Fallout: Equestria - Wasted Innocence

Chapter 4: Color in the Vast Gray

Standing on the edge of the roof was overwhelming. There was nothing out there for as far as the eye could see, just destruction everywhere, so many ponies’ lives gone in a flash and so many more broken. Everything seemed so much bigger from up there as well. I could see so much more than I could from the ground.

I looked to the pale cloud-covered sky as the wind whipped my mane around, still taking it all in. It felt cool on my wings as it blew around and underneath my feathers. The wind smelled slightly like burnt wood with dust and sulfur. Being so far up made me feel less constricted, more free than I had ever felt in my life. I thought to myself for a moment, ‘Is this what it feels like to be able to fly?’

I Thought about all the pegasi who were in the world at one time and how few of us were left. Pegasi used to do great things, I bet. Then there was me, and I couldn’t even fly. What was my purpose in the world if I were a flightless pegasus? What was the point in my wings?

“She’s a beaut’, isn’t she? The Land o’ Equestria, they used to call her. Now it’s just the Equestrian Wastelands. Not a pony down there who doesn’t want the other dead for some reason or another,” Valet explained as he walked up beside me. It was hard to focus on what he said when you came to the realization that the world around you was burnt to ash and you never knew it. A slight sadness washed over me. I tried not to think about it

Shifting my eyes to look out in the distance, I heard the sounds of what could only be described as muffled popcorn. That must be gunfire, really fast gunfire, something I couldn’t compete with if I wanted to. It made my heart sink thinking that I may have just listened to some poor pony get killed.

“What happened out here, Val? We were told in the Stable the world had just ended, that there was nothing beyond that big gear-shaped door, but it’s much worse than being thrown into some deep desolate void like they wanted us to believe.” Everything I knew was truly a lie. We were kicked out into a hellscape all because the Stable wanted obedient ponies, but maybe that was all a lie as well. “Any time we asked, we were told not to worry about it.”

“The Great War, kid. Life was going on as usual for these ponies when the megaspells came. The first city to be attacked was Cloudsdale. Blew the fucking city out of existence. There is hardly any trace of it left at all. After that, the war took a turn for the worse. That was 200 years ago.”

My curiosity peaked and my excitement began to grow. I could feel my insides begin to quiver a bit, and adrenaline started to pump through my body. “I’ve never heard of this war or megaspells—they didn’t teach us that in 82, but I did find a book that mentioned Cloudsdale, where pegasi originated from. Not much information about it was in it, though; those pages were torn out. Can you tell me what happened?”

“That's not my story to tell, Cyan. I’m an earth pony—not my place.”

“Val. I’m asking you. Please, tell me what happened. I’ve been in Buckingham for 3 days now, and, already, I’ve gotten threatening looks from the residents. A changeling tried to hypnotize me, Diamond had a complete breakdown and doesn’t seem to trust me, and, to top all of that off, Nurse Lightheart brought me back to full health and then threatened to kill me over something somepony who looks like my mother, who looks like me, who I believed to be dead, did a few years back. Now, please, tell me. What the hell happened?”

“And I’m telling you no, that’s a story somepony else has to tell you. It lies in your heritage. Now, as far as my residents and staff go, they will be dealt with accordingly.” He didn’t sound aggravated. In fact, he had a slight smirk on his face. But why? “There may be some details that I leave out or things I don't know or have forgotten, so, no, I won’t tell you the story of what happened.”

Valet and I continued to look out across the wasteland, the dilapidated buildings and burnt landscape. “Hey, Val, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, kid. Shoot.”

“Can we find somepony who can teach me how to fly? I want to feel the freedom of not being stuck on the ground all the time. I want to be able to use my wings for something more than a blanket when I’m cold. I can glide, I just can’t fly.”

I heard a metallic clang come from behind Valet and I. “Fuck a rooster, that hurt! Goddess-damned pipes!” My head snapped in the direction of where a mare’s voice wanted to… fornicate a rooster?

“Who was that?”

Valet laughed a bit and stepped off the ledge of the building. “Right on cue. Cyan, there's somepony I want you to meet. Follow me.”

There was another pony up there—fuck, here we go again. “Val, is it such a good idea to be introducing me to so many ponies who don’t even want me here?” Valet continued to walk as if he had never heard me. “Val… Valet, dammit, I’m talking to you.” Yup, he was ignoring me. Great.

Valet walked over to a small shack next to the massive windows that would be over the escalators in the mall. How hadn’t I noticed it when I walked out there? I hoped the pony was more accepting of pegasi than the others were. Another clang from behind the shack sounded like a pony working on something.

“Crescent, if you don't stop hitting your head on that pipe, you are going to go stupid, my dear.” Valet chuckled and looked over at me. “Didn’t I tell you I had a surprise on the roof?”

The head of a greyish-green mare who held a wrench in her mouth popped up from behind a panel of sheet metal. Once she noticed it was Val who had spoken, she spit the wrench out, which hit the rooftop with a clang.”I know that, Vally, but I put this little thing together around the pipes to keep myself warm during the cold months.” She pointed a hoof directly at me and smiled. “Who’s this?”

My body stiffened up. I felt like I was under a personal attack, again, from some pony I didn’t even know.

“This, my dear Crescent, is Cyan. I’m hoping you two could get along a bit. I’ve got some stuff to take care of with my staff. She knows her way around tools, so maybe you could let her help with whatever you are working on up here.”

The mare crawled out from behind the sheet metal. Her body was draped in a sheet that loosely covered her. She looked at me with a quizzical expression. “Vally, since when are we taking in pegasi, let alone giving them big ass rifles like that? Can she even handle something that's just barely too small to be considered a battle saddle?” She kept looking at me with a fierce gaze, almost like she wanted to fight.

Great, Valet, good idea, bring me to the roof to get the shit kicked out of me.

Softly laughing, she shook her head. “I’m just fucking with you, filly.” She walked right past Valet and stood in front of me with a big smile on her face. “Your wings are so pretty. Nice to meet you, Cyan.” A wing jetted out from under the sheet toward me.

My heart stopped at that moment. If a wing just popped out from under that sheet, I realized—no way, she was a pegasus as well. I reached my own wing out and our wings both wrapped around each other into a ‘wingshake’ of sorts. The moment my wing made contact with hers, I had the overwhelming urge to cry. She was real, another pegasus standing in front of me! nd she was friendly! Even if she did have an intimidating side.

Her wing was soft and warm. It wasn’t much different than my own; in fact, it looked to be about the same size. She was about the same size as me.

My whole body trembled. I felt like I was going to collapse. I looked over at Val, and he shook his head, smiling. It was unreal. I wanted to jump up and wrap my forelegs around her. Finally, after so much time, a pony just like me.

“Crescent has been with us for a little over a year. Although she refuses to stay inside and prefers to live on the roof, she normally takes care of the electrical connections, generators, and other roof repairs up here. Now that you are here, maybe you can help her.”

“Aaand once you let my wing go, I’ll invite you in. Y’know, we don’t normally get pegasi here hardly at all. Well, actually, I’ve never seen another pegasus, so this is a little exciting to me.” She had such a friendly glow to her face.

I slowly lowered my wing, letting it fold back to my side, still in disbelief. So many things ran through my head all at once. Maybe she would accept me, but what if she rejected me? What if she was just like me? I didn’t know what to do or say, all I could really do was stand there and stare at her until I could muster up the will just to speak

“I’ve never met another pegasus,” I managed to say, almost choking on my words. It came out more of a squeak than words.

Without saying anything, Valet turned and headed back toward the roof access door. My attention was mostly fixated on Crescent, who was headed to the doorway of her little penthouse shack. I looked up at the sky again and gave Celestia a short appreciative thank you before I followed Crescent.

Crescent’s head was turned toward me as she walked into her shack, not watching where she was going. “Hey, before you come in here, I gotta warn you to watch out for the—” CLANG! “—Luna-damned pipes! Fuck that hurts, every time.”

I giggled to myself, ducking my head down and looking into Cresent’s shack. It was impressive to see what that pegasus mare had accomplished all by herself. The shack blocked out the wind and natural light. She had string lights to light the place up and shelves everywhere that held various items. All she had on the floor was a mattress, which was neatly kept, and a small table. A pipe ran from the front of the shack where she kept hitting her head, to the back, and was warm to be nearby. I liked it. It was cozy and felt more like a home.

“So, first things first, before we get started, would you like a Sparkle~Cola, or beer, or something else to drink?” She moved around her little shack and dug through a metal trunk, clinging around what sounded like glass bottles.

“What is Sparkle~Cola?” I’d never heard of that drink name before. Maybe it was something surface-dwellers made.

“Uhh, Sparkle~Cola is only the best drink ever made!” Crescent took two glass bottles wrapped in a red label from the box and handed me one. The liquid inside was a dark color, and I wasn’t sure if I trusted it. By the time I looked back at Crescent, she was already downing her bottle.

I placed the cap in my teeth and popped the cap off with a tsst sound. Once I had the cap off, I spit it out on the table. I felt a bit proud of myself. “I didn’t think I could do that anymore.” I could pull corks out of bottles with my teeth in the stable, but that was the first time I’d done it with a metal cap

“Hey, filly, don’t do that!” Crescent jumped up and took the bottle cap off the table. I felt a bit taken aback. I didn’t intend to offend her in any way. “First, don’t take bottle caps off with your teeth—it’s really bad for them. And second, this is good money you are throwing away.”

“A bottlecap?” Now that had to be a joke. Bottlecaps couldn’t be good for anything if they were on a bottle, right?

“Yes, a bottle cap. Bottle caps, or caps for short, are the way you buy anything. Surely you had to know that.”

The confusion of the importance of a little red cap was lost on me, and I didn’t get it. I knew I traded all of my tools in to get a rifle, but beyond that, I didn’t know you could buy stuff with junk like bottle caps.

Picking up the Sparkle~Cola bottle with my wing, I took a swig, and it was a very different sensation. It had a bubbly yet smooth texture going down that tasted amazing. I took a few larger drinks, enjoying the drink, until my Pipbuck began to click. Raising it up, I noticed it alerted me that, with every drink, I ingested small amounts of radiation. Was that mare trying to kill me? If she was, it didn’t seem to be her intention.

“Is this stuff radioactive?”

“Ehh, only slightly. It’s just like everything else, from the ground you stand on to the air you breathe. Everything is slightly irradiated, and some areas are massively irradiated. Why are you asking?”

I lifted my leg and let her hear the Pipbuck as it clicked. I looked at her with a blank expression. Crescent’s eyes lit up, and she almost tripped over herself to get closer.

“You’ve got a PipBuck, a true-to-life Robronco PipBuck!” Crescent pointed at my PipBuck as she almost bounced in excitement. “Can I please check it out? I’ve never gotten to see one up close and personal.”

“S-sure,” I stammered as I extended my foreleg straight out toward her. She quickly flung the sheet off her back and began to mess with the controls of my PipBuck like a filly would a new toy. Well, a new used toy.

“Stat, Item, Data, I’m guessing these are the main information settings. It’s got a Geiger counter on it. A radio tuner—probably can’t get anything way out here, though.” It was cute, the way she got overly excited about something that had been connected to my leg for years.

I was on the wildest emotional rollercoaster I’d ever felt. I had just met another pegasus, somepony just like me, and in a world I had learned had mostly hatred for me, there she was as she messed about with my PipBuck. I didn't know whether to be amazed or annoyed.

I must have spaced out for a moment. When I came to, Crescent was waving her hoof in front of my face as she tried to get my attention. Then, she leaned in really close, her bright green eyes met mine, and I felt my heart skip. I was for sure fully blushing, no way to hide it. Her eyes were the kind you could get lost in, and I was getting lost.

“Cyan, you in there, filly? You look kind of dazed.”

I pulled my hoof back and shook my head slightly. “I think I might just be a little tired still. It’s been a confusing and frustrating day.”

“I think you just need to go for a fly. I do that a couple of times a day.”

Great. I would have to explain that aspect of my life. I took a deep breath. “I can’t. I don’t what I mean to say is, I don’t know how to… fly.”

“Wait a minute, you are a pegasus, and you don’t know how to fly?”

“That’s what I said. Please don’t make fun of me.”

Crescent giggled as she stood proudly up on her legs. “It's easy to fly, you just spread your wings and push the air with them, like this.” She opened her wings wide, stretching from one side of the shack to the other. My jaw about dropped. I felt like I was hit with a 10-ton hammer. I hadn’t seen anypony like her before. Then again, I’d never seen another pegasus before. “And all you do after that is just push down, flap them, if you will.”

I looked at my own wings for a moment before I spread them wide open, before I closed them again. Crescent had strong wings that she earned from flying all the time. I doubted my wings were half as strong after I’d lived underground my whole life. I turned my head from looking at Crescent. I didn’t deserve to be in the presence of a true pegasus.

Hearing Cresent’s hoof on the floor approach me and stop as she sat next to me made me flinch a little. I still wasn’t used to having anypony actually wanting to be around me, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I wanted to run, but another voice told me to give her a chance. Maybe it was all the years of abuse I’d endured in Stable 82. I couldn’t explain it.

“If you want me to, I could teach you how to fly. It’s not much different than gliding.” My head shot up to look at her, and when I did, I accidentally booped my nose against hers softly. I knew I was instantly blushing and highly embarrassed. Not only that, I had noticed she had the deepest green eyes I had ever seen. I didn’t know she was that close.

“I’m s-sorry,” was the only thing I could squeak under my breath. Nothing else would come out.

Crescent moved back a little, rubbing her nose. “It’s fine. So, you want those flying lessons?

I nodded, grinning a bit.

***************************************

I glided down toward the roof and tried to slow myself down by flapping my wings and leaning myself back just as Crescent had instructed. Too late, I hit the rooftop hard and somersaulted a few times before I slid to a stop. I rolled over to my back and looked up at the clouds. Catching my breath proved to be a challenge as I panted, feeling exhausted. My wings were starting to ache, and I was pretty sure I had scraped off a layer of my coat as many times as I had slid. We were at it for hours, and I’d only been able to do one slow lap around one section of the roof.

“You’re improving; you actually were able to land on your hooves before kissing the roof this time.” Crescent was seated by the ledge as she watched every run I made.

I took a deep, slow breath trying to calm myself as I pulled myself up onto my hooves and walked over to her. I propped my legs up onto the ledge, still breathing a bit hard. “It seems like I’m learning this a bit slow, don’t you think?”

“Oh, you want a fast lesson, do you?”

“Well, learning something fast would be nice.” I scoffed, knowing that was not exactly possible. I looked down at the street below. “I wonder how long it would take to get to the ground from up here.”

“You tell me.”

“Learning fast doesn’t exist.”

“Flying isn’t something you learn, Cyan, It’s our instinct. We were never meant to stay on the ground, we are meant to fly. You can’t exactly learn it.” She giggled, taking a sip of a Sparkle~Cola.

I looked over the ledge of the building. It still looked as high as ever, and the height still made everything look small.

“Wanna do a run together this time?” I shot a look at Crescent, who was already perched on the ledge with her wings raised, cracking her neck from side to side. “It’s been a couple of days since I’ve flown; it’ll feel good to stretch my wings a little bit.”

“Am I ready for an actual flight? I mean, you had to push me off for me to get to know what to do.” I was uncertain about going for a real flight of any length. What if I fell? What if I messed something up and ended up running into Crescent? What if…

“Just trust me.” The tone of her voice was soft and inviting, but if there was one thing I’d learned since I left the Stable, trust didn’t come easy. ”If you follow me and do what I tell you, then you’ll do just alright.”

I nodded and took a deep breath, perching myself on the ledge of the building, raising my wings, and assume the same stance Crescent was in. My heart pounded within my chest, and sweat dripped down my face.

This is it, do or die, literally.

“You first.” I felt a shove from behind me. My hooves scraped the edge of the building, and I fell head-first, screaming on the way down. I closed my eyes, seeing the street coming at me, and fast. My wings opened seemingly on their own, and I felt my entire body jerk upward as if somepony had thrown me into the air. A sensation of weightlessness washed over my body like I was floating. It was a feeling I had never experienced before. When I opened my eyes, Crescent was right beside me.

“Now what the actual fuck was that! You scared the living shit out of me!” I glared at Crescent, but she only smiled back and pointed down with her hoof. What now?

I looked down to see the ground far beneath me and moving past me. I looked around in every direction. I was flying! Luna be damned, I was in the air. Once the realization hit and the adrenaline from the scare had worn off, I started to feel it—the wind blowing through my mane and feathers. It felt cool against my body, and, still, I felt weightless. The buildings beside us made a whooshing sound as we passed the broken windows.

“Don’t forget to push the air with your wings, or you’ll fall.” Crescent still looked at me with a big smile on her face until she looked forward again, and her eyes shot open as if she had just seen a ghost, and she tried to backpedal mid-air. “Fuck! Back. Back. Back!”

She didn’t even have time to form a full sentence when I heard gunfire break out, and the rounds that struck the buildings around us threw puffs of dust into the air. We couldn’t even tell who shot at us or where it came from. I tried to turn around and break the rhythm of my wings. I felt myself sink and fall a few feet through the air before I was able to get my rhythm back.

Racing back to the Buckinghoof rooftop, I tried my best to fly as fast as I could, pushing my wings to their limits. A few rounds whizzed past my head and ricocheted off the building beside me. I was rapidly praying to Celestia that one of those rounds wouldn’t come back and hit me. As I flew over the ledge of the Buckinghoof rooftop,, I watched Crescent land with a stumble. I flew in way too fast and hit the rooftop hard, sliding across it again.

Crescent began to laugh as she looked over at me as I tried to peel my body off the rooftop, panting hard, unable to catch my breath. “We made it. That was a little closer than I’d have liked.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “‘Than you’d have liked’? Are you outside your fucking mind? We about got shot back there! What would have happened if we were shot out of the air?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“From that height, we would have… fallen… from that height.” The realization had started to take hold, and I had just started to process it. Could I have really been… “We could have been in the wing from 70 feet up because we were… f-fl-flying.”

Crescent looked at me, smiling. “Welcome to the skies, Cyan.”

An overwhelming pride and relief hit me at once as tears welled up and rolled down my face. “I flew. My wings aren’t useless. I am not a useless, flightless pegasus.”

“Catch your breath, Cyan, and come get a drink.”

***********************************

“...and that’s when they cast me out into the wasteland. I got out here, and I’ve been dealing with nearly everypony I meet telling me they wanted to kill me because of something they all call the Enclave.”

Crescent leaned back with her eyes wide open and a blank expression. She looked like she was still processing everything I had just said. “That was a lot more than I expected, to be honest. Still, why would your family be in a Stable?”

I shrugged, taking a deep gulp from another delicious carroty Sparkle~Cola. “You don’t question the Overmare. We thank the Overmare for keeping us safe. The Overmare knows what's best for the Stable, and all of that bullshit. I’m telling you I don’t know what to believe anymore, Crescent.”

“I hope you believe me and everything Valet has told you so far. I know he’s weird and gives minimal information, but maybe it’s better that way.”

“He did give me another pegasus to talk to. Have you seen any other pegasi on your trek through the wastes?” I had to ask. I really hoped she had seen at least one other.

Crescent looked at the roof of her shack, tapping the top of her Sparkle~Cola bottle with her wing. “I don't really think so. There was one back east around New Appleoosa, but I never met him. Folks from that area would say he could shoot bloatsprites from a mile in the sky, and he wore a funny hat, but, again, I wouldn’t know.”

“Funny hat?”

“Big ol’ black thing. I don’t know, Cyan, I’ve already said I haven’t met the stallion. Not many friendly folks out there. Trot up to one to ask about the weather, and you may get filled with bullets, blown apart, ripped apart if they’re a raider, or sold into slavery. Mare like you, 450 caps, and boom, you end up being somepony’s sex slave until they kill you or you kill yourself.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like much of a fun time out there.” I pondered the details Crescent fed me. I had no idea how I could keep myself safe out there, but I couldn’t stay with Crescent forever, and I certainly couldn’t stay at Buckinghoof forever.

“I did meet one friendly pony right outside Sweet Apple Acres: Ivory Jade, nice earth pony. Talked way too fast, though. She helped me back to health after I got hurt, and it took four days to do so, which Nurse Lightheart says could’ve killed me.”

“Sweet Apple Acres? Are you sure that's where you were?” Crescent had a look to her that suggested she didn’t believe a word of it.

“Why are you looking at me like that? That is what the mare said. My head was killing me, and I didn’t feel like fact-checking a pony who clearly knew the wasteland when I didn’t.”

“According to your story, you got kicked out of the stable about 5, well 6 now, days ago, and tomorrow will make one week.”

“Right.” I nodded slowly, taking another sip from the bottle. “I still don’t see what this has to do with what the mare said.”

Crescent sighed and pointed to her right with her wing. “Sweet Apple Acres is about 3 days from here on hoof. We are about 5 hours outside Applewood. Which, given the timeline, puts you at getting here tomorrow.”

My eyes shot open, and I dropped my bottle, quickly scrambling through my PipBuck’sfunctions. I found the last locations saved to it: Hedding’s Outdoor Supply, about half a city away, and Buckinghoof. Not more than an hour's trot.

“I was lied to, again.” I held my head in shame with the revelation. It felt like a cold knife being jabbed right through my chest. My old sense of outcast and betrayal began to resurface as I instinctively started to draw my hindlegs to my chest and wrap my wings around my body.

“I’m sorry, Cyan, but the ponies out there are not ponies who want either of us around. They lie to us and steal from us. We are such rare ponies that we have such a high price on our heads, our parents would even sell us just to make a few caps.” I could see a deep pain in Crescent’s eyes, and her anger began to boil over as she stood up and turned away from me, digging through her trunk of drinks and clinking the bottles together. “And why? Why would anypony hate us? We haven’t done anything wrong but exist, apparently. We struggle to stay alive down here while the others live it up in the sky!” Crescent slammed the trunk shut. Her breath was shaky, and I could tell she was on the verge of tears.

I about jumped up. Hearing there were more pegasi made my heart race. I was really excited to hear more about the pegasus race, but, at the same time, seeing Crescent’s state, I really didn’t want to push it. I tried to keep it as calm as possible.

“There’s more? Like us, I mean.” I hoped that wasn’t too much or too subtle.

Crescent nodded, It seemed like she didn’t even want to look at me, the way she kept her back turned as she continued to tremble. She aimed her hoof directly up. “They are all up there, The Grand Pegasus Enclave, they call themselves. Nothing but a bunch of liars and traitors. When Cloudsdale was blown out of existence, all pegasi took to the clouds, abandoning the war in the final days. To this day, we are all struggling down here, and yet they do nothing.” Crescent stomped her hooves on the trunk. “What's worse, when I was a filly, my parents were given the chance to live up there amongst them, as they were ‘purebred’ pegasi. The Enclave gave them a price to fulfill, and my parents...” Her voice broke into a squeaky rasp as she tried to talk between breaths. “... actually sold… sold me to… satisfy those debts.

Turning to look at me, Crescent’s eyes were red, and her face was wet from all the tears he had shed. My heart broke for her. I couldn't possibly think of how she must have felt for her own parents, pegasi themselves, when they just got rid of her like that. I wanted to say something or do something, but nothing would have been enough.

“Those fuckers couldn’t hold me down, though. I was able to get myself out of the cage they put me in, and I flew off into the night. They never knew I left. I never saw my parents or the ones they sold me to again.” She chuckled softly and raised a leg up to wipe her eyes with it. “That was so many years ago. I’ve kept that a secret, but I think about it every day. Until now.”

Feeling lost, I tried to think of something, anything to tell her. “Crescent, I never—”

She held a hoof up at me to stop me in my tracks. “Please, Cyan, let me finish. I thought of finding a way to silence the pain, the memories, the existence of it, End everything, but then Valet brought you to me earlier today, and I feel more like a pony than I ever have. I feel like he brought you to me because we both need help. Ponies need ponies, we hear that a lot. ”Crescent slowly looked at the floor as more tears streamed down her face. “But pegasi need pegasi, too.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I jumped up and crawled across the table, knocked everything off of it, including our Sparkle~Cola bottles, and flung my arms around Crescent’s neck. I didn’t get it—my body moved on its own. I met that mare only earlier that day, yet it felt like I’d known her for years. I pulled Crescent into a tight hug, feeling her body shaking, and, eventually, the release of emotions as she sobbed into my shoulder. I bet that was the first time either of us had a true hug.

Crescent fell asleep after her emotional breakdown. I decided to sit by the ledge and feel the wind blow through my mane and let myself get lost in thought as I tried to process everything I’d heard. Between the distant gunfire and Crescent’s history, it was overwhelming. The soft glow of my PipBuck lit the ground around it, which gave me a distraction. I raised it up and flipped through the settings at random until I found a memo that had been saved to it unchecked: “Polish Stable Door.”

“As if I haven’t been through enough today, you go and remind me of that place.” I erased the message and walked back to Cyan’s shack. I really needed sleep.