Hatchet clenched between my teeth, I stare at the wolf, whose ragged breath curls in a wispy cloud and dissolves into the air. The wolf stares back, baring his teeth and growling in a low, guttural tone.
I grip the hatchet’s handle tighter, anticipating the beast’s inevitable strike. My hooves are planted in the freezing, snowy ground. Flecks of snow gather on the lenses of my goggles. The wind slaps at my face with its icy fingers, but I pay it no mind. All I can think about is the wolf in front of me, the killer creature with drool running from his bloodstained fangs.
Overhead, the sun is black. The sky is gray. The trees are dead. I feel my blood running cold. I am weak.
It’s as good a day to die as any.
But I will not die alone.
With a wild roar that shakes the dead forest, we leap at each other.
He draws first blood, his fangs ripping away at the flesh on my leg. I swing my head, hoping to bury my hatchet in his side, but I miss. The snow around us begins to turn red. My leg is on fire, but I focus on the wolf, only on the wolf. He growls again, bits of my flesh caught between his teeth. I bite down even harder on the handle of the hatchet, waiting for the second strike.
The wolf pounces, but this time I am ready. As he leaps, I sidestep, swinging my head around and burying the hatchet in the scruff of his neck. He cries out in pain, stumbling over himself and ending up in a heap at the foot of a tall tree. I waste no time. This is my chance. Ignoring the animal’s pitiful squeals, I pin him down with my good leg and swing the hatchet again, and again, until I am swinging so fast and gripping the handle so hard that my jaw feels as though it is about to break.
Finally, I open my mouth, letting the bloody hatchet fall to the ground. The wolf is dead. His blood mixes with mine in the snow.
I fall onto my rump, breathing heavily, my heart thumping at two hundred beats per minute. The howling wind continues to rattle the trees, scatter the snow, and rake my face with its icy claws. I feel the hot blood run down my thigh.
It’s getting darker. Is the sun setting? Or…am I passing out? I can…I can see the darkness in the corners of my eyes, fogging up my vision worse than the ice on my goggles. I lie down on my back and rest my head on a small mound of snow, looking up at the wintry sky. It is getting darker…and the snow feels good on my back…maybe I’ll just lay here for a while…maybe I’ll…I’ll…
No, no. Get up, Diamond. Get up.
My legs are weak. I feel heavy, very heavy, from the weight of the saddlebags hanging off my sides, from the force of the wind in my face. Very heavy.
I don’t have much time left.
Groaning, fighting through the pain, I stand up. The wind gives no quarter. I am at its mercy. The dark is coming soon. I can feel it getting colder. I feel the chill in my bones.
It’s as good a day to die as any, but I’m not dying today.
And so I walk. I wrap my scarf around my wound to stop the bleeding, and I walk. I pick up and clean the blood from my hatchet, and I walk. I look back one last time at the dead wolf, and then I walk.
But when I can’t walk, I limp, dragging my bloody lame leg through the snow. When I can’t walk, I shiver, frozen to the bone. I’ve never been so cold in my life. Me, Double Diamond, the stallion who had braved nearly every slope and every storm in Equestria, who went skiing down the side of Mount Kilimanejaro and outran an avalanche in the process…
This is no ordinary cold, no ordinary chill. The world has changed. The lights have gone dark. The skies are gray, but then…then they’re not. The clouds clear, and the Aurora flares across the sky. Such a beautiful sight, the Aurora…a beautiful, devastating sight…
The lights have gone dark. When the skies aren’t gray, they burn with all the colors imaginable. The stars dance in their places in heaven, while down below, we die.
Look. The Aurora. She comes now. The sky is beginning to clear, and she comes, peeking out from behind the cloud cover like a young filly poking out from her bed sheets. I stop for only a moment and gaze up at the sky, awestruck as the light dances across the atmosphere like a ghostly wavering rainbow. Beautiful…terrible…
The Aurora brightens the sky, and yet the world has never been so dark.
I look away from her, the beautiful monstrosity that has destroyed my land. The sun is nearly set. If I remain in this wilderness after nightfall, I will be dead before dawn. The pain from my leg wound grows with every step. I look back and see bloody hoofprints, my hoofprints, in the snow. I sigh, my breath curling in the air, and wince. But I keep going. I keep trudging through the woods, through ever-thicker fields of snow and ice. The only warmth I feel is the warmth of the blood on my leg. The scarf is not helping. If I lose much more blood, I am going to die.
No, I think to myself. I haven’t come this far to die now. I won’t, by Celestia, I won’t…
I keep going, my pace growing slower by the minute. My vision begins to blur, and it is not because of my frost-tinted goggles. A red trail of blood extends far behind me, piercing through the endless white snow. There has to be somewhere, anywhere, that I can go, somewhere I can actually stop the bleeding, somewhere I can rest for the night…
The minutes go by, the sky darkens, and hope drains from my mind like water through a sieve. Every passing moment is a fight to stay conscious, to keep going through the biting cold, the agonizing pain. As the last of the sun fades into the horizon, I know this is the end. I know that I will die in this icy wasteland, another victim of the Aurora. Perhaps, if I lie down now, on my back, I can at least see her pretty lights before I die…
I shed a single tear, and it begins to freeze on my cheek.
But then, as I crest a snowy hill, I see…
By Celestia, I see…
A small homestead, sitting on a rugged bluff that overlooks a frozen pond. Its chimney coughs up puffs of smoke that dissolve into the frigid air.
All caution abandoned, I sprint for the cabin, gasping and shouting every time my injured leg makes contact with the ground. The bloody scarf unravels and slips away from the wound, but I don’t care. The wound bleeds freely, scattering red droplets across the snow as I run, but I do not care.
Somepony lives in this cabin. There is somepony else alive. They have a fire. They have shelter.
Not today, Aurora.
The rocks on the bluff prove tricky to navigate, but sheer adrenaline and desperation push me forward. I force my way up the bluff, fighting the pain in my leg and the power of the wind in my face. All the while I call out to whoever might be in the cabin, but my words are lost, carried away by the wind. Finally, my hooves meet wood as I stumble onto the cabin’s front porch. I beat on the door as hard as I can, screaming.
“Hello? Somepony! Please, I need…”
The door swings open at the first knock, but nopony is standing in the doorway. Not waiting a single second longer, I barge into the cabin and slam the door shut behind me, collapsing to the floor in a heap.
I feel warmth for the first time in a very, very long while. It is such a wonderful feeling that it tickles each one of my senses. I can smell the soot of a wood fire. I can taste the embers in the air. The crackling of flames meets my ears and I sigh, dragging myself toward the source of the warmth, the miraculous, life-giving warmth…
There it is, in the corner of the main room: a wood stove fire, freshly lit, burning behind a metal grate. I can’t help but smile, but then wince again as I remember that I am bleeding to death. However, another wonderful sight catches my eye: a first aid kit, lying on a table next to the fireplace. With all the strength left that I can muster up, I drag myself over to the table, past a small couch and over a rough carpet. The warmth of the fire gives me a little boost as I reach up and knock the first aid kit off the table. It bursts open, and I nearly cry when I see its contents: a roll of bandages, a bottle of antiseptic, and some antibiotics.
It takes a few minutes, but finally I clean my wound and dress it with the bandage, before swallowing some antibiotics. My head swims, and I unbuckle the strap on my helmet and let it fall to the floor, taking off my goggles as well. The pain is subsiding, but a new feeling is taking over my body: exhaustion. The wind howls outside, and for a brief moment, I wonder when the owner of the cabin will come back. But then I feel the fingers of sleep dragging me into its embrace, so I collapse onto the couch, resting my head on its arm. The house is dark, and my vision is still blurry.
I am alive, though. I live another day, and will live another night.
I feel myself falling asleep…the warmth of the fire is like a soft blanket…I drift away, and my dreams are dark and cold…
