The Wastelands

I opened the door of the unstable cottage. It was the best shelter I found in this area, because most of the buildings had collapsed. This happened due to the “Destruction” attack. At least that is what I call it. When I saw the destruction of Manehattan something snapped in me. Mainly because my only friend was blown into pieces by a so called explosive shell. Those explosive shells are a mystery to me. I guess they come from machines which shoot them from far away. Well what I do know is that they were one of the reasons Equestria resigned at last. Even though they didn’t directly and you can guess what is left of Manehattan…. About nothing. Everyone who survived the deadly attacks was sent to hard labour camps. I saw ponies working while they were under shot by the shadow ponies. I managed to sneak out of the city, but I don’t know what happened to the unlucky ones. The ponies who were found later got an even worse punishment: Death. I know that because I saw a shadow pony behind a cuffed pony with a gun. I couldn’t help her. There was a sniper nearby who would’ve shot me if I would have attacked that shadow pony. And then there were also three other shadow ponies around him. I heard nothing but a single shot after I ran away. I looked outside the broken window. I could feel the soft wind against my head when suddenly I could hear distorted sounds. I looked around me and saw Parallel turning on a radio knob.

“What are you doing?

“I’m looking if I can find any signals.”

The radio started making short and long beeps. It sounded like this:

Beep, beep, beeeep, beep, beeep

“Welp, I think you just might’ve found a code Parallel.”

“Or those are just random sounds.”

“Well do you really think that if all the radio stations are down, these are random sounds?”

Parallel was silent.

“Thought so.”

After a while the code started repeating itself.

“The difference is in the short and long beeps” I said, still carefully listening to the radio.

“I think we ought to write this down.”

“But how? I don’t have paper or a pen.”

“No problem Parallel, there’s pencil and paper over in that cabinet. Can you please get it?”

She walked up to the cabinet and opened it.

“Catch.”

She threw the pencil to me, but I failed to catch it and it landed on my head.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.”

“Nevermind.”

I grabbed the pencil and Parallel put the piece of paper on the lonely table in the middle of the shelter. I think the shelter had been a shed, but I’m not sure as it was set aflame. It didn’t burn long because it’s in pretty good shape.

“So let’s put an S for a short beep and an L for a long one.”

The code started repeating itself after about a minute and I wrote it down. As it was quite hard to make out the beeps, I checked and corrected it when it repeated itself again. Just when the code started repeating itself, a sudden loud noise sounded from the radio. I heard gunshots and people screaming in the background.

“Did you get the full code Tiger?”

“I did but I don’t think the people who sent it are still alive and I assume they are dead, we may never know what they are trying to warn us about.”

“Maybe they were just trying to tell us something”

“It could be that that was the ERF.” Parallel said.

“What’s the ERF?”

“It’s the Equestrian Rebellion Force.”

“Does that exist?”

“Yep.”

“Do they try to fight the shadow ponies?”

“That were their plans, but they don’t have enough weapons and ponies to even try it.”

“How do you know about this?”

“I heard their first radio broadcast in the forest. There was a radio in the shed I used as shelter.”

“So why didn’t they directly tell us their message now?”

I could’ve guessed the answer directly. It was pretty easy to guess.

“The shadow ponies found out and tracked them down. Their main base got destroyed.”

“Parallel we should try and get to the ERF.”

“I don’t know Tiger, it is far away from here.”

“How do you know?”

“I actually don’t but they could be anywhere in Equestria.”

“Maybe the code is the location.”

“Could be, but we still don’t know how to translate the beeps into letters, remember?”

“Yeah…”

“Nevertheless I still think moving on is a good idea.”

I still didn’t trust her completely. But at least she got a bit of trust.

“Parallel, I think we should organize our stuff and rest a bit, after that we can get moving”

“Good idea”

She threw all of the stuff out of her saddlebag. It was her only one and I knew it didn’t belong to her before all of this. Because her cutie mark wasn’t on it. I had two saddlebags. One of which actually belonged to me. I threw my stuff on the table as well.

“Let’s see what we need.”

“I don't think we need three guns”

“Yeah they are quite heavy.”

I threw one gun off the table after taking the clip out of it. I looked at our scarce ammunition. 4 clips and 3 bullets.

“Tiger, how do I defend myself when we run out of bullets”

“Use the gunstock of your gun to hit a pony, or use a knife”

“Gunstock?”

“The rear end of your gun, where you put your clips in.”

I pointed at the gunstock with my hoof.

“OK, do you have a knife?”

I showed her my double-edged knife.

“Sorry if the blood on it scares you.”

“It kinda does”

I packed in one gun in her saddlebag and one in mine. I divided the ammo between the saddlebags as well. I knew I had to trust her completely. I put half of the food and water in her bag and half in mine. I put the heavy radio in my spare saddlebag.

“So we are good to go?”

“Yeah but let’s try to catch some sleep first.”

“OK”