“Sky Blossom, we’re home!”

The young filly looked up, her play time cut short from the unexpected interruption.

“Mom? Mom, Is that you?”

The filly heard a chuckle from downstairs.

“Yes sweetie, it’s mom.”

“Mom!” the filly ran downstairs to greet her mother. “Where have you been I haven’t seen you for days and dad kept saying you’d be back soon but he didn’t say how soon and now you’re back and-“ the girl paused to take a breath.

“Where were you?”

The mother reached forwards, hugging her daughter in a warm embrace. “It’s alright sweetie, mommy was just at the hospital for a little while.”

The filly let out a gasp, pushing away from her mom. “THE HOSPITAL?!? Mommy, were you hurt? What happened?”

The filly’s father spoke up, putting a hoof on the child’s soft pink mane. “Don’t worry, mommy’s just fine. She wasn’t hurt at all.”

“I don’t know about THAT, Bullseye…” the mother nickered.

The stallion rolled his eyes, removing his hoof from his daughter and instead placing it around his wife. “We were at the hospital for a very important reason, Sky.”

The filly stomped a hoof, her patience growing thin. “Well, tell me already! I wanna know!” The filly began to jump up and down “I wanna know I wanna know I wanna…” she stopped as she noticed her mother pick something up off of her father’s back.

Or rather, someONE.

“Sky Blossom, do you remember when we asked you if you would be ok with having a baby brother or sister?”

The filly’s eyes widened as big as saucers. She didn’t quite know what her mom meant, but it was apparent the gears were turning in her head. Her mother giggled, lowering a bundle of cloth down so the filly could see.

“Well, this is Canvas. He’s going to be a part of our family from now on.”

The filly took a few hesitant steps towards the ball of fabric. Slowly, she took a peek inside. Immediately, her vision was assaulted with a mixture of yellow, red, and blue. The filly turned, looking up at her parents.

“This is… my brother?”

“Do you like him?”

Slowly, the filly’s amazement turned to pure excitement as a grin grew ever bigger on her face.

“I have a brother! A brother a brother a brother!!!” The filly jumped around the room as she spoke, a sky-blue blur as she bounced along. The two parents laughing at the filly’s antics. Finally, when she was next to the baby once more, the filly stopped and smiled at the child in front of her.

“You and I, we’re gonna be the best brother and sister in the whole world!”

“Ugh… my everything hurts…”

It was a long time before I managed to wake up. I could feel a breeze blowing along my back. I can’t really describe it, but something about it just seemed… off. In fact, my whole body just felt kind of off. Although that was in part due to the burning pain running over my back, and my legs, and my head, and… you know what, the pain was pretty much everywhere. As I thought about the strange feelings in my body, I finally opened my eyes, and in doing so realized a number of different things.

The first of which was that I was upside down. Welp, that explains the strange feeling.

The second thing I noticed was that I was stuck in a tree. It’s not the most ideal place I would have liked to find myself, but… no, wait, hang on, why am I in a tree? My mind was still a bit hazy, so I tried to remember what had led to me to this wooden embrace in the first place. Let’s see… I was going to see Windspeed… and then the ground started moving… and then there was a dragon…

…Dragon? DRAGON?!? OH GOD THERE’S A DRAGON NO I DON’T WANNA DIE!!!!!

As my thoughts turned to the raging, fire-breathing demon, I tried to run away from wherever the dragon might be. Unfortunately for me, all that managed to do was break the tree branches holding me up, dropping me onto the ground with a painful *THUD*.

Ow… why are the clouds so hard?

I stood up slowly, not willing to risk any further harm to myself. As I did, I finally got a clear look at where I was. On all sides of me, I was surrounded by trees. Most of them stretched up far above my head, although a rare few stood with their branches within reach. A lot of the trees had some moss and black mushrooms growing on them, while some stood with low hanging vines of different shades of green and yellow. I saw a great many plants growing along the ground, all mixing together in color patterns I’d never seen occur naturally. I saw reds and purples mixing with greens and browns and blues… granted, most of the colors were oddly muted, which gave everything a much more gray appearance that I though plant life could attain, but it was still a beautiful mixture of colors. Also, there was no dragon in sight. So that was a plus.

But none of that mattered. No, the thing that had my full attention was the place I was standing. More specifically, what I was standing on.

That’s not a cloud.

I was horrified at what I was looking at. I stood in a brownish substance, one that felt both soft and hard to the touch. It seemed to shift slightly under my weight, leaving hoof prints whenever I shifted my legs. I’d seen it before. It didn’t exist above the clouds, but I’d seen it in plenty of paintings from before the war. I knew exactly what it was.

Dirt.

I was standing in dirt.

I tensed up. If this is dirt that I’m standing in, then… then that means… The realization slowly dawned on me. I was terrified, but I turned my head upwards. What I saw was the most horrifying thing I have ever seen in my life.

The clouds were above me.

The ground was above me.

No. No no no no no, no… this can’t be happening… oh please dear god, please tell me this is wrong. Tell me this is a dream. This can’t be real, please tell me this isn’t real!

My thoughts became more frantic, more maniacal.

I’m going to wake up soon… why aren’t I waking up?

Please, somepony wake me up!

Anypony!!

PLEASE!!

WHY WON’T I WAKE UP?!?

WHY WON’T I WAKE UP?!?

I blinked a few times, then quickly turned my head, looking all around me, hoping to see some sign that this wasn’t real. Just something out of place, something so bizarre that I would know it was all a dream.

But I found nothing. Just trees, flowers and bushes. My panicked thoughts finally stopped, and accepted the truth.

This was real.

I was in the Wasteland.

I started to hyperventilate. I wanted to scream, and I almost did. But before I even managed to open my mouth, I felt a breeze blowing through my wings.

…right. I can fly. Duh.

I felt stupid for somehow forgetting that, but I breathed a sigh of relief regardless. Ok, this wasn’t a problem. I could just fly back up to the cloud layer, and everything would be fine. I’d go back home, lay down in my nice warm bed, and forget that all of this ever happened. My body hurt, but I didn’t care – the sooner I got home, the sooner I could forget about this. I got into a take-off position, and launched myself into the air…

…only for a sharp, burning pain to send me crashing back down into the ground.

No! I can’t fly! Why can’t I fly? WHY CAN’T I FLY?!?

I turned my head to get a look at the problem. A part of me wishes I hadn’t. My left wing looked like a twig. A twig that somepony had folded in half, expecting it to snap, but had somehow managed to hold together. The entire upper part of my wing bent in entirely the opposite direction of the way it should go. Hesitantly, I attempted to move my wing. I immediately regretted that decision, as the burning feeling ignited once more. I screamed, and my knees buckled, nearly causing me to collapse on the ground.

There was no doubt about it. My wing was broken. There was no way I’d be flying anywhere until it healed. Slowly, thoughts began to pass through my head, as the implications of that hit me like a ton of bricks.

I can’t fly.

I can’t fly until my wing heals.

I can’t go back home until my wing heals.

I’m…

Until my wing heals…

I’m trapped in the Wasteland…

I felt sick. I don’t know if it was from the physical pain or the situation I was in, but I felt utterly nauseous either way. My stomach churned violently, causing me to vomit on some nearby flowers. I was on the verge of tears. Part of me wanted to cry. Part of me wanted to just curl up in a ball and die. Tartarus, I was probably dead already from the poisoned air.

…the poisoned… air?

Hang on for a second. Why wasn’t I already dead? The science channel said that the air down here was poisonous. I didn’t know how long I had been passed out, but it must have been a while. So… why wasn’t I dead?

Maybe… maybe they were wrong? Maybe the air isn’t poisonous? Cautiously, I took a deep breath. It certainly still SEEMS like normal air… although I guess I don’t know what poisonous air feels like. Maybe it’s slow acting?

Maybe I had a chance. If the air didn’t outright kill me, then maybe there was a chance that I could survive. Even if it was just a miniscule fraction of a chance, there was still hope. Maybe I could get my wing healed. Maybe I could go back to the clouds! I could escape the Wasteland!

I just had to live.

I took a quick inventory of what I had. I hadn’t brought much for the journey to Everfree, so my survival tools were sparse. I had my saddlebags, my scarf, two apples I had intended to eat on the road, and…

Oh yeah. The holodisk.

I stared at the device in my hooves. This thing… it was indirectly the reason I was stuck down here. I wanted to destroy it. Smash it under my hooves, break it in two, throw it against a tree, anything.

But at the same time, I knew that would accomplish nothing. It would just leave me with one less potential tool for survival.

I let out a frustrated grunt, before stuffing it into my saddlebags. I’ll destroy it when I finally get home. Who knows, maybe it’ll come in handy.

I grabbed my scarf and started looking around the forest. First thing’s first, I need to do something about my wing. I wasn’t the best when it came to medicine, but I knew a little about first aid. I need to make a splint to keep my wing from moving… I think. I scanned the area around me to see if there were and fallen branches or sticks I could use. Fortunately, my struggle to get out of the tree earlier had knocked a few loose.

I started to reach for one of the branches, but then I remembered something.

I think my wing needs to be less… bent, for this to work.

I turned my head back towards my limp, broken wing. I realized that I was going to have to bend my wing back into place before I could apply the splint. I cringed. In my head, I started trying to make excuses not to do it, but everything I could come up with faltered the moment I thought of it. There was no way around it. I shuddered.

This is going to hurt…

…

“EEEEEEAAAAAUUUUUUGGH!!”

Yup, that fucking hurt.

I could feel tears streaming from my eyes, but I managed to get my wing facing… sort of the right direction. At least it looked less obviously broken, now. With that taken care of, I grabbed a branch that seemed to be the appropriate size and, using the scarf as a bandage, tied the splint to my wing.

I looked at my hoofiwork. It wasn’t pretty, but the wing was braced between the branch and my body, so it wasn’t moving any time soon. One problem solved.

I packed up my saddlebags with the remaining supplies and threw them o-

“AUGH!”

Right. Saddlebags sit on top of my wings. I tried putting my saddlebags on again, gently this time, to much less painful results. I double checked the area around me to make sure I had gotten everything. Alright, I think that’s it. Next step: find a way out of this for…

Wait, didn’t those trees have moss on them earlier?

My eyes darted between the trees around me. Indeed, where most of them had been coated in moss and fungus when I first looked, now most of the trees were bare, showing naught but brown bark. I felt a few drops of sweat slide down my cheek. Why is the moss gone? What’s happening? Am I going to die? I felt my breathing start to quicken, but I still attempted to calm my nerves. Ok Canvas, keep it together… it’s probably nothing. Just your eyes playing tricks on you. There probably wasn’t even moss there in the first place.

I heard some twigs snapping from somewhere nearby, causing me to jump.

YouknowwhatmaybeI’lljustgetoutofhereanyways.

I turned to look for whatever seemed to be the clearest path, finally settling on the least tree-filled route I could spot and trotting in that direction. As I moved, I heard leaves start shuffling, and the forest around me made all kinds of noises that put me on edge.

Suddenly, I saw something. A figure, just to the side of the path ahead. It looked like a pony. Oh thank goodness, somepony who can help!

“Hey! Hey, you there!” I started to call out to the pony, but something seemed… off. This pony didn’t seem to be moving that much. Even as I shouted at him, he barely moved. It was starting to unnerve me. As I got closer, I noticed more odd things about the pony, like he didn’t seem to have a mane, and his coloration looked like a strange swirl of green and black, and…

…and that’s not a pony.

I finally got close enough to get a clear look at the thing in front of me. It was certainly shaped like a pony, but it wasn’t a pony. It looked more like a statue somepony had made out of whatever plants they found lying around the forest, with bits off moss and fungus falling off of it. It weirded me out. Why would somepony build a plant statue in the middle of the forest? That doesn’t-

I jumped back in shock.

The statue had turned its head to face me.

OKAY THAT’S NOT NORMAL NOPE NOPE NOPE I’M OUTTA HERE

I started to back away from the… the moss monster in front of me, only to hear more twigs snapping behind me. I turned around and discovered, to my horror, that there were more moss monsters waiting in the bushes. I heard more snapping, and realized that these things were all around me. I was surrounded, and it looked like they were starting to move towards me.

Fortunately for me, I wasn’t completely surrounded. As my eyes shot around in panic, I spied a small opening in the circle of moss things. My heart was racing. I knew that I had to take the opening soon, or it would close up before I got the chance. If I let that gap close, I was going to die.

And yet… I hesitated. My fear froze me to the spot, not even allowing me the surefire safety of running away. What if one of the monsters lashes out at me as I try to run past? What if I trip? I still have to run more or less AT these things to get through, they could still kill me as I run by… I might be dead already, maybe I should just let it end now…

The opening grew smaller with each passing second. I didn’t have time to think like that, if I was going to do something, I needed to do it fast.

…fuck it.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and screamed at the top of my lungs, charging for the opening as fast as I could. I barreled through what I’m pretty sure was one of the monsters’ legs, and I felt one of them swipe at my tail, but I managed to get out of the closing circle of moss ponies.

I’ll never know if those moss creatures chased after me, because I didn’t dare to stop and check. If they did pursue me, then I don’t know how far, but when I finally turned around, the shambling creatures were nowhere in sight.

Ok… I think I’m safe now.

Even after I had noticed the monsters weren’t following me anymore, I didn’t want to take any chances, so I ended up running further into the forest. Now, certain that the monsters were nowhere near (and after ensuring that none of the nearby trees had any moss or mushrooms growing on them), I was finally able to stop and catch my breath.

As I sat gasping for air, I looked at my surroundings once more. I seemed to be in a clearing, sparsely populated with flowers and dominated by random assortments of twigs and branches. There was a nice hole in the tree cover, which finally gave me a much better view of the clouds above me.

Above me… I shuddered. If you aren’t a Pegasus, then it’s hard to quantify just how mind numbing of a sight it was, especially if you’ve lived your whole life with clouds above your head. Imagine if the ground below you were to suddenly become intangible… like, you couldn’t touch it, and just fell through it instead. Meanwhile, everyone else you knew was still able to walk on it just fine. You would fall and fall until you found a way to stop yourself, and you would look up, and there’s everything you used to have… your friends, your family, your possessions. But you can’t reach them. You can’t get to them, and now everywhere you go there is a constant reminder of the good things you used to have, right above your head. Everywhere. Just barely out of reach…

I turned back to look at my wing again. Please, please heal soon… I don’t want to die down here…

I heard a snapping sound, and I jumped, my eyes darting to find the source. NO! More moss ponies? That’s impossible, there was NOTHING on the trees! How could they have found me already? But as my attention shot from tree to tree, nothing moved in my vision. No moss ponies showed up behind the bushes, and yet the snapping sounds continued. I started to hyperventilate. What’s making all that noise? And…

…and what in Tartarus is that smell?

Suddenly, I felt something moving under my hooves. My body froze. Slowly, my eyes shifted down towards my hoof, and I saw one of the twigs I had been standing on struggling to move.

Slowly, I lifted my trembling hoof, and watched as the twig jumped to life and flew to its destination.

In the back of the clearing, all of the twigs on the ground were beginning to amass together, at first forming two pairs of legs, then slowly combining to form the shape of a vicious beast I’d never seen before. It was… sort of like a pony, but it had much shorter legs, and its head was positioned at the same height as the rest of its body. But the weirdest part was its face, which looked far more elongated than a pony’s face. It almost looked more like a dragon’s face, but even that wasn’t quite the right way to describe it.

As it formed, it locked eyes with me. A fierce snarl was formed on its muzzle, teeth barred and a sickening green drool sloshing out of its mouth. It was terrifying. More terrifying than the moss ponies, by a longshot.

And I could already see three more starting to form.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA PLEASE DON’T KILL ME DON’T KILL ME PLEASE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…”

It should come as no surprise that upon seeing the wood beasts form up in the clearing, I screamed like a little filly and ran for my life. It worked on the moss things, so maybe it will work on these beasts too?

Sadly, that was just cruel wishful thinking. I didn’t even need to turn around to tell they were chasing me – the sounds of the forest being torn to pieces behind me was enough. And unlike the slow, shambling moss ponies, these things were fast.

THIS ISN’T WORKING OH SHIT THAT WAS MY ONLY PLAN OH GOD I’M GONNA DIE WHAT DO I DO?!?

In my panic, I didn’t pay as much attention to the path I was taking as I should have. I felt my hoof slam against a stone, and within just a few seconds I felt my entire body skid against the ground in front of me, before painfully stopping against one of the many trees around.

My chest burned from the slide, but I didn’t have time to think about that. I turned my head around and could see the wood beasts getting closer. I didn’t have time to get up and keep running, they’d be on me well before I could even stand.

They were going to kill me.

I needed to find a way to get rid of those things, and I needed to do it now. Without even thinking, I just started grabbing nearby rocks and sticks with my hooves and my one good wing, and threw as much as I could at the beasts headed my way. It was a pathetic display, and I’m pretty sure I was screaming the whole time, but it was all I could do to try and survive. At first, all it really succeeded in doing was slowing the creatures down.

Then I hit one in the leg.

With a yelp, the beast’s upper leg snapped in two, and with no more ability to support itself, it collapsed in the middle of its charge. The other three beasts must not have realized, or they realized much too late, because they all crashed into the pile of branches that had once been the first beast. The other three didn’t break apart, but they seemed to be stunned by the sudden barrage of tree bits, and paused to inspect it.

That was all the opening I could have asked for.

I stuffed a few of the nearby rocks into my saddlebag just in case I needed more ammo, and then took off deeper into the forest. It took a few seconds, but I heard the beasts start to make chase again.

WHY WON’T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?

I threw the rocks behind me as I ran, hoping that I could get another lucky shot on one of the beasts and make the rest of them stop. I don’t think I hit any though – I didn’t look to make sure, but since I could still hear them – not to mention smell them – I’m pretty sure they didn’t even slow down this time.

Ok, new plan: HIDE.

I started scanning the area around me, looking to see if there was something I could hide in, or hide behind, or… fuck, just anywhere I could hide.

Luck must have finally decided to give me a break at that point. As I was running, I spotted a remnant of civilization’s past – it looked to be a hut, carved out of the middle of a tree. I didn’t have time to worry about whether there was anyone there or if it was dangerous, I launched myself through the door and slammed it shut behind me, throwing myself against it to keep it closed.

It took only a couple of seconds before I heard the beasts come rushing up to the hut, and then felt them ramming into the door. Their impact was enough to knock the wind out of me, in spite of the door between us. Honestly, I’m surprised the door didn’t fall off its hinges.

After that, there was silence. I was too terrified to look, but I was sure they were still there – I could still smell their breath.

I waited there, thrown against that door, petrified with fear for what seemed like hours. All the while, the ancient remains of the hut stared down at me – frightening masks, mangled sticks, strange oversized pots. As if I wasn’t terrified enough.

Finally, after a long time had passed, the beasts must have decided waiting for one measly pony to come out wasn’t worth their time, because the sounds of the creatures grew quieter and quieter, slowly drifting farther and farther away. A few minutes later, the stench of their breath finally dissipated, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I waited a few more minutes before allowing myself to breathe a sigh of relief. I took another look around the hut I found myself in. A part of me wanted to search the place for something of use, but I decided against it. The building was more than a hundred years old, and long since abandoned, it’s not like I would have found anything useful anyways.

Besides, this was obviously somepony’s home once, it just… it wouldn’t be right to take from it.

I carefully opened the door, making sure once and for all that no beasts were nearby. When I was sure the coast was clear, I slipped out, careful to move as silently as I could. No way in Tartarus I’m gonna risk attracting any more deadly monsters today. I’m just gonna find my way out, and then find somewhere to get healed.

I saw something that resembled a path, and decided to walk along it. With any luck, THIS one would lead me out of this cursed forest.

Ow, my body… my poor aching body… maybe I should have rested in that hut for a little longer…

I felt like I had just run a marathon (which I sort of had… if the marathon involved being chased by demon plants all the way through). As I trudged further through the forest, I was starting to think I would never escape.

But then, after an eternity of walking, I finally saw the edge of the tree line. It was only a few feet in front of me. I was just about ready to cry, I was so overjoyed. Alright, you made it, Canvas! Now just to find a nice, safe place to rest. Compared to everything you just went through, that won’t be too hard, right?

I took my first step out of the forest, and into the dull gray light of the Wasteland. I gasped as I took in what I saw.

…I spoke too soon.

I had gotten a glimpse of the Wasteland when I first fell from the sky, but that had been from much farther away, plus I had been a little more focused on the dragon attack than I had been on the world below. But now, with no more monsters chasing me, I got my first real view of the Wasteland, right up close and personal. The landscape was far more… vertical that I had thought. Up above the clouds, all of the land was very flat and even height, albeit very bumpy. Here, the land seemed to roll and wave, dip up and down in long stretches, with very high up mountains off in the distance. Sadly, that’s where the praises of the Wasteland end. The entirety of the land looked washed out and drained, not to mention incredibly sparse. There were dots of black and white, some tiny splashes of color on far off buildings that had long since fallen under their own weight. In stark contrast to the forest from which I had emerged, the plantlife out here was all dead, leaving only burnt roots and stumps, with the occasional dead, leafless tree clutching to its sad existence.

Were I in better circumstances, I’d have painted the scarred land then and there. It was ugly, but there was some kind of artistic inspiration there as well… a sort of hideous beauty...

…rrrrRRRROOOOAAAAAAARRRRrrrrr…

NOPE WE’RE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN

I paused for a second, admiring the scorched landscape for only a moment longer, before sprinting as fast and as far away as I could, leaving the nightmare of a forest well and truly behind me.

If I was exhausted before, then it’s a wonder that I have any air left to breathe now.

I could feel my lungs starting to wear out, but I didn’t care. I was away from that damned forest, and I felt much safer. Now for a spot to rest. As I trotted down what remained of a pre-war road, I spied a ruined building just in the distance. Alright, it won’t be comfortable, but I’ll probably be safer inside. Hopefully there’s a bed of some kind still there…

I felt a shiver run down my spine. I don’t know whether it was from the cold of from the eerie feel of the Wasteland. Look at this place… there’s just nothing. Were there really ponies who used to live down here? I shivered again, almost certainly from the eerie feeling that time. I don’t like thinking about this. I want to get out of this deathtrap. Once I’ve rested up, maybe I can start looking for something to fix my brok-

BANG!!!

PAIN

I screamed and fell to the ground as a burning sensation pierced through my leg. It was the most excruciating pain I’d ever been in, worse than the broken wing. This was like someone had shoved a knife made of pure fire into my body.

FUCK THAT HURTS OH GOD WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH

I grit my teeth together as hard as I could, in futile attempt to lessen the pain. It didn’t work. I looked down, and saw blood starting to gush out of a hole that had suddenly appeared in the lower part of my leg.

AAAUGH… what in Tartarus just-

“Well you made that real fuckin’ easy, didn’t you?”

I turned my head towards the source of the voice. It hurt so much that I could barely keep my eyes open, but I managed to get a glimpse at the thing that had spoken.

The voice belonged to what was quite possibly the strangest looking pony I’d ever seen. Her coat was a bright shade of purple that leaned dangerously close to being called neon, with a bright red mane that was split into two mohawks, one next to each of her ears. I could just barely make out a pointed red tail poking out from behind her, separating into three spikes which bent down at a sharp angle. Stranger than that, hard as it is to believe, were the clothes she was wearing. For one, she was in fact wearing clothes. That’s not an everyday occurrence. But these clothes seemed to be made of a mishmash of cloth, metal, leather, and… is that a wagon wheel?

But the most important thing I noticed was her mouth. Specifically, the gun she was holding in it.

The mare smirked, taking the gun from her mouth and holding it in her hoof as she approached.

“Now listen here, fucker. I’d rather not waste all my ammunition on a worthless pony like you. So you’re going to stay there, shut the fuck up, and let me ‘cuff you. Make one protest, or move in any way other than how I tell you to move, and I splatter the pavement with your fuckin’ brains.” She leaned in very close to my ears, her voice barely a whisper now. “Am I clear?”

I whimpered and nodded as much as I could.

“Excellent…” I could practically feel the delight oozing from her voice. Quickly she moved around me, pulling shackles from some pouch in her clothes and securing them to my hooves.

“Alright, now let’s see what kinda loot you got on ya…”

The mare reached down and removed my saddlebags, only to drop them in what I can only assume to be shock, judging from her gasp.

“Son of a bitch… you got fuckin’ wings…” She moved around in front of me, allowing me to see the massive grin she had on her face. “Well this changes things. A Pegasus is much more valuable…”

Valuable? What are you- OHGODSHE’SRIGHTINMYFACE

“You’re gonna make me a lot of money, feathers.”

I shrank back as much as I could, the horror apparent on my face. I wanted someone to save me. Somepony. Anypony. But of course, no one came. I was completely at the mercy of this crazed purple mare. I felt tears start to stream down my face.

“You don’t have any fuckin wasteland smarts, do you feathers?” The mare laughed as she trotted around me. “No weapons, no protection, just walking down the middle of the fuckin’ road. You might as well have painted a fuckin’ target on your flank and called it your cutie mark. Are you retarded or something?”

I said nothing, the image of my brains painting the road still fresh in my mind.

This was apparently the wrong move, as the mare kicked me in the gut, knocking the wind out of my lungs. Why does that have to hurt so much…

“I ASKED YOU A FUCKING QUESTION. Now answer it, bitch.”

OhgodshesyellingandshewantsmetotalkwhatdoIsaypleasedontkillme

“I-I-I’m… new…”

The purple mare just stared at me for a minute, letting my words hang in the air. I tried to raise my hooves over my head to hide myself, but then I remembered the mare’s gun, and stopped myself. For a brief moment, she failed to conceal a smirk. Suddenly, she burst out laughing, a strange maniacal laugh that bordered on Super Villain territory, but still managed to stay within the frightening realms of reality.

“HAHAHAha… oh, fuckin’ hell… That’s the most retarded fuckin’ thing I’ve heard all day.”

I felt my cheeks flush red. I was still terrified, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be embarrassed too.

“Well then, feathers, since you’re so ‘new,’ let me be the first to greet you.” She kneeled down, staring directly at me with massive, soulless green eyes.

“Welcome to the fuckin’ Wasteland.”

Author's Notes:

Level Up

New Perk: Hunter – Take that, you lousy Timberwolf! In combat, you do +75% Critical Damage against animals and mutated animals.