Fallout Equestria: Site 4

Dear Star,

You know I’m horrible with words, and hoof writing, obviously. I just want you to know that I can’t wait for your next leave! Grandma Crab gave me a new recipe that I think you’ll love. Of course it’s gonna be a surprise, I can’t lay all my cards on the table, like in the picture I gave you with this. Those are two things you can think about when you’re lonely, or homesick. I do worry about you Star, ever since we moved I’ve been feeling like I’m losing you. I can’t imagine what stuff you are doing, and I’m not mad about that. I understand your work must be a secret, but I just want you to know that I will still be here for you as soon as you get back, that you will have a nice warm home to come back to, and we can live like ponies. Even if it’s just for another two weeks, but I think that everything will come good soon. This war looks to be on its tail end, hopefully by Hearth's Warming this nightmare can finally be over. Then we can create that life we’ve been dreaming about. Anyway we will see each other again soon, I will be thinking about you every night, just like in that picture, wink wink. I’m going to stop embarrassing myself now, and I’ll see you soon my little bird.

Forever and always,

Moon Stone

Anxiety, anxiety is an uncontrollable plague that constantly festers in my mind. I've been reading that letter over and over for the past three hours. Not finding any compelling reason to get up out of my launch chair. Surrounded by the tools to our destruction. It’s like all the dials and switches stare at me, mocking my optimism. Their very presence is enough to oppress my motivation. That letter, one of the only objects I have that tethers me to the idea that life is worth living. She gave me that letter a week ago, as I walked out the door to come here. She always gives me letters when I go to duty, and there’s always two pictures folded with them. One that’s safe to display on the wall in the barracks, and one that’s a lot more private. At first I found these extremely corny, I wasn’t going to war, I would be back in two weeks. Now they’re practically essential.

I try to hide it from Moon but, she’s not a dumb mare, a bit of a klutz, but definelty educated. She can sense the unhinged disposition that I’ve garnered these days. Which has definitely contrasted my old self, the witty sarcastic lovable asshole. Her being the ever loving Mare-friend tries to be there for me, Celestia bless her. That’s caused some storms to stir, my lack of being able to buck up and tell her how I feel. Of course I legally can’t tell her, because that would probably get us both arrested. She’s a good mare I know she can keep a secret, on the other hoof it’s easier to just stick with the secrecy angle.

I can’t do that to her, drag her down to my reality, what kind of pony would I be to tell her the truth. That maybe these stables that are being built aren’t just a precaution. Or that Zebras have more than enough mega spells to blow this world over twice, at least that was the last confirmed report.

The state of the world as most ponies know it, is a well constructed lie. An illusion of possibility, when we are all damned in one way or another. Keeping this secret eats me alive every day I spend with Moon. Seeing her faith in a better future, a future where this whole conflict will evaporate away and we will all live together happily like nothing ever happened. I don’t have the guts to let her in on the reality of war. That even after victory peace isn’t always there to follow. Of course ironically there is a way to secure the ultimate peace she dreams about, unfortunately we can’t be there to see it. Doom, that’s our true fate and it’s only a matter of time. I've been working here for the better half of four months and I’m not even coming close to being numb to that idea. Part of me wishes I can be numb to this constant pit of dread and misery that’s present in every waking moment of my life. But I don’t get to be that lucky, I’m not a soldier who's watched their friends get blown apart on the battlefield. Or a nurse who plugs holes in other ponies for hours a day every day. There’s no chance for me to become desensitized. I’m the one who lives in isolation with nothing but thoughts. The curse to dwell and imagine what hell I will unleash onto the world, and the dying thought that I will be the one responsible.

I imagine what it will be like, will there be screams? Will there be anyone left to walk amongst the rubble and destruction? What will all that radiation do to the world? Will all life be snuffed out? Can you scrub away radiation burns? Those are just a few from my library of questions I’ve come up with in those four months.

I’ve found one thing humorous, however, everything in this bunker has a checklist that leaves nothing up to question. How each key shall be turned, each switch to be flipped, down to how many times we can use the toilet. That’s due to our lack of having a water talisman to purify our water. Nothing here is self sufficient, all we have is supply. A supply of food that we restock with every shift change; a shift change happens every two weeks when my commander and myself are relieved of duty by two others who take our place. After two weeks of us living as normal a life as possible we come back and relive them so on and so forth. When we come down here we bring two weeks worth of food and other provisions with us. You see nothing is planned for after, only up to. The final order in our launch procedure book is Order 37. “Await further instruction.”

Await further instruction, from who? Is Celestia gonna knock on our blast door and tell us to suck off her horn? What I’ve found funny is there is nothing set up for us to survive. That’s the one thing without a checklist. Aside from the two weeks of food that we bring down there's an emergency supply cache with thirty days worth of food. Thirty days. And it’s not like rationing that out will make any difference. This facility is blast proof, unless the Zebras dropped a mega spell right on top of us, we will survive the explosion. We are buried three stories underground. The silo door for our Shadowcolt II missile can reseal itself in thirty seconds so we are safe from any radiation down here. With all that emphasis on survivability we have no air or water purification talismen, only an oxygen recycling system. Those filters are rated to last again thirty days. Water will be gone much sooner than that.

So we got quite the selection on how we want to kill ourselves. Walk out into the wasteland we created above, and die from radiation poisoning. Stay down here and ration our food as long as possible while slowly suffocating to death. Or hell, we can have one massive feast celebrating the end of time then starve to death. They didn’t even bother to give us a gun. Funnily enough they said that rule is instated for our protection.

Whatever, only three more days until our next shift change...