Morning, my favorite time of the day, and today is no exception. Since I went to my first party that had vodka. So, I was laying in my bed, in my room, with a hangover.

"Terra, wake up."

My dad's voice caused my ears to ring, like crazy.

"Terra come on!"

"Go away." I muttered.

I was then pushed off my bed. I landed hard on the metal, stable floor. "You should have known better than to drink five bottles of vodka," he said. "I know now," I replied, as I got up, my head still pounding. "Besides," my father continued "You have work down in the maintenance level today." My father was a zebra, like me, but his family came from Equestria, which was why I had no Arabic accent... at all. "how much time do I have?" I asked.

"You have about thirty minutes" he answered.

"Cool."

I went over to my desk, and grabbed my necklace, and put it on. My necklace was made out of gold, it had two rubies on it, and showed a crescent moon, and above it a cross. My mother gave it to me when she died. My mother was Arabian. She did not know anything about the necklace, so I didn't either. I ate my breakfast, (stable grown apples), put my stable 9 barding on, and left for the maintenance level. I worked in the maintenance level as a maintenance zebra. I enjoyed working down there. I was never into the normal filly stuff. While others learned to cook and stuff, I spent my time down in the reactor, (my father works in the reactor), practicing shooting with a toy gun, and playing with a radroach. I started walking down the hall when a voice got my attention.

"Hey Terra."

It was my lifelong friend Aisha, who also worked in the maintenance level with me. She was more of a mare than I was. She did not like her job, but went to it anyway. Aisha was a zebra too.

"How was the party for you?" she asked me.

"It was good," I responded.

"How can you even drink five bottles of vodka?"

"Well, I've learned to never drink as much as I did, because I have a bad headache!"

We soon got to the maintenance level, where another one of my friends was waiting. An Equestrian earth pony named Ashtree.

"-Sup Terra," he said as Aisha and I came down. "How was the party for you?"

"Good."

"Nice... well we got a job to do."

"What is it?" Aisha asked.

"Unclogging the recycler."

I heard Aisha mutter "shit," and I started laughing.

We headed toward the recycler, about halfway there we heard scratching. "Radroach," Ashtree told us. It scurried into our path and stopped in front of us. "KILL IT, KILL IT WITH FIRE!" Aisha screamed. "Wait," I said. I walked up to the radroach and immediately recognized it. "Charlie!" I hugged it as it "hugged" me back. Charlie was a radroach that had great affection for me. I met him when I was seven.

"Why are you hugging that?" Aisha asked. "Kill it."

"It's my friend" I replied.

Aisha looked at Ashtree, who simply shrugged.

"Guess what I have?" I cooed at him, pulling out a piece of meat. "Meat!" Charlie started to "beg" and I gave him the meat. While he ate it, I pet him. "Who's a good radroach?" After Charlie ate he skittered off. I turned to see Aisha looking at me with a face of surprise, and Ashtree with a look of indifference. "That was Charlie" I told them. "We've been friends since I was seven."

"You're friends with a radroach... WHAT THE HELL?" Aisha yelled.

"I find that cool," Ashtree said.

Aisha gave both of us a look of confusion then started walking again. We looked at each other and continued.

***

After about a minute of walking in silence, we got to the recycler, which was just a big box with a pipe at the top dropping random stuff. "It's clogged," Ashtree told us, "Someone has to unclog it." We both stared at Aisha, who gave us a look of confusion before getting it. "No, no, no, I'm not doing that!" In reply I gave her a wrench. She grabbed the wrench, grumbling, and headed down to the maintenance tunnel which was under the recycler. After about a minute of silence we heard a splut sound, then Aisha cursing in Arabic. Ashtree and I started rolling on the ground laughing. Aisha came out a bit later, covered in unidentifiable liquids, and angry. " عندما تم الانتهاء من اثنين لقوا حتفهم حتى" ("When we're done you two are so dead!"). Ashtree and I started laughing again at the sight of Aisha. When we stopped, it took awhile before I had enough breath to speak.

"Do you want me to finish?" I asked. Aisha responded by thrusting the wrench into my hooves, and stomping off. "Wish me luck Ashtree." I then went into the maintenance tunnel. Aisha managed to take the pipe out but now it was spewing liquid onto the floor. I quietly cursed Aisha, then went forward pipe in one hoof, and wrench in the other, heading for the leak. After managing to reinstall and pipe, I climbed back out, covered in stuff. Ashtree was waiting for me. "Wheres Aisha?" I asked, Ashtree simply pointed to Aisha in a corner cleaning her self. We continued with our daily routine.

***

It was about 9:30 at night when I got home.

"Dad I'm back!" No one answered. I suspected he had to work late for some reason, and headed for my room. I took off my necklace and plopped onto my bed...tired.

I dreamed that night. I was in a desert, on all sides of me was an endless stretch of golden sand. I was walking on a endless road, as I walked grass grew around me. I didn't seem to notice. At the end of the dream I looked back, the grass stretched for miles.

I woke up, someone was shaking me.

"Terra wake up, come on."

I was surprised to see Ashtree.

"Ashtree? What are doing in my room?"

"I can't explain, there's no time."

I got up and put on my necklace. "Why is there no time?" I asked. Ashtree looked at me.

"The stable is being attacked."

"By who?"

"I don't know."

He gave me a sound tape. "Your father wanted me to give you this."

"Where's my dad anyway?"

"The tape will explain."

"Okay." After I said that, I heard gunshots. Ashtree heard them too.

"Come on, Aisha is waiting at the stable exit"

"Why?"

"She knows the code to open the outer door, and is gonna get us out of here!"

We left the room. As we headed down the hallway we saw three ponies. i could tell one was a unicorn because his horn poked out from it's armor, but I was unsure about the other two, because they were covered head to hoof, in modern Arabic robe armor. We managed to sneak by them without them seeing us.

"Lets go!" Ashtree started running, I followed.

***

At the end of the hallway we headed up a short flight of stairs and opened the door into stable 9. Aisha was waiting at the controls. "You guys made it!" she said as we entered and locked the door behind us. She started typing away on the control panel. "You two can make it outside, but I need to stay and make sure they don't figure out how to unlock it."

"You're gonna lock it permanently?" I asked. Aisha nodded, Ashtree grabbed a saddle bag and gave it to me. "The saddle bags have everything needed to survive out there."

As he was speaking I looked through the saddle bags. Inside were a couple of apples, and a water canteen with a water talisman (which means the canteen won't run out of water). The sound of alarms told me that Aisha managed to open the huge stable doors that lead outside. At that moment there was a knock at the hallway door that Ashtree and I had just locked.
"فتح الباب، ونحن نعلم أنك كنت هناك" ("Open the door, we know your in there.")

Aisha looked at us. "They're here!"

"نحن لن نسأل مرة أخرى ... فتح الباب لعنة" ("We won't ask again... open the damn door.") We heard thumping from the hallway door.

The giant outer stable doors at that point had opened fully. I looked at Ashtree, then started toward the doors. Suddenly the hallway door flew open. The armored ponies entered, they were all carrying guns. The armored ponies had IL-92's (Roman combat assault rifles), and the unicorn had in his magical grip, an M-tax (Saddle Arabian single barreled shotgun). The pony on the left let loose a bullet, which hit Aisha, who fell to the ground, clutching her stomach, but not dead. "Aisha!" I started to run to her, but suddenly I was knocked thru the open stable doors. "Sorry, but you must escape!" Ashtree apologized. Looking back I saw Aisha get up and push a button on the panel. The doors started closing. The three ponies approached Ashtree, and the unicorn raised his m-tax and fired at Ashtree. He fell to the ground his chest split open. "Ashtree!" I screamed. Before I could run back in, the stable door was almost closed. I saw the unicorn look up at me, before the stable door closed forever.

footnote: level up

New perk added

Wanderer: you have been known to travel a lot. You gain 10 more experience when discovering a new location.

Special:

strength: 6
perception: 5
endurance: 4
charisma: 7
intelligence: 4
agility: 6
luck: 7

Author's Note

sorry if this chapter isn't good, i was writing this with a cold.