Dear Diary,

I woke up early today. Rather unusual for a teenager, but I just had an urge to get up and go outside and have some time to myself before the rest of the group woke up.

It was crisp and cold, not unlike your typical late-summer morning, but twenty degrees colder… at least. The clouds still hung low and heavy over the city. In the sun’s absence, the clouds’ soft tint of orange was the only atmospheric indicator that it was morning.

Sighing, I slouched down along the railing of the Chestnut Tree Motel’s balcony, gazing down at the small parking lot below. Shortly beyond that was the intersection of 97th and Spark Street, and across from 97th there was another abandoned motel. I noted that, if taken together with a few houses across the street, then these two motels would make a good location for a small settlement. Of course some work would need to be done, mainly building a fence to enclose the central would-be courtyard from zombies and bandits, and I don’t know what they’d do about food, but the beauty about these buildings is that they’re already subdivided into sleeping spaces, and there’s still plenty of room to house shops and community spaces. Plus they already have furniture! I remember the housing they had in Sandy Shades, which amounted to little more than a menagerie of mattresses on the floor partitioned by curtains, inside the buildings that were once prime retail space. Here there’s plenty of space to house one or two hundred ponies, and maybe a few visitors to boot.

However, trying to maintain a settlement here would be rather difficult. Its urban location might make for some prime scavenging, and the parking lot of that diner just across Spark Street could be removed for cropland, but even then it might be difficult to survive without trade. Perhaps if the area was a little safer, then 205 and the rest of the highways could become major thoroughfares once again, if only because their paths are relatively straight and well-marked.

Speaking of safety, I wondered just what was up near the airport that made it so dangerous. From what I heard, it sounded like it might be full of zombies. It was a logical conclusion, since the airport was always busy in the mornings, making it a perfect target. Maybe it was even the source of the zombies: a zebra bioweapon, perhaps, detonated at exactly the same time as the balefire bomb downtown, or maybe shortly after; thousands of ponies trapped inside the terminal, suddenly exposed to some deadly neurotoxin secretly developed in a government laboratory like the one my uncle used to work at. Within hours, the toxin has seeped into their brains, turning them into lifeless shells who neglect all hygiene and medical attention: within months, their skin has shed off and the exposed flesh eaten away by flies-- but the ponies feel no pain, because their brains have been hijacked by a deadly virus that rewires its victims to redirect all their remaining energy to a singular and monolithic pursuit: eating the brains of the living!

Ha ha. I really shouldn’t be thinking about this, since we’re dealing with the excruciating deaths of actual ponies here, and thinking about decomposing insect-eaten flesh in detail actually grosses me out, but injecting a bit of levity into these things every now and then is important for keeping ourselves sane in the face of this super depressing world.

What terrifies me most about going to the airport to save our friends and fight the zombies is not the zombies themselves, but their sheer numbers. Last time we were trapped and saved just in time by a mysterious stranger; a mysterious stranger who explicitly told us that he wouldn’t come around to help us again. This is extremely disappointing, since the mission we gave ourselves was to protect the stable and its inhabitants. If we can’t even save three, then what chance do we have of saving the others?

“Why the long face, sugarcube?” asked Grapevine. Her sudden appearance startled me, and I twirled around to answer her, almost dropping my gun in the process. She was dressed warmly and had a shotgun slung over her shoulder, which caused me to remember that she had been out here on early morning guard duty.

“Uhhh….” I said while trying to think of how to state it. “Well, I’ve just been, um… worried. That’s all.”

“Worried ‘bout what?”

“Worried about what we’re going to run into today. About zombies and stuff. You remember that horde we ran into yesterday, right?”

“‘Course I do,” Grapevine said smugly. “Well, what about ‘em?”

“I’m worried there’ll be too many. That we’ll be swamped before we ever find those ponies.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” she said. “We just hafta be on the lookout for high ground to retreat to. As long as we have a shit ton of weapons and explosives, we’ll be safe.”

“But I’m not that good using either,” I said. “I wasted several clips with my poor aim yesterday, and I’m deathly afraid of using my grenades because I’m worried that I won’t throw them far enough and they’ll explode on me.”

“You just gotta work on your aim, that’s all,” she said. “Try ‘em out here, on those zombies once they get close.”

She pointed down Spark Street where a band of about eleven or twelve zombies was straggling down the street. They moved slowly at first, but once they spotted us, they began to straggle faster. I threw my first grenade, expecting it to go farther but it barely flew a yard from the balcony. I then threw another, only to get the same result.

“Ya gotta release it sooner!” Grapevine yelled. “Like this!”

She took out a grenade of her own, plopped it down squarely in the frog of her forehoof, then pitched it with the dexterity of a softball player. It knocked one of the zombies in the head and then exploded a couple seconds later, mutilating it and knocking three other zombies to the ground.

I took another grenade and lobbed it, still missing the zombies by a long shot but this time beating my previous distance by a factor of 3.

“There ya go!” Grapevine congratulated. “Just keep practicin’ and you’ll be a pro in no time.”

We pitched a few more grenades together, Grapevine’s for the zombies and mine for practice. She got most of them, killing all but three. These remaining ones nearly reached the motel proper when Grapevine got up to leave.

“You take the honor of finishin’ them off. Imma go start breakfast.”

The three zombies gravitated towards the nearest stairwell, which we had boarded up the night before. As they clawed at the boards, I pondered my next course of action: should I just drop a grenade down there or not? Dropping the grenade could kill them instantly, but it might also demolish the boarding, leaving us vulnerable for attack. After wasting what seemed like a whole minute just trying to decide, I eventually went with the grenade, reasoning that any zombie that survived I could just kill off with my gun and hoping that nopony would try to bother us while we were eating breakfast.

I gently lowered the grenade with my telekinesis, and then gave it a little push in their direction as I released. I assume it went right to the base of the stairwell, and I waited for twenty seconds but it never went off. Then I realized that I forgot to pull the pin on that one, and quickly pulled the pin out of another one and dropped it to correct my mistake. In my haste I had forgotten to throw it under the balcony, so instead it just fell in a straight line down from the balcony’s edge. However, this time it did go off, and from the sound of meat splattering on the ground, it had obliterated at least one of them.

After going down and finishing the surviving one off with my pistol, I returned upstairs and ate breakfast with my companions. We were starting to run low on food and discussed various options for replenishment, including going back to Sandy Shades, hunting, scavenging old buildings, or even trying to steal from one of the Provincial Guard camps. We ultimately decided that we’d try and search around the airport when we got there, assuming that the zombie hordes had scared away enough scavengers that there might still be some loot there. What use would zombies have for food, anyway?

We packed up and head out, continuing to follow 205 towards the airport. It wasn’t very far from where we had stayed, and I fully expected we’d arrive before lunchtime. Walking in front as I always do, I kept glancing behind me to see if Dmitry and Grapevine were playing nicely. So far so good; neither of them had said anything about yesterday’s fight, and it didn’t look like it was on either of their minds this morning. Every so often they would make small talk, but Grapevine kept craning her neck to gaze at the sky.

“What are you looking at?” asked Dmitry, after a full fifteen minutes of not hearing anything come out of Grapevine’s mouth.

“Ah’ve been thinkin’,” she said, bringing her head back down to earth to look at us, “Y’all saw that break in the clouds yesterday, right? With all the sunshine an’ stuff?”

“Of course,” Dmitry said. “Who’d have missed it?”

“We’ve been on the surface for almost a week an’ that was the only time we’ve ever seen the sky,” Grapevine continued.

Dmitry’s eyes widened. “You’re right!” he exclaimed. “The entire time we’ve been out here, I haven’t seen the sun either. I wonder how that could be?”

“Ash, I guess,” I remarked. “I’m no expert on megaspells, but I’ve read a bit about ‘em.”

“But if it was ash, wouldn’t it have cleared by now?” asked Grapevine. “Ah mean, how can all that ash just stay up there in the sky like that ”

“Who knows?” I asked. “Maybe all of our science on this is wrong. Nothing like this has ever happened before, so all we had before the war were just predictions.”

“But surely it all would’ve come down by now?” asked Grapevine. “Ah mean, what about gravity? Or wind an’ the jet stream?”

“Maybe it’s magnets,” I replied. “Maybe magnets are causing all the ash to stay up there.”

Dmitry and Grapevine stopped and stared at me like I was crazy.

“What?” I asked. “It could happen. It could be electromagnetic energy from stuff all the way down here, excited by the EMP from the megaspell blast, pushing the ash into the air and counteracting the force of gravity.”

Grapevine facehoofed. “No, just… no. Physics does NOT work like that.”

I was so surprised by her taking my offhoof comment seriously that I reflexively tried to defend it.

“It could!” I blurted. “I mean, we don’t really know how magnets work, right?”

“Of course we know how magnets work!” Grapevine exclaimed. “Scientists like myself studied ‘em for centuries. Who the hell taught you about magnetic energy and EMP’s?”

I felt incredibly stupid, and I knew my answer would only make me appear and feel more stupid, but she asked me a question and I had to give an answer. I grinned nervously (and probably blushed as well) as I spoke:

“Umm… rappers?”

Grapevine tried in vain to explain the workings of magnets to me, but between her accent, fast talking, extensive use of jargon, and the sheer complexity of the science behind it, it all went in one ear and out the other. I stopped listening altogether when she started talking about ‘orbitals.’

“So, magnetism is caused by spinning electrons?” I asked, after she had completed her unnecessarily lengthy explanation.

“Basically, yes,” she replied. “Though it’s a bit more complicated than that. Ah still can’t believe ah hired you as my lab assistant back in the Stable without knowin’ just how little you knew.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” I said. “I would have left the opening available for somepony with better science grades, but I really needed a job and--”

“No, no, no,” Grapevine said. “Ah mean, ah’m surprised that the education system’s gotten this bad. I mean, high school juniors don’t even know how magnets work?”

“I have to admit, I’m an adult and I don’t even know how magnets work,” Dmitry piped in.

“We were in school years ago,” Grapevine said. “Surely the schools have gotten better since then?”

“On the contrary, I’m afraid they’ve only gotten worse,” said Dmitry. “There’s still a lot of things that prevent students from learning, like gang violence...”

Dmitry trailed off and just started staring at the road ahead, as if something had stunned him. Grapevine and I looked at where he was looking and were also stunned at what we saw.

Before us stood two groups of ponies facing off on the top part of a highway overpass, where 205 crossed over some random expressway. The group on the right was big a gang of thugs: big, bulky stallions wearing hoodies, oversized sports jerseys, and sagging pants. Around their necks hung gold chains, more than it could possibly be practical to carry, and their coats were thoroughly defiled with garish tattoos depicting various religious symbols, drug references, and the names of dozens of ex-fillyfriends written in cursive. To top the freakshow off, they all wore snapbacks with the phrase ‘I <3 haters’ written on them. In short, they were enormous douchebags.

The group on the left, however, consisted of several well-dressed stallions wearing trench coats, suits and ties. They were clean-shaven, well-groomed, and carried themselves with confidence and class. Upon their heads they wore fedoras, the mark of a true gentleman. They were outnumbered 5 to 1, but they carried submachine guns against what I presumed were pistols and knives. My heart fluttered at the thought of one of those brave stallions sweeping me off my feet and rescuing me from the litter that lined the other side of the road some real ‘gangsters’ showing those posers how it’s done, and I was giddy with anticipation for the upcoming fight.

“Da fuck you homos doin’ ‘round here?” said one of the gangstas.

“None of your damn business, ya damn hooligans,” said a gangster. “Now scram before we give ya a fistful of lead!”

“Ayo, now who ya callin’ a hooligan, homie?“ retorted the gangsta. “Dis be our turf, faggot. Now GTFO ‘fore I bust a cap in yo ass!”

“Damn piggers,” the gangster muttered. “Now listen here, punk: nopony, and I mean NOPONY messes with Skittery Malone’s gang and lives to tell the tale. Now you get outta our way or we’re gonna cream ya!”

“An’ we be da Widdalawn Park Guts!” said the gangsta. “Ain’t nopony mess wit us who don’ get creamed!”

“Juses Crust, it’s the Witherlawn Park gang!” griped the gangster. “You pansies have been harassin’ our dockside operations for far too long. Maybe I should just shoot ya right now and put an end to it!”

The gangsta shot him in the head and he fell to the floor. The other gangsters were awash with shock and horror, which soon turned to a seething rage when the gangsta spoke again.

“Syke, fuckboy!” guffawed the gangsta. “Told ya no bitch-ass mudafukas fuck wid da Guts!”

“Dude, uncool!” exclaimed another gangsta.

“‘Ey, da zigga had his toe on da trigger!” retorted the first gangsta. “Dude was utterin’ threats ‘n shit. You never gonna survive on deese streets ‘less ya always ready ta fight!”

“If it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you’ll get!” cried another one of the gangsters.

Then they fought. Half the gangstas charged in with knives, but they were quickly gunned down by the gangsters. The remaining gangstas shot at the gangsters, but they were severely hindered by their pistols’ low capacity and firing rate compared to the gangsters’ tommy guns. When it became clear that they were losing, the gangstas started turning tail and running away while their foes were reloading. Some of them tried to salvage the overpriced shoes of the other gangstas, but this made them easy targets for the gangsters, who quickly gunned them down.

In total, the fight lasted less than ten minutes. Nevertheless, me and my companions sat on our haunches and watched it like a game of flag hoofball (the only real difference was that it lacked bleachers and snacks). Once it was done, I couldn’t help but clap excitedly at the mob’s victory against the morons. However, this euphoria would end shortly after they spotted us.

“‘Ey, whaddare day smilin’ about?” asked one of the gangsters. “Prob’ly snitches. Cream ‘em!”

“But baws,” another protested, “How can dey be snitches if dey ain’t no cops ta snitch to?”

“I dunno, anutha gang maybe?” the first gangster replied. “Better safe than sorry. Now cream ‘em!”

We ran over to the side of the road and down the side of the earthen highway ramp, then we ran in a roughly westward direction down the expressway, zig-zagging our paths to throw our pursuers off their aim. We ended up running quite a ways before we got tired of running, then we kept walking until we were certain that we had lost them.

“I’m pretty certain we’ve lost them,” Dmitry commented.

“That’s good, but we’re going in the wrong direction,” I said. “We need to be going north, not west.”

“Ah sort of recognize this area,” announced Grapevine. “There’s a REX station nearby, and a big road goin’ north nearby.”

“Great,” I said. “Once we get off this expressway, we’ll find that road and follow it. Hopefully we can avoid more violence and get back on track.”

Sure enough, we found an onramp leading to a large street going due north. We strode past several silent storefronts before stumbling across the baseball field of a local high school. On the field there was a lone magenta mare pitching baseballs out into the field. Her mane was a deep purple with white streaks, and was styled into poofy curls, like a cross between Pinkie Pie and Sweetie Belle’s manes. She was also wearing a uniform for the school’s team, which fit perfectly on her despite being several years older than the fillies who would have played for it.

Once we were within speaking distance, she stopped her pitching immediately and turned to face us, not at all surprised by our sudden arrival, as if she had seen us approach through eyes on the back of her head.

“O hai there,” she said in a perky voice. “Wanna see me hit that bird over there?”

She pointed to an eagle perched in a nest on top of a tree within the bounds of a nearby golf course. The tree had to be 100 hooves tall at least. And yet here she was, getting ready to pitch a baseball in its general direction.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You can’t hit that fucking bird.”

“Fuck you I can’t hit that fucking bird,” she said. Then she placed the ball in the frog of her forehoof, raised it up like she was pitching to a batter, and then threw the ball with tremendous force. Lo and behold, she actually hit the damn thing right in the gut, knocking it off of its perch.

“Man, I’ve never seen a pony throw a baseball that far!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, that?” she said. “It’s nothin’. Hey, mind helpin’ me collect the body?”

The four of us climbed the fence and ventured onto the course. The grass was tall and thick, its uniformity tarnished by weeds and clovers. They had grown unusually quickly since their last trimming a year ago, which Grapevine explained was likely due to an abundance of nitrogen from overfertilization. Case in point, we would later stumble across the shed where they stored the fertilizer, which in addition to being high in nitrogen, had also been “enriched with industrial waste.”

“Here it is!” the baseball pony said upon spotting the bird. It lay lifeless on the ground, likely having broken every bone in its body during the fall, and its its . Still, the rest of it was in surprisingly good condition. I’m no expert in taxidermy, but with a little work I’m sure it would have made a good trophy.

The pony removed the baseball lodged deep inside its torso, wiped the blood off, spit on it and wiped off some more blood, then said, “eh,” and stashed it inside her saddlebag. Then she gently wrapped the bird’s body in a cloth and placed that in her saddlebag too.

“I don’t think we’ve properly introduced ourselves,” said Dmitry.

“Oh! Where are our manners?” exclaimed the baseball pony. “How about you give me your names, then I’ll give you mine.”

We introduced ourselves.

“My name’s Katie,” said the baseball pony. “Catherine Casey, but everypony calls me ‘Katie’ for short.”

“‘Katie?’” Dmitry asked. “Now that’s a name you don’t hear very often.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” said Katie. “But that’s why I like it: it’s different. In a society where everypony else’s name is a one, two, or three letter combination of random nouns and adjectives, it’s unique and empowering when your name is simply a collection of letters that can’t be used in any context besides referring to you.”

“I totally get that!” Dmitry exclaimed. “But it also opens the door for other ponies to pick on you, too.”

“Yeah, but that’s only out of ignorance,” she replied. “Adjective-noun naming is rare among non-equine species. I mean, take the griffons, for example: names like Gilda, Greta, Grover, Guto… To ponies it seems strange: why would any parent name their child a random word that has nothing to do with their special talent?” And, do griffons even have special talents?”

We all laughed at that. We kept listening to her ramble on about the peculiarities of our reality while walking eastward through the course, seemingly pulled by some subconscious supernatural force. The force relented once it had dragged us to where it wanted us to go: a big shed full of engine parts and landscaping equipment. The four of us went in and had a look around to see if there was anything worth taking; there wasn’t, at least for us, aside from a few medical supplies from a first aid kit, but Katie seemed especially interested in the machine parts. She rifled through boxes and drawers ravenously, throwing what she didn’t need behind her with no regard for where they landed. A few of these pieces knocked boxes off shelves, causing them to spill their contents all over the floor. When she was done rifling through whatever she was rifling through, she would turn around, look at the toppled boxes, shrug, and then rifle through those. By the time she was done, the whole place was a mess with random machine parts everywhere.

“Aren’t you going to put those back?” I asked.

“Nope!” she said, smiling. “I think it looks better this way: nice and chaotic, much like modern art. The way I see it, I’m doing the world a service.”

She wrapped one forehoof around my neck and used the other to make a large sweeping gesture in the air in front of us while she spoke, then used it to point to various locations in the room to provide a visual aid to her explanation.

“Just imagine: a gang of thieves stumble across this, and their leader decides that the nice, secluded location would make an excellent hideout. The back room could be a living quarters for up to 20 ponies, and all of the shelf space I just cleared out would be perfect for storing their loot, and all the scrap metal strewn out across the floor would make the perfect security system. When night falls, you can’t see the floor, and if the loot is spread out among the junk, a would-be burglar would have to take a lot of steps just to get enough loot to make a break-in worthwhile. Given that the odds of stepping on something would be completely random in this situation, you merely have to discern the junk-to-floor ratio and compound that several times to get a 99% chance that anypony who comes in here after dark will step on something and scream in pain, like, stepping-on-one-of-those-little-plastic-building-blocks type pain, alerting the occupants of their presence. The burglar would also most likely spend the next minute or two clutching their damaged hoof, crying in pain, or otherwise licking their wounds, giving the resident thieves enough time to mobilize for attack. If they disable the lightswitch over by the front door while keeping the one by the door to the back room on, they could have full control over the lights in this room and only turn them on when they need to flush out burglars. The sudden illumination of the whole room would blind the burglar for a few seconds-- but not the resident thieves, since they’d already be used to the light after having turned on the lights in the other room when they woke up. They’d have several seconds of a head start on nabbing that burglar, who would undoubtedly make several blunders such as running into things stepping on more machine parts while trying to make a panicked escape from an unfamiliar location. But for the thieves, getting through their own security system is a mere hop, skip, and a jump due to home field advantage. With such a security system in place, they wouldn’t need to put up any night watchponies, freeing up more ponies they can put into raids during the day.”

“Umm… how does strengthening thieves do the world a service?” asked Dmitry.

Katie facehoofed.

“Uggh, you ponies are squares,” she groaned. “My point is that seemingly useless things can become incredibly useful if you just think about them in a different way.”

We left the building and stood around, trying to get our bearings. Grapevine checked the time on her pipbuck.

“Holy cow, we spent a lotta time in there!” she exclaimed. “It’s a little after noon. Waddaya say we go find some lunch?”

“Good idea,” said Katie as her eyes drifted towards a parked golf cart. “Say, do you think we could get that thing going? It would save us a lotta walking.”

“I could try,” said Dmitry. “Gimme a few bobby pins and I’ll see if I can crack the ignition.”

We waited around a bit while he did that. When he was done, the engine roared to life. It still had plenty of fuel in its tank.

When you don’t get to do it very often, riding in a golf cart is a thrilling experience. Maybe it’s because it’s an open air experience with no doors or windows separating you from the outside world. You actually get to feel the wind, which would normally be shielded from you in a traditional car. Or maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t ridden in a motor vehicle in nearly a year. I imagine that the kids of the future will feel this same excitement, multiplied by a great deal, upon riding anything self-propelling, given that they’ll be growing up in a world filled with vehicles but hardly ever getting to use them. There might even be kids in the future who live their whole lives without ever riding in a car! Now that’s a scary thought… for me, at least. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t have automobiles (before the apocalypse, that is), but there are many ponies who still can. Isn’t it strange how quickly we can adopt new technology?

There was a small road that passed by the shed, which we followed to the north edge of the golf course. Once there, we kept going north, driving past blocks of pitiful looking abandoned houses. For the first time, I noticed that almost all of their windows were shattered, presumably from the bomb’s air blast. We were already on the periphery of the blast radius, even though we were still a few miles away from the city center.

The road we were traveling on dumped us into the middle of a big busy street-- or, what used to be. On it there was a long, nearly endless line of cars all heading away from downtown. All four lanes had been opened to traffic fleeing the city, but even it could not handle the sheer volume of cars. At some point further out, something must have happened that held up the line indefinitely because all of their drivers and occupants had gotten out and left. These ponies were fortunate that they could get out alive, but there were probably many closer to the blast who didn’t-- the ones who got burned alive, or fused to their seatbelts and forced to die a lingering death from radiation. It adds a whole new meaning to the song ‘Stuck in my car,’ doesn’t it?

There was a grocery store across the street, but Katie explained that we shouldn’t grow near because a group of ‘raiders’ had taken up residence inside. Instead, she directed us to a nearby take-n-bake pizza place where she had made a hideout. It didn’t have any ovens, but she explained to us that she had created one by reverse engineering one of its large commercial-size refrigerators and hooking it up to a generator. She threw in a pizza, the eagle meat we had collected earlier, and several other cuts from various feral dogs, birds, and rodents she had collected on other excursions.

We sat around telling stories while the food was cooking, and when it was done we continued talking over a delicious meal of pizza, Sparkle Colas, and eagle wings. We mostly just listened to Katie talk because she was by far the best storyteller (I can’t tell a story to save my life!). Though, even after a full hour of conversation, I still felt like I knew astonishingly little about this pony and her life. I got the sneaking suspicion that a lot of her stories were made up, given that they were all outrageous and downright bizarre. But the most bizarre thing was something she actually showed us.

Throughout much of the meal, Katie had been staring down at her crotch with a concerned look. This isn’t completely out of the ordinary for mares (you’ve gotta do what you gotta do), and I waited for her to take a minute to excuse herself but she never did. Was she worried we would take off with her stuff if she left? I didn’t think so given how candid she was about everything else in her life. Or perhaps she was just trying to be a good host and safe face instead of abandoning her guests? She didn’t seem like the type to do that either.

All of a sudden she started groaning.

The rest of us stopped chewing our food immediately and stared in shock. I spat out my half-chewed bite of eagle breast and asked, “Holy cow, are you okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” she said, as if nothing was bothering her. And not, ‘as if nothing was bothering her’ as in, ‘something is actually bothering me but I’m trying to pretend nothing is bothering me,’ she actually seemed completely unconcerned with her previous fit of pain.

“I think I might have a little blood down there.”

She pulled down her pants right in front of us without the least bit of embarrassment, then tore off her panties and pulled something yellow out of her vagina. It was long and thin with slight ruffles along the edges and had little cream colored dots on it, as well as several drops of blood. At first I thought it was just one of those decorative panty liners or something, but then it started to wiggle.

Dmitry and I were too stunned to spreak.

“What… is that?” asked Grapevine.

“It’s a nudibranch,” Katie explained. “And her name is Marigold. Say ‘hi,’ Marigold!”

The nudibranch turned what I assumed was its head around, extended one of its little ruffles, and waved it like it was a hand.

“Nudibranches are some of the best pets,” Katie explained as she began feeding hers little bits of eagle meat. “They’re so small, which makes them cute and portable!”

“Ah get that,” said Grapevine. “But… aren’t they also… carnivorous?”

“That’s another great thing about ‘em!” said Katie. “When I go hunting there’s a lot of meat left over that I don’t want to eat, especially the fatty parts. They also make really great vibrators, and--”

“Why in Equestria...” Grapevine started, “...would you… keep… a… carnivorous sea slug… inside your frickin’ vagina?”

“Well, like I said, the vagina is an excellent nudibranch carrying pouch,” replied Katie. “Nudibranches also make excellent tampons. They suck up menstrual blood better than anything I’ve ever used, ‘cause to them it’s like horchata. As for the whole carivorous thing, well, she only bites when I forget to feed her…”

“Do you have any other nudibranches in there?” asked Dmitry.

“No, I think Marigold prefers to be alone,” said Kaite. “I tried to give her some boyfriends, but she kept eating them.”

“There’s a huge difference in PH between a healthy vagina and saltwater,” Grapevine said. “So either yer vag is too alkaline, or yer pet is gettin’ fried in acid.”

“Marigold is perfectly healthy!” Katie protested. “I’ve done everything I can to give her a habitat that resembles her natural home.”

“So yer vagina is alkaline,” said Grapevine. “Mind if I take a look at it? You might have an infection.”

So Katie let Grapevine take a look at her vagina, and sure enough she found something.

“You’ve definitely got a yeast infection,” Grapevine said, “But it’s nothin’ like ah’ve ever seen. Yet it seems so familiar...”

“Well, I’ve never had a problem with yeast,” said Katie, sticking her own hoof far up her vagina. “In fact, it’s quite useful. Oh, I think this one’s just about done!”

She pulled out a freshly baked loaf of bread, which looked and smelled no different from a normal oven baked loaf. Except… it wasn’t, for it had a face, I think. And then it began talking to me, taunting me, in a deep, scary voice.

“Beneath the skin, we are alllllready one,” the loaf said.

I looked at the others, but they seemed completely oblivious… except for Katie, who just smiled and gave me a wink.

“Was it not your sin that trapped the unicorn?”

“What unicorn?” I wondered. “What sin?”

The bread just laughed. We were communicating telepathically at this point, time slowed, and our surroundings darkened.

“Even now, the evil seed of what you’ve done… germinates within you.”

An image appeared in my head: a unicorn, a dead unicorn, lying on the floor covered in blood. And not just any image. A flashback. From the stable. A scene I’d witnessed only a few months ago. Something that was admittedly my fault.

The bread laughed as feelings of guilt and shame washed over me, then quickly it all went away. No more death, no more flashbacks, no more evil laughing. I was left with just a regular old loaf of bread and my own thoughts.

I swear, that bread was taunting me.

Our meal ended prematurely because none of us felt like eating after Katie had taken away our appetites with her ‘show-and-tell.’ After Katie put the leftovers away in the fridge, we went back outside only to find that somepony had put our golf cart on cinder blocks and stolen the wheels.

“Noooooooo!!!” cried Dmitry, falling to the ground and raising his forelegs towards the sky. “How could this happen?”

“This is a pretty ghetto part of town,” I said. “I’m sure things get stolen all the time here.”

“B-but, this is the first working vehicle I’ve found all week!” Dmitry said. “And now it’s already taken from us?”

“Ah think Silvah may have been right about that ‘unwritten rule’ against vehicles earlier,” Grapevine commented.

Dmitry sighed.

“Fine,” he said. “Maybe the universe just hates us. Not enough to kill or injure us, but just enough to make us walk everywhere.”

“Couldn’t ya just fly?” asked Grapevine. “You know, since ya have wings?”

“I could,” Dmitry replied, “And it would be a little faster, but then I’d outpace the rest of the group.”

“Is it ‘cause ya need us ta feed on?” Grapevine asked.

“No,” Dmitry said in annoyance. Then he added, “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I genuinely like your company?”

I thrust my body between them and pushed them apart. “Guys, cut it out. We’re making a terrible impression on our guest here.”

I turned to look at Katie, who for a second had an excited grin on her face. When she noticed I was looking at her, the grin was instantly replaced by a frown of surprise, followed two seconds later by an embarrassed smile and a blush.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m just… um… excited… about our next destination.”

“And that is…?” I asked. “We’ve got to get to the airport.”

“Oh, I’m heading that way too!” said Katie. “But you don’t want to approach the airport after dark, oh, no. Come with me, I’ll show you a safe place we can rest tonight.”

We followed the road as it relentlessly glided to the northwest, slicing through the neighborhood’s otherwise rectangular blocks like a knife cutting just the frosting on a large cake. When the riverbank of storefronts was disrupted on the right side by a large cluster of trees, Katie told us to follow her onto a sidestreet going into the mass of foliage. We did, and we soon came across a chapel that had been completely ransacked by ‘raiders.’

I began to recognize where we were: we were on the site of a large prayer garden called ‘The Cavern,’ which was split in two by a massive ridge. We were at the bottom of the ridge, where the main chapel, parking lot, and visitor’s center were located, as well as the eponymous ‘Cavern,’ which really wasn’t much of a cavern at all: just large enough to hold a large altar and several shelves for small candles. Shortly after the apocalypse, there must have been a mass wake for the 95% of ponies who had died, as there were several framed photographs and withered bouquets piled in front of it. Surprisingly, there were only a few candles, all of which had burnt out, and were either near or at the end of their usefulness. The rest, I realized, must have all been stolen. There were also the clear outlines of pews on the ground, which stood in stark contrast to the mossy stone all around them. These outlines spread out in a semicircle around the cavern and stretched very far from it, intended to hold an audience of a few hundred. Strangely, the pews themselves were missing, also likely to have been stolen.

I had been here once or twice before with my family, but we’ve never really been all that spiritual. What interested me most was the massive garden at the top of the ridge, accessible by an elevator not too far from the Cavern itself. Katie now took us to that elevator, which to my surprise, still appeared to be in working condition. There was also a very hostile-looking, assault-rifle-wielding pony guarding the entrance.

Unphased by the less-than-gregarious gatekeeper, Katie approached the elevator until she came face-to-face with the guard while the rest of us held back.

“Stop right there,” said the guard. “Who the hell are you?”

“We are your friends,” said Katie, taking a step closer.

“Bullshit,” spat the guard. “All my friends are up there.”

The guard pointed to the ridge at the top of the elevator, which was surrounded by a large pulsing purple shield, which the elevator shaft cut through.

“Except for us,” Katie replied. “And we need to get up there to make your statement true.”

“No way,” said the guard. “You are not my friends, ”

There was a pause, and then Katie asked the guard in a quiet voice, as if speaking to a child:

“Tell me, little pony, are you friends with yourself?”

Another pause, and then the guard replied in a confused stammer:

“No,” the guard said, confused. “How I be friends with myself?”

“If you aren’t friends with yourself, and in your worldview everypony who isn’t your friend is your enemy, then technically you are your own enemy, therefore you can’t trust anything you say because you might be trying to deceive yourself. And if you, an enemy, say that we are not your friends, you cannot trust the validity of that statement because its speaker may be trying to deceive you. Therefore, you must assume that that statement is false, and that we are your friends, but because we are down here and not up there, it contradicts your earlier statement that all of your friends are up there. That is a logical error, and unless we correct it, the program will crash. Now let us through, please.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make any--”

Katie pressed her hoof to the guard’s forehead and said,

“Would you kindly let us through?”

The guard reluctantly punched a code into a keypad that had been installed where the elevator call button once was, and opened the elevator doors. We went in nervously, trembling before the guard’s nervous glare-- well, all of us except Katie, who strode in triumphantly and unphased.

The elevator ride up was a short one, but when we reached the top we seemed to be in a different world altogether. The view of the urban sprawl below seemed almost surreal, as it looked completely different from up here compared to what we saw walking those streets at ground level. It was as if we were standing atop a mountain, or even on a cloud. The feeling of separation from the surrounding wasteland was amplified by the massive violet shield which enveloped the ridge, and reinforced the dreamlike aura of the place.

We crossed the narrow concrete bridge that connected the top of the elevator to the top of the ridge, where we entered the garden proper. The garden, despite being dark, dilapidated, and unkempt, seemed angelic compared to the city below. It still retained a hint of peacefulness and splendor, its serenity having been dampened by the apocalypse but not completely dead. Yet for us, our visit had all of the effect of a visit to the garden before the war, because it offered a peacefulness that seemed to exist nowhere else on the surface of this earth.

There were a number of paths branching out from where we stood and the others seemed a little confused over which one to follow, so I took the reigns of the group once again and led them, to the best of my memory, towards where I remembered the buildings were. We strolled along a path that winded through a forest of trees and vines, their branches and tendrils in the process of reclaiming the landscape and returning the land to its dense, bushy forest. Periodically there would be a cracked bench or the base of a broken lamppost, or a pedestal surrounded by chunks of a statue that had been deliberately smashed and sledgehammered to pieces. At last, we came across a clearing containing a mass campsite cut in half by a small creek. A paved path circled the clearing, but numerous dirt paths had been trod by ponies between numerous tents and campfires. Despite all their care to preserve the forest around them, these ponies had completely destroyed the lawn that had been here before.

The camp was populated by dozens of ponies dressed in military fatigues with touches of hippie and grunge fashion such as dyed manes, numerous piercings, necklaces, bracelets, and the like. They mostly sat around their camp, which was a bizarre cross between a military base and a hippie music festival, chatting loudly, making art, or getting high. As we trod through their camp, many of them stopped what they were doing and we began receiving looks, some of confusion and some of derision, from the ‘soldiers’ camped here. The further we went, the more this happened, and soon everypony in the camp was staring at us, even the ones who were too high to care. Nopony dared cross our path, and the ones standing in it politely stepped out of the way. All of this made me feel incredibly nervous. So was Dmitry, and to an extent, Grapevine, though she was more confused than anything else. Katie, however, seemed to enjoy the attention.

“Who are these ponies?” Grapevine whispered to us.

Katie seemed to pay no attention, leaving the answer up to me and Dmitry.

“I think they might be the O.L.F.” whispered Dmitry.

“O.L.F.? What’s that?”

“‘Occidental Liberation Front,’” I said. “They’re a… umm… group of...”

“Terrorists,” Dmitry scowled. “Spread all kinds of crap about how they’re going to overthrow the government and create a utopia. Err.. that’s what they did. Back at the Ministry, we had to deal with them all the time.”

“So now they’re just a bunch of unemployed rebels?” said Grapevine.

“Pretty much,” I said. “Though I don’t think they really had a plan to begin with.”

We stopped once we had gotten to the other side of the camp. Here there were was a chapel made of yellowed stone, flanked by a few red wooden sheds. I presumed that if there were any ponies we were supposed to talk to, they would probably be found here. In front of the open door sat a red-eyed stallion in a collapsible stool idly blowing smoke circles into the air. He only noticed us when we got close up to him.

“‘Suuuuuuup?,” he said. “Lookin’ for somethin’?”

“Why, yes, we are,” said Katie, stepping forward. “Do you know if Oleander is here?”

“Why, ‘f course she’s here,” said the stoner. “She’s always here. Like, t’s why we have, like, that shield an’ everythin’.”

“No, like, is she inside the building?” Katie clarified. “Like, right now?”

“Pro’lly,” slurred the stoner. “That’s like, where she always is, man. Day an’ night, always readin’ these dusty old books.”

“Well, that sounds like a stupid way to spend the your life,” said Grapevine. “Hauled up in a tower reading books all day.”

Dmitry was taken aghast for a split second, then looked ready to tackle Grapevine before she said anything else potentially offensive about this armed group and its leader. I held out my forehoof in front of him pre-emptively.

“Yeah, I’m always tellin’ her to lighten up a little,” said the stoner. “Jus’ enjoy life, ya know?”

The stoner took a deep whiff of his blunt, then blew a large puff of yellow tinted smoke into the air. It wafted upwards towards an open window at the top of the chapel’s steeple. The stoner looked upward in satisfaction.

“If that doesn’ get ‘er atten’n, I don’ know what will,” he said. “She reaaaalllllly hates it when I do that.”

Just then, we heard hoofsteps, and a large grey unicorn with a curved horn and jet black hair ending in upward curving purple tips appeared in the doorway. She had a serious demeanor about her, going out to the camp like she had done a million times before, but only for a second, because the moment she saw us, she just froze in shock. An aide followed closely behind, and kept exchanging glances between us and her superior, unaware of whether she should take action or wait for a cue. The moment lasted only for a few seconds, but the awkwardness seemed to last a whole minute.

“Good afternoon, Oly!” Katie chimed. “Thought I’d drop by with some friends and spend the night, show them around the camp, you know. You always were one of my favorite clandestine terror cells. Who knows; after dinner, maybe you could show them some dark magic.”

The aide looked at Oleander as if to ask, “Who are these ponies?” Oleander looked back in equal confusion and just shrugged.

By this point, the rest of the camp had begun crowding around us, curious about the new arrivals and how their leader would respond to them. Oleander saw the crowd too, and tried to keep her cool while not knowing what to do. Then she swallowed and said,

“Welcome...er… friends… welcome to our little camp. It has been a long time since we’ve had visitors… a verrrrrryyy long time. Sooooo… you’re welcome to stay… for the night… as long as you don’t interfere with our operations. ”

“Umm… thank you, miss Oleadner,” said Dmitry. “We appreciate it.”

“You’re very welcome,” she replied. Then, turning to her right, she called, “Glory! Why don’t you show our… guests… to their… accommodations.”

A very large and very angry griffin approached, then beckoned for us to follow her. We did. Once we were out of earshot from Oleadner and the others, Glory gave us a stern warning.

“Look, just because Oleander said you could stay doesn’t mean you’re welcome here. I’m keeping my eye on you guys, and the second any of you try to pull some shit, I’ll rip your faces to shreds with my bare claws. Is that clear?”

We all nodded our heads in fearful agreement, except for Katie, who just smiled cheerfully. Glory stopped and gave her a long, hard look, but Katie didn’t stop smiling. Glory soon realized that she couldn’t intimidate Katie, so she just spat in her face to express her disgust and moved on. Katie kept on smiling after that, but once Glory’s back was turned, her grin morphed into a malicious smirk, as if to say,

“You fool. Soon I shall become more powerful than you can ever imagine.”

Dinner was… vegan… which meant a bunch of vegetables and rice lathered in exotic spices. I ended up settling for the only option that didn’t set my mouth on fire or look like barf: a pile of granola in a small plastic bag and a canteen of water.

“We got that shit for, like, emergencies and stuff…” explained Blackberry Fuzz, sister of Blackberry Prickle, the guard outside the elevator. “Y’know, like if we run out of eggplants and quinoa and stuff, but, like, some of the team just eat that and nothing else! Like Oly, for example, that’s like, all she eats, that granola stuff. Like, don’t get me wrong, granola’s still good, but, like, that’s all she eats, three meals a day: granola, granola, granola! Well, not counting her midnight snacks when she like, breaks into the storehouse and binges on yogurt—it’s an open secret, no worries—but like, other than that, all she eats is her stupid granola!”
I was only half-paying attention. I was too hungry after a long day on the road to talk, and the smells of all the food in the mess area made me even hungrier. So I just thrust my face in the bag and gorged on the granola, not even bothering to use my horn or my hooves. There would be no middlemare between my mouth and my food. I knew that table manners weren’t enforced there, so I ate just how I wanted to at that particular moment.

“Just like that!” exclaimed Blackberry Fuzz. “Just. Like. That. That’s, like, exactly how Oly eats.”

Then she was struck by a pang of guilt.

“Omigosh! Please don’t tell her I said that!” she hurriedly added. “Oh, please, please, pleaaaase don’t tell her I said that. She might like, court-marshal me or something if she finds out!”

I pulled my head out of the bag and looked at her in confusion. She seemed equally confused by the confused look I was giving her, and by all the granola bits stuck to the edges of my mouth.

“Relax,” said Dankon, the stoner we met earlier. “Nopony’s gonna snitch. Right, guys?”

“We won’t snitch, we promise,” said Dmitry, holding up his hooves. “We’re pretty good at keeping secrets.”

“That’s dope, man,” said Dankon. “Never was a good snitch… except for the ones that leak stuff from the government.”

“Worrrrrdd!” bellowed a stallion two seats away. Then they leaned over for a hoofbump.

Dmitry furrowed his brow at this, then went back to his food.

“Hey, I’m kinda worried about your friend there,” a random pony next to me said.

I stopped eating and looked at him to see if he would elaborate.

“There’s just something… off about her. You know?”

He pointed to Katie. She had finished most of her meal, and had busied herself with drawing something on a napkin using a single grain of rice as a pen. She periodically dipped the rice in a puddle of dark sauce on her plate, then went right back to drawing. I sat up and craned my neck to get a better view and I saw that she was sketching out some sort of advanced technical diagram, almost from memory. It had the precision of an engineer’s work, but it had the style of a child’s drawing. I couldn’t tell just what she was making (it was too complex), but the dotted lines emanating from various pipes on its edges pointed at stick ponies with X’s for eyes told me it was something incredibly dangerous.

Sitting here inside this tent, I lie awake in my sleeping bag, trying to get to sleep but continuously thinking about that drawing. It’s an eerie reminder of something I drew when I was really little, around 5 or 6 years old. It was a crude yet graphic depiction of a battlefield based on what glimpses of the war I saw on the news. After our teacher had displayed all of our drawings on the wall, one of the parents spotted it, and then all the adults started freaking out and trying to find out who drew it.

They went through all the colts in the class asking them if they did it, and each of them said ‘no.’ It was funny how they never expected it was me, even though I had scrawled my initials in the corner. Funny, but also kind of sad. They eventually dropped the search after they couldn’t find a culprit, but there was enough unease about that drawing that I took it down when nopony was looking and hid it in my backpack. It had been only a year or two after Littlehorn and all the adults were still on edge. That, and several other moments scattered throughout my fillyhood, taught me that there are some things that every sane pony will just to keep to themselves.

Level up!

Level 4: Stable Renegade

The Kind of Pony Everypony Should Know: By some strange twist of fate, everyone you meet has decided that you are important. Whether they see you as a savior, a harbinger of doom, a chess piece, or just a friend, you get +10% Initial Reaction when meeting a character or faction for the first time.

Stats:
Ponies Led: 3
Puzzle Pieces Collected: 2
Price of Silver: 7 bits per Troy Ounce

Author's Notes:

Another cringeworthy attempt at 'random access humor,' though at least this one makes more sense.

The perk gained is 'Presence' from Fallout 1 and 2, just renamed to be more pony themed. I chose it because I noticed that she's left a significant impression on pretty much everypony she's met thus far. I also felt like she hasn't really done much yet besides meeting people, and since she's still a low level character, she doesn't qualify for much else.