I'm finding it hard to breathe in this radiation suit, each and every breath pumping through my lungs a struggle with a burning sensation that gradually became increasingly hotter and more intense than the last.
The bubble visor surrounding my head fogs up and disappears in pulses to each corresponding, forced intake of recycled oxygen.
The suit, constructed of skin-tight blue protective rubber and padding, was fused to my body with the heat surrounding me and shrouding the room in its well of hell.
Ponies, like me and dressed in a suit to match, were all littered across the floor around me. Mares, stallions and foals were included in the mix, their faces sunken and drowned of any signs of life, not even a remote ounce of breath in any of their shells.
That's all they were now. Shells. They were dead.
So am I. Death came for them and claimed them, and I know it's only a matter of time before I topple over to join them.
The IHS, Integrated Health System, built into my suit, displaying holographic images of my vitals in the dome of my helmet, hooked into my central nervous system, flashed and beeped red on all levels. Below my left sapphire eye, a health bar was displayed, projected in a corresponding colour scheme to my suit. It was just about drained of all bars, with only ten remaining.
An automated, disembodied female voice repeatedly alerted my ears from the innards of my suit's system.
Warning! Warning!
Low oxygen levels detected! Minor and major fractures detected! Flesh wounds detected! Lethal levels of radiation detected!
I knew it would drop. Slowly, but surely.
As I hobbled along, the shaking ground below me was beginning to subside, benefiting my balance, although the fracture in my rear left hoof wasn't aiding me in any helpful form. I had the steel bar to thank for that as it came crashing directly into my leg like an iron baseball bat, the pain burning ever so intensely through the horrendous crunch of my bones. I can feel the fragments grind with each and every slow, painstaking step.
The ceiling of the building was crumbling, working its way to the becoming nothing more than a lost piece of the accomplishments of the Equine race.
I could still hear them outside. The ponies of all races that made this country and nation function, all howling like animals and fighting for survival in the midst of the apocalypse. Luna and Celestia only know what's happening up top, if they are still on the side of the living, that is.
I suppose it wouldn't really matter, now. At this rate, hope is merely a forgotten concept of life. It's gone forever.
I hacked and coughed, entering a fit of choked gasped and shaky breaths as my legs crumpled beneath me and sent me to the floor, head first. The stone-grey tiled flooring smacked hard against my dome, the entire right side of the helmet earning itself an extending crack that protruded all the way from the top of my white-coated ear down to my jawline.
Not only that, but my vitals were now flashing a deeper red, resembling blood-red neon.
Warning! Suit occupant in immediate need of medical attention!
''Oh, shut up.'' I wheezed, my voice drained of any and all traces of life and energy as my face lay planted with the floor. Beside my fallen body, I saw that the suited body of a female pony, a pegasus, judging by the bulges at her sides beneath the material of her suit, was collapsed next to me.
Her mane was blonde and her coat was silver. Her dimmed yellow eyes were open and shrunken, her facial features frozen in a contorted mess of a scream.
Unlike me and most of the remaining bodies scattered around the room, her helmet was missing.
She was laying on her side with her cheek pressed into the cold floor. The heat in the room had long made her mane become a tangled mess from the humidity.
There was a name tag on her breast, pinned to her as a form of identity on a simple plate of steel.
It read D. Hooves.
I reached a hoof down and closed each of her eyelids, one after the other. It was the least I could do. Ponies never deserved this type of fate.
A lock of my two-tone teal and dark blue hair dropped and dangled in front of my face, matted with sweat from the build up of moisture inside of the glass helmet.
It certainly didn't help that the oxygen tanks built into the suit had long become empty.
My bones ached and felt as heavy as lead, and it took all of my strength to push myself backwards from the floor, causing myself to land on my rump with a rather unpleasant thwack to my hindquarters as I landed.
I could really feel it now. The fracture in my leg, the lack of oxygen, the low level of blood circulating in my system. I was covered in scrapes and bruises, given by the sheer force of the blast that took place only an hour or two ago, and yet, the vibrations could still be felt shaking and rocking the ground.
I was only fortunate enough to escape to this fallout shelter with a few other citizens of the town of Ponyville by pure luck only a short period before the blast hit. Although, now that I think about it, I would very much rather be up top and die quickly than be down here to rot like some forgotten cupcake at Sugarcube Corner.
I didn't care much about politics or disturbances in the community, but when news spread about a potential threat of nuclear annihilation bringing down a wave of life-ending doom and destruction, my nerves began to prick at an alarming rate. The Equestrian Government may have been useless in lending a peace offering or other solution to the threat, but they seemed to have an iron-hoofed rule over constructing and arranging public shelters and hideaways in the event that such a disaster takes a southward turn. A prime example of said shelters is the one that myself and most of the town of Ponyville vacated for.
Unfortunately, the one thing they didn't count on as much as they could have for quality assurance was radiation shielding, hence the reason that everyone had died not long after the nuclear eruption hit. I couldn't tell for sure where it hit exactly, but with an educated guess of distance judged by vibrations and heat, I'd say not far.
It was stronger than the roar of a dragon stuffed inside of a megaphone, sounding more like an orchestra of screaming banshees with a blend of Tartarus arising from the very depths of the Gates of Darkness. It was so strong that the ponies in the shelter, myself included, either became severely injured by being launched into one another or into a reinforced concrete wall. Unfortunately, the odds were not in their favour, resulting in an instant death by the breaking of their necks.
Those that survived were only left to bake in the radiation. First, the children died, followed by the adults. I seem to be the only one alive.
It was pretty much a basement that was converted with military-style security and''comfort''in the case of an event such as global nuclear devastation, which was rather predictable, ironically enough, and especially so, given the state of how the Equestrian Government was doomed from the very start of this whole blurry chapter of history.
There is no government, now.
Just death and more death followed up by even more death.
The world is now a ball of fire and devastation with no reset button.
My suited-up hooves clasped against my helmet on both sides of the glass, I gave a swift twist and pull, a release of pressure and a hiss of re-calibration adjusting my suit to the outside environment, a heatwave greeting my face like the smiling face of death itself that was knocking on my front door as I raised the helmet from my head, allowing my mess of sweat-matted, damp hair to droop down like a mangled bird nest.
I placed the helmet beside me, resting it between me and the corpse of the pegasus mare.
There was a literal stench of death in the air, mixed in with the inevitable fate of Equestria. Well, I hardly think it has any reason to maintain that name, especially not now. There was no Equestria.
I could feel the heat and radiation sweep through my body. The pain and misery.
I was going to die. Alone with no family around me. No father, mother or siblings. Not even a wife or children of my own. I never had the pleasure of having a family to call my own, and I never will.
A tear crawled down my cheek like a blue marble, warmed by the air.
Either my condition was going to kill me, or it would be the squad of free-for-all rioters trying to force an entry into the shelter. I can still hear them now. Grinding, bashing, hitting and thwacking against the blast doors. Heavens knows just how many of them are out there.
A filly and colt huddled against each other, interlocked hooves and removed helmets, no older than the age of maybe eleven each, were sat across from me in a corner. Her creamy cheek and pink-bowed red mane were snuggled deeply into his purple mane and orange coat, both of their eyes closed with a peaceful smile on their lips.
I noticed a trail of tears marking the fur beneath the filly's eyes.
The children of the world. So innocent and naive to the terrors of the world they call home, only made to be directed towards the happiness and sunshine of harmony. A safe haven. All they ever knew was happiness, and that had been extracted from their lives in the place of a plague called the apocalypse. Dooms Day.
For the children and the adult ponies, this underground shelter is their graveyard, much as it will be mine.
The sight of the pair cut a bottomless well in my radiation-tainted heart.
Although dead, they were the last of the few children I will ever see before my time is up.
I could feel a sensation of warmth begin to arise in the tip of my snout. Confused, I touched a hoof to it, bringing it to my eyes to see what my numbed hooves could not detect.
Blood. Dark red blood. Lots of it.
Any need I had to panic had long been a sensation I found no need for. I was simply too tired to care about giving a reaction to the sight.
''I'm sorry,'' I said, staring at the lifeless forms of the foals across from me. ''I'm sorry that this ever happened to you,'' I whispered.
Warning! Warning! Shut down of IHS imminent! User loss of bodily functions and life support systems imminent! Oxygen depleted! Fatal radiation poisoning detected!
My Integrated Health System warned, on its own path of death. I couldn't be bothered to acknowledge it. I glanced around one last time, skipping over the faces of the many deceased, ponies of both adolescent and adult status, the ones that I will soon join in the cold grips of the sleep of death.
Blood splattered out of my mouth with a haggard cough, my throat raw and dry from dehydration. The floor beneath me became painted with the substance, dark against the stone. My head was light and swimming with fatigue and bodily exhaustion, my muscles squeezed bone dry of any and all ounces of strength I once had in my bodily fibres.
Black spots began to invade my vision, popping in and out of the sides of my vision and working its way inwards to cover my eyes entirely as if a night sky canvas was being knitted over my pupils.
A sensation of being rocked overtook my body, and I had no perception over whether I was actually falling or not. I could have been still on the spot and not know it, or I could be collapsing to one side where I would eventually cease to live. Either way, there was no denying that it was over for me.
All that I knew was that the blackness that had taken the vision of the others had claimed my vision, too.
I knew, despite wishing that I hadn't been claimed, that I had been washed away with the rest of the world I once called home.