TEASER: BROKEN ROADS
It all happened so fast for us... when they first came, we had no chance against them. The school wasn't safe... the town wasn't safe... nowhere was safe. We ran, we hid; running and hiding became second nature to us all... until, inevitably, we ran out of places to hide.
So we started to ride.
Sunset Shimmer sat atop a hill, overlooking the vast hillsides outside of Canterlot. The months since it had happened spanned into years. She remembered everything that transpired, her mind refusing to let her forget, plaguing her dreams with the memories of what occured during Zero Hour. The hour, the day, everything that had spiraled down into chaos that even Discord would balk at. It had become too dangerous to stay, so she and her friends had left in order to survive.
She remembered when Canterlot had gone dark, when the city had gone into full riot-mode. She remembered the people who ran around, screaming and hollering as they crashed into stores, robbing and looting innocent folks for things that, later on didn't even matter anymore. Things like Plasma Screen TV's, game consoles and money, video games and movies, pornography and other items that lost their value as the months droned on by.
What was the point of having money in an apocalypse? It only held value if there was an economy to make it so but without anyone to actually want it... it was only good as firewood.
As the days rolled into weeks, and weeks turned into months, Sunset had had enough, and led her friends out of the city, using vehicles like the one she was sitting on now. They rode out through the front gates of the city, blasting through and letting no one stop them. After all... the entire thing had gone global, as far as she knew, there were no safe places...
Except on those broken roads that sat out in front of her, the twisting and winding concrete snakes that stretched for hundreds of miles into unknown territory. She had never left Canterlot since coming from Equestria, so her knowledge of what lay beyond escaped her, save for maps and her friend's own experiences.
She sighed, holding her head as the wind blew over her. She turned to look behind her at Canterlot. That had been her home for five years since leaving Equestria... now it was a walled-in ruin, with smoke pillars leaving it. She heard gunfire inside the city, along with sirens and yelling, but she was too far away for the violence within to reach her. Her home, was gone... her real home, Equestria was beyond her reach. She'd give anything to go back... but she knew if she abandoned her friends here, in this world, they'd perish, and it would weigh on her till the day she died... if she was given such a luxury that is.
The young girl pondered how it all came to this how the world went from being filled with sunshine and rainbows, and solving friendship problems to fighting for survival against mutant freaks, crazy humans, and nature itself. Everything was so perfect for her and now it all changed. She wondered how her friends would survive. Would they make it another day under her leadership? She wasn't sure, considering everything she's done so far, leading up to their escape from the damned city of Canterlot.
Fires and explosions, yells and screaming, as they began to overwhelm parts of the military, that was protecting them from outside threats. It had been nothing except strict martial law, cruel punishments for the smallest and pathetic of crimes, and ridiculous laws put into place to make sure everyone wasn't going to be unruly with the military's ways. She hated them, for how they treated everyone in the city, young and old, it didn't matter... if you messed up, you were punished, harshly.
It had become a daily battle, against soldiers, looters, and one's own sanity when dealing with the sheer magnitude of what was going on. They were kept in the dark for so long, until one of them got inside and killed some people, turning them... changing them into something, else... something from a horror movie it felt like. They couldn't take it... they had to escape, and now, here they were, about to leave the city, the county of Canterlot for good in search of something else...
Safety.
*Bzzzt krkle*
"Sunset? You there?" She heard a voice ask, and she sighed.
She reached into her pocket, retrieving the radio she kept. "Yeah, AJ?"
"We're ready to head out when you are Sugarcube." AJ said, and Sunset hit the button back, squawking her reply before looking out at the roads leading away from Canterlot.
She knew these roads would be dangerous; long and wrought with peril, strife, and blood. She never wanted this, her friends never wanted this. She just wanted to live her life, to repent for her mistakes made in Equestria and hopefully return. She wanted too see her parents again, maybe even her own brother.
But instead she was being forced to lead her friends away from a hell, and into another for survival. She didn't know what was out there, her mind couldn't even begin to comprehend the dangers that lurked beyond Canterlot's roadways, what may be waiting for them beyond the sunny horizon eastward. She had no idea what to do where to go, only to run and run, until they couldn't anymore...
Perhaps along the way, she'd find the answers she so desperately needed answered.
With another sigh, Sunset put her radio back into her pocket before starting her bike up, and riding down the hill, blasting down the dirt until she eventually made her way towards an old parking lot where she saw several more bikes waiting for her to return...
Only Broken Roads awaited her. Awaited them all.