My eyes fluttered open.

‘91’

I looked up and saw it stamped onto a massive, cog-shaped door.

I stared at it for a long, long while. I reached out with a hoof, and touched its cold steel surface. I gave it a few knocks, summoning from it a trio of dull thuds.

I took a step back. And another. Four steps back. I realized I was holding my breath, and I exhaled … slowly. Slowly, I turned my head over my shoulder, and watched the Northern Wasteland’s unforgiving blizzard howl past the tunnel’s entrance.

I wasn’t going back out there.

I turned, staring at the two digit number that was stenciled onto almost everything I owned.

91.

Home.

I took six steps forward, and didn’t look back.

Every step I took sent a rattle through my saddlebags. In them and upon my back, I felt a certain weight bear down upon me that made my heart flutter. My eyes closed, and a long, drawn out breath seethed through my lips.

Outside Stable 91’s door, I stood alone, tracing my hoof across its frosted, dented surface. I remembered how when I first left, I’d seen the bloodied horseshoes smeared across the door as far as I could reach.

They were still there. There were so many of them. So many ponies had died where I stood.

As I reached out to touch a hoof-shaped smear, I saw my sleeve. I stared at it as if I’d never seen my own leg before. I took in with my eyes every dark speckle of blood, every splatter of dried out crimson that stained my ragged stable suit. My security barding was torn up, and bullet holes riddled the plates where my kevlar armor had kept me alive.

Alive.

If only my friends were too …

At least I survived to finish what they started. ‘And finish it I will.’

I was home. I was finally home.

I found a control panel along the wall to my left and punched into the terminal the code to open the stable doors for the last time. For the very last time.

I was never going out there again.

The tunnel began to rumble and groan as the immense, cog-shaped door parted before me.

I waited, wishing it would open faster as I tapped my hoof against the floor, the weight upon my back growing heavier with every sluggish second that passed.

There was a metallic groan as the door finally gave way. Finally. I stepped through the portal and into the darkness – but it was a familiar darkness. A darkness I could sleep in without a gun under my pillow.

I waited inside the vestibule as the front door slid closed behind me. A symphony of wheezing hisses followed as the airlock depressurized, and its locks clicked and clacked.

Surrounded by several inches of steel, I felt safe even without the light to tell me that I was going to be alright. Everything was going to be alright. Everything was going to be alright ... I found myself staring over my shoulder at my saddlebags, a triumphant grin stretching across my lips.

I made it.

The airlock finally depressurized. Mist sighed past my legs as it began to part. I waited, expecting the familiar white-washed halls of my home to unfurl before me.

I yearned so badly to see a friendly face, to see jumpsuit-clad ponies rush towards me – cheering as I opened my bags and gave the Overmare the prize I’d fought so hard to obtain.

I wanted to see the look on my mother’s face – the pride, the joy. I wanted to tell her that I kept my promise: I returned, and I was never going to leave her ever again.

Everything I did … every person I killed, every indignity I endured was for my home.

My family. My mother.

All I wanted was to go back to my normal life … and live the rest of it in peace with the only family I had left.

Home.

Goddesses, I was home. I was finally home, and I never wanted to go back.

I never. Wanted. To go. Back.

The door groaned, and began to part open. I stepped through, grinning from ear to ear –

And no one was there to greet me.

In a series of rumbling coughs, the lights flashed and illuminated the floor before me a few painstaking feet at a time. Like curtains on a stage, the lights parted the darkness and revealed to me the show’s gruesome end.

No.

‘No … Goddesses. NO!’

Blood. Dried out. Smeared across the floor. The wall. The ceiling.

The ceiling.

They hung from the ceiling. Ponies.

Dismembered. Butchered. Like pieces of meat. They swayed back and forth as the stable’s ventilation wafted to me the stench of death and decay.

Silver Dove. I recognized her. She was a stable-sec pony … was … she had wished me goodbye and good luck before I left. Now … she was just a piece of meat.

Butchered like an animal.

I gazed at her swinging, dismembered carcass … her wings torn from her back and her head hanging from a thread of putrefying flesh and vertebrae. I stared into the empty, black eye sockets of her ravaged, skeletal face. Her eyes were gouged out.

Her eyes were gouged out.

I took one step forward, fell to my haunches and heaved the contents of my stomach onto the floor, sobbing as my eyes flicked from face to agonized face – ponies I knew: Twisty – Sea Shammy – Beryl … but most of them were too ruined … too ruined to be even recognizably equine.

Everywhere I looked. Everyone I saw …

Dismembered. Innards spilled. Flesh ripped away.

Even worse.

But they all shared one thing in common: their eyes were gouged out. My head darted frantically from carcass to carcass as I staggered across the killing floor in a distant daze knowing that at one point … they were ponies. Some were slumped against the walls – their eyes gouged out. Others hung over the railings above me – their eyes gouged out. Others lay mangled and spread-eagled at my hooves – their eyes … gouged … out.

Nailed onto a wall at the far end of the vestibule was Overmare Peach Petals. Or what was left of her. All her body parts were there.

They were all there, but arranged to spell out a word that trembled from my contorted lips.

“Liar …” I murmured, staring at her jawless head. “Liar …”

Her eyes were gouged out too.

I stood there, staring at that word. That word spelled with Peach Petals’ despoiled corpse. I stared at it for a long time.

'Liar …’

We promised that we would save our stable.

‘Liar …’

I promised that I would save them all.

‘You liar …’

My eyes clenched shut as tears began to stream down my face. I stood there unable to move, shaking, stricken with an inconceivable terror that coursed through my veins with every faltering beat of my heart.

“No … no … NOOO!”

Everyone was dead. Everyone was …

I stumbled forward, covering my eyes as I screamed into ceiling.

“IT CAN’T BE – I-IT CAN’T!”

I stopped in my tracks. Smeared in blood across the wall, at the far end of the hall were more words.

Deliver us.

My tears twinkled with the flicker of the overhead lights as I read the words over and over.

Deliver us.

Deliver us.

Deliver.

… us …

I … couldn’t …

I couldn’t save anyone …

Not even my stable …

My legs gave out from under me and I crumbled to the blood-slicked floor.

‘… all of them … everyone’s …’

“Dead,” I heard my mother say.

I looked up with tears in my eyes, and saw Mom stumble into the ruddy, flickering light. There was a shattering pop as a lightbulb exploded behind me. I stood up upon my rickety legs as I dragged my eyes up from her hooves and saw her bruised flesh – her barding ripped up in all the wrong places. One of her wings dragged across the floor as she staggered towards me, limp and broken and leaving behind her a trail of gore.

My mother was drenched in blood. So much blood. Blood that couldn’t have all been hers.

I cried out and sobbed into my hooves, unable to stare into the gory, empty caverns that were my mother’s eyes. I kept trying to look away, only to turn back and see her still standing in the flickering, dim light.

Something flashed in her hoof. A knife.

“Mom? Mom …” I reached out with a hoof – but my mother held out the knife between us and I froze in my tracks, my lips trembling with sobs that I struggled to swallow.

“Wh … why?”

“Because you never came back,” my mother rasped, “You promised me … you promised …”

I shook my head furiously, whimpering as I covered my eyes in denial.

“I’m here now, Mom,” I wept, trembling all over. “I’m – I’m here for you now …”

She hung her head, rivulets of blood streaming down her cheeks.

“No …” she sobbed, “It’s too late … too late for everyone …”

“Why … w-what the fuck happened?” I cried.

My mother cocked her head at me. She sighed, the horrifying waver in her voice belying the deranged, twisted grin that stretched across her broken lips.

“Dead … everyone’s dead,” she sobbed, shaking free teardrops of blood from her pale, sunken cheeks. “I … I tried to save them – as many as I could … I even saved Amber’s colt …”

My mother … she stared through me with her hollow, empty eyes. “If you’ve seen the things I’ve seen … then you’d know …” She hung her head, her disheveled red mane falling before her face. “Then you’d know that you wouldn’t need eyes where we’re going …”

She cried softly, tears of blood streaming down her cheeks. They trickled down her muzzle, dripping to the blood-caked floor with distant plops.

“That’s why I delivered them …” she whispered to me. “That’s why I saved them from this nightmare …”

I shook my head vigorously as my tears mingled with the blood beneath my hooves. I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing, and every time I opened my eyes, I kept seeing it.

“Mom …” I started towards her, my hoofsteps faltering until we were a hoofstep apart. I stared at her face, and yet I couldn’t find the strength to peer into the inequine holes that were my mother’s eyes. Eyes that had once promised me unconditional love and comfort.

Now they were gone. And so was my mother. And yet I still called out her name, as if she would wake up and be my mother again … the only family I had left.

“Mom … Mom!” I begged her … and each time she did not answer. “Why … why’d you go and do this to yourself?” I whimpered, reaching out to her a hoof.

But she just shoved me away.

Another lightbulb exploded behind me. Quaking sobs ripped out of my throat as I wept, reduced to nothing but someone else’s son.

“Why …”

“Because you couldn’t save us…” she whispered, “Because you … you can’t save anyone.”

Krapop.

Shadows darkened my mother’s face as she pressed the knife to her throat. She looked up at me with her dead eyes, and a tortured grin stretched across her bloodied lips.

“Maybe … maybe I should save myself,” she sobbed, bloody tears trailing down her cheeks, “Maybe … maybe ...”

My eyes widened.

“Mom … what are you doing?”

She let out a trembling sigh … finished. Then she closed her eyes.

And I watched as she dragged the knife across her throat.

No.

“NOOO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

I caught her as she slumped forward, my mother’s blood – my mother’s blood drenching my hooves red and splashing onto my cheek as I pulled her close and screamed her name.

“NOOO!” I shrieked, kicking away my sleeping bag. I sat up, sweat matting my coat to my flesh and my breaths rasping in and out as wheezing sobs.

Somone stirred next to me.

“Red – Red!” I heard Dew Drops say, her voice barely audible over my thundering heartbeat. Her hooves wrapped around me as I held my hooves to my face – blood still trickling down my shivering flesh. Then I felt her squeeze me tight, and I blinked away the blood that was dripping from my hooves.

“Red … Red it’s just a dream …”

I fought to catch my breath as she hugged me, cooing softly into my ear until the bodies, the blood, the entrails – my mother … all of it faded away into the silent night. I shifted inside my sleeping bag, the faint crunch of gravel reminding me that I had left my stable only a few days ago.

That I was still in the wasteland.

“It was all just a dream,” Dew Drops reassured me, running a hoof through my mane. I closed my eyes and leaned against her, feeling her warm breath upon my neck and the tightness of her embrace.

Dew Drops. Dew Drops. Dew Drops …

My heart skipped a beat as something leaped inside of me. I swung my head towards her, and found myself lost in her familiar gray eyes.

“DD y-you’re …alive,” I murmured, my eyes widening. She opened her mouth, cocking an eyebrow at me – but I threw my hooves around her and rammed my muzzle into hers. Our tongues met and I knew.

I knew she was there.

“Mmmunnf …” Dew Drops sighed, before pulling away from me and smiling awkwardly in the warm glow of her PipBuck’s interface. “What was that for? And of course I’m alive,” she whispered, amused at my babbling.

“I thought … I …” I ran a hoof against her cheek, feeling her soft, velvety coat brush against my hoof. “You’re alive,” I said again. I leaned in and pressed my lips against hers once more to be sure. “You’re alive …” I murmured, clutching her tightly as if she could fall away from me at any moment. “It was just a dream … Goddesses, it was just a –”

“What’s going on?” I heard Box Cutter –

Dew Drops eeped as I let her go and she fell back into her sleeping bag.

“BOX!” I shouted, springing to my forehooves – and a series of annoyed groans resonated inside the cave.

“Fuck … go back to sleep Red,” Lightning Twirl hissed. “We’re leaving at 0600 sharp – and I don’t care if it still looks like night, because … because …” she paused when she saw me, jaw dropped with wide eyes.

“You guys are alive …” I murmured, shining my PipBuck’s light across the sleeping bags. Star Glint groaned and rolled over inside of his sleeping bag, and Amber Fields sat up, rubbing her heavy eyes.

‘If they were all alive … then Mom was okay,’ I told myself, ‘Goddesses. My mom was okay. Stable 91 was … okay.

‘They were all okay.’

“What are you talking about?” Amber Fields yawned.

I stared at them, still dumbfounded.

Lightning Twirl whistled. “Yoohoo! Equestria to Red – what’s gotten into you?”

I exhaled slowly, blinking away the tears in my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. ‘This … can’t be real.’

I remembered … Star Glint … flayed alive. Amber Fields – a crater. I remembered Box Cutter being dragged into the bushes. Then Lightning Twirl … the machetes – and their laughing … I turned to Dew Drops, laying my hoof upon hers.

They had torn her away from me. I realized that her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear her words over the thoughts that screamed inside my head.

“… Dawn, are you okay? You looked like you just saw a ghost.”

I thought I did. I blinked. For the briefest, most fleeting of moments, the light in her eyes flickered away and the blood drained from my face. In them I saw despair … despair as they ripped her away from me, their monstrous laughter echoing through my ears. I shook my head, holding her hoof with two of mine – and kept shaking until I shook the ghosts out of my thoughts.

She was there with me. And so were my friends.

“You’re all alive …”

Everyone was wide awake now, either glaring at me or looking quite confused.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Star Glint chuckled.

I gulped. “How long … how long have we been out here?”

“Three days, Red,” Amber Fields answered.

“Only three days?” I sighed, looked at my hooves. “It feels like it’s been weeks …”

Star Glint snorted, “You’re talking crazy, Red.”

I shook my head. Everything that I saw … those days I spent alone in the snow … in the city. A city my friends had never seen. ‘Could it be?’ I wondered, ‘Could it be I was … no.’

I looked at them, and they looked at me. I curled a hoof around Dew Drops’ hoof once more.

She was warm. Warm as the blood that was flowing through my veins.

She was real.

I told them. Everything. The snow furies. The mercs, the slavers, the bloodletters, the bat ponies, the World Tree, the water talismans, the cafones, Candy Cane … I told them about Summer Smiles, Doodle, Hops, and Candy Cane …

Everyone was silent for a moment, glancing among themselves, then at me. They listened intently – sleepily – as I told them about my living nightmare.

Box Cutter just whipped his mane back and laughed his ass off. I didn’t believe it either.

“Bat ponies? Like pegasi with bat wings?” I nodded. “You’re crazy! That’s … that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of! What the hell kind of snow have you been eating?” he said, chuckling softly as he turned to the others.

His chuckles died down to a troubled silence as they all shrugged. I sat there before them upon my haunches as they stared at me with uncertainty. I said nothing as the silence and the seconds ticked on.

My ears perked ... I could hear the wasteland outside, scraping its hooves at the mouth of the cave trying to remind us that it was still there. I listened, quietly … listened to the blizzard blow outside … its winds becoming moans, its moans becoming screams - its screams becoming shrieks -

My eyes fluttered closed.

“Heh ...”

I felt everyone’s eyes narrow upon me.

“Hahaha …” I hoofed my face as a wild grin stretched across my lips.

“HAHAHAHAHA!”

Box Cutter’s lips creased with an awkward smirk as my mad laughter filled the air. They glanced at each other, puzzled as I snorted and gasped for air to fill my aching lungs.

I flopped onto my belly and laughed until my chest ached and my friends looked on confused - concerned - until their baffled silence cracked, and chuckles broke their awkward smiles as our defiant laughter echoed out into the wasteland.

Perhaps it was the sight of seeing someone like me, the hardass engineer pony who took everything too seriously lose his shit that kept them laughing.

It didn’t matter. It was the best laugh I’d had since we left ’91.

It just might’ve been the best laugh I’ve had in my entire life. It felt like centuries since I had anything more than a grim chuckle. It felt like centuries since I’d ever felt … relieved.

I couldn’t believe it. My friends … the mare I loved – they were okay. Goddesses, they were all okay ...

Amber Fields gasped for air, still giggling.

“What in Celestia’s name has gotten into you, Red?”

Star Glint snorted, “Looks like he finally got that stick out of his ass.” He folded his legs across his chest. “Who knew it only takes three days out here for someone to snap?”

“Don’t tell him that – he might go back to good old Red again,” Box Cutter chuckled.

“Alright, alright everyone, can we all shut up and go to sleep?” Lightning Twirl groaned. “We’ve got a long day … night, whatever – ahead of us tomorrow. We can’t be tired when we’re out there.” She glanced at Amber Fields. “Can’t risk getting tired in the middle of a snowstorm.”

My lopsided grin capsized.

“Wait … what?”

I felt Dew Drops’ legs wrap around me from behind.

“Come on Red – let’s see how many ponies we can fit inside of a sleeping bag,” she cooed, pulling me on top of her.

Box Cutter frowned as he watched Dew Drops stuff me into her sleeping bag.

“Since when the hell did those two get that close?”

“Right? And I thought Red was gay,” Star Glint snickered.

I rolled my eyes and Dew Drops pecked me on the cheek as we both tried, frantically, to squeeze ourselves inside. I knocked over my saddlebags in the process – swearing under my breath as some of its contents spilled out into the cave’s floor.

But I didn’t give a shit. I really wanted to cuddle the hell out of Dew Drops. She flopped on top of me, managing to cram her lower body inside – kneeing me in the chest. I wheezed out a sharp breath, a curse on the tip of my tongue – only for that to be smothered by a wet smooch. Giggling, with my hooves on her shoulders, Dew Drops finally managed to wedge herself snugly inside our now rather cozy sleeping bag. And it was getting warmer, fast.

Coat to coat and tangled up in each other’s legs inside of a cramped bundle of thick fabric, there was nothing else we could do but rub against each other.

Her hot breaths panted against my cheek while I planted kisses furiously along her neck. She let out a soft giggle as I pecked one on her nose, pulling her close – relishing the warmth of her coat. I felt my hooves gravitate to her flanks as I pressed her hips firmly against mine.

It was as hot as a furnace in there.

But I didn’t care. It felt like I had endured an eternity without the taste of her tongue. And even with every fervent kiss, even with every loop and turn of her tongue – it was still not enough.

Dew Drops bit her lower lip and blushed. She sighed, pulling away for a moment and staring at me, incredulously.

“Damnit Red … are you crazy?”

I thought for a moment.

“I might be …” I gave her a lopsided smile, genuinely unsure with myself. “Though you seem to be liking crazy right now,” I whispered, the warmth between her legs still pressed against mine.

Dew Drops giggled as I planted another kiss on her lips.

“Mmmunf … not here … heh,” she whispered, suppressing a laugh. “Not with everybody else … just watching.”

I heard someone snicker and shift inside their sleeping bag. Another yawned. ‘Oh.’ I almost forgot that we weren’t alone. An awkward smile creased my lips.

Dew Drops wiped that off my face with another tender smooch.

“Just … just tell me you love me; that’ll hold me back until we get home,” she whispered, hugging me tight.

I didn’t even hesitate.

“I love you,” I told her, closing my eyes.

She nuzzled my neck as I ran a hoof through her soft, teal mane.

“I love you too …”

We lay there for a moment, listening to the cadence of our panting breaths, my legs wrapped around her, and hers around me. But outside, it was still difficult to ignore the haunting moans of the wasteland’s familiar winds.

Reality check. The wasteland was still out there. Still, it waited for us.

The blizzard intensified, the winds reminding me of the dangers that were lying in wait. If our enemies were the same … then we’d know how to fight them. I’d make sure we’d stay together, that we’d never get separated. I wouldn’t let Star Glint take a piss by himself outside. Fuck, I’ll watch him piss if I have to.

I hugged Dew Drops even tighter as I felt a gust of wasteland wind claw its way inside the cave’s mouth. We both shivered at that, but it was too cold for even the combined warmth of our bodies to overcome. Dew Drops’ shifted uncomfortably, her teeth chattering. Her horn glowed with a silvery sheen as she levitated to herself her striped scarf, tucking it inside our sleeping bag and lifting her head slightly so that she could wrap it around her neck.

I pursed my lips, shivering. I thought about covering our heads with my sleeping bag. Maybe then, the winds wouldn’t hit us so hard. I rolled over, and shined my PipBuck’s light against the black mass that were my belongings, searching for the sleeping back that lay at the foot of my saddlebags.

I swirled my magic around it – and paused for a moment. I stared at my bags for a moment, before dragging them closer to me. I parted its folds and peered inside.

Dew Drops’ scarf.

I held it close, feeling its worn fabric rub between my hooves. I rolled over, studying the mare that was lying next to me.

A blue scarf was wrapped around her neck.

And another one was bundled up in my hooves.

I let out a shuddering breath. Nausea welled up inside me and my heart fluttered inside my chest.

I watched my leg tremble with the tremendous weight of the striped fabric that hung from my hoof. I stared at it with widening eyes, absorbing every detail. The dark red smears. The particles of charred concrete. I ran a shivering hoof through its worn, coarse fabric.

We had only been outside in the snow for three days. We hadn’t killed anyone … we hadn’t fired a single shot from out guns …

I stared at the faint, hoof-washed blood stains that streaked across my scarf.

My heart skipped a beat.

And paradise shattered before me like glass.

I was falling. The shrieking screech of hooves dragging across chalkboard hurled me into the ashen drifts.

Cordite in the wind. Bullet holes in my shoulder. Blood running down my face.

The wasteland winds screamed past my ears. Unforgiven. My hooves dug canyons through the snow. Futile. Dew Drops was screaming. Screaming in agony. I watched in horror as I tumbled away from her. My hooves flailing. My horn flashing.

Useless.

I tore the scarf from her neck.

No. NO!

Dew Drops’ eyes fluttered open. Her brows furrowed when she heard the panting, frantic breaths that rasped out of my lips. I stared madly at her scarf – the bloodied one in my hooves, then the other wrapped around her neck – my hooves – then her neck – my hooves – her neck – my hooves –

I blinked, and saw another mare lying beside me.

A silky striped scarf was wrapped around her neck.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

A broken scream erupted from my lips.

I bucked my legs as hard as I could and I hurled myself away from her, screaming as my heart palpitated in my chest, skipping beats and threatening to explode. I floundered through the cold gravel as the world spun around me and a disgusted, churning horror slithered inside my guts.

“Red!” a mare hissed in Dew Drops’ voice. “Red what are you doing?”

I took a step back, staring at the mare … my eyes … flashes of red – the screaming – the tearing – the blood that wouldn’t wash away –

My eyes.

I saw a dead mare claw out of her sleeping bag.

“Stay away from me!” I screamed.

“What the hell’s going on?” Lightning Twirl’s voice demanded, her silhouette closing in on me.

I shined my PipBuck in her face, and she recoiled from the light.

Dew Drops stammered, “I-I don’t know – he just got out of bed and –”

“SHUT UP!” I screamed, my head spinning as I watched Dew Drops’ scarf hang from her neck. Reality spiraled away from me like a knife twisting inside my gut.

The darkness rippled and swelled.

Four silhouettes rose up from the gravel. I swung my glowing PipBuck around me and wrenched open the veil of writhing darkness.

I saw the faces of my friends … my dead, dead friends.

“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU PONIES?”

I stumbled upon my four ungainly hooves and stepped onto something metal. I curled my hoof around it. My carbine. I swept it up in my hoof and levitated it in my flickering scarlet field.

Hoofsteps crunched through the gravel to my right.

“Red … put the gun down …” a voice called out to me.

I turned and stared into the bloody skin of Star Glint’s face.

My hooves crunched into the snow. The wind whipped past my face. A fury grinned with gory teeth through Star Glint’s bloody flesh.

I blinked – and Star Glint stood before me.

I shoved him away. “STAY BACK!”

Box Cutter caught him in his hooves as he stumbled backward.

“Red, what the fuck are you doing?” Box Cutter demanded, his voice wavering. “This is crazy!”

I trembled uncontrollably, a twisted, horrified grin stretching across my muzzle as sweat poured down my face.

“Crazy …” I murmured, lifting my carbine.

I glared at the pony through my trembling iron sights.

“Crazy? THIS IS CRAZY!” I shrieked. “THIS,” I thrust out my forehoof so that they could see the blue scarf wrapped around it. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!”

“Red, just calm down,” Dew Drops said softly, reaching out to me with a hoof. My trembling stilled as I felt her hoof against my shoulder.

“I gave you one before we left the Stable, remember? I thought it’d be cute for us to have matching scarves ...”

I stared at her for a moment, my chest heaving for air that I couldn’t breathe – my mouth moving but words refusing to leave my lips. I tried to remember that – I tried to believe her … I wanted to believe her … ‘No. No – no –’

“NO!” I swatted her hoof away from me. She was lying. SHE WAS LYING!

“BULLSHIT!” I hissed, blinking away a rivulet of sweat as my pulse thundered in my temples. I stumbled on my own four hooves, blinking furiously as the bloody snow crunched and squelched beneath my hooves and their sadistic laughter filled my ears –

I felt my flank hit a wall.

I covered my ears, shaking my head vigorously as the screams refused to die away – as the blood-curdling screams of my friends refused to die away …

“None of this is real … NONE OF THIS IS FUCKING REAL!”

“RED!” a mare called out to me. I shook all over as her voice yanked me back behind my iron sights.

“What are you talking about, Red?” Amber Fields whinnied, her PipBuck’s light flashing in my eyes. “I saw her give you that scarf …”

A snarl tore across my lips.

“LIAR!” I swung my carbine’s flashlight across the cave, painting their faces in its harsh glow as my back scraped against the wall and their hoofsteps and glowing PipBucks inched ever closer.

“Stay back!” I sobbed, holding my head with a hoof as tears streamed down my cheeks and I blinked. And blinked. And blinked away my tears as their mangled corpses limped across the gravel and the voices of my dead friends called out my name.

I tried to shake away the black paint that was pouring down the walls around me.

A scream fought its way to my throat, and I could ignore the bitter, repulsive taste in my mouth no longer.

I collapsed – vomiting into the gravel at my hooves. My muzzle hovered over the acrid stench of stomach acid as I sobbed, and my tears mingled with the putrid puddle beneath me.

I felt hooves wrap around my shoulders – but I tore myself away from them.

“I SAID STAY THE FUCK BACK!” I cried, stumbling back to my four hooves as I lifted my carbine.

The ponies backed away as they heard me flick the safety off.

“Put … the gun … down, Red Dawn,” I heard Lightning Twirl’s voice command me. But I knew it wasn’t her. The Lightning Twirl I knew was dead.

She was dead.

They were all dead.

“Go back into the fucking dirt,” I snarled, painting the blue pony’s face white with the cruel light of my carbine.

“He’s lost it, Twirl,” a blond-maned stallion whispered.

“YOU BETTER SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE YOU LOSE YOUR HEAD!” I screamed back, sniffling as I struggled to choke down the sobs that were making my shoulders quake. “No – no …no … I can’t kill someone who’s already dead.”

A sneer tore across his lips. “That nightmare’s gotten to your head, Red … you’ve lost it, you’ve fucking lost it!”

I laughed at him until my throat was bloody and hoarse. They exchanged frightened looks, confused and afraid.

“Nightmare? This is a fucking nightmare, and … and I’m going to wake up to another one,” I sobbed, my magic wavering as I swung my iron sights from face to familiar face … stopping at Dew Drops. “You’re all dead … you’re all dead … none of this is real, don’t you get it? All of you – you’re all DEAD!”

Metallic clacks echoed through the cave as they chambered their weapons.

I gulped a coarse lump down my throat, suddenly parched as I saw their PipBucks lower to the floor and the flashlights mounted on their weapons bathed me in glaring white light.

“Please … don’t make us do something we’ll all regret, Red,” Lightning Twirl's voice warned me, her voice shaking.

“Fuck you …” I murmured. “FUCK. YOU! Is this some kind of sick, fucking joke? I know that none of this is real – none of you are real! You’re all dead! I saw you all die! I saw it, Goddesses fucking damnit!”

They took a step closer. They kept their weapons trained upon me. Except Dew Drops.

“It was just a dream, Red … please …” Dew Drops begged, her carbine still aimed at the floor. My magic waned at the sound of her voice … “Just put the gun down … let’s just talk this through!”

Another step closer.

I shook my head, flinging droplets of cold sweat to the frozen earth. She approached, inching closer as I refused to meet her watery gaze.

Closer.

“We’re your friends, Red … we’re here for you … please!” Dew Drops cried.

I looked away, sobbing quietly as rivulets of burning tears streamed down my cheeks. A shivering hoof came to wipe them from my face – but my hoof came away dripping with blood ... I stared at it as it hung before my face, watching through my blurry eyes as blood dribbled down my gore-slick leg ...

My eyes unfocused – and resolved to see Dew Drops standing before me, peering into my teary eyes … and the blood began to fade away.

I blinked.

“No … you’re not,” I slurred in a daze, shaking uncontrollably, “None of you are … none of you are real.” I clenched my eyes shut, and shook the blood … the tears from my face, “My friends died out there in the snow ... I KNOW WHAT I SAW!” I roared, stomping a hoof into the gravel.

Everyone took a step back. I glared through them as they stumbled away from me, confused and afraid.

“I watched you die, Amber,” I rasped, pointing at her with a trembling hoof, “I felt the blizzard take you away from me … I couldn’t hold on … I couldn’t hold on …” I wept, staring at the empty hoof that hung before me as the blizzard howled relentlessly past my ears. “I let you go – and they found you and killed you right in front of us!”

Amber Fields shook her head in denial, unable to believe the dribble that was spilling out of my lips. I turned and saw Star Glint standing next to her.

His skinless, flayed skull grinned back at me and I choked on a sob, covering my eyes as I raised my carbine at him.

“Star … Goddesses … I let you go outside by yourself, I let you go, and those monsters took you – cut your fucking skin off and wore you like a coat!” I stabbed a hoof into my chest. “I let you go!”

“You’ve gone mad …” he murmured.

I laughed, cradling my head with a hoof. “It was my fault, Celestia, MY FAULT!” I wailed, beating my hoof against my chest until it was bruised black and blue, “I watched them blow off Box Cutter’s hooves and drag him away like a piece of fucking meat – and there was NOTHING I could do to help him!”

Box Cutter’s submachine guns lowered at the sight of my contorted grimace … the pungent, acrid stench of burning hair and charred flesh wafting into my nostrils. I could still hear him screaming as they dragged him away into the cackling darkness.

My carbine’s light flashed into Lightning Twirl’s violet eyes as she narrowed them at me behind her iron sights. “You… you’re the reason why I survived. You’re the reason why I made it out of there alive …” The blue pegasus’ lips were pursed, her shoulders tensed and her battle saddle’s carbine shuddering uncontrollably with her. I clenched my eyes shut, trying to suck back in my burning tears.

I couldn’t.

“I survived because most of them were too busy hacking you to pieces to see me run!”

My shoulders quaked with sobs that threatened to shatter the world around me. I tried to swallow my agony – tried to choke it away as I steeled myself and struggled to keep my carbine aloft in my magical grip.

I gasped for air that was too thin to breathe … out of breath, out of mind as the world spun and warped around me. My gaze fell upon Dew Drops, her lower lip trembling at the horror in my eyes as I relived every second of the night they stole her away from me.

I heard her screams echo in my thoughts … the ripping and tearing of meat – and everything inside me began to come apart from the seams.

“Dew Drops …” I cried, “I watched as those monsters dragged you away.” I shook my head vigorously, unwilling to believe what I had seen, unwilling to believe – for the briefest of moments, that she really was dead.

“You told me to run … to never look back, and I ran – I ran damnit, I RAN! I ran and I heard you scream, Goddesses … fucking damnit – I heard you scream! I heard them laugh as they…”

I fell to my haunches, hugging her scarf close to my chest …

My horn flickered and died … and my carbine clattered to the rocks. I hung my head low in despair, staring through teary eyes at the only thing left of the mare that I loved. “I-I should’ve stayed,” I wept, “I should’ve died with you … but I ran and I RAN – and I was the only one who made it out ALIVE!”

I cradled my head desperately in my hooves, tears seeping through the cracks.

“I want so badly for this to be real …” I whimpered, “I want to believe that none of that happened. I want to believe that you’re all still alive …”

But my misery, my agony, the burden of being alive while they were not drove my hoof downward and shattered the gravel beneath me.

“But how can I lie to myself and say that this is real when every time I think of you, I see you all die AGAIN – AND AGAIN – AND AGAIN!” I screamed, pounding the gravel into dust with a bleeding, gory hoof.

I collapsed into the gravel, my head spinning and my lungs fighting to fill themselves with air. Hoofsteps crunched towards me … and I felt someone’s tender hooves caress my tear-drenched cheeks, holding my head and tipping up my chin to meet Dew Drops’ soft, comforting grays. I blinked away the tears, and stared into the windows of her soul … into the familiar eyes of the mare I loved.

“Red … love … please …” Dew Drops whispered softly, in a voice that stilled the tremors that quaked through my shivering, numbing body. “Everything’s going to be okay … you need to trust me, alright? Everything’s going to be okay … I’m here, now … I’m here with you, Red …” she breathed, cradling my head with her hooves as I felt her nose nuzzle against mine.

Slowly … slowly my hooves found their way to hers, clasping them tightly as silent, violent sobs rocked my shoulders back and forth. I squeezed her hooves, nuzzling her as I shook my head, my heart telling me to never let go … to never let her go …

… to never … let … go …

But my mind told me that I already did.

“No,” I whispered, “No you’re not … not anymore … and it’ll never, ever be okay.” I stood to my hooves, shoved her away from me, and glared down my carbine’s iron sights. “I need to get out of here, and you ponies – whoever the fuck you are, are all going to get out of my way.”

Lightning Twirl’s battle saddle clacked as she aimed it at my head.

“Put … the gun … down, Red,” she demanded. But I didn’t. “I SAID PUT IT DOWN!”

I braced the weapon against my shoulder.

“Don’t do this Red, don’t do this to us … don’t do this to me!” Dew Drops screamed. “We’re supposed to save our stable – together!”

I bowed my head and clenched my eyes shut, my chest heaving back and forth with my suffocated sobs.

“We were …” I whispered. I lifted my head, my distant, bloodshot eyes and contorted visage bathed in the cruel light of my nightmarish reality.

“But not anymore.”

“Put it down, Red!” Box Cutter begged me. “Please!”

“Drop it! Drop the fucking gun!” Star Glint screamed as Amber Fields chewed anxiously on her shotgun’s mouthbit.

“DROP THE FUCKING GUN, RED!” Lightning Twirl shrieked.

“PUT IT DOWN!”

“CUT THE SHIT!”

“DROP IT - NOW!”

I didn’t. So they kept screaming at me. They wouldn’t stop screaming … the screaming wouldn’t stop …

“PUT THE GUN DOWN!”

“DON’T MAKE US DO IT, RED!”

“DROP IT!”

Goddesses … make it stop …

“NOW!”

The wind whipped past my face. The bloody snow squelched beneath my hooves. The furies’ sadistic laughter cackled over their screams.

I stood there numb as my legs threatened to give out from beneath me ... their voices joined by the sounds of my thundering heartbeat, the gunfire, the wails, the tearing of flesh and meat as they all screamed inside my head – until their voices – their agony – until it all drowned beneath the wasteland’s cruel, demented laughter …

Darkness swept over me. The entire world was falling apart, and I could not bear to carry it upon my shoulders any longer.

I whipped my head back and howled my throat raw, rearing upon my hinds and clawing at my scalp with my hooves - black paint cascading down the walls around me –

“RED!” Dew Drops shrieked.

And I yanked the trigger back.

There was a trio of flashes – a splash of blood painted my muzzle red – and a thump.

Then silence.

Dew Drops lay at my hooves in a growing pool of blood and brains with a hole blown out the back of her skull. Her horn was shattered and arterial scarlet was pumping out of a ragged gash in her throat.

The light died in my eyes.

“DD …”

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Box Cutter screamed – and I slipped into SATS.

The world slowed around me to an agonizing drag so that I could see the horror of my betrayal stretch across their faces. I watched with empty eyes as each guided round speared through their marks – cutting them down one by one.

And one by one they fell.

One by one, my friends died.

Again.

In seconds that dilated to hours, I killed them.

I killed them all.

I stood over their unmoving corpses, their blood pooling around my hooves as the wasteland winds howled a hollow requiem fit for a funeral. I stumbled forward to the cave’s mouth but fell to my forehooves among my slaughtered friends in a splash of bloody mud.

I let out an anguished wail, clawing at my face to wipe away my tears only to paint myself red with their boiling lifeblood. I couldn’t bear to look at them as their blood mingled with my tears and dribbled down my face and my hooves.

My eyes gravitated to my PipBuck’s dim, blood-splattered interface. I saw the date twinkling at the top right of the screen.

Three days. Stable 91 was three days behind us.

Three days … three … Goddesses-damned days. Dew Drops was right. My PipBuck told me that they were right all along. They were …

… right … and as I turned my eyes to their faces – contorted with the horror born from my monstrous treachery, I despaired.

The snow furies didn’t kill them.

I did.

I killed them all.

I slumped forward as my right forehoof splashed next to me. I closed my eyes, levitated my carbine to my muzzle, and opened wide.

Then I heard someone let out an anguished moan. My eyes flew open.

Bones and joints snapped behind me. I turned and watched in horror as Dew Drops’ corpse convulsed like a dying, thrashing spider as something writhed beneath her skin like hooves stretching apart plastic.

Her pallid flesh contorted and stretched - her bones broke inside of her, kicking up gravel and dirt with every disgusting pop of her bloodied limbs. Her legs snapped, twitching violently one last time before her corpse squelched into the mud. She lay there in a pool of blood, stiff, as I sat up and cupped a hoof over my trembling lips.

Her eyes rolled back into her head and her back arched as she let out a low, gurgling growl. With a series of disgusting pops, her trembling corpse stood itself to its four contorted, gangly legs, its head hanging unnaturally to the side.

“Red … Dawn …” two voices croaked as Dew Drops’ corpse limped toward me, a bloody hoof outstretched.

I yanked my carbine close and pulled the trigger – but the weapon clicked empty.

Dew Drops’ head snapped to face me, and I peered into her hellish emerald eyes.

My muscles stiffened. My heart skipped a beat. Shallow gasps hissed from my lips as I shrunk beneath the crushing weight of her petrifying stare.

I tried to turn away. I tried to run - but my legs wouldn’t budge.

I couldn’t tear my widening gaze away from her insidious eyes.

She began to weep. Not tears, but dark trails of shimmering, violet magic.

Her horn, a curved black spike upon her head, flashed purple –

- and I felt my hooves leave the floor.

I careened into the cave’s wall with a wet crack. Blackness stole away my senses for a moment, and when lucidity did return, Dew Drops’ corpse loomed over me – peering down at me with a sadistic, diabolical grin that stretched across her bloody lips.

She cocked her head.

“I thought you loved me, Red Dawn?” she asked, a sinister voice as coarse as sand whispering beneath her words. I willed every fiber of my being to look away.

I managed to lift a trembling hoof.

But her bloody grin only widened.

Jagged black frost crystallized over my limbs.

'No …'

I watched in horror as the corpulent mare crawled atop my heaving chest. She straddled me with her forehooves wrapped around my shuddering shoulders. I screamed, concentrating on a rock that was lying next to me – only for my horn to flicker with violet light.

Useless.

I felt broken glass rake into my skull. Frigid black ice crept across my horn.

“I thought you loved me …” the two voices cooed. Dew Drops’ muzzle hung a breath’s length above mine. Coagulating blood dribbled onto my face. I could do nothing but peer helplessly into her infernal, half-lidded eyes.

Amid the other’s coarse whispers, Dew Drops’ familiar voice floated to the surface like a bloated carcass.

“Don’t you still love me, Red Dawn?”

Tears trickled down my face as her chilling breaths crashed against my bloody cheeks. “Tell me that you love me … Red Dawn …” she hissed, her gory lips hovering above mine. I tried to press them close. I tried to shake my head. I tried to scream – but all that came out was a choking, suffocated cry as I felt her cold, slippery tongue slither through my lips.

I clenched my eyes shut, tears seeping through my eyelids.

Her tongue wormed inside of my mouth, carrying with it the taste of death and decay. My legs bucked and squirmed uselessly. Her cold, lifeless coat grinded against mine.

She slowly pulled away, a thin rope of blood and saliva trailing between our lips.

I gasped for my breath. And screamed.

“HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP!” I shrieked my voice hoarse – only for a pair of frozen, gory hooves to slam my mouth shut.

She leaned into me and whispered into my ear:

“Nobody can hear you scream … hahahahahaHAHAHAHA!”

Her horn glowed. An invisible force clenched around my neck. I choked and sputtered as she crushed my throat, suffocating my muffled sobs. “I love you, Red Dawn ...” she sighed, pressing her cold lips against mine and wormed her tongue inside of my mouth again and again.

My lungs ached. I could feel the darkness closing in. I tried to fight it – to fight her – to fight the sick, disgusting sensation that was building up inside of me as I felt her knee brush against the inside of my thighs. She let go and watched me with a twisted smile as I panted to fill my empty lungs.

“Please … stop …” I begged her … the nightmarish abomination that wore Dew Drops’ face.

“But I can’t stop now, love …” she whispered, running a hoof down my chest and …

“Hahahahaha …

‘No.’

“STOP!” I screamed, “GET THE FUCK OFF ME!”

A hoof slammed into my jaw. I spat out blood and teeth as she held me close and whispered into my muzzle.

“You can’t stop me …”

‘No – NO!’

“CANE – CANE! SOMEBODY! HELP ME – PLEASE!”

The mare’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she dropped her jaw – torn and distended – violet light erupting from her mouth and eyes. She threw her head back and unleashed a mind-shattering banshee wail that wrenched apart the quaking earth around us.

“I thought you LOVED me, Red Dawn!” the two voices shrieked as her hooves tightened around my throat. “Have you been loving another mare this whole time? Have you been FUCKING this CANDY CANE behind my back!?”

“C-CANE!” I choked. But she tore her mouth open wide – and sunk her vicious canines into my shoulder.

She looked me in the eye … and ripped them out of me.

I gasped for air – and an agonizing, horrified scream escaped my lips as I gaped at the bloody, ragged hole she left behind. I trembled and quaked uncontrollably as my blood pooled all around me.

Again she locked her chilling gaze with mine, and whispered through her gory lips, a gravelly, insidious voice rasping beneath her words, “It’s okay … you’ll be mine again, Red Dawn … all mine, soon enough ...”

She forced my lips apart with another bloody kiss, worming her tongue into my mouth so that I could taste my own blood. I writhed like a trapped, netted animal until my muscles burned out and my pointless cries for help came out as nothing but suffocated, wheezing gasps.

She held my mouth shut with the glow of her crushing dark magic, lapping greedily at the blood that soaked into my barding. She savored its coppery taste - the taste of my helplessness - my fear. I watched as the dead mare slowly crept down my chest, planting gory kisses along the way.

She stopped just above my waist.

Her muzzle hovered between my legs, and a wicked, ravenous grin stretched across her lips.

I tried to close my legs. But she just shot me a sinister, half-lidded stare. A stare that reminded me that there was nothing – nothing I could do to stop her.

All I could do was beg.

“Stop …” I wept, closing my eyes. I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t watch as her cold, pallid tongue rasped against my crotch. “Please … no ...” I pleaded with her, trembling from my emptying veins and drenched in the blood that pumped out of my shoulder.

It was no use.

“You like that don’t you?” she whispered, kneading my heaving chest - rougher - and rougher until my coat and my flesh began to scrape away.

I shook my head furiously, clenching my jaw as my flesh turned raw.

“Please … stop … stop!”

She sighed, and cocked her head at me, staring through my tearing eyes in the crushing silence that followed.

“... no.”

She slammed her hoof into my gut.

I cried out. Bile surged to my throat.

I swallowed – and screamed my throat raw. She simply looked on, absorbed in my agony.

She wore a sick smile as she lowered herself between my legs and pressed her hoof against my swelling bruise … and pushed … and pushed … digging her hoof into my ruined flesh.

I clenched my eyes into an unforgiving blackness. A blackness that couldn’t smother the agony that writhed inside of me. My blood vessels popped. My nerves shrieked for oblivion. I screamed - only for my voice to waver inside my ragged throat as I felt her vile tongue rasp against me.

My eyes widened. My lungs ached.

I was soaked in my own blood.

But the pain that churned inside my gut was no longer enough to distract me from the horror that unfurled below my waist.

She grinned – and I shuddered helplessly. I watched as her frigid tongue dragged across the disgust and the shame that threatened to overcome me.

The mare stared through me with her gleaming emerald eyes, licking her lips as a string of drool dribbled down her chin. I felt her release her hoof from my bloodied bruise.

It changed nothing. The torment remained. It continued.

“You’ve always wanted this … haven’t you?”

She licked her tongue slowly between my legs, her half-lidded eyes never leaving mine.

I uttered a pathetic sob.

The mare’s cruel laughs echoed through my wilted ears.

“Don’t do this … please … stop ...” I pleaded weakly as I begged the foul sensation between my legs to leave me alone. It didn’t. It crashed against me - it fought for an escape even as my mind screamed at my body to not give in …

She didn’t stop. She didn’t stop - I couldn’t stop as I felt her through my jumpsuit.

I tried to concentrate upon the ruined flesh of my shoulder - the bloodied bruise that swelled across my chest. I screamed for my blood to wash me away and drown me beneath. But none of it … none of it was enough to distract me from the rasping of her tongue as it laid waste to my trembling body.

“Hmmnn … I love you Red,” she cooed, planting a disgusting kiss between my legs. She uttered a sadistic laugh at the shivering throb that sent a repulsive – perverted, guilt-ridden shiver down my spine. I shook my head vigorously, tears splashing against the bloody gravel.

‘I can’t do this … I can’t let this … monster do this to me … I can’t … I …’

Her hooves wrapped around my waist. Her horn glowed, and I felt her tug at my zipper.

“No …” I sobbed, tears streaming down my cheeks.

Tug.

“STOP!”

The dead mare growled, baring her vicious, inequine teeth.

“I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME!” she screamed, slamming a hoof into my face. I glared at her – dazed – my face contorted with agony and my shoulders quaking with violent sobs.

I said nothing as another hoof connected with my jaw.

Thwak.

“I thought you loved me Red Dawn!”

Thwak.

“Tell me you fucking love me!”

Thwak.

“TELL ME YOU FUCKING LOVE ME!”

Thwak. Blood peppered the gravel. Thwak. My eyes rolled into the back of my head.

She squeezed her hooves around my throat and forced me to look into her flashing, emerald eyes.

“There’s nothing you can do! NOTHING! How does it feel to be helpless?” Thwak. “How does it feel to be left behind!?”

Thwak.

“NOW YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO DIE ALONE!”

Thwak. Thwak. Thwak. I let my head roll across my shoulders. I let her hooves slam into my face. Again. And again.

“Is this how much you love me?” she screamed, glaring as violet light erupted from her hollowed out eyes and her distended maw. “You loved me so much that you killed me – TWICE!”

Thwak.

“You KILLED me Red Dawn! YOU DID THIS! YOU DID THIS! I loved you more than you ever knew - and you KILLED ME FOR IT!”

Another bloody thwack. Another muffled scream.

“I. THOUGHT. YOU. LOVED ME!”

“NOOO!” I howled.

She froze … and stared at me … horrified … her green eyes slowly widening to saucers. She lowered herself onto my chest, and I flinched, one bloody eye closed, her quivering lips a mere kiss away from mine.

“I … I-I thought you loved me, Red …” Dew Drops whimpered, the emerald light fading away as I stared into her tearing, graying eyes … Dew Drops’ beautiful, familiar grays ...

“I thought you loved me …”

Her once lovely face shimmered and blurred away as tears welled up in my eyes. I began to weep, washing away with my tears the blood on my cheeks as my entire body convulsed with broken sobs.

I blinked away my tears. I blinked away her lies.

“No … I don’t … I hate you …” I whimpered, clenching my teeth. “I HATE YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU!” I spat in the deceiver’s face. “YOU’RE DEAD! SO FUCKING STAY DEAD!”

The light of life died away in her teary eyes as she stared distantly into the hatred that burned in mine …

Dew Drops lowered her head, her teal mane falling before her darkening face. A tear rolled down her cheek ... her hooves slowly clenched around my shoulders as I felt her body tense up against me. I peered up at her … Dew Drops … my Dew Drops ... the mare I loved ... and watched her shoulders quake with shuddering sobs.

Then she smiled. And laughed. The mare laughed, whipping back her cratered head and laughing into the ceiling until the other voice – serpentine and sinister joined her. Their cruel, sadistic laughter crashed against my eardrums - my thoughts - the inside of my head until their voices coalesced into a single, insidious cackle that shattered the world around us like glass.

"Hahahaha - HAHAHAHAHA!"

The ceiling exploded outward in a thundering crash as the earth above crumbled away and gave way to the sky - a churning maelstrom of nebulous dark magic. Cascading from the eye of its storm was a hellish shaft of violet light that engulfed us in its horrifying brilliance.

Bathed in that wicked glow from on high, her billowing shadow loomed over me. I peered up at her, and watched a satisfied, triumphant grin slowly stretch across her lips.

Dew Drops’ eyes blazed with infernal, emerald light as she whispered:

“Yes …”

I woke up screaming.

I writhed against the chipping, snow-swept concrete beneath me, my hooves wrapped around my chest as I kicked and bucked my way out of the darkness that haunted my eyes. They flew open … and I saw only ruin.

I sat up, slowly, tucking my hind legs to my chest, staring at the blackened concrete until my eyes began to well with burning tears. I let them fall, rocking back and forth as they stung my swollen, bloodshot eyes. I cried until my sobs turned into retches, my lungs giving up on me as I collapsed to the floor – writhing and wheezing in a heap.

I woke up. I woke up, and looked around me and saw the blackened, charred halls of the balefire-blasted Morale Hub. Another nightmare. Only this time, the nightmare was real. And I was never going to wake up from it.

My friends were still dead. My stable was still doomed. And Dew Drops … I cried out and slammed my hoof into the floor, trembling uncontrollably. I shook my head, trying to shake away her wretched, screaming ghost. I tried to remember her face, the face of the mare that I loved, the mare that I’d grown to know and love for the last two decades of my life.

But all I saw was her ragged throat, her grisly, eyeless sockets, her broken horn – the hole that had been punched out the back of her head. I saw her sinister eyes blaze with unholy dark magic.

All I saw was a nightmare. A nightmare I wanted to forget.

I cradled my head in my hooves, trying to grasp the reality of the world around me. I rocked back and forth once more, weeping silently.

For what seemed like hours, I sat there … trembling. Alone.

Then I heard a muffled scream. A mare’s scream. My ears perked as I stumbled to my hooves and to a doorway that led out of my hiding place. I heard her again. It was faint - distant.

But it was getting closer.

“… Dawn! … Red Dawn!” a familiar voice screamed.

Candy Cane.

It was … Candy Cane. It was her.

“Cane …” I murmured. But I gulped a lump down my throat. I remembered what Holly told me. That wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been her …

“RED! WHERE ARE YOU!?”

I listened to her voice as she continued to call out my name.

I listened … and shook my head, sobbing uncontrollably.

I touched the pockmarked concrete, scraping my hoof against it. It was as cold as the wasteland. Just like I remembered it.

I slammed my head into the concrete. A thin line of blood trickled down my face as the world spun around me.

My blood. Warm. Just like I remembered it.

I drew my pistol, and ran after her voice.

Saying nothing as I listened, I pounded against the concrete floor in the direction of her voice, turning corridors, bounding down staircases – Candy Cane’s voice getting closer and closer.

“RED!” she screamed.

I turned a corner and slammed into someone. The momentum hurled me against the door frame with a dull crack. I gasped for air, thrashing to my hooves as I levitated forth my pistol and beamed the black figure on the floor with my PipBuck.

Candy Cane’s wide-eyed expression flashed before me. Her horn glowed and she bathed me in the white glow of her magelight.

“Cane –”

“Red –”

She ran into me, her legs wrapping tightly around my chest.

“I thought I lost you,” I murmured. I pulled away from her and peered into her bloodshot eyes. “You’re … you’re real, right?”

Candy Cane nodded. “I … I think so.”

I gulped and let out a trembling sigh.

“I thought I lost you too, Red.” She curled a hoof around my shoulder. “But I heard you shouting my name … I knew you were still alive … I just had to find you.”

My brows furrowed at that.

“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told her. I had been silent the whole time. “I heard you shouting after me, so I just followed your voice.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but fell silent. I watched her haunted gaze stare past my shoulders.

“Red ...”

I turned and saw my shadow. A billowing silhouette with a curved spike atop its head loomed over me.

“You…” I dove for Candy Cane, shoving her onward. “RUN!”

We galloped away, both knowing just what it was. Both knowing what it could do.

The concrete halls cracked and split behind us as it ripped across the walls, the ceiling, the floors – it was intangible and invisible to our eyes, but as real as the concrete that moaned and erupted around us. It was back. For more. It chased after us through the writhing darkness. The shuddering groans of shattering concrete told me that this time, it wasn’t a game.

It had its fun. Now it wanted to finish what it started.

Candy Cane, faster than me, flashed her magelight before us – her light flickering madly across the wasteland’s swirling snowflakes like static noise across a terminal screen. The howl of the northern winds beckoned us onward. ‘Anywhere but here. Goddesses, anywhere but here.’

We charged into the parting sea of darkness – and blundered outside into a storm. The blizzard swept over us, raking at the flesh beneath my barding as we stumbled into the whiteout, our lights useless in the heavy snowfall.

Then I felt something slam into my chest. I coughed and retched, the air punched out of my lungs as I fell face first into the snow in a plume of powder. I winced, my flesh bruising as I panted for air that refused to fill my lungs.

RATATATAT! Plumes of snow kicked up around me and I ducked under the staccato cracks of automatic weapons fire.

“RED!” Candy Cane screamed over the howling wind, her silhouette flashing dimly in the snowstorm as her submachine gun coughed out bursts of lead.

An uproar of demented, psychotic laughter filled the air.

Snow furies.

In the back of my mind, I heard someone laugh … it was an insidious cackle that echoed in my thoughts. I took a furtive glance behind me … and its dark, serpentine hiss faded away into the howl of the wind.

I turned, drawing my pistol – and found myself staring into the black-veined sclera of a snow fury.

A fury mare squeed, “You’re mine, stable boy!”

I snarled, and yanked the trigger back.

Footnote: Level 6
XP: 1400/3450

Author's Notes:

Chapter 13 Commentary