April ===

St. George's was your regular run-of-the-mill offshoot of a British boarding school for girls, built somewhere in the last hundred years, but with rules which had not updated as time progressed into the next millennium.

Between the school uniforms, early curfew, and overly zealous Christian teachers with archaic principles, it was not a place I would have gone to willingly, but my parents gave me little choice.

In the first few years of arriving at St. George's I had tried just about every escape attempt I could think of, incurring every punishment for such when I inevitably got caught and returned to my dorm.

Third year in, I took to a different approach; if I could not escape St. George's, maybe I could just make use of the many hiding places it offered to get out of the way of those teachers who felt I was destined for nothing but a fast-track to Hell.

Knowing the right girls helped in this, as they could get me contraband in the form of candy, teen magazines, and even a music player with the latest songs on it.

It did not take me too long to find the perfect place to make into my private den, and soon I had disappeared off of the headmistress' radar.

I was hiding in my den, as usually the case during Latin, when the blood rain started.

First I heard about it was through the grating in the wall leading into one of the bathrooms; A couple of girls ran into it in a panic, chattering about how it was the end of the world, and crying out how they were too young to die.

Curiosity washed over me, and I made my way out of my hiding place to the main air vent connected to it.

There were small cut-outs in the metal shaft before me, made over the years with nothing but a knife stolen from the mess hall, and I used these to climb up to the floor above me.

There were voices in a panic all around, echoing through the vents from every connecting shaft, and I continued on to where the vents opened onto the roof to see what all the commotion was about.

Even without opening the grating in front of me, I could see the red liquid covering the roof of the building.

The strange cloud formations above looked more like constantly shifting blobs of sickeningly grey flesh than their usual puffy selves.

The red rain poured out of the many demonic-looking eyes set in this ceiling of flesh as if each eye was crying for the lost souls of the damned.

I had to swallow seeing this before me, and I found myself thinking back to remember what the Bible had said about this day.

I softly admonished myself for not paying more attention during Bible studies...

I quickly clambered down the shaft again to the third floor of the building, took a side shaft out towards the dorms, and quickly exited the ventilation system through a grate set in-between two bookcases in the study room.

There were textbooks about all subjects taught in St. George lined up in the bookcases set in this room, tables with desk lamps on them set in-between them for students to do their studying.

A few such tables still had open books on them, and it looked as if the room was vacated in a hurry.

I ran over to the doors only to find them locked.

Behind them voices were heard shouting, crying, praying, and footsteps of people running rampant in just about every direction.

I was not going to get out through this room, and climbed back into the ventilation system to head for the next option for me to use; the kitchen which connected to the mess hall on the ground floor.

I heard the clattering of plates and cutlery as I approached, and saw a few of the more obese of the girls and staff fighting over what food they could get.

I shook my head thinking of the seven deadly sins which the headmistress had me write out time and again when she caught me doing something wrong. Was gluttony not one of them?

I went back into the main shaft and went over my options.

The communal hall would be full of teachers trying to get the students in one location, the gym was its own building and not connected to the one I was in.

The headmistress had put a glass cabinet with trophies in it under one of my other escape routes leading into the hallways... so back up to the roof would be my only option.

I climbed up again to the ventilation shaft's roof access, and looked out over the redness surrounding the building.

I looked down at my relatively clean school uniform and considered the red rain coming down.

The rain would probably stain my clothes the moment I got outside, making it easy to see I had been outside.

Maybe I could run into my dorm room and slip into a replacement set before anyone would notice?

They were running around like headless chickens down there anyway...

I pushed the grate open and climbed out of the ventilation shaft, closing it again behind me.

The rain pelleting down on me made red blotches where it hit my clothes.

I ran for the access door leading to a maintenance staircase and gave a pull on it.

...locked.

I suddenly remembered why; the headmistress had locked it a few days ago after catching a few girls smoking on the roof.

The key was in her office downstairs, so that was not an option right now.

I looked around to figure out my next move while trying to repress my rising panic over the situation.

I was a good four floors above ground level on the roof, and the only access to or from it was the door that was locked and the ventilation shaft I had just come from.

This building had no ladders on the side of it leading down, no escape staircases, nothing like that.

It had been built like a prison for kids like me who would try to escape from their teachings, and it was practically impossible to find an escape route once on the roof.

And in the meantime the rain just kept falling... I spat out some of it as I accidentally got some in my mouth.

It tasted salty, and not at all like normal rain.

I ran over to the side of the building and looked down towards the gym hall just beside of it.

Two floors down and a few feet away... I could not make that distance if I jumped, I knew from PE-class.

Especially not on the slippery wetness the rain provided; one false move and I would tumble down to the ground instead of making a jump for the other rooftop.

While I was considering this, something moved on the horizon and I looked up to see the silhouettes of four horses flying through the air, obviously heading in my direction.

My mind caught up to itself and I shook my head. No, impossible.

I rubbed my eyes and looked again through the red haze of the blood rain.

There were definitely three horses flying towards me by the strength of their own wings.

A fourth, I saw now they drew closer, was sitting in a basket underneath a balloon which was being dragged along by two of the three others.

I rubbed my eyes again, but no matter how much I did, the vision remained and they were steadily getting closer as I tried to formulate a coherent thought about them.

The red rain made all of them look as red as if they were painted with paint onto a canvas, but some specks of a different colour hiding underneath their wet fur were visible as they drew closer and closer.

There were no riders on their backs, but that said nothing.

Nothing at all.

The Bible texts were little more to me than confusing sentences strung together to form some kind of misogynistic patronymic allegory.

For them to have the description of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse wrong would be nothing new to me.

I backed away as the one in front pointed a forehoof down in my direction and turned its neck to shout something at its compatriots.

As they started to descent straight for me, I found my own panic finally hitting home, and let out a scream of terror as I ran for cover.

I hid behind the brickwork of the chimney stacks, my heart pounding in my throat.

Was this really the end of the world?

Had my teachers actually been right about this thing?

Was this the last day of my life?

The sound of hooves hitting the rooftop on the other side of the chimney stack made me cringe.

Then another such sound, and a third, before the thud of a basket touching down on the roof.

"This is the only place for miles where we can rest, Josey," a voice exclaimed. "Wish we could get out of the rain, but we'll have to make due."

"Can we not enter the building at a lower level?" another voice wondered.

"You've seen what follows after the rain, Turkey," a third remarked. "You know as well as I do that the humans down there have no chance when the sea of flesh arrives. If we were to make contact, we would have to make another portal into Equestria and evacuate them. Equestria has enough refugees as it is."

I carefully peeked my head around the stones to see all four horses stand in a circle talking with one another and realised the horses themselves were actually talking.

I shook my head in disbelief, falling back into cover.

"It may already be too late," I heard one of the horses say to the others as it turned in my direction, their voice clear over the sound of the rain falling down around us. "Come out, please. We know you're here. We mean you no harm."

I swallowed strongly before standing up, made an effort to pat my drenched skirt down, and decided to walk out in the open as bold as my waning sanity could muster.

If I were to die here, today, better to get it over with.

It was the same facade I had adopted every time I had received punishment from the headmistress or any of the teachers in the past couple of years, and it had served me well to bury my fear of what was to come deep within.

The four horses were watching me as I stepped out, and I approached to within a few feet of them before my feet refused to take another step.

I quickly realised only one of the horses in front of me could be said to be a true horse-size.

It was a large horse with a surprisingly regal appearance.

She sported a large horn on her head and a pair of large feathery wings folded to her side.

I had heard of unicorns and pegasi before, but she was definitely something different.

Her smart green eyes looked me over as I stood before her, and I had to quickly look away as her gaze met my own.

The other three were much smaller than the green-eyed horse, and while two out of three sported wings and the third a horn, none of them had both at the same time as the larger of them had.

The large horse took a step forward and lowered her head to look at me a little closer, her horn aimed at a point somewhere over my right shoulder.

"Do not be afraid," she said in a voice that was oddly soothing, "we are not here to harm you. My name is Josey, and my companions are Rainbow Dash, Spritelight, and Turkey. May we know your name?"