»We should get inside. It's getting dark.«
I looked at Halfsee gazing indifferently towards the charred remains of the Sunlit range. The slate grey pony was blending in nicely with the remains of a building behind him. Natural camouflage he never knew he would need.
“Yes. It is.” After a day like this I was too tired to say anything else.
There was only one thought that crossed my mind at that moment – that I was glad he was to my left so I could see his eye. All that was on the other side of his face was a disfiguring scar left over from a botched birth. A scar he successfully hid under his firebrick mane. With heavy thoughts on my mind, I followed his line of sight to the horizon.
The Sun was getting very close to edge, and as the color of the sky played havoc on the scenery below it, a cold chill ran down my spine. All around us were the remnants of destruction. An urban wasteland waiting in the city behind us, the blackened remains of fields, pastures and forests in front of us. And I couldn't remember when I had been as relaxed and at peace as I was at that very moment.
Halfsee was about to say something, possibly to remind me that we really needed to get back to the shelter we discovered earlier as lights appeared in the distant hills. First one, then another. And another.
Campfires.
“That’s either an open invitation for murderers and thieves or a trap by the murderers and thieves” he muttered under his breath. It was a waste of words – we both knew that – but sometimes it’s better to get something out of your mind than to carry it to bed with you.
After all these years there were still ponies out there who thought lighting a fire was a smart thing to do. Regardless of which group they belonged to. I learned not to light fires outdoors in these situations even before I got here. We turned around and slowly walked back to the shelter in what used to be a hotel. It was a hiding place so obvious nopony thought of using it. Not unless they covered their tracks in a way neither of us ever could.
As the collapsed and damaged buildings passed by me I felt like I wasn’t moving at all, but the city itself was wrapping around me. Fragments of my previous life often returned at moments like this, haunting me even in their brightest moments. The bright Canterlot appeared most often, its glamorous white buildings and the dominating castle towering above them, showing me where I had once walked in the company of my friends. And my parents, oh how delighted they were when they learned I was going to spend my youth there.
And inevitably, because no happy memories must go unpunished, the recollection of how it all fell apart. Even as I fought back the heavy squeezing in my chest I wondered what the ponies of Equestria were doing right now.
If the Sun was setting here it must be late morning there. The ponies of Manehattan were probably in the midst of their busy lives, some reading the reports about the wellbeing of their businesses, others frantically running around, trying to prove themselves worthy of a position of power within those businesses.
The Pegasi were probably already flying around the farmlands and nearby towns, clearing the sky of clouds and blatantly showing off. Not that anypony could blame them. I’d do the same if I had wings.
Somewhere in the city my parents… I stopped as that thought crossed my mind. The one thought that I always tried to suppress was what my parents were doing. Or where they were. I had spent too much time thinking about what they were told about my disappearance. Too many theories, one more cruel than the other, caught in my mind. As Halfsee stopped and turned to face me, I briefly snapped back into reality, just enough to continue walking before he had a chance to ask why I’d stopped. When I caught up with him, I confirmed the suspicions I knew he had.
“My mind is wandering again.”
“Yeah. Mine too.” There were no feelings in his voice. No sadness, no regrets and no judgment. He had been here for quite a while longer than me and had completely embraced this new life. Or so I thought. “The nights are the worse.”
Once again I found myself briefly staring at him, this time at his scarred side. The realization that things could get better, but will never be good, no matter the effort, began enveloping me like a blanket. My attention turned from the sad happy memories, if that makes any sense, to my surrounding area. Every city I’d come across looked the same until now. I began to deliberately seek out the details on the increasingly black sea of gray that surrounded me.
The ruins of a store – or perhaps a glass paned shop - rose from the gravel surrounding them, as if the building was slowly melting away into the ground. And it was there, on the broken pavement that I noticed small glass particles scattered about. The larger pieces were probably taken in the early days after the dreaded events and what remained was usually found glued to spears and axes of the looters and thieves. Still, some small fragments remained, glistening in the decaying sunlight. These small stars in the middle of a dead city.
My ears peaked as the noises of countless small animals rummaging through the buildings and the alleys and the sewers made their way into my head. I knew I must have heard them before, but this was the first time I had ever acknowledged them.
This wasn’t a wasteland or a graveyard. It wasn’t dead. There just weren’t that many ponies around.
The outline of the hotel appeared in front of us. Without a word we made our way inside by way of a broken window and ascended into the crumbling second floor. Before going to sleep on the filthy and torn blanket, acting as both the mattress and the cover, I looked out of the only window in the room.
It was facing the ever darker east, capturing the city covered by darker and darker orange hues. Small lights appeared in some of the buildings. First one, then another. And another.
“If you could go back to Equestria, would you?”
After a moment’s pause came the answer. “No.”
I don’t think I would either.
Author's Note
This short story is set in time after another (much longer and more complicated) story that I am currently working on. Consider it a short teaser sequel. If that makes any sense.