We Shall Live On

by The philosopher

I: The World as We Know It

"Roadside," called Clear Sky, "Roadside Picnic! Get up, bro!"

Dear Celestia, I swear there is no worse alarm clock than a friend.

"Alright, alright. geez, man, patient much?" I didn't want to get out of bed at this hour, I didn't even want to wake up. And I certainly didn't want my brown coated, green-maned Pegasus friend to barging into my apartment room demanding me to get on my feet like a Canterlot drill sergeant.

What would luck have it that all this ends up happening to me anyways?

I somehow managed to exit my room, despite walking like some drunk stallion.

"Roadside! What's taking so freaking long?!"

What was taking so long?! Try I've just woken up from a peaceful nap!

"What's the freaking rush, anyways?" I ask, resisting the temptation to collapse and continue my slumber on the hallway floor.

"I want to finish our chores ASAP! Pound Cake said he'd try to save us a slice of Cake!" answered Clear Sky.

That was enough to motivate me. I've had cake before. Tasteless bread with a bland sauce that ponies try to pass off as frosting, but the Cakes at Sugar Cube Corner, when they made enough bread and other necessary wheat foods, they put their sweat and blood into making cake that was the stuff of legends. It was made like the type of cake you could only get ten years ago, the kind of cake that I only had before the Everfree uprise.

That's what they call it now. They couldn't call it anything else. It's not an apocalypse if we're still alive, right? There was no Armageddon, no global conflict, no cosmic judge punishing us. It was simply an uprise, the beasts lost their fear of leaving the forest.

Clear Sky waited at the end of the hall. His face wore an expression of disappointment.

"I don't think we're gonna have time for cake..."

"Why?" I asked.

"We're gonna be patrol duty again." he sighed.

Now I wore a face of dissapointment. If it were harvesting, or perhaps cleaning, then we may have had a chance to race to Sugarcube Corner if we were fast enough. But patrols? No chance, the shifts were set in stone.

I quickly ran back too my room and grabbed my rifle, a carbine, and my combat vest. I ran to the entrance of my room. Clear Sky was at the same place at the wall, but it was clear he had left to retrieve his equipment as well, for he too had a rifle. It had a long barrel and a fifteen round magazine with a rifle grip and wooden stock. My rifle had a barrel that was probably two thirds the length of Clear Sky's rifle barrel and had a wired stock.

"How many mags will we need?" I shouted from my doorway.

"Dunno" responded Clear Sky. "But we should probably bring a few, shouldn't we?."

•••~•••

We ran out of the apartmnent to a small restraint across the streets. The clouds that only shifted but never parted in the sky were as grey as my fur. The sky itself was as blue as blue as my mane... Or I assume it was. Sweet Celestia, I haven't seen the sky in ages.

There were many ponies working, and a few foals playing. Why wouldn't there be? We lived in a green zone after all. We were safe here. Clear Sky and I entered the restraunt and headed to the table where a mint colored unicorn sat.

"Um... Miss Heartstrings? We're he-"

"I don't need you to confirm that." she snapped. She looked at us both, "It's fairly obvious that you're here."

In more fear than respect I closed my mouth and prepared myself to listen to her orders.

She placed a map of Ponyville on the table and laid it flat. There were many green, yellow, and red lines, which signified the green, yellow, and red zones, respectively. Lyra pointed on the map an area by the old elementry school.

"We're expecting traders to arrive here from the 'Quills district' with metal so Iron Sights can produce more guns and bullets," she explained.

Districts were the titles given to Green zones. They were typically named after a significant building. For instances, I live in the Sugarcube District. The "Quills district" received it's name because of a shop there that used to sell quills and sofas.

"You two are going to stand guard until they get there." continued Lyra. "Make sure they don't have any trouble, understand? This shouldn't be too hard, you'll be staying inside the boundaries of the yellow zone."

I quickly nodded, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Uh! Yes mam! Hey Clear Sky did you get all tha- Clear Sky?"

I turned around to see him talking to Dinky Doo. She was a cute mare with a light purple coat and yellow mane. In all honesty I didn't mind the scene. I knew Clear Sky liked her, and that she liked him.

Lyra, on the other hand, clearly did not tolerate the distraction. "Hey! Casa Nova! Were you listening to anything I said?!"

Clear Sky jumped at the sound of Lyra's voice. He quickly pecked Dinky's lips and ran- only to freeze up when he realized what he did. They stared into each others eyes, and both of their cheeks became red tomatoes.

I on the other hand was focusing on all my willpower not to roll on the floor and laugh hysterically. When Clear Sky finally walked back to my side, I surrendered to laughter.

"That was hilarious!" I laughed.

"Shut up!"

"Relax, dude!"

"Relax?!" He nearly shouted, "How can I relax?!" he craned his head down in shame. "I just made a fool of myself, and not just in front of Dinky Doo, I made a fool of myself with her!"

I looked behind me. "Dinky doesn't seem to think of you as a fool." I smiled.

Clear Sky turned his head to see a blushing Dinky smiling meekly at him, shuffling her right front hoof around the ground. Both her and clear sky broke their gazes in nervousness.

•••~•••

"The best part is that after you kissed her you froze for a good three seconds when you began to walk aw-
Away!" I laughed.

"Just drop it! Who asked you what you think?"

I stared at him, confused. "You did. You asked me why I was laughing in the restraunt."

"Shut up!"

"Alright, alright. I'll stop talking about it."

Our journey continued I silence until Clear sky and I saw the school, in which we immediately stopped. We dared not move closer to the building, there just wasn't something right about that building.For hours we looked out into the distance. Clear Sky was probably looking for the merchants, but I was looking at the grass. It disturbed me everytime it moved. Was it the wind playing it's soft melody for the grass to dance to, or was it a horrible beast tearing the brush aside as it crawled closer and closer to us?

My nerves forced me to speek, "Hey- Hey Clear Sky! Do you see anything?"

"No, I don't think the merchants will be here until later. But I'm still keeping an eye out-"

"No! I mean in the grass, do you see anything?"

"Oh mother of Luna..." Clear Sky muttered. It wasn't the first time we've had this conversation.

"Roadside, listen carefully, cause I'm not gonna say it again. The yellow zones are just the edges of green zones. They were made so little fillies and foals wouldn't get too close to the red zones. Technically, yellow zones are part of the green zone. It's safe." he put an emphasis on safe.

"I know," I insisted. "But still, haven't there been incidents in the yellow zones?"

"Well of course!" he answered. "Sometimes if a beast is in a red zone it's gonna go cross into a yellow zone because it sees somepony." he explained. "Relax, Raidside it barely happened and when it does it's just like one timberwolf or something."

"Yeah...I guess you're right." I said, but I still couldn't help but feel paranoid.

Clear Sky diverted his attention to the school. "So, do you know why the school is so dangerous?"

As a matter of fact, I did.

"Yeah, some of the guards told me. They said there's something called a cockatrice in there."

Clear Sky's eyes were pouring water in a fit of hilarity.

"What?!" his response was more of a shout than an answer. "What the heck is a cockatrice?!" he said while he attempted to suppress his giggles.

"A cockatrice." I explained, "It has the head of a chicken and the body of a snake, and it turns ponies to stone."

"Are you serious?" he asked, " The head of a chicken on a snake?That's the silliest thing I've ever heard of!

"In fact," he continued, "If I were to see one of those cockatrice things, I'd laugh at how silly it was!"

"You don't understand!" I insisted. "The guardponies said that if you look into the eyes of a cockatrice, you will be turned to stone!"

"That's so stupid! You mean to tell me that there is a cross of a chicken and a snake, that lives in a freaking school, that can turn animals to stones? What a load of hoarseapples!"

He was right, it was a ridiculous story. I couldn't believe I believed it. A cockatrice? What a stupid concept.

"Well- that's not all!" I defended.

"Really?" Laughed Clear Sky. "By all means, do go on!"

"Well it's not so much the cockatrice that's frightening!" I tried to explain.

"I can tell!" Clear Sky joked.

"No, seriously! Some of veteran guards, they said- they said that there's something wrong with the school!"

Clear Sky paused, he was curious.

"What do mean?" he asked.

I smiled. I've reeled him in, got his attention, as any storyteller tries to do. I loved telling stories. It was an art, and an art I intended to perfect. After all, such a talent fitted perfectly with my closed- scroll cutie mark.

"I can't tell you." I smiled, "Nopony knows what causes it... But there have been claims of strange phenominons at the school.

"really?" he asked. "what are the phenominons?"

"Some say there are ghosts. Others say if you listen close enough, you can hear the sound.... The sound... Of... Bells?"

I stood there, confused. I swear to Clestia I could hear faintly in the distance the chants of school bells. I stared at the school, and before I knew it I was dragging my feet to the school too.

As I approached the school, the ring of the bells became louder, and was beginning to form a duet with the increasing laughter of children. I had finally reached the playground. I saw the swings and carrousel were moving, as if being controlled by heavy winds, but there wasn't even a slight breeze! The sight was making me uneasy, nervous, when a bright light blinded me suddenly!

I saw, with my own eyes, ponies laughing and playing on the jungle gym. Some were playing on the swings and even some spinning on the carousel. The sky was a light blue, and there was life. Sweet Celestia! The laughter of fillies and foals, the green in the grass, the bright colors of the colors shined likethe sun. The sun was still absent, but the light was omnipresent and shined just as bright. I couldn't help but smile at the what was occurring. There was no fear, no crying, no sadness. The only clouds I saw were a few of the white, soft kind that only complimented the light blue sky.

".....Roadside....."

My name was being spoken by the world around me, the scource of the call was from all directions.

"....Roadside... Hey! Roadside!"

I... I know that voice! Where was Clear Sky? He was as visible as his call was traceable.

"Roadside! Hey! We need to get out of here, now!"

Suddenly I was pulled away from my beautiful dreams. The swings and monkey bars were empty of life, and the carousel was once more a lonely wheel. The worst part was, the playground wasn't empty. I wished the ponies would have vanished with the dream, but instead they became cold, lifeless statues the second I departed from my trance. There were dozens of them! Cold alone, with faces petrified and cursed to forever depict there last terrifying seconds. I wanted to scream, wail as if I knew every single one of them. Instead adrenaline had caused me to flee. Clear Sky and I gallloped to the edge of the damned school. I turned to look back at the equin pillars of salt.

My blood froze as I saw a large, snake-like tail slither behind one of the statues.

Comments

[Relevant Heavy Metal]

Atom And Evil - Heaven And Hell

[The philosopher]

1239047 pretty legit song, bro