Someone left a like, so I guess at least one person in the world is interested in reading it. Here's another chapter!

It was late afternoon when the houses and buildings of our destination became visible, and before we even entered the village I felt something was wrong.

As we’d traveled farther out from the valley, the plants and wildlife that had populated the countryside had steadily grown sparser and hardier, until only and occasional tree and shocks of grass or lichen populated the rocks and hills on our path. Only the tallest of the Smokey Mountains were still visible behind us, where the cloud cover severed their peaks from view. Our PipBucks buzzed, and I brought my right hoof up to read the name of where I already knew we were:

Tao

Despite it being the first stop in our tour of Equestria, there was a very subdued atmosphere among us as, even from a couple of miles away, we saw the decrepit state of the place. Approaching closer, we came to a broken stone road that meandered between several dozen homes, each leaning one way or another, some only supported by another house. Most roofs had caved in at some time in the past and had left swollen and exposed wooden struts sticking out from crumbling walls, rubble spilling out onto the ground below them. Only a few buildings appeared stable enough to enter or explore safely.

But that wasn’t what we were somber about. Now that we were in the village proper, we could see many skeletons sprawled out around Tao. On the road, on porches, in the dirt—they were everywhere. Inside nearly every single one of them there seemed to be tan mushrooms growing from within, crowding around ribcages, pelvis bones, and what I realized were wing bones. Other patches of the same fungus peppered the ground throughout the village.

“What happened here...?” Piedmont mumbled as my team walked down the road, passing silent homestead after silent homestead.

“Hey, Holly,” Compass Rose said, “do you know what this stuff is that’s growing from all these bodies?”

My group stopped so I could examine one of the skeletons. I had to take a moment to quell my unease, but the mushrooms, flat-topped, smooth, and light golden brown, didn’t look familiar to any species I’d read about. I sniffed one. It was a mild and sweet aroma, but it didn’t help me identify it any.

I scooped a bit of the soil away from the base of one of the larger shoots with my magic to see if it had a cup before shaking my head and standing upright again. “I can’t tell what it is just from looking at it. Still, it’s probably best not to wander through them.”

We continued to the center of the place, but there were no signs that anypony else was here.

Disappointment twinged in my chest. Even though we’d known Tao was a very small settlement, it still hurt to discover the entire place abandoned. We’d have to continue on to Ponyville to have another chance at finding ponies who’d lived aboveground.

“Hey, what’s that place supposed to be?” Bell Hop asked, pointing off to the side.

Everypony looked over to see a very out-of-place building. It stood two stories tall, was built from concrete, and while it provided support for several leaning homesteads, seemed to stand on its own. Faded but discernable splashes of yellow and pink adorned the outer walls behind a coat of dust and age. More mushrooms crowded around it.

“Let’s go inside,” Cap White suggested. “It looks deliberately constructed to stand out, so if anypony left an idea of whether or not there were survivors, it would most likely be there.”

“All right, but keep your weapons ready,” Derringer said, his own hoof reaching for the rifle strapped to his back. “If another nasty animal is living in there, it’s going to know the layout far better than we do.”

Warning in mind, I hung back a bit as everypony approached the building’s dark, yawning entrance. Like the fort we’d been at yesterday, its door lay on the ground, hinges dissolved away by time and oxygen. Piedmont activated the lamp function on his PipBuck, and everypony else followed suit, bathing the ground in front of us in light. Taking a deep breath, I fell in line behind Cap and in front of Compass as we entered single-file.

The doorway opened up into a small, empty room. The area was barren of decor aside from a counter and door across from us, a threadbare carpet that was more hard surface than fabric, and walls bloated and warped from what must have been some sort of structural damage. The windows were so caked with dust that they let no more light into the building than the walls did. Two dark ceiling lights dangled from screws that looked like they were made more of rust than metal; the only light other than from our PipBucks came from the door to the outside.

“There’s a terminal behind the counter there,” I said as I pointed to a small computer box beside the desk.

Piedmont hopped over the counter, tapping some keys on the keyboard before shaking his head. “It’s password-protected.”

“Should we head through the door?” Bell Hop asked, gesturing at the door beside the counter.

Piedmont nodded, walking around and opening it from his side, and we began scouting the corridor, sweeping our PipBuck lamps over room after room of peeling wallpaper and decaying, empty cabinets. Not a single one of the rooms contained anything in them that wasn’t built into the walls; everywhere we looked was devoid of furnishings. Upon closer examination, there were marks on the tile or carpet where some things had likely once been placed, but were now gone.

The fur on the back of my neck stiffened. I hope we find what we’re looking for soon and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.

“Wonder what this place was built for...” Piedmont muttered ahead of me. “It looks to me like somepony came through and took everything that wasn’t nailed down.”

“It does,” Cap White said.

We eventually came to a stairwell at the end of the hallway leading down into the darkness. “Should we go down?” Piedmont asked.

“Do we have a choice, if we want to find out what happened to this place?” Derringer answered.

That’s assuming we want to find out what happened to this place anymore, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. We descended into the building’s lower levels, and soon the only light we had to see by came from our PipBucks.

The bottom of the stairwell featured a door reading “SUPPLIES” standing ajar. Piedmont pushed it all the way open and gestured us inside.

We trotted in and realized where everything in the building had disappeared to.

Mountains of various objects had been piled to the ceiling, boxes and clothes and chairs and cots and metallic surfaces and mechanical parts and more that formed a makeshift barrier between us and whatever lay deeper inside the storeroom. I didn’t even know where I would start if I were to try to look through any of it.

“I think I see a glow from something further in,” Piedmont said, stretching himself up to survey the room. “Let’s investigate.”

Making our way between the precarious towers of metal and cloth was slow going, since Bell Hop’s saddlebags were too bulky to allow him to squeeze past certain piles of junk. I glanced through the contents of the trash as my group crawled along, levitating up a yellowed notepad. Tao Clinic was spelled out at the top, and an insignia of three butterflies decorated the upper-right corner.

Further examining the contents of the makeshift hill I’d found myself next to, I caught sight of a box labeled “FIREWORKS” trapped in the middle of the stack. I stood up on my hindlegs to look inside, and smiled, grabbing a few small cylindrical objects wrapped in bright, colorful packaging with fuses sticking out of them.

“What are you doing, Holly?” Compass Rose asked, trotting up beside me.

Clopping back to the ground, I grinned, flashing my discovery. “They’re fireworks.”

Compass’s eyes shone. “Ooh, like the ones the Overmare set off at the Venture Scout celebration!”

I nodded, putting one in a clear space on the floor before lighting it with a spark of magic. It was tiny, so I expected it to be unimpressive in comparison to the Overmare’s, but the idea was too tantalizing to resist. It ignited, fizzling with red and green specks of fire that generated a dazzling fountain of light and heat.

The other Venture Scouts turned to it, and one or two of them said something, but I didn’t listen too closely, entranced as I was at the points of light dancing and then drifting to the floor.

A deafening shriek pierced my eardrums, and everypony yelped in surprise and pain, covering our ears and staggering back. The guilty firework sprayed out a few more spurts of flame before sputtering out and dying.

“OK,” Piedmont admonished, “no more fireworks, at least not in here.” Face burning, I nodded, quickly slipping the others I’d taken into my saddlebags.

We made a couple more improvised routes through the junk to find what had been glowing: A massive mechanical construction with various fixtures that radiated light. In the center of the machine was a large bowl, with a broken screen built into the metal behind it.

Beyond it was a terminal placed in what looked like the center of the room. Piedmont made a beeline for it, tapping a few keys and pumping a hoof. “It’s unlocked! Maybe it’ll have some information on what this building’s for, at least.”

“Great,” Derringer said, scanning the piles, his rifle at the ready. “What’s on it?”

“I found some sort of log left here by someone,” Piedmont replied. “It looks like they could have been an employee or something.”

I moved so I could better see the screen as everypony bunched up around Piedmont. It glowed a cool green, and the letters MoP were displayed in the upper-right corner. He clicked through a few options, and a paragraph typed itself up on the screen:

[21/11/41]

I’ve had to relocate down here. I can’t allow the village ponies to wander around in the clinic, else they might discover the magical contaminant detector and what it does. Erlen went with the group that decided to travel to Sunpoint a week ago and they never returned, so I’m the only clinic employee left here. I’m probably going to go mad before long without anyone to confide in.

Even though it’s been a month since all those bright flashes from what must have been megaspells lighting up the horizon stopped, I’m even more scared now than I was then. At least death by balefire would be quick. If the village ponies find out I’m really not some kind of guru who can tell them what food is edible... I’m afraid they might kill me. I really don’t know too much about these Tao ponies. When I signed up for this, I thought it would be easy... shows how much of a fool I was.

“Well,” Bell Hop mused, “at least now we know ponies lived here once.”

“That must be the contaminant detector, then,” Piedmont said, looking behind us at the large glowing contraption we’d climbed around to reach the terminal. “I’m surprised it’s still running. I’d have expected that kind of machinery to go kaput somewhere along the line.”

“It looks like it’s dated eighty years ago,” Compass added. “Those ponies outside must have been the villagers...” She trailed off.

After a second of silence, Piedmont brought his hooves back up to the terminal’s keyboard and cycled through the machine’s messages. He skimmed a few short entries before stopping at another informative one:

[09/12/41]

Finished moving everything I could from the ground floor down here. The tables, the medical stuff stocking the cabinets, everything. I can’t even let the village ponies use the cots for beds. I’ve come up with excuses, but I know that if I slip up even a moment, they’ll realize how I’ve been fooling them. Anything that keeps them away from the clinic.

Thankfully, for the moment, it seems like they trust me enough as a leader. I’m actually sort of proud of how well I’ve been doing. Everypony who has stayed in the village is still healthy, although we’re running out of safe food.

I can’t tell them anything. I can’t tell anypony. The only one I can tell is this terminal...

Piedmont scanned through the next several messages, but after reading sentence after sentence of whoever this pony was gradually growing dependent upon the terminal for companionship, I chose to look away.

A flash of movement entered the periphery of my vision, and I turned to lock eyes with a pair of green irises that immediately and noiselessly vanished among the piles of clinic materials.

I blinked as my heart skipped a beat. I checked my PipBuck, and with a bloodcurdling feeling of fear realized I hadn’t had my E.F.S. on, so I didn’t know whether it had been a friendly or dangerous presence... or whether or not it was a pony. It could have even been a trick of the light. Trying to swallow the lump of negligence in my throat, I turned E.F.S. on, looking out among the storeroom to catch a glimpse of a red or yellow outline.

“Oh, goodness,” Compass Rose breathed beside me. Returning my attention to the terminal, I saw that even Derringer was looking at the screen, his mouth open. Craning my neck, I read the entry that Piedmont had pulled up:

[15/5/42]

Hey Mopsy. A group of pegasi calling themselves Dashites came to Tao today, wearing some tattered combat outfits and carrying weaponry. They claimed they had defected from the pegasi traitors hiding above the clouds, and are trying to find survivors on the surface. They say there’s a settlement up north past Sunpoint called Cascade where they’re directing everypony, and that they have food and water enough to make everyone happy...

They’re not to be trusted. Even if they weren’t pegasi, who have already proven unworthy of any loyalty whatsoever, they’re trying to usurp and undermine my authority. These featherbrains took food that the contaminant detector found tainted and declared it was clean on their magical scans.

They don’t know what they’re talking about. There’s more than just magical radiation, and I’m pretty sure the detector showed that food as having a foreign organism within it. They’re tempting the villagers with contaminated food!

I will not let these invaders take Tao away from me Mopsy, can’t you see? The villagers don’t know any better. They need somepony like me to guide them. My only choice is to make them leave, or if they won’t...

“If any of you make any sudden moves I’ll blow your fucking heads off.”

I began to turn with everyone else, only to hear the thunder of a gunshot combined with an explosion of glass as the terminal screen shattered, sparks shooting from the machine as the display went dark.

“I said not to make any sudden moves!”

I froze, watching as everypony I could see did the same. Compass was right next to me, and we exchanged terrified glances as we stood stock-still.

“If I see one of the unicorns’ horns light up, you’ll have a bullet through your head faster than you can cast a spell.” A moment passed as the pony grunted quietly, paired with a small mechanical click. “Now turn around, all of you. Slowly. So I know you’re not trying any funny business.”

We rotated in place to face the pony who had a gun trained on us.

She was a brown earth pony, ablaze with E.F.S.’s red outline, and I immediately recognized her piercing green eyes I’d seen hidden amongst the piles of junk. She had her back to the contaminant detector we’d climbed over, and was bracing her rifle against her chest, trained on Piedmont. Her filthy black mane—I couldn’t tell whether it was darker than mine due to natural pigment or because it was so slick with grime—was cropped close to her head, and it didn’t look in much better condition than her blotchy fur coat. Her muzzle sat crookedly on her face, twisted from some unknown trauma. She wasn’t carrying or wearing anything except her rifle.

“Who’s got the food?” she asked, her eyes flicking between each of us.

Nopony spoke.

Another gunshot ricocheted off the ground, whipping past Piedmont’s head and burying itself into a tower of junk. “Who’s got the fucking food?!”

“Bell Hop!” I squeaked. “Bell Hop does!”

The mare pointed her rifle at me. “Who the fuck’s Bell Hop, greenhorn?”

I brought my hoof up to point but only got halfway there when the earth pony tensed, raising her rifle to shoot. Freezing in place and trying to keep myself from shaking, I stuttered out, “Th-the big one.”

The gun’s muzzle snapped over to point at Bell. “C’mere.”

Bell hesitated for a moment, then took a few steps forward.

“Stop. Dump all your shit.”

The only sound in the supplies room was everypony breathing and the steady hum of the scanning machine. Bell shifted the bulky packs on his back, then slid them off. After another jerk of the head from the mare robbing us, Bell turned his saddlebags upside-down, letting all his supplies drop out to the floor.

Looking closer at the earth pony, I noticed that, like the Orthros we’d fought yesterday, she seemed near-emaciated, her individual ribs visible beneath a coat that seemed more ragged and patchy the longer I looked at it. Even though I was terrified, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for this pony that looked so hungry she had to steal food to survive. Do all ponies who live out here have to live like this? Is there really... nothing left?

I bit my lip. If we lose Bell Hop’s food, then we’d have no choice but to return to Stable 32! We don’t have enough supplies on our own to survive six weeks!

The robber waved the gun back at the group, and Bell Hop shuffled back toward us. The earth pony began poking a hindleg through Bell’s belongings, still keeping an eye on us.

I turned my head, slowly, to look at Compass, who had her head down and her eyes locked on her front hooves. I glanced at Piedmont, who was staring down the thief, not even blinking. The only movement came from his wings, shifting as they drooped against his sides. My breath caught in my throat as I realized one of them was right beside his holster, semi-obscured by his saddlebags.

He’s going to try a wingshot!

Trying not to whimper aloud, I turned to face front, only to see our robber staring right at me, her eyebrows furrowed.

The next sequence of events happened very quickly.

The mare robbing us looked over at Piedmont, who had pinched his pistol’s mouthgrip in his wing joint and was drawing it from his holster. The earth pony threw herself sideways as Piedmont rotated his shoulder and squeezed off a shot, which went wide and drilled into the side of the contaminant detector. The detector’s lights flickered for a split second before bursting in showers of glass and sparks as its sides ruptured and blew out, knocking everypony to the ground.

A crackling roar met my ears as I clambered to my hooves, and I looked toward where the thief had once stood to see that the detector machine had caught on fire. The blaze leapt onto the various piles of refuse in the basement, forming acrid black plumes of smoke that billowed out and obscured the ceiling.

“Everypony out!” Derringer bellowed from beside me a moment before the noise of fireworks pierced through the flames with a million shrill screeches.

I clenched my ears shut as best I could and bolted away from the terminal into the maze of junk, trying to get away from the flames. I heard Compass yell “Holly!” behind me, but I ignored her. Have to get out, have to get out!

The fire grew larger and hotter, and a horrible, powerful stench of fried electronics and melting plastic reached my nose, making me cough and dip my neck as close to the ground as I could. Powering up my horn, I cast the best protection spell I knew against heat, but I didn’t know any spells to help me breathe. I lurched blindly forward, trying to navigate my way through the thickening air as I circled around where I thought the blaze was so I could get back to the entrance.

I stopped, taking a sip of air with my cheek against the floor before raising my head to look around me. A cloud of roiling gray fumes had obscured the fire, but I could see its flickering glow from within. Smoke blanketed the ceiling, curling down to the ground as wisps danced around each other in chaotic fervor.

I pressed on, pushing myself over and around towers of metal and plastic as the tepid air grew hot. Looking up again, I glimpsed the stairs upward peeking out between two last mounds of refuse. Heaving myself over a table broken in half, I fumbled my way outside the door and over to the steps, putting a hoof on the first one and lifting myself up and out of the basement. I just had to hope that everypony else had gotten out safely-

“Help! Help!”

I stopped and looked back at the door frame as smoke streamed out of it, tainting the fresher air in the stairwell with the pungent smell of ash. Was that...?

“Please!”

I couldn’t recognize who was yelling, but she sounded close, and her voice sounded high enough to be from one of the mares. My heart clenched.

“Help! Someon-!” The voice fell silent.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the cleanest air I could, before dashing back into the room and forcing my way through toward where I’d heard the voice last. My PipBuck’s lamp light reflected off of thousands of smoke particles in front of me, scattering any light and doing more to blind me than help me see, so I slapped it off.

Even close to the ground the air had become a dark smog of ash so dense that I could barely see my own hooves, but the fire had grown bright enough that a flickering orange glow pierced through the murky clouds and infused them with an unpleasant, threatening warmth. I heard something crash to the floor from deeper within the room as I squeezed around a large shelf.

My protection spell faltered, struggling to stay active, but even with its shielding influence my fur felt like it was withering from the heat. My eyes burned and watered, forcing me to squint and blink away tears. My head spun, and I stumbled to my knees.

I can’t do it, I thought. If I go any deeper, I won’t be able to get out, with or without her. I braced myself against the ground, struggling to get back on all fours as my protection spell against the heat began slipping away from me.

I glimpsed a shadowy shape twitch within the smoke, aglow in E.F.S. yellow.

Throwing myself forward, I tripped and fell to the floor in front of a pony lying prone, pinned underneath a mass of containers that had shifted and collapsed on top of her. My spell gave out, and the temperature of the room soared. The flames tinted the room orange, adding menacing light to what was now an oppressive heat.

Reaching down with my forelegs, I grabbed a pair of brown hooves and realized she was the earth pony thief, unconscious.

Despite feeling my flame-resistant barding trying to cook me from the outside inward as the fire whipped me with powerful, hot lashes, I froze. Should I save her? She tried to rob us!

My train of thought didn’t last long. I couldn’t let anypony burn alive when I could save them, when they’d cried for help. Nopony deserved to die that way.

Not even a thief.

Grasping her hooves firmly, I tugged as hard as my body could muster. My senses had deadened; my skin no longer burned with pain, instead registering as a dull ache that made every movement hurt. My ears rang from the deafening rumble of flame. My vision swam and my lungs burned from holding my breath. I closed my eyes, putting everything I could into yanking the mare free, squeaking out a whimper of desperation and hope.

After spending a timeless second fighting an immovable object, I felt the boxes shift. The thief’s body come free, plowing into me and shoving me on my back as she knocked some precious air out of me. An orange glow crept through the smoky darkness, growing brighter as it marched closer and closer in blinding flashes and flares.

As it stalked toward us, I turned myself over from underneath the thief pony’s body, forcing myself to stand. I checked to make sure she was draped over the back of my saddlebags, then looked in the direction I’d come from.

The fire had engulfed enough kindling to obscure the door with smoke, but an alien calm had settled within me. I looked down at my shaking legs, keeping my head low, and focused only on putting one hoof in front of another. Moving over and around scattered items and furniture, I made my way back toward where I knew the stairs upward had been.

My vision had been reduced to a small, graying circle in front of me, inky blackness crawling in from the edges of my eyes in jagged shoots, and only a dull hum was audible to me. My entire face was numb; I didn’t even know if I had accidentally begun to breathe again. Left front, right back. Right front, left back. Left front, right back...

One foreleg bumped into the wall, and I shuffled along it, scraping my head against the hot surface and faintly feeling the body of the mare on my back shift with every step I took. I kept walking along the wall for several seconds, minutes, hours.

My head suddenly flew sideways, unsupported by the wall that was no longer there, and I sprawled onto the floor through the open “SUPPLIES” door. Crawling to my knees, I began ascending the smoke-filled staircase, lumbering up the steps and doing my best to keep the mare on my back from slipping off from my fading coordination.

A dull ache grew in my chest as I reached the top of the stairs, the tunnel vision I’d gotten graying out my sight completely. I leaned against the clinic’s rough hallway wall, thrusting myself forward through the smoke that had collected in the corridor, until I fell through the door to the reception room, the thief on my back knocking her head against mine.

Only able to keep my eyelids open halfway, I looked up to see the open door of the building, illuminated like a halo as smoke streamed out. I lay where I had fallen and coughed, pawing at the floor underneath me but unable to find enough strength to right myself. I tried to inhale a breath, but it left me just as quickly as I choked on smoke and coughed it back out.

No...

The blackened soles of my rear hooves twitched, but would not obey me. It felt like the fire had accompanied me upstairs and was now raging inside my chest, beating on me from inside as it demanded oxygen. The exit was within reach, but I was too spent to move the last few feet.

No!

My horn ignited with a weak yellow blaze, forcing out my heat protection spell again, and an ice-cold grip squeezed me like a vice, paralyzing me for a moment of clarity before my exhausted magic reserves sputtered out.

But it was enough. The chill, cool feeling of my own magic shocked me from my daze, and I flexed my legs with energy from a source I could not identify, scrambling and falling forward all the way out the building and onto the ground several feet in front of the entrance. This time, I didn’t try to get up again, closing my eyes as my sight behind my eyelids erupted into hazy gold waves.

The pain in my chest grew harsher, spiderwebbing out through my body as I coughed out and gulped in clean air. My ears rang, lethargically perking as a moan of twisting metal behind me broke through my tinnitus. My brain felt like it had been pumped so much air it was threatening to burst out of my skull, and I focused on my breathing, clenching and unclenching my teeth as I fought not to cry out while my sense of feeling—angry, throbbing feeling—crept back into my skin and pulsed in agony with every heartbeat.

The unpleasant sound of steel on steel swelled into a screech, and I opened my eyes, squinting as my eyes watered from the crisp air. Strongarming my neck to look back at the building and fighting to keep from falling unconscious as I coughed, I saw that it had sunk half a story into the ground on one side, leaning precariously to the left. Dancing flames spilled out from the collapsed half of the building, spreading to a nearby house that had already been leaning against the clinic’s wall.

Struggling to keep my eyes open with pain reverberating through me, I squeezed my hooves under myself and hobbled over to where the thief had fallen off my back after I’d gotten out. She was dusky with ash and a few bruises showed through her coat, but she was breathing. I hooked my forelegs in hers and began dragging her away, through the village houses and past dead skeletons with fungi clinging to their bones.

My legs gave out a couple dozen feet beyond the last line of homes. I let the thief flop back onto the ground and fell on my side next to her, feeling the bulk of my scorched saddlebags jab into my abdomen. I closed my eyes, trying to let my frazzled nerves and aching, burning body soothe themselves with some rest and shutting everything out but both of our breaths and the crackle of the blaze.

I opened my eyes to find my surroundings dark with nightfall, tempered by an eerie red glow. Checking my PipBuck, I realized I’d fallen unconscious for a couple hours.

I breathed out through my nose, clutching at my chest as my sore throat and lungs prompted me to cradle up in the fetal position. The air was laden with a sharp, heady aroma of things burnt that should never have caught fire.

I fumbled for my water straw, patting around the bag of water on my right side—it felt much lighter than it should have, probably because some of it had evaporated—before grabbing it and sticking it into my mouth. The next several minutes consisted of mouthfuls of warm water mixed with gasps of air, occasionally spitting out some water on my hooves to rub my face and mane clean of ash and soot.

I could have emptied the entire water pouch, but I couldn’t without first giving some water to the mare I’d saved. Staggering my way over to her prone form, I reached out to prod at her before recoiling; now that I examined her, she’d sustained a burn from the fire that stretched across her entire right side. I touched my hoof to her shoulder and shook her lightly to check if she was conscious.

She shifted, and I heard her groan as her mouth opened. Letting out a weak cough, she fluttered her eyelids, staring up into the dark sky. “Mmmh...?”

“Hey,” I croaked, before clearing my throat and trying again. “Hey. Would you like some water?”

The brown pony tweaked her neck toward me, blinking, before trying to get up. “What happened...? I remember some boxes falling on me, and then...” The earth pony coughed again, falling limp. “Fuck, I’m thirsty.”

I grabbed my water straw with a hoof, offering it to her. “Here, have some water.”

She brought up a hoof and nudged my straw to the side. “No...”

I tilted my head in confusion. What do you mean, “no”? Why would you turn down water right after asking for some?

I wordlessly offered it to her again, and this time she didn’t move to push it away, so I brought it to her lips. She began to drink, cupping her hooves around the straw as she gulped down water from the pouch until she sucked it dry. She leaned back again, exhaling as she stared up into the sky. I followed her gaze, but the only things above us were murky clouds and a thin puff of smoke rising up from inside the village. I shivered as a breeze brushed by me.

“Did you save me?” she asked.

I looked back at her to see that she had fixated her green eyes on me, propping herself up on her foreleg. After a moment, I nodded.

“Why the fuck did you do that?”

I flinched at her harsh language. “Because... you were in danger, and I was able to save you. So I did.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’d just tried to steal your food.”

Not knowing what else to say, I shrugged. “You were in danger.”

“That’s bullshit. I tried to steal your shit, and you’re telling me you saved me because, what, out of the goodness of your heart?”

I quailed away, stepping back. “I... It doesn’t matter. If it had been anypony from Stable 32, I would have saved them too no matter who they were. You cried out for help, so... I saved you.”

She stared at me for a second before sighing and lying back down. “All you Stable ponies are mental. How long have you been out here?”

Not sure where the question was going, I answered, “A couple days.”

She barked a ragged laugh. “Yeah, that would explain it.”

A cold pit settled in my stomach. Licking my lips, not knowing what to say, I looked over at Tao, trying to assess the damage.

The fire had consumed the clinic and several houses around it, but most of the village seemed like it had survived. The homes around the clinic had collapsed into scorched rubble, leaving only a few splinters of wood and stone still standing. Several scorched-black skeletons were still visible, crusty remains of fungi giving their skulls and ribcages a rough, alien appearance. A warm mirage of heat emanated from the village’s interior, red-hot embers shimmering from within. Wisps of smoke rose from them, uniting into a large stream escaping upward into the inky sky.

I shivered again. “I, um, need to find my team, make sure they’re alright... I hope I won’t offend you if I leave to search for them...?”

I turned back to see that her eyes were closed, her chest moving up and down with slow breaths of slumber.

I stared at her for a moment before retreating into the night to find my partners.

I hugged the border of Tao, keeping several houses between me and the village’s warm innards. Circling around the fringes, I scanned the horizon until I glimpsed a patch of white fur against the gray and brown ground, lit by a small but controlled fire.

Picking up my pace, I trotted to the group loosely gathered around the fire, turning to Piedmont. “I’m so sorry, I’m here now, I passed out-”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Piedmont interrupted, whirling around to face me.

My ears drooped, and I bowed my head. “I’m sorry, I was-”

“Why did you run off?”

“I-”

“Didn’t we just learn yesterday that we don’t separate the group?!” Piedmont interrupted again. “Look at me!”

I slowly brought my gaze up to his. Everypony’s eyes were on me.

“We assumed we had lost you,” Piedmont said, his tone low and dangerous. “You broke with the group and tried to get out yourself, Holly. Compass Rose chased after you. We didn’t know where either of you had gone, and we didn’t have time to find out. We just had to get out and hope you were able to find your way out, too.” Piedmont paused, his eyes still locked on mine. “Your breaking with the group threatened the safety of the entire team. Never do that again. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

After a moment, Piedmont nodded. “Where’s Compass?”

I looked around the group and realized there was still one member missing. ...She’s... She chased after me...

“Holly,” Piedmont said, his mouth a tight line, “what happened to Compass?”

“I don’t know,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking. “I didn’t even know she followed me.”

“Don’t try to tell me Compass couldn’t have caught up to you. From what I’ve seen, she’s a hundred times more competent than you could ever be.”

“Piedmont,” Cap White interrupted, rising from where she was sitting, “that’s uncalled for-”

“Shut up, Cap!” Piedmont said, whipping his head around to glare at her.

Cap’s mouth twitched, but after a moment she sat back down. Piedmont returned his icy-blue stare to me. “You obviously didn’t get out before we did. What. Happened.”

“I’m telling the truth, Piedmont!” I shouted, unable to keep my voice under control as desperation welled in me. “I didn’t know! I heard a pony cry out when I was leaving, but she was-” I snapped my mouth shut.

Piedmont’s ears pricked. “You heard a pony? Did you leave Compass behind?”

“I...” Could it have been Compass who cried for help? “I don’t know if it was her...”

“Don’t give me that!” Piedmont stepped closer to me as I shrank back. “What are you hiding?!”

“I’m not hiding anything...!” I squeaked. I tried to take a step backward, but my legs had locked up. “The only pony I found was the earth pony that tried to rob us, but she was unconscious!”

“You’d better have left her in there to burn, then,” Piedmont spat. “That pony cost us Bell Hop’s supplies, including most of our food, and she still could have cost us Compass.”

My heart thumped wildly in my chest. I gulped.

After a moment, Piedmont’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t...”

My throat had tied itself in knots. I couldn’t speak.

When Piedmont next spoke, it was in little more than a whisper, barely audible over the crackle of the fire, but each syllable struck me like a steel bar:

“You saved a pony that cost us most of our food, and now Compass could be dead because of it.”

I said nothing. Nopony did. The crushing shame of their silence was a worse punishment than any rebuke. I lowered my head to the ground, quiet sobs wracking my body.

“Leave, Holly. If you ever come across Compass, and she’s alive, then maybe we’ll let you return to the team.” I watched at the upper edge of my vision as Piedmont turned back to the group, saying nothing more. Cap and Bell shot sympathetic looks my way, but remained silent, averting their eyes soon after.

I wanted to die. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. My head still low, I retreated a few steps, then turned and hobbled back toward Tao. Blinking away tears, I shuffled my way around the village’s outskirts again, this time haunted with my thoughts.

There’s no way Compass could be missing. She must have just gotten away and passed out, like I did. She’s a unicorn, she could have gotten out of there easily. She was right there with us. How could she have possibly failed to get out?

The alternative made no sense. I looked up to see I was approaching the earth pony I’d saved, who was still softly breathing where she’d fallen asleep.

I stopped a few steps away from her, staring at her. Part of me wanted to feel angry at her. I wanted to blame her for trying to rob us, for making Piedmont attempt to shoot her and start the fire. Part of me wanted to hate her for being so awful and saying such terrible things to the others, and even to me once I’d saved her.

But seeing somepony so emaciated with hunger and caked with dirt and grime, with half her coat singed a glistening black by the fire, I could only pity her. She refused to believe I’d saved her life. What kind of horrid things have to happen to a pony before she finds that hard to believe?

...How much worse could it get? Are friendship and harmony just... gone from Equestria?

My thoughts turned inward. I failed. I didn’t learn my lesson, and now I’m responsible for Compass... going missing. I closed my eyes, shaking my head limply. I will find her tomorrow. I have to. She can’t have gotten far.

For the time being, however, I had nowhere else to go, and the couple of hours I’d had to sleep were catching up to me and demanding I sleep a proper amount of time. My body and my mind agreed. I was hungry, but my stomach didn’t feel like it mattered right now.

I lay down next to the thief, unable to find any strength or motivation to make the ground more comfortable or move another step anywhere else. Closing my eyes, I thought one last question before unconsciousness took me:

How did all of this go so wrong?