“Where are we going mama?”

The only question I’d heard in the last half hour. The filly across the room kept asking while the group of us scurried through the tunnels. All the fillies and colts kept asking that. The roar above us told the older ones everything they needed to know.

The zebras had finally done it. They’d killed us all.

“Shush, Sweet Pea… we’re going on a vacation.” The hushed voice of her comforting mother carried, much louder than she must have meant.

“It stinks down here mama.”

“I know Sweetie… I know.”

The mare at the head of the herd, Tranquility, worked for Stable-Tec. She had worked on the Stable they’d built beneath town. She knew where it was. She knew how to get in. She knew how to save us.

Her singsong voice, her accent from somewhere else, Trottingham most likely, rang through the stinking sewers. “It’s just up ahead. Keep up.”

Another deep rumble as another weapon of death hit our home above. Every second, more were dying. Burnt alive by the wall of fire we’d fled.

“Enough food and water for hundreds, and plenty of room left. Tickets only went out yesterday, I’m sure they’ll let us in without.”

There was the catch. We were betting our lives on the kindness of ponies whose job it was to close a door in exactly this situation. If they hadn’t closed the door, we could get in. Live our lives. Love. Have children. Die of old age, safe in our beds.

Fucking stripes stole that from us. The Stable would let us steal it back.

We’d followed her down into the sewers, heading for what she had promised was safety. Sanctuary from the hell that was the surface.

“No… NO!”

She had rounded the corner first, and the rest of us soon joined her in her dismay.

A huge metal door. Meant to be sealed for two hundred years. Completely impenetrable. Completely fucking us.

Tranquility pounded a hoof on the door, joined quickly by others. A dozen ponies, pounding uselessly on the door. The echo of their banging briefly drowned out the roar of death from above.

“You! You brought us down here to die!” I don’t know who made the first accusation against Tranquility. I don’t think anypony ever found out. Others joined in with the accusations.

“We could have tried running, but now its too late!”

“We’re stuck down here in this fucking tomb, you stupid bitch!”

The crowd was getting angrier by the second. More and more accusations were screamed at the now cowering mare. The youngest of us had started crying as the adults collectively lost their shit.

I saw the first hoof thrown, connecting with Tranquility’s muzzle. A tooth bounced off of the Stable door. Then the crowd tore into her. I was too far back to take part, but I had to admit I would have thrown in some kicks.

Mob mentality drives us all a bit crazy.

I watched with grim satisfaction as the life was beaten out of a mare by her friends and neighbors. Eventually, she stopped crying. She lay in an expanding pool of blood as ponies backed away from her. Some were shocked at what they’d just done, wiping blood away. Others had manic looks, relishing that they’d gotten what little vengeance they desired as their world was burned. Most went off with their families, finding little corners and nooks to huddle and wait out the end.

Me, I had no family. I was an information officer for the Ministry of Image. Everything that had ever warranted containment or censorship was on fire up above. As of thirty minutes ago, my job was finished forever. I wasn’t expecting a pay check.

Fucking zebras had killed us, and Tranquility had put the last nail in our coffin.

Tranquility got what she deserved.

The first few months were tough. Learning. Adapting to survive in the world we’d been given.

Some families tried going back to the surface to find food or loved ones. We’d mounted expeditions at first, hoping for supplies or rescue. Surely somepony had survived up above. The cleanup crews had to come, to help us. To give us the all clear.

Nopony ever came back.

Every once in a while I’d hear screams from distant tunnels. I knew what some ponies had turned to. They found the weak, the sick, and the alone. They put them down to feed their loved ones. There were different roaming bands of them, families that knew each other and stuck together.

I’d seen a few of those groups turn on each other. Children always died after their parents. Dragged off, never to grow up or have to deal with the hardships of tunnel life.

Me, I’d found a pipe and my own little hidey hole. There was a nice collection of mushrooms growing in there. They made me feel funny at first, but I’d gotten used to them.

Part of what the Ministry had taught me was subterfuge. Finding things that were hidden. It was a useful skill, being able to go where others wouldn’t think to look.

It had been hard, killing my first. She’d been starved, gaunt and manic at the prospect of food. Her hair had been falling out across her whole body, and I’d taken time to wonder if that would happen to me. While her leg was still twitching after I’d crushed her skull, I wondered if the burning sensation that I felt in my skin and muscles was me dying as well.

I’d seen the signs in a bunch of others. Tightening skin, patches of hair missing, teeth falling out. I didn’t know what it was. There had been a member of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences with us, but he’d been one of the first to wander off. I was sure he would have known what was happening to us. It was a weapon that was doing it. Up above, the fire. It was poisoning us.

If we didn’t kill each other, I knew it would do the job for us eventually.

I’d see this through to the end.

I just wish I’d stop itching so much.

Tranquility got off easy.

Years. I lost track of how many.

I’d lost track of ponies too. I try to remember what we used to look like, but it gets harder every day.

Keep losing tracks.

Scabs. That word worked. We all looked like scabs.

I knew what to look for. Most had lost the light in their eyes. Dead gazes.

Intelligence. It went away.

They ignored us.

The smart ones. Like me. We were the rare survivors. Some could talk.

My tongue fell out.

We ate what we could. Scabs. Mushrooms. Rats.

Each other. If needed.

This was life now. I was on my twenty third pipe. The others broke.

I think.

Ponies from above came down. They didn’t last long. Eaten. Turned. They all stayed in the end.

Tranquility still there. Laying there. Undisturbed. Bones.

She brought us here.

Bitch.

Door noise.

We gather. We many.

Tranquility. Bones move. Not move long time.

Door open.

Light. Sound. Moving.

Ponies inside. Fresh. Not scab.

Finally.

Inside Stable.

Water.

Shelter.

Screaming.

Food.

Tranquility.

Thank you.