Simulation

by PhoelynFabulous

The City

Author's Note:

Woohoo, new story! Simulation! This'll be fun Grimdark.

Oh, and to make sure the story stays long enough and good enough, I'm creating a limit! At least 1000 words per chapter! Enjoy!

I galloped, my hoofsteps loud and thundering as I ran, kicking dust and dirt into clouds of it behind me. I could smell the sand and dirt beneath me, stinging my nostrils and eyes, but I didn't care. The world was not hopeless, the Shielded just weren't trying.

I am Dust Runner. I am a Shielded. Immune to The Strike, and very grateful for it. I will try as hard as I can to save this dying, destroyed world.

Maybe I should start at the beginning? Alright then.

Everything was chaotic. Nopony thought anything was right, attacking eachother carelessly. I was only... hmm, I think ten? It's difficult to remember when your running through a wasteland, with dust and dirt in your eyes, trying desperately to get to a city in the distance for survival supplies. Maybe I was eleven? Anyways, ponies were at a bit of a war. Nopony truly liked one another. It was always fight and shout, hit and scream, die and bleed. Nopony even cared who won this war. There were no sides. My dad was murdered by my mother. No sides whatsoever. I'm surprised my mother decided I wasn't worth killing.

Anyways, there were two 'geniuses' who decided 'Oh, let's drop bombs everywhere in the universe, even on myself! What could go wrong?' and the other said 'You know, it would be a great idea to create the most deadly virus possible and release it everywhere in the world, including on myself! What could go wrong?'

Of course, by complete coincidence they decided to do so at the same time and, of course, it didn't go well. Huge bombs were dropped from pegasi on everypony's homes, workplaces, countries, everywhere. One was dropped very close to my house. If mom and I hadn't went into the basement at the sight of the bomb, we would've died. Hell, we almost died IN the basement! It was a shock that most of the neighbors survived!
When we went back up, the whole town was a wasteland. It looked like the one I'm running in now. Rocks and debris everywhere, houses in ruins, including my own shelter.
Ponies. Wounded, bleeding, dying ponies covered the landscape as much as the rocks did. There was a deep, large, terrifying crater in the center of town. It was full of fire, and it wasn't hard to notice the fires covering most of the land, too. Houses burning and crumbling, ponies screaming and crying, sometimes over loved ones who were injured, dying, or dead. I spotted a few ponies who were on fire, too, running and screaming in agony.
It was chaos and hell combined, burning hot and full of pain and destruction. Bombs like that one were dropped everywhere in the land. We even heard another loud, thunderous blast come from what I thought was the south.

And then, of course, as if it couldn't get any worse... The Strike. That's what everypony called it, at least.
The pony who came up with the disastrous disease knew about the bombs, so he or she took it as an advantage. They secretly placed the virus within the bombs, so it would spread everywhere the bombs dropped.
We noticed when the mist came. We thought it was normal, until everypony noticed it's color. Smoke and ashes weren't mint green. Ponies were very concerned, but nopony could do anything about it. Though, something I noticed, and that others most likely did too, was that most ponies, except for me and four others, were twitching and stumbling. Their ears would do very noticeable twitches, small but easy to spot. Pegasus wings would twitch as well. Their legs would shake, and sometimes they would trip on their hooves and fall onto the rough ground.
It got worse on the second day.
Though everypony still hated eachother in a strange war, they attempted to fix their houses, or create new small shelters. They kept dropping things, and being extra angry when something like that happened. They would make an angry growl and pound on the material for a bit, and then angrily put it back in the place they were trying to put it in.
Emotions seemed to be strange. Adding on to the strangeness of anger, my mother would hurt me for no reason sometimes, or kick a stone angrily and walk that way as well. Full of hatred and anger.
If I asked her what was wrong with her anger she would either cheerfully go "I don't know! I don't care!" or start sobbing until the ground was turned to slippery mud and go "I... I... don't even know!" After three days, this became more extreme.

Ponies beating eachother for no reason, sometimes laughing happily as they did. My mother became aggressive as well, beating me randomly, saying I was better then her and that I deserved it because of it.
Now, their eyelids twitched as well, and no matter how hard they tried they couldn't sleep. They had stopped building shelters, almost not caring about the blazing heat anymore. If I had the chance, I would say they had officially gone insane.
On the fourth day, I had no hope for the infected, insane ponies.
They had grown almost completely careless about everything around them. There would be somepony attempting to sleep on the ground, and somepony would trample over them, barely realizing that they were there. And the pony sleeping on the ground would most likely be crushed to death, because nopony could contain their strange hatred and anger anymore. Everywhere they walked, they would stomp as hard as they could.
My mother continued to beat me, more then the third day. She would scream that I shouldn't be alive, that she wouldn't stop trying to kill me until I was dead, that the disease should've gotten me.
Eventually, even the insane ponies decided on a name for their insanity, and for the ones who hadn't been infected.
The Strike was the disease, The Stricken were the infected, and The Shielded were the immune. I was a Shielded. My mother was a Stricken. There were five Shielded in the village. Only five. The fifth day of The Strike was the like four but a little worse.
And then... the sixth day was where nopony cared about their emotions, feelings, health, anything. They were like zombies. Careless about sleep, careless about others, mostly careless about food. That was the day I lost my mother to insanity.

We fought often in the last four days.
The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth were the worst. My mother had been crazy enough to attempt to kill me on the sixth day.
She hit me hard in the back of the neck while I was drinking a dirty glass bottle of water, causing me to choke. I swung the bottle toward her face as I turned around, trying to hit as hard as I could. The glass shattered against her face, giving her many gashes and scars. Some were on her eyeball itself.
I stared. I would do something, but I couldn't. I was frozen. My mother was staring into space. Not dead, but thinking.
Finally, she blinked, and looked at herself. Or, her leg. She put it back down, and looked at her other hoof.
She used this one to pull a shard of glass that was stuck in her eye out, showing no pain. It was covered in blood, and her eye and face were bleeding. She stared at the shard.
I backed away slowly. I stopped, and was shocked when my mother looked at the leg she was staring at earlier, and shoved the glass in as deep as it could go while she was still holding it.
She cut a long gash into her leg. It was a terrifying sight. I would never forget it. When she was done, she pulled the glass out, stared at it again, and smiled.
I felt like my blood had become ice as she giggled. Her giggle turned to laughter. Her laughter turned to cackling. Terrifying, bone chilling, blood freezing, cackling. I could do nothing but stare in horror.

She suddenly ran, cackling all the way to the other ponies, cutting her leg, and having so much fun doing it.
The other Stricken noticed this, and began to fight for the glass shard. My mother was screaming, but still cackling, as she defended her toy of death. Ponies were juggling it around trying to snatch it from anypony who took it. The last pony that got it popped it into it's mouth and chewed and swallowed. The other Stricken sighed in disappointment, while my mother screamed and attempted to tear open the stallion's stomach to get the glass back. She was succeeding in doing this, and the Stricken stallion was cackling now.

I couldn't take it anymore. I ran. I took as many supplies as I could carry, and I ran. I planned on never coming back. I got my cutie mark. It was three horseshoes. The symbol of me, running.

Now that I have finished my story about how this situation even happened, I have arrived at the city.