The Unicorn Lost in the Woods

by Spleedude

05/24/2015 The Plan

Day two, 05/23/2015:

I have good news and bad news to share today, the bad news is I lost power. That means no electricity, no water, and worst of all no air conditioning. Seriously, I can't even open windows with these hooves, I miss my hands so much. Oh the things you take for granted until they are gone.

If you're wondering how I'm able to post this on the internet without power, don't worry I'll get to that later.

The first thing I did with the power went out, was panic over the amount of food that was about to go bad. Fortunately, most of it turned out to be meat. Which, for the record I still wasn't 100% sure I couldn't eat. That is, until I spent the next 20 minutes trying to cook a corn dog inside one of those special heater pockets that you get inside an MRE that I got to bring home from basic training.

Don't look at me like that, corn dogs are one of my favorite foods. They're are easy to cook and taste delicious, and don't even get me started on how hard it was to open an MRE with hooves. That hing is hard enough to open with hands in the first place. I really did consider spearing the thing with my horn before I just tore it open with my teeth.

Getting off topic here. Anyways, the mere smell of meat cooking was enough to make me throw up into the sink. If my new pony nose is this put off by the smell of meat, then I don't even want to know what my pony taste buds will think of it. I'm not ashamed to say that I may have cried a little over the loss of an entire, not to mention my favorite, section of the food pyramid.

After that I took a count of all the edible, nonperishable, food stuffs in the house and came to the conclusion I had been dreading most of all. I had to leave, soon. If I were still able to eat meat I would be able to stay much longer. Between stuff like beef jerky, canned tuna, and even canned beans and bacon bits I might have had enough food to last me a month. As is, between the food rotting in the fridge, and the majority of the non-perishables being meat, I only have enough food to last me a week or two.

It was at this point that I decided I needed to be ready to leave within this week, Within the next few days if possible.

I know exactly where to go too, the Louisburg Armory. Not only will they have a large supply of MRE's they also have things like; military grade vehicles, military grade radios, a backup power supply, and a large selection of weapons and survival tools. Unfortunately, the only problem going there is, as I've stated before, it takes 15 minutes driving at 60 miles an hour to get there. I will be going considerably less fast than 60 miles an hour. Quadrupedal locomotion is hard.

Obviously I can't drive a car, but I did need some way of carrying around all my supplies. It was then that I remembered we had a very large gardening wagon in the garage, but unfortunately for me, we have a detached garage separate from the rest of the house.

It was the first time I set hoof foot hoof outside of my house since all of this began. I was scared to death. I actually tripped down the stairs of the deck onto the gravel driveway and cut myself up a little bit. Nothing too bad, but it did hurt. Thank goodness the door to the garage was unlocked because I don't think I could've come back outside if I had to go back and get the keys.

The wagon was a lot bigger and heavier than I thought it would be, but I somehow managed to pull it from the garage to the carport next to my room. Now it was only a matter of filling it with stuff like water and food.

It was at the moment when I was trying to decide whether or not to pack this very laptop that I remembered probably the two most important items that I could have right now.

The first is a portable power converter. This isn't just any converter, it converts the power from those stupid round outlets you find in cars into actual electricity that other things can use. My laptop for example.

The second is what lets me continue to post on the Internet, A military grade MIFI. It is basically a mobile WiFi hotspot, but instead of needing to be connected to a phone or land line this thing talks to satellites, which means as long as I keep this chargeed I will have Internet for as long as the servers stay up.

As such whenever this laptop is not in use it is charging in my dad's car.

So, my plan is this:

The main objective is to survive here for a few days, then to make my way into town to the armory. From there I will use the advanced military equipment to prolong my survival, as well as search for others.

The secondary objective is to manually search for survivors on my way to the armory, and continue to write my experiences as well as tips for others in this journal. (sorry, but this journal is secondary to my survival)

Unfortunately, I still didn't learn much of anything unique today, but I will try to post at least three tips after every one of these.

<<< Useful Survivor Tips>>>

1. Have a plan - Seriously, even if it's as simple as "learn to walk today". Having a plan is the key to staying busy, and staying busy is the key to not thinking yourself into a depression. In the words of my drill Sgt. "If you're standing around to doing a thing, you're wrong!".

2. Cars are the new generators - You may not be able to drive them anymore, but that doesn't mean you can't use them. If you found a way to convert power like I have, then you have an infinite amount of cars to choose from, and literally all the gas in the world.

3. Not everyone is your friend - It may sound cold and harsh, but if the military has taught me anything it's that there are always those who are more willing to steal from hard-working people then actually work and get it themselves. So please, be careful.

Author's Note:

Hello again everyone,

Look at this group now! We have stories coming in from left and right!

Don't worry about Mitch up there he's got a plan, but what's gonna happen when even his plans don't keep him busy enough to distract him from what has happened to himself and the world?

As always, please tell me what you liked and disliked so that I can continue to improve the story.

Comments

[Nitrous Rainbows]

Nice chapter. There's a few parts where I'd shuffle some words and punctuation around to help with the flow, but I don't think there was anything major. I'll try an PM you later.

[Spleedude]

6063095 I thought it fit with the theme?

[Celefin]

Off to a good start. I liked the 'magic missile' part that shows nicely that he hasn't a clue about pony magic and isn't about to find out much more about that horn of his except for it being really sensitive anytime soon. I appreciate these slow starts.
One question though (and that one has bugged me with all the stories so far): I guess you can sort of accept or delude yourself about accepting the fact that the whole neighbourhood has disappeared; but how can you just deal with waking up and finding your family not just gone but clearly vanished into thin air? Immediate denial? Then I'll be waiting for the crash that should come when that part of the brain realises that this is it.
Your protagonist is probably so far the most likely to at least initially deal with the situation rationally since he's military and trained to function under sudden extreme stress. Good idea.

Anyway, your style is fine and your protagonist feels pretty real. Very nice description of the initial reactions. Do go on!