Some ponies said walking the long road was good for the soul. For Silent, it was torture. She couldn't quite find joy in such demanding labor. Just a light trot hurt her body of paper and glass. Back at the hospital, she'd worked her legs so they better supported her weight and aided in sneaking. Actually sustaining constant motion burned both her shoulders and ribs, which seemed to rip and ache with acid. The mare put on her best poker face, keeping their bite-activated .32 pistol, which she named Hubris, out. Because it was such a finely polished revolver, but it lacked efficiency. How did she know it lacked efficiency? Because it had an awful tick that came after clicking the hammer back, which jammed if the metal was too cold. They ran into a wandering highwaymare a few yards back.

Silent had no memory of their face or voice and she didn't care to. Why remember somepony so insignificant. All that highwaymare did was prey on the disadvantaged. There was no reason. Besides, she shot first and asked questions later. All she did remember was how many juice caps her body yielded. Silent Hill rifled through her scraps of clothing and time-torn baggage. The situation was that she could've simply flipped them over to watch their cold, lifeless eyes, but she lacked the motivation. Her ears perked high as the flaking skin colt called over.

"Silent...! Did you find anything on her?"

The mare looked back with her eyes.

"Yes. But all I found were these juice caps. Isn't that a useless find." She remarked bored, yawning and staring up at the endless skyline.

It blanketed the wasteland in a nuclear winter wonderland. Tiny flakes of what she hoped was radioactive snow and not some sort of hallucinogenic drug fell about her. When it fell on her coat, it seemed to layer like a solid and not melt like snowflakes. Another call from her companion shocked her ears.

"Silent Hill? You got bottlecaps, right? That's what we use for money now. I know you're probably out of it because you said it wasn't a good find." He explained, trotting toward her.

"Oh, but... why would anypony use bottlecaps for money. Aren't they heavier than paper currency. And louder."

The ghoulish colt smirked after her observation, leading them north with his shotgun over his shoulder. Share In was his name, she learned after a night of travel. Though her tired and wide, childish eyes stayed focused on the road ahead, Silent thought of the city he detailed in their journey. His lips to her ears, Silent Hill listened intently while staring at the cracks in the pavement.

"If you keep looking so helpless and drowsy, you're not gonna make it in the other cities. Jail Seed attracts better people because it's a no-slavery zone. But if you went further south, you'd be collared by some Monarch roidhead. You gotta be on your hooves when you're out in the wastes."

They neared an empty crossing on the road, intersecting between dirt roads and the ruined pavement before them. Thankfully, the shrubbery that should've been there was non-existent. The megabombs blew it all to lifeless, decrepit husks of spindly, brown skeletons of old world vegitation. That way, nopony could ambush them. Share In pointed ahead with his pump shotgun. Not mere minutes away was a city built together in a piecemeal fashion.

The towering mess of construction walkways, converted mobile homes and recreational vehicles stood tall in it's many levels of scrap metal floors and displaced house walls. The walls carried a surgically torn look at the edges, conveying Jail Seed as an improvised home salvaged together from the very wastes it cast a shadow on. Along the edges were barricades of sandbags and turret walls. Around the main entrance, which used admission booths and chainlink fence gates, were walls made of broken carriage husks. All the rust and amalgamated textures fit the ponies guarding the entrance.

A few, tightly-concentrated stallions were clad in various bits of combat armor with a thin, leather underarmor. They wore visored race car helmets and toted .32 and .308 hunting carbines. One of the well-armed guards met Share In as he slinked over and presented the bottlecaps from earlier. They shared a nod. Silent Hill followed closely behind him, her gait patient and lazy, following the pace of her greedy eyes undressing the town.

For the first time in... ever, she felt truly unsafe in the wasteland. Everypony in the world tread upon the dirt and occasional dead grass of Jail Seed. Those who greeted Silent Hill often wore hats of some kind. From sharper, slimmer hats to wide-rimmed leather ones, she only met the nicest with her wobbly, breathless grin. What she really did was grit her teeth behind her lips, forcing them to flex upwards and back. One of those fine gentlemen were a stallion of fine muscle tone, a curious eyepatch over his left eye and a curious cowhide vest over red, long-sleeved flannel. His greeting was curious.

When the two met eyes, he took to some, peppy grin and asked 'y'all are new in town, aren't ya?'

Silent shrunk away from confronting his eyes, keeping her own from meeting his glossy, almost sparkling aquamarines. The wind blew his bangs about and barely misplaced them, barely affecting his vintage cowboy swoop. It was curious to spot his queer mane coloration and even queerer to comprehend his single streak of greyed violet corrupting his golden locks. The colt fixed his orange ascot and held his hoof out, which had a boot with spurs. And each time he did a dramatic gesture toward a place or person, they jingle jangled.

"Why, howdy there. My name's Apfel. Apfel Schnapps Mondstein. And if y'all don't mind, let me show you round town. I'm the sheriff of this fine place so let me do the guidin'. This here is the Jail Seed... Jail. I work here! And if you're not very interested in a couple of bars and the crooks cursin' out from behind them, well, I don't blame ya. Here's the Jail Seed Saloon, just left of the Jail Seed Jail; pretty convenient when you're tuckered off your tush and you need a good old Applejack Daniels to cool off your trigger finger . And let's not forget the heart of our fine city: the Jail Seed Jumpin' Jupiter Jamboree Demolitions Depot!"

The other places before the depot were nondescript squarish structures with typical old west architecture. What he described last was a dwarfing building twice the size of any other in the town with a bright neon sign urging everypony to spend caps there. Glowing explosives joined the name of Jupiter's with infinite, but very weak and harmless firecrackers. Apfel Schnapps shed a tear and held his hat against his chest.

"Ain't it the best damn thing you've ever seen...?"

Before she could do more than chuckle at his goofy charm, she found herself gasping for air. A droning, buzzing noise erected her ears skyward. She warned him something came their way, describing it's hum and mix of commonplace growling. Apfel's bright features turned a shade darker, inciting an eerie scowl over his lips.

"Two Bit! Rascal Roundup! Lasso Lament! Herd all the civilians in their homes and get the rest of yer asses behind me!" He barked, even soothing when he commanded his men.

They did nothing but nod and commence with clearing Jail Seed's dusty center. Before long, all was still. Share In rolled his eyes toward the silky winter sky and asked what the hell they were avoiding. He upsetthe three or four stallions in formation behind Apfel, but their leader chuckled at his ignorance.

"You done standin' all tall and mighty yet? Cause you should start crouchin' down a bit. A bugbear's comin for us and he ain't gonna take kindly to a challenge."

Heavy, thick dust clouds rushed toward them from the entrance of town. They all took their combative stances and steadied their nerves, clicking back the hammers and bolts of their red, white and blue weapons. A solitary boom of hunting carbines pounded in their ears. Silent Hill maneuvered behind Share In, unable to steady her peashooter. Because when the shots ran dry, the chainlink fence was torn down and flattened beneath the bugbear.

A chimera of sickly, mangled bear fur, a wasp's thorax and blade-like stinger composed a two-headed bear beast. It snarled and roared with wings beating loud as it bludgeoned the air. Silent's eyes went wide as it raced closer by the second, revealing behind it's cloud several other bugbears. A wild, inpatient count of four beasts crossed her mind. Before she could even fire, she was deafened by a cluster of revolver noise and stray muzzle flashes. The mare desperately jolted toward her left as one of the beasts struck Share In. A harsh, three-clawed gash ripped his chest open and he writhed on the dirt grunting in agony.

A wash of chaos ripped the town apart and drowned Silent Hill in sensory overload. What little firing rate she could manage with trembling hooves and a weak heart dwindled by the second. A lone thump was all she could hear beside the hoarse shouts of names and hot barrels spewing lead. She saw two stallions floored by tackling, savage beasts and sat powerless as they gargled out their torn and eaten throats.

Run. Run. Run. That's all she could do. Run.

Silent turned to flee, but her back was suddenly against the dusty ground. Before she could shoot, her chamber clicked dry. Two, menacing rows of razor-sharp teeth leaked slobber and carrion breath all over her coat. It snorted a burst of hot breath against her shut lips, licking at the mare and forcing a pseudo-gag inside her throat.

"What's wrong, you oversized bitches?! Can't take a colt and his gun mano e mano?!" Apfel barked, firing twin .44's in her direction.

The bugbear's right eye burst open, splattering red cruor against her snout. Silent Hill gaped her mouth open away from her assailant, inhaling sharply. It growled and roared his way. It's snout was blown in half, leaving a grotesque display of bone and rotting sinew hanging from the jawline . It started swaying in place.

"Yeeha!"

A flurry of rapid fired bullets and tribal yelping shook the town awake. It was mere seconds before the bugbear, once in a position to dominate the circumstance of her death, collapsed coldly to Silent's right. The dead weight was challenging to wriggle free from, but a helping hoof pulled her out. Apfel's guts and muscle slid her out with such ease, she felt like a ragdoll of some colossal child.

His aquamarine, right eye stared into her. And the eyepatch, metallic with a grated design, seemed to pierce through her as well.

"Miss...? Are you okay?" He soothed, catching her as she slipped from stumbling backwards.

"I... I think so." She whispered, looking down as her cheeks and loins burned.

No, it wasn't just her loins. Her head was on fire. Her whole body was baking. Silent tried to say more, but only a faint mumble of nonsense and swooning breath left her lips. And that was when the world went dark. Next Chapter: Nihil Sub Sole Novum Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 3 Minutes