Fallout Equestria: The Tartarus Contingency

The Fields of Hungry Earth

–

“Do you even realize how you've shattered the land, Twilight?  Do you think it has any reason to forgive you?” -Shining Armor

–

Waking up on the second day had been tough.  The cold puts you down deep, and stumbling out of freezing sleep with only a few hours supporting your eyelids can make them hurt quite nicely.  I told Quartz and Miser to go outside while I made sure the fire was out, so they could scout for assholes- “just in case.”  I took the moment to Thorn up, quietly.  Then, we all took a bite of food, exchanged some reminders toward one other on our respective gear, and The Trot continued.

Two hours passed.  A thought occurred in that time; below my hooves, the tracks had not broken.  Heck, most of them were clear and clean, though there was some ice in the divots between the wood.  I could spot small scrawlings every few yards.  Each block of alien text repeated on the rails themselves, deeply grooved into the metal.  They were similar to the writing usually circling a warming talisman- it wasn't hard to figure out what the writing was from there.  The Trot continued.

I kept wondering to myself how the talismans recharged.  I didn't know the method, but I did know the energy needed to replenish.  How the hell did the rails work differently?  Did the way the runes were written have something to do with it?  More importantly, why hadn't they been stripped?  Seemed like a waste of good metal, especially if hanging it in your house could keep the chill out.  Another hour passed, and we reached another train stop.

It was more of a porch and a vertical closet, really.  A large one, but it remained as just a ramshackle room.  A snack vendor was leaning on it's sister, a soda machine.  “Golden Laurel's Quick Eats” was sprawled on one, with “Crystal Cola” on the other.  Next to them, a door led to a tiny bathroom.  To our disappointment, the pipes had long since been stripped.  The tiles had been peeled up, and that which hadn't been taken was split from the cold and beneath a thick layer of ice.

We quickly got to work checking everything else out- all that remained were some scattered old-world bits, broken glass, and two bottles of a strange, clear drink.  The vending machine we got it out of was fascinating to us– it's paint hadn't tarnished that badly, since it had been inside for so long.  It was shades of bright pinks, blues, and greens, organized into jagged and once shiny shapes, which had obviously been polished to a purposeful sheen.  They were cartoony images of “Ice bushels,” the jutting blue bushes of spiny crystal the pickers had come to know.  The fact that they had shades other than blue would have me feebly entertained until we set out again, but for then, we simply stopped and took a break.

We stared at a poster that had been there and tried to make sense of it.  Most of it had been scribbled on by previous passerby's.

Leave some for the rest of us, huh?

Fuck you, I do what I want.

The image was mostly violet.  Flowing, stylized sparkles wrapped around a sunrise.  “Working toward a warmer future!” Proclaimed the poster.  M.A.S. Was in the bottom right corner, loosely attacked by markers, pens, and pencils.

Damn do I wish I'd had something to write with back then.

The Trot continued.

… And I screwed up.

We saw the spires well before we actually reached them.  Dark gray and frosted brown, even from the mile or so that we had to cover in dingy wind.  Needles that had been used by some sort of giants, and scattered over the field in some poor attempt at emulating grass.  Though, when I got to inspect one near the rails, it was more accurate to say that it’s closest simulacrum was what I believed to be trees.

I had to examine it to make sure.  The trunk of the broken thing was hollow, at least a pony in diameter.  It’s rusted edges gave way to a hole, and for a few childish seconds I wondered what kind of trees were that hollow and browned from water.

After tossing a rock inside, we found that it was far too deep to descend safely.  The sound clanked after a rough count of five, give or take, and we sure as hell weren't interested if none of us knew how deep the hellhole went if it took five straight seconds.  The rest of the broken tree had “branches”- small outward juts that suddenly shot up along the same angle as the spire, only the branches were thinner, and tipped at their ends by shattered lights.

Some of the spires had tilted or outright fallen, leaving the place to look like a jagged, pre-fabricated forest.  No leaves, unlike in the magazines I had read.  There were never any leaves where I'd lived.  That green idea had stuck, though.  Was the place some kind of cruel joke for the north?

Had this shit been made to look like trees?  The makers concept of “A warmer future?”

Cunts.  I'd thought, cursing them out on the precept.

I took out my camera, and slung the strap over my neck.  A pair of quizzicle looks later, I'd gotten a few far away angles to bag, and let my camera hang while we continued on.  Then we reached the first whole “tree,” which was not more than a couple feet away from the rails, we found chickenscratch.  Another marker.

Most of the attempts at graffiti had been cut into the metal with sharp objects.  It was all barely legible, or were poorly scribbled angles of aroused stallions presenting themselves (with a few hearts around select parts).  Through the disgusting display, one iteration had been done with a paintstick of some kind.  It was elegant and readable, and had not suffered any further marring.  It had, in fact, been completely avoided, as if holding a place of honor.

We have starved the Earth.  Every one of us He eats, is just a morsel.

I almost smiled at it.  Almost.  Poetry on survival never accomplished anything in the wastes, just made lasting another day feel that much more grand.  Wasting paint for that was nothing more than arrogance.

I took another look around.  That was the mistake I'd made- getting curious introduced a slew of problems.  Besides the trees, there was hardly anything to care about.  Fields of white, some pale wind.  No burn barrels, no markers besides the one we were next to.

Just those damned needle trees, going on for miles in every direction.

When I spotted it, I was sort of relieved.  A small, blue splinter was coming out the edges of a square building in the distance, seemingly placed in the center of the dead place.  I hid from the wind behind the tree, and mouthed out my scrapbook to take a glance at the map.

I made a few assumptions (like one ought not to do out there).  There was a hoof-written circle with some text that had turned to jibberish from the quality of my camera.  Such a broad stroke over so much land had to have covered where we had been, right?

There were two bunker points.  Thinking to pray on the luck we'd been having in meeting anypony else, I picked out the closest one and asked my traveling companions.  “There are a couple bunkers,” I said.  “I think the building out there is hiding one.  There is one further down though, and we still have a nice block of daylight.  Want to try for the next one?”

They were both looking around, distantly listening to me.  Quartz was turned away, sitting on her haunches like a standing cat to try and peer at the top of one of trees.  Her earhoods flicked.  “... Yeah.” was all she said.

“Miser?”

“This place gives me the creeps.  I vote moving.”  His eyes kept shooting back and forth, and his neck kept craning to peer around tree trunks.

Two on one.  Arguing would have only killed daylight.  I snapped my book shut, and stuffed both it and my camera into my bags.  Out came the binocs.  “Alright.  Gimme like two minutes.  I'm going to see what that building is.”  Then, I started to trot toward it.

Idiot.  Moron.  I can reliably call myself that now, and not feel like I'm cheating myself of being anything better.  Kind of cathartic, if you can believe that sort of thing.

I kept trying to get better angles on the building through the lenses.  It did have a sign, but I couldn't make out the tiny, snow swept text.  The trees kept getting in the way, once I had cut some of the distance.  I heard the humble whine of ice, bracing weight- mine.  I figured it was just another slick beneath the snow, even if it sounded a bit off, and dug my horseshoes in to keep my balance.

The moment I did, snow began to fall into cracks that shot away from where I was standing.  I took one look back, watching a web form beneath and from me, and spotted Miser watching in horror as I began to sink.  He cried out for Quartz's attention, and she snapped her surprised gaze toward me.

Then, I was gone.

Everything went dark, but my eyes were still open.  I hadn't even realized I was falling, and thus hadn't even screamed on the way down.  I bounced once, rolled off a jagged incline of rock, and continued to plummet.  When I slammed into the hard earth a few seconds later, my forelegs compressed beneath my chest, and the impact on my lower jaw shattered the delicate mouthgrip of the binoculars.  I spit up metal parts and blood, while the tinnitus took a sudden hold.  My camera had spun on it's strap behind my neck, and my body painfully cushioned it's weight.

I pawed at my bags, opening one.  I rolled the contents out of each, and when the wave of ringing cleared, listened for the skitter of glass.  I took up one of the ampoules, fidgeting with my bruised forelegs to stand it upright, and cut my nose open as I used the side of my face to snap the thing open.  Chugging ampoules with a broken jaw... I should've named the trick.

While everything knitted, I heard the warble of Quartz's voice inside my head.  It was mostly condensed, panicked swearing.  I couldn't reply for far longer than I would've liked; if you move while the potions work, especially in the cold, things just don't heal right.  This is especially true if you force the broken bits to, as quickly as the potions tend to work.

“I'm fine!” I lied.  I opened my eyes as the vertigo left, and I felt the cut on my nose squeezing shut.  There was barely anything there; the hole I'd opened up in the cave roof was some of the only light.  The area ahead was pervasively empty, with softly sparkling blue gashes deep within what appeared to be stale rock.

I sat up, and turned about.  First things first- belongings.  Salvaging pride waited until after I'd gathered everything else.

Two fuzzy hooded silhouettes peered at me from the dot of light above.  I sat back and looked up, trying to search.  “I... I can't...” Quartz was busy scanning.  “There isn't a way down! Everything is too steep!”

Down could have easily replaced up and meant the same thing.  I looked back.  The blue earth-wounds had a good number to them.  I was in one hell of an open place under the ground.  It felt like a small field, empty of snow, which had been hidden just under the surface.

“I... Shit.  Rope!  Maybe there's some back at Resilience! We can-”

“NO!” I shouted back.  “No!  The bunker ahead- keep going.  When I can-” I corrected myself.  “If I can find a way back up, I'll catch up.”

There was a pause.  “Are you sure?” Miser asked.

Quartz looked straight at him.  “You can't be serious!” She yelled.  “Resilience will be fine for a couple extra days Snapshot!  We can come back with some help!” She stammered.  “J-just hold out!  We all need to make it south!”

“I said no!” I replied.  “Get it in your head, Quartz.  As many as possible need to make it south.  That doesn't have to include me.”

Right then and there, I secured her disgust for me.  Knowing what I do now, I only wish I'd done more.

I located my scrapbook on the cave floor, which had been neatly cradling one of the flares.  Thinking providence would have laughed had the thing twisted on all it's own, I opened up the book to hoof out the map again.  “The bunker is... East of the rails.  Not a far clip, should be at a-”

“You have got to be kidding me!”

“Town?”  I tried to read in what I had of the light, disregarding her cussing while Miser remained notably absent out of our exchange.  “Quartz, there is a town near that bunker.  Ruins, at least. Get there, it might have something you can use.”  I finished gathering everything together while she tried to reason with me.  I scowled at the shattered binoculars.

“The other bunker.  It's got to have something.”  Miser said.

“What? Didn't you just see what happened?  Do you really think you can get there?”

“No- it's a good idea!  It's got to have something!”

“It was a rhetorical question, Quartz, not a bucking-”

“Miser's right on this one.  Just stay there until we can come back, okay!”

“You're.  Wasting.  Daylight.  Get to the next one, even trying for this one isn't safe!”

“Shut up!” she screamed.  “We're making it down there- all of us.”  She motioned with her head, and the two vanished.

Arrogant bitch!  I fumed to myself.  If even one of us was going to make it down there, it wasn't going to happen by getting sidetracked for some asshole.  Overconfidence -exactly what I'd just fallen pray to- was the first thing to get a pony killed.  The more I think about that, the more I realize she never believed it.

I turned around, toward the luminescent blue cuts.  I stepped out of the natural light, procrastinating enough to let my night vision kick in.  It didn't help much.

I started to trot, lightly.  I made sure when I stepped, it wasn't “ice” I was standing on again.  The closest wound was inside the cave wall; past the opening, I saw inside the glittering edges of fine crystals in the rock.  I paused there, breathing in a strange, unwelcoming heat, absent of anything but hollow silence otherwise filled with a distinct, frail crackle.  Like thin glass, somehow being crumpled into a ball.

It took me a while to go on.  I was thrilled, I guess you could call it.  Being scared was hard while on Thorn.  The adrenaline had helped to weaken the narcotic, though, since I then realized I'd actually felt pain through it.  It was still not a comfortable excitement.

I took one last, deep breath before I went to the next light-hole.  Just a morsel...  To Hell with wasteland poetry.  At least pictures were up-front in their meaning.

[***]

I'd been wandering for so long, the duration had become meaningless.  There were cave walls, blue crystal gashes, and the occasional Stable-Tec light that left divots of caged golden light.  Those parts were mounted on metal jutting from the rock, the same alloy I had seen rusting above.

The roots of the trees I had seen had been driven deep into the ground, with mouthpieces that gave air which tasted like bits, and dripping vents surrounded by flaking emergency paint.  There were almost always in open caves.  Those were beautiful places, even with what had been so implanted.

The caverns were wide and tall, with ice scabbing over sinkholes above.  Crystal crept from smoothed slices in rock, or peeked from cavities and emitted a soothing blue glow; others had grown into sharp bunches of thorns aimed down from the roof, and had curled upon itself to form jagged curves far from where they had sprouted.  After my eyes had adjusted, their shine even seemed bright, and hairline growths had cottony glitter wafting about like sparkling sheets of webbing.

The Stable-Tec lights burnt the notion of natural light away with some kind of internal deviltry that had kept the bulbs snapping and lit from behind glass imprisoned by bars.  What was cast from those felt warm, without sincere heat.  They were just trying to be effective, even after all those years.  Being welcoming was not what they had ever been meant for.

I didn't fully appreciate the light from the still working technology.  I used it, but only because I had to.  The same could be said of the air.  The vents and mouthpieces in the underground treetrunks gave me a steady supply of coppery breaths when what was down there became too thin.  I had to inhale the foul flavor, since the floating dust coming from the crystals had clogged my facewrap, and frosted me several times before I had learned to break it off by shoulder-slamming a wall or stomping it off.

It wasn't unlike being wet in the cold.  The difference was that it simply wasn't cold.  Everything down there seemed to remain at a comfortable temperature without a breeze, with pinpoints of heat that weren't meant to be rushed toward like the heat barrels or bunkers on the surface.  They were meant to be taken in, scouted for wandering things I kept imagining were there, and to shake off crystal flakes that had collected in my short travels as a dry shell that felt like I was soaking up glass.

Some of the lit places had lockers.  Most of those hope-instilling boxes were open, and pitifully empty.  Others had bones surrounding the bases, cocooned by rotting, synthetic cloths.  They were usually near a set of decrepit mining tools.  Their fleshless faces were always bare.  Always smiling.

One corpse I came to had the bones pinned to the metal of a trunk.  It was was in a hall that led to a fork in the path – both were lit by Stable-Tec, though only one had the lovely, humming blue.  Neither direction was natural.  Water doesn't dig paths that straight, nor does it put down the base of bulb lit metal spires which extend into the sky at every hundred steps.

The pitted remains of a pick was holding the skeleton up between it's ribcage, the wood covered in patches of moss.  It's teeth were still clutching at the mouthpiece of the alloy trunk, the horn on the skull having been gored into the metal to keep it still.  The floor was grimy with a large black stain, and the shattered remains of legs still attached to hips.  Apparently those old miners couldn't even trust each other with breathing.

If something that brutal was happening back then, maybe the old pony ways hadn't been so different than the new.

I tried to figure out the order of the body's demise.  The pick to the torso, or the destruction of their lower half.  Creativity, as something visual, is awfully cruel.  I started to think of how it had happened.  Breaking somepony's legs in a manner that the bones could be so spread was difficult.  Was it sledgehammer? Jackhammer?  Maybe they had used some mining explosives stuffed in an orifice.  I was used to ideas like that, luckily, and stopped giving a shit when I realized I was wasting time.  I filed the methods away with the sour creep of disgust in my throat.

Tactile imagination is just as bad as visual, I should mention.  Crunch, crunch.  Was that the cave floor, or did I step in something brittle?  I snorted a sickened laugh to keep myself entertained.

When I reached the first locker, inside was a pleasant surprise.  Of the things the ages took, the porn always did seem to be well kept in comparison to anything of value.  I bagged the issue of wingboners with a smirk.  The poster was too delicate to take.  Too bad, too – it had been of silver, crystal mare, whom had “the shine” to her coat when the picture had been taken.  Regular crystal ponies had lost any claim to that magnificence a long, long time ago.

True to creativity being a bitch, I started seeing bones in her transparent coat.  Organs and veins.  I hurried to the next locker to keep occupied.  I fumbled with the door, the lock seeming jammed, the door itself distended outward.

I swore a few times, focused on the locker.  It was a reprieve, but only lasted as long as the syllables I used.  What if I couldn't find my way out?  What if I started to look like her?

How long would I last down there after I died?

I got violent with the locker, still using my imagination to it's limits, and fighting it all the while.  I could hear weeping in the halls, suffocating the bang of the locker, as what I thought I could be approached from one of the paths I hadn't yet traveled.  I left hoof sized dents in the brittle metal, tearing it in places.  The echo of shambling steps got closer between snotty breaths, sending my heart into a beat that felt volatile.  A coat dragging on stone, steel horseshoes worn and rusted, limped down otherwise quiet paths.

“Screw this place.” I growled, to nopony at all.  With another slam, the lock crumpled, and the place was silent again.  Nothing was around me.  I took a long time to check, trying to breath all the while.  I was going to need a lot more than a peevish locker to keep my mind from speeding off into the caves, but I used what I could.

The locker I peeled open had a jumble of tools in it.  They were densely packed, and they fell over me like a bad joke (“you found something, shithead!”).  I picked myself up out of the pile, shaking off – of all things – shovels.

I took one up, and examined it in the light.  Around the shaft a once white sticker had been applied, on which had been written “Crap storage.”

Well, how goddamn nice.  I thought.  It was a valid label; trying to dig through the frozen earth, let alone stone, was a fantastic waste of time in the north.  It was why Resilience burned the dead.  I gave a poor smile at the idea I might figure out how to dig up.

The shovels all had a pair of emblems upon them.  The logo of Stable-Tec was grooved into the mouthgrip, a dark, polished wood that had preserved the sheen of its manufacture while in storage.  The back of the black heads were painted with that of a card, the Ace of Spades.

Comedy is best when you need it, so of course I laughed at the pun while I was there.  I propped the shovel I'd perused on the locker, and rifled about amid a webbing of cloth strips that had been intertwined.  Carrying straps, with hardly a care to how any of them had been stored.  I recited to myself the mantra of the pickers, One Stallion's Trash.  

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, take worthwhile stuff, before it all rusts.

To hell with wasteland poetry.  It programs colts to survive without thinking.  The bit that had me tightening that shovel to my side, though, was keeping me alive.  I didn’t really deserve to complain about what worked.

The shovel wasn't heavy, all things considered.  The straps held it tight to the side, and had a loop with a snap button; I chose a stubborn one.  I didn't like things getting plucked off of my body if I had to squeeze through a tight space.  More effort to peel the thing off and wield it wasn't a problem in my mind.

I was feeling alright after that.  I didn't find any right-flank carriers, so just left the rest of the shovels where they were.  They were awkward things, for certain, and hauling another one around would've slowed me down badly.

I looked up to see the fork in the caves.  One side had gone nearly dark.  One of the lights had started to fade in and out.  A bloody red reflector squeaked as it spun around a bright bulb, sending a wedge of crimson light around and around.  It hadn't been doing that when I found the locker.

Squeak.  Squeak.  Squeak.  An unseen speaker spewed crackling noise, which sounded like synthetic whispers.

The air had stilled.  Icy stone crackled.  I stiffened my flesh around my bones, locking in place.  A hollow howl made my coat fur barely drift, and then everything was perfectly motionless.

A dollop of something wet splashed on stone.  The red light in the distance faded, and I was suddenly in darkness.  The light above started to squeak, squeak, squeak, bathing me in red as the reflector rotated.

I peered through the gills of the locker window, pretending to be infatuated with how empty it was.  The light beyond was eclipsed by a shape.  It was the shadow of a pony standing nearby, hushed of sound and movement.

I didn't dare let it notice me moving.  How had it gotten so close, so quietly?  I shuddered, keeping the corner of my eye focused on them, lifting my foreleg to paw at the back of the locker.  I kept my hoof braced, and drew my gun behind the door.  I took a deep breath, closing my eyes, and when I had opened them discovered they had advanced several feet closer – all without making a sound.

When I presented myself, I was certain they knew what I was armed with.  The stance I had taken was irregular, undecided on fleeing, or firing.  The gun mouth was pointed directly at them, and as their head sluggishly began to lilt on it's spine, I tried to talk to them.

“I didn't mean no trespass.  I fell in, was only looking.”

It paused, then kept tilting.  The sound of dry sinew, stretching and snapping, accompanied the appearance of holes in the black as the head continued to lean in curiosity.  The shadow gave way to the world behind it as the head continued to twist, going limp on the spine before inverting in an impossible cant.

It was like staring into water that swallowed light.  There was no skin, no veins, no organs, no bones.  The moment I searched for it's eyes was the moment it grew one, the blue cornea opening in it's neck like an erupting blister.  The eye crawled up it's body as it snapped back to attention, a second ocular forming in it's chest and slithering up it's face to finish the pair.  The second eye had been vividly brown.

It never answered me.

I stepped backward, sending a shot into it.  The bullet punched clean through, as if they hadn't even been there in the first place.  A grin lit up on it's leg, the teeth scattering and clinging to it's surface.  They reorganized at it's face to give me a fanged smile below offset eyes, all of them drifting within the mist that made up it's body.

It's eyes squeezed tightly shut.  Tears spilled out and down it's cheek, slapping the stone.  A whimper went through the crackling speakers.  When the lids opened, they had turned to lips.  Glistening, silver-toothed maws wept drool.  They extended out from it's head on the edges of thinning stalks, reaching for me.

Famished teeth snapped, but it made no other sound as it began to chase me.

[***]

I'd been playing a game with the thing for some time.  I don't know how long.  The rules were easy to learn, though I hadn't been given the option to break them.

Squeak, squeak, squeak.  I was sitting back against the alloy trunk, feeling it breathe.   The light above me started to spin like the others had, pissing out red light in a wide cone.  That was the marker of rule one: When the red lights came on, the thing was close.

There were speakers on the trunks, too, I found. They were small boxes, stamped out and bolted together, hanging by blue-red plastic veins.  They had been just as strong as the shifting lights, though they were lousy with rusted holes that showed their shiny transistor guts.  In perfect quiet, white noise trickled through the central mesh circle.  When the thing decided to think, it did so too loudly.  The speakers were it's voice, even though it only spoke through unintelligable, floating whispers.  That was rule two: it never made any noise but those whispers.  If I could hear those, it was closer, and thinking about me.  I tossed the first empty flare down as it sputtered, reaching for another from my bag.

I twisted the second flare of the night up.  The only reason I knew it was dark outside was that the ice above had grown black, leaving only the few crystal growths and trunk lights as respite.  The thing wasn't afraid of the crystals, dimming them after I'd run past and spitefully turning them ebony.  The flares, though; it really hated those.  Whenever I paused, I could see the reflection of them shivering in dozens of glossy orbs while they blinked at me.  Just as many teeth free floated in murky fog, organizing into smiles that only showed at the corner of my vision.  That was another rule: It couldn't maintain itself, if it was stuck in bright enough light.  Not the teeth, anyway.  I had popped so many eyes beneath my hooves my steps had gotten slippery.

The most important rule was that the thing was hungry.  I no longer had a tail to speak of.  It had snatched that away from what peeked from my coat just a few moments into the first sprint.  The base remained, but the hair had grown diseased at the edges, crackling to the touch.  It had dug a couple of scratches into the coat, too, and snagged the lip of a saddlebag.  A tin of Cram had fallen out, and one of the mouths picked up the scent.  While it fought with it's other faces, I'd made some headway in no direction at all.  I'd used the rest of my food in much the same way, purposely tossing it, but the thing only ever slowed for a minute at most.

I took one deep breath from the mouthpiece at the trunk.  I had to prepare for another run.  Eyes were squirming over themselves like yolks on a griddle, and it was smiling again.

Up came the flare, and down went my head.  Crush the eyes, bash the teeth.  I thought.  Run like hell.  You can do this.

The question I never let myself ask was for how long.  The thing did, though, licking it's chops while it murmured through the speakers.

It's hard to remember halls and caves when they all look the same.  Trying to get a lead on my own shadow, I didn't even care that I was following old arrows on the trunks, or scrambling over clothed bones.  Trying to breath, only to see the light start spinning...  Air barely mattered as much as being ahead.

  I paused, wheezing so hard my facewrap dripped with spit.  It mixed with the odor of the flare, still clenched tight and keeping one side of my face dryly burning. There were two trunks at the mouth to another opening, one to either side, yellow and refreshingly bright.

The world fell away over the edge.  Below were the barely visible tips of unforgiving crags, visible only from the light.  There was the trickle of water.  It was so distant beneath me I didn't even bother to make a guess.

Squeak, squeak, squeak.

I started to search, as the light of the flare shifted.  They always burned different toward the end, as a built in warning.  I put it down on the cliff edge, realizing it was only a gap when I saw another pair of lit trunks on the opposite side.  There was the glow of two wires and a large box with windows – wires, and a tiny, broken cable car barely clinging to the metal rope. I looked up, and sure enough, saw pulley sunken in just above the mouth entrance.

Down went the flare, if for nothing more than to buy enough time.  The head-high control panel was busted open, it's front peeled apart and it's contents hammered to pieces amid even more bones.  I stepped atop it, yanking on the wires; they wobbled, but there was no give.  The pulleys, at least on my side, were still sturdy.  I had a shot, if I could use something to slide across.

I unbagged my last flare, hearing the whispers again.  I tapped it to one hoof.  No, too thin.  Papery, flammable.  What could I…?

Out came the shovel.  I returned the flare to my mouth, hooked the shovel across the lowest cable, and hoped I was small enough for it to hold me up.  The second flare burnt out, and I slid over the edge.

The cable sliced against the wood, cutting a deep groove before I'd even made it halfway across.  Sparks started to fly as it cut down to some metal core within it; the wood around it started to smoke, the metal reinforcements glowing faintly orange.  I met the loose cable car halfway, dinging my horseshoe off the tilted roof as I passed by.

The mouthgrip end of the shovel hit an outcropping as I came to the opposing edge.  It spun me out of place, and I tumbled into the opening.  I landed on my side, and let out a pained yell as fresh bruises sprung up and burnt before I slid to a stop.  When I stood, panting, I grabbed the shovel and quickly realized- the flare I'd had in my mouth had been thrown when I yelped.

I started to search in every place I  immediately could, the faded red paper nowhere in sight.  The cables started to squeal and bounce, and the car started to swing.  Squeak, squeak, squeak.  Wherever the flare was, it was then in the dark, or camouflaged in spinning crimson bulbs.  I left the then invisible thing behind, the shovel still in my mouth.

The tunnel I reached was wide, and the path was split down the middle by a flaking yellow line.  It was flatter, the walls pre-fabricated plates that had been drilled into place.  The floor had been smoothed into a downward ramp, straight and filled with garbage.  When the hall threw me into the room, I found hanging lamps had been stapled to the ceiling, and some were still leaving dusty cones of amber over large benches and tables.  There was enough room for more trunks on either side of the huge open square, four to a side.

I scrambled through the huge room, seeing plates and cups and all kinds of empty food boxes.  I tripped over more bones in the lanes between them, and saw even more leaning on the tables.  If they had skulls, they had a hole in them, and each one had stains on their plates where they sat.

At the opposite end there was another ramp.  It lead to a door, which framed on either side by two more lights.  I dipped from hanging lamp to hanging lamp, crawling up over tables and shoving clattering bodies out of the way.

There came snipping noises.  One of the lamps behind me fell with a ringing clatter, the glass shattering and the light vanishing.  I turned upward to see the hall was fading between darkness and red wedges.  Above, the ceiling was still black, and the patter of drool was drizzling across much of the area I'd already covered.  The light from the trunks darkened and started to spin, and I darted toward that last bit of light ahead.

I went to hop over another body in the dark.  I tripped on it, meeting with something much tougher than bone.  I got up and gave it one look – green armor was torn open, fleshless bones surrounded by casings and empty magazines.  I shot to my hooves as it disappeared into a red wave, and another lamp crashed to the ground.

I slammed against the door.  It was some kind of twist lock, like what I knew of the bunkers.  I turned the wheel, spitting curses over the wooden shovel shaft in my mouth.  When I heard it clank, I pushed forward, and the lights above it started to squeak.

It opened only an inch before I was shoved back.  I stuffed my body weight against it, getting only another few inches before it pushed me back again.

Not, I shouldered it.  Like, I shouldered it again.  This!

I turned around, to prepare to buck.  I just had to turn around, didn't I?  Couldn't I have done anything different?

The ceiling was a teeming, quivering mass of staring eyes.  Jibbering, slavering gullets were on the dollops of what looked like dripping, ebon smoke, whose limbs curled and bubbled over itself.  The mouths oozed down on tendrils or rose from the floor, grabbing at loose items.  After tasting them, they dropped most from up high.  When they drew some of the bones upwards, they snarled and gnashed at each other, separating the bodies at their joints and sending shreds of clothing to flutter toward the ground.  They began violently tugging on ribs and femurs and skulls.  When they snapped them open and found the marrow dry, they dropped only splinters.  The hungry fog of the earth crept closer.

I took one panicked breath, reared up, and opened the door the only way I knew how.  Whatever had been on the opposite side fell away from the hit.  I ran inside, wielding the shovel like a bludgeon, and slammed the door shut.

A gun went off.

10mm.  I recognized the jingle of the casing before the sensation.  My chest started to burn, and even with the terror of that thing behind me, I just couldn't keep going.  I collapsed, my legs still trying to manage a pathetic crawl, as I looked toward my attacker.

“You... Dumb... Bitch...” I muttered, my lips twitching the words toward a wide-eyed Quartz.  She ran to me and dropped her gun, looking over me with all the expertise of a horrified foal.  “Door!” I tried to scream.  “Lock door!”

Miser acted faster than she did.  He was on his hooves and twisting the wheel before she pointed to warn him.  Banging came from the other side, from a number of very small, very sharp things that scraped on the metal and made it cry.

Then it was quiet again, it was well lit, and I was allowed my time to bleed on a grungy bunker floor.

[***]

“I'm sorry.” Quartz said.

“Forget it.”  I had taken an inordinate amount of time to play with the ice pick.  It was covered in a thin layer of blood that had browned on the surface.  Quartz's inelegant and hurried surgery with it had gotten the squashed bullet out, but by the time she'd offered up the apology any point in it being made had long since past.  The whole thing had left me livid on top of the coling fright, and the two ponies with me knew it.

“I mean, you kicked in the door and you just ran in, what was-”

“I said forget it.”  I snapped.  I picked it up, finally, and began to wander through the room looking for somewhere to hide it.  I had to get it out of my own sight; my chest was aching with the flash-healed scar, and getting rid of the tool would do my brain some good.

At least it wasn't another set of slimy eyeballs.

The little shithole had almost nothing in terms of comfort, besides the fact the talisman slot had still been functioning.  There were some busted open hooflockers that had been overturned, and very old, very organized papers were still resting beneath undisturbed pens on a desk.  After the potion, I'd turned on every working light – desk lamps, spare mining hats, a work light still hanging by a thick wire and attached to a sparkle battery.  I'd turned everything to the ceiling, the ladder to the top entrance.  Most of them were aimed at the doorway.

“Snapshot,” Miser said. “Look, I...”  he was tripping over his own words.  I just looked at him with a raised brow.  When he realized I wasn't looking away, and slowly lowering my head into a squint the longer he delayed, he did the only thing he could think of and changed the subject.  “What happened down there?”

“Something tried to eat me.” I told him.  I was in no mood to sweeten my words.  “Forget about it.  Not like it hasn't happened before.”  

The place had an even more abrasive feature.  Instead of at least some girlie poster, there was a huge list of names that took up the entirety of one wall.  Colored lines and dots and gouges were all over it.  It was an ugly, plain list whose text had been completely printed.  No life in the writing besides the scribbled colors.  Reading might have helped, like it had last night.  I doubted I would find anything like the letters again, though it wasn't for lack of hoping.

“I get that, but.” He leaned back, unable to look me in the eye.  “You're not really being... Uh... Calm about it?”

“I broke my legs.  I crushed my binoculars.  I lost both my healing ampoules in a little under twenty minutes.  Then I got shot.  It's only the second day.  I think I'm being as calm about this as I can be.”  You little shit. I added mentally.  Shut up and give me this at least.

“Yeah, but-”

“You're scaring us, alright?”  Quartz admitted.  “You're okay.  You're alive.  That's what matters.  Please calm down.”

I whipped the icepick into the wall, shattering the thick needle from it's base.  The hungry thing wasn't there.  It had been at least a couple hours of safety.   But I... I just needed something else to think about.  I didn’t want to worry about it coming back, or the fact it might simply be waiting outside.  Were we breathing it?  “You just shot me, Quartz.”  I started to spew more poisonous words, using it as something to focus on.  Something I could see.  “Every...  Iota of me is screaming at me.  I want to take this shovel,” I said, jostling it in the webbing.  “And I want to crush your pretty little head in like a grape.  But I'm not going to.  You know why?”

She took a defensive stance, going from sitting, to a slow, cautious stand.  She kept her eyes on me.  Miser held his breath.

“Because I'm being as calm as I can be about it.”

Quartz glowered at me.

“I'm not like that.  I can be.  Oh do I ever want to be.”  I half lidded my eyes and looked over the list.  I had turned away on purpose, just in case she wanted to feel like she had some sort of advantage.  I didn't want to scare them...  If I was going to survive, I'd need them.  I wasn't about to lie to them either, because I really thought I might have already been going wailer-nuts.  Not that they knew.

“It'll pass.” I said.  “It'll pass.  Because I'm as calm as I can be right now, I know you didn't mean it, and I can wait this out.”

I heard Quartz's gun leave the holster.  Neither of them had been convinced.  I don't blame them.

“I'm not like that.” I said to myself.  “It's gonna get me killed, and you're probably gonna see it happen before the week is out.”

“Okay okay, wait!” Miser held his forehooves up, pressing to an invisible wall.  “This is just a bad moment, right?  We'll get through this.”

“Far as I'm concerned, we already have.”  I replied.  “Just let me burn this out.  Don't say a single word to me.”  I kept my eyes on century old names, in Arial font.  “That's all I need.  Just let me get rid of this.  We all need to get down south, that's what matters.  Weather or not we like each other when we do is moot.”

I turned in time to see Quartz not more than a few steps away.  The gun barrel had been neatly focused on my head, and I was looking past the leveled sights into her eyes.  When she spoke, it was over the cushion of the mouthgrip.  “Alright.  There's two ponies that are going to be on watch tonight though.  You are going to be one of them.”

“I get it.”  I nodded.

After several seconds, she backed off.  I knew she wasn't in a place to actually shoot me again.  If you can enunciate without tonguing the trigger, the safety's on.  She didn't turn around.  She sat down and watched me, and the gun stayed in her mouth the entire time.

It had been the second time I'd felt a gun like that.  Oh, that fact stayed with me for a long time.  Especially with what I had gotten away from, and had run into that instead.  “You ever been shot by one of those?”

Quartz didn't reply.

“Hurts like you wouldn't believe.”

“I can imagine.” she growled.

I'm sure you can. I thought.  If luck is just, you won't need to be creative for that.

I needed some kind of project, any at all, to get that leashed rage out of my veins.  I turned completely away, and busied myself with names.  Read, read, read!  I thought to myself.  Get it out of your head!

Feeling incredibly sour, I started at the far left of the poster.  I didn't care one way or the other, at that point.  I hoofed out a helping of thorn while I was turned away, stuck it in, and depressed the plunger.  Nothing was said, but I was well scrutinized.

Evacuation protocols:

1. Keep calm.

Screw you. I thought.

2. Ensure your workers are safe.

3. Keep the injured stable.

4. Prioritize evacuation slots in the order names are listed.  Failure to do so will compromise the contingency plans, and will diminish the priority in which your location is attended by post-disaster aid workers.

Please refer to your contingency manifest, labeled “Tartarus,”  for elaboration on evacuation goals and procedures.

I looked at the desk, and moved slowly enough not to startle my “companions.”  Quartz was watching carefully, and Miser, hearing the movement, was prompted to do the same.  I nosed away the dried pens on the desk, moving delicate sheets from atop the small collection.  Nothing with the name of Tartarus was there, it was merely industrial statistics put to paper.  Pounds of crystals, yields from varying spots.  I stupefied myself with numbers for a time before returning to the list, once I had exhausted the pile.

Names.  That's everything and all that poster was.  It was in tiny print, extending nearly the entire wall.  I counted (and lost count) of just how many there were.  A few hundred, at least.

How many of these are bodies in the caves? I wondered.  I used my imagination to recall the bones while my eyes passed over a name that had been crossed out with red pen, and ruinously deep.

Then, the distraction I had wanted hit me.

I counted the reddened names.  Most of them had been near the upper left of the list, though they were scattered.  I had seen about twelve bodies down in the tunnels.  There were many more names that were marked, though, and the red ones had reached the three's on it's front number in the double digit marks.  I held no confidence that I had seen the entirety of the caves, either, and had no idea on what other bodies might be resting there.

The more of the red names I muttered to myself, the more they sounded... Unified.  I tried to be more precise in my recall, and picked up a piece I had allowed myself to notice before, but not acknowledge.

Every set of the bones I'd seen before that... Thing, showed up.  Every one of them had a mining tool next to or inside it.  Whatever that thing outside had been, it hadn't once used weapons.

I turned to Quartz, whom had started to doze.  Miser was already committed to the dreamworld.  I quietly spoke up to her. “Help me with something?” I asked her.  Her eyes shot open, and she grunted.  She looked to and fro, disoriented at first, but quickly shaking it off when she realized I was still awake and perked.

I waved her closer, and began to point at the poster.  She did approach, but kept herself out of what she thought was my striking distance.  I rolled my eyes, but stepped aside and pointed at the board.  “These names- do these look unicorn to you?” I asked her.  “The ones in red.”

Quartz sidestepped to keep me in sight, peeking at one of the names from the corners of her eyes.  She squinted to read them.  “I don't know.  Should they be unicorns?” She asked.

I shrugged at her.  I honestly didn't know... It had just been an idea.  A bad one, but something that had seemed to make sense to me.  Maybe I was just attaching horns to the bones out of the thought I needed to make the bodies significant.

Quartz had kept scanning names.  “Wait, I know this one.”

“What? How?”  The fact she knew a pre-war name was strange, at least at first.

“Well, I know the family.” she scowled.  Families weren't uncommon in Resilience, though I'd heard that was different in the south.  Great granddad had been Long, granddad had been Trick, dad had been Quick, and my brother and I had been Sure and Snap.  “Bunch of assholes if you ask me.”

“Who?” I asked her.  She put her hoof to a name.  It was outlined in green.  I didn't give a shit about whom it was.  The moment I saw the color, I started to look at the other green names.  Each green name was almost directly beneath a red one.  In some cases, several red names.

Prioritize evacuation slots in order.

I had remained angry for most of the night.  Not just for the new scar, but the fresh knowledge.  I kept thinking about the armored guard I'd tripped over, the bones at the cafeteria tables.  The idea was not going to leave me, no matter how hypocritical it made me; I'd have done the same in their position, if that thing had been loose.  It had even replayed in a small way, with me on the losing end.

It still hasn't faded.  Even though I know how the story ends, every unspoken piece sickens me.

I got to thinking past it (or at least around it).   A family had gotten to Resilience from whatever that underworld place was, at least.  Somepony that had a foal, anyway.

Something about it wasn't right.  Not just about what I'd escaped, but from what I'd seen and then read.  I brought my camera out from the bags, and snapped a picture of it.  I’d have some reminders, at least physical, of what was down there.  Maybe some proof, if I found more.

Quartz watched me the whole time.  I said “bang!” and gave it a little jostle while the camera was aimed at her.  She upturned the corner of a lip and shook her head.  I sighed, turned to the poster, and resumed reading while the thorn set in.

Grape Shot was circled in green.

My jaw tightened.

[***]

Note Added: List of evacuees.

Level up!

Perk Gained: Paranoia.  Some ponies laugh at you for being afraid of the dark, but you have your reasons.  In very dark places, you gain a bonus to PER when determining where enemies are.  In those locations, however, you suffer -15 to all skills and sleep is only half as effective at removing exhaustion.