Firefly had no idea how long she was stuck in the tiny closet with the stenching ghoul. The hunger quickly came to annoy her and her mouth went completely dry. There was some food in her backpack, but she had to hold the door. Because of darkness there was barely anything to see, but she knew that there was some kind of exit here...

After all, the rat couldn’t just walk in through the door.

The time passed unbearably slowly for her, she felt that with each minute the air was getting more stale and heavy, unpleasant, dry. She tried to look around one more time in hopes of finding something, but it was just too damn dark… until she remembered, that she has a silver zippo from that one American soldier who gave it to her as a small “thank you” back in Iraq. She wasn’t a smoker, actually, she hates the smell of cigarettes, but she kept the gift as a lucky charm of some kind.

Rummaging with one hand in the inside pocket of her uniform and pulled it out, lit it up. A small flame of hope casted an orangish glow on the dark room. It allowed her to spot something odd under the dead body. It’s body was lying on something. Something large with a lot of square holes - an air shuffle. Looking up on the ceiling there was a large darker area - a vent entrance. The rat had to fell through it.

It was her exit from this claustrophobic place.

Sniper pressed tighter her dry lips, turned off and hid the lighter and with one hand folded the stock of the SVD, then pulled off both the gun and her backpack. She took a breath, exhaled, looked at the door, which were constantly scratched and pulled by ghouls, looked back at the pit and let go off the handle.

The door fluttered. Firefly grabbed both rifle and the bag. The door opened with a creak and bang. She threw the rucksack then the gun into the hole. One of the ghouls stumbled through the doorway. She jumped up and grabbing the edge pulled herself in the vent. Halfway through, the monster grabbed her boot and tried to bit into it. Finally, she pushed herself and her belongings deeper, with a stroke of luck slipping her leg out of the grasp.

She crawled in further, barely fitting in the tight corridor, all the while hearing growls, moans and heavy breaths of the monsters behind, but as she moved on they become quieter and quieter, finally going completely silent.

At some point she allowed herself for a small break near the intersection. Opening the backpack she took out a canned tuna and sighing slightly, opened it too and began to eat some. Salty in taste, but that was the only edible thing she had right now. She would drink up some water in the canteen if it wasn’t frozen…

Furrowing her brows she turned over herself on her backs, made the pillow out of the bag, her rifle put between her legs and then once more pulled out the lighter. The ginger opened the canteen, rose it as far as she could while putting it to her mouths and lit the fire. The heat soon melted the ice and drip after drip the water came to relieve her struggle, but it was short lived because the gas in the lighter ran out.

“Better than nothing...” she whispered to herself and closed her eyes. “Geez, I really hate my life sometimes.”

The man and the pony walked down yet another street in the dead city of Warsaw. Everything around them was quiet, except for crunching snow under their legs and occasional gust of wind. It was too quiet for Reaper... he could feel eyes upon himself... or maybe it was his paranoia combined with lack of sleep?

He couldn't tell.

The human also seemed afraid of something and appeared to be deep in his own thoughts.

As the time passed the sky very slowly started to get darker and more clouded. They had to walk through half of the neighbourhood already, or at least that’s what Twilight was thinking. They manoeuvred between countless abandoned, half buried in snow vehicles littering the streets and destroyed, covered by ice buildings. Some of them were half collapsed, from others, out of their broken windows, curtains and veils swung freely on the wind. The dark insides of this buildings seemed to watch them ominously, as if they were jealous of them for being alive. This whole scenery was hard to describe for the little unicorn, thought she had never seen a city after war, she was sure, that this is how one would look like…

Reaper knew, that soon they should stop their search and try to find a place to survive the night, a place where he would finally had some sleep. He still couldn’t believe, that Twilight was a real, talking unicorn. He thought at first that he was hallucinating again, but after this small talk and “accidentally” bumping into her at some point, he was convinced that his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him… or was it?

At least he could hope she was real and not just a very real illusion of his mind. For some reason it really bugged him. After all, he and Firefly were alone for so long, that he did not care whether she was a human or a small, colourful, talking pony. For him it was nice to meet someone who doesn't want to kill him... but he still would ask her a few questions later. For now he had to find the ginger haired girl. They walked in silence for a few more minutes until Twilight broke it by asking a question.

"So... Who's your friend? What's her name?"

Reaper thought for a moment scratching his unkempt beard before answering "Her name is… let’s call her Firefly, for now.” Twilight, despite the situation and that dead body she had seen earlier, smiled slightly hearing his accent. It was a little funny for her when she now thought about it. “That’s not her real name, though, we don’t know each other names for security reasons.” he lied, he knew her real name, but didn’t want to tell her without Firefly’s permission.

Twilight looked at him and walked up a little closer to his side. “And you? Could you tell me your real name?”

“Is it that important?”

“No, I guess not. But it would be nice to know it…” she answered and looked at an old graffiti of some kind of emblem. It was an image of a dark shield with a white “L” letter placed in the middle. She had no idea to what it belongs, but if she had to guess she would say to some kind of royal family.

It actually was a symbol of local football team, but she couldn’t know that.

Now when she actually noticed it, she realized, that it’s not the only painting on the wall here. Every now and then, there was a wall or part of the building with some piece of street art. Most of the time, there were cartoonish, human characters like one of what she assumed were police authorities dressed in similar uniforms to her human companion, just coloured in dark blue and black, and who carried shields, nightstick and had, weird for her, helmets with glas in front of their faces. Other were random things like what looked like a male human dressed in a red and yellow armour suit from top to bottom, who seemed to shoot a white beams from his hands, or writings drawn in an unusual fonts like “HWDP” or “Jebać polityków!”. Of course she had no idea what it meant, but she liked to think it has some deep meaning.

While unicorn admired the paintings, Reaper silently thought about revealing his identity. After all.. it wasn’t like the rules bounded him in any way now, when there wasn’t any actual government or his unit “...I don’t know if I want you to know it, yet.” he finally replied.

She looked back at him with a slight scawl. “Well, if it’s that important to you... You still haven't told me who your friend is, though.” Now her sight rested on rather old billboard with half faded image of some kind of food, or rather fast food as it said. “...or you for that matter.”

“We are… used to be soldiers.” he made a short pause “From my perspective, Firefly was a rather… joyful girl. Always smiling and cracking better or worse jokes, and always willing to help whoever would ask her for help. She joined the service from her own will, mainly because she wanted to prove something to her father. I don’t know what it was though, never told me or anyone else.” he gazed at the sun slowly descending on the horizon and furrowed his bushy eyebrows “Anyway… she passed the basic training and then joined the paratrooper unit in Wrocław, it’s placed in the south-west part of this country.”

Twilight seemed confused, but before she could ask he explained everything.

“Paratroopers are people who jump from there.” he pointed at the sky. “As you can see we don’t have any wings so in order to fly we had to built huge machines called aircrafts. Paratroopers jumped from this machines and usually right after they left it, they opened up the parachutes - a large piece of material tied with a few strings. To give you the general idea: it works a little like a falling leaf or feather and slowly drops the person on the ground… unless you are doing high air low opening jump...” soldier trailed off for a moment thinking about her, but for Twilight it seemed like he was about to pass out.

She asked slowly. “Are you feeling okay?”

Whatever the human was thinking her voice seemed to snap him out back to reality. “Y-yes. I’m just… tired.”

“O...kay. “ unicorn went silent for a moment. Both of them went past some small tunnel placed in the building and they walked out on the other side. Something began to bother her until she realized what he said. “Was?”

“Hm?” he turned his head to her.

“You said ‘was’. You mean… she’s not like this anymore?”

Reaper looked to the side so she wouldn't be able to see his face.and haven’t answered that.

Twilight put flat ears on herself and decided not to press on the subject. “Um… and what about you?”

“Me? Well… there isn’t much to talk about me. Just a simple man from larger city… Joined when there still was the… hm... “ ha had to make another pause to remind himself a word “...compulsory service as engineer, then somehow I ended up in a better unit...”

“Uhu...” she looked at him skeptically as if sensing he wasn’t telling the truth - or rather not the whole truth. But she had no reason to not believing him. Maybe she was sometimes obvious, but not stupid or blind. As soon as they left the place where they met first, she noticed how he looks at his surrounding with this suspicious and careful gaze, as if constantly planning something. ”Anyway… You referred to your friend as ‘she’ so I guess your friend is a female, right? Could you describe her for me?"

The man sighed lightly and gave Twilight a short description “Firefly is rather short woman - around one hundred and sixty centimeters high...” he realized, that Twilight might not know European metric system so he showed her with his hand somewhere on the level of his shoulders. “Somewhere around here. She has large, green eyes. Long, ginger hair and rather slim body build. ” he began to feel a little dizzy, but tried to suppress and ignore it while focusing on a conversation.

"A woman? Is that how you call females? How do you call males? And is there any other species who…” she trialed off slightly when she noticed a little annoyed expression of the human, or at least that’s how she interpreted it. “...lived here? I mean like: overall in your world.”

He once more sighed while rubbing his eyes a little, but replied calmly. “Yes, that’s how we call females, males are just ‘man’. For the last question… yes and no.”

He turned into some small alley and they passed a long line of cars forever left by their owners for whatever reasons, some of them still had opened doors or… dark stains of liquid.

Twilight pretended she hasn’t seen that, but a dark thought crossed her mind and made her shivered a little...

“Humans as a whole are the only… um... intelligent beings on this planet. However we have some… variations.” he looked at her with somehow critical eye “Nothing like you though. We have different skin colours commonly referred as white, dark, olive and yellow or whatever Asians people want to call it, but not purple or any other rainbow colour like your fur. Eyes come with different shades of blue, green, amber and brown. Sometimes blue shade might seem like grey and some people’s eyes, depending on how the light shines, can turn for example from brown to dark. Our hair also doesn’t come with a natural stripes like your… um… mane? The most common are dark, blond, or like me - brown. Ginger or red, like my friend Firefly, are a rarity.” he paused for a moment as he saw a shape of women in the debris to his right and halted.

He focused his sight there.

He clearly saw a dark outline of a woman in a dress swirling on a cold wind.

Now she began to walk toward them.

“What are you looking at?” Twilight asked while looking around trying to see what he saw.

Reaper once more slightly furrowed his bushy eyebrows, looked back at Twilight for a moment and gazed again at the girl.

But she wasn’t there anymore.

He felt really dry in his throat, so he grabbed himself by it lightly and tried to swallow some saliva, but it helped a little.

In the end he resumed the march. “Nothing, just… nevermind.” he said rather weakly.

Soldier began to feel really weak on his knees, his vision darkened a little and his head began to feel really light like after drinking too much alcohol. After making a few steps he staggered and fell with rather loud bang on the nearby car for support. His gaze seemed to be absent...

Unicorn quickly came closer to his side and asked. “Reaper!?” Human seemed either to not understand her or not hear her at all. She helped him sit down on the seat in the opened vehicle, then stood up on two back legs, supporting herself with one front hoof on his knee and slightly patted him on the cheek with the other hoof - after all she still had her boots and didn’t want to hurt him “Mister Reaper? Can you hear me? How do you feel?”

“Matko boska… ugh.” he gasped and hung his head low and lightly pushed off the patting hoof with his hand. He looked around with his barely conscious eyes and stopped on the woman sitting next to him.

She was dressed in a simple, white, buttoned shirt and dark, knee length skirt. Her blond like a straw hair were medium length and curly, freely falling onto her shoulders. Her neck was covered by a white, silk scarf and her almost unnaturally deep blue eyes were hidden by a pair of small, smart glasses. She seemed to be rather pretty and average in height.

She looked at him calmly and gave this big, heartwarming smile… a smile he couldn’t resist, but to return just a little.

Reaper slowly reached out his hand to her trying to touch her face, but since he was really tired he had to blink. When he opened his eyes the women wasn’t there any more.

Twilight watched him in silence, trying to understand what the human was doing. Finally she called him out on it. “What are you... doing?”

Her voice seemed to snap him out of whatever he tried to do and pulled back his hand.

He turned to her and his expression seemed to be mixed with embarrassment, dizziness and… anger? She wasn’t really sure.

“I just… kurwa.” He murmured angrily, with somehow defeated tone of voice, then made a long sigh, which sounded somehow helplessly and hid his face in his gloved hands “Ja pierdole, ja pierdole… ogarnij sie, chłopie.” Finally he slid his hands slightly now covering only his face from nose down and looked at Twilight as if making sure she was still with him.

Twilight backed away from him a step or two. She looked at him as if afraid of something. She wasn’t sure if her friend was… emotionally stable. From her perspective he looked right now more like a hurt animal, which has no idea if it should trust her or not and she couldn’t understand why.

Nonetheless, Reaper seemed to think about something. He jumped out from his seat, walked behind the car, then tried to open trunk of it, but it turned out it was jammed. He went back to the back seats, crawled inside the vehicle and began to search for something. Finally he found a small lever, which allowed him to fold the backseat and search said trunk. He saw a few bags and the thing he was looking for - the first aid kit. It was a red case with white circle on it and a red cross in the circle. He pulled that out, then the bags, opened them and found some clothes from which one of them was a children sized, brown jacket. There was also a lighter, frozen bottle of water, a folded mirror and deodorants.

He took everything into his backpack expect the jacket. He slowly gave it to Twilight and calmly said “Try it, maybe it will fit you and… I’m sorry if I might look a little scary. I don’t mean to.”

Unicorn wasn’t sure if she could trust him, but a new jacket would be nice… she slowly took it from him and tried it on. It seemed like it was just right for her. The inside material was a little weird in her opinion, but felt smooth and nice plus she actually began to feel warmer. She thanked him quietly, but still looked at him more or less distrustfully and asked “So… wouldn’t you have something to eat would you? I kind of haven't eaten anything since yesterday."

“I have. I’m just not sure if there is something for plant eating unicorns...”

The unusual -even for standards of this world- duo found for themselves a small square in something that used to be a tenement house. As they passed the iron gate they noticed a dead, white tree with dark spots placed in the middle with crows sitting on its branches giving it a gloomy and unsettling look. Reaper without hesitation walked in, small pony followed him less confidently.

He asked her to gather some sticks with her magic and sat down on a large chunk of some rubble and took out a canned carrots and some kind of smaller can with meat, opened them, then took out a firecracker, some kind of stand and a small shovel and dug a hole in the thick, hard snow until he hit the cobblestone.

Meanwhile unicorn carefully broke dry sticks from the tree, the crows didn’t even flinched as she done that and just watched her in creepy silence. When she finished, she quickly walked up to her companion and put them in a small circular hole pre-made by human, it had around a meter in depth and it appeared to be a solid cobblestone under the snow. Reaper took the firecracker and dumped the black powder under some kind of old rag, then took a flint and with a hiss lit it all up and after a few moments began to cook the carrots over a small fire.

Twilight watched him carefully, as he stared in the fire blankly, the twigs popped from time to time interrupting the silence. She noticed something on his face, beside the obvious wound that is. It was something that could resemble sadness, but she wasn’t sure, his beard and rough facial features simply not allowed it.

“It used to be a nice city, you know?” he said with somehow afraid tone, while making sure to not overcook the food. “Maybe some people were… jerks… actually, a lot of them, but it was still a nice city with a lots of history and monuments.” he looked around his surrounding, the stone walls, with empty half-circled windows and wooden doors. “Like this one…”

Unicorn moved her ears like to small radars in his direction and sat down on her backpack, while looking at the walls then back at him. Human took of the can with a detachable handle and gave it to her along with a spork, which she took with her magic and whispering small “Thank you.” began to eat. Then he cooked the meat and began to eat it with a plastic fork.

“Places like this… saw a lot of history.” he resumed looking back at the small fire pit. “I think Warsaw has one of the darker ones...”

Twilight, wherever it was from boredom or curiosity, asked “Could you tell me more? Maybe not about history, but about how it was founded...”

Human shrugged. “Why not... This city was built hundred of years ago, but no one can tell the specific date, no one also can tell, why it was called ‘Varshava’ and there are a few legends around it, from which one explains why the emblem of this city is a mermaid with a shield and a sword.”

“Um, how does the name spells, again?”

“It’s ‘W,A,R,S,Z,A,W,A’ in our alphabet there is no ‘v’ and we write letters as we hear them and vice versa, so we read ‘w’ a little like ‘v’ and combined ‘s,z’ is ‘sh’ and…” he sighed in frustration not really knowing how to explain it “Let’s just say my language is hard… Anyway, the name supposedly came from combined names of two people from the legend - Wars and Sawa. There are a few versions of it, but I’m going to tell you this one, because it’s the shortest.

A long time ago, at the shore of the Vistula River stood a tiny hut, and there lived a fisherman Wars and his wife Sawa. One day, in the area a great hunting took place, during which the prince Ziemomysł, lord of the surrounding lands, got lost in the woods. He was wandering in them for a really long time, but when the sun was almost behind the horizon he reached the Vistula and the cabin of fisherman. Wars hospitably welcomed the stranger and in the morning grateful prince said, ‘You did not hesitate to take under your roof a stranger and saved him from hunger, cold, and perhaps wild animals. Therefore, these lands forever to Warszaw will belong, so your kindness will not be forgotten.‘ So… basically it’s a combination of old polish names Wars and Sawa with ‘z’ added instead of one ‘s’ for simplicity of speech.

As to the emblem… hmm...

One day, at the outskirts of today's Old Town, from the waters of Visla came out a pretty mermaid with golden hair and skin white as a milk. She wanted to rest a little on the sandy shore, but it turned out to be so beautiful and charming, that she decided to stay here forever. Unfortunately, living in the nearby village fisherman's noticed, that someone is... disrupting the waves of the Vistula, tangling the nets and releasing the fish. So they decided to catch whoever was doing this, after all they were living from fishing. But when they heard the beautiful voice of a siren, they abandoned their intentions and sincerely fell in love with the half-woman. Happy because of the new audience, from now, on every evening, she sung them beautiful songs.

Time passed and everything seemed to go well for everyone, until a rich merchant saw the mermaid and decided to catch her. Using a foul trick, he imprisoned her in a wooden shed. Crying of the siren heard the young son of a fisherman, and with the help of his friends, under the cover of night, they managed to release her. Siren with a gratitude for saving her life promised them, that whenever they will need help, she will stand to defend them. And from that moment the Warsaw Mermaid, armed with sword and shield, guards the city and its… inhabitants.” he finally finished.

Librarian finished her meal listening to everything, that he just said. Of course she would listen, she was a sucker for all kinds of knowledge and after some warm food she felt much better. “So… I guess in your world mermaids aren’t real...:” she commented giving back the spork.

He summed it up with a short nod, then put down the fire and buried it along with an empty can. Then got up and began to walk in direction of the doors where the building was the least destroyed and motioned her to follow him, which she did. He opened the doors and peeked inside.

It was dark. When Reaper’s eyes adjusted to it, he saw a stairway which was blocked by pieces of the ceiling and rocks, but next to it was a small corridor and at the end of it were opened doors. He figured that it was most likely a house of the janitor or the owner. He made his way there with a pistol in his hand. Unicorn stayed at the doorway and waited and observed him with interested. Human walked in, this time quickly checking left and right, before walking in further and disappearing from her sight. After a minute or two, he came back and waved her with his hand, that it’s all clear, so she also went inside…

The flat was small, a main room combined with a kitchen, small bathroom and one small bedroom. It was also poorly decorated, paint was coming off the walls, the furnitures seemed to be quite old, the floor was made from wooden planks not even covered by a carpet. A few pictures hung or stood here and there, but one caught an eye of librarian. It seemed to be old, black and white photography representing a young couple smiling to the camera in what looked like weeding wear. Another seemed to be more modern, colourful, with the same pair, but a lot older, still having this contagious happy smile, which now she herself had.

Twilight suddenly remembered the wedding pictures of her parents and brother. This two humans had the same smiles as them. It was clear that they love each other and it became obvious to her, that humans might have a lot similar to ponies.

She was wandering if Reaper could have someone like this…Suddenly, the smile she had fell along with her ears and she felt an unpleasant cold in her chest. She began to ask herself questions. What if she’s stuck here and never see them again? Why the orb teleported her here? Who is the couple on this picture? And most importantly…

“Where are all this people? What happened here?”

Her train of thoughts was broken by a loud scraping noise. She looked at her companion and saw how he pushes a large wardrobe to block the window, then comes up to the door and locks it.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Prepare for the night.” he answered and taking off his belongings lay down on the couch, then pointed his rifle at the entrance. “Tonight, there won’t be any moonlight to protect us.”

“Protect us from what?” she asked uneasy.

Soldier haven’t answered at first and just looked at her with concerned gaze. For a moment she felt a little like a filly when her own father gave her this look. Finally he closed his eyes and said “You will see…”

Unicorn had no idea what to make of this. She stood there not really knowing what to do with herself until she heard a noise… in fact a lot of noises resembling moanings. Distant. Creepy. Unnatural.

Human-like.

It was as if the dead city came back to life.

“Reaper… what is this?” she asked really quietly the seemingly sleeping man, as if afraid, that whatever it is, it will hear her. “Please, answer me...” she pleaded, but it looked like it was for nothing.

“The new citizens.” he answered, with a voice so dry and nervous, that it actually took her off guard. When she took a closer look at him, she noticed how tightly he grips the gun and presses his lips, his chest was rising and falling a little too quickly.

The doors fluttered, which startled the young mare. Then a cacophony of yells, moans and banging at the door began. Scared, she backed off and came up to the wall, then decided to look through a really small gap between the wardrobe and window.

Shadows. Lots of moving, humanoid shadows. Shadows twisted in unnatural, almost impossible positions.

She recoiled when one went by the window.

This creatures appeared to have no skin or flesh, but she wasn’t sure due to the lack of light, it was almost like they were made from dust or… ash. Her heart began to beat like a hammer. What was going on? What are this monsters? They seem to be human, but different... She didn’t know what to do. She haven’t noticed it, but her legs nervously began to tap on the floor.

“Twilight… could you come up to me?”

She spun around as if burned with fire at the sound of his calm voice and looked in the tiered, blue eyes of the soldier, then quickly walked up to him. For a moment he let go of his weapon, settled himself in a reclining position, with a hiss of pain took her with both hands by sides and put her on himself. She haven’t resisted. Then lightly hugged her in such a way that the left hand covered her ear and the other was pressed to his vest. It drowned out the sounds from outside, but she still could hear his rather calming voice… he was singing something in his language, it almost sounded like a lullaby…

She began to feel oddly relaxed and sleepy. Her breath slowed down as well as her heartbeat. She didn’t know, when she fell asleep… human on the other hand never finished the song, because his body just gave up and he also fell asleep despite all the noise around.

Author's Note

So... hot and... lazy... must... force myself... to write...