“Ugh.. my head..” Twilight lie in the warm sand, waves lapping at her hooves as the tide approached and retracted. The sun hung overhead, bearing down on the alien coast. Twilight slowly stood up, beginning to observe her surroundings. Ahead of her, past the coastline, extended a road that seemed to go on endlessly in either direction, left or right. Beyond the road, numerous pine trees occupied a grassy hill.
“..Where am I..?” She asked aloud, as if expecting an answer back. Her only reply came from the rumbling of the ocean waves, along with a new sound, something she hadn’t noticed earlier – flies.
Feeling nauseous, she stumbled backwards, landing in the sand. “Is that..? Oh Celestia..” In front of her lay a battered, bruised, and seemingly fresh, corpse. “What in Equestria..?” Twilight stood up, moving closer to the body. The deceased stallion lay facedown in the dirt, appearing to have nothing but a small saddlebag whose contents had been dumped out next to it. ”A saddlebag?” Twilight thought. ”That could come in handy later.. but..” Twilight guiltily looked down. “Sorry about this..” she said to the stallion as she reached down and carefully removed the beige saddlebag. Mounting the slightly too large bag rather awkwardly onto her back, Twilight began to gather the supplies that had been scattered next to the satchel.
“Painkillers.. a bandage.. and a flashlight..?” She accounted for the supplies as she threw them into the pouch. “Why would these be left behind?” Twilight darted her head from one direction to another, searching for any other equines, then turned her attention back to the provisions. “Well, I shouldn’t need these anyways. Not when I’ve got magic.” After zipping the bag closed, Twilight began walking towards the strangely paved road. “What is this stuff?” she wondered aloud, kicking at the black, rocky mixture. “This is too stra-”
“I’m friendly! I don’t want any trouble!” A distant stallion’s voice cried.
“What in the..?” Twilight whispered to herself as she turned towards the direction of the frightened voice, stammering to shout her reply. “I-I’m friendly too..!”
One.. two.. three.. four..
The seconds silently ticked by as an anxious Twilight began to search the treeline. “Are you still there..?” she yelled.
A hoof set itself on Twilight’s shoulder. “You need to be qui--”
“Ack!” she yelped, jumping slightly at the sudden contact. She looked over her shoulder to find a pair of knowing green eyes staring back at her.
“Hush. You can’t be loud out here,” the unknown stallion said.
“Then explain why you were shouting just a minute ago,” Twilight retorted as she turned around to face the stallion.
“I needed to know that you weren’t going to put a bullet in the back of my head. Not everyone is as friendly as I am,” the stallion said, keeping the same calm, relaxed appearance.
”You seem familiar..” Twilight thought to herself.
“What do you mean ‘everyone is not as friendly’ as you are?” she questioned. “You don’t seem especially friendly in the first place.”
The dirt brown equine gestured his head towards the road. “Come on. I’ll explain what’s going on on the way.”
“What do you mean ‘what’s going on’? And where are we heading, anyway?”
“Does it matter?” the stallion called over his shoulder, already beginning to walk down the road.
”I suppose I don’t have a choice..”
With a sigh, Twilight trotted to catch up to the stallion, then kept pace. “So, if you wouldn’t mind explaining who you are and what in Celestia’s name is going on now, that would be wonderful.”
“No point in keepin’ you ignorant. I’ll just get down to the basics, ‘cause it don’t seem like anything else really matters or needs to be known. Wherever we are, Twi’, it’s in a bad spot. An extremely bad spot. Now, I ain--”
“Wait wait wait,” Twilight interrupted as she stopped in the middle of the road. “Did you just call me ‘Twi’? How.. how do you know my name..?”
“Sometimes, Twi’,” her ear twitched as he called her that again, “things are better left without an answer. Now,” he concerningly said, “are you going to stand in the street and possibly get hit, or are you going to walk with me again?”
“Hit by what?” the purple mare cautiously asked.
“I can explain that later if you’ll stop bein’ so aggressive and come with me.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow, then hesitantly walked over to the stallion who had stopped and patiently waited for her.
“Now,” he continued as they began to fall into step again, “this ‘place’, wherever it is, is bein’ torn apart. We’re being attacked by the livin’ dead, Twi’.”
Twilight looked up to the stallion, her eyes a mixture of confusion and disbelief. “There isn’t any way we’re being attacked by ‘the living dead’. It’s impossible. The deceased don’t just rise up and atta--”
“They do,” he interrupted. “Why do you think we’re all in the position we’re in? Do ya’ see anyone else around us? Anyone at all?”
Twilight looked around, nothing but the green pine trees, a dark, infinitely expanding road, and the wavy blue ocean meeting her gaze. Regretfully, she shook her head.
“And it doesn’t matter,” he went on, “if you think it’s ‘possible’ or not. It’s happenin’. Now, if I can continue without bein’ interrupted, I would be much obliged.”
Twilight nodded as her eyes stared forward.
“Anyway, we’re bein’ hunted. Not just by these ‘zombies’, but by other ponies. Now, before you say anything,” he said as he held his hoof in front of Twilight’s mouth, “allow me to explain. It’s a pony versus pony world out there. Supplies here aren’t all that plentiful, and let me tell ya’, you don’t know someone until you’ve stared down the barrel of the gun they’re pointing at your head. And if you’re wondering what a gun is,” he chuckled, “I’ll get to that too.”
”For a supposed post-apocalyptic world,” Twilight thought to herself, “he sure manages to keep a sense of humor.”
“What I mean to say, Twi’, is that not everyone you meet is going to be the same as when you ‘left’. I can tell you right now that even the most honest of ponies turn to crime to get their meals, and it’s not the dead you should fear, Twi’. It’s the livin’, and if you want to survive out there, which I’m sure you no doubt do, then you’ll need to learn how to use on of these.” The stallion began to dig in a previously unnoticed saddlebag. Withdrawing a metallic, L-shaped object, he handed it to Twilight.
“What is this?” she asked.
“That,” he said, “that is a gun, and unless you plan on hurting someone, I recommend you don’t put your hoof on that curved piece of metal.”
Immediately, Twilight withdrew her hoof from the moveable steel.
“That metal is called the ‘trigger’. If you pull the trigger, the gun will fire a bullet. Next to reloading, that’s about all you need to know.”
“Don’t you think I should also know how to properly hold the darn thing?” Twilight frustratedly asked as she unsuccessfully tried to grab what appeared to be the grip.
“Can you hold a candle?” the stallion asked.
“Yes..” Twilight replied.
“Can you move your hooves?”
“Yes..”
“Then you can hold and fire a gun. You just need practice, which you won’t get much of if you’re not breathin’. You need to know how to properly reload bullets into the gun. You’re going to run out of bullets in your magazine, which is the metal that holds the bullets, eventually.” He began searching his pack again, this time pulling out a small I-shaped metal casing that was filled with bullets.
“I assume that’s the magazine?” Twilight rhetorically asked.
Nodding, the stallion handed it to her.
“The first step to properly reloading is to eject your old magazine. See that button on the side of the gun? Push it.”
Twilight did as she was told, applying force to the button. An empty magazine hastily exited the bottom of the gun, dropping to the ground.
"Now you need to take the full magazine and insert it into the bottom.”
Twilight attempted to mimic the orders, awkwardly missing the bottom of the gun before finally inserting the magazine.
“Now pull back on the top of the gun, which is the slide, and release. This will insert a bullet into the chamber, which is the area the gun fires the bullet from. Don’t forget to do this unless there is already another bullet in the chamber, otherwise you’ll be stuck having to do it later, when seconds really matter.”
Pulling back on the slide, Twilight heard a faint click come from inside the gun. She then released, allowing the slide to move back into place.
“You don’t have to pull back on the slide each time you fire a shot; only when you’re reloading without a bullet in the chamber. If you want to aim the gun, which wouldn’t be a bad idea, just look through the notch at the top.”
“Alright..” Twilight said, quizzically examining the gun.
“I know it’s a lot to take in on the first day, but you’d have to learn it sooner or later, and sooner sounded better than later.” He watched as Twilight repeatedly attempted to reload the gun, only for her to miss the bottom of the gun again or insert the magazine the wrong way. “Anyway,” he said, stopping in the road, “no use walkin’ if we aren’t going to be gettin’ to a town.” Looking up from watching Twilight get accustomed to the gun, the stallion stared off into the distance. Despite a slight fog masking them from sight, he eventually spotted two large, metal objects. “Twilight?” he said. “Do ya’ see those cranes off in the distance?”
Twilight stopped fumbling with the gun and looked back, only to notice she had walked past her mentor. She hastily trotted back over to him and looked to where he was staring. “I do.. barely. What about them?”
“We’re coming up on a city.”
“Really? Maybe we can find some of the survivors.” Twilight hopefully said.
Shaking his head, he replied, “Ain’t no one who has ever come back from Chernogorsk been lookin’ for friendship.”