> Fog
>  by MetricOnion
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was a pony with the attitude of ‘get stuff done’. I liked being practical where I could but I didn’t think that I was anything special; nothing close to front page fame. I was an average filly, same height as everypony and same ability. But the difference was that I hadn’t got my cutie mark. Everypony in my class had one; I was always called a blank-flank for my lack of a mark. Oh the humiliation of my younger years. Even so, what they lacked was general mental capacity. I was smart for my age and did well in my tests, the typical star student who was always talked about behind my back.

I had spoken English and German fluently by the age of six. My mother had been to a place called England many times before and taught me how to speak the language. But I lived far away from the well-known places like Equestria. I lived in a country called Germany or ‘Deutschland’ if you will. Only, we were living in very difficult times. Word came out that we were at war with some other country called Hoofsia. They had things called Nuclear Bombs. We were taught in school of the dangers of these weapons and what to do if one ever found themselves under attack from any of them, but I quickly deduced that if one ever struck, I was fucked.
I wanted to be an electrician in my later life. Whether it was subconscious, personal preference or the fact that my name was Static Charge I’ll never know. I think names play a small part in our persona. I never really got to test with wires so I had to learn from books. Unfortunately, in my youth, I had a very short attention span when it came to reading, so my mind was always drifting in and out of fantasies beyond possibility.

Anyway, it was when I was thirteen that my life was forever altered. I was walking home after school, through the many streets of Flankfurt, and spotted a bunch of unconnected cables, sparking and flailing around like the arms of a deranged squid. They were frayed and spread across the pavement. I saw them and instantly thought how great an opportunity this would be for practice, though my other motive was that it could hurt somepony, and I certainly couldn’t be having that on my conscience.
I instantly got to work at the wires, setting aside all distractions. I started putting them into order of colour or size, my mind frantically at work. Then I tried connecting them to see if they would work. Checking whether a wire was blue to signify it being neutral, and then find all the brown, black and grey wires.

Everything seemed to stop. My vision blurred as I saw my hoof had touched a high voltage cable. I then was shocked backwards and my vision had become darkness. I felt a surge of pain circulate my body, followed by burning and stinging, then nothing. I had hardly let out a scream.

I woke up on a hospital bed. As the light glared into my hazy eyes I winced and tried to turn my head to the side. It was met by pain, and then the soft feel of a hoof against my cheek. I liked the feeling, so I stayed in that position. The pain was starting to ease off and as it did so, I regained my vision and general ability to possess various senses.

When I looked to try and see my family standing by my bed, I did not see them. It was in fact, a young unicorn. He stood with a reassuring smile. I didn’t even know his name but yet I still felt a strange feeling of attraction towards him in almost a brother/sister sensation. I tried to speak but all that emerged from my mouth was a quiet groan. He laughed quietly and stroked my messy mane. I desperately wanted to ask what his name was, this colt that was standing by me.

When I was finally able to create legible words, I asked what I had been wishing to say for what seemed an age. “What is your name?”
The blue colt spoke quietly and soothingly, “My name is Osiridium, I found you on the floor outside the chemistry laboratory. You had some very severe burns. I’m surprised you made it!”
At this, I smiled and quietly said, “Thank you.” Then a nurse came in and broke the connection between us. Osiridium was rushed from the room as the nurse levitated some food onto my chest. I reached my hoof out and rolled onto my back, but it was only then that I realised how hungry I was. I ate fast, almost as if the meal would be taken from me. The food didn’t quite taste as I would have preferred, certainly not Michelin star standard but what would you expect, it was hospital food. Even so, I relished every single bite until the plate was completely clean bar some leaves that I had found particularly disgusting. The plate was then taken from me, and I was alone in the bedroom once more, waiting for company.

While in hospital, I thought a lot in my white clad bed, about questions like, ‘why haven’t my family come to see me?’ or, ‘why do all the nurses look so tired?’ and most recently, ‘where in the hoof is that terrible draft coming from?’ I pondered these questions silently while I sat alone in the room that smelled like antiseptic. Osiridium would see me every day of the week; I had changed my view of him and was proud to call him a friend now that I knew him better. He would tell me stories of his experiments in chemistry and how he had been quite handy when he was working. But as the days went by and there was no sign of any doctor or nurse, I started to get very suspicious. Something was tipping me off that something had happened and I was being kept from the truth. Osiridium was progressively getting more nervous with every visit.
In accordance to these strange happenings, I decided to explore. After all, my burns were healing surprisingly well considering the lack of medical attention. They had diminished just enough so that I could move my position unhindered. So I sat up on the edge of the bed and thought that if I lay there then I would be waiting forever for something to happen, henceforth wishing my short life away. So I stood up from the bed, and instantly collapsed. I guess I hadn’t thought about how my legs hadn’t had any exercise since the electrocution, which was a shame.

After many attempts to right myself and find my centre of gravity once more, I completed my task and tried walking. It was tough at first as each step was met by creaks and joint pains in my legs, causing me to stumble around a bit. But after walking out of the room, I paced down a corridor which was unlit; surprising for a hospital. And as I wandered around the many maze-like corridors, I noticed that there was absolutely no pony there. How peculiar.

When I reached a window, the sight was almost too much to bear. Houses, towers and schools, reduced completely to rubble. Just centimetres off the ground stood a slight haze; what had caused this? Was there some sort of invasion, leaving the city in ruins that I had not been aware of, or was it something bigger. I thought for only a second, and then a bomb dropped with a dull ‘boom’, leaving the signature mushroom shaped cloud, which I only knew belonged to one thing; the Nuclear Bomb. 

***

‘What a bloody nightmare’ I thought to myself as I snuck around the backstreets of the ruined city. Everything was hectic, police stood around the fenced off area, keeping the media away, well, what was left of the media: a few ponies with notepads and a mare with no hair who asked questions. I had had to sneakily walk around dark alleyways, sticking to the darkest parts. At least the cloud cover had meant that the moon was unable to illuminate me, revealing my position and getting me arrested for the possession of a Balisong knife and a loaded, heavy firearm.

Just my luck that this place had law enforcement, I had to break my friend out of prison, as a way of repaying him for helping me eight years prior. The police here were too judgemental. From what I had heard they locked up Osiridium for being near the scene of a murder. It had also been said that he was in possession of stolen items; I wasn’t sure what that was about. Anyway, I ended up at the back of the prison unscathed. Now that I was there, I had to find a way in. There were no windows on the wall; nor were there doors or any other methods of entrance. Well, that sucked. I had to go in through the front (just typical that that would happen). Then I had to sneak past all the guards and other prisoners without raising any alarms which shouldn’t be too difficult considering my practice of stealth. I had to remain a small target while I rounded the corners to the entrance of the jail. The doors were made of glass, though they were smashed or damaged. A white stallion was sitting at the reception desk and twirled a pencil in the air with his magic; his horn was surrounded by a bright blue aura. I hopped quickly through the glass door and slunk behind a plant pot. The pony at the desk looked up to see what had made the noise but did not see anything. I used this to my advantage, to hop silently behind him. His keys were in plain sight, a row of stainless steel blocks with numbers signifying cell numbers. I used my horn to grab the keys and create a spell to freeze the keys in place on the ring.

After managing to sneak through the main area, I snuck into a corridor. This was where the entire atmosphere changed. Hundreds of cells, all lined up in rows, many contain ponies. As soon as I walked in with the keys, every single prisoner reached their hooves out and shouted at me to open their doors. I panicked as I knew the receptionist would hear and find me. I ran forward, checking everywhere to find Osiridium.

I eventually found him in a cell at the back of the corridor. He was sat on the sheet-less bed and was looking at the ground.
“Hey, Hey Osiridium,” I called. He looked up surprised at the sound of my voice. He smiled and ran towards the bars. He then threw a hug about my neck with his front hooves between the bars.
“Thank you so much,” he whispered.  
“HEY!” shouted a deep, masculine voice. I turned to see the receptionist running towards me, so I quickly un-froze the keys and found the key that was labelled ‘399’. I then inserted the key into the lock to open the door. Osiridium jumped out and ran in front of me. He was defending me. The white stallion jumped towards us with his hooves outstretched, and just at that moment, Osiridium brought a strong hoof towards the stallion’s temple. It came into contact at an angle. The pony was thrown to the floor to the left and slid over the tiled floor. His eyes were clenched shut in pain and his legs writhed on the floor. We then ran out of the room, closing the door behind us. 
“Thanks very much,” said Osiridium.
“Don’t mention it!” I replied enthusiastically as we sprinted out of the main entranceway. “That was some punch!”
“Well, it was you I was saving; after all, we are friends.”
“Fair point.”
“Anyway, I say again, thanks for bailing me out.”
“Yeah, bloody guard was a fool, couldn’t hear a thing I was doing!”
We silently wandered the streets, sticking to the shadows where we could not be seen. We didn’t talk much for a while; we were mainly just trying to be unseen and unheard and spare both of us a sentence in Jail. The excitement of the moment was still resounding through my body. My blood circulated at a rapid rate and the adrenaline rush had not worn off. I was excited but managed to contain it as I had done before. Osiridium too seemed to be coping well with the situation, being surprisingly quiet for a twenty-three year old stallion.

We rounded a building corner to come to an empty square in the town. No-pony was present so we stood upright and started to walk normally. I looked at Osiridium’s cutie mark, situated on his flank. I recalled that he had earned it at the age of eleven. It depicted a clear conical flask with some sort of blue liquid contained in it. I had no idea what the blue substance was; I never really got into chemistry, or any other science apart from physics, mainly because it contained the electronic circuits topic. Anyway, I stopped staring at Osiridium’s flank and set my attention to mine; 21 and still a blank flank. 21! And still a fucking blank flank. 
While I was preoccupied, Osiridium was cautiously walking through side streets and I was mindlessly following him. I knocked into him when he abruptly stopped. I was awoken from my daydream and brought back to my senses. He shushed me before returning his gaze down the street. I looked where his head was turned and saw a group of police-mares patrolling the street we had turned onto. Osiridium started slowly pacing backwards until he was behind a corner and I was soon to follow. We flattened ourselves against the wall, in the darkness luckily, and waited for the officers to stroll past.
They were gone for no longer that a second and we were on the move again. We trotted down where the police-mares had been. I kept carefully checking behind me in case we were being followed. I couldn’t be sure but I thought I saw a character silhouetted against a lamp post with my adept eyesight. I turned my eyes forward but the temptation to look back was too much to bear. I turned, but this time, saw nothing where there was something before, or at least I thought there was. 
I put the thought out of my head as Osiridium and I walked further, closer to the outskirts where we could fully lose the police and finally leave this shithole of a town. As I was thinking about this, I noticed that the sky was getting ever so slightly brighter. Great, we couldn’t trick the police in daylight. But, as was expected eventually, the sun peeked up over the horizon, flooding the streets in a warm orange glow.

As the houses began to thin, we realised how far we’d walked. From the centre to the outskirts took us a few hours; that was quite a large town in my opinion, more like a small city. The last few houses were in sight soon though, and the sensation of freedom and the light breeze on my back made me feel fantastic. I was almost through with this place.
As we crossed the line that separated the town from the wasteland, I laughed. What an adventure I had just experienced. “Jesus Christ,” I said clearly. “Jesus bloody Christ.”

We walked into the wasteland casually, as the conundrums of the night before were beginning to vacate our recent memories. When in the dangerous environment of the wasteland, one must only dwell on the most significant things. As to replicate this, in the back of my mind, I had the memory of the mysterious figure silhouetted in the flickering glow of a faulty street light. My heart rate was average, my breath was slowed and I was overall intact, and that was what mattered most. The only problem I found was the feeling of fatigue seeing as I had been awake all night and the adrenaline rush of escaping the city unscathed was dissipating, and I knew that Osiridium was experiencing a similar feeling; also, having a heavy rifle (an ‘L115 A3’ that I stole from a military barracks) was not helping my situation, being cumbersome and uncomfortable on my back. But having been in a hellhole for eight years of my life allowed me to adapt and forget the insignificant details of my life.

The wasteland can do horrible things to a pony’s thought processes: how they act and how well their brain works. It is a vicious and relentless place of despair and misfortune, the home of all sorrow. I knew ponies that had killed themselves soon after realising their fate. It was disturbing to see, knowing that I shared their pain. Sometimes I felt completely empty inside, a sadness that was hard to forget, following the loss of my home, friends and family.

I was suddenly brought to my senses by Osiridium, who stopped my daydreaming abruptly.
“What do you think of that?!” He said, holding his hoof out in front of me pointing towards the horizon. There was a grey, jagged outline, sitting on the bleak backdrop greeting all those who noticed it. I felt my jaw drop slightly with the sight of it. At my best guess, I estimated that it was about twelve miles away at least.”
“Well, I guess we had better be going.” I said to him.
“Indubitably,” he replied.
I start walking, galloping down the side of the hill, slowly because of my heavy equipment. I heard him laugh, and then hooves running down towards me. When he ended up beside me, I ran faster, inviting a race. 
About one mile in we stop, gasping for breath. We sat down on a clump of rocks to regain our breath, and when I did, I asked Osiridium a question.
“I’ve always wondered, what are in those saddlebags of yours? You never really told me since you stole that stuff in whatever the hell that city was called.”
“Have I really never told you?” He asked.
“No I don’t believe you have.”
“Well then, let’s see. We have: bread, water, morphine injections, bandages, a Heckler and Kolt USP, sun lotion, toothbrush and toothpaste and deodorant. You know that kind of stuff.”
“I haven’t seen you use that pistol.”
“You won’t have, I stole it from bloody City de Crap back there.”
I giggled at the name that he dubbed the city.
“Do you even know how to use it?”
“I’ve fired pistols before.”
“How many times?”
“Admittedly, only twice. But, I was a good-ish shot.”
“Good-ish?”
“Yeah.”
“Right.”

We started walking only seconds later, making good progress. We chatted for a while but inevitably fell into an awkward silence. After two hours, we had made about 5 miles. The sun was at its midpoint in the sky and was beginning to burn us with its UV magic. There are hardly ever any clouds any more as most of the weather ponies died in the war or the bombings. Occasionally we saw a sliver of cloud but it was usually because of natural processes. We never really had many weather ponies in Germany. Most of the time the weather took care of itself and we did nothing about it, braving the wind and the rain.
Another four or five hours later, the sun was shining on our backs. We ran into the city through a dirty, stony track that wound round into a large forest, but all the trees were dead and grey. The dreary, painted landscape made us feel depressed inside without the help of the sky having a dull tint. Upon walking further, we came to the very outskirts of the city. We skirted the sides of buildings until we found a way into the area, through a side street that led us past smashed glass.  My eyes were always on the lookout for supplies whereas his he scanning the torn walls for survivors. He walked in front of me, and illuminated dark spots with his magic.
“See anything?” he called back to me.
“Nope, only rubble,” I replied. “What about you?”
“Nothing! Fucking hell this place is massive!” 
We rounded a corner into a park. There was a rusty, broken swing-set that creaked eerily in the breeze. I had remembered what they had looked like from when I was young, until the bombs struck. I caught up with Osiridium, making sure not to branch too far off, especially as night was beginning to fall. I noticed the large ‘L’ shaped building on one of the corners of the park, maybe a school.
“You think we could take shelter over there tonight?” I pointed my front, right hoof at the place.
He came back to senses as I said this, breaking concentration for long enough to see where I was pointing and listen. 
“I guess.”
“Looks like a school to me or something like that.”
“I agree but it looks quite scary though. Derelict as fuck! ”

He went into silence at that, his pupils dilated in anticipation of the thorough searching of property that was most likely about to ensue. After worrying for a few seconds, he dropped his head to look for any sign of life. He had great eyesight, which made him perfect for spotting, though he couldn’t look for ponies and other random shit at one time. I had to find the useful stuff.
We reached the building in around two minutes after crossing a court with curved triangular plots of land with an abundance of dead and lifeless trees. To neither of our surprise, we were met by no resistance. Osiridium pushed against the door. It was stiff at first but then proceeded to fall right off its hinges, creating a magnificent cacophony, echoing into the darkness. I looked at him as we both illuminated our horns. Even in the light produced by both of our magic I tripped on what felt like metal. I thumped onto the decaying wooden floorboards and looked back, shining my light on the large, unknown object that fell awkwardly in my path. Osiridium instantly came to my aid. He grabbed my hoof and pulled me from my sitting position to witness the criminal of my mishap. It was a chain, and a big one at that. It was connected to a wall by a massive hook that seemed to be so overcome by rust that it could well have not been there at all with the amount of corrosion it seemed to have been through. I walked to it and flicked it with my hoof, very lightly. My prediction was correct and it cracked like glass but with the consistency of sand. I heard a devilishly loud crack from right above my head. I yelped in terror and faced my head up to the ceiling, only to see a termite ridden support beam hurtle towards my face.

That was the last thing I remembered before blacking out. I woke up with a barrel aimed at my temple and a knife to my throat and a thumping headache. I saw blood dribbling down my eyelids. Even so, memories came back to me gradually. I saw my sniper rifle and balisong knife leaning against the wall. I felt sweaty and nervous, wondering if this was to be my final day. Was I going to die and never see the end of this terrible and torturous time? I had no idea who was holding me hostage, but whoever it was, I had the impression that they were not going to be willing to set me free on request. I was going to have to use my wits to get out of this predicament. Trying to speak was a mistake; my mouth was filled with a cloth covered in some liquid substance of which I had no idea of its origin. It tasted bitter and inhalation made me feel drowsy. My eyes fluttered as I fought not to fall asleep. My instincts said that my captors were not happy with me falling asleep during their moment of triumph after managing to capture me. All four of my hooves were tied together with a rope that felt as uncomfortable as razor wire. After calming my senses, I began to assess my chances of escape:
Assuming that the gun was loaded, if I attempt to escape then I would be shot down instantly. Also, the knife to my throat did not help as I could not bring my hooves to bear to remove its pressure.
And then I heard something that made my fur stand on end. There was a heavy breathing that occurred just centimetres from my left ear. It made my heart skip, and then beat at double time. The breathing continued. Each breath was rasping, like the creature’s lungs were denying the entry of air. But then, things got even worse. It started counting, “5,” and then a breath, “4”, and then a cough, “3” and then a rasp, “2”, “1”. And then there was silence.

BANG!

I screamed so loudly through my gag that I could have deafened people intercontinentally. My ears were ringing, almost making me think that I was dead. But I opened my eyes, and saw that there was no gun barrel to my head, and there was no knife to my throat. In fact, the knife lay placidly in my lap. I gasped for air but the first shot was followed by a second. At this point my head had flopped down with my chin on my chest. There were no more following shots. I groaned in pain as my eardrums pounded and blood dribbled down the side of my face. I honestly thought that I was the one who had been shot. A few small tears forced their way out of my eyes, dropping to the floor.

Soon I felt somepony touch my shoulder. I think they shouted into my ear but no sound was being received. The pony then walked to the other ear and attempted to communicate; nothing. I felt my gag being untied from the back of my head and it soon slipped down to rest upon the knife that still lay across my legs. I took a gulp of air just before I started a coughing fit. Phlegm was ejected from my mouth after each throat burning cough. Saliva drooled out of my mouth and piled up at my hooves to wet the decaying wooden floor. As soon as my hooves had been untied, I knelt down and clutched my skull. The blood was still coming from my ears and stained my orange fur a bright, sickly red. My entire head hurt but the experience was worsened when I opened my eyes and noticed that Osiridium was the one that had freed me, but he had a massive and bloody cut down diagonally across his chest. It was so deep that I was able to see his ribcage and intestines.

As Osiridium fought to hold his organs inside his body, he attempted to communicate with me. He took the knife that had fallen onto the floor when I knelt down and cut a message into the floor. The letters were very jagged and were dabbed with blood but the message was readable and forceful. It said, “GET OUT”. I shook my hoof to show that I had acknowledged the message and crawled my way to the door where I twisted the doorknob. Throwing the door open, I looked back to see Osiridium aiming a pistol out of the rear window. I then proceeded to leave the room, shutting the door behind me. After a struggle to stand up, I walked down the stairs that appeared outside the room that I had previously inhabited. The stairs led to a long corridor with lockers on either side including classrooms at regular intervals. There were cracked floor tiles and some of the polystyrene roof plates had split as they had fallen. The spectacle gave an unnerving sense of Déjà vu. I stumbled around knocking into lockers and walk into a glass door making it smash. I fell through onto the dull and cold concrete sprinkled with shards of reddened glass. I crawled away before standing and running out of the gate that stood to my right. The courtyard was exactly as I remembered it, boring and samey; and as I staggered into the poisonous breeze of the wasteland, I collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily, trying my best not to pass out. Waiting for my companion to emerge was like hell and who knew that hell could get worse. About two minutes in waiting I saw gunshots in the windows and the sound of bodies slamming to the ground. My instinct told me that the shooter was none other than Osiridium but my paranoia was saying otherwise. As I silently contemplated this over my ringing ears, I completely missed what was happening right in front of me. Suddenly, I felt a presence, something eerie that makes the fur on the back of the neck stand on end. I looked up and saw somepony standing no further than three metres from my head. He wore a menacing yet disturbingly relaxed grin and boasted a grey saddlebag and out of the side was what looked like the butt of an assault rifle. It was a metallic silver colour with small patches of dirt and a small blood splatter. His eyes were a bright red and his fur a luminescent green contrasting well with the black scruffy mane and a cutie mark that sent shivers down my spine and bad memories into my head. It was in the shape of bomb with a chemical hazard symbol clearly visible in the centre. As I observed his features, he chuckled quietly. As he did, he revealed a rack of teeth as sharp as spears that were made even worse due to the sickening yellow tint that they possessed. He took one step in my direction, followed by another, soon proceeding to circle around me. The stallion observed every part of my back. Once finished he walked closer until he was literally right next to me. Tucking his hoof under my body, he reached back and kicked me over onto my back, taking the breath from my lungs. I coughed as he continued to examine every curve of my physical structure. Taking a wild guess, he was probably looking for any weaknesses that I may possess. Suddenly realising that I could hear, I rubbed my ears to clean them and must have looked like a dumb zoo animal.
“Ha, you’re quite a funny feller aren’t ya? So, your name is?” the pony asked. His voice had a slight rasp to it and I could have sworn that I heard the grinding of metal as well.
“What’s it to you?” I replied as threateningly as possible through my gasping for air.
“Oh I was only trying to be civil.”
“What do you want?”
“Same question.”
“What relevance does that have? You were the one who talked to me.”
“Alright, no need to be hostile!”
“Says the pony that fucking kicked me not one minute ago,”
“Such language.”
“Cut to the chase already!”
“Alright, seeing as there are no means of being civil towards you I may as well tell you exactly why you caught my eye.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m hungry, and I have no food left. I was hoping you could supply. ‘Shut the fuck up’”
“What?”
“What?”
“You just talked to yourself,”
“Is that so? ‘JUMP OFF A CLIFF’”
“What is going on?”
“GIVE ME FOOD NOW BITCH!”
“No way mate, find your own food.”
“YOU WILL GIVE ME YOUR FLESH YOU MEAT HOGGING BASTARD!”
“I don’t even eat meat! Ponies are herbivores!”
“Nay this pony!”
“You eat meat? That’s disgusting!”

As soon as these words left my mouth he pounced and gnashed his teeth in front of my face. I held him back with my front hooves. I took a painful right hook to the face which made me drop my hooves. The stallion fell to land with his head on my tummy. I rolled out of the way quickly and reached around for my balisong knife. The thought didn’t hit me that I had left the knife in the room that I was captured in. I cursed and staggered to a standing position. I felt a hoof grab my back leg and sharp teeth sink into my limb. The pain was phenomenal and made greater when I ripped away my leg leaving deep, pulsating gashes running from the top of my thigh to my hoof. Blood spat out of it, staining my leg fur and the grey dirt. The stallion leapt again and wrapped his front legs about my neck pressurising my windpipe. I groped at his hooves in an attempt to try and prevent my asphyxiation. Panic was beginning to set in, my back legs kicked about and my tail flicked against the back of my legs. I saw my vision blur in addition to a lethargic feeling that began to flow about my blood. My strength was waning as well as my consciousness. I heard a muffled shout in my right ear that reverberated about in my head. The feeling of death’s hooves on my shoulders was lifted and I slumped down on my back. Turning towards the direction of the scream, I saw the dreadful sight of a green stallion lying with a fuzzy silvery coloured item protruding from what looked like his stomach.

The future couple of hours were a mystery. I had blacked out soon after being released, mainly from shock and suffocation. I awoke in a tunnel; it was made of burgundy brickwork and a cold, dank feeling that pooled around my hooves. I caught sight of a glint of light, it looked quite far away. I started walking towards it. It was then I noticed that I couldn’t hear anything nor smell anything. I started to feel nauseous, causing me to have to lean against the wall. Out of curiosity I turned to see what was behind me, and what I did see was a large expanse of darkness. A rush of air flew past me, brushing my hair down the corridor. The wind stopped, leaving me shivering, it was the kind of wind that got in your bones and left you cold for a while. A quizzical look came over my face as I found myself bewildered about the whole situation.

I decided to turn back and continue walking toward the light. It hardly seemed to get closer. By about five minutes, I felt a wave of exhaustion. My head drooped and I collapsed on the floor, followed instantly by a falling sensation. I opened my eyes and saw a fireball, as big as a mountain, and I was falling into it. It felt like I was being wafted by paper as the flames curled about my body. There was no heat and no pain, although I did feel quite terrified about the whole ordeal. Plunging down, I looked around me and realised my horrible error. All around me were dead bodies. I felt a tear prick in the side of my eye. I pointed my head forward, screaming at the images brought before me. The dead and burning faces of my parents remained emotionless. A few tears came out of my eyes and flew upwards when I saw my brother and sister falling by the sides of my parents.
“You left us for dead Miss Charge!” said my father in a demonic tone, blood starting to drip from his eye sockets. “You couldn’t resist fixing that electricity!”
“No. You don’t understand!” I pleaded in return.
“I understand perfectly well. And that coltfriend of yours is a retched piece of work, no etiquette!”
“STOP SAYING THAT!”
“WHY SHOULD YOU LIVE?”
“STOP,”
“YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE!”
“STOP IT NOW!”
“DIE!”
“NO”
“DIE!”
“NO”
“DIE!”
“STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!”
The wind rushed through my mane like a hair dryer. No more did I see the horrific visions of my dead family, by this point I was crying by the gallon. I had left the fireball. The earth hurtled towards me, getting closer and closer at a rapid speed.
“Please let this kill me.” I whispered.

> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2

Liquid ran down my cheek as I lay silently on a small patch of moss. Stalks of reeds brushed against my sides causing slight irritation. All in all though, I was in a peaceful place. Osiridium sat by my side, my eyes lightly closed and eyelashes fluttering in the wind. Red circles surrounded his teal coloured eyes from crying and a large bandage covered his entire abdomen. He breathed with a rasp and did so heavily, as the horrible images of what occurred haunted his mind and the feeling of pure terror. Escaping was difficult; he had had to kill four ponies. The green one survived and limped away soon after he had received a knife to the chest. Osiridium carried me for a mile into the city, until he found a dry riverbed. He lay me down and cried.
He sat on the grey jagged stone, cold from the lack of sun, examining my injuries that he had roughly bandaged. Small patches of blood had seeped through the white fabric which was snuggly about the many gashes that decorated my dull orange body. We resided underneath a cracked cobblestone bridge as vines draped down from the sides like unpleasantly fragranced curtains. Beneath the bridge and for a few metres to each side lay a damp riverbed. Graffiti plastered the concrete sides and small trickles of infected water ran their way through the cracks in between stones in the direction of the ocean. My L115 sat on a rock with my coat and knife; two extra magazines packing .300 Winchester Magnum (standard) rounds protruded from a pocket, each contained five shots of lead hell for whoever was on the receiving end of said rifle. Although I had fired the rifle at anypony else about eighty-eight times, I had only managed eleven headshots from memory. My most well remembered kill though was when I was about 16. I had suggested splitting up in order to check a larger area (I know pretty amateur right?). We had walked into a tunnelled train system with hundreds of bends and blind corners. We were surrounded by dank air and the confusing smell of iron filings that could be recognised in the “skirting boards” for want of a better term. 
The path I was taking was blocked by a pile of rubble with the back of a train sticking out. The door was bent and rusting but jammed nonetheless. I wrapped my hoof about the handle and tugged. The door didn’t budge so I braced myself and pulled as hard as I could. It ripped off its hinges and threw me onto the rails making a large racket from practically being thrown off in the distance from whence I came. The noise echoed through the tunnels causing an eerie reverberation that resounded about my body. I stood up, a little shaken, and placed my hooves into the locomotive. The seats that lined the sides were tattered and ruined from years of decay. I walked through the carriage and came up to a seat that faced the front of the train; a grey curve protruded from the side, sending mysterious shivers down the length of my spine and making some of my fur stand on end. My whole body was shaking out of fear of what was on this chair. I looked around the corner.
“AAH! JESUS FUCK!” I screamed as the head of a skeleton pony turned towards me. Rotting flesh was scattered around the body on their bones. In surprise I had knocked down the armrest. It flipped down with a click and the skeleton fell to my hooves. A book inhabited the seat pocket, it had yellow and curled pages and some a little scorched around the edges. It was otherwise fine sustaining surprisingly little damage. I looked down at the corpse that lay by the chair. Using my magic I levitated him off the floor and onto a different chair before reaching into the pocket. I pulled out the book and read the title, “Archibald Ives, My Struggles”. The cover depicted a white stallion with a garrison cap on and a smile plastered on his face. “Interesting,” I thought to myself, “That’ll be a good read.” I tucked it into my coat pocket before walking forward into another carriage. As soon as I had done this, a silhouette turned to face me. I force instantly and reached for the sniper rifle. Pulling it out, I walked slowly in the pony’s direction. When I got close enough to see the face, it was mangled and torn to pieces with a cockroach crawling around in the empty left eye socket. I felt my stomach turn as a retched stench entered my nostrils. Unfazed by the massive rifle in my hooves he brought up a pistol, a Luger P08 to be exact. It was aimed at my nose a rotting finger on the trigger. I had to think instantly. I brought my back hoof up and thumped him one in the ribs. I then placed it accidentally in his opened chest cavity which was met by a disturbing squelch of his intestines. The WW2 pistol fell onto the floor out of his reach as I aimed the rifle towards his face. A wave of emotion suddenly rushed through me that halted me momentarily. Enough time for the mutated being to kick me away and grab the pistol. I knocked into a chair that made me sit down and the mutant pointed the pistol directly at my face. I could see the bottom of his lungs expanding and contracting as well as the hole in his intestines where I had planted my hoof just seconds earlier. I had let go of the L115 because of the force of the kick and it clattered about for a few seconds while the incident was happening.
We stayed in the same position for about a minute. By then I was wondering why he didn’t just shoot me at that moment. Quietly, my horn illuminated slightly as I levitated my rifle. The ghoulish creature didn’t notice and I let it drop into my right hoof. At this I kicked out his back leg making him fall to the ground where I did not hesitate to empty a bullet into his brain (not the kill). Blood splattered out along with small pink blobs of his deteriorated brain, slapping against my hooves and staining them in the sickliest way. I stood up and ran back to the rear of the train where I hopped onto the tracks and swiftly retraced my steps. I bumped into Osiridium on the way. He was panting loudly and didn’t even see me as he raced around a corner. He smashed into me, knocking me over so that he lay on top of me his snout was nestled against mine and his hooves stretched out to break his fall. I groaned in pain as he lay there. Very quickly he rolled off me so that I was able to take a breath without the weight of a pubescent stallion compressing my chest.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you.” He apologised.
“Why were you even running round there?” I asked angrily.
“I heard gunshots and I was hoping that you were alright.” He said in a defensive tone. I sighed and said, “I’m OK. I just met a little resistance and had to take them out.”
“Who was it?”
“What was it more like.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It may as well have been a frigging demon. It had one eye left and its chest was open!”
“What happened to your hooves? They’re covered in blood.”
“No shit Sherlock! Anyway, I shot him in the head. He was lying on the ground and I had to shoot fast and his head was the closest thing.”
“Calm down and take a breath. It’s like you’re machine gunning me.”
“Sorry, I’m just pumped up with adrenaline. Don’t worry about me.”
We lay on the tracks for a while, catching our breath, while the echoes of the station kept our ears occupied and our nerves on edge. I was the worst; almost every sound was like the struggled breathing of a ghoul. The action replayed itself through my head over and over again like a cassette tape that was continually being reversed. Although needless to say, I had the last laugh.
We stood up after a while and recollected our thoughts. Splitting up was no longer an option due to the previous circumstances. After a unanimous decision to check things one area at a time, we went down the path that Osiridium had been previously exploring. We walked in silence, conscious now of the obvious possibility of resistance that we did not want to have to deal with. We came up against a pile of rubble that was anchored onto the ground by the gravel that surrounded the tracks. It looked to the untrained eye to be impenetrable. But I had seen things others hadn’t. I had had brain sprayed on my hooves and eyeballs pop out of eye sockets. I could see a trail of ants in almost pitch darkness so I thought that my eyes were pretty well bloody trained. But alas, the wall held fast and any hoofholds were usually taken up by other sharp bits of rubble. Admittedly, I was stumped at this point. I had no idea how to get past other than turn back and go the other direction to find another way through. Although, this plan had problems as that meant having to go through that damned train again. Who knew what lurked underneath the seats in the later carriages but it seemed like the only option unfortunately. We retreated back the way we came trying our best not to make too much noise. As we neared the corner, we halted. There was a noise coming from the direction of movement. It was a dull groan like a zombie and there were a lot of hoofsteps. I decided to peer around the corner to check what was producing the noise. I regretted doing so some seconds later as the track was covered with about twelve creatures exactly like the one I had killed. All boasted different deformities, for example, one of them had a tail growing out of his shoulder and another had their head turned at an almost 360 angle.
They instantly noticed my presence signified by the turning of heads and with one, the turning of half a head. Osiridium popped up behind me and went silent at the sight. Slowly, he reached for his saddlebags but I held his hoof away from them in case they were willing to attempt to negotiate. I walked out in front of them and placed down my rifle before emptying my pockets of anything dangerous like my balisong knife. “I am peaceful.” I lied to the crowd. There was no voice that answered. “Do you speak English?” I asked. Still nothing happened. “Fine, Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” (Do you speak German?)
“Sie haben unserer Gruppenführer getötet.” (You killed our group leader.) Said the ghoul with half a face.
“Enschuldigung?” (Excuse me?)
“Unserer Gruppenführer.” (Our group leader.)
“Ah, es tut mir leid. Aber er…” (Ah, sorry. But he…)
“Sie werden ausgehen oder wir werden sie töten.” (You will leave or we will kill you.)
“Nein, Ich habe dein Gruppenführer nicht getötet.” (No, I haven’t killed your group leader.)
“SIE LIEGEN!” (YOU’RE LYING!)
“Warum sind ihr so wütend?” (Why are you so angry?)
“Sie haben unserer Gruppenführer getötet.” (You killed our group leader.)
“HALT, Ich kann nicht Sie verstehen! Ich habe dein Gruppenführer nicht getotungen.” (STOP, I can’t understand you! I haven’t killed your group leader.)
“Ok, dann Sie werden töten.” (Ok, then you will be killed.)
“Was?” (What?) I blurted out as the ghoul began to pace towards me. He was followed by the others as they menacingly walked in our direction. I quickly took control of my weaponry and aimed the Sniper Rifle at the crowd though they seemed unfazed. Well, there were six times more of them than there were of us and they probably were unable to see the danger that awaited them. I was shaking all over in fear and I am pretty sure that Osiridium was too. My concentration was broken by an almost deafening noise coming from my right. I covered my ear in pain that was amplified by the fact that I had not expected the sound. I turned and saw Osiridium with a pistol held in his magical aura that was aimed at the demonic ponies. One member of the group had fallen dead on the floor with a pool of blood around his torso. Osiridium noticed my pain and apologised. But there was no time to acknowledge this as my friend had just been barged down by three ghouls that had sought revenge on their fallen comrade. I was soon tackled by one that started to thump me in the face with his decaying hoof. I screamed as blood splattered out of my nose with each punch along with punching half of my tooth out. I tried to shield my head but he was doing his best to make sure that I endured massive pain before I died. He pushed down on my closed eyes causing them to pulse with surges of agony. When he let up, tears streamed down my blood stained face. The horrible creature then continued to strangle me, constricting my windpipe and making me gag and rasp for air. He motioned for others to help him and soon I had four others, two of them female, standing over me. One of them punched my ribs while another kneed my crotch. I was trying my best to stop myself asphyxiating by trying to rip away the hoof that pressurised my throat. The ponies were stronger than they looked though. One pony sat on my stomach causing me to become more winded than I had felt before. By this point, I thought that this was the end. My miserable life flashed before me too fast to recognise specific events. I felt the horn on my head have a sharp and sickening pain inflicted upon it as a mare bit down on it and shook my head around.
All I could see was darkness as the mountain of pain began to dull. I felt like I was floating in mid-air but was soon grounded when I felt something removed from my throat. My eyes burst open and I realised that I was still being attacked. But the thing that was strangling me was gone. I moved my attention now to the others attacking me. I was still in immense pain but I could now think a little clearer now that I was not being constricted. I brought my hooves back and pushed off the pony eating my horn. Now I could use it to my advantage, I thought. It turns out that just because the horn is made of keratin does not mean it is immune to damage. I attempted to use my magic to move the hell bent killers off of my body but it was so badly hurt that I couldn’t even illuminate it. It was then that I noticed the pain in my pelvis. A mare had been kicking it for a few minutes and it was now practically black and blue from the constant punishment that was worsened by the pain in my ribs. They were being pummelled and I was shocked that I had not broken one yet. Using all of the energy that I had left, albeit minimal, to roll out of the attack. The pony sitting on me fell off and landed on his coccyx. It was quite funny what happened next. The mare that was kicking me accidentally clocked the ‘sitter’ in the temple, knocking him out. I moved as fast as I could away from the two attackers (I crawled away) to try to avoid even more pain. I was easily caught up with though and they picked me up by the shoulders and threw me at the ground. I lay there as they stood over me. I could vaguely see Osiridium struggling to contain the trio that were attacking him. I rolled over to look the heartless killers in the eyes and was met by the final four (along with the two that were still in action after my beating). My face was smeared with blood and my body covered in bruises. The pony with half a face leaned down until our faces were within inches of each other’s. I could smell his rancid breath and feel it sting the inside of my already bleeding nostrils. He laughed an evil laugh before knocking my nose with his forehead. I heard a click and received a surge of agony rip down my face making me pretty sure that my nose was broken. I yelped as further tears emerged from my eyes.
“Du bist ganz lustig mit alle das Blut.“ (You’re quite funny with all of that blood) he said to my face. I tried to retaliate but I simply didn’t have enough energy to do so.
“War das spass?” (Was that fun?) He continued. “Du musst nicht unserer Volk totungen.“ (You must not kill our people.)
Before I knew what was going on the ghouls were laughing at me. I felt ashamed that I had done nothing to defend myself and that I had let myself get nearly killed so easily. Their cackles were heart rending and soul destroying. One of them walked around and placed his hoof on the fur between my legs. The previous tenderisation caused jolts of discomfort to race through me. He made a valiant pose before stamping down and walking away guffawing as he went. I lay almost unconscious out of sheer pain and fear that I had not noticed them leave me. They had walked over to where Osiridium was struggling with his load. He had a mare attempting to wrestle his hooves to the ground and a stallion that was holding back the kicks that were giving him no end of trouble. The final stallion had stolen his saddlebags and had begun to tuck into the food in there. He pulled out a jar of honey that had been barely touched and tried to work out how to open the twist cap. He looked like some sort of insect as he did this with his teeth bore trying to pull it off with force. I observed helplessly as the scene unfolded. I tried my best to numb the pain that my horn was causing by softly caressing it in my hoof. I knew that if I was ever going to get out of here alive, I would need my magic. My other hoof was preoccupied with holding my chest from instinct but I kept feeling the need to relieve the pain in my crotch. I knew that Osiridium couldn’t do that, mainly because he was a stallion and I didn’t think that I wanted him seeing my ‘private areas’ at all never mind having to deal with the pain in that general body space. I didn’t believe that I was ready for him to be looking.
I saw the four ‘lead ghouls’ saunter up to Osiridium. Half-face began to talk to him, probably saying the same thing as he had done to me. He ordered the attackers to let up their assault. He then kicked the tired stallion in the ribcage making him crawl into a ball and groan. He followed this up with another kick that hit Osiridium’s spine. Secretly, Osiridium used his magic to pull something out of the bag. Insect (that guy who was eating all of Osiridium’s food) had not noticed because of his random task of opening the jar of honey and he seemed stumped on this rather odd job. He had pulled out a small test tube with a clear liquid inside. There was a rubber cork in the top to stop it from spilling and burning through his saddlebags. After removing the mechanism, he brought it close to his body where, in one swift motion, he spun round and sprayed the ghoul in the face with a tube full of concentrate sulphuric acid. It fizzled on contact and was met by a scream. Half-face’s head was being dissolved in front of my very eyes. He groped at the burning flesh as it liquidised and dripped down into a small brown puddle with smudges of white, pink, red and grey. His body slumped to the floor with a brainless skull left balancing on his spine. I was shocked at how easily this leader figure had been dispatched.
It took all of my efforts to stand but I managed eventually. The remaining ghouls were now kicking at the body on the floor. Insect had given up the ghost on opening the jar and had returned to rummaging in the bag. I walked, slowly, towards the action but decided against it. I paced to the right and kicked over Insect before grabbing his ear in my mouth. It left a horrible taste on my tongue but it was worth it to throw him into the crowd and knock three of my enemies. Insect was small enough that I could get enough force in the throw to distract the group for a few seconds, enough to allow me to trip one of them up, thump another in the side of the head and uppercut a third. By this point it was only me and the mare that had done such damage to my crotch. She instantly reached into a pouch (cut into her flesh) at her side and pulled out a pistol (a Glock 17). She pulled the slide back and an empty shell casing sprung from the mechanism. It was aimed at my eye in an attempt to cause maximum harm to me. Using my magic would be too obvious and my sniper rifle was too far away for me to roll away and take control of it. So I rapidly reached around inside my coat and pulled out the balisong. I flipped it about so that the blade was bore.
“Ha, Ich bin besser, Ich habe ein richtige Waffe!“  (Ha, I’m better, I have a true weapon!) The mare said cockily.
”Nun wollte dich eine Pistole eine Messerstecherei.“ (Well you brought a gun to a knife fight) I returned before lunging forward out of nowhere to plunge the knife into her chest. She dropped her Glock as I twisted the blade about. I retrieved it and cut along the length of her throat, killing her on the spot. She fell off the blade and I was left there, standing in the midst of twelve bodies with some still alive. I picked up the mare’s pistol and shoved into one of my pockets before wiping the blood off my knife before closing and sheathing it. I walked over to Osiridium and helped him up. He was in a better situation than me with only a few bruises but when he saw my face, he gasped and instantly attempted to clear away the blood. I yelped as he ran his hoof over my broken nose and held him away from my face. “Sorry,” He said quietly
Searching the bodies was relatively unsuccessful. Our haul was comprised of: A Glock 17 (with forty extra rounds), a flip knife, a Leathermane, a dead bee, a box of fish food, a jar of jam and a house key, plus thirty-four grenade pins (I forgot to mention, we traded in grenade parts, each had different values [Grenade Parts: Pin: 1, Lever: 5, Timer: 10, Hammer: 20, Percussion Cap: 25]). By now I had accumulated a worth of 98 or the equivalent of three percussion caps, one hammer and four pins. The battle had not proved to be fruitful so we took the useful stuff, the weapons, jam and money, and walked cautiously away from the scene. We were both limping from the pain but we had to get out of the area. God only knew how many more there may have been.
We had to go through the train though if we were to get where we were going (Költ) as well as being able to inspect as much as possible while we were there. Osiridium led the way and I unwillingly followed him. The first thing he noticed was the skeleton that I had left on the floor. “Oh, ok. I wonder what he did to get so thin.” He laughed at his own gag but was silenced by an evil stare to say that he had gone too far with the joke. We continued walking through, entering the next carriage. Then he noticed the horrible smell and noticed the dead ghoul on the floor, his Luger lying underneath a chair. Osiridium picked it up and studied it meanwhile I was almost vomiting in fear and from the fetid stench. I couldn’t bear to look at the body of the creature that I had murdered almost without thinking. After looking at the pistol, Osiridium turned to me. “I have checked this weapon and it seems to be in relatively good shape for its age.” He stated.
“How do you know how old it is?” I asked.
“It’s a Luger P08.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s a German pistol.”
“So how do you know how old it is?”
“BECAUSE IT WAS USED BY THE FUCKING NAZI’S IN THE WORLD WARS, OKAY?” yelled the blue stallion in irritation. 
“Whoa! I was only asking. Jeez, you hardly hesitated to talk about that.”
“Sorry. It’s just that I don’t see how I know the age of a pistol as useful. I’m sorry I shouted and talked about the part of German history that’s not talked about.”
“You’re just lucky that there’s no police left.”
“Anyway, there are six rounds left in the magazine and one in the chamber. The iron sights have been all but ground to bits and the barrel has a little bit of carbon in it. Apart from that this gun is in good shape.”
“Oh, that reminds me, I need to give you that pistol I found on that ghoul mare. I’ve never fired a pistol before and I don’t intend to start any time soon.”
“Wait, you’ve never fired a pistol?”
“No, I like my rifle more.”
“I have to teach you.”
“I’m fine thanks; I think that that’ll just complicate things.”
“Shut up and deal with it.”
“Ok.” I said defensively.
We walked on into the next few carriages until we came to the last three. The first contained no seats and only beds, presumably where the ghouls resided. The second was a little more helpful. Stacks of locked chests were piled high in the corners and a few ammunition boxes lay strewn across the floor of the car. “Jackpot!” I said loudly. We started rummaging through any boxes that were unlocked. What we found was an invaluable gold mine of resources. Upon shooting open a box with the Luger, we found about fifty jars of jam and one jar of honey in the centre for no apparent reason. Osiridium shoved a few jars into his saddlebags and I put a few into my coat. Another box contained a pile of toy soldiers, not useful. The next had a tent (which Osiridium strapped to his back with some duct tape that we found in the subsequent box). After a short while we had run out of ammunition and we threw the Luger away and started cracking open the ammo crates. A few contained 9x19mm parabellum rounds said to Osiridium while he shoved a few bullets into small pouches in his bag. One contained a bullet that was longer than both of our horns. I knew instantly what this round was because I had seen them before. They were .50 calibre BMG shells, strong enough to punch through a couple centimetres of solid steel. Unfortunately, I was unable to use it in my sniper rifle as they were too large. One box contained grenades and I had no idea about how they worked. I knew they exploded but I didn’t know how so I pulled out the pin with the idea of getting more money but what instead happened was that the lever on the side pinged off. Osiridium, who had a basic knowledge of grenades, cursed and took it off me and proceeded to throw it back down the train where it exploded with a ball of fire and clanging noises as shrapnel hit the walls. He pulled me away as some ball bearings flew in our direction. One of the steel balls hit a crate, knocking it over and spilling its contents of marbles. “Bloody hell, what was that?” he shouted.
“I’m sorry, I had no idea!” I said through frightened sobs.
“You didn’t know? Some excuse that is!”
“I don’t know how grenades work!”
“It’s kind of obvious don’t you think?”
“I didn’t think and I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, your damn right you didn’t! You could have killed both of us.”
“I’m so sorry!”
“I have no idea how you didn’t know that when you pull the pin out of the fucking grenade, it goes off.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you have any idea what I would have done if you had been killed?”
“NO, I’M SORRY OSIRIDIUM!”
“I WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT YOU!”
“I’M SORRY!”
“STOP SAYING THAT YOU’RE SORRY, I UNDERSTOOD THE FIRST TIME YOU SAID IT!”
“I FEEL TERRIBLE!”
“YOU’RE LIKE A SISTER TO ME!”
“AND YOU’RE LIKE A BROTHER TO ME!”
“DO YOU WANT TO DIE?”
“I’M SORRY OSIRIDIUM, I AM SORRY! SORRY, SORRY, SORRY, SORRY, SORRY!” I cried, tears of both sadness and fright dribbling down my face in rivulets that dripped off my snout to the floor. Osiridium, standing imposing over me, rubbed his eye that had pricked a small tear. He turned his head to the side and moved back a step. I was packed up against the wall that was unattractively decorated with some bad smelling chocolate wrappers and a torn and wrecked satchel that had nothing in it. I gasped for air through each painful sob as I tried to regain control of the situation. I wiped away the tears and sniffed loudly.
“Just, don’t do anything stupid okay?” said Osiridium guiltily.
“Did you have to shout?” I asked sheepishly, expecting uproar.
“You could have killed the two of us.”
“I know but, aren’t we friends?”
“Of course we are, but you have to learn that even if grenades are unused for about a decade that they are still dangerous.” This was followed by an awkward silence that loomed in the air between us.
“Can I have a hug?” I asked nervously.
“Er,”
“Come on, it’ll be the first hug that I have had in three years.”
“Um, okay.” He put his front legs about my back and stroked my fur. I did the same with my limbs, except without the stroking. The embrace was affectionate and homely, the kind of feeling you get when you come home from the rain and a flame is flickering in the fireplace. I liked the feeling of his hooves safely protecting me from the elements and his snug hold and warm breath that brushed my neck.
“Thank you.” I said as he pulled away slowly. We sat there in a comfortable silence that was filled with a friendly air. I sniffed again, still trying to get over the crying. “We should probably get going now.” The stallion advised.
“Alright,” I sighed, just as the hiccups started.
We stood and walked to the door taking care not to slip on any of the glass marbles that had been strewn across the floor. There were tiny shards where some pieces of shrapnel had smashed through some of the toys. My back hoof stood on one of the balls and slipped out from underneath me. I lost my balance for a few seconds but managed to hop my way out of the spread of the marbles into the door that separated the carriages. I stopped my uncoordinated movement before I clunked my head on the door. “God you are accident prone aren’t you.” stated Osiridium jokingly. I laughed quietly at his poor attempt to make me feel better. Well, to be fair, he did a good job of it as he made me laugh. 
I swung open the door with my magic to enter the driver’s car. As the door opened slowly, my nose was polluted by a disgustingly putrid odour. It smelled of brie cheese, vomit and mussels thrown into a plastic bag and left out in the sun for three days. Behind the door lay a horrific sight. Bodies were piled up on each side with a corridor (floor covered with corpses) that led to the door. I closed my nostrils in the hope that I would be able to get away from the stench and the surprise of seeing a mountain of dead ponies at the end of the train.
“Well, I guess this is where all of the passengers went.” I said through my held breath because I hadn't the ability to pinch my nostrils to stop the smell from entering due to its injury. I looked back at Osiridium who was looking a little light headed. I put my hoof around his shoulder and led him towards the door. I was not in a much better situation for I was feeling queasy for the first time in a while and I was reminded of the horrible feeling. When we reached the door, I accidentally put my hoof in the gaping mouth of a corpse. It plunged through his tonsils and out the other side. This pushed me over the line. I ran through the door onto the track and vomited on the gravel. It was filled with remnants of the tinned asparagus that I had had for lunch (I had stolen it from the food stock of a bar in the terminal building). I coughed out phlegm as Osiridium came behind me and patted my back. I stroked my neck from the stinging, acidic nature of bile that was being projected from my mouth onto the floor. I started retching as nothing more was coming out of my stomach. “Sorry,” I said painfully.
“No problem. I don’t blame you.” Said my companion reassuringly, patting my back. I shivered as all of my lunch was literally lost and had to sit down against the wall of the tunnel to get my breath back.
Yawning made me realise how tired I actually was. I had been in in a fight for I don’t know how long just half an hour earlier. All of me hurt as my body turned black and blue with bruises smeared blood red with cuts. I leaned my head on Osiridium’s shoulder. Not expecting it, he turned his head towards me and made sure that it was me who was touching him. He was a little haphephobic at times (afraid of being touched) so it was kind of a lottery with him. For example, sometimes I would tap his shoulder and he would twitch and ask me not to touch him but at other times, like now, he was perfectly fine with the physical contact of someone else. “You tired?” he inquired.
“A bit, yeah,” I said through a small yawn.
“Let’s find somewhere to sleep then.”
We started walking away from the train that had caused us many a problem. There was a small opening in the wall that contained a power generator and a ‘notausgang’ or an emergency exit. The sign was not illuminated as should be expected but the door swung half open on one hinge. The bar had fallen off and the glass in the window was foggy and cracked. We closed the door as best we could by putting the bar underneath it to stop it from swinging. When I noticed the generator I felt my breathing speed double and my pulse increase. I stumbled back and into the wall, trying my best to close my eyes and think happy thoughts. The only problem was, I did not have many happy moments to think about. I thought that my happiest moment was when I saw Osiridium standing at my bedside in the hospital after my mishap. The only problem was that my mishap was caused by electricity and made me paranoid about electronics. Osiridium noticed my distress and journeyed into the fenced off area and made sure that it was not producing any electricity. It wasn’t of course so that calmed me down a bit yet still, we both knew that I wasn’t going anywhere near that thing.
Osiridium was a very understanding friend. He respected and understood my fear of electricity and made sure that if we were ever to come across live electricity that was exposed, he would to do his best to soothe the pain of bad memories and reduce the fear. We lay down side by side like penguins to conserve heat. I used my coat to cover our chest areas from the cold as we shut our eyes to attempt to sleep. I tried my best to ignore any hunger pain or adrenaline burst from the action earlier. Of course I had no proper idea what time it was but gaging by the time that we had entered, I figured it was about seven o’clock.
The concrete floor made rest difficult. Miniature stones jabbed into my flesh at any opportunity and I constantly had to brush the floor. I eventually found sleep after a few hours of tossing and turning to try and find a better position. It was well needed as such respite was infrequent and random for it is not recommended letting down ones guard in such a time of anarchy from political and civil collapse. I woke up when Osiridium was already awake. He had used a combustion spell to light some coal and soot that he probably found around the rails. My back was as painful as anything and my legs felt like jelly. A can of something was being held over the fire with magic that cooked the contents slowly and pleasantly (I preferred slow cooking to magic cooking). Osiridium, facing me, noticed my eyes flutter open and grinned. “Morning sleepy head,” he said nicely with his soothing voice that was hard to achieve with a German heritage. I smiled back and nodded. I had laid my rifle against the wall last night but it was now lying down because it had probably slipped. I felt very cold though and shuffled my way towards the warmth of the small fire. I sat up and warmed my hooves. No sooner had I done this that I felt a pain emerge in my stomach. I groaned and rocked back slightly. I had no idea what was going on and I got a concerned look from Osiridium. Soon my question was answered but the situation could not have happened at a worse time. I felt dampness in the fur around my genitalia and a droplet of blood fell to the floor. 
“Oh fuck!” I said exasperated.
“What, what is it?” asked the stallion, noticing the blood.
“Just turn around,” I ordered.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Turn around Osiridium, now.”
“Just tell me what’s going on.”
“I’M ON MY PERIOD OKAY?”
“Ok, sorry.” said the surprised pony as he turned his back to me. He faced the wall and didn’t dare look back on pain of distrust. I performed the business necessary to deal with the release of blood from the womb with a tampon that I found in a pharmacist not too long ago. Once finished, I hid away my genitalia by brushing over the fur in that area.
“Alright, you can turn round now.” I said. Osiridium turned back towards me and looked down at the place where I had leaked some fluid onto the floor. He was a little miffed at my furious reaction but decided to forget about it and just dish me out some rice in some sort of watery liquid.
The food was tasteless but it filled the emptiness in my stomach anyway. It was nothing special, as was any other meal that I had had after the bombs dropped. My period pains were starting to aggravate me to the point where I told Osiridium to not talk to me so much unless it was an emergency. We packed everything up, leaving our rubbish behind us for there was no one to say that we had to bring an empty can with us. The fire was snuffed out and we continued to walk. We were walking for quite some time until we came to an underground terminal. A small reptile scuttled along the floor in front of us and up the staircase that led to ground. There was a board on the wall picturing the layout of the system as well as a board with an upcoming movie that was supposedly out on March 14th three years ago. There was nopony in sight so we walked silently up the stairs after the lizard. On the next floor were cracked tile walls with overhead signs labelling: the toilets, the terminal, the ATM and the exit. We followed the direction that pointed towards the exit before scaling another flight of stairs and appearing in a worn out structure. There were sandbag walls around the place and even a machine gun mounted on a bipod that stood on a café counter. There was a belt of ammunition that was strung from the side. It was piled up on the side in a pyramid shape. I walked cautiously towards it but was stopped when I saw someone poke their head over the table and yell in my direction.
“HALT! Advance forth one to be recognised!” shouted the rugged stallion in my general direction. On his helmet was a flag that I could not quite recognise from this distance. He placed his hoof on the gun and aimed it at us. I walked slowly forward until ordered to stop.
“FOXTROT, ALPHA!” he called out.
“Um, Romeo, Echo?” I replied in the phonetic alphabet that I had learned at ten years of age.
“STAND TO!”
“Stop, wait!” I begged, realising the gravity of the situation. We had just walked right into an encampment. Some more soldiers stood in their positions. Most of them were placed behind sandbag walls and held assault rifles. They were bullpup by the looks of things (the magazine is behind the pistol grip) and had what looked like an ACOG scope but I knew that it wasn’t. Whatever they were using, it sure wasn’t German.
“What nationality are you?” I asked, concerned yet trying my best to stall them and maybe get away.
“British!” was what was returned.
“We speak English, we can negotiate.”
“How do we know that we can trust you?”
I reached round and pulled out my sniper rifle, half covered by the coat and connected to a bracket on my back that I had used to carry it. I placed it down and threw everything else from my pockets down next to it. I made sure to be careful with the Glock as I placed it down gingerly. I reached down once more and switched the safety catches on each to safe.
“And you!” said the stallion to Osiridium who put his saddlebags on the floor and opened the flaps. What looked like a commanding figure stepped out and inspected the gear. He stopped when he looked at my rifle.
“Is that an L115A3 by any chance lass?” he said in a very difficult accent to understand.
“Er, yes sir.”
“Don’t call me sir, I work for a living.” said the stallion.
“Yes,” I inspected his rank slide, “Corporal?”
“Where did you get this?”
“Er, from a military base.”
“Was there anyone there?”
“No.”
“What was the flag like?”
I peered at the flag on his brassard and said, “Like the one on your brassard, Corporal.”
“That’ll be the flag of the UK lass.”
“Why are you calling me lass?” I asked, slightly aggravated at the constant use of the term.
“I will call you what I want kid! I am of a superior rank.”
“I don’t even know who you work for! I sure as hell don’t work for you! You don’t own me!”
“You shall show me the respect I deserve and shut the fuck up you bitch!” As soon as the last word left his foul mouth, I made it obvious that he had crossed the line.
“You shall give me respect you shithead. You will not refer to me as ‘bitch’. Nor will you refer to me as ‘lass’ or ‘kid’. I shall be called ‘Static Charge’ or ‘Static’ by everypony independent of social status.”
That shut him up. He squint both eyes and brought his face close to mine. “Don’t push your luck; you’re lucky we aren’t shooting your harbour lights out!”
“I’m so afraid!” I said fearlessly and sarcastically. He turned his back and walked off, inviting us to follow into a small café called ‘Starbits’. The corporal vaulted the cracked counter and ground some coffee into a cup. The black liquid streamed out of the two nozzles. I was distracted when he asked,
“How old are you guys?” I was quite confused at such the colloquial language that he was using.
“Er, I’m sixteen.” I stammered.
“And eighteen,” said Osiridium a little more confidently.
The corporal turned round after picking up his finished drink and dropped two sugar cubes into the frothy topped coffee and continued to stir with the end of a stirrer, “And your names are?”
“Static Cha…” I began but I was interrupted, “I know your name, you told me!” he said, “What is YOUR name,” he said, pointing at Osiridium and nearly spilling some of the piping hot drink. Osiridium stated his name and the NCO nodded and took a sip. “The name’s Corporal Neighthan.” said the stallion with a slight whinny in his voice when it came to his name.
“You will refer to me as ‘Corporal’ or ‘Corporal Neighthan’. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir!” I said chirpily and jokingly. He gave me a stern look that seemed to say, “I would kill you in your sleep if I had the authority to.”
“I’m only joking!” I said just as enthusiastically. Behind me, Osiridium sniggered.
“Was that supposed to be funny?” asked the pissed off corporal.
“No, I’m laughing because I’m an orphan!” said Osiridium sarcastically.
“How you wish that that was amusing.” said Neighthan calmly even though I could see that he was fuming on the inside.
“Oh shit!” I said as he unsheathed a pistol and twirled it around his hoof by the trigger guard.
“This, my friends, is a Sig Sauer P226. It is chambered in 9mm pistol ammunition. It was a collaborative effort by the Germans and the Swiss, quite useful if I do say so myself!”
“Sorry, you know that I’m joking eh?”
“I know. I just wanted to see what your reaction was when I got my gun out!”
“Okay, I’ll stop teasing okay?”
“Right answer” he said nonchalantly. An awkward silence ensued only broken by the slurping of coffee.
“Anyway,” I said, stretching the word out of general concern and the want to change the subject to something more desirable, “Why did you not kill us on sight?”
“Because you’re not ghouls.” I looked confused at his statement. “We’re so used to seeing ghouls coming out of that railway and ... Why are you twitching girl?”
“N-Nothing,” I replied nervously.
“Are you uncomfortable or are you in pain?”
“It’s nothing, continue.”
“Ok, as I was saying, we are used to ghouls because sometimes they come up looking to get out and we can’t let that out, the wasteland’s bad enough as it is and we don’t need that out there.”
“I see,”
“We’ve been assigned to keep this place safe from attack and we’ve been here for four weeks, eating anything edible in the shops and drinking the coffee from the café. We’re originally based in Darmstadt, our Air Marshal, army is better, is called Birch. He’s a fricken Aussie!”
“Can you give us a direction because that actually sounds ideal. Is it guarded?”
“Yes.”
“Any direction?”
“Head East-South-East from here for about a day and you’ll find it.”
“Thanks, can we have a map?”
“No map,”
“A compass?”
“No compass,”
“Anything?”
“Nope,”
“Well how do I know if I’m headed in the right direction?”
“Just never veer from your course,”
“What if I do?”
“Well then you won’t get there. I dunno, use something to mark your direction.”
I gave up arguing and just looked away. My ears pricked though when I heard a scuttling noise behind me. In the corner of my eye, I saw an insect like creature crawling underneath the radar of the sentry. In an action that I thought I would regret, I whipped the corporals pistol off his hoof, span around and pulled the trigger in the general direction of the animal. The bullet ripped straight through its head and embedded itself in the floor between the legs of the shocked stallion. The ghoul fell to the floor and bled from the head. I breathed heavily in shock, and the aforementioned stallion had collapsed on the floor from fear. I turned and looked at the Corporal who had a mixture of confusion, fear and awe plastered on his scruffy face. I couldn’t believe that I had just done that.
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 3

There was no pain more than what I felt underneath that bridge. Even in my coma I seemed to still feel pain. I had no idea why because it seemed that one would feel nothing when they were unconscious. My leg was pulsating slightly underneath the bandage that was poorly bound. Beneath the layer was a red tint with blood from the wound that I had received from the insane thing that bit me. It was not in much danger of a normal infection though because the radiation killed most of the bacteria and infections that used to exist. The only problem now was that it may get irradiated and create a tumour which, of course, would have to be surgically removed. The shoddy maintenance job with my leg had left it in a bad way. After my mishap in the courtyard I had had to be carried away.
w past me and into my ears. The noise was familiar and made me feel like I was flying which I probably could have done if I had used my magic for levitation. My lips were dry and parched from a distinct lack of water. I knew that I was awake but I hadn’t the energy to move. My breathing was normal but I couldn’t open my eyes to show Osiridium that I was conscious. I couldn’t speak nor move any limbs. This was starting to get unnerving. I began to breathe heavier against my will, I was afraid that I might be dead and that I wouldn’t actually wake up.
But the hyperventilation seemed to work in my favour. Osiridium noticed my state and stopped what he was doing. He grabbed my shoulder and shook me a bit. I could feel a few drops of liquid hit my face which I guessed were tears but I couldn’t be sure. “Can you hear me?” said a recognisable voice. I tried my best to say something but nothing came out. I felt my throat croak quietly until something finally emerged: 
“…so glad you’re ok!” I opened my eyes.
“YOU’RE ALIVE!” he threw his arms around me and pulled me up till we were on our back legs. He squeezed me tight and I looked into his closed eyes, a feeling of ecstasy washing over me. Oh how wonderful it was to see my best/only friend again. I could hear him laughing through sobs of joy. He seemed more relieved than I was at my recovery. He released me and I staggered back a pace from the sudden release of pressure. I lowered myself into the proper standing position before speaking to him jokingly.

“So how long was that?” I asked.
“About four hours!” said the blue stallion, wiping away the tears hoping that I hadn’t seen them.
“Wow, that’s a personal best!”
“What for?”
“Time in a coma,”
“Oh, ok,” I laughed at the fact that he didn’t get the joke and was now ruined, anyway.
“So how was it? Without me?”
“Erm, kind of scary.”
“Cry-baby!”
“No, I just mean that I thought you were going to die!”
“You still cried!”
“You’re my friend that I have known for eight years, do you think that I would not in this sort of situation?”
I was stumped. He made a good point and I silently agreed with him because I would have been the same had it have been me in his shoes. I had been like that once when he was knocked unconscious for only one hour! Just goes to show how emotionally secure I am.
“Fair enough,” I said very slowly, my eyes pointing off to the side.
“Don’t you just feel like the asshole?”
“Don’t rub it in,”
“Alright, alright!”
“Can we just get going?”
“Fine.”

Going was slow when we left. The area was surrounded by steep near vertical walls that held next to no grip. My leg was impeding progress and began to twinge every time it hit the floor. After about five minutes of trying to climb the sides we remembered that we were unicorns and we could just teleport out. Osiridium pointed this out and disappeared from my side, only to appear above me on the ledge half a second later. “Come on,” he said, a little impatient with me now. I tried my best but the fight had taken it out of me and I hadn’t the energy to perform the required spell. Osiridium rolled his eyes and encompassed me in his magical aura. I smiled apologetically in his direction before being transported by his side. “Sorry about that,” I said sheepishly.
“Not a problem.”

Being handicapped was starting to become a large problem. I elevated my back leg and walked on three to stop the pain. This did come at the price of being embarrassingly slow and cumbersome. The weight on my exhausted shoulders didn’t help. It was only then that I noticed that Osiridium was perfectly fine. According to recent memory, Osiridium should have a large chest wound. But he didn’t. He was walking at his normal pace; there was no blood, no scars and no visible organs. What had happened when I had seen him crash into the room that I had been held captive in approximately 5 hours ago? Had I been drugged and seeing things? Or had I been hallucinating with all of the pressure that was being exerted upon my brain? The thought that I hadn’t seen properly what was going on was a little shaking. Osiridium stopped and waited for my sluggish approach. I blushed in mild humiliation and kept walking, Osiridium alongside.

The city was like a death trap. Piles of rubble and narrow alleyways all accentuated the feeling of presence. It seemed that a pony could easily hide a whale here. I had to be constantly alert. This sadly meant that I was constantly aware of pain. Every once in a while, a few corpses would be seen in the streets, some with belongings. The scene was poignant, especially when I saw three small ponies. Three fillies lying dead on the floor in the middle of the road. Their bodies were slightly charred and their eyes were either degrading or gone. I could make out the colours ever so slightly. Blue, black, and burgundy. The black one had both back legs missing; the blue had a chunk of his chest ripped off revealing his grey ribcage and silent lungs. The burgundy one was a little different though. There was a clean line running from the side of the mouth, underneath the eyes to the very bottom of the ear. It was pink in colour with spots of black at irregular intervals. Pus leaked out at the corner by the ear and there were a few streaks of blood that had hardened and become a gritty mess all over the filly’s face. I tried my best to fight my curiosity but it eventually took over and I felt along the line. It was soft and thin with the slightest hint of depth. The cut seemed to get deeper the further away it was from the mouth which seemed a little odd. It seemed that this facial damage was intentionally caused. When I had my hoof touching just the very corner of the mouth, it opened slightly with me putting a minute amount of pressure upon the face. Instead of just the mouth, the entire side of the face also separated. I screamed as I realised that this was no usual incision. Somepony had cut the face in half. Osiridium turned when he heard my cry of terror and came sprinting back to me. “What? What is it?” I stayed silent; I couldn’t see a brain in there. Osiridium noticed the filly and pulled me away. The head returned gradually back to a closed position, making it look like nothing had happened.

I knew that that would cause me some trauma for a while. I couldn’t get the image out of my head now and it seemed that I would have to deal with it through intense thought focussing in order to make myself not think about it. I felt something tap my hoof and then slowly wrap itself around it. I had a good idea of who it was and my prediction was correct. Osiridium held my hoof in his. And the touch was ever so dainty that it was neither uncomfortable nor provoking.

I was lachrymose in this situation. It’s not that I hadn’t seen death before (I had dished out a lot of it), it’s just that I had never seen death like this. I could imagine the fillies having a happy life and aspirations and loving families, all lost in the mists of time and radiation. I turned my head and hobbled away from the scene in the aspired direction of travel. I couldn’t stand being there any longer or I would have cried. I walked as fast as I could down the road, tunnel visioning, not looking at anything other than the T junction that lay ahead. I was so hell-bent on getting to the road fork that I nearly tripped over a wild piece of rubble that happened to be in my way. I stumbled a bit and my concentration was broken. My back leg instinctively dropped down to stable myself but it was only met with excruciating pain and instant re-elevation. Osiridium had caught up with me and was walking alongside.
We walked for a long time. The light that marked the sun through the radiation clouds showed that it was about seven o’clock in the evening. The city streets were like a labyrinth it was hard to find ones way down a completely straight road with all the debris lying around the place. And what’s more, everything looked exactly the same. It was constant office blocks, flats, shopping centres, anything that a city usually had. There was one time I found an old crane in an abandoned building site that had a truck balanced precariously on the counterweight.

Rounding a street corner, I found myself stop and look straight forward in amazement. An elegant structure stood before me. It had small parts chipping off and a massive chunk was blown off but it was mostly intact; apart from the boarded up roof that totally didn’t look suspicious. I was awoken from my trance when a bullet whizzed past my head and ricocheted off the concrete directly next to Osiridium who jumped in unison with me. I looked at the top of the cathedral tower and limped about trying my utmost to dodge any oncoming shots. Osiridium sprinted forward, zigzagging his way towards the wall. I followed slowly and narrowly avoided another shot. Whoever this gunner was, he/she surely wasn’t a marksman. We pressed up against the wall underneath a spire so as to keep out of sight. “Do you have any idea at all about what that was?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Nope, but my best guess is that these are just some raiders.” I thought for a way to deal with the nuisance. I looked around in my mind for anything that could help. I realised soon after though, and unstrapped the rifle from my back. I held it in my magic because of my handicap (which I didn’t like doing) and started snaking my way around the wall to my left, hugging the sandstone brick with my back.
“What are you doing?” Osiridium whispered.
“Taking care of some business.” I replied angrily.
I popped out of hiding just enough so that I could see only the forehead of the guard. I raised the optical scope to my right eye and lined up the shot, adjusted for wind and distance, breathe in and out a couple times, hold breath, squeeze the trigger. The bullet was ejected from the mechanism at a high velocity, passing straight through the skull, brain and more skull. He fell out of sight but I had no time to celebrate as I could hear voices coming from the direction of the massive doorway. I recognised the noise of a wooden bar being removed and the sound of wood clunking to the floor. I struggled away and only just managed to pull my tail in behind cover before a group of ponies stormed out. I tried to control my breathing for any loud noise would give us away.
We waited a few seconds while the pack checked around for the culprit of the noise. Suddenly, I heard an audible click. I swung my head around to see that Osiridium had just cocked a pistol. There were no longer any confused comments and silence ensued. I looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m just taking care of some business.” He stated, and he walked out from behind the corner, weapon hidden behind his back. “HALT!” (Stop) roared a stallion with the distinct noise of a cocking handle. I began sweating, what was Osiridium’s plan? 

“Sie bewegen sich nicht oder ich werde schießen,” (Don’t move or I will shoot) said the voice. It sounded like it was wavering with nerves. Osiridium reached to scratch his leg (I had peered round the corner slightly) and was instantly picked up on it.
“NICHT MEHR BEWEGT!” (STOP MOVING!)
“I’ll stop moving ok?”
“Er, don’t try anysing!”
“I won’t, don’t worry,”
“Come mit us!”
“Why?” The guard looked around for help; he was obviously amateurish and must not have had much experience in the role that he seemed to perform. “I’d just like you to listen to me while I tell you that you will now die!”

Osiridium ducked down and used his magic to fire a shot straight into the heart of the gun wielder. He moved it slightly and fired again, this time piercing the lung of a mare. A final shot was ejected from the barrel and passed straight through the neck of the third and final bandit. I stood shocked at how calm he seemed to be throughout the entire ordeal. I found myself, jaw wide open, trying to regain my thoughts. The next thing I knew, Osiridium was pushing my mouth closed with his hoof and walking back and in to the Cathedral. I hobbled after him and entered the dark structure. The smell of Hydrogen Sulphide (H₂S) polluted the building and what was left of the stained glass windows proved unimpressive in its current state. An awful draft wafted through the room suddenly, probably from the missing roof, causing me to shiver unpleasantly.
“What do you think smells so bad?” asked the disgusted Osiridium, nose pinched.
“Smells like rotting eggs to me,” I said half retching even with nostrils held.
“It probably is now that I think about it.”
Osiridium approached a box and pulled off the top.
“Bloody hell!” He called, “Speak of the devil and it doth appear!”
“Goddammit, close that thing!”
“Ok!”

The box lid flopped down on top and blocked the hideous sight from view. I started laughing. It was quite funny how even in the dangerous wasteland, there are still things that exist and nopony knows why. I mean, why would anyone keep eggs for eight years? By the looks of things, that was the only thing there! The only thing that this bandit group has kept, are some rotten eggs! One had to laugh at that. I paced out and started to search the bodies. One wore a coat that had a box inside. On the front it said, ‘Premium Brand Cigars’. The coat also contained a pouch of six pins and a timer (which I kept) and an empty plastic bottle.
The gunner held a little more useful equipment; his assault rifle lay on the floor by his head with some minute blood splatters on it. He had a rope in his saddlebags including four clips of ammunition and an electric dog collar that had no batteries in the compartment. I then moved onto the final guard who had nothing but a box. There was a padlock that held it closed but no key was to be found. 

Osiridium showed up after a more thorough search and came out holding an assault rifle and a key in mid-air. “I found this on the guy in the tower,” he said, holding out the key and rifle. I gasped and took hold of the mechanism. I placed it in the lock and twisted. The attempt proved fruitful, as the lock clicked open and I wrestled it off the narrow hole that it was placed through. The cap popped up on a brass hinge and showed an un-labelled switch. I gave it a bemused look and glanced at Osiridium who shrugged nonchalantly. I felt inclined to flip it but decided not to for fear of something bad happening. It was something subconscious that told me not to. “Let’s just move on,” I suggested nervously.

We walked on down another street and in through a park. Nopony could be seen there which gave me at least a small sense of security. There were dead trees poking out of the ground like inverted roots, branches sprawling in every which way that they could point but they were, obviously, not decorated with attractive foliage. The grass was turning grey and there was an unknown type of ivy encompassing the trees that were there. It was tinted dark red with orange leaves. Instinct told me that poison inhabited that parasitic plant. Even so, it was good to see some colour in the world that I hadn’t seen for a while (excluding blood).
We remained incommunicado for a lot of the walking. Osiridium was walking a little slower with the rifle on his back but at least he hadn’t offloaded it onto me. On the railing was an ACOG scope and a fore grip with a flashlight underneath the barrel. (I’ll cut to the chase because this is getting a bit boring isn’t it?).

A widely spanning toll gate marked the very edge of the city. The sun was half over the horizon and the shadows were a few metres longer than normal. I had managed the day on three legs but only just. The ones that I was using were beginning to shake under my own weight and a few blisters had popped up on the soles. I thought that any longer walking on them would have caused a stress fracture or something bad like that. I yawned loudly, Osiridium silently marching with me. “Should we stop?” he asked.
“Yeah, I don’t think that I can go any longer!”
“Understandable, let’s just drop our stuff in one of the booths and give our legs a rest,”
“You don’t know how ideal that sounds right now,”
“Well I can’t keep you walking like that all day now can I?” “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, can we just stop here,”
“Of course.”

We hobbled into one of the booths that seemed bigger on the inside. I instantly threw off my coat and made to unbuckle the brace that held my weapon in place. I sat down next to it, lungs stinging and heart pounding. Osiridium followed my example and closed the door before carefully placing his saddlebag on the floor for fear of the honey contained inside it smashing. We sat there, exhausted and in need of rest, one pony, can’t imagine who, with a severe injury.
“I’m gonna check my wound,” I announced.
“Er, are you sure?”
“Yes, I want to know what’s happened to it and if it has gotten any worse since we got going earlier,”
“Um, ok, whatever.”

I shakily reached my hoof down to the bandage. Pulling out the clip that held it in place, I unravelled the first layer, then the second. The blood that had escaped the gouge had dried and all that was left was a deep cavern in my leg. I could see the muscle tissues and sinews rent apart with stringy substances poking out of the sides. I closed my eyes and turned up my head, regulating my breathing so as not to feel sick. I looked again; this time I noticed the white line that was my bone. It had a tiny scratch down the centre and was probably one of the main causes of the pain. There were multiple gashes that seemed all the same, all showing the same things apart from one that was too far away from the bone to show it.
“I need stitches for this,”
“I couldn’t do that,” declared Osiridium.
“Why not?”
“I can’t live with putting needles anywhere near me or anyone else for that matter,”
“Well then I’ll have to do it,”
“Dammit, now you’ve made me feel bad!”
“It’s ok, I’ll do it.”

I asked for a needle and string from Osiridium which ended well. Osiridium only had a reel of unflavoured dental floss. The only problem was finding a needle. I searched every single pocket in my coat and Osiridium searched every single baggage compartment but the closest thing to a needle was an empty, unused injection in the bag. After some hard work, we separated the needle from the syringe and tied the floss around it. I gritted my teeth and touched the point to the flesh underneath my fur. Using my magic, I pierced it and pulled it through tight. I repeated this process, grunting slightly every time the needle passed through my leg. I did this with every other laceration before replacing the bandages and giving back what was left of the dental floss to Osiridium. He looked at it a little uncomfortably and just threw it away. Meanwhile, I was still getting over the fact that I had just stitched up my leg with a tooth cleaning wire.

“Do you want this?” The rifle hovered between us surrounded by the magical grey … magic, of Osiridium.
“You keep it,”
“I can’t fire it though,”
“Why not?” I groaned exasperatedly.
“I hate optical scopes,”
“They’re more accurate than iron sights,”
“I know but it just feels uncomfortable and iron sights have higher mobility,”
“And by that you mean…,”
“I just think that with optical scopes you can’t see anything outside of it whereas with iron sights you can see outside slightly,”
“Simple solution, take the sight off.” Osiridium pulled back the black metal mechanism and made a fool of himself, trying his hardest to remove the ACOG.
“I, I don’t know how,” he eventually said, embarrassed.
“Give it to me then,” he did so and I held the weapon in my lap. I placed my wrist on a twist that loosened the device before sliding it off the rail. It was then placed on the floor and I returned the firearm.
“That’s how you get it off,”
“Thanks,”
“Just don’t ask me again or I’ll think that you didn’t listen, and don’t be facetious!”
“Ok, ok!”
“HA! I foiled your plan!”
“What plan?”
“Your plan to be facetious!”
“That wasn’t my plan,”
“Then what was it?”
“It was to get you to show me again how to get the scope off!”
“Tell me you’re not serious,”
“I’m not serious,”
“Good.”

Oh the conversations we would have. We decided that we needed food (obviously) and water (even more obvious). Onto the fire went a potato and leek soup rat pack along with a vegetable and rice pack. Creating another fire, we placed some water into an empty jar to boil and hopefully sterilise. I was in charge of the solid sustenance so I tried my best to heat each one through so as to correspond with the purification time of the water. When both were ready, I gave him the rice ration to try. He opened it, closed his eyes and tipped a mouthful onto his tongue. He swallowed the mixture and shook in disgust at the old ration pack. He then washed it down with a mouthful of water. My ‘food’ looked more like someone had been sick in a bag and filled it with grass and sand. I had never eaten a rat pack before so I turned my nose in disgust.

“Eat up,” said the blue unicorn.
“I can’t,”
“Why not?”
“It looks like sick!”
“Just close your eyes and swallow it, don’t worry about the taste because you can always wash it down,”
I said reluctantly, “Fine!”

I took a deep breath, shut my eyes and poured the ‘shit-in-a-bag’ down my throat. It slipped away through my oesophagus, solid particles sticking to the back of my throat and my tongue. I coughed and almost regurgitated what looked like a previous regurgitation, and tasted like it for that matter. I snorted, trying to wash it down with any liquid that was already in my body (in this case mucus). I gave up this plight and downed a fifth of my water. I wiped my lips and picked the rat pack up again. It looked even worse than before because it had a few larger bits of potato making it look like someone’s mashed potato gone wrong. They were dripping wet from all of the moisture soaked up into them and showed no sign of becoming any more tasteful than flour.

I had to force myself to eat the rest while Osiridium managed to finish his with little problem. Envious, I started to feel myself sulk. Irritation flooded my veins and the want for petty revenge for Osiridium enjoying his dinner more than me. I forced myself not to throw the excess from my pack into his water and just sat there in silence while we digested the meals. Mine didn’t sit well in my stomach though and I wanted to vomit so much at that moment. I had to go to my dark place and not focus on anything around me other than the thoughts in my head.

The sun had disappeared from view and we were now in total darkness. I illuminated my horn and pulled something out of an inner coat pocket. Flipping a page from my last tab, I started reading.
“What’s that?” asked a curious Osiridium.
“It’s just a book that I found a while ago,”
“How come I’ve never seen it?”
“Because you usually fall asleep before you get the chance to see it,”
“Oh ok. What’s it called?”
“Um, Archibald Ives, My Struggles,”
“You do realise that that means ‘Mein Kampf’ in German right?”
“Yeah, yeah but it was purely coincidental. It actually mentions at the end of the book how he has resisted doing a German translation because of the title,”
“Wait, you’ve read the end before the middle?”
“No, I’ve just read it three times before,”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s a good book,”
“Can I just ask when you found this?”
“Er, do you remember when we were in that tunnel train system somewhere?”
“Um, let me just think back,”
“A crap tonne of ghouls nearly killed us,”
“Oh yeah!”
“Well, when I was searching the train I found it and kept it,”
“Ok.”

We lay there in silence, mostly. The only noises were our breathing and my pages turning every few minutes. In my head I was anticipating the next action of the stallion that featured in the book, Archibald Ives. I especially liked the part about him being held prisoner in Stalag Luft Drei where he was held for a very interesting period of his life. The book ends with a letter to his family scanned onto the back page announcing his death from a bullet wound to the back when trying to escape the prisoner of war camp. I felt a tear in my eye the first time I read it. It was stained a peach colour with fancy writing and mentioned the incident including the military’s sorrow for the loss of a unit.

I had read seventeen pages and I could feel myself starting to drift off. I would find myself reading the same sentence about three times before I realised that I was doing it. I placed the book down under my head after flicking the corner of the page to mark my progress. I lay may head onto the rough cover and closed my eyes, sleeping until the morning.

> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The morning was unwelcome. Unconsciously conscious, I rolled my head side to side groaning as it tried to overcome the pure exhaustion that I was feeling. A yawn escaped my mouth and I ran my hoof up my side towards my ear where I stroked my hair. Reluctantly I pried my eyes open, letting my pupils adjust to the sudden change in light. My red iris flitted about as the events of the day before returned to me. As they did I was reminded of my rather unfortunate predicament.

I groaned as the pain resumed. My heart began racing again as the sudden jolt had caused my brain to think that I was being attacked. I concentrated on the calming of my nerves. I knew that I wasn’t being attacked but as I focused my mind on fixing one problem, another emerged. My throat tightened and I felt something rushing from my stomach. “Oh shit!” I thought as I began to panic. Rolling over seemed impossible as the searing agony was a constant pressure that I couldn’t escape. As I felt my gullet becoming overcome with nausea, I tried my best to move my body even slightly to the side.

My attempts weren’t rewarded. I couldn’t breathe as each time I coughed only miniscule droplets of vomit escaped my mouth. I could feel my lungs begin to complain as every second they were closer to being filled with the vile substance. I could see my eyesight blurring and my head body becoming numb starting from my limbs.

Something light was placed beneath my arm before anything made its way to far down my windpipe. A sudden light change allowed me to see a small box at the right side of my vision. A trickle made its way down onto my cheek, eventually dripping onto the concrete floor. Even so my eyes began blurring further, darkness beginning to envelope me.

My eyes opened and I was jolted to my senses my throat burning as bile and vomit was shot its way out of my body, some ricocheting into my face, splattering my fur with sickly pieces of green and yellow. I heard myself screaming but wasn’t controlling the outburst and my back shook uncontrollably with a dull ache centred on my lungs. A lone tear descended into what was now a puddle in which I lay. Moving my arms I used as much of my strength to anchor myself on my elbows.

Remnants dribbled from my bottom lip as my grasp on reality finally normalised. My breathing returned to its normal state as I lay balanced precariously on my elbows staring face-first into my own sick. Needless to say, it wasn’t a pretty sight. My body had become outlandishly cold.
I nearly shrieked as I felt a hoof touch my bruised spine. I was halted when I felt it stroke the tufts of fur gathered around my vertebrae. It was warm to the touch and I soon felt another on my shoulder. Clutching my side, the anonymous hooves rolled me away from the repulsive substance. I fell haplessly into the arms of the one I knew so well. He had a half frightened half relieved grin, subtle but there, that bore his unpleasantly amber rack of teeth.

“Stop dying please,” he said through a sigh. “I’ve got enough on my plate without having to save your life every other day.” I stared deep into his eyes, examining the glint of reflection before smiling myself.

“You’re such a faf you know that,” said the blue stallion.

“Yeah I know,” I tried to say but coughed and spluttered in no fit state after a rather disturbing and scary experience. Some might call it convenient that I survived and it does sound rather cliché when I think about it I know. I felt myself being dragged over to a corner and I was placed in a sitting position where I was able to regulate my breathing and do my best to control the constant urge to unleash my entire insides over my hooves. 

“Why can’t you just keep your body under control because it’s not like you’re that clumsy or are you?”

Through silent splutters and coughs I spoke as best as I could, “I probably am that clumsy, do you even know me?”

“Well it seems that we spend so much time separated from each other that it’s hard to understand what you’re actually doing with your life,” complained Osiridium.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re constantly getting caught by the demonic arseholes,” “I can hardly get a break with you.” I could hear the irritation creeping into his voice. I knew what he meant because I knew myself that I was clumsy. I couldn’t help it. I’d had to mature so much so quickly that I was a bit too big to suit my body. I tried my best to diffuse the situation.

“Osiridium look, no matter what you say it’s not going to change the price of fish or whatever the saying is. I’m sorry I’m not perfect and that I don’t strive to be. We’re both orphans and the only pony we’ve got is each other. You’ve got to learn to deal with the situation at hand because worrying will only send you backwards.” A silence ensued as my speech was digested. Osiridium looked into my eyes; the slightly dazed look that was always present had become a little more obvious. I heard him swallow before staring at the ground. I felt awkward waiting for his response.

“That’s the most homosexual thing I’ve ever heard.” Osiridium said in a freakishly calm voice. I felt the laugh escape my mouth and the smile seep through.

“What?” I said through laughter. “How did your brain come up with that? Surely it didn’t sound that weird!”

“It was pretty weird but I must hasten to say that it’s true,” he said in between deep chuckles. “I’m sorry for being such a dick sometimes. You get a hard enough time as it is!”

“Yeah, I should know!”

“Anyway, how are you feeling now?” inquired Osiridium.

“All the better for seeing you!”

“Flattering. But seriously, how are you?”

“I’m better to say the least,”

“Well for one you’re not lying down in your own vomit because that wasn’t doing you any favours at all.” I looked down at my nose and see a small speck of yellow/brown liquid and flicked it off with my hoof.

The wind buffeted rocks across the wind-cracked concrete road, particles floated around and pinged off the ground like bullets. It wasn’t long before I was twitching uncontrollably, my mind spinning as images flickered in the foreground of my vision. I flicked my head and the figures went away. I could still see silhouettes though, black shards sticking up from the ground like demonic monsters. They were like outlines burnt to my retinae.

A blur flashed across my eyes, lime green in colour with hints of red and black around the top of the vision. I yelped and it disappeared into the fog. I could her Osiridium calling to me through the racket of the storm. I could make out: “you alright‽” I called back as loud as possible but even I struggled to understand what I was actually saying. I struggled to keep up with my partner due to the pain in my leg which had the adverse effect of us not being able to communicate effectively over even short distances especially in such weather. The wind was a rather unpleasant surprise as it seriously hindered progress and made speech inaudible. It also meant that it had become increasingly tense because neither of us could hear anything should anything dangerous happen.

My leg stung as tiny particles became lodged in my flesh making me quite amazed that it hadn’t been infected ages ago. I was 99% sure that that green furred pony must have had some queer disease that I’d never heard of. Even so this did have the unfortunate impact of me being slowed significantly and having my energy drained twice as fast as normal. I was a fit pony but not fit enough to carry on for days on end in such constant agony. I tried as best I could to get the attention of my comrade who was rocketing off into the distance leaving me in a trail of smoke metaphorically. He seemed to be running off pure will to get to his destination and had simply forgotten that he had a casualty with him.

I began rasping after not too long from shouting indefinitely. I was getting so fed up of him not turning around that I used what strength I had left to lift a rock in my hoof and attempt to hit him with it. It ended pathetically with the stone only reaching a few feet in front of me as a result of the inconceivable forces of nature. “Oh for fuck’s sake” I thought aloud. I had no idea what was happening because he wouldn’t normally have done this. His train of thought eluded me and I could only think what was happening inside his skull.

I was beginning to buckle under my own weight at this point and I only had one other option in mind. I let my legs give way so that I was lying upon the dirty ground a few hundred metres outside of a toll booth on a cracked road in the middle of fucking nowhere. Putting all of my effort into my actions I pulled my rifle off my back and placed on the ground in front of me aimed slightly off to the side of Osiridium’s now silhouetted figure. My hoof wrapped around the trigger and with my final drop of energy I pulled it back.

An almighty crack ripped through the wind and I saw the shadow wheel around through the tears collecting in my eyes. My ears rang, drowning out the sound of the gale making me feel as if I was in a silent room. I noticed the pony returning to me now. I could see his face, his teeth bore in a grimace at what lay (literally) before him. I let him come to me, kicking away my rifle and instantly kneeling next to me. I rag-dolled into his arms as he cried onto me, his face becoming that of a hapless pony. I saw his mouth moving and I tried to communicate, blinking every now and then to show I was still alive.

I reached up slowly with my hoof because that is all that I was capable to do at that point. I held his neck softly and he closed his eyes letting my fur touch his. He seemed to be ready for my death, trying not to think about it. But I was determined that I wouldn’t leave him alone in this wasteland. I felt my adrenaline begin to pump as the thought of Osiridium alone became too much to bear. I dried my eyes as best I could albeit sluggishly and tried to wriggle out of my friend’s grip. In a rasp, I did my best to reassure him. “Don’t leave me again. I’ll be fine with you.”

Osiridium, sat next to me, hesitated but eventually said, “I won’t leave you.” He now seemed like he didn’t know what to do, but he soon hit an epiphany. He reached down and kissed me softly for a few seconds. My heart jumped slightly and my cheeks flushed red. I didn’t try to argue, after all, I did rather enjoy, even if momentary, this connection between us. I wanted it to last longer but he broke away in embarrassment. In my ear he said, “I’m sorry.” I smiled and shut me eyes soon feeling Osiridium’s hoof reach over my sternum, most likely to make sure that I was still alive.

I woke to the unfamiliar sound of birdsong and a rather bright shining light. I felt rejuvenated after having slept through the windstorm but was still quite surprised that I had managed to do so. The bird’s music was close to my ear so I turned to face and was met with a horrifying sight. The thing that I had called a bird was completely deformed with a large, most likely cancerous, growth protruding from its neck. It had only one eye and was drenched in its own blood. Its song wasn’t actually that comforting either and was a mixture of rasps and high pitched squeals.

The nuisance was suddenly and unexpectedly silenced by a teal hoof swiping across my eyes. My eyes shot up and I saw a more consoling sight. ‘He had stuck with me’ I thought with a sigh of relief.

“Wake up again sleepy head; we made it a grand total of two-hundred metres yesterday!” jeered Osiridium.

“No thanks to you, *cough*” I replied sarcastically.

“Yeah alright, I get it; I was an arsehole yesterday,”

“Well, I did almost die,”

“Stop rubbing it in. I found some food that wasn’t contaminated at the bottom of my saddlebag so we can have that,”

“Alright, sounds *cough* good,”

“Yeah.” I could see his face turn slightly red as he turned away. I recalled what had happened the previous day and laughed at how he was trying to hide his awkwardness. “Oh, and that reminds me” he said, “I cleaned up your wound as best I could.”

We ate in silence. I had managed to sit up and was enjoying some unperishable tinned goodness alongside my long standing ally. 

I broke the silence after a few more awkward seconds. I grunted and proceeded to inquire about his reasons for zooming away from me the day before. “Hey, I was wondering why you walked so fast yesterday. It’s not like you to do something like that,”

“I guess I forgot how bad your injury actually was because when I heard you squeal for some reason I thought you weren’t far behind me. Why did you squeal yesterday by the way?”

“I dunno, I think it might have been a hallucination or something, it was very blurred and only lasted for a second but it was definitely there.” Osiridium nodded in acknowledgement and resumed his consumption of food.

Before long we were on the road again with spirits as high as they could get in the situation. At least there was no wind anymore. I could feel a significant difference in my leg pain from when Osiridium had apparently removed most of the grit from the incision. Over a small hillock a wide panoramic view of the wasteland lay before us in a strange and unnerving beauty. Tiny speckles of sunlight dappled the ground here and there where the UV had managed to break through the green/grey cloud layer off in the distance. We took one final look behind us and saw off in the backdrop the corrupted black pillars peeking over the horizon of a city we had once explored. When I thought about the fact that we hadn’t met a single sane pony for days made my stomach drop. A wave of loneliness washed over me as I assessed my situation. It had been five years with no luck. Our destination still eluded us as we wandered miles off course into the unchartered territory of unrecognisable scenery that appeared the same no matter where one looked. Darmstadt was out there, it was just a matter of finding it.

We set off feeling a little depressed after that moment of reconciliation and remembrance. My sniper rifle jolted on my back with every step I took, each time causing the air to be jolted out of my lungs rather forcefully. I stuck with the handicap though and made sure that I only inhaled short, sharp breaths because that was really all I was capable of doing. Osiridium made damn sure that he didn’t wander, afraid that if he left me then I would feel unable to deal with the fatigue. I reassured myself though that even if he did move a little further away I would most likely be able to rein him back because we at least had the ability to hear unlike some of our past experiences.

Conversation was sparsely placed and usually ended in a few sentences, neither of us had much to talk about at the moment apart from the state of the other’s mane or some random crap like that. To be honest I didn’t really want to talk for the most part because I was contented to stay within the realms of unreality inside my mind where anything was possible. Sometimes I would fantasize about living in the shoes of someone not affected by the nuclear war, but mostly I would think about writing books. Libraries full of books. Hundreds of millions of pages of text with all of my life experiences decorating them in pitch black ink.

I rarely thought of my parents, or my family. But when I did I tried to stop myself as best I could. Not because I didn’t love them. Oh no, I loved them alright. It’s just think that it would make me sad and even lonelier than normal (if that’s possible). I seldom talked about them either. Like Osiridium, we were realists and ponies who live in the present and don’t dwell on the past with frequent thoughts of the future (Wow I have a very round-about way of saying stuff). We take things as they come mostly because the past cannot be changed but the future is influenced on your decisions in the present. If one pony dwells on the past too much it gets them killed because they can’t focus on what’s in front of them.

We had walked for what seemed like an age when we finally dropped off the road and onto the needle-like ‘grass’. It was in fact just some parasitic reed that had seemed to spread rather far and rather quickly across most of the land, all of the grass was destroyed. (Just as a side note, the Hoofsians really went all out, they left nearly no land untouched. I’m still unsure of their motives but they did seem to really hate Germany)

It felt strangely comforting to be off the rugged tarmac and onto the uneven undulations of the natural landscape, even if some areas may still be a bit irradiated. (Another side note, most that survived built up a quick resistance to the radiation because they were exposed to mostly small amounts [The bombs weren’t that radioactive]. That or they died) Our first steps back onto the land that we trudged our bodies through for many years felt almost heavenly in comparison to what we’d be going on for days on end now.

“So how was it?” I asked ambiguously as we walked.

“How was what?”

“The kiss, I could see you were embarrassed,” I said on purpose just to see his cheeks go red again.

“Oh yeah, that. Look it was a spur of the moment thing,”

“I’ve never been kissed before,” I said to make him feel even more awkward (It was true)

“Oh, well, erm. You probably wanted your first kiss with someone other than me,”

“What other choice did I have?” I joked.

“Hey, why are we talking about this?”

“I’m just saying that, that I enjoyed it. It was what I needed in that situation,”

“Oh, you’re welcome?”

“I should be saying thank you first, but seeing as you’ve already ‘welcomed’ me…” I leaned in and pecked him on the cheek, “…I may as well not bother.” Osiridium smiled out of what I took to be embarrassment.

Oh how happy I felt at that moment. It didn’t feel like an open confession of love which was relaxing but it came out as confirmation of friendship which was what really mattered to me.

The fluctuating landscape was beginning to take its toll on our endurance. Our speed had halved and we were both getting very tired. I was rather surprised that I’d managed to make it so far with a limp.

The sun was just beginning to slide down beneath the horizon by that point identified by the failing of the light and the coming of darkness. My heart and spirits sunk alongside the illuminating star as the unwelcome night eventually covered our tracks. I had mixed feelings about the dark. It was on one hand a fairly useful asset because it made you harder to find but there was the problem of it having the same effect on everything else. It was a safe yet unsafe environment if you understand. The night could hold anything, and so I found out when I almost crashed into a small house, only visible via its outline. I stopped as I noticed it but Osiridium was not so lucky and I heard a rather satisfying *thunk* as his face collided with the surface. I facehoofed in disbelief and wandered over to where he had fallen. He groaned as his nose probably hurt due to his unfortunate meeting with a solid object. 

It was only after Osiridium’s short recovery where I stopped to question the existence of such a thing in the middle of the wastes. I’d seen walls build in the middle of the wasteland but those were usually not as tall as a pony and were outside bandit emplacements. No, this had to be some sort of residence.

Feeling with my hoof I made my way around the side of the house and allowed Osiridium to shine a bright light. What confronted us was rather horrific. It was a derelict village, decorated solely with corpses.