Midnight Snack choked on the stagnant air. The basement certainly did not have any circulation. I wish we had a fan and a generator, she thought. She had been alone in the dark four almost ten months, but now, noises could be heard outside. Screeching and scratching and what possibly was gunshots! If there are gunshots, she thought, then that must mean there are ponies surviving outside!
"THAT MEANS I CAN GET OUT!" she said aloud. She went up to the door to upstairs and slowly opened the door. The door surprisingly opened. She could have sworn she boarded up the place before she went in the basement. She decided to put that thought in the back of her mind for the time being. There were more pressing matters at hand. She went up the stairs and looked warily around the house. Somehow she had missed a Taurus 9mm revolver in the bedroom. She had no clue who's house this was, to be fair, but she thought she checked every room! Something wasn't right. Things were appearing and disappearing. The pistol was sitting on top of the nightstand. She would have absolutely seen it! A clatter from the kitchen ended her thinking session. She checked the ammo in the Taurus. Fully loaded. She snuck into the kitchen, pointing the gun every which way. Nothing could be found, but clattering could be heard. She pinpointed the sound was coming from one of the drawers in the cupboard. She slowly approached the cupboard, gun drawn. She waited for the precise moment. It dawned on her that if there was anyithing in there, she wouldn't know how to react considering that she had never fired a gun before.
She quickly opened the cupboard drawer and saw nothing. Just cans and silverware.
"Hm." she shrugged. She had barely finished her shrug when a crab-like creature jumped on her face. It's torso was about the size of a softball and both of its foreclaws were double the size of normal lobster claws. Its rear legs were more like long spider legs. In all, it had four legs (this includes its foreclaws) and it was bright red in hue. It's head and torso were one piece of its body. It's legs were the second. But aside from its description, it was now clawing at Midnight Snack's face. She pryed it off, threw it on the ground and fired two shots into its torso. A yellow-green fluid poured out of the wounds and it let out a small screech as its legs stopped kicking. She bent over and poked it with her index finger. It seemed to have a rigid exoskeleton. It did not have eyes and had three rows of razor sharp teeth. She guessed it utilized echolocation to find it's prey, like dolphins and bats, if it even IS a predator. It should be a predator with those teeth and claws. But it's so small. Maybe it's a baby. This all passed through her mind.
"In that case, where's the mama?" she pondered. A loud bang at the door rattled the house.
Elsewhere, darkness engulfed two ponies.
"We've got one flare left. Should we use it?" asked a voice.
"Oh, sure, if you want to destroy our only light source we have, you go right ahead." answered a second voice, gruff and sarcastic. An elongated silence took the place of the two voices for a while. A light sparked and the flare was lit, illuminating the darkness, and revealing the two ponies and their surroundings. A green, spiky-maned pegasus and a red maned, black furred unicorn in a military transport vehicle. The windows are completely blacked out by the dirt and asphault under the street. Both were wearing military fatigues, one uniform dark blue camo, another uniform was red camo. The blue uniform sported an NLR patch. The red camo bore an Equestrian Royal Army patch, the spearhead of the princess' military. The NLR soldier was wearing handcuffs and was smoking a cigarette.
"How long do you think that will last?" asked the NLR soldier.
"We have about ten mikes of sustainable light." replied the ERA soldier, maintaining the same, cold facial expression. The unicorn took a drag from his cigarette.
"Look, kid; I understand you playing the 'big bad prison warden' around me, but there's really no need. I mean no harm. I may be intimidating, but I don't feel like wasting my energy killing the only living thing that will keep me company." said the unicorn. The pegasus relaxed and took a seat.
"You present a good point." he said.
"I know. What's yer name, kid?" asked the unicorn.
"Snapshot. The name's Snapshot." he answered.
"My name's Ratchet." said the unicorn. Snapshot shook his hand and the rattling of the handcuffs echoed through the small confinement of the crushed vehicle.
They were in a hole in the street, crushed underneath some rubble. The vehicle was tilted forwards at a forty-five degree angle. The rest of the crew was dead and they have been stuck inside for five months. The radiation started nearly ten months ago, but they were equipped with gas masks and other such equipment to stay safe.
"What class were you?" asked Ratchet.
"Scout sniper." replied Snapshot.
"Hm. You must be an outstanding shot, eh?"
"I'd like to think so."
"Heh. Don't we all?"
"What class were you?"
"Mechanic. Engineer. Whatever you want to call it. I tweaked stuff and tinkered. Didn't do much shooting. Haven't even killed anypony." he said, somewhat embarassed.
"Hm. That's surprising. You just look like one of those badasses that go on major killing sprees like in Haylo."
"Wow. That was very nice of you to say. I appreciate it. So, how many of my brethren have you killed?"
"About twenty."
"Good shootin'." Another long silence. "You know, it's probably safe to get out. The rads of those bombs don't last long because our country loves preserving nature. We wouldn't use the elongated radiation effects bombs on our own country. The NLR nor the ERA are that stupid."
"I agree with you, but we're kinda trapped." snapped Snapshot.
"No we're not."
"Yes we are. The front doors are wedged into the ground and the rear door is crushed by a large piece of rubble."
"Yes, a large piece of rubble that I can lift. Get me outta these cuffs and I can get us untrapped."
"Ha! There's no way in Hell you could move that thing!" he scoffed.
"Break me outta these cuffs and I'll show ya."
"Whatever." He walked to his prisoner, cuff key in hand, and unchained him. Ratchet rubbed his wrists and stretched.
"Watch and learn, little one." he said. He spit on his hands and rubbed them together as most do before engaging in a strenuous activity. He positioned himself at the back door, which was somewhat caved in, and began to push upwards against gravity. After much effort, the rock budged and slid off the door. He was able to body-check the door into submission and it burst open. The outside air wasn't much of a relief to either of the ponies. It smelled of death and fire in the wilderness.
"Holy crap!" exclaimed Snapshot in awe from the spectacle of strength.
"Get some supplies. It'd be best if we stick together." said Ratchet, ignoring Snapshot's surprise. He stepped away from the door and grabbed a pack off of a dead soldier and stuffed food and ammunition into it. "Do any of these bodies have a shotgun? I love shotguns."
"Yeah, I think the passenger pony has a Remington and a Tac-40." said Snapshot. Ratchet looked to the passenger and, just as Snapshot said, a Remington 870 pump shotgun sat in his lap. He pulled it away from the rotting corpse. He had one weapon, but he couldn't find the Tac-40 that Snapshot referred to. He quickly turned to see what Snapshot was doing, thinking this was a trap. Snapshot was donning his Ghillie suit and holstering his Desert Eagle pistol. Convinced he was being sincere, Ratchet turned back to the body and found the Tac-40. It was sitting cozily in the hand of the decomposing soldier. Ratchet grabbed the gun in an attempt to pry it free from the cadavre's grip, but only succeeded in yanking the arm completely out of its socket. He fell backwards on his plot and gasped in horror and disgust when he saw what was attached to the gun. He finally pulled the gun free and threw the arm back into the cabin of the vehicle.
"BLECH!" Ratchet exclaimed. "Let's get outta here!"
"Give me a second." Snapshot said, filling his bag with rations and ammo. "Say, is your canteen full?"
Truth be told, Ratchet forgot all about his canteen. He saw it underneath the seat of the passenger and grabbed it. It was full to the brim. He nodded.
"Good. Now we can leave. Top off your weapons and let's head out." With that, Snapshot grabbed his L118A sniper rifle. He had an affinity for bolt action.
Snapshot took his first step outside in months. Everything was different. The sky was a minty green and the clouds formed odd, wispy shapes. The buildings were tilted and broken and overgrown. Trees and bushes were nonexistant. Creatures flew in the air, but their silhouettes made it clear they were not birds. The roads were terribly cracked and uplifted in places, making it impossible for a civilian vehicle that was not an offroad truck to use it. Snapshot took his sniper and looked at the winged creatures in the sky through his scope. The beings had beaks that were one foot long and a wingspan of about five feet. They looked more like Pterodactyls than birds. One began to swoop down towards them, shrieking and gaining speed. Snapshot took the shot and landed a bullet right in the centre of its head. It fell with a ground-shaking "thud" ten yards away. The other ones heard the shot and began their dive as well.
"Take up defensive positions, Ratchet and fire on them when they're in range!" commanded Snapshot. A flash of light brightened the sky and a nearby explosion is heard seconds after.
Three miles away in the vault of a local bank, two more survivors are cuddling together, bathed in candlelight. A scrawny, but handsome, young pegasus colt with pinkish read fur and a white mane, and a beautiful pink maned, blue furred mare. They were completely naked and passionately kissing one another. She moved her hand down to his syringe cutie mark and rubbed it softly.
"Ooh!" he exclaimed. "Don't get me started again." he said in a soft voice.
"Oh, you know that's exactly what I want to do." She kissed him.
"I wish we had some blankets. And possibly a mattress. Heh." he chuckled. She thought for a minute and then got up.
"Hold on, sugar." she walked away, out of the light of the candle and came back seconds later with a large jacket. "I got it off a dead fat guy. I know it's not exactly a blanket, but it's the best I can do." She sat down in his lap and draped the jacket over them. He put his arms around her and fell asleep. She chuckled when she realized he was in dream land. She then fell asleep with him. The night brought the usual banging and screeching at the vault door, and once again it woke both of them up. Neither of them knew what was out there, but they never got in and never seemed to damage the door, or at least as far as they could tell.
"I'm scared, Nova." She wrapped her arms around him, frightened.
"Don't be. They'll never break through that door." He consolingly petted her back down to her cherry pie cutie mark.
"Thanks. I love you. Back when the world hadn't gone to hell, I was kinda...unfaithful to most of my partners. But you...You're different. Even if there were other, better looking survivors out there, I don't think I would go for them....not without telling you first, anyway." She laughed and kissed him some more.
"Do you...want to go again?" he asked, blushing heavily. She reached over into her bag nearby and pulled out a condom.
"You read my mind, hun." She pinned him to the floor and had her way with him.
Afterwards, their sweaty bodies clung to eachother like metal clamps, panting and collapsed in a heap. The jacket had fallen onto the floor two feet away, revealing their bodies and the warm, viscous fluids that dripped between them. They fell asleep in this position not long after. In the morning, they find that the candle is out.
"Dammit. Not again. I'll relight it." whispered the female Earth pony. She pryed herself away from her partner, grabbed the battery-drained flashlight and began searching for the book of matches. She found them and lit a match, with it, she relit the candle. She turned off the flashlight and returned to her groggy partner, who seemed to just now be waking up. He stretched and greeted her with a warm, if not sticky, embrace. Her tail and ears twitched happily as she rested her head on his chest. The sound of tires squealing outside ruined the moment.
"What the...? How can somepony be driving if there's nopony out there?" asked the mare.
"There has to be somepony." replied her groggy male counterpart who's name was afforestated as being Nova. The squealing grew louder. The door of the vault burst open with a deafening crash and clatter. A military truck now sat dormant in the entrance to the vault. A dizzy unicorn with an NLR uniform waved to them happily from the driver's seat. Nova quickly covered them both with the jacket.
"Well, I'll be darned." said the mare, awestruck.
Meanwhile, two miles away, a fallen skyscraper lays perpindicular to the way traffic is supposed to flow across the street. Like a wounded animal, taking a reprieve in its own domain. A reprieve that it will not return from. Within its depths, rumbling can be heard. So loud that one could hear it from outside. A crack in a wall forms, expanding with every rumble. Finally, the wall crumbles and a large figure bursts into the street. His muscles pulsate and throb. His blonde mane shivers with the cold zephyr of the outside world. His blue fur shields him from most of the cold. He wears a tank top and blue jeans. His blue sneakers defend his hooves from the hard asphault of the urban jungle. His eyes shift left and right, scanning for any supplies, dangers, or shiny objects. He finds shiny objects to be distracting. He simply can't resist.
A shiny object DOES catch his eye this time around. In the fifth floor of a building on his left, something glistens in the sunlight. He ran to the building, through the door, up the stairs and to that room to see one of the more gruesome sights he had ever seen. A colt was in that room with his brains and half of his head splattered on the wall. This definitely looked like the work of a high-powered sniper rifle. Possibly a .50-cal. But the muscular pony was less interested in the body and more interested in what was laying near the window. A large M60 machine gun and an RPG-7 rocket launcher sat up against the wall. He took the RPG and shouldered it with the strap, and equipped the M60. A loud explosion drifted on the wind and he spotted a large cloud in the distance, corresponding with the sound.
Minutes later, after taking the pack off of the fallen pony, he began his trek towards the explosion.
