The Cards That We've Been Dealt

Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!

The sound of gunfire briefly echoed in the quiet desert night. Bezezelle sharply exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding while she fought off the now dead gecko. She and Anova were now a good distance outside of Goodsprings and on their way to the town of Primm, the first stop in their journey to Black Mountain Medical Center. Before leaving Goodsprings, the duo were given a lesson on self defense by Sunny Smiles, who also gifted the two with their very own varmint rifles with straps along with two boxes of ammo each. She also prepared for them a small ‘survival kit’- a leather bag- consisting of four purified bottles of water, three tins of something called ‘Cram’, a handful of ‘buffalo gourd seeds’, two gecko steaks, a box of ‘Dandy Boy Apples’ and a bag of something she called ‘healing powder’.

The owner of the Prospector Saloon- a kind woman named Trudy- had also gifted them with an old, beat up satchel backpack after Anova had kindly fixed her busted radio. Bezezelle currently had the backpack secured around her waist. After a brief chat with Trudy, the duo had returned to Doc Mitchell who handed them the list of needed supplies and thanked them for risking themselves to help a stranger.

“Here’s a little something to help you find your way in the Mojave. It’s called a Pip-Boy 3000, a must-have gadget all vault dwellers like myself wore,” Doc Mitchell had said “I cut the glove to better fit one of you since, well, you don’t exactly have hands. It’s a small, wrist-mounted computer with a map, radio, flashlight and Geiger counter built into it.”

He bestowed to them exactly that; a small computer-like device with a small screen and an assortment of interesting buttons. Below the screen were three orange-red colored lights labeled ‘Stats’, ‘Items’ and ‘Data’. To the left of the screen was a vertical wheel- of which Bezezelle had no clue of what its purpose was- and just below that was a twistable knob with a pointed indicator. Above both was a circle that displayed a gauge of some kind with a needle that pointed near the zero end of it, which Bezezelle assumed was the Geiger counter; although she had no idea what a 'Geiger counter' was or what it did exactly.

Anova happily accepted it, slipped both the modified glove and Pip-Boy onto her left foreleg and played around with it as Doc Mitchell informed Bezezelle of a location he heard in passing that might have the medical supplies he needed: Black Mountain Medical Center. The safest and most likely easiest way to reach the medical center- he informed- was to follow the I-15 highway to a town called Primm and then to a place called Nipton. From Nipton, they were to continue following the highway until they reached the town of Novac, from which the pair should easily be able to find the Black Mountain Medical Center.

The highway to Primm was mostly safe, aside from the small geckos that appeared seemingly out of nowhere as they traveled, like the one Bezezelle had just put down with her varmint rifle. Bezezelle had to shapeshift into a unicorn version of her disguise in order to properly carry and use the weapon. Even as a unicorn and despite the lesson from Sunny, her aim was somewhat poor as she missed three of the four shots she fired to kill the gecko. Anova’s aim was just as bad, having missed all of the shots she fired at the previous gecko. This had Bezezelle a bit worried for their safety, but she was sure that- with time- they’d both master their varmint rifles and then some. That was, at least, if this world didn’t gobble them up like hungry parasprites before then.

As they continued further down the highway, the two passed under a structure with green, beat up signs that indicated the directions of Primm, Nipton and some other location called ‘Los Angeles’. On the side of the road was a similar structure that was partly collapsed and broken. Whatever signs it had previously displayed were long gone and nowhere to be seen. Bezezelle could see Primm off in the distance to her left. The town was partly surrounded by an ancient rollercoaster attraction that seemed miraculously intact from what she could see.

Bezezelle picked up her pace as they came closer to the town. Even in the night sky, she could still clearly see the big buffalo adorning the top of one of the buildings inside the town. Bezezelle stopped and anxiously half readied her rifle as a man dressed up in military clothing approached them, unsure if he was a friend or a foe. Anova copied Bezezelle and stepped a bit closer to her.

“Hey, just where in the hell do you think the two of you are heading? Primm is off limits,” The man said as he jogged closer to them.

The man stood a good six feet or so away from Bezezelle and Anova. Bezezelle could see a rifle of some kind holstered on his back. She assumed he was friendly, as he didn’t draw his weapon as he stood there. He didn’t seem surprised to see a couple of ponies like themselves, let alone two who were traveling along the highway in the middle of the night.

“We’re just trying to reach Black Mountain Medical Center. We were told to go this way, that it was the safest route,” Bezezelle explained to the man.

“We were told to pass through Primm first. Is there something wrong with Primm?” Anova said as she looked over at the town.

“Safest way, huh? I’m guessing you’re trying to get to Novac then. Second safest place up near Black Mountain last I heard,” The man said as he folded his arms across his chest “as for Primm, well, some convicts from the prison just up the road have overrun the town.”

“How much longer until Primm is safe?” Bezezelle questioned “we might need to come back here at some point.”

“Couldn’t tell you. Primm doesn’t fall under our jurisdiction, but even if it did, we’re not in good enough shape to help them,” The man answered “we’d love to help them, but they’re on their own for now. If they’re not all dead already, that is.”

“What? Why can’t you help them, regardless of if they’re ‘in your jurisdiction’ or not?” Bezezelle questioned.

“And who’s ‘we’? Are you a part of some kind of military?” Anova asked.

“What? Are you new around here or something? You’ve never seen or heard of the NCR before?” The man countered, partly offended and partly surprised.

“You could say we’re new around here,” Bezezelle answered “and no, we haven’t.”

“Hmph. That’s a first. I’m a soldier, part of the New California Republic army,” The man said with a small scoff “the NCR is a nation entirely dedicated to both the values of democracy as well as the rule of law. Someday, we’ll have the whole of the United States shining great again.”

“Well, the whole of the west coast, anyways,” He added with a shrug.

“That sounds pretty admirable, mister. We’ll just go around Primm for now,” Anova said with a smile “but why can’t you help Primm, even if they were in your ‘jurisdiction’?”

“Well, for starters, we just don’t have the equipment to take them all out,” The man explained “and let’s say we did have that equipment, then our problem is not enough helping hands. We want to help, don’t get me wrong, but we just can’t right now.”

“But if you’re up to playing hero, well, I can’t really stop you if you wanted to head into Primm anyways,” He added.

“We don’t have the time- or skill- to help Primm right now ourselves. Like my friend said just a minute ago, we’ll just avoid the town for now,” Bezezelle said with a sigh “are we good to go now?”

“Honestly, the two of you would be safer just turning around and going back to wherever you came from,” The man said as he gestured behind him with a thumb “we’ve been having trouble with two tribes of raiders in the area in addition to the convicts in Primm.”

“What are raiders?” Anova asked.

The man sighed audibly, like he was growing annoyed by their lack of knowledge of the ongoings in the Mojave wasteland.

“Are you two fresh out of a vault or something? Raiders are scum of the earth, humans with absolutely no concept of good or morals,” The man explained “they do whatever they want, whenever they want and they’ll take whatever they want, no matter the cost. Junkies and murderers, to put it simply.”

“I’m sure we can handle them. If anything, we could easily outrun them,” Bezezelle said confidently “we can’t turn back now. The two of us have a life to save.”

“If you say so. Couldn’t stop you even if I wanted to, but, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” The man said with another shrug “I’d stick to the west side of the overpass if you don’t want a bullet in you.”

With that, the man walked away and returned to his post near an ancient, busted up vehicle. Bezezelle and Anova looked at each other, both unsure if they’d be able to accomplish their mission after all. Bezezelle tried to seem confident and tough while conversing with the NCR soldier, but deep down she was absolutely terrified. She thought geckos were the worst they had encountered so far, but these raiders the man mentioned sounded like they’d be worse than any gecko they’d put a bullet into thus far.

“We can do this, don’t worry,” Bezezelle said reassuringly, more to herself than to Anova.

“I hope so,” Anova said as she stared at the man “but did you notice something about him, Bezzy?”

“Hmm? Like what?” Bezezelle questioned.

“He didn’t seem shocked to see ponies in a world filled with humans,” Anova answered, looking at Bezezelle.

“Oh, yeah, I did notice that. I wonder; are there more ponies like us in the Mojave?” Bezezelle said as she looked back at the vast desert behind them.

“It sure would be surprising, but if we ended up here after a magical mishap, who’s to say it didn’t happen to others?” Anova said with a small shrug.

“Well, if there are, I’m sure we’ll come across them in our travels,” Bezezelle said cheerfully “but let’s get going now. We can’t waste too much time chatting with everypony we meet.”

“Lead on then, Bezzy. We’ll get there just fine with you in charge,” Anova said with a small grin.

After what felt like an eternity, but was in reality roughly two and a half hours, Bezezelle and Anova finally reached Black Mountain Medical Center. The journey there had been a bit jarring due to the amount of fighting they had to endure along the way. Much like with Primm, the duo had to avoid the town of Nipton altogether as they trotted along the highway. They were unsure of what the cause of the billows of black smoke that rose up into the air were, but deep in their guts they knew it was best if they didn’t find out. Along the way from Nipton, they encountered a bit of trouble. More geckos and giant ants were the main dangers they had run into, but Bezezelle and Anova did encounter what they assumed were a small number of the raiders the NCR soldier had mentioned.

It was a trio of humans- two men, one woman- dressed in armor made from what look like scraps of metal, leather and cloth. The woman and one of the men were armed with a pool cue and a shovel. They had rushed at Bezezelle and Anova while the other man shot at them with a one-handed gun they’d never seen before. The two rushing towards them were easy enough to defeat. Several bullets to their heads and the two dropped to the ground. Killing them made both mares feel sick to their stomachs. Watching their heads nearly split open and their brain matter and blood splatter everywhere nearly made them hurl.

Bezezelle felt incredibly awful inside as the two perished in front of her eyes, but she understood deep down that it was either their lives or her and Anova’s… and that it had to be done. Using some ruined house that was nothing but two partially broken walls as cover, Bezezelle drew the last raider’s attention while Anova used her magic to trip the man and snatch his gun from his hands. Before he had been able to stand back up and grab his weapon, together both mares put him down for good. After taking the gun for herself and against what felt like her better judgment, Anova searched his body for the ammunition that gun needed.

Bezezelle felt just as wrong doing so, but she followed her best friend’s lead and searched the bodies of the other two raiders. There wasn’t much on them aside from a container of what looked like pre-war chips, a stimpak and a couple of questionable items that neither mare was sure of what it had been. Before they had continued on their way, Bezezelle took the bloodied shovel for herself, which prompted Anova to pick up the tainted pool cue from the ground. With their hearts pounding in their stomachs, Bezezelle and Anova quickly galloped from the area and back to the highway.

Bezezelle flopped onto her haunches with a loud, exasperated sigh as she stared at the ruined remains of the medical center. Much of the medical center was buried beneath what seemed like a mountain’s worth of sand and rock. The only thing visible from the mounds of sand was the half-buried entrance sign to the hospital and the top right corner of the hospital’s third story. The visible windows were completely busted and half filled with sand and rock. A ripped and severely bent hospital bed jutted from one of the middle windows and swayed in the night breeze. What was left and visible from the rest of the hospital's exterior was partly cracked and broken off in some places.

“This place is all but completely buried! How in the hell are we supposed to find anything here, much less get inside?!” Anova exclaimed in frustration.

“Maybe there’s a way in through one of those windows. There’s got to be something here, Novie,” Bezezelle said, trying her best to sound reassuring.

“I hope so. I really, really hope so because otherwise, we’d have come all this way for nothing,” Anova said with a sigh.

“Here, hold these for me. I’ll fly up and see if there's a way in somewhere,” Bezezelle said as she handed her rifle and shovel to Anova.

Anova held onto them with her magic as she watched Bezezelle transform back into her original changeling form and fluttered up into the air. Bezezelle quietly buzzed over to the row of busted windows and looked for a potential way inside. The only room whose interior door wasn’t blocked by sand, rock and other bits of broken rubble was the window with the broken hospital bed sticking out of it. Bezezelle carefully entered the room and landed on the old tile flooring. Carefully avoiding the shards of broken glass still attached to the window frame, Bezezelle pushed and shoved the hospital bed out of the window. It landed on the sand below with an audible thump and metallic clang.

“You okay?” Bezezelle called out as she looked down at the ground below.

“I was not flattened by a hospital bed, so yeah! I’m okay!” Anova called back “how am I going to get up there?”

“Hold on, let me think for a moment! Keep an eye out, okay?” Bezezelle shouted.

Bezezelle rubbed her chin as she thought of the best way to get Anova up there with her. Carefully, she climbed onto the windowsill and stood at the edge. She turned around and carefully hung off the ledge of the windowsill. Anova watched nervously from below as Bezezelle let go and quickly transformed into a long, metallic ladder. Anova exhaled sharply as she watched Bezezelle’s ladder form smack against the side of the medical center. Using her magic to hold her in place, Anova trotted over and carefully climbed Bezezelle. Once inside the room, Anova carefully pulled Bezezelle inside and gently laid her on the floor.

“Your ability to shapeshift never ceases to amaze me. What’s it like being a ladder?” Anova said with a small chuckle.

Bezezelle transformed back into her unicorn disguise and stood up as she rubbed the top of her head. There was a pained look on her face as she smiled at Anova.

“It’s all fine and dandy until your head gets stepped on. I rate the experience two stars out of five,” Bezezelle said with a chuckle.

“It might have been less painful to have picked me up and flew me up here, you know,” Anova said helpfully as she patted Bezezelle’s shoulder.

“I’m tired. That possibility didn’t cross my noggin’,” Bezezelle said as she playfully knocked on her head.

“This place is already giving me the creeps. I hope what we need is here,” Anova said with a shudder as she looked around the room.

“This place might be buried under a thousand tons of sand, but we might not be entirely alone here. Stay on guard,” Bezezelle warned “how bright is that Pip-Boy’s flashlight? I imagine it’s pitch black beyond that door.”

“One sec,” Anova said as she lifted her foreleg.

Anova fiddled with the Pip-Boy until it made a click noise and a small portion of the room became bathed in a dim, yellow light. Anova was visibly disappointed by the Pip-Boy’s flashlight. Sure, it did its job for what it was worth, but the light’s dim radius would be less than helpful for both mares, even if Bezezelle stood directly next to her. Anova fiddled with the Pip-Boy again until the flashlight clicked off. Anova returned Bezezelle’s rifle and shovel to her as she used her magic to cast an illumination spell that lit up the room immensely better.

“There we go, that’s much better. If Doc lets me keep this, I’m going to have to tinker with it to make that flashlight better,” Anova said with a relieved sigh.

“Let’s get moving. The sooner we leave the better,” Bezezelle said with a confident smile.

Anova nodded her head in response as she followed after Bezezelle, who used her magic to move a pile of rocks blocking the door out of their way. Bezezelle opened the door- which creaked a bit- and creeped quietly out into the hallway. Until Anova stepped out into the hallway and stood behind her, the entirety of the hallway had been pitch black. The darkness and eerie silence of the medical center made Bezezelle feel uneasy. The ceiling above bulged down and leaked small streams of sand. Bits of wiring and broken fluorescent light fixtures hung from various places on the ceiling. Sand, rubble and bits of various broken medical equipment littered the cold, tiled floor. The hallway quickly came to a dead end to their right, which meant they would need to proceed to the left in order to find anything.

Bezezelle felt unsure of where to start looking for the medical supplies they needed, even if this human hospital didn’t look too much different from the hospitals back in Equestria. She pulled out the list Doc Mitchell had given to her and looked over it once again. She and Anova needed to find six more stimpaks in addition to three packs of blood and four syringes of something called Med-X. This list also requested two bottles of vodka, but Bezezelle was sure that was something they could obtain from Trudy when they returned back to Goodsprings.

The duo carefully made their way further down the dark, creepy hallway. Nearly all the doors they came across were either locked or internally blocked by rubble. As they rounded the corner to their right, they came across a small nurse’s station. The desks were littered with debris and scattered medical documents. On each desk was a non-functioning terminal whose contents would forever be unknown. Bezezelle’s stomach churned as she ventured behind the station. Skeletons wearing decayed nursing uniforms laid slumped in the worn, pink rolling chairs and sprawled out on the floor. Bezezelle and Anova carefully stepped over their bodies as they searched for what they needed.

At the back of the station, Bezezelle found a first aid box that looked as if it had been ripped off the wall and tossed onto the floor. She carefully picked up the green box with white cross markings and examined its contents. Inside were two more stimpaks and a bottle of purified water. Bezezelle removed the contents of the first aid box and slipped them into her satchel before looking around for more boxes. Finding none, Bezezelle and Anova exited the nurse’s station and continued straight down the hallway. Much of the remainder of the third floor was unexplorable due to collapsed parts of the roof and mounds of rock and rubble.

Down the hall from the nurse’s station, around the right-hand corner and through a set of double doors, the duo came across a set of elevators and the entrance to the hospital’s stairwell. Both sets of outer elevator doors buckled outward while the inner doors remained gaped open, revealing the broken interior of the cabs. Between the lack of power to the building and the elevators being busted, this left the stairwell as the only means of getting to the lower floors. A quick exploration of this wing of the hospital yielded in them finding another stimpak, one syringe of Med-X and more purified water, which the duo quickly gulped down.

The duo returned to the door leading to the stairwell and pressed onward in their quest for medical supplies. As they carefully made their way down the partially broken flight of stairs leading to the second floor, a loud and frightening growl echoed around them. Both mares instantly froze in fear as they listened to the sounds of footsteps quickly running up the stairs. From the darkness below, what looked like a zombified human wearing a torn hospital gown launched itself towards Bezezelle and Anova. Bezezelle yelped in fear as she swung her shovel blindly, luckily catching the metallic head right in the attacking monster’s jaw.

It growled ‘die!’ in a hoarse, low voice and swiped in Bezezelle’s direction as Anova used her magic to knock the creature down. Bezezelle used her own magic to tug the shovel out of the creature’s jaw and swing the shovel’s head into its meaty neck before it could get back up. It growled again as Bezezelle put as much pressure onto the shovel as she could until she successfully decapitated the creature. The creature’s head tumbled down the stairs along with its body. Bezezelle was thankful she hadn’t needed to use the bathroom as she was sure she would’ve pissed herself when that thing attacked them.

“Holy shit! Just what in the hell was that thing?!” Bezezelle questioned in a whispery-yell.

“Didn’t Doc Mitchell say something about those things? Humans that looked and acted like zombies? Feral… Oh! Feral ghouls!” Anova answered in a similar tone.

“Here I thought a hospital would be a relatively safe place. Not counting the fact this place looks like it could collapse at any moment,” Bezezelle whispered with a sharp sigh.

“Looks like we’ll have to be super sneaky from here on out,” Anova whispered “I mean, not that we were stomping around making a ruckus to begin with.”

“I think we’ll have to holster our rifles and stick to our shovel and pool cue,” Bezezelle whispered as she holstered her rifle “if we attracted that ghoul’s attention just by walking around, I can only imagine we’d attract the whole hospital if we fired our rifles.”

“Yeah, good call,” Anova agreed.

With their rifles now hung around their necks and hanging next to their sides, Bezezelle and Anova cautiously made their way down the remaining stairs leading to the second floor. However, they soon discovered the second floor was inaccessible from where they stood as the the other side of the door was blocked by heavy rubble and sand. Between the two of them, Bezezelle was sure they probably could have easily removed the debris blocking the door and entered the second floor, but something in her gut told her to leave it be and move onwards. Bezezelle gestured for Anova to follow her as she followed the stairs down to the first floor.

Bezezelle slowly and gently pushed open the door leading to the first floor of the medical center. Despite how slow and gentle she was with opening it, the door creaked loudly as it opened fully. Bezezelle hesitated and listened as carefully as she could before she proceeded into the first floor hallway. The air down here was suffocating, humid and probably filled with particles not good for the duo’s health. Bezezelle felt it was best to not linger on this floor for long and proceeded down the right end of the hallway. On the right side of the hallway, Bezezelle came across a door labeled ‘utility’. She peered inside and could see another first aid box on the back wall of the utility closet.

Much to her surprise, the utility closet was left unlocked and the door opened quietly and with ease. Inside were various centuries old cleaning supplies, mops, brooms and the single skeletal remains of a long-dead janitor. Stepping around the skeleton, Bezezelle and Anova entered the closet. Bezezelle gave Anova the honor of searching through the first aid box. Inside, Anova found two of the three blood packs they needed along with another syringe of Med-X and a stimpak. Anova wasn’t a doctor by any means, but she was certain packs of blood belonged somewhere refrigerated and not kept in the first aid box of a utility closet. ‘Those pre-war humans sure were weird’, Anova thought as she slipped her findings into Bezezelle’s satchel.

Bezezelle and Anova quietly crept back into the hallway and continued onward in their search. Further down the hall, they came across a set of restrooms on the left hand side of the hall. Bezezelle was certain the bathrooms likely had first aid boxes inside them and quietly approached the bathroom door labeled ‘Women’. After rounding a short hallway, Bezezelle and Anova immediately froze in place. Two feral ghouls stood on the other side of the room with their backs turned to the duo. Much to their surprise, the ghouls didn’t seem to notice them. Bezezelle scanned the room for a first aid box and then internally screamed in frustration.

Her hunch about the first aid boxes being inside the bathrooms had been correct, however, the first aid box inside the women’s restroom was attached to the wall the ghouls were facing. A fight with these ghouls was inevitable. If they wanted the contents of the first aid box, the feral ghouls needed to be put down. Bezezelle readied her shovel and gestured for Anova to follow her lead. On Bezezelle’s signal, the duo quickly rushed at the unsuspecting ghouls and knocked them down with their respective weapons. Bezezelle quickly decapitated the ghoul she had attacked while Anova jabbed her pool cue through the remaining ghoul’s skull.

To ensure it’s demise, Bezezelle decapitated that ghoul as well. With a sigh of relief, Bezezelle went over to the first aid box and opened it. The only thing inside this particular first aid box was a singular stimpak. While it was one stimpak closer to their end goal, Bezezelle couldn’t help but feel the encounter with these ghouls had been unnecessary and that they had wasted their time.

“Woah, check this out,” Anova said in a half-whisper, drawing Bezezelle’s attention.

Inside the last and largest stall was a skeleton in doctor’s clothing along with a duffle bag and what appeared to be a note. Anova had already taken the duffle bag and opened it up by the time Bezezelle had walked over. Inside the duffle bag had been five stimpaks, three syringes of Med-X, two tins of something labeled ‘Mentats’, two bottles of something labeled ‘Day Tripper’ and two bottles of something labeled ‘Buffout’.

“What’s all this other stuff? I wonder if they were the recipient or the dealer,” Bezezelle said, also in a half-whisper.

“Looks like they left a note… or were given one. Let’s see here…” Anova trailed off as she picked up the note and read it.

“What does it say?” Bezezelle questioned.

“Wow, how shameful! This person was going to leave these here in the ceiling tile for someone else to find later,” Anova answered “they stole most of this stuff from the hospital and the rest was from their ‘personal collection’ apparently.”

“Looks like the bombs must’ve fell before they could finish stashing it away,” Bezezelle said with a small roll of her eyes “well, this other stuff might be useful. Let’s take the whole duffle bag with us.”

“Aye, aye captain,” Anova said as she slipped the strap of the duffle bag around her neck.

Bezezelle and Anova quietly exited the women’s restroom and moved onto the men’s. Much to their relief, the men’s room was feral-free and contained another stimpak, but nothing else of value was found. The duo remained on guard as they moved on and continued further down the hallway until they reached another dead end blocked by rubble. Bezezelle and Anova grimaced at the sight of dozens of decayed skeletons poking up through various places in the blockage. It looked as if these poor people had been crushed as the floor above collapsed during a crowded, mad dash to escape as the bombs rained from the sky.

Forced to turn around, the duo doubled back to the stairwell door and proceeded to make their way down the previously unexplored, darkened route. Ancient wheelchairs littered part of the hallway, most of which were turned over on their sides. A few of them even had their owners’ skeletal remains slumped on the floor next to them. Bezezelle and Anova couldn’t help but feel bad for all the souls who had lost their lives in the medical center. The only tombstone and burial they would get would be the medical center and it’s decaying walls as the Mojave sands slowly swallowed it whole.

As they rounded yet another right-hand corner, Bezezelle and Anova found themselves in the medical center’s lobby and front desk area. The inner set of the center’s exit-entrance doors were busted out of their frame and laid broken on the floor. They were partially covered by the mountain of sand the seeped in from the outside, which completely swallowed and obscured the outer set of doors. The lobby area was nothing special, just rows of chairs with torn, stained cushions and the skeletal remains of those who had been waiting there before the bombs fell.

Bezezelle trotted around the front desk area with Anova close in tow. The skeletons of long-dead nurses laid curled on the floor and partly underneath the long, crescent-shaped desk. Terminals sat busted and cracked throughout the top of the desk, which was also covered in an assortment of more medical-related documents. On the wall behind this area was a doorway leading into what looked like a small office. The wooden door attached to this doorway hung from part of the top hinge and looked as if it could fall at any given moment. Bezezelle and Anova carefully and quietly squeezed past the door and into the small office.

A small fluttering noise followed with hiss made the duo flinch and tense up as they looked around for danger. Anova yelped loudly when she felt a sharp, sudden pain in her rear end. She could feel something wet slowly oozing from where she had felt the pain, which led her to believe she was now bleeding. Bezezelle made a mixed noise of fear and surprise as she laid eyes on the surprise attacker. Anova whipped around quickly- her pool cue readied- as she looked around for what had hurt her. Another hiss and small flutter drew her attention downwards. A giant, mutated cockroach leapt forward in an attempt to take another bite out of her body.

In unplanned unison, Bezezelle and Anova smacked the disgusting insect until it stopped moving and laid in a puddle of gross, roachy bodily fluids. Using her magic, Bezezelle picked up the massive roach and tossed its body out of sight, nearly gagging as she did. She might’ve been a bug of sorts herself, but certain insects- like cockroaches, crickets and mayflies- severely grossed as well as creeped her out. Bezezelle couldn’t help but feel a bit baffled by the giant roach’s decision to target Anova instead of herself, as Anova had been standing in front of and off to the right of her. The now-dead roach had to go around Bezezelle in order to get Anova in the first place. Maybe being a bug pony granted her some kind of mutated insect immunity? Bezezelle had no clue if it was true and wasn’t particularly keen on testing that theory either.

“Are you okay, Novie?” Bezezelle asked in a half-whisper.

“For the most part. I’m bleeding a little, but I’ll be fine,” Anova replied in a similar tone.

“First feral ghouls, now- what did Doc call them?- radroaches? I’m hating this place more and more with every passing minute,” Bezezelle said with an exasperated sigh.

“It’s okay, Bezzy. There can’t be much more left to explore,” Anova said reassuringly “we just need one more blood pack and then we can haul ass back to Goodsprings.”

“Let’s start with this office. Doesn’t look like there’s anything worth taking,” Bezezelle said as she trotted towards a nearby desk “well, except for maybe this.”

Sitting on the desk was a remarkably decently preserved weekly issue of a magazine titled ‘Today’s Physician’. Bezezelle picked it up and slipped it into her bag, hoping it would prove useful if she managed to find the time to read it. After taking the magazine, the duo searched the remainder of the office. As expected, they found nothing else of value and moved on through the doorway opposite of where they had first entered. The door belonging to this doorway had been busted completely off its hinges and laid broken nearly in half on the cold, dirty tiles a few feet away. This new hallway split into a curved capital t-shape.

The top of this t-curve was to their left, one end presumably leading back to the lobby area and the other leading into the pitch black unknown. The part of the hallway to the right of where they currently stood led to a different angle of the blockage. Directly across the hall were two blue metallic doors. Trotting closer, Bezezelle could see a plaque on the wall next to the door closest to them, which read ‘T_mpor__y E._ C_ld St__ag_’. Many of the letters were missing, but Bezezelle assumed it had once said something along the lines of ‘Temporary E.R. Cold Storage’. Bezezelle’s eyes lit up with hope as she quickly trotted over to the door.

Bezezelle turned the handle and pushed on the door, only for it to resist and barely budge an inch. She jiggled the handle several times in frustration. The hope in her eyes turned to immediate disappointment. The door was locked up tight and upon further inspection, Bezezelle found the door had no actual keyhole but instead was electronically locked and needed a keycard of some kind to open. With no keycard and electricity to power the lock, it seemed as if the contents of the cold storage was forever lost to them.

“What’s this? An e-lock?” Anova questioned as she examined the door.

“Those types of locks won’t open without power, do they Anova?” Bezezelle asked with a sigh.

“Most e-locks have their own battery and use only a minute percentage of it every time it’s used. If this is backup storage for the emergency room, they would have made sure that the battery never died,” Anova replied in a reassuringly cheerful tone.

“And what does that mean? Can you open it?” Bezezelle questioned as she raised an eyebrow.

“It means I probably could and I’ll certainly try, but first I’ll need to find some tools,” Anova answered, visibly excited.

“Well, there was that utility closet near the stairwell. I’m sure there’s something you can use there,” Bezezelle said with a smile.

“We cleared that area, so I’ll be right back. I’ll be quick, but here, take this so you don’t have to stand in the dark,” Anova said excitedly.

Before Bezezelle could object, Anova turned on the Pip-Boy’s flashlight and handed the Pip-Boy to her. Anova made a quiet noise of excitement as she rushed off to the utility closet to find what she needed. Bezezelle sighed softly as she watched Anova leave. It wasn’t until Anova was out of earshot and the sounds of her hooves against the ancient tile floor faded that Bezezelle realized just how horrible the eerie silence of the decaying medical center truly was. Normally, Bezezelle wasn't afraid of the dark in any way, shape or form. In fact, back home she loved the quiet peace that came with the dark, but here in the Black Mountain Medical Center, everything about this darkness made Bezezelle’s legs tremble.

She felt she should have been grateful to have the Pip-Boy to keep the darkness from swallowing her up, but it illuminated such a small fraction of what Anova’s light spell did. In a way, the dim yellow light was almost worse than being in complete darkness. Bezezelle couldn’t help but face her back to the locked door and look around in paranoid vigilance as she waited. The infrastructure of the medical center occasionally groaned and creaked beneath the straining weight of the sand slowly encasing it. The harder she listened, Bezezelle could even hear the sand falling through the cracks and hitting the floor.

Bezezelle tried to take deep, calming breaths as she waited for Anova to return. Back in Equestria, when Anova had been consumed by excitement, she often acted without thinking and charged head-first to accomplish or acquire whatever had garnered her attention and excitement in the first place. The majority of the time, it was harmless and had no real negative consequences, which led to Bezezelle forming a habit of just letting Anova do her thing. It was a habit that now left her alone in the dark in the depths of a buried hospital in an alien universe. Bezezelle was in no way mad or upset with Anova for leaving her alone in a dangerous place, but she knew she would have to remind her later that it wasn’t a good idea to split up.

Bezezelle was unsure how many minutes had passed by until she could hear the familiar sound of Anova’s hoofsteps, but she felt as if several eternities had ticked by. Anova soon emerged from the small office, her illumination spell immediately banishing the majority of the surrounding darkness. Bezezelle breathed a heavy sigh of relief as soon as she laid eyes on Anova and the set of tools she carried with her. The fear Bezezelle had experienced must have been visible on her face, as Anova gave her an apologetic look before hugging her tightly.

“I’m sorry, Bezzy. Were you scared? I got caught up in the excitement of picking a lock and I didn’t stop to think how you’d feel being alone,” Anova explained apologetically.

“All that matters now is that you’re back. I’m not sure how a flathead screwdriver, a pair of pliers and hoof-sized battery is gonna get that lock open, but work your magic I guess,” Bezezelle said with another sigh.

Anova chuckled softly as Bezezelle stepped to the side and gestured towards the lock. With the skilled experience of an inventor and somepony who spent much of her time dismantling various electronic devices, Anova used the flathead to pry off the lock’s black plastic covering and then tossed the covering off to the side. Anova carefully examined the guts of the electronic lock in order to determine the best way to proceed. Bezezelle watched as somehow Anova was able to determine the lock’s battery was nearly drained of its power. No matter how many times she had seen it, Bezezelle was always incredibly impressed and amazed by Anova’s talent with electronic devices.

She watched as Anova used the pliers to pluck out one side of each of the now exposed wires and carefully jerry-rigged the battery she had found to the lock’s wires. After a few seconds, the whole thing began to crackle until it suddenly made a loud ‘pzzt!’ sound and began to smoke a little. Anova chuckled a bit as she removed the found battery from the wires and put it to the side.

“I think I might have fried the lock just a little,” Anova said with another chuckle “but let’s see if maybe- just maybe- that might have worked.”

“You’re going to have to teach me how to pick locks like that. I have no idea what just happened,” Bezezelle said as she softly shook her head.

Anova flashed a proud grin at Bezezelle before turning her attention back to the door. She paused momentarily to put the pliers and flathead into her duffle bag. Anova reached out a hoof and looked at Bezezelle as she slowly turned the handle to the cold storage. Miraculously, the door opened when she turned the handle and pushed inwards. Bezezelle patted Anova’s shoulder proudly and offered the Pip-Boy back to her. Anova slipped the device back on and entered the cold storage with Bezezelle in tow.

The cold storage was a room smaller than the office they had previously walked through to get there. Old, rusted refrigerators lined each of the walls and in the center of the room was a desk with a terminal. A few of the refrigerators were somehow missing their doors, which were nowhere to be found in the room. Wasting no time, the duo set to work checking each fridge for anything useful. Sadly, the majority of the refrigerators were completely empty but they were able to find the last blood pack they needed as well as a couple of packs of something labeled ‘RadAway’ and a bottle of ‘Rad-X’.

“We’ve got everything we need now and then some. Let’s not risk getting killed or trapped here by exploring what’s left,” Bezezelle said as she gestured towards the door.

“Yeah, this place is so creepy and a death trap just waiting to happen. Even so, we could always come back in the future if we needed more medical supplies,” Anova said with a smile.

“Let’s hope we’ve found our way back home before that happens.”