, but she knew it was not hunger. “Gosh, I think I may be getting a little homesick. I wonder what my friends are doing right about now… No, stay focused Applejack, you gotta mission, and like an Apple, you gotta stick to it.” Applejack places the three items back into her saddlebags and sets it onto her back. Her knees begin buckle from the return of the weight and the recent accident that has happened to her. A heavy groan escapes her throat as Applejack strains to stand upright once more. Taking one last look at her surroundings for any signs of the Ghost Pony, she prepares herself to restart her trek. “Nothing in sight… The journey is still young, so I shouldn’t jump to any conclusions. Maybe a different location will give me a better view.” Slowly yet surely, Applejack starts to walk once more and begins to head down the hilltop to another location.

An hour ticks by, and Applejack finds herself walking across a dry lakebed, with no mountain in sight. The sun had finally grown to its top, and seemed to be beaming its entire wrath upon the orange mare. The bottom of her hooves start to burn from standing on the heated clay and the top of her spine boils from the still heat. Promptly, Applejack pulls out another water bottle from her saddlebags and drinks it, bringing only a temporary relief to her body. “I swear, if there’s no Ghost Pony, I am going to be crossed beyond belief…” As she continues to walk, her eyes manage to catch a glimpse of something in the distance, something green. Newfound energy and adrenaline rush through her system as Applejack darts towards the green dot in the distance. Her tongue slips from inside her mouth and flops around her chin like a dog as the verdant object grows near. Now only a hundred metres away from the thing, Applejack realizes that it’s an oasis she sees in the midst of the dry basin. Her speed almost doubles and her mind can barely catch up to the body, now run by its instincts. Just as her nose makes contact with a tall bush at the edge of the oasis, the entire area vanishes before her eyes, with only the cracked clay ground as far as her eyes can see. “A mirage?! Gosh darn it to heck!” Applejack furiously slams her hat onto the dusty floor and stamps onto it with her hoof. “Now I be hallucinatin’! How am I ever going to make sure that I actually saw that ghost?” However, in the midst of her fury, the orange mare soon remembers what to do at times like this. She then takes a dream breath and picks up her hat. “Calm down Applejack. You can do this girl, all you have to do is keep your head straight. Focus on your goal. You can last the night and morning no problem. My siblings are counting on me, so I’ve got to follow through.” Setting her dusty hat onto her head, Applejack shakes her head to make sure her mind’s fully awake and sets off once more.

Another hour of seemingly endless walking passes before the faint blur of an object in the distance catches her eyesight. “This better not be another hallucination…” Her pace accelerates for a moment as she draws closer to the unknown thing. The loud clopping of her hooves against the bone-dry lakebed rattles in her ears as she grows faster and faster. “I think… I think it’s a plateau. I could probably find an overhang and cool off!” Suddenly, a surge of pain jolts through her torso and head. Applejack screams at the top of her lungs and promptly grinds to a halt. With a split-second turn of the neck, the orange mare winces in fear at what just caused the pain. It was a long snake, with brown diamonds laced upon its beige back and a rattle at the end of its tail. The viper had managed to leap from wherever it came from and had sunk its fangs deep into Applejack’s torso. Applejack then bucks around viciously until the serpent lets go and slithers away, presumably back to its initial resting place. Panting, the Earth pony looks back to where snake had bitten to find two small holes in the flesh and the surrounding skin having turned black and blue. The fear inside the mare grows threefold as Applejack’s eyes start to shutter and water. “It was venomous! I might die! If only I didn’t run so fast and loud!” Applejack quickly drops her saddlebags and pulls out a fourth bottle of water and Rarity’s magazine. She then flips onto her back with the brochure and bottle in hooves. “Just stay clam Apple, you didn’t expect to be bitten by a snake, but it’s fine. I know what to do…” Applejack puckers her lips and positions her mouth on the bite. She sucks up as much of whatever liquid is in the holes and spits it out across her shoulder before repeating. Blood, yellow venom, and red slush coats the ground over the pony’s shoulder as Applejack continues to remove the infection. Her mind cramps up as little traces of venom make its way into her brain despite Applejack’s best efforts. After a while of only sucking up and spitting her own blood, she then pours the entire bottle of water over the wound and uses the papers to apply pressure to the area. Several minutes pass as the pony continues to hold her position, unsure of what to do now. She looks at her upturned body to get a good look at the damage she has taken, from the scrapes on her knees, to the dark flesh of the bite, to the amount of filth and dust on her body. “This has gone too far…” she gasps, “I need to head back…” Slowly, the mare gets back up onto three hooves with the fourth still holding the papers to her bite. Pulling out a compass, Applejack attempts to decipher what its saying. “Let’s see, if I’ve been going east, then I should go west back to Appeloosa. So, Should I turn until the needle points west? Or was it to point north and go right? Agh! I can’t think straight!” In frustration, Applejack shakes her head violently and even knocks against it with her free hoof, muttering curses to herself. Fear, anger, confusion, sadness, all crowd her train of thought as the mare continues to unleash her fury on whatever she can get her hooves on for what seems to be an eternity.

Finally, after an hour of emotions and frustration, Applejack soon recollects her sanity, what little of it still remains. Whatever venom left in her system has already started to turn her brains into mush. Yet, Applejack does not notice her descending into madness as she attempts to think of what to do. “Alright, what would Twilight do in this situation? She’s the smart one… I think… so she’d have the best answer. I think that’s how it works, being logic and all…” Her eyes then catch a glimpse of the plateau off in the distance. “Shelter, that’s right. Don’t worry Applejack, don’t need to be fussy. You’re just, tired, and a little thirsty.” Although now weak and terribly ill, Applejack manages to regain some strength, pick up her bags, and slowly walks towards the plateau.

Two hours of walking in the bright sun pass by before Applejack finally arrives at the foot of the massive rock formation. The snake’s venom starts to damage Applejack’s already injured knees, causing them to buckle once again. In a matter of moments, the orange pony’s legs give in and her body violently hits the sandy ground below. Now with her belly unwillingly pressed onto the desert floor, her skin starts to cook from the burning sands. Applejack winces and bites her lip as the burning sensation rushes through her, now searching for a way to quickly get back up. Using the rock wall as a grip, Applejack attempts to pull herself up, only to find it more strenuous and painful than just burning from the hot sand. She manages to pull herself up fortunately, but not without a few negative thoughts manifesting in her head. “I hate this… I hate all of this… No Ghost Pony… Barely any water left…  These bags tearing my spine apart… Lost… Scraped and battered… Going stupid… Probably infected… Hungry… Thirsty… Tired… Dying… Why did I ever agree to this?” Applejack then slides her saddlebags off and opens them to see what she has left. “Six apples and one bottle of water. My main priority now is to survive. Maybe I can make this work…” As the sun starts to make contact with the horizon, Applejack feasts herself with four apples and only a quarter of water in the bottle, not even daring to drink a single drop more. However, her stomach still yearns for more food and her throat still demands more water. “Night’s coming fast, if I can make it to the top with the remaining daylight, I could have a safe spot to sleep for the night and figure out a way back. Maybe I’ll even feel better by tomorrow or better yet, actually find that darn ghost. I deserve to find something after what I’ve gone through.” Next Chapter: Desert Insanity Estimated time remaining: 31 Minutes