Fallout: Equestria - Parallelism

5th of the Month of Rain, Cyanday. The seventieth day of my stay.

What a dumbass I am!

While checking out one of the jewelry stores, which were filled to the brim with gems and jewelry, I accidentally triggered the laser security system. The alarms roared, drawing the attention of all the Canterlot ghouls in the vicinity. From around the corner, one of the dead jumped on Motley, clawing at her left wing, biting through the armor with its sharp teeth. The wound isn't too serious, but the pegasus is now unable to fly. We're fucked.

We run, but the crowd is relentless in its pursuit, joined by more and more of the snarling, snarling dead from various corners and nooks. It's like there's no end to them.

In such a hurry, I can't concentrate and use a teleportation spell to get us to the roof. We are no longer afraid to use energy magical weapons and explosives. The blue energy-magic lightning bolts from Illumination strike the pursuers with deadly thunderous shots: their bodies are covered with bluish sparks, some of the ghouls fall, and others turn to ash as they walk. The automatic grenade launcher in Motley's saddle fires bursting projectiles into the densest parts of the crowd, hitting the largest number of enemies with flashes, scattering them in different directions and tearing off their limbs. But all of this is not enough. Moreover, there are unicorns in the crowd, who, apparently out of habit, launch clots of magical energy at us, capable of causing considerable damage and knocking us off our hooves.

Besides, there are Canterlot ghouls running at us from the front, and we have to avoid some places because of the radios. In such turmoil it's impossible to concentrate on anything for more than a second—my attention is thrown from one thing to another. My brain is desperately and feverishly searching for ways to escape. An inscription written in blood on one of the walls catches my eye, "Canterlot remembers all."

I hear a piercing scream. It echoes inside my helmet. My blood runs cold in my veins.

Motley!

I turn around and see her lying on the cobblestone road facing her pursuers. From the pink aura enveloping her, I can guess that one of the dead pony managed to hit her with a pink blob of magic from their horn. The crowd has practically caught up with her, and she's desperately calling out to me for help. I almost lose my temper at what I see and immediately stop, turn around and run towards her.

The crowd is closer than I am...

As I prepare to cast the spell, I feel my magic reserves running low. With a low reserve and my panic curbing me, it's incredibly difficult to create a spell... I don't make it. I stumble, starting to fall as a dozen dead ponies jump on her. Over the radio frequency I hear her heartbreaking scream, she cries out in unbearable agony.

***

I shudder and sigh as eagerly as if I'd dived out of the water, my eyes wide open. The image of my pegasus being eaten alive by Canterlot ghouls looms in my mind's eye, like a long stare at a lamp. Her piercing wail still rings in my ears, and my entire body is covered in cold sweat. It's only a moment later that I hear her frightened and trembling voice.

"Daniel?"

I turn absently toward the source. The pegasus lifts a fearful and surprised gaze: inexpressible fear in her wet eyes, her lips trembling. Her power-armored hooves wrapped tightly around my belly.

I feel like I'm being thrown into cold water as I realize what it was. Still remembering what I saw, I unconsciously wrap my forelegs around her, wrapping her in a long embrace. I can feel myself trembling helplessly. Either she's trembling... or both of us. I am now overwhelmed with such conflicting emotions that I am ready to burst into tears.

We sit there for a few minutes, holding each other tightly, and then I regain my speech. I look around and realize we're in the same restaurant kitchen where I read out White Flower's diary yesterday.

"How scared I was..." I utter with effort, feeling everything inside of me slowly calm down. "It was all so realistic and believable..."

"Uh-huh," she barely audibly says convulsively. I hear her sniffle through the nose.

I unclench my hug and look up at her, seeing the wet and frightened eyes staring back at me. My heart sinks at the sight of this frightened pony with tears slowly running down her cheeks. She doesn't whimper or make any sound other than barely audible intermittent breathing. The silent and fearful look of a foal who has just seen a creepy monster that left him alone by chance at the very last moment.

"It was just a nightmare," I utter languidly. I feel like it's going to take us a while to recover from this nightmare.

"Danny, I..." her voice shakes.

"Shh..." I interrupt gently and lean into her, snuggling into her sweet little nose. "It's okay, angel. Breathe..."

She manages it with struggle. For support, I gift her with a brief kiss, and afterward, with my nose, I gently wipe the tears from her face. I realize from her spasmodic and brief sighs that she's a little ticklish, but she doesn't try to resist—in fact, she leans closer to me, trusting me. She's feeling noticeably better, and consequently, so am I. The touch of my nose against her face encourages warm and ticklish feelings in me—it even makes me want to giggle silly.

"Need to do that more often," I add jokingly, leaning back and wiping my nose from her tears. She chuckles weakly and sighs in cautious relief.

"Thank you..." she says, then gifs me a kiss.

We look at each other with a faint smile, realizing better and better that we were somehow only dreaming. The thought calms us both.

"Do you want to..." I begin cautiously, "talk about what you saw? Or would it be hard for you?" I say quietly, as if afraid of disturbing someone.

"I guess... yes..." she answers hesitantly. "I had a dream that I... in some jewelry store, I accidentally triggered a working alarm."

I shudder slightly.

"You were enraged by my carelessness. I was embarrassed and scared... Then we ran outside so I could carry us away, however one ghoul showed up from inside the store and attacked me from behind, clawing into my left wing, causing me to... not be able to fly. And we had to run. We shot back... and the whole time you were yelling over the radio, blaming me. Saying I was a burden, and you were sorry you ever stuck with me in the first place..." her voice shakes again, and there's a look of fright on her face, but she's afraid to look at me. "Then... hearing that, I stumbled down. The last thing I saw was you not paying attention and running on, and I wanted to yell out for you to help me, but my throat felt like something was restrained... shame and guilt prevented me from screaming. You ran on, and the ghouls at that moment..." she suddenly falls silent.

I am overcome with astonishment and vague fear at the striking similarity of our nightmares. The silence drags on, causing the pegasus to succumb more and more to guilt. Just in time to control myself, I put my leg around the waist of the pony sitting next to me.

"You know me, you've heard my full story. I wouldn't abandon you and I certainly wouldn't blame you in a situation like this. And... well, I had a similar nightmare. I'm not making it up." She raises a tired questioning look at me. "I'll tell you now."

As I tell her story, her surprise and fear grow.

"So..." I continue, "apparently I got stressed out about not being able to save you if something happened. I'll be responsible for your death. Does it still bother you that I might leave you because of a mistake like that?" Motley remains silent, only smiling bitterly. "I realize it takes time... and it's going to be harder with the nightmares. Too much of your strength to overcome yourself has been expended to let some vile nightmares ruin everything. I won't leave you alone with these worries."

She nods faintly in acknowledgement, then hugs me.

"How sweet this is. Discussing each other's nightmares."

What, are you jealous?

"No. I was lucky, I didn't have nightmares. Just a dream about being human again."

You're... Wait. I could usually anticipate his feelings, but now... it's like he's out of range.

"That's right. You're becoming more and more like a pony, which means you're becoming more and more distant from your human nature—me in particular."

"Is something wrong?" the pony worries, gazing into my face.

That's a topic that will still need to be pondered in the future. Who knows what such distance could lead to.

"Oh, just so... Just another tiff with my other me. Nothing new. Anyway, let's get some rest, have some breakfast, I'll put some more protective spells on our armor, drink some magic recovery potions, and we'll go on our way."

***

5th of the Month of Rain, Cyanday. The seventieth day of my stay.

This is the second time I've made an entry in my Pip-Boy about this date and day of being in the pony world. Repeating everything I said in my nightmare. And it's so weird...

Deja vu.

It's easy to walk through the ruins of the ghost town this early, but I have to strain to see the silhouettes and outlines of potential Canterlot ghouls in the distance. Sometimes I even see them, which causes a vague anxiety, fueled by the local atmosphere of death and the unknown. Especially after the nightmare I've been through, it's harder than usual to keep my self-control.

Nevertheless, we continue on our way, turning off radios along the way and avoiding the walking dead.

"You know, Spoiled, the text from that Celestia admirer's diary brings up some interesting thoughts about you."

Spoiled?

"Yeap. Basically. The physical body causes the soul to be aggressive and violent and stuff like that. Of course, the soul is a complete nonsense scientifically as described by religions, even here they know that. Only the presence of some kind of energy component is recognized. But the moment itself got me thinking about your transformation into a pony. The body has changed not only your psychological behavior—you're already ready to live with ponies and be with one for the rest of your life—but also your preferences. You're already loving Sparkle Cola with carrots! You've stopped drinking whiskey... You'll see, I'll bet you'll start eating hay and soon you won't be eating meat so much! You've spoiled yourself and become a pony!"

Whatever you say, Mr. Clean. I feel like what I was... well, not quite. The attachment to Motley may have affected me. And perhaps you have a point. But now is not a good time to talk. Keep in mind, if I die, so do you. It is not in your interest to distract me and make me gloomy with your assumptions or musings. After all, you've already separated yourself from me enough to hide your thoughts—so do me the favor of keeping your focus.

As I take a closer look at my surroundings, my gaze clings to a jewelry store... The Crystal Horseshoe. An overwhelming sense of deja vu occurs. Everything is so eerily consistent with what I saw in the nightmare, considering I definitely wasn't here—though because of the dream, I can't say for sure. I don't remember the name at all, though. Maybe I'm just imagining things, and I would have thought so if it hadn't been for Motley speaking to me over the radio.

"It felt like I was here..." she says absent-mindedly with a slight tremor in her voice. "It was... like a dream."

I decide to keep silent that I'm having the same experience. She shouldn't think about it too much. At least not right now, because my blood runs cold in my veins and a lump rises to my throat at the coincidence. I've never experienced anything like it, not even in Sierra Madre! When I look at a pre-war building, I get this intense feeling that makes me want to run away. It also gives me a perverse and unhealthy urge to look into it. The nightmare I saw has affected me deeply, and it's hard for me to realize why.

We instinctively take a wide arc around this jewelry store, and I mentally swear to myself that I will not enter a similar store in Canterlot for any treasure in the world.

"...except for the keycard that might be in there."

Shut up!

After moving as far away from this jewelry store as possible, I feel an inner relief and joy—and at the same time, my legs feel cotton-wooly, wanting to just lie down and catch my breath.

After a while, under my hooves on the stone-paved road, I recognize the remains of a long-dried pool of blood. This is a common sight in the ruins here. There have been enough reckless travelers here that it's a standard occurrence.

My gaze drifts up to the two-story white houses with ceramic tiles on their roofs along the street as I ponder these visitors whose curiosity and greed overrode their instinct for self-preservation.

Somewhere in the houses, windows have been broken out, doors have been swung open; walls or the edge of a roof has collapsed. In the midst of this slow devastation and desolation, silent metal benches and extinguished streetlights stand on the sidewalks, and in the distance the dark outlines of Pink Cloud's victims can be seen at varying distances from each other.

On one of the walls, I notice an inscription that makes me go cold from head to hooves. I stare at it dumbly, my mind aflame with the most unbelievable hypotheses and assumptions. The inscription, like so many others, is left in blood, but this one has a familiar ominous power. The very thought of seeing the same nightmare inscription in the same place now makes me shiver. Those three words will always remind me of it, "Canterlot remembers all."

I see images of Motley stumbling and then screaming as the teeth sink into her body.

***

I'm trying to find some rationalization for the coincidences. I'm not mentioning that I saw it in my nightmare in the same fucking place on the wall! She obviously didn't notice it in her dream, otherwise she would have mentioned it... Or is she as silent as I am?

No. I don't want to think about it like that. There's an explanation for everything, but until I have the facts, it's best not to speculate about it. Even the phrase "Canterlot remembers all" leaves me feeling very uneasy, because I have no idea how to interpret it.

Why would someone choose to say it in such a puzzling way? Why does it leave me with such unusual emotions? Perhaps because of the association with that nightmare? Perhaps there is a meaningful connection between the two? Or is it a random guideline? A coincidence? Yes... I'll leave it as a coincidence... yes. It's just a dark and strange coincidence.

My body is shivering and my heart is pounding rapidly in my chest. It's hard to walk like this... Fuck! It's so hard to calm the violent reaction to my thoughts. I decide to seek help from the other me.

Why aren't you helping me?

"What do I have to do with this? I know the same things you do, I have no assumptions about what I saw. It's not like I saw your nightmare. Perhaps you're just delusional... And everything you've seen has been shared with me, so I can't be trusted. You'd better ask Motley if she saw the dried blood and the inscription."

Sounds credible. But there's one small detail. Motley herself has said she's experiencing a sense of deja vu regarding that jewelry store, which means what we saw in the dream is real. And that's despite the fact that we've never been there.

"Maybe you're both delusional."

I'd like to believe that. Okay. Let's not talk about that just yet. All right, I'm thinking positively... about something fun... yeah. Right. Funny.

While I'm trying to keep my mind on the positive, recalling comical and amusing moments from my life—which turns out to be difficult—a one-story white post office building looms ahead of us, with a dozen Canterlot ghouls standing in a column, and it's unclear how many inside. The tracking chip marker jumps from place to place rather quickly.

There's no easy way to get to the source of the signals. After a quick look around, I realize it won't be easy to lure the ghouls out of there... unless I can take them out in droves to get some bait.

Take them out in droves? In droves. The thought of that brings back memories of that nightmare where we were being chased by dozens of ghouls at the same time. I shiver and shudder.

"Need to smoke them out of there?" the pegasus asks thoughtfully over the radio. Out of surprise, I only nod. "We can distract them with an explosion nearby. I'll use my grenade launcher, and in the meantime, you swing by there, turn off the radios, and, unless there's the keycard in the storage room, get the heck out of there. How's that for a plan with fireworks?"

"Wonderful... But you'll need to get there carefully and not get caught by dead guys on the way there and back."

"I'll manage. At the very least I'll fly away," she utters in a firm and determined voice.

"Well... Good, I have faith in you," I say as encouragingly as possible. Motley is about to leave, but I have something else to say, "Angel..." I quickly turn to her; she stops in anticipation. "Please be careful, and... don't damage your wings," I say worriedly.

"Don't worry. They'll be fine," she replies, moving her power armor-covered wings demonstratively, and disappears into the nearest alleyway. Her dark silhouette soars gracefully over the buildings...

Oh... It could take her less than a minute! We must hurry. I get as close to the post office building as I can, trying to keep a safe distance as they run. I listen to their ragged barely audible breathing, but there's nothing interesting about it.

In the remaining minute of waiting, all I do is look at their disfigured bodies with their clothes clinging to them: motley dresses, elegant outfits, hats, ties, purses, and jewelry. Some of them possess PipBucks, but the tracking chip doesn't indicate them: either they're malfunctioning or not set up to play the killer radio frequency.

I stare at the walking dead, and the longer I do it, the more unsettling it becomes. It's the second day I've been here, but it still sends shivers down my spine.

An explosion rumbles in the distance. The ghouls turn their heads toward the sound and race toward it. I manage to count about twenty. I stare at this running crowd of death with a slight shiver. The nightmare keeps coming back to me.

Shaking my head, pushing away the oppressive thoughts and frightening images, I move quickly toward the building, glancing around sharply, standing at the side of the entrance and peering cautiously in. Seeing no one in sight, I turn on my flashlight and take a look at my surroundings.

"Did it work?" I hear over the radio, distracted.

"Yeah. They're running like flies on shit."

"Are you saying my job is shit?" she asks in a offended tone.

"What?" I marvel with a huff, dumbfounded. A carefree chuckle erupts on the other end.

"Gotcha!" she pronounces cheerfully. I shake my head.

"And where did you get that from..." I say with a smile on my lips.

"From you, who else?"

"I thought it was from 'Berry'."

"From her too, but it's you who inspires me the most."

"Okay... Let's join me."

"Whatever you say, sir."

Ending the communication session, I step over the threshold of the post office and take a close look at the details captured by the flashlight's light. Along the walls are waiting couches, and in front of them are coffee tables with faded Canterlot Advertiser newspapers. The most recent issues at the time of the megaspell's fall, with large headlines. Month of Rain, 11, Greenday, 1152—BALTIMARE THREE YEARS AFTER LIBERATION. Month of Rain, 12, Cyanday, 1152—REBELION AND COUP IN THE PEGASUS CITIES. Month of Rain, 13, Blueday, 1152—NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PEGASI. Month of Rain, 14, Violetday, 1152—THE EIGHTH OWNER OF THE APOSTLE KNOWN. And the newspaper for the last day... when the megaspells fell: Month of Rain, 15, Redday, 1152—PEGASI WILL CLOSE THE SKY?

Once again, one thinks wistfully of the fact that the dates of the beginning of the apocalypse in this world and on Earth coincide. The Month of Rain is the local October. In ten days, it will be exactly two hundred years since the apocalypse began in this world.

My attention is focused on the headline, 'THE EIGHTH OWNER OF THE APOSTLE REVEALED'. That is, there are the eight Apostles in total, copies of the weapons with the mysterious crystals.

I use telekinesis to pick up this issue, bringing it closer. In the light of the lantern, a quick glance at the time-worn ink of the newspaper, I learn that it was given to some mare-hero of the war, which at that moment was already in full swing in the territory of the Zebra Empire. The Apostle is some fancy gun called Vigilance. The mare-hero is a unicorn, originally from Hoofington, and her name was Black Jack. It is written that among her acquaintances and friends she is known as a connoisseur of whiskey, and her favorite drink is Wild Pegasus whiskey. Next to the name in brackets is an italicized note, 'This is not an advertisement for a brand'.

"Whiskey lover?"

Connoisseur, I correct.

"Yeah it's basically the same thing. Anyway, I wouldn't mind having a drink of this marvelous beverage with her, to chat about life and exchange experiences about whiskey enjoyment. "

The article also states that according to her friends, she is reckless and reckless, has debauched behavior and takes risks all the time.

"Just like us. No wonder she distinguished herself at the front... It's just a matter of luck."

Her tolerance of other races is cited as a positive attribute. Hmm. Tolerance of other races and debauched behavior— If you were really going to have a whiskey with her, you should be careful to avoid a situation that both of us, I emphasize, have already gotten into in this world.

"What's your point..."

New Appleloosa. We got drunk. Bluerise. We wake up in her hotel room. The funny thing is, we were one and the same.

"No!" Mr. Clean screams. "I don't feel like it anymore!"

You'd get drunk, and even if you were human, she'd still sleep with you, given her tolerance and debauched behavior...

"Disgusting images... Fuck you! Is this your way of getting back at me, Spoiled?"

Yes, Mr. Clean.

I savor his mental anguish with pleasure, whereas for me it seems quite natural. After gloating some more, I feel that my mood has improved; I notice that we have spent too much time at the coffee table. I put the newspaper back in its original place, having never finished reading exactly what kind of reckless act she was famous for or what she looked like, and continue to lazily survey the interior.

In addition to sofas and coffee tables, there are artificial plants, paintings and... propaganda posters, which are almost completely hung on the walls. I've seen such things before, like the recruitment posters for the Ministry of Secret Sciences, but here most of them are of a different nature... Information and espionage. I walk up to some of them and glance around.

A warning red banner: in big letters it says, KEEP YOUR, below it is a picture of a triggered mousetrap with a piece of newspaper as bait, and below it a third word, SHUT!. Below that is a smaller caption, DON'T GIVE THE RATS ANY INFORMATION!, with the caricatured zebra's heads next to it.

Half of the poster is red, the other half is a blue sea, and in the center is a black silhouette of a sinking and smoking ship. Above the silhouette, it says in rhyme, LOOSE LIPS, and below it says, MIGHT SINK SHIPS.

Another poster with a beige background depicts a mare's head with a military headdress. Her bewildered gaze is directed in the direction where her mouth is covered by the pink hoof of an unknown pony. Below is a poster-wide caption that runs in two rows: the first is SILENCE and the second is MEANS SECURITY.

There is a poster similar to the previous one, but it shows a frightened civilian pony in a business suit with the same pink hoof gagging her. At the top, the word, QUIET!, is written in large letters, and under the silhouette of the pony in a slightly smaller font is LOOSE TALK CAN COST LIVES.

I think I realize who the pink hoof belonged to. Among the posters is a picture of the pink pony, Pinkie Pie. Against a background of soft pink, she puts a hoof to her mouth while looking sternly at the viewer. Above her is written in dark pink, I'M COUNTING ON YOU!, and below her in several rows of smaller font, DON'T DISCUSS: TROOP MOVEMENTS, SHIP SAILINGS, WAR EQUIPMENT.

Some are repeated, but the point remains the same. Pinkie Pie urges ponies not to talk, especially on military topics. Huh... good old-fashioned propaganda, just like in my world. This concentration of propaganda is even a little comforting, seen as a light-hearted prank, considering how fucked up things are around here.

I turn off the radio, and the tracking chip points to another location, which I take it is somewhere in the back of the building—in a storage area. Stepping on the sheets of paper, letters and propaganda flyers lying around, I make my way inside the spacious room, which has small windows all the way up to the ceiling... and I hear hoofsteps behind me. Turning around, I see a pony dressed in the Enclave power armor.

"Perfect timing. I had faith in you."

"I certainly couldn't have done it without your faith," she says in a tone that sounds like it's both sarcasm and gratitude at the same time. "So, are we going to read other pony's mail?" she asks mischievously. Her visor turns in different directions. I can only imagine the greedy and predatory look in her eyes. And indeed, there is much to gaze at...

Rows of shelves, labeled by date, on which packages and parcels of various sizes and shapes are dusting. On one of the workers' tables I see cards left behind, uncorked bottles of alcohol—the liquid inside is a deep pink color—ashtrays... and a radio. Turning it off, I glance at the PipBuck: the marker is already pointing outside the building. So nobody mailed the keycard here. Sounds stupid. I'm surprised I didn't think of it sooner. It's a waste of explosives to bother the ghouls.

While I'm working with the radio and looking at the map of the spare PipBuck, Motley is already busy looting packages. She opens one of the boxes with one swift, precise swing of her tail-blade. Inside are various medicines. Nothing fancy: pills and ampoules for headaches, hypotensive, sedatives... She lets me take them, and I put them in my bags in case they come in handy. Meanwhile, she eagerly opens the second one to find there... a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Equestria. From the description, it sounds like a humorous story. We leave it resting on the shelf.

I don't stand idly by and pull the first dusty rectangular package I see from one of the shelves. It looks like a book. With magic, I unzip it and find... another hardcover book inside. Its title disrupts the relaxed and steady flow of my thoughts. Capricious Mares, All About the Sex Cycle. With my mouth open in surprise, I stare at the cover like a brahmin at a new gate. Motley sneaks up from behind.

"So what's that?" she asks with childlike excitement and immediately falls silent.

"Hmm... Interesting stuff to read," I force myself out and hear Motley's suppressed chuckle.

"What a find. Are you going to read it?"

"I don't think so. From the looks of it, it's some sort of medical textbook. It's more... for you."

"I've read it once. Before I went to the Academy. My mother worked in a clinic, though," she shrugs. "It's more likely to be useful to stallions."

"I don't need it."

"Okay... then don't complain that I raped you in your sleep," she says with an unclear tone.

My attention shifts from the book to the pegasus. The faceted lenses of her armor are pointed in my direction. There's a tense silence... followed by a soft, melodic laugh.

"It's a joke... It's a popular myth that mares almost go crazy during heat. There are clinical cases, of course, but those are the exception. Every mare goes through it differently, some don't feel anything, some just feel bad. And some do start acting more... slutty, let's put it that way."

"That's reassuring," I mutter.

"And if seriously... why don't you want to read it?"

"First of all, I'm not a mare. Second, I read a book on pony anatomy at Tenpony Tower, and there was a section on the sexual cycle of mares, so I know a little bit about it."

"Well, would you like to get... deeper into this... swamp?" she asks in a low voice, emphasizing the words 'deeper' and 'swamp' in a special way. I'm puzzled, as I don't immediately realize the ambiguity of her words.

"That's a strange wording you picked..." I grumble after a short pause, to which I hear a faint chuckle on her part. She speaks of it with such ease and casually... Just like Brisa. Though the latter's words almost always had more scholarship and scientific terminology in it. "Okay. Let's get out of here. We've got a lot to do."

On my way out, I out of the corner of my eye notice a rack of packages that are supposed to be shipped on the appointed date. I don't know what motivates me to grab a stack of envelopes with a delay in mailing, but apparently these letters usually have a certain importance, since the sender might change his mind and pick them up in the meantime.

***

Motley paces ahead, watching for potential danger. I need something to focus on and take my mind off the gloom and desolation around me, so I pick up the stack of letters I grabbed before I left the storage room. The target is two blocks away anyway. No sooner do I open the first envelope than the pegasus gives me a voice over the radio.

"Listen... Daniel..." she begins hesitantly, with a touch of excitement, causing me to look away and raise my head involuntarily.

The pegasus walks on without turning in my direction, observing the area. I occasionally glance around myself. It's unusual that there are no radios nearby at all, and the number of Canterlot ghouls is minimized.

"This silence makes my mood seem somehow tense. Shall we... chat?"

"Aren't you going to be distracted?" I voice my doubts.

"I need to dispel the tense thoughts that have arisen. Sometimes they make me feel like danger is around every corner. All the more reason for me to just want to hear your lovely voice. I hope it won't be difficult for you to tell me something while reading?"

"No, it's not difficult. It depends on the subject of the story. What exactly do you want to hear about?"

"Well..." she stretches out over the radio and falls silent, apparently having fallen into thought. For the next ten seconds we walk in silence. I, on the other hand, open the envelope and unfold the letter, running my eyes over the text. "Oh, right... About your world. For example, about the events in New Peg.... Ahem. My bad. The events in New Vegas. You're caught in the middle of a major conflict in the Wasteland, the likes of which has never happened here before, as far as you can remember. The New California Republic. Caesar's Legion. Mr. House. but you chose to act on your own. Why did you give the reins of power to an artificial intelligence... I forget its nickname."

"Yes Man," I say idly, managing to unpack another envelope and peruse the text of the letter. The previous one I'd just tossed aside with the envelope: there was nothing interesting in it. Some pony couldn't decide whether to reveal the sordid truth about himself to his aunt.

"Yes. To it. After all, you know my attitude toward such robots. Though the New California Republic was an imperfect one, according to you, but still, to me, one of the best options."

"Hmm..."

I look away from the letter and stare up at the pink-clouded sky, digging into my past, then lower my gaze back down.

"The NCR... They're insatiable, too greedy. Imperialists. Rapid expansion has played havoc with them: for example, they're unable to defend the territories they supposedly control. One day, the NCR showed up in the Divide, rushing in with all their legs, and annexed this settlement of a thousand people who just wanted freedom from them... I was, to say the least, upset and annoyed by this event. I disliked the NCR."

"You... have such a strong attachment to the place?"

"I've been there long enough... I made some good acquaintances."

"Has your attitude towards the NCR changed in the time since that event?" the pegasus asks.

By this time I finish reading the letter and just dispel my telekinetic grip, and it, along with the envelope, swaying, falls on the stone paved sidewalk under my hooves. Literally in the next instant, I gingerly step over the shapeless remains of the pony, which have melted with the surface of the stone road.

Poor thing.

I open the next envelope and continue the story, answering the pegasus' question.

"By the time of the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, not by much. But afterward... That major disgrace caused the citizens of the NCR to wake up. Change really started to happen there."

I finish reading the small letter, which contains nothing of substance. The paranoid ramblings of a guy who thought the zebras were going to kill him.

"What about Caesar's Legion?" the pegasus asks.

I fold the letter back in half, stuffing it into the envelope from which it was removed; turning it ribbed, I aim it at the nearest gilded metal trashcan and sword it like a disk parallel to the sidewalk. Whistling and spinning in the air, it eventually flies past the can and lands with a thud somewhere behind it.

Slightly disappointed by my miss, I take up the task of opening another antique envelope. At a certain point, I realize I'm not following the words of the pegasus, who isn't even interested in my letter-throwing fun.

"Aside from the slave labor and their hatred of the... the females of their species, let's just say, they also rejected sophisticated technology. No progress. Yes, their survival in the Wastelands is efficient because they don't have to think about ammunition production, they don't have to keep weapons and machinery up and running, which in the Wastelands is difficult in itself. Thanks to this policy, they don't have to spend time learning complicated things. But, again, no progress."

"Speaking of progress... Mr. House kind of suggested that, didn't he?" Motley asks as I finish reading the letter.

Finding nothing useful again, I crumple both the envelope and the letter into two separate clumps and toss them into the nearest trashcan. The envelope clatters against its metal top and falls to the sidewalk. I feel frustrated.

I was so close!

The crumpled letter doesn't even make it to the garbage can because of its lightness.

"He's overconfident," I reply, starting to fumble with a new envelope. "Single-handedly ruling over everything. He could have been a dictator, but we're all subject to emotion, and so is he..."

"So... you've given up on everyone and decided to act on your own. Don't you act like the same self-righteous House?" Motley wonders sweetly.

I ponder her words, folding a paper airplane out of a sheet of the letter. Quickly making one, I launch it into space, keeping my pace steady. It cuts through the air evenly and silently, gradually descending until it eventually collides with an abandoned baby stroller of a blue hue, falling beside it. I don't know if it's empty—or if the remains of a foal or a filly that's been melded with it for the past two hundred years are inside.

My gloomy thoughts make me shiver and I stop. Nearby I notice another three-row inscription in dried blood on the white wall, "Flesh. Unity. Undead." It's not hard to interpret.. because it's connected to thoughts of the wheelchair, and it reminds me of other inscriptions about it, but with a different wording.

Living flesh merges with the surrounding unliving matter.

I retrace my steps to catch up with the pegasus. Motley is still watching ahead; apparently she assumes that in my moments of silence I'm so absorbed in reading the letter that I'm even temporarily pausing.

"Discovered something interesting?" she asks without turning around.

"No..." I crumple the envelope and aim to toss it into the trashcan, but it flies in an arc and lands a few inches to the left, making me upset again. "Just the ramblings of pre-war residents unsure of the future."

"So... what about my earlier question?"

"I've thought about it more than once," I reply, opening another envelope and pulling out a letter from there. "I tried to reach the peace and entrusted the management to Yes Man."

"And why AI?"

"He became a full-fledged AI recently, he's still learning, but he's already showing good results. Look... Throughout history, people at the head of nations have organized wars, holy campaigns, solved various disputes this way and so on. Do you see where this has led? With the appearance of AI, there is a whole new player in terms of governance. If history has repeatedly shown what human actions lead to in view of their unchanging nature, why not try to give this opportunity to AI? It's never happened before in history, and if given the chance.,. Anyway, humans almost destroyed civilization on the planet because of... their nature, to put it bluntly. I can't even imagine an AI could do worse."

"I, in my day, have read enough about robots going insane and such. Besides, there are enough stories gathered by the Enclave scouts in the Wastelands involving robots."

As she says this, I twirl the letter I've just read with cool interest, shove it back into the envelope, and with a slight sense of annoyance toss it far away without looking to see where it lands. I ponder the pegasus' words, picking up the words.

"Put the blame on the people who programmed them and set the algorithms, and the engineers who created the hardware that made it all work. Either way, I have more confidence in advanced AI than I do in humans or ponies."

"Ha," Motley chuckles. "That is, on you, wizard engineer," she adds without even turning around, apparently remembering that my face is hidden under my helmet. With an unaccountable urge, I smile indulgently and continue examining the remaining envelopes.

"Are you satisfied with the answer?" I ask curiously at that.

"Totally. Thank you for the conversation. It's already easier for me to focus, and there's a lot to brainstorm about. For example, my attitude towards Caroline."

"Good for you, angel," I say sincerely, pulling another letter out of another envelope, already expecting to see more confessions, doubts, and conspiracy nonsense.

It was to be mailed in the Month of Rain, 20, Blueday, 1152. In other words, the fifth day after the fall of the megaspells. The addressee was one of the police stations in Canterlot. The text is printed on a typewriter.

"My name is Sonorous Splash. I am addressing whoever reads this letter. It is actually only one of two letters I have composed. The reason for this action was due to an event related to my activities. I will inform you at once that circumstances forced me to take this step. If this letter has reached its addressee, it means that something has happened to me. For such an occasion I sent it with a delay, hoping that everything would go well. If it got to you, it means... I don't even want to think about it. For the record. I'm not a traitor or a betrayer!

I found out that my loved ones who went to the front as medics were captured by zebras. A town (Sentinum) on the coast of the Zebra Empire, captured by the Equestria army, was counterattacked by zebras to recapture it. As recently reported in the newspapers, they succeeded. Many were killed, some were captured. The zebras got wind of where I work through captured loved ones, and forced me to facilitate the sharing of secrets in exchange for their release, and if I refused, they would be sent to be brutally tortured. It sounded unlikely, but I had no other hope. I agreed, for I was presented with proof that they were alive and that they were their captives. They forbade me to go to the police or anyone in the Ministry, they would know immediately if I blabbed about the deal, so I had to send delayed letters in case anything happened to me. With any luck I'd get them back. I was given a week in which to get as much classified information as I could from my Ministry of Morale, specifically about a certain project for which they'd created an entire division— so massive and complicated was it. The Controllers. From the moment of the countdown in the appointed time (which is a week) I will need to report to the specified place.

I don't know how it's going to turn out, but all I could get was a memory orb about the project. And it's not much information. It was only by a happy coincidence that the head of the Ministry of Morale in Canterlot was away on urgent business in another part of the country the other day, and a good friend of mine stayed behind as her deputy, so I had no trouble getting information about the project. We don't have any more information about it as far as I know, but I'm not sure of that yet. Almost all of its secrets are in the Controllers' archives. We have been given only a few instructions from Pinkie Pie herself regarding this division, among which are to cooperate with them and not to ask too many questions.

The sender's address is a valid one. If the letter were to be opened prematurely by someone, the text would disappear thanks to a special spell, so the workers at the post office or the zebras would not be able to recognize the essence of what is written here. Again, I had to take this step. For the sake of my loved ones. Forgive me. Forgive me posthumously."

I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I feel sorry for her, I sympathize with her. She had to make a difficult choice: her beloved loved ones or her native country. Well, she made a choice not in favor of her country. One can understand her: in such moments one thinks first of the welfare of loved ones and then of everything else. On the other hand...

Finally! The first clue. It is necessary to go to the house of this Sonorous and inspect everything there. The appointed day was after the megaspell had fallen, so another Dome memory orb could be at her house, since she had already gotten it when she wrote the letter.

"Eureka!" I exult.

"What happened?" Motley asks in a gasping voice, apparently scared by my exclamation over the radio.

"I grasped at straws. The Dome, my angel! I've picked up the trail... but I've got to find the address of the sender's house."

"Excellent news!" she says cheerfully, as if infected by my enthusiasm. "I saw a map at the post office. I'll fly over there in a jiffy. Give me the address."

For the first time ever, we have a concrete place to start looking. The pegasus soars into the air and heads in the direction of the post office. The moment she's gone, I walk over to the trash can and dump the remaining unopened envelopes in it. I don't need them anymore.

"Well, for once you made it to the trash can. That's commendable, nothing to add."

Thank you, I say to him, pretending I didn't notice his sarcasm.

***

Down long abandoned streets where life once thrived, between the remains of dead ponies that melted and became part of the sidewalks during that saddest and darkest time in the history of the Month of Rain, 15, 1152, two figures walk with quiet unhurried steps tensely and cautiously.

Myself and Motley.

The ear-pressing ambient silence is interrupted only by a faint stifling breeze. On the way to the Sonorous's house, we turn off the radios and the loudspeakers on the poles. At a certain point, the marker points to a single, seemingly unremarkable two-story house, standing in a row of many other detached houses surrounded by hedged yards. All that remains are withered bare branches, swaying drearily in the wind from time to time. It's a rich neighborhood.

On the silver-colored metal front doors of the house I spotted, there is a purple symbol. It's clearly from the realm of music. The treble clef symbol.

I'm reminded of the pony we rescued from the white yao gaui at the North Park Bank. Flyrose, if my memory serves me correctly. Anyway, her name is on the Pip-Boy.

The symbol on the door could imply that a musician, or some ardent music fan or music lover, lived in the house: who knows, there might be a clue to a musical instrument store where we could find a cello for Flyrose. Maybe luck will favor me, and the instrument will be in this house.

I signal to Motley that I will go and look around the house. She follows me. Nearby in front of the house I see the remains of a pony spliced into the sidewalk. Though a familiar sight, it still makes me feel sorry and horrified.

As I approach the door of the two-story house, which is predominantly gray in color, I study it, for it seems quite secure against all sorts of intruders. The owner of the dwelling obviously thought about the safety of themselves and their property, which, by the way, is evidenced by the metal bars on the windows. During a cursory inspection of the facade, I see an inscription in black paint on the wall of the neighboring house above the withered branches of the once hedge, "The Living and the Unliving strive for each other". Another notice of the effect of Pink Cloud on flesh that comes in contact with non-living matter.

Motley watches our rear, I meanwhile fiddling with the door's locking mechanism. It's not for a mere amateur locksmith, and I'm not one of them. However, I will have to resort to magical hacking skills to crack this door. I don't like that. I like it better old school, when I can feel this lock resisting me... I could especially feel it when I used my human hands.

"I miss them the most. Magic doesn't provide that soft and exhilarating effect of the process. "

I'm fine with the horn, though I wouldn't mind sliding my hands against Motley's fur. I want so badly to stroke her auburn mane, to see her peaceful smile and eyes radiating pleasure and delight...

"You'd also imagine her flicking out her tongue like a doggy. Don't be distracted by nothing, Spoiled."

Whatever you say, Mr. Clean.

Lately, we've become more self-reliant and too independent of each other. We haven't even really noticed how we've given each other nicknames.

It's been about ten minutes. It takes a lot of effort and patience to figure out the construction of the intricate lock. In the process, I hear the distinctive short sound of the door lock unlocking. I mentally rejoice at the result.

"That 'lock' made you sweat, didn't it?" Motley asks an ambiguous rhetorical question.

She realizes that it's inappropriate, rather impossible, for me to be distracted during this kind of work, so it's not worth the effort. And she couldn't help but think of that joke with the locks.

I pull the door open, and then something comes to my ears that makes my blood run cold and my knees shake. I'm paralyzed, my thoughts boiling, my heart pounding in fear, and it's scary to even breathe. It's like I'm petrified and turned into a silent and statue-like figure. Apparently, Motley has also fallen into a daze from what she has heard, turning into a statue in the intimidating black armor.

From within comes a melody... The pitiful and wistful sounds of a cello.

Could it be some kind of device that plays recorded music, like a gramophone?

There's something so unnatural about it that only heightens the sense of dread that tugs at the strings of my nerves. The howl of the cello is so creepy and piercing that even after a minute of listening to it, I can't control myself or even move. It's like I'm in a trance, gripped by a sudden terror, even breathing is difficult. The melody is incredibly expressive and deep, and the high notes pass through my ears and consciousness like a knife blade, making me associate it with someone's shrill scream from the beyond. It triggers in me an instinctive and primal feeling of devastating fear of... inevitable death. So deeply does it touch my nature, stir my imagination and shake my nerves, that it is difficult to keep my self-control.

If it weren't for my paralyzed state, I would scream. Death itself performs this grave tragic tune.

It can't be a recording, it sounds frighteningly vivid.

"Daniel..." a pitiful and suppressed voice is heard. It's Motley on the radio. "Can we not go into that house? I..." she falters, as if the audible tone of the tune forces her to shut up.

"Me too..." I reply brokenly. Her voice helps me perk up slightly and regain control of my body. "But it's just a tune..."

Remembering the flashlight on my helmet, I turn it on and it makes the darkness part. I lift my trembling front leg to step inside, but hesitate. The anxiety overwhelming me somehow reminds me of the moment I was about to cross the threshold of Stable 66, but the melody seems to amplify the sensation many times over.

"Oh. That's right... I was unknowingly fascinated by listening to it. It's really like that Stable. You can't give in to fear! It's just music, albeit with a frightening and piercing tone."

As soon as Mr. Clean talked to me about it, it's like that unaccountable fear and crushing anxiety was erased from me. I take a deep sigh to bolster my composure and assess the hallway in front of me. The floor is covered with an expensive dark purple carpet; the walls are a silvery hue. The refined, classic style of the furniture suggests that the owner of the house was a very elegant person. A chest of drawers, a table with a mirror hanging above them, a coat closet opposite the entrance and next to a door leading, apparently, to the basement. Wooden steps covered with purple carpet and leading to the second floor. The interior of the hallway, like the rest of the house, is done with a combination of different shades of gray and silver, and sometimes purple.

When we find ourselves in the hallway, there is an opportunity to go in one of five directions. To my left is a living room with a television, a lush couch, plants withered in vases and pots, and paintings of various picturesque landscapes, one of which features a view of the desert and rocky terrain that is the central part of Equestria. The passage on the right leads to a room filled with bookcases, between which there is a cozy-looking fireplace, as well as several soft and comfortable armchairs. We can go forward by the stairs to the second floor or to the basement... Or we could take Motley's fifth option, which is to turn around and get as far away from this house as possible.

I'm just now realizing I didn't hear the cello playing outside when I was working on the lock. Quite curious. It's also curious that the Pink Cloud's fallout is virtually non-existent here: there's only a concentration near the fireplace, which is natural, given the chimney, through which it could easily enter. And the interior is quite well preserved. I decide to go to the left side of the house, for that's where the marker points—I don't know whether it's on the first floor, the second floor, or the basement.

Motley follows me. She stays fearfully close to me. She has trouble ignoring the unnatural, afterlife-like melody of the cello, while I have no trouble ignoring it. I've seen a lot more of that in Stable 66... Daze and anxiety take hold of me at the suddenness of it, for I had not expected something like this here. Pink Cloud is unsettling and inexplicable, especially during periods of silence, broken only by the howling wind, but I certainly didn't expect live cello playing... Or maybe we're both having sonic hallucinations, which is weird. Although tonight we had nightmares that coincided at certain parts. That shouldn't be so surprising anymore. Certainly, Pink Cloud needs things already more frightening if it wants to break me and kill the sanity in me.

"Don't think too much. It's not our style to be a smartass, remember"

It's just the thing to ward off fear.

Moving around the house under the influence of this afterlife music is disturbing and difficult for me. The noise of the radio receiver is already starting to reach my ear, which means risky proximity to the range. Unfortunately, it is out of range. We'll have to go around the other side. I give Motley directions, and we move through a room filled to the brim with stuffed bookcases.

Not only elegant, but also very educated in nature!

As soon as we cross the threshold of this room, the afterlife music stops suddenly and abruptly, and with it my heart nearly stops. There follows a barely audible deep and embittered growling from the second floor. It's definitely a Canterlot ghoul.

Wait a minute... was that it playing the cello? What's going on here? It doesn't seem like a sane pony, given its menacing growl.

"I don't know... If I were him, I'd react the same way to strangers unceremoniously breaking into my house. "

Before I have time to properly comprehend all of this, including Mr. Clean's remark, there's a disorderly clatter of hooves coming from the staircase on the second floor. We immediately turn around and retreat a little deeper into the room, lurking in anticipation of the enemy and drawing our melee weapons. The light of our flashlights is directed toward the hallway. In the next instant it jumps down the stairs, caught in the light, and turns sharply in our direction. We can't get a good look at the dead pony, as it immediately lunges at us with predatory zeal. I aim my sword at its neck and stab it through with difficulty. Motley takes the initiative, lunging toward the enemy slightly away from it, to pierce its head with a stinger that whistles through the air.

The blow hits the eyeball, and it bursts with a disgusting sound. The pegasus turns around and yanks her tail, aiming to bring the ghoul down; I barely have time to draw my shock sword. The dead pony falls off its hooves just as I step aside. The attacker's body slams into the bookshelf, causing it to sway and the dilapidated books to fall from it.

"Knowledge spilled on the head..."

He doesn't stop snarling ominously and predatorily. Motley wastes no time and immediately lunges with her knuckles, Pushy, at the ghoul's head with the remaining locks of its dark gray mane. A precise and deadly blow to the head. The pink blood-soaked fragments fly apart, splattering also the books thrown away by Pushy's shockwave. The crumpled body is left lying buried beneath the bloody books.

The sense of apparent danger invigorates us a little: we almost forget about that chilling afterlife music, but we have no desire to look at the body. Instead, we take a breath, head into the kitchen, and turn off the working radio. A quick look around the kitchen, with the flashlight beam picking out the shapes of objects from the gloom, and thoughts of the locked door, leads me to the conclusion that the victim remained conscious for a long time before turning into a ghoul. In the kitchen, the cupboards are all open, the doors are wide open, there is absolutely no food inside, the tables are littered with empty and cleaned jars and bottles of wine, the garbage can is littered with wrappers, cans, and cardboard boxes of food...

How is it that the concentration of Pink Cloud inside has not proved to be as destructive here as in other houses?

I voice my thoughts on the matter, but the pegasus only shrugs.

We go down into the basement to look around, but there's nothing there but household junk and old pre-war stuff. Only the shelves used for storing wine have been emptied. Here the concentration of Pink Cloud, as well as its fallout, is also below normal.

Once up on the second floor, we peek through the first door we see. Behind it is a restroom. Walking over to the toilet, I see pink water at the bottom of it.

That's right. Pink Cloud is leaking everywhere, and it's only natural that the plumbing would be no exception. The emptied wine shelves in the basement say that the victim imprisoned here probably didn't like drinking tap water because of the presence of the bad stuff.

"And how did you come up with that..." Mr. Clean in my head says with venomous sarcasm.

"Judging by your interested look," the pegasus suddenly stands to the side of me, causing me to turn my head toward her, "are you thinking of trying this... pink wine?" she asks in a sarcastic tone.

"Not..." I, waving my hoof, reply after a short pause. "Only true gourmets drink water from such an oval bowl, which I am not."

The pegasus's giddy laughter echoes through the radio.

"Wow... You always have something to say. Really, what's on your mind?" she turns her visor toward me.

"Because it's a thinking room. Sitting on the toilet makes you want to think," I explain. I hear a brief chuckle in response.

"There's some truth to what you say. Let's go explore further."

I only nod.

There's nothing of interest in the bathroom. One of the rooms has a double bed, but the closets and dressers are as empty as those wine bottles in the kitchen. Apparently, this room is intended for a possible guest who, for some reason, has decided to spend the night with the owner. Most likely the mistress, for both men and stallions are rarely concerned with keeping their homes in tidy order, especially when trapped. Even that garbage in the kitchen and empty cans are carefully and neatly folded, which seems somewhat absurd and unnatural.

The next room turned out to be a bedroom already in regular use, as evidenced by the lavish closets and patterned tables filled with things. Passing the mirror, I involuntarily stop in front of it and consider my image reflected in it. I had once seen in the reflection an upright, two-legged creature... but now it's just a pony on four legs. And now it would seem unusual to see a human being there.

I thought the other me would say something about it, but Mr. Clean is silent, though I can feel her presence.

I turn around at the creaking sound of the hinges of the newly opened closet—Motley is already inspecting the possessions of the victim imprisoned here two hundred years ago. She whistles.

"Wow... Some grumpy pony used to live here. The dresses and other clothing are mostly dark colors, though white collars and shirts occasionally manage to be here. It's amazing that everything is relatively well preserved."

"Thinking of getting yourself something from this assortment?"

"Yeah... I don't want to hear you whining about wasted caps."

"Hey..." I get frustrated. "I'm not a cheapskate, and you're that..."

"...I know," she interrupts, chuckling audibly. "I know you aren't cheap on me. I just don't want to bother you with spending too much, especially with all this free stuff coming up," she says, her head diving into rummaging through the cabinets and dressers."

I walk over to the window and see the backyard beyond it below, engulfed by a dense cluster of Pink Cloud. I can barely make out the outlines of densely planted trees and remnants of once lush shrubs in this pink mist, with a wooden chaise lounge with an equally low table in the center between them. These clusters of vegetation must have served as a beautiful illusion of a forested area.

I closed my eyes and immersed myself in fantasies of lying on this chaise lounge and dozing surrounded by fragrant trees and green bushes. After a while I wake up, gaze into the blue sky and watch the white clouds peacefully passing by. Sweetly stretching, I take a deep breath and again slowly sink into sleep to this peaceful sight... I am snapped out of my reverie by the sudden muffled sound of a fallen object.

"Oops," a guilty voice is heard from the pegasus on the radio. "I accidentally caught something with my tail."

She looks around. I follow the direction of her helmet light, which stops almost immediately on a framed photograph lying face down. Motley continues to dig through the locker.

I walk over to the fallen object, pick it up off the dark purple carpet with my telekinesis, and turn it face-up toward me. In the blue shimmering haze of my magic and the beam of light from the flashlight, I see the image of a gray earth pony in her mid-forties wearing a dark dress in the middle of a stage in some theater. The pony has a dark gray well-groomed long mane, she stands on her hind hooves and holds a silver cello with her front hooves...

I take it that's what we killed downstairs. Or rather, we killed what was left of it. She looked attractive. I take a closer look at her: her eyes are covered with delicately lined lashes, her expression soft and relaxed—she's clearly enjoying the music she's playing on her instrument. There is a pink bow tie around her neck.

After admiring the photo, I place it on the dresser from which it fell; there are two other picture frames there. Putting this one down, I look at the other two. One of them shows a white unicorn with a flashy blue mane with a style about the same as mine, but it's a little longer, causing some of the curls to hang down on the right side. Her eyes are covered by pink glasses with black frames, her ears are wearing stylized headphones, and her lips are parted in a bright, seductive smile. She's standing behind some fancy music machine with flickering lights and lots of switches, her front hooves resting on two vinyl records, and bright multicolored beams running randomly across a dark background. Apparently, she's at some kind of party.

I pick up the frame and turn it back to me. The inscription reads, "To my beloved Tavi. Since you weren't able to make it to this awesome party for the first anniversary of Baltimare's liberation, I'm sending you a picture." First anniversary? So the picture was taken two years before the apocalypse.

I distract Motley from her work and show her the photo.

"Ah... Vinyl Scratch, or DJ Pon3," she explains, holding up one of the elegant black-colored outfits with her right foot. "The first Pon3, by the way."

"Curious... But what I'm most interested in is the music console she's standing behind. I've never seen one like it."

"She designed it herself. Unique in its own way because of the combination of sounds it produced beyond the usual playback of well-known musical compositions. Energizing, dynamic and rocking music. No one could recreate the device, because its unique capabilities worked through the magic and spells of Vinyl herself. She did not reveal her secrets to anyone. The unique and unusual combination of sounds made her famous, and she was invited to all the big parties in Equestria. Even at such an advanced age, she still rocked like she was in her twenties. Even I envy her energy. I wish I could move my rump as actively when I'm old..."

I look at the picture again and, after a brief pause, put it back on the dresser. Suddenly Motley turns to me.

"I'll take the loot to Venture. As well as some of the dresses and clothes. In the meantime, I'll drag them downstairs to the exit in case we spot anything else interesting to move all at once," she picks up her preferred items, which are currently lying on the large bed. Dresses, jewelry, and various outfits. "Even if some of them don't fit me," she continues, "they can be given to Bluerise, in case they fit her, or will sell them for a good price. Hopefully the remnants of Pink Cloud will eventually weathered out outside of the city."

Watching in silence as she throws on a variety of clothes and then leaves the room, I turn my attention back to the dresser to examine the third photograph. It shows Vinyl and Tavi together, the white one hugging the gray pony, pulling her close. The former has a friendly and kind look, while the latter feels a little stiff and tense. And only in these photos I had a chance to see the color of their eyes: the white pony has ruby-colored eyes, while the gray pony has purple ones. The latter explains why purple color prevails in the interior of the house and things among gray shades. A cute couple of ponies, who are almost sixty.

For some reason, this white unicorn reminds me of Homage from Tenpony Tower with her smile. Practically identical, except for the color of her fur.

Finding nothing of value in the bedroom, I leave. Motley meets me on the way out to continue exploring the rooms with me. We go to the last and most spacious room of the house. As we cross its doorstep, we cannot help admiring its rich and exquisite decorations devoid of windows, which is rather unusual, I think.

The walls are covered with some dense multi-layered material, but the whole house retains its entourage with light gray shades, the floor is entirely covered with parquet painted in silver color. There is absolutely no vegetation at all, and everything is filled with vases of various shapes and sizes with ornate designs. Paintings with beautiful landscapes of snow-capped mountains and cliffs, shores with frothy waves, forests with mighty trees and lush shrubs, endless plains and hills dotted with shimmering colors... and all varying with the seasons.

Elegantly crafted of wood tables, chests, cabinets, and shelves painted to match the surrounding entourage. A cozy couch, a cabinet densely packed with vinyl records, a gramophone on a table next to it, figurines and busts of ponies and more; I recognize Celestia and Luna among them. On some of the shelves are books with their covers turned upside down: they are few in number, but they are distinguished by their binding and embossed images.

The main feature of the room is a stand with a silver cello mounted on it, on which purple and white lines curve in patterns. The cello I saw in the photo. In front of it is a lectern with staff paper, with a bow lying nearby. On the back of the cello in the lower part there is a textured pattern in the form of a purple treble clef, like the one on the front door of the house. The staff paper is inscribed with musical symbols. Unfortunately, nothing else is listed there.

"Dan," Motley's voice comes over the radio. I turn around and see her at the desk. "Come here."

The desk is covered with staff notes: some of it is lying in disorder, some is stored inside albums, some is in a stack, and some remains unused. On the same table are quills and a pot of ink. The uppermost sheet of music paper has its back side facing upwards, with no lines for the notes, and is partially scribbled in ink. The writing is incomprehensible, jerky, irregular, and difficult, if not impossible, to read. From the quill left in the place of the last scribbles I can assume that the author of the text for some reason was unable to complete the sentence. Most likely, her mind was completely lost. From these thoughts, an unpleasant chill runs through my body.

With telekinesis I pick up the music paper scattered haphazardly on the table and examine the pages. There were notes on the back, while the other side, the one for musical notes, remained unused. I try to sort them by date of writing, thank goodness there's a day listed here. Even at a quick glance while sorting, I notice that at the beginning the notes were written in a very neat and orderly writing, which is aesthetically pleasing to look at, but gradually it becomes more and more crooked, erratic, at times hurried and disorderly, reminiscent of the ravings of a madpony. If you compare the first and the last entry, you get the impression that they were written by completely different individuals.

Sorted, I move them closer to Motley.

"Now it's your turn to read aloud, while I take a look around here," I add at that.

"I'd love to. Only then you get on with it. I saw what the writing turned into toward the end, I won't be able to read it."

"Okay. No problem," I reply easily and casually, taking a seat by the cabinet of vinyl records and lazily examining them in the light of my flashlight. For added comfort, I turn on the backlight in my Pip-Boy as well.

First note.

"Month of Rain, 16, Orangeday, 1152. Second day of the pink mist's appearance. Trying to calm my trembling and think things through after the nightmare that happened. To calm myself down and take my mind off of my depressing mood and my raging worries, I decided to put my thoughts down on paper. There is no one around to listen to me, but I need to express myself in some way or on something, for example, staff paper, and to make the process seem more focused and engaging, I paid attention to calligraphy. It always relaxed me and helped me to concentrate when writing notes.

It all started quite suddenly. I didn't even realize that such a nightmare had happened. The walls of my house have a lot of soundproofing materials, especially this room, to keep me away from all the mundanity of the world outside. That once was. Now it's a chilling horror. Thanks to the soundproofing of this room, when all the ponies outside were screaming in agony from the ghastly and deadly pink fog enveloping them, I was serenely and happily practicing my favorite compositions on my cello. Yesterday, when I intended to go to the restaurant and order their specialty jasmine tea, which I have done every night, I saw a strange pink mist outside the window. Before going out, I tried to figure out what the phenomenon was by looking out the window, and was horrified to see the disfigured body of a pony, which seemed as if it had melted into the sidewalk! I lost my senses. It took me a few hours to regain consciousness. I assumed it was just a nightmare, but I saw the same dark pink gloom and almost passed out again from the melted into the sidewalk pony outside the window. It awakened me, dispelling my drowsiness and forcing me to rise sharply.

In panic and fear I ran to my bedroom and... I'm ashamed to admit it, but like a little filly, I hid under the covers and cried from the rush of emotions. Yesterday morning didn't bode well, but by evening Canterlot was unrecognizable. But what had happened to the rest of the world? Why isn't anyone coming to help? This was something everyone should have noticed. The nation's capital. Or did the damned zebras do it after all? Did they destroy the world?"

Yes... Tavi. The world was destroyed, but he survived. It went through the meat grinder of general anarchy and chaos, but it survived and is now trying to rebuild in some way.

Second note.

"Month of Rain, 17, Yellowday, 1152. Day three since the disaster. Help still hasn't arrived and no one is answering the phone line, the TV shows nothing, the radio only plays classical music. I'm scared to even look out the window, much less go outside. There's enough food in my house for a couple weeks, and then... I don't know what I'll do. Reading is difficult and unbearable for me, especially at a time like this. The only thing that saves me from panic and terror is playing the cello. It always calmed me down, and when necessary, added confidence and mental balance.

I didn't dare go outside. There was a great deal of this pink stuff in the form of gas near the fireplace, and it had appeared in other unprotected places as well. As soon as I got near it, I felt nauseous and dizzy. I shouldn't go outside, otherwise—I have no idea how I'll feel when I'm completely surrounded by a large concentration of this gas. It's lucky that the enchanted soundproofing materials in the walls of the house, especially in this room, have stopped its rampant intrusion."

Lucky indeed. However, lucky in what way? The others are long dead, and you've yet be the dead thing, considering you've been playing the cello nonstop for almost 200 years. And playing such a frightening composition that evokes awe and associations with imminent death. It's frightening to imagine what went through your mind in your last moments of conscious awareness.

Third note.

"Month of Rain, 18, Greenday, 1152. Going on the fourth day since the disaster. I have had to mix the remaining water with wine to make it last longer. I have come to the conclusion that the sewer and water supply systems are somehow saturated with this pink mist, and sooner or later the clean water tanks in the house will be empty and water with this nasty stuff will flow in. Because of the anxiety and oppressive thoughts, I ate too much food. Need to be more frugal so I can last longer. I was finally able to distract myself with reading books, trying not to get too close to the cloud near the fireplace.

Despite my surroundings, I still managed to get a long sleep, but in all cases I had horrible nightmares. When I first tried to doze off during the first twenty-six hours, I couldn't recognize anything in my sleep. An incomprehensible pink void. The last dream I had, I was walking through the streets of Canterlot, surrounded by a pink cloud that made my whole body ache and scared me, for the streets were littered with the remains of ponies spliced into the sidewalk. I woke up in a cold sweat the moment I suddenly began to slowly and painfully stick to the surface of the sidewalk. The pain was so real and believable that I spent another hour or so trying to recover from the experience."

Motley and I's nightmare was also believable, making it seem as if everything was really happening... The first sighting of the jewelry store from the dream, which I had never seen before in waking life, and also a little further away with the sign 'Canterlot remembers all', near which I saw the remnants of a pool of blood. A startling and frightening coincidence that still gives me goosebumps. I still can't get into the meaning of the ominous phrase. All other inscriptions are interpreted without much difficulty, but this particular one... There are too many hypotheses when you think about the meaning of these three words.

The fourth note.

"Month of Rain, 19, Cyanday, 1152. Day five. Was able to start my new composition. Inspiration came when I was listening to a record of a winter blizzard on the gramophone while once again looking at a painting of the snow-capped mountains of the Road of Stars. Now paintings and records are my only opportunity for a change of scenery—at least thanks to them, I've been able to imagine it. It makes my enforced stay here a lot easier.

The nightmare again. This time I was running down a familiar Canterlot street, surrounded by a pink mist that was slowly eating away at me, especially my lungs, and slowly robbing me of my strength. There were muffled pops and explosions coming from somewhere above, but I couldn't raise my head and couldn't see what was happening above the city. My hooves were sticking to the stone paving of the sidewalk with every step. I was afraid to stop. I screamed for help, like so many ponies around me. Some managed to take shelter in the houses. Eventually, there was little strength left, causing me to stumble. A piercing pain gripped my hooves and feet, I was trapped and unable to get out. Before sinking into the pink void, in a last moment of realized and painful agony, I saw my home. For some reason it reminded me of the remains of that poor pony seen on the first day."

It's a typical nightmare related to what I've seen. A familiar street, a dead pony outside her house—which I had already seen in passing as I approached the house. It's not hard to imagine what was happening to the unfortunate ponies who were outside at this tragic moment in history and didn't have time to take shelter somewhere.

Fifth note.

"Month of Rain, 22, Redday, 1152. Eighth day. I finished my song, I didn't want to be distracted by these notes. Though I have plenty of time, playing the cello brings more peace and calm than journaling. Whenever possible, I save calories and move less, for I don't know when help will come. If it comes at all. The song I've written is called Howl of the North Wind.

Tonight, coming from the kitchen, I saw a silhouette flicker through the living room window. I don't know what it was, maybe I imagined it. It's hard to be away from a pony, or anyone for that matter, for so long that you don't start imagining things. The only thing that saves you from the oppressive and consuming feeling of loneliness and anxiety is music. Anything will do, as long as it's not this oppressive silence."

She might have seen a Canterlot ghoul passing by, but they don't usually move around for no reason. I don't exclude the possibility that she was dreaming.

Sixth note.

"Month of Rain, 23, Orangeday, 1152. "Day nine. Nightmares continue every night. I dreamed this one: as I walked through the streets of Canterlot, everything was still shrouded in pink mist, though it didn't affect me for some reason, and my hooves didn't stick to the surface I was walking on. I also saw silent ponies in windows and alleys. It seemed like it should be a joy and comfort to be able to talk to at least imaginary ponies in my dreams, but I had no control over myself and couldn't approach them or even say anything to them. Then again, I had a feeling they were better to watch out for. But one of them came my way. Aside from their widespread silence, the problem was that these ponies were devoid of any colors, it was as if they were covered in a solid darkness, like a boundless void that took the shape of a pony. It was clear now what repulsed me about them. Such instinctive terror would repel anyone. The distinctive feature was also the presence of a frightening silver glow emanating from where the eyes should have been. I woke up because my head had accidentally dropped in the dream, and instead of my body I saw the same vast emptiness. From what I saw I had a panic, I began to choke. When I woke up, I felt my body as if I had just really choked.
I had never been interested in dream interpretation, only in using the symbolism in dreams for inspiration. This time I was drawn to reading books related to the subject—maybe I could find an explanation for my nightmares, or at least find a way to resist them."

Silent figures of ponies that are best avoided. Somewhat reminiscent of the Canterlot ghouls. However, how did she know their eyes had a silver glow? It's an amazing coincidence. Then again, the dreams are so real, it's like you've actually been there. What is the nature of this Pink Cloud?

Seventh note.

"Month of Rain, 24, Yellowday, 1152. Day ten. Once again tried out my new song, making a few edits and changes in note placement; the rest of the day I read books about dreams, but to no avail.

Mentally, I've gotten used to my confinement, but I still have difficulty with anxiety and distress. They don't leave me in any way, but keep getting worse. I only manage to ignore it by reading, listening to music, playing the cello and writing this journal. Loneliness is experienced as incredibly dreary and depressing. Passionately wanting to talk to someone, to hug someone, to feel warmth. Especially Vinyl.

As I suspected, the water from the tap and in the toilet took on a dark pink hue. Just when I touched that water, I experienced something like a burn, even though it wasn't there. It's getting harder to write. Maybe I shouldn't turn off the music on the radio in the kitchen. It soothes and even allures, at least at mealtime.

The nightmares are becoming monotonous. They are repetitive, which is unusual, although the setting, namely the streets or alleys, changes. The scenery is different, the plot is the same."

Alluring music on the radio? Interesting... As is the fact that on the tenth day, classical music is still playing on this frequency. This means that the killer frequency did not arise in the first days, but as a consequence of some factors.

Eighth note.

"Month of Rain, 25, Greenday, 1152. Eleventh day. I had an unusual nightmare. The same images of silent ponies with darkness and emptiness inside, but this time Vinyl's image loomed among them. She wasn't like the others. She had the same appearance she had when she was alive. Even at that age, she manages to look twenty years old. Always envied that. She smiled... just like before. I longed to see her cheerful and energetic smile. I was afraid I'd never see her again. Suddenly, the smile disappeared and her body began to gradually become empty. I felt inexplicable horror, as if she were slowly dying, and I wanted to scream, to do something, but the darkness slowly engulfed her, starting from her hooves and rising to her head. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't, my body watching this monstrous process impassively. An impenetrable emptiness engulfed her, and she became like everyone else, her eyes taking on a frightening silver glow. Then the now routine look at herself. The same emptiness that began to pull me in as soon as I looked there.

I felt like throwing myself into Vinyl's embrace this morning, wanting her to warm me in her hooves. I miss her so much, her cheerful and lively voice. I tried to avoid thinking about her, for that was inevitably followed by thoughts of her fate and nightmares. I wished she was all right. She's the best pony I've ever had in my life: although she can be a bit eccentric at times, she's got a lot of imagination. I wonder what she thinks of me now. Maybe she's trapped somewhere, like me."

She was afraid she wouldn't see the smile again... It clutches my attention for some reason. I'm also curious about the timing of this fear: did she have it long ago, before she went to sleep, or was she describing the feeling of fear after-the-fact? There's that silver glow from the eyes again. She hasn't seen the Canterlot ghoul yet. So why does she see this distinctive feature? Apparently, it must suggest that it was Pink Cloud who was to blame for the nightmares. The silver glow from the eyes of the ghouls manifests after transforming under its influence. I'll keep listening for now.

Ninth note.

"Month of Rain, 26, Cyanday, 1152. Twelfth day. Remembering Vinyl made me want to reread the books. Plus, it helped distract me from the plausible feelings of the nightmares I had experienced.

Vinyl. How many fascinating things I have associated with that name. Who would have thought that such an energetic and reckless mare could have an impact on me. I enjoyed spending time with her. Her crazy thoughts and interests could sometimes inspire me to create new and unusual songs, and her worldview influenced my beliefs about society—and not only society. It was as if she had no shame or shyness about anything. Especially in bed. Before I met her at the University of Music, I couldn't even think of such a thing without feeling ashamed, but even water sharpens stone: it happened to my 'stone' beliefs, and that 'water' was the books she was reading, however funny it might sound in the context of the analogy I chose.

Despite her rambling and socially active nature, she was interested in books and technology in the musical sphere, so that she eventually created a unique musical console for playing various songs, tied to her magic and some spells. Thanks to it, she became popular in no time... which I was envious of at first, but soon got over it. Her music gave me a double feeling, it both attracted and repelled me. Perhaps I was attracted to her because of her association with Vinyl, which was like a breath of fresh air for me. She made my life varied and un-boring.

Anything that could make a sound attracted her attention. She drew her inspiration from the same books about the various ancient cultures of ponies, griffons, yaks, hippogriffs... and their rituals involving melodies and various hymns. Admittedly, I eventually became infected with such exoticism. As she studied the cultures and their customs that changed throughout different periods of history, she saw a pattern, namely that the norms of society are unstable. They change all the time. What used to be normal to some is considered savage and barbaric to us. However, what we now consider good, right, and decent, hundreds or thousands of years from now will turn out to be meaningless, naive, or even disgusting.

At first I resisted these bold and insolent statements, but the more I saw in history books about the changing cultures and customs of nations under the influence of time, the more I leaned toward Vinyl's views. Of course, this had been going on for many years, but still. Because of this, I got rid of my sense of the infallible truth of modern etiquette and customs in our society. I didn't stop following those customs, and neither did Vinyl, but she, unlike me, ignored them most of the time. I, however, continued to use them as a tool for staying in a society that was changing all the time, so I shouldn't hold on to it as something true and right. Thinking about it freed me from various meaningless boundaries and rules at least in my personal life. It's still strange, but Vinyl is still imaginative in bed. And still energetic.

It's a long entry, but the best and most loyal pony deserves attention on my part. After all, she was the one I felt free, open and accepted in front of. I have never met anyone else like her in my entire life. If you're reading this, Vinyl, know that I've always thought of you and never stopped loving you even during the fights. Though you already know that. But it's like with loved ones: from time to time I need to show and remind them of my love for them, not necessarily with words, but at the moment that's all I can do. I don't want to die here like this. Either nightmares will kill me, or starvation, or that damn pink gas."

Yes, society is definitely better now than it used to be. The norms of society are unrecognizable: slavery, murder without trial, survival, cruelty... On the other hand, I agree with her that society is changing, not always for the better because of cataclysms or wars, and even in pre-war times, if you think of Diamond Dogs and Bulls. Her relationship with Vinyl touched me, and now I can no longer be indifferent to it. From her youth to her old age.

Tenth note.

"Month of Rain, 27, Blueday, 1152. Day thirteen. In the living room window on the opposite side of the street, I saw the silhouette of a pony looking in my direction. I was startled out of my fear and immediately dropped to the floor so he wouldn't see me. Something about his figure scared me, I don't know what it was. However, I remember the nightmares now: they caused similar repulsive feelings at the time, prompting me to be wary of the pony. Realizing that nothing was happening, I lifted my head in trembling fear, but the pony was still standing motionless in the same spot, staring out my window. My heart raced as I stood up and dared to get closer. I could make out, in the pink mist, the appearance of the pony from which I fled to the second floor, hiding under the blanket, trembling at the horror of what I saw.

It was the disfigured body of a pony, slick with clothes. It was so disgusting and horrifying that it was hard to believe I was seeing it for real. And the eyes... Oh, the horror! They had a silver glow, just like the one I saw in my dream! What's going on here? How did I know he would have the same glow from his eyes?

For the rest of the day, I did not dare to go down to the first floor, but occupied myself with something that completely captured my thoughts, though not immediately. While thinking about Vinyl and the future of our society as it will be, the idea of a song came to my mind. It's a topic that I feel strongly about now... In case someone finds it. I would like to hope that my works will not be lost in vain."

Is the feeling of rejection the same as in a dream at the sight of dark figures with the outlines of ponies? I don't deny that the sight of the Canterlot ghouls makes one shudder at times, especially the lifeless eyes with the silver glow, but how does all of this relate to what she saw in the dream? According to her, it's the same feeling. Just an association, apparently. Still, the coincidence frightened Octavia.

The eleventh note.

"Month of Leaves, 4, Greenday, 1152. Day eighteen. I've finished the song, and I've named it Hope for the Future. All this time, I tried to avoid the living room and not look out the windows. Food is getting scarce. Nightmares continue to plague me at night. It's the same, only now Vinyl is there, and she's consumed by darkness all the time. My mood is constantly changing, and it's hard to control it, because I don't know why it's changing. It becomes incredibly difficult to think. I have hysterical fits from the nightmares I see, I cry a lot.

Vinyl, please save me from this. Your Octavia needs it."

The signs of nervousness from the isolation in which she found herself were beginning to show. Quite naturally.

Twelfth note.

"Month of Leaves, 4, Greenday, 1152. Day eighteenth. Additional. I don't even know how to write about this. I experienced something horrible today. It will undoubtedly haunt my nightmares. It was those monsters.

I went down to the living room and decided to observe the walking figure that resembled a pony. I stared at it for a long time and couldn't tear my eyes away, though what I saw made me uneasy, repulsed, and coldly afraid. That silver glow from its eyes was somehow mysterious and enigmatic, awe-inspiring. Suddenly, from behind the soundproof walls and windows, I could barely hear someone's scream. For a moment I thought it was a hallucination, but at that very moment the figure turned in the direction from which the cry had come and immediately moved there with an unnatural and rapid stride. Then two more such monsters ran clumsily before my eyes.

Curiosity overpowered me, and I opened the front doors for the first time. I was already used to the pink mist and its effects, so I could be patient enough to get a good look at what was happening outside. No sooner had I opened the door, however, than my consciousness was flooded by a heartbreaking scream of agony and overwhelming pain spreading through the neighborhood. The effect of the pink cloud was reinforced by what I heard, and I felt sick, my lungs burning with fire... But I, obeying some twisted curiosity, poked my head out and saw those things in front of the neighboring house surround somepony and start... eating them alive. Apparently it was a mare, and she was screaming and begging for help, and I was completely paralyzed by what was happening.

Suddenly everything went quiet except for a nasty slurping sound and a predatory growl, and I barely managed to get out of the cloud's embrace... I was already losing consciousness. I was choking and about to die, but in time I waddled to the kitchen, climbed into the medicine drawer and pulled out all the available healing potions... I drank them all in a frantic rush, for as I walked, the impression of what I had seen passed, and soon I felt the burning pain in full, and then I lost consciousness. It was not until several hours later that I awoke.

I dreamed that the pony being eaten alive... was me. I feel really bad: I think I was in the cloud too long, and the effects were irreversible. The potions apparently couldn't cure me completely. I feel nauseous all the time, and there's an occasional whistling in my ears, probably because of the radio in the kitchen, but I don't want to turn it off."

I'm flooded again with memories from my nightmare when I saw Motley stumble, the ghouls catch up to her and start eating her alive. As they did so, she screamed heartbreakingly for help. It seems Tavi was having a tipping point that accelerated her transformation. The museum owner Strawberry Icecream once mentioned on the recording that he had inhaled the stuff and didn't want to turn into one of them. That said, however, he didn't have mood shifts—at least, he didn't mention them.

Thirteenth note.

"Month of Leaves, 1152. I don't know how many days have passed. Maybe a week since the last entry. It's hard to write and think. All the time I'm plagued by annoying nightmares where those things are always chasing me and catching up and then eating me alive, taking chunks of flesh off me. I could hear the sickening crunch of my own bones. I couldn't get a good night's sleep. The nightmares are so realistic that it's hard to distinguish them from reality, so I have no idea how much time has passed. Sometimes the events of the nightmare unfolded already in my house.

Mood swings started to happen more often, I can hardly control my hysterical fits. I keep feeling like something is pulling me somewhere. Suddenly I started to feel a coldness out of nowhere. It comes and goes. Especially after nightmares in my house.

The most recent one at the moment was the one I had after the horrifying incident of the mare being eaten alive. However, more details came out in this dream. Their sharp teeth were still sinking into me and ripping my flesh apart, the resulting piercing insane pain causing my throat to tear up with screaming. It still feels like it was actually happening to me. At some point in this horror, I discerned that the color of my fur was different. It was definitely not mine... and suddenly, just before I lost 'my' life, my head involuntarily turned on its side. As the surroundings around me faded away, I saw myself peering out from the doorstep of my house. It was definitely me... And I was watching myself being eaten alive. It all seemed too real. Reality and nightmares seemed to merge together, and it's already hard for me to tell where reality is and where the dream is. Maybe I'm writing these lines in a dream. I don't understand anything.

My mind is all messed up. I'm already doubting whether that incident was real. Or rather, which of the things I saw were real and which were hallucinations or nightmares."

Toward the end of the note, Motley's voice fades, and she eloquently falls silent. I look away from the vinyl records and stare dumbly at one point, once again remembering the nightmare we saw, the one that started outside that jewelry store. That it had actually happened is hinted at by the sign 'Canterlot remembers all' and the remnants of a pool of blood. In the nightmare, Motley was eaten alive in that exact spot. So was it really happening? How?

A truly horrifying thought: the assumption that I was still dreaming. The store ended up being near the restaurant, in the kitchen of which we fell asleep unnoticed. Perhaps I'm both asleep and awake at the same time, and I'm not seeing all of the reality around me right now.

"Okay, easy... These are dangerous thoughts, Spoiled. Don't be in a hurry to take them seriously. It's not like you can hear me in your dreams. "

What if you're just my imagination?

"Fuck... I didn't think of that. Anyway, be careful. I'd better keep quiet until we have more information."

I ask Motley to read on.

The fourteenth note.

"I see a void. It wants to consume me. Black silhouettes want to consume me and take me into the void! No, I won't give them that easily. Stand up to them, Octavia! Fight them."

I can only guess at the nature of these mad wills. Probably she dreams of the ghouls trying to reach her, and the sensibility of the nightmare she is experiencing is felt vividly in her waking life.

Fifteenth note.

"I think I'm beginning to lose my mind. The moments of consciousness are becoming less and less frequent. In these moments of lucidity, I try to grasp music, my cello playing. It's like it calms my madness and frenzy. Mostly because of hunger. I see my own bite marks on me."

I have to read the next note because Motley can't make out the writing. I still can't make out some of it.

Sixteenth note.

"Cold! Pink void! I hear it Calling me to it. No. Or does. From over there. Voices sing. Radio. How. Beautiful. Silhouettes. They're not. Take me. They ask. Join. Agree. Reach out to. Play along with their chorus. Cello. Can't stop."

Seventeenth note.

"See. Emptiness! It I love it. Peerless. Silhouettes. Like me. Singing. Exalt. It. Radio helps. It. Me. Too. Have to play. Praise it. With. Cello."

That's the end of the notes. It takes me a while to come to my senses and think things over. Motley, meanwhile, is silent and apparently thinking about something of her own, trying to come to some conclusion.

The cellist was trapped in her own house and managed to miss the start of the apocalypse thanks to soundproofing. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't hear the cello howling as I picked the lock on the door. The melody played seemed afterlife-like, causing awe and deep feelings before death. According to the last recording, it was supposedly praising the void, along with a chorus of voices. Now I can see why I saw death motives in her performance. Emptiness, and cold emptiness at that, is always associated with death. Her consciousness was slowly dying, so she saw coldness.

Anyway, she saw the whole nightmare outside when she was about to drink jasmine tea. And to take control, she started keeping a diary on the back of staff paper, reading books, playing the cello and even managed to write two songs. She remembered her beloved Vinyl.

Nightmares kept her awake as she fell asleep. At first she dreamed she was melding into the stone sidewalk after seeing the pony outside, fused to the surface it was on. Walking around surrounded by dark silhouettes whose outlines resembled ponies, among which she later began to see Vinyl. As I had thought earlier, they were Canterlot ghouls, but at that point she had not yet seen them in person, and yet she had somehow become aware of the silver glow of their eyes before she saw them for real. She tried to economize on food and water, but eventually, when they ran out, she even started biting herself in a fit of madness.

That all changed after she looked outside and saw the terrifying and frightening sight of these monsters eating someone alive. Apparently, there were other survivors trapped where Pink Cloud couldn't penetrate in the concentration needed for proper effect. If the concentration was too great, such as outside, their bodies would merge with the surface they were on. And the closer we get to Canterlot's main castle, the more of these—remains along the way. Another reason to believe that Pink Cloud was spreading from the direction of the main castle, and by now the ponies on the outskirts had taken shelter somewhere. Now it was no wonder that we found the decomposed remains of ponies and Canterlot ghouls themselves in the most unusual places.

Then Octavia dreamed of similar stories involving her, where she herself was being eaten alive... And then, after a while, the same dream appeared, but with sudden details—for example, she saw herself from the side, but she wasn't herself. She was so surprised. She clearly hadn't experienced something like that in her dreams yet. It was around this time that she began to lose her sense of time and the boundary between reality and dreams, which could have been caused by the high concentration of Pink Cloud in her body because she had looked outside. Plus it coincided with running out of food.

Full-blown attacks of madness and insanity began. She mentioned some kind of emptiness, something about dark silhouettes, a glorification of emptiness she couldn't resist. She also mentioned a radio that does something... with or for the void. Not to forget that before that, it was like she was under some kind of oppressive pressure. Like Motley and me now.

I am trying to come to some conclusions with Mr. Clean and Motley about the inscription 'Canterlot remembers all'. I have seen this inscription only twice, once in a dream and then in real life. We were definitely ourselves in the dream then, we saw almost the same events, and all of this was somehow reflected in reality. I have a vague premonition that the nightmare we saw, which referred to real reference points that had never been seen before in life, was somehow connected to the fact that Octavia saw herself in her dream from the position of a pony being eaten alive—not to mention knowing about the silver glow in the eyes of the Canterlot ghouls before she had seen even one in real life. And that inscription by coincidence might turn out to be a clue. Just a little more, and I could find that key thread to pull and thus unravel the tangle of the mystery of our nightmares.

After reading the notes and thinking about it, we decide to take the silver cello, the sheet music with her songs on it, both her own and others' songs, and her vinyl records from this room.

I ask the pegasus to carry all of our trophies to Venture, and she takes off all of her gear and her battle saddle to get more, but it's not enough: she has to make two trips. I use telekinesis to help tie up and secure everything so that Motley won't have any difficulties during the flight, as there are plenty of ropes and fasteners in the basement of the house.

The pegasus goes to Venture, while I decide to get some more books from the library on the first floor. The books I've seen are rare in the Wasteland, and I've been more and more interested in the history of the world and the limits of its possibilities lately. If something horrible and catastrophic happened in the Dome that would leave not only the surviving technology but also the knowledge of the pre-war world gone, I'd have to look for references to long-distance travel and other worlds elsewhere, in books, for example. Perhaps then I'll give those books to the Vanhoover Polytechnic: such things are noticeably lacking there. Crimson Sky would be delighted.

I believe that although myths and legends are not to be trusted, they are all based on something: one can discern a pattern in these speculations that leads to interesting insights. The ponies of the pre-war past realized the usefulness of ancient knowledge—of course, it couldn't compare to modern knowledge, but it couldn't be called unnecessary either. It might help them find the answer. That was what the ponies hoped for as they tried to end the war.

Picking up the books and flipping through the annotations and prefaces, I stare at the corpse of Pink Cloud's victim, buried beneath the bloody books. Because of the notes she left behind, I now can't look at her without a fraction of sympathy and sorry. It's a little heartening to know that even in a moment of madness and unconsciousness, she was doing what she loved to do. I guess it's true that canterlost ghouls do all the same things they did before they 'died'. At least what was in their habits. For Octavia, it's playing the cello. For the servant of the White Sun Cult, it's casting a shockwave spell at the sight of an enemy.

"Don't worry," I say in a reassuring tone, looking at the body. A smile touches my lips. " Your music won't get lost in the sands at times. I'll make sure your work pleases the ears of modern listeners."

Having shown this sentimentality, I am relieved, after which I no longer want to look back at the disfigured headless body.

This time I decide to take more books than the astronomy teacher's house. There are about three dozen of them. I also try to choose ones that would interest my pegasus. I pack them all into a cardboard box I found in the basement and set them by the entrance, next to two crates of vinyl records. Motley returns almost immediately, and I instantly load her up with the rest of my luggage. She sighs tiredly, but without saying anything, she takes to carrying it all into our main means of transportation. Meanwhile, I'm perusing the electronic version of the Steel Rangers' head scribe's book on repair spells. My knowledge, like my body, must be kept up to date, constantly refreshed.

Time flies by, Motley soon shows up. She asks for a little rest, after which she straps on her battle saddle and bags. We set off on our journey to the home of Sonorous Splash.