We'd fallen asleep after a few hours of laughing for no reason. I couldn't quite place why she was so funny now, but I figured it was the shock of being bombed combined with being grateful for having survived it. I still ached from the day before, but it was much more negligible since Ditzy helped me clean my wounds with the scotch and the single box of gauze that we found.

I had spent a lot of time looking at the head wound. The radio had a maker's plate on the back side, and it was shiny enough to get a fairly good look at it. The plate was small, but I could see the gash across my right eye brow. It appeared like a sinister, red stripe pointing at my horn. I found it odd that it was so straight, like I'd been sliced with a knife, but when I examined more closely, the tissue was obviously pulled so far from it's origin that it simply split. I couldn't stop thinking about how it was going to be such an ugly scar, a grotesque reminder of the horrific event in which I had been for the rest of my life.

How was I to find my prince now? Should we make it out of this hole alive, I would hate to have to explain to a cute stallion what happened to my face. I would be reminded of being near death, of the pain I've endured, and of the lives lost. My perfect stallion would embrace me when I became upset in recalling it, and then give me a dress and a castle to romp in. But alas, the real world would give me a prince who would become uncomfortable in a crying stranger, even if I could bring myself to say the words, and I would be denied the dress, the castle, and the romp.

When I finally woke up, Ditzy was sitting on "Señor Jerky" as we'd come to call the chair. It was uninspired and juvenile, but one of us would say it, and then we'd laugh really hard for some reason. We'd be discussing something unrelated to the chair, and then a lull in the conversation would prompt one of us to say it, and then when we stopped giggling, we'd continue talking. I hated that, under these circumstances, Ditzy and I would create our first inside joke.

"What are you doing?" I asked while stretching. I'm not sure if the cold concrete floor that I'd slept on was the source of the horrible stiffness in my back, or if it was the serious thrashing that I'd endured the night before. The lingering sting on my scalp was definitely from Ditzy's life-saving attempts to yank the mane off my head, and the stabbing ache in my stomach was from being flung against the tree. I considered myself lucky because the hot pain on my fore-head outweighed my other wounds.

"Reading." Ditzy said, and then she pointed at the stack of books in front of the radio. There was a smaller collection of books on top of the radio that I assume were the ones that she'd finished while I was asleep.

"How long have you been up?" I asked. I slowly got to my hooves, made my way to the Drinks locker, and got myself a bottle of water. Ditzy had one on top of the radio that was half full, so I didn't get her one.

Ditzy gestured at the room as a whole to explicate that there was no way of knowing the time. She shrugged and said, "I have no idea." and then returned her gaze to the book. "But it's been a minute."

"I don't know how you sit on Señor Jerky." I said, and then I sipped the water.

Ditzy chuckled, "He's surprisingly comfortable."

"Really?" I asked while twisting the cap back on the bottle.

Ditzy put her book down and then had that look which told me she was about to say something funny. She would smile, her eyes would affix on the same point in space for a moment, and then her good eye would look at me before she spoke.

Her left eye moved to me while her right remained static, "Well, I'm just making the most of it, really. I actually sat down and then found that I was glued down to it."

I let out a breathy chuckle, "Ew, gross." We shared a laugh, then I raised my good brow, and asked, "How long did it take for you to come up with that?"

Her smile grew larger, "I think it was a few hours ago."

I nodded knowingly, "I thought so." I peered at the spines of the books in the pile on the radio. "So, what are you reading?"

Ditzy glanced at the small stack, "Oh, I haven't gotten to those yet, but these down here are all survival, cooking, weapon making, and Colt Scout type of things."

My eyebrow raised again, "You read all of those?"

"Yep." She affirmed, but then her smile faded, "...and I learned some potentially upsetting things."

My own smile dropped out of existence, "Like?"

"There are four books that are all about surviving apocalyptic situations. Three of them talk about nuclear war specifically." She said in a level voice.

"And?" I upturned a hoof as if she was to place the information right there.

"Two of them say that it is unsafe to go outside for a month." Ditzy murmured, and then she gave a little shrug and continued, "Unless it rainth, of course."

"A month? Well, what about the third?" I said, hoping to Celestia that it said a much shorter time frame. The only thing I heard was that I wasn't going to get anything to eat for a month. The danger of starving to death in the cellar became much more real.

"It said that radioactive decay is fairly rapid, and we may be okay after a week. But again, unless it rains." Ditzy somberly explained.

I rolled my eyes and cursed. A week without food? I can't go a week without food. If the only thing I'm taking in is water for a week, my metabolism will come to a screeching halt, and I will bloat up with water weight. I gave pause and tried to separate the care for my figure from my will to live, but those two things are so close on my priority list. I suddenly found myself trying to think up a rain-dance that the Zebras would do. If I remembered correctly, the weather forecast was clear skies for quite a while, but that may have been just Manehattan.

"How do we know that it was a nuclear explosion, anyway?" I said, trying harder to convince myself that we could go outside immediately more than her.

Ditzy nodded with an arrogant smile while picking up a book from the bottom of the stack. The small tower of books toppled as she flipped it open to somewhere in the beginning. "What does this sound like?" She said, and then she read aloud, "At ten kilometers away from ground zero, it will take nearly 30 seconds for you to hear the deafening blast, but you will experience an instantaneous, blinding flash and intense heat. The mushroom cloud of a 500 Kiloton bomb will be nearly two kilometers wide and rise to over 10,000 meters in approximately 20 seconds. The supersonic shock wave travels faster than the speed of sound and has a trailing exothermic reaction."

She slapped the book closed, put it on the radio, and then simply stared at me with a haughty smirk. I simply nodded and really hated her for a moment. But as fast as my hatred had arisen, it subsided, and I was back to critical thinking mode. We didn't have any clothing with us. We had not taken our saddlebags with us when we fled for our lives, which meant that we didn't even have our scarves. I also noted, despite having a much lesser impact on our odds for survival, that I didn't even have my hoof file. No food, no clothes, and no file was shaping up to be a much rougher week than I had planned.

I misplaced blame on Ditzy for not allowing me to take my mountain of luggage, as if I would have had the time and the means to take it with me to the cellar, but I was still secretly upset with Ditzy for not allowing us to be prepared. I recognized that it wasn't rational to be mad at her for it, so I mentally pushed it aside and decided not to bring it up.

"Is there no way that we can go outside for the next week?" I asked desperately as if she was withholding information.

Ditzy slightly shook her head, "Rarity, we can go outside after 24 hours and survive it today, but we run the risk of radiation poisoning."

I nodded again, but I threw a little fit while I was at it and plopped myself on the floor, "I'm hungry."

"Me too, Rarity." Ditzy said flatly, and then she threw a fore-hoof up. "I motion for a new rule in the cellar."

I squinted at her.

"If the motion isn't unanimous, it won't carry." She smiled like this was a game.

This wasn't any game; it was our lives she was joking about. I continued to stare down her smile as if I were going to interrogate it. What do you think you're doing here? You don't belong here in this peril, I thought to myself. I realize that she was just trying to keep me in good spirits, but I didn't quite understand the point. I didn't want to play this game anymore. First of all, if I lost, I was dead. Second, it wasn't any fun, but then I thought about the night before. We had laughed, and talked, and joked for hours on end. I found myself hoping that today would be like that.

I pressed my mouth into a thin line and said, "Proceed."

"I move to ban the word "hunger", and all of its formth, from the cellar. At no time, will anypony within the cellar speak this word." Ditzy stated like a true officiant. "How does the committee vote?"

I nodded, "Aye."

"The motion carries." Ditzy said while she used an imaginary stamp to seal an invisible document, or was it to bang an imaginary gavel? I wasn't sure, but I wasn't going to ask about the details of her pretend world.

She smiled at me for a long time in an attempt to illicit reciprocation, but I sighed hard and lightheartedly said, "I'm starving."

Ditzy let out a short laugh and raised a brow at me. She took an imaginary paper, held it in front of her, pretended to read it, and then looked at me over invisible glasses, "New motion."

*** *** *** *** *** ***

Day three and I was very hungry, but I didn't dare voice it. Ditzy had chosen to open the door to the living space, and check to see if it was still like an oven in the outer room, but it felt more cold than anything else. The stagnant air could be choking at times, but it was better in the outer room because it was closer to the entrance way. I was afraid that we would be breathing the poisons from outside. Ditzy said that it was unlikely because the majority of the really dangerous stuff would be up in the air which is why it would be safe to go outside once it rains and the radioactive materials are flushed from the atmosphere.

In the outer room, there was a wooden door on the right from the living space, and the door didn't quite close because the earth had shifted since it was built. Inside was a one meter square of space that looked a lot like a closet, but there was a round hole, about 20 centimeters across, in the floor. When I shined my horn down inside, we couldn't see the bottom because it was so deep. Ditzy got the idea to drop something inside to see how deep it was. We also wanted to drop something that would help us determine what was at the bottom.

So, Ditzy took an average sized ceramic cup and dropped it into the hole. We stood next to one another in the doorway, with our ears turned toward the hole and listened for a shatter when it hit the bottom, or a clanging as it collided with the sides of the pipe. Instead, there was an abrupt, squishy splash that happened much sooner than expected. The sound made me imagine that it had landed in a thick puddle of mud, but then the smell was unmistakably not mud.

"Celestia's mercy!" I exclaimed while forcing my way out and knocking Ditzy over, "It's an outhouse!" I screamed and retched. I tried to keep running away, but I collapsed onto the floor after tripping myself on my own hooves. The smell was one of the most horrendous things that my nose has ever had the misfortune of sensing, but I could not help but be completely overcome with laughter. It was so gross, it was hilarious.

"Close it! Close it, Rarity!" Ditzy shouted through her own fit of giggling. She didn't get up from the floor, but she kicked wildly at the door frame to scoot herself away from the growing aroma of rotting equine excrement rising from the toilet-hole. My magic flashed over the door, and it slammed against the frame. I wiggled it up and down, side to side, and every which way to try to make it seal shut, but it simply wouldn't.

"Oh, no! It won't close, dear!" I guffawed despite being nearly out of breath from laughing so hard. Ditzy tried to respond while she repeatedly kicked the door with her rear hooves, but her voice was reduced to just a wheeze, and her eyes were squeezed closed from the ferocity of her smile.

I released the door as she and I clamored to get out of there and back into the living room. We burst through the door with so much force that our limbs had somehow become entangled, and we tumbled into Señor Jerky which broke one of his legs. Ditzy ended up with her rump in the air over the chair's arm and the back of her head on the floor, and I had tried to clear Señor Jerky, but hit the radio face first.

There was a moment where we were all balanced on legs of furniture that weren't supposed to stand that way. Then we, and the furniture, slowly toppled onto the floor. I landed on my back, on top of the radio, and my head was trapped under the right arm of the chair. It hurt, but I was laughing too hard to care. The chair lifted from me, and I looked up at Ditzy.

She appeared horrified and asked, "Oh, my gosh. You okay?"

"I'm fine, darling." I answered with a smile to prove it. I rolled off the radio and put my hooves on the floor. I used my magic to right the radio and the chair, but Señor Jerky would stand no longer on only three legs. I gathered the water bottles that had been flung around the room and quickly stood them all in a corner. I also felt a warm wetness on my face and figured out why Ditzy was so concerned. My head wound was bleeding from the intense play.

I took the hunting knife from the locker, cut a small piece of fabric from the floor cover on the chair, and wet it with a small amount of water, "I'm so glad that we can stop re-using the bottles. I was really beginning to miss doing business in privacy."

Ditzy nodded, "I'm just happy we have a contingency plan for number twos. What were we going to do about that?"

I did a playful shudder while dabbing the blood from my face, "We need not even think about that."

*** *** *** *** *** ***

The following day, we'd become more confident, and we'd venture to the exit chamber of the cellar. We'd look up at the door and see the light from it to guess what time of day it was, or to see if it was night. Ditzy didn't seem too dependent on it, but I needed that ground of knowing what kind of time has passed. It was a teensy-weensy bit of normality in our newfound world of seclusion, and all I needed to keep my head screwed on straight. For now, that is. I wasn't sure how much longer I could go without eating.

We'd rooted through the outside room more, and we found an actual closet, but it had the opposite problem of the bathroom. It took us the entire day of prying and slamming to get it open, but we were eventually rewarded with the clothes inside. The clothes smelled terrible as if they had been washed in the cove to the east of here, and probably because they had been.

There were four heavy coats, three pairs of blue jeans, and one pair of pajama bottoms. There were four sets of shoes: One set of rain boots, two different styles of work boots, and a set of bunny slippers. Balled up on the floor was two t-shirts, one black and the other brown, and both had questionable stains along the waist and up the center. On top of the pile was a black hoofball cap, an old pair of Wonderbolt goggles, and a black pair of mirrored sunglasses. The sunglasses' frame were bent so badly that when I picked them up, one of the lenses popped out. I was disappointed that there were no socks, but I wasn't complaining.

I made my way back to the living room, but Ditzy stopped in the bathroom without saying anything. I sat down on the recliner and started to sing to myself, not because I felt like singing, but because it was really quiet down in the cellar, and I didn't wish to listen to Ditzy urinate.

My vocal solo of Beethoven's 5th wasn't a good performance, but I wasn't really trying. Ditzy would always announce her return with some compliment about how she wishes that she could sing, and that she thinks my voice sounds beautiful. I really should just tell her why I do it, but I'm afraid that she'll be embarrassed to learn that I simply listened the first time. And she was quite... flatulent.

Maybe she knew, but she never extended the courtesy to me when I went, so I figured that she did not. It was just my luck that when she finally had to go, we had already discovered that we had a bathroom. Before that, she always performed her bodily functions while I was asleep. The first day in the cellar, it took quite some time for my shy bladder to release a single drop, because I had to pee in a water bottle only a meter and a half from her in the same room.

"Gosh, your voice is beautiful, Rarity." Ditzy said while closing the door behind her.

"Thank you, sweet heart." I said. I looked at the water cabinet and quickly counted. We were already down to half of our supply. We averaged about three bottles a day so far which wasn't good for the potential time-frame that we may end up staying here.

"We should cut down on the water." Ditzy said.

"Great minds think alike. I was just pondering that myself." I said, and I screwed the lid on my water bottle.

"If we do one a day, we'll be okay for about a week more." She said while looking the cabinet over.

"That sounds like a plan." I agreed. The chair squeaked as I leaned back in it. The reclining mechanism really didn't like to be moved since I had taken the rest of the legs off of it.

It sounded easy in my head, but I thought about how much more difficult it would be in practice. While our lives weren’t in danger, it was nice to distract ourselves and pretend like the world above us had not gone to Tartarus. But still, despite all the distractions, the ache in my belly from the emptiness was nearly unbearable sometimes. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Hunger pains were doing their thing once again.

Ditzy looked me over and nodded, "Yeah, I get..." She stopped herself from speaking the unmentionable word, "I feel it sometimes, too. I didn't know it would hurt so bad."

"Oh, I'm alright dear." I assured her. "I'm just being a big baby."

Ditzy laughed while giving me a shrug which told me she understood that it was exactly as bad as I was making it out to be.

"Sure," I started, but stopped to take another cleansing breath, "It is horrendous and debilitating, but what are we to do about it?"

Both of Ditzy's eyes focused on the radio for a moment, and then she said, "We should eat Señor Jerky. He probably contains many calories because of certain activities that likely occurred on him before."

I smiled through a disgusted scoff, "Oh, Ditzy. That's gross."

She smiled bigger, "Did you know that there are up to 25 calories in one teaspoon of-"

I held a hoof up, and my laughter cut her off, "Okay, okay, that's enough, dear. Really."

Ditzy's head cocked to one side, and she analyzed me. I couldn't figure out what she was thinking, and we'd become quite good at reading each other during our four days in the cellar. She held up a hoof like she was going to say something, but then her hoof returned to the floor. She looked away from me, and she chewed her lip for a moment before she looked back at me.

"Rarity?" Ditzy said while sitting on the floor. "Can I talk to you?"

I laughed again, "What else is there to do down here, Darling?"

"It's personal." Ditzy said.

"Darling, you had the fortune of being in the same room while I urinated in a bottle. I'm fairly certain that we can handle personal questions." I said.

"Why did you come onto me at the hotel?" Ditzy asked.

The air became even more still, and I felt a hard pinch of regret. I was drunk when that happened, despite the fact that I really did like her, I don't know if I would sleep with her. I was into stallions, and I'd never even fooled around with a mare. It wasn't that I'd never thought about it, I was just never presented with the opportunity. I don't really remember why I came onto Ditzy, but I distinctly remember doing a lot of things because I felt sorry for her... Gosh, all those things because of her lisp, her eye, her demanding job, and lack of friends... I really hope that wasn't the reason I did that, too.

"I was quite intoxicated, Ditzy." I said with a smile and a tiny shake of my head.

She shrugged, "I've always heard that drunken words are just sober thoughts. So, I guess what I'm asking is; why didn't you tell me you were attracted to me before?"

While it's true a drunk pony may be more forthcoming with their darkest opinions, actions are a bit of a different story. Things tend to get mixed together. Ditzy has a fit body, pretty eyes, and a kind face. I do think that she's beautiful, sure, but my opinion that she's beautiful, and my desire for sex, was very unrelated until that line became blurred by alcohol.

"Well, it's complicated." I lied. I wanted to spare her feelings, but at the same time, I wanted to shut this down so hard that she never brought it up again. All of her methods of raising my spirits were working; I believed she was manufacturing my will to live through jokes, play, and enthralling conversation, but I didn't want it to be anything more. I didn't want it to be more complicated than it needed to be.

"Is it because I worked too much?" Ditzy asked while turning a fore-hoof over to me.

Excellent! She's the type to answer her own questions. My first thought was to allow her to come up with the answers that she's comfortable with, and then I can just affirm all of her suspicions until she drops it.

"You were just not really around that often, and I didn't want to become emotionally attached to somepony who wasn't there very much." I continued to lie my flank off.

Ditzy gave me an understanding nod, and then, with a small shrug and a smirk, she said, “I’m here now.”

“Yes, you are.” I said quietly. How could I have not seen that coming? What was I going to say? I couldn’t tell her that we were in a hole in the ground hiding from invisible poison in the air because our city was bombed and all of our friends are probably dead; therefore, I’m not in the mood... wait... I guess I could say that.

I’d just started to respond when she quickly moved and hopped onto me. She straddled my rear legs, had one fore-hoof curled up against herself, and the other on my chest. She sat up straight, fanned her wings, and stared me down with a super playful, naughty smile. That wonderful, infectious smile of hers.

And then suddenly, I thought: Would that really be such a bad thing?

*** *** *** *** *** ***

Ditzy stared at the bug for such a long time, and I just kept telling her that it wasn't worth it. She kept saying that she was joking, but I could tell that she was half-serious about devouring a live cricket. When we first found it, we'd spent several minutes searching the entire room, outer room, and exit chamber for ways that it could have gotten in. We concluded that it had to have came in from between the cracks of the front door.

"Please, dear." I said, "I could never kiss you again knowing that you ate a bug."

She put her chin against the floor in front of the bug and continued to watch it. "I'm not going to eat it, silly. I already said I wouldn't."

"Okay, then leave it alone and come back here." I said while moving the coats with my magic. We were using the coats that we'd found as blankets. That crazy pony must have been huge because his jackets were enormous. Two of the coats provided just enough padding to make the floor seem a lot less like... well, a floor.

She shuffled backward without picking up her head as it crawled a few centimeters toward her. "I will. It's just the most interesting thing of the last few days." Ditzy said before looking at me and continued, "Well, except for last night."

I laughed, "Come on, darling. I'm cold over here."

"But, what if it gets out?" Ditzy said, and then she leapt off the floor and screamed. "Ahh!! It's on me!"

She pawed crazily at her face, writhed on the floor for a moment, and sprang to her hooves. Her eye shifted wildly in search of the cricket.

I was still laughing when I saw it crawling next to Señor Jerky, "There it is, darling." I pointed to it with a hoof.

She said, "Oh!" and put her chin back on the floor. This time she was behind it and believed she was safe from it jumping on her face again.

Ditzy was so playful in a way that I've never really been my whole life. Something about her brought out another pony in me altogether, and she inspired me to play hard. Truth be told, I'm not sure if it was her, or the distraction she provided from the hunger or the horrific predicament. Either way, I was really feeling something for her.

Our water supply had gotten especially thin last night during the periods of required hydration. She was magnificent, not to mention clearly experienced, and gasping constantly really dries out the mouth. So, we agreed that we'd cheat a little on our daily limit.

I sat up to see the bug as well. Its tiny antennae danced in all directions, and then it would move a few centimeters. It was really, very boring. I didn't see the point in staring at it, but suddenly I realized that I was doing it too. Here we both were, two full grown mares, watching a cricket be a bug.

"Shall we play a game?" I asked, and then I pointed at the bug again. "I don't know how good this is for the sanity."

"Something like last night?" Ditzy smiled without taking her attention off the bug.

"I don't think our water can survive another round, sweetie." I said and shook my head with a smile.

She nodded slightly despite her chin on the floor, "We were bad last night. Let's stick to the original plan with the water."

"Right." I nodded. "Anyway, I was thinking 20 questions or something."

Ditzy made her mouth small, and she blew softly on the cricket. Its hind leg moved upward, but other than that, it didn't seem to mind. She took a breath and blew a little bit harder, but it didn't do anything different.

"Okay." She sighed, "Can I go first?"

I agreed, but she didn't move from watching the cricket.

"Is it a pony?" She asked.

"No." I answered.

"Is it big?"

"Yes. Well, maybe." I pondered for a moment. "What is big to you?"

She looked at me. "That's not how this game works."

I nodded and smiled, "Okay, then yes. I think it's big."

She looked back at the cricket. "Does it move?"

"Yes."

"Is it fast?"

"Very." I said with a breathy voice. The idea of it exhausted me.

Ditzy smirked, "Is somepony driving it?"

"Yes." I said with an upward inflection because I knew she was onto it, but then my smile faded as I came to realize that the mare we were talking about was likely no longer with us.

Ditzy looked at the floor somberly and stood up. I think she read my face and came to the same conclusion that I did. She asked, "Is it a taxi?"

I nodded slowly, but remained mute.

So many ponies were probably dead. Surely, we weren't the only ones that made it out alive, but in a city of at least half a million, even one percent was 5,000 dead ponies, and it was painful to think about. How were we going to fix it? That really was the question which fueled my despair and hopelessness. I knew that we couldn't bring ponies back from the dead, but the survivors were all going to have to live with the fallout. Dangerous radiation lasts for several lifetimes, and all of us would have to endure the threat of coming into contact with it.

I thought of my sister, Sweetie Belle, who was with my parents in Ponyville. I thought of Twilight and what her fate could have been. She would have been a target, which wasn't comforting, but I wasn't sure that she was dead. I wanted to see all of my friends, but Twilight the most because I believed, so wholeheartedly, that she had been attacked personally. I worried for all of them, and I even worried for all the ponies that I'd never met.

Finally, I asked, "How many do you think made it out?"

"I hope all of them." Ditzy said with a dark smirk in recognition that it was so unrealistic.

I let out a half-scoff and half chuckle, "Right? Wouldn't that be hysterical if we are the only ones in Vanhoover because we went the wrong way?"

"Hilarious." Ditzy stated flatly.

A sudden, but familiar, stabbing pain struck me in the stomach, "Ooh, geez." I exclaimed.

"What's up?" She asked and picked up her head from the chair to look at me.

"Nothing." I said as I doubled over and hugged myself over the belly. "I'm just..." I cut myself off before I made the same mistake Ditzy had yesterday. "It's nothing."

"Oh, I see. You're feeling... "it", huh?" Ditzy asked.

I nodded.

"I'm sorry." Ditzy consoled.

I didn't see her move to me, but she rubbed my back softly and hugged me. The pain was so bad I felt like I could cry. It was so sudden, but that was the downside to being consistently distracted by an entertaining pony. When my needs wanted to be felt, they didn't even give me the satisfaction of being gradual.

I took a deep breath and sat up straight, but I didn't let my belly go. I let out the breath really slow and saw the concern on Ditzy's face. I was worrying her, and that wasn't fair to her. I thought to myself, Toughen up, Rarity. Stop being soft and swallow this. It made me laugh and shake my head. It's not like you'll be swallowing anything else.

"You're okay, Rarity." Ditzy continued.

My chuckle at myself was overcome by sobbing, "They're all dead, aren't they?"

Ditzy didn't answer for a moment, and then said, "You've got to have hope."

"How?" I cried. "How do I have hope in a situation that's so... hopeless?"

"Rarity, listen." She grabbed my face with her fore-hooves and sat on the floor in front of me, "You've got to have hope. If you lose hope, you've got nothing."

Ditzy released me, and then I nodded slowly. I really hoped that Twilight was still alive. I figured if anypony was going to help me find my family, it would be her. I also hoped that Ponyville was still there when we got back. I had a distant, unrealistic, and utmost desire that all five of my friends would convene in Ponyville at the same time. We'd hug each other endlessly and, amidst the embrace, come up with a plan to save Equestria.

I finally looked at Ditzy, and she was hunched over and clutching her belly. We embraced each other, and simply hoped together silently for a long time through the pain.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

I think it was day 6, I couldn't be sure, but I was certain that my belly ached with the emptiness of a gourd. The sensation of hunger was a recurring feeling that would always return more fierce than before. If I was thirsty, I didn't feel very hungry, but as soon as water touched my lips, the swell of void would remind me that it had been several days since my last meal. The hunger became a nauseating churn that would cause a horrifically conflicting sensation that I was going to vomit. We just sat on opposite sides of the room, past small-talk, or doing anything, and were hunched over with our mouths open like the forces of the universe would deliver food directly into our stomachs.

After several hours of staring at a book and not really reading it, Ditzy sneezed. Only my eyes moved, and I said, "Bless you."

I silently cursed to myself. The motion of my mouth started another wave of debilitating pain through my abdomen. I simply clenched my teeth, closed my eyes, and waited for it to pass.

Ditzy cursed through gritted teeth, "I'm doing it again."

"Me too." I said.

"I would pull the trigger on the smallest, cutest bunny right now." Ditzy strained to speak.

"I would crush a filly's dreams." I responded.

I'm not sure when or who started this, but we began stating things that we would do for food at the moment. One of us would say something horrible, and the other would try to top it. It was our current distraction.

"Good one." Ditzy said, "but would you smash a priceless painting over the head of an Alzheimer's patient?"

"Yes. Then I'd wait until they forgot, and then I'd hit them again." I said with a restrained chuckle. I noticed that we became quite dark after such a relatively short time in the cellar. I never understood gallows humor, but then again, I'd never suffered like this before.

"I'd stab myself in the eye with a splintery, wood stake." Ditzy said.

I exhaled slowly through my teeth to try an alleviate the ache, but to no avail. I'd tried it a hundred times before, and it didn't work then either, "Take a bath..." I began to say, but it turned into a pitiful groan.

"Take a bath?" Ditzy wheezed a chuckle weakly without regard to my moans of agony. It's not that she didn't care about me anymore, they had simply become commonplace. There was a few times that I heard her crying in the night. I didn't bother asking what was the matter, because I already knew.

I took a deep breath and finished my statement. "Take a bath in salty vinegar and razor blades."

Ditzy smiled at me for a long time, and I noticed that her beautiful golden eyes were so badly bloodshot because she hadn't slept since the day before. Or the night before, I really wasn't sure. We had not the motivation to check the doors.

She finally gave me a conceding nod, "Good one, Rarity."

"What are we going to do when we finally get out of here?" I asked, "I think we need masks and something to cover our ears."

"We should kill Señor Jerky for his fur." Ditzy suggested, "I'm sure that you know how to make bandannas for our faces."

I nodded, "Yes. I'll make something to wear under that hoofball hat to cover the ear-holes, and then I can make a cloth cap."

That feeling like I was going to throw up nothingness returned. It felt as if the emptiness was clawing its way out of my throat and threatening to turn me inside out, but I fought through it and took the hunting knife in my magic.

I pointed the blade at Señor Jerky, "Today, you die."

Ditzy suddenly whispered loudly, "Rarity! Did you hear that?"

We were still and silent. I didn't even blink or breathe, but all I could hear was the sound of blood rushing through my ears as I listened harder and harder. Ditzy's nose whistled quietly as she took in a slow breath, and then there it was! A muffled crack and distant rumble from outside. It was really far away, but I dropped the knife, and we both galloped for the exit chamber. I almost started up the ladder, but I just put a hoof on it and stared intently at the pair of iron doors. I watched the tiny bit of light in the cracks with such intensity that I was beginning to have a spot in my vision from it. I was trying to decide if the light was darker than normal thus indicating storm clouds above.

"That's not good." Ditzy said.

"What isn't good?" I asked, but I didn't look away.

Her fore-hoof appeared on my right and pointed to a small puddle of water in the corner on the floor to the left of the ladder. A clear stream ran all the way from the puddle to the doors above.

"It's raining outside!" I celebrated foolishly. "It's a drizzle, but it sounds like the real storm is on it's way!"

Ditzy briskly turned back, and started to the living room, "That's why we've got to move quickly." Ditzy explained, "Or we're going to be standing in radioactive run-off!"

I cursed to myself and then followed her, "Why can't things just be simple?!" I exclaimed, "Why can't rain just be a good thing?!"

Ditzy chuckled, "It is a good thing, Rarity. It just means that we're going to have to be a little bit faster."

"I can be fast." I said, and then I took the knife with my magic again and plunged it into Señor Jerky's back.

Ditzy did a small voice with a Spanish accent, "Ahhh! No, Rarity! ¿Por qué me traicionas?"

I just looked at her and smiled while the knife sliced all the way up to the headrest, across, back down, and then across the bottom which gave me a pretty good size piece of cloth to work with.

Ditzy continued, "Et tu, Rarity?"

I gave a small chuckle, "Enough, dear. Get some clothes on."

Thunder boomed across the sky. Despite being several meters underground, it sounded close. Ditzy's smile faded, and she cursed to herself. "Sorry, Rarity. I'll get to it."

As she separated the coats, pants, and shoes, my knife swiftly chopped through the fabric and left me with two triangles with extended wings. I put one over Ditzy's face, and she stared up at the ceiling while I tied it firmly over her mouth and nose. I made a rectangle with four thin strips on the corners and tied it onto her head while tucking her ears and mane inside it. She put on one of the coats which left the bottom of her hat perfectly tucked into the collar. She put the hood up, pulled the draw strings to close it around her face. She used her wings to pull a pair of blue jeans up to her belly, and then she slipped her hooves into a set of the work boots.

My magic lit up the strings, but she shooed it away, "I can tie my own shoes." She chuckled.

"Sorry, darling." I said, and then the knife cut more fabric from Señor Jerky's cushion which I figured, and hoped, was the least contaminated part after the rear of the backrest. I laid it on my head and pulled down on it, cut a small hole where my horn was poking it, and allowed my horn to tear through. I put the hoofball cap on over the fabric and pushed my hair into it. I hated to punish my beautiful mane in such a way, but a filly must survive.

I put on a coat as well, tucked the fabric coming from my cap into the collar, and then put on a pair of blue jeans. My father would be so happy about that since he always wears blue jeans and that stupid straw hat.

"Next time I see my father," I said while securing the back of my hat around my neck because my coat did not have a hood, "I'm going to tell him his hat is stupid." The other pair of work boots had a tear near the sole, so I discarded them, and wore the rain boots.

Ditzy's mouth jostled the makeshift bandana when she spoke, "When I see my boss, I'm going to tell him his glasses are dumb."

My smile prompted me to look at her, see her eyes smiling, and then I remembered the goggles. I took them in my magic, and put them between Ditzy's bandanna and cloth cap. I wiggled the straps into the cover, secured them tightly to her face, and I shared a little moment of joy that I could still see her eyes through the goggles.

I slipped the arms of the sunglasses into sides of my hat, and pressed them against my nose to try and fix the bent up frame. I tried my best to replace the lens, but it wouldn't stick, and then my face felt hot from my breath inside the bandana, and it fogged up the remaining lens. I discarded the glasses, and shrugged.

"I think I'll be okay." I said. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"You want my goggles? My eyes are already screwy." Ditzy offered.

"No, dear. It's okay. We may find something out there in an airtight case." I smiled extra big so that she could see it in my eyes.

"It's possible." She smiled back.

I pulled the hoofball cap's bill lower, to cover more of my face, and then started toward the door.

"Wait, the water." Ditzy said, and then she walked to the locker, and I saw her wing try to get a bottle, but she was restrained by the jacket. My magic lit up the remaining four bottles, and I stuck two in each of her coat pockets and two in mine.

"Okay, are we ready to go?" I asked. The hot breath from speaking blew air into my eyes. I used my magic to tuck the bandanna closer to my face to stop it.

"Can I say goodbye?" Ditzy asked as another crash of thunder sounded outside. I heard water trickling through the doors even from here.

"Whatever, dear. Quickly though." I said briskly.

Ditzy bowed to Señor Jerky and placed a hoof on his corpse, "We'll miss you. You've served us well."

I laughed briefly, "Okay, let's go, darling."

We trotted to the exit chamber while being careful not to touch the water that began running down the walls. The exterior cellar doors lit up with my magic, and I opened it from the ground below.

There was the sky. Ominous and grey with silent lightning crawling across the clouds, and then a second later, emitting a powerful explosion. I never thought I'd be so happy to see the sky, but here I was, frozen in happiness at the clouds. The light rain patter was home. It felt like sweet, sweet comfort.

"Move your butt!" Ditzy called from behind me.

I apologized and crawled up the ladder with Ditzy in tow. As I climbed, I closed my eyes. The fear that I would witness a sea of dead ponies strewn in front of me slowed every step until my hoof ran out of rungs. My hoof planted itself on the concrete base of the cellar door.

Curious. The wind was cold, and it was snowing. All of our books claimed that nuclear winter was an exaggeration, but this... precious Luna, it was real. There was no more than a light misting in the air, but the runoff from the trees made it sound like it was raining. My eyes were open, but I kept them focused on the dirt below my hooves as I made way for Ditzy to exit as well. I heard her hoof-falls on the dirt to my right.

Ditzy let out a quiet, very profane, phrase which didn't help me want to see what I was standing before. I looked at her to ask, but was taken aback by the trees around us. They were all burned, and the ground below me wasn't dirt; it was blackened grass. My eyes involuntarily tracked around and revealed the distant orange glow of Vanhoover that, nearly a week after the attack, was still burning. It wasn't snowfall, it was ash.

I wanted to dive back into the cellar, and stay there until I died. I didn't want to face this. I couldn't. There was nothing to go back to. Hopelessness overtook my ability to move, to breathe, or to do anything. I closed my eyes and pushed it aside in my head. I can do this. I will find my friends, and we'll fix this.

Determination set in, and I looked at Ditzy. She was smiling? What? Why?!

And then I read it in her eyes. I felt it coming, and I knew what she was going to say. Suddenly, I was smiling too. I thought it was a horrible miscalculation in attempting to keep me in good spirits, but I'll be damned if it didn't work.

Suddenly, we simultaneously yelled at each other, "I'm hungry!"

Author's Note

I can ship any ponies I want.

11/30/2016 - This chapter was awfully full of typos and spelling errors. (I guess I don't know how to spell "lens".) I corrected a few run-on sentences and fixed some passage-breaking mechanics.