Deep, dark, cold, and dull was the cloud that hovered above her. During the day, the cloud was grey and cool, causing an uncouth odor to drift through the air. And during the night, the cloud created a cruel, cold wind that would sweep across the land, creating a chill that would freeze its victims to their very soul. The cloud was always there, and the cloud had been there for a long time. She recalled, in her younger, easier days that the cloud had not existed yet, and the great blue open dome covered the world along with a great bright sphere that she figured might still be up there.

Of course it’s up there, her internal voice echoed in a biting way, You would have frozen to death by now if it wasn’t.

That was the scariest thought to her right now, and that was why she was making her way across a bleak short field to the dilapidated village that stood not far from where she slept at night. That place was safe, and so far, undiscovered. Unlike this town, that stood about eighty yards away. The town was not much different from the cloud, as it was a cold and merciless place. That had been another thing that she had forced to teach herself. Mother Nature was merciless; a cruel but beautiful maiden that took no prisoners and didn’t seem to understand the concept of mercy. Now, however, the mare had to admit that Mother Nature lacked in the young beauty that she once held. A grey, dark world was all that was left.

The color grey had never bothered the mare before. It had always been a color that she was used to. Oh, yes, she did enjoy the other brightly colored ponies that she had conversed and associated with, but her colors had always been much more subdued. Her mane and tail was yellow, but it had slowly faded grey from age in places. In a way, she figured, she was like the cloud in many ways. Her coat was grey, like the cloud, she was cool headed, like the cloud, and she was strong, like the cloud.

When she had left the Everfree, the daylight was dark and grey. After about what she guessed was forty five minutes of trotting, occasionally stopping to make sure that she was truly alone, she came upon the town. Walking forward, she ignored the sign that marked the town’s entry. Ponyville, the friendliest town in Equestria!

The grey mare trotted through the streets of the town, the muffled clopping of her hooves giving her an idea of what kind of pavement she was walking on. The ash rose up from the ground as she trotted, causing a raspy cough to erupt from within her. She adjusted the cloth wrapped around her nose and mouth, and trotted onward, unstopping. Deep grey ash covered the entirety of the town, with it rising up from its resting place with the slightest movement from the mare, or the natural wind itself. The wind, the mare noted, was not very strong today, and it seemed as though she might make it through the day without a dust storm stirring up.

Bleached bones rattled occasionally from the cold wind that would stir them so. A bright white color, cleaned entirely by the wind and what was left of the elements; some frequent, most others scattered. The clumped ones would form the sometimes tattered corpse of a pony, but most were completely clean. None of them contained hair, since the ash had burned away whatever hair or fur the unfortunate pony had once possessed. Some were locked in time at the agonizing moment of their deaths, their mouths wide open, once capable of creating laughter and misery, and their hooves, reaching up towards the cloud, hopelessly. The mare ignored them to the best of her ability, her subconscious unable to ignore the true fact that she would join their bleached ranks.

Join them, she thought. Join them someday. Not today. Not soon.

The buildings that stood scattered across the town were almost as hopeless as the bodies were. Some stood skeletons of their formers selves, standing barely and holding rare necessities that the mare hoped that she would find today. Others had collapsed, and worn away from time and weather, becoming dust again like the bleached skeletons. She noted one cottage, not far away from her, that still stood, unlike the others surrounding it. Adjusting her constantly slipping saddlebags, she altered her steady course towards it.

A strong gust came in from behind her suddenly, stirring up the ashes that covered the ground. She closed her eyes quickly, hoping that this sudden wind wouldn’t sting her eyes badly, and held her breath. The wind only lasted for a short second, but the dust remained in the air for what seemed an eternity. When it finally settled again, she reopened her eyes. The cottage was still standing, and it didn’t look like the wind had stirred it any. She had not yet searched that building, and it looked promising, looking to be the remains of some old grocery store. As she neared it, however, a sight greeted her eyes at the doorway. A bleached skeleton lay at the doorway, its body angled in a way that seemed to imply that the pony had been walking out of the door, just as it had greeted death. The door had obviously collapsed on itself in the process, and the pony had writhed around for a bit, before it had fallen to the floor and succumbed to its painful death.

The grey mare stared at the corpse for a bit, contemplating these own dark thoughts to herself. The day was young, and she would have plenty of time to search the store.

What if it had everything in it? What if it had nothing in it?

It looked safe, what was the problem? Looks can be deceiving…

Though she felt she would regret it, her now impulsive nature prompted her to turn around, and search for food elsewhere. Pulling her gaze away from the pile of bones, she turned around, and continued her journey through the town, the familiar muffled sound of hooves against pavement greeting her ears once again. She did not look back.

This had been her process for the last few days. The grey mare would leave her base, and walk into town. She would search the town, and would search the remains of any building she would find. At first, her searches had been somewhat successful, sometimes finding jars or cans of food, and in some cases even finding packages. Now though, after being here for weeks, she was turning up on less food. She would be lucky if she managed to find a single can today. She would break at noon, and then she would return to the base before the sun began to set.

One of her first days of searching, she had been so successful in finding food that she had neglected to check the time. By the time she remembered, night had fallen, and the strong, cold wind had been created. She had almost been trapped in town, and the next morning when she had revisited, a lot of the buildings that had been standing fine had collapsed. From then on, she had been careful, if not obsessed, with checking the time. If she had taken shelter in a building that night instead of forcing herself back to her base, she would’ve most likely been crushed and killed in one of those buildings. She shook her head vigorously; an old habit that she kept from her younger days when she had thought that would clear her mind.

Searching though the remains of another building that had collapsed, she felt her hoof brush against what felt like a smooth can. Pulling it up from the rubble, she was disappointed and somewhat revolted to find that it was a jaw bone instead. Placing it back on the ground, she continued her rummaging, careful to avoid any nails that she might poke or stab herself with by accident. Reaching underneath a large brown beam, she felt something that felt like plastic.

By the looks of what she had found in these remains, mostly steel pots and pans, this building had once been a bakery of some sort. Maybe in one of her younger days, she would’ve known which specific bakery, as there was a rather great one in town that she stopped regularly at, but at the way this building was now, it was too old and worn to tell. The mare’s curiosity for the plastic feeling object got the best of her, and she decided to check again. She pushed the rubble out from underneath her, and flattened on her stomach to look. The edge of something stuck out from underneath the large beam.

Probably some stupid random thing, her mind told her. Her body did otherwise. Finding a long board, she shoved it under the beam and used it as leverage, pushing down on it to lift the beam up. The beam was much heavier than she had initially thought, however, and she pushed on it for quite a while, slowly getting it to move until she realized that the beam had been dragging the object along with it. She let out a grunt of frustration, and pushed down harder on the leverage. All this work for some measly object, she told herself, but her body ignored her.

When she heard the creaking sound that told her the beam had been moved, the grey mare collapsed upon the ground, coughing and breathing in random intervals. The work would not have been so exhausting if it had not stirred up so much dust. Besides that, as she checked the time, she could see that she had been working on this job for an hour and a half. She was shocked, and she shot her head up from the rubble. Nothing but buildings and dust from what she could see. The wind, and breathing and coughing were the only noises.
The grey mare composed herself, and she trotted over to where the beam had been. The plastic object, though flattened, was still in good shape, and as she looked at it closer in her hooves, her yellow eyes read the words. Uncle Jam Jar’s Blueberry Muffin Mix. A little bit of happiness in every bite!

She could barely contain herself, and hugged the package close. All that work was worth it for this tiny package. The mare sat there a moment, her emotions running wildly with the small package pressed against her chest. When she composed herself again, she slipped the plastic bag into her saddlebags, and stepped out of the rubble, making sure to avoid nails and splinters to the best of her ability. She left the once colorful building behind, not looking back, and walking to another rubble pile. Rinse and repeat.

The mare had continued this process for another hour, until she was on the opposite edge of town. A vast, and somewhat empty looking pasture spread across her, forming into hills in the distance, and what she knew were mountains even farther back. The hills in the distance were covered in dead trees, skeleton and leafless, as she could tell that they had been for years now. She knew this place, but contemplated on whether or not to go there. Noon was very soon, and she could take a break there.

She knew that this town was empty, just like so many other places were. She had not run into another soul for a long time now. At first, when the world became silent, the mare had thought that she would go insane. This, along with other tragedies, had eventually led to depression, which left her hardened. She contemplated this as she finally decided to take a chance, and see what was in the orchard. Deep down inside, at that dark time, she had wanted to die, and she had even contemplated on ending her life many times. But she had known that was selfish. She had realized that it wasn’t possible in the way that she had initially thought. She would not die, and she would live for as long as she could keep herself alive. She had to keep going. She had to.

The orchard was an empty place. Like the town behind her, for a place that had once been so full of life, this place was dull, empty, and void like. The skeletons had been less frequent here, though she had previously discovered a few still somewhat fleshy corpses in the upstairs of the barn that stood nearby. The grey mare had not ventured back into that barn, as that depressing sight had kept her away, reminding her of why she was scavenging in the first place.

In spite of the barn previously leaving her in tears, she sat down by it, in the shade, and pulled out a canteen and a small piece of bread that she had saved for herself. She observed the silence that surrounded her, taking small bites out of her bread, and then taking small sips out of her canteen. She continued this process, and she began to repeat her brain’s checklist to herself.

Need to find apples…

Not enough food. Gonna run out by next week.

Refill canteen.

Try to find a thick blanket. Gotta get a new one…

Fix saddle bags. The straps are beginning to rip.

At the end of her short rests, the grey mare turned to look at the building, and found her eyes moving up towards the second floor. They were still up there, and the littlest one was laying in bed, covered in a thin, holey blanket, her small ribs poking from her…

The mare shook her head vigorously, but she knew that the sight would never leave her. Corpses and skeletons had not bothered her in years, but this specific sight had almost wrecked her, leaving her in tears and causing her to lose track of time. The day she had come upon the sight had been her second day of scavenging the town. The other two corpses in the barn had neither bothered nor shocked her, but the third sight. It had just been too much. She had fallen to the floor sobbing, and she had laid there in utter despair, her face in her hooves. Trying to rid herself of the memory that she knew would stay with her forever, she repacked her saddle bags and stood up.

Not today, her familiar thought spoke, Not soon.

She passed the barn, trying her hardest not to look at the building, when she began to hear a terrifying creaking sound. As a strong wind began to blow, she found herself staring at the building, as it began to sway. A loud cracking noise erupted from the bottom of the building, as its walls began to crack from the pressure of rotten boards and weak support beams. She almost let out a cry of fear, but she picked up speed, and sprinted away from the house, her Pegasus wings almost unfurling in panic. The building crashed down behind her, and the dust and ashes that had covered it stirred in the air, polluting the already contaminated air. The mare was a very safe distance away from the chaos, but the running from the escape had filled her lungs with the nastiness, and she found herself coughing again. When she managed to calm down, and her heart returned to its steady pace, she placed a hoof to her chest.

Find a better face cloth, she added to her brain’s checklist.

The trees that had grown in this orchard had once produced some of the finest apples around. The grey mare hoped that maybe she could scavenge a few remaining ones. Ones that had either not been completely crushed by a collapsing tree, or maybe one that was still clinging on to its mother tree, keeping itself alive for as long as it could. This orchard was gigantic, and she knew that she would not be able to search it for very long. She trotted out farther into the orchard, where the dead trees became much thicker and larger. In spite of how strong they looked, she knew from experience that these trees were still able to fall. They had not fallen since she had been here, but they had fallen before, just as easily and unexpectedly as the barn had moments prior. She trotted here with caution, ready to run at any moment.

In what she assumed to be the heart of the orchard, she found what she liked to call the Mother tree. This tree was huge, and towered above her, its roots poking out the ash covered ground beneath it, and its naked, leafless branches reaching up into to the cloud above them.
The mare stared up into the sky for a moment, hoping with a flitter in her heart that the rain would begin to fall. That small hope lingered in her that it would fall, and wash away the filth that she felt covered her being. It never did. She removed her saddle bags, and unfurled her wings, stretching them a few times as to ward away the stiffness she felt. The grey Pegasus had never felt like her wings had been any great beauty or great sight, but as was the case with all Pegasus wings, there was a sense of majesty and pride to them, something that was noted to her now dead race as due bravery, loyalty, and even a bit of an aggressive nature. When she felt comfortable, she flew up to the high branches slowly and carefully, watching as to not crash into the tree, and remembering to listen and to pay attention to the wind, lest it send her crashing into the tree, something that could very well jeopardize her life if she was not careful.

While for a normal Pegasus, the flight around the tree would not have taken more than perhaps twenty minutes, her trip took her a full hour at the most because of her low flying skills. For a moment while flying, she had thought about bucking the tree, as she had seen many ponies do in her younger days, but she didn’t know the proper technique, and she didn’t want to risk either breaking or spraining her legs, or breaking a brittle tree, and causing it to fall on her. She was happy when she came across two small apples growing besides one another on the same branch, and she picked them and flew back down to the ground, placing them inside of her saddle bags. She resumed her search for the rest of the hour, and then she decided to stop.

Flying was more than natural to a Pegasus, but it was not wise to fly with the cloud hovering above her. The weather was strange now, and not natural to the world anymore. The winds were erratic, and the farther up you flew, the stronger and thicker the cloud would become. You could suffocate in a matter of minutes if you became lost up there, or, worse yet, trapped by erratic winds or thick smog. She had not flown up that far in years, but the dirty air had exhausted her from her low altitude, and she found herself shamefully panting as she landed.

What kind of Pegasus am I, she thought.

***

Three hours had passed since she had found the apples in the orchard. She had not found any more apples than the two that she had taken. The darkness was beginning to fall, and she found herself passing the village’s sign again, ignoring the once cheerful message a second time that day. The cloud had darkened now, and a sense of cold was beginning to crawl into the mare’s very being. The items in her saddle bags were as precious as bits had once seemed, and she recounted what she had collected that day.

One plastic package of blueberry muffin mix. Two small, tasteless, dried apples.

These items were not enough to sustain her. It was enough for a day. While the apples seemed eatable, they no longer had any healthy nutrition, and the mix itself would be nothing more than a powder. These substances would digest in her stomach, and then create energy; energy that would no doubt be used to search an empty town tomorrow, creating an endless cycle. Eat to live, and live to eat. These words had been ingrained into her brain from the instinctual moments of life, but they seemed to reappear in her mind more now.

The foreboding trees of the Everfree seemed more like a home to her now than the familiar buildings of the village. Dark and tall, towering above her with a thick foliage of unknown plants and ferns, covering the once lush and colorful forest floor. The layer of ash was not as thick here, and she could have removed her cloth from her face, but with the risk of catching a coughing fit, she kept it on.

The darkness had completely fallen when she had come upon a very specific area. To any other creature or pony, the area would have looked like nothing more than the endless thickness of the forest. An impassable cliff stood above her to her side, with tall and dark trees continuously growing from its top. The forest was dark already, and the shade of the cliff seemed to cast a void like darkness over the mare. The darkness that she knew was fear. It was the fear of the unknown, and the fear of what was to come. She had nothing to light her way, but she knew the way by memorization. She had been good at planning routes, and she had memorized this one particularly.

The grey mare pressed herself flat against the cliff, feeling with her nose and hooves, sidling across it like some strange thief lurking in the night. She could not see a single thing, but it was the patterns, and occasional jabs of the rocky cliff that she recognized. A slight jab to her stomach awoke a sense of memory in her brain, and she reached upward, finding thick ivy that had grown massively along the side of the cliff, from its top to its bottom. Pulling the ivy aside slightly and gently, she slid into the opening behind it, readjusting it as she found what she had been looking for.

A cold and melancholy breeze filtered through the depths of the cave, and reached her nerves, causing the mare to shake slightly. A light shown forth in the farther depths, and she made her way forward, picking up the pace as she did, making sure to keep her echoing hooves noticeably noisy.

A small filly was there to greet her at the light. She was the only one she had. She was small, and skinny, but she was beautiful to the mare. She was love and everything else to the mare. The grey mare embraced her as her little one hugged her body tightly.

“Welcome back mommy.”

Those words were what kept the grey mare going. When all else had failed her in this dying world, the voice of a young filly kept love and meaning in her heart.

“Hello my little muffin. Are you hungry?” The mare already knew the answer to such a question.

The little filly nodded her head vigorously.

The grey mare smiled. Removing her face cloth, she reached into her saddle bags and removed the package of muffin mix.

Dinky smiled brighter than the fire burning in the cave.

Author's Note

The end of the first chapter! I hope everyone enjoyed!

This is my first fanfiction, so feedback is always welcome!