My Little Apocalyptic Wasteland

Dear future reader,

Impenetrable gray walls, robots, the glow of a pip-pony 3000’s screen. These are all things that I see every single day, and with that every single day seems to be the same thing, wake up, go to school, eat, go to work repairing every pony’s broken items whether that be a pip-pony, a toy or a gun, eat again go to sleep, rinse and repeat. Oh where are my manners? My name is Ratchet, no not the slang but the tool, why? Well because my cutie mark is one, and why is that you ask yourself? Well because I’m really good at fixing things and I commonly use one.

  Anyway I live in this thing called a vault. The gist of it is that a really long time ago there was a war, a great war in fact. During it people started to bomb each other with magic, and that made the surface to dangerous to life on, but before that people made these underground vaults so people could survive. So someone a long time ago got into one and that’s why I’m here now.

  So here’s the thing about the vaults, a catch so to speak. There are many rules in the vault, simple ones but many. However the biggest one is that no pony ever leaves the vault and no pony gets in. But the funny thing is that before I was born we used to have an overseer, which is the person who runs the vault used to let certain people outside. Then he died and we got a new overseer who sat down in his chair with a stick up his ass and said that no pony gets to leave anymore. Now don’t get me wrong the vault is nice but there is so much more out there outside of the vault’s steel walls, outside of the place where robots help to serve us food and do the dishes and who help to take care of the sick, outside of vault 21, and outside of home. A lot of people agree with me and want to venture outside. Not leave entirely but just have some freedom, and so what if people don’t come back? It’s their decision. Their people with minds of their own. Not machines who have to think what the overseer thinks. Some ponies have different reasons than others. What’s mine you ask? Well many things, like how every day seems to be the same, or that I’m treated like a fool at my current job, or that I have no real friends except for one (His name is Flintlock) he works with old world weapons. That and I just don’t want to be stuck in a vault my entire life. I want to explore and help people, but I don’t want to get my hopes up.

From Ratchet the repair pony

  Well I think that will do for my first entry into my journal. Yeah so I have a journal, hey who else am I supposed to talk to about this stuff.

  “Ratchet, when you are on duty I expect for you to be working not writing in your pip-pony.” Oh great Mr. Stick up his ass himself, the Overseer.

  “Yes sir, sorry sir.” Might as well be nice about it huh?

   I turn back to my project of the hour, fixing the cracked screen of some pony’s pip-pony. The process for this is simple, unscrew the screen, remove the wiring, get a new screen and then just put it all back together.

  “Hey boss, I finished the screen repair I’ll go return it. Um who does this go to again?”

  “Some green Pegasus in the cafeteria, her name is Cook Fly.”

   Well ok than, off to the cafeteria for me. I swear every time I have to walk down these halls I want to leave more and more. Hey guys guess what? There are other colors than gray. I mean put up some posters or something just anything that isn’t gray, oh but that would be against protocol wouldn’t it overseer? Walking to the cafeteria reminds me of the best part about the vault, the food, and the safety, fresh water, and very little risk of disease but hey the food is great. Whether you believe it or not they say that all the food is pre-war, but I don’t believe it because I think that they have a food cloning machine. No I’m serious think about it. Nearly 200 years and they never ran out of food? There is no way, and the ponies above ground would never give food to us, they need it far more. So walking into the kitchen I try to find the Pegasus. “Hello, is there a Pegasus named Cook Fry here? I ask.

  “Yes that would be me!” The green Pegasus yells as she walks from behind a rusted stove probably cooking a Salisbury steak.

  “Well I have your pip-pony here.” I say showing her the fixed up machine.

  “Thank you it looks great!”

  And with that I was off. Well I don’t have any other projects for today so I might as well go see Flintlock. I pass the armory on the way back anyway. On the way into the armory I can hear the loud pop of the pistols. Right over at the firing range I can see my white bodied, red mane and tail having, earth pony friend. I’m a unicorn; I have a brown body and a dark blue mane.  “Hey Flint!” I call

  “Ratchet, what’s up?” he asks

“Well not much, I don’t have anything left to do at work so I thought I might as well come and see my best friend.”

  “Great, I could use someone to talk to” he says “Wait you said that you have no work left right?”

  “Yeah that’s right” I answer.

  “Good, could you please fix up this rifle for me?” He asks. “It hasn’t been working for days.”

  “Sure what’s wrong with it?”

    “Well whenever it fires it can get about 10 rounds off and then jams up every time.”

  “Alright then I think I can fix this up” I respond “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

   Walking into the workshop my boss as usual is slacking off and having the new guys clean up and run errands for him.

  “Hey boss is there any other orders right now?” I call across the room. “If not then I have a gun to fix from Flintlock.”

  “No Ratchet, go ahead and work on the gun, but if you think I’m paying’ you for this then you’re out of your damn mind!”

  “So I’m doing my job and you’re not going to pay me for it?” under my breath I’m able to mutter “Fucking asshole.”

  “What the fuck did you just say?”

  “Oh nothing sir!”

  See what I was saying, treated like shit at work. Just another reason why I would like to see the vault. Fixing up the gun and wandering back the halls I begin to wonder. Maybe I should see if Flintlock wants to leave the vault to. We both know a ton about each other and from what I know about him his life (as mine) has been from perfect.

  Walking into the armory I can see my friend sitting down by the gun locker.

  “Hey Ratchet” he says.

  “Hi Flint, I have your gun here but I wanted to ask you something, something important” I mention “Do you ever think about leaving the vault?”

  “Ratchet that’s crazy talk!” He says as if in disbelieve that I would ask.

  “But it’s not, there’s no way in hell you have never even once thought about leaving, you know walking out of the door into the outside world, seeing what there is to see!”

  “Okay I admit, of course I’ve thought about it!” he admits. “But it’s like they say, no pony ever leaves the vault, and no pony ever enters the vault”

  “Well that’s what you think.”