Rarity felt a gentle dripping on her forehead. Hmm, what are Aloe and Lotus up to now? she wondered. It took a moment to remember that she was not at the spa.

Opening her eyes, the white unicorn saw that she was lying in a pile of debris. The train car had come to rest in an upside down position. She remembered the squeal of brakes and a tremendous crash, but only blackness after that. Another drop of something hit her. She glanced up.

A stallion had become tangled in the wreckage. Broken boards and twisted metal held his body tightly. As Rarity watched, a rivulet of blood ran down a jagged piece of wood that had impaled the pony’s chest and paused on the end of the sliver, ready to drop.

Rarity shrieked and rolled out of the way, desperately trying to wipe the blood off her face. Her cries brought other ponies from their stupor.

“Huh? What happened?” asked Rainbow Dash. The multicolored pegasus rubbed her eyes.

An orange earth pony sat up, staring at the wreckage around her. “What in tarnation happened?”

“I don’t know, Applejack.” Twilight, a purple unicorn, struggled to get up and comfort the screaming Rarity.

“Here, let me.” A pink earth pony pushed past, making her way to the distraught unicorn.

“Oh my,” said a yellow pegasus, her eyes wide. “Pinkie, where is the blood coming from?”

“She’s fine, Fluttershy,” answered the other mare. “Well, not fine, but not hurt.”

“We need to get out of here,” said Twilight. “Something terrible must have happened.”

Rarity struggled free of the wreckage, panting hard. There was a hole in the side of the train car, a jagged seam torn open by the crash. Carefully contorting her body, the mare slipped out.

Outside, thick fog blanketed the area. Perhaps the limited visibility had caused the train to run into something on the tracks. Rarity stared into the swirling mist, seeing nothing except smashed carriages and her five friends.

“We should see if there is anypony else around here,” suggested Twilight.

“They might need help,” whispered Fluttershy.

Pinkie’s mane looked a little deflated, but she nodded and smiled. “I sure hope we’ll find more ponies. It’s no fun being all alone.”

The six of them began a slow walk towards the back of the train. The broken, twisted cars were splayed across the tracks, not a single one escaping damage. The carriage the six mares had been riding in was near the rear of the line. A growing sense of dread began to build in the air as it became clear that the wreck had claimed the lives of more than a few ponies.

Rarity felt sick as she stepped carefully among broken glass, her gaze on the barren carriage windows and the carnage behind them. Inside the ruins she saw several ponies, but none of them moved.

Beyond the last car lay empty tracks stretching into the fog. There was nothing else visible. The terrain to either side of the rails was hidden, making it impossible for anypony to tell where they might be.

“I guess we should check the rest of the train,” commented Rainbow.

Applejack looked at the blue pegasus. “Aren’t you rarin’ to fly ahead?”

“Ah, no.” Rainbow waved a hoof and putting on a brave smile. “I wouldn’t want my friends to feel alone.”

Rarity was grateful. She and the other five mares started up the far side of the tracks, reaching the car they had climbed out of and continuing forward. It seemed that the fog had only gotten thicker. The heavy opaqueness of it was almost a physical feeling, a clammy choking miasma that made a pony feel lost and isolated.

Blood had been a constant sight all along the train. Ponies had been cruelly slaughtered by the wood and metal of the disintegrating train. Rarity could no longer help herself and fell to her knees, vomiting on the ground beside the tracks. Her friends stood by sympathetically as the minutes ticked by until she managed to quell her heaving.

Cursing her knack for spotting every small detail, Rarity continued forward. Not even the substantial fog could mute the horror her eyes unwillingly beheld.

“Is there anypony out there?” she shouted, hoping perhaps another survivor would reply. Her voice was loud; Rarity could really scream when she wished to, but there was no reply. It was as if the misty air had simply absorbed her cry.

The back end of the locomotive loomed through the fog. The coal tender was upended, spilling its contents out on the ground. The steel boiler of the steam engine had been torn open as if it was made of tissue paper.

Rarity turned, staring back in the direction she’d come. The locomotive crew was dead, completing her survey of the whole train. There had been no other survivors. The mare’s back legs collapsed and she dropped to the ground, tears building up in her eyes.

“Things look bad, Rarity, but you aren’t alone,” said Twilight. “Remember that we’re still your friends.”

Rarity nodded, her vision blurring as she stared into the distance at a single set of hoof prints on the ground, all alone.