“And every demon wants his pound of flesh, but I like to keep some things to myself, I like to keep my issues drawn. It's always darkest before the dawn”

“Child… it... is... time... once... again…”

The black void I was standing in was pressed back momentarily by the shimmering rainbow light that sat before me, the shadowy figure that had beaten me down reforming before me.

“Really? This again?” I groaned out, throwing my head back in frustration. “I don’t have time…!”

I was sent tumbling back as the rear hooves of the assaulting figure slammed up under my chin. Knowing what came after I hit the ground last time, I rolled to my hooves quickly and narrowly avoided as the shadow landed hard where I had been. I kept my momentum up as the figure advanced, kicking and bucking just slow enough that I could stay one step ahead of it. I just needed to stall long enough until…

It made it’s mistake as it spun for another buck, leaving it’s side wide open to where I could get to it. I pushed myself off with my rear hooves and put my forehead down, slamming hard into my assailant and sending it to the ground. I watched wide eyed as it struck the floor and burst into a flurry of shadowy ribbons.

“Good…. again…”

“Wait, WHAT!?” I spun to face the disembodied voice, instead finding another shadow figure already moving towards me, this one clearly more defined, more mare-like in shape then the last. In the few seconds before she got to me I observed that she was faster, and in the second she saw through my attempt to dodge and slammed me to the floor, I knew that she was a whole lot stronger. I braced myself for the inevitable beat down, only to see the shadow mare dissipate into wispy streams.

“Not… ready…”

Pain ebbed through the back of my head as I stirred awake, as the only thing I could actually see as I lay on the floor, was the green Pipbuck display. If the clock was correct, I had only been out for a few minutes, and I only had six left to restart the system. I grunted and sat myself up, rubbing my hoof at the back of my head and winced as it was painful to the touch.

“Why shouldn’t it be, not like I just fell…” I looked up, seeing the dim glimmer the hatch only about ten feet up gave off from my piplight. “Regardless, I don’t ever want to do that again.”

I could see my own breath as I just now realized that down here was as cold as the surface had been. Thinking this was odd, I swung my hoof down from my head, using my only source of light to shine around the area. The area I now sat in was a large circular intersection where six separate, wide hallways intersected, opaque icicles hung from the pipes and wires the ran across the ceiling in every direction. Now that I had gotten to the maintenance area, I was kinda at a loss at what to do next. The annoying Filly-computer-thing didn’t tell me how to restart the equipment, so either it’s simple enough a feral ghoul could do it, or I’m going to spend my last days in the deepest, darkest hole in the ground a pony could have found themselves in.

“Thinking of it, maybe my very own annoying computer thing has the answer!” My voice echoed oddly in the dark spaces down here, reverberating in a way I had never quite heard before. When I looked down to the map the pipbuck showed, I was pretty sure of the reason. The layout of this room was six corridors that branched off in a symmetrical fashion, reminding me of a design I had once seen on a billboard in Manehatten. “This place is a snowflake?”

Of course, this probably had something to do with why it was so cold down here, but I still couldn’t figure out if this place was supposed to look like this. My pipbuck emitted a small beep before updating the map, putting the triangular objective markers at the end of each of the hallways. Maybe it could actually help me in restarting this thing. Choosing a random hallway to go down, I figured that I should make this as fast as possible, seeing as whatever that red eyed thing was could decide to show up any time. Well, that and if I didn’t restart the reactor soon, I’d probably freeze to death down here.

As I walked forward cautiously, I ran across several lumpy shapes on the floor, shining softly in the pipbuck’s light, revealing them as ice patches that raised up like small mounds. I brushed at the end of one as I walked by, stopping as my hoof struck an odd protrusion from it. Using my hoof to continue knocking at the small lump poking from the side, the ice gave a soft crack and snapped off, revealing the barrel of a gun.

“What the hell?” I just couldn’t grasp my mind around how a gun gets frozen in a place like this. As I thought, I tapped at the gun barrel, feeling it crumble under my hoof from age. The rest of the ice lump gave a sharp crack and split along the middle, the two halves pulled away from each other and gave me the answer I was looking for. It wasn’t that a gun randomly was frozen here. It was still in the muzzle of the frozen pony who had used it before.

“The fuck did I stumble into?” I backed away uneasily, the dead eyes of the ice cocooned pony seemed to stare at me as I left it, it’s hollow gaze boring into my mind even as I turned to continue. As I spun my gaze around, I came face to face with another ice cocoon, this one was upright and clearer than the last, giving me a good look at the frozen pony inside of it. Once again, her eyes looked like they were staring into my very soul as she was locked in an eternal scream, her blond mane still held a bright yellow flower tucked into it.

Something didn’t feel right about this. I’ve seen ponies who were unlucky enough to get caught unprepared in a blizzard, and not even they had frozen like this. No, this was the work of a monster, or possibly a highly skilled unicorn. Regardless, whatever it was should be two hundred years dead, just like these poor fools. Even so, why can’t I shake the feeling that everything I’ve been seeing up top, is somehow connected to this?

“Emergency restart guide. Lift primer paddle several times until the spark charge is shown as ready.” I read off to myself, trying to push back the silence that had crept in again. I placed my forehoof under the paddle as the picture next to the guide showed. With as much effort as I could, I pushed it up, working at it three times until I heard a heavy click from inside the box. A small, orange light dimly lit up with the words ‘System Primed’ printed under it.

“Press the green button that says ‘Push to Close’ before repeating the process on each of the other breakers. Reactor will auto restart upon completion.” I squinted and looked over the panel, holding my pipbuck up to read over the various buttons until I found the correct one. I hoofed at it and heard a quick click emit from the whole box. “Guess that’s it.” I shrugged and turned around, quickly trotting towards the center room again.

The clock in my vision flashed as it was now counting down from four minutes, meaning I needed to hurry. I quickly made it out to the center of the room again, dipping down the next hall as soon as I could. In my rush, I almost tripped over another frozen pony, instead accidentally giving a quick kick to the top of the lump, smashing the ice and revealing the head of an older looking stallion. My body locked up as I could have sworn I saw him blink, my coat standing on end as he did blink again, his dead eyes turning his gaze up to me as the rest of him sat completely motionless.

“Fuck this place.” I gave his head a swift buck, caving in his frozen skull and quickly trotting down the hall to the next breaker. I tore the cover off, placing my hoof under the paddle quickly and throwing my body into each push. The heavy click gave me the okay to press the green button. Jabbing it, I heard the click from the box as I expected, but in doing so, I heard a small whine emanate from it as well. “I guess that mean’s it’s working.”

Three minutes and thirty seconds to go.

I quickly made my way back, ducking around the corner and finding more frozen bodies littering this hall then the others combined. Most of them were huddled to the back, and the ones closer to the center were locked in defensive stances, a few old magical energy rifles stuck from the ends of the ice. Ignoring the shifting of their eyes under the ice, I thought to myself that this must have been where they had their last stand. While wondering why they chose here, I came across a single frozen body next to the circuit breaker.

As I tore the cover off like the others, I noticed that the body next to me was posed differently than the ones I've gone past. This one was stretched out, a forehoof reaching for a long lever that sat only an inch or so away from where this pony met it’s fate. As I primed the paddle, I read the words under the lever to sate my curiosity, finding it hard as they were badly faded. With the loud click, I waited to hoof the green button as I leaned over to the lever, leaning in close to make out what it said.

A creaking came from the ice cast over the body reaching for the lever, drawing my eyes over to it reflexively. The stallion inside was immediately familiar. He was older now, and his mane had receded a bit. There were now streaks of white pushing up through the soft yellow hair, but he was definitely one of the doctors in the photo I saw in the journal. A small ID badge hung from his coat lapel with the name Dr. Panacea written in bold.

I couldn’t help but feel sad for what he went through, all to just end up with a death such as this. As the clock in my vision clicked down past the three minute mark, I shook the thought from my head and hoofed at the green button, hearing the click before turning around and trotting back out. The creaking of ice now came in sporadic bursts, making sharp jolts of nervousness run through my spine as I moved up to a canter. I reached the fourth breaker, not bothering to rip the cover from it’s mounting this time and instead just shoving my hoof through to where the paddle was, hoofing it up as quickly as I could.

The moment I heard the heavy thunk of the system priming, I punched my hoof through the cover and right into the green button. My ears perked as another soft tone filled the walls, letting me know that only one pair of circuits remained. The sharp shatter of ice came as a surprise when one of the bodies behind me torqued it’s head enough to break through, glaring at me with it’s dead eyes.

“No, you are dead!” I turned and slammed my hoof into its head and was delighted to hear a crack as the old bone crumpled, the body going limp in it’s ice cast. The chorus of shattering ice told me that this wasn’t going to be the only body I’d have to contend with, and as I now galloped back, I took a moment to stomp or buck at any body I came across. I was going so fast, I wasn’t focused on where I was and ended up slamming myself into the fifth spell circuit breaker.

My forehooves ached as I struggled to throw the paddle another few times, straining on the last one with a whine right up to the point the heavy click sounded. I punched the green button and took off toward the center, the dim light of the pipbuck highlighting one of the bodies that was now shambling towards me from the first hallway I went down. I barreled right through another as I turned to look where I was going, nearly losing my hoofing as it was shoved back against the wall. This was it, the last one I needed, and with the clock ticking down to one minute, I grunted and shoved my hoof through the panel covering, pressing my hoof to the underside of the paddle.

Which wasn’t there.

In a panic, I scrambled to rip the rest of the cover from the breaker, finding that the last paddle had broken off only an inch or so from the pivot point. I put my hoof to it and curled my other forehoof under it, letting out a short yell as I pushed it up the first time. I took a few deep breaths as it reset, yelling again as I threw it up a second time. The sounds of slow hoofsteps were getting louder as the dead didn’t wish to wait for me to join them. I yelled again, throwing my whole body into the small piece of plastic, just wanting to hear that sweet sweet click. The plastic paddle creaked as it reached close to the top, the last quarter inch seeming to be blocked by some invisible force.

“Come on you stubborn, piece of…” I growled out at the top of my lungs, using the extra anger to get it to slam up. I could feel the heavy click this one gave in the cold air around me, not waiting another moment as I slammed my hoof into the green button so hard I was afraid I might actually break the old equipment.

The low whine I heard from before disappeared with a soft zap in the walls, being replaced by the steady hum that slightly vibrated the floor below my hooves. The lights to the maintenance halls came on with a flicker, bringing a smile to my muzzle. I had done it. with twenty seconds to spare, I just saved my own flank again. Then, as the soft hoofsteps in my ears continued, and I turned around slowly, my smile dropped from my muzzle.

One of the frozen ponies was almost on me, dead eyes locked onto me as I reached for my gun, biting down on the barrel and swinging it around. The solid wood stock caught the pony right in the jaw and sent it spinning back, dropping it down to the floor. I caught the movement from the rest of the basement, finding that although it didn’t look like a lot at the time, there were just too many frozen ponies for me to deal with.

The readout in my vision flickered from green to pink, and the projection of the filly popped into place as I galloped down the hallway.

“I’m super happy to tell you that my power reserves are now charging, and that the main reactor is running at fifty percent capacity and rising!” I reached the center of the room, ignoring the annoying program so I could focus on hooking my hooves onto the ladder bars. As I did, I looked up to the hatch, cringing as it swung open on it’s own and the smokey form of the red eyed monster I’d seen, peered down at me. It didn’t come down, or make any other gesture at all, it just sat and watched while the horde of frozen ponies walked towards me.

I dropped down from the ladder, spitting my rifle into my hooves. “What the fuck is going on down here!?” I looked around quickly, unsure if I should start shooting at these things, or if it was only going to be a waste of ammo to even try.

The AI sat down in my vision, putting a hoof to it’s muzzle as if to think. “The machines in the other lab are reading that Windigo specimen #4 has somehow restored the ponies there to a barely functioning state.”

“Wait, it brought them back to life!?” I shouted as one of the ponies came a bit too close for comfort. I used the fact that the mare had poor reflexes and easily dodged to the side, bucking out with my rear legs and pushing it away, using it’s own momentum to throw it to the floor.

“Incorrect.” The image of some sort of technical readout came up into my vision, blocking nearly all of my sight as I struggled to find which one of the slow moving ponies I should watch out for next. “It seems to be some sort of alternative to necromantic magic unique to Windigos. If you take a look, all the brainwave patterns around you are the same, besides yours of course, each one showing remarkable similarity to specimen 4’s pattern. All available data points to some unspecified type of mind control spell.”

“I’m a bounty hunter, not a doctor!” I closed my eyes and shook my head, some how making the readout disappear. As I opened my eyes, I had just enough time to move out of the way of the stallion who still held the half a pistol in his mouth. “I need a way to kill them!”

The entire Pipbuck readout shifted to a grey color as the filly rolled her eyes. “Destroying the brain should cause the bodies to cease functioning again.” She almost sounded as if my complaint bored her.

That was all I needed to hear. I brought up my rifle and fired, boring a round straight through the head of the blond maned mare. She went rigid as she crumpled to the floor, staying down as the others still made their way towards me.

“At least they aren’t like Canterlot Ghouls, right?” I laughed to myself, working the action and taking aim at another mare who was shambling closer.

The filly turned everything purple as she jumped to an image of her with a funny looking hat and an old bubble pipe toy poking from her muzzle. “I have no data on subject ‘ghouls’ to support a comparison like that at this time. If you would like, I can start a research project for it.”

“IT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION!” I shouted before firing again, clipping the entire top of the mare’s skull off with that round. The steps of a pony approaching from behind caught my ear once again, allowing me to quickly look and buck back at it. I spun and fired, quickly ending it’s attempts to get back up. The hallway where the scientists had their last stand was now bustling with activity, in total about ten of them were just now shambling their way into the center.

“I can’t reload in such a confined space without leaving myself open, and the way out is blocked. I need help in here!” This was not good, there were just too damn many of them. “Quickly would be preferable!”

The filly turned everything blue as she looked at me sadly in her projection. “As you’ve been informed, I cannot render assistance from here.”

“You fucking brat!” I shouted, firing another shot at a lone stallion as my vision shifted to red. The change threw my aim off, striking the stallion in the chest and doing little to stop him. “You’re a little goddess damned liar!”

“Don’t call me that! I am not a liar!” The filly roared and stomped in my vision.

“I helped you, and you promised to help me!” I worked the action and fired again, this time scoring a direct hit to his eye and dropping him to the floor. I bit down on the hot barrel and galloped over to the hallway he appeared from, posting myself against the wall as I spit the gun back into my hooves and worked the action again, taking aim at the next closest pony before pulling the trigger.

Click.

“Fuck! I need a way out NOW!” I screamed, dropping my rifle to the floor and just trying to stay one step ahead as the crowd surrounded me.

My vision quickly changed to green as the filly stood plainly as she spoke. “I have assessed that I can activate the failsafe to the windigo containment chamber, but I lack control needed to activate it. There is a lever next to one of the spell circuit breakers that will render control of it to me.”

I growled and pushed off the wall with my hooves, throwing my shoulder into one of the stallions that was nearby to knock him away. I slammed against the cold floor next to him, quickly pushing myself back up and making a break for the hallway with the lever. I managed to just make it in past the lump of them before they sealed it off, finding myself barreling straight toward Dr. Panacea, who must have been the last one to unthaw.

Slamming past him, I dove at the lever, hooking my fetlocks around it and dragging it down as I slid against the wall. A loud thud accompanied the lever as it reached the bottom, the ringing in my ears from the repeated gunshots dropping off to inform me that the shambling ponies were still making their way towards me. I spun and pressed myself back against the wall, every option that I had to escape, had been used. This was it. To be honest, I didn’t exactly know what they were going to do to me, but I knew it was going to hurt.

My vision turned to pink as the filly bounced on her hooves. “Failsafes loaded and primed! Sorry mr. Windigo, but you’ve been fired!” Her jubilant voice was accompanied by a set of sharp pops that I could feel vibrate the walls, each of the frozen ponies before me convulsing a few times before falling to the floor. And as I gasped to get back a breath I didn’t know I had been holding, the filly sat in my vision and smiled. “Guess he didn’t get the memo. The lab is officially closed.”

As I sat there, I looked down at the body of Dr. Panacea, wondering to myself just why he was the last one to wake up, and if he died hating himself for not reaching that lever in time.

“You know, Dr. Panacea always carried an audiolog in his pocket. Maybe that would answer your questions.” The AI wore a bright smile, sitting proudly in the corner of my vision as the readout shifted to an annoyingly bright white.

“Get out of my head!” I grumbled and knocked at the pipbuck with my hoof. Seriously, the one place I would think I could actually be alone at, and this thing has to be able to get to it.

“Fine… I’ll just go. Your friend and I will be waiting for you to be done…” She flipped the readout to blue as she pouted softly before fuzzing away, resetting my pipbuck to it’s standard green. I rolled my eyes and let out a loud sigh, my eyes stopping as they resettled on Dr. Panacea’s labcoat.

“What’s the harm.” I didn’t know why, but now that she mentioned it, and the threat of darkness was gone, my curiosity was chipping away at the want to do anything else but listen to that log. I stuck my hoof in his pockets, stopping when I felt the flat, rectangular recording box. Hoofing it over my pipbuck as Harmony had told me you could.

I chuckled to myself as the odd thought that Harmony was the same one from this place. I sure hope she’s not some century and a half old mare and just didn’t tell me. Though her family had a weird history so that doesn’t seem to far fetched, and she told me that she is related to a ministry mare. But come on, her name is Harmonic Drive. Everypony just calls her Harmony for short. I mean, she couldn’t be a hiding the fact that she was a prewar project, could she?

My pipbuck let out a beep and notified me that I could find the recording in the notes section. I tossed the recording back onto the Dr.’s body and hoofed through the menus, bringing up the recordings section and selecting the one labeled ‘To my dearest Harmony’. With a soft click, the recording started.

“To my dear Harmony,

How are we feeling today?”

“I’m fine Doc.” I replied instinctively, pausing as I had no idea what possessed me to say that. The pause in the recording was just long enough for my reply before the voice continued.

“That’s what I thought. If you are listening to this recording, then I suppose that I am no longer around to wait for news on if I will get to see you again. It may be because I have naturally reached that point in time as we all must, and shuffled off this mortal coil, or if all our fears are realized, due to the end of the world.

Just like when you cried when you got that nasty cut under your hoof from playing near the ventilation system, I am here to tell you that it will be alright. Over the last few years, in all the times I’ve sat in your room, I’ve never felt the same. I miss hearing your joyous laughter. I miss seeing the bright green of your eyes when you find something that leaves you in awe. Most of all, I miss the warmth you brought into my life. More and more I wish I could tear myself away from my research to look for what became of you, but sadly, this note is, should it come down to it, my last try. The one last hurrah of an old Stallion looking for the one filly in his life that made all the sacrifices worth it.

And just like that funny shaped scar where you got that cut, this log will act as a reminder to you, that you will never truly be alone. I know you, Harmony. You may not have passed those tests, but I know that deep inside, there is true greatness just waiting to show itself. I wish I could have seen you grow up, and have been there for you whenever you fell, or needed somepony there for you. But you have to stay strong, and go live your life. You may not have been the filly equestria was looking to change with, but you are still the filly who changed my life, and I’m thankful I got to spend as much time with you as I did. Make friends, get married, have a family, have fun.

Please, do this for me. I’ve always wanted the best for you… my daughter.”

As the log stopped, I twisted the hoof my pipbuck was on and looked down at it. There was a small scar that resembled the number 3 sitting there that l had completely forgotten about since I was just a young filly. I chuckled to myself as I remember once saying that it looked like Dr. Patch’s flank after the annual hearths warming eve feast. I growled and put my hooves to my head.

“Why the fuck am I thinking this!?” I turned and hit my head against the wall a few times in frustration. I shook my head as one memory led to another, which led to yet another. This was also accompanied with a flood of emotions that felt foreign to me. None of these images, these thoughts were mine, just feeling like they were being shoved into my mind to fit wherever they could.

I quickly gathered my rifle and made my way to the ladder, looking up and feeling somewhat relieved that it sat open like before, but was lacking the overbearing shadow figure as it had. I pulled myself out of the maintenance hall, panting as I lay on the floor and stared up into the bright lighting that tinted everything red. For some reason, doing this gave me the most uncomfortable sense of familiarity I had ever had, like the worst Deja Vu you could imagine. Not wanting to take my time to contemplate this now that I had the AI thing to help Predious and I get out, I didn’t want to spend any more time here than I already had.

Pulling myself to my hooves, I walked towards the old foals room that was set up by the collapsed door, stopping as a brown object stood out in my vision to my left. I didn’t remember it being there before, so when I turned, I couldn’t understand how I missed it before. The ragged and half rotten form of a foals stuffed bear sat on the dresser, looking lonely and forgotten, alone up there. More memories filled my head of a time long ago, the simple words slipping out past my lips without and aid by me.

“I missed you Mr. Harry…” I spoke softly, feeling as my eyes teared up for seemingly no reason, almost making me miss my pipbuck display when if shifted to pink again.

“I know you wanted to be left alone and all, but I just wanted to say...” The AI rubbed a foreleg along the other bashfully. “Welcome back home, Project Harmony.”