Hailing from an unknown place, a warm breeze touched her face, gently swiped her cheeks and then left as swiftly, as it arrived. The nothingness slowly melted away, giving way to her consciousness. In a burst of energy and bleak sunlight, she awoke from her slumber, lying atop a pile of rubble. A hole could be seen in the ceiling, with the sun peering in, laughing at her as she laid there, barely alive.
Although her head felt like a boulder and her hooves ignored her commands, she slowly got up and had a blurred look at her surroundings. All that she could make out was a room, later joined by a door as her vision gradually became more clear. There were no windows to speak of and the only source of light was the aforementioned hole in the ceiling, which gave the room a dimmed, shadowy appearance.
Snow was slowly gathering in the room, but it wasn't new to the room. Judging by the large patches of it all around, she was sure that she had been there for quite some time. After a look around, an uneasy feeling spontaneously emerged from the vast depths of her mind. It took her a while to recognise it, but when the walls started closing in and the roof was getting closer to the floor, she felt it in its fullest. She quickly walked over to the door and reached for a handle, only to find it had none. Since she had no other choice, she gave the door a push. After her soft touch, the door was freed from its hinges and fell down, briefly blinding her with the sunlight outside. As she went outside, she was immediately frozen in place, captivated by the sight of a land unlike any other.
Everything, as far as the eye could see, was white.
Awestruck, she stared mouth agape as every single building, both nearby and distant, was in ruin and buried beneath layer upon layer of snow, with no signs of anyone else around. Skyscrapers stood as the only survivors in these snowy ruins, easily seen from afar. They were ravaged, barely stood upright, with windows broken and walls cracked. Apart from the howl of the wind and the sound her hooves made in the snow, there was complete silence as she went further out and onto the street.
"What happened?" she thought to herself and looked from one end of the street to the other. "Where is everypony? Is this some sort of overblown pegasi prank?"
A piece of paper tumbled towards her, propelled by a small gust of wind. Grabbing it as it flew towards her, she recognised that it was a newspaper, dated to mid November. She looked at it briefly and then begun reading its headline.
"New experimental power plant set to start operating next week. Protests against dangerous crystal energy rise in numbers." The rest of the text talked about the power plant in greater detail, but parts of it were either missing or were unreadable due to the state the newspaper was in. Whatever happened, it must have had something to do the unpredictable nature of crystals, backed by the few information she had from the newspaper. Apart from that, something else stood out — the location of the power plant. Based on the assumption that something went horribly wrong at the plant, she decided that going there to find some answers is the best course of action.
"West Manehattan Avenue," she read to herself, sighing. "Wish I had a map." With that said, she returned the newspaper back on its journey by simply letting go of it. To her surprise, the street signs stayed intact, but were slightly bent. As she walked closer to one of them, a mass of snow moved out of her way for no explainable reason, causing her to back away slightly from surprise.
"Hello?" She asked aloud. "Is... is anyone there?" The snow, however, didn't respond to her question and instead, remained motionless, only moving on its own when the wind swept it. "I'm not crazy, I know what I saw. Something's wrong." She thought to herself once more.
Afterwards, she then promptly proceeded to look at both sides of the street again. Walking with caution to the sign, she swept the snow away from it with her hoof, hoping to get some idea on where she is. However, much to her bad luck, the sign was completely blank.
"Huh?" She wondered, gazing at the sign oddly. After a few seconds, something appeared on it. Instead of giving her the name of the location she was currently at, the sign simply stated 'The Right Way' with an arrow pointing to the right. Gazing at the sign, she started pondering whether or not she was really alone, as such a feat was easily explained if a unicorn stood nearby. Even though she looked around multiple times, there was no pony to whom she could attribute the event. "Where's the magic coming from?"
Shortly after that, she turned her attention to the street on the right. It was as dead and lifeless as the one she was now on, the only real difference being that it had a stairway to the metro, albeit almost completely covered by snow.
Looking to the left, she saw a thick, ominous fog. She proceeded to gaze at it, hoping to find see anything with four hooves and a heartbeat. Much to her surprise, however, the fog itself started getting closer and closer, expanding at a very fast speed. Her surprise turned to distress as voices started to come from its direction. She listened for a while as she slowly backed away, but the voices quickly turned into screams. Without any further hesitation, she ran for the metro.
Upon reaching its snow-covered entrance, the snow covering it opened like some sort of blanket. She tried going slowly down the slippery steps, but tripped and landed at the floor near the end of the stairs below. As she was laying on her back and trying to get back up, the snowy blanket closed, trapping her inside.
After getting up, she thought about going back outside, but upon looking at the slippery staircase, she admitted that it was a fight she couldn't win and instead, decided to explore the metro. Lights flickered as she navigated Manehattan's underground subway system, but it was still better than complete darkness. Empty, stationary trains were seen on her right, but even if she started one of them back up with some sort of miracle, she still had no idea of her current whereabouts and would probably get lost even more than she is now. After climbing into one of them and finding out that she was right, she continued walking through the metro. The cold and the lack of air conditioning finally got to her after a couple of minutes, causing her to stop every once in a while to warm her hooves by breathing on them and rubbing them together. However, after a couple more stops, she started blaming herself. What if the sign lied? Why didn't she go through the fog on the left?
A flicker of hope lit her eyes up as she saw another set of stairs, this time leading out of the metro, with sunshine clearly seen outside. Lights flickered more violently than they did before and eventually, they all shut down, causing her to remain in pitch black darkness. Oddly enough, the sunshine disappeared as well.
"No!" She let out in desperation, kicking the checkerboarded floor. After her brief lamenting, she started walking backwards, her hooves shaking and her heart pounding. She recalled on how, as a child, she always kept a light on, even during the night. Her usage of a night lamp, however, followed her well into her adulthood, even though she had forgotten the reason why she had it in the first place. Now, she knew.
As her eyes were getting adjusted to the dark, she accidentally bumped into something with her back and immediately stopped. Her heart froze from fear and she stopped breathing, hoping to feign death and appear like a statue, devoid of all life. After twenty seconds, she exhaled and slowly turned to see what she had bumped into.
It was a gray statue carved from marble, wearing a fuzzy, warm coat, standing on its hind legs and holding a flashlight in one of its hooves, illuminating a nearby wall. She carefully took the coat, put it on and borrowed the flashlight from the statue. Much to her horror, as she accidentally shone the flashlight at the same wall the statue did, the statue vanished in an instant and an unsettling message appeared on the wall.
Written in red, capital letters, the wall spelled out 'GUILTY.'
