Interlude 3: The Growing Rift
Lost.
Starting on the day of the apocalypse, everypony everywhere lost something. Their lives, their homes, their friends, family and even their hope. I lost almost all of that, in a way. I lost the life I had known before, becoming a rotten shadow of the pony I had been. I had lost the two cities I once called home, Cloudsdale and Ponyville. As for family and friends, I didn't really have any of the former, but the latter I had lost in droves. I could name them all, but the only ones you readers might know of are the Ministry Mares. Even though I was never within their inner circle, I counted them as friends, particularly Fluttershy. However, I had the offsetting benefit of gaining a few new friends in the time that followed.
May was now my oldest and dearest friend, with us having known each other since the day after the megaspells. We had spent more than a lifetime together, travelling through the wasteland that was once Equestria, trying to make a difference. We had both lost friends, and in her case a lover, but we tried to do what we could for what was left. However, she was gradually losing her hope. The destruction of Trottingham was the loss of her best hope at treating and possibly even curing the ghoul condition, and I couldn't begin to imagine the impact that had on her psyche.
Rottingtail, whom May and I had met in Trottingham, and who had been closer to me than May in a very different way. He had also suffered a great many losses. First it was his sister and brother-in-law, who he lost in the chaos that followed the megaspells. Then he had lost Apple Crumble, the nephew who had been left in his charge, that he had sworn and failed to protect. Lastly, he too lost the city of Trottingham, and all those who resided there. He had been among those who helped turn the city into the haven for ghouls that it had once been, and seeing it destroyed changed him, causing him to lose a part of himself, and his faith in other ponies.
There were others; many, many others. Blinkie Pie, who had lost her entire family to the war, and then was lost herself by the unforgiving march of time. Stronghoof, who had lost his wife, his son, and his hopes of creating a place of peace in the wasteland. Gizmo, who had lost his life, and with it the chance to turn a powerful force in the wasteland into something greater. Emerald, who had lost her parents, her home, her best friend and her innocence to the barbarism of the wasteland, and was forever scarred by it, transformed into a twisted, dark reflection of herself. Snips, who had lost his beloved mistress Rarity, and then his mind attempting to regain that which can never be brought back. So many others. At least Bright and her followers seem to have made it safely to their destination, as I never did hear of them again.
Then, there's me. What have I lost? I had no family left by the time the war started, so I had nopony to lose there. I had several friends who were alive during the war, who, in all likelihood, perished on the day of the megaspell holocaust. However, it had been over a hundred years since that day, and the pain of that lost had long since been resolved. I had two homes, Ponyville and Cloudsdale. The latter I lost in the very first megaspell attack, narrowly avoiding the loss of my very life. The former I had lost in the years since to the wasteland itself. Again though, those losses had been many years ago, and the hurt had since diminished.
However, there was one thing I had lost that I was feeling more than any other; the lack of it becoming a constant companion. My very equinity. Like any other ghoul, my coat, my skin, my mane, my voice and my cutie mark had all been lost to the necrosis brought about by the extreme radiation exposure. At times I felt like a monster; I certainly look like one. I didn't age, I didn't need to eat, sleep or drink, and, though the prospect had always been sparse anyways, I could never have a child.
Now, you might think that all of that is physical, and that the true nature of my equinity was my mind. So long as I still have that, I'm just another pony right? Sadly, even that was lost to me, in a certain respect. I would have never claimed to be innocent, not with a war going on. I had managed to avoid getting any blood on my hooves at least, with the war going on largely on foreign turf. However, the wasteland forced me into a struggle in the land I call home, and... how many have I killed now? I can't say, which is sadly the reason why I feel that small part of myself is also lost.
What did I have left? Well, there's a small part of me that hopes for my soul. I hadn't really thought about it a lot in the past, but ever since my encounter with Snips, I had it on my mind. He had spoken of souls as some part of his mad experiment, and then there had been my reflection in that mirror of his. The old me, unchanged from when I was younger, smiling, laughing, playing with bubblewrap. A part of me I really want to believe is still in there somewhere, safe from the ravages the Wasteland has subjected the rest of me to.
As bad as all of this sounds, it is only the beginning of my losses. They say time heals all wounds, and I thought that the losses I had thusly suffered would eventually be left behind me as I pressed forward. In short order, I would come to know how much more there was still left for me to lose.