//------------------------------// // Renewal // Story: Where Did Everypony Go? (September) // by Dracoliat //------------------------------// When everything is gone, when it’s dark and I’m alone. Renewal Dear diary I’m so cold, one of my blankets got wet this morning when it began to snow. On the bright side, I managed to catch some snowflakes and by breathing into the bottle they melted. Carrying water became impractical a few days ago, when the water began to freeze. Luckily there is a layer of snow on the ground now that I can melt in the bottle above the lantern. I got as much water out from the blanket as I could, but it will probably be useless. I’ll keep it as a possible bandage for anything later. Other than that, the journey is monotonous and cold. I’ve already been traveling for about two day things, and I’m already half way to Ponyville. I should be there after two more days of travel. My food is low, like it always is, and Im alone. Journal entry#14 --- Dear diary Ponyville is in ruins. Most of the town has been reduced to rumble. I found a tiny bit of food and immediately headed towards Manehatten. It looks like Im getting closer to whatever did this, I just hope it’s not hostile at me. I don’t know if I have enough food for the journey, I will have to hope that more is available in Manehatten, which is about ten days away. I remember hearing once that we can eat our own hair if we truly need to, but if I did that I’d freeze to death. My blankets are keeping out the cold for now, but the days are getting harsher, and a small breeze is beginning to blow constantly. It would be more accurate to call the day, nights now. If my guess is correct, and I hope it’s not, the breeze will begin to become more extreme, like everything in this world. If that’s the case I’d need to find cover and fast, all the soot on the ground could easily be picked up by a wind. Journal entry#15 --- Dear diary The walk to Manehatten is going terribly. The small gust has picked up to a light wind in only four days, I need to pick up my pace if I want to survive. The ashes have begun blowing onto the road, making it more slippery, that combined with the fact that falling would make all my blankets wet makes for a bad situation. That means if I fall once in this, I will, most likely, die. My lantern is starting to glow less brightly, I think it’s running out of fuel. That means soon it will be almost completely dark. I have to get to Manehatten within the next few days, or it will go out, and not even the blankets will protect me from the cold, or the wind. I don’t mind being out of food, it only makes me walk faster. Journal entry #16 --- dear diary My lantern went out and I’ve reverted to drinking my own piss again. The only other way I can get water is eat the snow. I’m getting colder all the time, so that is a bad idea, since snow is cold. It should only take me three more days until I reach Manehatten, but I can’t survive three more days like this. My hoofs are aching and blue, and my stomach is roaring in protest. I need to keep walking, I can’t take anymore breaks until Manehatten. Either I get there in one day, or I’ll die. Journal entry#17 --- dear diary I made it, I made it to Manehatten, I quickly found an apartment building where I scavenged it for every scrap of food I could find. But I remember last time, I only ate a single bread roll, and I’m having enough trouble keeping that down. I drank a single bottle of water, and that was trouble to, I first had to find fuel for my lantern. I’m thinking ahead now, and bringing a few bottles of fuel for it. Even though I’ve only had one piece of bread, and a tiny amount of water, I still feel like a king. But there is bad news, I looked in a mirror, and at first I thought it was the crack in it. But it turns out, my fat reserves are completely gone, I can literally see the outline of my ribs right now. I found every single blanket on the entire first floor and put them all into one nice comfortable pile on top of me. I’m finally warm, after all this time. Journal entry#18 --- dear diary Today I went to explore the rest of Manehatten, this place is enormous. There are hundreds of buildings around here, so I figure there would be at least one survivor. I was right, there’s exactly one survivor, me. The wind seems to be picking up even more, gusts of wind are picking up the soot around here and causing a storm. It’s completely black now, I don’t think I can go out anymore. If this keeps up, the soot would kill me from the impact. In the distance I can see a giant black cloud heading towards us, so I barricaded all the doors and windows. Covered every place I could, now I can only wait and hope things get better. On the bright side, the lower amount of air coming in means that it is slowly warming up in the building. I hope I have something else to say later on. journal entry#19 --- dear diary The tiny particles of dust, soot, and ash are assaulting every part of the building. I can’t sleep any more due to the incredibly loud noise they make. But something is different now, I could have sworn the storm was louder yesterday, and it was darker. I hope I’m right and the wind dies down and the sun comes back again. By the way, I found a clock and counted the days since I began staying here, it’s been more than 30 days since my last journal entry. No news from that entire period. journal entry#20 --- dear diary I was right, thank goodness, it’s becoming lighter every day. The wind is slowly dying down, and soon it will be safe to go outside again. I never thought it would happen, I guess this is the new pattern. A slow decrease in temperature and then a slow increase in temperature. However, since it got so cold, I hope it doesn’t get that hot. I can only wait now, however the water is becoming easier to unfreeze, that’s good. My food is running low, despite my tiny rations, if it doesn’t clear up soon, I’ll have to go through the storm. journal entry #21 --- dear diary I had a dream last night, and I can’t help but think it has to do with this entire chain of events. I was in a dark room, a loud humming noise was coming from down a flight of stairs. I walked down the stairs and found a thick metal door. Naturally, I opened the door and found a huge array of strange cylinder shaped objects. All having the same humming sound around them. On the far edge of the room was a blue paper, but as I tried to get closer to see what was on it, I woke up. I think I’m just being paranoid, a dream can’t cause this. My food should last for a few more days, and by then it will be safe to exit, I hope. journal entry#22 --- dear diary I found some more food and water, also I’ve decided to set out for a city named Fillydelphia in the hopes of solving this mystery. But I have come to terms, chances are, I will eventually run out of food, and will die. Even more likely than that, is I will never find out what happened to this world. I do remember one thing that might lead me to the truth. That black unicorn, but I haven’t seen it since leaving Canterlot. Maybe I’ll spot it at Fillydelphia, I hope so. Every night now I have that recurring dream, only it doesn’t seem to be a dream. It’s more of a memory, but I can’t remember anything after that until waking up in this hell hole. I leave on the 5 day journey tomorrow. journal entry#23 --- dear diary The journey goes well except for that hoof I injured a long time ago, it’s inflamed again. I don’t know what’s wrong with it and it hurts so bad, again I have to walk on three hooves. It’s still a bit cold out, but not nearly as bad as before. That combined with a large amount of food should make this an easy trip. I never thought I could miss the color gray so much, that is until I lost all the colors. I’ve decided that after this trip, I’m going to see if I can find the place from my memory, I’m sure it’s related. The blankets that I have keep out what cold is left pretty well, my coat of hair has also grown back, which may be more of a curse than a blessing. Eventually I will have to shave myself completely to survive, not looking forward to that. journal entry#24 --- dear diary Wow, 25 journal entries already, as I read back over them I find something strange. A lack of quality, slowly I can see myself slipping as I make more an more mistakes, I guess that’s what happens when you are alone in a wasteland. My mind seems to be slowly slipping away from me, the info I had from before all this becomes harder to call on every passing day. I wonder how long until I can’t call on any of it. I just realized a sad fact, I don’t know my own name. Something is really wrong here, even more wrong than is normal in this time. Also, it’s only one day until Phillydelphia, but I’m feeling weird. journal entry#25 --- dear diary Fillydelphia, looks decimated, it’s almost nothing but ashes. I don’t know what happened here, but it can’t be good. I don’t dare go any closer than the very edge, there’s something in the back of my mind telling me not to go in there. I’m staying here for the night before going to another town, Appleloosa if I’m not mistaken. Recently it seems like I caught a flu from somewhere. I’m coughing and puking all over the place, luckily I still have enough food for the journey to Appleloosa. It will be close, but now that it’s warming up and becoming more light, I don’t need to eat as much to keep my temperature up. Journal entry#26 --- dear diary I got another flashback of memory, I was in the same room as all the other times, but this time I could see somepony putting on a bulky suit. It looked really heavy on him, however he didn’t seem to care. His hoof pulled open the farthest away cylinder object and pressed a red button. The humming slowed down before stopping altogether after a few minutes. His hoof reached into the machine and took out a single, shiny, gray cylinder. Under his suit, he had a big smile on as he examined every angle of the strange object. Obviously satisfied he put it on a table, and that’s the most I can remember. Yet I know this, I’ve seen these cylinders before, somewhere other than my memories. But my main worry right now is how sick I am. I’m vomiting occasionally, I have terrible diarrhea, along with a skull splitting headache. After I got these symptoms, I decided to move a bit farther from Fillydelphia, just in case it’s the problem here. But my mind can’t stop wandering, what was that suit for, and why does it all look so familiar. journal entry#27 --- dear diary I’m on my way to Appleoosa, it’s only a two days journey from here. I’m so glad for that, my symptoms aren’t letting up and I can’t shake the feeling it would have been much worse if I had gone into Fillydelphia. When I get to Appleloosa I plan on finding some food, hopefully, and sleeping. My food is, yet again, beginning to run low. Honestly, I have absolutely no clue why I’m headed to Appleloosa, sure I need food, but Manehatten has guaranteed food, and only a few days more. Oh well, I’m already on the way, so I should stick to my path. journal entry#28 --- dear diary think i might have found the entrance to the place in my memories. I was on my way to appleloosa and stopped for a moment by a giant boulder, i saw a tiny red button so i pressed it. The front of it slid down revealing a metal passageway, I think I might finally be close to finding out exactly what happened to this world. Inside the metal corridor I found the suit the colt was wearing. I should probably put it on when I go in. I’m camping out here for the day, tomorrow I’m going in, I hope there’s some food in there. note to self: Look back on this entry later for any really bad grammar mistakes. journal entry#29