Dead.

Wiped out. Almost two dozen ponies killed behind the safety of their own walls.

I tried not to look at the mare whose brutalized corpse hung crucified above me.

It was hard not to when the same brutality painted every inch of that frozen hole in the earth.

That hideout was supposed to be secure … that hideout was supposed to be hard to find …

It was supposed to be safe.

The ponies who had died in their beds, their throats slashed open … they thought the place was safe too. Surrounded by that horrific carnage, I began to question if anywhere was safe.

A string of bile and saliva dribbled down my lip, the puddle of vomit at my hooves cooling rapidly, exposed to the cold, dead air. My eyelids fluttered, trying to blink away the horror. The blood. The entrails. The patches of flayed coat. The skinless musculature, now black and blue. The exposed, ruined haunches of dead mares.

The hollow eye sockets.

I had seen that before. Their eyes were gouged out … everyone’s eyes were gouged out … so were Silver Dove’s, Beryl’s, Peach Petals’ … Mom’s …

Before my eyes a nightmare repeated itself.

My horrified stare gravitated to the sign above the crucified mare’s head.

“Goddesses …” I whispered with a tremble that shook me to the bone.

‘Goddesses … what happened to them?’

But as I stared at the carnage, it was not them I thought of. It was the Goddesses.

The Goddesses couldn’t help those people. The Goddesses didn’t help those people.

Tears welled up in my eyes. Where were they when that … thing attacked us? Where were they when Dew Drops attacked me? Where the fuck were they when those people were slaughtered like fucking animals!?

No. No … this wasn’t a slaughter. They weren’t butchered, either.

They had been desecrated. Profaned. Reduced to bloody morsels. Cut apart and savored like finely-prepared cuisine.

I wondered if they put out their eyes before or after they tortured them. I wondered if they begged – if they begged the Goddesses to help them.

I wondered if it even mattered.

It didn’t take eyes to feel the excruciating agony they must have felt. You could see it on their faces. Their skinless, contorted faces, rent black and blue from the icy talons of the wasteland air.

What kind of monster could have done that? What kind of disgusting creature could have taken the time to butcher those people so meticulously, so methodically, so … so thoroughly?

Not even furies … not even furies could’ve … I gulped. Just like Candy Cane had said: furies killed because they could. Furies killed. Furies raped. Furies tortured. That was what made them different from whoever – whatever defiled those poor souls.

I looked up. I looked past the pony whose entrails dangled over me. She wasn’t even the center of it all.

I scanned the room, my eyes glazing over the blood and the ponies that decorated the walls. From coagulated red to frostbitten black, my eyes caught something that stood out from the rest of the macabre canvas. Lying before a bloodied, blade-scored bureau was a weapon. But not like anything I had ever seen.

I enwreathed it with my magic, the strange pistol scraping across the floor as I brought its black frame to the glow of my trembling PipBuck.

Underneath its barrel were two vicious blades, perhaps to slash and stab with. I scrutinized the weapon, unable to find the things that made conventional weaponry … conventional. No ejection port. But there was a mouthbit. A trigger. A magazine.

I had never seen a weapon like that until then. But it was clearly designed for equines.

I aimed it at the wall, and pulled the trigger.

ZZZTWHAP!

My eyes widened at the glowing spike of cooling metal that had impaled the charred concrete. My stare gravitated to the gory message above the crucified mare’s head.

The words smeared above her skinless, grinning skull were the message.

I held the alien weapon before my eyes.

That was the signature.

Whoever or whatever did that, did it to make a statement.

I didn’t know who they were, but I did know one thing.

There wasn’t any point in staying there. The dead couldn’t speak. The dead couldn’t tell me where the Orphanage was, or what was coming, or what the darkness was. And I sure as hell didn’t want to be there when it came.

I shook my head vigorously.

I folded a leg protectively over my churning stomach. I couldn’t stop staring at the innards that dangled over me. I froze, gulping down fresh bile.

Whatever had killed those people could still be out there.

I rushed to Candy Cane’s side and shook her hard.

“Cane – Cane!” I hissed. Her limbs twitched and she drew in a sharp breath, blinking away the blackness from her eyes. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

She shook her head, the blood draining from her face once more. She sat there, her numb features devoid of the urgency that pumped through my veins.

“H-how …” she slurred in a quiet, wavering voice, “How could this have happened …” Candy Cane covered her face with a hoof. She turned her gaze to me … but not at me. She stared through me. She stared at the ponies whose bare, skinless haunches were pointed upward to the ceiling.

Candy Cane stood to her hooves and shambled over to one of the unrecognizable mares – the only indication that she was a mare by the few unravaged parts that were left on her. She just sat there. And stared … her lips moving but not a single word escaping her lips as she trembled and shook, her haunted eyes darting frantically back and forth – trapped and unable to escape her waking nightmare.

“It can’t be ... nopony should’ve been able to find this place … nopony can … not without a map … nopony ever has …”

“Well someone did,” I growled, “And they could still be out there!”

Candy Cane snapped.

“If they found this hideout, then the rest are in danger!” she blurted out, leaping to her hooves. Candy Cane yanked out our map.

I froze. Our map. Whatever murdered those ponies … they had one too – just like ours.

They knew where to find the others. I clenched my jaw.

“We need to warn them,” Candy Cane said before I could. She unraveled the map before her eyes, darting them across its quadrants. She nodded and stuffed the map back into her coat.

Candy Cane lifted a hoof to turn the other way to the exit – but she froze upon her hooves.

The blood drained from her face.

“I hope it isn’t already too late,” she whispered.

My mouth ran dry as I tried to gulp the lump down my throat.

“Doesn’t look like anyone made it out of here alive,” I rasped, gazing numbly at the carnage around us. “The others won’t know what’s coming for them …”

Candy Cane closed her eyes and hung her head to the bloody floor. “We know what they can do. The Orphans don’t. They’ll be slaughtered ... just like them,” she whispered as her eyes fluttered open and stared distantly into the carnage.

“We are leaving,” I told her as I swept the spike pistol from the gory floor and slipped it into my bags. We reached the door and –

Something scraped behind us. My heart skipped a beat.

“WHO’S THERE!” Candy Cane screamed, tearing her gun from her holster.

I scrambled for mine.

Nothing. My eyes darted across the room as Candy Cane’s ragged breaths broke the dead silence. I waited for the laughter. For the shadows. For the monsters that murdered everyone. But there was nothing. No one.

Candy Cane’s ears twitched – and she leveled her submachine gun at the bloodied desk behind us. The desk where I’d found the strange pistol. I glanced at her – but she didn’t meet my eyes. She started forward, her teeth bared and her nostrils flaring.

She inched towards the bureau, gun drawn, her ears pinned against the sides of her head. I crept after her, my heart racing in my chest. My hooves slowly squelched into the gory floor.

We approached. My pistol trembled in my tightening grip. The desk moaned. It rumbled and shook like there was something trapped underneath. I shuddered, my red magic turning crimson as I clenched my pistol tighter and tighter. Closer and closer. Hooves scraped across the floor beneath the desk.

Closer.

My aura glowed a bloody red. I watched as a mangled shadow writhed in the darkness.

Candy Cane stopped in her tracks. She lowered her weapon and looked over her shoulder as the blood returned to her face.

“Red …” she murmured.

My PipBuck’s light parted the darkness beneath the bureau. Peering up at us were a pair of bloodshot green eyes. They fluttered closed for a moment, neither lids shutting in unison. When they opened, the light of life in them were dimmer than when I last saw them.

“Goddesses …” I murmured, illuminating the mare’s pale, blood-drained face. Her pupils didn’t even dilate. Candy Cane and I rushed to her as her head rolled across her shoulders and she slumped onto the bloody floor.

Her pink coat was cold and clammy as I curled my hooves under her forelegs and hauled her out from under the bloodied desk. I held her frail body, biting my lower lip as I realized the pony in my hooves was nearing death.

Her bloodshot eyes blinked open.

“Please …” she rasped. “Water … do you have …”

I levitated to her my canteen. She took it with a trembling hoof, tipped it to her mouth, and spilled it down her chest.

“I gotcha …” Candy Cane said softly, kneeling beside us and guiding it to her cracked lips.

She drank until she sputtered and choked.

“Goddess … h-how … how long have I been out?” she slurred. The mare looked all around her, her eyes widening to saucers. She shot up from the floor and away from my hooves. “Goddess – how long have I been out!?”

Candy Cane grasped her by the shoulders and gently settled the panting mare back down to the floor. Candy Cane eyed the blood that was running down the back of her head and gave me a worried look.

The mare trembled in Candy Cane’s hooves. She peered up at us with her dried out, bloodshot eyes.

“Th-they – they – they killed everyone!” she screamed, wheezing for breath. “Goddess, how … how did this happen? How … oh Goddess, I … I-I- GAH!” She hoofed her forehead, moaning as agony shot through her skull.

Candy Cane shushed her, grasping her shoulders tight. “Please, slow down,” she said gently, brushing aside a lock of the mare’s brown mane as it fell in front of her blood-drained face. “What’s your name?”

“M-Minnow. I-I’m Minnow,” she wheezed, trying to stand to her hooves.

I glared at her. “Sit down for Celestia’s sake!”

Minnow shook her head furiously. “No – I – Goddess, everypony’s in danger! I need –”

Candy Cane held her head between her hooves. “You need to sit still. And please stop shaking your head ,,, you’ll only make your concussion worse.” Candy Cane gave her a faint smile, holding her hooves. “We’re here to help you …”

Minnow clenched her eyes shut as she took a deep breath.

“No … no – I-I need to tell the others … I need … I … oh …”

She moaned, cradling her bloody head in her trembling hooves.

“You’re in no shape to do that right now,” I told her. She didn’t seem to hear me as she tried shaking her head again. Candy Cane clasped her hooves around her, trying to still the trembling mare.

I glanced at the desk she’d been lying under.

“How long do you think you’ve been in there?” I asked, breathlessly.

She tried shaking her head, but Candy Cane held her still.

“I don’t know … Goddess … Amoré – I-I don’t know. It all happened so quickly and I just – I just … I can’t remember …”

Candy Cane pursed her lips, brushing aside Minnow’s disheveled mane. She scrutinized the bloody bump on her scalp. “Couldn’t have been more than an hour – maybe less,” Candy Cane said. She lowered her voice. “Any more than that, and she never would’ve woken up …”

I gulped, clenching my jaw.

“What happened?”

She closed her eyes, shaking her head.

“They … they came back from a supply run … yes – they came back, and … and …”

“Who did?” I asked.

We fell silent as she brought a hoof to her head, moaning softly.

“They … they were one of us …” she whispered, “They left, came back, and just started … started killing. The door came down and there was shooting and screaming … I was writing a report when it happened. I-it – it was like they were completely different ponies …” Minnow covered her face with her hooves, shielding her face from the horrors that flashed before her eyes. “We tried to fight them – tried to barricade the door – but they were too strong! So … so strong … they knocked me down and hit me in head. Last thing I remember …” She eyed the empty floor in front of the desk, and I glanced over at my saddlebags. “They left something behind.”

“I know,” I murmured, grimly. “It’s in my bags.”

Minnow stared at the floor, her ears pinned to the sides of her head.

“Y-you should’ve heard them – heard the things they were – Amoré – I-I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. They were hissing and shrieking in some weird language l-like animals … like they were possessed b-by – by fucking Goddess knows what.”

I found myself reading the words atop the crucified mare’s head once again as Minnow’s voice faded to silence. I couldn’t stop thinking about the message they’d left behind.

“Were they speaking Zebrican?” I asked.

“No. N-no it was something … else. I’ve heard Zebrican before. No. It couldn’t be. They weren’t speaking Zebrican.”

Minnow moaned and tried to stand back up, to crawl past me, but she slumped into my hooves instead.

“We need to get her someplace safe,” Candy Cane said to me.

“We? I-I don’t even know who you ponies are,” she said, trying to sit back up as she pawed at the floor. “H-how did you even find this place? There’s no way you could’ve –” Her eyes met mine and the blood drained from her face. “Oh no. Oh no – oh no – oh no … you’re one of them … Goddess, you’re one of them! YOU’RE ONE OF THEM!”

“No, we’re not!” I hissed, holding her in place – trying to quiet her as the sounds of her struggle echoed out into the hall. “If we wanted to kill you, we would’ve killed you by now!”

She shook her head frantically, jabbing a hoof at the massacred ponies around us.

“They wouldn’t have!” She pulled away from me and stumbled to her wobbly hooves. “You didn’t see what they did! You didn’t see how they killed us all!” Minnow sniffled, “They murdered us! They … they …” Her shallow breaths wheezed in and out as realization dawned upon her widening eyes. “They … they left me alive …”

“Minnow, calm down or you’ll pass out,” Candy Cane said, reaching out to her with a hoof.

She shrugged her off. “W-who are you ponies? Who the hell are you – t-tell me how you found this place – now!”

Candy Cane and I exchanged worried looks as the mare trembled uncontrollably.

“I’m Red Dawn.”

“And I’m Candy Cane. We’re not here to hurt you …” She levitated out our map.

Minnow went stiff.

“H-how … h-how did you get that!?”

Candy Cane tried to hold her still, but Minnow swatted away her hooves.

“ANSWER ME!”

Candy Cane held up her forehooves.

“A friend of mine gave it to us; her name’s Summer Smiles. She was a runner,” she told her, slowly. “We came here because we wanted to join you ponies.”

“I can’t believe this …” Minnow murmured. “I-I can’t believe this … this is insane … insane!”

I gazed at her numbly, unable to keep my eyes from wandering across everyone’s butchered remains.

“I can’t either.”

Minnow hung her head, clenched her eyes shut, and grinded her teeth.

Candy Cane lifted Minnow’s chin with a hoof. “Minnow, you need to listen to me. The Orphanage may be in grave danger. If the ponies that did this found this hideout, then they’ve likely found others, too. We need to warn the others.”

Horror flashed across her blood-splattered face. “Amoré … Goddess – n-no – no! They’ll kill us – they’ll kill us all!” She gasped, scrambling away from us and taking a backward stumble to the door. “I need to tell them!” I caught her just as she tripped up over her hooves and nearly cracked her skull on the floor.

“I NEED TO TELL THE OTHERS – BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”

“Stop!” Candy Cane grasping her shoulders and held her still. “You have a concussion! You’ll never make it back on your own! Let us help you.”

“We’ll take you back home,” I said, with forced patience as Candy Cane levitated to me the map and I laid it out on the floor. “You just need to show us how to get there.”

She tried shaking her head again, but Candy Cane held her still.

Minnow ground her teeth.

“Errgh … why … w-why – h-how can I trust you ponies?”

I looked all around us. We were the only two ponies still standing.

“You don’t have much of a choice,” I told her. “Everyone else is dead.”

She moaned, slumping to her haunches and pulling Candy Cane down with her.

I sighed. “If it makes you feel better, we wouldn’t be asking you for directions if we already knew where to wipe out another hideout.”

“It doesn’t. I-it really doesn’t!” Minnow cried. She covered her face with her hooves. “Damnit … Goddess damnit … I-I … hrk – okay! Okay – fine … fine …” Minnow looked up at me pitifully, her chin quivering. She held a trembling hoof over a quadrant on the map and jabbed a hoof into it. “There. That hideout’s occupied ... still … I-I hope.”

Candy Cane gulped, and nodded to herself, quickly. “That’s not too far from here.”

I grunted with effort as I hauled Minnow back to her hooves, only for her to slump against me, clinging to my shoulders like her life depended on it.

I only hoped to the Goddesses that she wouldn’t slow us down.

Our magical fields swirled around her as Candy Cane helped me lift the trembling mare onto my back. With Minnow properly situated on top of me, Candy Cane and I bee-lined it to the exit, gingerly stepping around the defiled remains that lay at our hooves.

Those people had been defiled enough. If only someone could bury them.

My horn glowed. I swung the door open – and stopped in my tracks.

A pony stood before us, a pistol levitating in her magical grip. Her teal eyes widened. She curled her lips and hissed as she bolted the other way.

“HEY!” I shouted after her.

Time seemed to slow as I caught a glimpse of the disgusted sneer that tore across Candy Cane’s lips before she blurred into motion. “STOP!” Candy Cane screamed – drew her submachine gun and galloped after her, loping explosively through the snow. Goddesses. The other pony was fast. But Candy Cane was faster. Something told me in the way she bowed her head, teeth bared, that something else was driving her onward.

I felt Minnow’s hooves tighten around me as I struggled to keep up.

Candy Cane’s snarled – her teeth a breath away from chomping upon the other pony’s tail.

The unicorn’s horn flashed teal.

Snow exploded into Candy Cane’s eyes.

She screamed – and the pony jumped out of the way just in time for Candy Cane to slam blindly into a pillar of concrete.

“Son of a bitch!” I screamed, drawing my pistol.

The unicorn scrambled atop a mound of concrete, rocks and debris cascading down upon Candy Cane’s writhing form. The pony bared her teeth at me and snarled as I leveled my pistol and opened my mouth to shout – but her horn flashed with a bluish, blinding glare that engulfed her entire body in seething waves of cerulean magic.

My jaw dropped. So did my pistol.

The pegasus glanced over her shoulder and hissed, unfurled her wings, and rocketed off into the sky. I watched – awestruck as her winged silhouette disappeared over the mountainlike ruins that towered over us.

“What. The. FUCK?”

Candy Cane staggered upright upon wobbly legs, cradling her head in her hooves.

“Did you see that!?” I gawked.

“Ughrk … what?” Candy Cane looked around us, dazed and confused as clarity slowly returned to her eyes. “What … where the fuck did she –”

I jabbed a hoof into the sky.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t fucking see that!”

Candy Cane clenched her jaw and shook her head. Her eyes darted to the mare who was still sprawled across my back.

She asked Minnow, “Was it one of them?”

No response.

“Looks like she’s out,” I muttered, shaking one of her limp forelegs.

Candy Cane stared at her with distant eyes, standing there in silence. A rivulet of blood ran down her forehead and she shuddered back to clarity. She brought a quaking hoof to her face and wiped it clean, staring off quietly into the snow.

I gulped and peered up into the sky just over the mountain crest where that … thing had disappeared behind.

If they could fly … then we were already too late.

A dreaded silence hung over us like a headsmare’s axe. It was the burden of knowledge. Knowledge of the darkness that was to come. It weighed heavily upon our shoulders as if the entire sky threatened to fall upon us.

Our hooves clopped audibly across the rubble, echoing down the empty streets and through the shattered skeleton of that dead city.

With a barely conscious Minnow clinging to my shoulders, I galloped after Candy Cane as she frantically navigated the streets ahead. Her eyes darted to the map then to the mountainous rubble around us, struggling to find landmarks I couldn’t see.

She knew as well as I did that time was running out.

Darkness was coming, and the Orphanage wasn’t ready for it. None of us were.

It was a race against time, and even Candy Cane was struggling to find the finishing line. This far into the inner city, the trail of equine civilization was near impossible to follow. When I scanned the streets ahead and the jagged Ponevan skyline, I saw only snowy mountains of rubble and broken paths of gravel.

And Minnow’s grasp was getting weaker. I could feel her clinging to my shoulders for her dear life as I bucked my hooves into the snow.

Our hooves echoed through the empty ruins that blurred past us. They echoed.

They echoed deep into the city, through every nook, through every cranny, through every hole and every crevice...

A bird croaked overhead. I gulped. My ears perked at the sound of wings flapping through the air. I threw a glance over my shoulder.

Black shapes circled over us like vultures hovering over carrion.

“C-Cane!” I shouted after her between my breaths.

“What is it!?” she shouted back.

“Look up!”

She did. Candy Cane stumbled as she swore under her breath.

Wings whipped through the wind.

We both turned our eyes to the sky. A murder of dark shapes was gathering over us, circling overhead in a growing maelstrom of thrashing black wings. They gathered like a storm, flocking to the frantic echo of our hooves as they shrieked and screeched into the night.

The sound was deafening. Their cries raked my eardrums and gathered even more of them until their soulless croaks drowned out the pounding inside my chest.

“Holy fucking SHIT CANE WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE THINGS?!”

She didn’t look twice.

“Haunters! There’s too many of them – just keep running!”

I looked twice.

I shouldn’t have looked twice.

Wings swooped down towards me. I ducked – and I felt the frigid air rip past my ears. The haunter shrieked, and shot back up into the sky.

“You think we can outrun these things?!” I shouted back.

Candy Cane said nothing as a cacophony of shrill, avian shrieks pierced my ears. My horn flickered to life and I yanked my pistol from its holster.

BAM – BAM – BAM!

My pistol lit up the night and a murder of screaming, black-feathered haunters dove away, parting around my gunfire. I glanced over my shoulder, and in a burst of feathers and blood, one of the dying monstrosities barreled towards me.

It was the size of a small colt.

I caught sight of its scaly, twisted visage – its immense, black-veined eyes and wickedly-shaped beak.

Then I felt its talons rake across the back of my head. I cried out as its claws ripped away chunks of my mane and sliced into my scalp. It swooped overhead in its death throes and careened into the snow in my path. I growled, blood running down my face as I trampled it beneath my hooves – and stumbled. It was as if I’d ran over a speedbump.

A mutant demon speedbump.

‘Fuck …’

Bullets shrieked over my head.

Candy Cane’s submachine gun cut swaths through the darkness. The murder cackled in reply. They circled over us, feinting and receding away from the muzzle flashes that erupted into the night. But in between every rattling burst of gunfire, they circled ever closer.

I willed my legs to pump faster as I stabbed my pistol over my shoulder and yanked the trigger back.

Our combined gunfire flashed our shadows across the drifts.

BAM – BAM – BAM – BAM – CLACK!

The night washed over us.

The force of a charging stallion careened into me. It knocked the air out of lungs. Minnow tumbled away from me, and I slammed face-first into the snow.

There was a ringing in my ears. I dug my hooves through the snow as I swung the dim light of my PipBuck’s screen across the drifts. Minnow was lying belly-up and unconscious beside me.

A distant, gnawing wail screamed towards us.

I clenched my eyes shut and hurled myself on top of her.

Muffled screams tore from my lips. They slammed into me from every side, from every angle. I batted them away with my PipBuck, knocking away the mutant beasts only for them to dive back into me – stabbing and clawing and ripping through the tough fabrics of my saddlebags.

Their claws scored my kevlar-plates and raked across my unprotected sleeves. They sliced through the flesh of my legs like razorblades, every icy, blood-letting talon sending twinges of agony screaming through my veins.

My eyelids flew open and I saw Minnow staring up at me – petrified with her widening green eyes.

Then a blinding flash of white light engulfed us.

Candy Cane’s hooves landed before me. I looked up and saw the bloody grimace upon her face as she poured all her concentration into powering the orb of blazing magelight that hovered over us.

She swung it back and forth.

Tormented shrieks filled the air. Haunters flailed back into the sky. Some slammed into the drifts, shielding their eyes from the blinding light that washed over them.

“Cane!” I moaned, my mutilated legs trembling beneath me.

“Get up – get up!” she screamed weakly.

I threw one of Minnow’s legs over my shoulder, and forced myself to stand. I felt the straps on my saddlebags tear, and my left bag slumped off my back.

“FUCK!” I turned, and swiped a hoof across its eviscerated strap. A sneer tore across my lips as the strap ripped away and tore my bag open. I watched in horror as my belongings spilled across the snow. “NononoNONO!”

“Red – I can’t hold this thing any longer!” Candy Cane cried as her magelight flickered and popped.

I could see their circling, winged forms flashing over us.

My ammunition was in that bag. I groaned, straining my magic as balled up and swept away as many magazines into the air as I could and darted my eyes to Candy Cane’s. She clenched them closed and screamed – launching the blazing orb of light into the sky. It sailed through the night – through the murder of black beasts and exploded in a nova of blinding white light.

The light lingered like a flare, and the haunters’ anguished cries echoed through the city.

“GO – GO – GO!” Candy Cane screamed, and we galloped away as fast as our legs could take us. As fast as my mutilated legs could take me.

I left behind me a trail of blood. Minnow’s stumbling gait and the white hot agony that coursed through – and out of my veins threatened to send us both crashing into the snow. I clenched my jaw and screamed through my teeth, forcing my legs onward with every aching, bloody step.

I winced and levitated my pile of ammo before me, searching for a magazine for my pistol.

My eyes widened at what I found.

A grenade.

The haunters’ banshee screeches filled the air once more as Candy Cane’s magelight flare faded to black. Minnow moaned, and I felt her leg begin to slip away.

'Shit!'

Wings ripped through the air.

I levitated the ball of ammo to my muzzle, clenched the grenade in my teeth, and yanked the pile away. There was a faint ping as I tossed the grenade over my shoulder.

The haunters shrieked into the night –

And an explosion erupted behind me.

The fragmentation ripped through them. I listened for a moment as their anguished cries fell further away. A grim smile creased my lips, but only for a moment as Minnow slumped into the ashen drifts. I stopped in my tracks and nearly dropped my pile of ammo.

My eyes widened in horror as her still body lay spread-eagled across the snow. I trembled uncontrollably upon my bloody hooves, grinding my teeth as the remaining haunters, undaunted, hurtled down the street towards us. My eyes fluttered closed, and a trembling breath escaped my lips.

There was no way in hell we were going to outrun those things. They had wings. I had carved up legs. They ached and burned as I stood there, darting my eyes over my shoulder and back down to the mare at my hooves.

She was going to get us killed. She was deadweight.

I grinded my teeth as I calmly stuffed my belongings into my bag and dumped the rest. I stared down at Minnow’s still body.

I wondered if she was even going to make it.

I wondered if we were going to make it.

I turned as I heard Candy Cane’s voice echo down the street.

“RED DAWN!”

I clenched my eyes shut.

“FUCK!”

I yanked Minnow out of the snow. My magic engulfed her body as I hurled her over my back and galloped after Candy Cane.

We pounded our hooves through the snow, thrashing and flailing our weary, battered bodies. Every second that dragged by – Minnow’s limp body – the bleeding, mutilated flesh of my legs – they dragged me down like boulders on my back as the blood drained from my face and stars flashed in my eyes.

Ragged gasps tore from my lips. Black tunnels closed in around me. I struggled to power through the fetlock deep snow, painting it blood red with every heavy step I took.

But it wasn’t any use. The haunters were gaining on us, hell bent on feasting upon our ruined carcasses and picking our bones clean.

The world exploded with amber light.

I ran into Candy Cane as floodlights bathed the street. Black, pony-shaped silhouettes peeked out of buildings around us. We both stood still as they trained their guns and spotlights upon our pale faces.

“WAIT!” I screamed.

And gunfire erupted into the night.

Blood and gore rained down upon us as the shrill, deafening death rattles of exploding mutant birds pierced my eardrums. Their mangled carcasses splattered into the snow, shot out of the air by that hail of gunfire.

I opened my eyes, and found that Candy Cane and I were hugging each other close, bathed in viscous, rancid haunter blood.

Their spotlights fell upon us like lights on a stage. She let me go first.

“W-we can explain!” she began, but a squad of ponies in thick winter garb stepped into the light.

They kept their weapons trained as the lead pony approached.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but his eyes widened.

“Minnow?!” he gasped, lowering his weapon.

The mare sprawled across my back slowly lifted her head, shielding her eyes from the light with a trembling hoof.

“Don’t shoot,” she rasped, “Please … they’re … they’re with me.”

Then her head slumped back into my shoulder.