Dark Lights Shine Bright
Chapter 1 - One Day
Tired. That’s what everything is. That’s what it always is. That’s how I felt now. I had been trekking this place for days now, never finding anything useful, or anything at all for that matter. But I couldn’t really expect much else. In a place so sparse of ponies even before the wasteland came about, there was never bound to be anything still useable now, over three or four hundred years afterward the war, after the infection.
My hooves were going dry, crusting over with dust so that it now hurt for every step. Not in an exhausted way, that had come by a little while ago. Now it just felt like my fur and skin was being ripped from my body every time I lifted a hoof.
I turned my head towards the sky, hoping that the skies would actually be helpful for once, and release its torrent of water down on me. No such luck, there hadn’t been for days. At least not where I was. The clouds just remained blocking the sky from all view and continued to cast their red haze down over the ground. That with the dust that radiated from the ground created a position in which I could not tell where the land stopped and the sky started.
My skin had been agitated badly by my saddlepacks. Having them on for at least 3 weeks straight and maybe 9 hours sleep per week isn’t exactly good for health. But when you are in the middle of nowhere with a limited amount of supplies and an unknown travel time, then you can’t stop moving. If you do stop, there isn’t always the chance that you could start again, and that chance gets smaller every day.
A loud rumbling came from my stomach. It had been a few hours since I had last eaten, but that amount had not been much. And from the looks of it, I didn’t really feel that it was too trustworthy. I had a rule when dealing with food though. Always eat the worst. When I had the option, I would always eat some of the oldest and a little bit of the newest to keep me from throwing up. Wasting food wasn’t really a good habit now, and I would only have to eat it even later if I left it.
It didn’t stop though. It just kept on growling about and flipping about inside me, refusing to let me have some comfort, if that was even possible at this point. In one quick burst, whatever was in my stomach decided to make itself known. I threw my head forward and let the warm and painful substance be ejected from my throat and into a pile at my hooves.
I wasn’t even mad at that though, that was the seventh time this week and the only thing I cared about was how the liquidity of it reduced every time. I was getting seriously dehydrated and needed to find my next source of water quick. The canisters I had were near empty, no matter how much rationing of it I did.
My only remaining weapon, a small pistol that went with the name of Leksin, rattled against my makeshift armour. I laughed, that little pistol had caused this, had caused me to be left out in the middle of no where with little food and no water, no destination and no ammunition.
It’s funny when I think back on it. I had the guts to offer myself up for a patrol, so that I could prove myself and get just a little more food as payment, and I forgot to take the fucking ammo.
Me and the group of ponies I was with. We went out into the wasteland, to try and take out a hive of infected mantids that just kept on reproducing...We fucked up. We had no idea where it was, and stumbled right into its centre, we could have probably made it if I hadn’t left the bullets. Each of the ponies with me, died two hoofs away, eaten by the mantids. If I had brought the Luna damned ammo, I could’ve saved them...but I didn’t. So I couldn’t. It took minutes before there was only me left. So I ran.
The only problem was, once we angered the hive, they didn’t want to calm down...and they are faster than me. I could’ve made it back, had I been able to teleport then I probably would have made it back before. Although, that would be avoiding the fact that I don’t know how to teleport and my magic had been restricted with a tap. Only allowing enough magic to hold a weapon.
My owners weren’t exactly prepared to allow me my full use of magic.
They would have severely regretted that decision. Had they lived long enough to find out about it. The place was up in flames by the time I had gotten back. I guess that maybe a group of the mantids got into the armoury and caused havoc like they did for the rest of the place. All that was left were crumbling ruins and the...chewed up remains of the other slaves and the scraps of metal that had once been somepony’s armour.
It only took one day for everything to change. It took one hour for what happened to become unstoppable. It took one single mistake for me to fuck up the only place I had that even remotely related to a home.
So that led to now. Having lived so long in a cage, mining rocks or fighting in the outskirts of Manehattan to try and clear out some of the buildings. I had little memory of the outside, what it was like to be alone, what it was like to kill and cook my own food, and where the nearest trading route or town was. My collar was still stuck on and agitating my neck every step. A constant reminder of how bad my life was.
The only good thing that had come of the mantid attack was that I had managed to actually get my hooves on the most useful pieces of technology I could use, or so I thought when I grabbed them. A geiger counter. The geiger counter still kind of worked. It still blipped with it’s semi-useful static that showed how much radiation was in the atmosphere around me or in my own body depending on which setting it had been left on. But I didn’t know which setting I had left it on, and everything other than the actual static it released had broken. It become more of a hindrance than an actual help, acting like a dinner bell for anything that wanted to eat me when I approached. That certain geiger counter could now be found under a rock, scraped into a tree, shattered around another rock and one tiny piece still being a dick and stuck in my hoof
I gave a look towards what had recently been the contents of my stomach, then my saddlepacks, then in front of me and into the red mist of dust. I just stared out, not seeing anything other than dust, rocks and pieces of wood scattered around.. I took a deep, wheezy breath as I gathered my thoughts.
“...Fuck it.” I levitated my saddlepacks of my back and failed, not having enough energy, and therefore concentration to do so. The rough material slid over my head as I settled for kneeling down and letting it fall to the ground. That was the perfect sign that I needed food or a drink, fuck, even some soggy soil would probably give me enough energy for a good few hours.
I quickly opened my saddlepacks and emptied their contents onto the floor. That consisted of small pieces of food wrapped up in ragged fabric, and six water canisters that I had managed to scavenge from my old home outside Manehattan. I began tapping and shaking the water canisters, throwing any which gave no result to the side. By the end, I had one half-empty bottle filled with murky brown water, and five metal tins that added heat and weight to a desperate time.
What was I doing? These were my last pieces of food and water, there had to be something better than this. I...I just couldn’t think of it.
I swallowed down the remaining pieces of food, nearly forgetting to actually chew it. Then I moved onto the water, or lack of. My throat threatened to reject the lukewarm liquid the second that it sensed an unwelcome lump of whoever knows what inside. But my remaining will power and lack of caring stopped it from doing so.
“If this doesn’t work. Then at least I’ll die unconscious… I hope. If not than this will be very painful and slow.” I laughed awkwardly to myself knowing that the chances of it working were very slim. I also realised how happy I was that the magic taps used on me had only temporary effects.
The last thing I needed was a bit of shade, but the closest thing for shade was a good ten steps away, and I didn’t really and this big rock that I could just lean on looks so tempting in it’s position of about 1 lean to my left. So I made my decision of the spot I was already standing in as my possibly final resting place.
My rear legs gave way, forcing me to sit even though that was my plan in the first place. I gathered all the energy I had left, and attempted to force the food and water to hurry up and make their effect. But I have little to no patience in this matter, so I prepared myself.
My head started pounding as I directed all my concentration towards my horn, and failed. So I tried again...and failed again...and again. All feel of energy had left my body and I fell limply to the ground, but wasn’t giving up just yet. I stayed on the ground but continued trying. My right eye began twitching at a speed faster than light. Then the light enveloped my horn.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to start it off. It is a lot easier to sustain a magical force than it is to begin it, so this was a good sign. I just had to carry on pushing, if that was even possible.
The aura around the tip of my horn grew at an excruciating pace, literally. It felt as though my head had been cut off and was now being spit roasted on a blunt metal pole. Trickles of blood began pouring slowly out my nose and down my muzzle. Streaks of light began pouring out from my horn, not to far, but they grew about 2 metres out and expanded slowly by the second.
I jerked my head to my right the second I heard a noise. My pupils shrank at the sight of it. An infected stallion galloping towards me, blood dripping from his jaw at every step. I got to my hooves and took one step backwards.
Then my magical aura cut out.
And I fell into unconsciousness.