I blink my eyes open and stare at the almost seamless, grey concrete roof of the cell that has become my platoon’s barracks for the past two days. I shrug off my sleepiness and leap from the top bunk and land crouched on all fours. I ease myself up and stretch, wandering towards the doorway as I grab my canteen and take a few sips. I look towards the sunrise and relax every muscle in my body.
I almost feel it before it enters the corner of my vision, a green and brown blur moving very fast in the direction of my head. I chuckle and lean back, my internal muscles compensating for the change in my posture to make my body rigid as I bring the metal canteen up to block the incoming fist.
With a resounding CLANG I begin laughing as Pvt. Reynolds stumbles back wincing in pain. “Sorry Private, you’ll need to be a little faster than that to catch me this early in the morning, hahaha!” I clap him on the back and he grins, throwing his arm around me as I quiz him about the night watch.
“See anything move out there while we were sleeping, anything of particular note to report?” I turn around and finished gazing out at the rooftops of the burnt out concrete city. What had happened to this place was unforgiveable, if we didn’t have our friendly jests to keep morale up. We would probably go insane.
His response buzzes in my ear as the sun finishes rising above the outskirts of the blown apart town. It’s the same report I hear every day as we move from sector to sector scouring the town for any traces of people or animals. Nothing, nothing left out here but metal, ash and smoke. The people are dead, the plants are dead, the animals are dead and even the earth itself seems the have died, becoming hard and crumbly underfoot. I massage my temples as his final statement shoots through me, cutting straight through my mind’s fog.
“Did we do the right thing? Sir?”
I sigh, my breath exiting my body as flashes of that event from two weeks ago sear through my brain. I remember fragments; bits of information are all that are left of the experience. Shattered and torn emotions, the feeling of scorched bones shattering under my boots as we pushed forward and the smell of rapid oxidisation and ozone. No-one deserved what we had done to these people. But we had no choice.
But I can’t look Reynolds in the eye and tell him that. We were all on edge enough as it was. I just place my hand over the necklace around my neck and squeeze. The corners of the ornament dig into my hand and the pain helps me bring myself back from the edge.
“We did what we were ordered to do, Private. Wake the others and get ready to move. We will cover sectors C-28 and C-29 before 1200 hours.” I shake my head and retreat into the house to clean myself up.
“Sarge? Your hand is bleeding.” Private Reynolds grabs me by the shoulder and I raise my hand up to my vision, tiny rivulets of blood run down my arm from the small puncture wounds in my palm. I sighed and walked into the bathroom and poured a tiny amount of my water into my hand. Washing the blood off and stinging the newly made cuts.
This necklace of mine could be trouble sometimes, but I was eternally loath to part with it. The design itself was simple. A Six-Sided Purple star with a white Sixed sided star behind it and 5 white stars floating around it. The edges of the floating stars bordered the amulet and these had pierced through the palm of my hand. I looked at the holes that began to seep blood once again as the irony of the situation dawned on me. A soldier with blood on his hands...
The amulet itself was a gift from my Daughter before I had left home. It was the last reminder I had of a normal life, it was the last thing reminding me that there was life outside this living hell that we were stuck in. A final reminder of something that I no-longer deserved. She had never told me the source of the amulet, but as I left to get on the bus that would take me to the base she had given it to me.
As I had walked the path in front of our house towards the bus, she had tackled the back of my legs and demanded that I stay. Upon reflection, I wish I had. I had picked her up in my arms and held her close to my face. I kissed her and held her close. She slipped the amulet around my neck at that time and whispered four little words in my ear. “I love you, Daddy.” I hadn’t had time to give it back and if I had turned around at that point, I would never have been here.
I flipped the amulet back around my neck and cleared my head. We were trained better than this, I forced my emotions back into myself and I stared at what remained of the mirror on the wall. My face had assumed the stony mask of a soldier. And I would need it for the next few days. Our next sectors were near the heart of the blast, and the effects of the device would be at their greatest in those sectors.
I threw on my shirt and crept back into the bedroom. The others by now had roused themselves and were slowly getting dressed. Our squad had searched for the past two weeks with a failure rate of 100%. All of us wore the same mask of deep shame and regret that came from our past few weeks’ assignment. All of us wore the masks of soldiers. We had become machines, we had to be. This was no place for the weak of heart and mind. This was no place for anyone.
We geared up and preceded out into the burnt out husks of the city blocks, I was on point as we rummaged through the debris. The landscape was eerie; nothing surrounded us but death and ruin. Everywhere we found evidence of the destruction we had delivered right into the heart of the town. Only skeletons remained amongst the ruins, the device had done its job a little too well. There was next to nothing for us to reclaim.
The device it’s had never been seen by us lowly soldiers. We had simply been informed of a retreat protocol and had been told to cover our eyes once we had reached a safe distance. I still remember the cheers of the townsfolk as they thought they had won the skirmish. And the screams as with a flash of intense white light, they had simply ceased to exist. It had blossomed out slowly from the heart of town and had seemed to warp the very fabric of space around it, bringing intense heat and death.
Metals lay twisted and ruined, all ammunition had exploded from the heat and most of the people valuables had been turned to ash or simply disintegrated. Next to nothing was salvageable, the only thing that hadn’t been effected by the blast had been the water supplies. They had merely been heated, evaporated violently and then the water had condensed later to leave the most pure water that was to be found on the planet.
Our job still had its dangers though, we had already lost Pvt. Anderson to a collapse of one of the buildings, he was caught out on the outside of the building by a falling I beam and both of his legs were currently broken. He had been sent back home and was to be retired from duty.
We weren’t so lucky.
Sector C-29. The heart of the devastation. The device had been detonated here and it was still evident in several spots, glowing spots still existed here and there. They were a pure white and gave off no heat, but fried any tech that was close to it. They had assured us that there was no chance of radiation or contamination. But there was so much we didn’t know about the device. There is so much we still don’t know about it.
I had no expectations of finding anything here. Nothing could have survived here. I threw a last look around the ruins and turned to join my squad and head back to the house for our cheap, rationed lunches. But something stopped me. I felt something behind me and I spun around, drawing my pistol from its holder, releasing the safety and bringing it up to eye level in one smooth motion.
And saw nothing. I had merely jumped at shadows. But I still had a nagging feeling about the building that now lay in front of me. There was something odd about it. Something tugged at the back of my mind, something about it didn’t fit. Then it struck me.
It was the windows. They were completely different from all the others that were in the buildings around it.
Someone had boarded them up. Someone was still alive here, in the epicentre of the devastation, someone had survived. I activated my headset and attempted to contact my squad mates, and was rewarded with my eardrums nearly being blown out of head. No radiation my ASS! I took the now crackling piece of tech and stowed it in my backpack. I stuck my finger in my ear and wiggled it in an attempt to regain hearing in that ear.
I thought over the different variables of the current situation. My squad had strict instructions to meet at the exit point of each Sector and wait for a full hour before all members were accounted for. I made the call and crossed the devastated square towards the building. Keeping my gun drawn I advanced on the building and crossed the square leading towards the front door of the mostly intact building. I stayed low and skirted the impact zone of the device as I approached the doorway.
Assuming the breach position I tried the lock on the door and my heart fell when the door swung inwards with next to no effort. If someone had set up camp in here, the first thing they would have done is locked and sealed the door from the inside. I shook my head and turned to return to the exit point, until something stopped me hard in my tracks.
“H-hello?”
I went rigid; my body tensed every muscle as I prepared for combat. I turned, dropped to one knee and brought my gun up to face the figure that now stood before me. I only saw darkness as I aimed into the doorway of the room. “Hands in the air! NOW!” I screamed into the doorway as I kept my gun sighted into the darkness.
My eyes were blown out as a flash of light blinded me and I felt a force attempt to pull the gun from my hand. I tightened my grip on my pistol and fired three rounds, carefully counting my shots. The light immediately vanished and was replaced with a cry of pain. The cry cut through to my core, it was that of a young girl. I quickly rubbed my eyes as a small semblance of sight began to return to them.
As my sight returned and my eyes adjusted to the darkness I saw the true form of my “attacker”. I had to rub my eyes again to check that I wasn’t still blinded. But even after this, my eyes still told me the same story. I had just shot what amounted to a small, purple horse.
Its small stature had saved it from the worst of the shots. My first two shots had been aimed at the chest and these had fortunately passed harmlessly overhead. My third shot had been to the kneecaps. And this was what had hit the strange creature.
The shot had grazed its cheek and it was now slumped on the floor with one of its hooves covering the wound mark. Tears were welling up in the corners of its eyes and it was letting out little gasps of pain. I kept my pistol aimed at its head as I slowly bobbed down into a squat to assess what exactly this small thing was. Whatever it was, it looked frighteningly familiar. To a degree that it confounded me for a moment and we found each other staring at one another both lost in thought.
It was I that broke the silence first. “You clearly understand English. So I want three things from you. First, what are you? Second, do you have a name? Third, are you hurt? Answer me, now.” I pointed my pistol in between its eyes to bring it to full attention.
“M-my name is Twilight, Twilight Sparkle. I am a U-unicorn a-and my cheek r-really hurts.” I mulled this over in my head for a few seconds. I had never seen anything like it before and I was pretty sure that these things didn’t exist in our world. I began to wonder if I had even woken up this morning, or if this was just a very twisted dream.
I pressed her for more information. “You don’t look like any pony I have ever seen on earth. Where are you from? And what was that light back there? And hold still, I’ll take a look at your cheek.” I decided that I would help the thing. I assessed the damage and found that it was manageable with the equipment I had left. I had a basic Medical kit in my backpack, standard issue; Iodine, pads, Morphine, sutures, ect.
It was still shaking as I holstered my pistol and opened my Med Kit. I gently pulled her hoof away from the cut on her face as she began to speak. “I-I’m a Unicorn... Not an Earth Pony. W-we unicorns can use our magic to inflict upon and distort the reality around us. I-i simply accelerated the light around us to- Ouch!” I shook my head as all this poured out from the small purple unicorn. But I believed her, it was all impossible, she herself was impossible. So anything that she said at this point I would have believed.
She pulled back as I touched the cut with an iodine soaked pad. But I gently put my hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. “Stay still, just keep talking.” I touched her cheek again with the pad and she winced but continued to talk. The red of the Iodine stained her fur a brown-red colour as I continued to sew up the wound with a few deft stiches. It was as I finished the last stitch that I got a good look at her face. Her cheeks were gaunt and there were massive lines and bags under her eyes. She was clearly dehydrated and starved. Suddenly our Ration lunches didn’t seem so bad. Tears began to roll down her cheek as she continued talking.
As I placed a plaster strip on her cheek to cover the stiches she proceeded to deliver the most shocking revelation of our sudden encounter. “I’m from the land known as Equestria. I-I was walking in the centre of town with my friends when everything went black and then. Ouch! I woke up here, right over there and there was nothing, no-one. I was alone. I’ve been here ever since. There is no food and next to no water. I am so hungry. I haven’t seen anything alive since then, no plants, no trees, no birds and no ponies...” At this she clammed up and slowly crunched into herself until she eventually curled up in a ball on the floor. The tears soon formed a small puddle at the lines of salty water left streaks on the fur of her face.
It nearly killed me to continue to press her for information, but there was something that I needed to confirm. “Where? Did you wake up here? In this building?” I was right; as the silent tears poured from her luminous, black and purple eyes she just dumbly shook her head. “Where did you wake up? Show me where.” Deep in the pit of my stomach, I already knew her answer. It was as obvious as she was like nothing I had ever seen. But that didn’t stop me from praying to every god under the sun that I was wrong.
She began to sob and pointed her hoof out the door at the last thing I had hoped she would point at. I hung my head as my fears were confirmed and my eyes followed the line of her trembling hoof towards the daylight.
She had pointed to the centre of sector C-29. The centre of the square outside the building. The centre of that big, fucking crater. The centre of hell.