Dear Diary,

For the second time in my life, I woke up not in a bed or a sleeping bag, but on the cold, hard floor. Looking around at my dimly lit surroundings, I found myself in a small concrete bunker, the only adornments being the iron pipes which clambered up the otherwise barren walls. It was cold too, lacking any source of heating or ventilation, and aside from a single steel hatch, it offered us little protection from the elements of the outside world.

I wasn’t in the Stable anymore, but I wasn’t outside yet either. We had spent the night in a small chamber at the top of a tall spiral staircase which descended into the Stable. It wasn’t the main entrance, but rather one of several “emergency exits” which provided alternatives in the event that the main entrance was blocked, which it was. For some reason, the contractors who built our Stable insisted on adding them, to “Comply with the local building code,” even though they clearly weren’t part of Stable-Tec’s original plan.

I don’t think any of us ever went in thinking we would come out using the emergency exits. When you first come in through the massive gear-shaped steel door, you get the feeling that you’re entering a bank vault: tough and durable, able to survive the most extreme conditions with only minor damage to its exterior, and absolutely none to the contents inside. You think that one day either you or your descendants will emerge from the Stable, its door opening much the same way as it did when you entered it except in reverse, but still completely intact after however many years, at an age when all other doors of the same size and material would have been pried or rusted open long ago.

And of course, if there had been only one entrance to the Stable, then what would we dwellers do if it had been blocked? Even if the door itself never breaks, what about the tunnel connecting it to the outside world? I mean, I understand that the purpose of having a Stable in the first place is to protect us from the outside world, but is it really such a good idea to risk trapping everypony inside forever just to keep a few rads out?

Thank Celestia for fire escapes. We still had a way out-- we can finally leave! We can be free of the stable and return to the surface, breathe the fresh air, and rid ourselves of this twisted experiment in pony habitation… at least, the three of us.

You see, I kind of destroyed part of the staircase while we were leaving. I had to-- there was no other choice. We can’t afford to let what’s taken over the Stable infect the rest of the world. Although it blocks off the only escape route I know of, I know there are others. Unfortunately, they’re pretty well hidden, and hardly anypony knows they even exist in the first place. I just hope they can hold out against the madness, at least for another two weeks, so we can go out there and find help. There has to be something, something out there in this wide, wide world that can help us reclaim the stable, or at least what’s left of it.

“Come on, wake up!” I said, nudging one of my sleeping companions awake. I gently rubbed a forehoof through her poofy purple mane, then lightly jabbed her belly and its semi-fluffy light green coat.

“Noooooo,” she moaned, rolling over so her back was facing me and curling up into a ball.

“Come on, Grapevine,” I said, jabbing her harder. “We’ve got to go.”

“Just five more minutes,” she whined, somewhat incoherently, through the combination of an otherwise perky southern accent and drowsiness. I responded with an exasperated sigh.

“Fine,” I said. “Five more minutes. But if you’re not up by then, I’m leaving without you.”

I started walking to the massive blast door and stopped right in front of it. Fishing a plain blue cloth and a black hair tie out of my saddlebags, I cleaned my glasses as well as I could and pulled my medium-length blonde hair into a ponytail. I think it goes well with my slate grey coat, although ponies keep saying I look like a certain imbecilic delivery pony who I’d rather not be compared to. I probably look horrible right now given that I spent a good portion of last night running from crazy ponies trying to kill me, but I suppose that’s not much different from my usual look. The fillies at school used to call me frumpy, which I resented, but never bothered to do anything to make them think otherwise.

Next I put on some clothes. In addition to the rubbery stable jumpsuit I was already wearing (standard issue clothing down in the stable,) and my lucky necklace (a silver pendant shaped like a bullet; my mom had a sense of humor), I put on my trusty old evergreen trench coat and a parka on top of that, a beanie, brown leather gloves, black leather boots, and a scarf. It’s a bit much, but I’ll need the extra padding until we get down from the mountains. I’ll remove the beanie, scarf, and parka once we get low enough, depending on the temperature.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the door was the blinding light of the outside. I adjusted to this quickly, however, because it wasn’t nearly as bright as it had been the last time I was on the surface. The second thing I noticed was just how big the sky was. This wasn’t the first time I had seen the sky, but after nearly a year of living in an underground bunker, you kind of become used to living in a hole in the ground. The third thing I noticed was the frigid coldness of the air. Not just any kind of cold air, but freezing cold air. Almost like stepping into a freezer, except way bigger. Then I took my first step and panicked as I slipped and fell on some ice, landing hard on my tailbone.

“Owww! Oww Oww Oww Oww!” I shouted (rather quietly), wincing in pain. It took a good minute or two until I was finally able to get back up again, very slowly, as my plot was still in searing pain. A part of me was a bit irked that the pony standing at the edge of the cliff didn’t see me fall or ask if I was okay. However, I could understand why he didn’t: first, the whistling of the wind was very loud up here, so it would be hard for him to hear me. Second, I knew, and he knew, that I’m the type of pony who doesn’t like to draw unnecessary attention to herself, especially when it’s something as minor as me getting an injury. And third, well, I would have just said, “I’m fine,” if anypony did ask if I was okay.

When the pain in my butt had settled down to a point where I could start to walk, I did so, albeit very slowly, over to the pony who was gazing at the scenery from the edge of the cliff.

Only, he wasn’t a pony; he was a changeling, a member of a race of black buglike shapeshifting pony-like creatures from a foreign land. Most ponies are frightened by them, and I must admit I still find them a bit creepy myself, (especially when they’re in their natural form!) but I’ve known this particular one for quite some time, and grown used to his company.

As I grew near, he turned his head and asked me, “Well? Is she coming?”

“Soon,” I replied. “It’s frustrating, having to mother somepony who’s almost twice your age. And to think, she used to be my boss!”

The changeling chuckled. Then he said,

“You’re almost eighteen now,” he said. “You should start expecting to have responsibility over other ponies.”

“Yeah,” I said, “But she should at least be able to wake herself up in the morning.”

“We all had a rough night last night,” the changeling assuaged. “And concrete floors make terrible beds. You can’t blame her if she wants to sleep in.”

“I know,” I sighed, “But we can’t just stay here. We’ve got to get moving. With all this snow and ice on the ground, it might take us three days to get out of this forest.”

“I understand that you want to get moving as soon as possible,” he said calmly, “But you have to learn to wait for others. Not every pony is as goal-driven as you are.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the squeak of steel hinges, an enormous yawn, and the sound of hooves plopping into the snow. The two of us turned around and saw Grapevine, now awake and ready.

“Ya know, ah still can’t believe you were a changelin’ this whole time,” she said.

“Well, I am,” said the changeling. “How’d I do?”

“You sure had me fooled,” replied Grapevine, “And I think ya had everypony else down there fooled too.”

“Thanks,” he said, glowingly. “That was the longest I’d ever gone in a disguise.”

“And yer sure Silver Bullet ain’t a changeling too?” she asked, eyeing me with suspicion.

“No,” I said with a twinge of annoyance. “I’m a unicorn and nothing but.”

“So…” Grapevine continued, “the whole him bein’ yer father thing… that was just…”

“Part of the ruse,” said my changeling ‘father.’ “Really, I’m an honest pony… well, I try to be… but sometimes we have to sacrifice our morals just to survive.”

“And you were okay with it?” Grapevine asked me. I nodded.

“Well, it was a little bit strange,” I admitted, “Especially considering that when we first met he threatened me at gunpoint,” I replied, “But then we figured out a way to make it work: he let me do whatever I wanted, and in return I’d play along with the charade.”

“Sounds more like a classic case of Stockholm syndrome,” she said.

“You could say that…” I said. “But he really isn’t a bad guy. Besides, it was either move in with him or get put under the custody of somepony else, being a minor and all...”

“Guys, we can talk about this later?” said the changeling. “We should get moving.”

“Right,” said Grapevine. “But where are we goin’, anyways?”

“First we should go down to the parking lot in front of the Stable’s main entrance and search for supplies,” I said, “Then work our way towards the ski resort. Once we get there, we’ll head west. ”

“Good idea,” said Grapevine, gazing blankly into the distance. “Ah don’t know where any of those places are, but it sounds like a plan.”

“Our pipbucks can help us navigate,” said the changeling, holding up the portable computer attached to his hoof. “If not, we can always find a map.”

Grapevine peered over the cliff.

“An’ how are we gonna get down this mountain?”

“This way,” I said, leading the way. “I know a part that isn’t as steep where we can climb down.”

Grapevine looked at the changeling in confusion. Equally as confused, he shrugged and started to follow me. After a few seconds, Grapevine started to follow me too.

The hike down the mountain was slow and fraught with danger. With snow and ice everywhere, we had to be extremely careful with our movements (to avoid further injury), and we almost slipped several times. Fortunately we made it down in three pieces, though we had to throw all our saddlebags down the mountainside to ease our descent. Then we had to find where our saddlebags landed when we got to the bottom. We eventually did find them again, but after their tumble down the mountainside they were all damp and covered in snow.

“Ugh, so heavy!” Grapevine said as she tugged on the strap of one of the bags, trying to pull it off the ground. “None of us are particularly strong. Did we really have to pack ‘em to the brim with stuff?”

“Yes,” I said. “Raiding the armory and the cafeteria was the best decision we ever made. We have plenty of guns for defense and hunting, and we’ve got enough food, water, and medicine to last us the whole trip, or at least until we reach a city where we can scavenge for more. I don’t know of any other Stable ponies who can say they’re half as prepared as we are.”

“But is all this really necessary?” she asked. “I mean, we’ve got four types of pistols an’ half a dozen hunting rifles each.”

“We need to pack multiples in case they break down,” I said. “Trust me, we have all the weapons we’ll ever need. There’s no guarantee we’ll find more in good condition.”

“We can also trade them for supplies,” the changeling added.

“With all this firepower, it’s more efficient to just rob them,” I said. He shot me a glare.

“But we aren’t going to do that, right?” he said in a half-scolding sarcastic tone. I was a bit taken aback by his reaction.

“No, it was a joke,” I said flatly.

“It better be,” he replied, walking over to his saddlebags. He knelt down and yanked them out of the ground, tossing them into the air in a way that would ensure they landed squarely on his back. They did, but the sensation startled him.

“Ugh, so cold!” he groaned. “Just how cold is it, anyway?”

Grapevine checked her pipbuck’s temperature sensor.

“It’s about… 238.52 kelvin.”

“Kelvin?” asked a confused changeling.

“Oh, sorry,” said Grapevine, rapidly adjusting the settings on her pipbuck. “Okay, -38.63 degrees Celsius.”

“Can you give it to me in Marenheit?” asked the changeling.

“Ah’m a chemist,” replied Grapevine. “Why would I do that?”

“It’s thirty below zero,” I said, reading from my pipbuck. “Marenheit,” I added for clarification.

“The average temperature in this region at this time of year would be around 25 degrees Celsius,” interjected Grapevine, “or about 77 degrees Fahrenheit for y’all non-metric plebeians, or roughly 298.15 kelvin, so if ya do the math you could say that it’s…. twenty percent cooler... than it was this time a year ago! Eh?”

The changeling didn’t get the joke. I did, but instead of being amused I facehoofed.

“We can make weather jokes later,” I said, walking away. “Right now we have somewhere to get to.”

My companions ended the conversation and followed behind me.

We stumbled around the forest for half an hour. Even though our pipbucks had both a ‘world’ and ‘local’ settings, the ‘world’ map was mostly blank and had no labels except for ‘Stable’ and ‘Secret Access Hatch 12.’ Obviously this wasn’t very helpful, so I used my memory and sense of direction to guide us forward. Eventually I stumbled upon across a narrow dirt vehicle trail called ‘Access Road #872’ and followed it back towards the mountain. Although the ground was covered entirely in snow, the road and topography markers on my pipbuck’s map and the clearing between the trees showed me where to go. Eventually the road led us to a parking lot in front of a high mountain cliff, surrounded by a chain link fence. The sign above the main gate read:

The changeling tried to pick the lock, but to no avail because it was frozen shut. Grapevine got out her flamethrower and tried to melt it, but burned it to a cinder in the process. With the lock now broken, we went in.

Inside the parking lot were the busses Stable-Tec had used to get the ponies out of the city, plus a few other vehicles. There was also one of those portable office trailers off to the side that was probably left there by the contractors who built the Stable. Protruding into the middle of the cliff that the far end of the lot there was a large cave sealed by another chain link gate. Deep within this cave stood the massive gear-shaped steel door of Stable 76, the great vault where we thought we would live out the next few decades of our lives, or possibly the rest of our lives, depending on when the surface was determined to be inhabitable again. I’m pretty sure we had soaked up quite a bit of radiation from our little trek in the snow, so obviously this was not the right time to return to the surface, but things don’t always go as planned.

Now here we were, outside of our Stable and beloved home. Maybe someday we would return, but after the events of the past few weeks, life in the Stable would never be the same again. We definitely can’t go back now, because the situation hasn’t improved, and unless we can do something about it, it’s only going to get worse, if such a thing is even possible.

We entered the portable office, this time managing to pick the lock without completely destroying it, and hung up our coats to dry while we ate lunch. There was some food in this building, but everything that wasn’t laden with preservatives had spoiled. Thus, our lunch was a delicious yet unnaturally sweet meal of Sparkle Cola, potato chips, Dandy Buck Apples, and Fancy Buck’s Snack Cakes. Yum.

“Ya know, ah never really got yer name,” said Grapevine between bites. “And ah really should, given we’re gonna be travelin’ together.”

“Dmitry Belka, at your service,” said the changeling with a bow. “But my friends just call me ‘Didi.’”

“’Dmitry,’ huh?” said Grapevine. “That’s a weird name. Kind of… unponylike.”

“Grapevine!” I chided. “That’s kind of rude.”

“It’s alright,” said Dmitry. “I get that all the time.”

Then after a sip of his Sparkle Cola, he added,

“My parents were immigrants. It’s actually quite a common name where they’re from.”

“And where’s that?” asked Grapevine.

“Changica,” replied Dmitry. “I’ve never been there myself, but my parents told stories about it all the time.”

“Ye’ll have to tell us some of them stories sometime,” said Grapevine, getting up to leave. “But fer now, ah’m gonna go see what’s in that other room.”

And with that she dashed off into the adjacent room and slammed the door.

“Is she… always like that?” asked Dmitry.

“Yeah, pretty much,” I said with a shrug. “Predictable as a parasprite.”

Dmitry shrugged too, finished his lunch, then said,

“I’m going to go out and loot those busses to see if there’s anything valuable inside. Wanna come?”

“No thanks,” I replied. “It’s too cold out there.”

“Alright,” he said as he got up. “Suit yourself.”

And then he left. I remained in silence for a few minutes finishing my lunch, and just as I had finished, the door to the adjacent office opened and Grapevine stumbled back in, looking somewhat hazy, and sat down in a chair.

“Found anything?” I asked, somewhat puzzled as to what took her so long.

“Nope!” Grapevine chirped, followed by a giggle. “Well, nothin’ useful.”

I preoccupied myself for the next few minutes trying to hack a computer terminal while Dmitry broke into the busses and Grapevine sat in her chair staring off into space. Now, I’m no computer expert, but hacking computers isn’t nearly as difficult as it seems. Back in the stable, Dmitry taught me a method that hardly required any programming knowledge at all – however it’s extremely time consuming because it’s mostly guesswork.

Basically what you do is start the computer and type in these really obscure commands or whatever and it opens this program called DEBUG/ACCOUNTS.F, which fills the screen with gibberish. Hidden somewhere among this gibberish is the correct password, and you only have four tries to guess it before it locks you out permanently.

Now here's the thing: you can restart the computer to replenish your tries. Shutting the computer off and turning it back on again after every three tries is tedious, but it still beats getting locked out forever. Keep doing that over and over again and, like a monkey on a typewriter, you’ll crack the code… eventually. It really puts the ‘monkey’ into ‘code monkey,’ because any noob can do it.

Wow, no wonder why so many corporate and military secrets got leaked during the war- it’s because the security on these things sucks! I wonder if the programmers even knew about this? Surely they had to, but then why didn’t they fix it? I don’t even get the point of the DEBUG/ACCOUNTS.F application, anyway. What does it even do? It seems like all it does is serves as a loophole for hackers like—

“Hey guys!” cried Dmitry, poking his head back in through the door. “Check this out!”

We followed him outside and to the end of the row of busses, and behind the last bus was this great big black SUV— the kind all my neighbors used to park in the driveways of their McMansions to show how rich they were.

“Pretty neat, huh?” he asked. “I forged a copy of the key using some bobby pins. And guess what? It works!”

“Wooooieeee!” cried Grapevine. “ROAD TRIP! I call shotgun!”
And with that she flung open the door and hopped in. Dmitry and I stayed outside for a few seconds looking at the car, me looking it over and him admiring it.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, now looking at me.

“I have a feeling we’re not supposed to do this,” I said.

“Do you object to me hijacking this car?” he asked.

“No, it’s not that,” I replied. “It’s just that… I have a gut feeling that we’re breaking some sort of unwritten rule or something...”

“Hey,” he said, wrapping a hoof around me. “We only need this vehicle for a few days, maybe two or three weeks at most. What are the chances that whoever owns it will come out of the stable looking for it during that time? Or… ever?”

I glanced nervously back at the car. There was only one pony I could think of who would put ‘RMAGEDN’ on his license plate, and he certainly wouldn’t be coming back.

I shrugged the feeling off and climbed through the passenger door.

Inside the SUV was nice and dry. Still cold, but not nearly as cold as the outside.

“This is great!” I heard Grapevine exclaim. “With this baby we’ll be outta this dang forest in no time!”

“Alright, fasten your seatbelts everypony!” said Dmitry as he turned his makeshift key in the ignition. “It’s go time!”

“Woooo-hoooooo!” yelled Grapevine, throwing her forehooves up into the air.

“We aren’t even moving yet,” I told her.

“Ah know,” she said, “But this is just soooo excitiiiiiinnnnnggggg!”

“Alright, now to figure out how this thing actually works,” said Dmitry. “It has one of those fancy computer systems that all the new cars have, and apparently it has GPS too.”

“Great,” I said. “Plug in the coordinates for ‘Sandy Shades.’”

“Okay,” he said, typing the letters into the GPS. “’Sandy Shades.’ Enter.”

“DESTINATION SET FOR: SANDY SHADES,” said the GPS in a feminine computerized voice. “CALCULATING ROUTE.”

We waited a minute as the GPS calculated the route. While this function normally would have been completed in a couple of seconds, the GPS was taking a lot longer than that.

“RECALCULATING… RECALCULATING…” said the GPS.

After about a minute or so it timed out.

“ERROR: COULD NOT FIND SATELLITE SIGNAL. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY AGAIN?”

“The cloud cover’s too thick,” I said. “I doubt it’ll work in this weather anyway. Hit ‘No.’”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to navigate the old fashioned way,” said Dmitry. “I’m sure we can find our way.”

Then he put the SUV in reverse and pressed his hoof down on the gas pedal.

The wheels began to turn, but we still weren’t moving.

“The wheels are stuck,” said Grapevine. “Go faster!”

Dmitry slammed on the gas pedal, which made the wheels turn even faster, but the SUV still didn’t move.

“Does this thing have chains or anything?” asked Grapevine.

“Um…. No,” admitted Dmitry.

“How about studded tires?” she asked.

“I… don’t think so…” said Dmitry. “But I’m sure we could find some snow shovels around here and—”

“Forget it,” I scoffed, unbuckling my seatbelt. “That’ll take too long. And even if we could get it working, I doubt there’ll be any working coolant stations out there. Let’s just loot the car and continue on hoof.”

Disappointedly, Dmitry turned off the engine and got out. Grapevine rifled through the glove compartment while I checked the seat pockets and the trunk. I’m not sure if she found anything besides the vehicle registration papers, but at least I was able to find a road map and a first aid kit.

Then the three of us headed back down the access road in the direction of the ski lodge. Trudging through the snow was hard work, especially in the places where the snow was knee-deep. We filled most of the afternoon bantering about, of all things, the weather, and why things were acting so weird lately.

I swear that, at exactly this same time last year, it wasn’t this bad. Normally, the weather in Equestria is manipulated by the pegasi weather teams, through methods ranging from complex machines and such to actions as simple as moving clouds by hoof, to ensure a balanced ecosystem, prevent disasters, and optimize agricultural output. Granted, the weather’s always been a bit wild here in our little corner of Equestria, and during the war, a lot of the ponypower was drafted and sent to the battlefield, and as a result, functions like weather manipulation were neglected. But even without the weather teams, what we have here is ridiculous! Even in the dead of winter, we rarely get subzero temperatures, so for it to be this cold in the beginning of September is unheard of! I’m certain this is a record low for our region, if there are still ponies keeping records, and I can’t see this ever happening again.

Now that I think about it, the cloud cover might have something to do with it. For it to be so thick and so opaque, so omnipresent and overbearing, and not a single break in it all day. I haven’t seen the sun at all today! It makes me wonder if it’s still there at all, whether it’s still being maintained, or if it too has lapsed into disarray. Grapevine says we’ve entered another ice age, and that it’s going to stay like this for quite some time. Dmitry doesn’t think it’s that bad, but he agrees that something’s off. I hope it doesn’t get that bad, and that this might just be an isolated incident unique to our area, but I’m not so sure.

We eventually reached the Timberwolf Highway late in the afternoon. Although the highway was covered in snow, it was much bigger than the access road, and was thus more clearly defined. The various signs which appeared every so often warning us of important hazards and landmarks up ahead told us that we were now on the road well-traveled, and that it was only a matter of time before we reached civilization. Also, unlike the access road, the highway was actually paved.

However, seeing these signs of pony life just made Grapevine sad.

“What if we’re the only ones left?” she asked in a quiet, despondent. “On the surface, I mean. Of course the ponies in the Stables are all fine, but what if the surface is just one big radioactive deathtrap? I mean, we’ve been walkin’ all day and haven’t seen a single pony.”

“But we know there are ponies out here,” I said. “The Stable made contact with some HAM radio operators back in March.”

“Yeah, they told us a buncha tall tales like dog-sized scorpions an’ glowin’ green rain,” she replied. “How do we know they weren’t just some punks in our Stable tryin’a trick us into thinkin’ they were survivors outside?”

“Well...” I began, but couldn’t come up with an argument. She had a point.

“Or, what if there were survivors back then but they’ve all since died from the radiation?” she continued. “I mean, we haven’t seen anypony all day. Are we walkin’ into our deathbeds?”

“We haven’t seen any ponies yet because we’re in the middle of nowhere,” Dmitry said. “I’m sure plenty of ponies survived, just like we survive everything else.”

“Yeah!” I said. “Do you have any idea how many refrigerators there are in Equestria?”

We all laughed at that. But by some strange twist of fate, our laughter had summoned a small group of ponies-- about five or so-- who had jumped out from behind some bushes and trees. They were thin as rails, dressed in rags, and looked like they had been through hell and back. They didn’t look too happy to see us, but that didn’t matter because the three of us were just happy to learn that this new world wasn’t just an empty void… until we noticed they had weapons drawn. Knives, broken bottles, and battered old pistols that looked like they barely worked weren’t much of a threat, but a threat was still a threat.

“D-D-Don’t move!” said a periwinkle unicorn mare with a soft and quiet voice, who stood in front and seemed to be their leader. “This is a holdup. Just give us all your food and there won’t be any trouble!”

I could see in her wide eyes and the shaky telekinetic grip on her pistol that she didn’t like the situation any more than I did. Now don’t get me wrong-- I was scared too-- but seeing how hesitant she was made me somewhat less worried. I decided to test her by stepping forward. She flinched and almost stepped back, but then remembered what she was doing and stubbornly stood her ground.

“I said give it up!” she said, this time a bit louder and mustering all her forcefulness (which wasn’t much). “Don’t move another inch, or I’ll… I’ll… shoot you!”

“Oh, really?” I said, whipping my weapon, a handy IF-64 assault rifle, and pointing it towards her. I glanced behind me and saw that Dmitry and Grapevine had also procured their weapons, another assault rifle and a flamethrower, respectively. I then stared the mare down with a smirk.

“Did you really think it was a good idea to threaten us?” I asked.

She tried but failed to think of a response, so she just shut her eyes tightly and pulled the trigger. Fortunately, her marksmanship was pretty bad. My eye tracked the bullet as it flew past and landed in the snow a hundred yards behind me. I looked back at her. Perhaps if I were a more arrogant pony I would have uttered some sly comment about the situation. But I’m not that kind of pony, so I just opened fire instead.

The periwinkle mare leapt out of the way and into the bushes, allowing the pony behind her to take the shots instead. I kept the trigger down as I moved the barrel to try to hit her as she leapt, but she was too fast and I sprayed another of her companions with lead instead. Dmitry also opened fire and Grapevine jumped forward while shooting flames. Each of them took out a pony on the group’s flanks.

Now three ponies lay on the ground writhing in agony from their bullet wounds as a fourth ran around in circles aimlessly screaming while his body was engulfed in flames. He then turned too sharply and fell over, then rolled around in the snow to extinguish the flames. It worked, but when the frigid snow came into contact with his charred flesh he screamed in immense pain. Then he just curled up and lay there sobbing. The sight was… pathetic beyond words. And really, really sad. It made my heart sink, believe me. Now, I don’t know much about medicine, but I did know that he definitely wasn’t going to survive like that, especially in this weather, without a thorough medical intervention and being carted off to a shelter for several weeks of rest. And I wasn’t about to pull some ‘good samaritan’ shit, especially for a guy who just tried to rob me. However, I did feel for him, so I walked over, pulled out my trusty Mountain Griffon pistol, and put him out of his misery.

With my guilty conscience eased, I turned around and ran into the forest to pursue the leader. She hadn’t gotten far when I tracked her down and tackled her.

“No, please don’t!” she cried as I levitated the pistol to the side of her head. “I had no choice-- I’m not that kind of pony!”

“Only a criminal robs a pony at gunpoint,” I replied.

“I did it to save my children!” she cried.

I heard a small whimpering noise off to the side. I looked and saw four foals, none of them older than ten, and the youngest only about five or so. They stared at me with their big innocent eyes, stunned into silence. Their expressions seemed to say, “Please let mommy go.” It was almost too much to bear, and if any of them had actually said it I might have had to shoot them all right on the spot.

“We were starving. We ran out of food, and you looked like you--”

My head snapped back to lock eyes with the mare.

“Shut up,” I said coldly. “If you really needed food, you could have just asked. But you didn’t, and it’s too late for that now.”

“I’ll do anything, anything you ask!” she said. “Just please, PLEASE spare my children!”

“I won’t harm your children,” I said. “They didn’t do anything wrong… but you did, so you deserve to be punished.”

But how was I going to punish her? She didn’t have anything of value, and even if she did I didn’t have room to carry it. There wasn’t anything she could do for me, either… well, except for the unthinkable. She deserved at least a week in a cell, but there weren’t any cells around and anything less would be a slap on the wrist.

I cocked my pistol. The mare was startled.

“No! Don’t kill me! How on earth will they survive without me?”

I took a deep breath and thought about it for a moment. The kids didn’t deserve to be orphaned, especially in a place like this. They were too young to take care of themselves. Without a guardian, they were probably just going to wander around in the woods until they froze to death. Even if they did manage to survive, the psychological scars would fuck them for life. Not even the naughtiest foal deserved to be deprived of a loving mother. Few ponies know that better than I do.

“Alright, I’ll let you live… for them.”

I lowered my gun.

“Oh, thank you. Sweet Celestia, thank you!” the mare cried. “Alright kids, come this way. Let’s get out of here before...”

I took a closer look at the kids. They seemed very thin and skeletal.

“Wait,” I said. They stopped and turned around. I reached into my saddlebags and fished out five of my six boxes of Saddlesbury Steak.

The joy on the foals’ faces could make anypony melt.

“I hope you aren’t vegetarians,” I said as I passed the boxes over.

“No we aren’t,” the mare replied. “In this weather, we can’t afford to be.”

“Good, they need more iron and calcium,” I said, glancing back at the kids, then back at her. “Maybe instead of robbing ponies at gunpoint, you should consider begging.”

“We’ve tried that,” she replied. “But most ponies aren’t even half as generous as you. Most just ignore us. And the last time, my oldest almost got foalnapped, so...”

While she was talking, I noticed a large protrusion from her belly. From afar, I thought it was just malnutrition, but then I noticed something was moving around within. I gave her my last Saddlesbury Steak and one hundred rounds of ammo that I’m pretty sure she didn’t have the gun to use.

“Go down to the valley and find a doctor to take care of that thing.”

It was up to her to decide what to do with it, though I can’t for the life of me wonder why anypony would want to keep it in a place like this. At least, if you were alone…

Alone.

As I watched them walk away, I realized that the ponies I had just killed were probably family members, or at least close friends. What the hell was I thinking? It’s gonna be damn hard for them to survive with only one adult. At least she’s herding them in a detour away from the corpses, but… of course they’ll remember. And what the heck do they think of me, some kind of monster who saves them from starvation just to doom them to more starvation later?

“What have I done?” I asked. “Oh, what the everloving fuck have I done?”

I heard hoofsteps plodding through the snow, but I didn’t care. Soon, a pony knelt down beside me and placed his gentle forehoof on my back.

When I returned to the road, I began scooping up the bodies and rolling them off the side of the road. We would have to come back this way tomorrow and I didn’t want to be reminded of what had happened here today. It would also give the kids a head start so we wouldn’t have to meet again. Once everything had been cleared from the road except the blood, it looked a lot less like the scene of a homicide.The alibi I would tell myself tomorrow about a hunting party now seemed believable enough, allowing us to begin on the final leg of today’s trek.

I took a deep breath and watched as the air wafted into the air like smoke. It was definitely starting to get colder, just a sneak peak of what nightfall would bring. I shivered at the thought of what was yet to come.

“It’s getting cold,” I said. “We should really get--”

Grapevine gently pulled the trigger down on her flamethrower, releasing a thin, continuous stream of flame that barely escaped the mouth of the thrower.

“Need ta warm your hooves?” she asked.

I glared at her. She smiled sheepishly back. I looked over to the spot where we had both seen the stallion burn to death just minutes before, where little flakes of charred ash still covered the ground. I turned back and glared harder.

“New rule: no more flamethrower until we get out of the forest,” I said. She gave me puppy eyes in return. I rolled my eyes and glared even harder.

“We wouldn’t want to burn down the whole forest, now would we?”

Soon enough, we saw the silhouette of the Timberwolf Lodge, a long multistory building built of pine logs from the surrounding forest, standing against the dying daylight. It was a big log cabin, essentially, albeit one capable of housing hundreds of skiers and providing them with all the amenities they could ever desire. Even though the parking lot was nearly full, there was nopony in sight and the lodge itself seemed eerily quiet. However, the faint light glowing in the windows of the lobby seemed promising. To our surprise, all of our pipbucks emitted a soft ‘beep’ simultaneously. On mine, a small notification appeared which read:

‘Location Discovered: Timberwolf Lodge’

I checked the map. In addition to the previous two, a third icon depicting a bed had appeared on the map.

“Oh, great. Does this mean we have to ‘rediscover’ places we already know?” I asked.

“The world’s probably changed a lot,” said Dmitry. “Some places might be unrecognizable.”

“Maybe it’s sort of a scavenger hunt,” said Grapevine. “Like Stable-Tec’s way of incentivizin’ you to walk around and collect data.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But I don’t wanna collect data right now. I’m getting kind of tired. And cold. Let’s get inside so we can go to sleep.”

We approached the front doors. There was nothing to indicate the lodge was open, but there was nothing to indicate that it was closed either.

“Hello?” Grapevine yelled as she pushed open the front door. “Anypony home? Hellooooo?”

The three of us stepped inside, closing the door behind us. The building was oddly quiet, the only audible sound being the echo of our hoofsteps through the empty lobby. The room itself was a mess, with tables and chairs flipped over, couch cushions mutilated, and blood strewn all over the place.

“Are those… pony legs?” asked Dmitry, looking towards the ceiling. Grapevine and I moved our eyes upward and saw, hanging from a chandelier, several appendages that looked like the rotting legs of several ponies.

“Something’s not right here,” I said.

“Something’s definitely not right,” added Dmitry.

“Can we go somewhere else?” asked Grapevine. “I feel it’s not safe here.”

“We can’t,” I replied. “It’s too dark to travel.”

“It’s also getting colder,” added Dmitry. “Best thing we can do is to rest here until morning.”

“Fine,” groaned Grapevine, “But don’t blame me if some big, fat, scary monster tries to eat us in our sleep.”

We made our way into the lodge’s dining hall, which wasn’t in any better condition. Somepony had taken some blood and a bunch of silverware and made a dartboard out of the ceiling. An ingenious idea, I have to admit, but they had terrible aim. All of the dining tables had been turned on their sides and turned into a makeshift soccer arena, a decapitated pony head serving as the ball. There was also an oddly delicious smell coming from the kitchen.

The kitchen was almost completely covered in blood- the countertops, the floor, the walls—everything except the cooking utensils themselves. For some reason, these were clean— somepony had at least been following part of the provincial food safety guidelines. But the most peculiar thing about the kitchen was that there was a bowl of stew on one of the stovetops: not too hot, not too cold, but just the right temperature for eating.

We helped ourselves and sat down to eat. As far as cooking goes, the stew was okay. It was obvious that the cook hadn’t used any spices, but this was forgivable given the circumstances.

Aside from that, it was also clear that the cook’s skill was mediocre at best, amateur at worst, but far from atrocious. It was clearly a meal that this chef had made before.

But what was most interesting about the stew were its ingredients—or rather, ingredient, as there was only one: meat.

Now, this may sound weird from an Equestrian, but I’m actually pretty okay with eating meat, and I’ve done it before. Most ponies from around here aren’t really bothered by it—it’s always been a part of our region’s culture, and during the war it made a bit of a resurgence as the price of food went up. Of course we have vegetarians too, but not as many as they do back east—especially in backwards places like Trottingham and Ponyville, and really stuck-up places like Manehattan and Canterlot. It’s one of the many disputes we have with the national government: over the years there’s been a surge in illegal slaughterhouses and poaching on public land, but the local authorities always turn a blind eye…

Back to the main topic: the stew. This stew was definitely not any ordinary stew. The meat in it had a lean, chewy flavor that clearly didn’t taste like rabbit or pork. And it wasn’t fish, either. I suppose they might have hunted a bear if they had to, and the lack of vegetation caused by the abnormal weather could easily explain the lean-ness. Yet… it still didn’t seem right. It had a flavor that tasted… familiar, like I’ve tasted it before but not in the same way.

But still, food is food, and I was hungry. My companions also seemed sort of disturbed by the stew, but they still ate it and didn’t complain. All three of us ended up having seconds and thirds because the day’s trek had exhausted us, and because we hadn’t eaten breakfast either.

Eventually we emptied the bowl and looked around in the refrigerators for something to eat for dessert, but all the sugary foods had already been eaten. We checked the walk-in freezer too, but all we found were more cuts of what I presume was the meat that had been in the stew.

After an entire day of travel and what must have been the most filling meal any of us have had in months, we decided it was time to go to bed. We ‘borrowed’ all the key cards from the front desk, then we scoured the hotel searching for rooms that, A: still had doors, B: still had locking doors, C: hadn’t been defiled like the rest of the lodge, and D: didn’t smell like vomit. There was only one room that fit all of these criteria, so that was the one we stayed in. After locking the door and checking under the beds for boogeyponies (at Grapevine’s insistence), we all found our beds, Grapevine sent a prayer to some dragon deity named ‘Corey Powell’ to protect us from the “one eyed one horned flying purple pony eaters,” and then she and Dmitry went to sleep while I updated my diary.

Silver Bullet’s Traits:

Good Natured: You studied less combative skills growing up. Your combat skills start at a lower level, but other skills are substantially improved.
+5 to Barter, Speech, Medicine, Repair, and Underwater Basket Weaving, but -5 to all weapons and fighting skills.

Four Eyes: You wear glasses. NERD!

+1 Perception when wearing glasses, but -1 Perception when qualifying for traits.

Status Ailments:

Butthurt: Your butt hurts.

-2 Agility.

Silver Bullet’s SPECIAL: (Raw and Modified)
Strength: 3 (3)
Perception: 7 (8)
Endurance: 6 (6)
Charisma: 6 (6)
Intelligence: 7 (7)
Agility: 6 (4)
Luck: 5 (6)

Progress to next level: 175/200 XP

Author's Notes:

4/16/17: Parts of this chapter were rewritten, and it has now been updated to reflect that.
8/5/19: More rewriting, and another scene added.