//------------------------------// // Run For Your Life // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Hot Coals’ horn flared to life, and a burst of magic flung the snapping mummy back out of the hut and somewhere into the sands of the campsite. Gyro shook and shivered, still recoiling from the horrifying sight, and almost didn’t respond when Coals quickly rose to his hooves. “What the fuck was that?!” the stallion shouted, pinning his eyes on Gyro. “Was that one of those mummy things you were talking about?” “It’s definitely not the second coming of Princess Platinum!” Gyro shouted back, struggling to stand on her own. Coals ducked to her side and helped prop her up, but both ponies froze when they heard more hissing and moaning coming from around their tent. Grimacing, Gyro laid her forelegs across Coals’ back and tried to climb onto it, suddenly very wary of the flimsy walls of the hut. “And where there’s one, there’s gonna be a lot more!” Coals helped her settle into position with his magic, and then the stallion burst through the doorway of the hut, only to stop dead in his tracks. Gyro’s heart seized up when she saw the sheer number of figures shambling through the trees around them. Their lifeless, hollow eyes seemed to glow with moonlight, and many of the dead were in such a sorry state that they could do little more than stumble and drag themselves across the sand. But she knew they all saw her and Coals, and she knew that they would pursue them until they finally got cornered or Coals collapsed from exhaustion. That thought sent another shot of worry through Gyro’s mind; how long could Coals carry her and evade the mummies, considering he was just a day or two removed from being in a coma? “Don’t just stand there!” she screamed at him. “Run! Run somewhere!” “Where?!” Coals asked, frantically looking around as the mummies closed in on them from all sides. “They’re everywhere!” “I don’t know! Someplace with fewer of them!” Gyro frantically whipped her head around until her eyes spotted an alarmed red figure sitting on a tree near the eastern shore. Directly beneath it, two of the mummies had been distracted by its squawks and calls, and were trying to find some way up the tree. Tugging on Coals’ ears, Gyro pointed in Chirp’s direction. “There! Go that way! To the beach!” Coals lowered his head and charged across the campsite, his hooves kicking up sand and sediment as he forced himself into a full sprint. Gyro clung on for dear life, especially when Coals had to jump to the side to avoid the snapping teeth of a mummy that had gotten too close. As soon as they made it to the shadows of Chirp’s tree, Coals knocked one of the mummies aside with his magic and jumped through the open space to the sandy shore on the other side, and Gyro saw Chirp spread his wings and flee from the tree, moving to another one further to the north. “We can’t run forever!” Coals shouted, spinning in place. Gyro watched in horror as the slow tide of mummies began to trickle out of the tree line, bumping into each other as they advanced on the two ponies on the beach. “Should we run to the lagoon?” “And do what? Jump off the fucking cliff?” Gyro bit down hard on a hoof to try in vain to keep her panic from breaching the dam into hysteria. If they ran south, they’d be trapped. If they ran north, they’d be trapped. And with the sea to their east and the wall of zombies to their west, there was precious little they could run to. No matter what they did, they would eventually run out of room and be cornered. And there was no way they could fight the horde off on their own, especially without any weapons. Chirp squawked again at them from the north, and an idea gave Gyro a spark of hope and a plan. “Follow the macaw,” she shouted to Coals. “He wants us to go north, and that’s where the raft is. If we can get on the raft, we’ll be safe!” “Are you sure they just won’t swim after us?” Coals asked, but he nevertheless did as instructed, taking advantage of the momentarily clear beach to make a break for it. “Do those things look like they can swim?” Gyro asked, looking back at the horde shambling after them. “They probably just walked here on the ocean floor!” “Then how the fuck did they get out?!” “You’re asking the wrong mare!” Gyro chewed on her lip as she wondered what happened to Rainbow Dash and the others. They’d flown back to the archipelago, and if there were dozens of mummies here, then how many were crawling over the islands out there? What if they’d been caught unawares and died? Gyro decided that she needed to put those thoughts out of her mind for the time being. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, anyway. They were a several hours’ flight from here, and there was nothing she could do to help them even if they were in trouble. She could only hope that they were okay out there, and they hadn’t been turned into mummy chow. In the meanwhile, she needed to focus on her own escape so her and Coals didn’t meet such a fate. “What happened to the others?” Coals asked. “Are they still in the shrine?” “If the mummies are here, then they’re probably in the shrine,” Gyro said. “They could be fucked even worse than we are, really.” “Should we try to find them?” Gyro really wanted to say yes. After all, they were all a team, right? She knew that she’d want Ratchet to come back for her if she desperately needed saving. But she also had to be realistic. What chance did those four have if they were caught in the shrine by the mummies? What chance did she and Coals have to save them if that was the case? “We need to save ourselves first,” Gyro said. “Once we get out of here and maybe find Melody or something, then we can worry about the next step. But right now, we’re fucked, and we gotta get out of here before we’re double fucked!” “Don’t you mean triple fucked?” Coals asked, sparing her a momentary grin. Gyro groaned and planted her face into the back of Coals’ neck. “Not like that…” “For once, you’re the one complaining about things like that. I never thought I’d see the day.” Still, with the quick quip aside, Coals redoubled his focus on following Chirp through the trees. Gyro was simply amazed that the macaw could be so intelligent. She certainly didn’t know exactly where the raft was, only that it was in the general direction Chirp was leading them. She just prayed that Coals was strong enough to lift the raft out of the sand and put it in the water, but if Rarity could do it, certainly a stallion who regularly used his magic on much heavier things than thread and dresses would be able to move it, too. All around them, the moans and wails of the mummies gave the island an unnatural and haunting sound. The longer Gyro had to listen to it, the more she worried that she’d go insane before she even got off of the island. But thankfully, as luck would have it, She spotted the shadowed silhouette of the raft lying in the sand, which she saw Chirp flutter down to. “There! Right there! Dump me off on it!” Coals did as she asked, carefully letting Gyro down onto the damp logs that made up the raft. Gyro scrambled to the center of it to more evenly distribute her weight, and she immediately looked back as Coals’ magic began to glow around the edges of the raft. The stallion grunted and heaved, and Gyro lowered herself as she felt the raft wobble and lift a few inches off the ground. Clinging onto the vines for dear life, Gyro watched as Coals slowly marched toward the sea, carrying the raft with him. Gyro’s relief immediately turned to fear and worry, however, when she saw the mummies begin to emerge from the trees behind him. “Coals!” she screamed, standing up again. “Coals! Hurry!” The unicorn briefly looked back over his shoulder and his eyes widened as he saw the mummies closing in. His horn flared again, and Gyro nearly lost her balance as he pushed the raft out into the sea. She felt it wobble and bob as it rested on the waves, and she scrambled to the edge. “Coals, get on! Get on, hurry!” But the exertion seemed to take too much out of the stallion. He collapsed onto his knees at the water’s edge, panting and shaking. Gyro felt her heart seize when the stallion looked up at her, and she saw defeat in his face. Instead of standing up, he sat back and let his horn glow, and Gyro saw a line of magic materialize on the near side of the raft, pushing it out to sea. “No!” Gyro screamed, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “No, don’t do this! Coals! Coals!” Coals only softly smiled at her, and soon Gyro was too far away to swim back to the island. She could only cling onto the raft as her coltfriend’s wavering magic pushed her farther to sea, farther to safety. She fell to her haunches, crying, her teary eyes fixated on the stallion’s face as the mummies closed in on him. She only saw him mouth three words before the horde fell upon him, and he disappeared beneath the rotten bodies.