Fallout Equestria: Omega

Fallout Equestria: Omega
Author: Cooperdawg

Entry Two: November 1st, 1047

I had severely underestimated how bad things had become. Either far more balefire bombs and megaspells had been launched than we had thought, or their effects were more far reaching than anyone could have ever predicted. Either way, the countryside did not prove to be safer, and the radiation levels were certainly not lower.

Our Rad-Away supplies were already gone, having been used up in the first two days to counteract the effect of the intense radiation from Manehattan. Our supply of Rad-X was next to disappear. Thank the Princesses I still had the small bottle from my apartment tucked away in my increasingly dirty jacket. I felt no small amount of guilt at keeping it hidden from the rest of the group, but as I had told Just Heart: I needed to look after my family. This small bottle was the only thing keeping the two of us as marginally healthy as we were.

That being said, I hadn’t been able to get the insistent taste of tin out of my mouth (no matter how much water I used to try to wash it out) and I seemed to always feel weak. It was easy to forget that all Rad-X did was boost a pony’s resistance to radiation, and didn’t cleanse it out of the system, and the hours spent without its help were hours I spent soaking in radiation.

I was also starting to worry about the rest of our supplies, namely our supply of fresh water. We had enough dry army rations, tasteless as they were, to last us for a while, if we were careful, but water was much harder to ration. If we were lucky, we had maybe three days left for the fifteen of us that were still together, and that was only because a few ponies hadn’t woken up over the last couple of days, though none of us had been able to determine a reason why, beyond the simple explanation of ‘because’.

The hardest loss to take was when one of the nurses hadn’t woken. As one of the few of our group that had medical training, they were almost invaluable, which meant they were the ones that got the few doses of Rad-X that we still had, excluding my personal supply.

I shuddered at the thought of the ponies that had passed away, making Sunrise squirm against me. I tightened my grip around her, letting her know that I was still there and waited for her to settle back down. Despite everything, and all the thousands, if not millions, of ponies that had been killed, I had never seen a body that close up before. At least the bombs had been more or less clean. No bodies had been left behind to stare at us, accusing us of actions we couldn’t stop. It was hard to think that it had only been barely more than a week.

We had followed the train tracks out of Manehattan, thinking that the countryside would have been more or less untouched by the weapons. We couldn’t have been more wrong. It seemed that the further out we went, the worse the devastation became, though that was an illusion caused by more remains being left behind after the blasts. The first train station we had found had been completely leveled, with only a few smoldering lengths of dense replacement railroad ties left behind. The station after that, while the structure itself was still there, had been reduced to a husk, with the roof blown completely clear and the inside scoured clean by balefire.

We had made a token attempt of searching for anything of use, but anything worth taking had been reduced to ash. The only potential source of anything useful was a sturdy black safe that had somehow survived the devastation, but it had been locked, and the key was nowhere to be found.

After hours of walking through the blasted wasteland that the surrounding landscape of Manehattan had become, we had finally happened upon a train station that wasn’t in total ruins. There had even been a shopping plaza nearby that we had investigated, and, to our great fortune, had found a game and hobby shop that wasn’t locked. Unfortunately, there was almost nothing of use inside. No extra food, except a few snacks left behind in the employee lounge, and no medicine except for some gauze and a single healing potion in a first aid kit, but at least it offered some protection from the conditions outside.

We’d been staying here for the last several days once it became clear that nothing had survived, and that trying to find our families was an exercise in futility. Some ponies had decided to try anyway; I honestly couldn’t blame them. That was when our group had been cut in half, with almost thirty ponies wandering aimlessly out into the countryside without so much as a map, not that one was going to be of any use anyway. What little of the country side I had seen was unrecognizable. I was used to rolling green hills and copses of bright, healthy trees. Instead, the few hills that were left were brown, and the trees had been reduced to so much tinder.

Sunrise had been one the ponies that had wanted to walk out there, since her parents lived nearby. I had only managed to keep her here by promising that their house would be the first thing we looked for once we left the shopping center, though with every passing day it was becoming harder to find a reason to leave. We were all weak and tired, no doubt a result of the radiation we had all been absorbing.

To be completely honest, I didn’t know what we were going to do. I had succeeded in getting us this far, but none of us was truly prepared to face the world we were now being forced to live in. A young stallion that had been in our shelter had spent the first night here convinced that everything was just a dream, and that he was going to wake up and everything was going to be fine. When we tried to explain that we weren’t in a dream, he refused to believe us until he finally broke down sobbing and crying for his parents. He was the first pony not to wake the next morning. Steady Pulse, the only real doctor with us, said he had simply given up on living.

The door to the small back room that Sunrise and I had to ourselves cracked open, the metal hinges grinding against each other as the abused metal was forced to move. I lifted my head from Sunrise’s shoulder, turning it to look at whoever was looking for us.

“Cirrus, I need you out here,” the familiar voice of Just Heart whispered in a feeble attempt to not disturb anypony else’s rest. If the squealing of that door hadn’t already woken them, it would be a miracle.

I sighed, not quite ready to face another day in this hell that had become my life. What I wouldn’t give to simply have to deal with Lofted Breeze again. I nodded at the dirty grey stallion before turning my attention back to Sunrise, who was looking up at me with those two beautiful green eyes, still half-closed in exhaustion. The grief and fear in that gaze made me wish that the young stallion had been right, and that all of this was just a dream.

“I’ll be back soon,” I whispered, kissing her lightly, “Get something to eat. We still have enough to last a while.”

“Be careful,” she whispered in return, reaching out with a hoof as if to stop me from walking out. Her voice was weak and labored, and I imagined mine was much the same. None of us were getting the nutrition we needed, and our lack of medication was starting to become very worrisome. Hopefully Just Heart needed me for something that would solve those problems.

“I always am,” I answered as I carefully separated myself from her, crawling out from under the threadbare blanket that was all we had to keep ourselves warm.

I was still wearing my work jacket, partly because it was all I had to keep hold of the few possessions I could still call my own, and partly because the temperature had been dropping rapidly the last few days, a result of the bizarre weather patterns we assumed were caused by the bombs. I stopped briefly on my way to the hallway by the small desk that was the only remaining piece of furniture on the room and delved into the drawer for my pistol, stuffing it into my jacket. I hadn’t needed it yet, but the world had already proven to be completely unpredictable. Being ready was better than being dead.

Just Heart was waiting for me, leaning against the wall and nibbling on the corner of a ration bar, grimacing at the taste, or lack thereof. “Princesses above, I knew these things were bad, but couldn’t they have at least added some sort of flavor?” he complained as he forced the bite down, a very noticeable lump traveling down his throat as he did.

“If they did that, it wouldn’t be as easy to make the damn things last,” I answered with a crooked smile, finding a little bit of peace in the daily ritual the police sergeant and I had started. It helped to keep us sane.

“I knew there was a reason I kept you around. Always have an answer for everything, eh, Cirrus?” Just Heart replied, grinning as he finished the ritual.

“Only if I can help it. What’s going on?” I asked, gesturing for the Earth Pony to lead the way.

He started walking down the dark hallway, limping slightly as he favored his left foreleg. His right had a bandage wrapped around it, just above the knee. A radiation burn had formed there and Steady Pulse had done what he could to treat it, but there was only so much we could do with the few supplies we had left, so the police sergeant was suffering with the pain, using only his strength of will to keep doing what needed to be done.

“Our water supplies are almost completely gone, and I think somepony stole some from the cache last night. A couple of the bottles are unaccounted for. Also, we need to figure out what to do about our medication shortage. If we don’t figure out something soon, this is going to get bad. We already have a couple cases of severe radiation poisoning, not to mention burns like mine. Steady Pulse said some of the more sick ponies are starting to lose skin and hair. We need Rad-Away, otherwise ponies are going to start dying, for real reasons this time,” he explained, his voice carefully controlled, for reasons I could understand. We were all doing what we could, and cooperation was the only reason we were all still alive. If somepony was stealing from the rest of the group, it couldn’t be good.

I sighed heavily, using the action to let out a lot of the tension and frustration I would have otherwise let out on Just Heart. It was an exercise that I had forced myself to adopt in the last few days, since getting mad at anypony out here wasn’t going to make surviving any easier, and losing my temper like I had with Lofted Breeze was an even worse decision. I had to be rational.

“Do we have any evidence that it was a theft? Could we have miscounted?” I asked, pushing the issue of medicine to the back of my mind. I’d deal with that later.

“No, it has to be a theft. I double check the figures every night before I go to bed. I haven’t told the others yet. They don’t look to me like they do to you. Most still see me as a police officer, rather than a victim like the rest of them. Like having a badge matters anymore,” Just Heart muttered, lowering his head slightly.

I felt a brief moment of guilt, since I was one of the ponies that still saw the dirty grey stallion as a police officer. It was hard to forget, considering his cutie mark was a police badge. “Okay, so we need to let them know that it’s happened, then ask who is responsible. They should know that we need to be careful about rationing water, so the guilt should make them confess,” I said, my tone hopeful.

“In a perfect world,” Just Heart snorted, “Nopony is going to say a word. They’ll be too afraid of the consequences, and you can’t go easy on this, Cirrus. There needs to be a consequence.” He came to a stop at the door that would lead us into the main room of the store, where everypony else was sleeping.

“What do you expect me to do, Heart? Summary execution? These ponies have nothing left to lose except their lives, and I’m not going to shoot somepony just for taking a bottle of water,” I snapped, my temper flaring for a moment before I wrestled it back under control, then continued with a more even tone, “I agree that there needs to be some consequence, but what the hell is that going to be? It’s not like we have a jail, or that bits are worth anything anymore.”

“I’m just saying, Cirrus. We need to do something to let them know that this isn’t acceptable,” the sergeant growled, pushing the door open with a hoof and walking through.

We had cleared the display cases and stands from the floor to the walls, clearing up a large open space that we could use to sleep, eat, and generally live in. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing. In the center of the room was the small space we had cleared out for a fire which we kept running using what little wooden furniture there was, as well as the cardboard boxes and game boards from the merchandise around us. If the world ever returned to normality, I’m sure the owner wouldn’t get too mad at us for doing what we needed to in order to survive, if the owner was even still alive.

A few heads turned to look at us as we entered, some of the healthier ponies rising to their hooves to meet us. All of them, even the healthy ones, looked weak and emaciated, the effects of the radiation taking its toll on their bodies.

“Good morning, Cirrus, Just Heart,” a young voice said from my side. I turned to face a young, grey unicorn stallion whose name I remembered was Bolter, “Did you sleep well?”

“As well as any of us can, kid,” Just Heart intoned as he trotted past, making his way to the closet where we kept our supplies.

“Would you mind waking everypony up for us, Bolter? We have a few important things to talk about,” I asked. Thankfully, the young unicorn always seemed willing to help, and somehow managed to keep a smile on his face all the time. I was grateful for the help, since most ponies in the group were too busy just trying to stay alive.

“Of course! Are we just gathering in the main room?” he asked, already turning to start on his task.

“Yes, that’s fine. Thank you,” I said, letting the young unicorn get on with it and wandered over to join Just Heart.

He was standing in front of the open door to the supply closet, a clipboard he had found in one of the desks held in the crook of one leg as he ticked off our supplies. The task didn’t take very long.

When he was finished, he handed the clipboard to me, and as I read its contents, I noticed the disparity immediately. Ignoring the absolutely deplorable state of our supplies in general, there were two bottles of water missing from our check last night, bringing our total number down to only fifteen bottles left.

“Shit, I hope they confess,” I breathed, the words barely audible. I didn’t want to have to punish anypony, and if they came forward, there was the possibility that I would be able to write it off with a warning and a reminder that we were all in this together.

The hard stare I was getting from Just Heart quickly stamped out that hope. “Even if they do, we need to do something. If we don’t, everypony will think they can get away with this,” he stated simply, his voice low enough that I was the only pony that heard him, then closed the door and turned to face the room.

I turned with him and saw that everypony was now awake and facing us, including Sunrise, who stood at the back of the room by the door that led to our office. I barely managed to contain another sigh. I didn’t want her to have to see this.

Everypony had an expression of expectation and interest. This was only the second time that Just Heart and I had had to make a general announcement to the entire group, so they knew it was important. The first time had been when the thirty ponies had wandered off into the remains of the world in search of family, and we needed to keep the rest of us together.

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment to collect my thoughts, then let the breath out, fixing everypony in a gaze I hoped was confident, or at least competent. “All right, everypony. Unfortunately, we have a bit of a problem. Just Heart just brought it to my attention that two bottles of water have gone missing from our supply, enough to drop our rations from three days down to only two. I hope that whoever is responsible steps forward and claims responsibility, since this threatens all of our lives, including your own. Just Heart and I are trying to figure out what to do about our supplies, but until then, we ask for you all to trust us,” I announced, wincing on the inside as worried expressions, and more than a few angry ones, passed through the crowd. After everything we had survived, they certainly didn’t deserve more bad news, but I wasn’t about to hide the truth from them.

Also, to my dismay, I couldn’t make out any faces that looked guilty, or any other sort of expression that might point to somepony being responsible. Then again, Just Heart was better at reading expressions than I was.

The ponies in the crowd were starting to shift uncomfortably, and I could see more than a few of them open their mouths as if about to say something. Finally, somepony did. She was a weathered old light purple unicorn mare who I vaguely remembers as being from my apartment, but I still couldn’t remember her name.

“Do you have any idea who might be responsible? Whoever did it should be thrown out of here for endangering all of us like this!” she snapped bitterly, her features twisting in anger.

There were several surprised, and angry, shouts in response to that, and I launched myself briefly into the air to calm everyone down. “Everypony, please settle down! Just Heart and I are doing what we can, but let’s not jump to any conclusions. I’m sure that whoever took the water had very good reasons, and we will definitely take that into consideration, but I am not going to force somepony out for trying to survive just like the rest of us. We’re all in this together, and if we stick together, we will survive.”

“Why shouldn’t we kick them out? They obviously care more about their own hide than they do about the well-being of the group, and I don’t want some selfish pony who’s just as likely to let me die as they are to help me staying in this group!” the old mare protested, “Besides, how are we to know that you or Just Heart didn’t take that water? You’re the only ones that look at that checklist at all! For all we know, you’re just saying something now to cover your own backsides!”

“I will not tolerate this sort of behavior!” Just Heart yelled before the mare had a chance to continue her rant, “Cirrus and I have been working hard to make sure everypony is provided for, and we gain nothing by stealing supplies from the rest of you. The simple fact is that this sort of behavior cannot go without some sort of action being taken, as it threatens the rest of us, but Cirrus is entirely right: we are not going to throw a pony out on their rump for a small issue like this. If you come forward and admit you were at fault, we will go easy on you, but if we have to search you out, the consequences will be much less forgiving.”

“How could you possibly consider this a small issue!” the mare shrieked, rounding on Just Heart, “They stole water! Tell me anywhere nearby that has clean water fit for drinking! This is the exact opposite of a small issue!”

“Ma’am, I will ask one more time for you to calm down. As I said, Cirrus and I are working on the problem, but panicking and throwing blame around is not helping anypony,” Just Heart growled.

“We all simply need to remember that we have to rely on each other,” I added, trying to calm them both down. Just Heart was a terrific administrator, but had very little patience, and everything we had been facing these last few days had put everyone on edge, “So please, come and speak to me if you are responsible. I won’t force you to confess in front of anypony else. Now, that’s all we had to say, so if you will excuse us, Just Heart and I have some other things to discuss.”

The old mare looked like she wanted to say something more, but apparently decided she was better than that, and simply sniffed, raising her nose, and returned to her small pile of blankets. Most of the other ponies did something similar, trying to find some warmth as we tried to figure out what our next step was.

Only one pony remained behind to approach Just Heart and myself. Part of me hoped that it was the pony responsible for stealing water, but as soon as I saw that it was Bolter, I knew that any chance of that was almost zero. The young buck practically jumped to every word either I or the former police sergeant said, and I couldn’t see him doing something like this anyway.

“Did somepony really steal water?” he asked cautiously as he approached us, his head swinging side to side as if looking for somepony eavesdropping on the conversation.

“Yes, and we need to find out who. This sort of action cannot go unpunished,” Just Heart answered angrily. He looked to still be seething from the argument with the old mare.

“I… I can keep a look out here while you two do what you need to do,” Bolter offered, shooting me a conspiratorial look, “I might be able to see somepony using water they aren’t supposed to have.”

Just Heart and I shared a look. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea, at all. It meant that we were going to be spying on ourselves, unable to trust each other when trust was most important.

“I can’t make this choice. It’s up to you, Cirrus,” Just Heart intoned, finally turning away from me and wandering over to the front of the store and stepping outside.

I watched him go, angry that he was forcing this decision on me. I didn’t know what to do, or what was necessary. I didn’t want to have to order somepony to spy on others when I had just told them we all needed to trust and rely on each other. But I also knew that we had to discover who had stolen from the group. Water was simply too valuable.

“Fuck, how did it come to this,” I sighed, lowering my head in defeat, “All right, Bolter. Keep an eye out, but try not to draw attention to yourself. I want to wait and see if they approach us first. We have to at least give them a chance.”

The young unicorn nodded enthusiastically as he backed away. “Of course, Cirrus! You can count on me!” he said, turning and trotting over to where he kept his small bag of possessions.

I watched the buck go, jealous of his constant good spirits, then turned and followed after Just Heart. Outside, the sky was covered in thick, dark grey clouds, and ash was still falling, as it had been for the last week straight. It didn’t take a genius to know that everything falling from the sky was radioactive, but it wasn’t like there was any way for us to get away from it.

Seeing nopony nearby, since Just Heart was patrolling around a few of the other intact storefronts, I slipped a hoof into my jacket and pulled out my personal supply of Rad-X. The bottle was nearly empty, and I had only been taking half-doses in order to make it last. At least it was better than nothing. I popped the cap off and swallowed one of the tablets, actually enjoying the fake lemon taste. Anything was better than the dry army rations that were all we had to eat.

After returning the bottle to my jacket, I made my way over to Just Heart, who had come to a stop in front of a store we had stood in front of several times in the last few days. Many of the stores had had their windows or doors blasted off by the bombs, and we had scavenged what we could, but almost everything had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. This small grocery store was the only store that had remained intact, and it was the one that would help us the most if we could only manage to get in.

So far, everything we had tried had failed. Somepony in our group, Bolter, I think, had tried to pick the lock using some bobby pins and a screw driver he had found lying around, but that had only resulted in broken bobby pins and a jammed lock. Next, we had tried to break the windows using anything we could find: bricks, poles, even our own hooves, but the windows had managed to survive several megaspell detonations. Nothing we tried was going to get through.

“We’re out of options, Cirrus. We either get in there, or we die,” Just Heart stated simply as I approached, trying to pull my jacket tighter against myself to ward off the chill in the air, “That food and water will give us the supplies we need to finally move on.”

“We’ve talked about this before, Just Heart. Even if we get in there, where are we going to go? I haven’t heard anything about anywhere safe, so unless you know something I don’t, we don’t have any goal to head towards. Wandering aimlessly out there is just as much a death sentence as running out of clean water,” I protested. We’d had the same argument countless times in the last four days, ever since Just Heart had decided we needed to leave. They always ended with both of us falling silent and trying again to break into the store.

Part of me felt like we were losing a part of ourselves every time we tried to break the door down, but I had had to resolutely push that part of my mind back. As much as I didn’t like it, Just Heart was right when he said those supplies would save our lives.

“It’s better than sitting around here and waiting to die. At least out there we’d be doing something,” Just Heart growled, pawing at the ground and leaning in towards the lock to examine it.

“It’s a moot point unless we can get in there,” I answered, slowly shaking my head.

“I know, I know. Dammit! This just makes me so angry!” Just Heart exclaimed in a rare outburst of rage, and kicked the door. To both our surprise, it swung open easily, like it wasn’t even locked.

We both jumped back in surprise, Just Heart pulling his sidearm out of its holster and aiming it into the now-open grocery store. “Was it always unlocked?” I asked, taking another cautious step back. Something about the entire situation was rubbing me entirely the wrong way, making me want to turn and run, but my responsibility to the ponies in that game shop held me rooted to the spot.

“No, it wasn’t. That was the first thing I checked,” Just Heart muttered around the grip of his gun, “I think we found our water thief though.” He was pointing at something on the ground, and when I leaned in to investigate, I could make out a clear hoofprint in the dust.

“Shit,” I muttered, “At least we know it wasn’t one of us.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt guilty. Everypony that was still alive was one of us, a refugee of an act none of us had wanted.

“Yeah. You have that pistol of yours on you?” Just Heart asked, shifting his gaze briefly to me before looking back into the grocery store, his weapon trained carefully on the doorway.

He was the only pony besides Sunrise who knew I had it. I had told him since he was technically the only pony left in our group that represented whatever was left of the law. The other two police officers had left with the group that had wandered off into the countryside. He had decided that it would be dangerous to tell the others, since it would give the impression that only those ponies with guns were in charge. I had wholly agreed with him.

I nodded weakly in response to his question and gingerly pulled the weapon out of my jacket. I didn’t know what I would do if I was forced to pull the trigger on somepony. To this point, the only thing I had ever shot with it were pieces of target paper at the firing range. Shooting a real, live pony, was something I knew might have to happen, but so far, I had managed to avoid it. It wasn’t like there were that many ponies out here anyway.

“Good. Follow me, and do what I do. I know a thing or two about this, and if we’re careful, violence won’t be necessary,” Just Heart said as he stepped into the dark building, obviously expecting me to follow.

I was only a couple of steps behind him as he made his way through the aisles of the small grocery store, covering the corners the dirty grey Earth pony wasn’t watching, and generally just trying to not run away screaming in fear. I couldn’t help but remember all the old horror movies I had watched as a kid, where the two characters walked into a dark, abandoned building without telling anypony, and then were never heard from again.

But this was reality, and it was already far worse than anything any horror movie I had ever seen had ever offered. At least in the movies, the rest of the world was still sane, and I had found comfort in the thought that all I had to do if I became too frightened was to walk out of the movie theatre.

Our search brought us to the back of the room, and the small door leading back to the manager’s office. “They’re in there,” Just Heart whispered, gesturing to the door and moving up beside it, motioning for me to make myself ready on the other side.

Once I was in place, Just Heart deposited his sidearm into its holster, then lifted a hoof and knocked locked loudly on the door. “Hello? Is anypony in there? I’m a police officer. My name is Just Heart. Can you come out and talk to us, please?” he asked, his voice gentle and understanding. It was a very marked difference from the anger and frustration I had seen from him not moments ago.

“P…Please go away,” a weak male voice answered from the door. It was shaking badly, and I could just picture a stallion hiding on the other side of the door, shaking in terror at the two ponies on the other side of the door.

“I’m afraid we can’t do that, son. Can you please open the door so we can talk properly? I promise, we aren’t going to hurt you,” Just Heart coaxed, leaning towards the door to make his voice easier to hear.

“Please. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I just wanted… I was so thirsty. I needed to be clean. I… I… I don’t know what’s happening,” the voice whimpered.

“It’s okay. I understand. But you need to understand that we needed that water to survive. Can you please come out here so we can talk? I’m sure we can come to a fair agreement for the water you took. If you do that for me, we’ll walk away, ok?” Just Heart pressed, a victorious look in his eye now that the buck had confessed to taking our water.

I had to admit to myself that I was relieved as well. The first thing I would do when I got back to the game shop would be to tell Bolter that we had found the thief.

“Nononononono. I can’t do that. Can’t come out. Others can’t see. They won’t know, won’t understand,” the voice said, becoming increasingly erratic and rushed as he spoke.

“What won’t we understand?” I asked, struggling to form the words around the grip of my gun.

“You don’t know! You can’t know! They said I was sick, that I was going to die, but see what they knew! I’m still here, and they aren’t! They’re all dead now!” the voice started to shout, then laugh almost maniacally.

“Who are they? How did they die?” Just Heart asked, “Was it the bombs?”

“Dead? Dead! They are dead! And you are mad they are dead! You’re going to hurt me! You can’t! I won’t let you! I’ll kill you to! Then I’ll be able to eat!” The voice practically shrieked, all hints of sanity vanished from the voice.

Before either of us had a chance to respond, the door flew open, striking Just Heart in the head and making him fall to the ground, stunned. I barely managed to step back in time to avoid the buck that came flying out of the door a moment later.

He landed on top of Just Heart and started to attack him, raining down blows with his hooves. The Earth Pony barely managed to get his forelegs up to protect his head and neck when the blows started falling. “Cirrus, help me! Get him off of me!” he shouted.

I reacted instinctively, darting in and shoving the buck off of Just Heart, but all I accomplished was turning the crazed stallion’s attention to myself.

He leapt at me, and I jerked back in response, my tongue finding the trigger of my gun and pulling it reflexively. The pistol kicked against my jaw, retorting loudly in the confines of the store, and the bullet struck the pony in the chest. His momentum carried him forward to collide with me, covering me in his blood as he struggled weakly, and bearing both of us to the ground.

“Thank you,” he breathed, then lay still, his corpse draped across me.

“Get him off of me!” I shouted, the shock of what I had just done settling in only slowly.

The weight of the buck on top of me disappeared a moment later as Just Heart pulled the body off, leaving it lying on the ground beside me. I scrabbled away from it, feeling myself start to hyperventilate. I had just killed somepony. He had been alive just a few minutes ago, but now that life was gone, ended by me.

“Cirrus, calm down and breathe,” Just Heart said, coming up next to me and laying a hoof on my shoulder, “I know what you’re thinking. It wasn’t your fault. He attacked you and you reacted. That is it. It’s not your fault you had to kill him.”

“He’s dead. I shot him, and now he’s dead,” I muttered between sharp breaths. I could feel tears starting to form in my eyes, and a few moments later I felt the cold paths they traced against my cheek. I turned my head to look Just Heart in the eyes, “Why, Heart? Why did I have to do that?”

“Easy, Cirrus. You’re going to be all right. You saved my life there, that’s why you had to do it. We have to look out for each other, remember. He was crazy, and threatened the safety of our group. You’re protecting them,” Just Heart said, albeit a little awkwardly.

I didn’t notice. My mind was locked up, and my gaze kept straying back to the corpse that had been a living pony before I had pulled the trigger. Even worse, he had thanked me for killing him. “Yeah, he threatened us,” I muttered, finally getting control over my breathing again. A wave of nausea swept through me as I looked at the body. “I’m going to be sick,” I stated as I twisted onto my side and vomited violently, dumping the meager contents of my stomach onto the floor.

“Feel better?” Just Heart asked, not unkindly. I could only imagine that he had gone through this as well.

“Yeah, a little,” I muttered, wiping my mouth with a hoof and rising shakily to my hooves, “Tell me I didn’t screw up, Heart. I can’t live with being a murderer.” My voice was pleading. I needed to know, desperately, that I had done the right thing.

“You didn’t screw up, Cirrus. You saved my life. Who knows what that pony would have done if he had hurt me,” Just Heart answered quietly, moving away from me and over to the body.

I followed him hesitantly. I wanted nothing more than to run, as far and as fast as I could, but I knew I had to face this. It was the reality of the world I lived in now, and running wasn’t going to change that fact. Like it or not, I had to live with the fact that I had taken a life.

“Would you look at that,” Just Heart mused as he examined the corpse, “I think this is what he didn’t want us to see.”

I could barely make out the green hide of the buck, since most of his body was covered in lesions, exposing the muscle beneath. Most of his mane and tail had fallen out, making him look like a zombie.

“What… What happened to him,” I asked, fighting back another wave of nausea. The body smelled like he’d been dead for days, instead of just a few minutes.

“I don’t know. Radiation sickness, if I had to guess, but I’ve never heard of symptoms like this. It looks like he started to rot, despite the fact he was still alive. Guess that explains why he was crazy. Simply bizarre,” Just Heart stated, shifting the body slightly. It squelched against the ground.

I shook my head slowly, still in shock, but slowly regaining control over myself. “Well, we made it this far. We should grab what we can and bring it back to the group. We can have a real meal tonight to celebrate the windfall. It will do wonders for everyone’s morale,” I said in an attempt to get my mind of the dead pony in front of me. It didn’t work.

Just Heart nodded enthusiastically at my suggestion. “Excellent idea!” he exclaimed, “You take that far side of the store. I’ll cover this side. Our priority should be healthy foods and anything hydrating.”

I nodded woodenly and made my way to the other side of the store, pulling a few bags off a nearby checkout lane as I went. It didn’t take long for us to collect as much food as we could manage, enough to last us days, if not weeks with careful rationing, and it wasn’t even half of what was in the store. We’d be able to come back tomorrow and collect more for a trip out. I now completely agreed with Just Heart. We couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t stay here.

Just Heart stopped me at the door, a pistol in his mouth. My pistol in his mouth. “Don’t forget this, Cirrus. Who knows if you’re going to need it again,” he said, holding it out to me.

I recoiled from the weapon. When before it had made me feel so safe, it now felt like it was something dirty. But Just Heart wasn’t moving, and he was blocking my way out the door with his body. His eyes held an expression that I could only call understanding. He did know what I was going through, and he knew best how to deal with it. I reached out tentatively and took the weapon from him, quickly settling it back into place in my jacket. It felt heavy on my side, but Just Heart was right. I couldn’t be too careful.

Next, he held out a bottle of water that was only half full. It was one of the bottles that the dead pony had stolen from us. “Clean yourself up. We don’t want the others to see you covered in blood. You can use a rag to dry off. They already think the water is missing, so it won’t hurt anyone to use it,” he said, shaking the bottle a bit, making the water inside slosh around.

I hesitantly took the bottle from him, using the water sparingly to tease the blood out of my hide, and doing what I could to wash any traces from my jacket. I couldn’t get all of it out, but I got enough that it wouldn’t be immediately noticeable. “Thanks,” I said weakly, nodding at the former police sergeant. He returned the gesture and stepped through the door and back out into hell.

Our return to the game shop was greeted with a great deal of joy and exclamations of surprise. We were practically swarmed by the ponies as they noticed the food we had brought back, and several of them quickly made off with a great deal of it to begin preparing a meal for the rest of us.

When the excitement had finally died down a bit, Just Heart managed to calm everypony down enough to tell them that we had an announcement to make. “I’m also happy to tell you all that the pony responsible for taking our water was living in the grocery store. When we confronted him, he became violent and attacked us. We made sure he won’t be a threat to any of us. However, I do ask that nopony here goes into the grocery store. Cirrus and I will be heading back later today, as well as tomorrow, to gather supplies. We won’t be staying here for much longer. We need to find somewhere with a supply of fresh water and a reliable source of food. We’ll stay long enough to gather our strength, but plan on leaving tomorrow,” he announced.

He knew I wasn’t going to argue with him, and the announcement was met with silence. It wasn’t a disagreeing silence, or even an unsure one. If there was a word for how the room felt, it was accepting. There was simply nothing to say, and they all knew that.

“You have things under control up here, Heart?” I asked tiredly. I felt exhausted, even though it wasn’t even noon yet. I knew part of the reason was what I had just been through, but I didn’t care. I needed to see my Sunrise, needed to hear her voice, and know that I still had a reason to keep going in this fucked-up world.

“Yeah, I’ve got it. Go ahead and see to your wife. Let her know that we’ve got food up here, will you. We haven’t been eating enough to begin with, and she’s been eating even less than us,” Just Heart answered, giving me a concerned look.

I nodded, letting the buck know I had heard him, and made my way to the door that would bring me to her. Just as I was about to close the door behind me. “Remember, Cirrus, I’m here for you if you need it. You’re the only reason we made it this far!”

Right, I was the only reason that almost thirty ponies had decided to wander aimlessly off into the countryside, leaving the rest of us behind in a fruitless search for families that were probably dead or dying. I was the reason that several ponies had given up on living, deciding that death was better than surviving in the living hell that was all we had left. Me deciding to take action was the reason I had been forced to pull a gun and kill another pony.

Tears were streaking down my face when I pushed through the door into the office, not caring if it didn’t close behind me. I didn’t even make it to my Sunrise’s side before I collapsed, sobbing, to the ground. I was filled with nothing but self-loathing, convinced that my choices had already led to so much death.

She was at my side in an instant, cradling me and cooing softly in my ear. “Cirrus, what happened? What’s wrong?” she asked softly, her voice and touch working their magic on me and allowing me to calm myself. “Did somepony get hurt? Please, tell me. It’ll be okay.”

“No, it won’t be okay,” I cried, burying my face into her neck. It was hard, but I could still make out the scent of fresh herbs underneath the sweat, ash, and grime that we had been living in for the last week. I took a moment to gather myself, then moved my head back to look her in the eye. “It’s terrible. I… I had to… I didn’t mean to. It just happened,” I stuttered, unable to actually bring myself to say it.

I felt a familiar shape pressing into my side and reached into my jacket, pulling out my pistol and throwing it into the far wall as hard as I could. I didn’t want it anywhere near me.

“Cirrus, what are you doing? What happened?” Sunrise asked, a fearful note creeping into her voice, “Please, talk to me! What did you have to do?”

“I… I killed a pony, Sunrise. Shot him right in the chest. He was going to kill Just Heart if I didn’t, I know it. He was crazy, and he wanted to kill us. He said he was going to eat us,” I blathered, completely losing control of my mouth as I simply spewed what was on my mind. Somehow, talking to her made me feel better, that maybe everything was going to be okay after all.

“Oh, Cirrus, I’m so sorry!” Sunrise exclaimed, wrapping me in a crushing hug an running her muzzle through my mane, grooming the twisted locks of my mane, “I know you never meant to use it, but like you said, Just Heart was in trouble. You’re a hero, like I always knew you were! You came back for me that day, after all.”

“I don’t feel like a hero,” I muttered, unable to stop another wave of tears, “I feel like a murderer.”

“The stallion I love is no murderer, and I still love you, Cirrus. We all knew that it would be dangerous out here. You’re just looking out for the group. If he attacked you first, you didn’t do anything wrong. It was self-defense,” Sunrise insisted, moving her head back and staring into my eyes.

As always, her green eyes held a kindness I had never seen before from any other pony, and knew I would never be able to find again if I lost her. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Sunrise,” I said, leaning forward to kiss her.

She returned the kiss warmly, and we simply sat there, holding each other for what seemed like hours. Being in her arms made me feel like myself again. I knew I was forever changed, but having a pony like her at my side made it easy to keep the change small.

I vowed myself that I would never allow myself to take a life again without thinking carefully about the consequences. I had met a few veterans from the front lines, sent back home from injuries too severe to allow for further combat. They were hardened, bitter souls in the bodies of young stallions and mares, and I did not want to become like them.

We were still lying where I had fallen when the door to the office slammed open, a very exciting Bolter on the other side. “Cirrus, come out here! You’re going to want to hear this!” he exclaimed excitedly before seeing the two of us huddled together. His face went bright red and he stammered, “Oh, sorry! Am I interrupting something?”

“No, you’re fine, Bolter. We were just resting,” Sunrise stated kindly, rising to her hooves and helping me to mine.

“Oh good,” the young stallion said, chuckling awkwardly to himself, “Oh, and the food is almost ready! It’s going to be so good! Actual food!” With that, he turned and took off down the hall.

“Real food? What does he mean by that?” Sunrise asked me as I made my way over to the wall where I had thrown my pistol and retrieved it, stowing it safely back in the drawer of the desk. As much as I didn’t want to have it, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I needed it.

“The water thief was hiding in the grocery store and forgot to lock the door when he ran back. Just Heart and I found it unlocked, which is how we found him. On our way back, we grabbed as much food as we could. We were supposed to make a second trip, but he may have just let me rest,” I answered as quickly as possible, not wanting to revisit the events of our trip there.

“Oh. Is making a big meal like this smart?” Sunrise asked as we made our way through the small hallway to the main room.

“Probably not,” I admitted, shrugging, “but we need it. It will make us all feel a little better, I think.”

We stepped through the door to find everypony huddled in a circle around Just Heart, who was cradling what looked like a radio in his hooves. As we entered, his gaze snapped up to meet mine and he gestured hurriedly for me to join him. “Cirrus, get over here! You need to hear this!”

I hurried over, pressing through the throng of ponies until I was at Heart’s side, and listened. Through the static of interference, I could make out an official sounding voice, repeating a message.

“To anypony out there that is still alive, this is Captain Swift Foot of the Equestrian National Army. We have set up a relief camp in the town of Bright Fields. If anypony is hearing this, we have food, clean water, and medicine. Message repeats: To anypony out there that is still alive…”

It was like a call to salvation from the Princesses themselves. Bright Fields was not far from where we are, maybe a day or two by hoof, and it was where Sunrise’s parents were from. If the Army was setting up a camp there, there was a good chance it had avoided the worst of the damage.

“I think I knew where we’re going to be heading tomorrow,” I said to Just Heart. Despite everything, I felt a smile creep over my face.

“I agree. We’ll get the supplies we so desperately need,” Just Heart answered, nodding as a smile mirroring my own split his face.

A few moments later, we were all laughing and celebrating, treating our meal like a party. We were going to get the help we needed, and everything was going to be okay. There were still ponies that knew what was going on, and that had a plan.

It felt good to smile again, and for a few hours, I was able to forget about a nameless green stallion that was lying in a pool of his own blood not two hundred yards away from our revels.

{ And here is the end of chapter two. As I work on this, I realized a lot of what I wanted this story to be, namely looking at the sort of terrible decisions that need to be made when everything has fallen apart, like deciding how to punish a member of a group that relies on itself to survive.
I’m also seeing that I am going to need to do a few consecutive chapters (in terms of time passage) in order to get the most out of this story, which was not the original plan (that isn’t a complaint. It’s a realization that there is going to be a bit more work required for this than originally planned), while keeping them relatively short (which was planned).
So, I hope you all enjoy reading this story as much as I have enjoyed working on it, and will continue to follow along with Cirrus Swirl as he faces the hardships of a newly-forged wasteland.
Innumerable thanks go to Kkat for creating the original story, and, by extension, this incredible canvas for the rest of us to enjoy in such minute detail. I can only hope that I am doing it a fair service with my writing.
Thanks also go to my editor, Barrobroadcaster, who makes sure this thing is in good enough shape for the rest of you to enjoy. It wouldn’t be possible without his hard work, and it is greatly appreciated (perhaps more than I can put into words).}