Day One:
My name is Infrared Hazmat. I am a Unicorn pony from the world known as Equestria to us, but known to the humans as Jupitor. We discovered the humans 15 long years ago, during one of their space exploration slip-ups. We quickly befriended them (we're good at that) and worked alongside the humans for 14 years. last year, we recieved a dire transmission from the human planet Earth, and the Equestrian Royal Army was sent to investigate.
We lost almost half of our military that day. The rest came back, but were too shaken up to mention anything besides the word 'virus' over and over. So they sent in Hazmat squad. That consist of me and 24 other pony scientists. We arrived a few months ago, and haven't found anything of use. Today, Plutonium, captain of Hazmat squad, gave us these journals to record our progress.
I personally have no experiance with writing, but I guess I can give it a shot. Even though I dated today 'Day One', this is actually Day 184. We've been here for six months, now, and like I said, we've found nothing. Nothing of any use, anyway. I guess I should start back at the real Day One for now. We arrived by one of the Human's 'Majesty' shuttles they left for us when they found our world, and got there in about a week or two.
Upon arriving, we found what we expected: Civilisation had collapsed, plants everywhere were overgrown, most buildings were collapsing, and there was no sign of life whatsoever. We knew we had come too late to help, so we started gathering data. From what we collected, there were dangerously LOW amouts of radiation in the air. Everything seemed to happen in an instant. Cars were left in the streets in orderly lines, nothing seemed to be physically damaged, save the things worn by time.
After gathering our geiger data, we tried to find a place to settle. We chose an abandoned supermarket, as it had a ready supply of food and water. Then we tried to find a place to sleep. After at least four days of doing nothing but eat, drink, and collect data, we finally found a place to actually settle. It was the tallest building in the city, and the plaque before entering read: Freedom Tower. It was at least 100 stories tall, and there were plenty of places to sleep. So we made it our headquarters. in certain places in creaks from time to time, but Plutonium said it was nothing to worry about.
So we went back to the supermarket, and started loading truckloads of all the canned food we could find. Without any humans around, electricity had gone out, so any frozen or refridgerated foods were useless. Water and canned food were still plenty, however, so we loaded them up, and tried our best to 'drive' our way back to Freedom Tower. Sadly, nopony knew how to drive a human car, so we had to combine our magic and levitate it there. Afterwards, we were exhausted, and following the long, tiring process of unloading, we went to sleep.
The next morning, we went out to try and piece together where we were. We knew nothing about Human geography, so we were essentially lost. By the end of the day, we'd figured out we were in some town called Manhattan, in the state of New York City, in the New york region of the country called New England. It didn't help us much, but it was a huge city. it had so much to see. We scoped out a few other possible headquarters for Hazmat squad. We assumed to look where the second tallest building was, and we found something in a newspaper that said that that title now belonged to the Empire State Building.
We found that address, but found that the entire building had basically severed in two. The bottom half was intact, but the top half seemed to be laying sideways in the street. Other buildings around it had also collapsed, so we decided to give up on looking for a backup home. Freedom tower was good enough as it was. Or, that's what we believed.
About a month later, several test confirmed what we expected: there was no chance we were going to find out what actually happened. All it did was prove the radiation levels and the unexpectedness again and again. But then disaster struck. We woke up one morning in Freedom Tower, to hear a creaking and thumping that seemed to go on for minutes. I lived on the fifth floor, and the rest of Hazmat was spread wherever they pleased. Most were with the top, with Plutonium, but I chose a floor closer to the bottom in case something happened like what happened that day. I got a radio signal from Plutonium, who told all of Hazmat Squad to get out of the building ASAP.
We followed without question. I was the first one out, and I was horrified to look up to the top of Freedom Tower. The whole top portion of the building was leaning at a fourty-five degree angle, and slowly going towrads ninety. pieces of metal and glass were falling constantly, and I could only Imagine what Plutonium and the others were going through. After Plutonium arrived, we took head count. Everypony was present, and their eyes were glued to Freedom Tower. It all was leaning almost horizontally now, and we waited for the moment that finally came next.
The last beam supporting the tower snapped, and the top half of the huge construct, snapped out of it's slow descent, and went into a full on fall. It hit the side of the drydock, and the top half of Freedom Tower sunk into the huge Hudson River. We could do nothing but stand there, mouths agape. for four weeks we had come to know Freedom Tower as our home in this apocolyptic disaster, and now it had suffered the same fate as the Empire State building.
Reluctantly, we carried on. We found another large building, the tallest one left, called the Chrysler Building. We settled again, but nothing seemed the same. After two months, we carried on with our tests, and lived in the Chrysler Building, until we got a strange radio signal. We thought it would be from human survivors, but it was only from Atom Squad, stationed in Some city called Seattle, asking us for a census. Everypony was fine. They carried this back to Celestia, and we continued with our jobs.
We found another supermarket or two, and again salvaged all we could. We took it back to the Chrysler Building, only to find out once again that we had to move. One of the Buildings next to ours had collapsed, sending the pointy roof of the Chrysler Building to plummet through the stories down to ground level. We looked for another suitable headquarters, and decided it should be underground, as above ground building had a tendency to collapse.
We settled in the 'subway' underneath Manhattan. It was quiet, sturdy, and huge. We knew we had finally found someplace we could live in for quite a while. In fact, that's where i'm writing from now. Three more months passed from living in the Subway, and we still didn't make any progress. In fact, I think we did the opposite. Three of the original 30 in Hazmat Squad decided they weren't going anywhere, so they took up violence with their magic, and in a fit of rage, killed two scientists. Instead of being brought to justice, Plutonium exiled them as Rouge Squad, and locked them out to the surface. We still haven't heard any word from them.
And that brings this journal up to date. Today we did what we usually did. Scanned some of Earth's vegitation, hunted for living creatures, and tried to figure out how to get back in touch with the motherland Equestria.
Well, believe me, I've had a long day, and a long couple of months, so I need some sleep. This is Infrared Hazmat signing my journal for day one.
Hope you're happy, Plutonium.