The last of the looting took place in the lower levels, specifically the arid and preservative-laced morgue. Each of the four bodies were dragged on mobile beds to the operating tables. Silent Hill saw the mare in the mirror blurred in her scalpel blade. She decided it was better to hack the bodies apart and clear the organs out for bait later. What else could a mare do but get her hooves dirty in a dog-eat-dog world. Her eyes focused intently on her slicing instrument, stalking the metal tool as it flayed somepony's coat open. Who or what they'd been before, she'd leave unanswered.

She extracted the organs for a minute or so before growing nauseous from the burst of carrion scents. The warm bowel soup made her gullet lurch and strangle itself. Silent Hill shambled her way to the nearest exit, fighting her urge to shut down. What foul stench erupted from the corpse forced her to the edge of unconsciousness. Silent groped along the wall and swiped a cleaning spray of sorts.

The following dissections and dismemberments were done under careful use of her fragrance spray. It was also disgustingly blunt, to the point where she could breathe surface air and still taste manufactured flowers. Although she had no way to leave the hospital perfectly... Silent began to pack. Bloodpacks, stimpaks, morphine and jet. That was all she could find. Besides textbooks and syringes, she had little use for the rest of use. A hazy morning chill took her outside and kept the mare from overheating under stress. It was time to go. Dwindling food supply and a lack of civilization wasn't good for anypony.

The empty whispers of the ruined halls said goodbye to her. And though she visited the mare in the mirror, they had nothing to say to each other. Silent Hill couldn't stay. Though she wanted to find a reason that day to not go away, the lithe breaze on her back called her away, to wander astray as a stray till the end of days. Silent Hill spoke in her sluggish daze, kissing the reflective glass and watching her cry. Both stayed silent before saying those three words. And then they said goodbye, trotting and holding their heads high.

A world away, Silent Hill broke away from her ties to someplace called 'home.'

There was nothing but the wastes, her bloodpacks and the revolver she pocketed from that one mare. In essence, she was severely disadvantaged when it came to supplies and general endurance. But she'd been working out. And no waster psychopath could say the same. A stray metro met her wandering eye. She was stuck behind a crossroads of sorts. To the left was a metro, to the right lay some abandoned buildings and ahead, the highway went far as the eye could see, up a ramp which curved right and toward high ground.

Silent Hill avoided being anywhere out in the open. Their one, good eye slid toward the ground, guiding her as she traversed slippery and crumbling rubble. It wasn't another moment before she slipped into the shadows of the war-torn houses, each shadow around the size of a driveway. It was essential cover. Silent Hill's ears jolted upright. Something was off about the place. The scent of dirt and dust layering cement prevented olfactory investigation. She didn't hear anything in particular. Her ears just seemed to perk up.

'Closer, listen closer', she thought silently.

A low drone of humming and occasional growling caught her attention. The trail leading toward that horrid and eldritch noise drew toward the area behind the houses. Silent Hill crept noiselessly about the row of homes, soft when in the shadows and scrambling into them when out. She gently undid the knob of the last house on the right and entered, making sure not to shut the door.

Inside, it was messy. Messy and red, the abandoned setting told of a recently-departed resident. Food wrappers, empty tin containers and the presence of cigarette butts lay at her hooves. Her eyes stayed at the lights above, watching carefully as tiny, winged insects buzzed about it's dim edom. Why was the light red. She analyzed the few rooms present, never keeping her body too erect or stiff. All of them housed tomes and candles of sorts situated about wax and salt-composed images on the ground. One of the star circles had a tiny, mutilated body in its center. She didn't know what it was, or why it resembled a pony shrunk down to size. Silent Hill had the urge to bury it, so she searched for a shovel. Silent bumped into something unexpected. A wax insect sculpture the size of her hoof lay suspended over the remains. It was a red scarab. But it wasn't as important as burying the body.

Her search took her to a bedroom with bunk beds, whereupon she found a lead pipe beneath the bed. Her ears perked right up again. Somepony was home. Silent Hill crawled under the bed and readied the bludgeon between her teeth. It had duct tape on the handle area for better handling, thankfully.

The front door clicked open. Somepony shuffled inside with at least two other ponies, setting something heavy on a desk or wooden furnishing. Following were sharp, slicing noises and slippery flesh noise. It sounded like surgery, but in far less sophisticated silence. Then came the heavy, hacking and wacking and smacking noises. Something fleshy was being butchered and beaten. A soft, grainy chuckle broke the wordless air. It was clearly male and tinted with smoke beneath every word.

"This is why I cut up foals. They aren't hard to get at the joints. Mares and stallions are way tougher at the knees, you know?"

Another voice, deeper and more subdued, spoke in response. His steps echoed firmly throughout her ears. They were heavy. Dense. Each motion shook the floorboards and struck her stomach in soft, rattling shockwaves. His hooves approached the doorway and she held her breath steady like she did back at St. Michael's. The colt's hooves were not a foot from her delicate snout. He shuffled about, lazily and sloppy, closed to the bunk bed she lay prone beneath. Silent Hill steadied her chest and listened to her heart pound above the obnoxious radio he then switched on. It drew a dense cough from her disgusted lungs. Silent Hill could only imagine whence he accumulated the foul stench on his hooves just inches away from her muzzle.

When he was called over by his partner, or a similar position of trusted pony, she slipped out and hid behind the shrouded corner behind the door.

"I'll go get the jalapeños and beans from the fridge. Okay?" Stated the tenor colt, who left without another word.

That was when his bass friend entered the room. And when he entered, he made his way toward the bunk bed and peaked beneath it. Silent Hill crept over with her lead pipe and struck the back of his head. He grunted and turned back to see her. She met his eyes with another bludgeon to the nostrils. Before he could fight back, she dodged his wild haymakers by stepping away and slamming him with an overhead strike. He was knocked unconscious at least. Silent dragged his corpse to the corner behind the door, lamenting the loss of somepony else in the world.

"Alright, Hemp Necktie, I got the beans and the peppers. Let's get some dinner started."

It was his partner in the living room. Her ears perked up with each, muffled step against the ancient floorboards beneath. The closer he sounded, the more sickly her coat felt. Something crawled beneath it and pricked her skin with hot needles. It went right underneath her back, stinging Silent and driving her restless. Silent grit her teeth and itched in-place, bumping her pipe into the wall behind her.

"Hemp...? Hemp, that better be you." The colt called, making his way toward the noise.

The moment he walked through that door, the colt trotted just barely into the doorway. He opened the door and kept his back against it. Upon closer inspection, he discovered the wide-eyed corpse of his friend. He stayed trembling over it, holding their cheeks in his lithe and thin hooves. Beneath all his painspike armor, the colt sobbed his breath away and kissed Hemp Necktie's muzzle.

"Why... why didn't you yell for me. Why didn't... I... I stay here. Oh Celestia, I'm sorry . I didn't mean it. I didn't mean what I said earlier-! Don't leave me- d-d-don't leave- me- " He cursed, burying his face into their warm, fresh coat.

The rest of the words were muffled. And though she felt a pang in her chest, Silent Hill snuck out from where the bed frame obscured the bookcase. She took his life by the pipe, crushing his larynx by keeping it pressed. As he stopped bucking about and struggling against her, the mare moved their bodies into one, loving embrace. She stepped outside and into the lifeless living room, finding the mutilated remains of a foal next to a bag full of teddy bears and Fancy Foal Snack Packs. A swirl of memories dug cuts into her aching head. And when she realized what that small corpse really was, she razed the place to the ground and never looked back.

Trotting away from her most recent encounter with the wasteland, she saw a pony unlike any other walk past. It was down the strip of road each house neighbored that he tread carelessly about. Over his shoulder hung a drum-magazine combat shotgun. It matched his leather armor so delicately customized to fit his long and muscled body. He was a foot taller than Silent Hill and only shared a warning glance with her. Both of his eyes were a void black and furrowed to say 'you cross me and I'll put you down.'

What choice did she have but to shrug, consider her options and trot behind him. Silent Hill clutched her ribs and soldiered on, stabbed by damage the adrenaline couldn't fix anymore. And even then, her forelegs were squishy and limp, sinking into her near both, thin and wiry shoulders.

"... Are you lost, miss." He grumbled, pursing his lips and watching the road ahead.

"Not yet. I'm looking for a place I can find more psychos."

He gave a bitter chuckle and smirked all the way there, glancing back at her once or twice.

"You're in luck, kid. Psycho is the blood of the wasteland." Next Chapter: Hubris Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 11 Minutes