Fallout: Equestria - Murky Number Seven

by FuzzyVeeVee

Forlorn Hope

    “What is it like to desire freedom?”

    Even as I drew my dreams upon the walls of Whiplash's storage cupboard, there was a niggling doubt in the back of my mind asking just that.  That part of me still chained to the ground and held to the whims of Master Red Eye would let doubt trickle into my thoughts, even as I made my decision to try and escape.

    But there was going to be no turning back.  I had beaten away the slave in my mind, I knew what I wanted now.  I was going to escape. I had thought that might make my mind shut up, to let my subconscious finally die off and give me a break from the torturous duality in my thoughts these past two days.  But no, it didn't slink away and cower as I smiled, drew, and wished for a better life at last. It just lurked in my mind, feeding doubt and questions to try and unsettle the new parts of me that wanted out.  But it would not win. I wouldn't let it.

    After all, I had another reason now.  A very basic and utterly driving one. I needed to escape to live.  Before the Pit, I had been perfectly willing to slave away until I eventually keeled over and simply expired.  To be nothing more than a statistic of caps for Red Eye to replace in short order. But I had been shown the value of life, but more importantly, the value of my own life and to what extent it should be fought for.  My sickness clawed at my lungs and blood. Irradiated, mutating, and aggressive, the disease was accelerating at a rate that, had I not taken action in the Slave Market, would have probably killed me in my sleep within hours.  Even as I lay in the dark, surrounded by visions of a happier future, and the drawings of those that mattered, I could feel it in my lungs. Burning, straining, and only growing. My coughing was under control for the moment, but my mouth still had the sharp, metallic taste of blood at the back of my throat.

    Instead of trying to make me stay, the born slave in my mind merely sought to make me question.  Did I really desire freedom as I thought I did? Or did I just want out to continue living out of fear?  The fear that I would die soon? Look, I am not a brave pony. What if I got out and found a world I could not survive? Was my desire for freedom truly wishing for me to become threatened by a world that required decisiveness and strength?  Could I even think for myself after? I mean, I didn't even know how old I was to know how long I had simply been taking orders. Even when I set out to do something for myself, yesterday I was still just following orders much the entire time.

    I just didn't know.  I didn't know how to be free.

    There were other things, though.  I had always known a certain range of permitted boundaries.  Whether it be the walls of an enclosure, the length of the chain that held me, or an assurance that if I moved over a line I would be shot immediately, something had always stood that told me where my world ended.  What would I even do in a world with no limits but my own choice?

    But that world was now calling to me.  I could not deny it any more than I had obeyed the beck and call of every master from here to Shattered Hoof to Manehattan.  I didn't care if it was a desire for freedom or a desire to simply live. That voice in my head would shut up. I would overcome it, I had to!  To escape was to live.

    I won't say I wasn't afraid. I was terrified.  Perhaps that fear was what propelled me to actually take those first steps?  To wish for a better tomorrow where I might live for longer than a few days.

    A few days...

    The same time it took me to realise why I needed to live was what I now had left.

    I couldn’t fail. It was do or die.

    No time to falter.  I had to dare.

    Dare to dream.

    The colossal length of piping crashed down behind me.  Scrambling back to my hooves, I began coughing as the dust and dirt flew up in my face from the shockwave.  My dive to dodge it had only just carried me out of its path, but the weight striking the ground had still shaken me to the core.

    Spluttering and fighting the urge to continue coughing (I would not let it win, not now), I began untangling my harness from the pipe I had pulled free.  Slaves began to move in with auto axes, whirring ready to cut the pipe into smaller chunks for transport to the steel mills. Whiplash had come to fetch me in the early morning, thankfully not noticing my drawings on his wall, to bring me out for the first of my multiple daily shifts.  In this case, helping dismantle a section of roller coaster wrecked by the Stable Dweller's escape. Surrounding me in the cordoned-off section of the FunFarm was a whole bustle of activities. Ponies pulled the roller coaster's struts apart with ropes tied to harnesses, while others clambered over the coaster itself to tear down the metal from all the damaged sections.  Old dust and dirt beneath the coaster was kicked up from so many hooves galloping back and forth, or small craters from the explosives used trying to catch that elusive mare two days ago. It was dangerous work, requiring ponies to pull free huge lengths of the scaffolding after they had been bent out of position, and then pray it didn't land on them. Somehow I had been allotted to that job, despite my weak physicality.

    The irony of being in danger from the aftermath of her escape was not lost on me.

    Like every other role I had gone through in my time in Fillydelphia, it was back breaking, lethal, and exhausting.  Already I had witnessed half a dozen slaves carted off to...someplace for failing to meet quotas.

    More than ever I was taking care, however.  My makeshift vest had nothing near the same reliability as my now sadly lost jerkin for keeping my wings hidden.  Many times I'd had to risk being lashed by pausing to ensure it stayed in place. I guessed I was just lucky that no slaves from the Terminal enclosure had been sent here.  Already rumours had spread. I heard them as I worked.

    “Did you hear?  Red Eye got himself a pegasus slave!”

    “I heard we're getting an execution of a pegasus soldier in a week.”

    “They say some pegasus killed three slaves already, pushed them into a vat of molten metal!”

    Just like every encampment before.  Hearsay and gossip travelled like wildfire among slaves who had little news or input from any source other than rumour and stories from other slaves.

    Even as I picked myself up and trotted to find the next pipe on weary legs, I could hear the buzz word around me.  But let them. I wouldn't be around here much longer to be affected by what they had to say about pegasi. Perhaps they were all evil and killed foals up on their cloud fortresses. I just didn't care.  I had never been a pegasus in any sense of the word. I had more in common with my 'fellow' slaves than I would to any so-called “Pegasus Enclave.”

    Indeed, none of it mattered.  Not even the work. For the first time in years, I didn't mind the dreary toil I was expected to do, for I now knew these were the last shifts I would ever work.  I think I even let a smile creep across my face in the down times between tasks, just imagining everything that was waiting for me. In my wildest dreams, I imagined escaping past the Wall, finding a small settlement, and encountering a lovely doctor.  A kind one who would heal my wounds, cure my disease, and maybe have some directions to Shattered Hoof. There I would find my mother and we'd both escape and go off to live in Tenpony Tower. Somehow. Safe forever. Maybe I'd even meet the Stable Dweller there. The DJ talked of her enough to imply she occasionally visited.  I'd get to say thank you, shake her hoof, maybe even give her a hug. I could offer her a home with me and my mother, good ponies all. And there was so much the two of us could do! Save the slaves in Filly, explore the wastes. We could travel together, get to know one another more, get closer and...

    ...and my imagination was getting a little too carried away.

    I lightly thumped my hoof to my face and shook my head.  Crazy dreams were great and all, but now was the time for planning.  I had less than twenty four hours to sort everything out, find my route, and go for it.

    “Hey!  That damn pipes still attached up there!”

    My reverie broken, I turned my head to look at the slaves behind me.  They were trying to attach the ropes from my harness on to the next scaffolding pipe of the roller coaster's broken track section.  The filthy slaves were using grapple harnesses to pull themselves up to separate the pipe from the track. I was a bit envious. A grapple harness was a bit like a battle saddle, really. I kinda wanted one still.  But none of the ones they had would fit me, so I was left grounded (as always...) while even earth ponies got to fire hooks and tow themselves off the ground.

    Pegasi got to fly. Unicorns powerful enough could self-levitate. Earth Ponies got gadgets.

    ...when would it be my turn?

    But no, no helpful things for a little pony with no unique features at all, bar hearing that made it hard to sleep at nights and a mental conditioning to obey whatever he was told.

    I sighed, lowering my head to stop looking at them as they started sawing into the pipe with mouth-held hacksaws.  At least I'd get a brief break while they took care of it. Immediately, two ideas came to mind. I could look around the roller coaster area for anything handy to escape with, or I could use the time to work in my journal.  The former was perhaps the most practical one, but looking around me at the dusty work area filled with teams of ponies tugging on larger scaffolding, slavers barking orders, and the danger of consistently tumbling scrap from the auto axe wielders up high made me reconsider.  Sure I might find something, but I was still trying to plan my work. Randomly searching would only lead to a beasting from a slaver if I was late back here. No, I'd need to take risks to get supplies soon enough. Don't gamble it all on an area with little worthwhile loot.

    Besides, I was in a quieter section nearer the FunFarm Barn, and I got the pleasure of watching a gigantic pink pony statue being torn apart.  One more face to not always seem to be staring at me. That was worth something, right?

    When I got out of here, I'd never need to see her laughing face ever again.

    I lay down as the slaves behind me got to work setting up to pull the next pipe down.  They wouldn't disturb me. Nopony disturbed me today. Word had gotten around that I was property of The Master now.  Apparently, you did not disturb his prize if you planned on living another day in Fillydelphia. The mere thought gave way to trembling as I pulled the journal from my acquired saddlebag.  Dropping it, I curled up around it as I tried to fight the terror that he gave to my mind. By some distance, the most vile, horrifying...intimidating pony I had ever met. His cutie mark seemed burned into my mind almost as much as the imagery of watching the Stable Dweller rising into the air.  The eternal chain. A symbol of slavery. I feared that he would show up right at the last moment to prevent my escape by destiny itself, observing his right to own me. Born slaver to born slave.

    No. No, I couldn't let the fear overtake me.  He was just a pony. A big scary one, but a pony all the same.  I'd met a stronger pony. I was sure Number Six could have flattened The Master.

    But he wasn't around.

    The fear wouldn't go away.  I could reduce it, but in the few minutes I had met him, The Master had left a mark.  I wondered if ten years down the line, in my dream castle of living in Tenpony Tower, I would still be afraid of him turning up to reclaim me.  The nightmare of waking up in the middle of the night to find his rotten grimace smiling at me as the chains locked home, of him dragging me away with nopony hearing my cries.

    I couldn't even bring myself to open the journal. I was afraid I'd just end up drawing him and being stuck with his image forever. I felt my eyes beginning to water.  I knew I was going to try. Nothing was changing that now, but I was so afraid.

    “Heads up!”

    My eyes sprung open to look upwards before screaming as I saw a shard of scrap falling from above, a panicked-looking mare with an auto axe glancing down in horror.  Slaves scattered, I tried to follow, but my harness was still tied to the roller coaster pipe! I screamed for somepony to help, trying to unfasten it as the massive object hurtled vertically towards me.  I was pretty dexterous with my mouth and hooves. I had to be, really. But the buckle was jamming on rusting parts and frayed cloth.

    A weight crashed into me.  But not from above. From the side.  Pulling me sharply to the side hard enough to cause me to squeal in pain.  I felt my body stretch against the harness, before the deafening sound of the scrap hitting the ground knocked out my senses entirely amidst a miniature storm of dust kicked up by the impact.  A sudden pressure was released as I catapulted backwards away from the scrap, barrelling into somepony else to land in a heap on the floor.

    Gradually, the noise of metal fragments landing and screaming slaves died down, my own voice probably last of all.  I could feel somepony holding on to me before quickly releasing, the pair of us scrambling up.

    “I really hope pulling you out from under things isn't going to become a habit.”

    My heart almost skipped a beat as I whirled, ignoring the bodily pains as I saw...saw...

    A creamy yellow coat...a light orange mane, tinged with red...

    It was her!  The mare from outside Slit's factory two days ago!  She stood up, shivering with adrenaline from the death defying dive she had used to save my life.  I just stood gaping. I had never expected to see her again. I had been too nervous, shy and brutalised last time to really respond to her or show proper gratitude.  I had to make up for that.

    “Y-you...”

    Smooth, Murky.  Smooth.

    She tilted her head, as though confused, but grinned anyway, reaching out to steady me on my hooves with a front leg.  Without a word, she simply led me to the side, encouraging me to lie on my side upon a dust mound. Feeling the adrenaline pass, the shock overcame me enough to half-lie and half-collapse down.  Only now I noticed my harness had been cut by the shard that fell, the razor edge severing me from the pipe as easily as it would have cut me in two.

    “Woah. Careful there,” she whispered, catching my head in her hooves, “Just take it easy, okay?  Geez, you look even worse than when I last saw you. You sure you're all right?”

    No.  I'm dying of an irradiated lung infection and ever-growing rad-poisoning thanks to Fillydelphia.

    “Yeah.” I muttered, rasping a little on the dust thrown up from the impact, “I just...just need to get my breath.  Thank you. I mean, really, thank you. For both times.”

    “Well, I couldn't stand by and just let you get crushed.”

    She sat down beside me, a couple feet away.

    “Seriously, you look terrible.  Those rad-sores. You've not had a very good time, most of those cuts look barely healed.  Say, what's your name? Sorry, I never asked last time.”

    I was about to simply say it, but part of me stopped short of saying my full name.  I really didn't want to explain it to her. I felt too ashamed to mention it.

    “Murky.”

    “Well, Murky,” she said, oddly brightly, “glad to see you again.  It's a rare day in Filly you meet someone who isn't out to abuse you somehow.  Pity we don't seem to share shifts more.”

    I nodded, with a brief smile coming to my face. I liked the thought of us sharing shifts, she actually seemed pleasant. The mare glanced out at the other slaves, most of them being directed to harness up to the shard and drag it away to continue work on the scaffolding around the rollercoaster.  Apparently, the whip-happy guards were too busy and occupied to notice us on the other side of our dust mound. Nearby to us, one of the odd little 'Spritebots' buzzed around. This close to the FunFarm's big barn, they were fairly common. Honestly, I hadn't a clue what they were other than sources of irritating music.  This one was a little different, showing an old, cracked video screen as it glanced at us for a second, before buzzing away silently.

    “That said,” she continued, “I wouldn't wish anyone to be around the FunFarm. This place has some nasty ponies, even by Filly's standards.”

    “I'm from the FunFarm,” I said quickly, coughing for a few seconds, “I'm held up in the petting zoo near the entrance. Whiplash's stock.”

    “Oh no, no, Murky.  Don't say that.”

    “Say what?”

    “Stock.  You aren't just some stock.  You're a pony. A thinking being.  You aren't just some number.”

    If only. I even knew which number I was.

    “But you're from the petting zoo?  I'm from the Bumper-Plow pit. Huh, if only we'd known we were so close, y'know?  I could have done with somepony to talk to...”

    What!?  This entire time, she'd been less than two hundred metres away?  Hearing her say that, and talking to me as a person, not just a slave.  I wasn't entirely sure what to respond with. Social interaction wasn't really a skill of mine, I was conditioned to be led.

    “Huh, I...I hadn’t realised.” I glanced over toward the Bumper-Plow pit itself, thinking about what she’d said. I began to feel awkward with my quiet responses, and push myself to say more. “I’d have liked that…sorry, I tend to hide and draw so I guess I never saw you. I wish I had.”

    The mare relaxed, smiling gently at my response. Briefly, I felt a surge of achievement. It wasn’t often at all that ponies I spoke to seemed happy to listen to me.

    “Me too, Murky. So, drawn anything else lately?  I have to admit, I couldn't stop thinking about that.  I even tried my own, y'know? But I'm no artist. Can I see again, please?”

    That I could do. Hoofing over my journal, I realised it was still clutched under one hoof from the escape.  Taking it with her magic, the mare began looking through more of it again. I blushed as I saw her grin going past...well, those pictures, again.  She looked at ones of Number Six, whistling at the sheer size of him beside a to-scale version of myself.  I sat in silence, trying to calm my rampant hoarse coughing every few seconds. Something about somepony else looking at my drawings just helped them feel...justified.  Is this what ponies who draw are supposed to do? Show others?

    “Wait.”

    She pointed a hoof down as she looked at one of my more recent drawings.

    “This is you, right?”

    I nodded, slowly.

    “Why do you have wings in this?”

    My heart skipped a beat.  Gasping, I glanced from side to side fearfully, no other slaves were paying us any heed.  The slavers were still sorting them out.

    “I...I...”

    I didn't need to speak.

    “Shh.” she whispered, her eyes trained on my vest, “I think I get it.  Not a word more, okay?”

    I couldn't believe it. That was it?  A pony who didn't care what I was? Did she just see the pony in front of her?  The poor slave? No bias? No bigotry? I knew I should have felt happy or liberated, but frankly, the concept was so alien that I couldn't even bring up the courage to speak about it.  But as she continued to turn pages and came to my ones of the Stable Dweller, I couldn't keep quiet. I was so proud of them, so happy to know I could draw for myself.

    “Th-that one's the Stable Dweller.”

    “The who?  Oh, that mare from the Pit?  Oh, wasn't she incredible, Murk?  Wow, it's really nice to see her again in this.”

    “She— I mean, yes, she is something.  I wouldn't be alive without her.”

    “Why is that?” She looked up, suddenly serious.

    “I...I was number five.”

    The mare just seemed to take a breath, before moving forward quickly.  I recoiled, startled. Could you blame me? Everypony who moved toward me yesterday had wanted to hurt me.  Sensing she had scared me, the mare sat back, waving a hoof.

    “Sorry, I just...I mean, I...” she seemed to search for words, flicking her long mane behind an ear with a hoof, “it's...it’s horrible to be sent there.  I'm glad you got out.”

    “Me too.”

    She paused, looking up into the sky, before speaking quickly.

    “Think she'll come back for the rest of us?”

    I blinked, caught off guard. “Huh?”

    “The Stable Dweller.”

    I really had to stop and think. That thought had never really crossed my mind. If she was out there, then I suppose I’d always thought I was just left here, that I’d have to do it myself.

“I-I don't know.  I can't wait for her anyway.”

    My mind only caught up after I’d said it. I'd let my plans slip. I mentally bucked myself hard in the head. I couldn't afford to mess up like this.  But, it was her. How could I lie? Gulping, I admitted it.

    “I'm going to try and escape, like her.  I need to.”

    She was silent.  Her eyes stared as though trying to discern if I was serious.

    “I wish I could too.”

    My head sprang upwards, eyes wide.  She wanted out too? I wasn't alone!?

    “I need out of here.  I can't live forever in some slave pit. Hell, I can't live a year in here.  I'm sure you feel the same, Murk. But I just don't know how.”

    My heart felt aflame. A kindred spirit to escape.  I dragged myself up, looking around.

    “Come with me.”

    What was I saying?

    “We can go together. Two ponies are better than one, right?  I'm going tonight, I have a plan and everything. Kinda.”

    I barely knew her, but she was nice!  She was being nice to me and a friendly face could be useful out there.

    “No. I'm sorry, Murky.  I can't.”

    My rising hope fell like the scrap from the roller coaster. I felt my legs buckle under me.

    “Oh.”

    “Sorry, Murky.  But, please, it's not you.  I...I have to wait for someone.  Someone I...”

    She paused.

    “Someone I care about. Someone I love. We were brought in around about the same time and, well, just found comfort in one another. Such a strong spirit. He always wanted to plan to escape, you know?  I think you'd like him. But he...he was in the Pit, the same one as you. I convinced my slave master to allow let us be together again after the Pit. I did a job for my master, stole something from Wicked Slit's factory the day I met you.  But he hasn't come back yet. I didn't see him in the Pit, so I can only guess it's all been held up by the confusion after the Stable Dweller and the riots. So, I'm sorry, Murky. But I need to wait for him. We promised one another we'd escape.  Together, or not at all.”

    She was crying.  Not much, but I could see the sparkles around the edges of her eyes.  I felt the urge to do something, but I didn't know quite what. As though I just didn't understand how to react or help her.

    “I won't abandon him, Murky.  Even if it means having to turn down your offer. If you could wait for us...”

    “I can't,” I interjected softly, struggling to not cry myself at her tragic tale of two lovers separated by slavery, “it, well, it needs to be tonight for me.  The Master...”

    Something about the way I said those words led her to know exactly who I meant.  Fear crossed her eyes before she nodded slowly, wiping tears with a muddy hoof.

    “I understand.  Then good luck, Murky.  Don't tell me your plan, keep it secret.  And if you do get out, draw a little picture of me, will you?  We often will meet people only briefly. Know so little about them and never know the truth. Fleeting glimpses and random luck to bring two ponies together, never to meet again.  Some things are never explained, like why I saw you dragged under those ponies and knew it would be good to rescue you. Perhaps good attracts good. Just remember the mare you met, to show that even in the darkest of places, ponies can be nice to one another, okay?  That is all we need take away to know that Equestria isn't dead yet...”

    I presumed she had missed that I had already drawn her. Multiple times, or was that on the parchment?  I couldn't remember. My eyes were wet. Her words were just beautiful. The idea that you might any time meet wonderful people even if only for a few moments of bliss and relief from pain.  Her eyes were dripping tears still, leading the mare to wipe them again and go back to looking at the images, smiling sadly as she saw pictures of ponies, myself, and the mares I had once drawn in rather...interesting ways.

    “I'll do that,” I whispered, completely failing to keep my own tears away, “I'll remember you.”

    To my surprise, she gasped, as though stifling a sudden sob.

    “Thank you, Murky, we’ve got to...to remember those we care about. Even if we can’t remember what they-”

    “Hey, you two slackers!”

    The foul voice rang out, making both of us jump in shock.  I turned and looked over at the workplace, seeing a thin but muscular earth pony mare stomping over.

    “Slaves don't get breaks!  Get back to work!”

    The mare hopped up,

    “He's hurt, Nightfall. I was just—”

    “SHUT UP!  Back to work!”

    “Please!  He—”

    The mare recoiled as the whip lashed across her side, yelping.

    “I said! Back! To! Work!”

    Two other slaver cronies galloped forward as the mare fell back, aiming to drag her forward.  I don't know what drove me. I knew I should have snuck off and gotten back to work. But before I even knew what I was doing, I felt myself charging forward in front of her, taking the third lash to my own brow to protect her.  The two thugs backed off in surprise.

    “Leave her alone!”

    I could see the stunned look on the slaver's faces, probably not as much as mine as I realised where I was standing and what I'd just done.  The pain from my head stung badly.

    “Get out the way, Murk.  The Master has plans for you. I wouldn't want to affect his “prize.”

    “I...”

    I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know why I'd run forward.  The slavers grabbed me with their magic. I felt the telekinesis working together to yank me away from the mare, my legs pulling from under me as they began roughly yanking me to the dirt, dragging me toward another work area to separate us.  I struggled, kicking and writhing, my hoof trying to land any sort of blow.

    “Don't fight them, Murk!”

    I glanced up, seeing her standing there, crying as she waved a hoof softly before turning away.
   
    “Don't fight them, please. I'll be fine.  You go do what you need to.”

    Noting my lack of resistance, I was pulled at a frightening speed away, feeling the ground rub against me enough to sting as I fought to hold my vest around me.  I tried to find my voice, to fight the dryness of my throat. I hadn't even...I needed to...

    “What's your name!?” I screamed, as loud as I could.

    But over the screaming auto axes and crashes of falling scrap, I couldn't hear if she replied, even with my hearing.  The last I saw her, she was being shoved towards her workplace again. The slavery would not end even for one so nice. I cried openly as the dust swirled around us again, making me choke up.

    I would remember.

    I hadn't been left in a good mood.

    The slaves had dragged me back to Whiplash's enclosure in the petting zoo.  He was not happy to see me being rejected from a workplace for causing trouble, but the normal punishment and reallocation was held off.  I could only guess being at threat from The Master had its short-term advantages for my workload. However, Whiplash was not deterred, as though seeking to regain some face, he arranged for me an additional two shifts.

    No matter.  I would take whatever they threw at me now.  They were too late. Meeting the mare should have made me sad.  Any other day, I might have curled up and cried my little heart out until I fell into a restless sleep.  I might have let the weight of sadness crush me.

    But not today.  I couldn't cry. Okay, maybe I had at the moment, but after being thrown in the petting zoo again, I had felt something change within me; a determination I hadn't felt before speaking to her again.  Yes, her separation for a second time saddened me, but for her I would dry my tears and continue on.

    I crept across the petting zoo.  The gang probably wouldn't cause a problem any more since their encounter with The Master.  I could see Noose and Lemon resting nearby, waiting for the food run for the day. The pair had been put on a night shift among the factories, apparently.  I didn't pay them heed, instead watching Whiplash resting just outside his office, the old petting zoo staff room. He wasn't asleep. I didn't think he ever slept, but he was certainly less watchful right now.  I used the opportunity to creep around the back of the petting zoo stables and find a more secluded spot.

    Nestled between the low scrap wall and the burned out stable, I gently pulled my belongings from the saddlebag.  My journal, parchment drawing, old quill, and of course, the PipBuck. Since hearing Sundial's message, it had taken on a meaning to me.  This was no lucky piece of scrap. It belonged to somepony, a pony who had died wearing it when the world ended hundreds of years ago.  I couldn't help but feel that it was better in my hooves than somepony who might abuse or harm it.  Besides, I couldn't help but feel a certain curiosity to find other messages. I had spent some of last night, while sleepless, toying with the controls to try and find more messages, but all I'd ended up doing was tuning into the “Ministry of Morale Perk Up Twenty Four Hour Party Line.”

    “You gotta share!  You gotta care!”

    Sorry, Sundial.  But if I hadn't figured out how to turn that off, I might have just smashed your PipBuck in an effort to preserve my sanity.  Hearing her voice coming from the speakers inside the pink pony's statue's mouths was enough, but to have it on my PipBuck now?  Not a chance.

    I thought I had an idea on how to activate another message. I'd made the first one play again, but time was short.  I had more pressing concerns right now than listening to another diary entry. No, I had another message to listen to.  I'd heard the announcement yesterday. The DJ was going to hand out survival tips for a large chunk of today. I'd need everything I could if I were to survive outside.

    Switching to his station through memory, I turned the dial until I heard the cute voice of Sweetie Belle.  It hadn't started yet.

    I sat it to the side, dialling the volume down to the level of only my hearing before drawing my journal across.  Before opening, I had a thought. The mare had looked at my drawings from about when I had started drawing for myself today.  Two days before she had looked at ones from when I had been drawing from my subconscious. She hadn't looked at my own drawings from longer back, from when I first got my journal.

    It was for the best.  Before the day of the Pit, I did not want to look at my own sketches.  I still remembered drawing my own death. I still remembered a few that I'd done just prior to that, since I'd been sent to the FunFarm.  A few of the slavers, some other slaves, myself, and not much else.

    But anything before perhaps a month ago, I didn't even remember.

    It wasn't a small amount either.  I'd been drawing my entire life, but the more I had drawn, the more it began to blur together and just become something I did to let out the pain or seek solace in.  Thus, before me sat a journal in which I didn't even know the contents of more than half of it. Pages filled with mystery, drawings I hadn't remembered doing.

    Some days I felt tempted to look at them.  But not any more. That part of my life was done.  Perhaps one day, when I had escaped, I might look back when I felt safe.  But not now. What resided in the earlier pages of my journal would remain a mystery to the blurry past when I didn't care to remember or really think about anything.  I just worked, suffered, and drew pictures of whatever was causing me grief. The here and now was too important to risk the emotional turmoil if I found a picture of an anvil and hammer, or of my mother being dragged away.

    “Come on, Murky, keep it together...”

    I muttered if only to remind myself of my place right now, concentrating on the pages leading further ahead in my journal.  Occasionally, I stopped to glance at a recent one. I even took a minute to sit and stare at a picture of a mare I'd done just after arriving in Fillydelphia.  A gorgeous mare with a flowing mane and a long, bushy tail lying on her side with the angle of posing tailored toward...

    Coughing, checking over my shoulder, I thought it best I moved on. Now wasn't the best time to admire my perception of beauty in mares.

    Picking an empty page, I sat quietly, my mouth tracing shapes without any real idea.  Part of me wanted to draw the mare (No, not like that) but somehow, I felt that I shouldn't.  She had asked me to do so once I had escaped.

    Escape...

    I knelt down, instead drawing several thick lines in an arc across the page.  Smaller wisps of charcoal began curving around the middle. I had no procedure, no patterns to always follow. I simply drew what I felt like and let the eventual picture come to be.  Others may have mixed opinions, but to me they were simply my own little rebellion against the chains on my life. Quality wasn't so important as the process of just drawing.

    The thick lines became a structure...

    The curves became somepony...

    With every shape I drew, I could feel the theme emerging, more and more.

    The structure became long and strong. A Wall.

    The pony became a pegasus, above the Wall.

    Delving deep down into my wishes, the things I wanted for myself.

    The Wall had slavers on it, light wisps of charcoal showing gunshots missing the pony.

    The pegasus was flying free, heading for the open wasteland.

    I sat back, smiling.  It no longer shocked me or gave massive rises of emotion.  I could draw for myself any time I wanted now. I would fulfill my—

    A wheezing cough hurtled through my system, causing me to collapse to the side, eyes screwed shut.  My stomach ached. The lack of sustenance hadn't been helping. I'd grabbed a quick drink from a rain barrel meant to gather water for primitive purification near the roller coaster just to stay alive, away from dehydration.  But I could still feel the brutal effects of no real food for...oh Goddesses, how long was it now?  I couldn't remember.

    Ok, I'd fulfill my promise to the mare.  My picture proved my will to escape for my own life.  My cough only reinforced it. To stay was to die.

    Briefly, I tried not to think that I'd been prepared to throw that life away to end the pain.

    “Hello out there, wasteland!”

    My mind snapped back on track, that hated subject falling immediately as The DJ came on the airwaves through the PipBuck.  This was it.

    “Now I bet many of you are wondering, 'Hey Pon-Three!’ Or, ‘hey Pon-E,’ I kinda get both from time to time, you all say what you want, I know I switch it up sometimes, but anyway. I get you folks asking, ‘Why are you callin' out all these basics to everypony in the wastes?  We all know this stuff!' Well, my little veterans out there, sure you might, but recently I've been thinking. Since about, what, a month and a bit ago, we've had a big rise in ponies going out into the wastes themselves. I swear, it's like every settlement and Stable from Filly to the Hoof is waking up and finding its own little hero to go out there to save Equestria in one way or another.  Not all of these ponies are getting on too well, so I figured, why not revise some of the stuff I've been teaching you all these years? Besides, judgin' by the news, I figure some of you 'vets' could use a tip or two remembered. Remember children, the wasteland is the real enemy and it doesn't like pride or ego.”

    I had a new page in my journal out. It stung to lose my imagery of escape so suddenly, but this was important.

    I couldn't read or write.  I couldn't write a plan.

    I was going to draw it.  Little images to remind myself, step by step of what I would need.  Of my routes and timings. Of any handy little tip I could remember from the education to come.  I would be a good little student and listen closely.

    “So, without messing you folks around any further, allow me to cut to the chase, wastelanders.  Here's survival one-oh-one for the Equestrian Wasteland.”

    So it began.  I prepared myself, this was to marathon itself all day. I'd have to listen on and between shifts, collect everything I needed, and be ready.

    ...here we go.

    “Now, for all those of you who want to fight the good fight, all power to ya, if only more would do that.  But first things first, know that the world may be dangerous and a Hellhound would tear you in half. There is something much more basic.  Food. That's right, children, you gotta eat and drink! Store all you can, you cannot rely on the wasteland to provide for you. Last thing any would-be hero wants is to die of hunger.  While we're on it, make sure you got everything tied safely to your body where you can reach it quickly. Nothin' worse than finding you lost your water can half a mile back in the wastes to a faulty knot, right?”

    I drew lines...

    The gang was arguing.  Or rather, Noose and Lemon were arguing.  I didn't know if they really counted as a “gang” any more.  One way or another, their bickering distracted them from their food.  I'd thought about it, and simply could not bring myself to take the food from anypony other than them.  While I was sure the other ponies would not hesitate to beat me just as bad if they knew my winged secret, this gang I had a particular loathing for.

    “So what, Noose?  You want us to just cower away because some fat pony killed Nails?”

    “That 'fat' pony would tear you in two for smelling the wrong way, Lemon! Know when you're beat!  We lie low.”

    I was using the wreckage of the old pigsty to creep around behind them.  They'd taken to storing the bowls of oatmeal inside it to prevent them from falling away in the wind.  Most slaves devoured the oatmeal immediately. Hell, my half portion (thanks, Whiplash) was long gone to sate my days long hunger.

    Wow, it really said something about slave life that such a meagre amount was enough to almost make me feel full.

    I could only presume they had left the food to, as some slaves claimed, 'settle.' To be less 'fresh' and become a thicker and more substantial-feeling meal instead of the watery goo that we were normally given.  I hadn't ever tried it on the few occasions I'd ever been given a meal, but for the sake of supplies, I was willing to try.

    “Yeah, when?  Both of us are sick, we're being put on the foundries soon, and that bastard is back again to shove us around at the workplace.”

    I leaned forward, my mouth closing around the first wooden bowl, gently pushing a small tin can forward. Please don't make noise, please don't make noise...

    “Can't even take out my frustration on the runt either. If he hadn't bucked me in the danglies I might have felt so— ah hell, what am I saying, bastard pegasus can get whipped to death by The Master for all I care.”

    I tried to not let my imagination take over as I felt my entire body shiver in fear, not just from being nearby to the mare who had almost beaten me to death yesterday, but the sensation of even remembering him.  The oatmeal slopped and gurgled in a way that food really shouldn't into the tin can.  Taking a second to catch my breath and calm my nerves, I reached for the second, trying not to let the realist side of my mind catch up to what I was doing.

    “Just shut up, Lemon.  Go eat your oatmeal, you stupid buck.”

    “Are you crazy?  I'm not touching that stuff till I know it'll stay down this time.  Shit tastes even worse coming up!”

    Okay. Ew. All the same, I remained thankful for their continued distraction of conversation to not turn around as I poured the second bowl into the tins.  Ducking back, I began wrapping them tightly in a wad of cloth with some mouth and hoof work to keep as much of it inside as I could. It wasn't much, but it was all I'd reasonably get that wasn't already being eaten or liable to poison me.  It'd have to last till I could scavenge something outside the walls.

    I began sneaking away, scooting as quickly as I dared along the wall, hiding behind other slaves as best I could.  Most were sleeping, any that did see me wouldn't say a word. Nopony particularly liked the gang. As I began to re-approach my hiding place, an unusual sound made me dive for cover.

    A sound like a screeching saw through rotten wood had startled me.  Poking my head out from behind the old pig trough, I glanced in the direction of the horrid noise before sighing in relief.

    Whiplash had finally fallen asleep, head lolling sideways on the fence from his resting point to drool over the metal.  The noise matched his breathing. He was snoring loudly and proudly. I could hardly suppress a small giggle at the sight of such a fearful pony in my life completely left without any poise.  If The Master had done one good thing, it was make Whiplash seem not so bad any more.

    I was about to turn and go back to my hidey hole. The DJ was going to continue with which towns to avoid soon after Sapphire Shores was done singing.  But something clicked in my mind.

    “...make sure you got everything tied safely to your body...”

    I had no real rope or twine, but a long piece of leather might work.

    Every part of my mind that remained sane was telling me this was a bad idea.  All the same, I felt my hooves carry me as stealthily as I could towards Whiplash and his little office.

    I had just stolen food from the gang.  What in the Goddesses' great eyes was I doing thinking about stealing from a slave master?  I moved one step per snore, fearfully struggling to keep my breathing as regular as I could.  I found it was matching Whiplash's snoring patterns out of sheer habit.

    Ten feet.

    Whiplash snorted, shifting.  I froze on the spot. After a second, he rested.  I let my hooves carry me forward. Three slaves were watching me, rolling their eyes at this stupid runt about to get himself killed.  The gang was around the corner of the building, oh so thankfully. I could still hear them arguing about who else they should pick on after I got lifted.

    Five feet.

    The door was right there.  Inside I could see a short bed stuffed into the corner, surrounded by old bottles of alcoholic drink.  Whiplash had often taken to sneaking shots whenever he thought a griffon hadn't been looking. Stern, the fanatical leader of the griffons, was legendary for coming down hard on slavers who drank on the job, but the allure of taste I guessed was too much for many.  A schedule was drawn on the wall in Lash's crude handwriting, or at least I guessed it was. Either that or he was into abstract art beyond what I could fathom.

    Sitting near the door in the tiny room (how did he even fit?), there were four whips of varying sizes.  He even numbered them. The number one whip he always carried, whips two through four were of ever changing sizes.  I immediately regretted the fact that I could probably recognise them specifically by the feeling of being whipped after only a month in Filly.

    I went for the number three whip, the thinnest and made of strong brahmin leather.  It was the one that left the stinging lines longer than the others, often allowing a slight breakage of the skin and making a sound akin to a gunshot with.

    Stopping on the spot, I shook my head fiercely. It occurred to me that my perception of life was really messed up.

    I realised that I'd have some real explaining to do to anypony outside the Wall why I knew so much about whips and chains to avoid them getting weird ideas about my tastes in life.

    The whip was hard, very hard, but flexible and if pulled tight, incredibly durable.  Perfect for the idea I had in mind. I quickly stuck my head in the door and plucked it up into my mouth.

    Whiplash stopped snoring.

    I collapsed backwards, trying to run around the hut, but his eyes opened long before I got the command to my frozen joints from the fear.

    “..mm...hmm?  Murky Number Seven?”

    It took him a second to see.  His eyes lowered in fury as he snarled and twisted to look at me, the number one whip levitating up.

    “You have precisely three seconds to explain why Betsy is in your mouth, Murk.”

    I gulped, too scared to even drop the whip.

    “Because...because—”

    “One, two, and three.”

    His whip cracked around my hooves, leading me to stumble backwards, dropping the leather.

    “Wicked Slit wanted it!”

    I shouted it at the top of my lungs. Not very much, given all illnesses considered.

    “She wanted to borrow one to do her shift!  She wants to, um, broaden her horizons!”

    Whiplash didn't look very convinced, but his eyes were still full of sleep, to the point where he waved a hoof.

    “Whatever, but if it isn't back by tonight, I'm holding you responsible, Shackles be damned.  Least it'll maybe stop Slit bitching about slave efficiencies again to me.”

    He turned, aiming to go back to sleep as I made to run. I could rest up somewhere else before moving on to my shift anyway.  But as I turned, breathing a sigh of relief, I heard Whiplash speak up.

    “Oh, and Murk?”

    I didn't even dare look around.  I wish I had, for the next thing I knew a burning line of pain whipped its way across my flanks and rump, leaving me to squeal loudly and hop away rather pathetically to fall on my side, rubbing a hoof on one flank.  The lash had went right across my cutie mark.

    “That's for waking me up.  Now bugger off to your shift.”

    I said I wouldn't cry, but I couldn't avoid tears of pain from that blow as I felt it throb and sting.  I could hear the other slaves laughing at my lashing across the backside.

    How I wasn't going to miss this after tonight.

    “Now I can't say I enjoy this bit of advice any more than you will...well, some of you anyways.  See, as much as the good ol' Equestrian spirit should run free and solve everything through just talking out your problems, there's a whole lot out there that begs to differ.  Gangs, ghouls and if you're real unlucky, raiders. Hell, there's even worse on top of that. So as much as it pains me to say this, children, if you're going to go out into the wastes, make sure you go out there packing.  Get some weapons and armour, whatever you can. Better to live, folks. Better to live.”

    Lines became curves...

    The cart's harness was already giving me a nasty burn on my back where I bore the brunt of the weight when I pulled.  Wicked Slit had set me right to my oh-so-favourite activity in her factory: cart delivery. Weighing what felt like half a ton per cart, the exhaustion factor didn't so much creep in as slam home.  Five deliveries throughout the day, one to each of the ammo mills in Fillydelphia carrying various types of metal for even more varied types of rounds manufactured to feed Red Eye's army. Copper to the Ironshod Foundry.  Steel to the Saddlesore Manufacturing Facility. The others I didn't even know the names of. I just put down my head and got on with pulling weights far too large for my somewhat, less than stellar levels of strength.

    It still didn't matter.  These were the last five carts ever to be pulled by Murky Number Seven. I'd see to that.

    Plus, I had a little plan.  Wicked Slit believed me broken in and too cowardly to try anything.  It was why she sometimes left me unsupervised or without a handler to better serve her “efficiency ratios” elsewhere.  As such, I'd been able to dump my saddlebag at the side of the factory by the road and use it as a dead drop location. Each trip I made I had stopped my cart, slipped free of my harness (the builders clearly didn't factor in ponies of my size when they designed it), and shoved a slab of flat metal into it.  Five trips, five sheets of differing types of metal. I knew nothing of the composition of metal, so I hoped they would each do the job.

    I tugged the empty cart into Slit's factory, limp-hoofed and gasping for air in the sweltering air of machinery and industry.  The drop-off zone was heavily guarded by slavers who directed me into a port to store the cart for some poor pony on the next shift.  It had become almost a tradition, actually, for them to take bets on how long it took me to back a heavy cart into a bay with my pathetic levels of strength.  The current longest time, I believed, was six minutes after a day I'd been overloaded. My record was two minutes.

    Rather embarrassing, really, but that was all I could do after a full shift of pulling those damn carts and having jelly legs and most of my back muscles feeling stretched out by the end of it.

    I heard, rather than saw, the guards bickering over amounts.  It was never much, none of them liked betting more than a few caps or a couple cigarettes on me.  Sighing, I once again played their game. In theory I would just dump the cart, but I had to judge every time which slaver was most likely to beat me up for not having him win, then try and aim for their timing.  They hadn't yet worked out that I could hear their whispering rather clearly. I let my ears do the thinking, hearing a couple bet high, citing my time in the Pit and sickness to slow me down. A third voice, a buck, commented on his bet he'd made in advance, as well as the annoyance levels if I didn't do it in under three minutes.

    Well, crap.

    I tried my best, I really did.  But my aching muscles, barely healed injuries, and low energy levels just wouldn't make the cart move at all.  With a slip and a surprised shout, I fell to the floor while straining to push the cart on its rusty wheels.

    “Oh for the love of— get a move on, you whelp!”

    “Thirty seconds or you're getting it, Murk!  I got a full pack on you!”

    “Get it in less than thirty seconds and I'll get you for it!”

    My muscles just wouldn't give. I couldn't risk forcing them further, I had to retain enough energy for tonight, what little I'd have left.  I sighed, falling over and tilting my head against the cart. Some days you just couldn't win.

    “Oh are you kidding me?  He's giving up! C'mere!”

    I looked up, breathing deeply and simply hoping to myself that the beating wouldn't be too bad.

    “Hey!  What did I tell you bastards about interrupting slaves?”

    The trio stopped dead in their tracks, two of them even made to leave immediately.  The third who had advanced on me turned, immediately sweating. Wicked Slit was stomping her way towards us all across the delivery room floor out of the manufacturing areas.  She had old pegasus flight goggles on to protect her eyes from foundry sparks, her knife floating obediently beside her. I felt envious of her stamina to keep magic up like that all day.

    “You beat them, they work less!  Beat them when they aren't in work hours.  You think I can afford you to lose me ten minutes of labour every damn time you feel like smacking something?  Go hit up a slave in their pen after your shift is done!”

    Of course. Even slavers had shifts, albeit shorter and less laborious than the slaves.  I couldn't imagine Slit would be any happier about losing her slavers than her slaves from their workplace.

    “Yes, Ma'am!”

    “Right away, Ma'am!  Sorry, Ma'am!”

    They scurried away, leaving me to get back on my hooves and with great effort, shove the creaking cart back into the bay.  An eighteen inch curved knife on a sadistic slaver mistress has that sort of incentive effect on even weak ponies like me. I collapsed against it, breathing hard as I felt the five or six miles of pulling take a toll on my stamina.  My front right hoof was aching, a dull pulsating pain making itself known every couple of seconds while every muscle in my torso hurt to move. It was a familiar pain, I had endured it after every shift under Slit for the past month. I tried to take a few breaths, get to my hooves, but my lungs reminded me they were yet uncared for by medicine, causing me to hack and cough for a good few seconds, even as I heard the rough tread of Slit nearing me.  Clearly the medical potions from yesterday were beginning to lose the temporary relief they had granted me. Judging by the pain in my throat and the swimming of my vision, I figured I had till tomorrow morning before the sickness kicked in again.

    “Guess it's up to me to unharness you, stupid morons.”

    Slit was muttering to herself as she reached out with her magic, unlatching the harness from my body.  Clearly she hadn't clocked that I could simply slip out myself. Dragging my tired body across the floor with slow, deliberate, and laboured movements, I collapsed just beside her.  I couldn't help it. The tiredness went to my brain, a night lacking any sleep and only a small portion of foul oatmeal to power me just drained my energy reserves completely. With a snort, Slit roughly knocked me with her front hoof a few times.

    “Get up, Murk.  You've still got four minutes of shift time left.  Make yourself useful and carry that bag of scrap into the factory before you go, I'll show you where.”

    “Urggghh...” was my well thought out and dictated reply.

    “Shut up, get up, and hurry up!”

    Her half-buck gave me enough reason to find some strength deep down to dodge the flying hoof and clamber to my own four legs to nod quickly.  My eyes were hazy, I just wanted to lie down somewhere and sleep. Maybe a massage to my aching muscles. Would a bit of food go amiss? Proper food?

    With a sigh, I stretched out and trotted over to the sack Slit was motioning to with her knife.  Biting the neck of the bag, I didn't even bother throwing it over my back but rather just began dragging it.  Rolling her eyes, Slit merely turned and cantered into the factory.

    “Celestia help me from hopeless slaves,” she muttered, “or banish them all to the fucking moon where they can't bother me anymore.”

    I had to bite my tongue. The urge to quip something off at her as a last action before I never saw her again was so strong.  Thankfully, I allowed the slave in my mind to take control for a few seconds to remain alive.

    I followed her, dragging the sack a foot at a time, the heavy leather tasting disgusting in my mouth from old dust and grime across it.  Pull. Step back a few feet. Pull. Step back.

    Inside the factory, the heat hit me like running into a wall.  The massive metal vats radiated warmth so strongly that mere proximity was enough to dull the senses and make a prickle on my skin. Metal shards stuck out of the bag where they had pierced the lining, their scraping sound not helping on top of the mass of noise within the factory.  My ears ached, almost missing Slit's sudden command to stop before walking right into her rump. With a sigh of relief, I dumped the sack where her knife tapped the ground before kneeling down again. One of the shards fell out. While Slit was still glancing at the industrial presses to observe the slaves, I quickly shoved one down my vest. I had an idea for it, courtesy of a radio-born inspiration.

    “Shift's over, Murk.  Get out of here. I hear Whiplash has some more work for you over at the threshing mills.  They need a small pony over there. Go straight there.”

    “But...”

    “No buts, Murk,” she spat, “So get yours over to the damned mill before I ensure you can't sit down again for a long time!”

    She removed her goggles, sitting them on the bottom of the stairs that led to her office so she could pull my face up to her eyes.

    “I don't think I need to explain to you how much I do not like you, Murk.”

    The knife gently seemed to caress my forehead, the tip dragging my lanky mane from my eyes for her to see clearly.

    “So I'm going to tell you this,” she continued, her voice so low I began to worry she knew about my hearing, “I don't want you back.  I know that Chainlink Shackles is coming for you. 'The Master' will not be so forgiving as I have been. He isn't like me, Murk. He won't threaten you.  He won't scare you with imagination or promise implausible things.”

    She had my attention, not from the knife that rested between my eyes from above, nor the hard hoof holding my chin up to her face.  It was her tone. She spoke almost with reverence, as though she wished she never had to meet him. The Master even made her terrified with his reputation among the slavers.  My eyes were wide.

    “He breaks slaves, Murk.  As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad you're going there.  Perhaps you'll learn something about why you should have tried harder in life. My little slave. So woefully pathetic.  You never tried, Murk.  You think I can't see your destiny?  Look at that tiny flank of yours, a set of shackles?  I sometimes wish I could just close them around your hooves and leave you out to die because you are so fucking useless to me.  Born into slavery and you still can't hack it.”

    Her hoof roughly shoved me away.  I fell on my side, shivering as I pulled my hooves in.

    “Get out of here. The Pit was too good for you.”

    I shakily got up, nodding my head.  No...she was wrong. I wasn't going to go to The Master.  I was going to escape. I stared at Slit, looking her right in the eyes.  I wanted to tell her, so she would know by tomorrow that she was wrong. If Slit saw my defiance she didn't make a sign, instead turning to scream at some slaves for stopping as they fought for breath from the heat.  I wanted to whisper something, to shout something! Just one last word that proved I wasn't going to be beaten by her cruelty any more!

    I couldn't think of anything.  I never was good with words. She scared the slave in me too much to dare speak out against my masters.

    So I stole her goggles instead.

    I took great pleasure in her scream of frustration as I high-tailed it from the factory at top speed toward the threshing mills, collecting my saddlebag as I went to add my new acquirements into it.

    “Now there's one unfortunate truth about the wasteland, children.  I always tell you, I bring you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts and that is exactly my point.  If you go into the wasteland, it will hurt you. Physically, mentally, hell, even spiritually for those of you who believe.  So make sure you have those potions handy, as much Radaway and Rad-X as you can get your hooves on too. Keep some bandages if you can, they're light and you never know, you can't rely on just potions.  Now a gun or a nailboard may be an obvious way to experience the pain of the wasteland, but let me remind you that we are all dirty. Yes, children, it's true. We scrounge around in the dirt scavenging all day or go out in weather nopony has business being in. So remember.  Disease and illness is the greatest killer. Wrap up. Keep yourself as warm as you can and dress appropriately. Take the advice from Daddy Pon-E, children, you do not want to get sick in the wasteland if you can help it.”

    Curves became shapes...

    The threshing blades missed me by a scant inch as I dived to the side and rolled over to land out from under the machine.  Hissing and clicking, the blades skittered across the ground, improperly calibrated to score the floor as they moved. The huge machine stretched fifty feet down the mill hall, threading string into greater shapes as it worked ceaselessly.  Like a piano's strings, it held thousands of strands beside one another down its whole length, the whirling machinery racking up and down the material to slowly and gradually bring it together into something useful. Beneath the machine lay the refuse, an empty space filled with the fallen threads and lint of severed lines that usually was only used to give the machinery's mechanics space to move.  An automated scrap collector was installed, but was far beyond repair.

    As such, the smaller ponies got the glorious job of rushing under it once the blades retracted, grabbing as much thread as they could and then diving back out before the blades caught up with them.  It was lethal work, hours of death-defying movements against a time space of only perhaps fifteen seconds. Slavers waited with canes for the slaves who didn't bring back enough on each trip, leading to gradually more daring runs every time.  The thread was more important than our safety, apparently.

    Oh, and that was the kicker. The space was only two feet high, so a pony couldn’t gallop or even stand up. They had to crawl on all four hooves.  Many slaves rolled sideways, but aside from emergencies, I found that hurt my wings far too much. I couldn't afford to be yelping in pain, drawing attention to my sides.  Even now I was still nervous, the rumours were spreading still about a pegasus in Fillydelphia ever since the accident at the Terminal. I really wished I could just fly away from all this.

    More than most, to me, that wish was cruelly denied.  Just one mallet and anvil to...

    I shook my head as I dumped the threads I had collected down. I couldn't go back to thinking about it.  I still woke up screaming sometimes as I imagined seeing it descending again and again, finding myself huddled up with my hooves trying to cradle my inert wings as best as they could.  If only they didn't still hurt so much when touched.

    “Ready up!  Cycle's coming back again!”

    I pulled myself to my hooves.  They ached from the cart pulling earlier, but the immediate exhaustion had worn off.  Thresher grabbing may be dangerous and in the short term tiring, but the rests every few seconds to dump the light material and wait were the closest thing to a rest in Fillydelphia sometimes.  Of course, that presumed you didn't get caught even briefly. I'd had my fair share of cuts from this machine, but I’d seen far worse. This machine had claimed more than a few pints of blood over the time I’d been here, and at least a couple limbs.

    The blades spun. I watched them twine the thread, twisting it into thicker lines approaching string.  Alongside me, another thirty smaller ponies waited ready for the mad dash. Many of them bore scars or even open cuts from the blades if they had missed getting out.  I myself had almost come close before I got used to the rhythm again. Annoyingly, even among this bunch of small ponies, I was still the smallest.

    The blades stopped, before detaching and spinning back along the threads.

    “Go!”

    As one we dove under, sliding as far as we could on our bellies.  I saw some of the others 'scooting' with their back legs, grabbing with their front.  I didn't like that, too easy to get stuck or be unable to turn around. I used all four hooves, crawling to the back of the machine, as far as I dared.  The trick other slaves missed was to go as far as you could, turn, and then push as much as you could back. It saved time. On my first day, I'd tried scooting and gotten my side sliced open as though with a scalpel.  Only the timely intervention of a new slaver not wanting to lose slaves on his first day had saved my life, and given me pain for the next week for almost screwing it up for him. The next time back I'd watched the ones who seemed to stay alive better.

    The space was claustrophobic, my throat and nose felt clogged from thread fibres in the air kicked up by scrambling slaves.  My legs scraped and burned on the ground as I madly dashed forward toward the spinning blades that moved back ahead of me. 

    I heard a scream from further up the line. Somepony had caught up to the blades too quickly with their front legs and cut themselves.

    The noise shook me. I bottled and turned, shoving as much as I could back.  Even as I moved, I heard the noise of the blades whirring toward me from behind.  Closing my eyes, I pushed as fast as I could, whimpering as I dived out from under the machine.  Behind me, the blades met the end, a second or two behind me.

    Fifteen seconds spent under there. It had felt like minutes.

    “Ready up!”

    We didn't have a chance to rest.  I saw the slave with the cut being beaten with canes for crawling back out with nothing but an injury, he was being told to run back in next time.  My own pile was small. I hadn't been taking risks, but I usually managed to get it up to what I needed. I was small enough to scraper around down there.

    I pressed myself down to the floor, ready to push in quickly.

    “Ready up! Cycle's coming back!”

    I took a deep breath. One good run would let me be able to take it easy for the rest. Stay safe. One danger run was better than a dozen where one trip could be a risk.

    I thought?

    “Go!”

    I kicked off the wall rolling on my side to hurl myself right at the blades, stopping just short before crawling in after it.  Inches from my face, I followed them, feeling my entire body trembling in adrenaline and terror as I stared unblinking at them.  I swore I could see bloodstains.

    Deeper. Deeper. Three seconds. Four seconds. Five...

    Then I heard another scream.

    It came from beside me. A young stallion was struggling on the spot amongst his pile of wool.

    “Help! Help me! Somepony help me!”

    I turned to head back, but doing so let me see his predicament. His clothing had become tangled in the wires and gears that pulled the machine back and forth! Eyes wide, he pulled at it in a panic, screaming blue murder the entire time.

    In a moment of hesitation, and a glance at the blades as they stopped and began to come back, I dove at him. Grabbing at him, I pulled and tugged even as his thrashing limbs knocked and confused where we were trying to free him.

    “HELP!”

    “I’m trying! I’m— yes!”

    With a tear, the clothing came loose. I grabbed the pony, trying to push him ahead of me until he got his hooves working again. Scrambling madly, he rushed ahead, tripping again in his rush. I bit his jerkin and tugged, but I felt my heart sink. The sound behind me was intense. The blades were coming. Every other pony was already out.

    I dove as hard as I could, yanking him with me, but it was too far, I wasn't going to make it. We fell together, and I curled up over him. I tried to pull all my hooves back from it, maybe I could-

    The blades sheared down and I felt my vest tear.  A hideous, screeching, and disgustingly crunching sound filled my ears.  I screamed out loud, closing my eyes.

    The pain never came. Slowly, I opened my eyes, before writhing and shoving the stuck pony out before hurling myself against the wall in a sudden panic of my own. Panting hard, I stared at my body and behind me.

    ...I was unharmed.  The machine had jarred and jammed.

    A second scream split my ears, ongoing, agonised, and wailing for far longer than a scream should.  Begging, squealing, and crying as I stood up and looked down the line before almost being sick.

    Red.

    A pony had become caught in the machine, one I had seen trying to take too many risks.  His back leg...it wasn't there. Red blood coated the thread and the blades.

    I wanted to be sick. If that hadn’t happened…

But I couldn’t have just left the one who had gotten stuck, could I? I hadn’t even thought about it.

    The one who had gotten caught was thrashing on his three remaining legs, screaming as slaves and slavers tried to pull him free.  Tugging him out to the side, I saw the slavers discussing amongst themselves. I could only just pick out their voices.

    “We've got some potions in the back, want me to get 'em?”

    “No.”

    “But—”

    “He's just a slave. Useless to us now. Stern would have out hides if we used it. You want executed for wastage?”

    I didn't even have time to process that before I saw the revolver magically float from its holster and fire a single shot.  Everypony in the entire line screamed, flattening to the ground as the shot rang out. The screaming stopped immediately even as the echo of the shot rang painfully in my ears.  

    Below me, the pony I had rescued finally opened his eyes, before hugging me tightly.

    “Oh thank you! Thank you! I just...I…”

    He broke down, crying into the wall in relief and terror. I just sat silently, not really knowing how to handle that sort of reaction. Eventually, I raised a front hoof and meekly patted his back.

Feeling a light draft waft against my right wing, I looked around to fix my-

    My wing was showing through the tear.

    Stifling a shout and a curse, I backed against the wall as fast as I could, frantically trying to twist my vest around and hold the tattered fabric in place.

    The slavers stood up, most of them bloodied from the wound of the slave.  One of them looked disgusted, another merely annoyed.

    “Get a slave to drag it in the back. We'll take it out back to the pit for the incinerator tonight.”

    It.  They had called him 'it'.  The mare's words came back to me. We weren't stock, we were ponies.

    Then it became clear. That was why I had risked myself. A pony had been at threat. Not a number. It’s what the mare had done for me earlier.

    Briefly, past the sickness that I would have gotten killed were it not for someone else’s unfortunate accident, I felt a brief sense of pride.

To these slaves, we were just a statistic.  Wicked Slit's efficiency, The Master's games and tasks. Red Eye's industry thrived on statistics, no matter his smooth words.

    Even as I heard the inevitable call for it to be me to drag the body out to the back room, I found myself with a sensation of absolute worthlessness to anypony's eyes.  Just a little cog to the machine. To run inside the machine to clean its workings in a mill. Now that I had seen what it was to do the right thing, it held my surroundings in a stark contrast. The uncaring nature of it landed all the harder.  Fighting with my vest, I nervously approached. I needed out of here now. Now. Right now.

    I put my shaking hooves around the body of the dead slave, trying to avoid his blood.  I wasn't strong enough to pull or push him with any dignity, but I'd be damned to the moon if I was going to simply treat him like a piece of meat. The slaver standing beside him stood up from the body and glanced at me.

    “Hey, you got cut on your side?”

    I drew breath sharply, shaking my head madly.

    “No!  I, uh, just a tear!”

    My hooves were the only thing covering my wing.  The slaver glanced down at it, as though looking for blood.  An achingly slow moment of him examining.

    “...carry on.”

    I hoped my sigh of relief wasn't too obvious as I moved to the body.

    Gently, I closed his eyes once I was sure the slavers weren't watching me any more.  As I pulled the body away towards the back of the mill, I heard the whirr of the machine starting again as though nothing had even happened.

    “Ready up!”

    Like good little cogs, the slaves stood ready again, even through a mask of tired tears. The one I had rescued shook his head and moaned in fear, until he was cuffed around the head until he got back on the line again.

Moving through double swing doors, I moved the dead slave to the back door and tried to arrange him as best I could.  He wouldn't be treated well, dumped in a mass grave and then left until incineration rounds reached the mill. But at least I could give him something approaching peace for now.  Perhaps his soul would be gone by the time they came to make him into ash.

    I sat back.

    Then it hit me.

    I began shuddering, unstoppable heaves of my chest as suddenly it all landed at once.

    This poor pony had saved my life.  This would have been me, if he hadn't gotten stuck.  Without him making a mistake, my back hooves would have been torn off and shredded. I would be the one with the magnum round to the forehead.

    I felt my eyes watering badly as I fell to the side, trying to stem it and failing completely.  It wasn't sadness, I saw slaves die every day in some way or another. But this was so close, so random, so without reason or purpose!  What kind of world was this for ponies?

    I looked up, trying to find something to help me, anything!  I'd left everything in my saddlebag in a safe location, hidden in an old pipe, so I didn't even have my journal or PipBuck to help me.  The walls were coated in slime and rust, cracked paint gave way to bare concrete so popular in Fillydephia. Some posters ran the walls, one had an all too familiar and hated face watching me, apparently forever.  A couple had military advertisements, huge metal ponies, and swift blue and gold pegasi.

    The last had a gentle yellow and pink mare sitting amongst a peaceful field watching a sunset.  A tranquil scene. The colours were that of my saddlebag. Was this a medical poster? I didn't care, all that mattered was the peaceful scene.

    Was that old Equestria?  A place where you could sit upon hills and gaze with no worries?

    I looked to the slave again, I looked to my own grimy and scarred hooves and felt the trembling return.

    What was this world I had been born into?  I had never even known a hint of the past, but still, the feeling of dislocation from what I was supposed to be living like was so strong.  It led me to not even care that it made no sense to feel that way as I let tears stream from my eyes and hugged myself tightly. Ponies shouldn't have to go through this.

    I couldn't stay here. My mind was too fragile, too newly open to things other than the work and my masters for this sort of horror.  I sniffed, got to my hooves, and stuffed as much material as I could along with a needle and thread into a bag before leaving the mill via the back door, stopping only to grab the one healing potion I could find left by the slavers.

    “Aaaaand we're back again with the continued wasteland survival one-oh-one today!  Now this next part is pretty vague, so I'll try to be clear. Exploration. It's a big world out there, and if we want to help it, to fight the good fight, we'll need to get out and see it.  Now, first up, stay away from Stables. Death traps, every one of them from what I've heard. But other things? The more we find out and know, the more we understand, the better we'll be to handle the future, children.  Make maps, chart where you're going, get to know your own area well. It'll always pay off in the end when you get lost or need something specific to help you. Speaking of finding things, here's the fun bit...loot! If you can find it, think about taking it!  It may be scrap to you, but somepony might need it. Just like I said before, folks, trade will help us all. So don't just throw away that wonderglue or scrap electronics, y'hear?”

    Shapes came to life...

    The wind roared about my head as I squinted my eyes into the harsh and now warmer gusts that blew around Fillydelphia.  My mind was whirling just as much, trying to locate the best positions, the safest routes, and the cosiest hiding places I could think of.  My small talent to find hideaways being strained as best I could at this distance. In all, I was trying my best to not think about a dead slave in a threshing mill.

    I sat atop the pink and, uh, more pink helter skelter of the FunFarm with a rag tied around my mouth against the smog up this high.  Okay, perhaps I was coming back to the FunFarm just once, but not to the petting zoo. That counted as never coming back, right?

    Towering above everything other than the huge Barn and the roller coaster, it afforded the best view of Fillydelphia I could manage within my limited accessibility.  Within the small cage meant to contain, presumably, a staff member for setting small foals on their way, I cast my eyes across every street, building, and scrap pile that made up the horrifying vista that was the slave city.  The burning pits dug into the concrete and covered with wire mesh forever spewed smog into the air from parasprite incineration. Armed guards cantered to and fro around them, occasionally glancing off to the axe pits. In there, slaves were cutting up old scrap and passing it on to carts to be sent to places like Slit's factory.  In fact, I could even see her giant concrete block of a workplace nearby, the furnaces adding to the dirty cloud that permeated the air. Further out, I saw the slaver camps surrounding the entire work areas, just short of the Wall.

    The Wall...

    That gigantic obstacle to my escape lurked not an impossible distance from the FunFarm.  Piled high, crammed with guard towers, magically charged fences, and beyond it, a tainted moat.  What lurked beneath the sick slime there I could only hazard at, but if regular gunshots from the guards were any indication, it was not a dormant threat.  I had to cross it somehow, and simply pray I didn't meet the rumoured...things, that existed in there. Even being exposed to a slightly tainted mother had given me a mutation on birth, not to mention whatever effect it had on my development and organs.

    All my planning failed the moment I reached the Wall, but I'd find something.  There had to be other ways than the main gate. I had a knack for finding small spots, maybe a drain or a hidden escape route to flank attackers.

    It was too horrifying to think on for long. I let my eyes drift closer in between scrapes of my charcoal to draw up my map.

    I could see the entire FunFarm, still filled with toiling slaves as they worked in shifts to drag off all the unneeded scrap metal and scavenged items.  I'd be doing some of that later myself, according to the DJ. Who knew what I could get for some oddities? I needed trade items for the wasteland, especially as I owned no bottle caps myself.  The radio had even said that some places would trade three hundred caps for certain drugs or types of healing items that I had almost come close to getting away with yesterday.

    I was painfully aware of the fact that those items were worth three times more than my own price on the slave markets.

    I wondered what my listing would look like now.  Tiny and weak young buck, slight taint mutations, non-functional wings, twelve previous owners, answers to the number seven, has no talent for anything other than failing, apparently.

    I lightly tapped my head with a hoof to clear my mind, I couldn't let that kind of thinking get a hold of me again. I didn't want to go back to the grind, I didn't want to be a slave any more.

    Flicking my loose tooth with my tongue, I began to wonder if my slave instincts were a bit like it.  Like I was close to casting it off and getting rid of its pain but just not quite yet gathering the courage to actually go through the effort.  Sighing, I went back to work, comparing a mental defect to a loose tooth. What idiocy.

    My map was almost done, as was my perceived route.  I had drawn thick lines for buildings and roads, dotted lines for patrol routes I could spot from up here, and small crosses on where I knew there were hiding spots.  Dumpsters, drain ditches, piles of metal crates.

    Who made those damn metal crates?  No matter where I had been sent to work in the wasteland, there were always the same shaped and coloured metal crates.  They ranked just below the pink menace on the creepy scale of always seeming to follow me around! Who made them?  Whatever pony came up with the design must have been rolling in...what did they use? Bits! They'd have been rolling in bits!

    I looked to my left at the life-size pink pony cut out on the wall, a hoof and a smile showing all the foals the way to the helter skelter's slide exit.  Her eyes were fixed on me.

    “Don't suppose you know?  You were around back then, weren't you?”

    It beeped at me.

    After I had pulled myself to my hooves from behind the nearest corner and breathed into a bag to stop hyperventilating, I realised the beep had instead come from my PipBuck.  I was fairly sure that nopony had heard me yelp in terror.

    Okay, it was more of a scream.  I was a pathetic little slave, what can be expected of me when I get scared by a freaky pink pony thing?

    I looked down at my PipBuck.

    Beep!

    The same noise as last night on the control tower.

    Beep!

    With a small click, the speaker cut the music that had been playing (how dare it interrupt Velvet Remedy!) and replaced it with the somewhat faded and slightly distorted ambience I'd heard from the last diary entry.  Holding it close, I left my plans to listen.

    “Oh, gee, I hit go already, um, ok.  Hello!”

    “Hey...”

    I don't know why I did it. It just felt wrong to not answer Sundial.

    “Day two of my continued PipBuck recordings to tell of my pretty boring life amongst a not so boring period of history.  They said on the radio that somepony took a shot at the Princess out near the front today, no reports back but they have said she is still alive.  I dunno. Rumours get everywhere these days. I swear, Pinkie's Ministry seems to be everywhere to catch the bad ones, those posters creep me out.”

    I glanced back up at the cut out, staring right at me.  'Pinkie', huh? I considered the colour of the helter skelter and rolled my eyes.  Of course it would be.

    “Well, I guess I'll tell you, whoever you are, about my day at work.  See, I work at the Ministry of Wartime Technology in Filly now since I last spoke to this thing.  I figured it only makes sense, they're always looking for ponies for the expansion efforts in Fillydelphia.  Only catch is it's in weapons. Yeah, Dad didn't like that. He's a doctor, of course, so I guess his son making guns really isn't too good for his mind.  We argued, but frankly I don't care. I need the money. I'm sorry, Dad, I know you paid for my Stable insurance and the PipBuck, but I need to live day to day and taxes are so high right now with the war effort.  See, if I work in a war factory, I get exempted from them.”

    This didn't sound like the picture perfect Equestria I'd seen in the posters and heard Sundial talk about last time.  I wondered just how much changed so rapidly back then on the lead up to, well, Doomsday. The close of Equestria and the dawn of my dreary world.

    “Now, anyway, I don't like to ramble so I'll cut to the chase, okay?  I met a mare today. See, I was trying to get leave to go post a letter through to the Equestrian Mail Service in time, but my supervisor was having none of it.  It was to my Dad! I couldn't see him any other time, and I was trying not to lose my job as I explained that. But then...she came along. Oh what, I mean, heh, yeah I think you can hear where I'm going with this, eh?  She's a pegasus mailpony, offered to carry the letter there for me during her time off. I won't lie, she's quite pretty, lovely blonde hair, some nice flanks if you don't mind me saying, heh...oh why did I say that?”

    I could imagine him blushing.  Yet another similarity between Sundial and myself, a mare who helped us both.  This co-worker for Sundial and the Stable Dweller for me. Both willing to help others, both flying and both had pretty nice—

    I sat up straight, blinking.  Now I was blushing too.

    “Well, no matter, maybe I'll just look back on this and laugh at myself.  Wait, I said that last time too, didn't I? It has been a few days since...oh well.  Look, I've got to get to work, alright? The Ministry doesn't like workers not turning up on time.  Pinkie is always watching for stuff like that.”

    Again, I glanced at the cut out.  I wondered what it thought of me about to not turn up for any shift ever again.

    “I'm hoping to see her again anyway, her name is Skydancer.  Maybe next time I'll actually work up the courage to ask her out, say I'm just thankful for her help?  Anyway, gotta go. Oh yeah! I said I'd talk about how I got my cutie mark. Well, maybe next time, okay?  G'bye!”

    “Bye.”

    I set the PipBuck back down beside my crude maps and plans.  Sundial's journal was so different from my own. Detailed, full of opinion, emotion, and a connecting voice.  Suddenly, my own scrawls on paper felt utterly worthless beside this fancy machine. Maybe I could work out how to make it operate someday myself, but all I knew were the volume button and the light.  Any other buttons or flips were far beyond my ability to understand, especially with a broken display. Not that it would have helped, I didn't imagine they catered to illiterate slaves. No, I was stuck with my scratches on paper, understandable only to me, interpretable only to the creator.  What kind of journal was that?

    Briefly, I remembered the mare looking over them, remembered her smile as she looked at what I had done.  Did she really understand what I was trying to say in my drawings? Or did she just like the pictures? Did every...what were they called? Drawer? Sketcher?  Art pony? Did they all feel this way, that only they truly understood their own creations?

    I reached out to grab my journal as a foul smelling wind blew in over the factories into the helter skelter's top cage and flapped its pages away from my map.  Muttering a half-curse, I stomped a hoof on the page to stop it before leaning back against the rusted cage wall that once was used to stop foals from falling. Only then did I look down at my journal.

    I saw a broken wall, sunlight shining through from behind it, sketched clearly in my own style.  A small pony stared at it, his wings spread as he seemed to be waiting for something.

    The page was from years ago, far back in the areas of my journal I never went back to, never remembered, and never ever touched.  I wanted to slam it shut, I didn't want to know these things, I didn't want the temptation. But this picture seemed to stand out to me. What had I been thinking back then?

    Suddenly I began to regret a lifetime of slavery indoctrination to not pay attention and simply put your head down and not think at all.

    With a sigh, I closed the journal and set it back in my saddlebag.  The sun was going down. I needed to get to the ground, pick up whatever I could find in the helter skelter's bottom areas, and then get ready.  The Master would arrive within the hour and they would soon realise I was gone. No time to think about old pictures. Time to act, to move.

    But first, how to get down.  Those stairs were pretty steep for four legs.

    My eye caught an old rectangular cord mat sitting in the corner.  I couldn't help a small grin coming across my face.

    Tucking everything in the saddlebag safely, I reached out and dragged across the foul, old-fibred rug to rest on the helter skelter slide before sitting on it, holding myself in place with my front hooves.  Well, perhaps some things related to this Pinkie could be good!

    I let go, quickly sitting back on the rug as I felt the lack of friction take hold.  With a slow acceleration, the rug began to slide down the helter skelter. The wind caught on my mane and face as I felt the momentum picking up.  I couldn't resist a big grin as the rug began to twist around the tower and hurtle at great speed down the tower, spiralling and throwing me from side to side as my entire body felt the bumps in the notched wood beneath me.  Two hundred years hadn't made helter skelters any less fun! Whee!

    I closed my eyes, feeling the sensation of movement, of free speed and momentum carrying me without any effort through the air...well, kinda.  My mane whipped backward hard as I felt my eye sockets and lips blown wider by the rush of air before me. I could feel the g-forces trying to push me outwards from the tower by the speed. If I opened my eyes I could see nothing but a blur.  Finally, a chance to not see Fillydelphia as I spun and spun down the tower.

    With little effort, I imagined it as it was in Old Equestria, beautiful and wondrous.  I was out for a day at the Filly FunFarm with my friends. At the bottom I'd find that mare, the Stable Dweller, the nice ponies...and my mom!  We'd be having fun, with no worries in the world. No work and no slavers at all! I saw coloured balloons being carried by foals squealing in happiness. Their voices came to my ears from the whistling wind on my descent.  Everything was so bright, so colourful...

    I laughed. I had thought of a fun joke to tell them when I got to the bottom.  Then we'd go get some ice cream and go watch the ice skaters. Ice and ice right?  That made me laugh more.

    The slide tossed me from side to side, making me instead just start giggling. I lifted my front two hooves, holding them up as the wind brushed them.  Cool air from the warm sunny day. I could see the crowds around me, all smiling and laughing. A peaceful Equestria.

    Suddenly, the feeling of the rug sliding disappeared entirely as I felt my entire axis of balance invert.

    “Woo— yargh!”

    Before I could even react, I felt my rump strike a harder surface and flip me forward into a soft lump on the ground that seemed to envelop me completely as the soft sponge pit at the bottom absorbed me into its safe embrace.  I couldn't stop laughing as I reached upwards, waving my forelegs to and fro.

    As I pulled myself out and stared upward at the helter skelter, I felt dampness in my eyes as I woke to the reality once more around me.  Harsh, unforgiving, and ruined, nothing like my dreams. But even as the bittersweet ending to my fun settled in, I did not feel upset. These tears were different.

    Collecting my saddlebag from where it fell, I made to walk to the nearby scrap yard, even grinning widely at a confused looking spritebot as it slowly rotated, following my path before buzzing away erratically.  I still enjoyed the ability to close my eyes, smile, and just imagine. To remember that feeling, those blissful seconds of fun and happiness.

    I drew pictures to express myself.  But my imagination was the greatest canvas I could ever imagine.  I couldn't wait to go out and make it a reality.

    “Before I go any further, I'm going to pause for a second and just consolidate the things I've been teaching you all for so long.  We have the world we do today because of mistakes. Yes, children, nopony would deliberately want this severely screwed up living in the wasteland, so listen closely.  It was a mistake. But the reason we survived and continue to survive is down to those ponies who can dig in, find something to believe in, and get stuff done. Be it a faith, a virtue to hold on to, or perhaps even somepony else, the good fight only began because of those who would dare.  So I ask of you all, think carefully before committing. Many of them have paid the highest of prices in the fight to save Equestria from mire and ruin. But if you do decide 'Yes!', then you have to pursue it as best you can. We've all seen that, we've all heard of the Stable Dweller. Hell, she even took a side in this developing civil war between the Rangers.  So trust me, wastelanders, it is possible to make progress, but only if we're willing to dare.”

    Life...sat before me.

    My plan.  The method by which I would take my life back was finally ready.  All day, bit by bit, lesson by lesson; I had adjusted it, gathered what I needed, and gradually come a step closer to this moment each time.  Now, the life that was to be mine was right there.

    I ran the plan over and over in my mind as I set about preparing my equipment, hidden inside an old Hall of Mirrors in the FunFarm near the bumper-plow pit.  The temptation to go there, to visit the mare once more, was so strong. However, I knew that she wouldn't appreciate it, for me to hurt my chances by taking an unessential risk.  I was in a bad enough state as it was. My lungs ached and breathing induced a burning sensation within my throat. Bruises, knocks, and small cuts covered my body from the slave work as small burns from the harnesses and carts irritated me from clothing touching them.  Despite the healing potions, my eye still felt swollen from Noose's beating, affecting my peripheral vision to that side.

    I had one potion, that'd help me though.  Time to get ready.

    Step one. Escape the FunFarm across to the roads I had run to while evading the gang yesterday. I knew at least one hiding spot to use, the old drain.

    I pulled across the dark fabric I had acquired from the threshing mill.  Tearing it with the sharpened shard of metal from Slit's factory clenched in my teeth, I set about creating something better than this rough vest.  I dumped it from my back, feeling the pressure ease from my wings for once. I wreathed myself in the material, taking rough measurements and cutting appropriately.  Double layered for warmth, the DJ’s survival tips had told me that. I also added small areas for pockets, two on each front leg, multiple within mouth’s reach. I had come to accept that I was, by and large, a thief.  I may be forced to steal again, and as such, I decided to prepare for it.

    Frankly, I'd always been one anyway...today had only proven it.  A little cowardly thief, but it had felt good, taking the items from those who had tormented me.

    I stitched the material, roughly and heavily with little real skill, but it worked.  Clambering about on the floor, I pulled my new fleece over me. Darker to hide, warmer for the weather, pockets to store things in, and some slits in it for the next stage.

    Step two. Creep from the road into the old ruined houses there, overcome my fear of old living spaces, and continue toward the industrial sector, using them as cover against griffons watching from above.

    Pulling the fleece off quickly, I drew the metal plates from my bag.  With some tapping on the ground and a bit of chipping with the shard, I assessed which ones were the strongest and began to slip them into my fleece.  Hidden armour within my clothing to be more inconspicuous. Slaves didn't wear armour outside of dangerous work, and I'd rather be able to move fast and duck around small spots without huge layers holding me back.  I was escaping, not going to war.

    I placed one over my back and two on my right, side and flank.  One more went over my left flank while the last went over my chest, the smallest piece.  My front left was exposed, but that would be covered by the saddlebag which would, hopefully, absorb most impacts.  My thick journal would hopefully help in that, as painful as the idea of it taking a bullet would be.

    Step three. Make a dash from the ruins towards the threshing mill, plenty of hiding spots and minimal guard cover after viewing from the helter skelter.  A low risk environment.

    I rubbed the shard against a rock I had dragged in from outside, smoothing off the serrated edge to make it cleaner and sharper.  It took time, but tapering to a rough point as best as I could, I fabricated a somewhat rudimentary knife point. As I scraped it off, I glanced around me at the old mirrors. It was almost darkly funny to see the mirrors meant to make a pony look fat made me look like a normal pony.  I didn't even glance at the thin ones. Nopony needed to see that. Turning back to my knife, I grabbed a little spare fabric and some wonderglue I had found in the helter skelter for repair work to make a grip for my mouth.

    I stared at it. Could I use it to kill somepony?  I had been around death every day. Could I take another's life to attain my own?  Not an issue, no. I couldn't think on it. I'd defend myself, but it was more of a utility tool now.

    Measuring it against my left foreleg, I made a little sheath for it with some fabric, giving me easy access to it should I ever need it. Hopefully not.

    Step four. Move from the mill toward the slave camps.  Stay hidden, stay stealthy. Use what I had learned about moving quietly to sneak by them under the cover of dark and in the shadow of their huts.  Most slavers stayed around fires, ruining night vision. Use that advantage!

    I ripped up the remaining fabric, rolling it into tight bundles and pouring a small section of the healing potion onto each one. The DJ had mentioned the trick to create healing bandages to help close wounds faster.  I figured that one healing potion wouldn't help me for serious injuries anyway. If I got wounded, these would have to do until I could locate better supplies. I made a small bag for them, keeping them separate and safe. They would go near the top.

    Beside them, I placed my two spare Med-X's.  I still had them from yesterday. Whiplash hadn't even bothered to check me over while in fear of The Master.  They were my insurance to keep moving. Find a place to hide, stab one of them in me, and ride the high-time express to movement again.  The DJ had talked of the dangers of addiction. I didn't want to risk it, but I was prepared to take both if I had to.

    Step five. The camps are near the Wall.  Wait until the guard changes each half-hour and then move in the blind spots up to the wall itself. A huge shadow from the sunset makes it very dark behind it, use that space.

    I dragged my saddlebag outside.  The bright yellow and pink was lovely, yes, but it stood out.  Reluctantly, I placed it face down in the mud and smothered the entire thing to ruin the colour.  I rubbed dirt into the metal links to prevent them shining, used differing types and colours of dirt, mud, and grime to camouflage it better, and finally tore off the small plastic glittering dots on the butterfly antennas.

    Back inside, I began to fill it.  First the scrap. Wonderglue, some old tins, a small box with some old wires poking out of it, a small bottle of cleaning fluid, old duct tape, and a few old bits of magical circuitry.  Then came my food, old tins wrapped in cloth and filled with rapidly solidifying oatmeal. On top of them, I placed my journal to slide along one side closest to me, the quill and parchment, and my medical supplies.  Snapping the saddlebag shut, it weighed more than I'd like, but needs must. With a quick flick of my mouth, I downed the remainder of the healing potion and rested, feeling the whip scar on my backside along with various other cuts and bruises lose their sting soon after. I gave myself some time to settle and breathe as it worked and let it beat back the disease for now.  It'd be enough to get by.

    Step six. Find a way through the Wall.  Ideally, a drainage pipe or something. I'd seen a ditch running the length from my perch earlier. That had to lead somewhere.  A wall could never have only one entrance. There would be something, I just had to find it. Keep moving. Don't stop until miles from Fillydelphia.  Use Med-X if it was needed, just keep galloping until unable to gallop any more.

    The colours in the clouded sky began to change, and I rose from my resting. It was time to gear up.  I struggled into my armoured fleece, pulling it tight about me and shaking out my neck. With a slight heave, I lifted the saddlebag across my back, shifting till it was comfortable.  A few adjustments to make sure it didn't make noise when I moved and it was ready. With some mouth work, I strapped on my sheath for the knife to my left foreleg, ensuring I could reach it at a moments notice.  I dropped a healing bandage into my front leg pocket as well, setting a syringe into my front right for emergencies. With a little smirk, I snapped Wicked Slit's flight goggles onto my head as well.

    Just one more thing left.

    I turned to it.  I'd left it sitting in front of a mirror deliberately until last.  The PipBuck.

    She had shown me the way.  I couldn't not show my respect by carrying it like she did.  I used Whiplash's leather 'number three' to weave between the metal joints. Those joints had once let the PipBuck lock onto a pony’s leg, but with only the top panel remaining, the entire holding mechanism was gone. With some tying, pulling, and a good few knots, I pulled the PipBuck proudly onto my right foreleg. Just like hers.  It flickered its light once or twice, as though recognising it was now being worn properly, if held in place by old leather cord.

    Step Number Seven. 

    Have a life.

    I turned, dressed ready, all my equipment and supplies borne on my back or body.  I felt proud, ready to fight the good fight. Ready to show Equestria that the slaves need not sit idle in the dark.

    I saw myself in the mirror.  The third time in three days I had looked at myself.

    The first time I had seen a dejected slave, too broken to even complain about his imminent death.

    The second I had seen a dying buck with little hope for anything, but trying to stay alive however he could.

    But now, I saw me.  I saw Murky Number Seven, tooled up and ready to go.  Stuffed fleece covering his malnourished body and eyes that showed a hope I had never before imagined that they could own.  The Stable Dweller, the mare, Number Six, the PipBuck, Velvet Remedy, Sundial, DJ Pon-Three; they had all helped me, prepared me, and given me things to hold on to.  Now it was time to act on my own.

    I hoped they would be proud.

    I didn't look strong, indeed I looked pathetically weak still.  I didn't feel confident, only that my hoof had been forced to ensure my survival.  Biting my lip, I touched a hoof to the mirror, like two days ago, just to prove that I was what I was seeing, that I was actually standing up and about to do this.

    A wave of cold shot through me at the touch.  I gasped in shock, recoiling as I looked at my hoof.  As fast as the sensation had come, it left. I looked up, trembling from the sudden effect of the glass.

    Before me in the mirror, I saw myself.

    But not me here. It was me as a colt, standing with innocent little wide eyes filled with tears, my two stubby little wings flapping pathetically as I stared at...well, me.  Sweet Celestia, I was tiny as a kid!  I felt locked in place, looking down at this little colt slave's mouth gasp open, like he was as shocked to see me as I was to see him. I mean me...it...

    I felt frozen for a second, unable to process what I was seeing, before shaking my head roughly and frantically, waving myself away from the mirror.

    Stunned, shocked, and confused, I looked at the now empty mirror with an open mouth, just like the image had borne.  Taking a deep breath, I tried to control my thoughts. No time to think on it. No time to think on old drawings either, I had to get going.  I'd work it all out later, definitely. But not now. I galloped to the back door.

    For now, I had a life to claim.

    My own.
   

    Step one would be easy.  I'd left the FunFarm so many times in my life within Filly that I knew every route and little object by heart.  The slaver walkways and towers only covered the areas approaching the Pit and the Wall, the areas considered important.  No slave would attempt to escape into the rest of Fillydelphia, it was presumed.  Or at least, I hoped that was the case. Whatever the reason, they were why my route had such a roundabout manner through the ruins and the threshing mill rather than directly for the wall.

    I stuck to the back staff areas, small alleyways between rides and stalls that employees would, by my guessing anyway, have used to travel between places of work without being held up by the cheering crowds.  Briefly, I wondered what they might think of their place of work now, before dismissing the thought; this was no time for an idle imagination.

    Moving at a light canter, I stopped only occasionally to adjust my bag and pockets to not rattle or shake during movement.  Everything I had learned across my life about staying silent and hidden to avoid harm had to come together here. If I were caught, I didn't want to think about what they would do to a little thief like me.

    I stopped in the shadow of an old games stall.  Within it stood milk bottles stacked in perfect towers, challenging players to knock them over.  Apparently, even a Balefire Megaspell hadn't been enough to make those rigged things budge. Gently easing open the creaky door, I stepped inside and used a fractured hole in the back to observe the side exit to the FunFarm.  No guard towers, this was a route only for those going to shifts with no requirement to stop them before they got to the Wall. Beyond it, I could see the road I had escaped to yesterday, the drain waiting on the other side as a reluctant hiding place should I be spotted.

    Tensing my legs, I prepared to go into full gallop across open ground, but something gave me pause.

    A sound...a flutter.

    I craned my neck upwards, glancing left to right and checking every perch I could imagine.  Nothing disturbed the FunFarm at this level. Higher up, I could see teams of griffons soaring on the warm currents of Fillydelphia, but they were much too high to have caused that sound.  Minutes passed as I hid, awaiting another occurrence. Slavers wandered past me on the road, trotting and laughing on their way to their dwellings. I waited for a gap, the flutter had to just be another ghost noise from my freaky hearing.  I often picked up sounds that I didn't want to hear or were too far away to matter.

    The moment any slavers seemed to be absent from the area, I made my move, galloping immediately, keeping low to the ground and moving as fast as I dared for the opposite side of the road.  A shiver passed down my spine as I felt open ground lose all sense of cover or concealment from my escape, but I pressed on.

    “Eh, shite!  I forgot something, mate.  Gimme a second!”

    I heard the clatter of hooves running back down the road from around the corner of the FunFarm and increased my step to dive off the over edge of the road.  Skittering down the ditch side, I frantically looked for the drain, sweat dripping from my face already. Panic set in, I couldn't be spotted this early!

    “Hey, hear that?  Somepony trying to hide away?”

    “Ain't no shift to come out this time. One goin' AWOL for the market?”

    Rotating all the most colourful curses I knew (which wasn't saying much), I ran to and fro, searching for the drain before the couple would appear up the road and look down at the ditch.  I gasped, wondering if I was in the wrong place!

Then, in a moment of clarity, I spotted the stained ground around it. It was there! Staying as quiet as I could while moving fast as I dared, I quickly (and rather sloppily) stuffed myself into the drain once more.  Strangely enough, it didn't feel quite so bad this time, although perhaps the threat of imminent selection for the Pit again may have had something to do with preference. The fit was harder with my thicker clothing and saddlebag, but with some curling up (and a rather unpleasant form of lubrication) I squeezed myself in, turning to face out of the drain itself.

    Right...safe.

    The pitter patter of hooves sounded almost directly above me as the slaver pair wandered on the road above the drain.

    “You sure?  Get all sorts of things running about in the ruins, why, ol' Sticky Crescent said he saw a baby hellhound in here once!  Dug its way right in!”

    “What?  Stop talking shite, you wally!”

    “No, I swear!”

    “This the same buck who told you he once saw Princess Luna herself flying alongside Red Eye's chariot?”

    “Yeah...”

    “Absolute bollocks, mate.”

    Good. Banter and argument meant no serious searching.  I was still undetected.

    A sudden pinching pain shot through my back right leg. I screamed loud in shock, bucking it backward and feeling it connect with something unpleasant; segmented, chitinous and slippery.  In a blind panic, my back to an unknown threat and unable to turn to face it, I scrambled, pushed, and crawled as best I could. Feeling small bites on my back hooves, I dove from the drain and twisted to look back.  Staring me in the face was a gigantic insect, a radroach, crawling out of the drainage pipe with smooth movements from its filthy hide and clacking legs. Behind it, I could see at least three more following it. I felt frozen in fear. I had been in there yesterday and not known at all.

    My fear broke like a wave as I saw them advance.  I turned to gallop off into the ruins; I could out-distance them without a worry.  Setting off, I glanced quickly back at my legs. They bled from several small bites, nothing serious, but I'd have to get the bandages on them soon before infection set in. As if there were any infections left for me to get.

    I came to the nearest ruined home, two stories and missing its roof entirely.  Built from brick and concrete, it spoke of an old workers home, rustic and practical.  A quick buck hoofed the door open before heading inside.

    “I swear, you forget anything again and I'm not waiting.”

    My eyes flickered wide open. How could I have forgotten, they were just picking something up, of course they'd be back!  I didn't expect it to be less than a minute, but still!

    I looked back, seeing the brown and black coated slavers coming back down the road.  The radroaches seemed content to have left me as they milled around in the spilled sewage, but they were hardly hidden to the slavers.

    “Hey, check this mate. Roaches. What got them stirred up?”

    “Could be our little runaway.  What do you think? Coming or going?”

    “Shackles is at the FunFarm tonight, definitely going.  You ain't seriously saying we take a look are you?”

    “Look, if we're being watched and Stern hears we didn't it'll be us getting devoured by parasprites before the morning.”

    “Urgh...fine.”

    The pair moved off the road toward the ruins.  I was hidden behind the door, keeping it open only by a tiny fraction to observe them, trusting in my shaded clothes, coat, mane, and my small size to hide me.  One of them, the brown buck, stomped on each radroach in turn with a satisfying and somewhat disgusting crunch. The other,almost jet black, unicorn however, was glancing around before bending down, and suddenly looking directly at the house I was in.  In shock, I backed away from the door.

    “Tracks.”

    Of course!  I'd been in such a rush and panic to escape the radroaches I'd forgotten to watch what was coming off my hooves from the drainage.  I'd led them right to me! One brave little glance confirmed he was heading this way. I didn't have time to get out quietly.

    I looked down, finding a dirtied pink matt sitting just inside the door with some writing on it (what would you write on that?), and wiped my dirty hooves on it frantically before turning.

    I very quickly regretted my choice of hiding spot.

    Before me were the entire family of the home, a collection of skeletons spread around the full front room and open plan kitchen.  Pony-shaped sets of bones, stripped bare by balefire and weathered by time, yet still roughly posed enough to indicate they had been taking shelter as best as they could when the warnings had sounded in the city two hundred years ago.  Some were smaller than the others...

    A memory was unpleasantly reminding me of a certain farmhouse.  I was intruding upon their memory. My hooves were locked to the floor.  I could hear the slavers moving to the house, their hooves slopping around in the mud, but still I couldn't move a muscle in my body.  I almost felt like I wanted to just tip over, my hooves stuck in the air.

    I shouldn't be here.

    Empty eye sockets stared in random directions, concussive force had spread some bones out.  I could see a faded family photo on the wall, earth ponies all. Lovely warm coloured coats between the entire group.  Pots and pans sat scattered on the kitchen top where they had been making dinner. An old work bag rested near me from being dropped after a shift.

    I should have known. I couldn't handle scenes like this, I'd never been able to!  I'd just been hoping everything would be ash and gone, but the horror froze me in place as the weight of memory landed squarely on my newly opened mind.

    The slavers were just outside, I could hear their breathing.  If they found me, I'd perhaps join the skeletons. Would I be sent to them?  Would they be unhappy with me?

    The terror of the thought finally gave me purpose.  I darted forward, almost prancing in circles as I searched for a hiding spot.

    “Sorry, sorry...I'm so sorry!”

    Muttering under my breath, I pulled open a kitchen cupboard and hid inside it after levering open a back window ever so slightly.

    The slavers burst in.  Their hooves knocked over the work bag and I heard the tools clatter out.  Pots and pans rung as they moved around, knocking things over in their blundering check.  The simplicity of my hiding spot suddenly felt all too vulnerable. If they decided to do more than just glance, I was caught.  Unable to see, I could only hear them moving through the sitting room adjacent as I shook terribly. Around me were cleaning agents. At least, I thought they were.  Even if I could read it was too dark to tell inside the cramped cupboard.

    “Hey, back window.”

    “What?”

    “Whoever it was, they're long gone. Left through the window.  See? It's unlocked.”

    A clatter of something lighter. Was that bones!?

    “Perhaps this lot just left it open.”

    “During a balefire drop?”

    “Clearly a pane of glass would make all the difference, mate”, came the reply, sarcasm dripping on every word, “Look, let's just get moving, alright?  No one saw it but us, and if we're late to the Roamer it'll be our round.”

    The pair seemed to delay for a brief glance before moving out.  I heard a horrible popping crack, a muttered curse, and finally the door slamming shut.  I waited for a few minutes, just in case they doubled back, before opening the cupboard and almost bursting into tears immediately.

    The slavers had, in their simple visit, destroyed what was left.  The kitchen utensils were scattered all the more. The undisturbed work bag had been kicked over the floor.  Worst of all, the largest skeleton's ribs had been snapped from a careless hoof.

    I couldn't stand this any more, I'd bandage myself up someplace else.  I had to get out of here. Moving to the back door with a resolution to stick to the outdoors until the threshing mill, I paused only to check the surroundings before creeping out into the dead gardens between the rows of houses.  Sticking to the fences, ducking below lifeless branches of long dead bushes and moving only when I could see no griffons, I pressed on.

    It'd been close, I was behind schedule, but I could still do this.

    I knew I could...

    I'd had it easy thus far, despite what it may have felt like.

    I sat atop an old rickety garden shed, hidden behind a dead tree beside it as I glanced over at the threshing mill past the small wall.  In days gone by, the low and long building must have been a local business to be so close to these houses. Built mostly from wood, it had been repaired by hastily bolted-on beams and sheets of rusty metal by the slaves over the past few years.  As such, it bore a very patchwork appearance, oddly traditional next to the industrial nightmare surrounding it from Fillydelphia. I imagined this must be a pre-war building in the sense of existing long before the first shot of the first skirmish was fired at all.

    Thick lines of slaves were being led in and out.  Good, I had to go through it to reach my destination.  From the helter skelter, I had seen masses of guard walkways between larger factories and warehouses around the entire area.  Comparatively, going through the threshing mill would be safer, if only in a sense of having cover should I be spotted as opposed to a large open area watched by scoped rifles.  I sat on my haunches, tapping a hoof on the shed as I contemplated my next move.

    All that time I was still trying to fight off the slave in my mind.  It taunted me, chided me, screamed that this was wrong, and urged me to turn around.  Go back to my master, go back to the predictable life where I knew my place. Sacred Goddesses, what was I doing here, trying to escape?  I was about to run under their guns in some suicidal urge to try and save my own life, that wasn't for me to decide!

    I fought the tears, my head lowering.  As I did so, my eyes found the PipBuck, strung to my right foreleg tightly still.  I'd wanted it visible. I needed it visible.  The Stable Dweller's inspiration was all that was keeping me going.  She had escaped this place to evade death, so I could do the same. This reminder of her strapped to my leg was the symbol.  She had one as a cutie mark, now I knew why.

    Somepony had proven it could be done.

    Mentally bucking myself back to reality, I placed myself closer to the roof, hunkering down on all four legs as I crept to the edge.  I almost squeaked as I looked over and saw a row of slaves passing by the street not twelve feet from me that I'd almost missed. Trudging and weary, they were all of a smaller stature.  As I watched their despondent faces, dragging hooves like iron weights and scarred sides from the thresher machine, I began to think. Perhaps I could sneak among them. I could hide in plain sight.

    Time was short.  Drawing my saddlebag off, I began to wind some spare cloth around my PipBuck.  It was a dead give away if unhidden. The rest could pass around the dirty slaves I hoped, but I swung my knife around to the inside of my leg instead to keep it better hidden.  Checking the bandages on my legs if they were tight, I dropped with a soft whud from the garden shed (I never was one for landings. It was perhaps a good thing I couldn't fly) and waited for the slavers guarding the procession to look away.  With practised depressive steps, I silently trotted into line, fighting down the chains binding my mind from tempting me to fall back into actually being a slave. A filthy green mare looked sideways at me as I gently shoved my way to the middle of the slave march.  I tried to smile back, receiving only a scowl in return. I put my head down, glancing only briefly as I heard a little flutter from nearby, probably an old piece of cloth in the wind.

    Every muscle twinged.  Guards were looking at me, scanning the crowd from above and beside.  Whips cracked, urging the smaller slaves into the mill's cavernous doorway after passing through the fence gates.  Feeling myself being bumped from side to side by the thinning space for so many ponies to squeeze through, my concentration was entirely on staying on my hooves, to keep moving like an average slave and not draw any attention.

    'Like your average slave', I thought.  Looking around me, I saw ponies shuddering, crying, and fearfully looking around.  I hated my fellow slaves. They would kill me as soon as look at me if they knew about my wings.  But seeing them on the night of my hopeful flight from Fillydelphia, I began to feel a sadness for them that was entirely new.  I'd get out of here, but these ponies were to be left to work, hurt, and die with no change brought by my leaving. There was to be no escape for them.  Normality would drive them to their deaths, whether sharp and painful or slow and lingering.

    With practised and weary steps, they made their way to the threshing machine.  It still ran full tilt, the last shift only having just vacated. Even from the crowd, I could see the stains on the floor, red marks of long past, and the recently dried ones of the pony who had unexpectedly saved my life.

    I had to stop, the trembling of a close shave with death still passing through me whenever I thought on it giving me pause to lean against a wall for a moment.  Death from Fillydelphia was without favouritism. What if it had picked me for a random and messy end? What if it picked the mare? What if I returned with a team to liberate them all, and I found that she had been killed by some drunken slaver for no reason at all?

    “Drop the saddlebag, slave.”

    I blinked my eyes open, gasping in shock as I turned me head slowly. Painful inevitability reared its ugly head as I gradually focused on the sight of a dark red and black-clad unicorn mare staring down at me.  A cane hovered in her telekinesis magic field as her eyes inclined towards a storage locker.

    “You won't be able to move without getting caught with that thing on, dump it in the room.  You can pick it up later once you're done.”

    Her colleague, an earth pony buck with an entirely shaved mane, moved up beside me.

    “We'll keep it safe for you, honest.  We only take ten percent of your caps, other slavers go for higher amounts.  Best deal.”

    They had to be kidding me.  Really?

    “Come on, get ready, take your place.  Dump those clothes and those ridiculous goggles too. Far too bulky to work under the thresher.  Well, come on!”

    Not good, not good, not good at all!  I had hoped that I could slip right into the threshing line and make a dash for the back door the corpse had been taken to earlier.  Since when did slavers start to care about safety? I glanced back and forth at the pair, searching for the words.

    “I can't, um, see, this is stuff for Wicked Slit.”

    “Good!  That bitch killed two of the slaves we lent her last week.  Do you know how hard it is to find unicorns who can pick locks in this damn wasteland?  C'mon, give us the stuff. You can just tell her you got mugged.”

    Somehow, I doubted that would work even if I wasn't lying through my teeth. This plan wasn't working!  I had pictured me perhaps having to run under gunfire, overcoming fear to charge out into a free life, but this was just stupid!

    “Come on!  Hurry up and drop the goods, slave!”

    “Please!  I'll be fine,” I practically begged them, lowering my head, “I...I'll take the risk with it on.”

    If I could just get past them then I could slip out.  Other slaves were beginning to pay attention to this, some slavers casting eyes from outside the doorway into the threshing room as well.

    “Oh for Luna's sake. Barehoof, just take it from him, slaves shouldn't have bags anyway.”

    I felt the earth pony grab hold of my saddlebag strap with his teeth from the side.  Struggling, he smacked me with a hoof a couple of times as I tried to shake him off in a blind panic.  Terror struck me, what if he pulled my vest off!? I'd gotten lucky earlier!

    “Shtay shtill!”

    The buck shouted through clenched teeth. I kept moving from side to side, grabbing on to my saddlebag however I could, a fight to keep it on me quickly becoming a small scuffle that almost ended the moment that I felt his hoof attempt to beat me on my side to keep me still.  A metallic clang rung through the room as he pulled back, more surprised than genuinely hurt as his hoof impacted on the metal plate I had hidden there.

    “What the hell?  Grab him!”

    If I'd moved faster, that would have been my chance, but a momentary pause to check my fleece hadn't shifted gave Barehoof an opportunity to grab me again.  I felt his front hooves wrap around my torso as he launched at me, his weight pulled me to the floor with a crash. I could smell his warm breath just above my head and feel every bit of his weight pressing down across my back.  The pressure on my wings gave way to a pathetic squeal of pain, the continued rubbing as he shifted, trying to pin me down with his weight. It was like being rubbed against a grindstone to my wings. The unicorn wandered over, she would cut off my only route in a second. The slaves had parted to stay away from the confrontation.  No slave wanted to be near an angry slaver like I'd just done.

    “Good!  Now just stay still like an obedient little slave while we get all this off you.”

    Thankfully, through my pain and fear, I remembered one way to get a buck off me.  I struggled up just far enough to lift my back right hoof and fire it backwards as hard as I could.  My hooves were tiny, small enough to fit right into that gap with all the force focussed into one little point.

    “Aaiieee!”

    On the crunch of contact, Barehoof's weight entirely disappeared as his strangled cry pierced the air, hurting my ears from the proximity.  I couldn't hesitate, I needed every bit of my supplies and any delay would give time for the alarm to be raised once The Master realised I'd made a run for it.  Even as Barehoof fell sideways, clutching his loins with both front hooves and crying in pain, the unicorn and other slavers looked almost too stunned (one was laughing!) to react to their comrade's plight.  Using the space, I turned and galloped as fast as I could into the mass of slaves around the machine. Behind me the shouts quickly went out, calls to stop and threats of punishment. I didn't stop, panic and fear wouldn't let me.  I'd already gone past the point of no return now. I'd attacked a slaver and went on the run. I had no illusions about what would happen if I were caught now.

    I needed to get out of here, lie low, and then move on!

    Slaves dove to either side of the thin corridor between the wall and the threshing machine edge as I weaved between them.  The slavers were in hot pursuit, shoving slaves brutally away as they levitated batons, knives, and whips. They were faster than me, and unfortunately, I only had a straight corridor for the huge machine to run down. They were catching up, diving and grasping at me.  Beside me, the whirling blades of the thresher continued their work even as everypony stood watching the chase.

    Wait...

    I felt a slaver right behind me, and heard the swish of a cane.  In a moment, I ducked, rolling sideways away from the cane to be under the machine once again and began to duck and shuffle for all I was worth to get away from them! I had around fifteen seconds to use!

    I crawled forward, trying to get beyond a big mass of slaves nearby before the blades came back.  Leftover refuse and thread built up around me as I moved in the confined space, rubbing the string above me from the saddlebag.  The strands got in my mouth, eyes, and nose. I could see the slavers struggling to get past all the slaves standing at the ready line; that would slow them down!  It would take them some time to force their way through the slaves in the thin gap between machine and wall.

    But I could circumvent it under the machine.  Ha! Who said being small was-YARGH!

    Two hooves stretched out, grabbing my back leg.  A slaver had crawled under the machine itself to get me.  Too big to properly fit, a maniacal grin covered his face as I tried to kick at him.

    Up at the top, the blades reversed, hurtling back towards us.  The slavers didn't know how short a time it was under here.

    “Let go!” I screamed madly, sweating and whinnying in panic as I saw the blades coming.  He didn't even see them! Just holding on to my hoof like grim death until his comrades arrived.

    I bucked, kicked, and thrashed wildly as I felt myself being pulled back further into the machine!  It looked so close! My own dive and the slaver grabbing me must have only been a few seconds, how long did I have!?

    The battle to free my hoof caused him to try and pull me harder.  His head and hooves, and my back leg were becoming tangled in the thread from above.  Rule one of the thresher was don't get caught in the thread! I squealed, trying to free myself even as the slaver began to realise his predicament.  Even if I got free, there wasn't enough time to...no!

    I leaned in, swinging my PipBuck as hard as I could at his head.  The connection shook the bandages free as the slaver reeled from the hard metal impact.  I apologised under my breath to Sundial, even as I felt my hoof freed from his grasp.

    Not that it helped. The pair of us were still stuck in the thread like a spider's web.

    The machine was being slowed by the tangled thread, but the blades kept advancing slowly, sorting the thread back properly.  If they reached us then we'd be 'sorted' with it! The slaver was starting to panic himself, thrashing all around and making his predicament even worse while I struggled to pull my hoof free from the winding thread.  I felt tears on my face, my limbs shaking as the thum-thum-thum-thum sound of the blades came ever nearer.  Forget how handy it was, I would have given a lot to not have hearing that picked up sounds in so much detail right now!

    I didn't know what the other slavers were doing. Watching, probably.  Would they be trying to stop the machine? Would they leap in to try and cut their fellow slaver free?

    Wait, cut free!  My knife!

    Twisting, I dragged the hidden blade from the inside of my leg free with my mouth.  Not wasting any time, I tried to saw through the toughly strung thread, the bouncing and movement making it exceptionally difficult, even as the machine’s noise grew and grew.

    Thum!  Thum! Thum!  Thum!

    Come on.Come on!  A few bits of string popped free, but it was wound tight around my hoof!

    Thum!  Thum! THUM!  THUM!

    Nothing else for it!  I dug the knife under the string on my hoof, yelping in pain as the desperate move let the blade cut me as I force it down to cut the whole section of thread off.  It was all I could do to not drop the knife before I fell backwards with a sudden jolt. Free!

    I turned, scrambling harder than ever before to escape. Rolling was impossible from the size of my saddlebag for anything more than a dive. I wasn’t sure if I’d have the time, but I needn’t have worried.

    The slaver, yelling to the others, did have to.

    I would try long and hard for some time to attempt to forget the sound the slaver made as he was 'sorted' by the machine.  Both his voice and the sickening sounds of a pony being caught up fully in the industrial scale machinery assaulted every inch of innocence I liked to think I still had.  I didn't look back for fear of freezing in horror, only taking the advantage of the sickened slaves and slavers who could see to get a few seconds head start.  I saw one slave throw up on the spot, another had gone pale while one was actually smiling.  I wondered what that slaver had done to her.

    I paused only for a second to check my hoof.  The cut wasn't so bad, just a shallow nick to get under the thread. Nothing to worry about.  I threw my weight into the slaves as I fought to get away before the slavers regained their senses from the horror show and chased me ag—

    “He's getting away!  Get that little murderer!”

    Okay, maybe not much of a head start!

    I ran down the linear pathway, the double doors to the back rooms before me promising hiding places and safety.

    They burst open.

    Two slavers came running through them, hearing the commotion.  One of them had a pistol.

    I screeched to the halt right in front of them., immediately looking for somewhere else!  I needed to move! I turned and ran along the side of the machine, up the stairs on to the walkway the slavers used above it.  Behind me, the two new slavers finally gathered what was happening and gave pursuit. My hooves clattered on the metal as I passed above the thresher.  At the far end was another stairway leading to the roof, below me I could see slavers running for the stairs at the entrance again to cut me off.

    A sharp, sudden roar of automatic gunfire erupted from behind me. Sparks flew from the catwalk as the slaver unloaded his mouth-borne automatic pistol after me.  The sound made me scream as I kept running, seeing holes ripped around the metal. He had missed. I presumed the slavers often didn't get a chance to try out their weapons in this place.  Even I could see the recoil had caught him by surprise.  

I heard him swearing as he reloaded. Slaves were screaming, diving to the ground while the slavers ran on to the catwalk after me.  Pushing my little stride to its limit, I galloped for all I was worth, trying to outrun the ponies below before they got to the other side.

    I realised I was still whimpering, more scared of being caught than determined to actually escape.  The entire catwalk shook with the four or five slavers rushing after me, the imagery of it collapsing into the whirling machinery below scared me enough to increase my rate as much as I could.  Funny, I hadn't ever seen that the entire machine was mirrored on the other side of the hall too. Another row of slaves had stopped to gaze upward at the scene.

    The slavers pulled ahead on the ground. I wasn't going to make it!

    Briefly, I heard the sound of a pistol being pulled and prepared to fire.
   
    I hit the ground hard, that awful roar of rapid gunshots filling the air as rounds sprayed over my head.  The deadly whizz past my ears almost led me to think I'd been hit before I saw the burst had struck a supporting girder on the roof.  Along with the mass of weight and thumping hooves, I felt the entire structure tremble.

    Then it began to lurch and tilt.

    Ooooh, not good...

    The slavers down below stopped, unwilling to run on to the slowly twisting and shuddering walkway after witnessing what had happened to their friend before.  Galloping at an angle, I ran to the second stairs, diving for them just as I felt the entire walkway collapse beneath me. A shriek of tortured metal bit through the air as the entire construction bent and tore from the roof, the long walkway bending to the side and landing atop the sensitive machinery.  Screams and swearing sounded behind me as the slavers tumbled down it, landing amongst the threads as the blades shattered and shuddered to a stop. Slaves ran in every direction as blades of metal flew from the ancient machine as the edges bit into the walkway and then themselves flew off. The noise was absolute, crashing mixing with screams, the thunk of metal embedding in walls crossed with the twanging of thousands of pieces of string at once being severed.

    I heard the slavers cry to get outside and surround the building, another shouted to go and fetch griffons to bring me down.  One bellowed to watch for me leaping off the building.

    Emerging on to the roof, slanted and covered in disjointed slates, I ran away from the hole as fast as I could before—

    “There!”

    Once again, I heard the howl of that fiendishly quick firing pistol. Bullet holes punched through the roof I had just thrown myself away from, one tearing close enough to glance off my side. The heavy steel plate I’d shoved in there withstood it, but the impact alone knocked me from my hooves.  Tumbling toward the edge, I cried out as I slammed my hooves on the roof, only stopping as they caught a downed power cord rested over the building.

    “Come on...come on, Murky!”

    Panting to myself, I fought to keep myself balanced across the roof.  I could hear slavers rushing out into the yard surrounding it, shouting to the guard towers behind me at the entrance.  I ducked behind a set of chimneys, hidden among them from any snipers.

    I needed a hiding spot, but they knew I was up here!  How long till griffons arrived?

    I couldn't stop shaking, I was scared.  Oh, so scared. No, terrified! They were hunting for me, all alone with nopony to help me.  I wished Number Six were here, or the Stable Dweller, they could tell me where to go, what to do.  They'd find some daring thing to jump into!

    Enlightened by the idea, I stuck my head out.  Slavers hadn't come to this side yet over the diagonal roof.  At the same time, sickening horror and a life-saving idea came to mind as I looked down.

    Below me was a mass grave.  Dozens of ponies, dumped in death into the old waste pit.  I could even see the slave from earlier splayed across the top, the most recent corpse.

    Surely the slavers wouldn't spot one more 'addition' to the pile...right?

    My mind rebelled, of all things I'd hidden in, this was too far!  I'd taken refuge in pigstys, rotten food cupboards, spider infested holes, drainage ducts, and musky cellars, but this was too much. I couldn't...

    “Got word from Stern!  She's sending a wing over to locate him!”

    ...I had to.  This had gone too wrong already.  I'd been spotted and called out as an escaping slave.  I didn't have time to hang around and try for a different way, I needed to move my plan along before word got to the Wall.  If they found out...

    I steadied myself on my hooves and clenched my teeth.  This wasn't going to be pleasant at all. Oh, how I longed for my pigsty again.

    With a short canter, I dove from the roof.  It was only a single storey high, but to a small pony like me, it felt so much higher as I tumbled, hooves first, towards the mass grave.  

With a hard thud, I landed heavily, the air knocked right out of me as all four hooves protested at the jarring impact.  My cuts stung badly at the exertion as I tried to get up. All the time, I tried to not think about what I had landed on.

    It was impossible.

    They squelched under me.  A rotten stink threatened to make me vomit.  Flies buzzed around my head. I had stains on me.  Suddenly, I was very glad for my stolen pair of goggles.  Their eyes stared with lidless purpose, their poses unnatural, and I could swear I recognised a couple.

    “He must have leapt off where we couldn't see, come on!”

    My ears twitched as I heard the shout over the screams of slavers keeping control of the terrified slaves.  Looking down, I immediately regretted this idea, the mare below me had been burned to death somehow. I could see her teeth had been removed. Why would they even need them!?

    But she was to be my temporary saviour.

    Muttering apologies through a mouth I dared not open very far, I knelt down, fighting the churning of my stomach as I pulled myself under a couple of the bodies and fought the urge to move as something dripped on my goggles.  I needed to stop shaking!

    They came around the corner.  Five slavers, including the one with the auto-pistol.  They galloped over. I could see them looking up at the roof, turned away from me.  Could I just have slipped out in that time?

    “He must have jumped.”

    “Are you kidding?  Kid was terrified, he'd never get that far!”

    “Well, he's not here now!”

    “Shut up, both of you!  He's gone alright, so where?”

    They turned, spreading out.  Some wandered to the broken fence posts. I had considered running through them, but I'd never get away from the slavers in a straight race.  I needed to misdirect them first. The buck with the auto-pistol in his mouth wandered closer, his hooves coming near the mass grave's edge. He glanced over it, before turning to his comrades, spitting the pistol out.  I could see it hung from his neck on a cord.

    “Hey, didn't a mare and at stallion try and hide in the grave a few weeks back?”

    Every effort it took to not move was strenuous, to not throw up my hooves and beg them not to shoot.  By Luna, they'd shot at me! At me!  The weight of that was just sinking in.  I'd been beaten and attacked brutally before, but a gun was a whole new level.  If I'd been a few more inches to the right when that bullet struck I would have been down.

    “Yeah, just give it a spray and come on.  The griffons will find him. Damn, Red Eye isn't going to be happy about that machine.”

    The buck turned, taking the pistol back in his mouth and pointing it seemingly right at my face.  I closed my eyes, before praying that he didn't see that slight movement. I was only one of many. He might miss me...he might miss me...

    I saw the barrel of the pistol blaze in fire as that short but intense roar blasted out of it, being swung back and forth across the grave.

    I felt corpses move, kick up, shudder, and jerk under the barrage.  For a second or two, it felt like they had all come to life again. Clambering, grabbing, pulling me deeper into them.  I began to slip downwards as the bullets disturbed the awkward balance of the grave's contents.

    I squeaked.  I couldn't help it.  But as I opened my eyes and saw the slavers wandering off, I felt every muscle release from the self-induced rigor mortis I'd been in out of sheer terror.  The echo of the weapon still rung in my ears as I mentally checked everything.

    The moment they were gone, I pulled myself free and galloped without a care for noise.  It wasn't until I was past the fence and running into the outer edges of the slaver camps that I finally stopped behind a ruined sky wagon and began to clean my goggles and fleece with some spare rags.

    I stopped only as my stomach twisted. Reality caught up to me, and I realised what I had done.  I spent the next ten minutes getting rid of everything I had eaten lately at all before collapsing in a shuddering heap inside the sky wagon.

    Ahead of me lay the end run.

    Behind me, I could hear slavers and griffons searching for me.

    I'd thought being shot at was the point of no return.  I was wrong. This was it. If I moved past here, I would cease to be a slave attempting to get away from a guard trying to harm them, and become a slave trying to escape entirely.  There would be no warnings, no punishments, no Pit, and no hope if caught. Punishment for going into the slaver camps around the edge of the Wall was immediate death or painful death, depending on the mood of the guard who caught you.

    I was stuck.  Fear had taken me at every joint and muscle against moving further.  The slave in my mind was begging with me, bringing thoughts of other ways to survive.  Perhaps I could find enough things to convince Artery to heal me instead to live! What if I stole things to survive and just hide?

    I fought them down, I knew they weren't possible.  Not truly. Besides, I needed to get out to draw the picture for the mare as well.  It was a tiny reason, more an excuse to tell myself to go, but it did the job.

    I took the step.  One hoof over the border before galloping toward the most dense concentration of tents and shacks I could see.  Any cover would be needed, guard posts and rings of Red Eye's soldiers around camp fires were situated everywhere.  It was a true shanty town of tight spaces and thin alleyways between encampments.

    I'd told myself to dare a lot.  But this...this felt like a truly daring endeavour.

    I just hoped it would end with the same victory the Stable Dweller had.

    One thing I quickly realised was lots of cover also meant lots of places to run into guards without meaning to.  I quickly trotted backwards before slipping inside the shack, listening carefully as a huge, battle saddle-laden earth pony clomped past.  Breathing a sigh of relief, I quickly turned to check the shack, only to very quickly begin making my way back out as I spotted four soldiers sleeping on makeshift bunk beds clearly taken from an old barracks somewhere in the city.

    I was sweating profusely.  Not just from exertion, not just from fear, but the heat reflected inwards off the massive Wall nearby noticeably made things worse under my heavy fleece.  Trotting the way the guard had come, I stuck close to walls, trying to convince myself everything was fine. The Stable Dweller had done this from the Pit, right?  She'd been spotted right away! I'd gotten to the camps without a single pony following me! Did that mean I was doing better?

    Remembering the iconic waves of magic swirling about her as she had ascended, I quickly put my ego back in its place.  She hadn't needed to sneak.

    Ducking low, I stuck behind a shack's corrugated metal fence.  I could hear guards muttering to one another on the other side as I moved hoof by hoof past them.  Asphalt and hard rock made silence difficult as my hooves touched ground, dropping my speed to a painful crawl.  Briefly, I realised that I should have made pads for my hooves from the rags too. Above me, a guard tower watched the area, although I couldn't see the sniper within it from this angle.  Those towers were making life hell. I stuck to the edge of the fence, carefully watching it for any mo—

    The tip of a barrel glinted.

    As fast as I dared, I skipped to the other side of the narrow lane, hiding against the back of a tent to stay out of the line of sight.  My breath was sharp and quick as I tried to not fall into the tent itself from my hasty movement.

    Moving on, shack to shack, fencepost to tent, I gradually moved my way through the thick camps.  Racks of weapons attracted my attention, but all were exposed, and honestly, I had no idea how to use them with my mouth properly anyway.  Ducking behind a flaming barrel, I watched a soldier wander past wearing a midrange battle saddle that bore double shotguns. I fought down the sting of jealousy.  I really wanted one of those things.  The way the mechanics worked, the angle of the springs and tiny gears into such a tiny package, the precision weights and guidance of the saddle itself to allow it all to sit properly when recoiling.  If only for the amazing content, I wanted to steal it from his back.
   
    The fact that it looked like it could turn me into a fine mist was all that stopped me from wanting to somehow find a way. That battle saddle was gorgeous.  I knew nothing of how to actually repair or understand the mathematics behind it, I just appreciated them and their artistic beauty of design.

    Behind me, I heard the stomping of somepony as they got up from their fire. Even in the heat, I shivered. They had to be coming this way, I had to move now or I’d be spotted!

    As quietly as I could, I was forced to follow the soldier with the battle saddle.  Creeping right behind him, I simply hoped that he would pass a turning before the one behind me turned the corner.  Mere seconds before he did, I found the space to hop between two tents and crawl behind them. The tents had their backs to a fence, but with a little light hoofing the ground, I dug a hole just deep enough to allow my small size to squeeze under it, pushing my saddlebag before me.

    I emerged inside a tent I hadn't even known was so close to the other side.

    With no flooring, I clambered up without obstacle, taking it inch by painstaking inch as I saw two bucks were sleeping at the side with their weapons leaning nearby.

    “Mm...mmfph!”

    I froze as one shifted, hooves rubbing his eye.  Carefully, I tried to move before he woke up.

    With a stretch, he dumped himself right back down, still fully asleep.

    “Eeh...oh Luna you naughty Princess.”

    I wasn't sure whether I wanted to laugh or roll my eyes.  Many ponies of the wasteland didn't believe in the Goddesses any more, even if they still swore by them.  But I'd been brought up by a mother who knew better.

    Edging around the tent flap, I noticed it opened into a large communal area with a roaring fire at the centre.  Guards surrounded it, passing plates of unidentifiable meat between one another from a grill plate over the flames.  Sitting on logs, they all stared into the fire or at one another as they conversed loudly, at least four or five conversations going on all at once.  I could sneak by this, I'd done harder things before in quieter areas.

    It may have been loud.  But it was about to get much louder.

    It started slow, but with the inevitable volume carried within its wailing drone, the Fillydelphia balefire warning siren began its deathly, eerie klaxon scream.  Growing in volume second by second, it roared into the Fillydelphia sky, raising hairs on everypony's backs for miles. Even now, two hundred years on, the sound struck absolute terror in many, me especially.  Louder and louder, my ears began to hurt as every guard in the area shot to their hooves. The clattering of weapons, rush of action, and screams for what was going on filled the air. I felt rooted to the spot as the sound seemed to penetrate my entire body, images of skeletons in dead homes, of balefire wreathing through cities, of a world ending and the goodness of Equestria being burned out from an unstoppable and indiscriminate wave.

    Back then, it had signalled the end of the world.  Today, it was the call to arms against attack, or for escaping slaves.

    The Master had alerted them.  The thresher slaves would have confirmed the direction.

    My head start was over. They were coming for me.

    I took off, stealth was pointless now.  Guards would be searching everything with enough determination born of the screaming siren's incentive.  Above me, waves of griffons took to the sky and every guard tower lit their magical energy bulbs to shine red glares upon the area near the wall.  Galloping at top speed, I sped past the guards, not caring if I was spotted. I no longer had the time to worry for that, if I didn't get through the Wall before the guards atop it were settled, I'd never get a hundred feet from the borders of Fillydelphia.

    “He's right here!”

    “OPEN FIRE!”

    Booming retorts of rifles followed by the staccato clattering of automatic weaponry sounded in my wake, stopped only by the mass of cover in the shantytown the guards lived in.  Diving around a corner, I rolled as best I could to come to my hooves sideways and rushed for any small hole I could find. Sneaking was gone, but I could still evade! The wailing in the air and the screaming of guards was too much commotion for me to even think about fear as I wriggled between shacks and jumped tie-lines from tents.  I spilled a crate of rifles as I crashed into it, before screaming and running inside a tent as soldiers piled into the clearing. Drawing my knife, I cut through the back of it as fast as I could, a hole so small only I could fit through. Behind me, a heavily sleeping mare was cut down by incoming rounds as they attempted to hit me through the tent's canvas.

    How many times had I ran from gunfire?  How many sniper shots rang out as they caught a tiny glimpse of me between buildings?  How many times was I screamed at to stop?

    I kept going.  To stop was death.  To keep going was survival!  Escape!

    I burst from the edge of the camp, collapsing and staggering to my hooves.  Gunfire pocketed the mud around me as I weaved, dodged, and ran for all my worth.

    “Fucking hit him!”

    “You seen how small he is!?”

    Guards were pouring from the camp. Sweet Celestia, how many were there!?

    The ground was open in front of me all the way to the wall. A killzone. A giant killzone.  My memory flashed back as a booming speaker of Red Eye's voice opened up, demanding the rogue slave to halt immediately.  Standing in the road, Number Six bellowing for me to follow, stopping scared in the wake of gunfire and the demands of my Master...

    No.

    He was not my Master.

    Not.

    Any.

    More!

    I screamed an incoherent cry, charging forward! I could see a drain at the bottom of the wall, just like I had imagined!  Gunshots fell around me, pinging from rocks and churning up mud. If I could just reach that drain, I'd be safe until the other side.  I didn't stop once, running side to side and galloping until my hooves were in agony from striking rocks. The sunset passed behind the wall as I chased it, determined to view it on the other side, find out where the Stable Dweller had gone over the horizon!

    I mounted the rocks, diving off them even as a rocket-propelled grenade blasted them into shrapnel.  My rump stung as pieces flew into me, but I was too determined to stop now! To either side, I saw guards running for me, but even I could tell they were too far away to catch me in time.  A smile crossed my face, I dodged left and right confidently, knowing all along I had been meant to do this!

    Their gunfire missed me completely. Their attempts to hit a fast-moving and small target camouflaged against a night's darkness were met with failure so long as I didn't run in a straight line.  Tracer fire struck the wall, shouts for bringing me down went out.

    Above me I heard a flutter in the sky.  Like a glass pane shattering, realisation struck me.

    Hearing it once was random.

    Time seemed to slow.

    Hearing it twice was coincidence.

    Terror began to clench my stomach as I began to turn my head to look upwards.

    Three times was a definite sign I had been followed the entire time.

    I saw the jet black griffon with the long-barrelled rifle hovering in the air.  I tried to bend my legs, to dive out of the way, into the drain.

    Until she fired.

    It struck me mid-leap.  The force of a sledgehammer slapping into my side, I felt the hot pain of the bullet crash through my torso and rip its way out of the other side, my armour plating completely failing to even so much as delay it.

    I fell, tumbling in the air in a slow arc before landing in a heap.

    All the gunfire ceased as I went down and briefly blacked out from the overwhelming force of immediate agony.  Immediately, consciousness flowed back and brought with it a world of pain I had never once imagined could exist.

    I screamed.

    Loud, rasping, and full of hurt, I clasped my hooves to my side.  I couldn't even remember if that was the entry or exit. Both sides burned with painful heat. I forgot my escape. I forgot the sunset and my freedom.  All that was in my mind was panic, pain, and fear of dying ever so suddenly as reality shattered my imaginative fantasy. Thrashing in the dirt, my eyes clenched shut, I wailed for anypony, somepony, to come and help me.  To save me. I cried for Number Six, I cried for the Stable Dweller, and hell, even Celestia herself to help me. My legs had gone numb. Forcing my eyes open, I almost fainted on the spot as I witnessed the pool of blood spreading from beneath me.  Beside me, tauntingly, the drainage ditch sat, its Murky Number Seven-sized hole forever to tease me with untouched potential.

    Oblivious to my pain and crying, the griffon landed beside me as the guards moved in, weapons pointed.  Ragini! That was her name! The griffon from yesterday! Whimpering and moaning loudly, I looked up at her, my tears mixing with the mud and blood on the ground as I raised a single hoof toward her, begging for help, to not be killed on the spot.

    She batted it away with her muzzle, before reaching down, her talons pulling my fleece up to examine the wound.  I screamed as the wound was aggravated, and as she began to yank my clothing away.

    “NO— ARRGH!  PLEASE! D-don't! You'll kill me! I need to get out! I need...I need to...”

    My words went unheard as she pulled it up.  I cried out anew as I saw the injury myself. The exit wound caked in red.  Whimpering, I looked away and shuddered. My limbs shook...I was going into shock.

    The guards broke their calm as they, and Ragini, saw what lurked beneath my fleece.
   
    “A pegasus,” she said, quietly and full of immediate hate, “well, well. The rumours are true, then.”

    I couldn't respond. I just tried to keep my blood in, trying to hold down on my wound.  Even the pain of my own hooves touching it gave way to more pain and shouting from the feeling.

    “R-Ragini!  Please! I...I'm sorry!  Let me live...please!”

    Ragini shook her head and drew the rifle, the barrel aiming directly to my head.

    “Escaping slaves only get one thing.”

    Her eyebrow twitched. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of all the guards catching up. They shouted and demanded information. Ragini looked up sharply, away to the side as though hearing or spotting something. She hesitated, before removing the weapon.

“Guards! Take him in! And know I’ll be informing Stern of your failure to stop a slave for this distance! It’s embarrassing! I followed him all the way from the FunFarm, watched him outwit you all. Get him out of here!”

    I cried and curled up around my wound, feeling my head get overwhelmed by dizziness. My speech felt slurred as I shouted for help. Colours washed into one another and I felt like I were seconds behind my own body’s actions. Shock overwhelmed me, drove me to feeling faint. Yet I saw the upset soldiers and guards from Ragini’s proclamation rush forward. They had revenge in their eyes, and I held my hooves up as they swarmed over me, tugging my wounded body amongst them. Hooves struck at me. Rifles knocked into me. The assault began, one I knew I’d never survive.

    But as quickly as it started...it stopped, as I witnessed the guards cease and part.  My burning throat gave way to a horrible croaking, as I struggled to open my one functioning eye from the swelling that had blinded the other one again.

    The last thing I saw was a figure advancing through the crowd.  Red and black. A single, baleful, glowing crimson light emerged from one eye socket.  Before I could even utter the word 'Master' to beg for forgiveness, my hoof stretched out to him, II fell into the black void that awaited me...and I felt no more.

    “Now listen, children.

    DJ-Pon-Three's gonna have to get serious for a moment.  No, really! Yeah, I know it ain't something that we like to do all too often.  But I've been telling you all about this stuff for the entire day. But I've been thinking and it feels only truthful that I mention something.

    You will fail.

    Now, don't treat that how it sounds!  What I truly mean is, nopony can expect to go out there and make it all happen on their first try.  The wasteland didn't last two hundred years just because a few ponies were lazy, oooh no. To fight the good fight, we need to learn not only to stand up and try, but to know how to get back up when we're beaten. To learn from it, get stronger, and try again.  I'm sure all those legends we know of thought the same. Hell, a certain mare knows that more than most. So I implore you all, my little wastelanders. If you go out to fight the good fight I keep telling you to, there will be times when it will hurt more than you can imagine.  But don't give up. Don't ever give up. The moment we do, that's when Equestria dies.

    Bit of a downer note to end on, I know.  But I care for you all out there, I wouldn't want to finish this day without letting you know the reality you'll be in for.

    Now back to something happier, this is Sweetie Belle with a song to send us all to sleep tonight peacefully.  Hush Now, wasteland, one more painful day is over.

    This is DJ-Pon-Three, bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts.”

    I wasn’t dead.

    Even amongst the black abyss of pain and defeat, I could hear voices as I faded in and out.  Some I knew, some I didn’t recognise. They rang in my head, my ears picking them up from time to time.

    The pain flared, and became worse.  It threatened to overwhelm me. A sensation of drowning, of fighting to stay afloat. I was lying on something hard, yet my balance felt like I was falling again and again.

    I felt somepony grab me.  Hooves around my body, lifting me up desperately.  Lying on my back, I opened my eyes to see nothing but darkness and one mare staring down at me.  Light orange hair, streaked with red.

    I tried to speak, to reach out, but I just lay silent, unable to function in my own body.  Every sound began murky and muddled, as though hearing from underwater.

    She spoke five words. I couldn't understand any of them, it looked like she was pleading.

    What did she say?

    She glowed with light, the brightness expanding before it contained my entire vision.

    And I woke...

    Hard metal and red haze greeted me as I awoke.

    I was lying on my side, distinctly not dead but possessing a weariness that was hard to quantify to myself.  Red smoke flowed from grills on the floor, searing my lungs and half-choking me. Whoever put me in here to recover clearly had little care about my ongoing health.

    I twisted, checking my side.  Scar tissue remained, but hairs were growing back already.  It hurt badly, and I felt weak, yet my lungs felt clearer, despite the smoke in the cramped cell.  Whatever they had used to heal me had affected my disease as well. It still felt present, but toned down.

    In many ways, I felt healthier than I had in years, recovering wounds notwithstanding.  What was going on?

    I gave myself a once over.  I was chained to the floor, all four hooves shackled to colossal iron rings welded to the sheet metal.  All of my clothing had been stripped. Fleece, saddlebag and even my goggles. With pain, I realised that along with everything else, I had lost my PipBuck and journal.  All I had left was my own skin and a cutie mark that all too harshly reminded me of where I had gone wrong...

    ...no.

    I hadn't gone wrong.  It had been a wake up call.  I had failed, but somehow, I had realised that it didn't matter.  It didn't matter what they said, or what my cutie mark said. From the moment I had sallied forth under the scream of the siren, something had changed within me.  I was a different pony now. Not a slave...well, kinda. I was still a slave, but the crucial difference was I no longer wanted to be one!  I may be scared and liable to being terrified back into line, but the crucial choice had been made.

    I was no longer controlled by my slave instinct, regardless of what had happened.

    And I still wanted out.    I still wanted to try again. That was what mattered, no matter how harsh this got.

Distantly, I heard the sound of hooves in the hallway outside the thick cell door. They grew closer, and I shrunk back as far as I could.

    An authoritative, well spoken voice snapped a polite command.

    “Open it, please.”

    Without a word or hesitation, the door hissed open, spraying steam from the complex mechanics and spraying the smoke in a whirling cloud.  From within it, strode a pony.

    Red and black...

    Glowing crimson eye...

    I shrieked, trying to run backward before the chains caught and I collapsed on the ground.  Once again, I cried out as my wounds slapped the ground hard, before curling up and just shivering in the wake of him.

    Red Eye.

    “Do you know why you are still alive?”

    His voice was startlingly young, incredibly well-spoken, and fluid.  I shook my head. He was not my master, but this pony had the authority and ability to control a superpower in the wastes.

    “Then perhaps I should regale you of the manner in which you were spared, Murky Number Seven.”

    He knew my name.

    He stroke forward, clearing through the smoke with a calm pace.  He...

    ...was not Red Eye.

    Standing before me was not an earth pony, but now a properly revealed unicorn.  Younger than Red Eye, yet older than myself by a few years. A charcoal black coat with a two-tone red mane, he bore a well-kept uniform that seemed to be half-practical and half-scholar, coloured in a grey and dark red.

    His left eye housed an intricate looking eyepiece.  Not cybernetics, but a monocle of sorts of highly tuned technology that hung from one ear.  It glowed much in the same way as Red Eye's bionic replacement in his right socket.

    I had missed the differences in my terror and the cloying smoke.  He stood with the grace and poise of an educated pony as he looked down at me.  Yet somehow, he didn't look down at me.  His eyes (well, eye) stared as though viewing an equal.  Over the years, I more than anypony had learned the difference.

    “I saved your life, Murky Number Seven,” he began, taking a breath and lowering his head slightly towards me, “I had heard there was a rumour of a pegasus in Fillydelphia and when the escape siren sounded, well, who else would be most likely to try than a 'hated' pegasus?  Naturally, I was interested, and from what you did I know I was right. You are indeed a very interesting pony.”

    I glanced down at my sides, those pitiful useless wings sat without comment.

    “Now, it may have cost me many favours and I had to pull some strings to avoid you being shot on the spot for attempting to escape, so I do hope my...investment shall prove worthwhile.  You are something of an anomaly among the higher-ranked overseers, you know?”

    I shook my head again, but forced myself to lie against the wall, supporting my still healing wounds.  The unicorn's horn lit with red magic, drawing a bowl of stew in from behind him to sit before me. It was warm.

    “They don't often encounter pegasi, hence my interest in acquiring you here.  Now. Come, eat. You are severely malnourished, Murk.”

    I sniffed it. Proper apple stew.  I didn't wait, digging in before it was retracted.  The unicorn patiently waited as I slurped it down, the first proper meal I'd had in over two months.  The taste, the freshness, and oh, the warmth. I wasn't very dignified as I gulped every piece down. I even licked the bowl before sighing in relief as my stomach, for once, properly filled.  He smiled, before calmly resuming.

    “Now, Murky Number Seven, I am sure you have questions.”

    I felt given to talk. Thus far, any threat was being disarmed, but I could not prevent a wariness.  Regardless of heart-warming food, he was still one of Red Eye's ponies.

    “Who...who are you?”

    My voice sounded rough and weak next to his strong tone.  He spoke politely, intelligently, yet there was no hint of the “scholarly poshness” that I had once heard in Manehattan when a librarian from Tenpony Tower had come seeking a slave for keeping his library clean.  I'm sure anypony could guess why I didn't last long in that job.

    The buck smiled, a thin and deceptively friendly looking one.  I kept my wits ready, that kind of smile often was not to be trusted.  I knew. I had seen Red Eye once use it. In fact, this buck was reminding me a lot of him in more than just image.

    “My name is Protégé, a fourth-tier ranking work leader within Master Red Eye's endeavours in Unity, Fillydelphia, and beyond.  I was trained, educated, and eventually handed responsibility by his teachings and ideologies. Although too old to have had the same upbringing as he affords foals, I have integrated myself to his plans rather fully in my time under his advice and guidance.”

    “So,” I decided to dare speaking, this buck at least seemed willing to answer questions, “basically, you're his, um, next in line?  His hair?”

    “I believe you mean, 'heir', Murk,” he smiled almost too smoothly as he spoke, “and no, as much as I would appreciate the offer, I am not.  Stern is his second-in-command. However, I have had the benefit of much contact with Master Red Eye himself, including opportunities to be taught directly, one to one.  Such times when I have sat with him and listened to his wisdom and teachings have been blessings. To hear of the great Unity he intends, to hear it in his own words meant for my ears alone? He made me realise what we could accomplish to help this world. As such, some might regard me as his student, as he charts my progress week to week, via reports if not in person.”

    Protégé looked to the side, leaving me with only the slightly unsettling view of his eyepiece.

    “Indeed, I consider myself lucky.”

    “Lucky to be trained to kill ponies like me?”

    I couldn't conceal the question.  Every ounce of me hated what he stood for.  I had lived my life in slavery and now this clearly intelligent buck considered himself lucky to be taught to make more of it?

    “To kill you, Murk?”

    “Ponies like me!” I shouted, still riding the high of knowing I had broken the slave in my mind for now, “We're out there dying every day for this place!”

    “Murk, I assure you, I make no attempt to hide the casualty rates among the workers,” he spoke with incredible diction, almost rehearsed, “but you must understand that this is necessary.  In a hundred years, could Equestria survive when stored food runs out? When we have expended every piece of technology? No, we could not. Fillydelphia, Master Red Eye's great dream, is to build a new world for us before the chance to support it is lost forever, Murk.”

    His eye seemed to light with fire. He was passionate about this!

    “Have you seen the foals?  The fillies and colts?”

    I shook my head. I hadn't seen any since I came to Fillydelphia, a slight irony in itself.

    “Exactly, Murk.  Master Red Eye keeps them safe from all this.  All this work, this toil that we all sacrifice to, even myself, is in efforts for their safety.  He protects them, heals them, educates them, and trains them for when we, those fighting to save Equestria, eventually manage to build enough industry that the world may operate once again.”

    He closed his eyes and sighed.

    “I realise this is a tough world, Murk.  Some workers may not be entirely willing.  But for the good of Equestria, it is the only way.  For what it is worth, I am sorry that yours, that ours, is the generation that must go through this.  But for every mill, factory, and piece of technology we create, we bring us one step closer to our goal.  To give our children a better world at the price of our own lives. Is that so evil?”

    I listened, I heard and yes, I was even slightly moved by his words.  But...a life of slavery? A whole life? I couldn't let go of what it had done to me.  To hear that Fillydelphia served a purpose other than simple greed and power was mind-boggling.  Red Eye had often spoke through the loudspeakers about such things, but I had never believed it was a serious intention until now.

    “I...” I couldn't quite grasp what to say for a few seconds, “I don't know.”

    Any reply fell away from me. I was not in a condition for an ideological debate.

    “Well then,” continued Protégé, “perhaps I should move on to the next obvious topic...yourself.”

    I perked up, but remained silent.

    “You tried to escape, Murk.”

    He wandered from side to side, pacing as he spoke.

    “However it was, to be frank, a rather unthoughtful attempt, for all your efforts.  My subordinate, Ragini, had you tagged the moment you left the FunFarm, as I'm sure you know.  However, I must point out that she actually saved your life.”

    “She shot me!”

    “And you,” he continued, without so much as a breath, “were about to crawl into a drainage tunnel filled with tainted chemicals that would have killed you in moments in a rather...distasteful way.  Did you not read the sign?”

    His voice dropped at the last sentence as I sighed and shook my head.

    “I can't read...”

    “A pity. Lucky for you that your choice in armour was fairly uninformed.”

    “She shot me with an anti-machine rifle, what good would any armour do?”

    Protégé almost seemed to grin.

    “An anti-machine rifle, Murk?  She shot you with a low-calibre rifle she keeps to fire without as much recoil in flight.  If she had used an anti-machine rifle...I assure you, I would have been using a mop to bring you here rather than my magic.”

    Somehow, I didn't find the joke funny.  This entire conversation made me feel uncertain, I had thought myself free...then dead...now once again in Red Eye's stocks in a prison cell.  This was too much to take in at once, really. Only Protégé's strange calmness and polite nature seemed to be holding even me together. Even so, I could not help but feel threatened; I had seen Red Eye's cruelty, despite his silver tongue.

    “Now, I shan't even go into your choice to take oatmeal, which goes off in a day, or the scrap not worth more than fifty caps that weighed you down so much.  Instead, I would rather denote that you owned some things of great interest that showed you were serious about escaping.”

    “I was.” I tried to sound as stoic as I could.

    “So I see.  You want freedom badly, Murk.  I can see it in your eyes, but I am going to tell you the reason why you failed, more than any.”

    That caught me by surprise.  I lowered my eyebrows, trying to stand up.

    “You failed, Murk, because you do not know what it is you want.”

    What?

    “I...but I did!  I was-am-dying! I have an—”

    “An irradiated and marginally tainted infection, Murk.  I know. My personal physician detected it when he was healing you.  He could not remove it. I only have so many resources to expend, and while he is capable, he is not a surgeon-level doctor.  But that is precisely the point. You tried to escape because you wanted to live.  I will tell you, Murk.  Escape from Fillydelphia is not impossible.”

    He had to be meaning the Stable Dweller, but hearing those words felt like a world changing revelation to me. It had seemed so impossible, especially not that he had explained I really had stood no chance.

“But you must be willing to go beyond that.  To try so hard that it goes past what we can possibly predict.  To push so hard that nothing could ever hold you back. But you cannot harness that, not yet anyway.  You sought to live, you ran in fear. But what you say you want is freedom.”

    He lowered his eyebrows, looking almost saddened by the fact himself.

    “How can you truly want freedom hard enough to escape this place, when you have no idea what freedom is yet?”

    ...he was right.

    I had no idea what freedom entailed.  I had never had it, no matter how much I said I had no master I did.  No real choice or will to do as I pleased. It seemed blindingly obvious now in retrospect.

    “Yes, Murk.  If you want to desire freedom enough to escape, then you will have to first taste freedom.”

    I lowered my head, feeling a wave of depression seeping in.  How would I ever know that?

    “But thankfully for you, Murk, I am going to offer you your freedom.”

    My eyes almost flew off my head in how wide they became.  Joy catapulted in my mind, held back only be a wariness born of a life of disappointment.

    “H-how?  What? I mean...”

    “What I mean, is that Master Red Eye offers ways to earn your freedom.  In this case, two years service on special operations such as exploring Stables and other similar buildings.  Now Murk, I am a work leader who specialises in the workers who wish to attempt to find their freedom that way.  Some seek only the violence it provides while others truly seek to become free through service to the cause.  I have signed you to it.”

    What?  I had known about it, any slave could do it, but I didn't want that!  It was dangerous! You had to kill Stable dwellers if you found them! I couldn't do that!

    “In greater service to Master Red Eye, you are now under me.  I am your new master, Murk. I hope you will show great enthusiasm.  You are an interesting pony, not just for your pegasus wings either. I do hope you attain your freedom. Truly, I do.”

    He looked honest.  But the thought of the dangers I would have to face, for two years, only echoed in my head.  I had sought to escape. All I had found for myself was years of work in a harsher environment, no matter how polite or...strangely nice this Protégé seemed!

    “Now, Murk.  I shall leave you to my...hm...assigned overseer, who will take you to the Mall.  Four walls, a roof, and better meals than you have had. I am not a brutal leader, Murk.  I seek only ponies who wish to serve Master Red Eye and help us to create something beautiful for the children of Equestria.  Please, take comfort in knowing I will only permit you on tasks that truly will help us. I am not given to wasting special resources in the ponies that I locate to work for me.”

    I didn't know what to feel.  I just stood as he turned and walked back outside.  I heard a heavy pony approaching. From Protégé's look, it was his overseer.

Heavy clumps of hooves and a large shadow mixed with a low, deep and almost uninterested voice.

    “Take him straight to the Mall.  Get him cleaned up and get him something to eat, then put him with the workers in the plaza. Try to keep him away from the raiders. Maybe put him in with Coral, if she’s back. Nothing else.”

    “Mhm. Right there, eh?”

    Protégé hesitated, staring upwards, before warily leaving, and in his place walked...

    ...him.

    “Hey there, cutie pie.”

    The Master grinned wickedly as he passed his bulk through the thin doorway, backing me into the cell as he drew the key to my shackles.  A deep, rumbling, and taunting laughter set my eyes to water once again as I huddled in the corner.

    “You and I are going to get along so well, little Murky.”

    Footnote: Perk Attained!

    Runt of the Litter – You were never the largest, subject to a series of beatings and bullying through your life.  You gain a small damage resistance bonus against non-critical unarmed attacks. Doesn't hurt any less, mind you.

    Footnote: Quest Perk Attained!

    Shadow Canter (Rank 1) - Whether for crime or survival, you have begun to show your ability to stick to the shadows whilst objects strangely go missing in your passing from both pockets and homes.  You gain + 10 to sneak and any thefts you make are twice as likely to succeed.