My body was shaking, shivering in utter fear at hearing an animal speak. It truly made me begin to question everything I had seen. I didn’t know what was real or not anymore. I wanted to wake up, wake up from this cruel dream my mind had conjured up. I looked down at my hand and began to smack myself. I kept telling myself to wake up with every smack that I gave myself. When I didn’t ‘wake up’ I started smacking myself harder and harder as I began to scream out the words. Soon though, I stopped smacking myself and started to shove my head into the ground, still screaming at myself to wake up. I started slamming my clenched fists into the ground, trying to use anything to wake up. I pulled myself off of the dirt ground and started to gasp for air again. All I had managed to do in that small window of time was cause my face to glow red in pain and cover itself in dirt.

As I was about to sit and wallow in self pity, I heard the shuffling of branches behind me. I paused and looked at its direction. I didn’t care what it was, I didn’t care anymore. My body was slouched over the ground and refused to give any charge to the coming threat. It was like I had given up and was just about ready to accept my fate. Hell, I did give up. Whatever world I was in, was the one that I wanted to live in. But something inside of me -something instinctual- bubbled up from my depths and made me run again. I don’t know if it was that horse that spoke to me, a random animal, or another predator, but I just ran. I wanted to get away from whatever insane world that I was in.

I kept running through the dense trees and kept fumbling on some loose dirt, but I kept running; the only thing that stopped me was when I bursted out into a small clearing. What I saw was… interesting, to say the least. I saw fields upon fields with rows upon rows of apple trees all lined up together in even more rows. I wouldn’t think twice about it if it wasn’t for the fact they defied the laws of physics.

Their trunks were too small to be carrying as many apples as they were. The trees should’ve been bending over by the weight alone. And yet, it was standing mighty and tall.But as the mental state I was in at the time, I didn’t care anymore. If a horse could speak, a tree like that can stand. So, with that mindset, I slowly walked up to one of the many trees that surrounded me, almost afraid that it would fall on me. I looked upon one of the many glistening apples that the tree held on its many branches. And, while I wanted to admire their look and their glowing attitude, my stomach had other ideas. It was the first piece of real food that I’ve seen in three days, and while I may have pissed off whoever owned them, I couldn’t care less. I was starving.

I picked off one of the apples from their home and gorged myself with it. As soon as I was done with the fruit, I tossed away the core and began to eat another one. I bit into one after the other, trying to fill my empty stomach as I ate. I didn’t bother to truly taste the nectar that the fruit held; I was too damn hungry to care about the taste.

After eating god-knows how many apples, I slumped down against one of the apple trees with a big mighty smile plastered on my face. I had never been so happy to be overstuffed with food. I just wanted to lay done there contently and enjoy the feeling of a full stomach. That was until I saw one of those ponies on the hill. I don’t know if it saw me first or if I saw it first. All that had happened between us was a long, fearful stare. Both of us having no idea what to do in that moment of silence as we looked at one another.

I couldn’t see much of it from how far we were from each other, but I did notice that its mane was a very bright shade of red. I heard a high pitched-childlike-scream before I saw it run back the way it came. I didn’t want know what type of reinforcements that it would bring back with it. So, I very wobbly got off the ground and started to walk deeper into the field of apples.

After walking through the clear roads between the Apple trees and brushing the dirt off of my filthy shirt, I came to a stop and looked around me. I was certain I had put more than enough distance between me and the pony, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I had no idea where I was. Every single tree looked the damn same, and it felt no better than being in the forest. So, like I was in the forest, I took a direction and walked. I walked through the fields of apples, occasionally looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being followed. And while I may have been angry at feeling lost in the apple orchard, I felt at peace. The suns shine hit the apples at the most perfect angle and the soft sheen from the trees surface made it feel as if I was in a fairytale. It made me forget everything. Forget all of my problems, all of my hardships.

And while I admired the almost cartoonish looking trees, I walked. I would walk until I saw the occasional little critter that would scutter off the second it saw me. I admired it, I loved the way they hid from me. It was the only sense of normalcy in this world. I would walk until my feet started to pulsate. The pain surging through my body as I tried to message them. I walked until I saw a big gray barn. I thought nothing of it at the time, but as I got closer and closer to it, I remembered where I was. I walked back a fair distance from where I was, and pulled out my rifle. I wasn’t going to shoot them, but I sure as hell didn’t want to get jumped again. I looked around the rather large barn, trying to figure out if there was anyone there. I noticed the few hay bales that dotted the area, the small chicken coop that stood nearby, even the fence that held pigs. After I determined that no one was there, I pulled back my rifle and started to walk closer to the barn.

As I got closer to the establishment, I began to notice the bit of rust building up on the metal, the tiny pieces of wood sticking out of it, even the creaking of the barn as a wind came blowing over it. It was as if it was about to fall over at any minute. As I began to get closer and closer to the doors of the barn, the pigs in the pen began to panic at my presence. They started squealing and thrashing about as I got closer and closer to that door. But even as they began to squeal louder and louder the closer I got I simply ignored them, their screams of anguish falling on deaf ears. Cautiously, I opened the doors and peered inside of the large room. Thankfully, no one was in there, my only company being the pigs that were still squealing. Inside of the large room, I saw piles of hay on the floor, and tools on the walls.

I left the door wide open as I walked in, not bearing in mind if someone would come in. I looked around the room some more and noticed the rustic, dried off paint on the walls as time had had worn it out. And as I looked around the nearly dead building, I walked up to the mutilated tools that were on the back wall. Their overused, near broken exterior was something I noticed immediately. The only tool that wasn’t dented or broken in some strange way was a hatchet that hung with its brothers. It looked like it was hardly used, the metal on wasn’t even chipped. It even had an absurdly large amount of dust on it. I reached my hand up towards the hatchet and picked it up. I turned it this way and that as I looked at it; making most of the dusts on it fall off. It had a straight, thick wooden handle that was covered in black rubber, and a nice thickly sharp piece of metal on its end. I’ll be honest, it felt good.

I was about to give it a test run on one of those apple trees out there, but then I heard two southern voices coming my way. I immediately put the axe back the way I found it, and looked for someplace to hide. I started to panic as I discovered that there wasn’t even a corner small enough for me. That was before I looked down at the ground again and remembered how many piles of hay were there. I couldn’t hide in the hay since it was so small, but if I put them together, I’d have a shot. I started to move, faster than I knew I could, as I began to construct a large pile of hay for me to hid in. I picked up clumps and lumps of hay and started to throw them together in a small ditch effort to have a hiding spot. As I put on chunk after chunk of hay onto the large pile, the voices got closer to the barn, only encouraging me to go faster. Exhausted and out of breath, I managed to make a large enough pile for me to hid in. And I did just that. I began to dig my way underneath the hay’s scratchy surface and tried my best to hide all of myself as I burrowed deep into the hays itchy surface. As soon as my entire body was hidden underneath the hay, I began to listen to the conversation through the walls.

“Ah'm tellin ya the truth, I saw a thang out there! It was eating all of our apples!” I heard the cry of a little southern girl say.

“Well then, Applebloom, what was it?” Said another girl in an annoyed, sarcastic southern tone.

“It was uh… ah don’ know what it was.”

“Consarnit. Applebloom, either help me move these apples, or go home. Ah ain’t got no time for folktales.”

“But ah ain’t lying!”

“Then what was it?”

“Ah don’t know!” I heard the huff of, what I assume is, the older of the two as they continued to walk on.

“But, what if it comes back, who knows what it’ll do!” Said the young voice.

“Look, ya probably scared the varmint off, whatever it was. There’s no need to worry Applebloom- did you leave the barn door open?”

“No.”

“Probably Big Mac, he always forgets to close it.”

“But Applejack, what if-”

“No more ‘buts’! Now can ya stop yer blabbering and help me move the apple bushels inta the barn,” Though my sight was blinded, I was able to hear them enter the barn and plant something solid on the ground.

“Applebloom, ah ain’t got time for make believe or ‘monster huntin’ or whatever yer doing. Ah can’t stop bucking trees during applebuck season and ya know this. Do ya understand?”

“Ah... ah understand.”

“Good, now help me get the rest of ‘em in ‘ere-”

“Applejack!” I heard the already open barn door slam into its side and heard a familiar voice accompany it. I should know since it was the one that belonged to a certain purple horse.

“Twilight, ah swear, if yer here to help again, I told ya, ah-”

“Applejack, I need your help to gather the girls, I saw a hu-... I saw a… monster outside of Ponyville,” As I was rationalizing what they were saying, I heard two sets of hooves gallop outside of the barn and into the distance.

“Now ah have ta put the apples in the barn myself. This is gonna take forever!” I heard the little clip-clop of her hooves trudge against the ground, and eventually out of my range of hearing.

When I was certain that I was alone, I more or less threw off any hay that was on me. I released the breath that I was holding and began to think about what the two ponies had talked about. A ‘monster’ had just been outside of their hometown and might have been coming their way. I needn’t guess who that ‘monster’ was. I got off of my ass, grabbed the axe, and began to walk through the open barn door, towards whatever fate had in store for me. Oh, but I had no idea how cruel of a mistress it was.

Author's Note

Jesus Christ. Fallout 4 you bitch. You've caused me to procrastinate SO MUCH. I'm so sorry that this chapter came out as late as it did. Anyway tell me what you thought, and if you see any grammar mistakes tell me in the comments.