Fallout Equestria: Omega

Fallout Equestria: Omega
Author: Cooperdawg

Entry 3: November 4th, 1047

It was our third day on the road, trying to find the town of Bright Fields in the shattered remains of the Equestrian countryside. Every road and trail that we knew was gone, wiped away in the radioactive fires of the holocaust and leaving us without a single landmark to mark our path. At first, we had been confident that we were traveling the right way, since we were still able to use the remains of the railway line to get us close, but we had left the tracks on the morning of the second day, thinking we would find the army base by nightfall. Instead, we had become hopelessly lost.

The falling ash had been replaced by dirty grey snow as the turning of the seasons compounded the blanketing effect of the dust and ash thrown into the air by the bombs. It was already far colder than I remembered any winter ever being, and it wasn’t even officially winter yet, and the temperatures had proven to be fatal at night, much to our dismay.

We had believed that the army camp would be easy to find, and so had brought very little with us in terms of extra clothing or supplies to start a fire. What we had brought quickly became scarce, making us resort to using extra scraps of cloth and whatever else we could find to start fires. Some ponies even went so far as to scavenge off of the occasional body that we managed to find in the falling snow and ash, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to desecrate their bodies. They had been ponies once, and it wasn’t right to simply use them as a resource.

The first night out from the hobby shop we had spent in the ruins of a train station, but the second night found us out in the open, with no shelter but our own bodies to shield us from the cold. It had easily been the longest night of my life, spent huddled against the other for warmth, shivering as the biting winds tore at our bodies and sapped our strength. The following morning had left our numbers depleted by two, one of which who was the elderly mare that had argued to have the water thief exiled from the group. The other had been a young Earth Pony buck that had once worked in the bakery only a couple blocks from my apartment building in Manehatten. I could still remember the constant smile he had on his face when I came in to pick up a loaf of bread every few days. We had never truly known each other, but had chatted a bit when I was in the store. And now he was just another victim of this hell I world had become.

There were only twelve of us now, all starving and cold. What extra food we had managed to grab from the grocery store hadn’t lasted nearly as long as we would have expected it to, and twelve hungry ponied could go through a lot of food very quickly. I doubted that we’d survive another night in the open. To make matters worse, my supply of Rad-X was gone, as was the supply from our cache, which meant we no longer had any sort of medication to protect against radiation, which put all of us on a very definitive timer. We had to find the army base, since their radiation meds were our only chance for survival.

We had found shelter and huddled together in the meager remains of a small, isolated farmhouse that had been completely blasted apart by the bombs. The roof and two of the walls had completely collapsed, so we were taking shelter in the corner where the two remaining wells met, trying to escape from the biting wind as we rested. I didn’t want to tell anypony, but I was starting to become very worried. Sunrise wasn’t doing very well, and every morning it was becoming harder to get her to rise. At this point, I was almost certain that the only reason she kept going was because of my determination to survive. All that meant was that I had to work even harder to keep climbing to my hooves every morning.

In spite of the severity of our circumstances, and my own worries at our chances of survival, I still had high spirits. The Army was still there, which meant we still had some leadership. If they had survived, then Equestria was still here. Everything was going to be all right. It was going to be tough going, that much was abundantly clear, but we had survived. That fact alone gave me the energy I needed to keep going.

But none of that energy or belief was going to be worth anything if we couldn’t find the damn camp without freezing to death. As much as Just Heart and I had tried to keep everypony’s spirits up, I couldn’t deny that we’d been wandering aimlessly for the last day and a half. It was exactly what I had been worried about when we were still holed up at the hobby shop, and now it was our reality.

“Cirrus, you all right over there? It’s time to get moving again,” Just Heart’s familiar, level voice intoned, breaking into my thoughts and dragging me back to the present.

I turned my head to fix him in a tired gaze. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. You have any clue where we are?”

“Cirrus, I’m a Manehattenite born and raised. This is the longest I’ve ever been outside the city, and the farthest outside it I’ve ever been for an extended period. For all I know, Canterlot is right around the next hill,” the dirty grey pony chuckled with a shake of his head.

“Well, let’s see if somepony does. I’m not looking forward to the prospect of wandering around out there without any idea of where we’re going,” I said, separating myself from Sunrise and helping her to her hooves.

The wind immediately cut into me, making me shiver and attempt to gather the tattered remains of my vest closer about myself, though there was so little of it left that the action did nothing to keep me warm. The sudden movement also brought back the nausea I’d been fighting ever since my supply of Rad-X had run out. I took a moment to get my stomach under control, then looked to Sunrise. Her normally bright hide was dull and lackluster, and her eyes no longer had the spark of light that I was so used to seeing from her. She was suffering much more from the radiation than I was. If we didn’t get medication soon, I had very little hope for how long she was going to last.

It took us a long time to finally get everyone up and ready to move, but we also had a moment of good luck when a pony said that they thought they knew where we were.

“I can’t say for sure, considering how different everything is, but I think I recognize this farmhouse. I think Bright Fields is only a couple miles to the north of here,” he explained carefully, his voice quiet, “I don’t want to mislead anypony though…”

“It’s better than what we have, and it’s a solid direction to follow,” I quickly answered to reassure him, “Once we’re under way, I’ll do some scouting from the air. If we are that close, I should be able to find something.”

"You're sure you'll be able to fly?" Bolter asked me, his voice shaky. He looked exhausted, and it was easy to tell that it wasn’t because of lack of sleep. The radiation we’d been absorbing was taking its toll. It had already started to show on some of the others, even me. I noticed some of them walking weakly, losing patches of hair on their coats and manes. We were running out of time, fast.

"I'll be fine," I answered him. I flexed my wings a bit to show him and be sure. I had lost a few feathers off of both wings, but nothing more than normal. I had to tell myself it was just normal molting and nothing serious. "If the base is still intact, I should be able to spot something from the air. It can't be far from here."

“That’s what you said yesterday, Cirrus,” another pony, a deep blue unicorn buck that had once been a restaurant manager, growled at me, “And look at how well that turned out!”

“It wasn’t for lack of trying. Everything out there is the same color. I’m trying to find an army camp that’s going to be covered in a layer of this grey shit we’re calling snow that we’ve been trudging through. If you think you can do better, why don’t you sprout wings and try!” I retorted a bit more harshly than I intended.

Bolter took a step towards me, drawing my attention, and put a hoof on my shoulder, “Cirrus, I don’t think he meant it like that…”

I looked back to the buck, and sure enough, he had taken a step back, a hurt look on his face, and I instantly regretted the fact that I had snapped at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” I apologized, lowering my head in shame, “We’re all on edge, and I’m doing what I can to get us there. If we had a two-way radio, finding this camp would be easy, but we don’t, so we have to make do with what we have.”

The buck grumbled something that might have been an acceptance of my apology, but otherwise said nothing, and merely bundled his threadbare coat a little tighter and looked off into the distance. I wanted to say something more, but it was obvious that there wasn’t much to be said. We set off a few minutes later.

The only sound as we traveled was the sound of the howling wind, which made every single step a struggle, but still we continued on.

Roughly twenty minutes after we started out, with no sign of any sort of civilization, I knew it was time for me to take to the air. “Sunrise, I have to take a look from the air,” I said to her, coming up on her side and wrapping a wing around her.

Her nod was almost imperceptible. “Okay. Be careful, my love,” she whispered, the first words she had spoken all day.

“Always,” I whispered back, giving her a quick kiss before giving myself some space and launching into the air.

It was even colder up high, and the winds were much more unpredictable, cutting across my path in sudden gusts that made it extremely difficult to control my flight. Several times, I was almost driven to the ground by sudden gusts that threatened to put me into deadly spins. I had never been a particularly athletic flier and it was hurting me now. The result was that I spent fully half of my time in the air simply fighting to stay there. The other half was spent combing the ground for any sign of Bright Fields and the camp.

After only a brief time in the air, I began to feel my body seize up, the cold quickly sapping what little strength I had. Speed was now of the essence. My wings were getting stiff, and flapping them felt like I was waving a pair of bricks attached to my sides. I had only a short amount of time to find anything before I would be forced back to the ground out of sheer exhaustion, but I would force myself to stay in the air for as long as I possibly could without hurting myself.

That amount of time ended up being far less than I expected. It couldn’t have been more than half an hour before I felt the last of my strength draining away. I cast one last, desperate look towards the ground, praying for some sign of the army camp we needed, but nothing but a solid pall of grey met my eyes.

In that brief second, my attention drifted from the winds around me, and a gust of wind swept across my path, smacking me unexpectedly to the side. In my haste to correct myself, I overextended my left wing, which then caught another gust and sent me into a spin. I was very swiftly disoriented, and the constant buffering from the wind made it near impossible to correct my path. I resigned myself to the inevitable and drew my head in close to my body, keeping my wings extended only enough to control my crash, and waited for the ground to meet me.

I hit the ground hard, the cold snow stinging as I slid through it before finally coming to a stop twenty yards later, completely breathless. My breathing returned in fits and starts, and I was coughing weakly as I struggled to fill my lungs again. When I was finally able to gulp down a breath of air, I lifted my head to look around. I could make out a few hills on the horizon, but otherwise everything appeared as a uniform grey color. I didn’t have a clue which direction was what.

The unfamiliarity of my surroundings made me start to panic, and my heart started to pound in my chest as I realized I didn’t have a clue where the rest of my group was. Tears came to my eyes as the thought crossed my mind that I would never see Sunrise again. In desperation, I started running, quickly working up a sweat as I galloped towards the nearest hill. It was stupid, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. The only thought in my head was that I needed to get to some high ground and find out where I was.

As I crested the hill, I cast about, searching for anything I could find. A short distance away, maybe a couple hundred yards, I spotted a collection of dark shapes moving through the snow drifts, cutting a path across the countryside before me.

“Hey! Over here!” I shouted hoarsely, my voice cracking. My exhaustion, coupled with my complete lack of strength, made it hard to produce any sort of volume over a normal speaking tone, and none of the shapes seemed to react to my voice. “I’m over here!” I tried again, waving my forehooves in the air, trying to get their attention.

Again, they showed no signs of recognizing that anything was happening. I started running towards them, quickly losing my footing in the powdery snow and ash and tumbling head-over-hooves to land in a tangle of limbs at the base of the hill. I struggled back to my hooves, looking for the ponies, but could see nothing.

“No, please. We need help,” I whispered, unable to find the strength for anything louder. I stumbled forward, now crying openly, my spirit breaking after coming so close to finding what we had spent so long searching for, only to fail because I didn’t have the strength to keep going.

My limbs were shaking badly, managing only a few steps before I collapsed into the snow, unable to carry me any farther. The sobs came openly, and I did nothing to stop them. This was where I was going to die, forgotten and alone. The snow would cover my body in a few hours, and nopony would even know that I was here.

Exhaustion was claiming me, and I was just about to close my eyes for what I knew would be the last time when I thought I heard a voice. It was faint, and the wind distorted the words, but it definitely sounded like a voice. I fought to open my eyes again, perking my ears towards the sound and straining to make anything out.

“I know I saw something over here! I’m checking it out!” it said with a fierce tone of determination, “We’re out here patrolling to help ponies, and I’m not going to leave one to die in the snow!” It sounded close, maybe only a dozen yards or so, but that might as well have been on the moon.

The response was too far away for me to make out the words, but the tone sounded unhappy, almost to the point of anger.

“The Captain can go hang if that’s how he feels about it!” the first voice proclaimed, now much closer, “I signed up to help ponies, and Celestia as my Witness, that’s what I’m going to do!”

“Over here. Please,” I begged, forcing as much volume into the words as I could manage, which wasn’t much. I would have been surprised if a pony standing more than five feet away from me could hear it.

The sound of boots crunching through the snow reached my ears, steadily growing louder as somepony approached. “Okay, now I know I heard something,” the first voice grumbled to themselves, “Now I just need to find it.”

A few seconds later, the shape of a pony came into view. He was a fit Earth pony stallion with a black hide, and he was wearing a set of military combat barding. In place of a helmet, he was wearing a black knit cap on his head. When he spotted me, his eyes widened in surprise. “Hey, Sarge, I found a survivor over here! He’s a Pegasus too!” he shouted, turning his head over his shoulder to make himself heard by his comrades.

“Please, help us,” I groaned, trying to make it to my hooves.

“Easy now. You’re gonna be all right,” the pony muttered, stepping towards me and kneeling down beside me. He pulled out a canteen and unscrewed the cap, holding it up to my lips, then tipping it back.

Sweet, clean water filled my mouth, and I swallowed hungrily. It was more than I had had to drink in the last twelve hours, since our water supply had been reduced to almost nothing. The stallion gave me another sip before pulling the canteen away. “Careful. Too much too soon can kill you just as quickly,” he said, looking back over his shoulder towards the rest of his patrol.

“You better not be pulling my leg, Corporal,” a harsh voice barked as the Sergeant approached, followed by two other ponies.

The Sergeant was a light green unicorn stallion, dressed in the same gear as the pony helping me. Flanking him was a pink Earth pony mare whose uniform boasted a large red cross on a shoulder. The last pony was a brown unicorn stallion who looked at me with a disinterested gaze, as if he had seen thousands of ponies in my situation, and I was just another one to add to the tally.

“Look for yourself, Sarge. If we get him back to camp, we can still save him. He isn’t that far gone,” the black stallion insisted, “Come on, May Blossom, you know we can save him! I don’t want to leave another pony out here!”

A cold spike of fear was driven into my heart at those words. These ponies were considering just leaving me to die in the snow! “No, don’t leave me!” I protested, twisting out from under the black stallion’s hoof that was resting on my back in a supportive gesture, and tried to climb to my hooves, “We’ve spent the last three days trying to find you! You can’t just leave us!”

“We? Where are the rest of you?” The sergeant growled, taking a menacing step towards me, “Cause I don’t see anypony around here except for the five of us.” With him so close, I could easily make out the well-worn grip of the pistol that was shoved into the holster of his combat barding.

“There are twelve of us, including me,” I explained between gasping breaths, trying to keep a pleading tone out of my voice, “We survived the bombing of Manehattan in a fallout shelter and made our way into the countryside to escape the radiation. We picked up a radio broadcast a few days ago about an army camp in Bright Fields. We’ve been trying to find it ever since.”

“They picked up the message? I didn’t think anypony would hear that,” the distant brown unicorn mused. His tone was dismissive, despite the expression of moderate surprise on his face.

“You’re from Manehattan? Not from up there?” the sergeant demanded, nodding up towards the sky.

“Up there? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” I asked, looking up at the sergeant. Was there something going on with the rest of the Pegasi? Had some of them managed to survive the destruction of Cloudesdale?

The sergeant stared at me for a few moments, then his gaze softened. “Forget about it. You obviously don’t have a clue. You said your friends are nearby? What direction?”

“Are we seriously going to help them?” the brown buck asked with a toss of his head, “You can’t be serious? We’re already stretched to the limit as it is!”

“Can it, Wrench. I’ve made my choice, and Charcoal is right. We can’t just leave them here. Now, Pegasus, where were you coming from?” The sergeant snapped at the buck before turning back to me.

“My name is Cirrus,” I said, “And we took shelter in a farmhouse that we think was a few miles south of Bright Fields. We set off heading north, and I took to their air to try to find you guys and lead them there.”

The sergeant nodded, a knowing look spreading across his features. “I know it. Wrench and I will head south and find your friends. We’ll get them back to the camp and taken care of. Charcoal, I want you and May Blossom to get Cirrus back to camp. The Captain is going to want to talk to him,” he ordered.

The others nodded quickly in acceptance of the orders, and within minutes the sergeant and the brown buck, Wrench, were gone. Charcoal and May Blossom spent a few minutes making sure I wasn’t seriously injured, then helped me to my hooves. We started making our way through the countryside, pushing through the snow. The two ponies had to support me to keep me up, since I had lost so much of my strength, but together they managed to get me back.

The camp itself was nothing like what I had expected. Thick canvas tents had been pitched in tight, neat rows in the fields surrounding the town, with the buildings, or what was left of them, sitting beyond the tent city, too far away for me to be able to tell what they were being used for, if anything at all. Most of the tents appeared to be in use as medical tents or barracks, though the vast majority of ponies that I saw looked more like refugees than soldiers. An air of despair hung over the entire area. It felt like these ponies were just sitting and waiting to die.

I was led into a tent that already seemed to be full to bursting. Ponies were lying on almost every horizontal surface, and a haggard white buck was moving from place to place, giving what aid he could. He was wearing a dirty white doctor’s lab coat, along with a black knit cap emblazoned with the same red cross that May Blossom had on her uniform.

“Doc, we found another one out there. This one claims that he and his group picked up Swift Foot’s message on the radio,” Charcoal announced as they eased me down on top of a low table, “Sarge and Wrench kept going to find the rest of their group and will be bringing them back here.”

“How many more?” the doctor asked as he approached my side, pulling a stethoscope out of a pocket and checking my pulse.

“Twelve,” I answered weakly, “including me. We’d have been dead tonight if we didn’t find you.”

“If you lot are too far gone, you might be dead anyway. Radiation meds are at a premium right now, and that’s including the stocks we got out of the supply caches in town,” the doctor grumbled, “Lucky for you, you’re only suffering from a case of advanced radiation poisoning, which is still low enough for me to treat. A single dose of Rad-Away will clear you right up. Other than that, you’re malnourished and dehydrated, but we have enough food and water purification tablets to keep us going for a long time.”

He left my side for a few minutes to collect some supplies from a cabinet set against one wall of the tent, then returned carrying a packet of Rad-Away and a container of dried military rations. He handed me the Rad-Away first, which I eagerly slurped down. The fake orange taste, which usually made me want to gag, was probably the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted. Almost immediately, I felt some of my strength returning.

“Where are you going to put the others?” the doctor asked Charcoal as he handed me the rations.

I perked my ears up to listen while I tore the container open and started eating. It was bland and tasteless, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t had much of an appetite after the initial celebration when we had heard about the army camp. Just Heart and Sunrise had needed to force me to eat a few bites the last few days. After my close brush with death today, I was not going to let something like a lack of appetite to keep me from maintaining my strength. This world didn’t allow for that kind of an outlook any more, and I doubted that I’d ever really have much of an appetite again.

“It would probably be a poor decision to split them up, considering how much they’ve survived already. According to Cirrus, they survived the bombing of Manehattan in a fallout shelter,” May Blossom commented, the first words I had heard her speak. Her voice was lilting, with a sing-song quality that I would normally have considered beautiful, but I could hear a lot of pain underneath it, like it hurt her to simply open her mouth. I couldn’t blame her.

“I agree. We brought him here so you could patch him up and lower his rad levels. The Captain is probably going to want to speak with him. He’ll decide where to put him and his group,” Charcoal said with a nod, “If the Sarge gets back first, let us know where he brings them, all right?”

“Consider it done, Charcoal. Now, if you don’t mind, I have other patients to tend to,” the doctor said, turning away from us and making his way across the room to another pony, a light blue unicorn, who looked to be on the very verge of death.

“What do you say? Are you ready to meet the Captain?” Charcoal asked me jovially, a light-hearted smile spreading across his face.

“Do I have a choice?” I asked, more bitter than I intended, but my heart was yearning for Sunrise. Not knowing where she was, or if she was even still alive, was getting to me. I had left her out there in the snow, and was now lying here, in a tent that was warm with the body heat of everypony inside, with a full stomach and ample supplies of fresh water. Meeting some military officer was the last thing I wanted to do.

A hurt expression chased the smile away, and Charcoal floundered for a moment, his mouth opening and closing as he looked for something to say.

“Of course you have a choice. But letting the Captain now that his message saved somepony would do a lot for morale around here. It’s something we could all use,” May Blossom stated, her tone completely inflectionless, like she couldn’t spare any emotion.

“You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” I muttered, looking away from the two soldiers, “My nerves have been a little on edge these last few days. I’m just worried about my group. My wife is with them, and she hasn’t been doing too well.”

“I understand. Don’t worry about it,” Charcoal said, forcing a smile back onto his face, “Follow us, we’ll show you to the Captain.”

Getting back on my hooves was easy now, most of the symptoms of my radiation poisoning gone, and my strength returned almost in its entirety as a result. I was fairly certain that, without regular doses of Rad-Away, I would be back to that sorry state in just a few days, but for now, I felt better than I had since the day we left the city.

Outside, the weather seemed much tamer than it had only minutes before. The cold didn’t bite quite so deep and even the wind seemed to have died down. The thought sprang up in my mind that we might have finally survived the worst. Things were already looking up, and as much as they had already improved, things could only get better.

The Captain’s control center had been erected close to the center of the tent city, between a mess hall and another medical tent. It was also my first glimpse at how pressed for supplies the army was, since the tent shared a canvas wall with the mess hall.

When we stepped inside, it was to a scene of carefully controlled chaos. Three desks dominated the room, all of them completely covered in maps, reports, and other forms of paperwork. The only clear space on one of them was taken up with a bulky terminal where a mare was sitting, a headset perched on her head, furiously working, though I couldn’t determine to what purpose.

The Captain himself was standing by a table that held a ham radio that was also buried underneath a mound of papers. He was wearing a headset and was arguing animatedly with somepony on the other end.

“We don’t have the supplies to move the entire Division all the way to Ponyville,” he ground out, “And I don’t care what General Halftrack has to say about it! There are ponies out here in desperate need of aid, and about all this Division has left is medical supplies. I’m keeping us right here and helping where I can.”

There was a pause in which the Captain started to slowly shake his head. He stood in silence for several minutes, during which I could imagine he was being chewed out by some officer sitting safely in some bunker somewhere, then finally answered, “Come out here and see for yourself what the situation it. Nuclear winter is already setting in, and temperatures are already dropping to dangerously low levels. Moving now would consign half my men to death by frostbite. I’m not going to do it,” he snapped.

The exchange was making me awfully nervous. I had thought that the military knew exactly what it was doing. Now, I was learning that there was very little agreement anywhere, especially if a mere Captain was arguing with a General.

There was another pause as the other pony responded, but the Captain cut him off angrily, “If that’s the way he feels about it… Damn it! We lost the signal again. Radar, get it back, and let me know as soon as you do! Whatever is left of Command hasn’t got a clue what’s happening out here, and it’s apparently my job to educate them!”

The mare at the terminal nodded as she rose from the terminal and approached the radio. “At once, sir.”

The Captain finally turned away from the radio and spotted the two soldiers that had guided me here. “Corporal Charcoal, Private May Blossom, what can I do for you? Who’s this?” he asked, arching an eyebrow as he walked towards us.

“I think we had better let him explain,” Charcoal said, gesturing to me, “But it is good news, sir.”

“Another refugee then? Let’s hear it, and be quick. I might have that line back to Command any minute.”

“Uh, Captain Swift Foot?” I started timidly, my voice shaking. He nodded in confirmation, his expression neither annoyed nor encouraging, and I continued, “My name is Cirrus. I worked for RobCo in Manehattan before… all of this. I survived in a fallout shelter near the train station. Once we thought it was safe, we made our way down the rail lines, until we took shelter in a small shopping plaza about ten miles away from here. That was where we picked up your radio broadcast welcoming us to come here. I just wanted to tell you, that message saved us. Our supplies had just about ran out when we got it. The other two soldiers that were with these two are out there leading in the rest of my group. I flew ahead to try to find you and crashed in the snow.”

As soon as I mentioned the radio broadcast, the Captain’s expression softened. “You actually heard my broadcast? I didn’t think anypony was going to hear that. This is terrific news indeed. How many ponies are you?” He asked excitedly, a broad smile spreading across his features, making me realize how much of a boost this was for his morale. While we had simply been struggling to keep ourselves alive, this pony was responsible for the lives of hundreds. I couldn’t even imagine the strain it had to be on him.

“Twelve, including me,” I answered sadly, “We used to be a lot more. The elements have really taken their toll on us.”

The Captain nodded sympathetically. “That, I certainly understand. We’ve had more than our fair share of struggles with the elements. I don’t even want to think about how many we’ve lost…” he trailed off, his gaze turning to look over at the radio, “And still they’re trying to order us around, despite the fact that everything’s fallen apart!”

“What do you mean? I figured that since you managed to set up a base and still have authority here, that the government is still intact. I know I heard you speaking with a general when I walked in,” I asked, feeling my stomach drop out from under me.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that. The honest truth is that I’m awfully cut off from everything else. That was one of only two conversations I’ve had with command and the last was only five days ago. Everything’s in shambles, and we’re trying to figure the problem out. Those bombs knocked out an awful lot of our capability, and Command is scrambling to try to put everything back together. I’m sure everything is going to be fine,” the Captain said, his smile reassuring, or at least trying to be.

His words made me feel a little better, but I still had the feeling that there was something he wasn’t telling me. There wasn’t much that I could do about it, so instead I chose to believe him, since it was obvious that it was what he wanted to believe. “Oh, good. I was worried that there wasn’t anypony left out there. It’s scary, how empty the countryside is,” I said lamely, not sure what else there was to say.

“I agree. I believe I missed your name, though. You know mine, and I would like to know the name of the stallion that managed to return a little hope to this camp,” the Captain said.

“Oh, I’m Cirrus Swirl. And thank you, for offering us your help. I can’t imagine you have a lot of extra supplies here,” I said, hoping my tone sounded as grateful as I felt.

“Don’t mention it. The day I stop helping ponies is the day I give up on all of ponykind. I swore an oath to protect and serve, and that is exactly what I intend to do. With everything that has happened, saving the lives of my fellow ponies is the only kind of service that matters. I can’t imagine either side in this damned war is thinking about trying to mount an attack now,” the Captain replied with a wave of his hoof, as if to sweep away my concerns.

I was just about to say something more when the mare working on the radio announced, “Sir, I’ve got the signal back! General Halftrack is on the line!”

“Well done, Radar! Corporal, take our guest to one of the barracks that’s more or less empty. There should be a few on the western edge of the camp. When the rest of his group makes it back, bring them there as well. We’ll reassign a few medics to see to their needs,” The Captain ordered as he turned his attention back to the radio.

As Charcoal led me out of the tent, I could hear the argument between the Captain and the General pick right back up where it started, with the Captain arguing heatedly that there was nothing he could do and that the entire Division was staying right where it was. Hearing the exchange, I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were much worse than they appeared.

Outside, the temperature had dropped by a few more degrees as evening approached. Already, the sky was darkening, and the cloud cover made the light fade that much faster. We were making our way through the rows of tents when a soldier approached us.

“Charcoal, Sergeant Beet Root has just returned with a group of about ten survivors. He wanted to know where the Captain wants them,” the soldier responded excitedly, “He has them in one of the medical tents right now for radiation treatment. A lot of them seemed to be in pretty bad shape.”

As soon as the other soldier had mentioned that the others were here, I wanted to charge off through the camp and find Sunrise. After my brush with death, I wanted nothing more than to simply throw myself into her hooves and, at least for a few minutes, forget than any of this was happening.

“Thanks for letting me now, Crunch. I’ll head over there now and let the Sergeant now what the orders are,” Charcoal said, inclining his head to the other pony.

Crunch told Charcoal where we could find them, and we continued on our way, now taking a slightly different route to the area of the camp that was made up mostly of medical tents. It struck me then how bad of shape everything really was in. The smell of death of sickness hung in the air, making me feel distinctly uncomfortable. The few views I got inside some of the tents revealed rows of cots holding ponies that looked to be on the very edge of death. It was enough to make me think about how smart coming here really was.

I shook my head to dispel the thought. It didn’t matter how smart I thought it was, it was our only choice to come here. They had supplies like food, water, and medicine; all things we were running out of and desperately needed. Besides, I shouldn’t be surprised that things were bad. After what I had witnessed during my terrifying flight back to Manehattan that day, things should be far worse than they appeared to be. Sometimes I was still surprised that I had managed to survive at all.

The tent we entered was identical to every other one we had passed, and I would never have been able to pick it out. As soon as we stepped inside, though, my eyes were drawn immediately to a spot of golden hide, and I jumped forward, pushing past everypony in my way and crushing Sunrise in a fierce embrace.

She returned it, hugging me as tightly as I was her. I heard her sniffle and felt something cold and wet drip onto my shoulder. I released her and pulled back slightly so I could look her in the eye. She was crying, but they were tears of joy. “I thought I had lost you again, Cirrus,” she muttered, “I was so scared.”

“You don’t have to be scared anymore. We’re together, and we’re safe. Everything’s going to be okay now. I’m sorry I scared you,” I whispered back, leaning in and kissing her.

She returned it hungrily, wrapping her hooves around my neck. Had we been alone, it probably would have continued farther, but a cough from the sergeant brought us back to the present.

“As happy as I am for your reunion, some of us have work to do, Cirrus. The medics are taking care of your group, but everypony that’s healthy enough can’t stay here. Charcoal, what did the Captain say?” Beet Root asked, turning to look at the black stallion next to me.

“He told me to put them in one of the barracks in the western part of camp. He was happy to hear that somepony heard and responded to his message, so he wants them to be well taken care of,” Charcoal answered quickly.

“Good. Let’s get them there and get back to work. We still have a few miles of the perimeter left to patrol, and I don’t want to be out there later than we need to be,” Beet Root ordered, “As soon as the medics are done here, we’ll get the ones that are healthy out there and get them something to eat, then we need to be back out there.”

It didn’t take long for the medics to finish their work, but the results left me worried. ‘The ones that are healthy’ turned out to be only nine of us. Three ponies were too sick with radiation poisoning to go to the barracks with us, and the severe looks on the faces of the medics as they explained that told me that the chances of those ponies ever walking out on their own was slim to none. It hurt to realize that, especially after everything we had survived already.

One of them was a middle-aged, bright pink unicorn mare that had been very quiet about what her job had been, but I could only imagine someone with her careful movements and looks to have worked in a spa. The other two had been colleagues at the train station, the brown Earth Pony buck with the handlebar mustache worked the ticket booth, and the light purple Earth pony mare working with the cleaning crew to keep the trains in order. I had dealt with the buck often enough when Sunrise and I had gone to visit her parents, and it felt like a dagger twisting in my gut to see the look of grim understanding cross his face. But, as much as I wanted to, I knew there was nothing I could do to save his life.

We were escorted out of the medical tent and led through the slush-choked pathways through the camp. That was when it struck me how empty it seemed. Earlier, the stench of death and sickness had permeated the air, and what few ponies I had seen were confined to cots, but even so, this was a military camp. They had supplies, we had seen that, but I was now realizing that there should have been ponies walking around, seeing to whatever duties there were. With the world in the state it was, there had to be more to do than anypony could imagine to keep this place running.

Charcoal sighed when I brought the question up to him. “You noticed that, huh? I wish I had a good answer for you, Cirrus. You’re a good pony that’s worked hard at keeping these others alive. I wish I could tell you.”

“You’re just too soft-hearted to face the truth, Charcoal. You always have been. I’ll tell you what’s going on, Pegasus. The ponies you don’t see, the soldiers and other military attachés, they’re either dead or deserted. You want the truth, here it is: Equestria is dead. There’s nothing left, and most ponies have realized that. Sure, there’s a couple generals holed up in some bunker somewhere, and the Captain thinks he can still do something, but that’s it. This is the last bastion of the military,” the brown unicorn snapped, glaring at me and Charcoal in turn. His expression was grim, like he believed there was nothing that was going to prevent the fate that was in store for all of us.

“If you think that’s true, why are you still here? With that kind of attitude, I would have expected you to be one of the first ponies to leave,” I demanded angrily. I didn’t want to believe that we didn’t have a chance to survive. It simply couldn’t be true. Like everypony else my age, I’d grown up hearing the stories. Stories like the return of Nightmare Moon a thousand years after she’d been imprisoned and attempted to regain control, or stories like the time Discord had returned and transformed Equestria into his personal vision of insanity. For both of those, a few determined ponies had brought us all back from the brink and saved life as we knew it.

Admittedly, our situation was quite a bit worse, but even so, if we all worked together, we should be able to survive. There was no reason that shouldn’t happen. It was the pony way, or at least so I had been taught.

The brown unicorn, whose name I remembered was Wrench, was now glaring only at me. “You’re seriously asking me that, after everything you’ve survived? Just take a look around. Everything’s gone to shit. Ponies are dying left and right, and that’s not even taking into account that thousands that died when the bombs fell. I stick around ‘cause I’ve got nothing else left to live for. My parents lived in Fillydelphia, and that city is just so much radioactive rubble. I’ve got nothing left but the Captain.”

I could hear the pain lingering in his voice, his attempts to hide them under that rough and distant exterior breaking down. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. It’s just hard to imagine anywhere being worse than Manehatten. We were all there when the bombs started dropping, and barely managed to survive,” I quickly muttered, lowering my head in shame.

“So you think you got it the worst? It ain’t like it’s happened to fucking everypony. You’re a damn Pegasus, my guess is you had family in Cloudsdale, right?” he shot back pointedly.

I looked up at him, barely able to force my head to move in a quick nod. I was terrified of what he was going to say next.

“Well then I’ve got a newsflash for you: It was worse the your fucking Manehatten. Cloudsdale was the first thing those fucking striped bastards hit, and that city is just so many tufts of cloud now. Seems like Rainbow Dash really made an impression on them with those Shadowbolts of hers. ‘Course now everypony is sitting here wondering what the hell happened to her, or any of the Ministry Mares for that matter,” Wrench growled, looking up at the overcast sky, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they all ran for the hills and are now sitting pretty in some Stable somewhere. They always were the sort of ponies to look out for each other before anypony else.”

“That’s not true!” I snapped, coming to a stop so I could face Wrench directly, “I worked for RobCo on a project handed down directly from Applejack’s Ministry, and I know that when she got involved, it was to make sure that the project would save as many lives as possible!”

“And what was the damn project, huh? Did you ever find out exactly what it was you were working on? If the M.W.T. was involved on it, I can pretty much guarantee it was going to kill a lot of stripes, and then kill a lot of our own as the stripes tried to get at it. It’s the way this entire damn war has gone,” Wrench growled back, turning to face me. The severe expression was gone, replaced by one of rage. His eyes were narrowing as he glared at me, and I could feel the tension in the air.

But what he had said made me pause. For all the time I had spent working on the project, I really did have no clue what it was meant to do, not to mention that the specs and directions for building it had changed at least four times during the time we were working on it. “I can’t speak for anypony else, but in my experience, they’ve always had our best interests at heart. They’ve spent so long fighting for peace in Equestria, I simply can’t believe that they’d willingly hurt anypony.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Have you been paying attention to the war at all! The reason everything is this fucked up at all is because Twilight Sparkle and her damn M.A.S. designed and built those fucking megaspells! Add a little striped spying from that friend of theirs, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for death on a global scale! I’m telling you, the worst thing that could have happened is exactly what did happen. If Luna had just sucked it up and did her damn job, we wouldn’t have this fucking problem,” Wrench snapped, taking a few steps forward until the tip of his nose was only inches from mine. He looked like he was about to jump me.

“Private, stand down! We were ordered to give them our hospitality, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do!” Beet Root snapped, suddenly appearing at Wrench’s side. I was convinced he could have made a rock crack simply by looking at it.

“He’s the one that fucking started it!” Wrench growled, turning his head just enough to look at the Sergeant, “And I’m going to finish it.”

“You are doing no such thing!” Beet Root retorted sharply, stepping between the two of us, “You are still in this camp, which means you are still a part of the Equestrian Army. I am your superior, and you will follow my orders. Stand. Down.” His expression was one that brooked absolutely no argument.

All the same, I thought that Wrench was going to argue, but he finally deflated, his head falling to look at the ground, even if that severe expression was still there. “All right, Sarge. You’re the boss,” he muttered as he slowly turned and started walking again. I was about to follow after him when a hoof against my chest stopped me.

“I would have thought that you’d be smarter about picking fights,” Beet Root growled, looking me in the eye, “I’ve seen Wrench go hoof-to-hoof with three stripes and win before. He’s easily one of the best soldiers left in this camp. I look at you and all I see is a pampered city pony. He would have squashed you without a second thought.”

“I wasn’t trying to pick a fight. I was just asking a question,” I argued, my voice becoming more heated than I had intended.

“In the world that we’ve got left, that’s all it takes. Keep in mind how little we have left, kid. Everything is an accusation now. I would have thought that you’d understand that by now,” the Sergeant stated.

“What are you talking about? Why would I think that? If anything, now is the time that ponies should stand together. It’s the only way any of us are going to survive this!” I asked, fear gripping my heart.

Beet Root chuckled as she slowly shook his head. “Oh, if only the rest of the Pegasi looked at it that way. They could stand to learn a thing or two from you, Cirrus. You see those clouds?” he asked, looking up at the overcast sky.

“Yeah, they’ve been like that ever since the bombs dropped. I figure it’s something to do with all the fallout from the bombs,” I answered with a shrug.

“That’s just it. They aren’t. Within hours of the first bombs hitting, those clouds rolled in, sealing all of us off from the sky. What little we’ve been able to learn is that the rest of the Pegasi have sealed themselves off from the rest of us. Apparantly they’ve decided that it would be best to go it alone. After more than a thousand years of living and working alongside the rest of ponykind, they just sealed themselves off from the rest of us.”

I felt my stomach drop out from under me. It couldn’t be true, it simply couldn’t be. What reason did they have for cutting themselves off? They didn’t stand to gain anything! Everything I had ever learned had told me that the Pegasi survived by cooperating with the rest of ponykind, and now they were trying to live alone off of the clouds? It simply didn’t make any sense.

“What? Why would they do that?” was all I managed to get out past the deadlock that my mind was imposing on me. So many thoughts were rushing through my head that it was nearly impossible for me to organize them into anything coherent. All I knew was that I had just been told that most of my family had been killed in the first minutes of the attack, and anything that was left of it was now locked away on the other side of those clouds that were slowly killing us with their radioactive delivery.

“Who knows?” Beet Root grumbled, “All I know is that they aren’t opening up that sky anytime soon. All contact we had with them was cut off within minutes of the sky closing. From what I’ve heard, it’s the same all over Equestria, from Appleloosa in the south to the Crystal Empire in the north.”

“But, that doesn’t make any sense!” I protested, shaking my head and forcing my head to start working again, “They don’t gain anything by turning their backs on us! Where are they going to get food?”

“I don’t think they’ve thought that far ahead. They’re scared, just like the rest of us. Only difference is that they live far enough away to do something about their fear. Rest of us have to live with it,” the Sergeant answered with a shrug, “Now let’s get you lot to your tent. Rest of us still have a job to do. And those of you that are healthy enough will be put to work as well. As much as it may look like it, this camp isn’t a charity. We need everypony to pull their own weight if we’re going to survive.”

“Of course. We’re more than willing to help,” I answered with a nod as I fell into step behind him.

He simply nodded his understanding of my words.

The tent that was to be our new home was small and cramped with the eight of us that were still healthy crammed inside, but at least it was warm. Once we were settled, we were given some rations and water. It felt like a feast after what little we had had these last few days.

The relief at having found the camp put all of our minds at ease, and we actually managed to relax a little bit, and we all found a bit of our appetites again. For the first time in days, I actually had a good feeling for the future. We were together, we were healthy, and we had friends. That was all we needed.

I was just swallowing the last bite of my rations when Just Heart approached me. “You did a damn good job, Cirrus. Finding those ponies really saved us. I don’t want to think about what we would have done tonight had we not found this place.”

“You’re telling me, Heart,” I answered with a smile, “Somepony up there is looking out for us. That doesn’t mean life is going to get easy. We’ve got a long way to go before we can call ourselves safe. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to visit the little colt’s room.”

I rose to my hooves and strode past the black pony, noticing the look of respect on his face. It didn’t take a genius to realize that he thought we’d all be dead if I weren’t around. As I reached the flap that would let me outside, I turned to him. “I couldn’t have done this without you, Heart. I’m really happy you decided to open that door for me back in Manehatten.”

“I’m right there with you Cirrus. You’ve been all that’s been holding us together. Once your done out there, I have a few things I need to talk to you about.”

“Of course, I’ll be back in a minute,” I answered with a nod as I stepped outside.

I walked around the tent until I was hidden from the main pathways, but paused before I actually did my business. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted movement from a nearby tent. Curiosity getting the best of me, I crept forward. As I peeked my head around the corner to see what was going on, I wished I hadn’t.

A massive pit covered several square yards of the frozen ground, and it was almost full of bodies. Standing on the edge of the pit closest to me were a pair of soldiers, heaving corpses into the pit. I watched in horror as they heaved the corpse of a light blue unicorn whom I had seen not a half hour ago in the medical tent I’d been brought to. He was very obviously dead.

I backed away from the tent, trying to keep my meal from coming back up as the impact of what I had seen struck. These ponies were dealing with death on an unbelievable scale. I had seen how empty the camp was, and had noticed all the sick ponies, even smelled the stench of death hanging over everything, but I had never made the connection. This camp was nothing but a shell, with a few determined ponies holding it all together. As much as I wanted it to be, this camp was far from an answer to our problems. We’d be lucky if it would provide us with shelter for more than a few weeks.

My spirits fell as I realized our troubles were far from over. If anything, the struggle to survive this hell was just beginning.

{Apologies for the massive delay in this chapter. I’ve been really busy with school work (finals week was hell, as it always is), and getting home for the holidays kept me from sitting down and writing for a while. But, it is done now, and I’m going to be trying to keep myself to a more regular schedule from now on. With the new semester fast approaching, it should be easy to work some writing time into my schedule! Thanks, as always, go to Kkat for the original FoE, and thanks go to my wonderful editors Barrobroadcaster and MUCKSTER.}