Ch.2 - Times are changing

Chapter two: Times are changing

“Do you know what friendscaping was? It meant clearing one’s friends list. Today it’s called natural selection.

And you’re next!”

Thirst was driving me crazy, leaving an aching impression of raspy dust and rock needling my throat. Each breath ripped a hiss out of my lungs. My eyes, burnt by the gusts of wind washing over my body, focused on a landscape of only blurred colors. Colors I had never thought possible before.

My mind screamed with agony, too tired and exhausted. Escaping Canterlot had been a hell of a roller-coaster; with no ups, only downs toward Tartarus as, after the protection held by the princesses had collapsed into thin air, the pink cloud had blasted over the steep sides of Canterlot’s mountain. I witnessed the water reservoir over the castle, encased by the magic dam, released into the city, flooding the streets with radioactivity, fallout, and corrupted wastes.

I had fled as fast as I could, trooped past the lower terraces of the city, and while the torrent of murky, pinkish water reached my legs, I had stumbled upon the plaque mentioning Canterlot’s border. Then, I had jumped over the railroad, passed through the orchards circling the mountain and disappeared in the void of Equestria’s countryside… Or what remained of it.

The madmare I was hadn’t slept for hours. I had just kept galloping away desperately, rushed through ruins and ghost cities on the way toward the unknown. Monstrous green clouds accompanied me, hovering above distant points on the horizon, marking the location of now ravaged cities.

Running until the sun had set behind the low cover of clouds that had risen over Equestria, I finally fainted, exhaustion taking me away. My face hit the dust.

As I fell unconscious, I took a glance at my surroundings. A group of blackened trees sprouting toward the obstructed sky, the scorched bones of a dead talon. My sleep seemed dreamless, exhaustion having suckered me out of my will.

I woke with a bitter taste in my mouth, reminding me of an awful after-party, hype on Tequila and Rum. My tongue was dry, rasping on my palate with a taste of blood, and something I had never tasted before, a sour taste similar to vinegar melt with a taste of bad aspartame-filled soda.

Oh Tarnation, I felt awful.

“Kemps, no trumps and belote!” a known male’s voice snickered, instantly answered with the raging cries of a hoof full of ponies.

“No way,” a stern but younger one replied.

I heard the thump of playing cards thrown away, ricocheting over a wooden desk. Wait… Were playing cards made of scrap metal? I opened my eyes wide and, in spite of the aches torturing my body, I stood up. As I steadied myself, suffering of a long moment of mental loss, I broadly looked at the area around me, stretching my body meanwhile.

I found myself at the border of an abandoned field where scarce trees were growing. Wild weed had blossomed, replacing the vegetable patch that had once been harvested on this soil. But something was utterly wrong, so eerie that a knot crawled into my throat down to my stomach, revolting me. My pulse quickened and a drop of sweat ran down my chin. The strangeness of reality struck me hard, like punch in the gut.

The trees’ leaves had turned blood red, dead clumps falling onto the dusty soil, shaping a bloodied humus. The trees’ barks had turned black, with many cracks weaving upon it, sap seeping out like blood. Such vision filled my heart with disgust as the trees had been scrapped of their once green leaves. Fall was early this year, I thought mindlessly.

Around me, the fallen leaves marked a bloody trail between yellowing and reddening high grass mangling slowly on themselves like sponges under a bright sun, brought down by their own weight and dying from an invisible threat I couldn’t understand.

Disgusted, I looked up, my muddy mane falling across my face. Glancing hesitantly at the sky, I saw the dull and wan sun set behind the clouds. I had slept the whole night, all alone in the cold. I sneezed.

Low and dark clouds had swallowed the blue sky, leaving in my mind the eerie impression of a dark lid of mist looming over me. It was truly a depressing feeling; caged between a corrupted reddened earth and a low hanging grey ceiling.

Angst settled into my chest. Was I being claustrophobic?

A lightning bolt slashed across the sky with a bright flash and my eyes clenched shut with pain. The rumble of thunder rammed the air seconds later, forcing a whistle down my eardrums as the sky hummed and the earth vibrated with the noise.

“Counter-kemps and, of course, big cabaret!” an old and raspy voice called out, squeezing a clamor out of four other players.

“How do you do that?” a young mare’s voice twinkled with a crystalline complaint.

I rolled on my side, wresting myself out of my contemplation at the sky. There, between two bloodied out trees, appeared five shapes I could recognize among a messy crowd, as their faces were branded on my retina with hot embers. I ran in their direction, tears in my eyes, a gag in my throat, and hopes numbing my mind.

I stopped abruptly, eyes blinking haphazardly, my sight trying to focus on a quintet sitting around a table strewn with a mess of scraps and objects. I gathered my spirit together. There were five ponies, playing around the furniture, showing shredded faces, empty eyes sockets, and chest ripped apart like open-pit mines where crows had taken the organs away. Passing around a bottle of a troubled alcohol, they were laughing raucously. But when I saw they were glaring at me, I knew the loathing was for me. It was like daggers thrown right into my soul.

I gulped as the five dead shapes waved at me. The view made me fall knee-first to the ground, trying to dig a hideout for my eyes. Chrome, Admin, Rusty, Amethyst and… Balloon were gathered around the table, each one of them holding a hoof full of random objects, reenacting a poker game like skillful contenders competing for a valued prize.

Again, lightning banged over us, adding a flash to this heart-shattering and deceiving vision.

My breathing accelerated, becoming erratic. My chest swelled and shrunk intermittently with my tensed breath, nearly ripping apart.

Slicing through their distorted and bloody faces, going from ear to ear, their smiles sparked fear in my heart, making my mouth gag and my hooves shiver. Those snickering trashed teeth clacked in the void and I pictured faceless maws trying to bite in my flesh. I blinked a second time and my eyes drifted to the table where the five apparitions now contemplated their hooves.

“Why don’t you join us,” Admin’s apparition asked with a sweet tone he had never shown to me.

“She has no cards,” Chrome replied.

Admin huffed first in answer, before jerking his stare off my horror stricken eyes.

Chrome went through her hoof of ‘cards’, grinning: a golden ring, a domino, a screwdriver, a spatula, and a lighter. Its meaning was unreachable for me and soon my eyes preferred to scan each player’s features.

Chrome was fused to her metallic chair, the furniture rooted to the earth, its metallic glitter changing into a matte brown, the steel changing into wood as it plunged into the earth. She could only lift one hoof, the other bound horribly to its armrest, and her melted spine and neck impeded her from looking at me directly. I could still see her trying, cracking her vertebrae in the attempt, shooting greedy stares in my direction from the corner of her eyes. A tiny stream of blood rolled down her pinkish lips and cheeks, coming abundantly from her eyelids, opened on empty spaces where should have been her pink eyes. Then, I looked at her mane, once blue and streaked with white, it had now melted off her face, looking like burnt plastic. Her smile was eerie due to her yellowish teeth, cracked open under a horrible pressure. Could a pony grit and clench its teeth so hard they would shatter?

I swallowed down the drips of bile crawling back up my throat.

On his own, Admin was laying down on a rock, his shattered bones piercing through his grey coat. But, despite this horrid fate, he was still able to look at the Court of Miracles scattered on the round table before him as he pushed his mane off his eyes… his blue mane, similar to Chrome’s was melted into clumps of synthetic rubber. I couldn’t look into his eyes, forcing me to look down, right at his cutie mark… his open scroll with a green tick was now a shredded piece of paper with a red cross. I nearly threw up at the sight and tried to find an answer to this plight as my gaze crawled up his body up to his face. It was stuck with a joker smile and through his mangled teeth flowed out cryptic mumbles. I looked down again, focusing on something less disturbing. His hooves held on a box of chocolate, a quill, a chip, a monocle and a black strap of silk.  I shook my head away.

I couldn’t distinguish Rusty’s old features, lost beyond a blurring mist that obstructed the view of him. However, even with this horrible veil cast upon his features, I could tell he was terribly deformed, the aftermaths of an ungodly torture. His half-closed mouth was drooling a vile black mucus, dripping into a large pool beneath him, and beyond his torn apart lips, was it a smile that I believed I’d seen? Taken aback, my eyes focused, nearly shutting close, his hooves grasped five medical tablets, blue pills, white pills, yellow pills, orange pills and pink pills.

My eyes moved on away from the old buck and set upon Amethyst, my poor little girl. Her purple fur was marred with dirt and chunks of earth clumped in her hair. I couldn’t just stare at her; I ran in her direction, stumbling across the field as hidden rocks forced me back, pushing me away from her.

She showed her back to me, refusing to talk, rejecting even the simple act to look at me. Please, just… look. From behind, I could see a horribly curved and serrated knife cutting through her throat, the tip piercing out in the back of her neck. From the wound, a black and viscous blood rolled in small drops across her skin and wooden chair. I screamed her name again and again, to no avail.

Leaves of scarlet flew past my vision, razor-cutting through the air, charged with heat haze coming from the void. Around me, the landscape had kept bleeding out in silence, and the round table in front of me was terrifying, sending large waves of chill down my limbs. In this prostrated position, the hallucination violated me, playing with my memories of those I cared and still care about, those I had met once or hated. All of them were now brought back from the abyss, only to torment my soul in a sickening and painful play.

A twisted snicker weaved in my twitching ears, piercing my mind like needles,. Out of fear, I slowly raised my head toward the last seat I hadn’t checked.

Balloon was sitting there, stoic and smiling, a long and thin spear of rusted metal in his shoulder. The wound was blackened with gangrene and tendrils of black veins sprawled under his fur, reaching every part of his body. Worse, a bramble garnished with edgy thorns had sprouted out of it, growing endlessly around the projectile stuck in his flesh. Its black leaves projected reddish reflects, and a single, black flower blossomed on its tip. A rose.

Balloon’s eyes had left their sockets, but he blinked at me, forcing my eyes shut, horrified. Frightened, I clenched my hooves on my face, desiring to cry out my anxiousness and pain. I couldn’t speak. I tried to scream once again, only my voice had run away from me.

I looked down at Balloon’s hoof. There appeared an origami picturing a flower, a drawing of myself, a shredded wire, a broken watch, and finally a whistle.

Each time I closed my eyes, only to reopen them, the gathering’s features degraded, more awful than ever before, rotting on their hooves as time passed and my stupor grew. Flesh dropped off their muscles, muscles shrunk on their tendons and sinews, only leaving bones behind. It needed me only a few blinks of an eye to see nothing but skeletons holding junk as if it were some treasures.

Rusty cleared his voice, creating a deeper and scarier tone, shudders ran down my backbone. His raspy tone was plagued with a noisy clatter giving birth in my mind to the idea of somepony stabbing back and forth a knife through his neck.

“White loss or countryside bard?” he spat out at the four other apparitions.

He threw on the table a white pill and an orange one.

“I wash a peasant and pluck a giraffe,” Chrome replied, willing to fight the buck back.

She threw her lighter violently. Flying over the board, it clattered and ricocheted on the wood, opened and lit up, blazing the paper strewn over the desk. None of them seemed to care, except Rusty, who grumbled as he always did while one of his lips detached itself from his face. The old buck stretched a hoof toward the table, ready to pick up the saw among the many objects piled up there. Mimicking him, Chrome was on the brink of drawing out a blue elastic, tearing up her flesh glued to the chair in a heart-shattering sound of torn paper. Yet, somepony neighed and stares settled upon Admin. With a grin widening larger than ever, he threw the monocle at Balloon and the piece of glass shattered onto his face, slicing his already abominable skin.

“I get out of jail and Royal Flush!” Admin cackled, shoveling the box of chocolate down his throat.

The delicatessens fall into his open ribcage, disgusting as I saw the inner flesh fret due to the newcomers.

Everypony left let out a long and raspy complaint.

“Damn!”

Everypony except Balloon, whose smile changed slightly, betraying a building trick. A few second later, the Ministry of Morale’s agent pulled a deck of tarot cards out of a pocket of his shredded trench coat, smirked like a skillful cheater and banged them onto the table.

“Eleusis!” His lips bulged with pus.

This last minute action wrestled raged complaints from the other players. Whatever the rules had been, Balloon had won. And I, I was down with that maddening tour of a land of madness.

I shook my head and crawled to the table, willing to punch the crap out of my own mind’s creepy creations. What I had lived through in Canterlot wasn’t enough. I had to make myself suffer more than I could bear. I stumbled across the table and fell flat on the ground, going through the furniture as if it was ethereal. Following my clumsy attempt to stop the vision, Raucous laughs and curses rose. Their snickers paining my heart and grieved my soul with remorse, sobs settled in my throat as tears trickled down my cheeks. Yes… among all the tricks I knew, my body chose that crying was the best option.

I raised my watery and red eyes, only to see five horrendous faces looking down at me with sadistic grins, empty sockets, blood drooling mouths, sharpened, saw-chiseled teeth, and lashed, snake-cut tongues. Balloon was the first to dig its way in my direction, unbearably slowly but inexorable. He playfully squeezed my head between his broken hooves, the thorns of the bramble growing out of his shoulder licking my skin and leaving painful paper-cuts on their trails. I wanted to scream as much as I wish I could. I had outlived… survived that stallion. Yet, during that critical moment, I wondered why… Why had I to live and not one of them? What had made me so different that I had been granted life while death had been their only reward?

Pain called me back to ‘reality’ as Balloon was going to break my skull to pulp. Blood struggled to rush my temples. My cheeks blushed with pain. The lack of oxygen in my brain numbed my senses. Balloon lowered his head next to my left ear and began a murmur, a raspy poem, creepy, heady, and sending chills down my body.

“The day the world shies”

Was it rain I felt showering my face, or was it my tears? Chrome’s head weaved in front of me, breaking her neck away from her chair in the process. She nearly touched my muzzle with his [ her ? ] bloody and cold snout, showing a dirty flirting smile.

“Ain’t the day after Tomorrow”

Admin’s voice echoed in my left ear, gaining momentum like rusty cogwheels sliding in motion. I pictured the door of chamber fourteen back in the TAD. I gulped, thinking of it and of what it closed on.

“The day the world cries”

Rusty growled from his remote position, giving me a hard look. I had disappointed him so much.

“Isn’t one called Yesterday”

Standing behind me, Amethyst’s pair of purple hoof clenched on my eyes, obstructing my vision as a cold stream ran on my mane, staining my face and neck equally. Her neck bone cracked when she tilted her head next to my ear, her crystalline voice sending shudders down my legs.

“The day the world dies”

Balloon took the upper hoof again and pushed my daughter aside. Then he gave a howl, shutting everypony up and leaving his deafening and languid voice guiding me on the trail of madness.

“Is a doom simply named Today”

Laughter rose, puncturing my spirit with terror as five crazed grinning faces loathed at me. Me, the pony who survived and didn’t deserved it. I tried to hide myself from them, but I couldn’t even clench my eyelids. I tried to move, but my hooves were restrained by invisible, lashing ties. Desperately, I sought for Amethyst’s face.

I nearly broke my neck trying to look behind me, at my girl… my lovely girl. And when my stare settled on her, I knew colors had begun to fade away from my features, as the creature I laid my eyes on wasn’t the Amethyst I knew. It wore a mask of a pony, the features of one of my kin… A bright smile badly painted on the porcelain, a snorting nose and two slits where eyes should have been. But it was cracked, and beyond those slits… two pits of blackness showing two blood red dots glaring daggers back at me, throwing them deep in my sorrowful heart. Fear turned my face white, chasing all remembrance of warmness away, as if I had stood too long in front in a blizzard. The… thing pretending to be my girl kissed me. Even if her lips were hidden behind the cold and frozen mask, she had lowered her head, attempting to make both our lips come together. The cold embrace sent shakes down my hooves and Amethyst’s hoof sweeping a tear off my face.

I shook my head as a disincarnated complaint, blend of the voice cords of my five protagonists weaved in my brain, petrifying me.

“And the dead can’t scream their agony

At the ungrateful livings…”

Chrome grabbed my left hindleg as Admin bit deep in my left front hoof. Unable to do anything but scream, I left spikes of pain running in my flesh.

“Walking the path

Marked by the dusty bones”

His face still blurred by mist, Rusty leapt at me. Both his hooves pulled at my left side, trying to reap off my flesh. Fear crippled my flesh, tying a knot in my stomach as a strange emotional anchor brought me down mentally.

“Painted with the blood

Of those who paved the way

For the undeserving and incompetent”

Amethyst cracked my neck, forcing me to stare again right at my co-workers. She nibbled my ear with a playful and disturbing grin. The voices never stopped, intensifying to shatter my eardrums in a cacophony of verses.

The colors seeped out of the world around me, inverting and turning to black and white. I fought back the rush of bile it induced in my belly.

“Among the rusty scraps

The gusts of wind blowing by

We unleashed the hell”

My eyes set on Balloon as I sought for comfort. Bad choice. Smiling, grinning, and laughing, he stretched his legs, each joint popping. In his hooves shone a bloodied knife, an edge I knew well. I shot a look at Amethyst, and found an empty bleeding stab struck through her neck.

“Over the magnificent meadows

Once lit by a blue sky

Now echo Screams, Cries ‘n Sorrows”

Balloon lowered the knife and loomed over me. I tried to back away from the edge, but my back hit Amethyst’s front legs. Powerless, I watched Balloon come closer, the gleaming dagger in a hoof. I shrieked when he grabbed my neck with the other and straightly thrust the edge between my legs. A holler of numbing and shattering pain broke me apart.

However, even as my howl of dolor rushed into my ears, Balloon’s raucous voice was louder, filled with resent.

“Fillies and colts left back on the track

Crying out for absent

moms and dads

Leaving their duty behind

For the sake of their own

Fleeing away from the blast”

The blade cut through me, starting from my groin, and sawed its way through my belly, my uterus, my ribs, my chest and finally my neck. Balloon sliced my throat, wrestling the dagger out. I gasped as blood jetted out of my nose, mouth, neck, everywhere…

“For the hope of delaying the deadline”

Convulsion spammed out of my limbs when the shapes of the five ponies torturing me vanished in puffs of smoke, billowing into the cold air of the morning. The red leaves kept falling onto my face, slowly burying me, melting with the color of my blood. And afar, beyond my troubled vision and unsteady breathing, I saw a shadow approaching.

Above me shone two glowing green eyes set over a mouth drooling a sticky goo onto my scarred face. I saw yellowish fangs, an avid maw, devouring eyes, and a skin made of wood and seeping black sap. It moved and a sharp and wooden tongue licked my face, followed by a cold breath of air blown over me.

I lifted my hoof up to the monster’s cheek, which howled and growled in return.

For no reason I chuckled, life was tricking me and you forbade me any rest.

The beast roared at me, ready to prey on my carcass and shred me to pieces. But a gunshot banged in the distance, and the whizz of a bullet followed. A loud impact banged over me. Instantly, the beast bounced away, replying with a mighty roar, and disappeared outside of my range of vision

Shouts echoed around me and a few silhouettes materialized over me.

“Keep with me, Lady!” The blurred face reassured. “You’re safe now.”

I think I cried.

₪ ₪   Ѻ  ₪ ₪

A recurrent beep woke me up, along with loud cries and fearful screams. I could overhear ponies swamped with anger, sickened by angst, and brought down by their own anxiousness. And all together, they destroyed the silence and peacefulness we all needed. It afflicted me, and already my heart clenched in my ribcage. I curled up in a ball for a short moment.

It was indeed short lived. I shot my eyes open, burning my retinas with the light pouring from the ceiling. The whistling of the wind slithered from a crack of the roof which waved eerily. Surprised my eyes focused with difficulty, the ceiling was made of a greyish green military fabric. I had been left alone in a tent.

The shafts of light descending onto me, I blinked. Beyond the large gash moved a cloudy sky, lighting my face as the rest of the tent was plunged into a chiaroscuro darkness. Weeping and moans of pain flooded the air.

Leaning on my side, sparks of pain burst through my muscles and tendons, making my head reeled horribly. The flow of bile induced by my state was too strong to struggle and I vomited. Muffling the sound of my tortured throat, the hum of the dying ponies surrounding me added a load to my illness.

I had no linen and in the cold, the gurgling and lapping of my stomach fluids burnt me. Willing to have a broad look over my surroundings, I rose on my flank, rubbing my eyes and cheeks of the bile. With a dimly cold air licking my sides, small shudders ran across my body, and spitting out the last remains of gastric acid plaguing my mouth, I glanced at the spectacle I was unfortunately given to see.

Covering the ground inside the tent I was in, sliced open and soiled mattress were put on a bare ground, a blend of dust and blood. Moving corpses shivered, complained, coalescing into wracks of what was once healthy ponies. The reek of that scene assaulted my senses; it was a perfume of death, the fragrance of rotten and gangrenous meat, the odors of tears, the stench of blood and the void of hopes. I crossed my front hooves together, taking a fetal position where I stood, helplessly building a barrier against reality. I thought I was back inside the reception hall of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, where eyes settled on me, imploring, begging and asking for a mere glimpse of help. I sought for Chrome, nowhere to be found. And as my breath quickened, unable to fight back the daemon crawling down my neck, whispering promises of dying there, alone and anonymous. I needed to back away from that hellish place.

I let myself fall on the ground, crashing into an old buck that had been lying below me. Fortunately for me, he was far too weak to answer back with even a grit of pain.

Hurtling down that mass of stinking corpses, I moved toward the entry step by step, crawl by crawl, pushing aside the dying ponies and wounded scattered around.

A restrain plucked my left hind leg back behind me. Remembering my hallucinated acquaintances, family and friends trying to eat me away, I shot a scared stare back at my back hoof, only to find a strip of bandage tied to a rumble left between the mattresses. Gauzes and medical tissues wrapped me like a mummy, and even in the darkness I could feel and hear the creasing of the compresses on my scarred skin.  To cut the bandage away, I pushed a couple of ponies aside, which moaned in pain. Thereafter, I resume my pitiful and clumsy crawling toward the exit. Closing in, a wisp of air licked my face.

As I stood outside, with the fresh air of the morning sweeping over my covered face, I became aware of my muscles’ stiffness, and that each inch of my body ached horrendously. There, feeling trapped among a harvest of tents, I sought for the first reassuring landmark one pony could find. But the wan sun and its light was hidden behind a low hanging cover of clouds. Disconcerted, I looked down at my bandaged hooves and attempted to tear the gauzes off my front legs and faces. Reaping them off, my fur torn away by their strong adhesive. Wincing in pain, I wiped the sweat and medical fabric off my face and decided to stop for the moment, the pain overwhelming my skin. My body and back legs could way.

Now half-released from that medical lock, fearful and awestricken, I watched upon the street of a gigantic refugees’ camp. The few trees I could see among the tents, once bright and green like the large meadows of Canterlot’s countryside, were now red, being gradually devoid of their dying leaves.

Around me were no pony cheering up, no smile were drawn on faces… No laugh of young colts and fillies cheered up the atmosphere as they would have chased a ball. The creasing of clumps of yellow weed as they were flattened by my weary hooves send shudders down my hooves, I was used to the hard but relieving surface of concrete.

It had rained and the humid dirt watered my hooves as I moved slowly. When I encountered a small pool of water, I looked down at it. It was murky, yet my reflection welcomed me. My beige fur was brown with filth and barred with scars and wounds, some part of my hide had fell, likely ripped off my skin. My face was tired, my eyes marked with dark rings and my mane... My long and usually tidied grey mane. It was nearly gone. A long and greyish bandage I had forgot to take away still circled my forehead, deformed by a bruise below. I preferred not to touch that one.

I trotted away, wandering aimlessly inside the camp. As I walked past many open tents, I laid my stare upon countless broken limbs and shattered hooves. I read scattered hopes in ponies’ twisted eyes, ponies who had survived a defying end. All were licking their wounds, trying to cast away the hell we had just escaped, to no avail. Everypony was silent, crying, their tears falling on their falling fur. I knew radioactivity filled the air, but what could we do against an invisible enemy?

A new realization stopped me straight, the truth I didn’t what day it was loaded me with a new issue. It was morning, yet the exact day remained unknown to me.

Lost in my thoughts, my stare wandered about over the faces of many scarred ponies. I saw a mare holding a coughing filly, a stallion plucking out his mane with hooves full of crooked hair. Shoveling down a gag, bringing frothing to my lips I looked away. A mare, her flesh eaten away by burns similar to white phosphorus’s effect met my eyes. Her blackened skin and muscles had rotted over the burns. Were there bones I could see beneath? Yet, she was not dead. I caught a colt slurping up the soiled water of a muddy puddle.

My breath quickened as I drifted my eyes away from that court of miracle. I resumed walking, only to bump into something.

Finding nothing but empty space before my eyes, I looked down, and my throat tightened in a sentiment of crude and unfathomable horror. A purple colt was tapping my hoof. Devoid of mane, just like me and everypony else, he looked at me with a pleading bleached puppy eyes. The pattern of his school saddlebag had been branded into his flank by dark fire, aftermath of a balefire bomb.

The colt opened his mouth, mimicking with his hoof his need to drink and eat. The little and pitiful beggar never spoke. And looking in his ragged mouth, I understood why. His tongue had been messily cut off, and now only a stump of flesh was visible. Coagulated blood filled the grooves between his milk teeth. He should have fallen and bit his tongue out, right? Or maybe a bombs shockwave had shut his mouth too fast? Yes it had to be that. He couldn’t have eaten it out of hunger? Tell me I’m right, please.

In the end, he remained silent. He didn’t even cry as he wandered away, and he never glanced behind, back at me. Sweat crept down my raised fur, down my neck to my tail, I moved on too.

As I walked down half-empty streets, creeping between torn and ragged makeshift tents, the stares of many ponies peered on me, eyeing me with a disgusting jealousy, and sometimes curiosity. I saw pleading, hating yes, and blank eyes, far too many to be counted.

Passing by a crossroad, I saw a vast space left open inside the encampment. This agora agitated like an anthill, ponies shuffling through maps, crates and scraps that had been scavenged. In its middle a flag of the Equestrian Army flapped with difficulty in the wind, next to… I took a short but deep breath. Ministries flags were hung onto pikes too, and among them, the Ministry of Morale’s was unmistakable. I still had Balloon’s maddened grin struck on my retinas.

The ambient hum came from ministries’ agents, arguing each other with some militaries around a large wooden table.

“This is utterly unacceptable.” a masculine voice whined. “How, in Tartarus’s damn sake, is it possible?”

Still stumbling my way up to the border of the street, I looked closer at the ponies scattered around the desk. Gathered into a circle, four ponies faced down a map. The pony that had broken the silent was an old white unicorn, whose light blue mane had turned into locks of silver. His once groomed and shiny moustache contrasted with the black suit he wore, splashed with mud and dirt, torn apart at some points. His stiff showed a regal cutie mark, three crowns, each bearing a brown diamond. Finally, a small string of platinum dangled on his chest, what had been fixed on it was now gone.

“Calm yourself, mister,” a mare advised with a stern and impressively grave voice, dunking more than a few heads among the ponies captivated by the discussion. “We have no report from Canterlot… At least, not yet.”

Focusing, I nearly closed my eyes to a knife edge’s width. The mare’s grave, tired and ghoulish face was visible, built in a steel rangers’ armor. Her burgundy-colored mane struck with a few pink locks dangled over her large, bulky, and armored shoulders, contrasting with her tanned brown fur. She had a monstrous three-barrels shotgun on her side and her muscular frame showed off that was a pure earth pony. Twinkling over her dark metallic grey armor, she sported a golden red insignia, two weapons I didn’t know but assumed to be semi-automatic rifles encased between two rockers and three chevrons. She was probably a sergeant, or something like that. I had never been good with military stuff.

“We still await the report from the recon I’ve sent four hours ago,” the sergeant brought forth. “Damn, I can’t find a pegasus to do the job. Where are they, those lazy bums?”

“Miss…” the ageing unicorn replied, slightly irritated.

“It’s Gunnery Sergeant Seed, would you?”

The unicorn hesitated, unfamiliar with such direct tone. Gathering his spirit together, the regal unicorn erased the frown off his face and awkwardly smiled.

“Miss Sergeant,” the unicorn continued. “I need to know what happened. I’ve been trying to join my friend with my personal terminal, but the network has been shut down.”

I heard a pinch of fear crawling in his voice. I stepped forward, willing to reveal the truth. But the stares shot at me outlined I wasn’t welcomed. I was just a wounded mare entering a forbidden perimeter, probably intending to beg for some food. Yet, I walked in slowly, hoofstep by hoofstep. I hated those negatives stares.

“We know that a megaspell exploded approximately ten miles north from Canterlot, but the city hasn’t seen green fire,” Gunnery Sergeant Seed explained. “Canterlot is forty miles from here, and right know I only have earthbound soldie…”

She stopped a lower graded private noticing her that I had crossed a restricted area.

As I swallowed my saliva, I became aware of how thirsty I was. My mouth had been literally washed with dirt. I slammed my tongue onto my palate and humidified my cracked lips as much as I could.

The sergeant screwed her eyes at me, scanning me from tail to ears with expert eyes. On his own, the unicorn looked sheepishly at me, backpedalling as I wondered forward. I wasn’t used to see such fearful gazes aimed at me. A sick mare moving clumsily next to armed soldiers wasn’t a reason to fret, back in my days.

“Canterlot is dead,” I pronounced with a raspy voice that didn’t belong to me. “I… I need water.”

The look they gave me made me gag on the rusty and aching lump in my throat.

“No water for the refugees. Not yet,” the sergeant mare stated dryly.

What kind of fucked up logic was behind that statement? I wondered. I needed to drink water, even before I could think about feeding myself.

“Who are you?” she added with a deserved frown. “What do you know?”

She stepped forward in a swift and scaring gesture. Now, I had done something wrong. Had it been my tone? My face? Just me? Yet, I hadn’t expected the white unicorn to bump into me, pushing the sergeant over. And it was with his hooves around my head that he bombarded me with questions, with surprisingly teary eyes.

“What do you know? Is Canterlot okay? How are the Princesses? And Fleur de Lis? Is everypony alright? Why do you say it’s dead.”

I sought to escape his stare, whining from his shaky embrace. I only sunk my itching eyes in the piercing glare of the Sergeant, looming over the unicorn’s shoulder.

“I… I’m sorry. Everypony died in Canterlot,” I choked on my own words, my voice sounding eerie into my ears. “The pink cloud… Everypony’s been dying. So fast…”

I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t think. Why? I cried for my lack of talent at explaining the ordeal I had been through.

“Don’t you see that wounded mare is shellshock?” the sergeant condescended at the unicorn. “She’s talking rubbish.”

I didn’t know where I found the strength. Yet, I grabbed an edge of her armor with my trembling hoof and my pleading eyes never left hers.

“Everypony died,” I sumed up. “Canterlot wasn’t hit by a megaspell. It was worse than that.” Tears ran down my cheek. “We were trapped inside the city, between the bombs and the pink death. We were trapped by the Princesses’ protection. We had to die. I should be dead. I. Should. Be. Dead…”

The last soaked bandages tied on my body fell as I tried to escape the unicorn’s embrace.

“What pink death?” the sergeant asked with a smirk, not believing me.

I curled up in fetal position, shivering.

“The cloud it melted everything, ponies, animal, life… They melt… like ice under goddamn Celestia’s sun.”

“I don’t believe you,” she snickered, thinking I was trying to emotionally bargain them.

In a scream, the regal unicorn kicked me aside, pointing at me with the tip of his hoof.

“Look at her saddlebag, Babs Seeds…”

“I repeat a last time. Use my fucking tag name… Oh…”

What my saddlebag? What was so important about it? With shivers running down my spine I turned over and looked at the metallic saddlebag I had stolen from the TAD’s surplus. I tried to shake it off, only to see it was utterly impossible. Frowning, it took me a few seconds to grasp what had scared the unicorn. The edges of the mechanic bag had melted into my flesh. Or my flesh had fused with its outlines. It depended on how you could take it. I stood stoic, the hallucinated picture of Chrome flashing before me. I poked the military bag once, twice… trice…

“It’s some kind of joke, ain’t it?” I spoke loudly to myself. “Please make it some kind of weird prank.”

I glanced at the sergeant Seed, who glared back at me with a stirring mix of disgust and curiosity. Knowing that I could get no help from her, I looked pleadingly at the unicorn, now holding a hoof in front of his mouth, fighting back a gag. I would have jerked on my sides, trying to get rid of the saddlebag whatever the way, but physical and mental strength missed me. I just gave in, crumbling down the ground in front of the steel ranger, crying.

“Bring her in, she gonna talk,” the sergeant ordered to her stooges.

I refused to struggle back as it was nothing but a worthless effort. Closing my eyes, my knees bit the ground as I was carried away from the public.

They brought me inside a small and isolated tent, two soldiers flanked me while the sergeant stood straight in front of me, her eyes scanning my body from tail to the tip of my ears.

“Give me some water please,” I begged her with my ragged voice.

She sighed and shrugged, sweeping the inside of the tent with the back of her hoof.

“Do you see any bottle here? And to be honest we can’t, nearly everypony is affected with radiation sickness. And the water is corrupted.”

I sniffed, wiping my lips of the dried saliva making my mouth furred and uneasy to articulate.

“But, I can’t be irradiated,” I hammered in.

She laughed softly and pushed aside all argument I would bring forth after that statement.

“Tell me, mare,” she asked.

“Vault,” I corrected.

“Yeah… Tell me Vault, what happened in Canterlot?”

I looked around, seeking for any pony kind enough to back me up. Nopony was there, but the old white unicorn. He waited in a corner of the tent, not daring to scout at me, playing with a lock of his sky blue and grey mane, curled up around his horn.

“He has some privileges,” the sergeant Seed snorted, making the unicorn cringe a little.

I nodded, mimicking a ‘oh’ with my mouth. But I never pushed forth my attitude, I wouldn’t dare being insolent in front of a mare capable of practicing dichotomy between my face and body.

“Now, Vault. I want to know everything.” Assertive, she raised her armored hooves and encircled my shoulders. The weight thrust on me pushed me toward the ground, yet the heaviest anchor put on me was the harsh pain of relief, as my mouth unfold my story, even its darkest corners.

₪ ₪   Ѻ  ₪ ₪

I had blurted out all the ordeals I had been through, crying, whining and weeping over my condition. A freak that had escaped death. Everything… Even the sergeant had hugged me, and from over her shoulder I had seen the unicorn fled out of disgust, trooping past a couple of soldier guarding the entry of the tent. The cold edges of her armor weren’t the cuddling warm I had sought for. Yet, it wasn’t being alone.

Seed’s hesitant hoof rose in my back. With the other one she softly held my head tight. Looking into her eyes, I saw sparks of kindness.

“It’s over now… Vault, is that it?” she comforted me. “sleep now.”

The ragdoll I was obeyed without asking any question. I lay myself on the makeshift mattress left in a corner of the tent. Yet, I couldn’t sleep. I was enough awake, aware of my hunger and thirst. I clenched my eyes shut, leaving heavy tears running across my face and soiling the stinky mattress. I tried to calm myself, to lower the sobs I knew ponies could hear from the outside. My uneasy breath slowed and I chased away my thought, finally able to sink into an eerie sleep.

“You’ll die,” a voice snickered in my head.

I gasped out of my sleep, the sentence echoing inside of my head. Keeping my eyes shut, I curled up in a ball and tried to reach my mane. I’d have played with it, to escape the dull reality. But, as my hoof reached the top of my head, I remembered it had fallen. I touched my skin, devoid of any glimpse of hair. Even I, the mare that did not fear radiation had limitations. The world was slowly dying around me, and all started with my body, falling apart from the conjugated effect of the pink cloud and fallouts. Whines from the outside slithered in the tent. Adding to the gloomy atmosphere, the daylight had weakened, announcing the sunset.

Ponies were talking outside, young, old and raggedy voices blend together in an ambient hum. I covered my ears. Yet I was unable to muffle the two voices rising next to the entrance of the tent.

“How is she, sergeant?”

“I don’t know Mister Fancy Pants, I can hardly believe her. Canterlot… wiped out by a pink cloud that turns ponies to puddles…” The soldier paused, silence settling between the duo outside. Then she sighed. “But I’ve never seen such thing… You saw her saddlebag?”

“I would be glad if we don’t talk about it,” he asked. “But I don’t think she’s lying.”

“I don’t think too. And this scares me. If Canterlot is destroyed, the chain of command is broken and I may have to deal with public unrest in the camp… Especially with what’s coming over us during the next days.”

“You mean the…”

A voice perked next to them, panting.

“Ah… Ah… I’ve finally found her,” the male voice gleefully said. “Is she her?”

“Are you…”

“Yes, the mare with the strange affliction.”

I bit my lower lip, I was happy that somepony finally cared about me. But I wasn’t asking for that kind of scientific attention.

“Hey! What are you doing?” the sergeant’s voice eructed.

A dim light blasted inside the tent as a young light red pony peered in the tent and laid his eyes upon my silhouette. He was a unicorn, wearing a white blouse, a saddlebag hung on his side, sporting a bright red cross. He trotted in my direction and put a knee on the ground, his head going down toward me.

“How are you my dear?”

“Water…” I begged.

“You shouldn’t have taken away the bandages, you skin is seriously damaged and you’re sick.”

“Water…” I brought my hooves to the collar of his clothe. “Please.”

After a quick look in his back, he showed me a small plastic bottle, filled with pure water. Snatching it off, I brought it to my lips and drank… Only to spit it out, dropping the bottle as an acrid sensation of burning invaded my throat. I jerked over the made up bed, holding my neck in terror, the sensation of being eaten from the inside settling in my flesh.

“Calm down!” the carepony ordered, hauling me out of my whining and prostrated position. “Calm. Down. Please.”

He had caught the bottle mid-air, before its content spilled on the floor. Slowly, he pushed its top on my lips, mimicking with his other hoof a slow sip.

“Take it easy, it burns a lot. So go slowly.”

Yes, it burnt, my inside being revived by water. Sniffing, I kept drinking slowly, tears running from my eyes. I caught a glimpse of the sergeant’s mane behind the doctor. Seed shook her head disapprovingly.

“You’re wasting your resources, Brancard,” she snorted. “She will be dead by tomorrow morning. She’s just a waste of time.”

This hit me like a cannon ball. I sniffed, trying to contain the heavy tears rushing my eyes.

“Yeah, yeah… keep talking, steel ranger.” He waved a hoof at her, asking the soldier to leave, Seed is that it?

Seed left the tent, now only inhabited by the doctor and me. He smiled at me, bringing before my eyes a small bag containing a gleaming orange liquid, RadAway.

“How did…” I began.

He put his hoof in front of my lips.

“Hush now and drink it.” He inspected at the tent entrance, checking that we were indeed alone. “It’s just something they have in the military surplus. They’ve a ton of it, but not enough for everypony.”

I drunk the raspy liquid. Slowly, the headache I hadn’t paid much attention vanished. Meanwhile, Brancard put me on the side and scanned me with expert eyes. He seemed fascinated with the saddlebag and how my skin had… Don’t think about it, definitely.

“You’re doing this because I’m a curiosity for you, am I right?

He slightly stepped back, pinching his lips. For a short second he avoided my stare.

“I’d have say no, but it’d be a lie. But it’s also me who saved you.”

I snorted with disrespect.

“From what?”

“The timberwolf,” he explained. “You… you don’t remember?”

Thoughtful, I remembered the wooden and blacked face.

“I was hallucinating. I thought I did.”

“You were burning with fever, dehydrated and completely shocked. But the timberwolf was real. He would have killed you if I hadn’t used a rifle.”

With trembling hooves I hugged him, seeking as much comfort as possible from his warm presence.

“Thanks,” I whispered with my raspy voice. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Brancard, nice to meet you. Vault if I’m not mistaken.” I nodded. “I spied on you sleeping in the hospital tent while you were knocked out. You mumbled a few names and places.”

I looked at his hooves, dodging his caring eyes, ashamed of what he could have heard.

“I won’t tell anypony.”

That… wouldn’t help at all. I shrunk on my hooves with widened eyes. A long and unnerving silence settled between the two of us. As the wind whistled outside, the tents clacked and twisted on their strings. It moaned between the alleys overcrowed with ponies wandering aimlessly inside the encampment. Raindrops drummed onto the roof of my makeshift home. I was cold as I had not been given any bed linen. I also missed my mane, I used to wrap myself with it during my period of depression. My chest swelled and quivered. Sobs, hurtled up its way back in my esophagi.

“Hey?”

Brancard clapped his hooves before my face, calling me back to reality.

“You okay?”

“I guess so,” I blabbered.

The tears on my cheeks told the opposite. Brancard hugged me, awkward. It reminded me of Balloon, first giving me hugs, then laughing at me and menacing me with his recollector. The recollector… Thrusting me away from Brancard’s grasp, I jerked my hooves to my head, banging them onto a small metal plaque riveted to my forehead. What I saw earlier in the muddy pool wasn’t a bruise, hidden under the bandage I had left there. It was the mark of the Ministry of Morale. My breath became uneasy, trashing my chest as I hyperventilated.

“Calm down, Vault,” Brancard reassured. “It’s nothing!”

“How can it be nothing!?” I panicked. “If they found me, I’m the next to be terminated.”

“Get your shit together!” He slapped me. “Why do you think I nearly mummified you?”

I took the hint.

“I was protecting you,” he explained with a smile on his lips. “The Ministry of Morale’s agents roamed in the camp, they make the law and put a curfew for everypony.” He paused. “Even for the Steel Rangers.”

I wasn’t up for political thinking, but I knew that every sane pony hated the Ministry of Morales and its hounds. And if they ruled the place, what kind of exactions would they enact to insure their orders wouldn’t be discussed. It was frightening.

“Where are we?” I finally asked.

“The encampment is forty kilometers east from Canterlot, and fifty kilometerq south from Fillydelphia. We stand on a transport hub of Equestria… Well former hub. A lot of survivors are converging here from the near regions.”

Taking a deep breath, Brancard held my shoulders in his hooves, on the brink to unveil a hard truth.

“Ponyville, Appleoosa, Fillydelphia, Manehatten, and on, and on…” Surprisingly, he chuckled. Even him couldn’t believe it. “All has been wiped out by the megaspells, unfortunately...”

I had had no family aside from Amethyst, but she was dead. I forced my eyes shut, casting away the vision of my girl’s face during my hallucination. That mask was still bringing gags in my throat. I swallowed and looked at Brancard. I would have asked what we, the survivors, were going to do next. But…

“Why did you leave me in that tent?” I shuddered. “When I woke up, I thought I had been dumped into a mass grave. The stink…”

He bit his tongue. A worried and sorry look onto his face he tried to comfort me.

“I think he was the only place where the agents wouldn’t come.”

I found myself talkative that day.

“Why are you risking so much for me?”

“You mumbled Canterlot in your delirium. I thought you came from there and knew what happened. My sister, Lyra… She was there two days ago. When the bombs fell.”

So it had been two days. It seemed like a lifetime. I clenched my eyes, raised my hooves around his neck, and sharing in the suffering and cries I whispered:

“Nobody survived. Canterlot is a ghost city now. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just ran away, abandoning everypony behind. I’m…”

My hooves on his back, I felt the shudders running under his fur and skin, swamping his backbone with shakes that echoed in my limbs. Tears fell heavy on my shoulders. And Brancard’s embrace tightened on my stiffened body. He cried out all the hopes he had put onto me.

“I knew it… Why am I being so stupid?”

We stayed prostrated for an unknown period of time, with the wind’s moan as sole companion. This lonely moment lasted, lasted and lasted. My chin resting on his left shoulder, my stare wandered around inside the tent, devoid of furniture.

We kept going in our common grieving until a scream rammed the air from the outside. I slapped us out of our position. Brancard swept a tear from his eyelid as I stood.

“You can’t go… you…”

“I’m Vault.”

“Yes.” He blushed, ashamed of not knowing my name until now. “You can’t go outside, they might find you.”

“But I want to move, I can’t stay here.”

Ransacking his saddlebag, Brancard pulled a pack of gauzes out, and wrapped me up, especially my head. Patching me up, he hid the bits of recollector still riveted to my head, far too remarkable to hang around carelessly and bandaged some of my wounds, mostly infected cuts and bruises.

“I think it’s okay now,” he told me, his tone betraying an inner pain I wasn’t able to mend.

We walked out of the tent together, turning our heads as the clamor of a distant crowd struck our ears. The loud hum melted with the rustle of fabrics and strings of the encampment. Focusing, I stumbled across the street, forcing me to use Brancard for support. And shoulder against shoulder, we headed toward the cleared place where I had first met the gunnery sergeant Seed, and Fancy Pants.

The agora was located near of the middle of the camp. It was so vast that, during my time spent alone, I had been wondering how many ponies could fit there. I had estimated that number around twenty thousand so far. We neared the area as we trot with difficulty in its direction. When we finally saw it, our eyes settled on a massive crowd, circling an apparently captivating event, which echoes were muffled by the clatter of horseshoes.

With Brancard, we dug our way toward the center.

A painful scream rose before us. My eyes, tired by the journey I’ve been through, looked down at the cringed and bruised shape of a pale blue mare, her flanks marked with flogging scars. Whining, she was rolling on her sides, trying to dodge the assaults from a pony, another mare, wearing a tight brown trench coat. A large brown hat sat onto her head, and she sported a Pinkie Pie’s token, pinned on her breast. The violent mare’s bloodshot eyes betrayed a lack of sleep. The frothing on his lips showed she was thirsty, hungry. She had fallen victim to hunger too. From beneath her hat I saw a white glimmer. A whip flew in the air and struck down the crying mare with a loud clack. She screamed under the hundred terrified eyes that contemplated the scene with a sudden and utter silence. I saw the sergeant Seed peered in through the wall of ponies. But, even if we were facing, she never looked upon us. All her might was aimed at the torturer. Fancy Pants followed close, his teeth greeted in terror.

“What are you doing?” Seed boomed, but received no answer. “Agent Genepi?”

“Babs…” Fancy Pants mumbled clumsily. “Stop it please. It’s the Ministry of Morale…”

A gust of wind snatched the agent’s hat, revealing a pale green mare whose cheeks had sunken out of hunger. Her mane had fallen and only a tuft of butter yellow mane dangled behind her left ear. She glared at the soldier, and her bloodshot eyes dunked more than a few heads into shoulders among the gathered ponies.

“I’m punishing somepony who dared to steal our provision stocks,” she bragged, nearly cackling.

Many ponies looked down at their bellies, empty and growling in pain. The agent Genepi smiled broadly, taking the silence for a mark of approval.

“We’re all hungry, desperate and on the brink of wasting our last strength! As the Ministry of Morale is in charge in time of uncertainty! As everypony knows,” she shouted her speech, staring with all her might at the sergeant Seed, “We have to stay a big and happy family through this ordeal the zebras have flung at us! And we all know that with the major cities destroyed, we have to take care of our current living stocks. For the sake of all! We cannot leave them unprotected!”

How she emphased on the ‘we’ made me feel queasy; but what sickened me more was the many ponies nodded, agreeing with such extremist paroles.

“Unfortunately, we shall face and stand filthy swine, such as that mare.” She pointed the crying pony at her hooves. “Such ponies that try to sneak in the stocks to snatch something to selfishly keep to themselves. Such ponies that, in fact, are robbing YOU from your chances of survival.”

Everypony, or could I say nearly all of them, agreed. Stupefied and stoic, my eyes plunged into the ones of the anonymous mare, lying pitifully on the ground. One of her hind leg was broken as a heavy load had been dropped on her articulation, probably one of Genepi’s angry kicks. When our eyes met again, I could feel nothing but fear; for her, but also for me as I knew I could have been standing at her place. The worse was that I could see my reflection in her retinas. I wanted to ran away, now.

“Yes, Ponies!” Agent Genepi continued with a mad grin. “By robbing the Ministry of Morale, she stole from YOU. She wanted YOU to die for the hope to live another day.”

The atmosphere heated up. Hooves stomped the ground, snouts puffing out billowing smoke in the cold, and teeth greeting.

“She bargained your lives for her own. And I think we need an example. Don’t you think?” Cheers roared I bit my lips. “An example to prove once and for all that we, ponies, are a great, big family, and that we must get rid of the rotten fruits. What do you think is a good punishment for a pony that wanted to murder you so badly?”

Electricity sparked in the air, rage and shouts spread like wild fire on weed.

“Death! Death! Death!” the voices gained in momentum as more and more pony started singing this fateful word along.

Brancard held me closer. I knew he wanted to help the wounded mare, I wanted it too. But, being left to public retaliation and the wild purge being hosted by the Ministry of Morale itself, I know I was powerless. I would only throw my life away if I’d interpose. I looked at the sky, the sunset hiding a low hanging lid of cloud. I could see reflects of red and yellow beyond the horizons. The sky was bleeding out.

“I know you know you can do nothing,” Genepi whispered to Babs Seed, obliging the gunnery sergeant swivel on her armored hooves and leave, anger and shame distorting her features. “If anger is not released now, the unrest will backfire on us, and thus you!”

The clamor rose and boomed, muffling the pitiful cries of the unicorn in the middle of the square.

“So be it,” Genepi howled as she took a small rock in her hoof, holding it high above her head. “She betrayed us, she breached the will of the Princesses, and she made fools of us all.”

Ponies imitated her and all shingles resting on the ground were now taken between trembling and revengeful hooves. I even saw a child harnessing his own piece of granite.

“Please,” the anonymous unicorn begged.

Whizzing, the first stone flew right in her face, breaking two of her teeth. The second struck her wounded hindleg. The third hit her in the eyes, and the squishy balls bulged and popped like a water balloon, swelled with red. The fourth come, and the fifth… and the sixth…

I stopped counting. The stoning was gruesome. Blood splattered and spilled everywhere on the ground from the convulsing body of the mare. The odor of death slithered in our muzzles. And basic instincts shined in everypony’s eyes, calling for revenge in this instant of pure insanity. From the corner of my eye, I saw Genepi drop her own piece of rock and trot away, a wide and wild smile drew on her lips.

I stood there with Brancard as long as the stoning continued, as hundreds of pebbles ricochet on the already dead but still moving corpse before my hooves. The body was struck again and again, until flesh went liquid, blood ran dry and the zoom in the air lost in intensity. The reek of battered flesh assaulted my senses and I couldn’t depart my eyes from that lifeless form that was once a mare. Brancard vomited, tears running across his face.

Cold bit my skin, I could see haze rising from the warm blood and unmoving body. In the billowing fumes, I witness… or I believed I did, faces shaping slowly. The mist took the appearance of a pony, slowly trotting around the carcass of the mare. A wide grim first formed onto its featureless face, then one eye popped out, followed by the second. A nose moved out of the white smoky flesh and finally pupils of blood red opened on me.

It galloped in my direction, the smoke becoming purple with blood seeping out of its neck.

“Vault?” Brancard asked. “Vault!”

I ran away from everything, leaving Brancard behind as I headed afar from that place.

I faced soldiers and agents, throwing wondering stares at me.

I stumbled across dead bodies eaten away by crows.

I pushed ponies aside.

I ran to a tall pylon towering around eighty feet. Madly, I climbed on its skeletal armature. My ears rejected the shouts of the soldiers asking me to stop. I clambered until I touched the top and finally, I took a broad look over the camp.

The encampment was a makeshift city of fabric, strings and despair… Wherever I look, I could see tents, widows, and children, crying ponies and dying shapes. All silhouettes seemed lost under a low sky where everything was wrapped with the brown and grey smoke of countless cremations. As tears flowed down my cheeks, my eyes drifted afar toward the horizon, far across this gigantic and grotesque land of death, where no place could be found free of the green taint, characteristic of balefire fallout. A lightning sliced the sky in half, booming over my head. Then a dark, greenish and ashy rain hurtled down from the sky, showering me with a disgusting stench of putrefaction.

I had headed into a graveyard, one anonymous stone with no epitaph for each tent. At the top of the telecom tower, I saw the pony hive agitating, shrieking as it tried to protect itself from the deluge.

The smoky shadows I tried to shake off myself loomed over my shoulder, with a sickly wide grin on its lips.

“What are you going to do, now?”

It spoke!

“For you’re just a waste among the trash.”

Footnote: **Level Up* – Survivor Mare LvL.2*

New Perk: Daughter of her time – The more you see, the less you care. Experience will toughen you up from the whiny little bitch you are to be better, or so you can think.

Side-Story Perk Added: Among the epitaphs – Remorse, guiltiness and broken hopes had damaged your subconscious. Hallucinations are recurrent and may show themselves randomly. You lose charisma with the ponies that have seen your unreliable twists and turns. You become more creative and unpredictable.