All Eight Must Fall

Chapters

Only a Myth
Upon A Hollow Grave
Just Doubts
Sterling
Where The Grass Grows Black

Only a Myth

It wasn’t long before I had managed to completely lose track of time. The tenebrous grey walls stared back at me, carelessly. I tossed and turned in my bed, which really wasn’t anything special. It was larger than the one that I had in my shack, that was for sure. It actually fit my whole body! However, the bedsprings dug into my skinny frame at every single opportunity, preventing me from falling asleep.

Well, what else was new...?

It was “lights out” as the guards called it, which meant bedtime for everyone. I would have never known if the message didn’t holographically show itself on my wall. It was so bright, so just incase something happened no one could use the excuse “they didn’t know”, or something like that. The guards were just as antisocial as the prisoners here. It’s impossible to hear anything while inside of the cell. Everything is sound-proof. I saw the guards speaking outside of my cell, but I was not very good at lip reading.

The walls were keeping me from being free, and that happened to be what was causing me to completely lose myself in thought. I was always one for imagination, for some reason. I always found it easy to zone out and get lost in the inner complexities of my head. I’ve been known to completely phase out of reality at the worst of occasions, although I liked it. My brain worked in ways that I honestly hadn’t been able to fully understand, yet.

I lied in my bed for what seemed like hours and stared hopelessly at the gray concrete that rested on my eyes. A few blasts of chilled air coming from some of the cracks in the ceiling hit my body, causing me to bring my razor-thin blanket closer. I tried to bring myself into a warmer embrace, but I failed. I was freezing, and I didn’t think that there would be anything that I could do about it. The guards probably didn’t care about how I felt. I was technically a prisoner, after all.

I couldn’t help but wonder about the woman from before, and how she was doing. Of all the cells to be put in, why that one? The cells were soundproof, she could be... dead! She could be dead right now! Those three guys who were in there with her didn’t look very kind to be around. I’d gladly trade places with her in a heartbeat, but it’s too late for that now. It took me awhile to finally convince myself that she was fine, although I had had many doubts.

I turned back on my right side, listening to the bed creak softly. I raised an eyebrow when I felt something tough in my jeans pocket. Both corners of my mouth twitched upwards as I remembered something completely grand! I sat up and quickly pulled my sack of gunpowder out of my pocket, giving it a brief– yet silly– kiss.

“Oh! I still have you at least!” I cheered. I had a good idea. I stood up from my bed, grabbing my blanket in one hand and my gunpowder in the other. I was suddenly ecstatic, for once feeling some sort of inner joy that I hadn’t felt in months. I dropped to the ground, letting out a weak cry as my knees banged on the floor.

“Oof...” I groaned, rubbing both of my knees stupidly. Well, I totally could have thought that through a little better, but that didn’t matter.

Let’s just cut to the chase. I deemed the usage of gunpowder to make fire a terrible idea, and figured that it’d be better to conserve it in the first place. I dug into my pocket, sighing happily as I realized that I also still had my spare lighter. Lucky for me, the blanket was made of wool. They’re harder to catch on fire, and didn’t burn too long, but it’s better than nothing.

Usually, I have more supplies on me. If I’d been back in my shack, I could have made a fire within minutes, rather than an hour. I’m still happy that I’d had my beloved gunpowder. It was something to keep me from going insane; something to remind me of all the good things in life. Things like that have become rare, so I tried to hold onto as much of it as I could, whether it’s possible or not.

I knelt close to the rather large fire, rubbing my currently frozen hands together. It didn’t make much sense since it was absolutely scalding outside, yet I felt like I was diving headfirst into an ice cooler when I sat in there. I let out a small moan as the heat of the blaze hit my skin, warming me up like a sauna. It was rather orgasmic, even though that’s something really weird for me to say. I like the warmth, as long as it’s a nice kind.

I listened to the crackling of the fire, and let a small smile grace my lips for the first time in a while. I could not tell you exactly how long it was that I’d looked into the fire, but I knew it was for far longer than I had thought.

After what I’d guessed what thirty minutes, I jumped at the sound of the blue barrier which incarcerated me disappearing, and how it seemed to disappear into thin air.

“Hey! What are you doing?” hollered a single soldier as he stepped into the cell with me, bearing a sort of high-tech gun and pointing it right at my face. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I raised my hands over my head.

I realized that I’d made a very stupid move. I’d forgotten that just because I couldn’t hear through the doors, that that hadn’t meant that people couldn’t see into it. We’re in a jail, not an asylum. I should have seen it coming. My own stupidity blows my mind sometimes.

“Wait! I just got cold,” I explained quickly. The last time I was held at gunpoint, I hadn’t gotten the time to explain myself at all, so I figured doing that first would be the right course of action.

The soldier was dumbstruck, his face softening for a few moments before he stared back down the sights on his gun.

“Y-You’re burning Chicago Penitentiary property...!” He sputtered, having still been attempting to prove his dominance over me. I found it strange that he had stuttered; what did he have to be nervous about?

“I’m sorry! But I was going to freeze to death in here!” I exclaimed. The guard did not seem to be much older than me: he was probably in his lower twenties, but then again I’m not too good when it comes to judging ages. His blond, spiky hair was ruffled in messy disorder and his oceanic eyes stared into my own muddy ones. In all honesty, he’d just looked tired, and cold. Maybe that was why he’d been stuttering.

“Kid, put out that fire now and go back to bed! It’s lights out!” he ordered. An idea flowed to the front of my mind, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take my own advice or not. Maybe just listening to his orders would be of the best course of action.

Oh, screw it.

“You want to join me?” I asked, scooting over a little bit to give him some room. I saw his finger move to the trigger, and twitch.

“Don’t move!”

“Sorry! Jeez...” I said sadly. I still made sure that he could sit down, there was plenty of room for a few people around the fire. “I’m just saying, you look cold. I’m not a murderer or anything like the rest of the people in this hellhole. You can even look it up my record.” Alright, I kind of bullshitted on the last part. I didn’t even know if they keep records of us anymore. With that, I went back to holding my palms up towards the fire.

The soldier nervously looked away from me, taking one hand off his gun to rub his shivering arm. He quickly holstered his gun and sat on the other side of the fire, taking off his gloves and tossing them on the floor beside him. “Fine. No funny business,” he stated. To that I nodded.

There was a horrifyingly long pause that was filled by the ambiance of the fire. It provided decent light that reflected ominously off of the soldier’s face, sparking my curiosity. He was rather young; what was he doing here? I guess he was wondering the exact same thing about me.

“So... my name’s Oliver,” I explained. The soldier raised an eyebrow in my general direction. “Oliver Gremley,”

The soldier sat up a little bit in his seat. The more he leaned into the fire, the younger he looked. “Private Kelly,” he mumbled. He suddenly leaned over to me, making me to rethink my original idea of having him join me. However, that was before I actually saw his face, which was of pure and utter concern. “Look, it’s been awhile since I’ve actually been outside, what’s it like out there?”

I practically choked on my breath as I stared at him wide-eyed. Did he really not have any clue? “W-What?” Kelly gave me a half-lidded stare, letting me know entirely that he did not wish to repeat himself. “Well, I’ve spent my whole life out there, and I can truthfully tell you that it’s not good. People are dying– suffering out there, man. Homes are burning, towns are rioting, gangs are rising. Don’t go out there, if you can help it,” I answered. I decided to withhold the information about the gang that I was delivering fireworks to. I didn’t think it was a good time to do it.

“Really? I wouldn’t have known. I’ve been in here guarding these people for the last year or so. I haven’t been outside these walls, either. Hard not to feel like a prisoner myself, you know?” he said, moving a little closer to the fire. I nodded sympathetically.

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. I wasn’t entirely good at keeping conversation. I scoured my brain for something that I could use to keep our little chat going. Before I could, he cut into the silence yet again.

“So, I heard you were busted for trying to smuggle fireworks into a St. Paul evacuation center,” he began, leaning over to me again. “What in your right mind prompted you to do that?” I reeled back a little bit, and looked away. “I’m not interrogating you, I’m just curious.” Oh, well that actually made me feel a little better. “Those were pretty advanced fireworks, where did you even manage to find them?”

“Uh, well, you see... I made them myself.” Officer Kelly’s jaw dropped. Well, that seemed to have gotten his attention. Good! Maybe I wouldn’t have to explain why I had them in the first place. I knew I should have told him about the gang, but...damn. I hated my conscience sometimes.

“You made fireworks? And you’re what, fifteen?” he asked, making me squint at the soldier. I had a strong feeling that I really didn’t need to be so passive towards him, but I still liked to be polite.

“Seventeen, and yes. I’ve always have a passion for them. I studied up on how to make them, and how to work with gunpowder. I’ve always loved it. The pretty colors, the feelings that it gives me. It’s the only thing I have left that makes me happy.” I told him. The soldier was, surprisingly, dumbstruck. He turned his gaze back to the ground, as if he were lost in thought about what I’d just told him.

Officer Kelly and I spent what seemed to be the hours simply chatting. I talked about my life, and what it was like outside, and some of the things I’d seen. Kelly talked about life as a guard, and how he was pretty much forced to be a soldier by the government. The guy was only nineteen, though. He said earlier that he’d been in the game for only a year. It made me feel a bit bad for him. It turns out that nothing was as it seemed. The military treated their lowerclassmen like dogs. Kelly told me of all the grunt work that he’s had to do.

“He was yelling at me, ‘Kelly! Shoot this man or I’ll have you demoted’. Stupid general. Because of him I’ll never be the same again. The look on the face of his wife as my bullet passed through him...” He was beginning to choke up, and he wiped a tear that was forming in his eye. “The little girl was just screaming...asking ‘why’ over and over again as she pulled on my pants leg.”

I put a hand of his shoulder, and I had to keep from crying myself. “I... I’m so-”

“Private Kelly! What’s going on in here!?” A gruff voice behind us yelled. Officer Kelly bolted upright, and saluted the figure behind us. The person in question was obviously some sort of lieutenant. I could tell from his weird hat and the multitude of badges on his vest.

“Checking to make sure everything is a-okay, Sir!” Kelly said rather loudly. The lieutenant, if that’s what he even was, stared at me, putting his hand on his gun which was safely holstered at his side.

“He started a fire?” he asked Kelly, who nodded and replied with a “yes sir”.

“He is a danger to this entire facility! He could have burnt this place down!” The ‘lieutenant’ was about to pull his gun, but Officer Kelly stepped between him and I. The look on his face was priceless, but it was happening all too quickly for me to be able to read either of their faces.

“Private! How dare you!” he screamed, pointing his gun in the air.

“Sir, I must speak with you first!” And with that, Kelly actually managed to bring the lieutenant outside of the cell to chat. They were speaking very softly, before the lieutenant actually brought the barriers back up, preventing me from listening in anymore. Although a few words I did manage to hear. I thought they were “fireworks”, and “mission” or something like that. Although I really had no idea after that. Like I said, I was terrible at lip reading.

A few moments later, the barrier dropped and the lieutenant stepped in, practically stomping over to me as Kelly stood sadly in the doorway. The look on the face of the lieutenant was terrifying, like that of a stone cold man. If that didn’t make it worse, he pulled out his gun again.

“Hey, wait! No! Please don’t!” I screamed, putting my hands in front of my face as I leaned back so that my spine was touching the corner of the bed. The light of the fire flickered off his sadistic face, making it so I could only see the right side of his visage. He brought the gun over his head, and swung it down on top of mine.

My vision turned to absolute darkness in an instant.

***

“Yo, kid... kid...you okay?” I heard a playful voice to my right say. I clenched my eyes shut as I slowly began to regain consciousness. The room was excessively silent, save for two voices conversing somewhere within the confinements of the room. I lifted up a hand and brought it to my throbbing forehead. Oh man, well that was a little harsh, wasn’t it? Did he really need to knock me out?

“Kid? Kiiiiiid?”

I opened my eyes and lifted my head lethargically, only to cause a small round of applause from the rest of the people in the room. “Finally!” The voice from before exclaimed.

I was in some sort of... I didn’t know. Some sort of meeting room? My left ankle was chained to the seat that I was sitting in, making me realize my butt was asleep. It didn’t feel pleasant. I tried to swivel in my seat, but I still couldn’t get myself comfortable. In front of me was a circular table with seven other occupied seats. Everyone in the room stared at me, although I didn’t know if they were curious or angry.

“Ah, finally! Everyone is here, accounted for, and awake!” Another voice from the corner of the room said. Everyone turned their heads to the man in the corner of the room. An extremely tall man wearing an army uniform stepped forward. His ebony hair was mostly concealed underneath some sort of military hat, a bit like what Officer Kelly was wearing, except it was more...official? I guessed? I didn’t know the names for those type of things. His jacket was covered in medals, badges, and everything of the sort.

A smirk appeared on his light-skinned face as he began to wander around the table, observing each and every one of us intently. “I thought that little one was never going to wake up!”

Little one!? I huffed at his statement, crossing my arms vexingly.

“Uh, excuse me? But who the hell are you?” I turned to my right to hear the familiar voice that had been prodding me awake not even a few moments ago. There sat a rather large, muscular man. His large biceps practically busted out of his grey-shirt. He ran a hand through his short brown hair. At first, I was pretty intimidated by him: I mean, come on, the guy’s seriously double my size! I made a mental note not to get on his bad side...

“Good question!” said the man, before slamming a hand on the table, creating a loud bang that caused everyone in the room to jump, save for the big man to my right, and another man who was sitting at the other end of the table, reading a large book. “My name is General Thomas Elderson, and I was in charge of bringing everyone here.” That guy was creepily cheery, and it made me a little nervous.

Another masculine voice on the other side of the larger man spoke up. “Where are we, exactly?” he asked, raising a finger in the air as if he was in a classroom. He had a slight British accent that I found just a little bit charming. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get too much of a good look at him.

Before Elderson could speak up, another man, who only seemed to be around two or three years older than me, spoke up. “We’re in some sort of Military Facility,” he said monotonously, setting down a few playing cards of which he held in his hand. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, studying them or something? These people are a little... weird. Elderson snapped his fingers and gave him a knowing smile. Meanwhile, I was struggling to fiddle with the handcuff around my ankle. What the hell was going on here?

“Correct! But, the real question is why!” Elderson said. I was really starting to get a little creeped out by all of this. I was practically harassed, only to wake up here? In some kind of military facility?

“Well, make this quick. I have a plane at the San Francisco airport with my name on it,” said the same british voice. He was a tan and skinny man with a pretty face. His hair was combed back stylishly and he wore a very nice brown tuxedo that was just a few shades darker than his skin color.

Elderson gave the person, whomever it was, a glare. “Well, I was going to make this all fun and dandy, maybe play a few party games first, but it seems that no one is it the mood. So I’ll just cut to the chase.” A few of the people in the room rolled their eyes, but none harder than the blonde woman on the other side of the table.

“Each of you possess something that America is in desperate need of.” He slammed both of his hands down on the table again. This time, unfortunately, I was the only one who jumped. Damn, these people probably think I was a weakling now. Well, whatever. I wasn't there to impress anyone anyways...

“And what would that be?” The same blonde woman asked, quite rudely. I could tell that she was very unwilling to be here, much like everyone else. I, on the other hand, was much more curious. What were we doing here, and what the hell could I possibly possess? I lived in a shack! If anything I was the least qualified.

“Talent,” whispered Elderson. I raised my eyebrow. Talent? Wait, was he talking about me and my fireworks? I wouldn’t really count that as a talent, just some extra basic knowledge that I happened to pick up when I was younger. “Each of you possess some sort of special talent, or knowledge, that has brought you here.” Oh.

“Really? What’s my talent?” said the man to my left. He reeked of oil, and the front of his shirt was absolutely covered in it. I didn’t know about anyone else, but I couldn’t stand the smell of oil. I didn’t know why, but it just really bothered me. I wished I could trade seats with someone else. Every now and then, however, I could see his eye twitch.

“I’ll get to that,” said Elderson, pointing at the man in question. With that, he grabbed his arms behind his back and proceeded to walk around the room, his nose in the air. My first initial thought was about how stereotypically...army, he was. “As you know, America is on the brink of disaster, none know more about this than the little one here,”

Oh, come on! I wasn’t little! I was just short... and kind of skinny... but other than that! I was really starting to hate this guy.

“Lucky for us, NASA is still intact and functioning to this day.... sir?” Elderson stopped cold, and turned to the man who was still fully engrossed in his book. “Sir!” he repeated, hardening his voice in an effort to gain the man’s attention. I couldn’t really see the man’s face, just his brown hair. What I found peculiar was the small blue streak in his hair that came right over his left eye. Mighty weird hair, I must say. The man hummed a little tune to himself as he nonchalantly flipped a page.

Elderson was quickly losing his patience. He stomped over to the man, grabbed his book, and slammed it shut, all right in front of his face. The man’s cheeks puffed out as he stood up in his chair, practically swinging. Lucky for everyone else, his ankle was chained to his chair as well. “What the hell, man!?” he yelled. The general poked his chest, hard.

“Pay attention, dammit!” Elderson said, putting a hand on his holstered gun. The man turned from his book, to the gun, and then to Elderson’s face before he sat back down in his seat. I couldn’t understand him, but he was mumbling something to himself. Most likely curses, if I could take a wild guess. “Anyways,” he continued. I didn’t know why, but I felt a slight discomfort in my stomach.

“NASA has been getting strange signals off of Callisto, one of Jupiters moons. We believe that America is the only country to have received and to have taken note of this. That’s where you all come in,” he said. Oh no. What was he trying to say?

“Wait, you kidnap us here, chain us to chairs while there’s practically a war going on, just to have us play spacemen!?” yelled the man who had previously been holding the cards, which still lay face down on the table.

There was a cough. The man rolled his eyes.

“...and woman.”

Elderson cocked a cheeky smile, one that gave us an answer before we he even opened his mouth. “Yes.” A few of the people in the room started to get antsy, either arguing or screaming at the general in unison. Elderson pinched the bridge of his nose. This was one of the things that I couldn’t stand: when everyone wanted to be heard and the room is just filled with unintelligible noise. One of my pet peeves, actually.

Everyone’s shouts died down when a gunshot rang off in the room, echoing off the walls and practically blowing out everyone’s eardrums. Although, I was used to the sound of gunshots by now. For once, I didn’t end up jumping. “Now, if you all would kindly shut your mouths and let me talk...” Elderson spat, putting his smoking gun back into his holster.

The oil-covered male to my left whimpered a little bit.

“We need a few people to go to that moon and investigate. Now, trust me, we did not plan on using any of you. It’s just that we’re short on people, is all.” It took a single glance at the rest of the people in the room to tell who was and wasn’t already afraid. “Your mission is simple: go up there, investigate where the signals are coming from, and come down. Capiche?”

“And if we refuse?” said the man from before. His hands were now impatiently on his book. Little did Elderson know, but he had been trying to find his page damn-near this whole time. I took my mind off of him, although his actions so far were really starting to bother me. I wasn’t good at understanding people, but the attitude and the aura he gave off wasn’t necessarily bad, just...I didn’t know if I wanted to be around him for too long. The raised his eyes at me, after noticing that I had been staring at him. Even his eyes made me nervous. They were almost staring into me. I quickly turned back to Elderson.

“Death Row.”

The entire room fell silent. It had actually stayed like that for a few minutes, until the general clapped his hands together. “Now, since you guys are going to be in space together for a good, long while, it’s about time that you get to know each other!” he cheered. Everyone looked around the room at the people in the table. A few of the people observed me longer than I would have liked, really. I didn’t blame them. I felt like the odd one out!

The general tapped the shoulder of the nearest person, who happened to be to the left of the man with the book. He was eerily pale, and his black hair came down to his ears. Something remarkable about him were his eyes. They were such a dark green that they practically shone in the light. I found it rather... odd, in all seriousness. “This here in Nautics-”

“A-actually, my name is B-”

Elderson clasped a hand over his mouth, causing him to let out a small, muffled cry. “Nope! No real names. You are to each go by predetermined code names. You may not tell anyone your real names. Got it?” ‘Nautics’, as well as everyone else in the room, nodded. Nautics put up the sweatshirt of his hoodie. Wow, I never noticed how young he was. He’s either my age, or just a year or two older than me. Next to me, he was easily the smallest person in the room.

“Nautics is here because of his supreme ability for navigation,” Elderson explained. “He’s a zoologist and knows a lot about wildlife also.” Nautics nodded approvingly. Man, this guy really didn’t like to talk much. But this was when I realized something.

“Uhm, if we’re going to a different planet, why do we need a zoologist? I thought life on other planets didn’t exist?” I asked. Elderson rolled his eyes, making me immediately feel stupid.

“Well, we lied,” he said, making me gulp. “We actually have no idea, which is why we’re bringing him and Omega along.” Omega? Oh, right, codenames. Elderson answered everyone’s next question when he pointed to the tan britishman from before, who looked rather appalled with his name.

“Omega? Why Omega? That’s a terrible and lackluster name!” Omega complained. Elderson let out a fierce snarl, giving him a look that screamed ‘deal with it’.

“Your name is Omega because of your multilingual skills and your ability to understand cultures. You are a traveler, no?” Elderson asked, giving a sly grin. Omega jumped at this opportunity to boast about himself. Great, one of those people. People who are so full of themselves that they’ll pause a meeting with the actual military just to talk about themselves. I made a mental note not to confide with him. He didn’t seem like a person who would really help the group anyways. Well, unless we came across some kind of alien. Hah! I doubt the guy knew how to speak Klingon.

Elderson continued to move around the table. “Next is Windstrom.” He pointed at the blond haired woman from before, who groaned upon hearing the general uttering her permanent codename. Her hair was cut raggedly, kind of like an organized mess. Her body was rather slim and toned, although I tried not to stare.

“Really?” she exclaimed. No one paid her any mind. Personally, I didn’t find Windstrom to be that bad of a codename. If anything it was unique, although it left me wondering what her talent was. Oh well, I was sure that the general would explain any minute. Maybe she was an expert with technology or energy? Because wind-strom? I didn’t know!

“Yes, really,” said the general, he walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder, to which she quickly shrugged off. “Which reminds me, Windstrom is your leader.”

The man with the cards and the man with the book all stood up and protested. “What!? No way!” said both of them. Leader? Who cares who’s leader? It’s space! A giant freaking rock. There’s going to be nothing to lead there! The only thing she’ll have to say is ‘don’t fall into a crater’. I really hoped that this wasn’t going to become a drawn out thing, although in the back of my head I knew that it was. Those two didn’t look very... forgiving.

“You heard me. She’s leader because she’s known for it. She saved the lives of a hundred people last year at Mt. Rushmore,” Elderson explained. By this time, both protesters had taken their seats. The one with the book literally growled, while the other quickly mellowed out. I’ve taken supreme note of their reactions. If I was going to spend time with these people, I want to study up, although I was not very good at it. So far I made a mental note not to get too close to the britishman, and to stay away from the big guy, and the other two guys with their assorted items. Hm...

I was not shallow! I was just careful!

“I’ve heard of that. There was a suicide bomber and she managed to distract him long enough for people to escape. Quite a feat, I must say,” admitted the man with the cards. Oh, yeah! I think I’d heard of that before. It was this huge thing and she became some sort of national hero. She was only twenty two at the time. To be honest, I had no idea of the details about what went into that. Huh, maybe she would be a decent leader. Although her attitude was showing otherwise. She was extremely... unamused. She had a hand rested on her chin, boredly. The large man to my right was tapping his foot, eagerly.

“Blah, blah, blah!” The large man next to me uttered, raising up a palm while opening and closing it like it was a mouth. “I’m next, let’s get this moving.” Everyone in the room, including me, stared at him. But none more harder than Elderson, who looked like he wanted to smack the guy in the face. Not only did this guy have a big bicep, but he also has a big mouth. I understand he was trying to lighten up the mood, though, and I appreciated that. I believe that a little humor could go along way, sometimes.

“Alright, since you’re so excited...” Elderson moved down the table so that he was standing right above the silly man, who was smiling proudly. I couldn’t help but realize that the longer and longer this gets dragged out, the more and more Elderson got frustrated. It wasn’t subtle either. I could see him clenching his fists and speaking through his teeth often. “This large man right here is Turbo.” ‘Turbo’ fist pumped in the air, almost hitting the general in the face. Luckily for him, Elderson held back his urge to stab the man. “He’s there for physical support, to put it short.”

Turbo used this as an opportunity. “Yep! I’m a champion in weightlifting. I’ve won tons of Iron Man competitions, and I have a decent credit score!” Heh, I was pretty sure that I was the only one in the room to laugh, well besides for the oil-covered man next to me. Elderson rolled his eyes, while everyone else practically ignored him and turned to me. Oh right, I was next. To be honest, I was slightly excited to hear my codename. I hoped it was cool!

“Then, the youngest of you all, we have Firework.” Awh, man! How original. If they were going to give me a code name based off my skill, Gunpowder would have been much better, although I wasn’t complaining. Firework... I could get used it. “He’s here because of his knowledge of survival and his ability to scavenge. He is also an expert in, you guessed it, fireworks and gunpowder.” Wait, scavenger? I wouldn’t count that as a talent either! If anything, I was terrible when it came to attention to detail and looking for things. It’s the original reason why I was there in the first place! Eh, oh well. I’d explain myself when the mission actually began.

“Exactly how old are you?” asked the man with the blue streak in his hair. I didn’t really expect anyone to ask me questions, and I had accidently hesitated.

“Uh, seventeen,"I replied, nervously.

The man nodded, and sat back in his chair. As if he was pleased with my answer. Elderson took this opportunity to introduce the last three people in the room. He was now behind the man to my left who smelled of oil.

“This right here is Jolly Rogers. He’s in charge of vehicle maintenance," Elderson grunted. I tried to get a better look at Jolly Rogers. He seemed to be a big fan of the color green. His long sleeve work shirt was a dark emerald, minus for the blotches of black that stained some parts of it. He was also wearing a very old baseball cap, which was turned backwards on his head.

“Yep, I’m a mechanic nowadays,” Jolly Rogers explained. Elderson’s jaw dropped in disbelief, causing me to furrow my brow. I wondered what his deal was.

“Are you kidding me? This man built a whole army tank on his own! From scratch! If you weren’t going on the mission I’m sure the military would have hired you themselves!” he explained. Really? A whole army tank? How does he do that? Well, I guess that’s what makes him so suited for the mission. So far, he seems like the most useful person, save for Nautics and his navigation skills.

“Wait, something doesn’t make sense.” Windstrom put an elbow on the table and leaned forward, waving a single hand towards Jolly Rogers. “If he’s a mechanic, then why is his name Jolly Rogers?” she asked. Actually, I think she had a point. Isn’t Jolly Rogers the name of some pirate?

“Eh, just found it fitting,” said the general, as he moved down to the second to last person to be introduced.

Jolly Rogers’ eye twitched again.

“Then we have Spades, regional card player and champion,” Elderson explained, walking behind the man from earlier with the cards. He didn’t seem to be much older than me, though, which gave me some relief. With a sigh, Spades carefully stuffed his cards into his sweatshirt pocket. Almost immediately, I felt conflicted. Something about him made me curious. I had no idea what, but he was a little off to me. I couldn’t explain it, though. It’s just like the emotion that he gave off was unclear. He stared off into space, barely paying attention to the generals words.

“What kind of cards?” said someone in the room. I wasn’t able to tell from whom, but I know just from the way they spoke that it wasn’t Omega or Windstrom.

“Every kind. Blackjack, Poker, Rummy, War, Go-Fish, you name it," Spades replied. It was obvious that they guy was smart, that was for sure. That’s all I was able to read off of him, but I decided to drop thinking about him. I was sure I’d learn more later. Spades proceeded to flip his unkempt, black hair and take out his cards from his pocket. I didn’t know why, but he just began to flip through them, again. Weird.

Elderson moved over to the last person in the group, and the one who I had been the most curious about. Like I said, I already feel iffy about this guy. “And the guy with the insanely large book has the fitting name of Tome. Care to speak about yourself? My throat is beginning to hurt,” said the general, who mockingly clearing and rubbed his throat. I wondered what the purpose of that was...

“Nothin’ to know. I’m a scientist,” replied Tome, flipping his book back open after secretly finding the page he had left off on. A few of us looked at each other. Yeah. I didn’t like him. He’s off. Really off.

“Well, what kind of science? Chemistry? Biology?” Turbo asked, scratching an itch on his tricep. There was an excessively long pause. Tome simply stared at Turbo, who looked around wildly. “What?”

Tome leaned in over the table, tapping a finger it. His voice was low and grave, and it kind of scared me. “I didn’t come here to answer questions. I came here to do the mission, got it?”

Turbo gulped and nodded. Jeez, for a big guy he sure was quick to back down. That brought up the question that I couldn’t help but think. Turbo and Tome were the biggest and oldest people in the room. I wondered who would win in a fight. Eh, it’s not important, but my money’s on Turbo.

Elderson cheered, happy that everyone had gotten to know each other a little bit. Working around the circle, starting at Tome and ending at Spades, he uncuffed us from our chairs, to which most of us immediately stood up and stretched. Including me, my back was killing me! A few other soldiers took the liberty of entering the room to make sure that we all didn’t attack Elderson and escape or something. I didn’t worry, I had a strange feeling that we were all going to be obedient.

“Okay, you have one hour to collect you things that you would wish to take. Any personal items or things. Just make sure that there is a specific purpose for bringing them. Don’t need any extra baggage, ya hear?” Elderson said, before leading everyone else behind the room. I didn’t move. I simply looked around, exasperated. I threw my hands up in the air just as the last person walked through the door.

“What things!?”

***

About an hour later... yeah, you really wouldn’t believe how quickly those guys there at the military work. We were all decked out in some sort of black spacesuit. I had to admit, it was extremely comfy. When this was all over, I really hoped that we could keep them. It was the least the military could do for us, you know?

The last hour was a completely blur. It was full of arguing, screaming, complaining, and even a little bit of crying. I really couldn’t remember who exactly did what, but either way, it really wasn’t pleasant.

We were all lined up outdoors, facing some sort of vehicle. It was a shining alabaster, space ship that gleamed in the sun. It was actually very impressive. It was...like nothing I’ve ever seen before! It was almost like some sort of bus, and the inside was made exactly like it too. The windows were tinted black, and the inside practically glimmered. In the back and the bottom of the ship, were some kind of rockets. Gah, I wish I knew more about technology. I wasn’t sure if the term “rocket boosters” is correct, but that’s what I thought they were. Either way, the general told us that that was how the ship flies.

A few soldiers got us situated in the bus, while the general spoke to us over some sort of PA. “Welcome aboard to the PK-435! A wonderful intergalactical traveler that will take you straight to Callisto!” Oh, good. An autopilot. For a second I thought that’d we’d have to fit one more person on board. Now that would have been a little painful. I sat in the front row with british guy, Omega. In the second row was Windstrom and Jolly Rogers, then Tome and Turbo, and in the last row was Nautics and Spades. I think that they specifically made seats for us. If anything, they were observing our behavior back in that room, and placed us near people who we most likely wouldn’t have had a problem with. After buckling us all in, the soldiers quickly left the vehicle.

Everyone else was speaking to the people around them, and I decided to eavesdrop a little bit. I really didn’t feel like talking to Omega. “So, what do you think this is going to be like?” I heard a voice behind me say. I couldn’t turn myself around to see, so I had to take guesses at who was speaking. I believe the person who had just spoken was Nautics.

Spades shrugged his shoulders, slightly peeved that he wasn’t able to fiddle with his cards. “Psh, this ridiculous. I’m sure this is all for nothing,” he replied. But that prompted Jolly Rogers to grab the back of my seat in an attempt to pull himself upwards, as if he was asking me instead of Spades himself.

“But what if it isn’t?” he asked playfully. Spades shook his head, annoyed. He even let out a groan to go along with it.

“Yeah. What if we come across some kind of space aliens?” said Windstrom, followed by a smack as she clapped her hands together, enthusiastically. “Then it’s up to me to kick some ass!”

“Oh, please,” Turbo followed up. I couldn’t see, but just from his tone of voice I could tell that he was rolling his eyes. I had to admit, it was slightly entertaining listening to Windstrom speak. I didn’t know why, though. “If anyone’s going to save the day, it’s this guy!” He then proceeded to kiss what I presumed were his biceps.

“But, really. We’re all so far away from home-”

Tome interrupted from the third row. “Can you all shut up? I’d much rather this ride be in peace!” he bellowed. As much as we’d all like to talk about what’s on our minds, especially me, a few of the others, like Omega and Spades agreed with him. I had a bad feeling about all of this. I really wasn’t a big fan of going into space. It was really far away... and really high. Like... what if there’s a hole in the ship? What if we all got sucked out and drown in the airless wasteland that is space? Our bodies would never be found, and-

...Nevermind.

“Prepare for liftoff in ten... nine...eight...” said the voice over the PA, emotionlessly.

Oh man... here it goes... I was freaking out inside of my head.

“five... four...three...”

I did a silent prayer.

"one... blast off!"

Not even a millisecond later, the feeling of weightlessness hit my body. I stared out the window, only to see the ground get farther and farther as I no longer felt the loveliness of earth under me. The feeling in my gut dropped lower and lower. A few of the people, like Turbo and Windstrom were able to fully enjoy the experience, whooping and hollering the whole time.

My head was throbbing from the air pressure as we went higher and higher. My heart rate was increasing at a horrifying rate. The lightheadedness was creeping in as we flew towards the stars.

Aaaaaaand I passed out.

Shit.

***

I woke up to an insane amount of screaming, and a hand or something, on my shoulder. My eyes snapped open, only to see impending terror in the distance. We were heading straight for a bright green planet, a beautiful hue that contrasted with the blue of some sort of ocean. It looked a little like earth, but I knew it wasn’t. It was too gorgeous, and we were already caught in it’s gravitational pull.

I brought a hand to my head, only to feel something strange. It was more... furry, than I would had hoped, and blue. I removed the appendage from my head to take a look, and I swear I almost passed out again.

Hooves. Light blue hooves replaced my arms.

“What the... what’s going on!?” I shrieked over the never-ending cries of the people in the back of the ship. I turned to my side to take a look at the only accomplice of which I could see. But I let out a sharp scream at what I saw. Omega had been turned...into a horse? His coat was a dark brown, like that of the tuxedo of which he was wearing earlier, and his mane was a light tan. He gripped onto the seat, flinching as the plane rapidly descended.

“Firework! Prepare for impact!”

What!? Just... just what happened!? I stared in horror, my mind unable to wrap my head around what was possibly going on. I didn’t have time to think. I was a horse, Omega was as well, we’re about to crash! One of my worst fears are about to be met! My whole world was spinning.

I let out a sharp scream as the earth of the planet that we were about to crash into got closer.

Closer.

Closer.

Until I eventually saw nothing.

***

Day 1
11:24 AM
"Firework"

My entire body was spinning. Every single vein in my being was throbbing with a horrifyingly strong velocity. I couldn't feel anything. For a moment I believed I was dead, but I forced that terrible thought out of my head. I was lying on my side, and I felt extremely weird. I didn't feel the same at all. I tried to move my head, and I only succeeded slightly. To my surprise I felt something soft in my face, kind of like hair. I was going to question it, as my hair was normally cut very short, but I didn't. I didn't care. I didn't like pain, although I guess no one ever did.

"Ahh..." I moaned as I opened my eyes. Oh man, did I feel weird, my legs especially. I was surrounded by woodland. Trees and large bushes littered the area within my view. Speaking of that, my view was also covered by red and blue strands of... hair?

I tried to get on my feet, but for some reason, I couldn't stand correctly. For some reason it was very natural for me to stand on all fours. My headache was still killing me a little bit inside, but I had begun to ignore it.

I was very surprised that I was able to stand. I was... just in a crash, right? I believe our space ship crashed. Wait, so, I was on some sort of new planet? Hah, Oliver, you've gone crazy. Well, that was what I tried to tell myself, at least. I knew in the back of my mind that that was exactly what had happened. There was no doubt about it, I could still vaguely remember.

I looked down at my rather bruised self. I had a multitude of cuts on my forelegs.

Wait, what?

I had forelegs!? I turned around to look at myself wide-eyed only to realize that my body was no longer than of a human. I was a horse, but that wasn't the only thing that startled me. I had wings.

I was a horse with wings.

I tried to stretch them, but the pain that occurred was too much to bear. I let out a shrill cry as I almost keeled over in pain again. I let the wings sit at my side until further notice. I wasn't a doctor, but my left wing, or whatever, was either really bruised or broken.

I took a look at my surroundings, greenery was everywhere, preventing me from seeing very far. Luckily, it was still daytime. At least I had something on my side. The sky was a beautiful blue, although there were absolutely no clouds in the sky. Everything around me was beautiful. The fruited trees, the soft green grass, the small stream...

My eyes widened yet again.

I tried to walk, I tried as hard as I could, but I tripped over my legs. Oh, right, horse legs. It took me a minute to get back up so that I could try again. Uhm, how do I walk? I was so thirsty, and the stream was only ten feet away. I put my right foreleg first, and then my left, making my fore and hindlegs stand extremely far apart. Before I lost my balance, I moved my left hingleg upwards, and then the other. Okay, I was getting the hang of it... slowly.

It took me the about fifteen minutes to get to the stream, gaining even more bruises in the process. I leaned my head down to drink some of the sparking clear water, almost losing my balance and topping over headfirst. I drank, and drank, and drank. I was absolutely parched and the water was completely pure. It was the best water I've ever tasted.

I took a deep breathe as my lips parted with the water. I groaned with distaste as some of the cuts on the bottom of my hooves mixed with the liquid, but it was the good kind of pain.

With reluctance, I looked down at my reflection that was practically gleaming below me, and I let out a small gasp. I was light blue; a light blue horse, with a rather long mane. Half of said mane was a dark blue, just a few shades lighter than my coat, which the other half was a scarlet red.

The only part of me of which I still had were my dark brown eyes, which stared back at me in absolute fear.

"Firework!" A familiar voice shouted behind me. I quickly turned my head, a little scared of what was to come. Who was it? Please tell me it was someone from the ship, which was no where to be found at this point. Windstrom? Tome? Spades?

"Who's out there?" I asked.

Author's Note

Woo! Chapter two!

Once again, thank you for taking the time to read this, it means a lot to me! I'll admit, the story is starting off a little slow, but I felt that this was extremely necessary. Next chapter is where the fun begins.

Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated!

-Cyneryk

Upon A Hollow Grave

Day 1
11:31 AM
"Firework"

“Who’s out there?” I called out yet again. There was a small tinge of restiveness that ran through my newly acquired torso, and I found it to be rather unbearable. Suspense was something of which I was never an actual fan of. There was an exceedingly short silence, and I didn’t like it, prompting me to call out yet again. “C-Come out already!”

A few more intolerable seconds passed by, and I started to believe that I may have made a fairly bad decision. The way I worded that could be taken in the wrong way, and the last thing I wanted to do was seem like a threat to someone. However, I know for sure that it has to be someone from the crash, how else would they know my name? Unless, I didn’t know… it had the potential to be an extremely small possibility, nevertheless.

I let out a sigh of relief upon hearing the voice call out to me yet again. “Omega? Spaaades? Anyone?” The voice was gruff, a deep baritone, somewhat reminding me of a lumberjack. Before I had anymore time to actually think about it, I saw a barrage of gray plow through the forest.

I completely froze where I stood, unable to make any sort of verbal or physical movements before my eyes actually focused on the behemoth on the other side of the clearing. It was another pony, fairly similar to me, except not really. Unlike my bright blue coat, his was a boring grey. His short, chestnut mane hung down as he squinted suspiciously at me. To be honest, it was rather difficult to see him, as he blended into the brush rather well. One thing I could tell, however, was that he was absolutely massive.

“Firework? Is that you?” The pony asked, taking a few steps in my direction. “It’s me, Turbo! You okay?” he then proceeded to actually gallop through the clearing. Every time a hoof of his hit the ground, it reminded me of some sort of train.

So, Turbo was turned into a pony too? Weird, he didn’t seem to have any wings… oh man, this was going to be a pain in the ass to sort out.

Turbo stopped literally inches from my face, making me flinch. For a moment, I thought he was actually going to crash into me, and that’s definitely the last thing I wanted at the moment. “Oh man! Am I glad I actually found someone! I was starting to get a little lonely, heh...” Turbo reached his forehoof up to the back of his neck for no other reason than to nonchalantly scratch it. Meanwhile, I was at a loss for words.

I simply stared at him, slack jawed. He happened to notice that I was gawking, and a smug grin appeared on his face, his oak-colored eyes wistfully poking through mine. “What? See something you like?”

“...”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, kid.”

Was...was he serious? Was he seriously oblivious to the fact that he was a pony, and that he was also staring at one straight in the face? “No...but I am staring at a huge freakin’ pony right in front of me,” I said, rather bluntly. With that, Turbo raised an eyebrow and looked back down at his body. About two seconds later, from his mouth emitted a loud “oh”, before busting out in an unnecessary bout of laughter.

“Oh yeah! That! I almost forgot,” he chuckled.

Oh my god…please tell me he’s not serious. I was on the verge of having a panic attack, and this guy seriously couldn't give a hoot. I decided that Turbo was the least of my worries right now, I had other questions that needed answering anyways. “Turbo, what the heck happened? Where are we?” I asked Turbo, as a coy smile appeared on his visage. He brought a hoof up to his mouth as he pondered.

“Hell if I know,” he finally responded. I wondered how he could possibly move his forelegs without losing his balance… how did he even manage walking, by the way? I can’t take two steps, but this guy can already gallop. Ugh, I’d figure him out later, but it’s really hard to keep from wondering. “The ship crashed, that I know for sure,”

“Well, no shit.”

Turbo glared at me, which was just enough for me to remember just how much larger than me he was. He was literally double my size, so I made another mental note to watch myself. He wouldn't hurt a defenseless little pony with wings, right?

“Yeah, I’ve been awake for the last hour or so...lemme tell ya, these hooves are pretty hard to use,” I simply nodded in agreement. Obviously, he learns pretty fast. That could be somewhat useful. “I’ve been wandering these woods for a while now. I’m actually on my way over there,”

Turbo proceeded to point off into the distance, straight over the treetops. I had to squint, and it took me a minute to actually realize what I was looking at, which was a black array of smoke billowing from somewhere a few miles away. I immediately understood. It must be from the ship. I had to admit, if I got launched from the ship this far away from the actual crash site, I’m actually surprised that I survived. It’s no wonder that Turbo did, given his rather gigantic frame. Maybe 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall' didn't always apply.

“Whoa…”

“Yep. I’m guessing that anyone from the ship who was actually smart would head there,” Hmm, that’s actually some smart thinking. Turbo may be oblivious, but he’s definitely not stupid.

“Well, I guess we’re just going to have to rendezvous there?” I asked more than actually said, making him wildly nod his head. But that was when I remembered something: I couldn’t walk yet. “Uh, but I don’t know how to walk on these things yet,” I admitted, I started to lift up one of my forelegs, but immediately stopped upon envisioning myself falling face first into the dirt.

“Pfft,” Turbo said, rather rudely. “It’s easy. Just watch me! I figured out how to do it all by myself!” With that, Turbo began to eagerly prance around the clearing, like a little school kid on his first day to class. Now, normally I’d take note on the way he moved his hooves, and how he managed to actually walk. But when he started to literally walk circles around me, it began to make me feel bad. “See? It’s easy!”

After a minute of observing, I decided that I would actually try it for myself. Uneagerly, I lifted up my left foreleg and put set it down a ways in front of me. I was pretty sure that the next leg that I saw Turbo move was his… right hind leg?

Nope, wrong answer.

The second I lifted up that leg, I instantaneously regretted the choice I had made. With a soft plop, I landed face first in the wet soil, smacking my chin and quickly prompting me to groan in distaste. “Ugh…”

Turbo had to keep from chuckling at my failure. “Pfft… uh, I mean, good try! Uh, let’s go again-”

As much as I loved to make a fool of myself in front of someone of which I barely knew, I did not think that learning how to walk was going to come easily. “This is going to take too long!” I said whilst flailing around on the ground like a fish, before actually getting back on all fours. “I think we should worry about meeting up with everyone else instead of wasting time with this,” I argued.

Turbo furrowed his brow after calming himself down. I swear he looked like he was going to have a heart attack from holding in his laughter. “Yeah, that’d make sense. However, you still can’t get there, duh,”

Obviously. I had known that when I had actually said that. Although, I really did not have much of an argument. I needed to learn if I wanted to actually meet up with the others. Turbo noticed my displeasure, and frowned at me. “Here, get on my back, you can learn later. It’s probably not a good idea to simply sit out in the open like this anyways,” Turbo admitted.

The way he worded that brought another thought in my mind: Were we actually alone out there? What else lived in these woods?

I had a horrid feeling resonating in my stomach...

***

In the course of five minutes, Turbo ended up hoisting me over his back, horizontally. I had to admit, it was fairly uncomfortable. I’ll just say this, he had a very consistent spring to his step that almost caused me to fall off more times than I could count. Although I decided not to say anything about it, for I was simply not in the mood to.

The terrain hadn’t shifted a bit as we made our way through the forest. It was still as calm as ever. The wind would shimmy its way through the trees every now and then, and the plants below us danced to the forests’ ginger song. A few birds chirped dazzlingly, flying headlong over the treetops with an ever-flowing grace that couldn’t be rivaled. Well, I did have wings? I sighed, that was completely out of the question.

Turbo appeared to be having next to no trouble carrying me down one of the coincidentally placed trails that we had found. Lucky us, right? It should lead to the crash site...unless the path swerves into another direction entirely. Well, it’s all we had to work with at the time being.

“So…” Turbo suddenly cut the awkward silence between us. “you come here often?” he asked, giving another cheeky grin. I rolled my eyes and attempted to change the topic on my own.

“Honestly, what do you think happened? I can’t remember a single thing from the ship except for a split second when we were crashing,” I explained. Turbo looked up in thought, once again pondering to himself.

“Not much, I actually passed out too…” I could see Turbo’s cheek’s slightly pinkening. “... yeah you see, I have this thing with heights-” It was at that point where Turbo actually cut himself off in an effort to save himself the embarrassment, we may not have known each other long, but he should know that I wasn’t the type to simply belittle him because of his faults.

“Hm, maybe one of the other’s will know,” I mumbled the last part under my breath, making sure that he wasn’t able to hear me. “well, that’s if they even survived,” Yeah, I know it was a little morbid to think about, but you never know. I hope that they all lived through that. I mean, if I did, I was sure that they would as well.

“Speaking of which, random question,” I started, as another thought burrowed its way into my head. “how did you know that I was Firework? I mean, I’m a pony. At first I had no idea who you were…” I said truthfully. I probably would have figured it out fairly quick that he was Turbo by simply looking at his sheer build, but I didn’t bring that up. If I was the first pony he met, how did he know who I was?

“Well, I didn’t at first, until I saw that awesome butt-tattoo of yours! It’s much better looking than mine…” he sighed, turning back to look at his own. Butt tattoo? I -very awkwardly- maneuvered myself so that I could turn to look at my rear. It appeared that Turbo was correct, I had a very weird drawing on my butt. There were three fireworks soaring in the air, actually in the midst of exploding and spouting colors. The first one and the third one was ruby in color, fairly similar to my mane, while the firework in the middle was a navy blue. “Yeah, when I saw it, I just put the pieces together…”

I flicked my tail out of the way so that I could observe Turbo’s tattoo. Might I add that having a tail is extremely weird, however moving the muscles in my posterior that could control the movement of my tail actually came naturally. Anyways, Turbo’s tattoo was way different than mine. There was a simple black triangle, which I found to be rather plain. In the middle of it was a scarlet, crude, arrow that zig-zagged as is ran downwards towards the bottom of the triangle. It was much less detailed than mine…

It kind of made me think...was it a coincidence that my tattoo and my codename went hand in hand? Or the fact that I made fireworks? This was getting complicated. If that was the case, what the Hell did Turbo’s tattoo mean? Power or something? Ugh, I decided not to dwell on it.

After a few more minutes of talking, walking, and some uncomfortable pain in my groin area, Turbo suddenly stopped. “You hear that?” he asked, looking from left to right as I literally saw his ears twitch in various directions. I paused my breathing for a moment as to create less noise for myself. What was it? Was it a monster? Some kind of predator who likes to eat young, semi-defenseless horses!? Oh sweet god, I couldn’t die like this.

It took me a few seconds, but eventually my ears tuned into exactly what Turbo was hearing: some sort of shouting. I looked up into the sky to confirm my suspicions, and yes, we were exceptionally close to the pillar of smoke in the sky. Well, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who it was. The only part that sparked my curiosity was the fact that I didn’t know what they were arguing about. Or who exactly was yelling in the first place. I guess we’d find out in a minute.

“It must be the other group,” I told Turbo, whose ears still continued to twitch around. He thought for a moment, before he nodded.

“Must be! I hope they have food,” Turbo said, as he started to trot towards the sound of the arguing. I felt my stomach rumble just slightly, vibrating against the colossus pony’s spine.

“Psh, me too.”

***

Eventually, Turbo and I finally reached the clearing where the crash site was. Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty in the slightest. I felt my jaw drop just slightly as I stared at the remains of the space ship. It was absolutely torn to bits. Scrap metal, rubber, and glass were strewn about the area, reminding me of one of those find-it books. You could barely even tell that it was even a ship to begin with. It made me slightly nervous, knowing that if I had not gotten launched from the ship, I most certainly would have died.

There were six other ponies at the crash site. I used their butt-tattoo’s in order to figure out who was who. If Turbo figured it out, surely I could do the same.

There were two ponies meekly staring at what was left of the spaceship. A dark green pony with a short, black and emerald mane. It was odd, his mane seemed to literally stand up, as if it was gelled. I noticed the tattoo, and judging by the fact that it was a simple wrench, assumed it to be Jolly Rogers.

Next to him was another similarly colored pony. Instead of dark green, however, he was more of a turquoise and was exceedingly smaller than Jolly. His eyes were very much like the color of his coat, although it was hard to see, as he kept his eyes on the rest of the ship. His mane was longer than Jolly Rogers, however it appeared to be shorter than Turbo’s. The shade of it reminded me of a crow. Obviously, this pony was Nautics. His tattoo made me slightly jealous, as it was way more detailed than mine. It was a shining light bulb, and a leaf. I have no idea from what tree, though. I’m not really a nature expert.

There were four other ponies gathered in a circle in a different part of the clearing, screaming and hollering at each other. Well, I guess I found the culprits. Turbo happily walked over to the group with me in tow, just as curious as I was to find out what was going on.

“What’s going on!? Where the Hell are we?” A very familiar dark brown pony said. Just from hearing his British accent, I could confirm that it was indeed Omega. His butt tattoo was nothing special, it was simply three letters, “A B C”. I think I’m going crazy, but it that a horn on his head? What are those creatures called again? Unicorns or something?

“How are we supposed to know, you idiot?” another voice droned from inside the group. It was a stallion, one that was as white as chalk. His mane was a sharp grey, slightly relative to Turbo’s coat. He still had the navy blue streak in his hair, though I’m not very surprised. Tome’s tattoo was, you guessed it, a tome. I think I’m onto something with these tattoo’s, or paintings. I wonder if they washed off? Strangely enough, Tome was a unicorn thing as well.

There was only one other male that I didn’t identify, and it was painfully obvious as to who it was after looking at his tattoo of playing cards. The three cards, in order, were a ten of hearts, an ace of spades, and a four of clubs. His body was a sickly green, and the back of his dark lavender mane was curled a little bit. Spades was sitting back, listening to the argument that was taking place in front of him. Oh come on! He had a horn also!? What is this!?

“Don’t get all mad at me for simply asking questions! You’re the scientist, you come up with some answers!” Omega yelled, stomping his hoof into the ground. I found it slightly amusing, as he was not very intimidating. If anything he seemed like he was throwing some kind of hissy fit. It was rather adorable.

“I may be a scientist, but that doesn’t mean I understand freak mishaps. I have no clue what happened. If I could take a guess, we went through some sort of wormhole, and then got trapped in this planets gravitational pull.” Tome thought out loud. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. However, I was not sure.

“Well, someone better come up with an idea, fast.” Spades said, finally speaking up. He shook his head just a few moments before, as if he snapped himself out of his thoughts. “We have little food, and water. As well as next to no shelter.”

“Well, the best thing to do is-” a feminine voice started, however it was inevitably cut off.

“That’s what I’ve been getting at! What are we going to do?” Omega asked, abruptly. I heard a small sigh from behind me as Turbo set me on the ground next to the group.

“Oh man, my pills were on that ship…” said a voice of whom I thought was Jolly Rogers. I do not think anyone seemed to hear him except for me. Maybe Nautics, if he happened to be paying attention.

“What’s going on?” Turbo cut into the conversation, opening up the circle so him and I could get involved.

“We’re stranded! That’s what!” said Omega.

“Uh, guys? Hold on just a seco-”

“There’s only one thing to do at a time like this, and that’s work together!” said Turbo, holding a hoof in the air. He received a myriad of tired glances as a response.

“Turbo, first of all, we’re glad to see that you and Firework are safe.” Tome added, finally turning to look at me. I sighed upon realizing that I was the smallest pony in the group. Well, this is great. I had to make sure that I didn’t wobble as I stood, or moved, for that matter. I’m sure they knew about me not being able to walk when they saw Turbo carry me up to them, but I didn’t wish to seem helpless. I didn’t want to be the “baby” of the group. “Second of all, that’s a load of horseshit.”

I almost fell over when I momentarily thought about placing a hoof over my mouth to snicker at Tome’s unintentional pun. I was lucky that I didn’t catch myself off balance.

“Guys?” the feminine voice once again said.

“Tome, you should chill out.” Jolly Rogers said, as him and Nautics finally joined the circle.

“Me? Talk to Omega about being chill. He hasn’t stopped his blabbering ever since he showed up here.” Tome said, pointing over in his general direction.

“Guys!”

“It’s perfectly normal for Omega to be nervous. In fact we should all be, we don’t even know where we are!” I decided to add my two cents just for shits and giggles. Only to have it turn around and bite me in the ass when no one even acknowledged my statement.

“What we need to do is look for help!” Turbo said, looking around the circle amusedly. “We need to find out if we’re the only ones out here or not. What if there are intelligent species here who could help us?”

“Or…” Tome rolled his eyes, disregarding Turbo’s comment almost entirely. “We could salvage what’s left from the crash. I’m sure there’s food that wasn’t destroyed, or even some tools. We could even use the scrap metal to make shelter.”

After that, everyone had something to say. The whole group started to increasingly shout and bicker at each other, constantly trying to one-up the pony next to them in terms of being heard. My head was starting to hurt.

“Goddammit, will you all SHUT UP!?” said the voice from earlier. Immediately, everyone ceased their words as a cherry colored pony stepped into the circle in between Nautics and Turbo. The pony was small, just slightly bigger than I was, and it boasted wings fairly similar to mine. Well, by my calculations, the only pony left of whom I didn’t take note of was Windstrom. Her mane was the longest out of everyone else, and was an impressive, shining blonde. Almost reminding me of sand you would find on the beach. Her eyes were a crazy mix of blue and green, like I could not even describe. They squinted as she realized that she had finally gained the attention of the group. What I didn’t understand was her tattoo, which was a single burning flame.

“Ahem…” Windstrom brought a hoof to her mouth and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but I think you all heard what the general-man said back at the Military Facility: I was in charge.” A few ponies, like Tome and Spades, let out a barely audible groan upon being remembered. To me, it was painfully obvious that they didn’t care about the fact that she had just stated. “I do think that there is a lot of explaining to do, but I do believe that we should set a course of action first. I think that Tome has a point when it comes to salvaging supplies-”

“Are you kidding? Look!” Omega stated, pointing upwards at the smoke billowing into the sky. “Say there are intelligent beings out here. All that smoke is going to draw attention to ourselves. I’m siding with Turbo saying that we should move.” Turbo out a small, high-pitched cry upon hearing this.

“Let’s all vote then. Majority rules.” Windstrom said. Wait, this is her first time to shine as a leader, and the first thing she does is claim “majority rules” on something huge like this? Well that makes a ton of sense. “Omega and Turbo vote to go, Tome and I vote to stay. Anyone else willing to vote?”

There was a small pause before a sigh could be heard from Spades. “I’m siding with Turbo. Omega has a point about the smoke. We don’t want to attract unneeded attention…” Spades glared at Tome, who squinted back at him. Well, we're all here for how many minutes, and already Tome and Spades are quickly becoming enemies. I'm sure they'll get over it eventually.

“That’s two to three.” Windstrom kept score out loud. There were only three of us who still needed to vote: Jolly Rogers, Nautics, and I. I really didn’t wish to vote. I had no idea which to actually vote for, in all honesty. I was bad when it came to decision making.

“Come on, someone say something!” Tome exploded after about ten seconds of silence was heard. This prompted Jolly Rogers to quickly come to a decision.

“I, uh, side with Tome…” Well, that wasn’t biased in the slightest.

“Three to three.”

I looked over at Nautics, who simply shook his head. “I refrain from voting,” he mumbled, looking pathetically down at the ground. Wow, thanks Nautics. Make that statement completely knowing that I would be forced to vote. Leave the biggest decision in the youngest ones hands... hooves.. whatever. The rest of the group turned to me, six pairs of eyes staring at me expectantly. I felt a warm bead of sweat fall from my brow upon realizing.

“You’re the tiebreaker. What’s it going to be?” said Windstrom.

Author's Note

Well, finally an update.

Thanks all for reading! Remember that comments and feedback are greatly appreciated!

Have a good one bros!

-Cyneryk

Just Doubts

Day 1
2:13 PM
“Firework”

I looked around, desperately staring at the group with wide eyes. I hoped and prayed that someone would say something, maybe try and intervene so I wouldn’t have to make such an important decision. To my chagrin, everyone stayed absolutely quiet, and a few members of the group glared at me in anticipation. I did not want to choose sides, that would be the last thing that I would want to do. So instead of trying to come up with a solution, I tried to worm my way out of it.

“Uh, what if we do both? We salvage what we can, and then go?” I asked, hurriedly. Windstrom sullenly shook her head.

“No, Firework. Just choose,” she sighed, losing her patience much like everyone else in the group. I took a few more moments to hesitantly think to myself the best course of action. Well, if we stayed, then we just might attract attention to ourselves, just like Omega was saying. However there was the chance for shelter, using the vast array of scrap metal to our advantage. If only we could put out that smoke though, the best way to do it would be to just put some dirt over it. The smoke should fan out within a matter of an hour or so. Also, I didn’t hear any sort of explosions or whistling earlier. I wonder if my gunpowder, or even a few of my fireworks, made it?

Although, if we leave we have the possibility to enter unwanted territory. But what if there were intelligent species? Maybe they could indeed help us. Or, we could all slowly perish as we tire ourselves out from all the walking. I put the pros and cons together and firmly spoke up, wobbling just slightly. “I...I say that we stay.” Turbo, Omega, and Spades all groaned, while the rest of the group -- save for Nautics -- gave semi-smug grins.

“Firework! What the Hell!?” Spades hollered. “You need to take into conside-”

“Spades, he’s already decided. You were outvoted, deal with it.” Windstrom cut in, slyly getting her revenge for being interrupted earlier. I was very close to impulsively mentioning to Windstrom that being demanding and rude right then really was not the best thing to do. I mean, if we’re going to be out here for a while, then we needed to learn to get along. Was Windstrom the best choice for leader? So far, I’m not too sure. I hoped she proved herself soon, otherwise I fear that other members of the group will try to step up and take over, and there are a few here of which I’d be afraid.

Spades sighed, possibly considering just walking away, but after realizing how much of a horrible idea that was, he stayed put. “Okay, so Jolly Rogers, I want you to go through this wreckage piece by piece and try to see if you can repair the ship,” Windstrom ordered, pointing over to the area mentioned. Jolly Rogers gingerly put a hoof to his forehead and saluted.

“Aye, aye, captain!” he cheered, before moseying off towards the remnants of the ship. I remembered vividly that he packed his toolbox on board, and I was curious as to if it had actually survived.

“Turbo and Spades, you two work on making some sort of shelter. If there are any pieces of scrap metal that Jolly isn’t using, be use to use them,” she continued. Turbo and Spades looked at each other. One pony bore an unamused frown, while the other was gleefully smiling. Part of me thought this was a bad idea. Wasn’t Spades one of the smartest ponies here? Why is he doing manual labor? Spades sighed at both his task, as well as his partner.

“Nautics, Tome, we could use your assistance surveying the area. Search for any sort of water within the nearest two miles. Hurry though, as we can’t put out the smoke until you return.” I was going to ask why, but then I realized. Duh, I’m stupid, they could use it. But then again, so could anyone else. Nautics was more than happy, smiling for the first time since I’ve even met him, to explore the nearby terrain. Tome bit the inside of his cheek, before turning to Spades.

“Wanna trade?”

“Oh god, yes.”

Windstrom sighed, before shaking her head restlessly. “Fine, Tome and Turbo can make shelter, and Spades and Nautics can get water.” I don’t know why she repeated it out loud, maybe it was so she could remember who was doing what better. With that, both groups wandered off to gather their pre-decided supplies in the woods.

“Omega and Firework-”

I fell over.

There was a slight pause as Omega actually had to help me stand up again. “...Uh, Firework you know a lot about fire, does that include smoke?” I scoffed, rolling my eyes playfully. I had a feeling she would use me to take care of the smoke from the ship.

“Of course! All you need is to get rid of the oxygen in the area, and the smoke should dissipate. I would just smother it with dirt, to be honest.” I explained. Windstrom actually seemed entertained by my answer, and she looked at Omega expectantly. The pony in question lifted up a hoof, defensively.

“Omega, since Firework can’t walk, I need you to listen to him to try to get the smoke covered when the groups come back. For now, please try and salvage what you can from the ship and in the clearing.” Omega, pretty okay with his task and the simplicities of it, nodded before heading over to the ship.

I was the only one left. Windstrom turned to me, raising an eyebrow. “Uh, Firework...just keep trying to figure out how to walk…”

Dammit...

***

Day 1
2:45 PM
“Spades”

Well, things could not be going more smoothly. In case you didn’t get it, that was sarcasm. So far this is one of the worst days of my life. I get drafted into some sort of military exploration mission, only to have it go horribly wrong. Now there I was, my body shifted into that of a unicorn, scrounging around the forest in a useless effort to find a source of clean water. I was practically dragging my hooves through the brush. I wasn’t entirely sure if I even cared about finding water. I knew for certain that we needed it. If we didn’t find some water, our group would be in deep trouble, unless some canteens managed to survive the crash, which I deemed highly unlikely to occur.

I was forced to travel with Nautics, the younger guy of whom I don’t know anything about, although I really didn’t care at all to learn more about him. He weirded me out a bit. The way he could go so long without saying a simple word. I was an introvert myself, but this kid takes it to a whole different level.

Part of me was glad that Windstrom made the decision for him to find water. It was said earlier that he was one of the best navigators in the world. This may be new terrain for him, but he was handling it marvelously. We haven’t needed to stop or change directions once. Surely, he knew where the nearest water source would be, if there even were some.

I couldn’t stop my head from hurting every time I tried to make sense of everything that was happening. This was so very surreal, and every moment I could, I inspected my new, unicorn body. Weren’t unicorns...magical? I believed so, as I had read it in a book. I had a wonderful memory, by the way. I can still remember books word by word that I’ve read when I was just a child. My parents called me a prodigy, but I don’t see it as such.

It was only getting more and more awkward between Nautics and I, and as much as I hated to say it, I was dying to get out my thoughts to someone.

“What do you make of this?” I asked, rather suddenly. Nautics perked his head over in my direction, somewhat stunned that I actually opened my mouth. Upon realizing that it was just me, his attention went back to the trail.

“Well, the soil is damp, leading me to believe that there is some sort of water source within the vicinity.” he replied. Not what I meant.

“No, I mean about all of this? About these new bodies, about the crash, about… everything?” I said. I wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase it, so I forced myself to simply wing it. Nautics did not seem to be fazed by my question in the slightest, he just kept walking, with me in tow, through the brush.

“I’m… I’m not too sure,” he said. As the words left his lifts his gaze began to droop lower and lower. “I don’t know what to make of this.” I’ve never noticed how monotonous his voice was. I could tell, however, that he was holding back a decent amount of emotion. I couldn’t tell what, though. Was it anger? Fear? Maybe even a little bit of sadness? I’m sure it didn’t matter at that moment.

A sullen breeze rode through the forest, making me tenderly shiver. I was by no means an outdoorsman, pony, you catch my drift. As you can see, I am much more suited for indoorsy intellectuality. I play cards, indoors. Maybe switching roles with Tome was a bad idea. But then again, I really didn’t want to have to lug around heavy pieces of metal.

God, was he getting on my nerves. Every time he said something, it’s usually a put down. He had the vibe that just screams “leave me alone, I’m better than you”. At least that’s what it seemed like to me. He wanted to be leader? Psh, I had an honest feeling that he would drive this group into the ground if he was given any sort of authority. It’s the exact reason I sided with Omega earlier.

If anything, I deserve to be the leader of this group. I’m most definately the smartest out of everyone. Tome may be a scientist, but not when it came to everything. He may know a little about one field in particular, but that’s it. I’m definately more qualified than him, and I hope Windstrom understands that also. If Windstrom, for some reason or another, needs to hand the role of leader to someone else, it better be me. I’m not sexist in the slightest, but she really didn’t seem like “leader” material.

Another thing, I wondered if my playing cards managed to survive the crash? When I was on the ship, one of the dumbass soldiers requested that I put them away during the flight, to which I obeyed. However, when I woke up, they were nowhere to be found. I suppose unicorns do not have pockets, so I wondered where exactly they could be. I searched all around where I woke up, but I did not find a single card. That was my favorite deck, also. It was vintage! Made in 1983 and used by various historical poker players.

I habitually flicked my mane, as a small strand of it would annoyingly appear within my peripheral vision. “How close are we?” I asked, thinking of something rather important. “How are we going to carry the water anyways?” I’m sure I could quickly come up with something myself, but I was curious as to what the adventurer had planned himself.

“Not too far now…” he sighed. It’s a wonder that he hadn’t needed to stop and catch his breathe yet. For a little bit, I felt like passing out, but I had to keep forcing myself to forge on. I noticed that he didn’t answer my second question, so I just dropped it. If he didn’t have an idea when we got there, then I would myself.

Sigh, I just hope that this will be over with soon.

It was literally a few minutes later when we actually stumbled upon something great. Nautics looked mighty pleased with himself, as I let out an impressed chuckle. We stumbled upon a grand lake, full of water so pure, so clean, that I could see the bottom of it from twenty feet away. Never, ever, has there been a body of water on Earth that produced such clear water. “Whoa, you really know your stuff don’t you?”

Nautics didn’t reply, he simply smiled out towards the lake. I could see the sun high in the sky, giving me the impression that it was roughly around three or four o’clock. That kind of made me worried, knowing that we were most likely going to have to sleep in an unknown place, but I put my fear aside. I was going to have to deal with it.

“We should probably hurry, it’s going to become dark in a few hours.”

“On it!” Nautics said.

***

Day 1
3:04 PM
“Turbo”

Ahh! Such a bright and shining day! I mean, this place was absolutely gorgeous. This isn’t anything like I would have expected another planet to be! I don’t know about anyone else, but I love to switch things up, I enjoy the smell of adventure!

Tome and I have been instructed to work on making shelter using various amounts of scrap metal, leaves, twigs, anything we could find really. Tome was doing most of the architectural designing, while I kind of played to role of a tow truck, hauling all the materials that were too heavy for him to carry. Anything to help!

Tome came up with the idea that we should create eight little teepees for everyone, as he really did not wish to share. I pondered that thought, deeply. When I think about it too, I’d much rather sleep alone at night. But then again, that’s also a lot more supplies that we need. Frankly, Jolly Rogers needed every single piece of the ship so he can try and put it back together. However, the more he worked, the more frustrated he became. I didn’t really think he’s having very much luck…

“But that’s so much more stuff I have to carry!” I whined, not entirely pleased. Just because I was the biggest here doesn’t mean that I liked to carry extremely heavy bits of metal. I had made a small pile of pieces in the middle of the clearing so they’ll be easy to move around later. Next to that pile, was another one that was much larger, but it was of sticks and shrubs. Tome sighed, tiredly.

“Turbo, you’re here for physical support. Don’t complain and just do it…” he said. He cracked his neck, surveying the area as if he was doing some kind of formulas in his head. “Okay, if we do eight smaller kind of huts, about seven by ten, then I think that might just be enough. Although, we’re going to have to make one of them eight by twelve, because of your size…”

I took pride in that.

I looked over to take notice of the rest of the camp, although there really wasn’t much going on. Jolly Rogers was still pounding on some of the metal with a hammer, apparently trying to get some kind of dent out of it without much luck. Windstrom and Omega were salvaging multiple things from the ship. I’m actually surprised with how much food they deemed still good to eat. They actually formed a decent sized pile with it.

Then there was Firework, that kid was still trying to figure out how to walk. It was actually pretty adorable, seeing how he would take two steps and proceed to fall over. He’s getting better though, that’s for sure. My guess is that, since he’s a much younger pony, his legs are still frail, like that of a fawn. Weird, he doesn’t appear to be a colt, although he is young. Once he learns how to walk, it’ll become easy though.

I know a lot about horses, don’t judge me.

“Turbo!” Tome snapped next to me. I jerked back to attention, turning to look back at Tome who had apparently been trying to get my attention for the last few minutes. When he was sure I was listening, he sighed and shook his head. “Did you hear a word I just said?”

I struggled to think back and recovered the information of which I really didn’t hear. Turning a slight crimson, I winged it. “Uh, well, you said that there are… many things to build, with… metal and stuff. And that-”

“Turbo!”

“I love you?”

Tome smacked his forehead, and I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. Come on! A little humor never did anyone any wrong! If no one else is going to lighten the mood then just leave it to me. I didn’t mind, I had plenty of jokes anyways. “Just… just… let’s start building.” Tome said, walking over to the pile of metal scraps. Without saying another word, I smiled and followed him.

***

I’m not really sure how long it took, but the sun was definitely starting to set by the time we had actually began to finish. Spades and Nautics had both long returned, hoisting water in some sort of hand (hoof?) made baskets made from some type of algae and plant stems. I was not sure, I didn’t get too much of a good look at it. Omega took the liberty to smother the smoke with dirt, causing the billowing pillar of smoke to finally dissipate into the air. About time, that smoke could have actually been the death of us had any predators or intelligent species noticed it. However, I didn’t think there are many…. things, out there. Nautics and Spades both traveled about two miles out, and the only thing they saw were strangely colored birds that didn’t pose a threat.

Tome and I started pridefully at our work, eight different freestanding huts. One of them was excessively larger, take a guess as to whom that one belonged too? They were very boxlike in shape, but no one was really complaining. To be kind of honest, they looked pretty ugly, there were holes all around due to the fact that we were unable to move or fold the metal, but it’ll still keep things like the rain out. All of the huts lacked a door, there was only a hole. Oh well, better than nothing.

I wiped a tear from my eye. “They’re...they’re so beautiful…”

“Shut up, Turbo,” said Tome, walking away.

***

Day 1
4:14 PM
“Shining Armor”
Canterlot Castle

I strode through the Canterlot castle with a very familiar frown on my face. The bags under my eyes were so heavy that they seemed to be weighing me down. Just another day for the Captain of the Royal Guard. As much as I loved my job, sometimes it was a real pain in the butt. I haven’t slept at all in the past three days due to copious amounts of paperwork that I had to complete. It’s never-ending, I tell you.

I practically dragged myself down the hallway to the Princess’ throne room, my head low and my eyes half open. I’d fix my composure when I got closer to the Princess, for now I decided to just have this moment.

For some reason, the Princess called me down from my paperwork so I may speak with her about something that wasn’t entirely specified. Well, when duty calls, I guess. It’s not like I could just say no. I was just so tired, though. Part of me hoped that she wasn’t going to give me another assignment. Perhaps I may actually try and get some sleep tonight.

“Shining Armor? You okay?” a gruff feminine voice next to me called. I turned my head to see that my second in command, Rapier, right at my side, as always. Her voice poked the air like a sewing needle. I wasn’t sure if she was just speaking entirely too loud, or if my sleepiness was just getting in the way again. “You don’t look so hot,”

I shook my head, desperate to look just a little more presentable as we began to approach the large doors in the distance. “Uh, yes. I’m fine. Just tired.” As you could tell, I wasn’t really in the mood for speaking. Rapier furrowed her brow, sighing. My sagging body subtly reminding her to straighten hers.

“You might wanna buck up, or at least look like you’re not going to pass out.”

Rapier was a mare of strength, if I said so myself. She was young, but she had a bounce in her step that shone of confidence and determination. That’s what I liked about her, and why she’s currently my second in command. I could have picked anyone in the great nation of Equestria, and I stand by my decision to choose her. When it comes to work, she’s always by my side. My only problem would be that dumb attitude of hers...

With a shake of her head, she flipped her unnecessarily long, muddy-colored mane so it hung on the other side of her body, away from me. “Yeah, will do…” I said. Both her mane and her tail were tied back in some sort of impressive looking ponytail. I was not one for fashion, but it suited her well.

Two guards opened the doors for the both of us, slyly eying us up as we walked through the door. I had half a mind to tell them off, but I didn’t. I was much too tired to do anything about it. Walking across the carpet, we came upon another familiar sight, Princess Celestia.

She stood tall, her back arched at it usually was. She wasn’t even sitting at her throne, she stood in the middle of the room, as if she had been impatiently waiting. Well, she probably was. Shaking all the sleepiness out of my system, Rapier and I made our way over to the her, a pair of white and sapphire bodies, to be exact.

“Princess, we came as soon as we heard you requested us.” I announced as our duo did a slight bow. As much as I knew Rapier hated doing it, formalities must be kept. Princess Celestia let out a kind smile in our direction. It was so strange, some ponies were entirely afraid of anything having to do with the Princess’. Once you got to know Celestia and Luna, they kind of become like second mothers. There are two sides, it seemed. A side that reigns and harbors spectacular leadership, and one that is excessively kind and caring. Most of the time, she was a mix, but I don’t complain.

“Shining Armor, Rapier, it’s great to see you two again.” she said. Great to see me? Obviously, the matter of which Celestia brought me down here for must not be that important if that’s how she’s currently feeling. Then again, I could be wrong.

“You too, Princess Celestia.” Rapier and I both replied, simultaneously. My eyesight was beginning to lose focus, so I was forced to blink multiple times so that I may focus on the regal Princess in front of me. I must have been exceedingly obvious, as she managed to call me out on it.

“Shining Armor… are you alright?” she asked. I was about to reply, but Rapier stepped in for me.

“He’s been up for a while doing paperwork, it’s only natural that he would be tired.” Celestia looked downwards, but kept her original comment to herself as she pondered another thought. Hm, a little strange, even for her.

“Shining, I had a task in mind for you,” Internally, I sighed. At any other point in time, I would be excited, more than happy to serve the princess and all of Equestria. However, now is just not one of those times. In all honesty, I just wanted to take a nap. I can practically feel my cool pillow pressed up against my face. “in Everfree forest, natives could see some sort of smoke rising from one of the deepest parts of the forest.” Smoke? Weird, believe it or not, we don’t have very many things that produce smoke. Maybe some kind of blimp or balloon crashed or something, or maybe it’s just someone trying out smoke signals. I nodded to the Princess, wobbling a little bit as I did so.

“You got it, Princess!” I announced. I could see the mare next to me frown as she saw me begin to toddle off. I felt a cold hoof on my shoulder hold me back from moving, almost making me trip over myself.

“Princess, Shining Armor is obviously not capable enough to handle this mission,” Rapier said, turning back to look at her with large, amber eyes. Uhm, excuse me? I was more than qualified and ready to do this mission!

Oh, who was I kidding, I was a mess…

“Rapier-” Surprisingly, Rapier actually cut Celestia off. What the heck has gotten into her? There things you could do to the Princess, and things you couldn’t. You’d think she would’ve studied up on those. I sure did, once or twice the hard way, even.

“Celestia, if there is no one else, I would be more than happy to take responsibility for the investigation.” I was wide-eyed now. Definitely wide awake. I wasn’t sure of what to call this. Either Rapier was taking some sort of pity on me, which I really didn’t appreciate, or she’s using this to her advantage. Nonetheless, Celestia was more amused than insulted.

“Rapier, you are Shining Armor’s second in command, a novice to be exact. Why should I let you take charge?” Celestia asked, however her directness did not faze Rapier in the slightest.

“Because, I deserve a chance. Let me show you, and Shining, and everyone else in this castle that I deserve to be here.” Wait, what did that mean? Deserve to be there? Of course she deserved to be there! What would make her think otherwise? Sometimes on our routine patrols, I see some guards snicker or scoff behind our backs, but I do not believe it was not because of me, but her. You see, having higher ranked guards, especially a second in command, that is female is a very rare thing in the castle. I stood up tall and said my words with grace:

“Celestia, I think this may be a good idea, in all honesty.” I said. Rapier smiled at me, pleased with that fact that I was actually on her side. Celestia looked at me, then Rapier, and then the ceiling before letting out a royal sigh. Maybe I underestimated just how tired she was.

“Alright, Rapier. Please, do investigate, then…”

***

Day 1
10:32 PM
“Firework”

Why?

It was the only question that ran through my head for the rest of the evening. Why? Why did this happen? There are so many other ways this all could have happened. We could have actually reached our destination in the ship, and not crashed. We could have all painfully died. Why did fate choose this course, instead of that least traveled by? I don’t know if there is a higher power out there, or if the world is simply dominated things such as fate, karma, and chance, but right now I decided to just forget them both. At this point, they were both just meaningless.

We’re stuck here, and while I was practicing my walking I finally realized it. My mind had been numb for the first few hours, still ridden with nausea after waking up from the crash. Now, however, I’ve awoke into a possible nightmare. There were eight of us, strangers, stuck in some sort of different world. What were we going to do? How would we survive? I didn’t want to die here, I didn’t want to die at all! I did not go through Hell on Earth just so I could die miserably in a place of which I’d rather not be.

I sat in the middle of the clearing with seven other bodies, all huddled around a campfire that, unsurprisingly, I had to make. It was incessantly crackling, somberly gaining in intensity as the wind only provided fuel for it to grow.

We all sat in a circle, staring at the fire. None of us spoke. Inside, we were all lost in thought. I let out a soft yawn, a little leery to disturb the peace that had finally been brought upon us. Luckily, I had not been the one to break the silence, as Jolly Rogers was slowly losing his patience, surcumbing to the awkwardness.

“So… pretty interesting day, am I right?” he said over the rich cackling of the fire. No one replied. Everyone stayed silent, most of us looking down at the ground. Well, except for Tome, who was busy reading that one fancy book he had been reading in the military facility earlier. Surprisingly enough, it hadn’t gotten eviscerated in the crash. Which reminded me, neither did my gunpowder, thank God. Imagine my excitement when Omega cantering up to me with it in his hoof. It’s strange, I didn’t take much for gunpowder to explode, so you could correctly guess that I was curious about why it didn’t. Oh well, at least I had it. I needed to make it count, as I doubted I could find the right materials to make more in this environment.

After doing all of our duties, we learned a few valuable things. The ship was unrepairable, even for Jolly Rogers. The metal was all molded and bent, and without some sort of melting pot, he couldn’t bring them back to their original shape. We only had about four days worth of food, even if we split it generously. However, most are in cans. Unless we find a can-opener somewhere, or figure something else out, we’re kind of screwed in that department.

Nautics and Spades did a good job getting all the water. Apparently there was a magnificent lake about a mile out that harbors clean water. Must be the same source of water from the stream I drank from earlier. Or that’s what I hoped, at least.

It must have been about twenty minutes until someone else opened their mouth. “Do you think we’ll ever get out of here…?” Nautics asked, rather meekly. He lied on his belly, staring nervously around the circle that we had formed. In an effort to actually not leave someone hanging, I opened my big mouth.

“Who knows? Surely someone will send help eventually,” I told him. Nautics frowned, looking down at the dirt. Apparently, that answer had not made him feel any better. Thinking back on it, I probably would have been upset as well. I noticed Tome about to open his mouth, but instead, he grunted and went back to his book.

“It’s not like NASA will just let a huge spaceship go off the map without so much as a search party, right?” I wasn’t sure if Windstrom was serious, or if the realizations were finally starting to creep upon her. It was that comment that made everyone go quiet again, confirming Windstrom’s fears.

A few moments later, Turbo’s ears poked up. Oh boy, I wondered what it was this time. “Hey, you guys got any good jokes?” Half of the group stared bewildered at him while a few, including me, were mildly smiling. Looking at the various facial responses, Turbo sat on his haunches, clasping his hooves together as if he was a mad genius. “Okay, what’s a karate experts favorite beverage?” There was another silence among us, before someone finally responded to Turbo’s question.

“What is it?” Jolly Rogers asked.

“Kara-tea!”

So there everyone sat, staring at the extremely dumb smile on Turbo’s face as he anticipated everyone’s laughter. One by one, a few ponies began to crack up, sniggering quietly as Turbo readied his next joke.

“Did you hear about fire at the circus?”

This time, I chirped up, a bright smile on my face as I called over to him. “No, what about it?”

“It was pretty in tents!”

Upon hearing the crude joke, I bursted out into a controllable laughter, throwing my head backwards, as well everyone else. Even Spades and Tome couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I got one!” Omega said, finally speaking up for the first time in the last few hours. “What did the plate say to the other?”

“What did it say?” said a voice of whom I didn’t figure out, however it was strained, as if they couldn’t stop laughing for two seconds to actually say what needed to be said.

“Lunch is on me!”

With that, everyone erupted into laughter, verbally exploding at how dumb the jokes were. I guess that what tends to make them funny. We spent the next hour simply going around the circle, sharing horrendous amounts of bad jokes, and practically dying upon hearing them.

It was a good night, surprisingly. I hadn’t expected to go to sleep with a smile on my face. We had all dispersed a little while before what I believed to be midnight into one of the huts scattered around the clearing, becoming quaint neighbors with both Windstrom and Spades. How grand.

For a while, it was a sleepless night. Horrors had a way to find themselves back in my mind, but I managed to push them out. Even after all the laughing and such, I was still scared. I was afraid that we would never get out. As much as it surprised me to say it, I wanted to go home. I wasn’t even sure if I trusted the ponies around me, well, except Turbo.

As more thoughts clouded my mind, sleepiness began to do the same.

Sterling

Day 3
9:34 am
“Firework”

Well, two full days had passed since our initial, uh, crash, and we were rearing up on the third morning. How great. It’s only been about 72 hours, but it almost feels like an eternity.

It took much longer than it should have for everyone to realize exactly what was going on, and that no one knew what the future would hold. For that reason, things had been plenty tense around the makeshift camp we forged. I guess ‘tense’ isn’t the right word for it, more like everyone had their own approach to coping, including me.

I had barely slept at all during the past few nights. I might have gotten about four hours of rest, and another four of just tossing and turning. Lying on my side as a horse was very nerve-wracking, as I had learned that horses are not supposed to sleep like that. If a pony sleeps on their side, their organs get all jarbled or something, and it can be potentially fatal. I can’t remember where I learned that, or if it was actually true. However, seeing as I am still alive, I guess that rule didn’t apply here.

The ground in this area is riddled with tiny little rocks and stones also, which constantly poked into my chest no matter how I slept. Luckily there is a small spot of soft grass in my shelter, so I guess that I made a decent choice when it came to picking huts the first night.

Other former humans were not doing as well as I was, if you could even say that. Tome, for example, is beginning to get on my nerves. I’m not a person who gets annoyed easily, but Tome had a thing for negativity. If someone was trying to do something, such as make a fire or gather wood, you best believe Tome would be there to say something about it.

Yesterday, I was the one tasked with making the fire, again. It honestly seemed that until I could learn to walk, that would be all I was good for. To my undying excitement, I didn’t have to move around to do it. Anyways, whilst making said fire how I normally would, Tome approached me from behind, scaring the absolute wit out of me.

“Trying to make a fire, I see?” he asked, sullenly. His voice was darkened and abnormal. Tome seemed to be on the verge of depression, or he was just fairly good at hiding his emotions. His eyes flickered every time I looked into them. He stared down at me, making me want to shrink back into that little ball of which I was so accustomed to. I shook my thoughts away.

“Trying? When it comes to fire, I never just try,” I chuckled. Tome simply stared at me, his eyes not moving. I gulped a little bit. When he didn’t reply, I mentally shrugged and went back to doing what I had done best. After a few minutes of silently watching, Tome shook his head.

“You’re not doing it right,” he criticized. I almost knocked over the firewood in surprise. As soon as Tome saw me stumble, he jumped at the opportunity. “Here, let me do it,” with a large shove, Tome knocked me flat on my side so that he could attempt to try and do it himself. I proceeded to wiggle around on my side, desperately trying to get back on my belly. By the time I had managed to swing myself up, Tome was almost moving around firewood.

“Tome, what the Hell?” I squeaked, rather embarrassingly. I tried to lean over so I could shove him away, even managing to put my hooves on the side of his body for extra power. I was not as strong as I would have hoped, as the stallion only moved a few centimeters. Tome scowled, but refused to say anything.

“I’m trying to get this done. Maybe if you’d stop taking your sweet ass time, or just make a damn fire correctly, I wouldn’t have to intervene,” his tone was monotonous, to the point that it honestly scared me. His eyes appeared dead to the world, but then again, I couldn’t remember if they looked like that before.

“I just started! I’m the fire expert here! Let me do my job! It’s not like I can do much else, anyways!” I fought back, pushing against Tome a little bit more. Once again, he didn’t budge. It was true, I honestly started making the fire about ten minutes ago, and it’s going to take a little bit, since none of my equipment survived the crash. Well, except for my gunpowder, but that was a horrid idea to begin with.

“Then let me make the fire, and you can use this time to learn how to walk. Problem solved,” he replied, not taking his eyes away from the job in front of him. I tried to open my mouth, but I had no real comeback for that. What he had said did make sense, it’s just that that’s not what I had wanted to do. I got off of my belly and actually managed to stand.

“No!” I shouted like a child. “It’s my job to make the fire, and everything was fine until you showed up!” By this point, Tome and I had managed to capture the attention of a few other former humans. Most of them pretended not to notice.

“You’re starting to annoy me,” I felt my a silent rage build up inside me, but I held it back. “Kid, we don’t need your help. You don’t think other ponies here know how to make a simple fire? Go make yourself useful somewhere else,” Another moment of clarity finally hit me. I barely knew this guy, and already I knew that this guy was not someone I wanted to hang around for long.

“So that’s it? I’m the youngest here, so you automatically deem me useless? I know how to do something better than you, and that makes me some kind of villain to you?” I argued, throwing my hoofs in the air. Tome had gone back to fiddling with the wood, however he wasn’t trying to start up the first. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that he was much more interested in this argument itself.

“No, I never said any of that,” I paused my inner wrath to raise an eyebrow. “What I said is that you should go on and do something else. If making a fire takes you so goddamn long, when I could make one in the matter of a few minutes, then why are you wasting everyone’s time?” I pursed my lips as I dug my hooves into the ground. How dare he say I’ve been wasting everyone’s time? Making fires and fireworks had been my livelihood for most of my actual life! I went into this trip feeling somewhat important, and with one false statement he managed to take that away. I wanted to smack my hoof across his face so badly, but I reevaluated my size and his and deemed that a horrible idea. Before I had another chance to say anything, a dark brown body wandered in between us, and that familiar British accent was apparent.

“Tome, let the poor boy be. He was simply minding his own business before you stomped along,” Omega said. As quickly as the pony entered the conversation, he sauntered off again. Tome looked at me, and I returned his gaze. We had a slight stare down before Tome let out a small scoff, and stood back up.

“Fine, have it your way.”

With some kind of bemused grin, he walked away. I was more than relieved, but I felt a little bad for actually yelling at him. He did have no right to shove me, or say that I was doing a bad job. The conversation between us didn’t last long, but I couldn’t be more thankful for that. I didn’t want to get in a fight with him, physically or vocally. Before I knew it, Tome was sitting down in his hut, reading his book and being a gigantic hypocrite. I didn’t complain. I just hoped that he learned a thing or two.

Today was a bright new morning, and another night complete with not enough sleep. Oh well, I was sure that it would get easier in time. Once I got used to sleeping in this new body, or place, for that matter. When I actually had fallen asleep, I wanted no part of anything else, just my slumber. Once I found my peace, there was no way anyone was going to take that away from me. As I snored away, there was a knock on my hut.

“Geht owwwwt!” I mumbled, my face pressed against the soft grass and disfiguring my words. There wasn’t even a door in my shelter, if someone really wanted to talk to me then they could just walk inside.

Another knock. I subtly shook the sleep from eyes before I opened them. I lifted up my head so my words could no longer be distorted. My throat was horrendously dry, so even still my voice was cracked.

“Who is it…?” I lolled my tongue out of my mouth so that I could actually begin to salivate again. I really needed some water, and I was more than happy that he had such a great supply of it. I wonder if we had enough food left for breakfast…

“Firework, it’s me,” a feminine voice poked through the serenity of the hut, making me want to grab my head in protest. I saw a cherry red body, and put the pieces together. Everything was a complete blur, and I slammed my head back down on the ground. I was going to need to take a shower after this, but I really didn’t care. Windstrom put a hoof on the side of the opening to the hut and leaned in a little bit. “Oh, good, you’re awake.”

“Well, ain’t that great to know,” I grumbled. This had better be important. Windstrom wandered inside of the hut, which I realized was a very awkward idea. To me, the hut was rather large, but that was because of my size. To Windstrom, it was the size of a playhouse. To my disdain, she lied on her belly on the other side of the cramped hut. Apparently, she wasn’t much for personal space. However, as long as she stayed over there, I can’t accuse her of child harassment.

Doing my best not to be rude, I lifted my head off of the dirt again and gave a half-cheeky grin. “Can I help you, miss?” Windstrom rolled her eyes.

“No, not really,” Windstrom sighed. I squinted at her in disbelief as she proceeded to simply lie there, unaware of just how weird and awkward that this situation looked. She inspected the hut, starting from the floor and ending at the ceiling. If it wasn’t for her bright mane and tail, the darkness of the hut could have easily hidden her. A few more uncomfortable moments wandered by.

“Uhm, you know, if someone walks in here, they’re going to ask questions…” I muttered with a grin.

“Shut it,” she deadpanned. I couldn’t tell if the gruffness in her voice was because of the lack of sleep, the inane amount of stress, or because she found what I said to be slightly annoying. She had been on top of everyone lately, making sure that everyone has been keeping busy doing something. Sometimes she asked for others to gather water, or survey the surrounding area, or even look around for food.

We’ve only been here for about three days, and already Windstrom was beginning to look worn. Perhaps she just needed to rest. If I were her, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all. I’d be plotting just what needed to get done the next day, or everyone’s course of action. I don’t know if she realizes this, but since she’s in charge, we’re all looking at her when it came to proper guidance.

“Jeez, sorry,” I dipped my head a little bit. When I failed to gain a response, I went on. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing in here? It’s gotta be like five in the morning…” I complained. Windstrom eyes shot towards me.

“It’s ten in the evening,” she chided. “Somehow, Omega found his watch in the wreckage, and it still worked. Apparently days are also 24 hours here, just like on Earth. Great, huh?” I could tell already that Windstrom was not one for science, but I didn’t say anything about it. Surely, she would not take that comment kindly.

“Right…” I trailed. Windstrom cocked her head, before she finally caught on.

“Oh, yeah. Well, to be honest you’re the only normal pony in the group,” Windstrom replied, lightly punching me in the shoulder.

“Pony? We’re humans, remember?” I said. Windstrom shook her head, waving her blonde mane to and fro. It was already ragged enough, but that certainly didn’t help. It was a miracle that I kept mine looking so good.

“Not anymore,”

There was a slight pause. For the sake of actually having my first conversation with one of these ponies, I decided to start asking questions. “Well… what do you mean when you say I’m the ‘only normal pony’ in the group?” I raised my hooves and flexed them when I said those three key words, as if they were quotes. I kept forgetting that I didn’t have fingers. Did you know how hard it was to hold things!? It’s like trying to balance stuff on a beach ball.

“I guess normal isn’t the right word,” she admitted. She rested a hoof on her chin. “I guess that’s the thing. No one in this group is normal…” I wasn’t much for gossip, but my curiosity and unnecessary craving for interaction was mind controlling me.

“Yeah, I guess so. I barely know these, uh, ponies. A few of them I could actually consider a friend, while others…” I refrained from saying names for a reason, however Windstrom was less than subtle.

“I know what you mean. Spades and Tome are just weird. The way Tome acted towards you was just rude, and I wanted to beat up him for it,” I held back a scoff. I honestly doubted that Tome would lose to her in a fight, but boy would that be fun to watch.

“I don’t even know what Spades was up to yesterday…” I added. Windstrom nodded her head. “All those… new facts?” I did a mini-flashback one what had exactly happened and what Spades had talked about yesterday.

Spades was definitely odd, but definitely less creepy than Tome. Ever since Spades had found his cards, which he found scattered about a mile away from the crash, that was mainly what he had been playing around with. It was strange how he could fiddle with cards for hours on end and not get bored. I had the attention span of a goldfish when it came to things that didn’t interest me like that.

Spades had also been doing some kind of experiments. Spades managed to figure out that since he, Omega, and Tome were all unicorns, that they were able to harness some kind of magical energy through their horns.

“But… but magic doesn’t exist?” Turbo stated, immediately after Spades had made the announcement.

“Au contraire,” Omega interrupted, more than eager to hear what the genius had to say. Well, I had wings, so I could really care less. Who needs magic -- even if it did exist -- when you could fly around? Granted, I still had to learn, but I think walking was further up on my list of things to do than that. “Let the chap explain,”

“Thank you,” Spades flipped a lock of his mane out of the way, so that he could see everyone entirely. “You see, there appear to be three types of ponies here,” Spades looked back over at Omega, who seemed to be in on his little presentation.

“Yes! They include pegasus, which is what Firework and Windstrom are,” Windstrom and I looked at each other, before I saw her hoof-bump the air in excitement. “They’re basically ponies who have the ability to fly, obviously. Then there are uh, regular ponies. It’s pretty sad, honestly. They seem to lack wings or magic, but according to my observations they appeared to be much stronger than the other two kinds…”

Nautics, Jolly Rogers, and Turbo all perked up. “Well, that ain’t hard to figure out.” Turbo exclaimed. He lifted up a single foreleg and kissed it, like a regular human would his bicep. Spades rolled his eyes and continued for Omega.

“Well, here’s the thing: if you were strong on Earth, you’re about three times that now,” Turbo squeaked. Jolly Rogers almost seemed to stare off into space, while Nautics appeared to be unconcerned. I guess they really didn’t care what they were. The look on Turbo’s face was unnerving, as he looked like he was going to barrel through the nearest tree just to test out Spades’ hypothesis.

“Then, there’s unicorns. Like pegasus, they’re from mythical greek folklore, and are able to harness different kinds of magic through their horns,” explained Spades. “I have yet to access it, but I know for sure that it is entirely possible,”

Tome was extremely unamused, and flicked his tail boredly. “So, what does this all mean, and why does it even matter?” he asked. A few other ponies nodded in agreement, including me. I didn’t get it, why exactly was he telling us this?

“We need to study up, just in case. We need to figure out how our new bodies work. What if we come in contact with civilization and we don’t even know what kind of species we are?” explained Spades.

“You really think that there might be civilization out there?” I asked, snapping Windstrom out of a small daze. Apparently she had been lost in thought as well. After a moment of pondering, she shook her head.

“Dunno,” she sombered. “You never know about these kinda things. It’s my first time in this world too, ya know,” something about her kind of startled me. Perhaps it was just that she could so easily manage to be so sarcastic and sad at the same time. That’s probably just who she was, and I couldn’t blame her for it. I was trying my best to be upbeat during all this as well.

“Windstrom, are you okay?” I asked, rather suddenly. Windstrom was slightly taken aback by my sincerity, but I could tell that she didn’t mind my asking. If anything, asking that question could almost never do any harm.

“Hm? Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“Oh, uh, you just seem a little… stressed?” I replied truthfully. Windstrom bit the inside of her cheek before letting out a small cackle of amusement.

“Duh, ‘course I am. Trying to figure out our next course of action is always hard. If you make one small screw up one of us could end up dead,” she blinked, as if something had just recently come back to her. “Yeah, and don’t call me Windstrom. I hate that name. If I have to go by a nickname, just have it be Windy. Sounds just a little more badass, right?”

I smiled lightly.

My ears perked upwards as a few voices rang outside of the hut. A few of the voices were exceptionally loud, and I wondered if there was some kind of argument occurring. Windy took this as her moment to leave, and an excuse to get back to her duties. “I’ll take that as my cue to go,” she stated, lifting herself off of her belly. She wandered over to the makeshift door in the hut, but before she exited, she turned around.

“Nice chat,”

***

Day 3
11:03 am
“Jolly Rogers”

Oh no.

As everyone knows, being stuck in this weird new land was definitely not what was supposed to happen. We were supposed to land… uh, somewhere else. You know, I can’t really remember the original plans. Actually, what was the whole point of this?

Either way, we’re stuck, disoriented and confused.

Over the last few days, I’ve been feeling incredibly useless. I mean, my one talent is fixing things -- patching up the ship without any of my tools is downright impossible. So what am I supposed to do? Normally, it’d be a cinch. But of course, most of my tools got strewn about in the crash, and the metal of the ship is so warped that it’s impossible to fix without a melting pot.

So, what am I supposed to do now? Everyone else seemed to be doing alright. Tome and Spades were hard at work doing some kind of studying. They’ve been doing some kind of experiments on themselves, and our new bodies. Mine of which I’d actually been taking a liking to. I’m freaking green! How awesome is that!?
Turbo and Nautics had been working together for a little while. Nautics would occasionally go out to search for food, while Turbo would usually help bring whatever they had back to camp, which usually wasn’t much. I should really get to know Turbo, he seems rather hilarious. Maybe he could help me.

I stood behind the wreckage of the ship. Luckily for us, the smoke and fire were no longer around, so I deemed the area safe. Due to my unnecessary boredom, I decided to task myself in continuing to work on the ship. I knew it was a lost cause, but it passed the time to fiddle with things. I sat on my haunches, and stared down at the bright orange pill bottle in front of me. My name was plastered on it with big bold letters -- my real one, not this stupid nickname.

Why me? I kept wondering this over the last few days, and I was sure it was a common question among everyone else. The general took a liking to me in that one room -- saying that he would be honored to have me in the army. First off, there is no way in Hell that that would be happening. Besides, I had my own life to live. Why would I restrict my life by going to war and fighting a battle that we wouldn’t win? Being in America was practically a death sentence anyways. Secondly, I’m sure there are other mechanics in the army. If I was seriously the only one, then that’s kind of sad. Tanks aren’t that difficult to make, so that fact was downright ridiculous to use as an argument.

I felt so lonely, and I didn’t know why. We’ve only been here for three days, and it already seemed that friends were being made. I see Windstrom and Firework chatting all the time, this morning even. But not me. No, no one wants to take out the time to be my friend. They deem me as weird. Speaking of Firework, I saw the way he stared at me back in that strange army room. I sat directly next to him, and he wasn’t exactly subtle about noticing my occasional twitching. It’s just something that I couldn’t help! I guess I really couldn’t get mad at him though, he probably just viewed me as another guy in the same boat that he was.

I let out a soft sigh as I picked up the tiny bottle in my hooves, and gave it a small shake. The hollow, high pitched sound that emitted from it made me a little nervous. I figured that I only had a few days worth left until I was screwed. With a low grumble, I popped off the cap and downed a single pill. Normally, I had water to wash it down, but I didn’t worry about it. I just used my own saliva as a replacement.

The pill scratched my dry throat on the way down, causing me to shiver. I had never liked taking the pills, but they were more than necessary. My condition was nothing to joke about, and if everyone found out, I would be deemed not exactly useless, but more of a burden instead. Not knowing where to stick my pills, I thrusted the bottle into the tuft of my mane. For some reason, my mane was much more full than everyone elses, and I realized that it was actually thick enough to hold things. Nifty, eh? It’s like my own little satchel!

There was a sound behind me that wracked my ears, mimicking that of fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. In this case, however, it was a pony scratching warped metal. I jumped in the air like a scared cat, before I turned around. Apparently, I scared them back, as my only response was a small ‘yelp’.

“Hey, don’t scare me like that!” said the booming voice of Turbo. He lifted his foreleg in front of him, before glaring down at me. “When I was little I always had nightmares about turning a corner and finding a green horse crouched in a corner…” he brought a hoof up to his chin and he casted his gaze upward. “Except this time you weren’t eating my family…” I twitched again, although I couldn’t decide if it was because of what Turbo said or not.

“That’s… a terrifying dream?” I asked more than replied. Turbo just shrugged his broad shoulders.

“Yeah, it was during those strange younger years of mine…” Turbo smirked, and I felt the pressure of his chestnut eyes enveloping me. I took a brief step away from him. The guy was huge, and considering that there was no one else around, I found the situation to be a little… odd. Turbo looked around, gazing behind me out of sheer curiosity. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“Nothing!” I shouted just a little too eagerly. Turbo arched an eyebrow. I felt a slight paranoia building up inside me, the one that I had come to despise. I was just glad that I didn’t need pills for that also.

“I’m not much for reading ponies-” wait, what? So, we’re no longer humans now? I’d still rather we refer to each other as people. It’s been three days, guys! Only three! “-but you look just a little jumpy,”

I waved my hoof in a playful-like manner, although it came out shaky and twitchy. My voice cracked a little bit, and I silently cursed myself. Why was it so difficult to act unsuspicious? “Pffft, nah!” To my surprise, I actually didn’t continue speaking. Turbo squinted at me, as if we was expecting me to go on. When I didn’t, he emitted some kind of guttural noise.

“Riiiight… well, ya didn’t answer my question. What’re ya doing?” Turbo asked again. Oh boy, was he playing detective or something? I thought quickly.

“Uh, just… trying to fix up the ship… ya know… the usual,” I smiled brightly, but by looking at Turbo’s shocked expression, I may or may not have come off a little creepy looking. I toned down my smiling a little bit, but by that point Turbo was already slowly backing away. His eyes were wide, as if he was staring at an alien.

“Okay…” he whispered. “I’ll...I’ll just go then…” With that, Turbo slunk back in the direction of which he came in. When he was out of my eyesight, and I deemed that it was the same for him, I let out a sigh of relief.

Surely, Turbo thinks I had a mild case of the crazies. I guess I couldn’t say I didn’t after what just happened, but oh well. I don’t think my chances of making him my friend have increased by any means.

I needed help, and I just hoped someone around the camp could aid me, or at least be by my side. I couldn’t stand be alone here.

I need help.

***

Day 3
5:45 pm
“Rapier”
Canterlot Castle

On top of the Canterlot Castle, my fellow squad members and I were hustling and bustling. We were rushing to gather all our necessary supplies before we went out to the Everfree Forest later that night. Princess Celestia was nice enough to let me do something on my own for once. I was grateful, but after rethinking about how simple this mission actually was, I didn’t think it was all too much of an accomplishment. After all, we were just going out to find the source of some weird smoke that was coming out of the Everfree a few days ago. By now, the smoke was long gone. It was going to be much harder to track the location, but we had a general idea of where it was coming from.

This wasn’t exactly what I signed up for. I joined the guard for danger, even a little bit of action. If I had to do a little navigating and searching through woods just so that could happen, then so be it. Maybe we’ll find something interesting out there, and I’ll be made a hero.

Our squad was rather small, and we only brought who we thought was necessary. The more soldiers, the more weight that the carriers would have to haul. The skywagon that we were using was exceptionally hollow, having enough room for all of our supplies, should we need it. Overall, we’d need around two pegasi to fly the damned thing, as well as two hoof soldiers to aid me.

“Thank Celestia you’re all so light,” said the lime-green pegasus. He wiped a little sweat from his brow, after having been in the sun all day. Him and the other yellow pegasus were strapped together, like a chariot. The lime one, who’s name I believe was Oak, was on the right side of the wagon, while the other one was on the left. “I forgot to drink my milk this morning, I wasn’t all too prepared,” He snickered a little to himself, letting his black mane hang down a little bit.

I rolled my eyes, but I don’t think he saw. Most of the time, us Royal Guard had the tendency to be informal, unless the princess’ were around. In that case, we referred to ourself by our rank. However, since no one of clear importance or higher rank was around, I found it to be entirely unnecessary. Besides, it’s a mouthful to have to say a ponies rank and full name before you say what you needed to say.

I wandered inside of the skywagon to take inventory. All of our supplies were stockpiled in the back of the wagon for easier flying. Unfortunately, the other two soldiers and I were going to have to stand during the entire flight. Oh well, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours anyways.

Skywagons were not exactly a newer creation, but they’re strictly for the Royal Guard only. You wouldn’t find one of these bad boys out on the streets, which made me a little excited to ride in it. The inside was a gorgeous, polished mahogany that shimmered no matter what way you looked at it. There was a total of eight windows: three on the right side, three on the left, and then one on the front and back. Each window, save for the one in the front, had some kind of pink embroiderment on it of suns and moons. The roof was more than tall enough, really. I was slightly taller than most mares my age, and even still I was only halfway to having my head touch the top. I gazed over all of the supplies in the back of the skywagon.

“Food, water, royal gear, yadda yadda…” I muttered to myself, going over my mental checklist. Why did we need royal gear? No one really answered that question when I had asked either. They just say its protocol. Apparently, they expect us to go on this investigation and get into some kind of war.

Okay, that’d be kind of cool.

“Rapier, we’ll be ready in five,” a soft voice protruded just outside of the wagon, before Glory’s silver head poked inside. I barely gave the mare a second glance, before I sent a nod her way.

“Good. We need to get moving as soon as possible,” I told her. Glory was a mare that I specifically chose to come along for this mission. She had potential to be a great guard, but her talent is being wasted by others. Last I heard, she was washing dishes. This only proved my theory that I had around this place. I had seen her application, and she seems more than qualified for most for most of the jobs in the castle. When I had taken a moment to think, I looked back at Glory and cocked my head.

“Uh, isn’t there supposed to be another soldier coming with us?” I didn’t know who the other soldier was. I specifically asked for Glory myself, but Shining Armor wanted somepony else to aid us too, for whatever reason. Glory furrowed her brow.

“I believe so, I… just haven’t seen him,” she replied, truthfully. Without another word, she took out a hair band and tied back her scarlet mane into a ponytail. I wasn’t sure if she was aware, but she had tendency to fiddle with her mane in the weirdest ways. Sometimes she twirled her mane in her hoof, while other times he put in in a ponytail. She told me one time that when she was younger, she woke up and her hair was fully braided. We weren’t the best of friends, but we’d occasionally chat before this mission had ever even occurred.

“If he isn’t here in thirty seconds, we’re leaving without him. He can explain to Shining Armor and the princess’ why he wasn’t on the wagon with us,” I squinted my eyes in frustration. Whoever this stallion is, he sure wasn’t very responsible. I’d have to remember that, surely Shining Armor would want to know this.

Glory nodded, and toddled out of the wagon. I started to mentally count down from thirty, but by the time I got to twenty-three, I got bored and said screw it. So we’d be down a soldier, so what? It’s not like we’re going to be getting in a brawl anyways. I wandered over to the front of the wagon, and poked my snout through the rectangular window made specifically to speak with the wagon pullers.

“Oak! Buttermilk! You two ready to go?” I hollered through the hole. Oak mockingly rubbed his ear, as if I was using a bullhorn to speak with him. Both of them simultaneously began to put on their helmets, making Oak’s black mane and Buttermilk’s snowy one almost impossible to see by the time they had finished.

“Yeah, we’re ready. Could you scream into my other ear, now? No point in only being half deaf…” Oak chuckled. Okay, there was a line between informal and childish, and Oak was directly on it. How he manages to maintain a job working for the Royal Guard is unknown to practically everypony. I saw Buttermilk roll his eyes and sock him in his shoulder, roughly.

“Act yer age,” he muttered. His strange southern drawl caught me a little off guard. For some reason, he didn’t strike me as a pony raised in one of those hick towns plastered all over Equestria. Maybe it was just because of his coat and mane. Most ponies I had the pleasure of meeting from those areas tended to bear darker colors altogether.

Without wasting another moment, I slipped into some of my gear. I didn’t feel any need to put on every single part, so I just put on the metal outings that covered my torso, as well as my helmet. The metal covered my chest, belly, and most of my sides, including my cutie mark. On the chest area was the national Equestrian logo: a half moon and sun. In the middle was a cleverly placed purple diamond. I had to ask why, but apparently the diamond is there because it glows when you shine a flashlight on it. Back in the days where fights would break out, soldiers could just flash the lights on a pony and see if they glimmered to figure out if they were friendly or not. Smart, I’ll admit. Nevertheless, I felt like a knight wearing it.

Glory stumbled back onboard wearing the entirety of her gear, which was the exact same as mine except she bothered to put on the hoof guards. Upon looking at how she maneuvered herself, and at how much her armor clanked, I could tell that this was her first mission, much like me.

I turned back to the pullers. One was slyly laughing, while the other was letting out an annoyed groan. I opened my mouth. “Alright were good to g-”

“Wait! Stop! Don’t leave without me!” an unfamiliar voice yelled. I turned to look at Glory, who shrugged. However it was difficult to tell in her armor. Thinking as if we were twins, we rushed to the window to our left and gazed outside.

An orange unicorn was staggering around outside, screaming and hollering not to let us leave without him. His eyes were frantic as he tried to run to the skywagon, while simultaneously trying to get all of his armor on. To be frank, it looked like he was doing some kind of weird dance while running. He stood up and hopped on his hind legs and everything. “Hold on!”

“You have got to be kidding me…” I mumbled, slack jawed. I had a bad feeling about this already. Was this stallion THAT unprepared? It honestly looked like he just got out of bed. His short, dirty brown mane was frazzled and all over the place. I was going to have to go on a mission with… him?

“Uh, maybe he had a rough morning?” Glory suggested. I didn’t pay her too much attention. By now, the stallion had finish putting on most of his armor. He let out a pained groan as he body slammed the floor of the skywagon, not even bothering to use the stairs. Glory and I stared on in absolute amazement. He jumped back into the air with impressive vigor, and gave a silly salute.

“Private Harvest, reporting for duty!” He hadn’t fastened his helmet correctly. In fact, it was on backwards, causing it to slightly tilt to the left. Goofily, he realigned it and continued his straight-faced salute. Glory and I exchanged an unbelieving glance.

“Uh, Private, you’re late. If you honestly think that you’re getting on this skywagon then you’re sadly-” I started, but the spaz didn’t even let me finish his sentence before he started screaming at the top of his lungs.

“My apologies, Captain! There were a few distractions this evening that lead to my tardiness, ma’am!” I had a feeling that this guy wasn’t very up to date on everything either. Not only is this Glory’s first field mission, but I assume it’s his as well.

“Thanks, I was waiting for someone to do that!” I heard Oak shout from up front. With a quick glance, I noticed that he was now rubbing his other ear. The next sound that filled the air was a dull thwack, follow by Oak’s pained groan. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, thoroughly irritated. While I wasn’t looking, Harvest fixed his helmet so it faced the right way.

“What happened? Why are you late?” Glory asked for me. Harvest lowered his hoof.

“Well… uh… I fell asleep…” he replied, blushing a little bit. He gave me a strange smile that lit up his whole face. He acted as if nothing was wrong here, and it made me a little angry. Instead of hitting him, I smacked my own face instead.

“Private…ugh,” I didn’t know what to say to him at this point. I guess since this dimwit is with us, we have more strength in numbers. “Just… just get ready for takeoff…we’ll be flying through the night. Make sure to pack your pillows, everyone…”

***

Day 3
7:16 pm
“Tome”

This. Is. Insane.

This is absolutely perfect. I had been waiting for something like this to happen. So much had I wanted to get off Earth. I had been yearning for something new my entire life, and here it is right in front of me. I was in a new body, in a new world. Presumably, a magical world straight out of a storybook.

I was a damn unicorn! I had the potential to do magic, and I had not been wasting any time trying to access it. For the last three or so hours I had been trying to figure out exactly how it works, and so far I hadn’t been having all too much luck. However it’s what I figured, but it infuriated me how long it was taking.

Upon the first few moments of waking up in the woods, looking my body over and putting the weird pieces together, I was in some kind of unexplainable bliss. But that had long passed. I am still thrilled about all of this, but I refuse to show it.

I had been making quite a few enemies during the last few days, although it’s not like I give a fuck. They all stare at me like I’m some kind of emotionless weirdo. So what? I actually agree, but they can’t expect me to get all happy around them. Especially when most of the ponies in this group are incredibly stupid and feebleminded.

First of all, Turbo has been pissing me off to no end. His constant blabbering and attitude makes me want to pull out a knife and cut out his damned tongue. Working with him to make the stupid huts had been Hell, really. I did most of the calculating myself, while all he did was sing his little song and move heavy parts. My body was almost as big as his, but there’s no way I’m doing any lifting. Besides, he’s some kind of regular pony, he had the strength to do it by himself anyways. I fricken loathe that guy.

Then there’s Firework and Omega, and what had happened yesterday. It wasn’t my fault that the kid was utterly useless. All he could do was make fires, and his so called ‘scavenging’ abilities were pointless since he can’t even walk. It’s been three days, and the most that he could do was take ten steps before he managed to fall down again. Not only that, but he and Omega team up and practically make a fool of me when all I try to do was help get the fire started. It’s like they’re trying to make me the bad guy. But fine, if they want to be like that, then they can. Don’t expect any more help from me.

Like I said, I was quickly making enemies, and I needed to change that. What if something happened later in time, and everyone was pointing fingers? Say some kind of animal comes to our camp and steals food, whose fault would it be? If I didn’t have anyone on my side, I’d be the one blamed. Especially since everyone had some kind of reason to not like me.

I closed my book and set it in the shady part of my hut. I had read the book a plethora of times, but it just never gets old to me. I maneuvered my large frame out of the doorway to observe my options. I needed to find someone to be on my side, should anything happen. Maybe someone that I could pin the blame on myself, should anything happen.

I looked around the camp and silently studied. The air was chilled, and the sun was beginning to disappear, making the sky a bright orange. I could almost see the moon starting to take shape. Looking at everypony, I noticed that each of them casted a shadow, including me.

Firework and Windstrom were huddled around the campfire, maintaining their warmth and chatting about something. They seemed to be getting along rather well, almost like they were best friends. Firework already had already took a disliking to me, so that was out of the question.

Windstrom was a possibility, however it was not very likely. She was a leader, and I had noticed that was extremely bold, but hesitant. If I wanted to get her on my side, chances are it wouldn’t work. She too independent, and to be honest I’m surprised that she had actually made a friend.

I worked my way around the camp going clockwise. I spotted Turbo lying in his hut, presumable napping. Like I said, there is no way I’m going to be ‘friends’ with him. I didn’t think it would work anyways. The guy may be a little hyperactive, but he certainly wasn’t stupid enough to not ask questions.

Jolly Rogers was still working on the ship, wasting everyone else’s time as well as his. Everyone knew that the ship was a lost cause, yet he continued to hammer away. Either he was extremely determined, or he just had no common sense or reason to stop. He seemed a little off to me, as his twitching had become more and more occurrent. I had a hypothesis, but I will refrain from asking to avoid starting any conflict.

But then my eyes landed on someone who just wandered out of the forest, someone that no one really knew or questioned. Someone who was absolutely perfect to have as someone to be on my side. He was carrying various pieces of firewood on his back, huffing and puffing as the weight had begun to get to him. With a tired groan, he threw the wood on the ground, just outside of the clearing for safekeeping. He was perfect. What’s more perfect was that no one else was around him.

“Hey, Nautics!” I tried to put on one of the most cheeriest voices I could, but it came out a little awkward. Showing emotion wasn’t something that I did regularly, however I forced myself to attempt to fake it. I spoke rather suddenly as I trotted up to him, and surprisingly he didn’t jump. He just stared at me with those weird, questionable eyes. He almost seemed to be confused as to why I was calling his name.

“Hey, Tome…” he whispered. He looked at me, and then to the clearing towards everyone else, and then back to me. I couldn’t tell, but I think the guy was thinking about doing a mad dash. I tried to keep up the friendly conversation.

“How’s it going? What’re ya up to?” As much as I hated it, I might have to do an impersonation of Turbo just to keep this going. He was way more outgoing than me, really. I decided that it was only for the time being, and I silently prayed that Nautics wouldn’t ask any questions. However I had plenty of answers just in case he did. I was a fabulous liar.

“Uh, just… gathering some firewood for tomorrow. Just looking at the sky I can tell that it’s going to rain tonight,” he explained, pointing up to the sky. He was right, way in the distance was a black cloud. I hadn’t quite noticed how windy it was. This guy was skilled all on his own.

“Huh… I guess you’re right…” I muttered, turning back to the pony at hand. He continued to stare at me, as if he was expecting me to walk away so that he could finish his job. This was going in a bad direction, fast. Part of me wanted to cut to the chase, but I knew that that was a terrible idea. Throughout my entire life I’ve learned that if you want to manipulate something, you must treat it as if you’re being as honest as possible. Luckily with this face, it’s impossible to have any tells when I’m lying. “Look, Nautics, I’m just looking for a friend,”

“A… friend?” he repeated, tilting his head a little bit. I wasn’t exactly going to waste any time with this.

“Yeah. I have a feeling that most of the group doesn’t like me because of what happened with Firework yesterday. They view me as some kind of bully, you know?” Nautics’ face softened, and I resisted the temptation to let out a grin. To hide it, I frowned and looked at the ground instead.

“I’m… I’m sorry to hear that,”

“Everyone else here had made friends, or has someone to talk to. Windstrom, Firework and Omega are practically best friends and I saw Turbo and Jolly Rogers chatting earlier today,” Nautics bit the inside of his lip and nodded. He looked like he was going to say something, but he didn’t. Surely he was going to ask about Spades, but even he knew it was obvious that I hated the guy, and that the feeling was mutual.

“Hey, it’s okay. I don’t have many friends either. My life was actually very lonely before this,” Nautics explained. He tried to put a hoof on my shoulder, but I roughly shook him off.

“Please! I don’t need your pity,” I spat. Nautics stumbled back in shock, his mouth slightly opening in an expression of sorrow. “At least you’re somewhat useful, everyone just views me as the second smart guy. All everyone does here is use you-”

“Wait, what?” Nautics interrupted. Perfect. This idiot was falling right for it! If all of the ponies in the group were this dumb, then maybe things could actually work out in my favor. “What did y-you mean by… use me?”

“Are you kidding? You’re practically the most useful guy here! Your only like eighteen-”

“Twenty,”

“Right, and you’re knowledge of the forest is downright impeccable. If it wasn’t for you, this group most certainly would have died from dehydration,” Nautics flushed, and he let out a prideful smile.

“Yeah. If anything, you should be running everything around here. You actually know how to survive in places like these! But no,” The smile on Nautics’ face slowly diminished, and was quickly replaced with a sullen frown. “They use you are their lackey, as their slave, to go and do jobs that they could easily do themselves,”

“Tome… I… What are you talking about?” Nautics was completely flabbergasted at what I was telling him. So far, so good.

“Does it really take a nature expert to find wood to burn?” I asked, sternly. I tossed my hoof over into the direction of the branches that he had just been carrying. He looked back at the ground and shook his head. “Exactly. They’re using you because they’re too lazy to do things themselves. You know what that means?”

“W-W-What?” Nautics stuttered, lifting his head up. I brought my face close to his, towering over him like he was at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I spoke through grit teeth as I said the following words:

“We’re the outsiders. It’s just you, and me.”

Nautics was appalled, falling back on his haunches. “It’s not rocket science, Nautics. It’s just us, and surely you must know that. So what do you say?”

Nautics looked at the ground and sighed, a horrifyingly long moment passed by before the guy slowly nodded his head. While he stared at the ground, I let a large smirk plague my face.

This was going to be easier than I thought.

Author's Note

What do you know? An update! And look at all of the things going on around camp! So many activities and stuff. Also, it appears that our eight MIGHT have some company soon. You know, unless things HAPPEN to go horribly wrong.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Feedback and comments are GREATLY appreciated. Who's your favorite character so far? What do you think will happen next? Stay tuned and find out!

-Cyneryk

Where The Grass Grows Black

The fires that beckoned to us townsfolk were barely unnerving at this point anymore. It was a sight that everyone here had gotten used to. The loud bangs, the soft cries, those were the sounds that rotted my mind incessantly. Although, people still couldn’t seem to give up hope. It’s been fifteen years, fifteen, since the whole tragedy began. Yet people still had time to sit down with their families in rundown homes, huddling against a fire, and tell themselves that everything was going to be just fine.

I didn’t know whether to pity them, or praise them. Their determination always impressed me. I held onto hope for quite some time, but the realizations that had crept upon me as I slept have almost slowly driven me to insanity. Until I was forced to face the undeniable truth. But then again, when was the last time I got any decent sleep? A few days? A week or so? It was all a giant blur, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

I’ve always been known as a troublesome child, or so I was told. My folks have always told me exactly that, although they’ve always wanted the best for me. I was naive, back then. It could be argued that I was still that way right now, but sometimes, I enjoyed it. I liked being able to blissfully lie back, every now and then, and get my head off of the troubles, that currently plagued me, as well as the rest of this god-forsaken... everything.

The frequent cries of my neighbors, hardly woke me up anymore, when I actually slept, that is. The only things able to disturb me are the inevitable tittering of gunfire in the distance, and another persons touch. However, I haven’t felt the latter in such a long time, though I hardly missed it. If someone touched or grabbed you nowadays, chances were it’s for the wrong reasons.

I had to be honest, even with that in consideration, I didn’t do much to help my situation. It’s practically a war zone outside, and I was cooped up, alone, in some sort of wooden shack in a backyard. I was not entirely sure of what to call it, as the residents didn’t exactly know I lived there. In my defense, the previous owners were nowhere to be found, and I still hadn’t gotten in contact with them. I was slowly running out of food, and I was very sure that there was some inside of the home. I most likely would have made my way inside by then, despite the fact that the windows and doors were practically boarded shut.

It’s every man for himself now, and everyone knew that. I was by no means proud of the thoughts I had, or the things I did. They just didn’t seem to have effective consequences. The police and the government had all fallen. The United States were no longer united. Everything has dispersed, and it was sickening. The President was long gone, and no one has any idea where he went. Some say he went to a private island somewhere off the coast of Brazil to wait until it all died down, while others say he was simply assassinated by his own guards in his sleep.

It all started about fifteen years ago, when I was only two years old. It was a long talked about rumor. I was pretty sure I had read somewhere that North Korea’s threats dated back fifty years, give or take a decade. They hated us. They hated what we did, our selfish tendencies, our title as the dominative country. The whole oil debacle. They didn’t like us one bit, so when we as Americans laughed off their threats, they took to action.

They spent those fifty years plotting, scheming an idea to shut us up for good, until someone finally raised a finger. A lightbulb most likely appeared over their head as they said, “I might have an idea!”

In 2062, it happened.

The North Korean’s finally found a way to destroy us, with help from a few middle eastern countries, they proceeded to bomb Washington DC on New Years Day. No, the bomb was not small, it didn’t just tear down a wall. The bomb was of something that us American’s have never yet experienced first hand, and some terrorist had somehow smuggled into the White House. It was noted as being “untraceable”, although I highly doubted that.

The bomb destroyed two things: Majority of Massachusetts, and the sanity of every single American with some access to media or word of mouth. Needless to say, the United States lashed out at the first possible foe of whom came to mind: North Korea. We happened to be correct, but to put it bluntly, we were kind of stupid. We prepared for a rebound: an opposing attack on the North Korean government.

With the help of the middle easterners, America was decimated.

We were forced to retreat back to our home turf, however, the panic that had been created was causing nationwide panic. Since then, various countries all over the world wanted to get their revenge on the states, placing bombs and destroying more of what little we had left afterwards. They still kept coming as we speak.

People had begun to revolt. What confused me was that people rioted against the White House and the president more than those across the seas actually doing the damage. Most of the soldiers had left the army by then, fearing their own selves and wishing to spend what could be their last moments of their lives with their families. The police were unable to keep up with the vast amount of murders, burglaries, and vandalisms anymore. They occasionally tried to keep order, but most see their attempts as a joke, or a waste of time. Sometimes, I reflect back on it and just sigh to myself..

So now, it’s everyone for themselves. Your life could end at any moment, and there would be absolutely no justice. It’s horrible, but it’s just life. What’s left of humanity was long gone, and only a scarce amount of it remained.

It had been a long day, and it was about to be an even longer night for me. I opened the door to my wooden, and rather rundown shack, my dark-skinned hand trembling just a little bit as I reached for the door handle. I was always nervous about coming home, as there was always a chance for someone to have snuck inside while I was out, as I have no way to lock said door. I let out a sigh of relief as I peeked inside, only to discover that it was indeed empty, and in the exact same condition as I had previously left it that morning. I chuckled dumbly to myself before something white in my peripheral vision caught my attention.

I groaned. Great. Another “mission’. Or that’s what I liked to call them, at least. It made it sound just a little bit cooler. I grasped the piece of paper that was taped to the door, almost ripping it as I brought it up to my face.

“Oliver,
Ring a ding ding. You miss us? I’m glad because we were starting to get a little worried about you. I know you like to remain under the radar, but that’s just ridiculous. We need some more of your wonders here at 154 Point Way. Don’t make us come looking for you again. Bring the usual stash by midnight.

Remember what happened last time?”

The last part was written and underlined multiple times. With another groan , I memorized the address and crumpled up the letter. I threw it arrogantly on the ground as I stomped inside my shack, tracing my fingertips over a still throbbing lump on the back of my head.

They didn’t need to threaten me anymore. I didn’t like doing it, but I knew the consequences that would occur if I didn’t obey. To be honest, I didn’t entirely know what to call their... group. It’d make sense to say a gang, or something. They’re always harassing me for my things. They had a good reason too, as I’m the only one who could easily supply them on such short notice.

I stared at the inside of my shack, which really wasn’t much. To my left was an extremely small bed that was about two sizes too small for me. It was very uncomfortable, but until I can find a better one, it’s the best that I could get right about now. To my right was my desk, where practically all the magic happened.

I feel like I should explain this now. No, I was not a druggie.

I grabbed my backpack and hurled it on top of the desk and took a seat on the chair. I took every single thing out it, all while grumbling to myself. Luckily, I had gotten enough supplies to be able to make what they need, and have some left over for myself. Something that I managed to pull from my backpack consisted of some firecrackers, smoke bombs, and a few fireworks until I finally found my special sack of gunpowder. It’s impossible to find this stuff nowadays, so I pretty much had to make it from scratch. It sounded hard, but after some practice it got extremely easy. I was only out for about three or so hours that day.

I made fireworks and other explosives, which is why everyone wants me to obey them so much, I guessed. Explosive equipment is in high priority nowadays, so that made me a slave to everyone else.

I’ve been making fireworks ever since I was a little kid. On the fourth of July I used to love how they flashed in the sky, the loud noises that infiltrated my body as the sparkles glistened over the stars, like some sort of heat-driven dance. I was mesmerized, and I still was to this day.

So, I studied up. When I was younger, we still had access to things like the internet, not like today. I researched what went into fireworks, how to make certain colors and how to make them explode in the sky. I memorized it somehow over all these years, and now I could make perfect fireworks. I’m amazed by this myself, sometimes. Occasionally, I go onto the roof of one of the boarded houses nearby and light a few off. The look on some of the kids’ faces as some of them saw the magical wonder that is fireworks for the first time was absolutely priceless. I still do it every now and then, although it takes a lot of prepping. I just did one the other night, unwittingly. I’m pretty sure that that was how that “gang” originally found me again.

Speaking of them, their usual stash was five pounds of bottle rockets, eight fountains, three parachutes, and three aerial fireworks. God knows what they had in store, but I’d rather not be a part of it.

It took me almost about three hours to finish, as I had to triple check to make sure that they passed my safety regulations. If one is a dud, or blew up in some guy’s face, I’m sure that it’s not going to end very well for me.

I finished at around 10:30, which was rather perfect for me. The instructions said to be at the address by midnight, so if I leave then, then maybe I’d actually be home before midnight and be able to get more time to try and sleep. With a smug grunt, I carefully shoved all of the fireworks into my backpack, making extra sure not to damage anything before I hurriedly ran out of my shack.

The nighttime was especially dangerous. I’ll admit that I came acrossed a few lurkers and muggers in my time that had their eyes on my bulging backpack before. Most of the time I manage to get away, but it’s still not very easy to run. The backpack weighed a ton!

I took my time strolling through backyards and side streets, as I had also memorized what streets hid what dangers. Lucky me. The streets stank of dew and burnt wood, but I had gotten used to both long ago. “This better be worth it..” I mumbled under my breath. I’d gotten pretty lonely over the last few years, although I refused to admit it, and had accidently picked up a bad habit of talking to myself. But anyways, in return for fireworks and other sparkly things, the “gangs” usually gave me about a weeks worth of food, but that’s if I used it sparingly and strategically.

I was not strategic in the slightest, so the food only lasted about four days on average.

Every week, I would have had to make this stupid trek through some part of that stupid Wisconsin suburb, carrying illegal fireworks and practically sweating like a hog. The nights there tended to get very humid. You’d be lucky to even come across a building with air conditioning nowadays, well, that wasn’t completely filled with people, I should say.

I hung my head sullenly as I heard the distinct crushing sound of my worn out sneakers stepping on very dry, and possibly burnt grass. I rhythmically stomped on the crunchy parts of the earth, making my own beat in my head as I pathetically tried to occupy myself. I had always had a strange love for music, though I never had time for it at all anymore. No one really did. It’s been an extremely long time since a recording artist came out with new material. I did manage to find an Mp3 player on the ground a few weeks back with some decent music, but it didn’t take me long before I had gotten sick of the music. Part of me wanted to just throw it in the street, but I thought that leaving it in the open for some other kid to pick up would’ve been just as nice.

The things in my mind swirled as the time aimlessly wandered by, like a lost child. Memories from my past rudely took this time to barge it’s way back into my brain and into my consciousness, making me roughly shake my head in protest. I couldn’t think about that now. I was almost there. Just drop off the backpack, and take their food. Easy as pie.

There was a highway just beyond this house. If I could quietly walk down it without causing attention to myself, maybe I could get to my destination just a little bit sooner. That reminded me, I had no idea what this 154 Point Way or whatever was. I knew it’s going to be some sort of big building though. That’s where they always had me deliver to. Last time, I delivered to an abandoned school. I had to say, I was creeped the hell out while I was navigating the hallways. The time before that, it was an abandoned hangar, which was definitely not a fun trek either. I left my shack at around seven in the evening, and I didn’t return until sunrise the next morning.

I quickly made my way through the backyard of another dark house. There was a fence that would lead me to the street, and eventually to the highway. I put my hand on the home itself as to carefully guide my way to the fence. I had made a mental note before to do this, since some people went absolutely crazy when this all popped off. I’ve had many accidents before while crossing yards, especially when it comes to holes that people just love to randomly dig on their property. I’ve sprained my ankle many times before. I’ve had to go to the hospital every single time, although it literally takes days just to be able to see a doctor. People are usually getting hurt so often that the hospitals were almost always backed up.

I approached the wooden gate, but then I almost immediately ducked down. Something wasn’t right. There was an immensely strong light that resonated from the road, which almost burnt my pupils to a crisp. There were also strange sounds in my ears, like various whirring and clanging of metallic parts, and behind them were voices.

The voices worried me more though. Man, I felt so stupid. I was so lost in thought, how did I not manage to hear the commotion that had been going on? It was deafeningly loud, but what worried me was my curious nature. I couldn’t help it, I’m naturally nosey.

While unwittingly not thinking it through, I peered over the wooden gate to assess the situation around me. I was correct about the lights, still. Although they were not the streetlights, they were some sort of industrial type of spot lights that lit up practically everything within fifty feet of them, but that was irrelevant, as they were spaced about a hundred feet away from each other. There were large, green armored vehicles littered in the driveways of the homes, as well as parked next to white pitch tents. I felt strangely intimidated by the large trucks, though, as I could have sworn that I’ve seen them somewhere. Most of them had around six or so wheels that were made for transportation, while the vehicles with lesser wheels had some sort of machine gun on the top.

I decided to turn my gaze back to the strange white tents. They also seemed familiar, medicine tents maybe? I subconsciously moved my head to get a better look at what was inside of it. I may be more visible, but I just needed to be careful.

There was a few doctors inside, decked out in nothing that wasn’t completely white. Not much of them were showing except for their eyes, as the rest of their face was covered in a mask. Next to them were some IVs that contained some kind of blue fluid, and a single patient lying on a bed.

They weren’t moving. I gulped. I had a bad feeling about this.

I maneuvered my head to the after hearing a loud voice that come from my right. I furrowed my eyebrows, desperately trying to adjust to the bright lights. Although, I kind of wished that I didn’t. I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was... what?

There were literally dozens of people in line, their heads facing the ground as they, one by one, were shoved into an awaiting bus. It was a prison bus, but that is not exactly what I thought was going on there. The people in line didn’t look like criminals in the slightest. There were mothers, fathers, children, you name it that were being thrusted inside of the cramped bus. A few of the people in line were quietly sobbing with their heads in their hands as they slowly inched their way closer and closer. I felt my heart drop quite suddenly when I saw a little girl, no older than nine, in line. The people in front and behind her paid no mind, leading me to believe that she was all alone. The images were trying to enter my mind again, which caused my eyes to water, but I held back my emotions. I’ve gotten quite good at doing stuff like that. It’s not like I had anyone to talk to anyways.

Due to the year, it’d be quite expected to see some sort of new, futuristic stuff whizzing around like flying cars, hoverboards, and those kinds of things. It’s what I would have thought, as I believe that we’re actually living in said time. There have indeed been some sort of technological advances, such as holographic billboards, one actually shone over the street that I was overlooking. There were also things like holographic phones and such, but they’re rarely used nowadays by common folk. Everytime some sort of invention is made, it almost immediately went straight to the military or the government for their use.

One of the soldiers at the front of the line took out a large bullhorn, and raised it to his chapped lips. He was wearing a large, grey uniform that reminded me of something that the Nazi’s wore a long time ago. Actually, a bit of them had been rising up recently, but I had a strong feeling that this guy was American. Especially after hearing him speak when he had decided that a few people in line were getting a little rowdy.

“Everybody! Remain calm! We are in the process of evacuation! There are rumors of another attack in this general area! We are here to protect you and bring you to a more safer environment! When you reach the front of the line, please place your things on the scanner so that they can be deemed as safe before bringing them on board!”

This wasn’t making sense. Rumors of another bombing? Where were these rumors coming from? America has no one on their side, so who’s feeding them information like that? Also, why Wisconsin? Out of all places to bomb, why suburban Wisconsin? I was not the most thoughtful of people, but this was really making me scratch my head.

Ok, this was bad. I was no longer able to take the highway. Well, unless I wanted to take a half-mile long detour. But that could take up to twenty minutes cutting through yards. It’s a miracle that I managed to sneak into the damned place unseen, how was I going to get out?

Speaking of it, what exactly was this? A military base? I quietly sighed to myself. I’ve always had a respect for a higher authority, like firefighters and policemen, but the military? Not quite. I’m not a big fan of the government. If it wasn’t for them then maybe things wouldn’t be as bad as they are currently. It’s the governments fault that all of us are facing death every day in this dying wasteland called the United States. Their faults for being manipulative, greedy, and overall terrible bastards.

“Hey!” I voice behind me shouted, followed by the cocking of a rifle. I jumped so high that I almost fell to the ground. I actually felt my heart almost stop from the shock. I stared wide-eyed at the caucasian soldier, who was currently pointing some sort of... plasma... rifle... laser... thing directly at my chest. I didn’t know what to call it okay!? I held up my hands slowly after realizing the situation that I was in.

I was spotted.

“Wait! Don’t shoot me!” I almost whispered. Oh no, I really didn’t want to die. Not like this, nor here! Especially not at the hands of a soldier.

“What are you doing hiding behind here?” he ordered more so instead of asking. I stumbled a little over my words. The soldier was in no mood to be patient, and as a way to show who was in control here, he pointed the gun at my forehead. I cannot think of a time where I was sweating more than I was right then. My heart was thumping a mile a minute, ringing painfully in my ears as I choked out the words.

“I-I was walking through when I heard you guys were evacuating! Please d-don’t shoot me!” I begged. Ok, so I may not care for my dignity right about now, but I’d much rather kiss ass than get shot in the face. The soldier stared at my for a long few seconds, before he lowered his rifle and forcefully opened the gate, shoving me out into the open and towards the extremely long line of which I was just observing.

“Move it!” he shouted, putting his gloved hand on my backpack. The fear of being shot was slowly rising. The amount of weapons and deadly killing machines that were on his person was something that I really didn’t want to think about. As soon as he placed his hand where he did, a thought appeared in my head. I was a muscle spasm away from cursing out loud.

I still had my backpack.

Shit!

I was about to turn my head towards the soldier and ask to leave, but there was no way that that was happening. I just told him that I was practically trying to evacuate with everyone else. “I... I...” I uttered, but the guard either didn’t hear me, or just didn’t seem to care. He thrusted me into the back of the line, and told me to stay in formation or risk the consequences, to which I politely nodded.

I was beginning to grow paranoid. At the front of the line they were practically going through everyone’s luggage and bags, as well as the people themselves, searching for anything hostile. When they deemed that it was safe, they threw their belongings in a black van to be transported somewhere. I felt extremely lightheaded. I need to ditch my backpack. Now! If I didn’t, there’s no telling what the soldiers will do to me! They might just shoot me on the spot!

I looked around for a place to stash my backpack, but alas, there was nowhere. I considered throwing it somewhere when I got closer to the bus, following the line, but the line was completely separated from anything else in the base.

I was stuck.

I dug my hands into my jean shorts I took a few steps forward in the line. There was an older gentleman in front of me wearing a tuxedo. His graying hair was masked by a fedora as he leaned upon a cane. He seemed to be doing very well for his age, which appeared to be around sixty. I needed answers before it’s too late.

I leaned over to him, almost making him have a heart attack. “Excuse me, but where is this bus going?” I asked him slowly, trying not to attract the attention of the soldiers nearby that were practically within shooting distance. The gentlemen simply spoke over his shoulder.

“We’re evacuating to St. Paul,” he said quietly. I let out a small “oh”, before going back to my thoughts. I didn’t want to speak to him more than that. I already knew why, of course, and I didn’t want to get both of us in trouble just because I wouldn’t stop asking silly questions.

Before I knew it, I was about halfway through the line. During the time period, a young woman was thrown out of the line and into an armored van after something had been found in her purse. I’m not sure what is was, but it was passed down that line that it was a can of mace soon after. I almost immediately felt back for her, but I was more afraid for myself. I would probably be joining her in a few moments anyways.

It was about fifteen minutes before it was just me, and the older man in front of me who had yet to enter the bus. There was a large gray table for people to put their things, along with a few soldiers guarding the bus, while another had some sort of metal-detecting device, almost like what they had at airports. Had. Airports have been shut down years ago after the potential threat for destruction that they caused.

The man set his cane and hat on the table, and spread his arms and his legs as the soldier with the metal-detecting device scanned his body. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t go off. The man was very okay with the whole experience, as if it was nothing new. It was as if nothing could bother him. Part of me wondered if he was in some state of bliss? The man was thanked for his time, to which he nodded as he was handed back his things. Apparently hats and canes are allowed on the bus, but that didn’t really matter to me.

I was losing my mind. I was going to get caught. It was just a matter of time. I was next, and there’s no way they are going to not check my backpack. I uttered a silent prayer to myself as the soldier to my left pointed at the metallic table.

I felt like crying. I was going to be put to death for this, wasn’t I? I was sure that the woman from before was going to be too, due how much they shoved her towards the armored car. They didn’t treat her carefully, that was for sure. I wondered where that van even went to, anyways?

I gulped as I slowly put down my backpack, hearing a familiar clang as it smacked down on the surface. The guards wasted no time opening it up, while I took a precautionary step back. I saw the guards’ eyes’ twitch as they started taking some of my fireworks out of my backpack, holding and observing it like it was blueprints for world domination. They all glared at me with such a sickening hatred that it made my stomach churn. “Detain him!” one of them said, pointing at me while the other dumped out the rest of contents of my bag. The guy with the metal scanner didn’t even bother to actually scan me, as I was already caught red-handed.

Before I had a chance to explain myself, a nearby soldier that was behind me nearly tackled my to the ground. The grabbed me, hard, almost ripping my orange t-shirt. He threw me over his shoulder as he began to haul me closer to the same armored van. “Wait! Let me explain!” I shouted, but my pleas were in vain.

Now, let me say this. I am by no means a strong kid. I’ve very skinny, and very short for that matter, given that I’m only seventeen. The soldier wasn’t too strong either, but he lifted me up like I was nothing.

Another guard who was keeping watch of the armored van opened the back door. The soldier who was carrying me literally tossed me inside, with me landing on top of the unsuspecting woman from before. This couldn’t be happening. This was all a big misunderstanding! It had to be! I was forced to do this... or risk... no! “Wait! Ple-”

My words were cut off, as the door to the van roughly closed shut, leaving me and a stranger all alone in the back of a military vehicle. The scent of metal hung in the air as my side intensely throbbed from the horrid throw not even a moment before. I heard a small whimper in the somber of the van. In defeat, I slouched my shoulders and sat with my back against the van.

This was... unbelievable. I could not be captured! I had things that I need to take care of! I slammed my hand against the wall of the van behind me, making the girl shriek in fear, for which I politely apologized. I let out a grunt as I felt the van finally start up.

Oh man, is it dark in here...

***

“Uh, so... how’s it going?”

“...”

“Uh, my name is Oliver Gremley... what’s your name?”

The young woman on the other side of the van remained absolutely silent. She was sitting on the other side of the van, hugging her knees like a schoolgirl. I almost felt sad for her, and I kind of wished she would speak. It’s been awhile since I’ve actually talked to someone. I was sure she has a good story to tell, also. Believe it or not, everyone did. Everyone always has a decent story to tell. Good or bad, it was always something, and I sure did like to hear them whenever I could get the chance.

We’ve been in the van for many hours, or so it seemed. I lost track of time a long while ago, and my wristwatch seemed to have busted from I was thrown inside of the van. The girl hid her face from me, looking down at her chest sadly. I tried not to let her get to my head. The last thing I should do is feel sorry for myself at a time like this. What I really should be doing is sitting back and enjoying the ride while I can, now that I thought about it. It’s not like I have much else to do. I smiled a little bit when I realized that I still had my little sack of gunpowder in my pocket. Wherever we went, I sure hope they didn’t check my pockets.

It was about five in the evening of the next day when the van finally pulled to a stop. The woman’s head jerked up either of in fear, shock, or anticipation. She had bags under her eyes, and I had failed to realize that she had been crying the entire time. Her raggedy brown hair was strewn all over the place, and her hazel eyes stared at me, like it was expected of me to do something to help her.

I let out a soft sigh. “Everything’s going to be fine,” I said to her, giving her a genuine smile. I held out a hand to her, hoping that maybe she would take comfort by holding it. She stared at my appendage in some sort of shock, before looking back at me. She unclenched her own hand from her knees and reached out to my hand-

Before any sort of contact could be made, the van’s door blasted open, revealing another soldier holding some sort of laser...rifle... thing. Yeah, I still hadn’t learned what that thing was. I should probably do that sometime. I held a hand in from of my face as I squinted my eyes. After being in absolute darkness for how-many hours, my eyes were extremely sensitive.

“Okay, both of you! Exit the vehicle with your hands above your head!” he hollered, to which we both obeyed. I was never the best at taking orders, as I often got confused, but I told myself that screwing up and asking questions was not a good thing to do at a time like this. The woman was a little slower at getting to her feet.

We both left the van, and about four guards took the liberty of dragging us off. There was a very large and grey building in front of us, with barely any windows. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to notice the twenty foot tall gates and the large amount of soldiers to realize that this was a prison.

The woman was now pitifully crying, but the soldiers didn’t seem to care. It hurt me inside to realize that this was something that they probably saw daily.

We were quickly escorted inside and to a very long hallway full of cells that were literally crammed full of people. They prisoners eyed both of us up as we passed their cells. Some of the prisoners looked extremely hostile, like they wanted to slit my throat, while others looked sorrowful, like they were only there due to unforeseen circumstances. Some even looked like mothers and fathers. I found it rather odd that this prison mixed genders, but I didn’t really see anyone complaining.

Jails were the only things, next to hospitals that had really evolved over the years. They were still gray and lifeless, but those stereotypical jail bars were replaced with some sort of holographic blue barrier. It was impossible to get out without a thumbprint from one of the prison guards, and I’ve seen many of them wandering the halls.

Before I knew it, one of the doors that contained about three large, juice up prisoners opened, and the woman was thrown inside. She landed on the cold, stone floor, uttering a small squeal of distress as her body hit the ground. She quickly rebounded and turned back to the guards, as if to run back out, but the holographic barrier was already back up and running. She pounded restlessly on the barrier, but it was to no avail. Behind her, the three prisoners were staring at her provocatively, and I even saw one lick his lips.

I was thrown into another cell just a few moments later. It was the last cell in the hallway, right next to the door. I rubbed my now-bruised thigh as the guard pressed his thumb to the scanner, ultimately locking me inside of yet another enclosed area.

“See ya ‘round, kid.”

Author's Note

Well, this is the beginning to a brand new story. I just want to personally thank you for reading, and really giving this story a shot. I'll be honest, it took forever to write just this part, and that it took nearly a week and a half to get this story's plot and stuff figured out. Writing be work, yo, but I get you guys already knew that.

I'd just like to thank you all again, and enjoy the bumpy road folks! This tale is going to be a good one!

Feedback and comments are greatly appreciated also!

-Cyneryk