The remnants

An alarm broke my slumber. I looked over to the old clock on my dresser ringing loudly in my ear. The steel hammers mashing on the bell above the face of the clock.

“4:30, like always Crimson.” I said rising from my bed and swinging my legs around to get up. Looking out the curtains the moon was just going down, the sun not yet peaking his head over the horizon. The dim white lights of dawn casted their humble beams warmly on the surface of the shag-pink carpet.

Piles of clothes and paper covered the floor of my dorm room. All covered in writing from stories to poetry, from sonnets to songs, novels to Haiku. All were jumbled up and scattered in ugly yet beautiful piles. Some projects were finished some still needed work and-trust me, weren’t that good. I like that though, the fact that I’m flawed that not everything I write I enjoy. Makes me feel insolent but that’s a good thing. I make mistakes; it’s who I am.

I like my life, I like my dreams, I enjoy making ponies react to words and phrases. That’s why I’m going here, the Canterlot Academy of the Arts! It’s such a wonderful place. Being here made me see a brighter future. One where this war doesn’t exist and Everypony is sitting around in a circle, hoof in hoof reading and laughing. Not in that exact order but just seeing enjoyment on ponies’ faces in this hard time was uplifting.

I had high hopes though; I never expected this war though to stretch out this long. It had been going on since before I was born, but it has to end sometime right? Stallions my age were getting drafted left and right. Not going to lie, It is really scary, any moment you could get drafted. Look at the bright side though: higher girl to guy ratio though! And seriously, I’ve never seen better-looking ass than at this school. I’m not the best looking guy but since there’s not many around…

I hope I never get called to arms. I’d rather get murdered, raped, or Celestia knows whatever else than go to the draft. Those who get drafted don’t come back, not sure where they go. I thought about volunteering as a Military police, then I could still stay here and go to school and not have to do any fighting but I don’t know. It’s all just a real confusing time for everypony.

The window in the far corner seeped in light from the outside. It was white, cleansing, new, and crisp.  It soaked up some lines of darkness and brought them clarity on the carpet. It was a new day; my professor was getting in from a trip from Saddle Arabia. He was here for about a week into our studies and was gone for four days. He gave us a spare project to work on while he was gone. I finished it before he left the following day he assigned it. It was by the door already in my saddlebag for class.

A bathroom sat across the way from my bed, it had a shower, a sink, and a toilet. Like the usual routine I always took a shower in the morning right after waking up. It felt good to have the hot water run down my back. The steaming water dripping through my mane. It was amazing to just get up and have your senses cleansed like this.

After I exited I scanned over myself in the mirror. My yellow mane glistened from the water that clung to the banks and locks, my eyes, bright purple. I’ve come to be a little narcissistic about my eyes; I have to be honest about this. They were the one quality I admired about myself that I felt truly proud of. They were bright and vivid, not a dark shade of stress or concern ever crossed them no matter what emotion I felt they always shone. They were young, new, and felt serene and peaceful. I wondered though, would they always look like this? Would they always be this bright hue? A part of me wants them to stay the way they are, but, something-something deep down sorta wants them to change.

I trotted out of the washroom and looked at the clock that hung on the wall. It was still early and since the professor has been out for days I’ve already had my things packed for a while now. I could leave early but I might as well just lay down for a bit. I should go early, grab some breakfast at that little café on Horseshoe Street and Acorn but I need the rest.

With that I trotted over to my bed and lay down. I set the alarm clock to 6:30, which would give me enough time to get to the classroom. I rolled over from my side onto my back and faced the ceiling. My eyes felt heavy and the comforting embrace of sleep coiled around my body. I stretched out and relaxed letting my body just float away.

Bam Bam Bam!

“Crimson, we need to speak with you.”

The voice broke me from my slumber. I looked over to the clock.

“Who is at my door at 5 in the morning?” I asked myself.

Bam Bam!

“Crimson! We know you’re in there!”

“Just a minute!” I called out to the visitor.

“Who the hell do they think they are anyway?”

I stumbled over to the door; the heavy humid air clung to the walls form the shower I took not too long ago. Walking to the door two bulky shadows were casted from the hallway onto the floor beneath my door.

I opened it slowly with a creak from the old door. Two giant Military Police stallions stood staring down at me, their helmets’ red eyes staring down at me. They stood at almost the same height with the almost the same amount of mass on their shoulders. Neither was armed but one held a clipboard with names on it, red lines drawn through a lot of the names. Then an idea popped into my head that they may be here because I did something wrong but then I remembered something horrible that made me hope that I broke the law instead.

“Are you Crimson?” One of the big ones said behind the metallic mask with a metallic scratchy tone. I nodded cautiously. They both looked at each other and nodded.

“Do you currently have any disabilities?” The other asked. I shook my head slowly.

“Might I ask, sirs, what is this about?” The one tallest of the two put out his right hoof.

“Welcome to the armed forces, you’ve just made the draft.”

My heart sank, it hurt, I couldn’t breathe. I shook my head.

“No, no there must be a mistake.” The both looked at each other, then one down to the clipboard.

“Crimson, sex: Male, Height: 5’7’’, color: red coat, yellow mane, race: earthpony, eye color: Violet. That sounds like your description, and it said you attended the Canterlot Academy of the Arts?”

I grabbed the clipboard from him. Is said everything about me, birth records, blood type, any type of disorder I had or do have but it was left blank. All I could do was shake my head.

“This isn’t right. This can’t be right!” I said throwing the clipboard down onto the floor.

“I’m not going! Not now! Not ever!” One placed a hoof on my shoulder.

“Kid, this war won’t be going on for very much longer,” he said in a comforting tone.

“In no more that two months time we would have won already and the enemy won’t even look at this great land called Equestria.”

I something, I don’t know if it was vomit or tears or both. I felt water running from my eyes. I tried to hold them back but it was no use.

One question come into my mind. I had to ask it.

“I’m going to the front lines, huh?” I asked sniveling a little. I felt the hoof lifted off my shoulder. It was silent now.  I looked back up to them.

“I’m going to die out there aren’t I?” The one who placed his hoof on my shoulder looked away. I guess they’re looking for extra bodies out there to take the bullets so the stronger ones don’t take as many. I was going to die out there. The grim reaper appeared in front of me as these two wretched beings. This was not a sentence to fight, it was a sentence to death.

My legs gave out from under me. I fell to the floor my legs bent up under me. My face buried into the ground, tears streaming down my face. I let the tears roll out from my eyes but I made no noise. I remained there on the floor, silently crying.

“Oh, stop your crying!” One said. I snapped up to look at him, his figured blurred from the tears.

“You are such a little bitch! The enemy will want to kill you rather than keep you alive if you’re going to cry like that.” That broke something; I felt it snap in my brain. If he wants to screw with me so be it. They’re here to take my near perfect life away, I will not make them easy for them to take me.

Something, deep down, burned all of a sudden. I could feel it in my chest, physically and emotionally. I stood from the ground I had been crying on and looked that one right in those red eyes. I didn’t say anything I just stared for a minute. He backed up and motioned down the hallway. A plan had just hit me as I walked past the two. I don’t want to do this but I don’t want this to end, I value where I’ve gone too much to let it go this easily. My door is closing and I only have one chance to go back to where I was before it closed.

The hallway spelled fresh but bitter. The walls had their similar mediocre maroon and cream-colored stripes as the lights hung from high upon them. I looked down the hall at the door that led outside. Other dorms lined the walls going to it. Both of the soldiers walked next to me synchronized perfectly wit each other’s stride and posture.

Now was my time to do it, if not now I’m fucked forever. I waited until we got close to a door. I looked over to my right, as soon as he was in the center of the door I struck.

I threw my body at him slamming into him and throwing the mass of metal and horse through the door smashing it to pieces under him. He hit the floor with a thud, I was slightly knocked off balance but I regained myself. Looking back to my left I saw the big figure stand back. All I heard was “ The hell?” Before I lunged at him throwing my shoulder into him putting him into the wall opposite of the broken in door. His head flung back and with a clank against the wall he slumped down onto the floor, his body completely motionless.

I turned quick enough to see the other who was knocked through the door. He was crouched down, about to pounce on me. As soon as he left the ground I lifted my hind legs up and kicked. The buck hit him right in the face and cracked his mask down the center. He fell to the floor in a heap like the other.

The door at the end of the hallway glowed now. It was a way back to life, to keep it on the right track. I bolted to it, my writing class I was going to be late for but as long as I get there nothing mattered.

Before I touched the door it flung open, three more soldiers stood looking down at me, all the same height as the other two now knocked out in the hall behind me. One looked down the hallway and then at me.

Now it was over, they knew what I’ve done. It’s all over now, I’m never going to come back to this life, ever.

Light shone through my closed eyes in a blur as a distant muffled voice called out to me.

“Crimson!” I heard it call again.

“Crimson.” I heard it say quietly. My senses were not fully there. My hearing was jacked but my sight seemed fine. Touch came back, I didn’t certainly like that pain in the back of my head. Hearing finally came back.

I felt something all of a sudden, it took me a second to process what happened but it came to me. I opened my eyes a blue figure with a grey body attached to it. Then something wrapped something around me. Whatever it is it’s hugging me.

“Thank Celestia, I thought you were dead.” It said hugging me tighter.

That memory, that flashback hurt the mind. It pained me more than anypony could ever imagine. This was reoccurring in my dreams but now, this time it felt vivid, so life-like, so real. It didn’t change though. If I could go back now I would have. If I could change things I would. I would stop myself from opening the door. I would have put myself back into bed and wait till later, they would have been back but at least I would have had more of that old life to remember.

My vision came back, everything dropping from the pools of blurred color to focused detail and radical contour. The blue object that floated above my head was somepony I was more than happy to see. Blue stood over me looking down at me.

“Crimson!” He said as I sat up. I rubbed the back of my head.

“Blue, what happened? Where is Starblazer?” He looked over to the door and then to me.

“Who? The white stallion from before?” He asked with a puzzled look on his face. I nodded slowly. My head was splitting with pain now.

Blue simply shook his head.

“The last time I saw him was the other night.” I looked around. I was in the Bench; the air still reeked of that heavy gas and blood. Blood was almost all I could smell now. I looked over to the open door where that thing had died. Or so I thought.

“Where is it?” I asked under my breath.

“Where’s what?” Blue asked. All that remained was a bloodstain going down the hallway. I shot back to him.

“You didn’t see a body in the hallway coming here?” Blue was completely dumbfounded. He shook his head.

“Crimson, what’s happening?” He asked cautiously.

“Do you know what’s going on here?” He asked. I couldn’t say anything. In my mind I was trying to piece together what was going on but I was out of ideas.

The dim quiet was broken by a noise. A clatter echoed from down the corridor. Blue got up; I just now noticed the rifle around his body. He rose now to his hind legs and took cover to one of the sides of the door.

“Crimson,” He whispered. “No matter how much I’d like to leave with all this going on we need to figure out what the hell is going on.”

The clatter trailed off into another hall. Blue still held his rifle against his chest ready to shoot at anything that moved.

“They don’t die,” I heard him say. “No matter how many times I shoot them they won’t die.”

He never took his eyes off the hallway. His pupils were small, eyes full of fear. I could tell his whole body has been running on adrenaline. His hooves shook; his legs were shaking, his teeth chattering. Sweat dripped down his mane as heavy breathes of air pumped in and out of his chest, his torso flexing with each breath of air that he took in. He felt more than fear right now, I could tell, he felt the very essence of it that I have not hit yet or I must not be scared at all.

I walked over to him.

“Blue,” I said grabbing his face forcing him to face me. His pupils still small and his face still mortified.

“We need to find out where Starblazer went, then we need to leave.” His eyes remained the size of pebbles as he nodded quickly. He went from nodding to shaking his head.

“Crimson, I-I-I-I don’t know what to do.” He said sniveling a bit. He looked back up to me with a single tear running down his cheek.

“I watched one of those-those things r-r-rip somepony in half.” As I let go of his face he fell to the floor on his rear.

“One of those things had like swords-or something, coming out of where each of its hooves were.” He started shaking violently, might have been a shiver. I sat next to him, put a hoof around his shoulder.

“It stuck it through him, both went clear through him and then…” All he gave me was a gesture, flexing both his forelegs out then dropping them to the floor.

“That thing just threw the pieces on each side of the hallway.” He started to cry a bit.

“Crimson, I don’t want to die.” He said lunging at me, hugging me and digging his muzzle into my chest, crying.

“Not like that.” I was a little surprised but I got over the shock factor and just patted him on the back.

I always saw him as the little brother I never had. He always looked to me for guidance, always asking me things.. He was so curious about the world. He reminded me of a safe place, a place where this war had never infected it. His little knowledge of the world just seemed to be uplifting, that sweet innocence he had made up for all the flawed things about this place, these times, this dark remnant of a divided civilization. He was one of the few here I felt true sympathy for here in this hellhole.

I had nothing to say, all I could do is sit here awkwardly with him crying into my shoulder giving him as much comfort as I could.

“We’re going to be fine,” I said as comforting and soft as I could. “We’ll find Star and get out of here.” All he did was shake his head. I grabbed his face and lifted it to mine where we were at eye level.

“I’ll make sure you get out of here,” I said to him. He sat for a moment looking at me, processing what I told him. He looked at the ground wiping the tears from his face. He still had long stains coming from his eyes running down his cheeks. He wiped them sniveling a bit.

“Blue, I know you’re scared but I’m scared too.” I said to him standing up.

“But the more we’re scared the less we’re brave.” I stretched out a hoof and offered to pull him up.

“And right now being brave and staying alive, is all we can do.” He looked up to me as if he was a young colt who had just fallen off a scooter; tears in his eyes, his body slumped to one side of the floor. He wrapped his hoof around mine and I pulled him up.

The light that lit up the room was somewhat dim, the light had to be in the Bench, if the parts are exposed to the heavy radiation lights we have in the hallway they’d fall apart or compress and or decompress to fit the environment. It seemed darker though since the hallway lights were no longer working.

I looked into the hallway and it was black. The two turns at the very end of the hallway flickered light but it was sketchy, flashing on and off in random instances. Shining wet looking spots reflected some light off the walls the color though was distorted though in the red-ish liquid that was smeared down the surface and painted up the fortified rampart.

“Crimson,” Blue said from behind me.

“I want to go home,” I almost smirked at the comment, it sounded like something that a little colt would say but I understood what he meant.

“I do too, buddy.” I said agreeing with him.

“Say, Crimson,” He said as I felt him put a hoof on my back trying to get my attention. I looked back to him.

“What?”

“If I die here, you promise me you’ll bury me properly?”

“Blue!” I said poking him hard in the chest with my hoof.

“I will make sure on my life that you will come out of this alive.” I was furious he said that. It was hard to hear things like that, especially coming from someone so young in spirit; it sickens me to my core.

I looked back into the hallway and walked down the corridor as quietly as I could with the metal armor I had on. It was dark but everything was visible. Chucks of metal littered the floor and debris from who knows what was everywhere. All the bulbs in the ceiling were broken or out. The smell was unbearable; at that moment I remembered something, that smell from earlier. I looked back to Blue who was just about to walk out of the door.

“Blue! Grab your helmet!” He looked at me strangely, but did it anyway going back in. He came out with it on. I heard his microphone click on then really low volume static.

“Why do I need my helmet?” He asked. I looked up to one of the vents.

“There was a weird smell coming from the vents earlier, I don’t know if it has anything to do with what’s going on but I think it might be safe if we took some extra precautions. I turned back to him he was staring at the vents too. Then he looked back to me.

“Activate the air lock in the helmet.” He nodded and tapped the button on the side of the helm and the small whistling sound that I made screeched quietly.

“What about your helmet?” He asked.

“I’ll find one, but for now I think we should focus on finding Star.” We nodded and looked down the hallway. It was black except for the light at the turn ahead. A sign was semi lit up. An arrow pointed to the cafeteria that had a bloodstain smeared across it. Another group of words vaguely read Medical Ward I think, all I could see was “Me-ica- Wa-d”.

“Blue,” I said thinking about the decision I’d come to.

“I really hate to say this but we’re going to have to split up.” I looked over to him. He stood strait up staring at me with those red eyes.

“Are you dumb?!” He asked loudly.

“No joke are you fucking kidding me?” I was a little shocked by what he said.

“I’m sorry but have you ever seen a horror movie or read a book?” I sighed for a moment.

“Blue, that’s the movies this is real.” He nodded.

“Exactly, which means it’ll be even worse.”

“Those are fake, that stuff doesn’t happen in real life.”

“This stuff happens in the movies! If I know anything, we split up we will die!” He said pointing down the hallway. I looked at the sign.

“For right now you’ll have to trust me, I’m sorry but I swear, if anything happens you shout I will be there in seconds.” He looked down and sighed quietly.

“Promise?” I nodded. “Promise on my life.” He sighed with emphasis this time moving his shoulders synchronized with his breath.

“We’ll meet back here.” I pointed to his rifle. “Use it at anything that moves.” He looked at me with his head cocked sideways.

“What if it’s one of our guys?” I started to walk off.

As I turned the corner I looked back to him.

“It probably won’t be.”