Chapters Chapter 1: Citizen of Bunker 108
Chapter 1: Citizen of Bunker 108
When a citizen of Bunker 108 turns sixteen, he or she was deemed old enough to start "Reconnoitering".
Reconnoitering was dangerous work - not so much because of the Wastelander bogeyman that had kept me up at night as a kid. There were a ton of ways to die out there - windstorms and cold not being the last of them.
Always, when you went out of Bunker 108, you never knew if you were coming back.
Big Macintosh drew lots with me that day. "Mac", a seasoned vet, was all hard muscle and an officer to boot. I looked like a pencil in comparison - five foot seven, and one hundred twenty - seven pounds. I'm sure we looked like quite the pair as we walked down the long tunnel to the exit of Bunker 108, my home.
I was nervous as hell. I had never been allowed into the Wasteland before.
Yesterday had been my sixteenth birthday.
As we walked, I felt as if I were in a dream - or a nightmare.
I just hoped I didn't have to use my AR-15, even though I knew how. Everyone was mandated an hour's practice each week at the firing range, minimum. Chief Security Officer Shining wanted everyone ready - for what, I didn't know. We were told Wastelanders would kill for anything.
So we had orders to kill them first.
Conflicts with Wastelanders were rare, but Shining liked to keep a close eye on things. A "Kill First" policy prevented anyone from running away and letting others know that we were here. It was how we had survived for so long - unlike the others.
And that was what I was most nervous about - not the cold dry wind, the dead world, the red hazy sky stretching above, or the lack of a sun dimmed out by layers of meteor fallout. No - I was scared that we would find something outside , and I would have to shoot him.
We paused at the vault-like door. Large bold numbers, 108 , pressed into the thick metal. For my entire sixteen years, that door had served as the barrier between safety and danger, known and unknown, fake and real. And now, I was about to go outside for the first time in my life...
Mac, the person I was partnered with, was twenty-four: tall, good-looking, with coppery skin. He went to the sun rooms often, because Officers were allowed longer light baths than civilians. Officers had other perks and signs of status: cushier apartments, more meal credits, and more days off. Shining did everything to incentivize the people who kept him in power. Everyone wanted to be an Officer.
Mac twisted the wheel, his muscles bulging beneath his desert cameo. It was cold dry out here in the entrance tunnel; we had left the safety and warmth of Bunker 108 behind. I hopped up and down a few times, trying to get some blood flowing. My own desert cameo hoodie bounced up and down on my head. The cold had killed a recon caught in a dust storm, two years ago. It paid to be careful.
The wheel groaned as it gave, little by little. Finally, Mac opened the door with a clang, pulling it slowly inward until the Wasteland outside was revealed.
The natural light, though dim, still blinded me. A cold rush of dry wind blasted my face. I raised my hand to shelter my eyes from the dust. As they adjusted, I could first make out distant red mountains, like upside-down, bloody teeth. I discerned, nearer than the mountains, crimson dunes that looked like as if they should be on Mars rather than on Equestria. A dilapidated, rusted crane lay half-buried maybe half a click out, where it had been since December 3, 2030 - Dark Day, the day when most of humanity, and most life, died.
"Welcome," Mac said with a sardonic grin, "to the Wasteland."
***
I followed Mac down the gravelly slopes of Canterlot Mountain, pulling my hoodie forward over my head to keep out the cold as best as I could. Late September in Southern Canterlot meant freezing temperatures every night.
Though I had seen countless pictures of the Wasteland before, I could not help but take it in with numb shock. All vegetation was short, squat, clinging for its life in the sandy, cracked land. Most everything was dead - truly dead. Life had fled long ago. I often imagined Old Equestria, like in the movies I watched from the digital archive. I dreamed of a nice, beautiful green meadow, the blue ocean sky, the bright, heavenly sun without a cloud to bar its light. I loved watching those movies, and spent hours in the archive living in a dream world and wishing I had born a hundred years ago and not in 2044.
We had been walking five minutes when Mac spoke.
"You're quiet, Spike," he said. "I thought you'd be excited about your first recon."
Mac was right. I didn't talk much. I just didn't see the point. I'd always been this way. Well, not always. My mom died when I was seven, which might have been the beginning of it. Then my little sister died, a few minutes later. My mom had been giving birth. In a harsh world, death came often.
We were out of sight of home by now. I shivered as a particularly chill wind blew. We passed a metallic trailer shimmering in the late afternoon haze.
"That trailers for dust storms," Mac said. "You never want to be caught in one. It'll be the last mistake you make."
We stopped in front of the trailer.
"Let's wheel around the mountain," Mac said. "We're taking the long route today."
I finally decided to speak. "What's the long route?"
"Finally, some goddamned curiosity. The long route goes all the way around Canterlot Mountain. It's about a five-mile course, total."
He walked on, and I trudged behind him. Mac was alright, for an Officer. He had a wife and a kid, and like me, he had never seen Old Equestria.
My father had. When he was ten, the government had put him and his dad, my grandfather, in bunker 108. My grandfather, Lorin Dragul, was a brilliant immunologist. The government took only the brightest, the highest-ups, and the people with the fattest wallets into the Bunkers. I hated to think of all those people who died, but in the end, it came down to whoever wrote the largest check had the biggest brain, or the prettiest face. Well over 99.9 percent of the nation was left outside to fend for itself when Ragnarok crashed down.
These survivors were called Wastelanders, and we did what we could to avoid them, and to keep them avoiding us .
Wastelanders weren't like citizens. For one, there were more of them. Wastelanders were brutal, barbaric, and did anything they could to survive. Like animals, they killed not just for supplies, but for fun. Sometimes men became lost on recons, and their bodies would be discovered weeks later, riddled with bullets and half-buried in red sand. I've known of four deaths in my lifetime due to Wastelanders. Sometimes, when Wasteland Raiders camped too close, Shining ordered them eliminated in the dead of night. Losses sometimes happened.
The E.G, Equestrian Government, left the Dark Decade with one hundred and forty-four Bunkers. Some Perished due to internal breakdowns, sure. But some were overrun by scared, starving people who wanted the huge stash of food and supplies the Bunkers held. Now, in the year 2060, only four Bunkers remained: Bunker 76, Bunker 88, Bunker 108, and Bunker 114. Bunker 114 was not far from ours - maybe fifty miles. It was sheer luck that it was so close and still running. During the Dark Decade, the E.G built a lot of Bunkers in the mountains because of nearby San Mariego, and Las Pegasus.
If there was a reason for secrecy beyond safety, I didn't know it. Bunker 108 was a center for "Xenobiological" research, which might have justified keeping its location under wraps. If such research were seized or destroyed, it would completely frustrate our efforts to understand what was going on at the Ragnarok impact site, over a thousand miles away in The Griffon Kingdom and Prance.
I was glad to be a citizen, living in a Bunker. We had warm beds, hot showers, and a safe life. Bunker 108 had a digital archive where millions of books, recordings, and movies were stored. I spent a lot of my time off there, listening to the music of the Old Equestria, watching the movies, reading the books. We had a commons with a pool and a basketball court, among other amenities, including the sun room - fifteen minutes of pure, lighted bliss, giving all Bunker residents their daily dose of Vitamin D. Everything was warm, everything was in its right place, and people were happy - for the most part.
Bunker 108 had a population of four hundred - there had been five hundred when it was filled to capacity in 2030. Chief Security Officer Shining was in charge of operations. He was a little harsh, but he kept things in order. I just tried to dodge him when he walked the corridors.
Mac and I arrived at the north face of Canterlot Mountain. As we walked, I stared at the distant red peaks. I was used to the confines of the Bunker, and seeing so much open space was surreal.
"Jesus..." Mac said.
I stopped short. "What?"
Face down in front of us, hidden by some wispy scrub, lay the body of a man, stabbed several times in the back. Small traces of purple slime oozed from the wounds. He wasn't moving.
Mac knelt down beside the man, placing a hand on his neck.
"There's a pulse..."
I wondered why Mac was checking for a pulse, and not shooting him. That was standard protocol; if you found a Wastelander, he or she was killed, end of story. But after looking at what the man was wearing, I saw why.
The number 114 was emblazoned on his sleeve.
"Is he from that other Bunker?" I asked.
For some odd reason, my eyes drifted up, focusing on a distant boulder. Something was off about it.
Then I Realized what it was. A woman's face was peeking around its side...
Author's Note
Whoo Chapta 1 !!! we numbah 1!!!!
Hello everpony this is the first chapter to the installment of Apocalypse not a lot of dialogue in this chapter sorry but intros is what makes the world go 'round... Anyways if you spot any grammatical errors, or questions or comments just hit me up on the comments section or pm me on anything that is bugging you guys...
Chapter 2: The Coming Events
Chapter 2: The Coming Events
I knew exactly what I was supposed to do - tell Mac about the woman and have her eliminated.
It was so simple, and yet I kept my mouth shut. She was a Wastelander. She could tell people where she had seen us, compromising the entire security of Bunker 108.
And there lay this man from Bunker 114 on the ground before us, stabbed. She might have been the one to do it.
Yes I didn't say a word. Feeling like an idiot, I just stared out at that giant red rock as the evening's shadows stretched. By now, the woman had long disappeared. I was beginning to wonder if she had been there at all. I could only remember her face, pretty, even with the distance, framed by short, purple hair. For some reason, that made it more difficult. Deep down, I knew she was human, like me. Who was I to kill her, even if she had attempted the same with this man from 144?
Mac's voice snapped me back to attention.
"Alpha Patrol to Base - do you have a copy, over?"
"Base to Alpha Patrol, what is your status, over?"
"We found a man, stabbed several times in the back. He's unconscious, but there's a pulse. I think he is from that other Bunker, over."
The handheld radio went quiet. I took my attention of the boulder, and looked at the man.
"If he's from Bunker 144, what's he doing out here?" I asked.
Mac didn't answer as I thought over the possibilities. If he was here, it had to be for a very important reason. Did "CSO" Shining know he was coming?
The radio crackled to life.
"Alpha Patrol, what is your location, over?"
"Two miles onto the long route. Do you want us to extract to base, over?"
"Negative on that for now. Give a description of the man, over."
"Male. Age: 35-45 years. Ethnicity: White. Short of stature, black hair. He carries nothing - no ID, no gun, no pack. Celestia knows how he made it this far." Mac sighed. "He may have been attacked and robbed. There are three deep stab wounds in the back - ne on the lower right side of the back, and two more to the left of the spine. There's blood and dark pus oozing through his clothes, over."
The wind blew cold and dry, covering the man's pale face in a thin layer of red dust. The sun-glow faded behind hazy clouds above the distance red mountains. Night had come. It was high time to get back.
"Alpha Patrol," a voice said, icy and clear. It was CSO Shining. "We're sending a team to extract the man to base. Remain where you are, and keep an eye out for hostiles. There may be Raiders in the area. Do you copy, over?"
"Copy that," Mac said.
"Good. Over and out."
Apparently, Shining hadn't known about this. I looked at the spot where I had seen the woman. With the settling of the sun, the boulder was left shrouded in shadow. The woman, if she had even been there, was long gone by now. Whether right or wrong, the sick feeling in my gut wouldn't go away.
The cold wind never abated, blowing on my already numb face, stinging me with particles of sand, cracking my lips dry. At long last, flashlights crested the rise behind us. Voices signaled the arrival of reinforcements.
Four men approached, their faces lost to darkness.
"Where is he?" asked the one in charge, whose voice I didn't recognize.
"Down here," Mac said.
Two men pointed their guns into the darkness. Everyone else, myself included, lifted the body, one person to a limb. Together, we lugged the man back to base.
Mac explained everything on the way, but I kept silent. I was thinking of the woman. They asked me several questions about what had happened. I answered in monosyllables, echoing everything Mac had already said. There was no use in telling them about the woman now. If I did, at best I would be severely disciplined for not speaking up earlier. At worst - well, I didn't want to think about that. Now that I was sixteen, I could be tried as an adult, and the holding cells in the Officers' Wing were mighty small.
I felt relieved when we finally reached the vaulted door of Bunker 108. The outside of the door, though metallic, was the same dull brown as the terrain. Unless you were right on it, it was almost indistinguishable from the mountainside. A small camera was hidden in the rock to the right of the door, allowing the Officer on duty to see anyone coming.
The door was opened from the inside, revealing an Officer. The Officer's eyes widened as he watched us pass the Bunker's threshold into the rock tunnel. After we had passed through, he hurriedly shut the door and twisted its lock wheel behind us.
We were safe.
I had finished my first recon; but for good reason, I didn't feel all that proud.
Lights in the entrance tunnel flashed overhead, illuminating the six of us carrying our burden inside. We left the rocky tunnel and entered the atrium. The receptionist's desk was empty - Aloe had either gone home, or was at the "Caf".
Next to the half circular desk stood my father, Smyth Dragul, waiting with a gurney and a nervous orderly at his side. His disheveled brown hair was streaked with gray, and dark circles underlined his hazel eyes. It looked as if he hadn't slept in days.
He shot me a worried glance as we put the man on the gurney.
"Dad..."
"Not now, son. Go eat. We'll talk later."
My father and the orderly started wheeling the patient toward the medical bay, flanked by the Officers.
My father was always busy. Between his duties as senior doctor and his own pet project of researching the Xenovirus, I could hardly find time with him. He sometimes put in over a hundred hours a week at the lab, all while caring for patients. I didn't see how it was possible.
After handing off my rifle to the quartermaster (a small armory stood near the front desk), I headed to the commons to kill time before dinner. In the corner, several Officers and a few civilian women were watching a movie on the big screen. A couple of kids played Ping-Pong in the corner. I sat in a chair in another corner, and watched some of my classmates play basketball.
In a community of about four hundred people, you knew everyone, and everyone knew you. Not enough to be your friend, per se, but enough to have sense of who you were, who your friends were, and what you were about. It was hard to imagine what life had been like in the cities - like Old Canterlot, where the population had reached into the millions. A world where you didn't know everybody seemed strange and unreal to me. Maybe it had been for them, too. Only the old ones in Bunker 108 remembered them times, and most of them were gone. A lot went crazy, living underground - or so I'd heard. But I'd never heard of anyone born underground who went crazy.
I didn't find Bunker living that bad, especially considering the alternative of living on the surface. I had the archive teaching me, and someday I would be a doctor here, too, like my dad. Maybe even sit on the Citizens' Council like him, though he rarely attended because of his duties.
AS for me, I was no one special - scrawny, quiet, and a little too smart for my own good. That was what my dad said, anyway - that last bit, not the scrawny and quiet thing. My goal: to exist and survive and not get in the way. When you got in the way, other people made trouble for you. There was only one true friend I could claim, and her name was Sweetie Belle. We'd known each other from the cradle, but we'd been growing apart lately. I didn't know whether it was just that we were getting older or something else entirely.
I reached for my sketchbook in my pack. Drawing was one of my ways to blow off steam, and I had a knack for it. As I sat in my chair, I just let the pencil move across the page, not really paying attention to what I was creating. Ten minutes later, without realizing it, I had finished a sketch of the woman I had seen in the Wasteland. Her face was shaded with dusk. She had short, purple hair and fierce eyes. I was amazed by the amount of detail I'd captured; she had been awfully far away.
It was the face of a woman who might have killed. Someone I might have had killed. And now, I was drawing her.
I ripped the sketch out and tore it into pieces. My heart raced for no good reason - as if someone were going to see the sketch and know exactly what had happened. I looked up to see that everyone was leaving the commons, heading for the Caf.
I wondered what was happening in the medical bay - the stabbed man, my father - and even what Chief Security Officer Shining was doing.
But all that would have to wait. I got up and headed for the Caf...
Author's Note
Heyooo everypony how are all ya'll doin today.. welp here it is chapter 2 kinda a lil late but I apologize for that... anyways I have come across something that is not a big issue but I would like to address it... I have noticed thst the downvotes are exceeding the upvotes ... only reason i'am addressing this matter is because it says to me that you fine ponies are not enjoying the story thus far... so my question and favor to ask is ... please go ahead and tell me in the comment section and or PM me on what you would like me to do to make the story better... if the pacing is too slow... needs more dialogue... spelling and or grammatical issues.. go right ahead and tell me.. this is my first story so this is to be expected... but anyways let me know guys what you think so far and anything else BYE
Chapter 3: Friendship in the Apocalypse
Chapter 3: Friendship in the Apocalypse
I ate alone at mess. My thoughts were too heavy for casual conversation.
People walked by, their faces questioning. Word had gotten around that something had happened out there. I ate my potatoes and vegetables in silence, never looking up.
"Sitting by yourself. As usual."
I felt my heart miss a beat as Sweetie plopped down on the metal bench next to me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her shoulder-length pink and purple hair. I turned to meet her bright green eyes.
"Sweetie! What are you up to?"
"Just hanging out, I guess," she said, with a smile. "Eating some food, as much as I want to. You?"
"Much the same."
As I took another bite, I felt her staring at me.
"So..." she asked. "How was it?"
I swallowed. "What do you mean?"
"Don't play coy with me, Spike Dragul. I know you came across a dead body."
"Right to the point, huh?"
"I'm a busy girl. So what happened?"
"Well, he wasn't quite dead, actually. He's in the medical bay with my dad. Three stab wounds." I ate another mouthful of food, and swallowed. "It was pretty bad."
"Yeah, I know all that, but you're my inside source."
"Don't you mean 'outside source'?"
She smiled at my lame joke. "Who is he? Where did he come from?"
"I don't know. If anyone does, it's Lightning or Shining, or..." I paused. "What's with all these questions, anyway?"
She smiled. "You know me. I'm curious."
"I'm sorry," I said. "If you've been asking around, you probably know more than me, actually."
She laughed. "Yeah. Right. Well, if you're not saying anything, you must be hiding something ."
I couldn't help widening my eyes a little.
"Hit the nail on the head, huh?"
"Yeah, maybe a little."
"Well, what happened? Spill the beans."
"Nothing happened. We went out, found the body, and called for some help. Now we're here. Eating these crappy beans."
I looked at her and smiled, but she seemed unconvinced.
"Funny," she said. "I'm not letting you off that easy. Spike, how long have we know each other?"
"I don't know... since we were kids?"
"Yeah. Our whole lives. And who would you say your best friend is?"
I looked away and puffed out my chest, "I don't have to answer that..."
"I want to hear it, anyway."
I gave in, "you, of course."
"Okay," she said. "Something's bugging you, and I'm going to pry it out of you if it's the last thing I do. You saw something. And you're going to tell me what it was."
I thought of the woman I had seen. I didn't answer Sweetie for a while, and not because I distrusted her. I knew she'd keep a secret. But what I had seen weighed on me, and it didn't seem fair to lay it on her. What if she got in trouble?
"Still not talking, huh? Whatever happened, you can't pen it up inside. You need someone to talk with. I'm here."
"You're persistent, aren't you?"
She shrugged. "I know you, Spike. You're too quiet. It's okay to let your feelings out. Really, it would do you good."
I was about to protest the 'feelings" bit, but decided it wasn't worth it. In the end, I decided that she was right. But this was not the place for telling her.
"Alright, but you have to promise not to tell. And I can't tell you here."
"That serious, then?"
I nodded, not saying anything else. All around us, people chattered, silverware clanked on trays, chair legs squeaked against the linoleum.
"Fine," Sweetie said. "The chapel, at twenty hundred?"
The chapel would work. No one went there anymore, so we wouldn't be discovered.
"Alright," I said.
I was really doing this. I was going to tell Sweetie something I had intended on taking to my grave. Maybe it wasn't that serious, but it definitely seemed like it. if anyone found out besides Sweetie, I would be in some serious trouble. Telling a secret, even to someone you trusted, always carries risks. Even with the best of intentions, people had a way of becoming their own worst enemy.
Sweetie wasn't thinking about any of that, though.
"Finally, I get some time with you. Now that you're reconnoitering and everything, I guess you're too cool for me."
"Sweetie, you know that's not true."
"Hey," Sweetie said, touching my arm. "It'll be fine, whatever it is. Just trust me."
I looked at her for a second, trying not to focus on how good her hand felt on my arm. I stopped trying to figure her out years ago. There were feelings there, at least on my part - but for some reason, nothing had ever materialized. She always seemed to be with some other loser.
Ever since that incident with Button Mash, I had always kind of judged her after that. As I recalled in my head what had happened.
Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh. All the same, I always found myself playing the part as the friend, and that was the biggest reason for our distance. It hurt to be around her.
"Alright," I said. "I'll meet you there."
Sweetie smiled. "Good." She jumped up, and half turned from me. "Twenty hundred, the chapel. That's almost two hours away, so be ready."
Sweetie went back to her table, and I returned to my food. I didn't know if I had made the right choice. But I knew Sweetie - if she knew something was bothering me, she wouldn't let up until I told her. Besides, she was right - seeing her would be good for me. Maybe this would lead to something more than just secret-swapping. Maybe, we could finally...
I didn't let that thought form. I didn't want to hope too much. Hope was dangerous. If you let it grow, it only became more painful when t was crushed like a bug.
Alright - that was dark, even for me.
Well, hopefully ... telling Sweetie would get this off my chest. Maybe it would make me feel better.
Maybe.
Author's Note
Alrighty.. chapter 3 guyz sorry for delay and short chapter I've been looking around for some helpful advice on the internets and telling my friends on my social medias who are bronies to come check this out... so shoutout to them that checked it out... do not worry to those that want longer chapters the next few is where the story will start to pickup and the chapters will be getting longer so yea... see ya
