I Remember The Last Day on Equss.
“War never changes.” He’s still forever the most handsome colt I’ve ever seen. The scars give him distinction.
“You’re gonna knock ‘em dead, Sweety.” I’m Last Minute, the luckiest mare in Baltimare.
I have a lovely home, a beautiful baby filly, and without a doubt the bestest, most supportive husband in all of Equestria. If you could have seen my husband before they shipped him off to that terrible war, well I’d just have to beat you back with a stick. I’m not saying he was Big Mackintosh-handsome, but yeah, that is exactly what I’m saying. But that’s not what made my Blueberry just the best, and remember I do still have that beating stick.
He always held me up. He never held me down. And he always knew when to hold me back. And tonight is going to be his big night. The night when everypony else gets to see the pony I see every morning. The pony who gave up his dreams of being a baker to fight for his country. The pony who sent every bit home so I could finish law school and we could have a home to start our family. Blueberry Pastel is the best pony, and tonight everyone is going to see that.
“I’m hogging the mirror again, ain’t I?” My Blueberry blushes, it’s so cute how flustered he can get when he thinks he’s being vain. “Do I look okay?”
“Brush your bangs back, dear.” I step up and grab the brush in my magic. “Ponies need to see your eyes if they're really going to see your smile.”
He shuffles and whinnies at my attention, and I can’t help but giggle as I step up to the mirror myself. Blue fur, cyan mane, exactly one classy, slender horn, and a flank that won’t stop for a traffic light, if I do say so myself. I am so ready for tonight.
Tonight will be the Best. Night. Ever.
Of course right now is when the doorbell rings. When my mane is in curlers and wearing my frumpiest, and most comfortable, bathrobe. I have to be the one to answer the door. Blueberry can’t… he survived the attack on Littlehorn. The scars can throw ponies off.
And of course it’s a sales-colt. “Hello ma’am! I’m here with Stable Tech to inform you that due to your family’s patriotic civil service, your family has been selected for entrance to your local Stable Tech survival Stable! Stable Tech! Better living, Underground!”
“Honey!” I shout back to Blueberry nooked in the hallway. “Did you hear that? We got a spot in the Stable.”
“It ain’t gonna come to that.” His gruff handsome voice replies, “No one, not the ponies, not the stripes, not Luna, not Caesar, is gonna actually use the mega spells.”
“With just a brief survey, you can ensure your family’s survival… if the worst comes to pass.” The sales colt is such a Nervous Nelly. I hope one day he has his night. But tonight is our night. “The world is in a precarious place… and none of us know how much time we have left… probably less than we wish we had?”
It’s only a hoof full of questions, really. Blueberry’s come out and is watching the TV from his favorite chair. “...threat of Zebra Sympathizers. The Striped Menace is everywhere!”
And I here a mewling cry. “I’m sorry Mr. Stabletech, my daughter needs me.”
I hope I didn’t close the door in his face, but our little pink miracle needs me.
“Missuss?” I hear the prim and propper Mr. Nanny unit, Cogsworth, as he floats into to room on a cushion of air, focussing on me with what I think is it’s primary eye-stalk. “I am afraid Diane has awoken from what I suspect to be a bad dream. While my cold steel grasping units may be fine and good for changing diapers, I fear she needs that maternal nurturing you are so renowned for.”
“You are never going to let that go, are you, Cogsworth?” I laugh at our robot’s sarcasm. It’s hard to imagine, much less remember that I used to be afraid of Cogsworth. Now? Now Cogsworth is family.
I remember leaning into Diane’s crib… Blueberry spun her mobile. Then I remember Cogsworth called out. “Mister Pastel, Missus Minutes… I think you should see this…”
“...has come to pass, Canterlot has fallen.” The voce from the TV echoes hollow as the sirens begin to sound. “Balefire missiles are incoming in the Baltimare area. Report to you local Stable or Public Shelter Facility, as appropriate. I repeat, the worst has…”
“We have to get to the Stable!” Blueberry shouted over the sirens. “I’ve got Diane! Just run!”
And so we ran.
Sanctuary Island, they called it. As we ran I watched our sanctuary turn into Discord’s playland. Ponies turning on ponies as I turn on them and push our way to shelter, Blueberry pushing behind me with our foal on his withers.
I don’t remember the fight to get to the gate. But I know there was a fight. I remember the screaming behind us. I remember the sounds of automatic rifles. I remember walking onto the platform. I remember the platform descending into the earth… I remember seeing the bombs go off above us as we descended into… this…
But we were safe. We were on our first steps to our new life. Somehow, we’d made it. It feels like for just one time the universe thinks you’re special.
Last Minute:
Unicorn, Mare
S(trengh)-4
P(erception)-3
E(ndurance)-8
C(harisma)-6
I(Intelegence)- 4
A(gility) - 5
L(uck)-5
I saw my perfect night fall apart with the whole wide world. But there was still hope. We made it to the Stable. There was just one more step, the decontamination chambers. Blueberry held Diane right across from me. I remember wondering why it was suddenly so cold… was it always this cold, this… distant?
And then for the longest and shortest time there is nothing at all. And from nothing it all comes back with a whisper. “Do you think they can hear us?”
Blinding light becomes image and I can see Blueberry cradling our child as their chamber opens… my chamber doesn’t open. The sharp voice, the one that wondered if I could hear it shouts, “We’re here for the filly!”
Something is wrong! These ponies are not stable tech personnel! “Shit, they’re all waking up!” I try to flail. All the voices run together now and then that horrible explosion, that first terrible shot, and then the third? I can’t turn my head. I’m frozen inside my little pod… “We got what we came for! Get those cryo units locked down!”
–And then it’s cold and dark and I really like it better that way.
I remember last Hearth’s Warming as if it were less than a year ago. How could I forget the day I opened the best present my Blueberry ever gave me. It was the longest, most painful, and absolutely the most joyous day of my life. We named her Strawberry Diane Shortbread, because he came from a family of rock farmers, and they have strange naming customs. And as much as the war had torn us both apart, this was something, this was an accomplishment that couldn’t be taken away.
This was my special day that melts away as I wake up. The first thing I feel is cold. The first thing I see isn’t darkness, it’s light. My eyes were already open. Everything is so…old. I only passed out for a moment! I’m in decontamination. Something is wrong… my daughter’s been taken. My Husbands been shot; Everything is wrong.
There’s a sterile hiss followed by the smooth hum of well oiled gears as my decontamination unit opens and ejects me into Tartarus. And there’s my Blueberry, frozen in time. Three holes, three explosions. It wasn’t a dream.
My hooves fumble beneath me as I fall across the narrow aisle into his tube, and run my hoof across the frost covered glass. He’s still there. He’ll always be there. He’ll never be there again. And my little hearths warming miracle is gone forever. I scream. I scream, and I throw things, and I break things, and I read words that don’t make sense on every pod. “Cryogenic Failure”. I recognize the faces. Each little monitor tells me the names I don’t remember. All my friends, all my neighbors. Everypony I know is dead.
What damage can I even do anymore? Everything in this damned stable is broken… except one “Cryopod”. Mechanisms are far too rusted to ever open again. Frozen even in death… upwards of seven decades the nonsensical dates on all the monitors insist. That’s how long it’s been. She wasn’t even a year old. She’s probably already dead from old age. A logical part of my brain tries to understand it.
Everything in this Luna be damned Stable is broken… except for one cryopod. On every console screen is the same story with a different name. All of them my neighbors in Sanctuary. All them the families of war veterans. All of them dead in rusted, compromised pods, untended for… that date can’t be right?
It doesn’t matter. Nothing is right. Nothing will ever be right again. They came in and took everything. That means there’s way out…
I’m only dimly aware, as I stumble through the broken stable. The air is stale. Every door I open just reveals more of the same horror. Ponies in pods. They froze us all here. Veterans and their families. They said they were going to keep us safe. But the only ever intended to keep us. And then not even that, because all the pods were turned off and left to thaw and rot. All but one.
I wander the decaying halls of the once pristine stable for… I have no way of knowing how much time, as I shake off the effects of my involuntary cryostasis before I find a working office terminal. A glance through it’s contents reveals it belonged to a pony named Boysenberry Surprise. I remember talking to her at the Red Rocket Diner up the road. She seemed nice enough. Apparently she was a Stabletech Researcher. A glance through her email log tells me so much more.
-|-|-|-|-
From: Cryo Belle
To: Boysenberry Surprise
Welcome to Stable 111 Ms. Surprise. You have been chosen by Stable Tech to help to transition our residents into their automated cryogenic sleep in these trying days. Know that should the worst come to pass, you are ensuring that these great war heroes shall live on to advise us when the dust finally settles and ponykind emerges triumphant.
Truly I envy them, they will not suffer the trials and tribulations that likely soon face us all. Rather we shall awaken them as living reminders of the greatness that was once Equestria.
Author's Note
I stopped at exactly 688 words according to GDocs. In honor of the legendary punk rock night spot in downtown Atlanta... that didn't have a vampire ttrpg named after it. :D All the cookies if you can figure out the reference. 
My well manicured hooves smash the hated terminal to pieces. LIES! They threw their war heroes away. They threw my Blueberry away. I don’t know how long I’ve been screaming this time. Eventually, it will pass. It has too. Right now I only know that 70 years ago someone broke in the stable and stole my filly, they murdered my war hero, and if they could get in, I can get out.
My hooves ache from pounding against unyielding metal, but I barely feel it over the thrumming pulse of my own heartbeat. Focus. I need to focus. I stumble through the darkened hallways, emergency lights flickering overhead, casting eerie shadows across the lifeless pods. There has to be a way out. I refuse to die buried in this steel coffin, surrounded by ghosts and broken promises.
A sudden hiss breaks the oppressive silence, and I wheel around, heart lurching into my throat. Steam billows from a rusted pipe overhead, and I nearly collapse in relief, then laugh at the absurdity. Get it together, Last. You're made of sterner stuff than this. Blueberry always said I was the strong one.
Drawing a steadying breath, I propel myself forward, methodically checking each room, each corridor. Offices, cafeteria, dormitories - all the same story of decay and neglect. But as I round the corner to the Atrium, my eyes catch on a tiny red light blinking beneath layers of grime. An access panel, its edges curled with age, but the screen miraculously still aglow. With trembling hooves, I wipe away the years of filth caked across its surface to read the words that could damn me or deliver me:
“EMERGENCY EXIT: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY]”
"This room is closer, I think, no, I know I'm closer to the way in, the way back out.” I can hear the rustling of a breeze… no, not a breeze… something skittering in the shadows. Something else that got inside, and yet more proof of a way out? But what could it be? “What in Tartarus could have survived out there and found its way in here?"
I catch glances in the shaddows… wild dogs? No… too many legs. “Giant cockroaches? Luna’s holy flank…”
I recoil in disgust as one of the creatures skitters into the dim light. It's unmistakably a roach, but grotesquely enlarged, its carapace glistening a sickly green. Its antennae twitch as it senses my presence, and I swear I can see a malevolent intelligence in its compound eyes. There's a whole swarm of them, crawling out from the cracks and crevices of the decrepit room. The clicking of their leg joints echoes off the metal walls, a chitinous chorus heralding this new, twisted reality. I feel a surge of revulsion, followed swiftly by a spark of hysteria. Seriously? After everything I've been through, after all I've lost, I'm going to have to contend with overgrown bugs? A slightly unhinged laugh bubbles up in my throat. But as more and more of the roaches emerge, the severity of the situation sinks in. There are dozens of them, each one the size of a pony's fetlock, and they're moving with a clear purpose. Towards me. I cast my eyes around the room, searching for something, anything I can use as a weapon. A length of pipe, a shard of metal, even a damn mop - I'll take what I can get. Because one thing's for certain: I didn't survive a goddamn apocalypse to end up as roach chow. I spot a fire extinguisher mounted on the far wall, caked in grime but hopefully still functional. If I can just get to it... "Alright, you overgrown vermin," I mutter, feeling a flicker of my old determination sparking to life. "You want a piece of me? Let's dance." I take a deep breath, steel myself, and charge forward into the chittering swarm.
Author's Note
Getting back into this one. Still short chapters, but I'm trying to keep them dramatically paced...
