Grey Factories in a Grey Landscape

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With barbarians at the border and the fear of her city being one of many to fall into dust of eras past from the power of the atom, what else has Martin to be scared of?

Oh, yes, an equestrian errand-runner in her apartment.

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The train came to a screeching halt with enough force to toss any unprepared person to the floor. Stepping out through the crooked doors, she could taste and probably name each chemical in the air through her respirator. This was a surprising relief; it meant she was only a couple stone throws away from the closest structure she could call home; an apartment adjacent to one of the thousands of factories scattered throughout the veins of the city, dousing the air in various artificial compounds wiping clean all forms of wildlife in the urban landscape.

Walking through the ghost-town streets making her way home, she scurried down a twisting alleyway to a flight of stairs, ultimately leading to her room beside a handful of other residences.

In the midst of typing in her security code to unlock the door, the silhouette of a raggy, hooded man appeared behind her.

"You're… late on your oxygen bills, Miss Martin…" the chilling yet unmistakably recognizable voice of the apartment manager murmured, causing each hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

"I'll pay it when I have the money, I promise." She stated as firmly and politely as she could muster, without turning to acknowledge his presence, trying to keep her composure and punching in the last couple digits to unlock her abode.

"There are other forms to which you can… repay me…" he stated, followed closely by purposefully audible lip smacks. She knew exactly what he meant by that, and in a disgusted tone she faced him to sneer

"Go fuck yourself."

Stepping backwards into her apartment she closed the door behind her, watching the seductive grin plastered on his face melt from creepy to angry, he had enough temper you could bottle and sell it.

The moment the door clunked shut, she flipped a switch to activate the oxygen generator, pumping moderately clean air through the vents on each wall making it safer to breath. She sat at the door and pulled her mask off, watching the rubbery filter bonelessly flop to the ground as she threw it across the room in momentary vexation, sighing.

"What am I going to do about this..?"

"You could run away to the countryside." A voice, smooth as a skipping stone replied.

Her eyes widened to hear the sound of someone else in her home, rising from the ground cautiously, she asked

"Urm... can I help you, pal?" Inching towards her bedroom from which the voice came from, and poking her head in, she spied the figure of… an animal. A smaller-than-average horse with a mailbag around it's body to be exact, the type she'd only seen in books when she was a child, staring out her rusted window overseeing the industrial landscape.

"Well, would you?" He restated, ignoring her question.

"Would I what?"

"Run away to the countryside?"

Shuffling over to him, she answered with a blank

"What countryside?"

He turned to look at her, a hint of confuzzlement in his round eyes.

"Everything from here to the border's been bought up for more manufactories, just like that one," pointing to the building with giant chimneys belching dark-green smoke into the air "beyond the territory's borders are just camps and camps of barbarians, the only open areas like farmland've been used to build military structures on. It's a dying world, I can say that much."

"'Dying'?" He repeated to her "I'm afraid this world died the moment it was formed."

She looked at him queerly, and rather than asking him how he got in, a somewhat pointless question now that he was already inside, she asked him "Who are you?" To which she received an instant reply, like he was expecting it.

"I am Postal Service, Miss Martin, I-"

She raised a hand to pause him, not surprised he knew her name most likely being employed by the public services and all. "You can just call me Martin."

"Then you can call me 'Postal'," he replied with a gentle smile "I am the overseer's messenger, swapping forms and personalities to fit the world I enter - but always serving the same purpose, and for this… deprived story, my purpose is to give you a letter."

Reaching into his bag, she crossed her arms and thought she knew exactly why he was here. "Enough with the pretty metaphors 'n' shit, I don't care who you are but if the company is this uptight about their oxygen bills that they have to sneak into my home to coax the cash outta me, then they could at least give a reasonable time for their customers to pay it back, not a week."

Continuing to sieve through his bag, he confirmed "I am with no company, Ma'am." Without looking up at her.

She loosened her arms and let the lines on her forehead relax "Then who are you employed by?"

"You really are full of questions, Martin, there are some things in life best not knowing… Sometimes."

"Well, when a pony appears in your apartment to give you a stupid letter, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't throw questions at 'em."

"Fair point, fair point." Postal chuckled "Ah! Here it is!" Pulling a silver parcel with an envelope tied to the corner from his leather bag, he handed it to her on the flat end of his hoof like a trophy.

Martin opened her mouth as she took the package, trying to ask two questions at once, but in the end she blurting out "Okay, just what are you exactly!? First you say you have an employer then you don't, you appear in my home only to give me a stupid parcel that you could've easily left at my front d-!"

"Martin, I know this is an unlikely situation-"

"UNLIKELY!?" It's bloody impossible! You are not meant to exist! There are no more animals on the planet other than humans, get it? None!"

"Please, just read the letter and everything will be explained."

Martin released a lengthy, exasperated breath as she plonked herself down at the end of her bed. "Sorry, I'm just… tired." in a clearly exhausted tone she said.

"Well then why not wake up earlier, have a wholesome meal and go have some fun every once in a while?" Postal tried to cheering her up as best he could.

"Do you just look at your surroundings or are you actually seeing what they're saying?"

Postal's smile dipped a little.

Lying back on her bed Martin plucked the letter off it's package, inspecting the envelope corner-to-corner. The paper was perfectly clean; a rare circumstance in her day and age, it even had an insignia dipped in wax on the front, but it was too tiny for her to make out what the symbol was.

"Damn I hate my eyesight." She mumbled to herself.

"Why don't you get it checked out?" The grey pony enquired.

"Have you any idea how long those goddamn waiting lists are?" she asked to the horse's vacant expression, to which he only shrugged. "Two years."

He gave a long whistle in reply. "This place must be more densely populated than I thought."

"No," she grunted "it's just everyone gets sick once or twice a month, and medicines are scarce. Fuck, that's not even the beginning of what's wrong with me." She thought aloud.

"You swear a lot too, you know." Postal pointed out in good faith, but only to have it received badly.

"Look here, chump, either we can sit here and banter about censorship, or I can get onto reading your goddamn letter. What's your pick?"

Postal didn't reply, he only turned to gaze out the window with his thoughts now elsewhere. Martin cracked the wax logo apart, pulled out the letter and read what it said to herself, despite her grubby fingerprints smudging some areas.

The note was quick and concise, but the further she read the lower her eyebrows dipped:

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"Dear Ms. Martin,

I regret to inform you of an upcoming crisis, as I'm sure you're aware, the military is growing in the hopes to quench the barbarian threat at the city's borders by using advanced technology on them, more specifically, the stockpiling of nuclear warfare.

This would not have caught my attention if it weren't for the future accident that would transpire in the city, of which I believe it would be in your best interest to leave it's walls and camp in the countryside before everything gets too hairy.

Furthermore, I have an important objective for you: the purpose of writing this letter to you is due to a traveller arriving some time in the future, similar to my Postal Service, whom I hope you've already met along with the package that goes with this letter. I cannot hand you any further information I'm afraid, as my laws don't bend particularly far for the distribution of knowledge.

I am aware I'm asking much of you, Ms. Martin, and on more than one occasion in the years to come you shall be pushed out of your comfort zone, but I request you remain patient and all will end well.

The Overseer"

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Martin looked at Postal with frustration in her eyes, gesturing to the letter, she shouted

"You really think I'm gonna fall for this fearmongering, mate!? You think I don't know that there's more corruption then there are decent meals to eat around here!? 'Remain patient and all will end well' yeah, that doesn't sound fucking seedy at all! You really think I'm dumb enough to believe this bullshit!?"

Postal groaned in vexation, looking down at the dusty carpet on the floor and with a collected voice he repeated "Like I was going to say, I know this is an unlikely situation, but unlikely situations aren't impossible. My overseer told me he considered putting the letter in a dream for you, but said you could brush it off as just that; a dream. That's why I'm here."

He turned to face her, looking up with bright orange eyes, that type that could be mistaken for glowing in the dark, and continued

"If I didn't appear in flesh to give you the message then you would believe it was as legitimate as fantasy, but if fantasy stood before you, then maybe you wouldn't doubt it so much."

He paused to let her soak in what he said, seeing she was tightly wound, but not without some sense. When he decided enough time had passed, he asked in a soft voice "Does... this begin to make some sense... Miss Martin?"

She stared at the letter, then at him, then the letter again before hesitantly concluding with "Are you serious?"

With a comforting smile, he quietly said "Very much so" as he took a step backwards, giving her a little space, her wide eyes displayed the inability to comprehend her afternoon. But then she realised something, knowing she should've asked this at the very beginning when she was first given the letter.

"Why me, though?"

Postal fidgeted slightly, obviously trying to cover up a solemn face as best he could. "Because the person that was supposed to get this letter backed out, and when I took it back to my overseer, they picked you; the last one on the list of possible candidates. You are the last, best hope of humanity, Ms. Martin."

She exhaled from the lowest parts of her lungs as the stress that had piled up in her began deflating, the sarcastically reassuring thought of "no pressure" echoed in her head.

He gasped suddenly, breaking the silence as he pounced onto his bag and dug around inside, looking for something.

A fragment of happiness creeped into her mind, wondering if the traveller would be like Postal, her mind telling her that the talking horse in front of her was real, ditto with the note still in her hand. She picked up the silver parcel that'd been neglected throughout the conversation, undoing a clip on one side it rolled out onto the floor. By the way it was packed and the texture of the material rubbing against her fingertips, she figured it was a lead tent, not worried that it made clear what would occur in the future, but worried as to how she could prop a tent up in the country, never being outside the city limits in her life to explore or go camping.

"Aha!" The pony's voice burst out, as if he'd discovered a new continent "I almost forgot to give you this as well." She outstretched her hand, and in it he placed a switchblade, light and shiny from an evident lack of use, if it had been used at all. Before planting it in her breast pocket, she ran her fingers along the engravings coating the handle, sad to see such a beautiful object used for murder.

"This'll all be the end of me, won't it?" Martin whispered to herself, but the pony's keen ears picked up on her words,

"Only if you let it." He whispered back, beaming with confidence.

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Without a second thought, she grabbed a backpack from her wardrobe and raided the apartment, piling what foodstuffs she had into the bag along with medicines, batteries - anything she judged necessary for her survival, alongside the lead tent.

She stood in the doorway of her bedroom where the grey stallion remained seated beside the window. "I guess this is where we part ways then, Postal."

"I fear it is." His glum tone replied.

"We'll meet again someday, I'm sure." She tried to reassure, sparking a glimmer of cheerfulness in him. She strapped her respirator back onto her face, and giving him a swift salute, she turned and walked to the front door, flipping off the oxygen system as she went. Stopping one digit short on the door pad, she felt a need to say one last thing before leaving and walked back to her room.

"Postal, I just wanted to say that if the letter is right about everything then..." but Postal was gone. Vanished into thin air without a trace, his only evidence was the torn open envelope still laying on the bed. "Thank you."

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Stepping through her front door into the apartment block's hallway, she found each meter closer to the city walls more invigorating than the last, imagining what country air smelt like, air void of man-made substances.

Making her way down the labyrinth of alleyways and corridors, she was grabbed from behind and forced against the tiled wall by a man with a tight grip around her neck, making the contents of her bag imbed themselves in her back.

"You should've paid up when you had the chance, woman!" The sinister voice of her apartment's manager shouted as she squirmed and scratched at his pale hands, trying to call for help. "Wriggle all you want, but I'm going to make you mine!!" With venom in his words, he tossed her to the ground, kicking her in the stomach, a scream in pain rang through the complex each time his boot collided with her. He knelt over her, pulling back her long hair and she could feel the sense of victory emitting off him, only he met fate by the pointy end of a switchblade digging into his calf. Roaring in agony, he stumbled back to cup the wound on his leg.

"You stupid bitch!! I'll-!!

"Go fuck yourself!!" Martin interrupted, leaping at him with the knife angled for his neck.

Stab after stab, she hastily gutted him like a fish to the point where fatigue overcame her. She clutched her stomach, groaning from pain, and stood over the man with chunks cut out of his neck and face, his skin riddled with streams of scarlet blood, and in the horror of the situation, unsure of how to act and fearing for her life she turned and ran, the switchblade firmly grasped in her hand as it left a trail of blood droplets behind her.

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The rocking of the empty tram didn't erase the quivering in her fingers, nor the stains from her clothing no matter how much she wished it to disappear. As blood trickled down onto the floor's metal sheeting, she couldn't help but think that it was some kind of omen, that it wouldn't all breeze over in a couple of weeks. He certainly would have murdered her given the chance, but surely even he doesn't deserve…

Martin leant back in her seat watching the grey scenery wizz past, she was on task, that's all that mattered. She was on a train to the edge of the city, and from there she'd find an area that hasn't been built over with factories.

She closed the switchblade and slid it into her breast pocket, shutting her eyes and retreating into a world of colour and life. She'd need all the energy she could get for what was to come.