"And my wasteland soul
Never will be truly whole
My only remaining goal now to survive
Someday the rains will come and wash it all away
The heart of the wasteland will awaken on this day."
-Miracle of Sound, Wasteland Soul.

"Mommy!" I cried out as I ran forward towards the woman standing in the distance, I could see her, she was here! I couldn't believe it she was actually here!

As I ran forward however I started to stumble and fall forward onto my hands as they shrank down into hooves. My body became itchy as hair covered it and a tail formed behind me, by the time I reached my mom I was a pony again.

I was surprised to feel the sensation of two legs wrapping around me followed by a pair of wings. I looked up to see another pony smiling down at me, I could barely see her face, but she was a Pegasus like me.

"Its okay Katie, I'm here for you my little filly," she said as she held me close. "You don't have to be afraid anymore, I'll always be here for you, no matter what."

"Promise me you'll stay strong," she said. "I can't be there for you right now, but I'll never stop loving you. Be strong for me Katie and you'll be just fine."

The pony that was my mother smiled and continued to hold me for the longest time before the world around me turned dark.

I snapped awake and looked around, it was still dark, I had no idea where I was. It took me a moment to realize that I was still in the small room lying next to Alicia who snored lightly.

I smiled a little at my new Zebra friend, I wondered if she ever had dreams like that. It was weird, but even though I knew that it wasn't real, it gave me hope that maybe my mom was okay and I'd get to see her again someday.

I laid back in the sleeping bag and stared up at the darkness above my head again. I didn't really feel much like sleeping right now, it was weird really since this was the first night in my new body.

I wondered why there weren't more people, or ponies I guess, in this area. Alicia had said that more ponies had appeared before sure, but they hadn't lasted long as they had been taken away by whoever it was that did that.

Maybe we should consider leaving and trying to make it to one of the bigger towns. If there were more ponies out there maybe they'd be able to give us some answers, at least I hoped they might be able to.

Maybe it was even possible that my mom would be there, or somepony that Alicia knew. I know she didn't seem to care that much about her foster family, but there could always be somepony out there looking for her.

I yawned a little and pulled the covers back over me and closed my eyes and fell back asleep.

00000

Day two back out in the new world, Alicia woke me up at around dawn the next day and told me that we'd be scavenging.

"I think these houses used to belong to a pony settlement," Alicia said as she opened the trapdoor. "They're too small to have been built for humans and some of them are still untouched."

Yeah, that made sense, now that she mentioned it I thought back to the houses the day before and they did seem a bit smaller than the ones I remembered. Though now I had to wonder what happened to the ponies that had lived there before.

I took a deep breath and headed out of the room with Alicia. She showed me how to best get into the old buildings and where to find the best supplies.

"Honestly I don't know if we should stay here much longer," Alicia said with a shake of her head. "The Trappers are bound to come back here eventually and I'd rather not be taken away to wherever they take ponies, so we need to get as much supplies as we can and something to carry them in."

"Sounds good," I said as we managed to get one of the houses open. "Why do you think they want to take ponies?"

"Who knows," Alicia said with a shrug. "They've never seemed particularly interested in me is the weird part."

"Weird, maybe they're not interested in Zebras or something," I said. "Do you think there are more out there?"

"I don't know, maybe," Alicia said with a shrug. "I've only ever really seen ponies, so I can't really say for sure."

I nodded and we continued to search the house. What was weird to me at least was that it actually seemed to be pretty empty, there was still plates on the table as if whoever had been here had left in the middle of a meal.

I found some more cans and other supplies that still looked okay and started stacking them up. I just had to hope we could find some way to carry them, we didn't really know how far we'd have to walk.

I looked in the other rooms, it felt so, ordinary. I wondered if the ponies who had lived here before had just appeared in the area like me and Alicia did and set this place up to live in like they had before as best they could.

"Hey, I've got something," Alicia said as the Zebra came out of one of the bedrooms with a set of bags slung over her body, she was carrying another set in her teeth and set them down in front of me.

"Saddlebags?" I commented, I had seen things like this before in pictures but these were smaller than they were.

"Yeah, it looks like the family here had a couple of foals, these must have belonged to them," Alicia said. "We should be able to use them to transport food and supplies at least."

I nodded and carried the bags back into the kitchen, we started packing what we could into our bags.

"I hope we can find somepony out there who isn't like the Trappers," Alicia said with a shake of her head. "I just wish I knew where to start."

"Me too," I said. "Lets keep looking, maybe we can find a clue somewhere, like a radio or something."

"Yeah, its worth a try," Alicia said with a smile as we headed back out of the house, I had to hope that we could find something.

We searched through a few more of the houses and found some more supplies mostly, but no sign of a radio that we could see. We had almost given up when we reached the last house, except it wasn't a house at all.

As we moved forward I stepped on something soft, not soft like the ground, more like a cloth. I looked down and was surprised to see a black flag under my hooves with a golden square around it and a line through three stars.

"I don't know, maybe its a flag of some sort," I said, we carefully folded it up and put it in my saddlebags before investigating the building.

Inside was a pony sized office, there were a few posters lining the wall that said things like "WELCOME REFUGEES" and "FREEDOM IS A RIGHT, NOT A CHOICE." They had been torn in places but I could see images of ponies in the intact parts.

"Weird, I wonder what these posters are for," Alicia commented as she looked over the posters curiously.

"I don't know," I said as we investigated the rest of the building, it seemed like some sort of, welcome center maybe based on a banner that said "WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD" over the desk. "It looks like this was some sort of welcome center."

I didn't have an answer to that, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I opened one of the doors and fell back in shock, lying there was a dead pony that looked like it had been there for a long time. I slammed the door shut and fell against the wall, breathing heavily as I did.

"There's... a dead... pony in there..." I said as I pointed at the door. "Whoever was here, I don't think they're alive anymore."
Alicia peeked into the room and shut the door as quickly as I had. "Okay, that's not good, I've been finding some papers around here that may be of some assistance at least."

She showed me some papers and I scanned over them. It took me a moment to realize that these were about ponies that appeared in the town, it sounded like this was a pretty common place in this area at least.

Still no mention of a Rachel Sinclair though, that wasn't helpful. I did however notice a message at the end of the stack.

We didn't find much else in the welcome center, just a map of Georgia with marks on it that I didn't know the meaning of. There were a few pins here and there and I was surprised to see one marked Nightingale in a familiar place.

"Yeah, Athens Georgia, my mom was born there, we sometimes visit," I said with a shrug. "She sometimes would let me navigate so I recognize where it is on the map."

"Do you think that's where the ponies that worked here are from?" Alicia asked as she examined the beaten up map curiously.

"I don't know, but its worth a try at least," I said with a shake of my head. "Its the closest marked area anyway, I think its at least worth a try."

00000

When we finally finished the sun was starting to go down in the sky. We did one last check around the neighborhood to make sure we didn't miss anything and its a good thing we did because we found something that would help a lot.

There was a wagon, a pretty small one all things considered not like one of the ones my grandpa owned, but it was small enough for a filly to pull. It even had a harness that was just our size, we tried it out, and figured out how to make it work.

"Well, that'll certainly be helpful," Alicia said with a smile as we loaded up as much supplies in the wagon as we could pull.

I had noticed that Alicia could actually pull more than me, that was interesting, maybe it meant that Zebras had more physical strength than Pegasi, or maybe I just wasn't as strong as my new friend, who knew really.

"Yeah, good thing we found it," I said with a nod as I removed myself from the harness and we covered the wagon with some branches just in case. "So, is there anything else we need to do?"

"Not really," Alicia said with a shake of her head as we walked back towards the clearing where the trapdoor was. "Do you mind if we stay out here a little while tonight? I find the stars calming."

"Sure, that would be nice," I said as we laid back in the cool grass (was I ever going to have to eat grass? I mean I am a pony now, ponies eat grass right?). "Do you ever wonder about what happened to your foster family?"

"Sometimes," Alicia admitted with a sigh as she flicked her tail a little. "Not as much as you miss your mom, but they at least gave me a roof over my head and fed me."

"My parents, my birth parents, died when I was a baby," Alicia said with a sad sigh. "I don't really remember them, and I was kind of sent to a bunch of foster homes growing up, no one really wanted to take care of me permanently."

"I'm sorry," I said as I turned my head to look at the Zebra filly. "You seem really nice, I don't know why no one would want you."

"Me neither, some of them just couldn't take care of another kid. They were mostly good people, but I never really felt at home with any of them."

"I never knew my Dad," I admitted to her after a long silence. "My mom had me when she was still in high school, and she and my grandparents did their best to raise me."

"No, she always said she hadn't found the right person," I said with a shrug. "I just kind of got used to it just being the two of us all the time. Now I don't even have her."

"I'm sorry," Alicia said as she looked over at me then back up at the stars, she closed her eyes and her ears twitched a little as if she was listening to something. "Do you hear them Katie? The stars are speaking again."

I looked up at the stars and tried to listen to them, but I heard nothing. They were just little lights in the night sky to me, I wasn't sure what Alicia wanted me to hear.

"I don't know, but every time they speak to me it seems to become clearer," Alicia said with a shrug. "I can't explain it, but, something about it makes me uneasy, like I need to be careful."

"They're just stars Alicia, maybe its your imagination, or maybe its a Zebra thing, it might explain why I can't hear them."

"Yeah, I don't know," Alicia said. "I mean I'm not exactly a normal Zebra, unless you can think of any Zebras on Earth that have stripes like mine."

She had a point, her stripes did have an odd pattern to them. I could've sworn I saw something like them before, but I had no idea what it might've been. There was something almost, otherworldly about them, but maybe it was just my imagination.

"I just wish I knew what was going on, maybe there are other Zebras out there that could help me, I just have to find them."

"Alicia, I'd be happy to help you as best I can," I said with a smile as I draped my wing gently over the Zebra filly. "We both have a lot we need to figure out and learn, lets make a pact to help each other out okay?"

I smiled a little and we shook hooves, we still had a long way to go before we reached our goals, but we didn't have to go it alone. There was still one question that was bugging me a little though.

"Once or twice sure," Alicia said with a shrug. "Usually they vanish before I even get close to them, why?"

"I had one of my mom last night," I said with a sigh. "Only she didn't vanish, I made it to her and she held me and told me everything would be alright... I was wondering if that was normal I guess."

We just laid there in the grass for awhile longer as we stared up at the beautiful night sky. I wondered if somewhere else, my mom was staring up at the same stars wondering where I was.

The Lost Children

by RuinQueenofOblivion

My Only Remaining Goal