Chapter 13: June 5
Dear Journal,
Today was the next big leap forward for my budding little colony. Gigantic leap. Astronomical. Maybe there’s a chance for us. Maybe not me, never me. I can’t. Sky, though. We have a chance. Maybe something of humanity will outlast our demise. See, I’m still human! I use words like “our”. Third person inclusive, that’s how excited I am.
I have to include you. Overwhelming evidence indicates the person reading this is also a horsebeast. Probably me, since I can’t imagine anyone else caring enough. But given the disposition of survivors, I now believe that all the sparse survivors of the depopulation will be horsebeasts.
If the present trend … don’t call … because … sorry. Sky was still up. Heard me talking with the door open. She said I shouldn’t say things like “horsebeast.” I guess this software can’t really handle multiple speakers in the same room. One day I’ll have perfected some kind of hand substitute and I’ll be able to hand-write these again. I could probably finish these in half the time if I didn’t have to stop to fix software mistakes and insert all the formatting stuff.
This rambling would probably make more sense if I waited until after I described the day’s events. Yesterday I encountered some strange markings while testing out the shoes I’d made. They were right in the middle of the street, indicating they had to have come after the depopulation event.
Sky and I agree that we need an official name for the day when everybody disappeared. Right now “depopulation event” seems to work, though it hardly rolls off the tongue when written that way. DE for short, maybe? Just "Event"?
Regardless, I headed towards the south end of town. Didn’t carry much, just the saddlebag I made with some water and snacks. I continue to subsist on a diet of at least 1/3rd granola bars, though if Sky has her way eggs and milk will find their way back in eventually.
I also brought some scraps for Huan. I guess I’ve just come to expect him waiting out there for me after more than a week of his company. Wonder how that dog sees me now. He still hasn’t tried to come inside. I wonder if he walks back to his old house where his human family used to live at the end of every day and sleeps there. Plenty of dogs have been that loyal. Mine was.
I offered to let Sky come, but she didn’t really want to. Apparently the cows “don’t like sleeping outside”, and she’s helping them clear out the discount store’s interior so they can use it sooner than expected. I didn’t ask how she’d learned this fact. Probably she just made it up. God, I hope she made it up. Maybe she’s just used to having her solitude.
Whatever, I was fine with that. I went it alone for a week, I can do a few hours. Besides, I’d have Huan with me. None of the other strays would dare touch me with such a big dog by my side, right? Pity the animal hadn’t been wearing a tag with his name on it. Just one of those pet department serial number things. Lame.
Once I got into the south end of town, I started to feel like I was being watched. You know that feeling, when the hair on your neck stands on end? Or maybe you walk into a dark room, and you just know something’s up? It’s not rational, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it.
Huan either felt it too or he sensed my agitation, because he started getting pretty jumpy too, ears darting around and sniffing all the time. I expected him to find whatever it was before I did. My ears and nose might be more acute than they used to be, but I’ve got nothing on a dog. Wolves, hunting, party. So long as they aren’t hunting me.
No, I was the hunter then. And what I saw wasn’t quite what I expected. It looked like… someone had been around the whole neighborhood with a crowbar, randomly smashing windows and doors and car windshields. A large computer store looked like it’d been recently looted, with broken glass inside and things fallen over. None of the weird circular glyphs appeared again.
I think I’ll dig out my old navigator’s watch, the one with the barometer and the compass and stuff. Solar power should keep it running, though god only knows if the band is wide enough to go around what pass for my limbs these days. Maybe if I wear it towards the bottom of my legs when I’m not wearing shoes…
The damage seemed to be forming a pattern of some kind, radiating out from a central source. I followed the largest signs of it, past the shops and into a small suburban neighborhood.
This was a mistake. Even if Sky wasn’t interested in exploring with me on foot (hoof?), I probably should’ve gone to get her for such a big development as this. We survivors have to have some group solidarity. Under such overwhelming evidence of another survivor (or at least something powerful and determined), I should’ve gone for backup. I did have my radio, but a quick call proved Sky wasn’t listening and I quickly gave up.I couldn’t resist the lure of another survivor.
Wandered past the fashion district and into residential before the signs of “occupation” became most pronounced (walking is really slow, by the way. I’ve got to get driving figured out. For some other reasons that will swiftly become clear).
There was damage to many of the cars and buildings that I couldn’t easily identify. I saw cars that looked like they’d somehow struck large objects while parked (wasn’t there a joke about that once?). Houses with windows ripped right out of the walls. Mailboxes uprooted like twigs planted in the sand.
Who or what could’ve caused all this damage? I learned.
I saw him out of the corner of my eye, first. A pastel orange (I was never really good with colors. What do you call that, tangelo?). Like a traffic cone left out in the sun for a few years. Anyway, he still stood out, because even a pastel orange is way brighter than the other colors all around me.
I didn’t get a good look, didn’t see his mane very clearly or even whether he had wings like Sky does. Mostly I saw his tail and his crazy-too-big pants as he tried to run away from me. He turned down an open fence, and tried to vanish between two houses.
You know what sets a predator off? Prey running away. I was probably never much of a predator as a human (never killed anything before), but Huan is. That dog needed no encouragement from me to take off after the fleeing pony, barking and wagging his tail. Honestly, I think he was having way too much fun.
I chased after as best I could, but I hadn’t tried to do any running seriously. It was all I could do not to trip over my own hooves, even with the “advantage” of rubber-soled shoes to grip the ground. I couldn’t keep pace with either one no matter how hard I tried.
Fortunately, our quarry wasn’t much faster than I am. The way he moved looked far closer to my own stumbling gait than any way those real horses moved when we saw them at the farm. Into somebody’s backyard and around the corner, and Huan lept up into the air and onto the pony’s back.
I now know what a bucking pony looks like. The stallion (I guess that’s the right word), started jumping violently around, enough that Huan went flying off his back. I was shouting for the dog to stop, for the pony to stop. Only one of them listened.
The dog. He jumped, got his teeth around the stallion’s neck, then he stopped moving, as if he knew that any pressure might cause serious harm to the pony beneath. I wonder if there’s some pony instinct to make them freeze if teeth get locked around their neck (or if that kind of rational thought came from what I could only presume to be a human inside).
“Don’t hurt him, Huan,” I remember saying that very clearly, along with, “Whoever you are, please don’t move. I haven’t known this dog very long, but I’m sure he won’t hurt you if you stay still.” Thank god I was right about that. Would’ve been pretty awkward if the dog had kept attacking him.
Is the fact he didn’t attack evidence that something really has changed about animal intelligence?
Whatever. Finally, because he had no other choice, the stallion finally stopped struggling and stood there, with a huge dog holding him from the side only a few feet from somebody’s pool. Can horses swim?
I got a good look at him now, approaching within a few paces. His mane was blue, brighter than my coat but not so bright it hurt to look at. He was taller than me by about six inches, and even though he was wearing a pair of backward pants it was obvious from his build I was looking at a male of… whatever our species is.
He didn’t have wings, but as I circled around to look him in the face, I saw what he did have. A horn on his forehead, like something straight off the head of a narwhal, except not like that at all because it was much shorter, probably six to eight inches long and colored similarly to the orange of his coat.
A unicorn, that was the name for the species. I was looking at a unicorn. “Get your dog off of me,” was the first thing he said. “Get him off, or I will.”
That was when something completely unexplainable happened: his horn started to glow. A reddish, pinkish light radiated from around it, not bright enough to overcome the sunlight but easily bright enough to see in spite of it.
“Okay,” I said, or something very similar. “We don’t want to hurt you. There’s no reason to run away.”
“I’d feel less like you were trying to hurt me if you didn’t have a freak dog at my throat.”
I told Huan to let him go, and I was afraid the dog wouldn’t comply. He did though, sliding back with a roll to land on his paws, putting himself between me and the stallion, growling. Only then did the glowing from the unicorn’s horn fade away again. He said something stupid and insensitive, and I replied in kind.
He didn’t run away again. Turns out his name is Joseph Kimball. Didn’t get to learn too much from him; I don’t think he’s got very strongly developed social skills. Can those really start to atrophy in just a few weeks?
I told him that there was at least one other survivor, and we were living together in a house with solar power and water collection and chickens in the backyard. We would be very happy if he chose to come and live with us, or at least near us.
Joseph was not easy to convince. He’d apparently had trouble with stray animals, and hadn’t been able to get very far from this neighborhood. Even then, he said he wouldn’t have made it without the liberal use of his magic for self-defense.
Magic, you ask? Yeah, that’s what he called it. Yeah, I thought it was pretty stupid too. No, I didn’t tell him so. His first impression of me was probably pretty stained after the whole “attack dog” thing. I wasn’t about to make it worse.
Joseph… Joe… can I call him Joe? Course I can, he can’t hear me. Joe proceeded to demonstrate his “magic” for us by lifting a nearby lawn chair over the protective fence around the pool and dropping it inside with a splash, all without touching it.
Yes, you just read that right. He lifted up a chair, all without touching it. Like that X-Men girl, the one that went nuts and killed everybody in the third movie. Only there was this little pink glow around it while he did it, as though the horn was blasting it or something. It wasn’t a heavy chair, but of course he’d accomplished the task from at least ten feet away.
Bleh, this is getting long. I’m gonna have to turn the font size down to something almost illegible to stop from taking way too many pages to fit a year in this book, and I’m not even finished with everything. Not to mention… how late it is… getting tired. Probably wouldn’t get everything right if I forced myself to stay up dictating this. So many more details to write down! Like, did he make the markings I found? Does he know what they are (won't answer that one). Blah, whatever. Tomorrow. I'll just get stuff wrong if I force myself to write it now.
I’ll finish tomorrow.
—A
PS: Here’s Joe. Tried to add a little color so you can see.
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36.media.tumblr.com/7f4e9868bcb8ee0644189ae4248e1b51/tumblr_npfp1z8TUx1rsmidfo1_500.png
((Not really the last, but fits with the story's title.))
tfw you live by +0 and it is still 4th of june
6055882 Hah, that's awesome! I love your pictures so much :3
Two male ponies,one female.
Stranded in a city that has no source of any remaining humans.
One is Earth pony,
second is Pegasus,
third is unicorn.
Hmm,interresting.
I have this feeling that there is going to be a lot of arguing about who will have Sky
Oh,also.
Alien students got the bad grade.
Oh God you guys are going to beat me up one day
Keep on going!
This is amazing!!!! 
For a moment there, I thought Joe was Flash Sentry. Thank god he's not.
Also, keep the chapters going, Starscribe. I can't believe a story updated so frequently is of such good quality.
6055882 Ha! Joe looks awesome. He glows with surliness!
6052913
Again, a pretty solid guess given the universe of MLP. Unfortunately we know about that stuff, but none of the characters do (baring theories about one or more of them having actually came from Equestria somehow).
6052914
All I can say is that I checked my coding method last night just to make sure it was working right, and it was. There weren't mistakes made during encoding. Now were there mistakes made during decoding, that's another question. People have accomplished a great deal more than I thought they would in such a short time.
6053196
Yeah, it depends on tons of factors like what additives are in the fuel and what kind of container it's in and the ambient moisture content in the air outside the container. Stored with the right additives in sealed steal containers, gasoline can last almost indefinitely. Realistically, that is unlikely to be true except in pre-prepared bunkers and things.
6053312
See, that's what I'm wondering. I had a feeling somebody would crack it eventually, but not that it would totally dominate the comments.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANd out of time. I'll respond to the rest a little later. Sorry everypony!
I'm wondering if our writer friend here isn't going insane from all the denial he's in about himself. He hates his new body, calls himself a beast... not looking good for him.
6055936 Actually, we still don't know A's gender for certain. Theories going both ways, nothing definite.
Nice immersive touch and makes it actually feel like A's actually writing it at the end of the day.
Also you know a story is good when your going through a neighbor hood and find yourself taking note of things that would be useful into such a situation. Also this is bringing out the inner MacGyver in me.
6054842
I feel bad now for making it so hard! When I was doing the research, I was specifically researching how to write an unbreakable code, which may've been a mistake on my part. Not that I don't think somebody will get through it eventually.
6054989
And this is true. It's pretty understandable that A is having so much trouble, but it seems like it's only a matter of time before there's a crack in the armor. I think we're all going to be there for that, one way or another...
6055038
I thought about doing that, but it felt too lame not to make a code thing isn't a real message with all the work I expected people to put into trying to decode it.
6055338
It's true, there's more than a little about Sky we haven't learned yet. I'm not sure A could handle the truth right now though, given everything else we've seen...
6055781
I couldn't do that anyway, because of the way this cypher works, even a repeating message wouldn't actually sound like it repeated.
6055936
Those are only the theorized genders, but they do seem the popular theories. And yes, that means we have all three of the basic races covered. Still a far cry from a colony, but...
6055940
Oh, I will. Can't stop the train!
6055953
Oh no, flash sentry. Of all the equestrian characters to add to this story, he is very very low on the list. I'm glad you think the quality is okay... it's not easy getting it there. Writing about 15k chunks, then reviewing it with my stellar proofreaders... without them, this story could never be a reality.
6056069
Also possible. I think a forced change like this might drive anyone to insanity. I can only hope i would do so well as A has done given everything that's happened.
6056194
Editor chiming in. The first statement is in response to the previous statement about Huan attacking Joe, so "attack" is already implied. As for the second, Joe is referring to Huan as a "freak" because of his size. It's not meant to be a swear word replacement.
6056194
Can't comment on that brilliant logic, much as I want to. Could we have proof at last? Or is Joseph just a really lanky unicorn and A stout for an earth pony?
I'm fairly certain one of those things isn't an error, though. Rather, it's an intentional writing decision. "freak" dog is Joseph's way of expressing how new he is to being a pony size. He considers such a large dog to be a "freak", he isn't using a family-friendly epithet.
The other one is pretty unclear though so I'll go ahead and fix that.
I just realized that "chapter" is misspelled.
Oh dear. Joe... Joe doesn't seem safe. Yes, the more, the better, but that presupposes a level of cooperation that I'm not sure Joe is willing to offer. It's much easier to tear down than build up, especially when you've been practicing your telekinesis for some time. Still, I should at least give him a chance.
Also, this has clearly shaken A's worldview. He may scoff at the concept of magic, but I'm not sure what else one might call glowy unicorn-horn-based telekinesis. I just hope he doesn't feel shafted in the horsebeast power roulette. He has enough problems as it is...
If Joe turns out to be friendly in the long run, A's either gonna resent the hell out of him or fall in love with him, purely from his ability for fine manipulation
Yay, pony pants! I dunno why, I just really like seeing ponies in pants.
vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/mlpfanart/images/0/0b/Lyra_in_pants_by_egophiliac.png/revision/latest?cb=20111008163620
So we have another surivior now
6056235
I live out in the country but I'm atleast close to a town
so I know what I can do too
Man, Joe is much better at magic than Leon.
Maybe vinyl will make an appearance and blast through a portal... or not, i would doubt that a bit.
However on another note maybe if A took Joe to the cipher his magic could interact with it, or maybe the way sky seems to get things quicker than A and isnt bothered by clothes and shoes, maybe shes a sort of chosen one (and she has a cutie mark, no idea if A has one though), still hypothesising that either Sky or Joe could have an effect on the cipher.
6056510
Joseph has some very strange circumstances. Unfortunately the entry cut off in the middle, so we don't know what those are yet.
I don't know why but all this guessing of A's gender suddenly made me think that somewhere down the road they find an alicorn hermaphrodite just because.
Gotta agree with FOME, Joe doesn't feel safe at all. Three isn't a very big number to compensate for one of them showing signs of being dangerously aggressive, especially with that one being a unicorn with enough magical control already to throw stuff around.
Joe looks pissed. XD
Are you drawing all the art yourself?
6056446
IN CASE ANYONE WANTS TO SOLVE THIS ON THEIR OWN, IGNORE THIS COMMENT.
I must congratulate StarScribe. I though it was simple.
It uses some variation of The PigPen (Masonic) Cipher. I saw someone try that though So I tried this variation:
i.imgur.com/Ax8ucAL.gif
The cipher says:
That further complicates things because now it has become obvious that this is more than just the PigPen Cipher.
It could be encrypted even further. Maybe a Caesar Cipher?
After putting through my friends decryption algorithm, and trying every key, it became obvious that was not the case.
All I can really clarify is this:
1. It has multiple layers of encryption
2. The first layer is PigPen (Masonic) Cipher.
3. It is not Caesar Cipher, unless after being ciphered by another cipher, it was ciphered with Caesar.
4. The story contains little to no clues unless the title of the chapter it was found on is a hint:
That is all I was able to do today. Tomorrow, I have the entire day to figure this out.
Nice triad we've got now. Unbalanced pegasus mare who's adopted a pony name and a cutie mark, unbalanced earth pony of ambiguous sex and name with no cutie mark, and unbalanced unicorn stallion who still uses his full human name and who's kept his flanks covered so far....
6056572
Hah, no. I don't intend for any alicorns to appear in this story (with the possible exception of existing ones, which I will not confirm or deny since that would be a spoiler). Certainly not a hermaphrodite. I wouldn't want anything so radically different than the show canon.
6056595
[youtube=GhMvKv4GX5U]
6056597
Heck no! I really wish I could draw this well, but no. Obviously A is mouth-drawing everything. Either that, or the fantastic Zutcha is doing it all for me. You'll see him leave comments with new art every now and then, things that didn't make it into the story at large.
6056650
Hah. I haven't made shipping easy with A's gender unknown. Of course, some people don't care...
6056669
I'm pretty sure A has a name and a sex... we just don't know them yet. Well, I do. But... you get the idea.
6056740 Alternate timeline? Because I'm still here, and not a pony.
Ponies can't use iPads.
I had a feeling the next survivor would be a unicorn.
yay, this is gonna be cool
I estimate approxamitely 1.2 Million Ponies world wide
Edit: actualy come to think of it probably 10 Million because of heavily populated places like India and China
I have a feeling this will become a story where you submit your own OCs. Pretty cool if that happens.
6056740
so your somewhat saying is eventually one of the alicorns will come into this realm or dimension
Eventualy
jenniferheller.com/v3/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/womens-hats-05.jpg
6056740
I thought A's gender was implied male several chapters ago with the reproduction commentary whenheit met Sky.I just re-read chapter 9 and it indicates nothing... This is maddening! The story really does take on a different perspective if you assume A is female. Perhaps that's the point of the journals to be self insertive.
Ugh.. until it's otherwise indicated I'm going to assume A stands for Anonymous and this is all just LA teleported to Equestria.
Sheesh. All these comments from the people trying to decode the thing are really exciting for some reason. Awesome story btw. This I'd too much fun.
The Happening. After the late dramatic genius M. Night Shyamalan, peerless in his vision.
I think the placement of the letters after the first pigpen alters the letters on the second translation. Something like the first letter being shifted down 1 and the second letter down two, making double letters a lot less useful to us amateur codebreakers. Does the enigma machine have anything to do with this?
6056076
It's perfectly understandable about our confusion and theories fall around about the gender of A.I just wanted to point out how much references (Or not?) it is making to that movie.
sorry Joe the protagonist is in a committed relationship with Huan so your harem ending will have to be put on hold for now
...but no seriously, he caused that much damage fighting off the wolves? I thought there was something sinister going on there! Well, given the amount of destruction I can understand if the protagonist got the fuck out of dodge before he-or-she learned the whole story behind the crushed cars and tall, orange and horny.
6056237
Well at this point the code would strictly be uncrackable barring a lucky guess with a brute force approach on the keyword for the substitution cipher. This is effectively a one time pad as it stands. Even if we did find a keyword that produced a coherent message we wouldn't be able to validate it unless we had another message encoded in the same way to check against it. Though if you created the code to be hard to break, like from this wikihow article, we will effectively be SOL until we get some sort of break. There are simply too many permutations to test.
Incidentally, I would presume that if the entity that wrote the coded message was using a code described as 'unbreakable' then they would have too be writing something rather important down as opposed to a grocery list. Which then raises the question of what is the Circle Writer hiding the writing from and why wouldn't it take the effort to erase the circle or hide it.
One other unrelated observation. Unless I am completely misremembering the first chapter of a story that I could literally spend the 2 minutes to go and reread, A didn't mention any crashed cars or anything. In fact A mentioned that the cars were all nicely parked and that the freeways were clear enough to drive a semi down. I feel that this is a major clue/function of how everyone disappeared. The dating on the chapters indicates that The Shift occurred on a Friday night. If that is the case, then the streets should have some crashed/idling cars if it was a sudden POOF a la the Rapture, as there would be people on the road at any point in the night. That is what is unsettling to me, this feels planned in an orderly fashion. At this rate I will have to pull out the cork-board, red string, and pushpins.
Joe is... disconcerting. I guess he's displaying a behaviour A might have come to have had he been alone for the same time. Frustrated rage at the change of body, loneliness, impotence to change a damn thing about the situation plus a constant risk of being attacked and eaten: smash stuff in anger.
The critical thing is if you can reign in that kind of reaction once you've crossed the line to actually do such a thing that has no place in civilized society which incidentally is what A is dreaming about re-establishing. Joe might not be the best possible find (except if the need for heavy artillery arises). Also: should Joe discover the fine manipulation capabilities of his new magic that can substitute just about any tool and often is better than having hands, A will hate him. With a passion.
On a side note it's interesting that both Joe and A are still only able to walk (giving that chase a distinctly comical character when you think about it). Sky is close to getting off the ground by now.
You can totally hear that little hurt, somewhat scolding and slightly pitying voice. When a voice like that enters the scene you just know there's a crash just around the corner.
Oh dear.
6056760
Unless they're unicorns! Though... I'm not actually sure if magic can work on touch-screens. A wouldn't know either, unfortunately for them...
6056845
I think so! So many awesome things can happen now! Got the whole team here. Well, except all the little side races. That would take quite a large party. And a weird freakshow...
6056860
It's not a very large number of survivors, whatever the number is. The hard part is that we don't know exactly how many there really were in LA. It sounds like 3, but it may not have been. There may be more we haven't met yet, which would have a huge impact globally.
6056992
I'm not saying we will, or that we won't. I just wanted to leave the option open. If I said otherwise it would be cheating amounts of information. Confirm or deny nothin'. I'm like a politician up in this.
6057111
There may be clues in the chapter, if you know where to find them., if you know where to look. I just didn't want to promise anything.
6057818
Actually before I knew what A's real name was, A always stood for "author" in my head. Of course A does have a real name, and it is the sort of thing we'll know by the end of the story. As to the sex, well... A does continue to do things. It's not A is trying to hide anything.
6057990
I don't think it's an uncommon theory, though. I think the number who think A is female is the distinct minority if it's based purely on how vocal the comments are. Still, nothing definitive either way.
6058323
I don't actually expect most readers to even try to decode it (I wouldn't, if I were reading). The things that matter will happen in the story. I'd say not to worry about it. I wouldn't keep any of the story away from people. Any code that matters, the characters will figure out. ^^
6058344
All I can say is that it's not accidental. As much as it can suck to be sitting on only half of a mystery... the rest of it will come eventually.
Hmm... you know, A should go back to where A located Sky and see if there's another code circle nearby. Also if there's one close to where A's own transformation happened. With three locations A could explore the possibility of a grid pattern with points where other survivors might be located. These circles are clearly of magical origin and we know how powerful they are and how much precision they tend to require.
On a side note: my better half (who likes MLP but isn't really a fan) saw me playing with ciphers and wanted to know where that circle came from. Now she's read the entire story and the table is covered in cipher scraps with notes, grids and guesses
6056760 Ponies could actually use touch screen devices as they work by measuring conducting. So you can send a text using the corner of a damp towel. (Actually tested it before writing this message.)
6058841 True, they aren't and hooves probably aren't as well. As how they hold it? In there mouth or to thier hoof using a velcro strap like suggested by others. And they can wrap the damp towel or handkerchief around a pen or stick to make it more precise. it probably can even be a piece paper(since it the moisture that's making it work.) though it would fall apart though.
The stylus is the best option but not all devices come with one.
And we have the trio~
Back after about two days of lagging behind, and now we find the Unicorn of the party.
Time for some magic!
ONWARD! To the next chapter!
Wait a second...
"Joseph... Joe"
"Joseph Joe"
Motherfucking Joseph Joestar?
6055882 *Snrk* Glowy Joe-Joe.
Cookies!! Maybe Glowy Joey can make them.
Aww, Joe is a cutie. Bit of a dick though.