Light streamed through small holes in the velvet curtain on the open window, and it proved a small source of light for the small room. A single bed had been propped up against the wall next to the window, and two pillows had been stacked on top of each other to provide as much comfort as possible to the sleeping pony. The bedside table had a clipboard (with a single piece of paper attached to it) lying on it, which consisted of notes reminding doctors to run necessary checks on the patient every few hours. The patient had been unruly before the start of their operation, and so they had been given a larger-than-normal dose of anaesthetics. The patient had also been tied down to the bed to ensure that they didn’t try and discharge themselves and/or pick at the stitches that were holding the large abdominal incision together.
Ugh, where am I?
Atomic slowly opened his eyes and lifted a hoof to rub his eyes, but his hoof couldn’t move. Atomic gingerly lifted his head up and saw the ropes holding his forelegs and hind legs down.
Why does my tummy feel so weird?
Atomic inhaled deeply and was horrified when he felt something move inside him. He sucked in his stomach again and felt something press against his stomach when he relaxed. His head was sore and his mouth felt dry, his throat aching for water. The wound at the back of his head had fully closed by now and a hard scab covered it. Atomic spotted a mirror in the far corner of the room and was shocked at how dishevelled he looked. Suddenly, a sharp, stabbing pain struck Atomic’s temples and he winced loudly, throwing his head onto the pillows and forcing it down to try and stop the pain. Eventually, the pain faded away and Atomic moved himself into a more comfortable position.
What the buck did they put inside me?!
The door suddenly opened and two doctors and a nurse came in. One of the doctors held Atomic as the nurse began to slowly untie the ropes. The other doctor, who was wearing a stethoscope, trotted over to the bedside table and picked up the clipboard.
“Now let’s see…...a blood test, senses test and an X-ray. Is the patient untied?”
The nurse untied the last knot and stepped away from the bed, and the second doctor continued holding Atomic down, who was too tired to try anything.
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell the X-ray team to bring the moving bed here.”
The nurse nodded and quickly left the room. The second doctor slowly let go of Atomic and the first doctor knelt beside him.
“How are you feeling, Shadow Mark?”
“Shadow Mark? My name’s Atomic Tangerine.”
Four more ponies came into the room wheeling in a large bed.
“We’re going to do an X-ray on you right now, but it won’t hurt one bit.”
The four ponies slowly lifted Atomic up, being careful to not touch the wound on his abdomen. Finally, Atomic was brought down onto the second bed, and he was taken down the corridor to the X-ray room.
As Atomic was wheeled into the new room, he saw a large screen in front of what he guessed was a king-sized bed. In front of the screen, there were three unicorns reading through sheets of papers on the desk, and one of the doctors looked up.
“Put him on the bed on his back, please.”
Atomic was picked up and put onto the new bed. The ponies that had brought him in quickly left the room, leaving Atomic alone with the new doctors.
“Okay Shadow, we’re gonna check if everything is alright inside your body.”
“My name’s Atomic, not Shadow,” Atomic repeated.
“Okay Shadow, we’re going to start the X-ray now. Please stay still.”
Magic burst out of one of the unicorn’s horns, and the large blue screen suddenly came to life, extending upwards and turning around to face Atomic. The unicorn continued moving the screen until it was positioned a few feet above Atomic. The second unicorn lit up his horn and used a shield to cover the three doctors. The first unicorn stepped forward within the shield and shot a new line of magic to the back of the screen, and a large, dark blue light immediately covered Atomic’s body. The third unicorn looked down at the blank piece of paper on the table in front of him, waiting patiently. At the back of the screen, a large blue ball could be seen getting bigger and bigger. Suddenly, the blue ball was fired from the back of the screen and the magical shield was broken. The third unicorn held up the blank piece of paper and the blue ball hit it.
“Job well done. Now, let’s see what’s going on.”
The screen was levitated back to it's first position and the unicorns pored over the results for several minutes.
“You guys put something inside me, didn’t you?”
The three doctors looked up at Atomic.
“We'll, you’re definitely the most talkative patient we’ve ever had here Shadow, but we’re gonna fix that,” the doctor sitting at the desk said with a laugh.
The unicorns went back to analysing the X-ray results.
“The package is directly in front of the vital organs, it isn't pushing down on anything. Tell the guys they did a great job, probably the best ever.”
Another two doctors entered the X-ray room and Atomic spotted one of them holding a large syringe.
“What are you-”
Atomic was suddenly grabbed by the doctors and he saw the syringe coming down towards his neck.
“GET…..OFF ME!”
The doctor holding Atomic down forced the colt’s mouth closed, and Atomic’s muffled cries were then silenced by the needle, sending him into yet another deep slumber.
“Morning, folks.”
“Morning, lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Charger sat down at his desk and took a long sip from his cup of coffee. The West Fillydelphia lieutenant was a tall, slim blue pegasus; with thick, light blue hair that was swept over his forehead. He had piercing green eyes and a long scar running from the bottom of his ear down to the corner of his mouth, the result of a bloody battle with a knife-wielding criminal a year earlier. His cutie mark was a yellow lightning bolt with a blue outline shaped in a circular manner across his flank. He had swiftly risen through the West Fillydelphia Police Department ranks in the nine years he had been there, his leadership skills and level-headedness in times of chaos granting him the rank of lieutenant and his own team to take charge of.
Now, where are those files?
Lieutenant Charger opened the filing cabinet next to his desk and rifled through it, eventually taking out a large folder with MISSING PONIES CASES’ written on the front of it. Every time there was a missing pony case in the area, Lieutenant Charger (who was only an officer the last time a pony had gone missing for more than a day) would add observational notes that he made when questioning the missing pony’s family and friends on their behaviour and mannerisms, in case they had something to do with the disappearance. He opened the folder and turned to the last page he had written in, filled with information he had received from the officers that had searched Atomic’s house and questioned his parents.
Mother is understandably very worried about her missing son, unlikely to be involved with his disappearance.
Father is also very concerned, appears to be trying to distract himself with work. Several pictures of Atomic and Syracuse were found in the colt’s room, and mother also spoke of how close Atomic was to his father. Unlikely to be involved, but there still could be a possibility.
Aunt recently moved into the house. Possible suspect?
Lieutenant Charger looked up from his notes to check the time, before getting up from his desk and heading towards the stairs for his scheduled nine o’clock meeting with the station’s chief.
“Good morning Lieutenant.”
“Morning, Chief.”
The lieutenant closed the door behind him and sat down in front of his boos. The department’s chief was a earth pony stallion in his late fifties, who had been with the police for nearly thirty years, becoming the department’s chief nearly a decade ago.
“Have you met with your team yet?”
“No, sir, I'm waiting for the search team to return.”
“Alright then, tell me when they’re back, I'm going to come down for the meeting. That’s all.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lieutenant Charger quickly left the room and went back downstairs to find a commotion in the lobby.
“Where’s the lieutenant?! We found something!”
Officers quickly stepped aside to let the lieutenant through and in the middle of the crowd, he spotted a plastic bag being given to one of the station’s forensic scientists.
“What’s going on?”
The pony that had given the plastic bag cleared his throat.
“Sir, some colts found a hat in the local park. Atomic’s hat.”
“They did?”
“Yes, sir…….and it's covered in blood.”
COMMUNITY COMES TOGETHER TO SEARCH FOR MISSING COLT
All over West Fillydelphia last night, ponies of all ages came together and united behind one goal; to find 10 year-old Atomic Tangerine. The locals split up into several groups and covered several miles of ground surrounding the local area, and residents also put up posters of Atomic around town as part of their search efforts.
‘Ponies just can't believe such a thing has happened, the whole town is devastated and in shock,’ one resident said, and another pony commented on the community’s search efforts: ‘It just shows the community spirit of the town and how ponies can get together in a crisis to do anything they can to help.’
Last night, the local police released pictures of Atomic Tangerine and they have urged anypony with information to come forward as soon as possible.
“What?! That’s impossible!”
“I’m sorry, but it's true.”
Tea Rose shook her head repeatedly as the officer told her the results of the previous night’s search. A family liaison officer had been assigned to Atomic’s family to keep them informed of what was going on with the search and to also break any bad news, and to the police, it was looking more and more likely that that was going to happen.
“His hat was found in the nearby park in one of the bushes.”
“But….somepony would’ve seen him in the park if he was there!”
Tea Rose rubbed her eyes hard and blew her nose loudly into the tissue lying next to her. Her son’s disappearance had hit the family hard, with Syracuse drowning himself in work and Pumpkin leading the local search. Tea Rose felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life, and she spent most nights awake in her bed or in Butterscotch’s room, praying for her son’s return.
There was a knock at the door, and the officer told Tea Rose to stay where she was as she got off the sofa and headed to the front door.
“Yeah, just come in, she’s here.”
Two police officers, a mare and a stallion entered the living room and greeted Tea Rose.
“Have you found Atomic?”
The mare shook her head. “No, Ms Rose, but I can assure you we are doing everything we can to find your son.”
The stallion looked down at the piece of paper he was holding. “Is Pumpkin Spice here?”
“She’s out searching with our neighbours. Why?”
“We just need her to come down to the station with us.”
“Why? She hasn’t done anything.”
“Your sister isn’t in trouble, we just need her to confirm something for us,” the mare said, before her and her colleague left the house.
Tea Rose turned to the family liaison officer. “Pumpkin’s not in trouble, right?”
“Like they said, they just want to speak to her.”
“She better not have done something stupid,” Tea Rose muttered.
“Thunderhoof, is it true that Atomic’s missing?”
“Do you know where he is?”
Thunderhoof ignored his classmates’ questions as he sat down in his seat. Last night’s discovery of Atomic’s hat had left him shaken up, and he was in no mood to talk to anypony.
Ms Ivory came into her classroom and closed the door behind her.
“Take out your progress diaries and turn to page 53.”
The students did as their homeroom had instructed and waited for further instructions.
Ms Ivory quickly did the register, and the students noticed that she deliberately skipped Atomic’s name, and this only further dampened Thunderhoof’s mood, serving as a reminder that he had no idea where his best friend was.
“Sorry I’m late Ms Ivory, there was loads of traffic!”
Pablo closed the door behind him and went to his seat, and he glared at Thunderhoof, who returned the gesture with a glare of his own, before taking out his progress diary.
“You all have mock exams coming up after the winter holidays, and these grades will determine which high schools you can apply for. On page 53 are the minimum grade requirements for all of the local high schools. It is up to you to work out which high schools you can apply for with your grades.”
Thunderhoof began reading down the list of high schools in the area, underlining each school’s minimum requirements for Maths and English. Whilst most high schools only had grade requirements for Maths and English, a few schools specialising in other subjects also grade requirements for those respective subjects; with the Willow School of Fine Arts having a B- for art, the Grove Institute putting it's minimum grade for science at B, and Lakefield High School having a minimum of B+ for Pe. Thunderhoof immediately circled Lakefield and wrote the number ‘1’ next to it in bold. Lakefield was the most realistic option for him; it was the school closest to his house, they had the best high school hoofball team, and Thunderhoof knew that the better the high school team he played for, the more likely it would be that he would end up playing for a good college. The cutie mark on his flank confirmed that he was destined to play hoofball, and Thunderhoof wanted to make sure he put himself in the best position possible for that to happen.
What if Atomic isn't back in time for the school tryouts tomorrow?!
Before he knew it, the bell for the end of homeroom rang and the students quickly packed their bags and headed out for their first lessons. Thunderhoof flicked to the front of his diary to check what lesson he had first, hoping it was anything but Maths.
Brilliant, an hour with Mr Topaz. Just what I wanted!
“To solve simultaneous equations, you first need to make sure…..”
Mr Topaz’s melancholy tone made it easy for Thunderhoof to stop listening. Although he was pleased that his hard work in Maths had finally been rewarded with a move to the top set, he wished that he was still in Ms Ivory’s class, where her strictness and homework paled in comparison to Mr Topaz’s demand for perfect grades.
“Hey, Thunder.”
Banoffee poked his friend again, and frowned when Thunderhoof barely responded.
“Hey, did I get this right?”
Thunderhoof briefly looked over Banoffee’s calculation and told him he got it right, before looking down at his own worksheet, which had been left blank.
“You know he’s gonna pick on somepony for the answers.”
Thunderhoof stayed silent.
“At least do the first few questions Thunderhoof, otherwise he’s just gonna try and embarrass you in front of everypony. Trust me, he’s done it to me before.”
Thunderhoof slowly lifted up his quill and began working through the questions, stopping when he finished the first five.
“There, all done.”
“They’re gonna find him, you know.”
“Will they? It's already been two days since anypony last saw him, and the police have no idea where he is.”
Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. The students fell silent as Mr Topaz used his magic to open the door, revealing two police officers standing there.
“Good morning, is Thunderhoof here?”
Thunderhoof slowly lifted a hoof up.
“Could you come with us please, we would like to talk to you. You’re not in any trouble.”
“About Atomic?”
The officers nodded, and Thunderhoof quickly packed up his things.
“Tell me what happens,” Banoffee whispered, and Thunderhoof nodded before leaving the classroom.
“We were playing with some guys that live on our road, and I accidentally threw the ball through one of the upstairs window of the abandoned house. Atomic said he wanted to see what it was like inside the house, so he came in with me to get the ball back.”
Thunderhoof had been taken to a vacant classroom, and he did not need any encouragement to speak about his friend, knowing that if he gave as much information to the police as he could, then his best friend would be home soon.
One of the officers had been taking notes as Thunderhoof was speaking, and the colt had paused to allow the writing officer to keep up.
“Okay, what happened next?”
“Me and Atomic split up to find the ball quicker, and I found it in one of the bedrooms upstairs. Atomic called me into the room he was searching to show me something.”
“What did he want to show you?”
“The carpet was covered with newspapers, and in the middle of the room, there were loads of plastic packages filled with green powder, and some of it was wrapped up in paper on the carpet.”
The two officers looked at each other briefly before resuming their questioning.
“Thunderhoof, did you see anypony in the house?”
“No, but I saw loads of pizza boxes in the kitchen, so I think somepony was in the house recently.”
“Okay, do you know if Atomic was ever involved in any…..gangs?”
“Of course not! We always hang out together, and he would never do something like that!”
The officer making notes finished his last sentence and closed his notebook.
“Um, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know what happened to Atomic? My friends and I found his hat yesterday, and it had blood all over it.”
Both of the officers quickly stood up.
“That's what we’re trying to find out, Thunderhoof.”
The officer took Thunderhoof back to his lesson just as the lunchtime bell rang.
“Thunder, what did they ask you?” Banoffee asked as the two headed downstairs to the canteen.
“They asked about the day we went into that abandoned house, and they asked if I knew whether Atomic was in a gang or not.”
“What?”
“Yeah, crazy right?”
The two colts got their lunch and joined their other friends, who were all waiting for them on one of the large tables next to the exit.
“Did anypony watch the Manehatten teams play?” Maverick asked as the group ate, and only Chestnut put his hoof up.
“There was no way I was gonna miss the Giants beat the Mustangs,” Chestnut said.
“You know, my dad named me after the Mustangs,” Mustang suddenly confessed.
Chestnut looked up. “He did?”
“Yeah, it was after we won the Sugar Bowl ten years ago, he thought it was a good idea to name me after the team.”
Chestnut smiled. “Do you think he regrets it?”
“With how we’ve been playing for the last years? Yeah, probably.”
“Does anypony know how many quarterbacks we have for the team, cause I think there’s gonna be a lot coming tomorrow,” Spade Ace said, and Blaze reminded the group that he played at quarterback.
“Okay, so far it's us two as the quarterbacks, but there’s gonna be more,” Thunderhoof said, and Jackpot shook his head.
“Nah, I reckon most of the ponies that show up are gonna be running backs.”
“Why?”
“Cause running through defenders and showing off how fast you are is gonna be more appealing. Me personally, I prefer taking quarterbacks down.”
Thunderhoof gulped. “I'm glad I never have to play against you.”
When they finished their food, Starburst announced that he had brought his hoofball with him so that they could practise for tomorrow’s tryouts, and the group of friends quickly left the canteen to play on the field.
“Hey look, some of the guys in our class are there,” Spade Ace said, pointing out the group of twenty or so colts sitting at the back of the field.
“Wait, how many of you are in this class?” Starburst asked.
“Um, like twenty five, I think. All I know for sure is that we’re the highest number of ponies to fail the final exams. You should’ve seen how pissed the principal was.”
“Did anypony bring a hoofball?”
Pacific Sail took out his hoofball and tossed it to the pony that had asked for it.
“So, is everypony here coming to the tryouts tomorrow?”
Every pony nodded, and the colts quickly ordered themselves into two teams. Luckily for them, the weather had become colder recently, so they had enough space on the field to play a full match.
“So what position does everypony play?” Thunderhoof asked his team, and he was able to appoint a position to everypony on his team, telling Blaze that they would swap positions every first down to give them both a chance to play quarterback.
The two teams lined up on opposite ends of the pitch, using their saddlebags to mark out the sidelines and end zones. The ball was kicked across the field and Starburst (who was the team’s kick returner due to his speed) was waiting at the other end. He caught the ball and set off to his right, where most of his teammates were already blocking for him. He slipped through a gap created by two blockers and pulled away from his pursuers, eventually being brought down at the makeshift pitch’s halfway mark, for a return of fifty yards.
“Wait, how are we gonna know when we get a first down?” a colt suddenly asked, and the game was paused.
“I’ll get Cobalt here, he can be the referee as well,” Starburst yelled as sprinted off the field.
Whilst they waited for a referee, the two teams sat on the grass together and talked about high school applications.
“I wanna go Lakefield, but my parents want me to go to Grove, that science high school,” Mustang lamented.
“But your cutie mark is a test tube,” Chestnut pointed out.
“Yeah, but Grove doesn’t have a hoofball team, so I’m just gonna be stuck in labs all day. I wanna do science when I’m older, not now.”
“But it’s good to start early, that way you have an advantage over everypony when you go to college,” Thunderhoof said, and the others agreed.
“Guys, guys!”
Starburst came sprinting back into the field with Mr Cobalt in tow, and the colts quickly got up.
“So, you guys couldn’t wait until tomorrow to play?” Mr Cobalt asked with a wry smile and the colts nodded.
“We just wanna show what we can do, make the choice a little easier for you,” Maverick replied with a smirk, and the colts quickly rejoined their teams and formed two separate huddles.
“Alright we’re gonna do a HB counter play, does everypony know what that is?”
Thunderhoof quickly explained the play to the ponies that didn’t know it, and aware that the other team was waiting for them, Thunderhoof quickly broke the huddle.
The two teams lined up into their respective formations and on the second count, the center snapped the ball to Thunderhoof. Stormcaller, who was ready on Thunderhoof’s right, took the handoff and charged through the open hole, gaining twelve yards before he was tackled.
“First down, Thunderhoof’s team.”
The two teams huddled again and this time Blaze took over as quarterback for the team.
“Um, I don’t really know a lot of plays but we can run a long pass to Starburst. I’m gonna throw it to you when you get to the middle of the pitch, so you’re gonna run across. Is that alright with everypony?”
The two teams broke from their huddles and lined up at the scrimmage line. When Blaze received the snap, he quickly dropped back a few steps to avoid the clashing offensive and defensive lines. His eyes flirted over each of his receivers, waiting for Starburst to get away from his defender so that he could throw the pass to him.
As soon as the ball had been snapped, Starburst had immediately set off on his dig route, and his defender was able to keep up with him. Starburst quickly shifted direction after fifteen yards and this confused his defender, giving Blaze a time frame of a few seconds to throw the ball to Starburst before he was covered by a safety.
Maverick and Jackpot, who were the defensive tackles, were pushing past the guards and Blaze quickly sprinted to the right. Both defensive tackles finally burst through and they chased after Blaze. The young quarterback quickly ran to his right, trying his best to keep the ball away from the defenders, and just before he was tackled, Blaze threw a thirty-yard pass to Starburst, who easily caught the ball and gained an extra ten yards before he was tackled.
Mr Cobalt took out his notepad and began making notes as the two teams went into their huddles.
Thunderhoof is definitely smart, he know his plays, he knows what works against defences.
Blaze has a really good foreleg though, his long passes are definitely a threat. His moving passes are really dangerous, I could use a quarterback like that.
The two teams lined on the scrimmage line again and Thunderhoof took the snap, quickly moving back and surveying his surroundings. When he saw that Pacific Sail (playing at tight end) had broken free from his tight end, he pulled his foreleg back, ready to throw.
“OOF!”
Thunderhoof hit the ground hard, his back taking the brunt of the fall. Luckily for him, he had been able to keep the ball gripped in his right foreleg when he was sacked.
“WOO! LET’S GO!”
Maverick was mobbed by his teammates and he soon helped Thunderhoof up and ruffled his mane.
“You alright?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
On a second down and twelve, Thunderhoof decided to give the ball to Stormcaller. When the play began, Stormcaller took the handoff from Thunderhoof and ran towards the scrimmage line, before suddenly moving outside to run through the gap that opened up next to the sideline. He was able to burst through this gap and he stiff-armed a defender, sending him face first into the ground.
“GET HIM!”
The two safeties galloped after Stormcaller, desperate to catch him before he reached the end zone. Stormcaller looked over his shoulder and saw the safeties getting closer and closer to him. He increased his speed and was able to keep a good amount of space between him and the two defenders, galloping into the end zone for a forty-five yard TD run.
Stormcaller threw the ball down emphatically and he was mobbed by his teammates. Mr Cobalt opened his notepad again and made a few brief notes, reminding himself to keep an eye out on Stormcaller.
The two teams switched over on Mr Cobalt’s request, explaining that he was going to disregard everypony’s position in tomorrow’s tryouts and he wanted to see what he could expect from everypony.
Although Moon Dust played as a defensive end, his teammates decided that he should be the quarterback because he had the most stable hooves on the team, and he was inclined to agree. He decided to use the fact that most of his teammates were bigger and stronger than the other team to his advantage, calling a running play with Spade Ace (the fastest pony on his team) as the running back.
As his teammates debated over what type of coverage they should run, Thunderhoof looked over at the other team and watched their huddle quietly, before he came to a sudden realisation.
“They’re probably gonna run the ball with whoever’s at running back, cause none of them can play quarterback, so we can run man coverage.”
The others agreed with him and Thunderhoof designated each of his teammates to an opponent to mark. As the two teams lined up on the scrimmage line for Maverick’s team’s first drive, Mr Cobalt was impressed with how quickly Thunderhoof had taken charge of his team, and he added this to his notepad.
Maverick took the snap and quickly tossed the ball to a running Spade Ace. Spade Ace caught the ball and sprinted forward, aiming to use his speed and power to get through the gap between his two blockers. However, Thunderhoof had made sure that the linebackers were the strongest ponies on the team, and it was the middle linebacker who reached Spade Ace first and brought him down.
When they huddled again, it was the middle linebacker who called the play, deciding to run a cover 2 play to prevent any long passes from being caught. The two teams lined up opposite each other and as the defence had anticipated, the receivers, running back and tight end set off on their routes as Maverick moved back with the ball to wait for an open teammate.
Thunderhoof and Banoffee Pie had been playing as the cornerbacks on defence from their opponents’ first drive, and as he tried to stay close to a sprinting Mustang, Thunderhoof was beginning to regret agreeing to be a cornerback. Maverick saw that Mustang had broken free from his defender first, and he threw a long pass to him. Mustang turned around just as the ball was descending, and he lept high into the air to grab it. When he landed, Thunderhoof had grabbed onto his back and pulled him down to the grass.
The lunchtime bell rang and the colts stopped playing, shaking hooves before getting their belongings.
“So, impressed with what you saw?” Maverick cheekily asked Mr Cobalt.
“No comment, now get to your lessons or you’re gonna be late.”
Thunderhoof went inside with Chestnut since they both had English together, and on the way, he couldn't help but make comparisons between Atomic and Starburst.
Atomic’s faster than Starburst, but he’s not as tall as him, and I think Starburst’s stronger as well, so if he was double-teamed, then he could probably still catch the ball.
When Atomic comes back, they’ll both be the starting receivers, 100%.
“I saw sir making notes on you when you were quarterback, you’re definitely gonna make the team,” Chestnut said, and Thunderhoof shook his head.
“But it's not gonna be the same without Atomic, we were supposed to play together.”
Chestnut opened his mouth to reassure his friend that Atomic would be back, but the fact that Atomic had been missing for two days now without any leads made him close his mouth.
“Shadow Mark, it's time to wake up.”
Atomic opened his eyes and found that most of his vision was being blocked by a pony’s face that was right in front of him.
“AAHH-”
The pony immediately covered Atomic’s mouth and glared at him.
“Now, now, Shadow, if you misbehave you won't get any dinner. You’ve been asleep for a long time and you must be so hungry. You don't wanna miss out on some lovely food, do you?”
Atomic’s stomach suddenly rumbled in agreement, and Atomic slowly got out of bed as the mare stood back. His room’s walls were painted a shade of dull gray and the only other piece of furniture in the room was an empty wardrobe with no doors.
“Where am I?”
“You’re home, Shadow, and here you’ll be safe,” the mare replied with a huge smile on her face, and she led the confused colt out of the bedroom.
As he was taken downstairs, Atomic figured that he must have been taken to a foal’s home, but he was still confused as to why he was still being called Shadow Mark. the sudden itchiness he felt inside his stomach as he went down the last step reminded him of the most pressing issue he was facing.
Why does it feel like those doctors put a bag inside me?
The mare led Atomic through the door on the left of the staircase, where the other twelve inhabitants of the house greeted him. These foals were all sitting at the large, wooden dining table that took up most of the space in the room. Each pony was looking down at their plate, which consisted of a meal of stale-looking spaghetti. Atomic sat down at the last available seat in the middle of the table, opposite a filly who was watching him.
Why is she looking at me like that?
The filly was an earth pony with yellow fur, complementing her light blue hair that was tied up high. Her face looked slightly gaunt and her eyes had sunken in slightly, but this did not stop her from giving Atomic the fiercest glare she could muster.
What the hay is this filly’s problem?
The foals began eating her dinner, and the adults watched over them quietly. One by one, they left the room, telling the foals that there was some business they had to deal with. Atomic put a mouthful of spaghetti in his mouth and forced himself to swallow it down, trying his best to ignore the undercooked spaghetti scraping at his throat. The filly continued glaring at Atomic, and he had had enough.
“Why the hay are you looking at me like that?!”
The filly twirled her fork through the spaghetti, before her glare broke into an arrogant smirk.
“Why don't you sit down and keep eating? You’re not gonna do anything to me anyway!”
Atomic glared at the filly before sitting back down and continuing to eat his food. The filly swallowed her food at the same time as Atomic, before suddenly standing up.
“What are you-”
The filly picked up her half-full plate and flung it at Atomic, watching the plate break into fragments and the spaghetti slide down Atomic’s face.
Enraged, Atomic wiped the spaghetti off his face and threw his own plate back at the filly.
The filly however, saw it coming and ducked out of the way, and she leapt over the table at Atomic.
“WHAT IN EQUESTRIA IS GOING ON HERE?!”
The care workers had charged back into the dining room and struggled to separate the foals, who were rolling around erratically on the carpet. Two mares dragged Atomic up whilst the stallions struggled to calm the out-of-control filly.
“Delilah, we’ve talked about your anger issues. You can't get angry if something you don’t like happens.”
Atomic tried to escape the grip of the mares but their iron-like grip held him in place. Another mare entered the room, holding a large syringe.
“Delilah, you’ve been a very bad filly.”
The stallions holding Delilah moved her hair aside to expose her neck, and the needle was plunged deep into her fur, the syringe’s contents being emptied fully into the filly’s body. Atomic watched the filly lose consciousness, but just before she blacked out, Atomic thought he saw her swipe something from a stallion’s pocket. He turned to look at the other foals, who were still sitting at the table, eating their food quietly.
“And as for you Shadow Mark, go to your room and reflect upon your actions!”
The mares let go of Atomic and he left the dining room, heading upstairs and closing his bedroom door loudly.
Here’s a little smoothie for you to drink. We'll let you out in a bit.
Atomic stared down at the tall glass of smoothie that had arrived in his room nearly half an
hour ago. When he had first been sent to his room, Atomic had immediately realised that he had a chance to escape but to his disappointment, the windows were locked.
Looking back at the glass, Atomic picked it up and finished it quickly, surprised that it had been a lot nicer than he had expected. Moments later, the glass was dropped onto the carpet and Atomic hit the carpet hard.
“Wake up.”
“Wake up.”
“Hey, wake up!”
Atomic slowly opened his eyes as he was shaken again, and he recognised the filly shaking him.
“Hey, what the-”
The filly covered Atomic’s mouth and shook her head frantically, begging him to stay quiet. After a few seconds, she slowly moved her hoof away. She walked over to the switch and turned the light on.
“Why are you here?”
“You’re gonna help me escape.”
“How? The windows are locked!”
The filly grinned and held up the key. “This should help.”