Happiness

Chapter one: Happiness

“Because everyone is happy in the estates!”

The screeching sound of my alarm woke me, ripping me from the peaceful dreams of the forest. I sat up, with a start, the memories of rainbow flowers and huge trees fading, being replaced by superhero posters on white walls. As my eyes focus on the Ace Man poster across the room, I felt a stunning sadness, but I couldn’t remember why.

“Rose!” my mother called, her singsong voice rousing me from my sudden depression, “It’s time for you to take your medication!”

I sighed and shuffled out of bed, looking at the dirty clothing, only worn on occasion, and tried to imagine the candy wrappers were some sort of science project to grow mold or something. That might make sense, if I went to school. There wasn’t even a school in this dumb estate place we lived in.

Neighberry estates, that’s what they call it. ‘The place where happy ponies reside’. Even though I try to hate living here, it’s amazing. Most of it is just houses, but it has a huge library! Thousands of books, a huge manga section (that I frequent) and tons of computers. “Rose! Get your lazy ass out of bed and get down here!” my mom yells, breaking me from my inner monologue. She was often like that, rash and abrupt, but it was just her personality.

My hooves thumped quietly on the stairs as I make my way down into the living room. As I hit the third step from the bottom, I got a strange sensation of being locked in a dark room, full of stuffy air and smoke, but as fast as i saw it, it was gone, and i was flat on my face at the bottom of the stairs. I groaned, sat up, and headed over to the living room. Feeling its soft beige carpet and eyeing the TV, which my little sister was being mesmerized by. I sighed, the new generation of cartoons not entertaining or even amusing me. Heading towards the kitchen I noticed my father who was stuffing a bag with mom’s cookies, only, a few of them were going into his mouth instead of the bag.

His eyes widened as he saw me, and he jammed a cookie into my mouth as I opened it to accuse him. He leaned close and stared straight into my eyes.

“You didn’t see anything...” He grinned, nudging me out of the kitchen. I shrugged and chewed the cookie slowly, heading towards the bathroom where my mom was waiting for me.I saw her standing in the doorway of the bathroom, a needle held in the soft marigold glow of her telekinesis. She smiled as I walked in and sat before her. She softly pressed the needle to my neck, and pushed it in slowly.

“Agh… I hate this sh-... I mean, stuff....” I whimpered, my muscles clenching as the needle burrowed its way into my skin.

“Now honey, it’s not nice to use those words,” My mother grinned, jamming the needle in a little more, causing me to flinch, “And I know you hate it, but you need to use it, it makes you feel better.”

“No it doesn’t… It hurts, and it makes me dizzy,” I sighed, glaring at her and rubbing my neck where the needle pierced me. Honestly the medication never really helped me, it just gave me a headache.

“Whatever. If the doctor says it helps, it helps,” She said, glaring at me and pushing me out the door. I sighed, walking down the hall before being violently tripped by the PipBuck I wore on my hoof. I never got really used to the hoof mounted computer. Honestly it was pretty much useless, though don’t tell my mother that. She was on it playing Apple Acres nearly twenty four seven.

The PipBuck was obviously manufactured to be some sort of complete innovative assistant, or something. It had so many features, there was almost no reason to use them all. It came with S.A.T.S. or, The Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell, which allowed you to aim a baseball bat to get a perfect hit, or even a weapon, which, nopony had access to. Only the guards were able to get weapons, and they never used them. There was also apps like Ponyhoof and Gem Swapper and stuff, but nopony really used those, except for my mom and some of the other mares around town.

Oh, and you can’t forget one of the features i actually use, the locator system. By inputting the pipbuck tag of anypony wearing a PipBuck, your map will automatically lead you to them, using the E.F.S., or, the Eyes Forward Sparkle, a magical overlay on your eyes that showed you things like your current health, and the compass and locator. The EFS also had a system that told you whether a pony was hostile or not, which, i had no idea how it found that out. It showed you blue or red bars on the compass, blue for friendly, red for hostile. I’ve only seen a few red bars, and those are usually just the bullies at the park.

As I shakily stood, I was suddenly overrun by a horde of tiny screaming monsters - My sister and her friends.

“Get him! Make him beautiful!” They squealed, knocking me to the ground under a flailing mass of hooves and pink bows. When I finally came out of the smoke of perfume and hairspray, I had lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner all over my face. I turned, giving them the most evil stare i could muster through the pink and sparkles.

“Someday, I’m going to kill you all.” Their giggles and mock screams didn’t help my mood, of course. At least the upstairs bathroom is practically mine..

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After a long, hot shower (or two), I walked outside slowly, taking in the scenic view of the mountains and forest; I could see outside the huge brick walls now. It was at this moment i realized… I just want to be free. I don’t know where the longing comes from. Yet I do know one thing. I need to be free.

I was yet again rudely torn from my inner monologue by a rock bouncing off my side.

“Hey Mopey! You were supposed to meet us at the park an hour ago!” Yelled the Familiar voice of my best friend, a unicorn named Eclipse.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t warrant a sudden attack by a foal two years younger than me!” I glared at him, and took the stairs down to meet him.

“Well, Whatever. We didn’t do much anyway. Belle was sick, so she didn’t come, and velvet was being weirder than normal.” He sighed, flipping his teal and magenta mane idly. I always thought it clashed with his blue fur, but nopony dared tell him that.

“Ah, that sucks.. She gets sicks o often!” Snow Belle was our other friend. She was a tiny white pegasus with a sparkly blue and silver mane and tail. She was the only one out of all of us to have her cutie mark. Her cutie mark was a dark blue poppy, with sparkles around it.

“Yeah, it’s ‘cause she’s so dumb!” He let out a snort of laughter, and I chucked a bit with him, starting to head towards Horseshoe park. The park was one of the only attractions this place had. It was legendary. Everypony here knew about it. The entire park was a huge hedge maze, and it contained a lake, a playground, and a huge forested grassland area.

Even though the park is amazing, that’s only part of it. There is a gazebo deep inside the maze, that nopony had ever been to. Nopony seems to be able to find their way through it. Not a single pony in the entire estate has been able to make it through the maze to the small building. Only a few ponies ever seen to care about. Nearly every other pony, except my friends, are content with just living their life, and not trying to solve the mystery, even though it’s possibly a huge and gigantic secret, that could benefit us all!

Well then there’s my group of friends. Our entire goal is to make it to that gazebo. To find whatever secrets that are in there. The only thing we have to go with is a hint carved into the flagstones at the entrance of the maze. It says “The truth is reality, and Reality is true.”

Of course we have no fucking clue what that means, but there has to be some method to find the way. As of now, i’m the only one to ever make it close to the gazebo. Eclipse has made it just about as far as I have, but he’s nowhere close to making it, and neither am I.

The maze has some sort of enchantment on it, so if you hit three or more dead ends, and you get teleported back to the entrance. And of course, you can’t go in for twenty four hours. Eclipse never goes into the maze without me, sohe doesn’t even have a cooldown. My cooldown, it ends in five minutes.

As we stood before the great brass gates, we did nothing but listen to the ticking of my watch. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Finally, as my alarm began ringing, I sprinted in, Eclipse following close. A fierce battle cry emanating from his mouth.

“This time, We do it!”

Footnote: No experience gained.

Thanks to khat for creating the universe, and inspiring me to start writing along with every other author writing good Fallout Equestria stories. I really do hope you all enjoy my story, and give me good (And bad) feedback. I’m asking for you to point out my issues, problems, and anything that i messed up on. Anything to improve my writing skill. Thanks everpony, and keep trotting!

Author's Note

Feel free to give me shit in the comments, and anything you feel like saying. Thanks, and happy reading!

~Aurora