Simulation

by PhoelynFabulous

First published June 12th, 2015 19:50

A mare named Dust Runner gallops through cities, villages, deserts, dried-up plains, everything, just so she can gather the materials to survive. Food. Water. Shelter, for a little while. All while trying to fight the other survivors of The Strike. The Strike was what the survivors, and anypony else, called the sickness that destroyed the land. There were The Stricken, who were ponies that had gone insane with the disease that hadn't died yet, and The Shielded, who were ponies that were immune to the disease. Dust Runner was a Shielded.

(WARNING: Inspired by The Maze Runner books.)
(WARNING2: I put the gore tag there for a reason. GORE WARNING.)

Chapters

The City
Through the City
Turning On Program 95
Program... Running

The City
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Simulation

The City

Author's Note

Woohoo, new story! Simulation! This'll be fun :pinkiesmile: Grimdark. :pinkiecrazy:

Oh, and to make sure the story stays long enough and good enough, I'm creating a limit! At least 1000 words per chapter! Enjoy!

The City

I galloped, my hoofsteps loud and thundering as I ran, kicking dust and dirt into clouds of it behind me. I could smell the sand and dirt beneath me, stinging my nostrils and eyes, but I didn't care. The world was not hopeless, the Shielded just weren't trying.

I am Dust Runner. I am a Shielded. Immune to The Strike, and very grateful for it. I will try as hard as I can to save this dying, destroyed world.

Maybe I should start at the beginning? Alright then.

Everything was chaotic. Nopony thought anything was right, attacking eachother carelessly. I was only... hmm, I think ten? It's difficult to remember when your running through a wasteland, with dust and dirt in your eyes, trying desperately to get to a city in the distance for survival supplies. Maybe I was eleven? Anyways, ponies were at a bit of a war. Nopony truly liked one another. It was always fight and shout, hit and scream, die and bleed. Nopony even cared who won this war. There were no sides. My dad was murdered by my mother. No sides whatsoever. I'm surprised my mother decided I wasn't worth killing.

Anyways, there were two 'geniuses' who decided 'Oh, let's drop bombs everywhere in the universe, even on myself! What could go wrong?' and the other said 'You know, it would be a great idea to create the most deadly virus possible and release it everywhere in the world, including on myself! What could go wrong?'

Of course, by complete coincidence they decided to do so at the same time and, of course, it didn't go well. Huge bombs were dropped from pegasi on everypony's homes, workplaces, countries, everywhere. One was dropped very close to my house. If mom and I hadn't went into the basement at the sight of the bomb, we would've died. Hell, we almost died IN the basement! It was a shock that most of the neighbors survived!
When we went back up, the whole town was a wasteland. It looked like the one I'm running in now. Rocks and debris everywhere, houses in ruins, including my own shelter.
Ponies. Wounded, bleeding, dying ponies covered the landscape as much as the rocks did. There was a deep, large, terrifying crater in the center of town. It was full of fire, and it wasn't hard to notice the fires covering most of the land, too. Houses burning and crumbling, ponies screaming and crying, sometimes over loved ones who were injured, dying, or dead. I spotted a few ponies who were on fire, too, running and screaming in agony.
It was chaos and hell combined, burning hot and full of pain and destruction. Bombs like that one were dropped everywhere in the land. We even heard another loud, thunderous blast come from what I thought was the south.

And then, of course, as if it couldn't get any worse... The Strike. That's what everypony called it, at least.
The pony who came up with the disastrous disease knew about the bombs, so he or she took it as an advantage. They secretly placed the virus within the bombs, so it would spread everywhere the bombs dropped.
We noticed when the mist came. We thought it was normal, until everypony noticed it's color. Smoke and ashes weren't mint green. Ponies were very concerned, but nopony could do anything about it. Though, something I noticed, and that others most likely did too, was that most ponies, except for me and four others, were twitching and stumbling. Their ears would do very noticeable twitches, small but easy to spot. Pegasus wings would twitch as well. Their legs would shake, and sometimes they would trip on their hooves and fall onto the rough ground.
It got worse on the second day.
Though everypony still hated eachother in a strange war, they attempted to fix their houses, or create new small shelters. They kept dropping things, and being extra angry when something like that happened. They would make an angry growl and pound on the material for a bit, and then angrily put it back in the place they were trying to put it in.
Emotions seemed to be strange. Adding on to the strangeness of anger, my mother would hurt me for no reason sometimes, or kick a stone angrily and walk that way as well. Full of hatred and anger.
If I asked her what was wrong with her anger she would either cheerfully go "I don't know! I don't care!" or start sobbing until the ground was turned to slippery mud and go "I... I... don't even know!" After three days, this became more extreme.

Ponies beating eachother for no reason, sometimes laughing happily as they did. My mother became aggressive as well, beating me randomly, saying I was better then her and that I deserved it because of it.
Now, their eyelids twitched as well, and no matter how hard they tried they couldn't sleep. They had stopped building shelters, almost not caring about the blazing heat anymore. If I had the chance, I would say they had officially gone insane.
On the fourth day, I had no hope for the infected, insane ponies.
They had grown almost completely careless about everything around them. There would be somepony attempting to sleep on the ground, and somepony would trample over them, barely realizing that they were there. And the pony sleeping on the ground would most likely be crushed to death, because nopony could contain their strange hatred and anger anymore. Everywhere they walked, they would stomp as hard as they could.
My mother continued to beat me, more then the third day. She would scream that I shouldn't be alive, that she wouldn't stop trying to kill me until I was dead, that the disease should've gotten me.
Eventually, even the insane ponies decided on a name for their insanity, and for the ones who hadn't been infected.
The Strike was the disease, The Stricken were the infected, and The Shielded were the immune. I was a Shielded. My mother was a Stricken. There were five Shielded in the village. Only five. The fifth day of The Strike was the like four but a little worse.
And then... the sixth day was where nopony cared about their emotions, feelings, health, anything. They were like zombies. Careless about sleep, careless about others, mostly careless about food. That was the day I lost my mother to insanity.

We fought often in the last four days.
The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth were the worst. My mother had been crazy enough to attempt to kill me on the sixth day.
She hit me hard in the back of the neck while I was drinking a dirty glass bottle of water, causing me to choke. I swung the bottle toward her face as I turned around, trying to hit as hard as I could. The glass shattered against her face, giving her many gashes and scars. Some were on her eyeball itself.
I stared. I would do something, but I couldn't. I was frozen. My mother was staring into space. Not dead, but thinking.
Finally, she blinked, and looked at herself. Or, her leg. She put it back down, and looked at her other hoof.
She used this one to pull a shard of glass that was stuck in her eye out, showing no pain. It was covered in blood, and her eye and face were bleeding. She stared at the shard.
I backed away slowly. I stopped, and was shocked when my mother looked at the leg she was staring at earlier, and shoved the glass in as deep as it could go while she was still holding it.
She cut a long gash into her leg. It was a terrifying sight. I would never forget it. When she was done, she pulled the glass out, stared at it again, and smiled.
I felt like my blood had become ice as she giggled. Her giggle turned to laughter. Her laughter turned to cackling. Terrifying, bone chilling, blood freezing, cackling. I could do nothing but stare in horror.

She suddenly ran, cackling all the way to the other ponies, cutting her leg, and having so much fun doing it.
The other Stricken noticed this, and began to fight for the glass shard. My mother was screaming, but still cackling, as she defended her toy of death. Ponies were juggling it around trying to snatch it from anypony who took it. The last pony that got it popped it into it's mouth and chewed and swallowed. The other Stricken sighed in disappointment, while my mother screamed and attempted to tear open the stallion's stomach to get the glass back. She was succeeding in doing this, and the Stricken stallion was cackling now.

I couldn't take it anymore. I ran. I took as many supplies as I could carry, and I ran. I planned on never coming back. I got my cutie mark. It was three horseshoes. The symbol of me, running.

Now that I have finished my story about how this situation even happened, I have arrived at the city.

Through the City
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Simulation

Through the City

Author's Note

Chapter 2! Woohoo!

Through the City

I stopped at the city's entrance, which was crumbled and broken like it's buildings. It was hard to read because it was crumbling, but I made out the words on the sign: 'Welcome to Manehatten.'

Suddenly, I heard laughter and shouts. They hadn't been there before. I knew what the sounds were, however. The Stricken.

I entered the city. Skyscrapers crumbled, having destroyed walls and broken windows. I realized all the glass on the ground from those windows, and sighed. Shards of glass, a Stricken's best friend. There were tons of vines along the buildings. It hadn't been a very long time since the bombs struck, but the Strike had a side effect. Hurt ponies, help plants. Plants grew where there shouldn't be any because of that. Long vines grew on buildings, and tall, brownish-green grass poked out of the ground. The vines were the same color.

The laughter got closer. I froze. There was a group of Stricken running down the road on the right.

They were chatting and laughing. Listening closer, they were just saying gibberish. Not real words. Apparently, that is hilarious to a Stricken.

These five Stricken slowed to a trot when they got to my street. The one in front looked at me. They all started looking at me. Two of them were missing an eye, one was missing both of it's eyes. They all had fresh-bleeding scars covering their bodies. The one in front - I'm going to assume he was their leader - tilted his head at me as I stepped back a bit.

"Hello there, Shielded!" He said cheerfully.

I was a bit surprised they didn't run at me and try to kill me. I didn't complain. I should be surprised at everything a Stricken does. Insanity is random. "Hello?" I said back after a while.

"I hope you are having a good day!" said the Stricken. He and his pals nodded. "Would you like a toy?"

Knowing what a toy was to a Stricken was like trying to figure out what a dog was thinking. Usually something sharp, or just dangerous in any way. Who knows, he could've been offering me a teddy bear he found somewhere.

"Sure!" I said, hoping that if he had a shard of glass as a toy he wouldn't throw it at me in a harmful way.

I cringed as he pulled a combat knife out of his back and threw it to me. Not at me, as if he were trying to hurt me, but he was trying to give it to me. Luckily, he succeeded, the knife landing near my hooves. "Have a nice day, Shielded!" he said and he and his pals walked off.

I placed the knife in my saddlebag, and pulled something else out. A bottle of water. Not glass this time, no, this was plastic. I had decided to never use glass water bottles again after what happened with my mother. I unscrewed the cap and began to drink, when terror filled my eardrums.

"WATER?!" Screamed five Stricken, the same ones that had seemed friendly and given me the knife. They all stared at me in rage and greed.

"We... we haven't drank anything for days..." said the leader. "GIVE ME THAT WATER AND ANY OTHER BOTTLES YOU HAVE OR DEATH TO YOUR PUNY SHIELDED SOUL!" He screamed as loud as his lungs would let him as they ran at me.

I put away the water and drew the still-bloody knife he had given me. I wasn't going to give them water. I was low on supplies. It was why I had come to this city in the first place. I was almost out of food. A quarter of a soup-can left, that is. I was not going to give them anything, and so, I was prepared to fight for my life.

The leader came at me first. He didn't look like he was the thirstiest of the group, but he was likely the greediest. I swung the knife, missing on purpose, and swung at his neck. Hit. He collapsed, sitting on top of a rock that was sure to make him uncomfortable. One hoof was holding his slashed neck, the other pointing at me as he died. They couldn't feel pain. Otherwise, a knife wouldn't be considered a toy to stab yourself with. However, they could tell when their life was fading through their painlessness, and so he reacted that way. He died on the ground, one hoof still on his neck.

Another came towards me. I jumped up and kicked him in the face with my back legs, causing him to stagger back. Once again, no pain, but he must have been surprised. He attacked again, this time hesitant, as if he didn't want to end up like his leader. I kicked again, as hard as I could with my strong back legs - strengthened from running and kicking so much - and hit him right in the chest. I heard a cracking sound as ribs broke, and he fell to the ground. He would die eventually, and he felt it.

I realized quickly that all the ponies in the Stricken's little group were stallions, as another attacked. This time, he hit me. He struck me hard with his front hooves. But it didn't mess up my next attack. It helped it a little, with my response to the kick. I put my face low to the ground, the knife still held tight in my mouth, and stabbed him in the chest. Right at his heart. He collapsed, dead immediately after the stab.

The other two were going to approach, but hesitated. They turned and ran, screaming all the way. They were probably not willing to risk their lives.

I didn't have a problem with that. I caught my breath, and took a drink of water. Then, I approached a broken skyscraper. There was a crater in the side of the building, near the top. There was another, smaller one closer to the bottom. I decided I would climb the vines to get to that building. I was starting to get hungry, and I barely had food.

Turning On Program 95
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Simulation

Turning On Program 95

Twilight watched the monitors. The experiment was working. There was a lot going on. She decided it was enough of 57.

"Dream Chaser?" she called.

Dream Chaser ran to her. "Yes Twilight?"

"Deactivate Program 57 with the others. This is enough." Twilight said. She was preparing for all the scientists to say that the experiment technically wasn't finished. Twilight was prepared to give them an order to do it.

"Are you sure Twilight? The experiment isn't finished, there are still two more-"

"I know. But trust me, this is enough. We should turn this one off and begin the next program."

Dream Chaser was quiet for a second. "Which is?" he said.

"You had a choice between 57 and 95. You chose 57. Now, we will activate Program 95."

Dream Chaser looked like he was about to ask if she was sure, before saying "Yes ma'am." and calling for the others.

"Twilight says deactivate 57 and activate Program 95! It's an order!"

The scientists began to work, the pegasi heading up to the machines needed to activate 57 and turning them off. Unicorns worked with 57 magic machines, and earth ponies worked with the easy to reach machines. They all typed on keyboards. This time, however, everypony went back to some machines after they were done typing, some machines different from the last, and turned them on. They headed back to the keyboards.

"Program 57 deactivated and Program 95 activated!" Dream Chaser said to the others. Twilight smiled as they went back to their monitors. She herself approached one.

Program... Running
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Simulation

Program... Running

Author's Note

Yeah... you know about that 1000 word limit thing? I might only do that for the Dust Runner chapters, which you will understand what that means in a second. :pinkiesmile:

Program... Running

Twilight Sparkle paced around the room. It was full of machines, things that whirred and hummed and buzzed, all doing different things. Mostly, it generated power - a strange kind of power - for a complex machine. Magic also helped this. There were magic machines as well.

"Twilight Sparkle."

A voice said in the distance. She looked, and saw a scientist running towards her. Dream Chaser, if she wasn't mistaken.

"We have the results for the previous test. Program 24." Dream Chaser said.

"Good." Twilight smiled. "How is the current test?"

"Currently, Program 3 is running. Shall we activate another for this test?"

Twilight looked at the monitors. Yes, it did seem like Program 3 was running. "Activate Program 57. Or Program 95. That will work too."

Dream Chaser frowned. "Twilight Sparkle... are you sure?"

Twilight looked at him. He seemed worried about the tests. Or upset.

"Please, just call me Twilight. Yes, I believe I'm sure." Twilight said, observing the monitors again.

"Alright, Twilight." Dream chaser said. He then called out to the scientists,"Activate Program 57! Twilight's orders!"

All the scientists looked at eachother. Nopony liked activating 57 or 95.

It was up to Twilight to make them want to. Or at least tell them they had to. She flew up to prepare a small speech.

"Listen, everypony. I know you don't want to do this, but it must be done. We've gotten through the 'happier' experiments. This is the last one we need to do in order for this to happen. I know it may seem cruel, or too complicated, even, but it must be done! For the Experiment!"

Everypony cheered, and began to activate Program 57. Pegasi flew up to machines and switched them on or off, unicorns powered magic machines to get them running, earth ponies turned heavy switches, many ponies of all kinds pressing many buttons on keyboards.

"Program 57... Running." said Dream Chaser. Everypony began to watch the monitors and everything else.