Many years ago, when Anton was but a little boy at the age of ten, his parents took him and his older brother for their first roadtrip through the country. They started out from their home in one of the many suburbs surrounding the Stockholm, and travelled south with the eastern shoreline. Each night they would stop in a new city for some rest before pressing on the next day, and little Anton loved every minute of it.

From Södermanland to Östergötland, Kalmar and Blekinge, each day saw a new town and new possibilities, new things to see and explore. It was all a grand adventure for Anton, and he couldn’t get enough of it. Eventually they reached the southernmost point of the country, from where they could see Denmark across the sea, and the young boy was mesmerised by it.

A whole new land to see, just across the waters, so close yet infinitely far away. He had asked his parents if they could cross over, but they said they didn’t have time for that, but perhaps another time, and Anton settled with their response and the hopes of one day seeing their neighbouring country.

They continued north, passing through Halmstad, Falkenberg and eventually Göteborg, before they reached the border to Norway, which they passed right over and visited the Norwegian capital of Oslo for a few days.

By next week, they had almost reached the border to Finland, and took respite in the town of Kiruna, nestled far up in the northern mountains of their land. Here rested the biggest mine in the country, where the workers mined iron day in and day out, and Anton couldn’t help but imagine weary men hammering away with pickaxes in dark tunnels. Of course, they used more modern tools, but the mind of a child will wander.

He imagine that they had come here from some other country, probably Finland, to seek a new life, and in his head he saw rows after rows of grown men wearing mining tools, followed by women and children carrying other various appliances. Like pioneers they marched on, heads held high and a smile on their faces, despite the hardships they knew would come.

Anton thought of himself as being part of these people, tried to imagine what he would feel like as he passed the border with aching feet and weary shoulders. It was a strange and foreign thought, and idea of something different, something new and exciting. He would let his mind wander for hours as they travelled to the south yet again, exploring the possibilities of such a life.

Even when they stopped for the night his mind was clouded by images of a new life, though by now they had transitioned into something completely different, as far away from the original idea as possible. From miners and hard work, his mind had explored every possible path to choose, until the young boy drifted off into thoughts of dragons and knights.

He dreamed about battling massive beasts and shambling skeletons, the thoughts of miners now completely thrown to the wind like a forgotten memory, or ashes spread out at sea. Nothing remained, crushed by the giant claws of drakes, trampled into dust under the soles of brave warriors.

In the middle of the night, Anton had awoken from his dreams by a slight pressing pain in his lower regions. Blinking, the young boy slowly got used to the darkness, and saw his older brother sleeping in the car seat next to him, and his parents behind them in the trunk which had enough space for someone to sleep in.

The pain grew sharper, and Anton shifted carefully in his sleep to not wake up the rest of his family. It took a good while to open the car door properly, but at least he managed to do so without making too much sound, and they didn’t wake up as he quickly snuck outside into the cool spring night.

He was surrounded by forest on two sides, and darkness on the others, where he could see just a fragment of the dirt road they had parked on. The boy had never been afraid of the dark, and without a second thought of what could be out there, he took a few steps into the forest before him. A little while in, he stopped and unzipped his pants.

When Anton came back out unto the road, he instantly felt something was a bit off. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he was sure someone was watching him. He figured that maybe Mattias had woken up and was looking at him from the car, but one quick peek through the glass told him that his brother was still fast asleep.

Yet he still felt like someone was watching him. Someone close by.

Anton spun around and placed his back against the door, then peered through the darkness around him for any sort of movement. He wasn’t really afraid of what it could be, he was more curious, never thinking of the possibilities of it being something dangerous that lurked nearby.

Suddenly, he spotted something further down the dirt road. A low, hulking silhouette, standing in the middle of the road some ways behind the car. Anton looked at it with peaked curiosity, but he couldn’t stop a tiny shiver from sliding down his spine.

The silhouette had four legs, pointed ears and a thick tail, which was moving slightly together with the animal’s breathing. He couldn’t see its eyes, but he felt them pinned right at him.

After a few minutes of the boy and the animal watching each other in complete silence, the four-legged being darted away into the woods, leaving Anton alone once again.

He never told his brother or his parents of this encounter, but it stayed with him a long while, and undoubtedly shaped him, in a way. Furthermore, the boy had no idea how he was supposed to tell his parents that he snuck out at night and ran into an animal, probably a carnivorous one at that, without making them lose their minds from worry. So he kept it a secret from all of them, contempt in his decision that it was best for both him and his family.

Now, several years later, Anton found himself in an all too familiar situation. One that brought back the memories of his nightly encounter with the strange animal. Despite the familiarity it bore with his childhood, this was altogether different, so much so that his mind had trouble piece together what he was seeing, but it proved almost impossible to understand.

He was still on the ground, wrapped in his cloak in the snow, but now he was sitting up slightly, his eyes fixed on the strange creature before him. It was standing almost in the middle of the street, and was staring back at him with frightened eyes. It had been running across the road, but stopped dead in its tracks when it caught sight of him.

Whatever it was, it had four legs, legs that seemed to tremble slightly from either fear or the cold. One of them raised itself slightly as the creature shifted its weight without taking its dark cerise eyes off of him. Its body was covered in what looked to be fur, but the dark red colour it bore didn’t seem natural to Anton, nor did the hair in top of its head, shimmering in all the colours of the rainbow.

Slowly, the creature crept its way towards him, visibly tense and unsure. Anton guessed that this strange animal was just as confused by him as he was by it.

Anton wasn’t sure what to do, but got a feeling that the creature was relatively harmless, at least for the moment. As it came closer, he noticed that it looked almost exactly like the mannequin he’d seen in the store earlier, just slightly bigger, probably a stronger animal than what the mannequin was meant to look like.

Carefully, so as not to spook the odd animal, Anton tucked his legs up beneath himself so that he could squat up on his feet and out of the cold snow. The creature hesitated slightly as it did, but it didn’t run shy away from him, and it didn’t stop.

It was no more than a couple of meters away from him, so close that Anton could almost reach out and touch it. The distance of two meters quickly shrunk to no more than one, and then the creature stopped dead in its tracks. Slowly, it sat down in the snow in front of him, its eyes moving back and forth, up and down as if it was inspecting him in some way.

Anton tilted his head slightly to the side, giving the animal a wondering frown. The creature mimicked his movement, blinking its eyes slightly as it did. Anton decided to carefully reach out to the strange animal, and slowly raised his hand towards it.

It looked at his hand with a confused face, then back to his eyes. Anton did a tiny wave with his fingers, trying to signal to the creature to come closer. Still with a confused look on its face, it took a quick peek to the sides, almost as if it was making sure no one else was watching, before scooting a bit closer to him.

Slowly, the creature raised one of its legs hesitantly, and Anton guessed it tried to copy his own raised arm. He made an encouraging wave with his hand, and the creature finally reached out far enough to reach him.

The end of its leg touched against Anton’s palm, and it was cold and hard like stone. They sat silent for a while, observing each other as they almost held hands, in a way. Anton was utterly confused, but fascinated beyond belief, just like that night when he was a child.

“…. So what are we doing here?” The creature suddenly asked.

“Herrejävlar!”

Anton pulled backwards from the animal and flew onto his back in the snow, shuffling to keep up straight.

“What?!”

“Du talar!” Anton shrieked in his native tongue.

“I have no idea what you’re saying…” The animal responded, shaking its head slowly.

“You’re talking! What-the-fuck?!”

“Of course I talk, I’m not a mute!”

“How?” Anton asked, trying to calm himself. He did his best to sit up straight once again, all the while staring with big eyes as the talking creature. “What-what are you?!”

“A pony, obviously.”

Anton responded with more confused stuttering, his brows unsure whether or not they wanted to go up or down.

“Or a Pegasus, to be more precise.”

“I-what-you-Idontgetthis!”

“And the name’s Willow, by the way. Willow Sprint.”

Anton settled down unable to get into a straight position, and just let his shoulders slouch limply a he let out a heavy sigh. He kept staring at the strange animal, trying to piece together what he had just heard.

“So.. what the fuck is a Pegasus?” Anton asked once he got some semblance of control over his breathing.

“A pony with wings. But, uh…” The pony looked back at its sides, and Anton just now caught glimpse of a pair of wings on his back, just like the pony said. But they looked odd, even to Anton. He didn’t ask about it.

“Alright, okay, right. You’re… a pony? With wings? And isn’t willow a tree…?”

“Well, maybe-“

“And you’re talking!”

Anton quickly stood up on his feet, the strange meeting taking its toll on him, and he suddenly felt a strong urge to move about, as if something was crawling within his legs. The “Pegasus” stood up on its four hooves as well, and Anton noted that its stature topped around his waist.

He turned his eyes away from the animal, brought his hands up to his face and rubbed the palms hard against his skin in an attempt to collect himself.

“Jag pratar med en liten, färgglad häst med vingar som är döpt efter ett jävla träd och jag är iskall och frusen i en jävla stad som ser ut som ett bombnedslag.” Anton paused briefly in his rant and took another look at the pony. “Fan, vad jag hatar mitt liv.”

“There you go again…” The pony said. “Can’t understand a word, just gibberish to me.”

Anton let his hands fall to his sides and let out a heavy sigh as his heartbeat had finally calmed down enough for him to think clearly. “How can you be so… calm about this?” He asked the pony.

The pony shrugged at his question. “I don’t know... but now that you’re calm, maybe you could tell me your name or something?”

“An-Anton. My name is Anton.”

“Doesn’t sound like any name I’ve ever heard.”

“No, I’m not… I’m not from around…” Anton looked down the empty street, snow blowing across the pavement in silence. “Here. Wherever ‘here’ is anyway.”

“So you’re lost?” Willow asked.

Anton nodded. “I guess you could say that.”

“What’s happened to you anyway?” The pony asked once Anton got quiet. “You’re covered in... is it ashes?

Anton looked down at his clothes that lay visible through the wide opening in his cloak, and the pony was right; his leather jacket and pants were still covered in the grey substance from earlier, the ash he had awoken in, for some reason. He was sure he’d wiped it all off before, but the ash now seemed adamant in not leaving him.

“Fuck if I know, I just… woke up like this.” Anton gestured to his filthy jacket.

“What do you mean?”

He was about to answer the pony, but was suddenly cut short by a new sound that echoed out across the street, coming from somewhere close by. Both the human and the pony turned their heads to where they thought the sound was coming from, listening closely to it.

“Willow?!”

It was a voice calling out. It sounded a bit different from the voice of Willow, darker and almost smoky, like the owner had smoked too many cigarettes in his life. Anton suddenly realized how much he wanted a smoke right about now.

“Sounds like Crescent.” The pony said. Anton didn’t answer. “I’m over here!”

A few moments later, another one of the strange pony-animals entered the street, running out from an alleyway between two buildings. It looked to have the same physique as Willow, but was still a lot more different than him. The new pony quickly caught sight of Willow from across the street and set of running towards them.

This new pony, which was named Crescent according to Willow, had beige fur and long, flowing mane in varying hues of red, and its eyes were covered in a pair of goggles, one side being shattered and broken. Draped over its lower back and tail was a piece of greyish-green cloth that looked like an oddly designed cloak.

Its black hooves made not a sound against the snow-covered street.

“Thank goodness you’re alive-“ Willow began, but was interrupted before he could finish his sentence.

“Shut up and get away from him!”

The new pony suddenly bit down on Willow’s mane and attempted to pull him away from Anton. “Stop it, Crescent, you-!”

“Are you out of you damn mind?!” Crescent roared through his gritted teeth. “That’s him, and you’re standing here talking to him! Did the explosion scramble your brains?!”

“Hey, maybe you should calm down-“ Anton tried to say as he took a few steps towards the duo of ponies, but he didn’t get far.

“Stay away!” Crescent shouted, still trying to pull Willow away. “You-you murderer!”

“Murder-what?!” Anton asked the agitated pony in front of him.

“Thanatos!” Crescent shouted in response.

“His name is Anton, you moron, and he’s just as lost as we are!”

The pony named Crescent stopped dead in his tracks, his neck straightening out in surprise. “He… told you his name?”

Willow nodded in response.

“Didn’t try to kill you? Rip you in half?”

“Why would I do that?!” Anton protested.

“But… you look just like him…” Crescent said with low voice after finally letting go of Willow’s mane.

“Who-?” Anton asked.

“It’s not him, Crescent.” Willow said.

“Then who the hell is he, and how did he even get here?!” Crescent’s gaze alternated between Willow and Anton, seeking an answer from either one.

“… I wish I could tell you.” Anton began. “But I have no idea myself, I just woke up in a heap of ashes and then-“

“Ashes?” Crescent asked with raised eyebrows. “Tell me everything, from the start.”

Anton sighed and tried to piece together his memories, but for some reason it proved difficult as they all seemed to avoid him, slipped away as soon as he got a hold of them.

“I… I remember I was at a café.” He said slowly. “There was this man there, Anders, I think his name was… Then there was a police man, red light and pain.”

“Well, you lost me.” Crescent responded. “Café? Another man, a… police man…? Is there more of you out there?”

“Of course, humans are the main species on the earth…”

“I don’t know where the hell you came from, but not here.” Crescent said. “It’s mostly us ponies here. Anything else?”

“I think... just before I passed out… I think I saw my brother.”

“You have a brother?” Willow suddenly asked, taking the other two by surprise as he’d been quiet for a while.

“Yeah, Mattias…”

“You’re not… Twins, are you?” Crescent said slowly.

Anton shook his head slowly. “He’s five years older than me.”

“You see now?” Willow asked Crescent. “He’s harmless.”

Crescent mumbled something before he started walking towards Anton with a stern look on his face. Despite the pony not being taller than his hips, he somehow still looked intimidating as he crept forward, and Anton found himself backing up instinctively.

“Let’s assume I believe you, for now.” Crescent muttered. “Let’s assume I won’t kill you where you stand.”

Anton kept going backwards, but the pony moved faster, and after a few seconds, Anton felt his back hit against a wall behind him and he stopped. Crescent inched closer, coming to a stop just in front of him, so close that the pony had to tilt its head upwards to look at him. Having the teeth of a slightly wild animal so close to his groin made Anton flinch a bit.

“I am a Stalker.” Crescent hissed at him. “That means it’s my duty to protect the ponies of this land and help wherever and whenever I can.”

Suddenly, the pony reared up on his back legs, becoming just a long as Anton himself.

“So let me make one thing clear.” Crescent pressed his fore hooves into Anton’s shoulders hard. “If you try anything to hurt anypony under my watch, I will not hesitate to kill you. Understood?”

Anton nodded quickly without taking breaking eye contact with the pony.

“Good. You may consider yourself as ‘under investigation’. You may be the first human to set foot in Equestria for a decade, but if you try anything, and I mean anything-“

“You’ll chop my head off, got it.” Anton quickly answered.

“Right. We should get moving, we’ve lingered here for too long.” Crescent let go of Anton and stood back down on all fours before turning to Willow. “We should start looking for the others’”

“What others?” Anton asked of them both.

“Our friends are out there, injured or maybe worse. I don’t care that you’re a human, you answer to me from now on and I say you’ll help us find them.”

“… I haven’t got any choice, do i?”

“Not if you want to live, no.” Crescent looked back to Willow. “And you; how can you be so calm? There’s a human standing in front of you, and you act like everything is la-di-fucking-da! What if he’d been dangerous, he could’ve killed you, damn it!”

The angered Stalker stared Willow down for a moment, the Pegasus not responding, just looking at his hooves as if he was embarrassed. It made Anton think of the way a scolded child would act, and he couldn’t help but wonder if Willow was in fact much younger than Crescent.

Without another word, Crescent set off down the street, and Willow soon followed, leaving Anton alone, staring at the two ponies as they hurried away without him. He let out another deep sigh and waved his arms above his head in an annoyed gesture before he started jogging after them.

“Tack som fan, hästar.”

“Did you see what happened? Right before the explosion, I mean?”

Anton was doing his best to keep up with the ponies in front of him, and he was thankful that they had slowed their pace a little bit, probably just to keep him close. He didn’t have much in the terms of stamina and sure as hell wasn’t used to running, and certainly not for such a long period of time. His chest burned like fire, and slowly but surely an aching pain was building up on the right side of his stomach.

He didn’t even want to follow this strange duo of talking animals, but he didn’t have much choice anyway. Either follow them to god knows where, or be left alone in the shattered ruins and skeletons of old buildings. Not to mention that despite being only half his height, that Crescent pony terrified him.

And so he just tagged along for the ride. Or more precisely, their ride. Not his own.

“No, I was facing a wall.” Willow said in response to Crescent’s prior question. “I kind of just froze up after they pinned me down.”

The duo of ponies came to a stop at the edge of a wall, Anton following right behind them.

“Maybe that’s for the best.” Crescent said as he slowly peaked out from behind the corner and out into the next street. “It was painful to watch, even for me.” After speaking, Crescent emerged from the wall and kept trotting forward.

Willow and Anton hurried along after him. “Duskshine’s dead, isn’t he?” Willow asked the Stalker.

Crescent said nothing, and in doing so gave an all too clear answer to the Pegasus’s question.

“What about Lilly?”

“She saw everything.” Crescent whispered. “I hope she’s all right. Too many ponies have lost their lives already.”

After a few more moments of silence, the Stalker stopped yet again. Off in the distance, they could all see a plume of black smoke rising high into the skies.

“That’s it.” Crescent said calmly. “We’re close now.”

“… Close to what?” Anton cautiously asked from his place in the back.

“The explosion.” Crescent said back to him without looking at him. “We were ambushed and captured; a few more Stalkers and some civilians. One of the Stalkers, Phantom, used his magic to ignite the fuel in a generator, and then everything blew up.”

“Captured by what?” Anton asked.

“Bleakers. Nasty fuckers. Some ponies call them Bleaklings, or Bleaks. Doesn’t matter what you call them though, they’re still just as bad.”

“Has this… horse world always been like this?”

“Pony world, not horse.” Crescent glared. “And no, it hasn’t. Though sometimes it feels like it’s been…”

“Huh. I’m still trying to cope with the fact that you’re talking.” Anton muttered under his breath.

“Well, good luck with that.” Crescent said, and Anton could’ve sworn he heard an almost jokingly tone hidden behind his words.

Anton didn’t ask any more questions. As they came closer to the plume of smoke in the distance, even he could feel a sense of uneasy and worry descend upon the unusual little trio, a veil of apprehensiveness draper across them all, trying to smother them.

They ran down streets, weaved back and forth between debris and snow, hugged walls in their attempts to stay hidden. Anton followed in the back, doing his best to keep up with the strange ponies, but his lacklustre condition reared its ugly head as he ran. The pain in his right side had grown stronger, to the point of his ribs hurting when he breathed too hard.

Panting and wheezing, Anton followed the duo into a narrow alleyway which seemed to wind its crooked way between the many dilapidated buildings and houses. The thought that the road was allergic to being straight popped into his mind for just a second, causing him to let out a quiet chuckle. It only caused him more pain.

After a little while, they took a narrow turn to the right and once again exited unto a thick street, covered in snow just like all the others. When Anton emerged into the once bustling street, the ponies had already traversed halfway across it, and didn’t seem to notice him getting too far behind.

He tried as hard as he could, but was unable to run any further. Anton stopped, leaned forward and placed the palms of his hands against his knees, panting heavily, trying to catch his breath. He looked up slightly, and saw that the ponies had disappeared somewhere on the other side of the street.

Despite his attempts to call out after them, his throat had become too strained after the running, and all that came out of him was a weak wheezing.

It wasn’t goo. His only chance at maybe getting out of this damned place had run off, and he was once again left alone in the ruins of civilization. He started to remember the things he’d seen earlier. The strange movements, the heavy breathing inside that store, and the overwhelming feeling of dread and loneliness.

The short moment he’d spent with the ponies had somehow pushed those thoughts out of his mind, but now that he was alone yet again, they came creeping back from the back of his head, like a rotten and forgotten being crawling back to claw at the door of its former master.

Suddenly, Anton once again felt like he wanted to cry, but he held it back. It wouldn’t do him any good anyway. But he couldn’t shake the feeling of being infinitely small and insignificant, like a child who’s lost its mother. His mind told him he wanted a hug. And a cigarette. How long had it been since he had that one just outside the cafe? Hours? Days? He had no idea, but the need had begun to make itself know again.

Once his breathing had slowed down slightly, Anton managed to straight himself up, his back giving off a low crack as he did. He grinned as he felt something pop in place in his lower back. It wasn’t painful, thankfully, but more than a little uncomfortable. Just another thing to add to the ever-growing list of unidentified pains and aches that he would never do anything about anyway.

He couldn’t help but twist his head slightly to the left, pretty much out of instinct, a response to the crack in his back, and as he did, his eyes wandered down the empty street for a few seconds before stopping involuntarily on something.

It took him a few seconds of staring for it to really register in his mind, for the full weight of what he was seeing to finally sink in and settle. And once it did, his skin begun to crawl like a thousand insects on fire.

Standing just a little while away, in the middle of the street, was a black silhouette. A tall figure, dressed in black and a hood covering its face. Snow whipped around it, like an unnatural whirlwind that had gathered round this dark spectre.

It was a man. A human.

Without thought, Anton acted out on the first thought that entered his mind.

“Mattias! Är det du?!”

The tall human in black didn’t respond to his call, or even so much as move. Whoever it was, they just stood there in the middle of the street, head bowed down slightly, just enough to cover the eyes but not the whole face. And Anton was sure that the eyes of this stranger was pinned right at him.

At had to be his brother, it couldn’t be anyone. Crescent had said that he himself was the first human in this land for years, and asked if he had a twin brother. Anton saw only one logical conclusion.

His brother had once been here. If Crescent was right, it was at least a decade ago.

And now another human was standing before him. It had to be Mattias, it just had to. Why else would Anton even be here if he wasn’t drawn here by his own brother?

Without a word or warning, the man in black suddenly turned and dashed across the street to the left. The tattered black robe he wore seemed to flow like water around his legs as he ran, and it took him only two or three steps to reach the end of the street.

“Vänta!”

Immediately, Anton rushed after him. The fact that the cloaked man ran at an unnatural speed didn’t bother him, or rather, he chose to push it into the back of his mind. Nor did it ever occur to him that Crescent had seen terrified of the thought of a human other than himself. The wish to find his brother was too string, and it pushed away all other thoughts and distractions. For the moment, there was only him, and the man he hoped was his brother; nothing else mattered.

With sudden, new-found stamina, Anton hurried down the same alley that the cloaked man had taken, but there was no sign of him. He looked down and spotted clear prints of boots in the snow before hi, and decided to follow them, hoping they would lead him to the strange man, and maybe, just maybe, some answers.

He didn’t even register the pain in his right side that had kicked back yet again, didn’t even notice that he was panting; all was irrelevant and of no concern to him, all that matters was what was at the end of the foot prints.

Anton bobbed and weaved back and forth, following the tracks through winding alleys, through broken fences and across empty streets. The tracks seemed to go on forever, but he refused to stop, even though the pain in his ribs slowly crept back.

And then suddenly, he came to a grinding halt as he emerged on a narrow street in the back of a few buildings, their tall stature casting long shadows across the ground. The man was standing in front of him, his back against him.

He didn’t do anything, he just stood there, just like before, except this time, Anton could see his shoulders notably rising and lowering themselves, as if the cloaked man was breathing heavy or trying to contain something. Perhaps his temper. Perhaps anger.

For the first time since he began the chase, Anton felt the cold breath of fear blow across his spine. Something wasn’t right.

The man before him suddenly gave off a grunt, and seemed to clutch his arms to his chest as if he was in pain. Anton instinctively reached out, but of course he was too far away to do any good.

Before Anton had time to understand what was going on, he was thrown backwards by a massive force that knocked him to the ground and pushed all air out of his lungs. He scrambled to his knees in the snow, and looked back up at the man in front of him, and what he saw made his eyes go wide in both awe and fear.

Big, black feathers sailed through the air all around him, coating the ground like a new layer of snow, black like the night sky. The man stood before him, his arms stretched out to his sides, his fingers spread wide apart.

A pair of massive black wings sprouted out from the man’s back.

With a single, powerful push, the man rocketed upwards into the sky, his wings conjuring up a veritable blizzard around him. Anton tried to hold on to the hood on his own head and did his best to wrap his cloak around him in an attempt to cover himself.

For just a second, Anton saw something dangling around the neck of the man, something dark and with a red glow surrounding it. Something otherworldly.

And then, just as quickly as he had appeared, the man disappeared up into the clouds, leaving Anton alone in a storm of pure, white snow and black feathers.