Tic-toc...tic-toc...
The sound of the clock wore down my tired brain, for it had once again been a long shift at the Airtseuqe Nuclear Plant. As for myself, since I am a Nuclear Physicist, I could not wait to get home and take a break from doing countless double, triple, and quadruple checks on everything to make sure that the fuel rods did not form an unexpected chain reaction. I had followed every safety precaution, including taking a double sanitation shower, to make sure I was fully clean and free of any stray traces of uranium.
Seeing as my work was wrapped up and my sore feet were screaming bloody murder, I went to the break area and turned on the television. The first thing that came across made me jump up and head straight for the control room, there was a tornado warning issued for the area. The very fact that the National Weather Service had put out a tornado warning for us it meant they expected something bad enough that could damage the plant. The facility might be a new, state-of-the-art design but if daily playing with a glowing ball of radioactive death had taught me anything it was that there is nothing that man can build that nature can't rip apart. "Everyone start shutting down the power!" I shouted in a panic as I entered the room.
"Why would we do that Jim?" Jackson, the plant manager, asked me as he looked up from his station as he started on his fourth cup of coffee that was so thick and dark it would put tar to shame.
"A tornado warning has been issued for our area sir..." As soon as the words left my mouth his eyes widened and he spat the thick coffee out, unfortunately it went all over his control panel.
"Shit! Now the only damn way to shut this puppy down is to do it remotely...I suggest you go Jim since you are the only one of us without a family, it's been nice knowing you kiddo, unless you object to that."
I looked down and hung my head as I nodded, knowing these will be my last moments to live as the others headed for the underground emergency fallout shelter, each of them had a radiation suit in their hands. In this moment I realized one very important detail had been overlooked, I didn't have a suit myself but seeing as that I was going to die anyway I decided to go ahead and make my way towards the reactor. As I went outside, I noticed the sky had darkened, the temp had dropped, the breeze was colder than Jack Frost's breath, and off in the distance I could hear the low rumble of a train approaching. Seeing as we were nowhere near train tracks, I knew my time was running short as the automatic sirens blared. Entering the reactor manual control room, I started shutting down everything quicker than I normally would when a faint voice caught my attention.
"You need protection in here..." The squeaky voice, clearly female, said from somewhere in the room but looking around I saw nobody. I thought I was hallucinating the voice until something came out from behind a panel as I finished the shutdown sequence. It was a high class light blue radiation suit, very well made by the looks of it, but it was only 3 foot tall at the most.
"Please get inside me, I will keep you safe, just come on in and be quick about it." She pointed a forehoof to her back where her entrance, an ordinary industrial zipper between its rubbery wings, was and started making a signaling motion for me to get in. "You have to take all your clothes off first though, because if you don't you won't fit." In a total state of saying "fuck life", and figuring I was going to die anyway, I decided not to question this satient suit's words and quickly shed down to my birthday suit and worked my way in.
I started by putting my feet into the places where the hindhooves were, and it was indeed a tight fit; the sound of the approaching tornado rung in my ears like a runaway steam engine and I rapidly slid the rest of my body in, the zipper closing by some otherworldly means behind me. Everything was black since I could not see and heard the suit's voice in my head. "Sorry..." My vision suddenly returned but I noticed something was off; everything looked bigger, my visual focal point was different, and everything seemed brighter.
"What the hell..." I tried to speak and, to my surprise, the suit's muzzle opened and spoke the word's in the mare's voice. I tried to move but due to not being used to moving with hooves I promptly collapsed to the floor. "What's going on?"
"Simple really, you are in me for safety, and seeing as the tornado is about to hit allow me to get us to said safety so we both don't die." It felt like nerves in my arms and legs had shut themselves off, I suddenly found myself like the crack of a whip moving in a full speed gallop for the door. The weird part was I could feel my own heart hate racing in adrenaline, shrugging it off as fear until my shoulders started to awkwardly and painfully move as the suit's wings started flapping once we got outdoors. The sight before me made my blood run cold, a loud gunpowder grey cylinder of death rapidly swirling towards the plant. Despite being just an EF2, I knew the cooling pond was a goner and the fallout from that was going to be a major environmental disaster. Banking at a 235 degree angle, the suit carried me away from the plant and into the great unknown.