SPECTRUM: Starvation

Is this thing working?

*static*

Testing, testing, one two three. This is Isaac Acevedo-

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: And Button Mash!"

*Interruption ends*

-and Button Mash. We're some of those lucky few who have been chosen to carry on humanity’s legacy, in the face of extermination by candy-colored-

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: Ahem.

Still counts, you're kinda chocolate-colored.

Higher-pitched voice: Fair enough.

*Interruption ends*

Anyway, candy-colored equines that would be a little girl’s dream come true. I’m flinging a light into the darkness of space for someone, anyone to hear. The infinite depths of space, which is like shooting a bullet into a random direction and hoping it hits a target or a bird. Throwing a rock out into the ocean and hoping it knocks out a fish or a bird. No pressure, right? No... Goddamn... pressure.

If you’re hearing this, as soon as you understand this, I need you to get to the coordinates we’ve given you. Find the most habitable planet, the blue and green one. Make radio contact with all the nations. Look for the broadcasts, and if there aren’t any humans on the planet, then move asteroids, satellites, nuclear weapons, or death rays into its orbit, any ordnance you have, and drop it all till it looks like a moon. Then a few more times to be sure.

Then, if you want, do it again. It’s not like I’ll be alive to stop you. Or anyone really. I mean, sure, the Equestrians will, but I genuinely don’t give a shit about the ones that you find.

My name is Isaac E. Acevedo, but they call me Butcher Acevedo instead. I work for the police. I’m a security guard at Crowe Labs, making sure that nobody steals any components to machines that could 'theoretically' stop the Tyrant's Barrier.

I was born in 1997,  on a bus heading for Rio De Janeiro. My picture should be attached to this. I have surprisingly western features for a Brazilian man-pale blue eyes-"

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: They look kinda like a husky's eyes.

Will they really know what huskies are?

Higher-pitched voice: : Not really... say, what happens to Earth animals when the Barrier hits them?

I... don't know!

*Interruption Ends*

My hair's dark brown too, instead of black. I even have a mustache-to anyone reading this, that’s the furry thing between my nose and my lips. That’s made out of dead cells and amino acids. I can't help it, it's just a function of the body.

I see that you’re confused. What is this thing? You think. Is it talking? Can you even hear audible sound? Probably. Does he exist now?

Probably not. There’s two possibilities if you read this. Either I am dead, my body vaporized. Or I’m one of those things.

Newfoals.

Those fucking, fucking newfoals. Those zombies... Hmmm?

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: Butcher, you said it yourself... That’d take way too long! Nobody want to hear all that again, they already know!

Right. So what do you think I should tell them, Button?

Higher-pitched voice :What you think will make them come here.

I am going to make you regret every word in that sentence. The meat story it is.

Higher-pitched voice: If this doesn’t tell any aliens how desperate it was for us, nothing will.

*Interruption ends*

Meat.

Now I know what you’re thinking, and how disgusted you’ll think the pony refugees were when I did this. More than usual, I mean, but they... well, I wouldn’t say accepted it. They understand how scarce food is, and they know how much we eat meat. They don’t like it, but they’re alright with it.

A miracle they took it so well. Heh, Button Mash-yes, the pony next to me, my buddy who helps work on some of the vertical farms-he looked at me like I was a madman, or madpony in the parlance he’s slowly slipping out of ever so slowly.

*Interruption*

High-pitched voice: I thought it was disgusting!

You and me both, brotha.

*Interruption ends

You gotta understand. I did what I had to do. I don’t like it, and I hate it beyond belief. I’m a monster, I admit it... but look at me. Look in my face. Look at my chest, the ribs straining to push out my chest like knives through a steak. You are unlikely to have many examples of humanity to work with. But do I look fucking healthy to you? Nourished? Do any of us?

Right. Didn’t think so.

I live in the... look, everyone calls it something different. Me, my Earth Pony friend Button Masher, and my roommate simply call it Town. It’s a mass of pure favela, superdense, that would make the old Kowloon Walled City weep in horror. You don’t know the Kowloon Walled City? Eh, I can excuse that. Before your time. But I’m in the Torre de Joao Vitor, rising up above Town, but not for long. Town is always growing upward, downward, and outward, to hold a growing population of refugees. I don't think the pegasii refugees will like that, they quite enjoy the challenge of weaving through buildings... I actually work with a guy who acts as a doctor to flightless pegasii. I help him make wings from what we have on end. Any humans listening to this as I broadcast it? Have any pegasus friends? Yes? Then check doctor Dan Der Grimnebulin if they have any ailments-look in the Torre de Joao Vitor, find the door that says “The Two Isaacs of Rio”. Any money means we can live another day.

So one day, me and Der Grimnebulin were sitting in our shithole of an apartment. Button had left his room-

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: I was off helping my mother at a hospital. She looks after children there, making sure they stay safe... she’s like a mother to all of them. I almost feel jealous of all those little kids.

That was a really good thing to do. You should probably do it more often.

Higher-pitched voice: Hmm. And I DO get extra food rations...

Seriously?! Alright, do it when you can.

Higher-pitched voice: Absofrigginlutely! But the vertical farms are hard work.

Fair enough. Like I said, do it when you can. You're my friend, and friends don't let friends work themselves to death.

Higher-pitched voice: You do.

That's different. Besides, I get to sleep on the weekends....

*Interruption ends*

Anyway, he was off in his room, and my stomach... it didn’t growl. You really must understand, a stomach growling happens when there isn’t enough to eat. This was like the primal roar of some ancient godbeast, eating a portal through my stomach. And it fucking hurt, like I’d taken a shotgun to the gut again. Back with that crazy looter in Mexico, half-crazy from watching her family get ponified in front of her...

So I leave, right? I load up for war. If whoever’s reading this doesn’t understand, I need you to understand this: The city, Rio de Janeiro, is damn near a warzone. Food riots. Race riots. Dead ponies left and right, especially newfoals. You can’t walk outside without protection. And damn, am I protected. Klip Killa Rental Riot Suit, which is jeans and a jacket with some cheap kevlar that a bastard made on the street. A Neostead shotgun. An 8-shot .44 Magnum with a central 20-gauge barrel, because Taurus Brazil knows how to make a damn good handcannon. Double-stack .45 pistol, also a Taurus. A-

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: Seriously? Why are you explaining guns to an advanced alien species?

I... Like my guns, they kept me alive so far. And to be fair, it’s not like most people would know about that Taurus revolver.

Higher-pitched voice: That's not the point. Just... even if aliens that probably use plasma or hard light weapons as the basic loadouts for their troops, or concepts we probably haven’t even thought of yet hear this, it's just not relevant to the plot!

Hehe… plot. I guess I got caught up in the moment.

Higher-pitched voice: Let's skip the guns. Get to the city!

*Interruption ends*

The city, it's hell on Earth, innit? We’re not a civilized city, and I feel like we’re almost proving the damn Tyrant right when she say we don’t have a civilization here. I fokking hate her and her precious glassy-eyed zombies. Plus, this is their damn fault anyway. They took away my life, all I have now is survival. Me and the other damn people in this damned city... Ukrainian. Latvian. Russian. Chinese. Japanese. Korean. Nigerian. Kenyan. Congolese.. Congoese... what is the plural? I don’t know. Don’t care. French. British. Spaniards. Portuguese. Canadians, maybe. Americans. Icelanders. Countless Middle Eastern and African countries. Europe. Kazakhstanis. And a smattering of ponies who got out of Equestria just in time. And...

Newfoals. Why, Goddammit. Why.

This isn’t what I’d hoped for the city of the future. I was thinking something like from those old Star Trek movies back in the 2000s, or Mass Effect, or Deus Ex, or Neuromancer. Least those had some measure of positivity. This is something that Elysium and Blade Runner would stare at, shake their heads at, clap their hands on each other's back, and drink themselves into a stupor just to forget the sight of, all the while thanking God that they weren’t that dumbass sitting here. This is a future that would make Fritz Lang, everyone involved in the filming of Metropolis, and every obsessively bleak cyberpunk writer from the eighties shit their pants in pure horror, disgust, and terror. God, I miss the old days...

Used to be one bad mofo back in the day, when the food was everywhere, when I could still afford to go skiing. When I could walk down the streets and nobody would fuck with me. When I could pick up girls in any bar by playing the old wounded serviceman card. When I was a damn attraction in bars, and people would line up just to see Isaac ‘Bitches’ Acevedo.

With luck I could still be one, I thought as I walked out the door, Neostead shotgun in hand. As I walked down, and checked my arsenal, I realized I couldn’t see hope anywhere I looked. There was shit and trash everywhere.

If you can hear me or read me any time, or some New Foal coughs this shit up somewhere far away from Rio, I want you to know that I cannot satisfactorily describe the light. I cannot satisfactorily describe the atmosphere. It is something that the directors of the short film The Third Letter attempted to capture, but could not. It’s as if there’s no sun here. No light. No life. A palpable darkness over everything.

I didn’t know where I was going, as I headed into the shadowy, shit-encrusted, dank depths of Town. I knew I’d go somewhere with food.

Basically, I was making shit up as I went along. I figured that something would come along, or I’d find something convenient.

At least not anywhere remotely safe that is.

The ratsellers didn’t have anywhere near enough rat to sell, and I was getting damned hungry. I couldn’t afford money for rat, we’d been paid in food rations down at Crowe Labs for our work on the newest countermeasure against the Tyrant's Barrier, and I'd only gotten a few bonuses for keeping a few workers from smuggling a few new technological... thingama... Okay, I have no idea what they were, but I know they were valuable, the machine probably couldn't work without them, and they were worth a lot. Not only that, but I was pretty sure that without them, our only resort was building coastal walls. I read Shingeki no Kyojin when I was a kid and one of my favorite movies is Pacific Rim.

THAT SHIT NEVER WORKS BY THE WAY!

I was dead broke.

Dead would soon be the word if I didn’t get food.

So there I go. Down into the place where the sewers and Town become even more indistinguishable, in Horsetown as some people call it-

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: ...Racist.

I didn't come up with it. But that... calling you horses is just wrong.

Higher-pitched voice: My mom made me wash out my mouth with soap for calling somebody that once....

*Interruption Ends*

Anyway, it's where we keep the New Foals, and some of the Native Equestrian refugees that are too poor to leave the city or find anything better here. We haven't found them all jobs involving nature, or jobs on those new vertical farms they're making to support the growing refugee population. Seriously though, that's like the perfect place for some of them! But even so we're making progress, and if it keeps up it will be empty of Native Equestrians. I seriously doubt that I'll be able to come down here for much longer with the shrinking Native population. When they’re gone, there’ll just be Newfoals down here.

I'll explain that in a moment.

The native Equestrians aren't too bad, though they do hate it down there. Enough that coaxing them out with job notices for farms, weather control, and magic research sends them running. Especially the Earth ponies, a lot of them are just so happy to get to farming. I remember this one Earth pony who had been a professor or something, a scientist, I... I don't know. He was ecstatic to realize we were giving him a job on the vertical farms, especially because he got to actually build a farm from the ground up, soil and all. I’ve never seen someone become so happy in such a short span of time.

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: What's that? You're asking "What about the newfoals?" Well, what about them? Only Celestia herself can control them, you think they'll ever be able to take a paying job from humans? My mother hates working with newfoal children, you know.

Waitwaitwaitwait. Give me a moment to process this. Your mother...

Higher-pitched voice: Who had the patience to deal with me as a colt.

...Who had the patience to deal with you as a young colt, hates working with newfoal children?!

Higher-pitched voice: She cannot get them to do a damn thing, and do you have any idea how many times the unicorn newfoals have tried to stab her? She's had to have specially-made foal-sized horn blockers used just for them. Which she says means they'll have even more mental issues when they actually do use their magic, and they'll hate her even more. She'd know, she has a degree in child psychology...

That... makes a whole lot of sense actually. Still, at least we won't live long enough to see most of em reach puberty.

Higher-pitched voice: That's not funny.

I couldn't agree more, Button. I really couldn't.

Interruption

You'll notice that I didn't mention the New Foals we keep in Horsetown. Well, they have their own part of it, which I'll unfortunately have to cut through. It's a shithole, to put it lightly. They make plants, grow mushrooms like the farmers in Metro 2033, and sell them to their Native Equestrian neighbors, who promptly sell it to humans at an inflated price. Much as all us humans and sane ponies alike hate to admit it, we definitely need their food. They’ve got green thumbs, or green hooves as they might say, and the food they can grow in that part of Town is a godsend for those that can afford it. The worst part is, the New Foals mentally cannot accept anything from humans that would give them a good way out, and anyone that leaves the New Foal part of Horsetown usually ends up worse than they were before.

To this day I don’t know why I came. I think I considered my plan before, in some corner of my mind, but I never wanted this. God willing, I never will, and I’ll regret it for all my days.

But for the love of God, I was starving. I think I might have looked like I was new meat in a concentration camp.

I cringed a little a lot as I wandered by, taking a short detour through the part of the Equestrian neighborhood where they kept all the New Foals. There wasn't really much to see, especially because I made certain to stick to back alleys that only skirted the place, unless absolutely necessary. I snuck past the faintly glowing mushroom plantations, past the carts full of unidentifiable ugly vegetables and slum crops. Past the chapel to Celestia, once being a chapel to God for some Christian sect (I can't remember what though) before the New Foals came, and I wanted to burn the hell out of it more than you can ever imagine. I wanted to strangle and kill them, but I was too damned hungry for that.

Some of the New Foals looked at me pityingly, some looked at me with the utmost cheery smile, like they were trying to convert me on the spot through their blank smiles and glassy eyes. I hate that look on a New Foal's face... That sickening, motherfucking, evil, vapid, brainwashed, soulless, happy, zombified LOOK. How I wish I could physically rip it from somepony’s face, or make them human once more. Sometimes, I wonder about the ponified children-if they can be cured, then what, by God what, will it be like to cure them? The brain damage must be insane.

So then this little filly walked up to me. I saw her as I walked through what was once a street or a forest, now a tunnel between shipping containers, stucco, and shanties. Cute little pegasus with a lime-green and indigo mane. 
She couldn't have been a New Foal, her eyes didn't look nearly as glassy, and she had... was that a frown?! Newfoals didn't frown! Sure, they got angry, but there didn’t seem to be much emotional range between a newfoal’s vacant, almost lobotomized happiness and misplaced anger. Still, it was hard to be sure, some of them seemed a little more together than others.

She tugged at my pant legs, with a pleading look, and were I a child I would have compulsively cried or cooed “Awwwwww” and hugged her.

But I was an adult well into this war, a soldier on leave who’d seen and done too much fucked up shit to truly find it adorable. I didn’t see an adorable lime-green filly, I saw a victim. Her eyes! My Pegasus friend, Blueberry Torte, who works down at the Saltwater Stills making freshwater, says that it’s an Equestrian’s curse that their eyes are so expressive, so massive.

I felt like I was being cursed as I saw those eyes, so in a way Blueberry was right, though he was talking about how they harmed an Equestrian’s prospects in negotiations.

There was a world of hurt behind her eyes, and for a moment, as I stared into her, I saw the hurt. I was in that world.

She had the look of one who has been hurt more than anyone should be-I’ve seen it a lot in refugees. They’re bad enough, knowing that their homes, their friends, their family, their history is gone forever. This pony, though, she didn't have the glassy-eyed happy braindead smile of a New Foal who'd been raped and was forced to believe it was consensual, she just looked... betrayed. Besides, she couldn't be a New Foal. She actually had a cutie mark of a cloud raining on a red maple leaf. For some reason, young ponies and New Foals can't get cutie marks, though I can't imagine why. I don’t think we have many scientists inclined to understand it.

I reached out to hug her, felt the vacant stares of the New Foals nearby, and stopped. Something didn't feel right-you couldn't quite predict what would set a New Foal off, but hugging a filly seemed like it would. Instead, I whispered:

“Be brave. We’ll win, because we simply have to... ”

She stared at me, and I remembered how hungry I was. I had to go see Green Grocer.

I trod off to go see his stall, hidden in between two buildings, at the exact middle between the Native Equestrian half of Horsetown and the New Foal half. He’d likely have some mushrooms, and possibly cooked rats from one of the ratcatchers who stalked the halls of Town with traps and homebrewed airguns. He thought it was distasteful, but I knew he was a shrewd businesspony who recognized the value of convenience. He wore an old tattered suitcoat jacket, which fit oddly over his barrel and forelegs. I questioned how he put it on every morning, but in the end, I didn’t really care.

“Grocer,” I said, making sure to talk as little as possible, so I don’t piss him off. He doesn't like me-hell, I don't think he likes any humans or anypony. Still, he recognizes us as far better than the alternative, so I can respect that.

“Human,” he grunted, as kindly as he could. Which isn’t very. Still, he tries, so I applaud him for that.

“Have any food?” I asked hopefully, keeping my hand away from either of my pistols. Still can’t set him off. I had done him a favor earlier, helping to shovel the manure he uses to grow his food in a faraway plantation, so I figure I’m due for payment.

To my surprise, he does-a bucket of warm, buttery mushrooms, and even a bit of brie. God only knows where he got that. And I... I thank him.

I didn't stray too close, because I didn't want to get headbutted by a lot of pounds of angry mood-swinging pony.

I practically bowed to him, and most of the brie disappeared. In my defense, it was delicious. I was still hungry, but I figured I needed to conserve.

So with a skip in my step, I headed back up to Joao Vito, to the elevator that may or may not work. I left the little filly a bit of the brie-which she loves, by the way-and head up, towards the outskirts of the newfoal ghetto. I take a turn down something that I think used to be an alley, now another tunnel. Nobody lives in this part of Town, for whatever reason, so I figure I’ll be fine.

It’s this point when shit goes wrong.

The rusty staircase I'm heading collapsed under me in a groan, and I landed on my ass in a heap on the rusty floor, by a pot of water over a fire. Standard water-boiling procedure. Oh thank God I didn't get stabbed by any protruding bits of rust!

Shit.

“Well, what do we have here?” I hear someone say.

I know who that is.

I turn over to see Comet Trail, a silvery-white unicorn colt, probably a teenager. He was a Celestian, a Native Equestrian who believed in the Tyrant's bullshit about humans. The bastard was leading a gang that thought that the New Foal ghetto deserved independence. How to maintain the independence? What he'd do with the independence? It doesn’t take a genius to see that the independence a joke in this city. His gang, though, was mostly newfoals. Which says a lot about him.

Really. The zombie New Foals, you think. The ones who barely have any higher brain function beyond praising Celestia's ass.

I’ve noticed that New Foals get drastically more intelligent, more... together... when they follow a Native that listens to the spewing lies of their corrupted leader. Rumor has it that’s how Comet Trail's New Foals actually had some measure of effectiveness... they were literally getting high off the hate.

Not only that, but it’s rumored that his gang had the largest stock of ponification potion, that he found some in a secret room of the old Conversion Bureau. There are even rumors that his gang had somebody who was making poisonous “homebrew” ponification potion, but I don’t believe that. I saw the shipping labels on crates of the potion, and it came straight from Equestria. How could he possibly have the facilities for that here?

God, I hate that building! Not even the squatters touch it!

“So, what’s this?” Comet sneered, his posse of New Foal unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi bearing the utterly blank-eyed, happy go lucky face they always had. “A human stealing from us?”

“I bought it fair and square from Grocer,” I said. “I was hungry.”

“For our food?!” Comet laughed, telekinetically taking my mushrooms.

“Well, I bought it,” I said. My leg still hurts... fuck, it’s so hard to get up. “That makes it mine.”

“Crab apples it does,” one of Comet’s cronies said. Sky Blitz. A native pegasus who showed up from an earlier battle in this city, and recuperated with a wing injury. I'm reasonably sure he managed to pretend to be a refugee, then disappear into Rio de Janeiro's underworld. “You forfeited the right to this planet when you polluted it. When you raped it. Nothing should belong to you, you filthy-”

I didn't have time for that shit, but even so, I had to manage a one-liner. That's just proper etiquette. “I still say the guns should, though,” I said, and flipped myself around, knocking out Blitz’s legs. I pushed myself up, and stomped as hard as I could down on Blitz’s neck.

There was a crack, and he was gone.

Just like back in the army, fighting alongside Marcus Renee himself in Mexico. He probably doesn't remember me... hell, if he hears this somehow, he'll be glad he forgot me.

One down. I whipped out my pistols and fire, the smell of fulminated mercury invading my nose, the pistols deafening in the close quarters.

Humans are better killers than the ponies. Well-known fact. We’re excellent at shooting, too.

I heard hooves clopping frantically along the wood bridge down to the ghetto. Comet managed to escape... by using one of his New Foals as a meatshield. The damned thing was still smiling, would you believe it?! Course you would-in these days, we've seen freakier sights. Comet was trying to shoot some spell at me-

“Can’t have that,” I muttered, and fired the .44 revolver, shotgun shell and last magnum at once.

They hit his horn, shattering the thing, and his brain, without anywhere to focus the magic he’s gathered, exploded. Seriously, it turned into fokking mist.

I looked down at the corpses, who have taken my food, and my stomach growled. Traitorous bastard.

Oh no, I’m not.

I can’t, this is repugnant on so many levels!

But they took the mushrooms I worked so hard for, and I already ate up the brie. Hell, I get paid in food, I can’t pay for any more. It was almost too much work to do that job for Green Grocer, and giving me more food would be stretching his gratitude a bit too far. He probably would have accused me of stealing. Can’t exactly blame him, given how scarce food is. Even if we were living in pre-barrier times, I’d be skeptical of a person who claimed that.

If you’re hearing this in some future where food isn’t an issue on Earth, whether this isn’t earth and Celestia took over, or we won and kicked their furry flanks back to the dead world they came from, you have to understand the kind of future I fucking live in. I’ve told you I live in Rio de Janeiro, God only knows what horse pun the Queen Bitch will name it, but there’s something I get the feeling people will overlook. Do you know how global the world economy was before the Equestrian Barrier? I’ll tell you. Europe and the Mideast are fucking gone, so is about half of Africa. The barrier’s just about swallowed the Atlantic, so the fishing business is dying a slow death. We’re trying to support so many people on about a third of the world’s landmass. Maybe not a third-I don’t know how much of the world North America and South America is. I didn’t do too well at Geography in high school, alright?

Pretty much everything is in short supply now, and farmland is exponentially worth more than its weight in gold. We have to support the people of nearly a quarter of the world. I’ve heard that in America, just to support their farms, some people were even so desperate that tried using newfoals as slave labor. Never liked the option, though... I felt like it was cruelty disguised as wartime pragmatism. You don’t force people who hate you to work for you as slave labor! Especially not people who think your very existence is an affront to existence of their 'Goddess'! Whose idea was this?! Armacham?! Weyland-Yutani?! Umbrella Corporation?!

Well it didn't work out, as all bad ideas tend to go down. The New Foals managed to get free, freed by the few surivivng PER that survived the purging made by the US government agencies after the DC Nuking.

FBI, CIA, every letter in the fokking alphabet that deals with the government along with the Army and Marines came down like Thor's hammer on the fokkers.

Anyways, those New Foals managed to hide out in the wilderness of America, in the Rockies, but had not handled it well. They'd still managed to ponify a lot of humans, because the PER managed to smuggle a lot of potion to them, fokking traitors. A horrible crisis for Colorado, I can tell you that... there were kill on sight orders, rampant paranoia, and we were glued to the news every day as the story unfolded. Finally, some hunters from up in the mountains managed to kill the New Foals, with the help of a virtual army of volunteers and policemen.

Rumor has it that if it failed, the PHL/UN would step in and handle it. These are the same group of humans and ponies that venture into a New Foal infested city to get a group of survivors out. I am sure that it would of taken them less than a few minutes to find them and lob dozens of missiles just cause.

In this day and age, there is no such thing as overkill.

It was a grim reminder of what lines we shouldn't cross, and the danger of the brainwashing that was so common in New Foals. Partly out of practicality, partly to make sure we didn't sell our souls for survival, we resorted to hiring Earth ponies to tend farms. It was a hell of a lot more expensive, but still worth it.  Earth ponies that escaped from Equestria are practically worth a fortune just to squeeze more food out of farmland.  I’ve heard of ponies from the Apple family losing their prestige overnight as they left Equestria, then becoming just as famous for being indispensable on farms. They have all brought horrible stories about Applejack… Button tells me she’s practically become the boogeyman (Boogeymare?) of farms, if the jokes he overhears when walking by board meetings mean anything.

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: We make jokes about her all the time down on the vertical. "Of course you can take a break! Who do you think runs this place? Applejack?!" There's propaganda insulting her on every level of the place!

*breaks out into laughter* That's... that's... oh God, that's hilarious!

Higher-pitched voice: So anyway, that's probably our fault. I heard that Gustav-

That comic artist from Germany that works drawing up blueprints in the labs?

Higher-pitched voice: That's the one. Anyway, that guy, Brush Nib, and Oil Pastel made the posters... they said that they need a painter to help on their next project.

Been awhile since I picked up a brush. Ah, what the hell... That sounds really fun.

Higher-pitched voice: Good, because I already told them that you'd help with whatever bit of art they plan on.

I... you know what? I don't care. It sounds fun anyway.

*Interruption ends*

It’s barely enough food for all of us though. God damn that pink barrier. I’m willing to bet that soon, if we don’t have a miracle, I’m going to look back on these days and wonder why I ever complained.

I’ll be lucky to get paid in anything at all by the time the Barrier gets to what little farmland we have.

I... I gagged inwardly and wept as I skinned him. I took the stick holding the water, sharpen one end, and stuck it into Comet’s body. I... we... we had to do something to survive. Besides those mushrooms, I had barely eaten in days, and I could eat a horse. Not a pony, mind you, but an actual full-sized horse.

Heh, I wonder what the Equestrians think of horses.

I hold his corpse above the fire, twisting gently.

It should have felt a lot more wrong than it did, but I... I should have felt ashamed. Sickened. Nauseated. To be fair, I seriously doubt that there was enough in my stomach to vomit, so that’s at least one question answered.

I mean, my God... I ate someone. It was a pony, one that stood against us, so I doubt they’ll be missed, but not too long ago, it had talked to me. Hated me.

You did it a mercy, I wanted to tell myself. You didn’t kill anything, just an empty shell that followed a wrong path.

But even so, I couldn't feel any satisfaction about eating Comet.

I watched his flesh burn. Used to be that I hated horse meat... I’d sworn that I’d never eat it. Never mind that I ate cows and buffalo instead.

Am I really doing this? I asked myself, trying to convince myself I wasn't hungry. That I can go without food. That I can just pass this off as a run-of-the-mill hate crime.

As if in response, my stomach exploded in pain. Oh dear-god, I swear I have never felt this much pain at any other time in my life! It’s... it was like my stomachcollapsed in on itself. My belly felt like it had been stabbed, or ate some stupid American's bad imitation of Chinese food.

I needed. To eat.

So, weeping, I placed Comet’s carcass (now medium rare) on my lap and I bit into it. It wasn't not as good as seasoned steak, it wasn't as good as pretty much any kind of meat. It was just a kind of meat fit for nothing but filling you up.

I want to believe it was terrible. I want to believe it was godawful.

But I can’t.

When I was done, I stared at his body. I’d practically gnawed it down to  the bones, like a school of piranhas. I’ve seen and done some truly messed up things in my time, but this might very well top the list.

I ate a thinking being. Something that could think like us, could talk, could reason.

I can’t believe this, I thought as I got up, ready to trudge back home. I was glad I wasn't hungry, I was glad the world has less New Foals in this world to deal with, but this... this was just sickening.

What had I done?!

Damn you, Celestia.  God damn you. God damn every one of the merry-go-round toys you call your soldiers, god damn your barrier for driving me to this, and god damn me for stooping so low.

I swear to God, to anyone that will listen, I’ll make up for this. I have to be able to, I need to... this... this is just so sick and wrong!

And then that lime-green indigo filly appeared. She’d followed me for some reason, God only knows what, and I flinched when she saw Comet’s corpse. Oh shit, what did she think of the other dead bodies?! I remember thinking. What’ve I done to this filly?!

She looked like she was about to let loose a scream, as she saw me.

I stared at her, and she saw how little I’d been eating. How my T-shirt hung (and still hangs) off me like someone put it over a coat rack.

“How long have you been like that?” she asked. I was damn impressed that she could talk.

“Since everyone got here,” I said. “Since we had to make room and provide for all the refugees.”

I realize that in some parts of North and South America, it wasn't this bad. Even now, there are some people (Increasingly fewer, though) who can even live in pre-Barrier lifestyles, but those are a rar.. rari... I'm not asking Button to help me with this, by the way. Let's just say they're uncommon.

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: "Oh thank god!"

*Interruption ends*

She mouths “I understand”.

And I hated myself so much. No, you shouldn’t understand, I wanted to yell. You should hate me! You should-

“It’s desperate for all of us,” I heard myself say. “I.... I wouldn’t have done this if I had a choice. But he stole the last bit of food I had.”

“I... I see,” she said, staring. “I don’t blame you for what you did. And I thank you for getting rid of Comet... even though I hate how you did it.”

“Me too,” I admitted. “I never want to do anything like this again.”

“Please... don’t,” the filly said. “He was drawing us in, saying how we should poison our crops, kill all of you... and take the favela for our own.”

About a quarter of the guilt I feel simply disappeared.

“Damn us all,” I said, and slump against the wall. “Wait. Who are you, anyway?”

She put out her hoof in my hand, giving me a... hoofshake, I guess? “I’m Autumn Showers!”

“What happened to your parents?” I asked. She looks way too young not to have a good set of parents, but in a city like this, you never know. There’s plenty of children like the Native Equestrian foals and human children Button Mash’s mother is looking after, who were put on boats from the Americas that were sometimes barely more than a couple logs together. All for the purpose of escaping the barrier.

“...I don’t know,” Autumn Showers stared at the ground. “They’d said we should see the new world. See what humans had to offer, and to be honest, I like it here. I like it a LOT.” she smiled. “But... when Celestia’s army attacked, they got dragged screaming back to Equestria.”

...Well fok. It was at that moment that I knew I had no choice-there was only one thing I could do for her. Only one thing I should do. I had to do something good, or else I'd... I'd... I couldn't live with myself if I didn't make this up in some way. “C’mere, little filly, you’re coming with us. Somebody’s gotta look after you.”

“What? Why?!”

“Because I can’t resist a face like that,” I said. “I’ve literally never seen a face that sad. It was like... like I’d seen every bit of horror of this war behind your eyes.”

“Really?” Autumn Showers asked.

“Your eyes are really, really expressive,” I pointed out.

“They really are... I kinda have a hard time reading human faces. Your eyes are so small! So.... what will I have to do?”

“There’s probably a courier job somewhere,” I said. “Either way, if you live there, we’ll need someone to help with the rent and the bills.”

“But I’ll only take it on one condition.”

“When did this become about you? I-”

“Never eat pony meat again, New foal or Native” she said. “It’s... it’s cannibalism!”

Kinda is. Kinda isn’t. Totally is reprehensible, though, so I can’t really blame her there.

“Absofrigginlutely,” I said, and we head off into the-

*Interruption*

Higher-pitched voice: How was most of that relevant?!

I thought it gave us a tone of desperation.

Deeper-pitched voice: You could’ve given us a turn at this.

Feminine voice: Well, you weren’t there, Isaac.

Of course I was!

Feminine voice: I meant Grimnebulin.

Deeper-pitched voice Eh, details, Autumn. Now, can I narrate the end? I even brought a script.

I don’t see why not.

Deeper-pitched voice: No matter what path our future takes, people will doubt that this sort of thing happened. The Tyrant and her New foals will refuse to believe it one day and call it evidence that we need to be all killed-excuse me, I need to vomit for saying that sentence-and any humans will refuse to believe they stooped so low...

....We did. God damn us, we did.

He wasn’t the only one that resorted to cannibalism. I heard stories from the Pacific, from China, from some of the worst places, of suspicious meat. If you thought we were boned down here in Rio, then I pity what few people live in Asia and the Pacific. Maybe someday, we'll know what happened to them, but for now, I am happier in my ignorance.

It’s easy to forget about us in the story, and think about the brave PHL, being supported by the very diverse members of our world trying to stop the Barrier. With luck, they’ll become heroes to you, like...

Like Marcus Renee. A Marine who took a shot in the dark with a few ponies who wanted to help humanity. And came out with a group that could very well be our saviors.

Lyra Heartstring. A unicorn who stood against the Tyrant, even in her final moment of her life believing in true Harmony of our species. To work and understand one another. If we win, then I know that in death, she will unify us all.

And the others as well. Stephan Bauer, the Knight of Germania. The Blue Spy. Richard Ides. Vinyl Scratch. Hey, her music’s amazing, she should be a hero!

But don’t forget about everyone that Equestria destroyed, whoever you are. Do not forget.

Now, Button, Autumn Showers, Butcher, and I... we don’t know what we’re going to do. If Marcus Renee comes back somehow, then we’re gonna try and become heroes like him. If he doesn’t, then we’ll wait.

If he does, though-because he fucking HAS TO!-I will personally see Celestia’s head roll. Button will be with Sweetie Belle. I’ll have my old MG3 and I’ll be laughing.  Autumn will be reunited with her parents. And Butcher will be nigh-unstoppable with that FAL. I’ll see the Elements of Harmony battered, bruised, beaten, and driven to the depths of despair as they realize that you do not fuck with humanity.

I’ll bathe in their blood, and scream for them to stop dying at me.

I doubt it’ll ever happen. But it’s a beautiful dream.

Whoever you are, give the human race an excellent funeral pyre. To the extent that orbital bombardment qualifies as one.

*Interruption*

Original Voice: I shoulda let you do the narrating.

Deeper-pitched voice : I told you I did an excellent Morgan Freeman voice.

Feminine Voice: Why didn’t I get to narrate?

Higher-pitched voice: Because your voice is too squeaky for this, Autumn.

Feminine Voice: Look who’s talking.