> Winter Nights
>  by Haunted Toaster
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It was cold winter night, when Twilight Sparkle was spending it relaxing in her own nerdish way. Namely she lied comfortably on her bed by the dim light of a candle, with a cup of hot tea standing on the nightstand next to her, and read a new book called Equestrian Magical Creatures. Her eyes quickly followed the text, stopping only for a moment to sip the tea, which levitated to herself with magic and turned the next page…

“Twilight?” she heard a muffled voice of her trusted assistant calling her from the lower floor. She took her eyes away from the book, and looked down at him with a small smile. “Ugh, you're still up.” He said scratching his left eye tiredly “It's late at night, you should go to sleep...”

The corner of her mouth raised slightly “I know Spike, and I could say the same thing about you.” she remarked.

“Yeah, I know, I know… I just wanted something to drink, that’s all.” He yawned covering his mouth with his claw. “Just... promise me you don't stay up all night, okay?”

Twilight looked at him sympathetically. The little dragon was always concerned about her well being. Even though he at times was a little clumsy or grumpy, it was him who helped her running this place, made sure everything was in check, helped her contacting with princesses, took good care of her and vice versa. Nodding a few times she said “I promise.” 

Spike yawned again “I'm going back to sleep.” With that he turned around, and went back to his basket.

The librarian stared at the clock hanging on the opposite wall for a moment, it marked at 9:30 p.m, then she looked out the near window. It was dark outside, the clouds were hiding the moon, and snow was heavily falling on the ground, covering it with fluffy, white cover. The mare went back to reading her book, but in the last moment, out of corner of her eye she saw something. She turned to the window again, even in all this dark blizzard she could see a barely noticeable, bluish light in the far distance… It surprised her, because most ponies should be inside of their houses during weather like this.

"Probably just somepony with lantern or magic trying to get back home in this snow... Poor thing." She thought ignoring this unusual thing.

Twilight went back to her book, and read it for several more minutes, but turned back to the window, curious of the blue dot in the dark winter night. It was still there, but a little brighter than before. The unicorn dismissed it again, and went back to reading... She read page after page until she noticed, that her teacup was empty. She looked back at the clock, which now pointed at 10:10 p.m. 

Yawing purple mae thought to herself “Time to get some sleep..." Tired librarian warped the book with her purple magic, and put it on the nightstand. She looked out the window for the last time, and to her surprise noticed that the light hasn't disappeared. "That's weird... why somepony would do that?" She asked herself as she stared at the light when suddenly, for a moment it got a little brighter... bright enough to draw attention.

"Maybe it is trying to draw attention... but why?” She started thinking about the reasons for which someone would do such a thing... The bright blue dot was coming from direction of Everfree Forest. The same dangerous woodland that everypony were scared to go in. The same forest where lives many of the dangerous creatures with whom she had just read in the book. "What if someone is hurt and is trying to get help?"

Her ears for a moment fell flat and she became worried. Even if it really wasn't someone in danger this... anomaly, still should be investigated - at least this is what her tired mind told her. The mare quickly went down floor to the bathroom and with her magic grabbed first aid kit. Then she proceed to the drawer and pulled out her sweater, vest from last Winter Warm Up, winter horse booths, a wooly scarf, beanie and hastily put everything on. 

Unicorn glanced at the clock - 10:14 pm. "I've hope I'm wrong with this ,,somepony in danger", I really do... and I should ask for help or tell someone what I am going to do first." she thought. "It's too far and it would take too long to get to AJ or Rainbow... Spike!" 
She went back to the bedroom, walked up to the basket where the baby dragon slept and halted. He was snoring slightly tucked comfortably in his blanket… Twilight knew that he had a hard day, today and just like every baby dragon needed some rest. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t wake him up…”  the dragon shifted slightly in his sleep and turned on his side. Unicorn looked around as if she tried to find a clue what should she do… and spotted a piece of paper and a quill. “A note might be a better idea, in the end if something happened to me they will know where I went and if nothing happens then I’ll be back and no one will notice.” A purple aura wrapped a feather and paper... Few moments later the note has been written and Twilight carefully put it on the basket, then she went downstairs.

She opened the library door and immediately was met with wall of cold air rushing inside her home. It was colder than she originally thought. Even with her fur and clothes she could feel it, but curious mare has decided to not waste anymore time. She trotted through the town and down the path in direction of the light slowly, because the blowing wind and the falling snow started gaining in strength. She crossed the bridge and saw Fluttershy’s Cottage in the distance.

"Maybe I should ask her for help?” Twilight began to trot in the direction of the cottage, but stopped when she remembered that Fluttershy was on a trip in Canterlot with Rarity. "Shoot..." She murmured putting flat her ears again and looked at direction of the light it was still there, but weaker than before. The unicorn turned in its direction and picked up her pace, but stopped again as soon as she found herself on the edge of the forest.

Twilight suddenly felt a cold and unpleasant feeling creeping up her spine. Like a nasty spider with hairy legs it walked up making her fur to rose under the clothing and her body to slightly shiver.

"Most of the predators should be asleep in winter... most of them." Shaking the feeling off she entered the forest with one thought: someone could be in danger.

The forest was dark... darker than before she entered it. She could barely see her hoof in front of her face and falling snow hasn't helped at all. The purple unicorn has casted a spell and her purple magic has warped around her horn casting a glow of the same color in range of a few meters. Normally it would be more effective, but unfortunately due to the snowstorm it couldn't work like that. At least now she wouldn't be tripping over her own hooves. With that she walked deeper into the forest, forward to the bluish light... which began to move.

Twilight was tired due to late hour, but she clearly saw that the light was moving. Picking up her pace she struggled to move forward because of snow. She was close to her target when it suddenly disappeared. Just like that it stopped giving the light when she passed one of the trees.
"What?!" She screamed in her thoughts as she broke into run. After a minute or two the young mare appeared where she thought the source of the light was and found nothing... she began to look around and found nothing, but darkness, snow and cold. "Did I imagined that?" She kept searching for something, anything that could prove her wrong, but if there actually was something it was probably under the snow by now. 

"But... I was sure i saw it." She muttered and sat down, looked around again, then she put back her ears realizing that she has no idea which way leads back to Ponyville. "How would I be so stupid going alone in the middle of night and blizzard to investigate some stupid light in the middle of Everfree Forest?!" She said angrily to herself, then began to search the way out. 

She tried to go back by her hoof steps, but snow already covered them with fresh fluffy powder. The cold, unpleasant spider started to creep up her spine again, but this time much larger and much more effective… A loud snap of the branch right behind her made her straighten up and like two small radars her ears navigated in that direction. She felt how her heartbeat speeds up, the blood in her head rushed and seemed to tight her brain.

"Please, let it be Zecora..."

She slowly turned her head around only to see a pair of yellow eyes staring back at her just a few steps outside the circle of purple magical light. Then she saw another... and another. Because the wind blew really hard in the direction of thous eyes she failed to smell the terrible stench of timber wolves.

The heart sinking, wolf howl made the fur on her neck reared and her legs to bolt out forward.

The timberwolves have started running too. The chase was on, the hunt began. 

She ran in the direction where she thought was the way out. Her boots loudly crushed snow and fallen sticks just like timber wolves paws, they barked and howled from behind and her sides. One of them jumped out of the darkness at her from the right side, which she responded, without halting her run, with a quick, panicked shot of her purple magic. It made the timberwolf crush into pieces, but she knew it would come back to life in a moment.

In all of this she failed to pay attention to what's in her way, and unable to do a dodge her cheek was caught by a branch, its naked sticks scratched her painfully, but in the last second she saw the log of wood on her path and barely managed to jump over it. A pointy stick coming out of it caught and slightly torn her vest at the bottom.

Then right before her, bursted out of the snow another wooden creature. It surprised her and made her fall and slide through the snow spreading it everywhere. Whatever it was her luck or wolf's bad luck it blinded the predator in the process. She heard how the rest of the pack quickly nears to her and she knew that the monster before her won't be confused for long. She hastily casted a teleportation spell and popped out a meter above the ground, right behind the wolf, and slightly awkwardly landing on all fours started to sprint again. 

The timber wolf shook off the snow from itself, and gave a chase soon after.

Twilight ran. She ran as fast as she could, but not being the most athletic pony or rather being the exact opposite made her tired really quickly. She felt how crazy her heart was beating from exhaustion and fear, like it was going to burst out of her chest any minute now. She was barely able to focus on keeping up the light up and on boulders before her. She jumped over another fallen tree trunk, somehow gracefully...
And she landed on the really steep slope of the hill.

Her front legs gave away and less gracefully she fell on her face, then backs and began to roll sideways down the hill by the way really painfully bumping against the trees and larger rocks. Twilight lost her focus after the first hit and the magic around her horn disappeared. Her molested by natural obstacles body ceased to slide only at the bottom.

At first she thought that it's end of her life, that the timberwolves will got her. But this thought quickly disappeared, because she hasn't heard them at all. They probably won't risk sliding down this hill and will take the longer, safer path down, then will ambush her later... at least that's what she read in the book earlier.

The blizzard seemed to slowly fade and unicorn mare took few deep breaths to calm herself down. It helped a little, but her fatigue and coldness started to make themselves clear and her sored, hurt body started shaking uncontrollably. Apparently staying in one place, without moving, during a snowstorm is not a good idea... 

“The last thing I need right now is freezing in this cursed, creepy forest.”

She very slowly got up and focused her magic. Her horn with some difficulties lit up, once more creating a light and she proceed to walk... somewhere. She had no idea how long she was here or where she was walking, but the began to abate to the level, where Twilight could barely see shadows in front of her. The silhouettes of trees and bushes seemed to move on their own and watch her intesfilly. It felt so weird and creepy to her, she began to watch every few moments behind her or left and right.

She heard a crunch next to herself and jumped like burned with a fire. Holding her breath she backed up against the tree and casted a spell ready to engage whatever was there. Her body began to shake even more as she stared into the darkness of the forest waiting... and waiting... and finally realizing that she stares at nothing. There was nothing, but trees, bushes and their dark silhouettes all around. But still, she was sure she has heard something.

After a moment Twilight slowly and shakily exhaled a cloud of hot air through her mouth. Then she looked around and very slowly, as if made from stone, moved one front leg, then back leg, then another front leg and slowly, as quietly as possible, resumed walking. Now almost all the time she began to look at creepy shadows and movements surrounding her.

And again a loud noise startled her, made fur and ears to stand up and body to tense up. It was a crack of moving branch of a tree. Unicorn closed her eyes, furrowed brows and let out irritated noise... then began to move again, faster.

She wandered through the woods for unknown amount of time in the back of her head still having stick monsters hunting her. The time seemed to drag on. For her it could be a few minutes as well as an hour or two. Suddenly, as if appearing from thin air, she saw a bluish glow on the right side from where she was facing. It was close... very close. She began to run in its direction only to trip herself on some branch sticking out of the snow and fell in a large hole. She hit her head against the trunk of a fallen tree and the purple aura which she has casted disappeared.

Opening her eyes she looked around slowly, everything was blurry for a few seconds then went back to normal, but what Twilight saw in front of her definitely wasn't normal at all... In front of her was white and blue ball of energy, casting sky blue glow around, it was size of her head maybe little less and it was beautiful. Almost hypnotizingly beautiful.

The next thing Twilight noticed was that it was warm and it felt nice... she carefully walked up to it and reached her hoof to it, but stopped half way. She slowly took it away and instead of hoof she used her horn to check if it was safe. Once her magic made contact with the thing, it flashed blinding white light and she fell to sweet embrace of unconsciousness.





Unicorn slowly came to her senses. She felt how tips of her hooves, nose, whole ears are cold.

"Cold... So cold..." she thought as her body shivered. Twilight slowly regained her consciousness and opened her eyes. Everything was blurry again, she shook her head a little, set her ears up, got up on her hooves and stopped with head low to the ground when a rush of blood hit her head making dark blimps before her eyes for a moment. When it stopped she slowly got up, shook off like a dog, then looked around slowly…

Darkness everywhere is what she saw, the only thing that give a light was a moonlight coming from small broken window creating equally small rectangle on the floor. She casted the spell again and her horn shined with purple aura once more, illuminating room she was in. 

It was small and dusty, shards of broken glass were lying on the floor, near the parallel wall of the destroyed window was a desk with papers scattered all around and broken chair. Behind the desk was a large shelf with rotted books. Near far wall was standing an old couch and broken in half coffee table, on another side were a large metal door with some scratches.

"H-hello?" unicorn asked quietly, thinking that maybe someone will respond her from the other side, but the silence was her only response... "Hello? Anypony?" she called little louder... nothing. 

She took double take at the room and noticed, that everything was way too big for a normal pony. She came up to the window, it was too high for her so she had to stand on her hind legs to look through it. What she saw made her let out a small gasp of surprise.

The sky was clear and the moonlight was strong so she had no difficulties with recognizing what’s outside. In front of her stood a really large, grey building... or at least what was left from it - it was collapsed from the inside. Next to it was another, devastated one for that matter, and it was half collapsed too. She could see what was in each rooms on each floor. When she looked down she saw, that what would be normally 4 floors for her, in this place was at least two floors above the ground. The street was completely covered in snow, some kind of broken street lamps were placed every few meters along with many, metal, destroyed and weird looking for her... vehicles? When she leaned out her head to look further down the street, she was able to see similar buildings in different conditions, crossroads, dead trees, large billboard with hidden by snow informations, something similar to a train and more vehicles, everything was covered in snow and ice.

For a second she thought she has seen a movement in one of the alleys...

"I never saw something like this. Something so... alien." Twilight again had no idea where she was, but one thing she was pretty sure, was that, she wasn't in Everfree Forest anymore, or Equestria for that matter.

It made her feel awfully small. Like a tiny, purple dot somewhere in the background of an alien, gigantic, dark, white and grey painting.
The small unicorn was so stunned, scared and confused by all of it, that she failed to notice earlier how tired, hurt and cold she actually was. Slowly getting back on all fours she turned around and examine the room again. She trotted to the bookshelf and looked at the titles, which she couldn't read. Some of them had unrecognizable for her letters like "ż" or "ł", she didn't even know how to say them... She wanted to go away, but one book caught her eye. One lonely, white book with two titles. She couldn't read the first one, but the one below it has written Polish-English Dictionary, where "dictionary" was a keyword. She took the book with her telekinesis and opened it…

Like in every dictionary there were words written in both languages, but what catch her off guard was the quality of the paper and how the book itself was made. It clearly was manufactured and printed by machine. Something, that clearly was much more advanced than a simple printing device used to make newspapers…

Twilight felt how cold fear and uncertainty began to creep inside her heart driven by thoughts of her mind about being lost and alone.  
She didn't know where she was, how exactly she ended up here or how to go back home and if her friends... her friends... She thought about her friends, about Spike, about home... She was alone here.

A shaky breath escaped her mouth. She wanted to cry, but quickly sucked it up. "Too tired to do anything right now. I really need some rest. I can find out how to go back home tomorrow, when I'll be able to think straight.” her logical side thought.

Taking few deep breaths she calmed herself and turned to the old and smelly couch. It had springs extending from it "No way..." she thought, instead she turned forward the door and opened it, but what she saw froze blood in her veins.

In front of her was a creature a head taller than her, it had dirty, white fur, light blue eyes and face covered in nasty scars. It was similar to wolf, but had claws and fangs size of the kitchen knives. It looked at her, then stood up on his hind legs and jumped at her with terrifying roar- she quickly shut the door and blocked it with her body. The monster tried to ram itself inside the room.

After a first bang at the door, Twilight tried to use more advanced magic - a teleportation, but failed and winced as pain shoot through her horn. She started weeping, because she almost immediately realized, that she is trapped in here and this doors were the only way out without breaking her legs…

After another try the door opened slightly, but Twilight quickly put more pressure to it, "Please go away..." she pleaded as she felt that she physically won't be able to hold it closed for long.

Another hit at the door, more powerful this time, and again she shut the door putting a lot more strength in pressure "Please..." she looked around once more, her sight quickly stopped at the desk, it looked heavy...

Another loud bang at the door, this time the door opened in one quarter. A long arm of the monster reached from it and tried to grab her with its paw. She screamed and quickly thinking grabbed with her magic shards of broken glass that laid on the floor and with all her force stick them in the paw.

The wolf-like creature howled in pain and backed away from the door, the unicorn hasn't wasted the moment and with great effort pushed the desk with her magic against the doors, then slowly backed away.

The banging at the doors resumed, with time growing more furious and chaotic. She could hear muffled, angry snarls, growls, barks and other sounds of the monster.

It worked... she was still scared, confused and crying, but safe for now.

Twilight sobbed and sat down on the couch, she felt pain in her chest she looked down at herself and saw... blood... both her and monsters. There were three slash marks across her chest. She hasn't felt the weird creature hurting her back there - probably thanks to adrenaline. Somehow now really badly torn up vest leveled some of the damage and wounds weren't deep. She quickly remembered about the aid kit, reached for her bag and pulled it out.

Twilight sobbed while opening it and took out bandages and wound cleansers. She remembered how Fluttershy treated wounded by something animal at some point and after taking off the cloths started cleaning them. Only now she felt how terribly cold it was and a thought of getting better cloths came to her... With few hisses of pain later she started bandaging the wounds, when she finished she dressed up, curled in a ball, put her hooves over her ears and tried go to sleep.

"Leave me alone." she muttered to herself and eventually slowly fell asleep in acompaniament of un-rhythmic banging at the doors of the monster...
> Chapter 1: Just a Regular Day
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	A cold wind blew with a silent whistle, as the two bipedal figures sneaked up along the snowy street surrounded by destroyed buildings either by some kind of explosions, fire or simply because of harsh weather. Both of them watched for any sight of danger, where one was looking at their 12 o'clock and the other at 6 o'clock. 

Some buildings had old graffiti painted on the walls, other were scratched by bullet marks, fire and old dark stains, which could only be a blood. The street was littered by old cars with open doors, in some of them also were marks of terrible fate, which happened to their owners. One could imagine chaos and panic caused by something so bad that it made people to abandon their vehicles and ran.

One of the sneaking persons was much larger, than the other. They were moving from cover to cover, protecting each other with firearms, and carefully watching destroyed buildings around them. Their destination was close - an abandoned store with military equipment. They jumped into the burned bus around 80 meters away from the target, and both of them began to check their gear, when the shorter one spoke up…

"Are you sure, you want to do that?" a soft female voice asked the other person.

It was an average height woman of slender, yet seemingly strong body build. Her bright, green as a fresh grass in spring, eyes were hidden by a pair of simple sunglasses. Her long, ginger hair were tied in a ponytail and fell on her back. At first glance she seemed to be young, around her early twenties, but looks can be misleading...

She was dressed in white clothing combaning from a thick jacket with a hood, cargo pants on her legs secured with a black leather belt, a keffiyeh wrapped around her face, and neck and beanie hiding her ginger hair. A white tactical vest with armored insides  protected her torso, and colored with white paint military boots covered her feets. She was carrying a medium sized military backpack in arctic camo, and her hands were covered in used, thin white gloves with cut off trigger finger.

Close to her chest she gripped her trusted SVD, which just like boots was painted in white color, and had thin, see-through white rags wrapped around the optics preventing it from shining in the sun. A small, fixed karambit blade was tied to her right thigh, and on the belt was placed canteen with frozen water. Tactical Five-seveN holstered under her left arm. The holster was attached to the vest, and in its pockets were some mags to her weapons... Less than half had bullets in it, there was only a half magazine to her sniper rifle, and 2 full magazines to the handgun.

"No... but someone have to go there, Firefly. Besides it's only 80 meters or so..." A deep, tired, lecture-like, male voice answered her.

It was a tall, and rather well-built man with deep blue eyes. If someone would look into them, it could be overcome by unusual calmness… or fear, depending on how he wanted it to be. His straight, dark brown hair were hanging halfway down his neck. He had a strong facial features, and a small beard along the jaw, and around his mouth. It made him look rather old, around his forties… maybe more.

Unlike Firefly, he was wearing a simple black beanie on top of his head. A standard polish military uniform with standard winter camo and two patches on his arm with a writing on one of them. The first one was an image of large eagle viewed from profile, with a lightning in its claws, and writing under it GROM. The second one however was a herb with black background, and white letter “P” combined with an anchor at the bottom. He had a gray,tactical vest with steel insert which protected his torso, on his backs was a much larger rucksack but with similar arctic camo. A white gloves, with also cut off index finger on his right hand. His lower parts were similar to hers expect the belt.

It has pinned additional pockets for magazines, which were mostly occupied by empty ones. All he had right now was a half full magazine to his HK416 with ACOG sight, and additional handle. And one full to his backup weapon -also Five-seveN- which was holstered on the right side of his hip. A machete was hidden in sheath under his bag, a canteen with frozen water in a side pocket of his backpack, and a simple combat bayonet below his handgun.

"Reaper, the last time you said that, we've ended up in the nest full of ‘Nightmares’..." Firefly said.

He checked his rifle, before answering "It was your fault, you choose to run left..."
"But-"
"Cover me." He announced, while jumping out of the window, not giving her a chances to explain. Not wasting their precious time he started sprinting in the direction of the store.

Firefly growled in frustration huffing a little white cloud through her mouth. Kneeling down, and relying her sniper rifle on the edge of broken window for better support she began to scan the area with it "I’ve hope something will bite you in the ass..." she muttered.








Noticing movement to his left Reaper stopped and took cover behind one of the cars - half way from his destination. He peeked his head from behind the cover, and saw a white furred, light blue eyed werewolf with scars over his muzzle and eye. A big one to that.

While an average werewolf would stand on his hind legs it would be around his size, while on all fours it would reach to his stomach, but this one... When it stood up on two legs it seemed to be taller than him by at least one and a half head. 

The wolfish creature was scanning the area for some reason. It took a while, but eventually it stopped, and lowering it self on all fours ran off between the nearby buildings… or rather what was left from them. Waiting a few more minutes he start running again, and eventually, hitting against the wall, he reached to the gun store.

He took a look through the broken window and saw a rat - not normal rat, but a medium dog sized rat. With shiny yellow eyes, needle like fangs, and small, sharp claws. When there was only one it wasn't much of a challenge, but when there were more it could turn really nasty really fast. This “little” things in a large group can easily overwhelm, and tore an average man apart. This one was eating a bird of some kind, probably a crow since it’s one of the few animals, which hasn’t mutated.

Reaper quietly went inside. Carefully taking step by step, he watched the floor so he wouldn't crush the broken glass. Coming from behind the rat he slowly drew the machete from sheath, and when the rat smelled that something was creeping up on it, he made one quick slash. The blade easily dug into nape of an animal, and cut its head off. It could be heard how a short, quiet hiss of pressurized air and blood escaping out of its body while the dark red liquid spreads on the wooden floor.  After eliminating the threat he began searching the store…

The gun shop itself was small, and dusty. It was built into the apartment block just like most of the stores in this city… Behind the wooden, and glass counter were double doors opening outward - probably leading to the storage room. A few heavy looking, and empty gun shelves were placed around, and nothing more.

"Damnit." he thought, and looked at the counter. He spotted ammo boxes behind bulletproof glass so he made his way there.

There wasn't much left, everything useful was already taken. The soldier had found a box with bullets of 5.56 ammunition to his HK416, and only 5 leftovers from box cal. 7.62 to Firefly's SVD. There were some other rounds, but nor he or the sniper had a gun to them. For him it was better than nothing, so thinking it can came in handy took everything and put it into his rucksack. He looked around a little more, and under the counter, he had found two black cases for weapons.

“Bingo.”

Good news where: they were heavy so something was there. The bad news were: both of them were padlocked, and required a key... He couldn’t just shoot it, things like this are possible only in movies. Besides the sound of the gunshot would attract unwanted attention plus they were getting low with ammunition itself and had to count every bullet they had. The bearded man quickly loaded his part of ammunition into an empty magazine making it full, and sighed. He walked up to the window, and waved to Firefly - gesturing her to come here. Then kneeled down and began to observe the area through his ACOG - covering the ginger haired sniper. The green eyed girl jumped out from behind her cover, and ran forward swiftly avoiding the obstacles. After a moment she entered the store.

Removing the scarf from her face, and breathing a little faster than normal she asked him "What’s up?" 

He handed her, her part of ammunition to SVD, then silently gestured the boxes lying on the counter.

She grabbed it, and hid it in her pocket - later she would put them in the right place. Then she looked at the cases and throwing her SVD over her shoulder pulled out from one of her pockets a small black box with various tools in it. The girl kneeled down, and began doing her work... After few minutes of struggling with the padlock a soft, and satisfying click could be heard. Firefly smiled to herself, and opened the first box.

"Hm, I think it's something for you..." She handed the box to Reaper. 

He in turn, slowly looked away from the view and making sure, that there wasn't any threat nearby looked at the content of the box. He raised his bushy eyebrows. Inside the box was Lupara - a short, double barreled shotgun- with eight shells, and leather holster.

"Why would you think that?" Reaper muttered as he closed the box.

“Well, you kinda look like a gangster… all you need is coat, suit and fedora.” she snickered quietly for some reason.

He eye rolled knowing what she was referring to - he used to be one for a short time in the past, one of the mistakes of his youth, but at the same time a mistake which made him learn a few handy things. He put the case into his backpack and went back to overwatch.

Meanwhile another click was heard as Firefly opened the second box, and started to grin widely seeing the content of it. Inside of it was a set of six throwing knives. She pulled one out, and examined it closely. 

It was small, sharp and seemed to be made of high quality steel. She played a little with it in her hand noting that the weight and balance were good. A solid, and good piece of work from blacksmith. The girl ran her index and middle finger over the edge of it, than merrily began to place the knives on the belt of her pants: three on each side.

Reaper looked at them, then back at his teammate and shook his head slightly, but said nothing about her weird knife fetish… He preferred to go one on one with "Chimera", using only his combat knife than starting an arguments with Firefly about it. At least he had a chance to win with this damned thing.

She really was fascinated with knives, used to collect them in the past as well as other sharp things to the point where sometimes it seemed to be ridiculous... The only reason she hasn't had more with her was that, at the beginning of it all -when entire world start falling apart- she was pulled out of her bed, half naked, in the middle of the “night” by him. She was told that she had 5 minutes to pack herself on the mission... 

And it was like over a year ago.

Now or at least so far, it's only the two of them and never ending winter.

“And monsters... And bandits…” he went on with thoughts of possible threats awaiting them.

"Hey! Frozen hell to Reaper..." She suddenly spoke up.

"Uh, what?" he asked blurt out snapping out back to reality.

"I said ‘it's getting late’ we should find a pl-.” 

She cut in mid sentence, because of a crack coming from behind the doors and drew her handgun, pointing it at the double doors, from which the sound came. Without turning her head from them she looked at bearded man. He in turn already had his rifle in hands, and pointing it in the same direction nodded with his head once. They slowly made their way to them, and positioned themselves on both sides. They looked at each other with stone cold expressions in a way also knowingly and Firefly nodded again, then started counting down, with her three middle fingers…

Three…
Two…
One…

In a matter of seconds Firefly had opened the doors outward, and both of them pointed their weapons at whatever was inside. The soldiers found themselves face to face with a few dozens pairs of shining, yellowish eyes. 

"Nope!" They shouted together, and slammed them shut. Reaper began to hold them with all his strength, while redheaded sniper got to the nearby gun shelf and tried to push it forward the doors. Rats were pounding at them, and slowly began to open them, snarling and hissing angrily the whole time…

"Hurry up with it!" he ordered and pressed harder trying to somehow prevent his legs from sliding on a wooden panels.

For Firefly it was hard to move this thing from place, even though she was no weakling and even in times like this regularly tried to train, it still was a pretty heavy shelf, and its legs dug into wooden floor. It took her a moment of struggle, but with a crack of wood she finally manage to push the stubborn thing forward. Meanwhile Reaper still had troubles with standing in place, his legs were sliding on the wooden floor, and the storage room doors opened enough for one rat to poke its head outside. Regaining his footing he pushed them harder squishing the creature, then with a sick crunch of flesh, and bone snapped the rat's neck and eventually cutting it off with a bayonet held in one hand - once again closing the doors. Finally Firefly managed to push the shelf under the door successfully blocking them... 

A thudding noise was heard from other side giving them a signal that the “could be dangerous” moment was over.

...She let out a small breath of relief, and leaned against the counter. "As I was saying,” She began again “It's getting dark, and we should find some shelter." she looked out the window "Unless, you want to play with this things, that roam at night..."

"No." Reaper stated calmly, then pulled out a map from inside pocket of his uniform. On said map were marked quite a few places in different colors, and various words like: danger area, empty store or safe house.

The rambling from behind small barricade slightly rose.

They both looked at the doors "...Perhaps we should first get out of here." the man suggested.

"Agreed..." and with that they went toward the exit.

After walking out of the gun store, they yet again started sneaking from cover to cover, making their way forward the bus, once inside they start thinking about the plan…

"So..." Firefly started looking over the map, while placing her part of ammunition in half empty magazine "How about this Hotel here." She pointed at one of the buildings in the center of city "It's the closest untouched thing from our position, and it has multiple routes of escaping if something went wrong. Hm…” She frowned “But the only way to get there is through the old metro tunnels or what was left from Palace of Culture... And I think you know better of how dangerous are those tunnels." Reaper scowled at the unpleasant memory of dark and creepy tunnels, and stayed silent. "I thought so..." she said with a half smile, and began to watch the area, again. The blue eyed man rolled the map, and slide it back to his pocket, while sniper was busy standing on watch. "Uh, are you alright?" she asked still observing their surrounding.

"Hm? Oh, yes…” he closed and rubbed his eyes “Yes, just... tired.” then sighed heavily “Why do you ask?"

Noticing movement in the distant ruins she looked at it with a scope of her rifle "Because you called me in, when the building wasn't secured." she answered still looking at it.

"Sorry, I… I just need some rest." he rubbed his eyes again, and yawned quietly, out of good manners covering his mouths with his hand.

Not being able to see anything between the rubble, Firefly looked back at her friend without any specific expression "Alright." She said, while putting her keffiyeh back on her face "Let's move."







An hour passed since they left the gun store. They walked down the street in general direction of the Palace of Culture. The fresh snow was crunching under their boots as they stopped before a huge gap in the middle of the street… It was wide, and impossible for them to cross without a special gear. Reaper looked down in the hole and saw some cars buried into the snow at the bottom.

A grimace crossed his face "Crap... What now?" Reaper asked.

Firefly kneeling and watching their 6 o'clock suggested "We can take unexplored route or go to the metr-"

"Unexplored route." He blurted out, not letting her finish the sentence. 

He couldn't see it, but her upper lip slightly rose up and her eyes narrowed from behind the sunglasses giving her an annoyed expression. He pulled out the map, then took out a red marker from his pocket. Pressing the map on his knee he noted the area of blocked street, and angrily wrote BLOCKED ROAD with a childish, angry face next to it.

"Hellhounds!" Firefly suddenly announced when she looked through her scope at the movement between cars on parking lot nearby.

Reaper looked over his shoulder, and saw a group of 10-15 huge dogs running from around them. Their terrifying, and terrible howls were ringing through the street... and they were running in their direction... fast.

"Fucking run!" he yelled. And they just did that. Reaper led the way through nearby rubbles, then took a sharp turn between some blocks into the ally with Firefly close behind. He looked at the map and yelled "Left!" They turned, and saw that the street was blocked with line of abandoned cars. Both soldiers climbed up on first vehicle and started running, and jumping from roof to roof with bloodthirsty dogs close behind... Too close.

"We can't out run them." green eyed girl said between her breaths.

"I know..." Reaper answered.

"Any ideas?" she asked.

"One..." he stopped abruptly, while pulling her shoulder to halt the sniper making her fall backwards on her knees spreading the snow from the roof of the vehicle in the air. He quickly shoved her the map in a free hand, and immediately after that turned back at the dogs. Taking on one knee he shakily aimed at the first dog "Run!" he shouted to her then trying to align his breath pulled the trigger…

The three ear-piercing gunshots echoed through the street drowning out the sounds of incoming dogs. Because the dead city was awfully quiet it was heard in a two kilometer radius and he knew that. He knew that it will draw more unwanted attention. The first bullet missed its target, and wounded another dog in the head. It stopped it, but hadn't killed the animal. The second hit its target in the chest, and the third in the eye. The dog went limp, and with momentum its lifeless body rolled from the roof of the car into the the tight space between the sides.

"But-" she wanted to argue, but he cut her off again. It really was getting frustrating for her  but she had no time or care to show it.

"I’ve got this! Go! Now!" he commanded in a tone, which already told her he made the choice then fired two more bullets into another dog. Both hit the target and dropped it dead. 

Firefly hesitated for a second, but obeyed him, and started running again. She already knew what her teammate was doing, and she knew he had a plan...

Another two gunshots rang behind her. She looked over her shoulder, only to see, how Reaper jumps off and runs into one of the buildings, and how most of the dogs chased after him. Unfortunately a few of them still decided to follow her.

"Fuck." 

Seeing that there were no more cars before her, she jumped off...







Firefly was exhausted, in every second a white cloud of steam was coming out of her mouth, and her lungs felt as if they were on fire, but despite this she kept on running as fast and as far as her legs could carry her. The woman could hear the monsters behind her as she looked at the map. Turning into another street, and passing more destroyed buildings the redheaded girl looked over her shoulder, and saw that the most of the Hellhounds where about 30 meters away from her, while one was about 10 meters. 

"Shit, shit, shit..." she muttered between breaths, and looking ahead spotted overturned truck. The front glass was intact, and the door were opened... Running up to it she threw her SVD on top of it, and began to climb on it's side. However the closest dog was faster than her and with furious bark bit into her leg. 

She screamed in pain as her vision became blurred for a moment. The beast started to brutally jerking, and pulling her leg. She could feel the skin tearing away from her... Tears formed in her eyes and made their way down her cheeks only to be absorbed by the material of her scarf.

On pain scale from 1-10 the dog bite oscillates around 4-5 where 1 is something like mosquito bite and 10 is being burned alive. Now add to it saliva, which contains a toxin that immediately after contact increases the pain, then add to this jerking and pulling with terrible force... that's how much pain she felt right now.

It was so overwhelming, that she slowly started losing her strength. Then one thought come to her head "Fight back!"

Suddenly she felt a new rush of adrenaline, she remembered who she was - a hunter.

She was supposed to hunt animals, not being a prey.

And just like that a new feeling overwhelmed her: anger.

Whole this process from the moment of the bite to now took maybe a second or two. Angried Firefly as hard as she could began to kick, and smash the sole of her heavy shoe heel in the head of the damned beast. She succeed in hitting it right in the eye. The dog yelped in pain, and let go of her. The girl quickly pulled herself up on top of the vehicle, and slides herself inside of lorry's cabin landing her rump on the snowed side window.

Meanwhile the Hellhound recovered from the hit, and rest of the dogs caught up to it... The larger one of them jumped at the truck and stick it's head inside the cabin trying to kill it's prey, but instead was met with a barrel of the handgun.

"Fuck you.” she pulled the trigger on point blank range and the bullet painted part of the cabin with blood, as the body of the dog went limp blocking the enter inside…

Firefly was completely out of breath so she tried to recover, she felt the cold snow under herself, but she didn’t care... However what she cared about was the nasty and bleeding wound under her knee. The adrenaline began to wear off, and again she began to be overwhelmed by the pain. She quickly put a pressure there with one hand trying to stop the bleeding, then tried to move her leg -which she succeed- and yelped in pain.

The sharpshooter girl could see through the frosted windshield, how the dogs are circling the truck - growling, and barking at her. One of them tried to shatter front window with its body, but thankfully it was too hard to break. 

The pain slowly started to grow, and began to spread through her leg. Firefly unable to bear it any longer quickly took from her backpack an aid kit, and began to search for bandages and painkillers. She had found a combat syringe with morphine and began to bandage the wound, then jabbed the syringe into her leg... Her body slowly was overcome by the drug, and reduced the pain to just a bearable, uncomfortable feeling.

She looked at the dogs again “Damn you...”







Reaper fired another two shots putting down another dog, then run in the closest -not destroyed- building. He ran up stairs with Hellhound close behind, he could hear their howls. Trying to find some shelter he tried to open the first doors "Closed." He run up to another doors. With a click he opened them, ran inside, shut them, and closed the door lock.

Suddenly he heard a low growl on his right.

He turned his head forward the sound only to see gigantic, white, light blue eyed werewolf with scars on it's face... The same werewolf from before.

"Bollocks..." was the only thing he could mutter before the beast jumped at him. He grabbed his rifle and tried to aim at it, but the wolfish creature was much faster than a human, and smashed its right claw at the gun and throwing it away, at the same time it took another strike with its left claw, and slashed it across his face.

Reaper tried to dodge, but claws dug into right side of his face leaving three deep bloody gashes, from under his eye down to his jaw. Soldier growled in pain, and anger while beast knocked him flat on the ground. Pinning his right arm, and opening its jaw it tried to rip his throat, but Reaper raised his left forearm to block the attack. The werewolf dug its teeth in to it with sickening crunch. Much like an animal himself he roared in pain. He couldn't move his arm and reach for the gun because his hand was placed too high, but he was able to pull out his knife and dug it between its ribs. The beast let go his arm yelping in pain, and jumped away... Now with his arm free he reached his for handgun then aimed, and crawling away start firing with each gunshot screaming words.

"You, like, that, you, piece of, shit!?" he shouted in his thunderous voice. 

First bullet hit it in the arm, second, and third in the chest, fourth in the throat, the last one in the head, right between its eyes. It stood for a moment then collapsed on the wooden floor with a loud thud. Grunting in pain he holstered his weapon, got up, and clenching his injured arm walked up to his rifle. Blood quickly staind his sleeve and dripped on the floor. 

Picking the gun up, he started examining it... Unlike him it looked like it was intact so he threw it over his shoulder.

The Hellhounds still could be heard from behind the door, which he came in. They tried to force their way in by scratching the floor under the doors, and slamming their bodies at them.

Again a muffled grunt escaped from his mouth "Pain… hello my old friend."

Reaper had to find something to patch up his injuries. He was bleeding, and was sure, that his forearm bones were at least cracked. And to top it all, he really wasn't feeling too well from lack of sleep. Searching his pockets he found nothing useful, holstering his handgun, and taking backpack off his shoulders he put it on the nearby table, and started searching it... Nothing. 

"I forgot, that the last aid kit, which I had, I gave to Firefly..."

With growl of frustration, the blue eyed soldier began to explore the living room and kitchen... only a small needle and a little of sewing thread. He went into the bathroom. Searching through shelves he found a small basket with medicines, spirytus, and bandages but there weren’t any painkillers and nothing he could sew the wounds on his face. Sighing he took it out, and sitting on the floor he rolled up the bloodied sleeve hissing in pain. Reaper began to clean his wounds…

He poured some spirytus from the bottle, which he found. Gritting his teeth he yet again quietly hissed in pain, and scowled, as more blood flowed from the bite wound. Then carefully bandaged it, and made an improvised sling. Putting the rest of the contents of the basket inside his backpack he looked up into the mirror.

It was covered with thin layer of dust, so he wiped it off with a sleeve of his jacket, and got a closer look at his face. The nasty calw injury was still bleeding so he took care of it too. There will be a scar after it, that’s for sure. As he was disinfecting the soon-to-be-scar he hissed in pain, and took notice of his appearance. Well, he was a mess to say at least. The soldier had dark bags under his eyes meaning that he had not slept for a long time, his small beard was unkempt, and his face looked so grim, and lifeless, and tired of everything… Where is this always positive man with a charming, and encouraging smile, that he used to be?

“Probably died along with everybody else…” he answered to himself, and sighed heavily, with a little bit of sadness.

With a little shaky hand he took the sewing kit and looked at the injury again. His face took on an expression of anxiety. He did that before - sewing a skin without painkillers causes a lot of pain.

After some time Reaper walked out of the bathroom, and noticed iron doors that were dented in few places. He walked up to them, and tried to open them, but they were blocked with something on the other side. He pushed them as hard as he could successfully opening them slowly, but the accomplishment vanquished as something inside pushed them back. 

"What the fuck?" he muttered, then start pushing again, and again something on other side started pushing back "Wait." He stopped pushing "It's impossible for wild animal to do something like that unless..."

"Hey! Is someone in there? I'm not going to hurt you!" Reaper yelled... There was no response.

He tried again "Can you hear me!? I'm friendly, and I want help you... Please at least reply!" again no response.

"This is pointless. I’m not getting in there, unless the person inside will open the door... I can escape through the window, but I can’t just leave the first -hopefully friendly- survivor, which I’ve met since months without making sure, that at least whoever is inside is okay... My damn conscience wouldn't give me peace, if I did."

Looking at the werewolf he thought for a moment, then did something he haven't done for a long time... He simply knocked lightly three times on the door.

The human waited a few minutes, but when nothing happened he knocked again, and patiently waited. However this time he heard some shuffling noise on the other side. The doors opened slowly, and revealed something he definitely did not expected.
	
> Chapter 2: A New Friend?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"What now?" Firefly thought as she looked at the dog, which she killed not too long ago. Now the lifeless corpse was hanging limply with paws in front of her, blood dripping on the floor -which in this case was the vehicle's door- and with a hole in its head... She didn't know how long she was here. Looking out the window, she noticed, that the group of beasts was lying comfortably on the ground - watching her.

"Just… Can’t you just go away!?" she said loudly with frustration, then groaning put her hand to her face and rubbed it a little.

Their ears twitched at the sound of her voice. One of them yawned, widely opening its jaws, showing its fangs and a long tongue. 

"I need to get out of here, but how?" She looked over herself, then the cabin and searched it a little. Unfortunately she found nothing useful… “I need a distraction.”

She waited, looking at the horizon... it was sunset. A beautiful orange glow painted the clear sky like in some kind of art piece of some famous artists. Time passed as she tried to come up with something, which hasn't involved using her gun or her being torn apart by them. As if listening to her request a loud, stunning and ear-piercing bird noise rang outside. She had to cover her ears to ease the pain, which it gave to her. The dogs huddled their ears and started to run away with their tails between their legs. Then she heard powerful flaps of wings and something big slammed on top of the truck, violently shaking it.

Firefly froze in fear. Her muscles tensed up and felt an unpleasant cold in her stomach. She knew all too well to who or rather to what this sound belonged. "Fury." she thought, as the truck shook again and Hellhound’s dead body has been brutally pulled out. She heard a loud thud, which was followed by snaps, and crunches of flesh.

"This is my chance." she thought, and slowly began climbing up the seats. She picked her head over the edge of truck doors and saw a giant pair of grey, bat wings, which were spread out across street. Said wings belonged to a body size of a humvee, and it was similar to a... lizard? Lizard with sharp, bird claws, long tail ended with a straight, sword-like blade, and head of some kind predatory bird with a long, slightly curved at the end, beak. Its whole body was covered by thick, grey fur. As quiet as she could Firefly slipped out of the cabin, below her on the ground was her sniper rifle - it lies right behind the Fury.

"Just my luck." climbing down she crouched, and started sneaking for her SVD. "Slowly... don't make any noise." The snow was beaten from previous adventure so it didn’t crunched under her. Besides the beast was too busy feeding itself on a corpse of the dead dog to notice Firefly. She was close, her gun was on reach of her hand… "Easy now." redheaded girl began carefully reaching out her hand to grab it by the barrel, but Fury's tail pinned it to the ground.

Firefly for a moment pressed tighter her lips and resisted herself from making irritated noise. She pulled back her hand, and began to think... Looking around, her eyes stopped on a brick, which just so conveniently happened to lie in the snow, then on the trash can nearby. Picking up the item she moved behind one of the cars. Making sure she was close enough to her target she threw the brick in the trash can.

The rumble it made brought Fury's attention. Lifting itself up from the corps it began snarling and screeching in its direction. The girl took the opportunity and leaned out, grabbed the rifle, then pulled it to herself and hide behind the car just in time to avoid being spotted by the beast. 

She didn't dared to look and just sat there, holding her breath, clenching her SVD in her hands close to her chest as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Monster snarled in her direction, but did nothing else, after few moments once more she heard sounds of eating. Slowly exhaling through her nose she leaned out from her cover.

As expected the Fury was feasting again, Firefly slowly started backing away occasionally looking behind her shoulder, but not letting her eyes off of the creature for more than a second or two. When sharpshooter girl made some distance between herself and bird-thing, she turned around and began to limp away. It was almost night, and she knew that she had to find a shelter. 

"I can't stay outside alone and injured during the night..." she thought as she turned into small alley between two fawn yellow buildings "...might as well shoot myself."

The green eyed woman took the map from her pocket, and looked it over as well as her surrounding for landmarks or name of the street - trying to find where was the nearest "safe house". Thanks to the last few rays of sun and a small blue board with written name of the street placed on the wall of the building, she quickly located where she was and found a shelter marked on the map with a green circle - it wasn't far away. Firefly turned into another street, and picked up her pace.

A few minutes later the sun was gone completely, the scenery around turned into shades of black and dark grey. Redhead sniper has found herself in front of an old bank. Throwing the SVD over her shoulder and pulling out her handgun she stuck to the wall near the entrance, then looked inside through the window... The room was dark, but she still could see the individual elements of the environment - mostly desks, chairs, computers and other office furnitures. Without much thought she slowly opened the door and stepped inside.

A crack of opening doors echoed through the building much louder than she would liked to. It actually made her flinch a little, but nonetheless she slowly, step after step, entered and like a programmed robot quickly checked the corners to the left and right, but expect for a long dead plant she found nothing. Moving slowly she went further, while scanning with her gun her surrounding, her ironsight scanned the desks and the area behind them. 

Now when she was further inside she spotted a few pairs of opened doors, but a crack coming somewhere to her right, distracted her and made to quickly turn in its direction. She accidently knocked off the desk an empty teacup, but her lightning reflex allowed to catch it halfway down the way, then put it back and slowly continued searching.

Again she heard a quiet noise of something falling on the ground coming  from behind of the simple wooden door at the end of the corridor. She felt her heart beat quickening as well as breath so she tried to get a hold of it. While finally approaching the small door she felt something off in the air, but couldn’t put her finger on what exactly it is.

This time a muffled squeak reached her ears. Something was there, but she had no idea what. Slowly she limped to the doors and put her left hand on the handle and with the other held the pistol. Aiming through the ironsight she flung opened them with a hard bang when it hit the wall. It was a small closed from, which jumped out a giant rat and speed off somewhere. 

“Fuck!” she yelled in surprise and almost pulled the trigger. She put her hand, with which she opened the door, to her mouths and muttered quietly “Shit… just fuckin’ rat…” but then something launched her inside the small cabin and in the process she let go of her gun.

While she was focused on sneaking to the doors, she failed to notice a ghoul sneaking up on her. But luckily to her the rat which ran from the closed ran into him, which made him stumble and fell on her before it could bit into her neck. The monster was a 90 kilogram humanoid being resembling a male dressed in a badly torn, bloodied suit. His eyes were entirely black, skin pale as a snow with horrible bluish lines all over its body, which actually were his small veins. He had no nose, his jaw was moved forward, which gave him almost caricatural appearance, with dozens of needle-like teeth. He also smelled as if he was dead for a very long time. The rotten stench, which she felt from so close was just disgusting.

Firefly wanted to swallow some saliva, but her mouths became dry and almost failed to resist herself from puking.
He was much heavier than her and he surprised her, so all she managed to do was to spin around to face him before the monster pinned her to the ground with his massive body. Somehow she managed to pull up her knee to her chest, which made her a little easier to keep him away, but not for long. He tried to grab and dug his long, unnaturally curved into small hooks nails in her, but she grabbed both of his hands and tried to push him away.

Monster wheezed and gurgled in frustration all the while shattering with his teeth in a furious attempt of biting her. The both trashed from side to side for few moments, but the redhead wasn’t able to push him away. However, what she was able to do was to roll on the side. Using the knee, which earlier separated them she pushed herself away and hit the back of her head at something. For a moment dark blimps appeared before her eyes, but her trained body hasn't waited for her to recover and acted for her.

Like a machine, she automatically pulled out her knife, then half got up and launched herself on top of the mindless monster, which also wanted to get up. When her vision recovered she was on top of him and her knife was halfway down the way his head. With a crunch it dug into top of his skull, which made him only look at her with a weird expression before going limp.

Panting heavily she looked at the exit from cabin and saw how dozen more monsters dressed mostly in an office wear, seemingly slowly approached her. Some of them were males, some were females, but the one who brought her attention was maybe six year old boy dressed in shorts and black t-shirt, at the front. The sight of his black eyes, bloodied, deformed face made her freeze and before she recovered the whole group was way too close to the gun for her to go out and grab it and too close to her to ran away. So, quickly thinking, she shut the door and went blind for a moment because of the almost complete darkness. When her eyes adjusted, the herd of monsters was already scratching and pounding at the doors making inarticulate noises and moans.

She stood there pulling the handle to keep the door closed and looked around the claustrophobically small and dark room. There was a lot of things in here, but the question was: if any of it could be useful in this situation? 

On the shelves and in the corner she saw mostly detergents, brushes, buckets, rags and other useless items. What’s worse the dead body began to emit all of the stinking fluids on the floor. She gagged a few times and threw up to the side...

“God... dammit.” she murmured through gritted teeth and coughed a few times “God fucking dammit! Why it always has to be me?!” she half yelled in frustration and knocked on the door with her forehead a few times, then tried to breath through her mouths. "Just… fuck... I've hope Reaper is okay..." she said quietly to herself.







She could hear a firecrackers-like explosions outside and then, after a moment from behind doors, and... shouting? Twilight was woken up by this and i made her feel confused. She wanted to open the door, but remembered what happened when she did it yesterday. She backed off, and started searching the room for a weapon... Besides the glass she used earlier there wasn't anything else. However her eyes stopped on a broken chair. 

"I can still make a weapon..." she walked up to it, and raised her forelegs then stomped on it a few times, breaking it into pieces. She took the leg from it with her magic and examined it. Even though the time and weather seemed to be harsh, she noticed, that the wood still seemed to be solid enough. Magic was a good weapon, but she knew she couldn’t use it forever and knew, that whatever was behind this doors could be immune to it.

There was a really long and unnerving moment of silence, and then the desk was slightly moved by opening door. The unicorn walked to them and quickly tried to close them by pushing the desk back. She felt more pressure from other side, but eventually was able to close them. Then it stopped for a moment only to hear a muffled yelling.

"Hej! Ktoś tam jest?! Nie chcę cie skrzywdzić!" she hasn't replied. The voice was definitely male and didn't sound threateningly, but at the same time it didn't sound too friendly either.

"What is this language? I never heard it before... " she wondered.

"Słyszysz mnie!? Jestem przyjazny i chcę Ci pomóc... Proszę, przynajmniej odpowiedz!" this time it-he sounded more… desperate.

She put flat her ears and her eyes drifted randomly around the room as if trying to find an answer for something. She looked out the window and tried to teleport herself outside, but as soon as her horn light up it gave her a rather bad, uncomfortable feeling. She felt how world seemed to spun around and felt how her legs were getting weak. She cased immediately too weak to use anything above basic magic.

She rubbed her forehead and looked back at the iron entrance "Considering what happened so far whoever was behind the door could be dangerous and-” her train of thoughts was interrupted by three knocks “...what?"

Now of all things, that was unexpected for her... She tilted slightly her head in confusion, thinking, that maybe she imagined that.

"Why that... thing was knocking on the door? Is it trying to be friendly? What if this is a trap? I have so many questions... Maybe he could help?" Twilight didn't know what to do. She needed answers... But what if the thing behind this door was dangerous? "I fought with Nightmare Moon and Discord for Celestia's sake! I-I can handle whatever there is... right?"

It-he knocked again, but this time lavender unicorn made up her mind, and decided to open the door. "I need answers." she muttered. Taking deep breath she pulled desk out of the door and rising her improvised club with her magic the door opened... 

Standing there was a huge bipedal creature, with dark brown mane… Hair, small beard, and black beanie on top of his head. He had bright blue eyes, wore mostly white clothing, and what looked like some kind of armor. On it's back was large bag, a sword. No; machete, and something she didn't really know how to describe. 

Twilight also noticed that the being had injured one of his limbs, which was covered in bandages soaked with fresh blood, and put in what looked like makeshift sling... And on the right side of his face had fresh claw marks similar to hers. There was still some blood left on his cheek and beard. The other... hand -she remembered, that this is what minotaurs have- was close to... some kind of device of unknown propose to her, which was hidden in what looked like some kind of sheath on his hip above an empty a knife sheath. His overall appearance looked rather intimidating.

She looked up at his face, which had an expression of mixed disbelief and exhaustion. Still, she tried to as quietly and less noticeable swallow whatever wetness was left in her muzzle and brought closer to herself the club.

They were examining each other for a while, but eventually it was the creature who was brave enough to speak first. "Um... Cześć?" he said with a deep, and -as expected- tired voice. Twilight thought it was quite nice, in a way gentle, but didn't know what he said.

"I-I'm sorry... I don't understand." She said softly somehow managing to stop quivering of her voice. 

The creature was surprised - at least that’s what she deduced from his facial expressions. He stared at her for a moment, looking at her with his weirdly calming, and tired gaze of older person. She wasn’t able to say how old exactly he was, but judging by his face she concluded, that he was rather old. After a moment the male quickly shook off his head, and responded.

"I uh... said hello." He said little awkwardly with a strange accent "I um... My English is a little rusty." Now it was Twilight turn to stare at him in silence. She wondered how it was possible for him to know her language, but snapped out when creature asked a question "Are you going to hurt me with this?" he pointed with his injured limb at the leg from the chair, which she was holding in the air with her magic.

"No, unless you’ll attack me." she answered with little more confidence in her voice. "What are you?" she blurted out not really thinking.

The creature relaxed when she replied, clearly satisfied with the answer. “I think we should introduce each other first, don’t you think?” he replied at first but then he thought for a moment on his own "Um... I think the word was ‘human’..." he looked at her, than around the room and again at her "Can I come in?" Twilight stepped aside for the 'human' walk in. He took off his backpack, walked up to couch and sat down on it.

"Um... My name is Twilight Sparkle, do you have a name?" She asked again.

"Yes..."

She waited for a moment but he didn't say anything else instead began searching for something in his backpack… "Are you going to tell me?" she asked.

"No..." She put flat her ears. "But you can call me... Żniwiarz." she looked at him, and tried to repeat.

Twilight tried to repeat, but failed in doing it right "Zi- Ziniwyias?"

He chuckled and she scratched her leg slightly in embarrassment "My language is hard, don't worry about it." he said with a smirk then looked at dictionary, which lied on the ground. He picked it up and start flipping through pages... "It means ‘Reaper’." he said.

"What happened to the monster?"

'Reaper' brushed a tip of his nose with his thumb, then looked at her tiredly, maybe even sleepy "It's dead." he said without any specific emotions. He looked at his hip with the... device attached to it then at the entrance "Cholera..." he muttered and walked out the door. After a moment he came back with a long knife holstered below the device "I forgot my... knife." He said as if afraid of her reaction and sat back.

Librarian seemed to be disturbed by this "Uh...um t-that explains your wounds." she said, nervously glancing at his weapons. He noticed that and tried to calm her down.

"Relax... I'm not going to hurt you." he paused, and leaned deeper into the couch. Closing his eyes he thought for a few moments "...I never met something like you before, and I already saw too many... strange things." he paused again "You are obviously not from here. Though you are quite beaten up you still are... uh... too... innocent looking?” He gazed at her half opening his eyes. “And your reaction when I told you about monster... You never killed or saw death before, which is impossible here.” He leaned forward resting his arms on his knees he looked at her with this calm, but questioning gaze and almost unnoticeably raised corners of his mouth “How long you were here?" he finally asked.

Twilight somehow was unable to look away as she processed what he had told her. His eyes were calming and hypnotizing… She felt how the anxiety disappears, and is replaced with unnatural peace. "He concluded all of that simply by observing my appearance, and reactions..." She realized, that the human waited for her answer "I uh..." she finally managed to look elsewhere, which in that case was a broken window "...few hours at most... Where am I?"

"Warsaw, Poland." he replied calmly and scratched his uninjured cheek.

His answer confused her even more, which was clearly visible on her face. Like storm through her head went by many thoughts, many chaotic thoughts and every single one of them told her, that she must be really far away from Equestria. She opened and closed her mouth trying to finally decide what to ask next, but eventually she gave up. Probably there was no questions, to which the answer would not confuse her.

"We need to go..." finally said the human, when it became clear, that she won’t be able to ask more questions.

"What? Why?" She asked looking at him with slightly tilted head to the side.

"On the way here I lost, probably the only friend that I have left. We need to find her before the night." he said passing her slightly woobly.

Twilight wasn't sure what to think about his physical shape. It was clear he is not in the best condition. "And I should go with you, because?"

He stopped at the doorway and said "Because... you can go with me and live, or you can stay here and be on your own, which is not a good since you have no idea how to survive here... make your choice." then walked away.

Twilight just stood there - thinking. As much as she didn't want to admit that... he was right. She didn't know anything about this place, and if there were more monsters - he was the person who could at least protect her to some degree. Besides... deep inside she felt really lonely and didn't want to be alone here. Hearing opening door she realized that “Reaper” was going to leave her.

"Wait!" she yelled, and rushed out behind him, but stopped, when she saw a body lying in pool of blood in the middle of the room. The wolf like creature from previous night was lying there dead with holes in its body, one in the arm, two in a chest, one in a throat and one in the head, there was also a knife wound between its ribs... The unicorn just stood there frozen in place staring at the body until Reaper spoke up.

"Twilight..." she slowly looked at him "...we need to go, nights outside are dangerous... and my only friend is there." trembling she walked up to him, he was holding the device in his hand.

"H-how did you do that?" she asked quietly.

"With this..." he raised his weapon "...it's a handgun. Dangerous if you don't know how to use it." then slowly pushing the door he looked around. "Clear... come." he said and walked out in a small, grey, dark staircase with Twilight close behind. He turned his head to her "Stay quiet." then they slowly made their way down stairs - human leading the way. They stopped, again, at the entrance doors. Reaper looked outside on the street, but haven't seen anything and that was what made him worry.

"Is something wrong?" Twilight whispered, he nodded.

"Before I've found you, I've been chased by a group of dogs and... they don't give up easily unless there is something stronger than them." he put his gun under his injured arm and untied his knife with his good hand "Take it." he said handing it to Twilight. She wanted to say something, but he cut her off adding "Self defence." Unicorn heisted, but took the weapon with her telekinesis and strapped it to her right front hoof "Follow me, and stay close." With that they walked out side...

> Chapter 3: Winter Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



Firefly had no idea how long she was stuck in the tiny closet with the stenching ghoul. The hunger quickly came to annoy her and her mouth went completely dry. There was some food in her backpack, but she had to hold the door. Because of darkness there was barely anything to see, but she knew that there was some kind of exit here...

After all, the rat couldn’t just walk in through the door.

The time passed unbearably slowly for her, she felt that with each minute the air was getting more stale and heavy, unpleasant, dry. She tried to look around one more time in hopes of finding something, but it was just too damn dark… until she remembered, that she has a silver zippo from that one American soldier who gave it to her as a small “thank you” back in Iraq. She wasn’t a smoker, actually, she hates the smell of cigarettes, but she kept the gift as a lucky charm of some kind.

Rummaging with one hand in the inside pocket of her uniform and pulled it out, lit it up. A small flame of hope casted an orangish glow on the dark room. It allowed her to spot something odd under the dead body. It’s body was lying on something. Something large with a lot of square holes - an air shuffle. Looking up on the ceiling there was a large darker area - a vent entrance. The rat had to fell through it.

It was her exit from this claustrophobic place.

Sniper pressed tighter her dry lips, turned off and hid the lighter and with one hand folded the stock of the SVD, then pulled off both the gun and her backpack. She took a breath, exhaled, looked at the door, which were constantly scratched and pulled by ghouls, looked back at the pit and let go off the handle.

The door fluttered. Firefly grabbed both rifle and the bag. The door opened with a creak and bang. She threw the rucksack then the gun into the hole. One of the ghouls stumbled through the doorway. She jumped up and grabbing the edge pulled herself in the vent. Halfway through, the monster grabbed her boot and tried to bit into it. Finally, she pushed herself and her belongings deeper, with a stroke of luck slipping her leg out of the grasp.

She crawled in further, barely fitting in the tight corridor, all the while hearing growls, moans and heavy breaths of the monsters behind, but as she moved on they become quieter and quieter, finally going completely silent.

At some point she allowed herself for a small break near the intersection. Opening the backpack she took out a canned tuna and sighing slightly, opened it too and began to eat some. Salty in taste, but that was the only edible thing she had right now. She would drink up some water in the canteen if it wasn’t frozen… 

Furrowing her brows she turned over herself on her backs, made the pillow out of the bag, her rifle put between her legs and then once more pulled out the lighter. The ginger opened the canteen, rose it as far as she could while putting it to her mouths and lit the fire. The heat soon melted the ice and drip after drip the water came to relieve her struggle, but it was short lived because the gas in the lighter ran out.

“Better than nothing...” she whispered to herself and closed her eyes. “Geez, I really hate my life sometimes.”







The man and the pony walked down yet another street in the dead city of Warsaw. Everything around them was quiet, except for crunching snow under their legs and occasional gust of wind. It was too quiet for Reaper... he could feel eyes upon himself... or maybe it was his paranoia combined with lack of sleep? 

He couldn't tell.

The human also seemed afraid of something and appeared to be deep in his own thoughts.

As the time passed the sky very slowly started to get darker and more clouded. They had to walk through half of the neighbourhood already, or at least that’s what Twilight was thinking. They manoeuvred between countless abandoned, half buried in snow vehicles littering the streets and destroyed, covered by ice buildings. Some of them were half collapsed, from others, out of their broken windows, curtains and veils swung freely on the wind. The dark insides of this buildings seemed to watch them ominously, as if they were jealous of them for being alive. This whole scenery was hard to describe for the little unicorn, thought she had never seen a city after war, she was sure, that this is how one would look like…

Reaper knew, that soon they should stop their search and try to find a place to survive the night, a place where he would finally had some sleep.  He still couldn’t believe, that Twilight was a real, talking unicorn. He thought at first that he was hallucinating again, but after this small talk and “accidentally” bumping into her at some point, he was convinced that his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him… or was it?

At least he could hope she was real and not just a very real illusion of his mind. For some reason it really bugged him. After all, he and Firefly were alone for so long, that he did not care whether she was a human or a small, colourful, talking pony. For him it was nice to meet someone who doesn't want to kill him... but he still would ask her a few questions later. For now he had to find the ginger haired girl. They walked in silence for a few more minutes until Twilight broke it by asking a question.

"So... Who's your friend? What's her name?"

Reaper thought for a moment scratching his unkempt beard before answering "Her name is… let’s call her Firefly, for now.” Twilight, despite the situation and that dead body she had seen earlier, smiled slightly hearing his accent. It was a little funny for her when she now thought about it. “That’s not her real name, though, we don’t know each other names for security reasons.” he lied, he knew her real name, but didn’t want to tell her without Firefly’s permission.

Twilight looked at him and walked up a little closer to his side. “And you? Could you tell me your real name?”

“Is it that important?”

“No, I guess not. But it would be nice to know it…” she answered and looked at an old graffiti of some kind of emblem. It was an image of a dark shield with a white “L” letter placed in the middle. She had no idea to what it belongs, but if she had to guess she would say to some kind of royal family.

It actually was a symbol of local football team, but she couldn’t know that.

Now when she actually noticed it, she realized, that it’s not the only painting on the wall here. Every now and then, there was a wall or part of the building with some piece of street art. Most of the time, there were cartoonish, human characters like one of what she assumed were police authorities dressed in similar uniforms to her human companion, just coloured in dark blue and black, and who carried shields, nightstick and had, weird for her, helmets with glas in front of their faces. Other were random things like what looked like a male human dressed in a red and yellow armour suit from top to bottom, who seemed to shoot a white beams from his hands, or writings drawn in an unusual fonts like “HWDP” or “Jebać polityków!”. Of course she had no idea what it meant, but she liked to think it has some deep meaning.

While unicorn admired the paintings, Reaper silently thought about revealing his identity. After all.. it wasn’t like the rules bounded him in any way now, when there wasn’t any actual government or his unit  “...I don’t know if I want you to know it, yet.” he finally replied.

She looked back at him with a slight scawl. “Well, if it’s that important to you... You still haven't told me who your friend is, though.” Now her sight rested on rather old billboard with half faded image of some kind of food, or rather fast food as it said. “...or you for that matter.”

“We are… used to be soldiers.” he made a short pause “From my perspective, Firefly was a rather… joyful girl. Always smiling and cracking better or worse jokes, and always willing to help whoever would ask her for help. She joined the service from her own will, mainly because she wanted to prove something to her father. I don’t know what it was though, never told me or anyone else.” he gazed at the sun slowly descending on the horizon and furrowed his bushy eyebrows “Anyway… she passed the basic training and then joined the paratrooper unit in Wrocław, it’s placed in the south-west part of this country.”

Twilight seemed confused, but before she could ask he explained everything.

“Paratroopers are people who jump from there.” he pointed at the sky. “As you can see we don’t have any wings so in order to fly we had to built huge machines called aircrafts. Paratroopers jumped from this machines and usually right after they left it, they opened up the parachutes - a large piece of material tied with a few strings. To give you the general idea: it works a little like a falling leaf or feather and slowly drops the person on the ground… unless you are doing high air low opening jump...” soldier trailed off for a moment thinking about her, but for Twilight it seemed like he was about to pass out.

She asked slowly. “Are you feeling okay?”

Whatever the human was thinking her voice seemed to snap him out back to reality. “Y-yes. I’m just… tired.”

“O...kay. “ unicorn went silent for a moment. Both of them went past some small tunnel placed in the building and they walked out on the other side. Something began to bother her until she realized what he said. “Was?”

“Hm?” he turned his head to her.

“You said ‘was’. You mean… she’s not like this anymore?”

Reaper looked to the side so she wouldn't be able to see his face.and haven’t answered that.

Twilight put flat ears on herself and decided not to press on the subject. “Um… and what about you?”

“Me? Well… there isn’t much to talk about me. Just a simple man from larger city… Joined when there still was the… hm... “ ha had to make another pause to remind himself a word “...compulsory service as engineer, then somehow I ended up in a better unit...”

“Uhu...” she looked at him skeptically as if sensing he wasn’t telling the truth - or rather not the whole truth. But she had no reason to not believing him. Maybe she was sometimes obvious, but not stupid or blind. As soon as they left the place where they met first, she noticed how he looks at his surrounding with this suspicious and careful gaze, as if constantly planning something. ”Anyway… You referred to your friend as ‘she’ so I guess your friend is a female, right? Could you describe her for me?"

The man sighed lightly and gave Twilight a short description “Firefly is rather short woman - around one hundred and sixty centimeters high...” he realized, that Twilight might not know European metric system so he showed her with his hand somewhere on the level of his shoulders. “Somewhere around here. She has large, green eyes. Long, ginger hair and rather slim body build. ” he began to feel a little dizzy, but tried to suppress and ignore it while focusing on a conversation.

"A woman? Is that how you call females? How do you call males? And is there any other species who…” she trialed off slightly when she noticed a little annoyed expression of the human, or at least that’s how she interpreted it. “...lived here? I mean like: overall in your world.”

He once more sighed while rubbing his eyes a little, but replied calmly. “Yes, that’s how we call females, males are just ‘man’. For the last question… yes and no.” 

He turned into some small alley and they passed a long line of cars forever left by their owners for whatever reasons, some of them still had opened doors or… dark stains of liquid.

Twilight pretended she hasn’t seen that, but a dark thought crossed her mind and made her shivered a little...

“Humans as a whole are the only… um... intelligent beings on this planet. However we have some… variations.” he looked at her with somehow critical eye “Nothing like you though. We have different skin colours commonly referred as white, dark, olive and yellow or whatever Asians people want to call it, but not purple or any other rainbow colour like your fur. Eyes come with different shades of blue, green, amber and brown. Sometimes blue shade might seem like grey and some people’s eyes, depending on how the light shines, can turn for example from brown to dark. Our hair also doesn’t come with a natural stripes like your… um… mane? The most common are dark, blond, or like me - brown. Ginger or red, like my friend Firefly, are a rarity.” he paused for a moment as he saw a shape of women in the debris to his right and halted. 

He focused his sight there.

He clearly saw a dark outline of a woman in a dress swirling on a cold wind.

Now she began to walk toward them.

“What are you looking at?” Twilight asked while looking around trying to see what he saw.

Reaper once more slightly furrowed his bushy eyebrows, looked back at Twilight for a moment and gazed again at the girl.

But she wasn’t there anymore.

He felt really dry in his throat, so he grabbed himself by it lightly and tried to swallow some saliva, but it helped a little. 

In the end he resumed the march. “Nothing, just… nevermind.” he said rather weakly.

Soldier began to feel really weak on his knees, his vision darkened a little and his head began to feel really light like after drinking too much alcohol. After making a few steps he staggered and fell with rather loud bang on the nearby car for support. His gaze seemed to be absent...

Unicorn quickly came closer to his side and asked. “Reaper!?” Human seemed either to not understand her or not hear her at all. She helped him sit down on the seat in the opened vehicle, then stood up on two back legs, supporting herself with one front hoof on his knee and slightly patted him on the cheek with the other hoof - after all she still had her boots and didn’t want to hurt him “Mister Reaper? Can you hear me? How do you feel?”

“Matko boska… ugh.” he gasped and hung his head low and lightly pushed off the patting hoof with his hand. He looked around with his barely conscious eyes and stopped on the woman sitting next to him.

She was dressed in a simple, white, buttoned shirt and dark, knee length skirt. Her blond like a straw hair were medium length and curly, freely falling onto her shoulders. Her neck was covered by a white, silk scarf and her almost unnaturally deep blue eyes were hidden by a pair of small, smart glasses. She seemed to be rather pretty and average in height.

She looked at him calmly and gave this big, heartwarming smile… a smile he couldn’t resist, but to return just a little.

Reaper slowly reached out his hand to her trying to touch her face, but since he was really tired he had to blink. When he opened his eyes the women wasn’t there any more.

Twilight watched him in silence, trying to understand what the human was doing. Finally she called him out on it. “What are you... doing?”

Her voice seemed to snap him out of whatever he tried to do and pulled back his hand.

He turned to her and his expression seemed to be mixed with embarrassment, dizziness and… anger? She wasn’t really sure.

“I just… kurwa.” He murmured angrily, with somehow defeated tone of voice, then made a long sigh, which sounded somehow helplessly and hid his face in his gloved hands “Ja pierdole, ja pierdole… ogarnij sie, chłopie.” Finally he slid his hands slightly now covering only his face from nose down and looked at Twilight as if making sure she was still with him.

Twilight backed away from him a step or two. She looked at him as if afraid of something. She wasn’t sure if her friend was… emotionally stable. From her perspective he looked right now more like a hurt animal, which has no idea if it should trust her or not and she couldn’t understand why.

Nonetheless, Reaper seemed to think about something. He jumped out from his seat, walked behind the car, then tried to open trunk of it, but it turned out it was jammed. He went back to the back seats, crawled inside the vehicle and began to search for something. Finally he found a small lever, which allowed him to fold the backseat and search said trunk. He saw a few bags and the thing he was looking for - the first aid kit. It was a red case with white circle on it and a red cross in the circle. He pulled that out, then the bags, opened them and found some clothes from which one of them was a children sized, brown jacket. There was also a lighter, frozen bottle of water, a folded mirror and deodorants.

He took everything into his backpack expect the jacket. He slowly gave it to Twilight and calmly said “Try it, maybe it will fit you and… I’m sorry if I might look a little scary. I don’t mean to.”

Unicorn wasn’t sure if she could trust him, but a new jacket would be nice… she slowly took it from him and tried it on. It seemed like it was just right for her. The inside material was a little weird in her opinion, but felt smooth and nice plus she actually began to feel warmer. She thanked him quietly, but still looked at him more or less distrustfully and asked “So… wouldn’t you have something to eat would you? I kind of haven't eaten anything since yesterday."

“I have. I’m just not sure if there is something for plant eating unicorns...”







The unusual -even for standards of this world- duo found for themselves a small square in something that used to be a tenement house. As they passed the iron gate they noticed a dead, white tree with dark spots placed in the middle with crows sitting on its branches giving it a gloomy and unsettling look. Reaper without hesitation walked in, small pony followed him less confidently.

He asked her to gather some sticks with her magic and sat down on a large chunk of some rubble and took out a canned carrots and some kind of smaller can with meat, opened them, then took out a firecracker, some kind of stand and a small shovel and dug a hole in the thick, hard snow until he hit the cobblestone.

Meanwhile unicorn carefully broke dry sticks from the tree, the crows didn’t even flinched as she done that and just watched her in creepy silence. When she finished, she quickly walked up to her companion and put them in a small circular hole pre-made by human, it had around a meter in depth and it appeared to be a solid cobblestone under the snow. Reaper took the firecracker and dumped the black powder under some kind of old rag, then took a flint and with a hiss lit it all up and after a few moments began to cook the carrots over a small fire.

Twilight watched him carefully, as he stared in the fire blankly, the twigs popped from time to time interrupting the silence. She noticed something on his face, beside the obvious wound that is. It was something that could resemble sadness, but she wasn’t sure, his beard and rough facial features simply not allowed it.

“It used to be a nice city, you know?” he said with somehow afraid tone, while making sure to not overcook the food. “Maybe some people were… jerks… actually, a lot of them, but it was still a nice city with a lots of history and monuments.” he looked around his surrounding, the stone walls, with empty half-circled windows and wooden doors. “Like this one…”

Unicorn moved her ears like to small radars in his direction and sat down on her backpack, while looking at the walls then back at him. Human took of the can with a detachable handle and gave it to her along with a spork, which she took with her magic and whispering small “Thank you.” began to eat. Then he cooked the meat and began to eat it with a plastic fork.

“Places like this… saw a lot of history.” he resumed looking back at the small fire pit. “I think Warsaw has one of the darker ones...”

Twilight, wherever it was from boredom or curiosity, asked “Could you tell me more? Maybe not about history, but about how it was founded...”

Human shrugged. “Why not... This city was built hundred of years ago, but no one can tell the specific date, no one also can tell, why it was called ‘Varshava’ and there are a few legends around it, from which one explains why the emblem of this city is a mermaid with a shield and a sword.”

“Um, how does the name spells, again?”

“It’s ‘W,A,R,S,Z,A,W,A’ in our alphabet there is no ‘v’ and we write letters as we hear them and vice versa, so we read ‘w’ a little like ‘v’ and combined ‘s,z’ is ‘sh’ and…” he sighed in frustration not really knowing how to explain it “Let’s just say my language is hard… Anyway, the name supposedly came from combined names of two people from the legend - Wars and Sawa. There are a few versions of it, but I’m going to tell you this one, because it’s the shortest.

A long time ago, at the shore of the Vistula River stood a tiny hut, and there lived a fisherman Wars and his wife Sawa. One day, in the area a great hunting took place, during which the prince Ziemomysł, lord of the surrounding lands, got lost in the woods. He was wandering in them for a really long time, but when the sun was almost behind the horizon he reached the Vistula and the cabin of fisherman. Wars hospitably welcomed the stranger and in the morning grateful prince said, ‘You did not hesitate to take under your roof a stranger and saved him from hunger, cold, and perhaps wild animals. Therefore, these lands forever to Warszaw will belong, so your kindness will not be forgotten.‘ So… basically it’s a combination of old polish names Wars and Sawa with ‘z’ added instead of one ‘s’ for simplicity of speech.

As to the emblem… hmm...

One day, at the outskirts of today's Old Town, from the waters of Visla came out a pretty mermaid with golden hair and skin white as a milk. She wanted to rest a little on the sandy shore, but it turned out to be so beautiful and charming, that she decided to stay here forever. Unfortunately, living in the nearby village fisherman's noticed, that someone is... disrupting the waves of the Vistula, tangling the nets and releasing the fish. So they decided to catch whoever was doing this, after all they were living from fishing. But when they heard the beautiful voice of a siren, they abandoned their intentions and sincerely fell in love with the half-woman. Happy because of the new audience, from now, on every evening, she sung them beautiful songs.

Time passed and everything seemed to go well for everyone, until a rich merchant saw the mermaid and decided to catch her. Using a foul trick, he imprisoned her in a wooden shed. Crying of the siren heard the young son of a fisherman, and with the help of his friends, under the cover of night, they managed to release her. Siren with a gratitude for saving her life promised them, that whenever they will need help, she will stand to defend them. And from that moment the Warsaw Mermaid, armed with sword and shield, guards the city and its… inhabitants.” he finally finished.

Librarian finished her meal listening to everything, that he just said. Of course she would listen, she was a sucker for all kinds of knowledge and after some warm food she felt much better. “So… I guess in your world mermaids aren’t real...:” she commented giving back the spork.

He summed it up with a short nod, then put down the fire and buried it along with an empty can. Then got up and began to walk in direction of the doors where the building was the least destroyed and motioned her to follow him, which she did.  He opened the doors and peeked inside.

It was dark. When Reaper’s eyes adjusted to it, he saw a stairway which was blocked by pieces of the ceiling and rocks, but next to it was a small corridor and at the end of it were opened doors. He figured that it was most likely a house of the janitor or the owner. He made his way there with a pistol in his hand. Unicorn stayed at the doorway and waited and observed him with interested. Human walked in, this time quickly checking left and right, before walking in further and disappearing from her sight. After a minute or two, he came back and waved her with his hand, that it’s all clear, so she also went inside…

The flat was small, a main room combined with a kitchen, small bathroom and one small bedroom. It was also poorly decorated, paint was coming off the walls, the furnitures seemed to be quite old, the floor was made from wooden planks not even covered by a carpet. A few pictures hung or stood here and there, but one caught an eye of librarian. It seemed to be old, black and white photography representing a young couple smiling to the camera in what looked like weeding wear. Another seemed to be more modern, colourful, with the same pair, but a lot older, still having this contagious happy smile, which now she herself had.

Twilight suddenly remembered the wedding pictures of her parents and brother. This two humans had the same smiles as them. It was clear that they love each other and it became obvious to her, that humans might have a lot similar to ponies. 

She was wandering if Reaper could have someone like this…Suddenly, the smile she had fell along with her ears and she felt an unpleasant cold in her chest. She began to ask herself questions. What if she’s stuck here and never see them again? Why the orb teleported her here? Who is the couple on this picture? And most importantly…

“Where are all this people? What happened here?”

Her train of thoughts was broken by a loud scraping noise. She looked at her companion and saw how he pushes a large wardrobe to block the window, then comes up to the door and locks it.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Prepare for the night.” he answered and taking off his belongings lay down on the couch, then pointed his rifle at the entrance. “Tonight, there won’t be any moonlight to protect us.”

“Protect us from what?” she asked uneasy.

Soldier haven’t answered at first and just looked at her with concerned gaze. For a moment she felt a little like a filly when her own father gave her this look. Finally he closed his eyes and said “You will see…”

Unicorn had no idea what to make of this. She stood there not really knowing what to do with herself until she heard a noise… in fact a lot of noises resembling moanings. Distant. Creepy. Unnatural.

Human-like.

It was as if the dead city came back to life.

“Reaper… what is this?” she asked really quietly the seemingly sleeping man, as if afraid, that whatever it is, it will hear her. “Please, answer me...” she pleaded, but it looked like it was for nothing.

“The new citizens.” he answered, with a voice so dry and nervous, that it actually took her off guard. When she took a closer look at him, she noticed how tightly he grips the gun and presses his lips, his chest was rising and falling a little too quickly.

The doors fluttered, which startled the young mare. Then a cacophony of yells, moans and banging at the door began. Scared, she backed off and came up to the wall, then decided to look through a really small gap between the wardrobe and window.

Shadows. Lots of moving, humanoid shadows. Shadows twisted in unnatural, almost impossible positions.

She recoiled when one went by the window. 

This creatures appeared to have no skin or flesh, but she wasn’t sure due to the lack of light, it was almost like they were made from dust or… ash. Her heart began to beat like a hammer. What was going on? What are this monsters? They seem to be human, but different... She didn’t know what to do. She haven’t noticed it, but her legs nervously began to tap on the floor.

“Twilight… could you come up to me?”

She spun around as if burned with fire at the sound of his calm voice and looked in the tiered, blue eyes of the soldier, then quickly walked up to him. For a moment he let go of his weapon, settled himself in a reclining position, with a hiss of pain took her with both hands by sides and put her on himself. She haven’t resisted. Then lightly hugged her in such a way that the left hand covered her ear and the other was pressed to his vest. It drowned out the sounds from outside, but she still could hear his rather calming voice… he was singing something in his language, it almost sounded like a lullaby…

She began to feel oddly relaxed and sleepy. Her breath slowed down as well as her heartbeat. She didn’t know, when she fell asleep… human on the other hand never finished the song, because his body just gave up and he also fell asleep despite all the noise around.