Painful Truths

Foalhood is a wonderful time of life for a pony. Few responsibilities, problems or worries, all handled by the adults. One never needs to worry about hunting, scavenging, raiding or surviving when your parents took care of everything for you, and you simply got to play with friends and enjoy your life to the fullest until reality came crashing down.

For Ayize, the harsh weight of reality was bearing on her shoulders from the beginning. As a zebra in a village comprised primarily of earth ponies and a few unicorns, she felt the pressure of ostracization from as soon as she could comprehend it. The adults acted harshly towards her, and especially her parents. Her only solace was her friends, who felt no hatred towards anypony as of yet, and her parents themselves, who did their best to protect her.

While Ayize couldn’t see why, she knew she was different, and she knew she wasn’t liked for it. Her comfort when she was alone was technology. It was her escape, her outlet, her way of tuning out the world and focusing on something that fascinated her. At the age of 10 she had already created fully autonomous and controllable robots – though the village council was quick to stop her from doing so anymore.

Now, a 15 year old zebra filly with nowhere to go and nothing to do except keep her head down and behave, Ayize was beginning to resent her existence. She wanted to get out of here; she wanted to get her parents out of here.

“Ayize!” A young unicorn colt called towards the zebra as she strolled down the dirt road.

The striped equine blinked and looked up, her sharp blue eyes still holding innocence that most ponies her age didn’t have the luxury of retaining. She wasn’t allowed outside the village boundaries, so she had never seen anything besides safety.

“Hi, Cobalt.” She said softly. Her voice carried no accent like some of her Wasteland counterparts, though it did have a sweet tone to it.

“How come you didn’t show up to school yesterday?” He trotted up beside her, falling into stride.

Ayize scuffed her hoof along the dirt, kicking up a rock and letting it bounce into the dust beside the road. “No reason. Just didn’t go.”

“But we did a lot of work, you want me to give you the-“

“No.” Ayize said abruptly, then let her ears flop down. “I…sorry. Um…I’ll come by your house later, okay? Just…I need to be alone now.”

“Oh…uh…got it.” Cobalt nodded, the blue and yellow unicorn smiling and tipping his glasses. “I’ll see you later!”

As Cobalt turned and trotted in the opposite direction, Ayize folded her legs and sat down on the road. Right at the edge of town. She gazed out over the vast expanse of nothing and even more nothing, her eyes carrying a look of wonder that wouldn’t be present in a pony who had been allowed to freely venture out. “…hmh…” She sighed to herself, sitting there for a few minutes more before standing up and trotting back to the village.

The town of Redhoof was nothing special to behold. It was essentially what it advertised on the tin. It was dull, run-down (though one could say it was more upscale than other Wasteland settlements) and red. Rusty metal roofs, red dirt and dust, and a constant smell of various metals and sometimes foods made it a stable, albeit boring place to live.

Ayize had known no other, so as far as she was concerned, Redhoof was perfect. The whole town couldn’t have been more than a kilometer in diameter, and it was only home to about 50 ponies. Ayize and her family made up three of them. It was just her, her father, and her mother.

Her father worked hard to keep them happy. He was a maintenance worker for the town’s water supply, pumped in from a lake a few miles to the North. He maintained the water pump itself to ensure everypony had access to it. Her mother was just a stay at home mom – to Ayize, she had the most important job in the town. Every morning she’d wake up with a good breakfast and a warm welcome, all thanks to her mother.

As she nudged the door open with her head and used a hoof to make sure her mane was still in proper condition, she trotted up the rusty stairs to her bedroom. There, she glanced in the mirror.

She wasn’t anything special. A zebra, standard silver fur and dark grey stripes. Her mane was stuck up in a curved mohawk, with a braid at the back to keep it from spilling over her shoulders. Other than that, she was just ordinary. Of course, to the town, she was the most abnormal thing a lot of them had seen.

“Lookin’…eh, no I’m not.” She shrugged and plopped herself down on the chair in front of her metal workbench. She put on a pair of safety goggles that were probably more of a hazard at this point than the things she was tinkering with, and started working.

Whenever Ayize worked, she didn’t know what she’d be doing. She just started grabbing parts she had and putting them together. All of her parts were gathered from random dumpsters and trash cans around town, as well as the communal dump. She started fitting, screwing, wiring and snapping things together, watching a shape come together before her eyes. The shape of a dog, a cute little creature the size of…well…a dog.

“Psh.” She sighed and gave it a poke with her hoof. Sturdy enough. She could wire up a circuit board and basic command receiver to make it like the real thing, but she didn’t care that much. For now it just sat there, a metal husk that carried as little character as the ponies she came across every day. Adults were weird. She always wondered if she’d become like them one day.

“Here boy.” She picked up a wrench and tossed it onto her bed. “Fetch.” She knew it wouldn’t, but it was fun to imagine what having a pet would be like. There were a few domesticated animals around town, but not many.

Laying her head down on the desk, she let out a sigh that turned into a snort.

She heard a knock on her door, and an old but oh-so-friendly voice. “Now you know I didn’t get those for you just so you could throw ‘em around.”

Ayize couldn’t help but smile a little as she stood back up. “Sorry, mom. Just messing around.”

Her mother was getting on in age. Somewhere in her 50s, the zebra mare had large earrings, her mane styled in a braid that came down to her chest when she walked. She was beautiful, but the slight wrinkles around her eyes had been more apparent lately.

“Oh, I’m fooling with you honey. How’s your day so far?” She gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead and smiled brightly.

“Eh, same thing…again.” She shrugged. “I dunno. Just thinking.”

“About what?” Her mother inquired, picking up the wrench in her mouth and putting it on the desk.

“Just…I dunno. Kinda everything. Like what it’s like out there.” She gazed out her window, beyond the rows of ramshackle buildings.

The maternal zebra simply gave her a warm smile. “Now, you know I don’t know anything about that…but…” She slung one of Ayize’s blankets over her back, presumably to go wash it, before walking up beside her and gazing out the window with her. “I sometimes wonder too.”

“Why don’t they let us go out, mom?”

“Oh, that’s somethin’ I’ve never figured out.” She gave a playful, but insincere laugh. “Mmm. I’ve heard stories ‘bout how we were the enemy back in the war that made…all this.”

“I’ve heard…yeah.” Ayize continued to stare. “…mom, what do you think the world was like? You know…before this.”

“I don’t know anything about that, honey.” She sighed and shook her head. “But I like to imagine all this red used to be green…bright green, blue sky. None of these clouds up there.” She glanced at her daughter, then nodded. “I gotta do the laundry. You take care, alright? I’ll call you in later when dinner’s ready.”

“Yeah. Thanks, mom.” Ayize had an almost blank expression as she stared out the window at the expanse of rolling red and beige hills that were dotted with rusting metal and dry shrubs.

As evening fell, Ayize found herself on the outskirts of town again, sitting by the crudely drawn sign that welcomed any outsiders – ironic, given that in Ayize’s memory they had never had any. The town was isolated in the Equestrian Heartlands, surrounded by hills that almost hid it from view. You’d have to be lost to find it.

She kicked a rock again, this time letting it roll far away from the invisible boundary set before her. A bit of rebellion on her part – at least something she did would make its way out past the town’s tight restrictions. She slowly laid herself down, poised like a cat watching the distance.

She looked up into the sky. Still clouds. In school they told them that before the war, there used to be bright, luminous things in the sky called stars, and the brightest of all the objects above was the moon. Apparently they didn’t exist anymore. Or maybe the clouds just blocked it. Ayize didn’t have any compelling arguments for either side, since no one really looked up unless it was raining.

It confused her. The whole ‘reason’ for her restrictions confused her. She wasn’t any enemy, and the war happened 200 years ago as far as she knew. Why did they still treat her as if she knew or cared about it?

Another rock was kicked, another sigh was pushed out. She settled her head down on her front hooves, staring out down the road. Usually the daytime scavenging groups would be coming back soon. She liked to watch them return, and sometimes envision what they might have seen.

She hadn’t even realized how long she had been out until it got really dark. She felt a bit off. They never stayed out past dark. She kept staring into the distance, where she saw fading light on the horizon. For a moment she wondered if maybe that was what they called the ‘moon’.

Her thoughts were stopped when she saw the glow of lanterns cresting over the hill. A gentle smile of relief crossed her lips and she stood up, dusting off her front with a hoof. She could barely see them aside from what their torches illuminated, but she was ready to greet them, and thank them for bringing supplies as always.

She blinked a few times as they approached closer. Something didn’t feel right. She could see the ponies, but they were clothed in armour. Their scavengers just wore light suits. These ones had spikes all over their outfits, and they wore helmets and carried…

Her eyes went wide.

Guns.

Guns were something she knew a lot about. Their scavengers carried a few rifles, sure, but nothing like this. These ponies were wearing battle saddles with heavy guns, ones that were clearly meant to kill fast and hit hard, not deter. She started to panic as they got closer, nearly three hundred metres out now. There were so many – a caravan, hauling carts filled with empty cages and ammo.

Ayize did the only thing she could. She turned tail and ran, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“HELP!”

The town’s response wasn’t immediate, but once the ponies leaning out of their windows to see the commotion caught on to what was happening, their reactions were swift. They called from house to house, warning ponies until it reached the town hall, which was empty. The cries simply reverberated through the building and returned to the senders.

Ponies all around scrambled for their guns, and their locks. No one in the town was trained. Most probably hadn’t even fired a gun before. They were defenseless, despite being armed.

Ayize only knew one thing to do, and her legs had never carried her faster. She galloped until she slammed herself through the front door of her house, nearly breaking it off the hinges before she shut and locked it behind her. She could see her father, hitching on his battle saddle. Her father was a strong, tall stallion, with a mohawk much like Ayize’s and a scar over his left eye. He glanced at Ayize, immediately trotting up and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m glad you’re okay. I need you to hide. Go to your room, and don’t come out until you hear me say that it’s okay. Got it?”

The young zebra’s body was on autopilot, so her father’s command went without any discussion. She galloped up to her room, shut the door behind her, and dove under her bed. She had no idea what to do, what was happening, or who those ponies were, so she could only wait.

Relative silence. Ponies frantically scrambling. That was when the gunfire started. She could hear the cracks echoing through the night, a sound she was familiar with from the town’s gun range, but never this loud – or this many. She closed her eyes and held her hooves over her ears as the sound of bullets firing rapidly overtook any other sound, pony screams and crashes of metal falling apart just background to the sound of gunshots ringing through her mind.

Her brain took her away. She tuned it out. It wasn’t possible, but she tried. She stared out from under the bed, at the dog resting comfortably on her desk. He wasn’t scared. She shouldn’t be either.

That was stupid filly logic, she told herself. She was in danger. Everyone in the town was in danger. She couldn’t sit here under the bed and let everyone she knew die.

Ayize dragged herself back out and stood up, peering down out of her window. She could see fire, and ponies running back and forth. She couldn’t even tell who was who. Some houses were completely ablaze already, while others were toppled. She could see ponies firing, then being shot down themselves. She saw a mare trying to run, only to be tackled by an armoured stallion-

She didn’t want to watch anymore.

She looked around, finally spotting her father…

Her father.

The strong zebra was putting up a fight. With an assault rifle on his back and a bit in his mouth, he was firing at the enemy. She could see one of them go down, clutching at his stomach, and her heart fluttered in her chest. Her father would be fine – he’d help. He’d help drive them back.

*CRACK.*

Her hopes were dashed as easily as her window. Right as she watched a bullet strike her father in the shoulder, her window shattered. A bullet whizzed through her mane and she fell backwards. She scrambled to get back up immediately, but she couldn’t see her father anymore. He was gone. A scream worked its way out of her throat, but it made no sound. The house itself cut it off for her, as the metal gave way to the impact of a large, heavy cart that slammed itself into the foundation. Her roof caved in, the sharp and heavy material crashing down on her as the whole house fell into a heap of scrap. Her vision went black.

Pain. Sharp, burning pain was what woke her up. Her eyes shot open, bloodshot and frenzied as she almost immediately tried to scramble to her hooves. Her mouth was dry, her vision blurred, but she needed to get up.

She couldn’t, though. She tried to put her right foreleg forward, but instead she just fell and landed in the sand. The searing pain came again, jolting up her right side and through her whole body. She would have screamed if her throat wasn’t as dry as the sand she was lying in.

Her vision cleared as slowly as the pain did, each breath taking particles of sand into her mouth. She coughed and retched, very nearly vomiting. She probably would have, if she had anything in her system.

She managed to pull herself partially up, leaning on her right side as she scanned the area. She was lying in…nothing. Behind her was a gas station, or at least that was what she assumed it to be, and beside her was…

“C-cobalt…?”

Her blue unicorn friend was unconscious beside her. He was lying on his back. All around the two of them were scorch marks, crackling out in all directions as if inflicted by electricity.

“C…” She coughed and wheezed a bit, clearing her throat and dragging herself over to her unicorn friend. “C…Cobalt…?”

“Nnngh…” The unicorn stirred, but something was wrong with him. His horn was no longer on his head. It was broken off, and the broken part was nowhere to be seen.

“C-cobalt, what happened?” Ayize managed to rasp, her throat barely able to make a sound with how dry it was. “Where…wh-where…are we?”

“Just…somewhere…safe…” Cobalt wheezed, clutching at his forehead. He couldn’t open his eyes, not yet. They were clenched shut. Plus…he didn’t want to have to look at Ayize after what had happened.

“Wh…b-but…what happened to Redhoof?” She asked, dragging herself closer. She couldn’t feel her right foreleg.

“Raiders…attack…” Cobalt groaned out, gritting his teeth as he tried to stop the throbbing pain in his head.

Ayize wasn’t sure what to say. She had never heard of a raider before. Was the town just gone? “Well…where are we?!”

“Need…water…first…” Cobalt said shakily, managing to open his eyes. He couldn’t help but wince as he looked up at Ayize standing over him.

In place of her right leg, she just had a stump. A bloody, slashed stump. He presumed a piece of sharp metal had come down and sliced her leg clean off, because she had looked like that when he found her.

“Water…I…yeah. We can…we can think clearer then.” The zebra agreed, starting to stand up, only to fall flat on her face, her right side digging into the ground and sending waves of pain up her body. She barely managed not to shriek, her breaths heavy and painful. “What…wh-why can’t I feel my leg?! Cobalt!” She tried to pull herself up again, but she felt the unicorn push his side under her for support.

As she was lifted, she got a good look at her right size. A wave of nausea hit her immediately, and she probably would have thrown up if there was anything in her system allowing her to do so. Her leg was just…not there.

“My…my leg…wha…” She was borderline hysterical now, but her body didn’t have enough nourishment to allow her to express it.

“Calm down, Ayize. We need to find water, and bandages.” She had little say in the matter, leaning on her friend for support as she limped towards the gas station.

Once they were inside, Cobalt gently sat Ayize down against the counter and started rummaging through the boxes around the store. Most of them had been empty, but out of sheer luck he managed to find one that had a (very warm) bottle of water and a few bandages that were far past sterile, but better than nothing.

He walked back out to Ayize and first let her take a drink of water. He wasn’t used to holding things without his horn, so he ended up spilling some. He quickly took a few gulps for himself, and poured the rest on her wound to wash off the sand. Ayize yelped and gritted her teeth in pain – probably the worst pain she had ever felt, really – but stuck through it, even as the unicorn pressed the bandage into the wound and wrapped it around her, around her neck, under her body, and back around, until it had all been used.

Cobalt sat down across from her, watching the zebra pant and recover from the pain of the makeshift patching job.

“So…” He said slowly, his voice more audible now that he had drank.

“…” Ayize didn’t answer. She stared at the floor. “They’re…all dead…aren’t they…?”

“N-no, don’t say that!” Cobalt smiled in an attempt to be reassuring, sliding closer to her. “It’s…well…I…”

Ayize wasn’t convinced, and it showed. A few tears that were smaller than they usually would be due to dehydration rolled down her cheeks, plopping onto the ground under her. “We…we should…uh…” She wiped her left hoof across her eyes, but didn’t finish what she had to say.

“…rest?” Cobalt suggested. “We might need to…it’s getting dark.”

“…” Ayize’s eye twitched a bit. “Y-yeah…let’s…do that.” She nodded, looking back up to meet Cobalt’s eyes. “Um…help me up? We should go into the back room, just…just in case…”

Cobalt nodded and pulled himself up, helping the zebra stand. He supported her as they both walked into the back room, which was devoid of anything except boxes. Ayize sat down on a pile of them, and slowly laid herself back. It was the best they could do.

Cobalt had the same idea, the colt lying flat down on an unfolded cardboard box. “I…” He started, but then thought better of it. “G’night. We’ll…talk in the morning. When we’re both rested.”

“…” Ayize didn’t answer. She just blinked at the ceiling.

Hours ticked past. The zebra couldn’t fall asleep. She couldn’t even close her eyes when they started to burn. Every time she shut her eyes she could only see the image of that cocky looking raider mare, with a striped tail vanishing down her throat. The sight of a bullet striking her father in the shoulder.

She slowly sat up, looking down at Cobalt. “Hey…Cobalt? You awake?”

Silence permeated so deep she felt like she was being stabbed by it.

“…right…” She sighed and sat back again, gently poking at the bandages on her right side and wincing.

She closed her eyes again. She saw the same images flashing through. She expected to feel horrible, gut-wrenching sadness and pain again, but it didn’t come. Instead she kept her eyes closed, the memory rewinding and replaying over and over again…

Suddenly she found herself on the floor. Her eyelids fluttered as she looked around, pulling herself up. She could stand, albeit shakily, on three hooves. She looked down at Cobalt. The colt was sleeping soundly. There was no light coming through the window, so she assumed it was fully nighttime.

“……”

She gulped. What was this? She felt cold. Her body was struggling with something but she didn’t even know what.

She glanced back at Cobalt, the window, her right side. She repeated the process three times until she was just looking between him and her leg. He has all four legs… she started shaking. Why…why does he get all four legs?!

Her breathing quickened, her mind cluttered with nothing but jumbled images, words and red. Her eyes darted around the room and zeroed in on a set of shelves in the corner. With a bit of effort, she reared up and slammed her hoof into it, knocking it over. She picked up one of the sharp shelves in her mouth, glaring back at the colt on the floor as the clatter of metal made him groan and rub his head.

“Ayize…” He grunted. “You..okay?” Cobalt slowly opened his eyes. His pupils shrank to the size of a pinprick as he saw the mare standing on her hind legs over him, a sharp piece of metal in her jaws.

“…Ayize…what…what are you…”

Ayize came down. The loud crash of metal against concrete cut through the silence of the night, followed immediately by a howl of agony.

The metal had sliced clean through Cobalt’s left leg, so sharp that it had severed it completely. Blood was pouring through the wound.

“AAAGH! A-AYIZE! WHAT THE FUCK?!” Cobalt wailed, clutching at his left side and roaring in pain. The zebra stood over him, panting heavily and gritting her teeth.

“Y…you…don’t get…four…” She said slowly and shakily.

“Wh-what the fuck are you talking about?!” Cobalt yelled. The bleeding wasn’t severe, but it was immensely painful. “Y-you chopped off my FUCKING LEG!”

The colt didn’t have time to yell anymore before Ayize lashed out with a hind leg, teetering on her balance as her hoof slammed into his head and he saw stars, before he saw nothing.

“You…don’t g-get…f-four…” She stammered, tears freely rolling down her cheeks. She leaned down to him, grabbing his mane in her teeth and stumbling as she dragged him out of the back room, into the garage attached to the gas station.

The following morning, only one pony left. Ayize stood briefly in the middle of the road outside, fixing her balance. Her right leg was now replaced – not with a functioning leg, of course, but with a set of leg bones from her fellow equine, stitched together with tape, rope and wood. It only functioned as a peg-leg, but it worked.

“…” Ayize stared out for a few seconds more, before taking her first few shaky steps into what would be her new life – her new hell – for the next 20 years and counting. Her innocent eyes, once wide and full of wonder, were glazed over and narrowed almost like she was disinterested.

Author's Note

I'd love to hear some feedback on how the story is so far. This is my first time writing anything this serious, let alone related to FO:E!