"This is Fleet Street coming to you live from the Manehatten Royal Sisters' Hospital, where outbreaks of a new disease are causing concerns..."
"...Indications that the infected ponies are in fact incapable of any higher-brain function, or any real co-ordinated movement..."
"...The Royal Sisters have refused any comments, but three days after the quarantine breach in the Royal Sisters’ Hospital, military forces have been seen deploying to the Manehatten streets, an indicator of the severity of the outbreak..."
"...Snapshot? Snapshot, is it bucking rol - This is Fleet Street coming to you live from the centre of the storm in Manehatten Central Park, where two weeks after the first case of the disease, the infection has now spread out of control, with evacuees escaping via pegasus...Snapshot, are those...? Oh buck! They're here! This is Fleet Street, signing off on the Manehatten outbreak, where the infected have breached military defenses. Let’s get the buck outta here!"

It was long. It was bloody. It was unlike anything ponykind had faced before. Ponies that had conquered Ursas and Manticores trembled like newborn foals, because the monsters were ponies this time. Ponies they knew. Sometimes, even their best friends and loved ones. A million HollyHoof movies chronicled it, and because of that, nopony believed it. Ignorance was the smokescreen that let it get so far...we barely made it back from the brink.

I suppose starting out with the philosophical and the theatrics is odd, for a damage report. My name is Quill Stroke. The United Equestrian Democracy asked me to compile a report, interviewing ponies to discover death counts, economic damage, how much repairs would cost. More and more, I gravitated towards the stories the ponies told me. Some fearful, others boasting with pride. My employers told me my report was worthless, they wanted numbers and facts, not some shell-shocked pony's life story. I told them, that the damage to ponykind was in the ponies it left behind, not the ones it killed. That, in order to prevent this being labelled as another natural disaster...to prevent it ever reoccurring, we must take the ponies' stories as our reports.

I was shouted out of the office, ridiculed and mockingly told to see a publisher. So I did. One such publisher being kind enough to publish my writings as this series of pamphlets; a chronicle of the ponies lost, and ponies they left behind. This is my story of the great terror ponykind was almost destroyed by, through the eyes of the ponies who witnessed it. Theatrics call it the Howling Hunger. Religious, the Rapture. The bureaucrats and politicians applied their own cold, calculated label to the event; Equestria War Z. As such, this is how this work shall be titled, so that both the story told by the UED, and the story told by the survivors, will be remembered.

What follows is as many stories as I could find, in what remains of the once-beautiful land of Equestria.

Case File One: Nurse Redheart

Nurse Redheart has taken me to the Manehatten Hospital, where the infection began. So many years after Victory Equestria day, this place is merely a monument to a battle that still rages in some parts of the world to this day. The bodies and gore have long been cleared, the walls are sterile, but coated in the grime of simple neglect, the building having been abandoned for the five years since the outbreak began.

Despite the lack of gore, or other clues to this building's horrifying place in the events that unfolded here, much is still apparent. IV stands lay scattered on the floor, hospital beds are overturned. We pass through a pair of fire doors, the glass shattered, and the door itself hanging off its hinges. The room we enter is familiar to anypony who watched the news while it still broadcasted. It is the ward of Patient Zero.

The bed still stands, though the rest of the room is trashed beyond recognition. Graffiti art is strewn across the walls, one such piece citing, "Here is where the Princesses abandoned us." Many contain references to dark magic, none of which seem to faze Nurse Redheart. She perches herself on a chair besides the bed, still unwilling to touch it despite the lack of infection present after all this time.

I find a seat for myself, a bedside cabinet overturned, but ample for my needs. My trusty dictaphone is unveiled, the crutch to my lack of ability to write in shorthoof. Clearing my throat, I start the tape.

"I am here with Nurse Redheart, one of the many ponies who attempted to help and cure Patient Zero. I have one question to ask you first, Ms Redheart...why did you choose this room to have our talk?"

The Nurse seemed to be thrown by the question, giving it more thought than I had expected. Several seconds of silence pass, before she begins her reply.
"The memories have faded already...something I am grateful for. My retirement is no time to remember nightmares and demons, but in this room, I can never forget. It's the only way I could give you my account with a clear head."

"You mentioned retirement? Forgive me for prying, but surely you are too young to retire?"

The Nurse leans in closer, and for a moment I can see her eyes, aged beyond the face that contained them. A pony that had endured the heart of the storm.
"The medical career was never a stressless one, many retire early, though not with the large paychecks the public believe we do. The...events that happened here have not treated me well. I'm making great progress with my therapist...but I could never hope to help a pony. My mind isn't what it was...retirement is my word for, 'indefinite leave due to mental trauma.'"

The Nurse looks down at her hooves, tapping them together slowly. It takes me a long time to think of a reply, feeling something consolatory should be said. Thankfully, the Nurse senses my trepidation, and with a soft smile, replies for me.

"Not that I'm not happy. I'm blessed my husband also survived. In the evacuation, and the troubles after, we feared for each other...scared that we had lost each other. It wasn't until many months after. He'd been brought in from a battle with secessionists that I found him. In fact, he was brought to me to get stitches in his head. I have never squandered a day since then, my...'retirement,' as well as his, allows us to make the most of what time we have left."

"I am glad you found him in the end, I hope I can find more ponies with as happy resolutions as you have had. Though, what was it like during the infection...to be a nurse to Zero?"

"When he came in...he was already at what we now know as the late stages. Of course, we didn't know anything. I was called over from the Ponyville Infirmary, my knowledge in obscure herbal medicines and Everfree diseases made me a possible help."

"Possible...but, sadly, not successful, I imagine?"

The Nurse chuckles to herself, waving a hoof around the room, stopping on the only window to the outside. I notice the extreme silence from the once-bustling district. The twittering of birds being the only noise from the outside.

"I'm sure that question need not be answered. The media blamed us, as always, but we did everything we could for Patient Zero. Antibiotics, anti-virals, the best in magical healthcare, every crackpot herbal remedy and homeopathy cure under Celestia's sun. Nothing can stop it, but in our ignorance, we tried all we could. The only cure is to kill, as the hoofsoldiers used to say. Sadly, I could never breach my Hippocratic Oath like that, not while I believed there was hope."

"You say the media blame you? Why is this?"

"Oh, spinsters and journalists getting ready to sink their teeth into the next big tragedy. I honestly prefer the...patients...to those ponies. They claimed government cutbacks, lack of training, the usual stuff. I'm almost glad one of them was the second...no, sorry, that's terribly bitter of me."

"I won't judge, I want the emotions from the stories, not the censored numbers and facts."

The Nurse tightened her posture, bracing herself to continue her story. "Then I suppose...you want the story of the night the outbreak began...I can at least hope you'll be more sensitive with the story than those parasprites with the cameras."

I put on my winning smile, sure that the story to follow will fill a massive hole in my knowledge, the pivotal moment when the whole war began. "I'll try my best, ma'am."

"You seem trustworthy. Well, it was October the 13th, Patient Zero had been...turned, three days ago. We attempted to pacify him, but with no luck. The blood samples we gathered were....disgusting, and unnerving to say the least."

"What was so unusual about the blood? Was there anything that could have hinted at the cause back then?"

"If there was...we would have found it. No...the blood...wasn't blood. It was a foul-smelling, black ooze. Blood that had been long-coagulated. Yet, the patient was there, writhing in the shackles." She tenderly touches a hoof to the very same restraints, jerking back as though she had received a shock. "After a few hours, I noticed the same ichor on the shackles...he had worn his coat and skin away. But it was all that journalist...that foal of a pony!"

"Was she the one that released him?"

Nurse Redheart's expression changes, wistful memories being overtaken by bitter anger. She notices the sudden sea-change in her demeanour, and with a deep breath, calms herself so she can continue.

"Yes. A Pony Rights activist...or, at least, using it as a cover to get some airtime. She hadn't even gotten the third ankle shackle off when he...when he...Her scream was all we heard. That...and the noise of...Zero feeding. Security leapt on him, but he wasn't restrained...and he was so strong. Soon the other guards were nursing wounds, the journalist had been bitten in the neck. She passed quickly."

"And then the bitten were restrained too?"

The Nurse lets out a dark chuckle, a retrospective laugh at life's horrible mistakes. "We never knew that was how it worked. Our brilliant measures were bandages and bedrest. It wasn't until the guards turned - the journalist having died too quickly for it to take hold - that we understood it. Of course, it was too late then."

She appears to hesitate, the tip of her hoof stroking her chin, before lighting stroking the bed before her. "One pony caused the dominoes to fall...and we almost lost it all. The sad thing is, nopony even knows where he came from, or who he was. He simply limped into the atrium, collapsing at the reception desk. I have often wondered how he came to be infected...whether there is a source we don't know of."

"How did you escape the chaos? Was there any police reaction to the outbreak?"

"I galloped...galloped in a way I haven't done since I was a filly on the Relay Team at school. I didn't stop until I was four blocks away...sights like those don't let you stop, the adrenaline pushes you as far away as possible. I remember police appeared...unarmed, not ready. Soon, it became a, ‘riot,’ growing out of control. Then the city in the space of a few days. I even saw Royal Guards fighting them in Central Park as we were escaping."

"The last stand of Captain Keen Eye?"

A tip of her hoof brushes her eye, as the Nurse removes a solitary tear from the corner. " A pony I owe my life to, as well as his stallions. As the last Aircarts took off, the infected overran the military's defenses. Ten-hoof high walls, and they simply clambered on top of one-another to get over it. I feared for my life...scared of a death at the hooves of another pony, a twisted monster of a normal equine I might have passed on the street without even a hello."

A hoof is pressed to her eye in an attempt to dam the tears. I lean closer, aiming to comfort her, but she waves away the gesture. "Sorry...to be so rude...it's just...remembering these things is difficult for me to bear. Keen Eye and his stallions held the last area of land the AirCarts could land on, circling it and firing their horns into the oncoming horde. I was one of the last to leave, there was plenty of room...but he wanted to stay behind. His stallions boarded, he himself holding them back just long enough to stop them overwhelming the cart as it took off...I never saw them take him. I like to think he left this world in a fireball, rather than a slaughter."

"Thank you for your time, Nurse Redheart...I hope you continue the happiness you have regained."

"And I hope you make the right decisions with how to use my testimony. Though, I am sure you will anyway...these horror stories are more than likely ten-a-bit anyway."

"It doesn't make them any less valuable. Again, thank you."

Case File 2: Captain Rainbow Dash

The NightWatch control is a vibrant, bustling centre of activity. As I enter I can see ponies at terminals coordinating the fliers, maps adorn every available table, the whole place decked in gunmetal grey flagstones. There’s an extremely utilitarian air to the whole room, as the machinery of this vital post-war emergency service moves around me.

The pony I have been aiming to meet is standing in the centre of the room, her rainbow mane cropped short in a military crew-cut, her body wrapped in a form-fitting uniform. It’s a vibrant, navy blue cut across with lightning bolts down each limb. The uniform is reminiscent of pre-war aerobatic team uniforms.

The Captain doesn’t acknowledge me until I am very close, standing opposite her at the table. Before us, is a glimmering magigram of the nearby town of New Ponyville, each building, field and pony, fleshed out in full 3-D for The Captain to plan her recon teams. Tonight is like any other night, the danger of remnant Zed attacks on civilians is still all too high. Her head snaps up to meet my gaze, her eyes instantly hard and calculating for a few, tense seconds. After she sizes me up, and works out who I am, she relaxes, but only slightly. I can still see the tension in her forelegs, and her wings twitch slightly with anticipation. She appears like any other military pony, a gun loaded to fire.

“Hey, you must be the reporter?”
I cough at the title, the media not being in favour with the public nowadays. “No, just a...researcher, trying to find out stories from the war. And I was told, that yours is the story to end all stories.”
The Captain chuckles, fillyish pride beaming through. “That is, if it’s the story I’m thinking of, pony.”

Her hoof is raised to the portrait above us, depicting a starry sky filled with the burning smoke of buildings. A trio of pegasi are brightly realised in contrast to the shadow that the rest of the painting defers to. I could tell by the tiny pinpricks of red amongst the shadowy mass exactly what it was meant to represent. The Battle of Old Ponyville was one of many bloody engagements, but the endeavours of Captain Dash, herself, had stopped it becoming yet another massacre.

“Painting like that...gives a filly a nice ego boost. Now, if you’ll come to my office, I suppose I can probably let you in on a little bit of it.”

We walk to the office, simply a side room with a desk and some chairs. We both take our seats, Captain Dash taking a relaxed pose behind her desk, while I retrieve my dictaphone once more, and start the recording.

“I am here with Ms Rainbow Dash, or should I say, Captain Rainbow Dash, though the story you’re going to tell me occurs long before you gained that title, or so I’ve heard?”

The Captain chuckles, waving a casual hoof at me. “Takes more than one heroic act to become leader of a show like this. But hey, I only have time for one of them, sorry. Makes sense to pick the one from the start.”

“Tell me about the battle, Captain. The Battle of Old Ponyville.”
“Will do, Quill Stroke, and please, call me Dash.”
“Okay, Dash, please, tell me as best as you remember it. Were there any clues leading up to it, any signs of what was coming?”
“Are you kidding me? There were clues all over, on the radio, on the TVs, in the newspapers and between ponies in the street! The clues were all over, but did we wanna believe ‘em? No way!”
“So, you had no knowledge of what was happening, no preparation.”

Dash leans forward, tapping her forehooves together lightly. “First I knew, I was getting woken from my cloud by the sound of homes being broken into. They came through the Everfree, even the creatures in there didn’t wanna tangle with them. We were blind, couldn’t see ‘em coming, and they...there were hundreds of them.”
“Were you scared of the Zeds? Were you worried for your life?”
Dash chuckles once again, tapping a hoof on the table whilst shaking her head. “We were weather patrol, Quill, not military. We didn’t know a thing about Zees or the infection. We just heard some ponies were attacking, and went to rustle them up.”

“...And when you reached the attack site?”
“Well...I don’t know what was worse...the Zees...or the ponies they’d killed. They were mangled, some were missing legs. We couldn’t tell which were the attackers or which were the victims. Then they all looked at me, all of them. I’d landed right onto their lap, ready to bust some rump...” She chuckles sadly, as though remembering these memories for the first time in a long time. “They all just locked onto me, and I had this little voice in my head, ‘get the buck out, Rainbow!’ I gunned it outta there, but Raindrop...”
I sense the tension in her words. “She...was attacked?”

“You’re a smart colt, would you call twenty Zees on one filly, who barely got her cutie mark, an, ‘attack?’” She stifles herself with a hoof, recomposing herself. “They tore her apart, Quill. And I...I was so scared...I just froze up! Wings stiff, and I just sat on a rooftop...couldn’t stop watching...”
“You can’t blame yourself, Dash. Like you said, you were just a weather pony who didn’t know what was going on.”
“Yeh, but seeing a horde of zombie ponies shoulda kicked a fast pony like me into gear, right? But no, I just sat on that roof, hugging the thatching...just staring at them shuffling towards me, except the load that surrounded Raindrop. She stopped screaming pretty quickly...thank Celestia it was quick...but there isn’t much else to thank her for.”

“How did you escape, did they manage to reach you?”
Dash’s face turns reminiscent, almost dreamlike as she trotted down memory lane. “Light Showers. Ha! He was the stallion that always kicked my rump off the cloud to get my job done. Might surprise you to learn, but I was quite the slob back then.”
“We all start somewhere, Ms Dash. But what happened next? I’m intrigued to hear how the slob became a hero!”
“Oh, flattery will get you all the fillies, Quill, you sweet-talker. Yeh, Showers got my rump off the chopping block, no doubt about it. Twilight had received a message from the Princess just before they came, she was an ex-student. That Twilight...she was always the militant organiser. She got the weather team together, to organise evacs to the library.”

“A library? Hardly seems like an impenetrable fortress.”
Dash chuckles, tapping a forehoof on the desk. “Not unless it’s a hollowed out tree with solid oak - inches thick - for walls, and a powerful unicorn organising the defence of it. It had a balcony they used to use for looking at stars or some trash...turned out that balcony became our landing zone. Perfect place to drop our passengers off, and go grab summore.”
“So you just picked everypony up and retreated to the library?”

“Yeh...like anything in this war was that simple. You tell me, fifty hooves in the air, smoke from burning buildings all around you, screams of the ponies below. You tell me how you tell the moaning, stumbling, injured victim from the moaning, stumbling, Zee attacker. You don’t smell ‘em ‘til you get close! I saw weather ponies grabbing what they thought were survivors, then get ripped apart down to the ground...thing is the buckin’ Zees always survived the landing where the ponies didn’t, and they just crawled back for more.”
I tap my chin thoughtfully, simply unable to imagine the horror of saving somepony, only to find they were yet another monster. “Did you manage to get everypony you could out?”

“Hay or high water, brony, I did. Even the ones that kicked and struggled. I dunno if it was the Princesses watching over me, or what, but everypony I picked up, was still a pony. Some ponies didn’t wanna be saved, saying they had families out there. They were the ones that took a right hoof to the muzzle to come quietly.”
“Do you think it was right, to take them against their will?”
Dash’s face turns from pride to indignation, she slams a hoof onto her table, accentuating her words. “What?! Should I just let them die?! I saved everypony I could, I was the Element of Loyalty, for pony’s sake! I’d never leave a Ponyvillian hanging. But, yeh...in the end, there weren’t any screams, all I’d hear when I flew over were their moans. Like...like a choir of demons from the Moon itself.”

“What happened next, did they attack the library?”
“Yeh...they surrounded it, trying to get in any way they could. They were climbing over each other to get in, trampling each other into the mud. We pulled ponies off the balcony, wasn’t right watching ponies you knew...like that. I even saw a few, but, I suppose everypony’s seen somepony they used to know as a Zee.” Dash stops for breath, rubbing the soles of her hooves together thoughtfully. “But we got out, Twilight still had her line to the Princess. Aircarts came, took us, ‘somewhere safe,’ but hey, that’s another story. Last thing I saw, was Ponyville burning up underneath me. Somepony left the gas on in Sugarcube Corner, one spark in the chaos, and it set off every little thatched house in the town. It’s still there today, we promised never to clear it...it’s like...a graveyard of lost souls, like they had for the First Pony War? All the ponies that couldn’t get identified, or went missing altogether? That’s what Old Ponyville is to us.”

“I’m sorry to hear you lost your home so abruptly, without any idea of how or why. But, I understand that New Ponyville is becoming the most populous town in Equestria, after Canterlot, of course.”
Dash chuckles, rising from her seat and walking round to me. I also stand up, taking her offered hoofshake. “New Ponyville’s cool and all, it’s Zee-proof as you can get. But...it’s just not Old Ponyville. Never will be. Anyway, speaking of keeping it safe, I gotta get back to work. Those red lights? Means we got a Zee attack inbound, at least twenty.”

“Good luck, Captain Dash, and thank you for your time.”
“Heheh, maybe another time, this filly’s got a lot more tales to inspire you with, Quill. Besides, with the NightWatch on the case, these Zees won’t know what hit ‘em.”