SOVIET HELLSCAPE

Written and illustrated by the white devil

The night was dark and the ground was covered in frost. The moon blacked out by black clouds made from the flames of the ancient world. A radioactive blizzard raged with the ferocity of a toddler having a tantrum. The edges of my mask's lens started to build up frost, making it harder to see. My filter protected my fragile lungs from the brutal radioactive dust.

Tangible progression was a pipe dream in this dreaded weather, the wind pushes me back and the frost bites my boots. My thick clothing barely kept me from freezing. Perhaps if I choose that ushanka over the tanker helmet, maybe I wouldn't be freezing.

I felt a sharp pain in my left abdomen, almost as if my stomach was trying to cannibalize itself. The last time I've eaten something had to have been at least a week ago. I think it was a small can of boiled buckwheat and a fried rat. I don't remember exactly.

My stomach abruptly roared in hunger, nearly dropping me to my knees. I hate this so much. I began gasping for air, while my guts tore themselves apart, it was utter hell. One of my friends came over and helped me up on my feet. He rolled up one of my sleeves and injected some morphine into a vein. Thankfully, the drug was quite fast-acting, so I wasn't in pain for that much longer. My friends grygoriy, Romanov, and Leonid walked with me. All four of us equally suffer in this hellscape. The air is not possible to breathe when these events happen.

Pain and fear were all I felt because I don't think I will ever be happy after enduring this hell. The blizzard only became stronger as we pushed against it, we must find shelter soon or I'm afraid we won't be seen ever again. If I can't find us some form of shelter to hold up in we'll all be dead. It was gradually becoming harder to breathe as I moved through this blizzard. The snow and frost my canister filter and hose. Frost started to build up inside the hose. My breathing became heavier and faster, then ceasing entirely. Fear and awe. I fumbled around with my filter barely managing to remove it from the hose. I signaled my friends for help, pointing to my mask, they easily understood.

Leonid reached into his rucksack and threw me a large olive green filter, resembling a coffee can. In one swift movement, I removed the cap and screwed in the filter to the hose. I took a deep breath and gave a thumbs up to Leonid, he nodded in response. That's why you need allies in this brave new world. Otherwise, I would have either suffocated to death or breathed in toxins and radiation.

My body was shaking at the horrendous sight before me, the worst massacre I had ever seen. Numerous dead bodies of cossacks, jackalopes, looters, bandits, even horses, and strange colorful ponies.
Blood and gore stained the snow dark crimson. Mangled corpses and broken weapons were scattered everywhere, almost as plentiful as the gore.

We had started looting the corpses a few minutes ago, but the scene still makes me nauseous. It's just the amount of death is that truly shocks me, not the gore. You always hear of massacres, shootings, gruesome battles, devastating wars, atrocities that happened several hundred years ago. But it's not until you see the brutality and the corpses, do you truly realize the scale of combat. And why it should have never been created.

We looted most of the corpses and piled the gear up in a neat pile. Probably thirty suits of finely crafted armor made of solid gold and rare gems. Plenty of firearms and technology from the various corpses of cossacks and bandits.

I was in the middle of defiling the mutilated corpse of a young bandit. Many bullets and weapons were on the body, some food and technology were inside his rucksack. I was checking the ammunition inside his rifle's magazine when I heard a cry of sadness behind me. I turned around only to be met with the rusted-out husk of an old ZAZ-568 automobile.

The noise made me both curious and cautious, it could just be a mental trick or maybe a malnourished child waiting to burst out with an unpinned frag grenade. Regardless, in the end, my curiosity won and I decided to take a small peek. My heart rate spiked as I stuck the rifle magazine back into the AKS-74U carbine.
I stood up onto my two feet, the rifle firmly place in my two hands. I closed my eyes and sucked in the deepest breath I could fit inside my lungs.

Slowly walking forward, I readied myself into a position. One that would aid me the most if I had to quickly kill what lurked in this rusted husk. My heart began pumping faster and faster, my hands started to sweat profusely. Which did not help me in the slightest, human biology for you.

My boots caused a tearing sound every time I stepped forward. It infuriated me to no end because this made stealth harder. If a suicide bomber was indeed inside this trunk. Stealth would be the best and most survivable course of action.

I was only a foot away from the car trunk, the sobbing and whimpering were legible now. It sounded like a female, she was speaking English and not Russian. I knew how to speak English, but I'm afraid It still needs some work. She was talking about me as if I wanted to kill her. Maybe she was the sole survivor of the graphic massacre.

My heart ached a little at her near incessant sobbing, she truly was scared of me. I couldn't take the pain anymore and I just wanted her anguish to stop. I grabbed both ends and heaved the trunk lid open. Immediately, the smell of mildew and musk hit me like a ton of bricks. The awful smell stung my nose and caused me to tear up. I wiped my tears out of my eyes and looked down at the female, however, this wasn't an ordinary female.

A small lavender-colored mare lay on a pile of moth-eaten blankets and debris. Tightly curled up in fetal position, rocking back in forth whilst she spoke to herself. Mumbling about murder and a teacher.
Her fur was matted with dried tears, gore, and snow. Something had gone down before I found her. She wore a mixture of crudely made fur clothing reinforced with gold armor plates salvaged off the other ponies. The smell caused me to gag and choke, fucking black mold. She obviously heard my loud coughing, because she instantly perked up and lifted her head giving me a much better view.

Her face was pretty human-like if you want me to be honest. However, some things did stick out more than others. Big googly cartoon eyes, a small stub-like snout, floppy rabbit ears, thick fluffy fur, and purple Irises. She looked kinda cute. Not in a perverted way, you dumb fuck.

"P-plea-please!! Do-don't kill me, I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." She pleaded with me, tears rolling down her bruised and wounded cheeks.

I barely managed to choke down tears of my own, it wasn't easy to watch such an innocent ethereal creature like this. So I did the only logical thing I could think up. Slowly, I reached out with my gloved hand and began to pet her head. My many dexterous fingers ran through her silky mane.

She looked at me with her big cute anime eyes, speaking through her eyes. Then she did something unexpected, she sat up and leaped into my arms. Burying her face into the burly jacket and sobbed into the fur. She wrapped her forelegs around my neck, hugging me.

"Shh... It's okay, it'll be okay."

"Where are we going, Vlad?" The lavender mare asked in an oddly polite tone. "To see a guy,"

"Who is this guy? Is he your friend?" She asked again, her voice filled with curiosity and slight unease.

"No, he's an American who sells equipment and gives people odd jobs to do. A good guy, but he can also be a bastard when he wants to be." I answered before turning back to her. "Now will you stop bugging me about our voyage?"

"I'm sorry, alright? I promise I won't bug you again, cross my heart!" She said, her voice maintaining a strange cheerfulness.

"You said that an hour ago, yet you still bother me." I retorted, playfully smirking at the nervous mare. "Sorry."

"It's fine, twilight"

We continued walking for quite a while, he lived in a Ukrainian town called Kryve Ozero. It's not a very big town by pre-Apocalypse standards, but in today's world, it ought to be saint Petersburg.
There are a handful of traders, gun & drug dealers, and armorers. It isn't a bad place to go to when you need to offload some shit.

Finally, after four days of nonstop walking. The five of us reached the edge of kryve ozero. We were greeted with a large blue metal sign built into a grey cobblestone foundation. The numbers 1762 were written on the side of the side along with the same of the town. We resumed our trek and continued into the Ukrainian city.

It didn't take long for us to start seeing tents, ruined trailers, and people. They didn't pay any attention to us as they did with our unicorn companion. Although it didn't seem to affect them all that much. There were a handful of markets and even a couple of drug dealers. After that, we started seeing guarded caravans and even military convoys led by petty dictators. A couple of African warlords, a North Korean army general, some Saudi Arabian military officers, a high-ranking ISIS general.

And I swear to Jesus Christ I saw Saddam Hussein getting escorted by a fucking T72A3 tank. Of course, I tried to put as much distance between the five of us and Saddam's fucking motorized rifle platoon. Why would he choose a platoon over a regiment? Fuck if I know. And I sure as shit don't have the balls to walk my ass up to his tank. And inquire about it.

Walking up to the surplus shop's door, I pressed the buzzer to alert sidlovich of my presence. An obnoxious buzzing erupted from a speaker as an American accent boomed. "Who's there!?" The voice violently demanded, obviously he wasn't fucking around tonight.

"It's me, Vladimir, the guy with the three fucking stooges and who fought in the 173rd." I coldly replied. "I know many Vladimir's, how can you distinguish your-
self from the rest?"

"Just open the fucking door, sergeant, before I kick the damn thing down."

Entering the shop rewarded me with the horrific smell of mildew, sweat, machine oil, gunpowder, and rust boiled with raw cabbage inside sweaty gym socks. There was a crooked fleet of concrete stairs that led down into the actual shop. Not the old crusty stairwell.

The steps were old and damaged, with entire chunks of concrete missing from a few. Dirty water from a leaky pipe dripped onto the ancient stairs. Making them all slippery to walk on, so I had to be mindful of my surroundings. Like I wasn't already mindful all the fucking time. It starts to get very stressful after a long while.

My boots squeaked and thumped as I slowly moved down each concrete stair. Busting open my damn head open and constructing a new asshole isn't on my agenda for today. It's selling a bunch of broken beaten-up sixty-year-old bullshit.
After a couple more steps I finally entered the actual fucking gunshop.

This place wasn't lying about having global surplus. Camouflaged fatigues, rifles, pistols, web gear, rucksacks, body armor, ammunition. Anything and everything can be bought from sid's semi-legal gunshop. Anything from a .22 Caliber hunting rifle to an American bazooka or soviet DShK.
There were various pistols, revolvers, grenades, and even submachine guns were on top of the counter.

Along with boxes of ammunition and empty clips for reloading. The counter was kinda like a window as there was a fortified metal wire cage that kept robbers out. Boxes of body armor, gas masks, bullets, and web gear were stacked on rusted steel shelves. The entire store was illuminated by yellow fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. The glass that held the lightbulbs had long since been shattered. The bulbs flickered every once and a while, but it didn't affect much.

A large man stood behind the metal cage, he was very muscular and had a big thick beard. The burly muscles were covered by camouflaged American combat fatigues. His bushy brown hair was stifled by a dark green beret, the beret had a united states army special forces patch sewn onto it. A stotic facial expression plastered across his face.

"So, what do you have for me today Vlad."
The man asked quietly, "Fuckloads of pure gold armor encrusted with rare gems and jewels. Also, another assload of weapons."

He looked at me with a "Bitch, are you smoking crack" expression. His face wore a bemused smirk as he chuckled, his dis-belief was stranglingly obvious.

"Yeah, you also found a fucking unicorn-" He instantly went silent as his eyes, which were the size of fucking saucers, glanced upon twilight sparkle. Yeah, needless to say, he was not expecting to see a fucking lavender-colored unicorn branded with a star.

"Hi! My name is twilight sparkle!"

"I'M GOING TO FUCKING SHOOT IT VLAD,
I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I WILL SHOOT THAT MOTHERFUCKING MUTANT CUNT!!" Zachary yelled as he held a rifle to the sobbing unicorn's forehead.

"CALM THE FUCK DOWN ZACH!! IT'S NOT GOING TO HURT YOU MAN IT'S JUST A GODAMN LITTE PONY!!"

"HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW, VLADIMIR!? IT JUST FUCKING TALKED PERFECT GODAMN ENGLISH!!"

"IT'S A GODAMN PONY YOU STUPID FUCKING BRAINED ASSCLOWN!!"

"THE FUCK IT IS YOU NEUROTIC FUCKING COO-COO BIRD-" Zachary was interrupted suddenly when Leonid punched him in the back of the head and kicked his shins in.

Zachary turned around to face Leonid, only to get punched in the eyes, Zachery groaned in pain but continued to fight. He headbutted Leonid in the nose, sending the angry Russian flying. He tried to raise the rifle shoot, Leonid. But I stepped in and grabbed the back of his shirt.

Zach turned and struck me right in the throat with his elbow. The pain was immense as his elbow nearly crushed my windpipe. However, my sacrifice allowed Leonid to leap forward and jab Zachery in the face.

The burly green beret staggered in pain, dropping his weapon. Leonid closed in and struck the man in the liver with his knee. Sending Zachary to the ground, Leonid delivered a powerful rabbit punch into the nape of his neck. Zachary collapsed onto the floor in pain. A few tears came out of his eyes whilst he moaned in agony.

The Russian man seethed in anger before sending his foot into the American's throat. Grabbing Zachery's collar, he threw the broken green beret onto the counter. Turning the M16A2 on automatic mode, Leonid shoved the barrel into the other man's cheek.

"If you EVER touch her again, I will fucking kill you, you fucking piece of shit! I don't give a fuck if your a navy seal or a green beret!" Leonid shouted into the mortally terrified man's face.

"IF YOU EVER TOUCH HER I WILL SHOOT YOUR GODAMN DICK OFF AND BEAT YOU TO DEATH!! YOU DICK-SUCKING MOTHER FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!!" Leonid yelled.

"Leo! Calm the fuck down man!" I shouted, grabbing the back of Leo's shirt. Pulling him off of the beaten green beret who was scared shitless. Leonid turned back to me and glared death upon me. He opened his mouth to yell, but he closed it as quickly as he had opened it.

"Don't touch twilight again, you American special forces cock. Your colored beret doesn't scare me, it looks like shit by the way. Though it fits well with a worthless hunk of dog shit excuse of a man like you." Leonid explained, his tone dangerously calm whereas his eyes glared daggers upon the man he nearly beat to death.

We spent several hours in that basement, offloading all of the loot. Hauling several suits of thick pure gold horse armor and numerous broken rifles. Down an old slippery flight of stairs usually leads to disaster. Like that wasn't already obvious.
But, eventually, the five of us including the burly paratrooper, managed to offload all of our useless bullshit.

"Godamn that's a fucking lot of gold, holy shit. That's about seventeen entire suits and they look to be in mint condition. Surprisingly." Zachery stated as he sorted through all of the equipment. "So how much will you give us," I asked.

"Well, considering I just hit the jackpot earlier and made a massive business deal. I'm a helluva lot richer, so I can offer more." Zachary explained.

"Just tell us how much you'll fucking pay!" Leonid shouted at the battered Zachary.

"Fine. I'll give you one hundred and twenty thousand dollars today." He responded remaining stotic.

My eyes damn near popped out of their sockets when those words came out of his mouth. "O-one hun-hundred THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS!?" I shrieked.

"What ya got shit in your ears? I just said that, and I mean what I say." Zachary res-
ponded coldly, clearly not amused.

"Well alright, so you see. My purple friend over here is drastically underequipped to face the horrors of the wasteland. And we really could use some better gear, Padre." Leonid asked the emotionless man.

"Now you're speaking my language."

I grabbed a fragmentation vest and placed it on the counter. The vest was an old flak jacket from the Persian Gulf war, donning a USGI woodland camouflage cover. It was a good choice for surviving in this harsh wasteland.

"Ah yes, the M84 PASGT fragmentation body army. We wore those things during the 1990s when I was fighting in desert storm." Zachary trailed off, explaining the long history of the vest and its features and how to use it.

"The vest was originally designed to stop artillery shrapnel. As the US was ready for a war in the European continent. And the enemy would likely be a major power like the army of the USSR. And the soviet army would be using large amounts of bombs." Zachery finished his lengthy explanation.

"By the way, you can loop those Alice web gear suspenders through the shoulder pads. All you gotta do is unhook the pads and put the belt and suspenders on. Then hook the pads back up and your all set." He pointed out, showing me how to set it up.

"Thanks, but I already know how to do that. I was in the service too." I replied, Zachary seemed to brighten up a bit.
"What? Like the red army or something?"

"Something like that, yes," I replied

"So you served in Afghanistan?" Zach inquired.

"Honestly, I don't know. I can't remember anything about my past." I answered.

After a couple of hours of sorting through military surplus equipment, supplies, technology, and clothing. We finally got some new equipment for the two of us and our pony friend. It wasn't all the expensive, around twelve thousand dollars total for decent equipment.

The door creaked as it opened, though no
one was able to hear it over the sounds of the noisy bar. The smell of booze, vomit, cigarette smoke, and sex was in the air. The foul odor was asphyxiating and caus-
ed my nose to burn like a match in hell.
The bar was packed with people and hook
ers, some of the prostitutes shouldn't be sex workers. At least for eight more years.
The idea that they could be whores nearly caused me to vomit. Truly disgusting.

To my left was a massive bar packed with drunkards and youthful hookers. Behind the counter stood an older man with a somewhat large frame. A pair of reading glasses hung off his neck and onto his crimson long sleeve shirt. His hair was fairly well kept. Though it still maintained a degree of uncleanliness.

A large spruce and glass case stood behind the man. Numerous bottles of moonshine, beer, scotch, vodka, wine, whisky, and many other spirits and lagers. On top of the case had an old bulky radio and a few miscellaneous objects. Another compartment acted as a foundation for the case. Part of me was curious about what could be inside. But I didn't focus on that at the time.