//------------------------------//
// surviving 
// Story: Mapping Manehattan 
// by The Red Parade 
//------------------------------//

Fiddlesticks should not be alive. This much she’s sure of.

Because right now, there are hundreds of deserving, amazing ponies who will never walk the earth again. Mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. Husbands and wives, parents and children. All better ponies than her.

So why is she still alive, when so many others had fallen. Fiddle doesn’t know. But sometimes at night, she’d wake up from nightmares of disappointed faces, ghosts still haunted the corners of her eyes, and every day the guilt and pain threatened to crush her under their weight. 

After all, what good could she possibly do for this ruined, broken world? The thought makes her cringe. Lightning was probably right. She’s just one mare. She can’t change the world, much less save it.

Fiddle takes a deep, ragged breath. She presses the cloth against her chest harder. There’s a long way to go until she gets out of the quarantine zone.

But… then what? Does she just go back to wandering the city and taking notes for a pony who probably isn’t alive anymore? Go back to her meaningless existence? 

She wants to laugh, because earlier it seemed like she was saying these same words to Lightning, telling her how they mattered. She’s a hypocrite, and the irony isn’t lost on her.

Fiddle slumps over and tilts her head up towards the sky, letting the rain wash over her face. She imagines that she’s back home, in the vast and empty desert. But that world’s so far away now that she can’t picture the details anymore.

She tries to think of the farmhouse and the orchard, but all she can picture are burning cars and towering skyscrapers, looming over her like a vulture over prey.

Fiddle decides that this is it. She’s going to die here, because she’s tired of fighting it. And frankly, she thinks this is what she deserves. Because she isn’t a hero, and she’ll never be one.

She gently pulls the shirt away from her, letting the rain wash off the red which stains it. Fiddle tosses it aside in disgust. 

With a great effort, she pulls her saddlebags closer to her body and sticks a hoof inside. She finds some of the painkillers that she traded with Bon Bon eons ago and briefly considers taking them, before deciding that they’ll only delay the inevitable.

She paws through her supplies, wondering where they’ll end up. Probably in the hands of a Ravager, she reasons, or a civilian patrol if she’s lucky.

At the bottom, the green book stares back at her. Fiddle’s dedicated her entire life to that silly little thing. It’s become more than a task. It’s become her life, her legacy. Lightning’s too, now that she thinks about it.

She hopes that someone will find it and make use of it. Fiddle closes her eyes and leans back, letting the rain fall over her.

Suddenly, Fiddle’s ear twitches, and she eases her eyes open. There’s a pony standing over her.