The Future belongs to the Mad
‘My name is Mac....My world is fire, and blood.’ The wind and sand bombarded him, the roar of engines ringing in his ears.
‘Once, I was a farmer, a righteous pony with naught a complaint in the world.’ The vicious screams and jibes of his pursuers drew nearer.
‘As the world fell, each of us, in our own way was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy...me, or everyone else.’ Silence fell. A voice long dead whispered in his ear.
‘Mac? Where are you?’
His hooves gripped the wheel tighter, pushed the floored pedal harder. Another voice, older and softer wormed its way into his mind.
‘Where are you, Mac? We can’t see you.’
The road became a blur, the gleaming white horizon melting into the blood red sky.
‘Here they come again...worming their way into the black matter of my brain. I tell myself, they cannot touch me...they are long dead.’
‘Help us, Mac! Help us!’ The voices screamed in terror.
The violent crack of thunder brought the world crashing back into him like that a tidal wave. The vehicle swerved sharply, the machine crippled by the sudden force of the explosion as it tipped into a death roll. His head collided with the wheel as dust and sand exploded across the dash. The dust blinded him, the sand choked him, he was tossed about the machine like a rag doll as it rolled and rolled, seemingly never to end. With a final grinding crunch, the vehicle slid to a halt on its roof.
Blood matted his fur, precious water flowed into the sand, he could hear the engines, the rabid cries of scavengers drawing near. His ears rang and his eyes stung, but he could not stop, he would not stop. Not for himself, but for them. He searched frantically for the gun, the only part of him that had truly survived from before. Old and battered, cut down to a more suitable size, Granny Smith’s shotgun was the only relic of his past he had left. The only proof that a life before this had even existed. His hooves found their mark, wrapping tightly around the worn maple stock.
‘I am the one who runs from both the living, and the dead. Hunted by scavengers, haunted by the ghost of those I could not protect.’
The screech of brakes and victorious cries sounded their arrival. A flurry of dust drifted into the cabin, kicked up by hooves, paws and talons as they raced towards their prize.
Empty, distant silence surrounded him again. He could feel them returning, their voices of fear and joy; forgiveness, and condemnation.
‘Mac...we miss you. Come home to us, Mac. We’ve waited for so long...’
He could hear his heartbeat. Slow, loud, counting every second he still drew breath, and after the so long, long enough that he could barely form the words that came to mind, he spoke.
“Ah will ‘Bloom.”
The door wrenched violently, hooks and hooves struggling to rend the jammed plate from its hinges.
“You, Sugar Belle....Applejack...” Tears welled in his eyes as the first hinge gave way. He blinked them away, to which thankfully there came no more.
“Ah’ll be home soon...”
The second hinge gave as the door was ripped from its place and tossed aside, a cackling Pegasi thrusting itself inside.
"But not today."
With a thunderous blast, the thoughts and memories of the exuberant psychopath became a crimson liquid splattered across the sand. Before Mac could shove the body aside to regain his line of fire, a bright golden aura of magic wrapped around his hoof and yanked him from the wreck. Instinct overtook him as he slid across the dirt. Their voices were everywhere, surrounding him, some laughing as he spit the sand from mouth, some vengeful and angry, promising him a slow and painful death.
It did not matter to him. He shot up like a viper, colliding with the closest of the scavengers. He ducked his head low and tossed them off their hooves, slamming his hooves down like sledgehammer on the dazed ponies skull. The crunch was all he needed to feel.
‘One down’
The initial shock of the sudden kill died and the scavengers charged the stallion, roaring in anger and bloodlust. He raised his powerful legs and bucked as hard as he could, catching another of his attackers, this time a Gryphon, off guard. His hooves slammed into the Gryphon’s chest, her ribs and shoulders cracking under the sudden impact. She collapsed in a heap of feathers, her gurgled squawks drowned out by the sounds of combat. Mac lunged forward, delivering a crushing headbutt to a mare that rushed him with a shiv. He felt the blood explode from her mouth, splattering across his already matted fur.
A sudden, extraordinary pain shot through his neck. Faltering for just a moment, he realized that the mare had found her mark. Buried in his shoulder, the makeshift knife gleamed as blood oozed from the fresh wound. A strong hoof caught him across the jaw, followed quickly by a brutal uppercut that sent him reeling. Mac stumbled and fell, his mouth leaking blood like a faucet. He felt the shadows of the scavengers crowd around him, an onslaught of kicks and stomps landing wherever they could as he tried to shield his head.
"The jacket's mine!" One of them cried, grasping for the worn and tattered jacket that he clung to like a second skin.
"Hooves off! I saw it first!" Another shouted as they joined the fray.
Their manic jeers became distant, the blows painless. The fiery intensity of the Sun dimmed, a coldness washing over him.
‘Mac, it’s almost over...’ The whispers of his wife drifted into his mind.
‘We will be together soon my love...forever...’
The whispers grew louder, the light dimmer. The pain faded, and Mac felt something that he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. Peace.
A peace that was shattered almost as soon as it came. A burst of adrenaline coursed through his veins, but not of his own will. His muscles burned, his head pounded, and his eyes stung. They shot open as he gasped for air. He saw his car, the vessel that had kept him alive for so long being picked clean by the scavengers. He tried to stand but his hooves wouldn’t budge. They’d bound him, makeshift shackles clasped tightly around his fetlocks. A ragged, raspy voice shouted over him, to which another answered.
“The Mistress wants ‘em alive!” She was a unicorn, nearly as large as Mac as she stood over him, her hoof pressing his head into the sand. A mix of grease and black paint marred her white coat, intentionally made to mask her features into that of a skull.
“But...but 'ees a ragin feral! Mistress only wants healthy ‘breedas!” The mare he’d headbutted stood in front of her, clutching her still bleeding nose as the two looked down on him.
“Ferals blood makes for good fightas. If Mistress don’t wan ‘im, she’ll give ‘im to us! E’ll make a good blood bag eitha way!”
Mac thrashed to no avail, the unicorn only grinding her hoof harder into his temple.
“Now put a muzzle on ‘im and tie ‘im to the buggy. We’re headin back!”
Mac would not go quietly. When the bloodied mare returned with the muzzle, he spat and snarled, trying to sink his teeth into her throat. This only earned him a jarring kick to the skull that dazed him long enough for her to slip it on. Tied by short rope around his neck to the unicorns buggy, Mac was unceremoniously shoved into the cage built into the vehicle's rear. Dust and sand were kicked high into the air as the buggy lurched, speeding away with the scavengers convoy in tow.
The burning wreck of his vehicle grew smaller and smaller, left to be consumed by the dunes like everything else. He waited, but the whispers never came. Their voices did not call out to him, beg him to come home, or chastise him for his failures. There was only the sound of the wind, and the roar of engines.
‘And so I exist in this wasteland, a stallion, reduced to a single instinct...survive.’