Pain. That was all he could feel. While he wasn’t blind, the world around him was spinning like a top. He tried to get up, and though it hurt, he was able to stand. He put a hoof to the side of his head that hurt the most as he tried to recall what happened. Lady Luck smiled upon the Earth Pony as his vision cleared, helping him remember what had happened.

His parents had won a state lottery, though coin and credit were not among the prizes. He had heard his classmates and his teacher talk about how the crown was expanding the nation’s spending on Airships, a necessity now that Equestria had allies and trading partners all over the world. However, private companies and travel agencies had developed a keen interest in Airships for their businesses, something the Crown wanted to invest in.

Ponies were concerned about what this could lead to. Non-Pegasi wouldn’t be able to escape if a commercial Airship crashed, the speculated damage to the environment or a city if an Airship did crash, and the eventual increase in taxes to fund these projects, were the most often used arguments by critics against the crown’s spending in these airborne goliaths.

To help ease the worries of the populace and to silence criticism, Princess Celestia had announced at the last Grand Equestria Pony Summit that the crown would be offering lottery tickets to willing participants. One in Twenty participants would win this lottery and get an all-expenses paid three-week cruise aboard the first ever Passenger Airlines. This was joint effort by the crown and aforementioned Airline companies in the hopes that Airship popularity would grow beyond the interest and hobbies of the rich and famous, and become a vast improvement in everyday life. Sun Strider’s parents had bought winning tickets had won a cruise aboard the TMV (Their Majesties’ Vessel) Angel Wing.

The nine-year-old Colt had a chilling realization, “My parents!”

Strider looked around frantically for his parents. Upon looking up, he realized that he was no longer on a passenger deck. Where the ceiling was, there was a gaping hole where the Angel Wing seemed to be ripped open. Strider recognized the stylized Equestrian flag that was on the ceiling of guest room where his family was sleeping. Deciding his parents had fallen somewhere nearby, he observed his immediate surrounds more closely.

Looking behind him, he saw the fancy bed he had been sleeping in. The bed had landed on its front and was standing up straight. Strider realized that he had fallen out of bed, but was unconscious for some time afterwards, “That thing is made out of steel. If it had fallen on me…” Strider stopped his current train of thought and continued looking for his parents.

Given all of the appliances and the cutlery, Strider had most likely landed in a kitchen. The doors leading to the hallways were opened, but didn’t look damaged, meaning that they weren’t closed when whatever happened happened, “Did we crash?”

Going out into the hallways Strider saw overturned dinning carts, broken sculptures of ice and glass, and crewponies either unconscious or dazed. But no sign of his parents. Doing his best to not step in the broken glass, he went into the next room over.

“Closet,” Strider the next room over and saw what looked like a ballroom. The wall on the other side was completely destroyed, leading out into Equestria’s idyllic grassland. Chandeliers had their chains snapped from what remained of the ceiling and had crashed into the floor, shattered much like the ruined sculptures in the hallway. Looking up, Strider could indeed confirm that this ballroom was directly below the many guest rooms by the numerous copies of the same stylized design of Equestria’s flag on the ceilings above.

Looking at the floor, Strider could see where the floors of the guest quarters had fallen into the ballroom in large chunks, along with the possessions of passengers and the furniture in the rooms they were given. It had seemed that the entire Passenger Deck had fallen into the one below it.

Everything else Strider saw chilled him to the bone. The other passengers, some more animated than others, were groaning in what was most likely pain and were in various states of injury. While some were fortunate to simply be shaken, others were wrapped up in covers salvaged from the dinning carts outside and blankets, all soaked with blood.

Sun Strider’s heart stopped as he looked towards the wall up against the closet he had passed by. Celestia’s sun was perfectly positioned to illuminate that wall and some of the floor on that side of the room. Strider saw blue and green with a slight shimmer in between the actual floor and the wreckage.

Strider galloped over, taking no heed of the broken glass from the chandeliers or the broken bits of metal he should have carefully navigated. Strider slipped on a blanket from an upturned bed and slid into the wreck he was rushing towards. Ignoring the pain in his hooves from stomping and the headache he got from hitting his head, he confirmed his fears.

His mother, an Earth-Pony Mare with a sky-blue coat and a forest green mane, complete with the earrings his father had gotten her for their anniversary last month, lay dead. The bed she was sharing with her husband was crushed between the ballroom and the guest room floors, Sun Strider’s parents wedged in between the masses of metal.

“MOM! DAD!” Sun Strider's yells got the attention of the passengers on the other side of the room. However, they didn’t even get close before something else got their attention.

A loud whistling noise got almost everypony’s attention. Looking out from the demolished wall of the Airship would reveal a Pegasus flying in tight circles with a strobing red and white flare with a thundercloud trail behind him or her. A member of the Wonderbolts loaned to the Search and Rescue Specialist-Group signaling that there were injured down below, equipped with a enchanted whistle and Mana-Flare.

The unfortunate Colt was in the midst of a panic attack, trying in vain to resuscitate his parents. All attempts to calm the despairing Colt by his fellow passengers failed spectacularly. It wasn’t until a SARS-G Unicorn forced his way through the small crowd was anything accomplished.

“Hey, buddy?” The Unicorn said in a low and calm voice, “Everything’s going to be okay,” the professional rescue worker used a sedation spell on Sun Strider and wrapped the poor Colt in a blanket.

“Mom. Dad,” Was all he could say before his world faded back to black.

Author's Note

Feel free to give constructive criticism, thoughts on the story so far, or to ask questions about the world. I'll do my best to reply, but with college my response times and and update rate will be sluggish. Also, if I don't answer something, the answer may just be something that involves spoilers. So try not to get too upset if I seem to ignore you.