Object Permanence

Dodge Junction had moved on in the past few years. It was empty. Desolate. Quiet. The kind of maddening quiet that allows one to hear his own heartbeat and causes one to be startled by the occasional gust of wind. Wind was rare right now in Dodge Junction, Gallo was grateful for this. The desert was calm but it wouldn't stay that way forever. Gallo knew that sooner rather than later he would need to take shelter in one of the town's abandoned buildings while harsh winds slung sand, dust, and grit up against the structures of Dodge Junction. Like fists they would beat against everything, rattle the foundations of the structures that would not be around for too many more years now that there was nopony here to take care of them. Anything not properly tied down would move on with the wind. With nopony here anymore anything that the wind would take with it if a storm came had already been taken by the winds of a storm past. The town had already been stripped by the elements until there was nothing left except the old buildings with failing foundations. Gallo wondered when the next storm would be and how long it would last. He knew he would get at least a six or a seven hour warning as the horizon many many miles away would darken as though the sky had caught a nasty disease that was rapidly spreading towards Dodge Junction. The atmosphere would just have to tough its ailment out until the darkness passed and the sky returned to its familiar yet beautiful light blue hue with the occasional cream colored cloud that would dance by. But for now, Dodge Junction and the seemingly endless desert that surrounded it were quiet. Dodge Junction was dead. Equestria was dead. Applejack was dead. Gallo wondered if maybe he too were dead. Perhaps this was Hell. Or perhaps just a terrible dream that refused to end.

No. Not a dream. Gallo had had plenty of those. If this was a dream he would have already awoken. The horrific things he's seen would have driven his sleeping mind past its threshold for discomfort and he would have been startled awake in a river of sweat and a symphony of rapid breathing overlaid with rapid heart rate. Gallo's dreams had always been surreal too. His mind would try to tell him things by blurring reality with symbolic imagery that meant something to him. The things the world now contained, while they would be fantastic and unbelievable to those of a previous time, were not surreal. There was only reality and the terrible thoughts that fill Gallo's mind as his five senses behold the the grim reality around him. Hell was not so easy a thing for Gallo to rule out. This could very well be the afterlife Gallo had earned for himself.

But Gallo figured that if this was indeed Hell, there would have been a very distinct, memorable moment of entry to this place. But the darkening of the world around Gallo seemed to have happened gradually. Everything (and everypony for that matter, including Applejack) had gone to shit slowly overtime. Things didn't instantaneously make a turn for the worse. It wasn't like Equestria was fine one day and then all of a sudden everything was horrific. This thought made Gallo uneasy. If this wasn't Hell, it meant that perhaps even worse things lie ahead for him. Some day his body would quit him and he would pass on to an afterlife that would surely be even worse than this life in Equestria. If this wasn't Hell, Gallo couldn't imagine what real Hell would be like. And surely, Gallo was going to end up in Hell. This he was certain of.

Gallo found himself pondering things such as this far too often these days. There was simply nothing else to pass the time. Gallo was alone. Applejack was with him but Gallo was alone nonetheless. He had said all that there was to be said to Applejack who only ever responded by giving him the dumb look a hungry dog gives its owner when spoken to. The world was too simple now. Initially when things started changing for the worse the world became more complicated but now it was simpler than ever before. Everything and everypony was gone. Most of the walking deceased had been put down or starved to death. As long as you avoided heavily populated cities you were relatively safe from those things. If there was anypony left besides Gallo who was still themselves, he didn't know it. As far as he was concerned he was the last. He was tired of looking for others. Gallo was alone, and this loneliness alone was enough to compare Gallo's continued existence in Equestria to an existence in Hell.

All Gallo did with the slow moving time he had left in Equestria was worry about the weather, scavenge for food (something he was a professional at these days), and think. So much thought. Too much thought. Occasionally, he would share these thoughts with Applejack. Her agitated reactions made Gallo believe that she too thought that he was thinking too much. He just didn't know how to turn his brain off, how to better spend his time. Gallo just wanted everything to end, but he didn't want a worse Hell than this. After all he had been through, he was still quite the coward. So on with life he would go. Applejack would move on with him too whether it was what she wanted or not, not that she had the ability to want anything at all. Gallo would go on thinking like a madman to himself and sometimes to Applejack until the desert decided that he was ready for a new Hell. Applejack was likely already there.