Dear Diary,

"No. No, no, no, no, no! We are NOT going to go looking for them."

“But they might be in danger,” said Dmitry. “They can’t have gone far...”

"We are not going to go any farther. We've wasted too much time dilly-dallying already. We need to get going and find that chip!"

"But what about our friends?" Grapevine asked.

"If they had any sense, they'd have already left the city by now," I said curtly. "And they probably did. Life above the gorge has got to be better than the city or the stable."

"I suppose you're right," Dmitry said. "But that tower... it's all the way on the other side of the city. Surely we aren't going through the downtown?"

"Of course we aren't," I replied. "We're going to swing around south, following 205, and maybe passing through Lake Oneighgo as a shortcut."

"Sounds like a good idea," said Dmitry.

So we got on the road again, this time heading south. Despite yesterday's storm, the weather was calm today and snowfall on the road wasn't too bad. It was a largely uneventful day as well, which was good since it meant we weren't in any danger... but it was also incredibly boring.
My mind drifted, as it's apt to do in situations like these. I pondered the meaning of the doctor's words. Did he really try to convert me into a mass murderer as part of a sick depraved plan to eradicate an entire species? It didn't make any sense-- my uncle had always talked fondly of him, and yet he had made it his life's work to destroy everything that I am. I mean, I express revulsion about it here, but at the same time I don't actually feel very disgusted at all. I actually considered taking up his offer. I think I actually get where he was coming from. We ponies are a horrible people and we've done a lot of messed up things, not just to other species but to each other as well. And sometimes I just want to end it all, but not without taking a part of this cruel society with me...

But surely not all is lost, right? Though ponies in this new world are few and far between, several have shown our group some degree of kindness, or at least restraint, despite us being total strangers. I couldn’t just murder them all in cold blood. Could I even bring myself to it? Maybe… but only in the circumstance of self-defense. Otherwise, I just don’t think I could murder an innocent pony.

His plan also happened to be so logistically complicated that it would have been impossible to complete. Just one pony alone could not murder an entire species with just her bare hooves. Reduced as our numbers may be, there are probably still too many survivors out there, thousands of them, all spread out over the entire world. Even to comb across all of Equestria would take a lifetime, let alone any ponies who happen to be on other continents altogether. And then you would have to take into account those who might still be sealed up inside stables. They certainly aren’t going to open their doors if they hear there’s a mass murdering psychopath running around killing everypony in the outside world. And there are likely several combat veterans still around too, who could bring me down with superior training.

Obviously this isn’t a video game. You can’t just kill everypony in the world with no consequences. Though, I did agree to kill one pony. A very specific pony. However, finding him in this vast world would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, inside of a haystack made of haystacks, made out of even bigger haystacks. Though it would be very satisfying to get revenge, it’s very unlikely that I’ll find him… or, if I do, that I could possibly overpower him. I only have a vague idea of where to look: down south, and probably in a ghetto of some sort too, but nothing concrete. It’s possible that he may have even changed his name or gotten plastic surgery or something to avoid detection… in any case, I guess I’ll kill him if I find him, though it’s not going to be a priority.

Speaking of ghettos down south, we came across a group of very unseemly looking gentlecolts near the Chestnut Tree Inn.

“We seem to have come across a group of very unseemly looking gentlecolts,” said Dmitry as we noticed them on the horizon. “Should we take the exit ramp and continue down one of the streets?”

So we did just that. We got off the highway and began taking one of the city streets southward instead, selecting 82nd street because of its relative distance from the unseemly gentlecolts on the freeway and because its great width prevented us from being ambushed by bandits.

Hawberry Avenue was an unassuming side street branching off of 82nd. Farther west it was a major thoroughfare, even having the distinction of having its own bridge across the river downtown. However, this far east it was just another two lane street among the banks of densely packed cottages that characterized the city’s urban sprawl. On one corner sat a used car dealership. On the other, a small florist’s shop that looked like it was run by hipsters. Across the street was an oriental grocery store and a tire store. Behind the tire store sat a small yard full of used tires, set alight by an arsonist, which mysteriously continued to burn in spite of the cold weather and recent snowfall.

This was the neighborhood we had stopped to rest this afternoon. Grapevine went into the florist to poke around and came out five minutes later with reports of a working toilet. Each of us took turns using the toilet while the others sat outside and speculated on the age of the tire fire and whether or not it preceded the bombs. I was in a rather generous mood at that moment, so I let Grapevine and Dmitry go first, in that order, before I took my turn. It should be noted that Grapevine took quite a long time to do her business, somewhere between fifteen or twenty minutes, but came out looking like nothing had happened and giving evasive answers to our questioning.

The bathroom part was quick, but afterward I took a deeper look at the shop itself. From the front windows it had appeared cluttered, with several overgrown potted flowers of various colors. Inside, however, the store seemed barren, displaying its wares on low tables made of light wood, and with minimal decoration save for a few dusty marble statues and a large image depicting a computer generated Manehattan with a reddish atmosphere and harbor. The flowers on the tables were somewhat overgrown, but not too much-- their branches and leaves mostly just draped down the sides of the display tables. The walls were painted a hot pink, and the floor made of linoleum tiles-- half black, half the same color as the walls-- arranged in a checkerboard pattern. The ceiling was also painted hot pink like the walls, and its white fluorescent lights burning with a sterile glow that was-- wait, why are the lights on?

Some slow, tranquil, dreamy, and somewhat hypnotic shopping music began to play, and a mysterious vapor filled the room. I sniffed it and smelled a sharp citrus scent. It was sweet and refreshing, so I took a deeper whiff, before furiously exhaling it when I began to suspect it was a trap.

“Doo, doo doo, do do do do do, dooo dooooo….doooo dooooo….” a soft voice cooed. I looked towards the clerk’s counter at the end of the display room and saw a pink pony with a purple mane lying on the counter and wearing a set of skimpy white lingerie like the kind they use in banner ads for second-rate fantasy MMO’s.

“What?” I asked, deeply confused by all of this.

“Come play, my lord!” she said in a seductive voice. “It’s free forever!”

“Wha-aa… this doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “I’m not even a--”

“You don’t have to be,” she said, then in a flash of light she suddenly transformed into a beefy red stallion. “I can.”

“What? No!”

“Or I can be both,” she continued, transforming into a changeling, then back into herself, but wearing very androgynous clothing. “Or neither.”

“No,” I said more firmly. I began moving towards the door. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I want no part in it. Go find another john, you dirty whore.”

She put up some puppy eyes, as if I had hurt her feelings, but the look was as fake as plastic. I continued backing towards the door. Then she suddenly teleported between me and the door, taking the appearance of a young yellow filly wearing a white apron, a red bow in her mane, and more puppy eyes.

“Filly… Applebloom?”

The shopping music playing in the background suddenly sped up into an upbeat dance tune as the filly began singing.

I looked at her, then I looked at the door. I looked back at her, and she just stood there smiling. Then I tried to open the door, but it was locked.

“...The fuck?” I said. “Let me outta here!”

Then the music slowed down again, to the psychedelic pace.

‘Applebloom’ drew close, rubbing her body against mine. Her apron had been replaced with a leather suit, and her bow had also been replaced, with a leather one.

Then I felt something heavy drop onto my back, and I fell to the floor.

I was about to scream, when a hoof plugged my mouth and the pony softly whispered,

“Shhhhhh… just let it happen. It’ll all be over soon.”

I began to feel very sleepy.

“Wha--aa-- what are you doing?” I asked.

“Oh, just teaching you a lesson,” she began.

“You act like you’re guided by some greater purpose. You aren’t. You think this little mission of yours is going to make a difference? It's not. Just like the last one, you'll go in expecting one thing but find another. And what happens when you don't get what you set out to get? Failure, that's what happens. Everything in this world is a game of chance, and you've been on one long losing streak ever since you were twelve.”

“You go from goal to goal, place to place, wandering aimlessly throughout your life. You've always been this way. The apocalypse hasn't changed anything, you're still stick here, drifting from place to place. You have no connections, you've never fit in, you've never done anything right, you've never accomplished anything of note. All this time you've had your family to cover for you, to tell you otherwise, to trick you into thinking you were special. You /are/ special, but in special as in 'retarded,' not gifted. Why would they do this, you ask? We both know that you know the answer. These are your thoughts, not mine.”

“Am I even real? Is anything real? Or am I just a voice in your head, telling you things, making you hallucinate, to see and feel all kinds of things that are normally alien to you. Or maybe I'm just some all-seeing, all-knowing monster who thrives on torture, one who digs into your deepest, darkest thoughts, especially the ones you just want to forget and suppress, and then parrot them back to you, bypassing your defensive walls to confirming your worst fears.”
This is our world now. And by 'our,' I don't mean you. I mean me, my daddy, the raiders, the bandits, the mobs, the gangs, the psychopaths, the monsters, the mutants, the zombies, even the windigos. Yes, windigos. This is our world, completely free of any arbitrary standards of morality or codes of law. And it's our job to keep it that way. You're welcome to join us if you like. Otherwise, you'd better just stay out of our fucking way, okay?”

Then everything went dark.

I woke up groggy and delirious, uncertain if I was still dreaming or had come back to reality. My limbs felt clunky and cumbersome to move, but I managed to stand up straight and have a look around. It was dark in the florist shop, and there was no light save for what little came in through the windows. It appeared to be evening, and the place looked like it had been abandoned for years.

I found Dmitry and Grapevine outside skipping pebbles across a large puddle.I stood there for a few moments, groggily waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light and trying to get my bearings. Eventually Dmitry noticed me.

"Hey," he said.

"What... time is it?" I asked.

"Five o'clock," he replied without even looking at his watch.

This was shocking news to me.

"Holy fuck!" I cried in exasperation. "It's been that long?"

"Yeah," said Grapevine. "Had a nice nap?"

"It wasn't a nap!" I snapped. "I was unconscious!"

"Ya don't need to get all defensive about it," she said.

Upon hearing this, Dmitry became concerned.

"Whoa. Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm... fine," I said. "Really, I'm fine."

"Sampling the merchandise, were ya?" Grapevine teased. "Don't worry, I've done that too many times to count. Who wouldn't?"

"No, I wasn't 'sampling,'" I protested. "Well, not deliberately."

"How do you not deliberately sample it?" asked Dmitry with an air of suspicion. "What, did a salespony just jump out of the shadows and give you a hard sell?"

"Not exactly," I said. "That would actually be kind of an understatement. Come on, I'll explain it while we walk."

We started on our journey again as I explained what had happened, in very general and non-specific terms. With my mention of the pink pony, Grapevine grew excited and asked lots of questions, but Dmitry became concerned and advised that we quicken our pace of travel.

We went several blocks southward before the question of tonight's lodgings arose. It became imperative as the sky seemed to get slightly more orange with every minute, indicating sunset. We eventually settled on a sketchy-looking extended stay motel called 'The Unicorn Inn' because it was the only hotel in sight and because we thought the name was cool.

In retrospect, we might have been satisficing. We could have gone down any of the side streets and found a plethora of houses to choose from, but we weren't thinking about that and ended up choosing this. I suppose it doesn't actually matter, though we would probably feel a bit guilty if we just broke into somepony's house and slept on their bed, even if their house was completely abandoned. Their houses are still filled with their personal stuff, after all, which I definitely feel guilty about using. It’s strange how we still feel that those who are long gone are still somehow entitled to privacy over possessions that they no longer use. With this feeling, sleeping in hotels makes you feel a lot less guilt since they’re intended for transient stays such as ours. However, I still wonder if breaking into somepony’s house would have been a better idea.
Why do I say this? Well, instead of grabbing the first room that was convenient for us, we had to go through the entire hotel and look for the room that was the least bad. Seriously. Virtually all of the rooms smelled of drugs or tobacco to some extent, which Grapevine could identify using only smell (She admitted having "firsthoof experience" with most of the substances OUTSIDE of her professional work). I caught Dmitry wavering near the in-room telephones several times, admitting that he couldn't help but feel the urge to call the cops for a drug bust.

Aside from the smell, the rooms were fairly no-frills. The furniture was fairly old, and much of it broken, but the pieces that weren't were serviceable. There were a lot of stains on the walls, the carpets, and even the 'clean' sheets. It took over half an hour to find a room that was suitable, but the time wasn't all lost; in the meantime we had developed a comprehensive rating system for assessing the livability of sketchy motel rooms (A detailed outline will be provided at the end of this entry).

Once we got settled, concerns immediately turned to dinner. Given the kind of neighborhood we were in, it was unanimously agreed that we needed to get something close by, especially since it was pretty dark outside by the time we were ready to eat. Luckily, there was a seafood place right next door. While I was initially somewhat skeptical about the healthiness of eating seafood way past its expiration date, it had been a long time since I'd last eaten any, so I agreed on the condition that we wouldn't eat any clams, mussels, scallops, or "Anything else with a shell." Grapevine asked, "Well, what about crustaceans?" and I replied that crustaceans were fine, just nothing that looks like a clam.

We were able to get a fire going with Grapevine's flamethrower, but she was starting to run low on fuel. It was decided that tomorrow we should keep our eyes peeled for any hardware stores where we could potentially acquire some more flamer fuel or "a suitable substitute." Once we got the fire going, Grapevine showed off her cooking skills by making us some shrimp gumbo. She rattled off a list of spices, which I objected to adding, but she insisted were necessary ingredients to any proper gumbo, so I went off to look for them. After searching up and down the restaurant, I couldn’t find any spices, except for a rack where I presume they were supposed to be. However, somepony had stolen all of the spices, leaving nothing but an empty container of paprika and half a pound of salt. On a nearby shelf, the presumed thief had left a few lines of salt arranged in thin lines in the shape of a baseball and a screw...

...Which Grapevine suddenly ingested through her a straw, thinking it was... something else. I kept thinking about that image throughout the night as I kneaded the dough for the matzah balls (which Grapevine insisted was a key part of the gumbo recipe). What did it mean? It was likely a cuite mark that the thief had left as their personal mark on the crime, although it may have also been a pictoral message. Telling us what? That we had been thrown a curveball? That were screwed?

This question remained on my mind for the rest of the night, until just a few minutes ago, while I was on watch duty and my friends were asleep, giving me some quiet time alone to think about it. That picture, it was a cutie mark! It was the cutie mark of that pink pony in the shop, who, come to think of it, looked awfully familiar, a lot like that other pony we met a few days ago…

That one who called herself ‘Katie Casey.’

Progress to Next Level: 325/2500

Stats:
Ponies Led: 2
Puzzle Pieces Collected: 2
Price of Silver: 7 bits per Troy Ounce